suggestion [Suggestion] New content: fighting revamp

[WilsonGuy_]

Hey, I came up with a couple of ideas for the new content. These ideas are based around the combat mechanic, which is not really developed and is very repetitive (much like insanity), to a degree that most of my ideas for improvements that come to my mind are based on that aspect of the game in particular.

Here are some of my ideas:

Character - wise:

- Stamina

This is something that is not yet present in-game, at all. Basically it is a meter that is measuring your energy during combat. It can decrease by: attacking, recieving damage, being hungry during the fight, and doing any of the actions explained onward. It could regenerate by resting. This is what counts as resting: waiting a few seconds before the next swing, standing in place for a few seconds (regenerates even faster), having your belly filled at a right amount, and maybe eating some kinds of meals.

- Alternate actions for characters

Do you remember The Forge? Can you remember the Blacksmith's Edge? The one weapon that allowed you to parry enemy attacks?

I think that this was a good direction. Let's take it a step further and add something to it. I think that parrying was a pretty good idea, as it actually proved to be helpful in different situations. I would like to see an ability to shield yourself with any object you're at the moment holding for a few seconds. Of course, different weapons would do that more or less efficiently, and it would be done at the object durability's expense. Parrying would absorb some (more, or less, depending on the weapon) damage and damage your weapon a bit. It would only parry the hits coming from the direction you're currently blocking, allowing all the hits coming from different directions to damage you. If timed correctly, it may even save your life in some cases. 

Now, we're done with parrying. We can now take a look at shoving. What does shoving consist in? Pushing all creatures aside from bosses away from you. The smaller the creature is = the further the creature will be shoved away from you. An alternative to shoving would be something called powerful shove. What's the difference between the regular and the powerful shove, you ask? Well, the main difference is that a powerful shove A. Pushes the creature further away from you, B. Consumes greater amount of stamina, C. Has a chance of making the creature trip and fall on it's back, requiring it to get back on it's feet to pursue you again (which requires varying amounts of time, usually 1-3 seconds depending on the creature), along with a bit of fall damage (15-20 hp?).

Let's have a look at charging. It consumes a lot of stamina, but is deadly in result. Basically your character is charging at an opponent and hitting it full-force, with the same results as a powerful shove.

- Alternate swing animations/regrouping weapons into different types (alternate attacks for different weapons?)

Attacking animation is always the same; a simple swing from behind. This, in some cases, looks good (for example with ham bat, an axe or a dark sword). In other cases, though, it looks absolutely terrible (with a shovel, or a pitchfork). So I thought of adding different animations to different types of weapons, as well as different attack speed (separate features, although related):

Swords (slicing/stabbing, moderate-fast speed. If heavy: the default swing from behind as an alternate attack at a slow/moderate speed, medium/medium-high damage),

Maces (beating, slow-modrate speed because of the weight, the default swing from behind as an animation, a particularly strong swing from behind as a slow alternate attack, medium-high/high damage)

Axes (versatile mix of swords and maces: slicing/beating (has features of both, but not as efficient as either of the originals; use could be somehow selected), moderate-fast/slow-moderate speed, as special attack: weaker versions of alternate attacks of it's counterparts, medium damage)

Spears (semi-light longer - ranged weapons. Stabbing/slicing/pushing, medium-fast/fast attack speed, special attacks: very fast-low damage slice, medium-fast poke/stab, low/medium-low damage)

Other (weapons that don't fall under any of the categories from above, like shovels or tentacle spikes. Animations vary, some weapons may even have exlusive animations/sounds (a vertical/horizontal stunning smack with a shovel's side with an exclusive "bonk" sound?), attack speed/damage ranging from medium-low to medium-high, in some cases sharing some of traits with multiple of the categories, or lacking some (maybe tentacle spike having the same traits as an axe, with bigger damage, but without the sword's features?) of their traits).

 - Knockback 

Nothing complicated, of course, the bigger, stronger enemies have the ability to knock you away from them.

Enemy - wise:

I have spoken about the features that could be added for characters. Now  let's speak about the abilities of the enemies we encounter.

