melee improvements

[broadsword]

Hey guys, I was wondering what ways it would be possible to tweak the melee combat in this game. Here are some thoughts that I have.

In striking combat, there are three main components: timing, distance, and geometry. The timing and distance is already present to a certain degree, though it could certainly be improved on. However, there is virtually no representation of skill in using geometry. If we could allow the player to choose between a thrust and cut attack, that could add a new component of geometry. Also, this could make sword selection more of a personal choice (rather than just trying to get the "ultimate" sword). Rapier style weapons would be excellent at thrusting while sabre style weapons (sabre, cutlass, yatagan, falchion, etc) would be excellent at cutting. Also, the broadsword style weapons (highlander for example) would be pretty balanced having decent cutting and thrusting.

One option in terms of adding depth to weapon selection that might be doable is this: giving rapier style weapons an excellent piercing stat but significantly lower damage. Giving "sabre" style weapons higher damage but significantly lower piercing. Again, broadswords could be fairly well balanced. I could definitely do this myself over time. (I might have some time during spring break, but right now, I'm pretty booked with school)

Then the problem would be representing this difference in actual gameplay. There is currently a [somewhat clunky] sidestep in the game. Could that be used to avoid stabs but not cuts? I guess we will need to experiment with hit detection. Also, with my suggestion for stat changes, a player with a cutting sword would need a way to try to get around a blocking defense. There is the possibility of feinting (by block-canceling an attack) and then only allowing someone to block for brief periods of time (and then a very short cool-down period before another block way be made), but then we would also want to avoid a cookie-cutter/sure-fire way to win. Also, would it be possible for a "parry" in which if the block was timed almost perfectly (right click at the instant the attack is hitting you), it would give the attacker a cool-down period during which the defender could take the initiative? Perhaps this would depend on the damage rating of the weapon so that higher damage would have less cooldown. This way an attack from a thrusting weapon would be ideally parried while a cutting weapon would be ideal blocked or avoided.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

:gday


I have no idea if it is possible to tweak the swordplay in this game. A coder would know. :mm

About the actual sword fighting, I don't think there is a "best" sword. There are a lot of swords in the game with a lot of different personalities that make which one to choose a situational decision. :ixi

Early on when two strikes will kill you I lust after the Walloon sword and its good defensive capabilities. Later on a more balanced sword like the Portagee sword is preferred. Only late in the game when one is invincible is something like the Moorish sabre preferable. Generally speaking the dueling swords are better at penetration at the cost of less damage done, while the heavy swords do more damage but are poor at defense. This is already modeled in game. Compare the Bosun's Choice to the Solingen Rapier. There are some odd swords out there though like the Flamigera.

 

[broadsword]

Yeah, it is already in the game to a certain extent, but it's still different than what I'm suggesting. I want to change the way that a sword is used, not just which one you choose based on your melee skill. Also, the defensive stat for a sword would be different if I did it. It would have more to do with the hilt of the weapon and to some extent the weight (though a "heavier" swords could actually apply more forceful parries/blocks, with "heavier" being a relative term; no real swords used in combat were very heavy at all).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Collision detection for sidestep has been tried, but we never managed it properly.

There is some code by a virtual sailor that we might be able to use to get only the appropriate fighting animations to show for certain weapons.
This'd need some work though.

I don't think we can make different attack buttons work, though there might be a way around it somehow.
Won't be easy though, so we can't make it a priority job either...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I was thinking about starting a thread about swords, so want to hear more opinions here.

Broadsword, what changes would you make to the current swords?

I only own 2 swords, a Cutlass and a Small Sword rapier. Speed kills and the Small Sword wins unless the Cutlass can get in close and use its power. The heavy, badly balanced Cutlass is too slow. I would give low stats for damage and high offense and defense mark to the rapiers, and high damage and low offense and defense to the heavy swords. :ixi

I like this site. http://www.by-the-sword.com/

 

[broadsword]

Well, that is generally true. A small-sword was primarily for dueling while a cutlass was more for a chaotic melee. Whereas you must precisely thrust into vital points with the small sword and then recover the blade from the target, with a cutlass, you can just hack left and right dealing incapacitating blows more rapidly and easily. But that doesn't mean that a cutlass couldn't be used effectively in a duel.

Even in modern epee fencing you have the battle of "finesse vs power" in the form of which grip to use. The french grip is a more finesse grip giving you more feel and precision. The pistol grip gives you more strength. In modern fencing, when using a french grip, you are almost always forced to disengage from blade contact because the pistol grip will always overpower the french grip and gain a dominant position from which to thrust. But that's just modern fencing which is not a very good representation of the kind of combat the game deals with.

