Hand-to-hand Combat Testing/Updates

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:20 pm

Recently I've been working on making Hand-to-hand combat a bit more on par with weapons. As such, I've released a skeletal system for such which is live in game right now for testing.

JAB -
- This is a weak attack, but has a higher chance for you to gain position on a foe.

PUNCH -
- A moderate attack, increases in damage with better position, and has a low chance to increase position.

KICK -
- A higher damage attack, increases in damage with better position. 0 chance to better position.

Currently there are three levels of position:

- Slight
- Moderate
- Excellent

The better the position, the more effective your hand-to-hand combat attacks will be.

This will be added to and adjusted extensively as testing goes on.

Elizamor · Post by **Elizamor** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 8:52 pm

Wouldn't you already be able to punch if you don't have a weapon?

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:11 pm

Yup, this is an update to that.

Lae · Post by **Lae** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:12 pm

Like the concept once I got used to it. I seem to be doing slightly less damage with punches which really doesn't bother me all that much because kick more than makes up for it, especially when your object is knocked over after being kicked. I'll keep playing with it but I'm not good at finding bugs and stuff, better at playing with the new toys and such. :>

So far I'm a fan, thanks!

ETA : I'm going to go try it out on what I've been practicing brawling with to make sure that it's not just that stupid dummy. The lower damage might just be because I haven't been sparring with the warrior lately.

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:18 pm

Yeah, the warrior does have plate armor which makes a huge difference.

Try testing it a bit with other critters, I think you will see a BIG difference, especially if you get punches or kicks in with moderate and excellent position.

Lae · Post by **Lae** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:23 pm

Another question, this might be a stupid one but I'm gonna go ahead anyway.. >.>

With this update will the kidneyshot and other dirty tricks with the thieves be updated so that they work more like jab? Like gaining advantage when using them? I see a lot of the dirty tricks as a sort of dirty brawling so I think that this system would make a heck of a lot of sense with their abilities.

Lae · Post by **Lae** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:30 pm

So the only thing so far that bothers me is ...when I do moderate damage to a mercenary when I kick him and knock him over, he'll stay down for like, five seconds - at least...

When I kicked the crap out of this guy, he was on his feet in like three seconds..

If you do more damage to the leg to knock them over, I think it would make sense that it would take them a few more seconds to get up.

You have excellent position on a scarred mercenary!
You kick at a scarred mercenary! (M: 595 vs D:142 B:166 P:357)
73 crush damage - to the right foot, barely deflected by a pair of leather boots.
A scarred mercenary falls to the ground!
(energy -3)
Roundtime: 5 seconds.

punch
Wait 2 seconds.

Queuing following command: punch
(You may clear your command queue at any time)

EWEng>
A scarred mercenary stands up.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:34 pm

I can see footstomp doing it. I don't know if a kidney shot would any more than a normal punch though.

I hope I'm interpreting gaining position correctly...

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:40 pm

In light of the new exciting changes to brawling, I've taken the liberty of coming up with a few things based around the fundamental verbs Jab, Punch, Kick, and (eventually) Grapple (if it ends up implemented).
In addition to standing alone as executable attacks, I envision these as being linkable using the Battle verb so that each attack doesn't have to be executed individually... but can be chained into combinations with different focus (and effectiveness) depending on your STYLE.

The basic styles (to be named). I'll go into more detail on what I suggest for each later but just as an overview:
Hard style - Heavy on jabs, punches, and kicks. Little grappling. Potential to do the most damage, but position is not gained as quickly compared to a soft style. Focuses on overwhelming the opponent.

Soft Style - Again, focuses on jabs, punches, and kicks. Focuses on gaining position, and executing attacks when the time is right. Somewhat more defensive than a hard style.

Grappling - Focuses on grappling consisting of throws, grabs, locks, take downs, and other submissions. Attempts to subdue an attacker and prevent them from moving, but sacrifices defense.

Defensive Style - Using the opponent's energy against them. Focuses on grappling (Throws in particular). Least damage potential but very defensive, and a moderate to high chance of gaining position. Does not execute punches or kicks.

And then of course a command to clear styles for normal balanced brawling. For now, "Balanced style."
There are a few special styles that I will suggest in the future (possibly as guild specific abilities), once the system becomes more concrete, but for now I'll stick to these four/five.

So the verb usage would be STYLE HARD, STYLE SOFT, STYLE GRAPPLE, STYLE DEFENSE, STYLE BALANCED or whatever the names of the styles would end up being.

The idea of the styles is that they BOTH provide you with a unique set of bonuses or penalties to either gaining position, defense, overall damage, or accuracy AND additionally provide a unique set of combinations that are based on the 4 basic verbs for use with the battle command.