 - Multiple attacks for enemies

Not a single one of the "unimportant" enemies has more than one single attack. Also the time period (time between each attack) is identical in every single case. This makes the fights extremly repetitive and easy to learn/master. The lazer deerclops was a very great step in that direction (I was not-so-good at dodging his lazer). How about we take it a step further and add a variety of attacks for the mobs? See, most mobs have only have a mere single attack, that is not unpredictable AT ALL, and allows you to READ your enemies MINDS to a grade that you can FINISH A FIGHT without losing A SINGLE HEALTH POINT. Don't you think that it's a little bit, you know, negating the atmosphere of an uncompromising adventure survival game that DS(T included) is supposed to be? So the creatures you fight will use different attacks, hoping that they can surprise you and manage to hit you.  Some of my examples:

Spiders: the slow, default chomp and a new attack; a quick, less powerfull stab with legs.

Pigs: the default punch, new attacks: a quicker, less powerfull punch, our character's shove (a team attack; one pig pushing the player into another pig, which then punches them?)

Deerclops: the default smash, new attacks, both quicker: short-ranged horizontal strike (dodged by running away), and long-ranged vertical strike (dodged by running to the side).

 - More (or less) randomized attack period

As I have mentioned before, the same amount of time between each enemy's attack allows you to learn exactly how to cope with them, because the way you find will work every, single, time. Let's fix that.

Hard to predict, attack period randomization allows the enemy to attack in different moments, which will reduce the efficiency of your beloved kiting. The casual period of coming out of a fight without a god damn scratch is over. You have to observe and react .

 - AI that learns how you behave, to make up a strategy that works the best against you

While fighting with a more randomized enemy is a neat step forward, but there is still something missing. Something... of a real headache.

That mysterious something is a clever (or stupid, depending on the creature) AI, that will select which move to do next. The enemies learn your strengths and weaknesses over time (quicker the cleverer your opponent is) by observing, and use your weaknesses against you.  Examples:

Are you extremly proficient at evading the deerclops' slow, powerfull icy smack, but he's able to shred you with his quick, low-range horizontal swing? He will prefer to swing at you horizontally, so he will do it more often. Are you fighting multiple spiders from a nest? They will cooperate, sorround you, cut your path off and attack you from every direction. Fighting clockworks for gears? They will cover each other: knights and rooks will shield the bishops, for them to zap you from the safe distance. Are you fighting a boss with your friend and he is at the edge of death? The boss will target them, of course, and you have to help your friend before the boss finishes them off. That is one heck of a way to make fights much much more intense.

 

What have you thought of my ideas so far? Have in mind that nothing is off the table to improve, so please feel free to tell me what you think about all of them.

[DavePlaysDST]

Some of these ideas could make the game a bit too hard. For the sake of the people who suck at the game. I feel like the majority of these ideas would make the game to hard.

[Canis]

DST's a survival game, not an MMORPG. While more combat does sound fun, the game doesn't really need it.

However, special animations for different weapons could be a fun idea to mess around with.

 

Edit: Smarter AI that can actually strategize is a terrifying thought. I really like that idea especially, but I'm guessing that might be a bit taxing on the game.

More attack variety for mobs could also be decent.

[reverentsatyr]

from your ideas, I think I would just like some more weapons that work differently, and more complex boss fights. Unless there's a huge rework, nothing else really sounds like it will fit DST.

[Owlrust]

While I do like the idea of revamped combat, it would most certainly be a big job; especially when almost every single mob and character would not only need to be changed for it but balanced as well. We also need to keep in mind newer players (or anyone who doesn't look too far into stuff like recipes and other mechanics) being turned away from the game because there are so many concepts just to play it. 

Tbh, that's one of the reasons why I personally don't like games like LoL or HotS, too many characters, abilities, and "rules" to bother learning (would take months anyways) to where it makes it so that unless you have BEEN with the game, you most likely are just gonna find another game altogether.

I absolutely love the idea of challenges for veteran players like this, but tbh I have enough trouble trying to convince my friends (or my bf for that matter) to play the game with me because they think it's "too tough, and unforgiving" to try and even learn. Once we can figure out a healthy compromise for everyone, then I say go for it that'd be awesome!

 

[omegapent]

Alternate actions as stated are great if not too complex, but I personally think that they should improve survival mechanic first (in multiplayer aspect that require co-op, like helping other player while they're being sucked into quicksand.)

