Verbs: Combat

As Eric of Elder Game writes in Picking Fun Game Verbs:

“Verbs” are anything a player can do at a conceptual level. Typical MMO verbs are things like attacking, running away, running around exploring, buffing people, taunting, and so on.

Ok, so we definitely need to consider verbs at some point. Let's see what else he has to say:

New verbs can make anything feel fresh. Want to make yet another fantasy MMO? No problem — just make sure it has lots of fresh new verbs! Of course, there’s a reason we’ve settled into the limited set of “traditional” MMO verbs: they’re easy to code and easy to balance. The more we break the mold, the more work we have to do. But that’s the difference between an amazing new game and another me-too game.

Cool, creative, new, or just plain fun verbs are the key to a fun game; ok then, let's do this.

Edit: Everything beyond this point has been discarded, and likely will no longer be implemented.

The current plan for combat involves melee players running forward, trading blows with their foes while largely stationary, and then disengaging to recover while less injured allies hold the line (if they're in a group effort). As part of the "trading blows" part, a player can use a variety of special or basic attacks with either hand, and can also attempt to parry or block opponents' attacks with either hand. If implemented right, battle should be about balancing when to defend and when to attack, attempting to hit an opponent that is off-balance or simply letting their guard down and finish the fight.

A first draft of the melee UI.

Basic Attack - Throws a basic attack with the equipped weapon. Recoil time: 6

Block - Raise a shield to block a blow. If you succeed, you increase your foe's recoil time by 1. Recoil time: 3

Parry - Attempt to parry a blow. If you succeed, you increase your foe's recoil time by 1. Recoil time: 4

In this case, a player can use either of their hands on either of the 6 zones. If they use a weapon on an empty zone, it launches an attack against the opponent, and the foe sees an incoming attack on their screen. If the zone had an incoming attack on it, then you attempt a parry instead. If you use a shield on a zone, it blocks any attacks in that zone. In this image, you see a player using a weapon and a shield fighting against another player using two weapons.

Ok, so far, so good. Basic attacking, parrying and blocking can be a good deal more interesting than they are in most games. We're not sure if it'll be fun until we implement it of course, and if it's not, this will have to be scrapped. But it's a start. So, next, let's add special combat maneuvers into the mix.

Feint - Throws a fake attack, but it appears to be a real attack. Recoil time: 2.

By feinting, a player can trick a foe into committing to blocking an false attack, potentially causing them to miss blocking a real attack. Of course, if you over-use it, your foe might figure it out and just bash you upside the head while you're busy feinting.

Kick - You throw a savage kick at a foe. If parried, you also take a hit. If blocked or connected, knocks a foe away from you and to the ground. (Falling down interrupts most spell casting, and casting spells from the ground takes longer. Getting up is a non-combat action and leaves you vulnerable while you attempt to do so.) Stops you from using both hands while kicking. Recoil time: 5.

If you find a pattern in a shield-wielding foe's blocking, or your foe is weaponless- such as a spell caster- you can knock them to the ground, granting you a strong advantage. However, if your opponent figures out what you're up to, they can attack your exposed leg. Good if your opponent is over-using block.

Disarm - You attempt to disarm your foe. If blocked or connected, deals minimal damage. If parried, you disarm your foe. If your foe attempts to disarm you after you have launched a disarm attempt, you are disarmed instead. Disarmed weapons fall to the ground, and must be picked up. (Attempting non-combat actions in combat prevents you from using the hand or hands involved, and increases your recoil times with your other hand. Additionally, you cannot dodge.) Recoil time: 4.

Similarly, a foe who parries predictably can be disarmed. Without a weapon, or at least, with one fewer weapon, you should be able to make quick work of a foe. Expect them to attempt a kick, or to disengage so they can find a new weapon. Foes with back-up weapons might draw them.

Disengage - You retreat a few yards from the foes you were battling, carefully covering your exit and breaking active combat. Cannot be used while attempting any attacks, although you can- and probably should- Disengage while defending. Recoil time: N/A.

Allows you to break combat to recover or preform other non-combat actions. Notably, if you try to move past an armed foe without using Disengage, they can make free attacks on you, which is what prevents them from just moving through the gap in your battle line; moving past your still-fighting allies would cause rather a few attacks on them.

Beyond these abilities, there was some notion that we planned to have additional weapon- and material-specific special attacks, however, I think we should leave that for another day, basic combat needs implementing!

Random Spell Design

I've been thinking about the magic system in the World. Lest I forget, here's what we have: Spells come in three "levels," indexed from zero.

Zero-level spells are utility spells, cost only unflavored mana, and can be learned directly from unguided research or when a mage attunes themselves to a nexus. (Aside: Nexi litter the map, and come in several 'flavors'. A mage can bind themselves to one nexus for each day that the current telling has run, and it grants them a new zero-level spell, and a new flavored essence of the same type as the nexus.)

