Martial Arts! Now before you scream QTEs:
Punches
Normal punching (and probably most melee attacks) slow you down while you are swinging, but not by too much (50% or something) this would lower aggression in spawn areas, as unless you get cornered by other people you can just run away.On the flip side this would also make it harder to do the “punch a zombie while walking backwards” strategy that is oh so boring.This also comes with the assumption that blocking is in the game, probably as RMB. All punches would deal more damage when wearing gloves that would improve the damage (studded ones or armored gloves) with kicks doing a similar thing when wearing leg armor or shin guards.
Learning
The main form of learning martial arts would be via books, rarely found in gyms and fitness centers, along with dojos and the like, and military training areas. After the book is read, you would be able to select the martial art/stance you just learned from the a tab inside of the skill tree menu. There would be a sub skill tree that would mostly add passive damage buffs and attack speed buffs when using the related martial art as to not overwhelm players, but also with some buffs to the arts power attack. You can have more than one martial art, and it would probably have a couple of minutes or so cool down on switching, just to prevent people from truly having the best of all worlds.
Martial Arts
1.Bokator
Your punches are replaced by high damage knee and elbow strikes, hitting slower than normal punches, along with your power attacks moving you forwards in the direction you hit, while making you attack faster. Wearing knee and elbow based armor would improve the damage of your strikes.
2.Kickboxing
A common martial art mostly found in gyms, replacing your power attacks with kicks that do higher damage than punches and knock enemies back to a degree.
3.Karate
A common martial art found in gyms and dojos, replacing your punches with faster straight punches, along with strong kicks mixed in on the second attack out of 3. (punch,kick,punch,punch,kick,punch…) Your power attack is completley replaced with a block that uses stamina when held, and when you are hit by a melee attack while using your power attack, you counter with a very powerful blow.
4.Capoeira
A rare martial art found in dojos, making every other punch a strong kick (starting after first one), your power attack would be a even stronger kick that you charge up for around a second, but can move at full speed while charging it, but are locked to a small radius.
5.Krav Maga
Your punches knock back enemies further, and your power attack has a brief 2 second long charge up time, in which you may sprint at full speed, and when landed on an enemy ragdolls both of you, but the opponent is ragdolled for slightly longer, letting you get one or two hits off, but not enough time to pull out a weapon and start attacking.
6.Muay Thai
Your punches have hard hitting elbows every other swing, and your power attack is replaced with a brutal kick that is unleashed instantly, and has the ability to ragdoll weak turned and smaller animals.
7.Ninjitsu
Your punches are far more silent, allowing you to quitley dispose of turned without alerting their friends. Your power attack is a quick stride in the direction you are looking, in order to dodge, and has a half second cool down, along with not costing that much stamina.
8.Combatives
General military combatives found in military areas, making your punches harder hitting, and increasing damage when wearing military armor.
9.Silat
Your punches are replaced with open handed strikes, dealing less damage, but stunning turned and small animals for a very short time. Your power attack disarms your opponent but heavily reduces your stamina, so if you miss it, you are screwed.
Weapon Arts
1.Niten-Ichi Ryu
Improves damage dealt with katanas and other similar blades, with your power attack being a swift strike that deals massive damage while completley draining your stamina.
2.Fencing
Improves damage dealt with fencing swords and sabres while also increasing bleeding dealt by them, with your power attack launching you forwards in the direction you are facing, dealing large amounts of damage if you hit something.
3.Eskrima
Improves damage dealt with batons, sticks clubs and other similar weapons. Your power attack reduces your stamina but increases the speed you attack at greatly for a few seconds.
4.HEMA
Improves damage and attack speed of medieval weapons such as broadswords, your power attack being a brutal overhead slice that deals massive amounts of damage, but is easily evaded.
5.Naginata
Improves damage with spears, your power attack making your attacks ignore armor for a few seconds, making it ideal against powerful turned.
Meta
This doesn’t create much of an early game meta, as at the point where you have the ability to gain the martial arts, you have likely already gotten slightly situated. Instead this opens up far more variation in slightly late game dispatching of turned, and would also add some spice to the game, along with the possibility to make a melee centric build along side a skill tree. It would also make most playthroughs more interesting, as you can specialize in one form of melee, whether it be a martial art or a technique, and would also just make the game more fun, because who doesnt want to kick weak turned in the face sometimes. This would work best in conjuction with a well made and large skill tree along with a durability system that would make melee weapons borderline unusable after too much wear and tear, causing an incentive to use martial arts as a back up weapon. Some of the martial arts (krav maga in particular) also open up less lethal ways of taking people down, which could also reduce KOS, and lead to more “fun” interactions.
There are tons of martial arts IRL, but I didnt want to add too many as to prevent it from being samey, while also not wanting attacks to be keybinded in weird ways, instead making kicks and other moves a more visual thing instead of “hold down lmb while rubbing your tummy and pressing the j key in order to do a flying scissor kick”. I feel like this is an okay balance between both worlds. One problem I have with my own suggestion is that if kicking isn’t bound to a seperate key, it would be RNG if it was a percent based system, and boring if it was purely cosmetic, so I think having a pattern would balance it, along with allowing players who know the patterns know when to be aggressive or defensive.
I probably would have added gun stances, but I dont really know much about those and also I’m not sure how you would do more than 3 or so of them without making it super samey.
Let me know what you fellas think
