- See also General Combat Quotes
- See also Formation Combat Quotes
- See also Siege Combat Quotes
Developer Quotes[]
Thanks to the almighty BCC god Thor (no really thats his name) we even have some "impact prediction" stuff in place so that the shield blocks and impacts are looking excellent.
Forums, 21st December 2005 (Athelan)
We'll have several defensive options for the people to think the best defense is, uh, defense. We have chosen not to have equippable items that double as offensive and defensive because it is complex to balance and requires an extra layer of special rules. Someone dualwielding parrying daggers shouldn't be superior to someone wielding a twohanded pollaxe and that type of thing. We prefer to keep weapons/offhand items to pure offensive/pure defensive, or possibly give them minor defensive boosts if they do any damage.
Forums, 7th October 2005, (DaveDread)
The current iteration of combat does contain damage reduction. Or midigation really. Non-linear scaling of damage depending on, uh, attackrating (from character skill, stats, buffs, weapon and a whole lot of other stuff) and defenserating (calculated from even more stuffs). So now you'll do different damage depending on your opponents armor. Heavy armor = less damage taken.
"Evades" now work as a separate layer, the intention is to be hit less often but harder, if you go for the dodgy style. We have lots of other goodiegoodies in this combat iteration, but those are the ones I can tell you about for now. It will continue to be refined and tweaked for a long long time.
Forums, 6th October 2005, (DaveDread)
Armor makes you easier to hit, and harder to damage, I've always LOATHED the idea that it's somehow harder to hit a guy in full-plate than a guy in a cotton shirt, who can get the *** out of the way. I realize that you guys have a dodge system, and heavier armors will cost dodge. . .but how do you justify the armor making you harder to hit? Glancing blows?
Yeah, we see them as glancing blows and display appropriate animations, particle effects and sound for it. With the fast pace of combat tho, as a player you won't really feel a difference. It'll look prettier for you and be easier to balance for us. Damage reduction is somewhat problematic, since most MMO's end up with increasing numbers on equipment (since new weapons and armors are constantly patched in and they should be better then what's already in-game). Take AO as an example, a lot of the original weapons were good for a long time, then damage reduction numbers reached a threshold and suddenly certain weapons with a high minimum damage became superior to anything else, thus rendering most original weapons useless. Keeping a strict control of damage reduction and keeping it's effect low is the way we plan to go.
Forums, 4th October 2005, (DaveDread)
As I understand, it takes player skill to hit in the first place, having a second chance to miss doesn't sound fair, or cool at all.
It's all handled in one calculation, it wont be layered so the player rolls a hit and then the armor rolls a miss, that would suck hehe. Generally, the hit ratio will be high. More fun that way.
Forums, 4th October 2005, (DaveDread)
but now that i know that a weapon adds stats, can it also reduce stats? does that huge warhammer/sword/axe you are swinging make you less agile because of its size and weight? more open to a counter attack if you miss?
We can do it, but currently we are choosing not to. Mostly because the combat system itself handles this well enough by itself. IE a slow, heavy weapon acts and feels different then a quick, light one.
Forums, 3rd October 2005, (DaveDread)
The basic idea is that the defensive "sweet spot" is connected to the players character build, and that it is more of a "sweet zone" then a spot. As a high level rogue you'd likely move to lighter and lighter armor to get more benefit from your higher agility. Or, you could choose to wear heavier armor (not plate or anything really heavy, that'll be unavailable for a rogue), eat the dodge penalty and adopt your playstyle to the benefits from the armors innate defences.
Forums, 3rd October 2005, (DaveDread)
Yep, armors are tied in with a dodge system. A heavy armor lowers your dodge ability, but the heavier armor has better innate defences. If you are clumsy, strap on the heaviest thing you can... if you're agile, you would probably benefit from having a lighter armor, even tho you could wear something heavier. There are several other layers of comlpexity involved in this, and I won't give details on those. Yes, our system is resembling the D&D system in many aspects, but our system is of course better. More complex anyways.
Forums, 3rd October 2005, (DaveDread)
Athelan is currently designing some pretty seriously cool defensive combat stuffs, so yeppers, we'll have defensive abilities. In what exact form or shape isn't defined yet tho.
Another reason I personally am reluctant to have a twitchbased defensive system is that it moves us away from the RPG system a bit much. It really shouldn't be the player that parries, it should be the character that the player is playing. If we have a reactionbased defensive system, the defensivly strong character has no advantage over the defensivly weak character if they are played by players with similar skill. Unless we put a restriction on how much skill the player can use, and that would be, uh, bad.
Forums, 13th August 2005, (DaveDread)
Well, in a 1 vs 1 situation, we can certainly design a system that has reactive, or twitch, blocking. We can probably design it so it scales upward in numbers to a certain extent so it could work in a MMO situation.
But this is Age of Conan. You likely wont have time to see if your opponent is going to make a high or low attack. The screen should be full of flaming arrows and impacting catapult stones, the dust cloud of the cavalry charge mixing with the early morning mist, making the blood of your opponent almost hover in the air... And it's not like you'll be fighting a single baddie very often, so which of the seven howling picts charging at you do you want to block?
Anyways, the best defence is offense. At least in my humble opinion.
Forums, 13th August 2005, (DaveDread)