So, I've been playing and testing and planning and working on some comprehensive changes to the way the game plays and combat works. I'll probably end up implementing the whole thing on a different branch, and only mainlining it once I'm sure that it works effective. Here's an outline about some of the major changes I'll be making.
Combat Control Changes
Combat will be the combination of three disparate factors - Actions, Style, and Patterns.
Actions: Actions entities can take, available to both players and monsters.
Attack - Move into enemy. Attempt to deal as much damage as possible. Will automatically try to aim for weak points. Monster AI and player skill and knowledge will strongly impact what is considered "weal points" - wolves will tend to go for the throat and flanks, even if those parts are heavily armored, for example.
Push - Push command. Choose direction or no direction. Handles knocking down and moving enemy characters through pushes, shoves, pulls or throws. Tactical manipulation of enemies. Result depends heavily on context.
Cripple - Cripple command. Handles dealing attacks with a primary purpose of weakening the enemy rather than damaging them. Depends on target and type of weapon.
Jump/Dive - Move further than normal distance very quickly, at the cost of risk and post-action time delay. Not normally an attack, but will impact entities or objects that get in the way, and influenced by styles like the other actions. Some styles turn this into a full a attack. Some monsters may use this as their primary means of attack - for example, flying monsters will usually have a dive attack.
Defend - Happens automatically if no other action is taken (is [.] or [5] is pressed from the player's perspective), and increases your defense both on the turn defending and by a lesser amount on following turns.
Grab - Allows grabbing and holding an enemy. Not usually useful for a standard player, but this will become one of the standard attacks for zombies.
Style: Switched through style selection menu for the player, and tied to associated enemy AIs. Some monsters may have different AIs despite having the same body, and thus different styles (especially with a Master around, which can upgrade enemy AIs to more effective ones)
Styles can be switched between at will, and influence what the above Actions actually do. The player will attempt to execute the selected goal with the most effective technique from their currently selected style (or the generic fallback if their style does not cover this goal). For example a "push" to behind the player while using karate might result in a karate throw, while doing the same with kickboxing might do a spin kick that send the enemy flying past you to slam into a wall. Not all styles will influence all actions, but they will significantly change the value of most of them in any given situation.
Patterns and Conditionals Results of player actions depend on actions that happen before them, and the context of the players surroundings.
Actions can influence the actions that follow. Defending (taking no action for a turn) gives a large defense bonus on that turn, but also a small one to the following turn, so alternating attacks and defending results in a defensive style of fighting - at the cost of allowing the enemy more chances to attack and taking more time to take them down. Enemies can critically fumble attacks or otherwise leave openings against defending players, allowing for an opportunistic attack pattern where the player defends and stacks defensive bonuses until they see an opening. Meanwhile, pushing the attacking by attacking repeatedly may give you bonuses to your attack as you build up momentum - at the cost of a higher fatigue per swing as you push yourself past your safe limits. Jumping will reduce your defense for the turn that follows, but if used well will put you in a position where you can't be attacked until you recover. Recoil and it's effects will be expanded. Moving in the same direction for multiple turns may allow you to build up speed in that direction but make you react more slowly if you need to turn on a dime. Positioning and actually thinking about what actions to take next to fight most effectively will become important, as it won't just effect your immediate turn but also the ones that follow.
All entities can benefit from the bonuses offered by patterns, though not all will be smart enough to do so intelligently.
Certain actions with certain styles may provide lasting bonuses or penalties, bonuses that synergize well with other actions from other styles (or the same style) or which minimally influence some specific action. The player can discover effective "combos" in this way. The bonus to attacking downed enemies from a martial arts style might synergize quite well with a throw it offers that guarantees downing an enemy and lowers the time cost of doing the specific attack.
This will be combined with the new, expanded menu system that will let you know the cost of actions in advance. Coupled with the current display of how much the previous action costs, a player intent on maximizing their content efficiency will have quite a bit of data to work with, although it will be perfectly possible for most players to ignore this and still do well by playing in a fairly intuitive way.