I'd suggest that learning styles occur in one of two ways. Either each style automatically unlocks (or can be learned from an npc) at certain ranks of brawling (Maybe you start with the balanced style initially and have a choice of a new style for every 400-500 ranks of brawling) OR one starts with all styles of brawling available but unlocks new moves/combos as they become more skilled in brawling (i.e. new techniques in each style unlock at X ranks of brawling or can be learned from an npc depending on brawling rank) up to some ridiculous skill level (2000 maybe).

I don't know how complicated you're planning on making this, so I won't suggest style interactions in this post as it might be a bit too much (but I think it would be realistic to institute additional bonuses and penalties based on style when two people with different styles are fighting).

I have a quick question for you Landion, that I'd like to discuss with you in game before I post any specifics but I figured this would be a good start.

Lae · Post by **Lae** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 9:41 pm

Gaining position, I think, is basically maneuvering yourself to be in a better position to punch someone or kick someone. I think if you jab someone in the kidney hard enough you got a better advantage to kick them in the face or...in the style of a thief - stab them in the neck. Footstomp, imo, is more of a disabler, something to distract someone long enough to hide and ambush again. If you're jabbing them in the kidney you're trying to get in a position to either slit their throat, garrote them or hide to attack.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Fri Apr 27, 2012 10:09 pm

Possibly, but due to how close you have to be to execute a kidney shot (They're usually performed as a hook punch which requires that you move in very close), your options would be very limited (knees, additional hand strikes) unless you backed off in which case you'd lose the advantage. While I think it should cause a gain in position, I don't think it would do so more than a normal punch as it is just a normal targeted punch and in reality takes more time to execute than a rapid linear jab.

As far as footstomp, you're reducing the mobility of your opponent and therefore would be able to physically take a better position.

I think why jab is supposed to be more effective for gaining position is because it's a setup. Repeated jabs to the same place will actually divert a person's guard a bit as they anticipate the next one, leaving them open on the other side. That's my interpretation of gaining position. They can't shift their guard/positioning fast enough so if it hits, it hits full force. That's why I asked what his intentions with it are. It can be interpreted in a couple ways i..e. shifting opponent's attention, or actually gaining a physically better position by stepping/sliding. The two situations have slightly different implications. Both are "gaining position" as I interpret it. I was just curious if Landion had something specific in mind when he came up with this.

KianTheArcher · Post by **KianTheArcher** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 3:56 pm

Not to detract from the topic overall, but I'm curious, is something like this going to be added for ALL weapons?

I ask because my alt uses a rapier, and with all of the nifty brawling changes, I thought it'd be neat to be able to slash with it if I wanted to do slashing damage instead of piercing.

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:00 pm

That's a cool idea.

We're currently looking at ways to make different weapon types and combat styles more unique, so something like that is certainly a possibility.

KianTheArcher · Post by **KianTheArcher** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 4:04 pm

Sweet. I didn't know if you'd considered it or not, but I think being able to change how you use the weapon would be one of the better choices.

Even something like, taking a penalty to hit in order to slap something with the flat of your blade (or the back side of an axe) to do bludgeoning instead of chopping/slashing/piercing would be really cool.

Jhieger · Post by **Jhieger** » Thu May 10, 2012 4:37 pm

Would it be possible to have flanking increase position? It would be a great technique in groups, having one person distract the enemy while the other flanks to immediately go up to high position and deliver some powerful strikes.

Jhieger · Post by **Jhieger** » Thu May 10, 2012 4:46 pm

A couple more suggestions: A successful shove could help position, and what about adding a throw? Not a throw like the warrior one that sends them flying, but just a throw to the ground. I'm not sure how it would be different from shove, other than how it looks, but options and variety are good.

Speaking of variety for the sake of variety, how about an elbow move to mix in with jabs, and maybe a knee strike that would be weaker than kick but not lose so much position.

It seems like right now the best method is to jab up to excellent position and then just keep punching, since punching keeps your position up and I think can do more damage with three strikes than an excellent kick, which is only one strike. Kicks look flashy, but they're inefficient.

Please point out if I'm wrong, I've only been at this for two days. Just basing it on my experience.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Sun May 13, 2012 12:44 pm

A well placed aimed kick with excellent position will actually kill in one strike if the opponent is not armored. It's far more efficient than punching honestly...

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Sun May 13, 2012 1:00 pm

As far as elbows and knees:
An elbow is actually a very inefficient fighting technique as it generally requires very close range. That's not to say it's not useful and extremely damaging... it just requires very close range and extremely good timing to actually hit with. That's why you rarely see it used, for example, in MMA. It's just extremely hard to land one.

