Hi. Andrew York here. Im working on a game called the Wars of Solen. Its a Fantasy Warfair Action Game. But theres just one thing im stumped on. Its the combat system. what I mean by combat system is swinging swords, pole arms etc, ya know doing combat in a Action Setting. This is what I have so far W = forward A = Left Strafe (Or turn) D = Right strafe (Or turn) S = Move Back Space Bar = Jump Then theres the mouse for turning your character.. Left Mouse Button for attack and Right mouse button for a toggle kind of button This is where im stuck.. ive only got one button for attack.. so what that means is all through the game you press left mouse click (Attack) over and over again.. mayby with some fancy moves.. like Strafe Left + Attack = Different style Attack But that seems so boring and done befor. But im wracking my brains and cant think of a better combat system Brain Storming I can think of all sorts of ways I want the player to attack and perform in battle such as (With a Sword or Bladed Weapon) Parry Shield Block Side Swing Downward Chop forward Thrust Plus Skilled Attacks such as Head Shot Disarm Crippling Blow One Interestng Idea ive had is to do a kind of rock paper sisors with combat but I dont know how well it would work Such as Side Swing Chop Thrust Side Swing Beats Thrust Thrust Beats Chop Chop Beats Side Swing Swing to swing = parry etc Or something like that.. so during the combat you would always have to stratagize your 3 combat moves But thats just one idea.. Anyway Im wondering if any one has any idea's or knows of a game that is Fantasy Action that shows a good system for Combat.. I know Zelda 64 is nice becous it has a Z Target button.. But in Wars of Solen you will be battling masses of Units.. so im not quite sure how to go about it. Any Help or insight would be greatly appreciated thank you

Thanks for your input.. Both of you.. Ill check out that ONI game real soon.

Ah oni, such a neat little game. Lots of potential but the execution was lacking. I still liked it.

I suggest you look ad Jedi Knight II and Jedi Academy.

Their lightsabre fighting system is fantastic in my opinion and both have fairly simple addictively fun combat systems. I recommend trying the demos if you hav't played them albeit they are 3rd person.

The player uses the l key to select between 1 or 3 stances for certain combat situations. There is a blue quick stance, good for fighting many people at once and blocking lots of blaster fire. The yellow medium stance is a little slower and more powerful. During your swings you become vulnerable to fire or quick attacks but you do more damage and others with lightsabers have a chance to sneak a quick shot on you but have a harder time blocking. The red stance is very slow, swings take 2 seconds but are almost impossible to block and do lots of damage. The problem is, duyring the swing you can be shot, or a quick fighter could lunge in at you while your blade is still above your head.

Besides the three stances, there was a variety of moves you could do. In any stance, moving forward while swinging would let you slash down. moving backwards and swinging was kindof a defensive parry swing. pressing left or right just as you swing would determine which direction you swung across in. For duels, this was very important. In the quickest stance (and also in medium i think) moving left then changing directions to right very quickly would cause your character to spin around and swing which was useful for fighting people around you. Moves varied if you were in the air, etc.

I really really enjoyed the combat system in that game. there were guns too but I can't think of any way that the lightsaber combat could have been better.

I'm going to go play it now :)

Anyway, the ideas you mentioned sound similar to this and are defintely a good base for a fun sword combat game. Maybe you could implement a similar stance system that makes sense for medieval weaponry. A player could switch between defensive, offensive, and duel modes would each make your moves more and more powerful and you more vulnerable. And It would be neet to see the right mouse button as a seperate modifier maybe for the range of your weapon so pressing it right before swinging would cause your character to reach out farther allowing you to jab at a character with a longer weapon.

Just my thoughts. keep going, be creative, and keep it intuitive

For a first-person combat system that uses only the mouse and one button, check out this neat little flash game. It takes some getting used to, but it's simple and direct. The block took me the longest to figure out, but you could probably bind a key to it to make it more intuitive.

I liked the idea of the mouse scroll system. would give the player easy access to more fighting options.. die by the sword was so tricky for me to use.. swinging your sword like that.. I think the best fighting game ive seen with swords is jedi knight jedi academy. which does have a good system.