I was really surprised to see my post from two years ago that I had completely forgotten about pinned on the new Suggestions Trello post (card? board? I have no idea what it’s called). Reading it again though, I think I’d like to make a new post going over the things in the previous one, and how I feel about them now.
First of all, I don’t think lock-on is really that important when combined with collision based damage. Not locking on gives the player more freedom of movement and less tunnel vision while also giving the ability to attack just fine as long as you’re allowed to adjust your swings using mouse movement, something similar to Mount&Blade, Chivalry or Mordhau (though doing billion degree spins to guarantee hits shouldn’t be possible, either reduce the sensitivity while a strike is going on the further you go from the original point, so it becomes impossible to stray too far, or apply damage reduction based on how far from the original attack point the swing has gone. I don’t know if I’m explaining this well, hope it’s intelligible)
What I do still think is important is directional attacks. It really adds a lot of depth to the combat while not being too hard to understand. I don’t know what the right amount of directions for this would be, I’ve seen games pull off 3 (For Honor), 4 (Mount&Blade), 5 (Kingdom Come: Deliverance), and 8 (Mordhau), and in my opinion all of them have really good combat systems that are fun to play. I’d personally prefer 4, it’s a simple number, easy to get used to, no issues with what direction is considered where. It could be controlled by either mouse movements or character movement, maybe allow for a game option so players can choose between the two.
Nelson said blocking might be an issue because latency affects melee combat a whole lot. I think this can be remedied by just not including a perfectly timed block mechanic. Instead, you can block anytime, something similar to Mount&Blade. I don’t even know how a perfect time system would work anyway when players can decide when they want their attack to hit. Mordhau has this but it feels sort of clunky (but uh… I really suck at that game so maybe it’s just me).
Damage types are already confirmed, and it’s a really basic concept so I’ll make this short:
Blunt weapons do better against people with heavier armor (so against metal plates on vests and against helmets), but do less damage in general.
Sharp weapons do better against people with less armor and inflict bleeding but are really bad at penetrating armor (Would be good for zombies)
Piercing weapons are a sort of happy in-between.
It’s not an entirely realistic system, but I think it’d work well.
Dodging is completely unnecessary imo and would actually only detract from the combat. I’d rather have players be able to dodge using slight movements that require some semblance of skill than just press a button and avoid an attack.
TL;DR: I like Mount&Blade, please put it in the game, Nelson.