One of the German martial arts treatises from the 14th century talks about the art being this: when the opponent is strong, you go weak; when the opponent is weak, you go strong. That is what happens in modern fencing with french grip versus pistol grip. The pistol grip is already stronger, so the person using a french grip needs to go weak (disengage) and thrust into the nearest opening. There are some cases where the french grip user may go strong (usually during/after a disengage) and perform a counter and thrust.

So in real combat, in the extreme case of a small-sword versus cutlass, the person with the small-sword would pretty much be forced to always go weak and look for opportunities to thrust into openings. The person with the cutlass would seek a strong bind against the small sword from which he/she could fairly easily force an opening which to attack.

My point? As long as we are talking about properly crafted weapons, you can't authoritatively say which is better: thrusting sword vs cutting sword. It's primarily a matter of the swordsman and how effectively he uses his style of sword. Also consider that the cutlass is not the only cutting style sword in the game. And there are also cut-and-thrust swords like the highlander.


As far as the changes I would make? I'm not exactly sure until I take a look at the appropriate file. I don't think that I would give the thrusting swords good defense in order the encourage the player to use distance/timing more than "binding" (i.e. blocking related mechanics which is where a heavier stronger sword should prevail). But I will need to look more closely at the current stats and then do some experimentation and testing. One thing that I definitely want to consider is the following:
Balance or rename weak swords: I hate how some of my favorite looking/styled swords are pathetic compared to more expensive weapons. For example, I rarely use the Schiavona because there are other swords that are simply better. I was thinking of renaming a lot of the more "useless" swords "cheap rapier" for example and then actually have a "good" version that is more or less balanced with the rest of the swords in the game so that there would still be the element of starting off cheap and working your way up to better weapons. Basically, I want many of the swords to be balanced with each other. I want my choice of sword to be less influenced by price and overall "awesomeness" and more influenced by the particular style of the weapon.


Pieter, am I correct in assuming that you have been able to control the duration that a block may be held or something of that nature? Do you think it may be possible to detect how long the defender has been blocking when the attacker strikes his block? If so, then we could add the element of parrying (that is a perfectly timed block would add a delay to the attacker. And perhaps even holding block for too long would give delay to the defender encouraging a more dynamic defense)

Also, I wonder if if would be possible to change the sidestep so that rather than smoothly slide, what if it worked like the default dodge but to the side?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

You have not mentioned sword length. That is why the rapier wins. Look to history. When everyone wore armor the swords were heavy cutting weapons. When armor became obsolete due to first the long bow and then firearms, the swords became longer and lighter, eventually ending in the rapier. But, this game does not model that.

The cutlass is designed for close in work with its heavy hand guard designed to punch your opponent when he gets too close. That is ideal on a small crowded ship deck where there is no room for a rapier. Scream and swing! Again that is not modeled. All that can be done is to adjust the different parameters to reflect the real world performance.

 

[irR4tiOn4L]

Rapiers did not 'win'. They were never an effective military weapon, they mainly became popular as a weapon for gentleman who saw combat in rather more romantic terms than it was

Consider this:

The rapier began to develop around 1500 as the Spanish espada ropera, or "dress sword"[citation needed]. The espada ropera was a cut-and-thrust civilian weapon for self-defense and the duel, while earlier weapons were equally at home on the battlefield. Throughout the 16th century, a variety of new, single-handed civilian weapons were being developed, including the German Rappier, another cut-and-thrust weapon used for sportive fencing, as described in Joachim Meyer's Fechtbuch of 1570. 1570 is also the year in which the Italian swordmaster Signior Rocco Benetti first settled in England advocating the use of the rapier for thrusting as opposed to cutting or slashing when engaged in a duel. Nevertheless, the English word "rapier" generally refers to a primarily thrusting weapon, developed by the year 1600 as a result of the geometrical theories of such masters as Camillo Agrippa and Ridolfo Capoferro.

The rapier became extremely fashionable throughout Europe with the wealthier classes, but was not without its detractors. Some people, such as George Silver, disapproved of its technical potential and the duelling use to which it was put.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapier

These weapons were developed alongside theories of fencing that mostly held sway with the aristocratic classes, who, having studied under those theories, much like today, assumed that the rapier was an ideal weapon. Silver's views;

His major objections to the rapier itself and to its pedagogy were expressed in his 1599 work, Paradoxes of Defence. Silver saw the rapier as an incredibly dangerous weapon, which did not offer the user sufficient protection during a fight. Silver also bemoans other weapons that do not offer sufficient protection to the user (such as daggers), however the rapier bears the brunt of his attention, as it was seemingly quite common in the day.

