Difference between revisions of "AL Combat"

From The Coursebooks Wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Line 1: Line 1:
−
The Combat System in Flight is beautifully complex.  
+
Not an "Action RPG" per-say, but the game will have action elements.
  
−
==Basic Combat==
+
==Hit Points==
−
Players strike a mob triggering an attack roll based on "There is no Twelve" from YoF. Mobs then have a defense roll to counter it. Each attack removes one defense dice from the pool. Once a monster has no defense left, the players can start inflicting damage levels on it. Enough damage in a particular pool kills it.
+
The idea here is to draw a line between "being hit" and actual injury. Consider you're in a fight; if you get punched in the stomach, you'll be hurt, but if you've had a few minutes to catch your breath, it's like it never happened. Whereas if you get stabbed in the stomach, that's a very serious thing.
  
−
Players also have different attack-types they can use situation-ally. Some are geared towards lowering a targets defense, others designed to his specific crits. In general characters will never need o deal with more than 3-4 enemies at a time, and only at the higher levels. CC effects also remove defense points.
+
So characters have two pools of hit-points: "Constitution"(hit points) and "Toughness". Toughness is the "punch to the gut" type. It recovers faster and regenerates automatically; most attacks deal damage to, and things like armor and whatnot help mitigate that. "Constitution" implies actual injury was received. This can only be recovered either through medicine(sutcher kits, bandages) or with the use of magic. There will also be an "injured" condition which causes both to tick down during strenuous fighting until removed.
  
−
===Crowd Control===
+
Let's further add a "Fatigue" function. This is really more of a measure of how much effort your character is exerting at any given time(E.G. climbing up stairs requires more effort than walking on level ground). When your character is at full health and uninjured, fatigue is basically meaningless. However if you're under the effects of an injury, this determines when you take additional damage. Further, some abilities/combo effects will automatically leave you "fatigued" and require some time to recover.
−
When dealing with multiple enemies, players will need to use various crowd control effects to survive. Knockdown, daze, knock-backs, etc. These will be granted through perks.
 
  
−
===Magic===
+
==Combat==
−
Magical attacks will be treated the same as weapon attacks, for all intents and purposes. There will be a number of sub-types in magic for which enemies can have resistance, but all Damage Levels will go in to the Magic-type.
+
Combat should be real-time but relatively slow. It should not require cutting-edge reflexes to play this game. I personally dislike any sort of parry/active blocking system and prefer a good old fashioned "aim at monster, hit attack button". That said, some kind of grapple/boss climbing feature should be at least attempted.
  
−
Characters will have a mana pool that slowly regenerates. Every spell cost mana but some also regenerate it. Spells have cool-downs. Like weapon attacks, some spells are spcialized in reducing an enemy's defense value, others are damage-dealers, others are a combination. Players can only slot a set number of spells but can slot the same spell multiple times with independent cool-downs.
+
A good old-fashioned FPS-style interface with hotbars. It's not in vogue but who cares? It's solid and simple. Hot keys are tied to special abilities, special attacks, etc. Keep the basic tab to target, left-mouse click to basic-attack. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this tried and true system.
  
−
==Damage Types==
+
Under the hood, we need some kind of to-hit and damage calculations, but will come to that later.
−
There are five types of damage in the game: Slashing, Blugeoning, Piercing, Magic, and Generic. Each type has a different number of levels associated with it. Killing a monster requires removing all of the damage levels in any one specfic type.
 
  
−
Monsters that are vulnerable to a particular type of damage will have fewer damage levels within that pool.
+
===Damage Types===
 +
As covered under hit points, there are a few different types of hit points, and different damage types affect them. Your basic damage types are:
  
−
Removing damage levels also calls for a particular type of hit(of which there are currently 4). Certain very tough monsters may be impossible to kill by players at lower levels.
+
*Bludgeoning
 +
*Slashing
 +
*Piercing
 +
*Magic
  
−
Crit Types are: none(0), half-crit(0.5), full-crit(1), and Over-Crit(1.5). A regular hit is any attack role that defeats a defense-role. A half-crit happens if the attack role is divisible by eight, a full crit must have at least 8 successes above the defense AND be divisible by 8, and an over-crit is at least 16 points over the defense roll.
+
Unless a target is armored, slashing and piercing damage hit points directly. Bludgeoning damages toughness first but deals more damage once it has been removed. Magic has a target and will deal according to the spell or effect.
−
 
 
−
Sample Pool:
 
−
*Slashing: 0, 0, 0, 0, .5
 
−
*Bludgeoning: 1, 0, 0
 
−
*Piercing: 0, 1.5, 0, 0, .5
 
−
*Magic
 
−
*Untyped: 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0
 
  
−
To kill the monster in the above example with a sword, a character would need to land 4 regular hits and one half-crit. To kill it with a hammer, they'd need one full-crit, followed by two regular hits.  
+
====Armor====
 +
Armor provides enormous bonuses to toughness, and makes it so that slashing and piercing damage has to go through toughness before impacting actual HP. However, not all classes can inherently wear armor. Mages, in particular, have to jump through quite a few "hoops" in order to become armored spellcasters.
  
−
===Damage Level Trees===
+
===Injuries===
−
The idea is that certain mobs(particularly tougher ones) could have branching damage trees. The idea is that by doing damage in a particular pool, you then make alternate pools smaller. So for exmaple by inflicting 3 levels of piercing damage, the slashing damage pool becomes much smaller and requires fewer crits.
+
Injuries are funny things. They don't always happen, but any time damage is dealt directly to the hit points, there's a chance of inflicting an injury. This is where Fatigue comes into play, as injured characters suffer more damage when they exceed a certain fatigue threshold.  
  
−
==Defense==
+
We will further divide the body into four areas that can be injured: head, torso, arms, and legs. An injury to the legs reduces movement speed, an injury to the arm reduces attack speed, and an injury to the head reduces both. Injury to the torso has the possibility of causing an instant fatality.
−
Players have attack points, monsters have defense points. When a player attacks, the attack removes a certain amount of defense points. A monster cannot be damaged until all his defense points are gone. Monsters also regenerate defense points. Players can also learn special attacks that help remove defense points.
 
  
−
===Immunities and Damage Reduction===
+
Whenever an attack is landed, the game will determine which area it hits. Blunt injury to the head, piercing/slashing damage to the torso have the chance(which can be improved) to be instantly fatal(this goes for both mobs and players). Magic cannot inherently cause injury or death, but some spells will have that effect.
−
Certain mobs may be entirely immune to a particular damage type. Others will have "damage reduction" abilities which heighten their crit-requirements if not bypassed. Still others have "hit immunities" that must be bypassed just to attack them.
 
  
−
Ideas for immunities: Alignment, metal, and Magical types. The simplest monsters have no immunity. The immunities can require specific combinations(AG a metal and alignment-bypass) there will also be bypasses that get past everything, but these would be very high-level.
+
==Defensive Types==
 +
You have three basic ways of defending yourself: armor/toughness, evasion/avoiding attacks, and simply not being a target at all. The third one is the hardest, as it doesn't help with AOE, but hey. Obviously, each [[AL Classes|class]] has it's innate specialties. Warriors rely on armor, thieves rely on evasiveness, and mages cower in a corner and hope no one sees them. Each class further has an Expertise tree that helps it overcome it's deficiencies in that regard. So warriors can chose to sacrifice offense to gain better defense, and mages can learn defensive spells at the cost of damage-dealing abilities.
  
 
==See Also==
 
==See Also==
 
[[Category:Flight]]
 
[[Category:Flight]]

Revision as of 02:11, 21 December 2019

Not an "Action RPG" per-say, but the game will have action elements.

Hit Points

The idea here is to draw a line between "being hit" and actual injury. Consider you're in a fight; if you get punched in the stomach, you'll be hurt, but if you've had a few minutes to catch your breath, it's like it never happened. Whereas if you get stabbed in the stomach, that's a very serious thing.

So characters have two pools of hit-points: "Constitution"(hit points) and "Toughness". Toughness is the "punch to the gut" type. It recovers faster and regenerates automatically; most attacks deal damage to, and things like armor and whatnot help mitigate that. "Constitution" implies actual injury was received. This can only be recovered either through medicine(sutcher kits, bandages) or with the use of magic. There will also be an "injured" condition which causes both to tick down during strenuous fighting until removed.

Let's further add a "Fatigue" function. This is really more of a measure of how much effort your character is exerting at any given time(E.G. climbing up stairs requires more effort than walking on level ground). When your character is at full health and uninjured, fatigue is basically meaningless. However if you're under the effects of an injury, this determines when you take additional damage. Further, some abilities/combo effects will automatically leave you "fatigued" and require some time to recover.

Combat

Combat should be real-time but relatively slow. It should not require cutting-edge reflexes to play this game. I personally dislike any sort of parry/active blocking system and prefer a good old fashioned "aim at monster, hit attack button". That said, some kind of grapple/boss climbing feature should be at least attempted.

A good old-fashioned FPS-style interface with hotbars. It's not in vogue but who cares? It's solid and simple. Hot keys are tied to special abilities, special attacks, etc. Keep the basic tab to target, left-mouse click to basic-attack. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this tried and true system.

Under the hood, we need some kind of to-hit and damage calculations, but will come to that later.

Damage Types

As covered under hit points, there are a few different types of hit points, and different damage types affect them. Your basic damage types are:

  • Bludgeoning
  • Slashing
  • Piercing
  • Magic

Unless a target is armored, slashing and piercing damage hit points directly. Bludgeoning damages toughness first but deals more damage once it has been removed. Magic has a target and will deal according to the spell or effect.

Armor

Armor provides enormous bonuses to toughness, and makes it so that slashing and piercing damage has to go through toughness before impacting actual HP. However, not all classes can inherently wear armor. Mages, in particular, have to jump through quite a few "hoops" in order to become armored spellcasters.

Injuries

Injuries are funny things. They don't always happen, but any time damage is dealt directly to the hit points, there's a chance of inflicting an injury. This is where Fatigue comes into play, as injured characters suffer more damage when they exceed a certain fatigue threshold.

We will further divide the body into four areas that can be injured: head, torso, arms, and legs. An injury to the legs reduces movement speed, an injury to the arm reduces attack speed, and an injury to the head reduces both. Injury to the torso has the possibility of causing an instant fatality.

Whenever an attack is landed, the game will determine which area it hits. Blunt injury to the head, piercing/slashing damage to the torso have the chance(which can be improved) to be instantly fatal(this goes for both mobs and players). Magic cannot inherently cause injury or death, but some spells will have that effect.

Defensive Types

You have three basic ways of defending yourself: armor/toughness, evasion/avoiding attacks, and simply not being a target at all. The third one is the hardest, as it doesn't help with AOE, but hey. Obviously, each class has it's innate specialties. Warriors rely on armor, thieves rely on evasiveness, and mages cower in a corner and hope no one sees them. Each class further has an Expertise tree that helps it overcome it's deficiencies in that regard. So warriors can chose to sacrifice offense to gain better defense, and mages can learn defensive spells at the cost of damage-dealing abilities.

See Also

Retrieved from "http://thecoursebooks.com/index.php?title=AL_Combat&oldid=13872"