[GrandTardigrade]

My first thought was "it's not an FPS game", but I read it for the second time, and this isn't that bad. Though I think fighting is not the very core of the game, and fighting mechanics should be a bit less complicated, I'd like to see some of these ideas in-game. If the enemies were less predictable, fights were more interesting (and a way harder, which is not a problem in my opinion). However, I don't really like the idea of the new actions.. The Forge was great, but it didn't have hunger, sanity, and all the survival stuff - instead, it had improved fighting system. I mean, DST is a survival game, and the way how it should improve (at least for now) is not the fighting. But new ideas are always good.

[Ornge]

This is don't starve not dark souls

 

[. . .]

6 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

Alternate swing animations/regrouping weapons into different types (alternate attacks for different weapons?)

I would like this a lot, basically forge like mechanics, but better.

[WoodieMain45684]

I like the ideas in this post, especially enemy attack variety and better AI.

I'm not sure how new players would stand up to a new combat system. Though part of me feels like it will be almost exactly the same as how new players deal with combat in now in current DST which is by tanking the damage, trying to kite but failing, or staying out of combat altogether. Would making the combat more intricate create problems for new players? Possibly, but only if they actually participate in it in the first place.

If the new combat changes only add challenge for veteran players, then it will be perfect for everyone EXCEPT those who would view the new combat as a grind. Though lets be honest, there's a person out there for any aspect of a game that is willing to it a "grind" if they don't like it. It just matters how much the community as a whole would consider new combat a grind to learn or as new content to explore.

[Maxposting]

And next time you play dst you notice that dst is having griftlands battle system.

[Frashaw27]

Okay so, I don't hate your ideas but I feel like they wouldn't be good for the game and would be more likely to screw you over more then anything. I do think that the combat needs to be tuned so it isn't a constant slap fight against each other, but I feel as though your ideas would make combat even more drawn out and annoying.

First off,

16 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

Stamina

No. The way that you want to implement it is as though that you want every action to make you more tired, which is fine and the way that you rest up is also fine. The problem is that you can't rest in a fight. Take this situation for example. Pretend you are Dragonfly, you seen this little thing approaching you in a threatening manner. To protect your hive/den and your beautiful larva, you have to attack this trespasser. After a little bit of fighting, he seems to be winded and starts backing off to catch his breath do you A) Sit respectfully for him to regain his stamina, or B) Slap his small ass because he dared try to attack you and your children. You would most likely choose B, right?

The problem is that in the middle of your battle, while you rest, your opponent won't care and will just go for the killing blow because you are a threat to them. Sure, you can orient the game around the stamina mechanic but it still won't change that if the enemy wants you dead, it will take every chance it gets.  

Second off,

16 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

More (or less) randomized attack period

Also bad. Believe it or not, this would do the exact opposite of what you want for the combat system. By adding a randomized delay to every attack, it would make me either do single attack kiting or just tank it, resulting in the basic mechanic of slapping until the other one dies. Adding the randomized delay wouldn't make combat more interesting, it would make it a lot excruciatingly boring along with the BS that can come along with random numbers. If you have really bad luck, then welcome the machine gun Dragonfly who can hit you every second, or if it can't be the same number continuously, then welcome machine gun Dragonfly that takes a additional second between every other attack. On the flip side, welcome the Deerclops who was stabbed to death with a spear and attacked like a max of 3 times due to a really long delay between attacks.

The reason why the attack delay can't be random is because it can either make a enemy a god with rapid attacks or a training dummy who will occasionally hit back. With the non-random delays we have now, you can know that it was your incompetence that got you killed and not the game that got a little unfair with the RNG. It provides balance, and yes it can be exploited, but making so that its random will make them a lot more cautious and forcing them to attack with only potshots.

In conclusion, this would be really bad as you trade being able to pull off not being hit because of your skill, into a absolute cacophony of being either too difficult or too strong.

Thirdly,

16 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

parry

16 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

shoving

 

16 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

powerful shove

 

16 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

charging

While I have few complaints, my first thought upon reading this was "How do you choose which one you were going to use, How do you know which weapon gives what ability, Is there a cool down between attacks or can I just basically shove a spider til I run out of stamina"? My only other complaint is how a powerful shove does "fall damage", not with the damage it does, but why it happens. You have to fall a fair amount for it to impact you more then a punch in the face, and idk, shoving doesn't seem like it should really do that.

fourthly,

16 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

Alternate swing animations/regrouping weapons into different types

I actually like this idea, but the speed for each weapon shouldn't be different, it should remain the same speed for all weapon types or vastly change the weapon damages for each type. With how the current weapons in the game have statistical advantages over one another, it allows the user to have a wide verity of options while also having a way to gauge how you are getting stronger with higher damage values. With out the clear way of how the weapons provide the best strength for a fight, the common player will just use the strongest one, not knowing that it attacks very slow and can affect how they fight and perceive it. There is also the argument that player will just stick with the weapon with the highest damage with the highest speed as it provides a better Dps instead of other weapons which provide better Dph.

