Post by Damian on Feb 26, 2018 11:05:00 GMT 10
The last few months we have been pretty quiet and that's entirely because of me. This is because I have broken combat in the game 
I really wanted to discard the basic attacks and replace it with a proper skill system.
This has proven to be more difficult than I thought. I have taken three different approaches before settling on the current approach.
Boy did I underestimate this one.
Before each character was given a weapon that determined their damage, attack speed, attack range and animation to swing/cast weapon.
This makes for a pretty predictable and 1-dimensional combat experience.
I am in the middle of enhancing this weapon concept with a more flexible Skill System that can determine a wide range of things for a more varied combat experience.
The new Skill System takes the base stats from the equipped weapon and then applies some extra stuff:
There is a lot of complexity and you will see that I am bringing together other systems we have talked about before.
Some of these are self explanatory, but let me call out the important ones.
Mount
The skill has to use the Mount System to find the equipped weapon to apply base stats to an attack. This can come from an equipped body part or equipped weapon and allows us to apply the correct damage, combat effects as well as spawn special effects from the tip of the weapon or character's hand.
This is important because it caters for dual wielding and undead that have different stats on each arm.
Endless Combinations
The Combo Timer allows skills to be chained in a combination which will depend on your reaction time. This goes for your equipped weapon and any of the skills on the action bar.
All you have to do is press a action bar button or attack button after the Combo Timer is stopped and before the skill Duration Timer is finished. The window of time for the button press is approx 0.5 seconds for most skills.
I think this will make for much more engaging combat and give you freedom to define your own combat style.
Field of Attack
This is new and tells the skill system which enemies are affected by the skill. For example, you can use a scythe swipe that deals damage to enemies on your right within a 30 degree cone. You could use an ice wave that affects all enemies in front of you within a 180 degree hemisphere or a soul reave spell that claims the souls of all enemies around you within a sphere.
It's very flexible and makes it easy to tune distance and shape of skills.
Face Enemy
This determines of you can still rotate to face your enemy whilst using the attack or whether you are committed to the direction you are facing at the time the attack starts.
Think of a tornado skill where you spin in place and swing your scythe at the same time. The other side of the coin is a regular scythe slash and you have a limited ability to rotate and face them as they try to dodge your attack.
This new skill system has been absolutely massive. It has required that I completely tear down all existing attacks and define them as skills and how they can be strung together in a combo. I need to do this for each character which is slow going.
At the moment all characters will run up to their targeted enemy just to stand still and glare at them since they no longer know how to attack.
At this time I have completed the core of the skill system and enabled melee attacks. I still need to work on projectiles and area of effect spells.
It will take a while to work out all the bugs, but I think it will be totally worth it once I am done.
Thanks for reading and we'll see you in a future update.
I really wanted to discard the basic attacks and replace it with a proper skill system.
This has proven to be more difficult than I thought. I have taken three different approaches before settling on the current approach.
Boy did I underestimate this one.
Before each character was given a weapon that determined their damage, attack speed, attack range and animation to swing/cast weapon.
This makes for a pretty predictable and 1-dimensional combat experience.
I am in the middle of enhancing this weapon concept with a more flexible Skill System that can determine a wide range of things for a more varied combat experience.
The new Skill System takes the base stats from the equipped weapon and then applies some extra stuff:
- Attack Type - Physical, Ranged or Magic attack
- Duration Timer - How long until the skill is complete
- Combo Timer - The point in time that a new skill can be queued as the next in a combo
- Cool Down Timer - How long until the skill can be used again
- Field Of Attack - Cone, Sphere or projectile
- Range - The distance within which enemies are affected.
- Animation - The animation clip to play when starting the skill.
- Special Effect - The particle or aura particles to spawn when starting the skill.
- Resource - How much mana/blood/stamina is required to use the skill.
- Mount - Use the item on head, left arm, right arm or position at feet.
- Blockable - Can be blocked by shield
- Face Enemy - Character faces a fixed attack direction of target or can rotate during attack.
There is a lot of complexity and you will see that I am bringing together other systems we have talked about before.
Some of these are self explanatory, but let me call out the important ones.
Mount
The skill has to use the Mount System to find the equipped weapon to apply base stats to an attack. This can come from an equipped body part or equipped weapon and allows us to apply the correct damage, combat effects as well as spawn special effects from the tip of the weapon or character's hand.
This is important because it caters for dual wielding and undead that have different stats on each arm.
Endless Combinations
The Combo Timer allows skills to be chained in a combination which will depend on your reaction time. This goes for your equipped weapon and any of the skills on the action bar.
All you have to do is press a action bar button or attack button after the Combo Timer is stopped and before the skill Duration Timer is finished. The window of time for the button press is approx 0.5 seconds for most skills.
I think this will make for much more engaging combat and give you freedom to define your own combat style.
Field of Attack
This is new and tells the skill system which enemies are affected by the skill. For example, you can use a scythe swipe that deals damage to enemies on your right within a 30 degree cone. You could use an ice wave that affects all enemies in front of you within a 180 degree hemisphere or a soul reave spell that claims the souls of all enemies around you within a sphere.
It's very flexible and makes it easy to tune distance and shape of skills.
Face Enemy
This determines of you can still rotate to face your enemy whilst using the attack or whether you are committed to the direction you are facing at the time the attack starts.
Think of a tornado skill where you spin in place and swing your scythe at the same time. The other side of the coin is a regular scythe slash and you have a limited ability to rotate and face them as they try to dodge your attack.
This new skill system has been absolutely massive. It has required that I completely tear down all existing attacks and define them as skills and how they can be strung together in a combo. I need to do this for each character which is slow going.
At the moment all characters will run up to their targeted enemy just to stand still and glare at them since they no longer know how to attack.
At this time I have completed the core of the skill system and enabled melee attacks. I still need to work on projectiles and area of effect spells.
It will take a while to work out all the bugs, but I think it will be totally worth it once I am done.
Thanks for reading and we'll see you in a future update.