Hello all, Ive been thinking for what seems like forever on how to add strategy to a RPG battle. Up until now, strategy in real time RPG combat has consisted of either finding a monster''s weak point (usually elemental) and continuously using the same attack to take advantage of it, or finding the most efficient techniques that are repeated in just about every battle. I dont like either. I do have an idea that Im thinking about incorporating into my mmorpg design. Before I do use it, I would like to get some opinions from other designers. Please tell me what you like and what you dont like about it, not just that you like or dont like it. I want to improve it if need be or if it will not work properly, I may not want to use it at all. Hapaboy''s new real time RPG combat: To bring about strategy in combat, a player must be able to determine weak points and use them to his or her advantage. Unlike the usual notion of opponents having a single weak point (e.g. weak against fire). A player should be able to see numerous weak points arise and disappear in the course of a single battle. The problem is that most real time battles occur at too great a speed for a player to quickly ascertain weak points and strike at them. A creature may swing blindly at a fighter, exposing its underbelly, yet, the player will have no time to react to this strategic opportunity. What I am pondering, is a slowed battle system. This will not occur at every battle but will occur in epic battles such as PvP battles in mmorpg or a battle against a mob boss. The player will then be able to strike at diffeent multiple parts of an opponent''s body simply by clicking on the appropriate part either on the enemy itself or a diagram of that enemies'' different parts. Different attacks would have their advantages and disadvantages. Character skills would also have much to do with it. An opponent would swing at you and a check against your dodge skill would be made, if you dodge, you succesfully sidestep your opponent and have a clear shot at his head. If you choose to strike at its head, you gain an attack and dmg bonus. Different type of attacks would create different openings. An opponent could use those oppenings to his or her advantage to do more dmg or could simply continue to fight blindly ignoring strategy. The battle will not be too slow as to make it too easy. Keep in mind, this will only occur on bosses or other players so not every battle is a slow motion slugfest. Ok thats the jist of it, it will probably become more complicated as it evolves. Thanks all for replying =) alohaz The poetry of silence is what my parents read to me, perhaps the greatest verse, for it does not bias the mind----me =)

the combat systems of all the current mmorpgs need improvement in my opinion.

i defeinately think the first person/team to incorporate a vastly superior combat engine will sell their game in a big way...if all the other aspects of the game are of a high quality also of course.

it would need to be done extremely carefully so that things do remain balanced, but for me personally it is just plain boring to fight a creature by repeatedly hitting the attack button or mouse click..etc....or even worse - commanding your character to attack and just watching.

all of the traditional combat ''rules'' seem to emulate misses vs hits and variated damage in only very basic ways. if your wearing big bulky armour (and have a low AC) you generally have a reduced chance to be hit, whereas this should be the opposite and hits to the armour should instead just be greatly reduced in effectiveness, thus a heavily suited character''s weakest point becomes the head and legs for example. bulky equipment like plate mail should reduce a characters agilty and make him/her easier to be struck. striking diferent parts of the body should be the ''manual'' measure of how much damage is done, rather than the target being plainly struck in no specific way and the damage being generated randomly. in a perfect 3d combat engine the user should be able to manually make any of the character''s available moves...such as lunges, sidesteps, blocks, slashes, quick jabs..etc...but there should maybe be a setting for the character to be in auto rephlex and auto combat mode aswell (so things dont become TOO tedious if the user feels like concentrating on other things than manual combat...so weak little bunnies which would otherwise be be slowly killing the character will be dispatched automatically). the automation would run at a slightly lesser speed than what would be available manually, so that applying strategy and manually fighting would allways be the most effective way to defeat anything (assuming the user isn''t drunk or really stupid).
when a character lunges, they should be tempuarily "off balance", disabling any available dodge moves and impairing agility for a brief moment. skill and weapon proficiancy would still play a big part in a characters combat ability but the user should be able to pick and choose in as much detail as possible their real time hand to hand combat strategy...to be able to aim at the head of a character wearing platemail, or to step out of the way of an incoming pole-arm lunge. the result would be something resembling tekken with weapons meets neverwinter nights, and would be an extremely cool game in my opinion...and one that i would certainly go out and buy.

what i wrote off the top of my head here was just a small part of the huge amount of detail a developement team could put into their game''s combat. i wrote a more in depth list recently when i started thinking about an idea for a new mmorpg that was basically based on a superior 3d combat engine. i see it as a big oppertnity to attract a lot of interest, and i hope some one if not allready working on similar things will steal my ideas and make them into a cool game soon.