So does this sound feasible for real-time combat or do you think it would be too clunky in a stressful battle?

Actually, its been done before on pc game, and worked really well...
Just look up a game called Mount&Blade. Uses similair mechanic.

Detects which way are you dragging the mouse when you press the left mouse button.
Then gets ready to swing the weapons, as soon as you release the left mouse button, it swings.

Main thing to make this system sucessful, is to make the game detect the direction which mouse is moving in, but DO IT QUICKLY...
So players dont have to draw that "gesture" over half of the screen.

[quote name='Ashaman73' timestamp='1321515414' post='4884880']
[quote name='Klutzershy' timestamp='1321473212' post='4884661']
What do you guys think the right mouse button should be for? Maybe instead of drawing a gesture, you can click it to lock on to a target.

I'm experiementing with mouse/movement control in my FPS-RPG for some time now. There're some things you should consider.

First off, when will the mouse(pointer) be visible ? Are you using the mouse to control some GUI/HUD elements or is it hidden all the time ?
It will be visible, but it is halfway between the two in terms of function.

Hidden mouse:
When you hide the mouse, you could use the mouse-movement to look around. When you press the mouse button to start a gesture you have the first issue with where to start the gesture ? When you always start at the same position (i.e. center of screen) it will limit the gestures. Therefore you need some option to start and stop the drawing of a gesture.

Visible mouse:
In this case you need some option to look around, i.e. press the right mouse button to look around. Atleast it will make the gestures more simple too draw.
In response to both these ideas, I am going to have a system similar to Metroid Prime in the sense that the mouse is mostly free to move but when it approaches the edges of the screen the view will pan.

An other issue is conentration. Even when you enable movement while drawing a gesture, it is terrible complex to concentrate on some drawing while moving in reaction of some events in the background.

Then there's flow. A action game lifes from a certain flow, a gesture hinders the combat flow. This could be ok for none-combat actions, but could be very disturbing when used to control melee commands.
All the combat-related gestures are lines, just pointing in different directions. Spells are more complex as you are not as stressed in a ranged battle.

Take a look at Arx Fatalis, this is the only action 3d rpg which comes to mind utilizing gestures, thought it is only used for spells and not combat. Spells are always something special. There're often spells which are execute before a melee combat starts (fire a missile) or when taking a little break (for healing).
As I said earlier in the thread, you "store" the spells and can cast them at a single click once they're ready. For example, if you're about to engage an enemy, you can power up with a difficult spell before you enter the battle and then use simpler attacks during the battle.

An other option would be to use time-freezing or atleast slowing down when drawing a gesture, similar to fallout 3, where the action freezes for certain combat event, thought I would stop calling it action-rgp
I might make that optional.
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I really think that by gesture, he meant the way the mouse is dragged in...
At least i HOPE so...

Because drawing real gestures (e.g. up, right, down, up, or even a triangle) would really mess up the game flow, unless its done in some really tricky way noone knows about

[quote name='Stiivais' timestamp='1321711732' post='4885595']
I really think that by gesture, he meant the way the mouse is dragged in...
At least i HOPE so...

Because drawing real gestures (e.g. up, right, down, up, or even a triangle) would really mess up the game flow, unless its done in some really tricky way noone knows about

The melee combat gestures are simple enough that they can be thought of as directions. For example, click-drag right-release will slash across the chest.
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Perhaps certain motions can be linked up to perform a special move or combo abit like Street Fighter and related games.

It might work. I think it may hurt the wrist or be tiring though. I wish people would build on dark age of camelot like attacks. All the rpgs now you just mindlessly swing. in daoc you actually have hotkeys with abilities to different attacks. so you have a attack that if you use that attacks from the side it does more damage, then another attack that can be used as a followup attack if the first was successful. these can be chained or combined for bonuses. so your choosing what your attacks are and maybe the effects that they do. like maybe one that does less damage but it slows the guy and its followup on the second attack is a bonus to damage so if you chain em its worth it. the player spends time in the game choosing his attacks during battle constantly changing and actually staying awake during battles rather then hit the attack key then leaving for a drink.

I like your idea, it sounds like a screen representation of skyward sword or something without the controllers but i think hotkeys are less stress then using a mouse to make shapes.

As mentioned earlier, Mount & Blade uses this mechanic very successfully, however, it also has a plan-b for people who do not want to get that involved in combat control. If you just click, instead of dragging your mouse, the avatar still attacks, in a random direction. For an earlier example, check out Die by the Sword.

To do it, you would get the position of the mouse when the button is pressed, get the next points in screen space when the button released, get distance and direction from the data and execute attack.

For spells, you might end up losing the direction you are casting the spell after completing the gesture. A simple solution would be to draw the gesture to get the spell ready and click to release the spell.