First-level spells can be more powerful utility spells, as well as basic combat spells. First-level spells can be learned by preforming research guided by two zero-level spells, or a zero-level spell and a first-level spell. This research cannot be successfully completed without five bound nexi. First-level spells are drastically more powerful than zero-level spells, which is why they are limited by costing flavored mana, in addition to unflavored mana.

Second-level spells are extremely powerful utility spells, or more commonly, advanced combat spells. Second-level spells are learned by preforming research guided by two first-level spells, or a first-level spell and a second-level spell. This research cannot be successfully completed without fifteen bound nexi. Second-level spells are even more powerful than first-level spells, and thus cost many flavored mana, sometimes in multiple varieties for a single spell, in addition to unflavored mana. Some second-level spells also grant a free zero-level spell when learned that is a lesser version of themselves that can be used far more frequently, via unflavored mana.

Mana comes in a small number of flavors, which have yet to be determined. Each flavor of mana is associated with several themes, and those themes imply mechanics. If a spell costs generic mana, you may use flavored mana to pay that cost, but you cannot use unflavored mana to pay a flavored cost. All players have a small pool of unflavored mana that increases by some means (as yet, undecided) as an island progresses, and refills fairly quickly after use. Mages also have up to X other pools of mana, one of each nexus that they have attuned themselves to, which are usually dormant. A mage can choose to tap one of their flavored pools (a free action in combat), at which point they gain access to a slow trickle of flavored mana for a short time until the pool is depleted, at which point they will have no access to that pool again until the pool has had time to recover (X minutes outside of combat to refresh all flavored pools).

When a server comes online, the game marks X% of the possible spells of each spell level as "learnable" on that telling. From the list of unlearnable first-level spells, each player receives a random "innate" spell. This spell functions normally, except that it can be cast with unflavored mana instead of its usual flavor. Players are not told what their innate spell is until they have a large enough unflavored mana pool to cast it.

For some spell ideas I have, see: http://espoires.blogspot.com/2011/01/spell-ideas.html

Update: All players have an "essence" stat, which determines the rate and cap of mana generation. A player's true maximum is 100 total mana, (important when considering the effect of mana potions), but if their essence is 5, (the base amount), then they will regain mana fairly slowly, and only generate up to 5 mana before their mana generation halts. Any mana held beyond the character's essence will slowly decay.

Essence can be boosted in a number of ways. Potions can give a 10-minute essence boost, well-made staves, wands, robes, shields and jewelry may boost essence while worn. There exist multiple ways to permanently boost a character's base Essence, once of which is being a subscriber, which would boost Essence by 100% or 20, whichever is smaller at the time. Being a combat mage would be balanced around having access to the subscriber boost, thus if you try to be one without it, you would be slightly less effective than a melee or archer (which may be worth it if you need the variety in your group).

When a player taps a flavored mana pool, it would convert 5 of this basic essence into 5 flavored essence for a limited time. In a long battle, a mage might "burn out" by expending all their access to flavored mana. This is intended to be similar to a physical fighter becoming fatigued. If a mage does not gain any flavored mana for 2 turns in combat, a random completely empty pool will become partially refilled, allowing to to be tapped to grant 1 flavored mana immediately.

Availability of flavored Nexi: Players should have no problem binding themselves to their maximum number of Nexi, but they also should have difficulty gaining access to that many Nexi that are all of the same flavor. Thus, they will need to choose which flavors to go for based on what has been discovered and whether those are guarded by hostile monsters or not.

On Player Advancement and Power Levels

I've been thinking about player advancement in the World, and I've been reading about how skill-based systems tend to be more difficult to implement and balance. I've also been thinking about relative balance of power, character permanence across tellings, and the effect of equipment.

But first, some light reading: http://www.eldergame.com/2008/10/designing-a-level-system/

We've already established that the bulk of progression comes in the form of knowledge about the current telling, buildings, settlements, roads, equipment and friends. Of these, all save for equipment persist through death (and even that is recoverable/easily replaceable.) At the end of a telling, however, structures are reset, a lot of game knowledge that was relevant no longer is, and for the health of the next server equipment will likely need to be wiped. So what binds a player to their character between tellings?

I'm actually thinking of letting them keep their skill-ups... which runs contradictory to the view that server resets should be a good time for newbies to get in on the ground floor. It's fixing that problem that leads me to my current vision of the skill system.

Skills begin at rank one, and increase rapidly to near-maximum. These numbers have virtually no effect on performance at the skill. Instead, what you get from practicing a skill enough to level up is advice on how to proceed in mastering it. Thus, each skill-up unlocks the next few pieces of a tutorial in using the skill. Finally, we can offer players a tangible (but small!) reward for the final couple of skill-ups, perhaps a 2-5% gain in effectiveness for combat stats at maximum (compared to rank one).