Knee strikes are far more efficient. They're kind of the choice "kick" that's easy to execute when in extremely close range. The ideal way to do it is execute a knee kick to the abdomen or after you've bent over your opponent (to the face). There are actually numerous types of knee kicks (side, front, flying, stepping). What I'm trying to say is that a knee kicks can actually do more damage than some kicks. They're also good at backing opponents up so I think they should provide some position as well.

While I'm enjoying the brawling system, there are actually some things that I don't particularly find realistic, particularly with gaining positions.

Gaining position is something that occurs internally within a given combo. While it's possible to "gain position" psychologically with jabs and punchs (and kicks as well), any advantage in actually physical position in real life is caused by A) your footwork and B)your combination and how the opponent reacts. Most opponents who have any idea what they're doing will return to a normal position after any individual series of attacks have ended, thus "position" should drop after each attack.

What I would really like to see is position gained only within the combo. That is, if I "battle Jhieger" and get off two jabs and a kick, I gain position from each jab and the kick does damage equivalent to gaining position from each jab. The position then drops afterwards.

So if new attacks unlocked with certain ranks of brawling, new combos would open up allowing us to gain more position faster within the combo or do more damage on the last few strikes. I see this as being a lot more realistic and additionally the attacks that open could be dependent on style allowing more diversity in the types of things different brawling professions can do (i.e. Common style, monk style, dwaedyn style, shar style, and thief style). This also means that if attacks in a combo aren't executed properly (i.e. missed) then the damage will be considerably reduced.

I'll come up with more on this late (I've still been feeling lazy and haven't done the work yet). I do like what you've done with brawling so far Landion, but it's very close to another game at this point and their system doesn't entirely make sense to me either... I'd like to see it made into what it has the potential to be!

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Sun May 13, 2012 1:27 pm

So just to clarify it would look more like:

>battle orphan
Acarin jabs at an orphan (M:2100 vs. D:100)
Swift strike to the chest lands with a THUMP!
2 damage to the chest
Acarin gains position
Acarin jabs at an orphan (M:2100 vs D:100)
His fist penetrates, hitting square in the face!
10 damage to the head
Acarin gains position
Acarin kicks at an orphan (M:2100 vs. D:100)
A perfectly aimed spinning back kick hits it's mark
65 damage to the abdomen

Then the position would go back to 0...
the next attack might look like (assuming the same combo):
Acarin jabs at an orphan (M:2100 vs. D:100)
Dodged!
Acarin jabs at an orphan (M:2100 vs D:100)
Dodged
Acarin kicks at an orphan (M:2100 vs. D:100)
Axe kick slides of the arm in an ineffective display
7 damage to the left arm

No position gained.... minimal damage. The position counter resets again...

Hope that helps to clarify.

Jhieger · Post by **Jhieger** » Sun May 13, 2012 2:03 pm

My comment on efficiency was as far as a single punch attack potentially being able to do more than a kick, and it also gains position, while a kick seems to always make me lose all position and have to start over. I just keep punching, instead of kicking and hoping to do max damage and to not hit a non-vital area (like the arm) and then having to start all over gaining position again.

Anyway, I like the idea of position being reset for each attack, and position and damage depending on quick combos. It seems to make more sense to me, though I have no fighting experience whatsoever in the real world. Maybe you could even pre-set some preferred combos to execute for different situations. It's also funny to see a creature run to the next room, and when I run in, I've still got excellent position on it.

But I like how it is now as well, either is good, really, if the devs don't feel up to changing it up again already.

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Tue Jul 31, 2012 4:54 pm

An update on this.

A successful ambush now automatically counts as as if you had an automatic extra teir of position for hand-to-hand combat skills.

This applies to Jab, Punch/Claw, Kick and Grapple.

We'll see if this helps out our more stealthy brawlers a bit, I think it will.

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 2:50 pm

[quote=Landion]An update on this.

A successful ambush now automatically counts as as if you had an automatic extra teir of position for hand-to-hand combat skills.

This applies to Jab, Punch/Claw, Kick and Grapple.

We'll see if this helps out our more stealthy brawlers a bit, I think it will.[/quote]

Hasn't this been fixed for a while now?

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Wed Aug 01, 2012 3:45 pm

I made slight changes to this as of yesterday when I fixed grapple to work from hiding too. I guess that depends on what you mean by 'fixed'.

Landion · Post by **Landion** » Tue Aug 07, 2012 5:12 pm

Update! Now any hand-to-hand ability works against mounted targets instead of telling you that you cannot, however you will only hit the target's leg or foot.

Not the most effective way to kill someone, but much more logical in the overall scheme of things.