Smaller post than I thought for such a big topic - http://machxgames.com/blog/?p=41

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Microsoft XNA MVP

I think there's only us two here Machaira


What would be good is to bring in some elements from FPS games. Combat in spy movies tends to be very tactical and improvised, and unlike the "pat-a-cake pat-a-cake" combat in MMOs: ie, when it's a gun fight at range, you must run to hide behind a corner - step out - shoot - step back.

Part of that improvisation is to switch between styles rapidly. One second you're jumping down from a ledge to land on top of one of your opponents, knocking him out in the process. From there you karate chop his accomplice across his neck. A couple of seconds later you pick up a stick that's lying around and are swinging it around like a staff, and manage to knock the accomplice's rifle out of his hand. After hitting him again with the stick, you promptly pick up the loaded rifle and threaten him with it. Realizing his fate is now entirely in your hands, you press the question "Where's Quinn?".

The mouse will obviously be used for aiming and accessing the environment, while keys should be used for moving.

Crucially, the player needs to be able to glide smoothly between combat modes. Keyboard shortcuts must be available for quickly accessing these different modes, as well as buttons for picking up/ swinging/ throwing/ pocketing/ discarding objects.

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I ain't pushing no moon buttons.

That's ok, their loss.


Which is completely different than combat in MMOs these days where death isn't really anything to worry about. That needs to change, at least for an MMO in a more realistic game world.

The big problem would be to avoid having the player's skill in mousing/keyboarding override the character's skill in whatever he's doing. That's doable, but finding the right combination between the two will take some resting I think. Turn-based would be an option, but I dislike turn-based for MMOs. It'll take some further thought I think.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

ShadowRun (360/PC) had a varied combat system. Lots of options that could be swapped in and out as the player needed.

However, I found it much easier to play on the 360 due to the availability and ergonomics of the gamepad buttons.

Basically, you could map actions/spells/weapons to the shoulder and trigger buttons. You could also easily get to any unmapped actions or abilities by holding down 'B' to bring up a radial menu, then selecting the action with one of the joysticks.

I think quick, simple and positive switching is key to achieving your aim of fluid and interesting combat.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

Naw, I'm here too. I just don't know how much help I can be, seeing as I've never played an online game (Except for the occasional M:TG game using Apprentice, but even that was a couple years back).

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

I'm not worried so much about the player being able to quickly switch up actions. Using a keyboard there's a huge amount of mappability that can quickly be accessed. And winning in combat shouldn't be about the ability of the player, even for something like being able to quickly specify attacks. Combat is about the character's abilities. How to best translate the player's queuing of attacks is the issue. It's almost like a turn-based system, but I'd like to avoid the slowness of turn-based combat, especially for group encounters. Having to wait for a couple of other players to make their move would kill things. Maybe a timer - if the player doesn't specify a type of attack within 3 seconds the game selects a default.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

I don't know that you need to have played an online game. That might just color your view on things. Maybe not knowing what's wrong with the genre might give you better insight to start from scratch and come up with the best design.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

Why not both? When I play games I like to feel that when I win it was down to my skill. That gives me a sense of achievement.

Think of the bragging rights "When I was at level 20, I managed to kill a level 35 unit." When you allow player skill to influence combat, what was once impossible, becomes a challenge. The odds are stacked against you, but that isn't a perfect predictor of the outcome.

I've mentioned a few times here that one of my favourite games is Warcraft 3. In this game, you control heros, who have xp levels. Being at level 5 doesn't mean you'll win vs a level 3. Being higher level creates advantage, but it isn't a perfect predictor of combat outcome. Skill matters more.

Players can enjoy pushing themselves to a higher challenge if their skill level is high. Players won't have to grind through myriads of low level units if that's beneath their skill level and interest level. Allowing player skill to influence combat is an antidote to grinding.

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An MMO shouldn't be any different from a P&P RPG IMO. Swap using the mouse and keyboard for rolling dice or telling the GM what your character is doing. How does your skill in talking or rolling dice matter? It doesn't. If you want your skill to count for something you play an FPS or RTS.


I'd rather be able to brag about doing something like "I snuck into this building filled with guards and broke into their system and stole some top secret data." The odds are still stacked against you, but your brain and the character's abilities are what get you through the mission, not your ability to quickly press buttons.


Completely different genre so you're comparing apples to oranges.


But then you've removed the RPG part of the game and it's become an MMOFPSRTSWTF.

I'm trying to come up with something that's almost completely different from MMOs today. This will require some rethinking on the player's part. I think it can still be fun for players. MMOs today aren't fun for me anymore. Maybe that's because I've played them on and off since the EQ beta and burned out. Grinding and 50 man raids aren't fun for me. The MM part shouldn't require 50 people to do things in the world after a certain point. If it does that's an indication of a design flaw.