We already have a example of this concept in Hamlet with the Cork Bat. With its slower hit speed, it makes sure that it takes much longer to kill an enemy if they don't die in one hit. The reason why most players rarely, if ever, use it is because of its slower hit speed.

fifthly,

17 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

AI that learns how you behave, to make up a strategy that works the best against you

There is 3 reasons why this wouldn't work.

1. Due to how the game runs already, either having a AI on every different enemy that slowly learns or One AI doing all the enemies in the world and calculating and predicting your movements would be a massive cripple on a anybody wanting to run a server. A server is already taxing as is and now you want to add one or more highly complex AI to the world would make even the really good ones slow down like molasses to learn from you.

2. Klei hasn't been known to make a AI to this complexity and I think building it would take away a lot of crucial development time.

3. Making a bunch of evasive maneuvers into screwing you over would also be complex and a lot can be overcame by using a Lazy Explorer or Wortox's Soul Hop.

And Finally,

17 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

Alternate actions

This, single highhandedly can break combat so bad in both directions, it isn't funny. Say you are trying to kill the Fuelweaver and you have a Dark Sword.  It could have a ability like the Pith Pike which would be game breaking as you both dodge the enemy's attack and do a lot of damage to them. If we go with your idea of a slower but more damaging attack, then it would be somewhat pointless. The attack would have to do a lot of damage to compare to the weapons already high Dps when attacking normally. It's just really difficult to make sure that you can have these special attacks that do enough damage to make up for the time when you aren't attacking but also not be absolutely game breaking.

On a different note, how should new players know that they have this special attack with each weapon? you could use a Right Click prompt, but some people really dislike them and think they are really annoying. Now apply this to every weapon and it would make sure that you always have this prompt with no way to get rid of it. Without directly telling the players of the mechanic, a system built around it, they would be screwed beyond belief.

Conclusion:

I'm sorry to be so negative about this but it really seems like a "Good on paper, Bad in practice" idea. Your ideas are interesting and it would provide verity to combat but it would also heavily unbalance the game. Again, I'm sorry but I really don't think these ideas could work. Have a nice day/night and thank you for reading my critique.

[Raspberry Shake]

Stamina sounds cool. However, most of the ideas to do with enemies sound kinda like a pain in the ass. Not fun, just annoying.

[Ezaroth]

We need more bosses that do AoE attacks instead of mindless melee hits. Klaus' deer magic and Pugalisk in Hamlet are great examples.

[-Nick-]

2 hours ago, Ezaroth said:

We need more bosses that do AoE attacks instead of mindless melee hits. Klaus' deer magic and Pugalisk in Hamlet are great examples.

Don't forget about the awesome fight against the Big Iron Hulk from hamlet, that has many different moves and tatics, like teleporting, walling you in, a AOE laster attack, land mines, and the basic melee attack.

[Charsis]

20 hours ago, DavePlaysDST said:

Some of these ideas could make the game a bit too hard. For the sake of the people who suck at the game. I feel like the majority of these ideas would make the game to hard.

In a way don't think it make difference for new player, is still just as hard. For professional player though challenge is needed which something like this bring to game.

My main problem with game not only combat but exploits for combat. Nothing path find or wreck structure in their way and you can just block many thing to farm resources. Wall and close place structure is what make all AI go out the window if mob can collide with. Then also bunny man befriend glitch nobody talking about

[Viktor234]

21 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

- Stamina

This is something that is not yet present in-game, at all. Basically it is a meter that is measuring your energy during combat. It can decrease by: attacking, recieving damage, being hungry during the fight, and doing any of the actions explained onward. It could regenerate by resting. This is what counts as resting: waiting a few seconds before the next swing, standing in place for a few seconds (regenerates even faster), having your belly filled at a right amount, and maybe eating some kinds of meals.