He later (probably around 1605) wrote his Brief Instructions on my Paradoxes of Defence in which he explained some of his method for using his preferred weapons (he recommends the shorter backsword as being more versatile and offering better defence than the rapier). This however remained an unpublished manuscript until its publication in 1898 by fencing historian Captain Cyril G. R. Matthey as a training manual to aid soldiers fighting in the Boer War.

Silver recommends a highly dynamic system which he deemed suitable for duelling, street defence and the battlefield, rather than the purely duelling orientation of the rapier.

Allowing for fast reactions, and with a long reach, the rapier was well suited to civilian combat in the 16th–17th centuries. As military-style cutting and thrusting swords continued to evolve to meet needs on the battlefield, so did the rapier continue to evolve to meet the needs of civilian combat and duels, eventually becoming lighter and shorter. This is when the rapier began to give way to the small sword.

By the year 1715, the rapier had been largely replaced by the lighter small sword throughout most of Europe, although the former continued to be used, as evidenced by the treatises of Donald McBane (1728), P. J. F. Girard (1736) and Domenico Angelo (1787).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapier

Rapiers were not designed to defeat any specific sword type. They were purely civilian sidearms and more a status symbol than a weapon. The noted English master George Silver discussed the rapier in great detail. In his opinion, it was an "imperfect" weapon and inferior to any other sword.

Although I fully agree that the sabre is much better on defense than the rapier, the rapier is nevertheless far better at thrusting than any sabre. To say that a typical sabre was lighter than a typical rapier is also incorrect.

Brock H: "starting in the late 16th C. until the advent of the small sword the rapier replaced all other types of swords in countries where the rapier was used"

Not true at all. The rapier was a civilian sidearm rather than a weapon of war. European armies never adopted it and rather used cut-and-thrust swords, sabres and broadswords. The rapier was used in civilian duels because it was readily available as a part of one's outfit. Yet we shouldn't forget that duels between military personnel were mostly fought with sabers and broadswords. To keep a duel balanced however, both participants would normally wield the same kind of weapon. So as a rule of thumb, a rapier would not be used against a sabre/broadsword.

"When your life may depend upon the sword at your side, you're going to carry the one that's the most effective, not the most fashionable"

But most civilians didn't exactly wander the streets in search of a fight. Again, the rapier was primarily a part of the outfit because it was light enough to be worn comfortably. In skilled hands, it could also be used effectively in a duel, which is why fencing schools were thriving for centuries.

http://www.netsword.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000924.html

Rapiers met the needs of the 16th and 17th century's upper classes for a weapon more seemingly noble and less seemingly base than traditional military swords. It was a dueling weapon designed for situations with rules and protocols among civilians. Those who undertook combat for a living would hardly want to rely on a rapier

EDIT: Ok in all fairness the rapier can be a rather effective weapon and deceptively quick, and not necessarily inferior. But it is nonetheless not superior, and carries serious limitations for a fighting man.

Look to history. When everyone wore armor the swords were heavy cutting weapons. When armor became obsolete due to first the long bow and then firearms, the swords became longer and lighter, eventually ending in the rapier. But, this game does not model that.

Thats backwards though. Cutting swords (including the hugely exaggerated katana) are most effective against opponents without armor, and history shows that as plate armor became predominant in Europe, thin stabbing swords developed that could be used to exploit gaps in the armors. NOT the other way round. Also, most swords are a combination of both

Oh and NO, the long bow DID NOT make armor obsolete. That was the crossbow and then refined firearms. The effectiveness of the longbow against armor is hugely overstated. The oft cited Agincourt showed as much - longbowmen could not penetrate the armor of the French knights or horses effectively (unless they came VERY close) but when moved to a flanking position could hit the horses where they were unarmored. This killed many horses and their riders and, more importantly, would lead to a general rout. Those who did make it through the mud to English lines were cut down by more traditional swords or halberds/billhooks

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I WANTED to mess around with "effective blocking times", but never got round to actually getting it to work.
I reckon it should be possible, though I can't force a block to end; all I can do is to render it ineffective after a certain period of time after pressing the button.
This'd need some serious development though. I have some ideas on how to do it, but it wouldn't be easy...

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Alrighty now.

I used the two examples I am most familiar with. The rapier is all about the point. Against a short sword like a cutlass it is used against the opponents arm. There is no need to retreat as quite soon the opponent is defenseless. In a military situation where room is limited a rapiers length and lack of cutting ability is a handicap. The best method is to use both a sword and a long knife. I have the cutlass and a replica of a pirate knife, and a small sword and a poignard. Having a second blade is vital to both. The heavy cutlass is too slow and needs a defensive blocking blade. The rapier needs a blade for when the opponent gets inside its point. I do agree that the cut and thrust type is a better all around weapon. If my wife allows me to spend the money I'm going to get one.

