Spitter on 9/5/2003 at 18:08
Moderator's note: I've copied these comments from (http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67956) The Scoop on Arx 2, and edited some of the replies to remove comments unrelated to combat. Obviously much of the discussion here relates specifically to Arx Fatalis, but I felt it was largely applicable to first-person games in general, and that it might be useful to have a separate thread for this topic.
--Shadowcat<hr>
I really hate the fighting system - swinging swords and such, that is. The fact is, after the beginning of the game, battling became way too easy. The only tactic is to take steps backwards while loading up the strike, then quickly running towards the enemy, swinging the sword and taking a few steps back again. This is not fun - it is repetitive.
How to make it work? Err, I've only got some ideas, really.
It would be fun to actually use your shield, instead of it just boosting some ethereal statistic. A separate key for blocking, that is.
Forgetting everything about loading and boosting up the swings might work, too - I found most of the swing times in Arx to be unrealistically long (not that I know anything about it). I would like to execute more moves, and be able to control them with better finesse. I've never really been hot on the idea of player's movement direction ordering the type of swing to use. Better stats in close combat skills might increase the available combat moves.
That's it. I have no idea if those would make a good game, but they're worth considering. At least a bit.
Now, if only any of the Arx developers would read this...
James Sterrett on 10/7/2003 at 02:16
A few quick thoughts on combat systems...
Whether or not we like it, the "hold to swing" system does have some grounding in reality. [My basis for the following: I was a fencer for 6 years, spent a summer on grounds crew mostly using a machete, and have had sporadic training with other bladed weapons.]
1) It makes you go back and forth. That's reality, folks. Fights with bladed weapons are grounded in distance. Back off, prep to attack, duck into range to attack and back out before the enemy can reply.... it's real. I spent a tremendous amount of time as a fencer both learning to play with, and playing with, the distance to my opponent.
2) The hold down the mouse to swing... a heavy weapon take a lot of time and muscle to wield. Even a machete, which is a fairly light sword, takes a noticeable amount of time to ready, even when you're trying to work fast and know what you're doing. A heavy sword makes matters worse. A two-handed great-sword is six feet of steel and four to six inches across. Its momentum is amazing; it takes a lot of effort to make it move, and a commensurate effort to stop it (thus it delivers a lot of energy to the target, making it a deadly weapon). In other words, holding down the mouse to prep your next swing isn't unrealistic.
None of this means you have to *like* holding down the mouse button. That's a different issue. :) But it does produce some realistic effects.
If you really want a realistic treatment of the sword, you have to look at Die By The Sword - though it skirts the ragged edge of Trespasser's sin, in making you learn a new interface to control "your" body.
Spitter on 10/7/2003 at 16:23
James: good points. And you probably know a lot more on this subject than I do, anyway. But...
But.
Perhaps my post above can be summed up like this:
I really enjoy combat maneuvers in movies. Realistic or not, I get really excited by all those nifty battle choreographies in movies such as The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Thus, I'd really like a game with a combat system which can make me feel like Aragorn in the middle of thousand of hungry orcs (with pointy teeth!), swinging my sword from side to side and sharing death upon the vile monsters.
Arx, on the other hand, doesn't quite extend to this. In fact, not even close.
I'm not sure which sort of a combat system would be best for Arx 2, but I'd much rather be an Aragorn than a realistic fencer in it, though :p
BTW, I've played Die by the Sword. It's a step (an old step) into the right direction, but not quite what I'm looking for. I'm more into the idea of a huge catalogue of different, pre-made moves which are triggered by logical "mouse swings" or some such instead of a completely free sword movement.
<small>Yes, I know I'm really picky.</small>
James Sterrett on 10/7/2003 at 22:36
Spitter - nobody says you have to like the click-and-hold. :) And, in fact, I'd say all the methods wind up being flawed. DBTS seemed terribly clunky to me. Wiggling a mouse or keys or stick to et special combo moves doesn't turn me on. And, I agree, the click-and-hold isn't perfect either.
We're all stumbling forward on trying to improve an interface that tries to seamlessly and transparently simulate physical actions by using other physical actions - but the second set has no real relation to the first.
Weapon-aiming with mouselook seems to have solved this problem for the most part for firing guns/lasers and the like; look at the target to aim, click to fire. The physical mechanics of moving the mouse and clicking the button have virtually nothing in common with aiming a rifle, but the mental attitude is at least somewhat similar.
Melee weapons haven't had a similar breakthrough. DBTS tries to simulate your controlling your motion, but since so much of that is done without concious thought, it feels unwieldy. Click-and-hold produces an interface that's easy to use, but feels colourless to many. Combo moves give you more variation on swings and thrusts, but memorizing combos has even less to do with swinging a weapon than moving a mouse does with firing a rifle.... Where's the solution? Beats me. :)
There's a similar debate in flight-sims about "padlock", a feature which lets you "padlock" your view to an enemy aircraft so you don't lose track of it. It's very handy and, done properly, demonstrates the power of the fighter pilot's adage, "Lose sight, lose the fight." But how to implement it? Some insist that the player should have to move the view personally all the time (no padlock). To me, this seems like simulating my controlling my neck muscles - no thank you! On the other extreme, there are versions of padlock that let you track an enemy aircraft even when it cannot be seen, which is a bit odd. In the middle are debates on finding the plane, then locking it, or simply cycling through the things within visual range [do you force the sim-pilot to keep a visual scan up, or give the sim-pilot a benefit for having to deal with the world through a soda straw?]