Damage Types
Shock - This is the type of damage primarily done by baseball bats, lead pipes, and car impacts. Bullets, especially hollow points, will do some of this, and cutting and piercing weapons will do some as well, but blunt weapons will do this primarily. Shock is decent at overcoming armor, but not great, and is often incapable of exploiting chinks or weak points in the armor. Slime-based enemies are primarily susceptible to shock type damage, as it disrupts their ability to hold themselves together. Triffids are heavily resistant to this type of damage.
Cut - This is the type of damage that is done primarily by swords, knives, and razorblades. It is effective at causing bleeding, and can deal large amounts of damage very quickly, since it doesn't require a large amount of force to be effective. It is most effective against living, unarmored enemies, and the best at quickly and effectively cripping a variety of enemies. The long arc of a cutting weapon and the ability to easily adjust the slice makes them fairly accurate as well - but also means armor with less coverage is more likely to catch and turn the blow. Zombies and other slime creatures are fairly resistant to this type of damage, although it can still render them helpless in the short term, and robots are heavily resistant to it thanks to their redundant systems and armor. It has little ability to cut through most armor. Triffids, especially the unarmored ones, tend to be very weak against this sort of damage, despite being difficult to cripple and generally not bleeding.
Pierce - This is the type of damage done by spears, picks, and bullets. It is effective at causing deep wounds and penetrating armor with enough force, and causing life threatening injuries that do not kill immediately... assuming it hits something vital. Piercing damage is most effective against heavily armored enemies with specific weak points. Robots are particularly weak to accurate piercing attacks, as they are liable to reach their sensitive innards, and giant insects are a close second. Pure fungal creatures are heavily resistant to piercing. Piercing attacks require good accuracy to insure a solid shot, as a glancing blow with a piercing attack is significantly less effective than with a cutting weapon. However, piercing is also far more likely to find chinks in armor and be able to ignore armor completely. Piercing also comes with a risk - by striking deep and sinking in, there's a high than normal chance of the target turning or your weapon otherwise getting caught, breaking it or ripping it from your hands. A weapon with a large amount of piercing is an incredibly effective primary weapon, perhaps the most powerful of the three types against the widest variety of targets, but it's recommended you carry a backup weapon if you rely on one.
Other damage types are less direct and include:
Energy (Shocker attacks, laser weapons, plasma, fire) - Effective at overcoming most armor, adds heat, different types have specific counters. Especially good against fungus and good against slime.
Chemical (acid rain, spitter attacks, fire, smoke, poisons) - Effective at bypassing armor, different types effective different targets and materials. Has specific counters. Especially good against fungus and good against triffids.
Combo Damage - The interesting thing about damage types is that most weapons will have more than one, and damage happens in a specific order - Piercing happens first, following by shock, following by cutting. This means that weapons that "chop" - like axes - will have a high piercing value but ALSO have a decent shock and cutting value, allowing them to bypass armor and still have a chance of causing significant crippling and damaging even if they miss vital organs, while weapons like stings will have a high pierce but little behind that, meaning they have a good chance of bypassing armor by finding chinks and dealing some damage, but no chance of removing limbs and probably won't cause much damage unless you get lucky and hit a weak point, making them quit effective against giant bugs and wildlife - while zombies and triffids are fairly lacking in weak points and generally lack armor that needs to be worked around. The right balance of damage types will be important for determining the best tool for the job, depending on the weaknesses of the enemy in question and the resources available.
Health Changes
In addition to their current values, players will have an "overall hp" to represent their system as a whole. Things like bleeding, poisons, and infections will effect this value instead of (or in addition to) targeting specific body parts. Certain enemies, like zombies, will have very high HP values and even destroying a critical section that results in "death" will not kill the zombie until this value has also been emptied. Entities will recover overall health a good deal faster than specific body part health, but there is little that can be done externally to speed the process - bandages and the like have little effect except to prevent it from getting worse.
More to come...
What do you guys think of what I have so far? Suggestions, criticisms, worries, comments?
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Topic: Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead - A roaming horde appears on the horizon! (Read 1861127 times)