This is something that is already present in-game, but you need to swap from Wilson to Wolfgang to get the stamina you want to have. That kind of stamina isn't restored by resting but by restoring your belly. Resting in sort of waiting is perhaps the worst idea, real gamers don't want to stay afk on the same spot and do nothing just because "they need to rest".

[Pop Guy]

On 23/7/2019 at 4:05 PM, Wilson_pl said:

[...]

I like the idea of having more combat actions. Combat is a very important aspect of the game. I like all your proposals, including a more developed artificial intelligence.

[ADM]

Looks like Minecraft 1.9 update in some points... kiding, some idea could be great added on only some of the characters but not on all so players could have the basic fighting method, that I think is "great"

[WilsonGuy_]

On 23.07.2019 at 6:14 PM, DavePlaysDST said:

Some of these ideas could make the game a bit too hard. For the sake of the people who suck at the game. I feel like the majority of these ideas would make the game to hard.

There is a solution to that. Make it as an option! It doesn't have to be obligatory, it can be just something that is there for the bored veterans.

[Alfons100]

The Forge showed just how fun cooperative DST combat could be, despite the dull combat mechanics. Each person has a role and everyone has to work together in order to win, if one person messes up, everyone dies. Though Forge as a whole is made for it, such as easy revival, unique abilities, healing being cheaper as a resource and so on.

The weapon types idea I don't like that much, as the progression of weapons and tools you find isn't like other survival games. Instead of being "Sword good for this and that, axe good for that" and there's different material tiers, Don't Starve is more of "You got meat? Make a hambat! You feeling risky with that sanity? Use a Dark Sword! No resources? A cheap spear will do".

Attack patterns and moves being revamped would be great, since the old bosses and enemies we have are starting to age, when we've seen the cooler bosses in the Forge, Hamlet and A New Reign.

The bosses should have weird gimmicks to encourage teamwork in order to beat, like in the Forge. This game is called "Together", so why not seize the oppurtunity and make the bosses about working "Together"

Treeguardians gets a "root to the ground" ability which immobilizes you, and can be cleared with fire or an axe. So you need to save teammates that get caught.

Shadow monsters can mend together into a powerful and fast amalgation enemy if left for too long, so you need to keep track of the right shadow monsters to take down swiftly.

Maybe Deerclops spawns large ice puddles that become hard to navigate which take considerable time to remove with pickaxes alone, but together it can be done faster, and to not allow "Just run away from the hazard", deerclops gets a new long ranged attack if you're too far, so you need to clear the fighting stage to allow for efficient kiting.

Or Bearger picking up boulders and trees and chucking them at the player while shoving the player around, forcing them into new areas with fresh new trees and stones to throw at you. So you as a team needs to remove trees and boulders during the fight to mitigate danger. You get the drill.

Some things are already different in DST like health scaling or some values, but with more players in the mix, you can make bossfights so much more chaotic and not one-dimensional, because right now, if you learn the kiting pattern, there's not much to stop you, unless you go insane and there comes shadow monsters but even then it isn't so bad.

EDIT: Adding new moves to bosses could be a bit rude for new players who just learned kiting, so perhaps after you've beaten Fuelweaver, the overworld gets more difficult and sinister. Like wandering sorcerer merm cultists and the bosses getting trickier as I described. While perhaps making them drop unique loot to compensate.

5 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

There is a solution to that. Make it as an option! It doesn't have to be obligatory, it can be just something that is there for the bored veterans.

Developers don't want to devote that much time into a mechanic that may very well be hit or miss when some people don't even wanna use it, do stuff that everyone can enjoy (Or gets money, as sad as it is). And the devs really care about the idea of "We really do not want to split the community again"

[WilsonGuy_]

On 7/24/2019 at 9:42 AM, Frashaw27 said:

[snip]

@Frashaw27 @Alfons100 @Viktor234 @Raspberry Shake

Ok, so either because of lack of my in-depth description of my ideas or you not having in mind that the ideas are incomplete, and that the ideas are something of an unfinished, still humid clay sculpture that the developers can correct it in any way they want (what I mean by that is that they are a base of something to improve) which made you end up making your own interpretation of them. So basically you are talking about your own interpretation of my ideas, not about my actual ideas.

