Swing Height Randomization

[Iscandar]

Scenario 1: My footwork is excellent. My timing is right. My direction is correct. My attack is accelerated and will hit first.

All the pieces are in place, but gasp, no! I've completely overshot the swing clear past his head! Wham, gush, now I'm dead. How could you have missed someone so tall?

Scenario 2: Alright, the shield lady is stepping forward to attack. I can strike her right arm, head, or foot. Alright, here it goes! *dink*

Gosh darnit, of all the places to swing you went right for her shield? Come on!

Scenario 3: I can hit under his defenses if I do a crouch swing. Here's the opening, swing - wait, what are you doing? Why are you dragging your sword behind your back you moron?! Attack the person in front of you, not the floor!

From what I've read, there have been discussions about this before and all have ended the same. I haven't been able to find the particular threads where these discussions have been made except a few from Pilluminati, so I'm assuming most were on the Insider forum. Because of that I'm not aware of all the reasons given for and against, so I may be unknowingly repeating old spiels or creating original ideas.

What I'd like to see is a synthesis between the current system and a new one. In the current system, swing starting height and ending high is large randomized. Some attacks start high and hit low, start low and hit high, start high and hit high, etc etc. This causes problems for people who, in order to land a hit without getting hit themselves, need to swing from a certain height to another height. However, the integration of a system where exact starting and ending heights could be easily chosen, regardless of movement input, would take out too much of the skill involved and make the game far too easy since there are no drawbacks. Also, it would require a rather complicated control scheme and feel rather clunky.

Current system: ​

Good:

• Allows one to focus on the enemy
• Balance is easy to control and doesn't need much focus
• Variability compensates for height differences in characters
• Effective against most enemies
• Inputs are simple and easy to perform / no unnecessary or excessive buttons

Bad:

• Difficult to get correct swing height against shield users when they open their defenses
• Easy to get weapon snagged or caught and hard to extricate even with movement, esp. on enemies, the floor, and map objects
• Lack of control leads to frustrating "it wasn't my fault" deaths from painfully missing

I actually like the current swing height randomization for general use, which is about 70% of the time. It lets me focus on movement without worrying about additional input. However, it's only barely serviceable when you need to do something specific, which is about 30% of the time. What this tells me is that attacking needs a tool for those specific occasions which will allow for semi-accurate aiming, while having simple controls and reasonable drawbacks so it's not an outright replacement for normal attacks.

My solution:​

While combat is toggled, the shift key can be held down to "unlock" upper body balance, in a sense. What I mean by this is that while shift is held, the upper body twists and turns depending on the movement of the character, in reasonable and not in drunk looking ways of course. Unlocking the torso in this way will allow attacks to be directly aimed, but require firm commitment in movement. Unlocking the torso will increase momentum, but in doing so make it easier to be thrown off balance and knocked over, and even easier to knock oneself over if extreme movements are performed without first regaining balance and footing.

Movement reference​

W =Upper body shifts downwards -> swings aimed at feet, horizontal slash
S = Upper body shifts upwards -> swings aimed at head, horizontal slash
D = Upper body shifts right -> swings aimed at middle, horizontal slash
A = Upper body shifts left -> swings aimed at middle, horizontal slash
W + D = Upper body shifts down and to the right -> swings aimed at feet, diagonal slash
A + W = Upper body shifts down and to the left -> swings aimed at feet, diagonal slash
S + A = Upper body shifts back and to the left -> swings aimed at head, diagonal slash
S + D = Upper body shifts back and to the right -> swings aimed at head, diagonal slash

Good:

• Additional level of control added for swing height, making combat more intentional
• A finger is always resting on the shift key with WASD controls, making it easy to hold and let go of while keeping movement controllable and still comfortable on the hand
• Unlocked attacks require a lot more commitment and regard for the character's overall balance. Easier to be knocked over by enemies and uncoordinated, extreme movements are very easy to knock oneself over with. These are one-time movements that cannot be done in rapid succession or started from unbalanced positions.
• Requires skill to perform successfully and safely.
• Non-invasive. One can play precisely as they have been without using this feature and still be perfectly effective.

Bad:

• Level of control largely determined by the natural balance of a character, ie weight, height, muscle mass, etc. Would require player to adjust movement and timings largely based on physique (could be good or bad)
• Sounds reasonable in words, but might be difficult to implement
• AI would need to be adjusted so enemies can perform these actions themselves and for procedural blocking to properly defend against them