Hi Sheek,
Alright, to describe the combat system...I'd say it mixes something like the melee combat from an FPS with the quickbar-ability use system of an action rpg. In other words, no "move back and click your mouse to perform a disarm attack" like in Oblivion. Clicking your mouse swings your weapon, right clicking does a power attack, shift for block/parry, special attacks are activated by using your currently selected special ability from your hotbar.
(The hotbar works like this : Something like a potion is immediately drunk if you click the appropriate number key whereas a special ability or spell is "readied" for you to use by pressing a bindable key (at the moment I use the "f" key to activate abilities))
Skills and stats play a big part. You do have to be in weapon range of your target, and manually aim at them, but once you do your weapon skills play a major part.
Basically there are 3 major factors. Your attack/dodge roll which determines how well you hit, the enemies armor absorption, and stamina.
1) Attack/Dodge roll
How much damage you do is multiplied based on the difference between your attack roll and the enemies dodge roll. If you rolled much higher than him then your damage will be multiplied (and have a high chance to inflict a crit, a short term effect such as bleeding or stunning). Roll a lot lower and you will do a fraction of the weapons damage (and possible even a get a "fumble", a short term penalty to you). Since your skills/stats determine both your attack and dodge rating, skills play a major role here.
(A note for stealth attackers, a character who is unaware of you has an effective dodge rating of 0. Meaning large multipliers to damage and high crit chances. Ie, sneak attacks)
2) Armor Absorbtion roll
Once damage is determined, the enemies armor reduces that amount by a number. Note that if your attack roll is low, you will only be doing a fraction of your weapon damage so there is a good chance that a heavily armored opponent will absorb ALL the damage. Likewise, if your attack roll was very high your multiplied damage has a much better chance of not being completely absorbed by a heavily armored opponent (you're stabbed your dagger into a joint or something
)
There is a trade off between armor and dodge rating. Heavy armor allows you to absorb more damage but lowers your ability to dodge, hence increasing the chance that an enemy will inflict higher damage. Going unarmored means you have the highest chance of dodging blows, but when they hit there is nothing between them and your flesh.
I wanted to model the real world a bit more accurately, where having a high skill is the critical factor in how much damage you do, not purely the weapons "stats". And separating out dodging versus absorbing.
3) Stamina
Stamina plays a significant part in combat, and is important for all characters. As your stamina drops, so does your attack rating and dodge rating (and you have a chance of failing spell casting). In the case of attack rating this means you will be doing less damage, as in the above paragraph. Combat abilities require stamina so you will be less able to use them too. In the case of dodge rating this means that people will be doing you more damage.
In this way, using strategies which wear out your opponent can give you a sizable advantage. For example choosing a defensive stance and blocking/parrying until your opponent is tired and then switching to an offensive stance to finish them off quickly....
Special Traits and Abilities :
In addition to the core mechanics there are traits which modify your chances, such as skills making you tougher, making you attack faster with a certain class of weapon, etc. There are also special abilities you can use, things like Hamstring which slows your opponent, combat stances which allow you to sacrifice attack rating for greater defense, etc.
Tactical depth is something I hope to create through requiring differing strategies to overcome different opponents, and by slowing down combat a little compared to games like Oblivion so you have more of a chance to think. A heavily armored opponent will require different types of attacks to a lightly armored but high dodge character. A quick opponent might require special abilities to slow him down and stun him, a character with a high defense might need to be tired out so his defense drops, etc...I hate it when every fight for a warrior character is just spamming left-mouse and drinking potions. Booooring.
There is one idea which I haven't implemented yet but which I'm looking at. A "focus mode" like in Max Payne/Jade Empire. Where you burn stamina to slow down opponents relative to yourself. This would give you a chance to think and an advantage in combat. However it will need to be balanced so as to not be an overpowering strategy like it was in those games. Hopefully the fact that using stamina makes you less effective in combat and leaves you less stamina for powering special abilities will help there.
How hard coded into the engine is it? You won't be able to turn it into a turn based system without heavy engine modifications but for the most part the logic sits in the script files and database, which will ship with the game, so not very hard coded at all :D.
- Tweaking the balance/variables = simple.
- Altering the equations = pretty simple if you understand simple scripting.
- Altering the stats of items = simple.
- Add in more variables (so you don't like attack rating, you want to replace it with 2 other variables) = trickier since you will need to modify every creature in the database as well as modify the equations to take them into account. Still do-able.
And yes I have played Mount and Blade, I consider its combat probably the best real time combat I've played. I would love to have something like that in my game the only problem is the hit-box detection stuff. Not that hard, but also not trivial. Unfortunately I have to choose which features I can reasonably implement now and which I should put on the "Scars 2 list". That and mounted combat are probably going on the list...
continued below with Weapon Stats...
