Combat Ideas

[Toby Shaw]

I thought I'd create this as a substitute for actually being a member of Wolfire Games, as a means of possibly contributing to the game despite most probably never being hired.

I know there's probably been a lot of these kinds of posts, people with ideas for things that should be added to combat. They all get the same response "Yeah, David'll probably add this in the end", however as genius as David might be, I doubt he's read and remembered every single one of those posts, and thus won't be able to implement the features they suggest

The idea here is to create a thread with so many good ideas it can't feasibly be ignored. I would consider myself pretty darn good at the game, I know how and why it works and what is and isn't balanced. I've also been playing non-stop for a week now, in a variety of situations, and so while the ideas that have come to me are still fresh in my head, I thought I'd share them here.

NOTE: I have not played Lugaru, however please don't discredit me because of this, instead, I see it as a positive thing, as my ideas won't be influenced by a sense of nostalgia or 'what worked then' which won't work now since Overgrowth is a different game.

ANYWAYS enough about myself, on to the ideas . These ideas are ones I feel would fit perfectly into the existing game, without adding new crazy moves. I don't even know if these ideas are currently implemented into the game, since a lot of these are dealing with changing moves depending on situation and I haven't looked into the code myself. :/

If you want to dispute or discuss any of these point just leave a comment, I assure you I have thought through these points very thoroughly before posting them here.

#1 - Punch or Kick depending on distance to opponent. When closer, use a punch. When further, use a kick. When aiming for the top of the body, it is harder to bring your leg up to hit their head when closer to the person, however it is easy to punch. Similarly when further away the rabbit's smaller arms wouldn't be able to reach the head with any power and there is enough room to use the more powerful legs, since they are longer.
A skilled user would be able to control the distance between them and the opponent, and deliver either a quick punch or a slower, more powerful kick intentionally.

### Apparently this is already in the game and I'm just dumb :/ ###

#2 - Left or right punch/kick depending on rotational velocity, if stationary, depend on angle of enemy to you. For example, if you were to be rotating anti-clockwise (or counter-clockwise for you Americans) you would use your right hand, since it would have more velocity. Same with kicks and for clockwise.
As with #2, a skilled user would be able to control which arm or leg to use, which could be used strategically in fights.
If stationary, you would kick/punch with the opposing side to where the opponent is, ie if the opponent is to your left and front, you would use your right arm. You might be saying 'but Toby, your rabbit always faces your current opposition', thanks for noticing, which leads me into point #3

#3 - Look towards where you last moved towards. With this comes a certain amount of attack magnetism, so it isn't incredibly hard for users to constantly aim when the opponent moves ever so slightly. The reason for this addition is that fighting multiple opponents is a key aspect of Overgrowth, and being limited to having to look at your active opponent is quite simply, limiting. It would also create skill in a way which suits Overgrowth, which is controlling your situation to make simple moves more effective. It also wouldn't affect 1v1 situations as you are most often moving towards the opponent when you want to attack him.

#4 - Flip-kicks. When near an opponent, in the air and mid-flip: press left-click to kick mid-flip. This would work with front and back flips, both would be highly powerful but with a short-range. Animation-wise these moves would include merely sticking a leg out mid-flip in time to kick the opponent.

#5 - Roll out of a throw with shift key - If timed correctly, you would be able to roll out of a throw and avoid all damage that would have been taken. If pressed too early you would be stunned on the ground for longer, and if too late it would have no effect.

#6 - Ctrl + Direction for greater dodge or normal dodge. If very close to an enemy the current system moves your character a significant distance to get out of range of the attack. This new system would have a set distance the player could dodge using the standard arrow, and the Ctrl + Direction dodge would give a greater distance at the exchange of a moment of being defenseless. Ctrl + Direction would be useable outside of combat, to open up the possibility of dodging traps and non-close range threats.

#7 - Make thrown weapons cause damage based on their velocity. A short range throw would have the effect of a normal weapon attack, however a longer more arched throw would have more velocity coming down and so would be an instant-kill. This is not overpowered at all in the sense that you lose your weapon and is highly impractical, yet would be a nifty little addition which would add longevity for those bored of close-quarters combat.

