Constraining the cursor in Combat Mode

[Satorii]

One of the problems I've encountered learning combat was keeping my cursor within a reasonable distance from my character. One of the implications of this is that the farther the cursor is from my character, the slower my horizontal swings and blocking movement will be. Paying attention to footwork, the opponent's movements and initiating my swings during the course of a duel, over time, caused my cursor drift farther and farther away from my character.

I propose constraining the cursor in an area within a certain radius of the player. As there will be no need to click anywhere other than a certain distance from the character (walking, moving objects) during combat, adding this constraint will prevent the cursor from being "lost" for beginning players and allow them to concentrate on their movement, blocking, and attacks. This will also decrease the chances of one swinging too slowly just because the cursor was too far from their character.

Of course, finding this optimal radius will be difficult, as playing styles vary, so a constraint scaling option may be helpful.

 

[burgzaza]

Interesting. I still have a bit of trouble with that. Maybe make the cursor slower could help too ?
I'll try decread my mouse speed to test that.

 

[Satorii]

Another thing about this too is that while strafing/circling an opponent, the cursor itself becomes the center of the rotation of your character (if you're constantly facing the opponent, that is). And because the left>right and right>left motion you need to attack is dependent on which direction your character is facing, you have to constantly pay attention to the slight changes to the relative right and left of your character.

Doing this, I gather, would become easier with practice, but applying a constraint will make this system easier to learn and hopefully, more intuitive.

 

[ZaratanCho]

As far as the cursor constraint, i think it can cause problems. Sometimes i can go all over the screen to do attacks, some weapons also require more wild movement to do well with. Initial thoughts, i don't like it, but that just me. Don't like constraints. I have not once lost my cursor actually. If BM think it can work and help it can be an option i suppose. ;d

Interesting idea about the A-D movement, i'm biased though since im mostly used to how it is now.

 

[Downstairs Eddie]

The only downside I can see is that you wouldn't be able to run away from a fight very easily. Usually to run away I would hold RMB and move the cursor a long way out to start running. If the cursor was constrained you'd have to run with Shift I guess.

I remember when I first started playing I'd often start accidentally running in combat because I moved the cursor too far out when fighting. That's not an issue now though, so it might be case of getting used to keeping the cursor on your opponent.

 

[ZaratanCho]

Def wont be able to do that with constraint, going all the way to the edge of the screen at some parts.

 

[Satorii]

Yeah, whenever I was able to do really wild swings like that, my cursor went back and forth to the edges; it felt awesome. I would argue that you can do swings like those in the vid above with a constraint-- the core of the idea is just that it allows the player to keep better track of their cursor, which can be lost if they're keeping an eye on the enemy and it goes offscreen for a second. While it would visually confine the location of the cursor in a specific area, it would not confine the speed of movement or the telegraphed course of your mouse. In other words, you can swing as wild as you want like the video above and the your character would react as such, but the cursor would stay within your specified radius.



The closer the cursor is to the character, the faster their swing will be. This is because it would take longer for the cursor to traverse the larger area it is given than it would in a smaller area like the smaller circle above. For example, while constrained to the smaller circle, I swing hard to the left of the character above-- I would be able to recover more quickly from that swing because all I need to do is move the cursor away from the constraint's edge.