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I suppose you could use something like many of the Final Fantasy systems use, their Active Time thingamabob. Basically when you do something, you deplete your Action bar. Depending on what you did, it takes X amount of time to fill back up, during which time you have to wait for your character's Action bar to fill back up. So, it's turn-based, but with a real-time element.

Final Fantasy XII might be a good example of one way to handle it. You can run around and stuff at any time, but when you're doing other things (attacking, casting spells, and so on), you have to have a full Action bar -- which depletes when you carry out your next action.

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

I can see actions taking a certain time to complete, but having to wait to do something else once that action is complete is artificial. I guess I'm having trouble explaining what I'm envisioning because it's not fully envisioned yet. Trying to put a real combat situation into a game in such a way that it works gameplay-wise to depend on the character's abilities not the player's isn't easy.

Of course, if it was easy everyone would be doing it, right?

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Right.

I suppose an alternative would be similar to a "fatigue" score. You have a certain number of actions (or actions that add up to X amount of game time) you can queue, and they are done in order when the player decides to execute them (perhaps via a button that performs the next queued action immediately). So, for actions that require time to perform, such as attacking, or dialing a number on a cell phone, or whatever... you can queue them up and execute them with the press of a button, and the actions are executed in succession. Another button can be used to "preempt" (or change) the next action that would be performed.

Of course, the more one does, the more "fatigue" it might cause, which could cause subsequent actions to be slower or even impossible based on the level of fatigue + how strenuous the action is.

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

Not at all. RPG means story + character progression, which we'd still have, as it would still be the dominant theme. Players can't expect to survive a level 35 zone when they're at level 20.



You say you want something almost completely different, well this is it! For something to be almost completely different, you have to rebel from what is traditional. But I think you're uncomfortable with / afraid of my idea precisely because it does rebel against traditional MMO/RPG design, by making player skill a factor.

You say you want some realism. Adding tactical/FPS/skill based elements does this. New missions and new character skills doesn't make something realistic. But allowing the player to practise spontaneity and ingenuity with real-time tactics does do this.

If you want a game that puts more emphasis on missions and less emphasis on combat, then 90% of the time you're not going to be in combat anyway. So realise that doing combat completely differently won't detract from that remaining 90% of the game.

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I don't see fatigue being a factor. If combat lasts long enough for an agent to get tired you've done something wrong. That said, it probably needs to be considered.

Thinking about it more, ranged weapons are pretty easy. A weapon has a fire rate. The player can pick level of aiming, which affects the fire rate. Movement during firing, which has to be allowed, also affects aiming. Come up with a number for reload time. Calculate hit or miss and hit location, damage character.

Melee combat is more complicated. Should aiming for areas of the body be allowed? If so, how and what effects does hitting each location have? What about martial arts styles - how do they get represented? About about improvised melee weapons, how do they work? I think melee might be something that has to be worked out separately, which might mean two combat engines. Not a problem, just more work and ensure balance between the two is more testing.

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I guess this is a matter of taste. RPGs mean story, period. Character progression is just something that happens along the way. When I ran games back in the day, character progression usually wasn't even considered until we were done playing for the night.


I guess I wasn't clear about "different". I basically want to make a P&P RPG style MMO, not the grinding and artificial combat of MMOs today. It should be more about the "story", what's going on in the world with the players actually affecting things in the world, not just temporarily killing a mob dead. it might be unrealistic, but it's hypothetical for the most part. It's something I'd love to see done though.

The problem is translating telling a GM what the character is doing and resolving those actions in a game environment, where you have the visual aspect to handle and synchronize so that you don't end up with characters frozen every second or two while the player decides what to do.


"Realism" in the game world, not ours. Also, "real time" more in the sense of the game world, not ours.


Granted, but I still would like to see combat be more "realistic", again in the game world sense, which means character ability drive but player decision making.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

Well, it doesn't strictly have to be fatigue. I just thought it was a good example.

Also, I was thinking about any (substantial) action... not strictly related to combat.

The only "aiming" for melee combat would be an injured area if I were to do it. Other than that, go for the most vulnerable and debilitating area. In melee combat, the quicker you disable your opponent, the better. Not a whole lot of time for aiming.

Differentiating martial arts styles is, I think, going overboard. You could have different combat styles (power, speed, aggression, etc.), but beyond that I feel would just add complication where it really isn't needed. As for weapons, I would also take a watered-down approach with categories of weapons, such as "bladed", "blunt", and so on, maybe adding size-class differentiations.

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

For martial arts it might be enough to differentiate between the "soft" and "hard" styles.

Aiming for melee, I'm thinking of situations where you want to incapacitate an opponent rather than kill him. That would go for both weapons and unarmed.

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Microsoft XNA MVP