That is all for now, I will be constantly updating this whenever a reasonable idea pops into my head, so please keep a look out

[Krabman318]

To 1.: Makes sense to me, but isn't this already implemented?

To 2.: I don't know whether this should be done as it's just cosmetic.
Choosing with which arm/leg to attack seems like it would just clutter up the controls to me.

To 3.: Actually, this was the same in Lugaru, and I liked it better than as it is now.

To 4.: I don't know if that's really necessary as as of now we already have the Leg Cannon, but it seems pretty cool.

[Endoperez]

To 2.: I don't know whether this should be done as it's just cosmetic.
Choosing with which arm/leg to attack seems like it would just clutter up the controls to me.

Personally, I think it should exist, but purely as a cosmetic feature. Punches from different hands shouldn't have much gameplay effect, but they would make it more interesting, visually.

[Toby Shaw]

Well smaller things can have a big impact if used well.

Eg. there is an opponent in front of you, and a wall to your left. You obviously wouldn't want to kick the person to the right, and so a skilled user would kick them to the left by controlling their rotation.

The difference between the flip kick. and the leg cannon is that the leg cannon is used when above the enemy and this is used when in front, or behind or to the side of an enemy.

[Anton]

#1 and 2 both already exist in the game as it is now (although, number 2 not as much as you are hoping... as it would add a huge layer of complexity to the controls). But the context of the game already is such that if you are close (and pressing a direction) you will punch instead of kick, or if you are standing still, you will throw a knee. All the moves are context sensitive. In addition to that, all moves are mirrored on both sides, so when you throw a round house, it will be from your back leg, no matter which leg is in front, or you will always jab from your front hand, etc.

[druckson]

Great ideas so far!

David mentioned some positive design properties in his HIB2 design tour (you can see it here) which I believe should apply to the Overgrowth combat system. The property I would like to talk about, which David mentions as a plus for both Osmos and Machinarium, is the emphasis on deliberate action. This is, I believe, the biggest risk to a dynamic, partially AI control/combat scheme, especially when designed for mouse/keyboard.

This comment is probably going to be way too long, and should probably be its own thread, but bear with me. I'm going to first describe the problem as it currently exists in the game, then describe the design limitations as they stand, then give my ideas for a solution, along with specific controls which demonstrate my ideas.

The problem I see with the current motion/combat system is that unintentional character action tends to intrude on the player experience. In many cases, such as enemy targeting and the context-sensitive hit system, the control is taken out of the hands of the player and given to the character AI. In the case of the enemy targeting system (as mentioned in #3), this means that the player has no way of deciding which direction to face. In the case of the context-sensitive hit system, the decision of which attack to use is made by the character AI based on context controlled by the player. For instance (as mentioned in #1), the player distance in relation to the enemy dictates whether the character kicks or punches when the mouse is clicked. While in many ways this is the beauty of the Lugaru/Overgrowth combat system, I believe it is harmful when misused. It's a very frustrating experience in any game to fail due to actions which are completely out of the your control.

So, on to the design limitations. The first thing to talk about when it comes to a control system is the physical controls. When it comes to the mouse/keyboard controls, games are basically limited to W, A, S, D, Space, Shift, and the mouse. Other keys may be used, but usually not for the core motion/combat system, at least not in a fast-paced combat game. Setting aside the keyboard for the obvious motion controls, this leaves the mouse for combat. This is a pattern which is used to great effect in FPS games, as the mouse is the best control system around for aiming, and you really only need 1 button to control a gun. However, 2 buttons is not nearly enough to support a complex melee combat system. In addition, close-range combat makes aiming pretty useless for Overgrowth, meaning that the mouse can basically only be used for manual camera control (feel free to challenge this!).