Look at the swords used in the day. They were mostly bastard(hand and a half)or two handed swords. Big heavy things. Also war hammers were popular. While there were long thin swords, as near as I can tell most swords were short heavy things similar to the cutlass until later when the sabre became popular.

It wasn't just Agincourt. It was also Crecy and Portiers. At one battle it was estimated that up to 1/2 million arrows were shot.

But mainly, how should they be modeled in PotC? And what is your favorite in the game?

 

[irR4tiOn4L]

On the longbow, I will say only this and it is that it could not penetrate plate armor except that of the softest kind or at the shortest range. Its a very powerful and exceptional bow, but its still only a bow. The crossbow and firearm were effective against armor, the crossbow more so than early firearms, but what really made all round armored nights obsolete was the way firearms and cannon made cavalry a less effective force (And therefore dominant layer of society) and the black death and rising social mobility+standing armies. The best example of this fundamental shift are the Hussite wars, or rather utter hussite dominance through combined arms - firearm, armored wagon with canon, crossbow and flail, all behind a mobile fortification of war wagons, amply demonstrated the pending downfall of knights. Cavalry remained of course, but not with such an emphasis on armor. Im sorry for being pedantic, its just that there have been many arguments about longbows vs armor in the past and they are somewhat fundamental to how people view early armor and period battles. I think its important to point out that the longbow did not penetrate plate armor and did not render knights obsolete, but remained effective in that bows did not need to actually penetrate armor in order to be a very effective weapon in those times.


On the blades of the day - there was a very large variety as you say. The heavy swords were always somewhat effective against armor, as you say, but more effective against earlier armors like chainmail, leather and cloth (poor peasants). The stabbing anti-armor daggers and later, thinner specialized swords were originally a response to plate armor which the earlier swords now had trouble against; funny, in light of the rapier, that they then came to represent unarmored dueling. Axes remained effective as anti armor weapons. You are right to say that generally, as guns made armor less effective and thus less prevalent (covering less of the body too), swords didnt need to expect to meet armor as often and so became lighter. However, I wouldnt say a sabre was a light sword compared to many medieval weapons though, which were still very good designs. I would say the adoption of the sabre had more to do with a shift to lighter cavalry and the ease of striking with it at footsoldiers from horseback.

Favourite? A nice relatively straight and long saber

Im a bit of a sucker for the one from TES: Redguard too;

The funniest thing about this? Despite being a sabre in that image, the sword it is based on - supposedly King Charles III's sword in the mid 18th century - is a rapier! And a big 100cm one at that!

http://photos.swordsfromspain.com/martoswords/marto/catalog/photos/photosxl/385.jpg
http://www.toledosword.com/rapier_sword.html

So despite what ive said, my favourite is essentially a rapier! :ixi

Thats all off topic i guess though. For this game it would certainly be nice to get different fighting styles than just 'block' 'pierce' and 'damage' but is that feasible?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

My problem with the sabre is that the earliest one I can find was made in 1730, so the time frame is wrong. Still looking.... These are interesting tho.

http://www.by-the-sword.com/acatalog/Functional_Medieval_Falchion_SG-1451.html

http://www.by-the-sword.com/acatalog/Captain_Jack_Sword_500968c.html

It sounds like adding more to sword fighting is a major project. Since all new big projects are now on hold, it may be a while before anything is done unless someone can step in and do it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Time frame, eh? Yes, we still want to introduce the Period Weapons mod, but haven't got a coder to work on it.
Basically what I'd WANT is to limit the amount of DIFFERENT blades in each period, so there'll be only a few that are all pretty different.
Then in another time period, there'd be ANOTHER set of weapons. That'd add even more differences between the periods.
This might be "easily" done with some if-then-else statements / switches in PROGRAM\initItems.c,
but we need the code for giving weapons to characters rewritten at some point anyway because it doesn't do what we want.
And it doesn't care about the TYPE of character either. Cue soldiers with breadknifes and shovels.

 

[irR4tiOn4L]

Period weapons would be nice, but i wouldnt say there was a very large evolution in the sword over that period.