An example skill-up table may be as follows:

Swordsmanship Rank - Effect
1 - Start, UI offers the first page of the swordsmanship tutorial, explaining how to get a cheap weapon and hit something, perhaps a dummy or a tree. Level up almost immediately.
2 - Explains how to do the first (of many) melee special attacks, and tells you to preform one. Level up almost immediately.
3 through 5 - Explains more melee special attacks, level up after doing a few of each.
6 - Explains the Block mechanic, level up after preventing X damage through Block, which should take only 1-2 appropriately challenging combats.
7 - Explains the Parry mechanic, level up after preventing X damage through Parry, which should take 3-4 appropriately-challenging combats.
8 - This is the "you know what to do, and the last two ranks are going to take some real time spent being a melee fighter to get" level. Leaves you with an explanation of the uses of various weapon types, how to do your "rotation," and when to disengage from combat if you find your defenses depleted. Level up after a day or so of doing melee fighter type-stuff (not a whole day of solid combat o.O)
9 - +2% Parry and Block regeneration rate and melee damage. Comes with some more advanced advice about more advanced situations, things that would be a bit more overwhelming to someone who just learned to fight (rank 8). Level up after about one telling's worth of playing a melee fighter.
10 - Bonus increased to +5%. May come with some final tips about engaging the most powerful of foes, or overwhelming numbers.


For non-combat skills, we may not even grant tangible effects, the value may be in revealing secret techniques, or explaining advanced tactics.

An MMO without the need for Healers?

I've been toying with the design for an open-world sandbox/PvE game for a while now, and one of the big traits of the game world so far is low-magic, meaning magic is more like that in Lord of the Rings than Arcanists. ...which poses a design problem: by default, PvE MMOs copy what WoW does, but without widespread access to magic, how can we have dedicated healers? How can the Holy Trinity survive?

Initially, I thought that perhaps non-magical healing would allow dedicated healers to exist, perhaps flitting about large battlefields, using potions, herbal salves and more mundane means to patch up injured soldiers that have retreated from the front lines. Indeed, if I have my way, that will be a viable build, and a useful function in a prolonged battle or siege, but what of shorter battles? Will healing even be a consideration, or should the fight simply be a damage race? What about small-group combat, that may not have enough members to spare a dedicated medic, lest the battle line crumble immediately? It is these considerations that lead me to a potential resource system that is akin to "Health" of other MMOs, but which answers my questions while remaining simulationistic.

Health
As in other MMOs, depletes with damage, refills outside of combat via healing effects (or natural regeneration, but over very long periods.)

Armor
An extension of the health bar, refills only when repaired or swapped, swapping armor takes a long time, and should be unlikely to be used as a tactic in any but the longest of battles, and surely not in active combat. Also, most armor only absorbs X damage per hit, an

Wards
Although likely to be rare, wards function like armor, extending the health bar, but are considered much earlier. Damage is assigned to the ward effect with the least remaining health first.

Dodge
Actively (based on player skill) prevents the first X attacks that would otherwise be hits on a player, refills in active combat up to Y%, as long as the player hasn't recently had an attack consider them. Has no chance to dodge an attack that you cannot detect. Refills fairly quickly to max when not in active combat.

Block & Parry
Actively (based on player skill) allows a player to prevent attacks with a shield or weapon. Prevents X damage before depleting. Both refill in active combat, even while being considered by attacks, however, both refill faster if a player hasn't been considered by any attacks recently. Parry should be more difficult to execute than Block, soak less damage before depleting than Block, and should fail on particularly massive attacks. Parry with two weapons should be slightly less potent than Block with a shield. It is my opinion that shields should not be breakable, except by special mechanics (or perhaps, not at all.)


When an attack "considers" a player, (that is to say, an attack's hit-box intersects a player's hit box,) the damage is assigned to a resource on the following priority table which is highest on the table and can apply to the attack in question:

1. Block
2. Parry
3. Dodge
4. Ward
5. Armor
6. Health

Healing magic is flavored as an infusion of "life energy" or "vitality," rather than "refilling your health stat." When a player is considered by healing magic, the healing applies to a resource on the following priority table which is highest on the table:

1. Health
2. Block
3. Parry
4. Dodge

Health is 1:1, 1 point of healing magic refills 1 point of health.
Block is 1:2, 1 point of healing magic refills 2 points of block.
Parry is 1:1.7, 1 point of healing magic refills 1.7 points of parry.
Dodge does not keep track of the amount of damage nullified, requires a constant X healing to refill a spent Dodge point. The time to refill a Dodge point naturally by time is constant.

What this all implies, is that by fluidly shifting a foe's focus, or cycling fatigued fighters to the rear of the battle lines, players can "catch their breath" and claim some fairly effective free healing in a situation without any "real" healers. Similarly, in a high-end squad incorporating dedicated magical healers, those not casting spells can use the same tactic to spread damage around, making healing itself less hectic, as well as maximizing the effects of natural recuperation, by ensuring that as many players are recovering at a given time as possible.