Finally, my solutions. Since the mouse is the weak point for the Overgrowth control scheme, the keyboard has to step in to pick up the slack, and this is where context-sensitive controls come in. Players need to use combinations of actions to produce a broad range of attacks. I would also expand this to complex motions, such as the current flip controls. However, it is important to let the player decide at least what type of attack to perform at any given time. I think that motion (I'm talking about WASD, not crouch or jump) should be separated from these decisions. Players should be able to separately decide where to move and what to do. Motion should still affect how the character does things, but it shouldn't affect what the character does. For instance, if the player wants to kick, they should have a way of doing so from any range, while moving any direction they want. The motion should just affect the way the character performs that kick. If the player doesn't give the character enough space to perform a good kick, the kick should simply be less effective, or perhaps come across as more of a knee.

Here are my ideas for some player controls:
Mouse button (MB) 1: Kick
(holding MB2): Passive block
MB2: Counter
(holding MB2) MB1: Punch
Jump (then immediately) MB1: Spin kick
Direction + Jump (then immediately) MB1: Tackle
Direction + crouch: Roll
Roll (then immediately) MB1: Some kind of rolling trip
Roll (then immediately) Jump: Handspring
Handspring (then immediately) MB1: Handspring kick
(while in the air) + Roll: Flip
Flip + MB1: (If timed right) Flip kick
Flip + MB2: (If timed right) Grab the enemy's head and break their neck
...

That's the idea, each button should translate to a general motion, and these motions should chain together in sensible ways to make combo moves. Again, sorry for the long-winded comment, there's still a lot to say (regarding accidental death in combat, weapon OP, etc.) but I'll stop now.

[Endoperez]

That's a well-written post, but I'm not sure about all of your points.

First, mouse could be used to control targeting, to an extent, even in melee game. Even if it's not perfectly precise, choosing the general direction of your attacks would often be enough to direct your attacks to a specific enemy.

Second, you assume there's as big functional difference between kicks and punches as there's between kicks and blocks, or kicks and counters. If you consider all the normal attacks (straight kicks, punches, kneeing), excluding the roundhouse kick, to be equivalent to each other, there already is a unique control for all of the attacks.

Basic attack (with varying animation depending on position): MB1
Roundhouse kick: move + MB1
Block: MB2
Counter: hold MB2
etc

There will likely be more advanced moves too, similar to the ones you gave examples of.

Any way, is there a big enough difference between the basic attacks (straight kick, punch, kneeing, etc) that the player benefits from choosing between them? Their main difference is range, after all, followed by attack speed.

[druckson]

I'm not sure that using the mouse to select which enemy to attack would work, because the combat is so fast-paced. Since enemies usually surround the player character, you would have to rapidly rotate the camera with the mouse from attack to attack. This might work in slow-motion, but I don't think it would work at full speed. Perhaps you could just get rid of the manual camera completely and only use the mouse for attacks, but I don't think that this would work well. There might be other ways you could use the mouse if the manual camera positioning were removed, but I don't currently have any ideas. As far as choosing which enemy to attack, I think the current system is fairly intuitive, and it looks like it's even better with a162 (I'm still on 161).

It's true that in the current combat system there is little difference between the various types of standard attacks. However, it's also true that the current control system often leads to surprising failure, even when the player is playing skillfully. I find that usually when I die in combat, it is either because my head hits the ground after I've been kicked, or because an enemy kicks me in the head or back while I'm either performing a move or recovering from an attack. I believe that if I were able to more accurately predict the position of the character's body during an attack, it would help me to avoid some of these deaths. So, that's my first argument for a differentiation between kick and punch controls. Another would be that you could then have 2 classes of attack. The kicks would be relatively slower, more powerful, and more likely to throw you off-balance. The punches would be fast and relatively weak, and would mostly serve to stagger an enemy. My final argument would be that this control scheme would allow the player to use both kick and weapon attacks when holding a weapon. I think this is the most practical reason, as weapon attacks are very different from kick attacks.

[last]

I would like to add 2 more buttons to WASD some games use Q and E witch are positionig in really good places in the keyboard. Those Q and E keys are currently used onley for picking up and releasing weapons but i think in the future this may be changed into 1 button.
So we get 2 free buttons from there.
Now here is how to use those keyes.

Right now we have to tab 2X movement keyes to dodge from blades and kicks. We can use those 2 keyes (Q and E) as new dodge keyes.

