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Melee Combat Suggestion Part 1


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Let's get the cat out of the bag. There's no possible way NQ can make a realistic "Jade Empire" style real time combat, or ]Insert Realistic Sowrdplay Combat] game here - not in the sense of physically based blocks, parries and dodges.

But what if the system was not about reaction but approach, keeping melee about tactics, and reading your opponent's attacks, rather than spam spam WoW autoattacks?

Here's the idea, step by step, from Basics, to Advanced, to Dedicated Space Ninjas.

This is gonan be split to 3 parts, cause the amount of alcohol I got readily availab,e is not enough to fuel me past the Basics.


Part 1 : Basic Melee Combat - Hand-to-Hand OR Foot-to-Groin - don't believe the hype, honour is thrown out of the window when your DACs are on the line.

1. The mechanic should be reliant on things NQ already has figured out. Momentum, inertia, mass and angular velocity. 

2. The mechanic is lock-on. This is not, by any means, any differnet than the shooting combat, it's only "very close" range. And it comes with a caveat - telegraphed attacks. But hey, if the enemy can't see you, they can't see the telegraph #No-Honour. 

3. Melee is situational, it's Close Quarters Combat. So if, you want to act like a rabid zombie chasing after people for fistycuffing them, you are shit outta luck son. But in the close confinements of a spaceship's corridor? If you get the drop on someone, you can kick their ass. Which is what CQC is all about. This is not, by any means, spam autoattacking. This is about patience, tactic and bluffs.

4. The mechanics proposed for advanced melee are something that can easily be pushed for a later release, but the basic part is something I think is needed in the game, as it can make people less "trigger happy" or "invasive" of a person's home base. It also makes frigging sense :| 

A brief commentary , this combat system is from one of the best melee combat games I ever played that has lock-on combat melee and reactive commands when it comes to dodging in a Dice Roll system. That game is Age of Conan. 


2. The Mechanics.

A. The Default Melee.

For default, people who have one simple move - a kick OR a punch - in a thing called "Reflex Action". Yes, a kick or a punch. That should be the default "melee move", a Melee Action. Punches can recover faster, but Kicks can deal more damage. Arkers never skip on Leg Day :V .

The Melee Action in question can only be executed within a 2 meters window, in which you "wind up for the attack with a punch or jump and kick, and upon connecting, you perform apply the melee effect. Fancier moves will be theorised on Part 2. Damage Numbers will be theorycrafted on Part 2 as well. This is the basics and a suggestion.


B. A Method and an Intent.

 

Your avatar locks another avatar upon reaching "close range", instnatly locking on them and allowing you strafe left or right while keeping the target in the center of your POV. 

 

This may be reminescent of Dark Souls and it's actually, I got inspiration from there as well. But the inspriation ends there, everything else is EVE's math-based combat adapted for Melee, with Age of Conan mechnaics.

 

 

 

This affects of a melee attack, are compared between the Attack's Strnegth and the Defender's Poise, depending on your Melee Action of choice. No worries, I will explain the Poise and Attack Strength factors and how they differ later on, with the math involved.

If you sprint and have Kick as your Melee Action, your character will "dash" a short distance and - more or less - Dropkick the enemy. 

If you sprint and have Punch as your Melee Action, your character will "Wind Up" and attack.

The difference between the two, will become apparent soon.

Now, depending on the values involved, your attack, like any attack with a rifle, can have 3 outcomes - the final one depending on your Reflex Action. Slam, Daze, Stagger, Stun,  Knock Away / Back  

Depending on the percentage your attack strength overcame the enemy's Poise, they suffer the most punishing of the 5 outcomes.

Slam : 100% to 120% stronger than the enemy's Poise. You deal damage and distabise them, ttacking a small window of opportunity for an angular velocity penalty, giving them a small window of before being able to fire back at you or retaliate with a melee of their own.

Daze : 120% to 140% stronger Attack to Poise. Your target suffers a tempraorary loss of accuracy as you pretty much sucker punched them or drop kicked them hard enough to make them see birdies. They also suffer a angulr velocity penalty.

Stagger : 140% to 160% : Target loses balance, reducing the opponent's Angular Velocity - when idle, the target wis going to be open for a MUCH harder Hit Status effect from a consequent attack.

Stun : 160% to 180% : Your attack totally thrown off the enemy. Minor concussion makes them lose control for a moment. Staggering effect applies after the stun.