About stamina:

The rate at which the stamina regenerates is  h i g h , as long as you are resting. The drop rate is slow, compared to the regenerating rate. Basically the only way you can get exhausted is by giving your character a legitimate WORKOUT, without having a literal second to rest during the fight. Have you considered that you can rest by kiting without hitting the enemy? And in theory (my not explained version of the idea, which may be understandably confusing), standing still for 2 seconds (I think that you can find that much time in a fight) will start restoring your character's stamina 20% per second from that point on, which means that standing still for 7 seconds in total will restore your stamina back up to full.

And before you go "Who does have that much time to stand still during the fight anyway?!?", moving from the place DOES NOT cancel your process of regeneration: It will regenerate indefinitely unless you are swinging your weapon. Standing in place simply DRASTICALLY rises the regeneration rate.

On attack period:

You made up your own version of this idea here entirely. Try reading it more carefully next time.

By saying "more randomized" I DON'T MEAN "It's gonna be so random that the boss will attack every second or every minute". More randomized doesn't mean random. The randomization would be to a little degree. The maximum difference of the rate that the creature attacks at would be mere 2-2.5 seconds. So, if a creature attacks every 3 seconds as default, the time until he attacks again will be shortened to 2.5 seconds or extended up to 4.5 seconds, all picked randomly. So if it took 4 seconds for a deerclops to swing at you, it will mean that he may swing at you in 2.6545 seconds next time he hits, or not, it may take him 3.665 seconds for him to swing at you. You can not possibly know. No "machine gun dragonfly" or "deerclops that only attacked 3 times during the fight" as you mentioned. Don't exagerrate, it's stupid.

On alternate actions:

There could for example be a neat selection menu that wants you to pick an action you want to do, or maybe binding it to a button on a keyboard? No, you couldn't shove a spider until you run out of stamina. There could be a 5-10 seconds cooldown which does not let you spam the single ability. And no, you don't need any weapons to use these abilities. They are there to counter the enemies' abilities that I have explained. The powerfull shove's fall damage would only apply to the taller enemies. And if the creature would be lying on the ground, you can place down some extra hits until it gets up (which would be in like, I dunno, 1 second?) or maybe even buy yourself extra time if the opponent is too strong for you?

On weapon types/speeds:

These "speeds" don't have to vary that much, it may even be split second difference. The default attack speed is 1 attack per 0.5 seconds, so maybe we can change it up a bit. Fast weapons would take around 0.35 seconds to swing, medium-fast around 0.40, medium would take around 0.5 (the default, duh), medium-slow would take 0.60 seconds to swing and slow would take 0.65 seconds? We could balance the weapons that if they have high damage, they are heavy and take longer to swing (I mean, a dark sword can be a bit heavy)? So that the optimal weapons of each type are the ones that deal the highest damage of their type, but are hard to obtain (high risk, high reward)?

On the AI:

1. It doesn't have to be complex, I am not talking about Alexa or Siri here. It simply would be constructed like this:

Learning phase: creature checks which attack works better against you, by executing a series of it's attacks, randomly.

Analysis phase: creature analizes the amounts of succeeded hits, and checks which one of it's attacks worked the best. It makes a quick calculation on the percentage. The attack that worked the best is now included in the variable "efficient", the one that is not as great against you as the other one is marked as "inefficient".

Execution phase: creature learned how you function. It's now acting in a way that it thinks that works best against you, the "efficient" attacks dominate during the fight.

(Optional) Suspicious phase: However, if you suddenly start dodging it's "efficient" attacks (assuming that you tried to trick the creature into attacking you with it's "efficient" attack, so you can predict what it will do next), it will get suspicious and watch how you act more carefully. If you start to notoriously proficiently evade it's "efficient" attacks, it will eventually realize and will discreetly repeat the whole process, having the previous one's result in mind. The cleverer the creature is, the faster it will realize.

2. I am not rushing anybody. It can be just a simple, single update, like the 2012-2014 updates (underground, the stuff of nightmares, strange new powers...). As long as they work on it for a bit and release it (either gradually or as a single update), then it will be worth the wait.

3. Solution? Making the game a little bit more difficult, make ruins hard to rush, and NERF everybody. Maybe add a cool down for Wortox's god damn soul hop!