Right now there is a different issue -either you choose to turn the weaponsmod on and have something like 8 different conditions of each sword (cluttered inventory) - which, with all respect to the modder, i dont particularly care for because it produces dozens of possible blades to scroll through in your inventory, but you get nice new images for the blades and the blades have high block values and good variety, with many blades having 50-60% block. OR you switch the weaponsmod off for the simplicity of no 'good, fine, excellent, average' etc conditions, but you lose many of the sword images (pappenheimer for example), the swords dont seem to have as much variety in their stats and most have abysmal block values of 10-20%. Essentially these two modes seem to have diverged greatly.


In terms of melee improvements, this is a difficult thing to do with new animations etc. However, based upon TES: Redguard (which i think had quite fun combat) I can suggest that a very large variety of attacks is not necessary to produce fun swordfighting. What is needed is some scope for player skill and involvement, which largely comes down to timing.

A simple change that might be very easy to implement but make melee combat feel a lot more engaging might simply be changing block from a toggle to an action. What do i mean by this? In TES: Redguard you had the option of selecting an automatic block, which worked roughly like the one in POTC - you hold down a key and the character blocks automatically. OR, for added challenge (and it was much harder) you could select to have block manual - which essentially meant that instead of holding the key down, you would need to press it at just the right time as the enemy was making their attack.

This adds a huge amount of challenge - just imagine ingame - rather than sitting surrounded by 5 enemies (with different timings to their attacks) just holding block and successfully parrying all their attacks, you would need to press block each time an enemy attacked, which would parry for a fraction of a second only; the next enemy's attack would likewise need to be parried and so forth - all in all, youd need to be very skillful with your timing if surrounded, and on top of all that youd have to pick when to attack yourself.

Another relatively simple change that may add to swordfighting greatly is to vary the timing of the enemy's attacks. Right now, they operate like clockwork - there is no randomness to it, just every second or so the enemy takes a swing. A simple random function to determine when the enemy will next attack would greatly break up the monotony, and combined with manual blocking as above, would make combat a lot less predictable and a lot more stressful.

Finally, to complement these changes, the animations for attacks and blocks might be slowed down to feel more organic and less mechanical and the time between attacks might be increased to make melee slower and more methodical. Improving melee doesnt necessarily mean realism in animations and character's actions - it can be achieved through asking for more realism from the player.

 

[broadsword]

"Improving melee doesnt necessarily mean realism in animations and character's actions - it can be achieved through asking for more realism from the player. "

I think that is a very good point.

I think that adding an element of timing to the block function would make the melee combat a lot more interesting.

I would also like the stats of the swords to be altered to have a greater influence on the way that the player uses certain kinds of swords. For example, certain swords might encourage a style of play that involves more blocking while other weapons might encourage the player to use maneuvering more. During spring break, I might sit down and actually try to figure out how to accomplish this (for now I must contend with quantum mechanics )


Of course, I think a huge reason melee combat is a bit dull is the ai. It might be interesting to see if we could get the ai to use rereats and, like you mentioned, more random attacks (or even feints).

 

[irR4tiOn4L]

Im also in an exam period atm, law though. Quantum is bloody weird if you ask me, doesnt make sense and when it does, 'sense' seems weird. Very interesting topic though.

Improving melee combat will always be here when you come back. One thing to think about though is that AOP2 apparently has improved melee already - if the build mod eventually migrates to it, this wont be necessary

 

[Pieter Boelen]

My main reason for a Period Weapons mod would ALSO be to limit the number of weapons in the game at the same time.
That way, you wouldn't get TOO many weapons to scroll through even if you DO have the weaponsmod on.

And weaponsmod on/off having VERY different stats was intentional; the idea was that on/or would give different types of gameplay experience.
There must be a thread about it on the forum somewhere; check Hook's posts.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I don't think I can stop a player's block and I don't think influencing whatever the AI does would be easy either, if possible at all.
The one thing I do think should be possible -which I've wanted to do before but never got round to achieving-
is to render the player's block ineffective after, say, one second of pressing the block button.
You would then need to drop your block and block again for another effective block.
In other words: just keeping the button pressed won't do anymore.

 

[broadsword]

What about a decaying effectiveness of the block?

Do you think it might be possible to add a delay to the attacker if his strike hits a block within, say 0.2 seconds of the block being put up?

 

[irR4tiOn4L]

The one thing I do think should be possible -which I've wanted to do before but never got round to achieving-
is to render the player's block ineffective after, say, one second of pressing the block button.
You would then need to drop your block and block again for another effective block.
In other words: just keeping the button pressed won't do anymore.

This would work very well if the animation was ALSO changed so that after 1 second the sword would 'drop' again - assuming an animation actually plays when you press the block button.

But as you say its not easy, more of a pipe dream, and has dubious value when a transfer to AOP2 may be in the cards and that game already has better melee.