Knock Away : Kick maximum outcome. 180% to 200% : You kicked the guy so hard, he flew in the direction you were heading (your angular momentum), knocking them down on their back or on the side.

Knock Back : Punch maximum outcome : 180% to 200% : Catching the enemy off guard, you cause a super staggering effect, sending the enemy stumbling backwards a few feet.

The victim suffers all the effects after they recover from the most punishing effect you inflicted. A Knocked Away / Back victim, will suffer penatlies on accuracy and or poise if you open them with a very strong attack/

This means, that you need to know who you go up against. You see a person in a Heavy Armor? Your light armor won't give you much in the way of weight behind your attack. You may get a good hit on them, but you are better off keeping distance. And god forbid you go up against a Power ARmor tank. You won't even damage them, as yoir attack will be less that their poise They might as well Kick you back, you'll fly off..

However, this very system, means that if a target is heading AWAY from you, and you attack them from behind, your attack has MORE strength, as you use their own speed against them.


C. Reflex Action.

This is the point we discuss Defensivee Actions - or more likely Reflex Actions, cause any defense is 99% reflex.

Like choosing your Melee Action, you can choose your Reflex Action, only they are tied to your keyboard input.

Double-tapping a directional key, should give you the ability to perform a dart, dash or even dive - the dsitance gained may vary from armor weight to armor weight.

Double-tapping W, will help you dart, able to help a soldier on the fiield to reach cover while dodging shots with a small bonus to the soldier's all three velocities. A reflect action that can be used defesively and offensively.

Double-tapping A or D , makes you dash, making you push yourself left or right, able to get in the path of something - or someone. Speed "boost" may vary on the actino with skill training.

Double-tapping S[/s], makes you ready to block an attack, giving you bonus to body mass as a Defender, to emulate you "standing your ground" for a few seconds, making you more tolerable of an attack. When using a Shield weapon, it raises the shield and keeps the shield raised until reactivated. It provides a Transversal bonus as well, which may sound right, but makes sure attacks from BEHIND YOU, cause more Hit Status effect (the formula at the end).

These can provide you with a sudden burst of speed, in the case you realise you are being attacked. Someone lunges at you with a punch and you see them rushing at you? Test your luck perhaps, rush them down with your attack, your combined speeds will lead to your attacks clashing.


Thisi s the point we discuss what happens if an attack is below 100% rate between attacker and defender.

Dodged / Blocked : 0% to 20% Attack to Defense Ratio.. Nothing. Depends on if the attacker was slower or the defender was actively working to block the attack, by rushing and then blocking, gaining a bonus on force behind their wait and gaining MORE inertia by actively blocking. on a Block, you stagger the opponent momentarily, ending i na loss of angular velocity depednign on the weight difference between the two.

Graze / Parry : 20% to 40% : likewise with 0% to 20%. If the you move too fast, the attack will barely graze you, if your block was not enough, Parrying the blow will suffice. Yes, Parrying CAN happen with whien block with a shield or an arm, parrying is about deflecting an attack.  You take minute damage. On a Parry, you have a chance of disamring an opponent (debuff, not actual physical object removal from an avatar's equipment), depending on mass differential betwen each oponent's weapon medium. Does not apply on unarmed combat.

​Bounce Off : 40% to 60% : double the parry damage.

Glancing Blow : 60% to 80% : double Bounce Off damage.

Direct Hit : 80% to 100% : You hit the target for full damage. 

At this point, I should explain this damage you deal with your attack is MITIGATED by the opponent's armor, mainly, via kinetic resistance. The arguement can be made for "taser knuckles" or "electric batons" (salute to Nightwing fans) or - let's face it - lightsabers or Plasma Swords, that would deal thermal damage. But since this is about BASICS, this will be in Advanced Melee, Part 2 of 3, sponsored by my old friend, whiskey.

Case in point, a person wearing a nanoweave armor, are much durable against any and all kinetic attacks. They are still stunnable, but they won't feel much of your punches when it comes to damage. HOWEVER, if you were to use a taser knuckle, they will be TOAST, as carbon nanotubes LOVE conducting electricity. So, the rule of "use the proper tool for the job", still applies. This is not "spam autoattacks" this is about thinking and bluffing the enemy.

 

 

Any attack percentage resulting in negative values, results in an attack missing.

 

D. The Ruthless Calculus ( I could not resist the allegory ) 


This part is left non-specific numbers wise, due to the lack of inforamtion of solid numbers and the dynamci nature of the Angular Velocity of the victim. Idle, a person is not with 0 Angular Velocity, but with a constant one downwards, so for the sake of simplicity and to not make the formula 3 pages long, it's a meters per second value at the moment of the attack.


Melee Attack Hit Status.

AV.1 : G in meters per second for the moment of the attack + Angular Velocity in regards to the distance from the attacker Won't even explain. It's going to be in meters per second. 

 

Trv.1  : Transversal Velocity . Simple trigonometry.  The speed you need to have to connect with the target. If negative the target's heading towards you , thus using their speed against them.
 

m.1 : mass of the victim in kg.

LV.2 : Linear Velocity of the attacker.

m.2 : mass of the attacker's "weapon" of choice in Kg. 

MAs : Melee Action Speed : the charge up to an opponent (think Skyrim's melee style) 1 meters minimum range, performing the attack animation in 1 second. Thus if the victim has an Angular Velocity more than your minimum 2 m/s, they will avoid or mitigate significantly the attack. If the victim is out of reach, the hit is a miss.

{ [ ( LV.2 - Trv.1 + MAs ) * m.2 ] / Surface Area of Striking Medium } / { [  (  G.V.1 _ AV.1 + 1)  * m.1  ] / Volume Factor }

It's that simple. Yes, we can put into numbers those things. In this model of combat, a Punch is DPS oriented, but a double drop-kick can procure a better "stun". The 200% debuff, will only apply on the FIRST strike - unlees you cosntantly run back and charge your opponent, again and again. After the opening strike, the victim can block - with the method suggested - or flee.

Yes, there is a chart for a punch's surface area. 


The above image, can be seen as "Further Specialisation", of reducing your surface area of attacking a target. It also shows us that a bigger targets, takes much more force to be moved. You need to be either Heavyweight to fight a Heavyweight, or be a really skileld Lightweight. This would not be any different.


This would be all about timing, juking attacks by dodging left and right and tricking your ooponent into wastin stamina until they are open for an attack - like actual martial arts. No, actual martial arts are not Bayonetta. :|



Cheers.


P.S. : Boy, I can't wait for people to point out how wrong I am for providing an actual solution for melee cobmat that's not WoW or unreasonable.


P.S. : Thanks to Lethys for shouting my ears off to change the equation to be more dynamic. :P

 

P.S : This equation is not representative of anything. It's a demosntration cause the actua lmath would take quite a while to figure out and quite frankly, I do this out of hobby xD .

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I just want a robo hand that punches like a camel. And meelee attacks to create aoes and destroy voxels

Well, you can already attack voxels. 

 

IF NQ adds "damage threshold " on voxel materials, that's a totalyl different thing.

 

And yeah, if yo uwere to wear a suepr-heavy armor, you wold be able to break through concrete walls :P

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Twerk, are you retired? Cuz you sure spend a lot of time posting well thought out topics. I cant imagine having time for work with amount of effort you put into your posts haha.

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Yeah I see melee in this game being more situational and last resort type play. For it to be a main role or way to play they'd also need stealth and various other distance closing mechanics. By the way have the talked about stealth?

 

But yeah just seems like with the type of game DU will be weapon combat will be the main focus. Different ranges on different types of weapons should fill that short/close range niche. Perhaps more of a mix of like handguns and the melee moves OP suggest above.

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Yeah I see melee in this game being more situational and last resort type play. For it to be a main role or way to play they'd also need stealth and various other distance closing mechanics. By the way have the talked about stealth?

 

But yeah just seems like with the type of game DU will be weapon combat will be the main focus. Different ranges on different types of weapons should fill that short/close range niche. Perhaps more of a mix of like handguns and the melee moves OP suggest above.

I agree. I hope melee is kinda placed on hold for more important combat systems. PUBG is a great example of a game with horrid melee combat and just makes the game feel bad.

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Twerk, are you retired? Cuz you sure spend a lot of time posting well thought out topics. I cant imagine having time for work with amount of effort you put into your posts haha.

 

Sorta, you could say "retired" :V

 

Thing is, I can multi-task.

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I agree. I hope melee is kinda placed on hold for more important combat systems. PUBG is a great example of a game with horrid melee

combat and just makes the game feel bad.

