Observations on combat

[Holy.Death]

I have a couple of notes I came up with during combat:

– Why you can’t damage shield without aiming directly for it? I mean, you can hit body or head, but never the shield. This gets extra weird when you’re using a shieldwall: shield never gets hit.

– When enemy gets a bonus – or penalty – you do see an icon when you hover over him. Sadly it doesn’t tell you anything what new status does. You can’t get this information from the combat log either. It does obscure some combat-relevant information a player might need when plotting his new course of action.

– Appraoches to elevation (King of the Hill being an excellent example scenario) are very obscure. It means people can have a hard time at first when thinking which spots are the best to block for an increased defense capabilities. Or where they should attack.

– Same goes for who is on what level – what about color-coding this under a hotkey?

– What are my chances of escaping? Who’s going to get an attack of opportunity? I often let my brother stay where they are stuck, because I don’t feel like risking disengagement is worth it.

– When fighting the undead there is no indicator that could explain why some brother raise from the dead when they die, and why some do not (I suspect zombies have to deal the killing blow?).

[PsenBattle]

Ill drop some quick answers:

1. This is a gameplay decision to create a clearer funtional differentiation between weapons. We like it crisp and tight, so weapons have effects which are unique to them. It would be bit bland (allthough may be more realistic) if all weapons would damage shields with just variations in damage numbers.

2. This sits in our backlog since centuries… Planned is a right-click info window you can open on enemies and it stays open (like in HOMM). You then hover over the different skills, status effects etc and get detailed toolip informations. So this is just a missing UI feature.

3. Agreed :)

4,5: Wuld be a solution, especially if we get more complex environments like castles with stairs or whatever.

6. So this is working as intended then :) Maybe I’m not totally accurate on this but the attack of opportunity should be a normal enemy attack. Shield wall or other defensive maneuvers increase your chances of dodging. This could eventually be made clearer to the player via UI improvements.

7. We want this to remain ab it of a mystery, so you’ll stay alert .) But basically you are right. Brothers killed by zombies (whether with a weapon or a bit doesnt matter) have a certain chance of raising again. Apart from that they could be raised by a necromancer.

Cheers!

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[Holy.Death]

Thanks for answering.

PsenBattle wrote:

1. This is a gameplay decision to create a clearer funtional differentiation between weapons. We like it crisp and tight, so weapons have effects which are unique to them. It would be bit bland (allthough may be more realistic) if all weapons would damage shields with just variations in damage numbers.

I understand and agree with making weapons feel different. However, I don’t think that changing shields would make axes irrelevant: you can use an axe to shatter shield on purpose, with 100% hit chance. I’d even go as far as to say that weapons being able to hit the shield would further reinforce viability of shields (as you’d take shield damage), make them less “indestructible” AND make shield cracking even better choice.

Because as of right now you need to spend a ton of stamina only to get rid of a shield. I find it much better to use a two-hander, a flail or attack en masse. One handed axes are only useful against smaller shields at that point (and even then it costs a lot of stamina, leading to another issue: not enough stamina to fight and use abilities. That’s why I feel late in game shield busting loses a lot of value.

But that’s just my opinion.

6. So this is working as intended then Maybe I’m not totally accurate on this but the attack of opportunity should be a normal enemy attack. Shield wall or other defensive maneuvers increase your chances of dodging. This could eventually be made clearer to the player via UI improvements.

I am not arguing that disengaging should be a risky option. Rather I am wondering if there shouldn’t be more tactical info (or the UI improvements, as you yourself have noted) in regard to disengagement, so I can make a tactical decision whether or not I should risk the actual disengaging.

If I am going to risk 3 hits from a two-hander instead of 3 bites, then I am not going to risk it. Especially when all attacks will have 75% to hit me. However, if my chance to get out is around 40% I might, even if it means I may get hit with a two-hander. That’s the difference it’d make for me.

[ManaSeed]

>> Why you can’t damage shield without aiming directly for it? I mean, you can hit body or head, but never shield.
If you can hit body, head and shield, why can’t you hit enemy’s weapon with yours and break his weapon, or disarm him? Perhaps, this game treats the shield like weapon, partially. So you can’t hit it with usual methods.

