We recently had a discussion over here on the topic of how combat is best handled in a role playing game. As you know, Divine Divinity took the action approach and much as it may surprise you, this wasn't necessarily the preferred approach of several developers over here, me included. Personally, when it came to combat, Fallout was the game where I had the most fun but of course, Fallout combat was also turnbased. So the question is - which in your opinion was the RPG that had the best combat system ?
Lar
In my opinion as a consultant, the future is for the Larian
ACTION combat interface.
An artificial intelligence decision maker is demanded to construct a unit scenario for the immediate battle zone. Let us say the hero is a mage with a spell of
shock wave at hand as a special move.
When surrounded by as many as six enemies crowding his immediate vicinity his special move could be that shock wave to throw his enemies far enough to give him more time to cast spells on one by one at choice.
So the mage may not only have a targeted spell to cast by left clicks but also a circularly non-targeted spell to hit the immediate zone. The main character need not be a mage but selecting a spell into the special move should be handled as non-targeted. Weapon selector box must be a separate issue related to the left mouse button directly. As in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> the CTL button allows auto targeting the weapon so the shift button could be used for auto targeting spells. The clicking of the right button of the mouse may have three modes as well.
For a melee weapon the result of a right click should depend on the number and distribution of enemies in the immediate circle (battle zone) and rather than swinging an axe or a sword haphazardly, the hero may perform an entertaining move that depends on his/ her level of experience with that weapon, such as a samurai with a sword at a high level would perform an exceptional series of moves to cut down his enemies.
A right click with a shift should apply the non targeted spell circularly outwards, while the right click with a CTRL button should allow a sleek move with a combination of spell casting and weapon application whichever is best for the hero. My suggestions here are based on my experience with <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> and a futuristic outlook yet basically I am being concerned about giving commands to a single character.
If your game design shall allow a party command interface then the issue is much more complex than to decide blindly without having enough information about that party in number and characteristics.
Also I would like to see the mouse click on items being enhanced.
The left mouse button may be used for
TAKE item command, while the right mouse button for
USE item command.
The mouse cursor may be greatly enhanced by morphing appropriately to indicate the possible actions when it is coincident to an item or a location.
For example, when the mouse pointer is on a closed door it should morph to indicate if opening that door was possible and to use the left mouse button for opening a door while the right mouse button for closing it.
This means that if I am in the way of the door and I wish to close it, my hero character should automatically clear the way to close the door on a mouse right click.
The combat systems are diverse and depend on the level of
ZOOMING in on the action.
In
KARATE on the Commodore Amiga one would control the character to perform on of forty different moves which demanded a special game controller pad. This is not what
DIVINITY II or RIFTRUNNER is planning on. So you basically have
SIX alternative commands by combining either a shift or a control key with either of the mouse buttons, to keep things as simple as possible.
You could have two boxes rather than one for selecting the current weapon set so that one could use a ranged weapon along with a melee weapon. Similarly we could implement two boxes for selecting the targeted spell type and the non targeted spell type.
All passive skills should never show up in combat selection pallets but rather in the skills learned panel.
Good luck with your game design and I hope that you succeed this time. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />
