Concerning: New Fighting System

[paul laffing]

Also, using two hands makes it harder to stay coordinated. An interesting thought would be short staves or something of the sort. You can hold one in each hand, they're only a foot and a half long, and you have weaker hits, but it hits faster. Then, you make it so fists are slowed down and can't kill, can only knock out. That would have an interesting effect on the fighting system. Of course, with the sticks, there's a risk that you'll knock yourself out.

[Armil Darken]

Just a quick few sugestions. With the archery after you get like a good deal through learning it, you get an extra 2 square range, and at different poinds different bonuses for weapons. Like concussion doing always a little damaga, slicind going at a faster rate, piercing reduces effect or armour.

[Bloodhearte]

Everybody, please remember to follow the guidelines listed by the author of this topic; structure counts!

[paul laffing]

Let me clear something up before Darlok yells at me for no reason.

One of the questions asked in the first post was "Why?" Now, the reason the system needs to be changed is for balance. Every great fighting system has balance. Look at any online roleplaying game. For every strong monster there's a big reward. For every weak monster there's a small reward. For every strong weapon, there's a hefty price. For every weak weapon, there's a small price. For every strong weapon, there's a slower speed. For every weak weapon, there's a faster speed. Everything needs balance. Thats why the fighting system needs more weapons to counterbalance each other. Fists to balance against bolts and daggers. Staves to counter against swords and spears. I can not emphasize enough that balance is an important aspect that needs consideration.

Questions the programmers should ask themselves when making new weapons and/or a new fighting system:

1) Are/is the weapon(s) balanced?
2) Are strong vs. weak fights balanced?
3) Are the monsters vs. rewards balanced?
4) Is the time vs. skill balanced?

And etc.

[Leonel Silberschweif]

Ok I Play a lot of RP on Paper and Pen and in DSA, their is something which could help to balance, all weapons have a WeaponModificator, which reduce the attack and defense abilitys when you use very heavy weapons, like two handed swords and axes, to simulate the bad handling of them. Then secondly the heavy weapons reduce the attack speed and the light level it up.
The slow attacking weapons are not so much influenced by heavy armor, for example a chainamore doesn't handicap you when using an axe but when using a dagger it does, because a dagger needs a lot of speed. small weapons could be in in both hand, which would raise the attack speed even more, that would make quite a lot of balance.

Kritical misses should just let the char not do his next 3 attacks or so, so the otheone can attack during that time. and obviously a quick person would recouver quicker form that than a slow one.

So a heavy armored knight would attack not very often and mostly be parried by an elf using a Rapier, but if he hits he does a lot of damage, because he has a heavy weapon and the Elf has light armor. The Elf hits the knight often, but doesn't do much damage, cause he has light weapons and the knight heavy armor.

I agree, that everything, which is made off a bigger amount of iron keeps all magicaly talented people form making any strong spells, because iron makes it much harder to use their power, very easy spells should still be possible. Even big weapon can make it harder to use magic.

[Jeppe Koira]

Ranged weapons should be very powerful and very commonly used, as they were in medieval times. I have been in this game for only few days, but I havent seen a single person using a ranged weapon of any cind.
A bit offtopic:
I have a bow in RL. Not a modern compound bow, but a wooden recurved bow. I could say bows are much more powerful than many people think.
I would rather been hitted by a dagger than shot with powerful longbow.
Bows in medieval times were extremely powerful, so powerful than allmost no archer these days could pull them. This is because they were desingned to pierce armor. If man is hitted in chest with broadheaded arrow shot with a bow, it would surely go all the way through him. (Unless hitting the spine that is)
Crossbows are usually less powerful, this is because the arrows are shorter and the string only pushes them little length. This gives them less speed than longbows even though you would need more power to pull them. The good thing about crossbows is that they are very easy to learn, much easyer than longbow. It might take years of constant practice to be a master of longbow.

Crossbows were naturally much slower to shoot. Longbowman could have shot 3 times in the time crossbowman only once. But in many battles 1 well aimed shot was all they needed. Crossbows were also very suitable for hunting since usually you only had change to make 1 shot.

Shields had the most use when protecting melee fighter for arrows. Big (and heavy) shields were most efficent for this. The small and lighter ones were more useful for melee fighting.

Spears were surely powerful due their weight, but they could only been throwed very short distances. And they were hard to carry so 1 man often only had 1 spear with him.

Throwing stars I know nothing about, I bet they werent too common( atleast not in Europe).

Like I said, ranged weapons should be powerful. But I can't really say how to change things since I havent played Illarion enough.

[Bloodhearte]

That's great and everything, but take a look at the date of the posts your replying to, slappy.

Are you playing yet, by chance?

