thoughts on combat improvements

[japsinkie]

I really like the combat in this game. People say it's a streamer game as an insult but it isn't easy to make a combat system that people regularly want to watch someone else play. The brutality of the fighting is really unlike any other medieval combat game, including Exanima. The gore, AI, and physics all have obviously had a lot of love put into them.

Anyway, if a dev is reading this, you guys are doing a great job. There is a lot more that can be done to flesh out the combat and make it retain players for longer, though.

The largest problem with the combat right now is the inability to reliably block and parry attacks. This makes combat essentially just a game of positioning and swinging, and paying attention to the enemy's upcoming swing direction rarely pays off. As a result, the Wii-Sports-Resort combat strategy of swinging your weapon around in a little circle is unreasonably effective. Somehow stiffening the character's hold on a weapon when it's clashing with the enemy's weapon would help this a little, though being able to reliably position your shield or handle in the way of a swing is what's really needed. Perhaps the character controller could include a system that draws the hand near to where a swing will happen when it is being held up in that swing's general path.

Related to this is the lack of accurate overhead swings. When you swing down, the weapon's path can vary by feet to the left or right even when starting the swing from a standstill. Making your sword follow an arc drawn by the in-game cursor would make overhead swings feasable. This could be done by drawing a plane following the direction of the cursor projected out from the camera, and including a force that pushes the hands towards that plane if they are off-axis. This could also increase the accuracy of other slashes. As it is right now, even finishing off a downed enemy by smacking them in the head takes a few tries.

Stabs/thrusts also have a similar problem of not being able to aim them, and they are much slower than swings when it feels like the opposite should be the case. Spears are OP as it is, but being able to parry them might change that. Changing the thrust key to something like spacebar or another single key press would make stabbing feel much better.

Also, the enemy spawning could be improved by adding a sound cue in their direction, like the enemy shouting as they spawn in. Too often I'm assaulted from behind by an enemy who almost silently walks up to me as I'm fumbling with a box. You could also prevent enemies spawning behind you by taking a running average of the player's facing direction when deciding where to spawn them, as I occasionally glance to the left or right when looking for candles and cause an enemy to spawn in that direction instead of where I'm headed.

I'm really looking forward to where this project goes!

p.s. please don't nerf the scythe, it's hilarious