 

Oh yeah, I did say melee advanced should be put on second priority to guns. I said this kind of melee to be for that ''oh shit'' moment when you turn around a corner, see w guy and have 1 second to jump them.

 

Yeah I see melee in this game being more situational and last resort type play. For it to be a main role or way to play they'd also need stealth and various other distance closing mechanics. By the way have the talked about stealth?

 

But yeah just seems like with the type of game DU will be weapon combat will be the main focus. Different ranges on different types of weapons should fill that short/close range niche. Perhaps more of a mix of like handguns and the melee moves OP suggest above.

 

Gun-kata is in Part 2. That's pistol-whipping in martial arts :P

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Gun-kata is in Part 2. That's pistol-whipping in martial arts :P

 

Cool, yeah would love to play some kind of short to close range pistoleer/shotgun/melee takedown class. Hopefully the dev allows for a pretty wide range of play styles through various means.

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I think that if the defender's "Defend Stat" greatly overtakes the Attacker's "Attack Stat", I think the Defender could easily snap some limbs or decimate an eager attacker's health.

I mean, think about it. If you some skimpy teenager attacking Dwayne Johnson (just an example), Dwayne could totally pull off a counterattack (what's the word for it melee-wise...)

 

But what about shields then? Would they still damage the user? Will there be shields? Please address that in the next topic because if you got a shield, wouldn't you basically be invincible?

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As always, good write-up. Looking forward to part two. Perhaps I have time until then to make up my mind and write something useful lol

 

@Kuritho: workaround like stargate: melee is slow moving and can bypass, bullets/lasers are high speed so they get absorbed

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I think that if the defender's "Defend Stat" greatly overtakes the Attacker's "Attack Stat", I think the Defender could easily snap some limbs or decimate an eager attacker's health.

I mean, think about it. If you some skimpy teenager attacking Dwayne Johnson (just an example), Dwayne could totally pull off a counterattack (what's the word for it melee-wise...)

 

But what about shields then? Would they still damage the user? Will there be shields? Please address that in the next topic because if you got a shield, wouldn't you basically be invincible?

That's in Part 2, the Advanced Melee combat.

 

Andyes, it involves that if you hit a target and they parrt you, you get staggered if they outmatch you.

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Cool, yeah would love to play some kind of short to close range pistoleer/shotgun/melee takedown class. Hopefully the dev allows for a pretty wide range of play styles through various means.

Part 2 : Advanced Melee involves Bayonets on close quarters weaponry - like shotguns. Think Fallout 4 animations, if you got a beyonet equiped on your shotgun instead of a muzzle brake, you get penalties on your range, but get a sweet animation that staggers more (which is the Surface Area of attack medium stat ;) )

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@Ostris


PUBG's melee is kinda broken. It involves "endless stamina attacks". This is not the case with what I suggested. You COULD build an armor / playstyle around melee combat alone, but without an actual dedicated weapon (which is covered in Part 2 )  your playstyle wont' benefit.

It's sort of like in EVE Online. You may have a ship )an armor in DU or playstyle ) that's suited for very very long range combat, but if you have equiped a close range weapon it's sort of pointless. This is the case with this system. You kinda can melee if yiu sudden;y find an enemy in front of you, or a poor sod backpedalling towards you, so you can kick them at full sprint and cause the tom fall down flat. But that's just situational. Without proper equipment, you won't be able to pummel people to a fine paste :P

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Have you considered where the attack hits? I dont know if it is in chapter 2 or I missed the point.
My suggestion here are to have 3 differenciated zones with some extras when hit:
- Head: extra damage
- Chest: the victim loss some stamina
- Legs: probability of fall to the ground or interrupt an action

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Have you considered where the attack hits? I dont know if it is in chapter 2 or I missed the point.

My suggestion here are to have 3 differenciated zones with some extras when hit:

- Head: extra damage

- Chest: the victim loss some stamina

- Legs: probability of fall to the ground or interrupt an action

IT's kidna hard to do Real-time body-part aiming. 

 

The idea behind the m.2 value, stems from the fact your arm or leg has a percentage of your body's total mass. While the same can apply for the head of the victim, it's quite difficult to aim liek that.

 

This system is built with the traditional "proximity" melee, only turning it more tactical than spam auto-attack.

 

A vATS system (ala Fallout ) doesn't really work in real time :|

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