[Belegi]

Nevertheless, the informations are useful. Don't blame him for using an old topic instead of making a new one. He obviously used the search function

imho ranged weapons are a) too fast b) too weak c) too "silent" d) too predictable. Most times, one hits quite often in short time and does little damage or one does not hit at all in a hundred trys.

[Murphy Macmanus]

I think that the fighting system should be changed by the stats because some people make characters with all fighting stats. That makes people who didnt know how to distribute the stats at a very big disavantage.

Also I would say you should have to have to clutter both hands with a bow in one and arrows in the other I think that the Bow should take up one hand and you could have a quiver in the spot where the bag is at. So then archers could have a hand free for say a sword so when the enemy gets close they can start slashing at it. BUT the wepon would slow him down while he is arching.

those are just some of my ideas. They probably make no sence but I try.

[Snazug]

I think that the fighting system should be changed by the stats because some people make characters with all fighting stats. That makes people who didnt know how to distribute the stats at a very big disavantage.

The newbies board has a sticky on attributes and their meanings.

Some of it is common sense (ex. agility). Those who don't know how to distribute points should take a look at that thread. And even if someone decides to have good stats for combat, he or she will always have disadvantages.

[Murphy Macmanus]

Well yes I know...Well no i feel stupid

[Lennier]

I think that the fighting system should be changed by the stats because some people make characters with all fighting stats. That makes people who didnt know how to distribute the stats at a very big disavantage.

In general people with attributes for fighting should have disadvantages too, but in other cases (art of magic and druids, some kind of handicraft), where they need other attributes.

[Bloodhearte]

Never thought about that Belegi.

I think it should actually depend less on attributes. The guy with more skill and average strength should defeat the guy with loads of attribues and little skill.

[Bloodhearte]

^ Bump.

Anybody have any thoughts regarding the current system? It would be good if the handler could get some feedback from more than a handful of people.

[Moirear Sian]

If anybody wonders where the following quotes are coming from; they are taken from the thread "Anti-PG Methods" and I imported them here for discussion. There are far more, so I'd recommend scouring through there for ideas.

Weilders of things like double axe, war axe, war hammers, and staves should be limited to leather armor. This way you can balance out knights with berserkers, and because the knight does less damage but servives longer, with the berserker doing more damage but taking more damage per strike, they are balanced. This also prevents knights from getting their heavy armor, and heavy weaponry, thus preventing massive killing of harder monsters.

I like this idea. However on a further thought, I do reckon it should be possible for a knight or such to use a halberd while wearing a plate mail.
Instead, I'd advise a "linear weapon rating" system.
What I mean is breaking down all items into point totals of a certain number, and defining every weapon a setup of different categories like "sharpness", "weight", "defensive capabilities", etc., but all with an equal total amount of points.
A double-axe for example would be very heavy, thus deal high damage, but very slow, and not the best for defense. A longsword however could be a very balanced weapon in all aspects, but not as devastating in a hit as a double-axe. And a dagger for example would offer bad defensive capabilities and far less damage, but would allow for immensive attacking speeds.

A weapon has 4 attributes: weight, size, material, and sharpness.
Use those to calculate damage done, based on strength, agility, and other stats of the character.

Calculate speed besed on strength, agility, and weight of weapon.
Calculate inertia (in English - momentum) based on weight and speed of the weapon.
Calculate damage potential based on momentum * material + sharpness.
Calculate damage done by the material versus material resistance of the enemy's armor, considering weight, size of armor or shield, and character's attributes.

I think these are valid points, see above as to what I think of them and how they could be easily incorporated into the game without making illa a complete realism simulator.

With the current fighting system, what displeases me is the difference between the "skill sets" of slashing weapons and concussion weapons...it's possible to be great at concussion but absolutely suck when you hold a sword. I think slashing/concussion should be melded. IMO, if somebody is good at swinging a mace they're also good at swinging a sword. The difference is the object you're holding, but with both movements, it's a swing.

I'm still pondering whether this is a good idea or not. Please read my idea below if you get a chance.

Another possible method is to have levels of combat which can only be taught by other players make combat rp based find a teacher and he will when you accumulated enough skill..Iniate you into the next level. You may only iniate a level per month, giving you a month to skill up at that level. How ever parry and dodge may still be trained regardless of level so warriors wishing to train extensively "those who rp driven soldiers" can still keep working even if they can’t "level up with there mentor yet".

Instead, what if there was a skill called "Battle Tactics", which can be only be gained in playercharacter vs. playercharacter, and never from playercharacter vs. npc/monster? It could affect both hit chances as well as effective damage dealt to the target.
Opposite to "Battle Tactics" could be yet another skill, "Slaying". It is identical in meaning and function, but is only used in playercharacter vs. npc/monster, but never in playercharacter vs. playercharacter.
With these two skills, there could be specialists; assassins for example would specialize in Battle Tactics, while a dragon slayer or hunter would specialize in Slaying.