Also, the current game system treats armor and health in a similar way, but it treats shield’s hitpoints in an entirely different way. The prove is all weapon can deal dmg to both armor and health, but only specific weapons can deal dmg to shield.

I think the current system is quite nice(certain game balance is stunning, I can’t stop wondering how they did it), but the shield is little immortal though. Your weapon can break, your armor can be penetrated, your arrows will finish, but your shield is always reliable buddy. This might be fixed if we can increase enemy’s chance to use shield breaking skills just a little bit higher.

>> What are my chances of escaping? Who’s going to get an attack of opportunity? I often let my brother stay where they are stuck, because I don’t feel like risking disengagement is worth it.
You mean moving a brother away from an enemy standing next to him? The tile next to an enemy is known as ZoC(Zone of Control), moving away from a ZoC tile will enable enemy to attack you without using AP. Does this build fatigue for enemy? I need someone to tell me because I never pay attention to it.

Moving away from ZoC is usually bad idea. But it happens simply because your brother’s morale is too low, or it’s fatal for him to stay in current tile.

It’s nice if ZoC UI has something like this:
　　　　chance to leave ZoC without taking a hit ==> 55%
　　　　chance to leave ZoC by taking 1 hit ==> 24% (42~49 dmg)
　　　　chance to leave ZoC by taking 2 hits ==> 11% (84~98 dmg)

　　　　Do you wish to leave ZoC?
　　　　　　　　　[No I rather die as warrior] 　　　　　　　　　　>> [Yes I’m coward] <<

* all probability is made up because I’m too lazy

[Holy.Death]

Disengagement could be done like this:

1 – Select a spot to which your brother is supposed to move to (but don’t confirm).
2 – Roll to determine which enemy will get an attack of opportunity (in case there are more than 1).
3 – Highlight the ground under the enemy with a red color (ideally this should only appear if you select a spot when engaged).
4 – Show a tooltip saying what chances are for being hit if you try to disengage.

[Rap]

Holy.Death wrote:

I am not arguing that disengaging should be a risky option. Rather I am wondering if there shouldn’t be more tactical info (or the UI improvements, as you yourself have noted) in regard to disengagement, so I can make a tactical decision whether or not I should risk the actual disengaging.
If I am going to risk 3 hits from a two-hander instead of 3 bites, then I am not going to risk it. Especially when all attacks will have 75% to hit me. However, if my chance to get out is around 40% I might, even if it means I may get hit with a two-hander. That’s the difference it’d make for me.

There is no fixed chance for this; your opponents simply get a free attack, and their chance to hit is the same as if they’d do a regular attack when you remain where you are.

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[GOD]

The way disengagement currently works is spot on. It’s an elegant and logical extension of the other combat mechanics, while adding a lot of flavour and tactical-depth to the game. It pretty much works as close to perfectly as I see it getting and doesn’t need changing. Maybe include a glossary to the help menu, when that gets implemented, that clarifies the exact mechanics behind it, or have some UI polish that amounts to the same thing.

[ManaSeed]

>> Roll to determine which enemy will get an attack of opportunity (in case there are more than 1).
In our game， multiple enemies can use ZoC free attack on a same brother simultaneously. Actually I’ve been wondering if a rework should be done for this. Can you imagine 3 enemies slashing at a brother simultaneously to stop him from escaping? Unless the enemies use stabs and pierces, otherwise it has a chance for their weapons to clash or they might hit their own men. Realistically, the enemies would hesitate about the timing of attacking. In a badminton double match participated by rookies, it is incredibly hard to return the shuttlecock that falls between allies because they’re hesitating about who and when to return it, or they will clash and fail.

Professional enemies might have good teamwork, but this might not work for unexpected and sudden movement such as fleeing of target. The enemies might not even have the time to shout “I’ll do it!” the moment he sees a brother begins to turn his back.

Still, it’s quite fun to keep things the way it is.

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