Or we make those keyes for change target in the fight. Now there are few options for that.
Do we want to chose closest enemy or do we want next one that is little farther away.
Or do we want complete freedom for choseing targets.

Also there will be some unknown moves that onley guys from wolfire knows about that are not in the game right now. So there must be some key commands for them to.
Like how to aim a throwin weapon (knife, axe or something like this)
Also there may be use item button for opening dors and moveing stuff around who knows

[Endoperez]

I find that usually when I die in combat, it is either because my head hits the ground after I've been kicked, or because an enemy kicks me in the head or back while I'm either performing a move or recovering from an attack. I believe that if I were able to more accurately predict the position of the character's body during an attack, it would help me to avoid some of these deaths.

Another would be that you could then have 2 classes of attack. The kicks would be relatively slower, more powerful, and more likely to throw you off-balance. The punches would be fast and relatively weak, and would mostly serve to stagger an enemy.

My final argument would be that this control scheme would allow the player to use both kick and weapon attacks when holding a weapon. I think this is the most practical reason, as weapon attacks are very different from kick attacks.

The current system is deadly if you get surrounded, but if that's what the devs are going for, I'm not sure if that should be changed. You can play around it by trying to avoid those situations.

Does the slow-kicks, fast-punches thing work for all races, and how does it interact with roundhouse kicks?
Different races could have different normal attacks - dogs might be heavy hitters who use low kicks to the shins and legs to stagger an enemy, and might bite in very close combat. I'd prefer it so that all the fast staggering attacks be under the same controls for all the races.
So the same control might cause rabbits to kick, dogs to punch.
That could still be divided into two buttons, of course, just throwing the idea out there.

Any way, what about roundhouse kicks? If non-roundhouse kicks are slower and more powerful than punches, and roundhouse kicks are slower and more powerful than normal kicks, how often will you want to use the medium-power attack compared to the very fast or very powerful attacks? And does the game need three levels of attacks, when it already has faster-and-weaker normal attacks and slower-more-powerful roundhouse kicks?

Good point about weapons though. I haven't considered that. How do you think they would be used? Would there be situations where you'd want to use kicks even though your weapon is also usable?

[last]

Good point about weapons though. I haven't considered that. How do you think they would be used? Would there be situations where you'd want to use kicks even though your weapon is also usable?

You can do sweep kick allready while you are holding a weapon. what you can't do is other types of kicks and punches.
Also i don't see a point of punching with that had where you are holding a weapon. Either the weapon is to big and heavy or it's easier to cut or stab with that weapon than punch with this hand.

[Endoperez]

Also i don't see a point of punching with that had where you are holding a weapon. Either the weapon is to big and heavy or it's easier to cut or stab with that weapon than punch with this hand.

There shouldn't be a point in punching instead of using the melee weapon, regardless of its weight. I mean, you have a dagger, or a stick, or something. If punching is better than the weapon... why do you have it?

So I want to know what kind of situations you might need to punch or kick, instead of using the weapon. Low attacks are one option (the sweep kick), another is if the enemy is too close to use the weapon well. But if the only reason to not use the weapon is that an enemy is too close, then it'd be better to use the automatic, contextual selection for punches and kicks.

[druckson]

Last: Good point about the sweep kicks! I agree that the E key could be used as a major control, however it's important to note that you need to take your finger off of the D key to use it, which makes it impractical for combat in my opinion. Or at least it's slower to use than a mouse button. I would think that it would make a lot of sense as the drag body key. I think there might be a slight problem with the Q key as the anatomy of the human ring finger makes it awkward to move independently from the middle finger. Definitely feel free to beat that argument up.

Endoperez: I agree that avoiding being surrounded is a perfectly good way to get around these problems. However, the current best strategy (I find) is to just jump around and leg cannon everyone, which sort of defeats the purpose of hand-to-hand combat. I also think that if the devs try to make fighting while surrounded more doable, combat will probably start to resemble Assassin's Creed group combat. Whether or not that's a bad thing is definitely a debate worth having.

I agree that the controls should be somewhat uniform for all races. For most races, the heavy hits would be kicks, and light ones would be punches, but for wolves it would be reversed. As long as the controls allow you to learn about the movement of the character. I would put round-house kicks in the heavy hit category, and just designate them to long range. So the close heavy hit for a rabbit would be a knee, the medium would be a normal kick, and the far would be a round-house. This would also make round-houses easier to dodge. Of course, you could also make the round-house a combo move. If something is particularly useful, there should be some way of directly controlling it.

The weapon control issue is a bit strange. As Last pointed out, you can already do sweep kicks while a weapon is equipped. You could definitely argue that this is good enough. Another argument would be that you should have alternate attacks in order to keep your opponent off-guard, so you should have normal kicks as well. I agree that upper-body melee is pretty useless when holding a weapon, at least for kicking races. And for wolves, it's kind of redundant to have a weapon anyway.

So I want to know what kind of situations you might need to punch or kick, instead of using the weapon. Low attacks are one option (the sweep kick), another is if the enemy is too close to use the weapon well. But if the only reason to not use the weapon is that an enemy is too close, then it'd be better to use the automatic, contextual selection for punches and kicks.

I don't know that I agree with this entirely. In my opinion, the more decisions you take from the player and put in control of the character AI, the closer you get to button-mashing. There needs to be a balance, where the player is communicating moves, and the character is performing them as well as possible. A certain amount of contextual decision making needs to remain in the hands of the character, because contextual decision making is the same as strategy.

Yet again, sorry for writing too much...

[druckson]

OK, I'm going to add another argument (and possible solution) to the context-sensitivity issue. The main issue I have with proximity-based attack decisions is that it isn't always possible to immediately change your position. For example, I don't believe it's currently possible to move while attacking, meaning that it's impossible to punch, then round-house, unless the enemy moves farther away. A possible solution to this would be to let players move while they attack. This wouldn't be possible for kicks, but for punches it would allow the player to use the context-sensitivity more effectively.

[Etherdrone]

But that is sort of an issue, isn't it? Attacking while moving defeats the purpose of endangering yourself in favor of actually landing a hit. Stopping to try and hit your enemy makes you think a little bit more about what you are doing, especially during mob battles.

But I do have something to wonder about here. Kicking and positioning yourself in Overgrowth combat is important, and so is learning when to let go of the left-click in favor of a block and counter-throw, but what do you guys think of adding a bit more complexity to how you hit other than the distance and where you are moving towards? And no, I'm not talking about putting more combat keys, but using what we have now to add an extra variety of harder to dodge attacks.

For example, holding MB1 just makes you attack whenever possible, right? How about changing that to something like: "Holding MB1 will make you do a heavy hit ONCE, like the Roundhouse for the rabbits or the Claw Swipe from the Wolves." If you are standing and holds MB 1, you'd do the badass SPARTA kick.

Just clicking MB1 would make you do weaker but much faster hits. Punches and jabs could be executed much easier this way. Different races would attack with different parts of their bodies as their stronger hits, yeah? Rabbits don't really punch very hard, so that would somewhat work. Distance would still affect how hard you hit, though...

For example, once again. Considering the "hold MB1 = strong attacks" thing I just mentioned, for Rabbits it would go something like this...

Close + Standing + MB1 = Gut Punch

Close + Directional + MB1 = Elbow Hit

Close + Standing + Hold MB1 = Knee to the Gut

Close + Directional + Hold MB1 = Kick to the Sides

Distant + Standing + MB1 = Stronger jab

Distant + Standing + Hold MB1 = Sparta Kick

Distant + Directional + MB1 = Right/Left Hook

Distant + Directional + Hold MB1 = Roundhouse Kick

Maybe there is something I am overlooking, but to add stronger hits for holding the MB1 would add more depht to the combat scheme without changing its original formula. Are you willing to use a slower but stronger hit, or will you safely jab at your enemies quickly but not doing as much damage?

This would also help with the post regarding Permanent Damage vs damage you can recover from. Being constantly punched would bring your down, yes, but if you don't get hit for a while after being punched (by a Rabbit) you can get better and resume owning dudes. The same wouldn't apply if you got a kick to your spleen, would it? Ouch!