On alternate actions, again:

Solution? DO NOT add the quick charge attack to the dark sword! I have never spoken about turning the game into the Forge, or Team Fortress 2 (these games indeed require you to have weapons equipped to grant you the abilities). All I have spoken about is that the abilities are PLAYER-WISE, not WEAPON-EXCLUSIVE-WISE. Player-wise means that your character can do ANY OF THESE on a whim, without the need of having weapons that grant you these abilities. Weapons just make it more efficient to execute. You want to parry, but you don't have a weapon? Shield yourself with your arms, just like Swineclops did! You want to shove a pig? No problem, you have hands, you can use them for that! Want to charge-tackle a fuelweaver? No problem, use your legs to run, and tackle the boss full-force with your body weight!

Conclusion on your confusion:

The ideas are balanced, but were unexplained, my bad. But you also don't have to look for ways to turn my ideas for balancing the game (make the combat harder, but also give characters abilities to counter that difficulty) into ideas for making the game even more imbalanced than it already is.

Thanks for reading this, everyone. If you even did, that is. 

[Frashaw27]

First off

Thank you for responding and explaining. I will respect you for at least acknowledging your mistake and trying to fix it. I will also acknowledge that I did not see your ideas are a WIP, at the end of your post, I will say that next time that you should present this fact at the beginning instead of the end as it is more front and center instead of somewhere near the back. I will criticize your ideas based on the new information.

2nd off

13 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

On the AI:

So I think your ideas would be interesting, but would take a ass ton of processing power. Sure with a few mobs, this type of learning it would be okay, but we don't have a few types of enemies. Form counting on the wiki for all the neutral and aggressive mobs, I counted around 64, so its not simple process. The problem here is that it takes into consider all of the hits you take and builds a strategy along with figuring out if you caught on or not, which means that it has to do this process with every. Single. Enemy and then load this information and build upon it for every enemy. You also can't make it so that it makes a strategy and apply's it to every enemy because with the wide verity of enemies and abilities and how different attacks have different way of evading. I have instead made a better way to figure this out, even with my presumed extremes ( I do this because without going to the extremes then you can't see the maximum and minimum strength of a idea, so it makes it a lot more vague). My idea is to take all the enemies into groups and assign a AI to each group. These groups would be based around the type of mobs they are like having a group of hounds, a group for spiders, a group for clockwork rooks, etc. This way the AI can easily access the information and build the information for the group instead of each individual mob. The problem however is that the AI takes too much processing power do its constant learning. There is no solution but instead a warning when enabling the setting that it will be resource intensive. On that note...

On 7/24/2019 at 12:56 PM, Wilson_pl said:

 Make it as an option!

This is a good idea, the only thing I have to say is that it should keep the option at the top of the world settings.

3rd:

13 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

Making the game a little bit more difficult, make ruins hard to rush,

This is honestly fine, the ruins should be harder because of its a end game level. Ruins rushing is honestly more of a feat of skill as you figured out how to improve and be so efficient that you can clear the ruins very early with little materials. 

 

13 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

and NERF everybody

NO. You shouldn't basically make everyone less powerful to fit this system you created, you can make the enemies harder, make bosses near impossible, you can even make so every encounter should have the same tension as fighting Fuelweaver, but you should never, NEVER, make everybody worse for the sake of balance. Finally...

 

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

cool down for Wortox's god damn soul hop!

This would make him more balanced, but less fun. He already has a limited amount  he can carry but now you can't do his main skill at his whim, lessening the amount of fun for the character. The ability to exploit his soul hop to do a verity of things like traveling large distances very fast, having more frame perfect but more damaging kiting method, and successfully escaping a group of enemies that would have demolished you other wise.

4th:

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

DO NOT add the quick charge attack to the dark sword

Yeah, I jumped the gun on this one. But it also shows how bad the alternative attacks can be with being too powerful or being too weak. Now on to the other ones.

 

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

you want to parry, but you don't have a weapon? Shield yourself with your arms, just like Swineclops did!

To be honest, Now that you explained the alt. actions, I'm on board with them, except parrying with no weapon. A parry is attacking a attack to stop it, your description of parrying is actually blocking, which should also be included.

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

The powerfull shove's fall damage would only apply to the taller enemies.

You see I don't think that the tall/heavy enemies should fall over, they should instead be staggered. When you get pushed your first response will usually be to put a foot behind you to stop you from falling. I think the heavy bosses should do this, and they should do a simple attack when lunging back forward. This makes it so that you don't just get this automatic break of a enemy attack as well as a few seconds of constant damage. With being able to make a boss to fall flat on its ass, it would just make a strategy where you constantly do this on bosses, bar anything else. I do have a idea to force the boss to trip when strong pushing, put walls behind it and when it trips, deal heavy damage to walls.

