Nate Dreadshot
Wanted Pirate
The current combat system is boring and makes no sense. One of the first things I noticed when I started playing this game is that you can't play any defense in a sword fight, and that you just stab each other til one dies. Coming from the movies this is pretty sad, where they are dodging and ducking and (actual) parrying etc. So today I thought about how it could work instead. Here's what I came up with:
Let me introduce to you first the "Stamina" bar. The stamina bar would go under hp and voodoo bars, it would expend and refill much faster, and here's what it would be used for
Stam bar actions:
Dodge left double tap left (A)
Dodge right double tap right (D)
Stepback dodge double tap back (S)
Lunge double tap forward (W)
Block press Ctrl, blocks any one melee attack/piece of combo completely, canceling their animation and breaking their combo (more on significance of this reading down). Active for one second. Costs the most stamina.
Dodge actions should have the appearance of your player quickly leaning their body far to one side or back, and move their hitbox with them, it should be enough that standing right next to them you'd have to move your direction very quickly to hit them while dodging, and then they go back in place. The feet won't move, it's not a movement.
Now let me come back to that, here is the most important thing for any of this to work:
You should only be hitting someone and dealing damage if your sword is actually in contact with their body, not just once and then from afar for the rest of the combo, each swing should be this way.
This should go for dagger as well, which will make it much trickier since you'll be in much closer quarters. With these changes, stam bar actions will be much more vital. Slow affects should be added to all swords to keep players from ditching stam bar actions and just running around. Players using dagger should be immune to slow to aid them in their quickness so they can make up for their lack of range.
To decrease gun effectiveness, stam moves should move your character enough that a gun will lose target lock making it more difficult to hit your targets.
Stam bar animations should be quick and cancel immediately when your character returns back in place so that attacks can continue immediately. Speaking of which, with all these stam bar actions won't weapon combos get obliterated constantly and get super frustrating? No, because weapon combos should be changed so that wherever you stop, is where you pick up again when you continue (barring that you don't change or put weapon away). This will keep combat fluid.
Lunge is used to quickly bring your player and weapon forward in tandem with any combo (active 1 second, activates with next combo) making it easier to bring your weapon within contact of your opponent's hitbox, it could even do bonus damage.
Now, with all this the weapon skills Parry and Dodge should be removed and replaced with a new one called Agility, which increases regeneration rate or maximum amount of Stamina. So with weapons like The Ruby Curse and Beckett's Pistol you will be able to make better use of Stamina actions.
But what use is it on a pistol? Well, for each different weapon type their will be different stam actions.
Sword:
A - dodge left
D - dodge right
S - stepback dodge
W - lunge
Ctrl - block
Dagger:
A - dodge left
D - dodge right
S - increased ammo reload rate for short duration - no animation time
W - lunge
Ctrl - increased damage dealt for duration - no animation time
Pistol -
A - dodge left
D - dodge right
S - duck
W - quick load (near instant reload) - no animation time
Ctrl - quick trigger finger (instant full take aim bar) - no animation time
Voodoo Doll -
A - reduced damage taken short time - no animation time
D - increased damage dealt short time - no animation time
S - attune nearest enemy and ally
W - life transfer (lifedrain from enemy attuned to ally attuned)
Ctrl - purify (removes all status and enemy attunements on self)
Voodoo Staff -
A - movement enabled while casting for a time - no animation time
D - increased area of effect and range for a time - no animation time
S - weaken all nearby enemies for a time
W - form large protective shield that must be dealt damage (your current voodoo) by enemy before it breaks
Ctrl - high chance to deal critical damage for short time - no animation
Grenade -
A - dive left (enough to be out of range of grenade thrown where you were standing)
D - dive right
S - lucky find (find an extra 0-1 grenade ammo in your pouch)
W - close call (take no self damage for short time) - no animation time
Ctrl - barrage (lobs 3 explosive grenades. animation like siege throw but 3 grenades not one big one)
Now, some of these got a little more complicated as I went on, but they're just ideas, they could be more basic like that of sword's. I just was trying to give the weapons in need of more help some help. The costs of stamina for each of these could keep overly strong ones from being used a lot. But the main one here is sword, and those would all be relatively cheap in stamina to make for constant juking and lunging and blocking and making combat more fun and in depth. This would make looting more of a skill based challenge, especially if you could make enemy AI learn the sword combat system, or even just bosses.