Chade on 11/7/2003 at 13:01
Quote:
Originally posted by James Sterrett We're all stumbling forward on trying to improve an interface that tries to seamlessly and transparently simulate physical actions by using other physical actions - but the second set has no real relation to the first.
I would disagree with that. Well, maybe that IS what people are trying to do, I wouldn't know, but it's a bit silly if true, really. You don't need to simulate physical actions at all, you just need a system that provides interesting gameplay that resembles swordfighting to the user. (Remeber, the average user has never sword fighted in their lives. If it's fun, they'll tend to think of it as realistic, unless that's totally implausible.)
That's not to say I have any great idea's, as I don't, but trying to do even a half decent job of simulating physical actions with the mouse and keyboard and expecting such an attempt to be fun seems like an exercise in futility, to me.
Now, I'm not actually advocating combo's, because I don't like them either, and in Arx Fatalis, where I imagine they do not want the user to be concentrating on learning an interface, it especially wouldn't work, but nonetheless I wager you'd find the majority of player's feel that combo's make them feel their fighting is more realistic then the "hold down to power up" system. And in the end, that's what counts.
James Sterrett on 11/7/2003 at 16:17
Yes, good points, and generally what I was driving at, in fact - albeit rather unclearly! :)
Chade on 12/7/2003 at 03:42
Oh ... well ....
:eww:
Eater1 on 12/7/2003 at 09:13
I'm a bit new at these forums, but having just played Arx I can say I am most definitely hooked and am quite interesting in this Arx 2 I've heard about.
Anyway, I thought I would contribute my view on this subject, as the click-and-hold interface in Arx kinda of puzzled me a bit too.
Sterrett: as a fencer and someone who has used a real sword, you should know that, while a heavy sword may take time to swing, holding your sword over your head in preparation for a blow is simply inviting an "attack on preparation". True, a heavy sword takes time to swing, but warriors in early medieval times used a shield to protect themselves during a swing (though there's none of that with a 2-handed sword). That, and the "swing" times in Arx feel and look way too long - after the first second or so, the "gem" keeps getting brighter but your character is simply holding the sword in place. What I would really like to see in the next Arx game is more focus on defensive maneuvers - rather than just pulling distance, it would be great to be able to use the shield (as someone suggested) or cancel an attack in order to parry. This could also make the game more realistic by allowing the HP of humanoid (sword-wielding) characters to be lowered to realistic levels, since they would now be able to avoid attacks altogether with defensive moves. Other than that, the actual attacks can be chosen randomly for all I care (though the ability to hit multiple opponents does make some swings better than others). I already feel like a movie character when a single swing lops off the heads of three goblins, but adding in the ability to use a shield or parry an attack would enhance that feel greatly, and add realism, not to mention forcing the player to actually pay attention to what the enemy is doing rather than click - step back - step forward - release. The really important thing, though, regardless of what is done, is to add more stuff for the player to do in melee combat so that it doesn't feel so boring - even a duck feature (that actually avoids blows) would help in this.
James Sterrett on 12/7/2003 at 14:01
All true (and I do agree the two-handed sword held high feels pretty silly :) , though arguably there are useful parries from that position, using the weapon's weight to help get it into position). On the other hand, if you raise it out of range, the opponent is going to need to get in and out fast, before your readied blow can come down, which might be an intimidating prospect - akin to an established line; you have to deal with the threat while lunging in for the hit. Not an all-powerful position by any means, but it can have its uses.
I'm not so sure the swing times are too long, at least for the big weapons; the one time I was able to play with a 6-foot greatsword, I was stunned by just how incredibly heavy and awkward the things are. It took a lot (no timer! sorry! :( ) of effort and time to get the thing moving. Having said which, tieing the swing-prep time to the user's strength, agility, and weapon-skill stats would make a lot of sense. Had I more time with the weapon, I'm sure I'd have begun to learn how to use it more adroitly.
Have you tried sword-fighting in Thief, using the Block function? It's tricky to make sure it'll actually stop a blow, but when you are lined up correctly, it does work.
In any event, the key problem is interface... how you fit the extra functionality into the control scheme smoothly makes all the difference in whether or not it works. It's easy to see that, say, right-click will activate "block/parry", but what have you thereby excluded that might be used more?
Eater1 on 12/7/2003 at 21:20
The thief fencing interface was great! Too bad the game encouraged avoiding it at all costs, or I would have become quite proficient at fencing guards and undead... However, due to a combination of the difficulty of making parries and the fairly high number of blows you could absorb, it sometimes made more sense to just swing away at your enemy and maybe use distance to avoid blows. Something like thief but with easier parries (but more deadly attacks) could absolutely work in my opinion (with the option, of course, of using the shield too).
Eater.
