Combat Overhaul Alpha

[l3lessed]

Still hanging around. This is not abandoned.

I'm waiting on release because of some feedback I received on the videos. Individuals made good suggestions. Weapons need a wind up animation before the swing initiates to simulate more realistic, natural feeling attacks. It's odd the player doesn't have to pull back to initiate the attack.

It's also needed to help smooth out the issue of attack animations going to slow or to fast that it looks kind of ridiculous and feels unnatural. If there is a wind up animation period, it would allow attack speeds to be modified through slowing or speeding up this wind up period, while minimizing the influence on the attack animation itself. Aka, attack animations could be smoothed out in a more natural way while still keeping default attack speeds.

I'v been brainstorming how to do this, so I haven't coded much for last two weeks or so.

As of now, I need to find a way to insert a new animation period before the actual animation attack frames start. I have a few ideas to start on soon.

I'm wondering though, if I should just adjust a few of my numbers for balance/play ability, and release the current alpha as is for player testing. How many people would use my DFU build if I did? I would need a handful of people to be playing and giving feedback to make releasing it worth it.

I also need to just stop delaying a github for this. I'll really try to get a github setup in the next week.

[Ommamar]

Deleted

[King of Worms]

Releasing it will get you necessary feedback and it will help you sort things out.
Id like to test it.
Btw, I send you the links to my weapons few weeks back, plus now its in a DFMOD version on nexus as well...

[daggerdude]

Hi l3essed, I had a question. By the same size as the originals do you mean that daggerfall must use the same size sprites as the original? The point of making HD renders is to make them bigger... Like the other HD weapon thread. What exactly CAN we change?

Also, I'm super in favor of you releasing an alpha of your mod so you can get feedback. I'd love to playtest it.

Also Also, I'm happy to give you my models so you can play around with them yourself in blender, a free program. Let me know and i'll put up a DL link for that sword. I want to remake it because it's not UVWrapping the way i want it. My idea was to "texture bake" by taking a render and editing it in an image editor to add things like nicks, hammer marks, accentuate edges, ect.

[jedidia]

Weapons need a wind up animation before the swing initiates to simulate more realistic, natural feeling attacks. It's odd the player doesn't have to pull back to initiate the attack.

Actually not. The basic concept of guards is that you never rest in a position from which you cannot directly attack or defend without a "wind up". The only use for winding up before a strike in a melee fight is for feinting (where the wind up may traverse through several guard positions at which the attack can be mutated to something other than the wind up is indicating).

Now, in a video game this is rather tough to do since it reduces the available reaction time significantly in case the game employs manual parries, which due to daggerfalls animations does not really seem advisable.

[l3lessed]

Okay, I'll get it up some time over the weekend.

Jedia, you have a valid point, and on some experimentation, it doesn't look right having a large wind up type animation. However, there is still the delay of positioning yourself for the attack, and having your movement largely set once the attack starts. This is what I'm feeling needs mimicked in the way the attacks work. Once the attack starts, Players movements and mouse rotation should be clamped way down and movement direction locked, and a automatic lurch in the attack direction should happen during the arc of the attack animation. That is, once you dedicate to a full attack swing, you are largely locked

So, kind of like, this: player hits attack. Players mouse rotation and movement speed is clamped way down to limit crazy, unrealistic movements or attack spinning. There is a slight pause and weapon moving into stance position to simulate getting into attack position. Then attack animation begins, with a "lurch/step" in the direction of the attack, to simulate the natural momentum of swinging a heavy object. Once complete, all movement and mouse rotation returns to normal.

I also looked into improving recoil animation, and it is possible, but I need to reprogram my offset formulas and numbers to allow it using a basic bolean switch. Right now, the formulas were just guesses to figure out offset movements and can be improved.

I also may add in double the offset frames to improve frame skipping when wielding larger, heavier weapons that slow down attack speed/animation. It will just decrease the space between each offset by half making for smoother animation appearance, which makes a bigger difference the slower the animation speed.

[Midknightprince]

Okay, I have been watching this thing, so whenever you guys put this thing up, let me know.
It looks bad ass.

[l3lessed]

Hi l3essed, I had a question. By the same size as the originals do you mean that daggerfall must use the same size sprites as the original? The point of making HD renders is to make them bigger... Like the other HD weapon thread. What exactly CAN we change?

Also, I'm super in favor of you releasing an alpha of your mod so you can get feedback. I'd love to playtest it.

Also Also, I'm happy to give you my models so you can play around with them yourself in blender, a free program. Let me know and i'll put up a DL link for that sword. I want to remake it because it's not UVWrapping the way i want it. My idea was to "texture bake" by taking a render and editing it in an image editor to add things like nicks, hammer marks, accentuate edges, ect.

I do not know the 100% answer to this. Interkarma may be able to provide a concrete answer. However, from my technical knowledge, it should be possible, as long as the aspect ratios of 1 to 1 are kept. That is, if the original hd sprite is say, 512 X 512 and you want to upscale its quality by a factor of 4, the HD version would need to be 2048 x 2048. I point this out because the animation size is different between a number of the attack animation types, so you need to ensure to keep the same image aspect ratio when creating higher quality/resolution replacements. Again, interkarma could verify this for me though, as he already has created hd sprites I plan on using at some point.

[jedidia]

However, there is still the delay of positioning yourself for the attack,

From an real world fighting point of view, if you're not already in that position, you don't attack, or you launch an attack with the primary intent of getting you into a more favorable position. The problem with fighting IRL is that there is no hard border between positioning, attack and defense. They're all part of each other, especially when fighting with weapons where each blow could be the last. It's one of the major reason why I don't think it can ever be portrayed by a game with any meaningful accuracy.
That's not to discourage you from trying to improve fighting in daggerfall. Just an advice that when it comes to fighting in games, mechanics are more important than realism. I'm not sure a delay when hitting the attack is a good mechanic, but you'll have to try it out.

and having your movement largely set once the attack starts.

That one on the other hand sounds like it could be both realistic and an interesting mechanic. Though IRL there is of course always the possibility of attacking with sidestepping or even retreating just as well as stepping in, but it might get a bit complicated to control in the game...

[l3lessed]

For me, game play will always trump realism, but I also believe games can have a hyper level of immersion without affecting game play negatively. The contrary, if done correctly, bringing in realistic aspects of mechanics into game play mechanics can greatly enhanced the experience for any player. Point being, I won't do anything is I feel it is a clear negative to the game play experience.

Movement would still be possible, but just very limited. So, you could swing and still make a small side step or back step; it would be really limited though, so that way you could still work on positioning without creating weird, broken mechanics, like insane attack arcs from spinning in circles or strafing at high speeds. Now that weapons shoot arced ray traces until they hit something, players could create insane hit arcs if movement and mouse rotation isn't clamped way down.