5th

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

On weapon types/speeds:

Welp you see, this doesn't change how it would change the thing about having a heavy Dph vs high Dps. You would have to balence it that with the fact that the fastest weapons can attack almost 7 times in 2 seconds while the heaviest weapons can attack 2 times pet 2 seconds. Another aspect is how the weapons themselves are weighed. 

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

(I mean, a dark sword can be a bit heavy)?

I mean it can be but if we look at its crafting recipe, it would be weight of the log and the amalgamation of a weightless substance of mass insanity. Another example is the Thulucite Club, which also uses the fuel, which is literally a giant collection of ancient metals/stone and it so how is so weightless that you run faster while holding it. Im just saying that the weight of these weapons may be a little bit wonky.

6th

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

On attack period:

 

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

"more randomized" I DON'T MEAN "It's gonna be so random that the boss will attack every second or every minute"

Well you see the way how I think of random is that everything can happen based on the limits, which you gave none, and thus I made the terrifying image of machine gun Dragonfly. On the other hand...

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

More randomized doesn't mean random

Yes it does mean that it is random as it isn't predictable. But onto the main issue.

14 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

The randomization would be to a little degree. The maximum difference of the rate that the creature attacks at would be mere 2-2.5 seconds. So, if a creature attacks every 3 seconds as default, the time until he attacks again will be shortened to 2.5 seconds or extended up to 4.5 seconds, all picked randomly.

This still is bad, but for a different reason. Due to the random nature you would still have to be either tanking or doing the minimum and waiting for their next attack, which is fine against single targets but not against multiple targets. Say you are fighting a group of 5 hounds, and you get hit by one but due to the random nature of the attacks, one hits you before you can escape, and so would another and another and another, essentially stunlocking you, because of its randomized attacking they can almost never attack at the same time so you just be waiting for a moment of opportunity to run away, to never get it. Is this a extreme example? Yes. Could it happen? Also yes. With randomness you can never honestly predict its outcomes. Without my extremity, I can say that fighting multiple mobs will be so much harder because you can never line up their hits to properly avoid them. Also,

15 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

No "machine gun dragonfly" or "deerclops that only attacked 3 times during the fight" as you mentioned. Don't exagerrate, it's stupid.

While I shouldn't immediately have gone to the extremes but in my defense, you didn't give me ranges so it could have been what you meant, and the hyperbolic example shows why the randomness could create heavy unbalance. Finally, exaggeration can easily portray what flaws a idea has as it doesn't have as much vagueness as it does. If i went with a actually expected number. 

Finally

15 hours ago, Wilson_pl said:

About stamina:

I got to be honest, even with you saying more on how stamina regen works, I still don't think it should be in the game. I'm going to establish something first, you never said about what the penalty is for using all of your stamina, so I'm just going to make a addendum for you that losing all of your stamina makes you walk as slow as walking through the sandstorm in the desert and attacks do 75% less damage per hit until you recover all of it. But onto the mechanic itself. I'll be reusing the encounter I had made in a previous paragraph, The 5 hounds would be a relatively easy battle until you run of stamina. You see during this scenario it will also be dragging out the fight as you have to gradually recover stamina as you run away from the dogs or risk being literally stuck to death due to how my penalty works (I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you aren't nearly as cruel as me and thus had a different one in mind, but I have to improvise with what I got). On the aspect of running and regaining stamina, I think it should it either not work at all or would drain it (albeit as a very slow rate so you can actually escape and also only occurring within 10 seconds of any attack) this is because running is also tiring and make you lose your breath more. This would make it harder but would also be more realistic as running is also tiring. I think this is a really unique mechanic but it just doesn't fir really well with how combat works in DS.

REConclusion

With your new explanations, I believe that your ideas are actually very interesting and would be very interesting where combat is the main focus. The problem with DS is that while combat is intertwined with progression in the game, the game can also be entirely ignored/being done as little as possible. Your ideas are more balanced in single target encounters/targets summon mobs that can be avoided or don't attack but are less balanced once a few mobs enter the fight. I think your ideas could work in DS but almost everything would have to be changed to fit it. Also don't yell as much next time, its sort of mean.

tl;dr: I like your ideas after you explain them but I think that they don't really fit with the game.

Have nice day/night and thank you for reading.