Proposal of New Combat System

[Xentarim]

Hi ya'll. It's been awhile since I've posted anything, so hi again =)

This is a general discussion about a possible combat system for games. If this shouldn't be here, I apologize, and will move it to a suitable location. Thanks for your patience.

I've just watched a gameplay demo of Star Wars: the Old Republic, and I just couldn't take it anymore: why-oh-why do developers still stick to the old combat system? You know the type: I stand here, you stand a couple of feet away, both characters do their own time-based combat animation with no sync, no timing, and just deal damage according to a fixed DPS.

So, I started thinking: is there a better way? I'm writing here because I have an idea, but I have no idea how feasible it is, and I think that, if it is do-able, the combined skill and expertise of Newgrounders would be the way to go.

The idea is to have two avatars locked in a synced-up combat animation, based on stances. If for example one character is on offensive stance, one on defensive, then the offensive would 'lead', like in a dance, and the other would 'follow' with blocking manouevres. One move would follow another smoothly and logically, such as an upper-right to lower-left diagonal swing would logically be followed by another swing from left-to-right (diagonal or straight can be randomized, for a more natural effect).

The idea is to set up a balance here. Without intervention, this combat animation is continuous. Stats would come into play affecting details of how the combat plays out. If the offensive character has overwhelmingly greater strength, the defensive character would be forced backward with every strike. Speed of consecutive strikes would be determined by the offensive character's speed stat, for example.

It would of course be boring if that was all.

So, let's say characters have two 'life' stats: stamina and health. Stamina is consumed so long as you are in battle, and depletes depending on the combat situation and stats. Defending requires less stamina per second, attacking requires more. Wielding a heavier weapon consumes more stamina. Being forced beyond your normal pacing (opponent's speed stat much higher) causes extra stamina drain. Depletion of stamina ends a character's will to fight. Health, on the other hand, covers everything. A drop in health causes a drop in all stats, maybe even causing extra penalties (bleeding causes even faster stamina depletion, arm wounds cause lowered damage, for example).

So far, we have a continuous combat animation going on, with a fixed stamina depletion rate for both parties based on combat situation and stats. Boring and deterministic. Leaving the combat to carry on on its own would definitely favour one side, and so skills come in to tip the balance. For example, offensive character with high-strength pummels at a defensive character --> defensive character's stamina is dropping at an alarming rate. Foreseeing a bad end should this continue, the defensive character can, just before a blow from the attacker, perform a feint and evade move, which, if the attacker continues to attack, would result in the attacker losing balance. This opens up a chance for the defender to perform a wounding move (reducing health instead of just stamina). Perhaps this could be done with a pseudo-quicktime event? A button flashes across the screen, if attacker presses first, he regains balance, if defender presses first, then a wounding blow is struck. We could even play with these things based on passive skills --> a certain skill allows you to see the quicktime button just a fraction of a second sooner?

There's more, but I'm may already be overstaying my welcome. If anyone out there thinks this is a good idea, do-able, then maybe we can continue this discussion? Thanks for reading through such a long, rambling message.