To explain the Rock/Scissors/Paper-method Bloodhearte mentioned on the other thread:

I'd like to throw this idea into discussion. The type of armor behind the arrow is weakest to the weapon type in front of it; but "good" in protection against the other types :
Pierce --> heavy armor (plate)
Concussion --> light armor (leather)
Slash --> medium armor (chain)

The thoughts behind it:
• piercing weapons are light, small, but good for puncturing the weakspots in a massive armor like platemail, however, in lighter armor, the stabs and jabs are easier to dodge
• concussion weapons might damage heavier armor quicker, but the weapon impact is spread over a larger area than a blade, and thus effectively useless against anything heavier than the leather
• slash is good for ripping and cutting things apart, thus chain-links are torn by slash attacks easily; someone in leather can dodge easily, and someone in plate is unimpressed mostly unless a open unarmored spot is hit

[Gro'bul]

The only true piercing weapons we have are daggers, throwing spears, and maybe bolts. Iron arrows will not peirce steel armor, steel is far too valuable to use for mass produced arrows. Also, most armor is irrelevant when dealing with concussion weapons, as they use the force of the blow to damage, and you'd have to have a hell of alot of padding to take a blow and not be hurt much no matter what armor. The best defense agains a concussion weapon is not to get hit at all. Concussion weapons are slow, but can easily crush a plate helmet. As for chain mail, good against cutting edges like swords, all armor is weak against piercing, and butted chain mail even weak against arrows. Leather armor is basically useless against large weaponry, but it might take a few slashes from a sword or save you against a badly angled arrow. This has been my not so extensive experience and knowlage on how these armors react.
But also on weapons: Have four kinds of attributes for a weapon, piercing damage, slashing damage, parry, and concussion damage. A dagger would have piercing and slashing damage. An axe would have slashing and concussion damage. A generic sword would have mostly slashing damage, with a small amount of piercing. ECT. I really don't have more time, theres a bad storm here and it doesn't care I'm typing!

[Bloodhearte]

Never thought about that disadvantage with concussion to armor. Gro'bul, how do you think it would fare against an average shield?

[Gro'bul]

Never thought about that disadvantage with concussion to armor. Gro'bul, how do you think it would fare against an average shield?

This is why concussion weapons are so useful, they are almost impossible to parry or deflect simply because of their weight. If your skilled with a shield and you have good reaction time you could deflect these attacks properly, obviously simply blocking isn't really an option if you don't want an injured arm. Since down strokes and side strokes are most common with these, you could try to move back and deflect them into the ground or off to your side. Concussion weapons give alot of vulnerability to their user though, because of their uhm, unweildyness. Swords are balanced and can be readily taken back into fighting position after a miss. I would say if you deflect/dodge a concussion weapon and the guy has no shield you could get a very good shot at him.

[Jori]

You'll have to forgive me if this is already mentioned in this thread but I don't exactly want to spend 2 hours reading through every post in this thread. I think that in Player vs. Player combat, people get knocked down (unconcious maybe?) for a time and they drop some stuff when they go down but they arent dead. The attack mode thing turns off when they go down. Then if you want to kill them you can hit them while they are down. This way people wouldnt get accidentally killed in a friendly duel or something.

[Moirear Sian]

I like Gro'bul's input and Jori's too.

How about if Concussion weapons caused "knock-downs", or simply paralyzed opponents with a certain amount of chance?

[Dónal Mason]

Maybe a chance of causing KO instead of death, depending on skill?

So a character with high skills would knock an opponent out rather than killing him, but a low skilled character might kill by accident.

[Moirear Sian]

Maybe a chance of causing KO instead of death, depending on skill?

So a character with high skills would knock an opponent out rather than killing him, but a low skilled character might kill by accident.

Sure that would be realistic and such; but I don't like it at all, control- and gameplay-wise. I'd prefer control over it, and the game being setup less of the "you must have high skill to do anything right"-mentality. Also I don't see how insta-kills would help out deepening the possibilities in the game for tacticking.
Concussion weapons IMO could just generally give a KO-chance, regardless of skill, and dependant on the weight; the heavier the weapon, the higher the chance for temporary paralysis.

[Bloodhearte]

Technical advantages of any kind could seriously off-balance the system if it's not carefully implemented.

I think concussion weapons should guarantee damage, large or small even with armor. Slashing weapons would be completely protected against for some rounds and hit better when it hits, and piercing weapons would be almost always protected against but always do heavy damage if it strikes.