Let me introduce to you first the "Stamina" bar. The stamina bar would go under hp and voodoo bars, it would expend and refill much faster, and here's what it would be used for
Stam bar actions:
Dodge left double tap left (A)
Dodge right double tap right (D)
Stepback dodge double tap back (S)
Lunge double tap forward (W)
Block press Ctrl, blocks any one melee attack/piece of combo completely, canceling their animation and breaking their combo (more on significance of this reading down). Active for one second. Costs the most stamina.
Dodge actions should have the appearance of your player quickly leaning their body far to one side or back, and move their hitbox with them, it should be enough that standing right next to them you'd have to move your direction very quickly to hit them while dodging, and then they go back in place. The feet won't move, it's not a movement.
Now let me come back to that, here is the most important thing for any of this to work:
You should only be hitting someone and dealing damage if your sword is actually in contact with their body, not just once and then from afar for the rest of the combo, each swing should be this way.
This should go for dagger as well, which will make it much trickier since you'll be in much closer quarters. With these changes, stam bar actions will be much more vital. Slow affects should be added to all swords to keep players from ditching stam bar actions and just running around. Players using dagger should be immune to slow to aid them in their quickness so they can make up for their lack of range.
To decrease gun effectiveness, stam moves should move your character enough that a gun will lose target lock making it more difficult to hit your targets.
Stam bar animations should be quick and cancel immediately when your character returns back in place so that attacks can continue immediately. Speaking of which, with all these stam bar actions won't weapon combos get obliterated constantly and get super frustrating? No, because weapon combos should be changed so that wherever you stop, is where you pick up again when you continue (barring that you don't change or put weapon away). This will keep combat fluid.
Lunge is used to quickly bring your player and weapon forward in tandem with any combo (active 1 second, activates with next combo) making it easier to bring your weapon within contact of your opponent's hitbox, it could even do bonus damage.
Now, with all this the weapon skills Parry and Dodge should be removed and replaced with a new one called Agility, which increases regeneration rate or maximum amount of Stamina. So with weapons like The Ruby Curse and Beckett's Pistol you will be able to make better use of Stamina actions.
But what use is it on a pistol? Well, for each different weapon type their will be different stam actions.
Sword:
A - dodge left
D - dodge right
S - stepback dodge
W - lunge
Ctrl - block
Dagger:
A - dodge left
D - dodge right
S - increased ammo reload rate for short duration - no animation time
W - lunge
Ctrl - increased damage dealt for duration - no animation time
Pistol -
A - dodge left
D - dodge right
S - duck
W - quick load (near instant reload) - no animation time
Ctrl - quick trigger finger (instant full take aim bar) - no animation time
Voodoo Doll -
A - reduced damage taken short time - no animation time
D - increased damage dealt short time - no animation time
S - attune nearest enemy and ally
W - life transfer (lifedrain from enemy attuned to ally attuned)
Ctrl - purify (removes all status and enemy attunements on self)
Voodoo Staff -
A - movement enabled while casting for a time - no animation time
D - increased area of effect and range for a time - no animation time
S - weaken all nearby enemies for a time
W - form large protective shield that must be dealt damage (your current voodoo) by enemy before it breaks
Ctrl - high chance to deal critical damage for short time - no animation
Grenade -
A - dive left (enough to be out of range of grenade thrown where you were standing)
D - dive right
S - lucky find (find an extra 0-1 grenade ammo in your pouch)
W - close call (take no self damage for short time) - no animation time
Ctrl - barrage (lobs 3 explosive grenades. animation like siege throw but 3 grenades not one big one)
Now, some of these got a little more complicated as I went on, but they're just ideas, they could be more basic like that of sword's. I just was trying to give the weapons in need of more help some help. The costs of stamina for each of these could keep overly strong ones from being used a lot. But the main one here is sword, and those would all be relatively cheap in stamina to make for constant juking and lunging and blocking and making combat more fun and in depth. This would make looting more of a skill based challenge, especially if you could make enemy AI learn the sword combat system, or even just bosses.
Not really a fan of that saying, how are you ever supposed to improve anything with that mindset?