I have completely changed the OP. Quotes, comments and replies on the first few pages might make less sense because of this. You can see much of it quoted on the 3rd page though.
***IMPORTANT, READ BEFORE REPLYING*** Do not assume that this is a suggestion for over-complicated combat just because the post is long. This post includes a lot of reasoning, analysis and game design philosophy.
This suggestion is long so here is the Table of contents
Intro
Attacking
Fleeing
Creepers
Difficulty settings and their effect on gameplay
More on movement
Smaller miscellaneous changes
Tl;DR
Closing and conclusion
Intro: read the tl;dr for an outline if you want.
When dealing with monsters, you have three options to deal with them: safehousing/blocking them off, fleeing and attacking. As it is, attacking and fleeing aren't very viable or rewarding. The only thing monsters do right now is to force you indoors and limit what you can do. This makes variety in monsters arbitrary as they are all just dangerous things to shut away. If you want to kill them, you have to slowly and carefully carve out the perfect hole in which you can swipe at their legs or if you are outdoors, run inside and lure them into your trap or wait til they burn in the morning.
Don't get me wrong, trapping monsters and then drowning them or killing them with cacti can be a lot of fun and can be quite rewarding, however safehousing requires a little bit of time to set up and in a lot of situations safehousing is incredibly inconvenient. The following are suggestions for improving the other options when facing monsters.
If attacking had more depth then you would have more freedom to explore, dungeons would be fun, adding new monsters would be justified. By this I don't mean that attacking would be easy, just less tedious.
If fleeing were more viable then you could actually survive when a skeleton jumps on top of you in a mine, lure monsters away from valuable resources in dungeons without taking much damage, you would again have more freedom to explore and you could survive a full night outside and actually benefit from it.
If these three options were more balanced then the player can do more stuff. The player would be happier
Some people feel that monsters are there to hunt you down. Fair enough, setting difficulty to "Hard" should make attacking less viable and fleeing more viable. If you like combat and want to hunt zombies, then setting the difficulty to "Easy" should make it more viable.
Attacking:
What is needed to balance attacking? When in caves, ways to approach skeletons with less risk and ways of mitigating creepers creeper damage when they sneak up on you. To approach skeletons, two things are needed: shields and more maneuverability.This post has a reasonable shield description in it although the stealth slow I think might be a little bit much.
Movement should be smoothed out in two ways:
1a) a way of getting up two blocks instead of just one. This can be accomplished in 4 different ways, ledge grabbing (functions a lot like wall climbing below), jump increased to 2, tap space short hop (1block) and hold space high jump (2block), and double jump.
1b) Wall climbing. Wall climbing is already included with ladders but should be made more viable by being able to climb walls for less cost than using many ladders. I suggest some sort of climbing glove. All this does is provide the same movement as ladder spamming while not requiring a lot of ladders. It would have durability that drains fairly fast making ladders a better option for frequently traveled areas. It would also allow you to hold left click to grab something rather than time a right click correctly. There should also be a maximum velocity in which you can grab a wall at so that you can't save yourself from a fall so easily. I want to stress that this would not add any new mechanics to the game, it would only making climbing walls more accessible resource wise.
2) either a double-tap dash, makes you quickly move 2 blocks (seems to be favored), or limited sprinting.
If this is implemented, then these movement changes will be moot (although climbing gloves would still be nice) viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36988
When outside, the above movements can be used and is sometimes necessary but also is more dangerous. Alternatively you could use more accurate, faster projectile speed, more knockback, slower firing weapon to keep them back (like crossbow!). Bow's should be closer ranged, less accurate and fire faster. All of these are true in comparison but the bow's attack speed needs to be reduced.
Fleeing:
The main problem with fleeing is that there is little reward and little variety, If you want to avoid monsters, you might as well make a 1x1x2 house and sit there for the night. There is no benefit over safehousing and there is little benefit over attacking (taking less damage). Something needs to be out there at night. Something that you want to get to, especially in hard mode. Running and luring would allow you to get to it without being insta-murdered. It might take longer than just slaying everything (unless it were hard mode) but you wouldn't risk your stuff as much.
For more variety, movement enhancements should do fine. More dynamic monsters too. (skeleton, strafe and run away; everything else, run away)
Creepers:
Creepers are fine when you can see them from a distance, you can bow them/bait them/slash-run. The problem is when the creeper surprises you. When a creeper jumps on top of your head, there should be two options: attack or flee. based on the situation and the difficulty level, they should both have their own merits. The main changes are variable damage based on proximity (if this is not the case), longer fuse for longer reaction window (we aren't all professional CS players with .09 second reaction time) and either for the explosion to get smaller or do less damage OR for the trigger time to be extended if you deal damage to it. For fleeing, the explosion radius should be changed so that if you reacted very fast or baited perfectly, then you will be able to get out of the blast radius entirely. If you didn't react very fast or baited poorly then you would be closer to the center of their explosion meaning more damage. For attacking If you have fast reaction time and good spacing then you can kill it when it triggers. If you don't have that, then it explodes for less damage. This makes either choice viable and not an all or nothing situation.
Difficulty settings and their effect on gameplay:
Some changes other than stats will be needed to make the easy/hard difficulties balance properly. In easy, other than making mobs weaker, the creeper should get more reduction in damage when hit and slightly longer explosion delay. This would make the attack option more viable. Mobs would also have a smaller aggro radius. For hard, mobs should have a bigger aggro radius and move faster, creepers should have a smaller explosion radius and shorter fuse to compensate but the increased health and damage would make attacking a poorer option unless cornered.
More on movement:
Making movement less clunky would change more aspects of the game than just combat. It would affect platforming and general travel. *By clunky, I mean that you frequently have to stop moving due to terrain so you can jump. The more fluid system involves: jumping two blocks allowing you to jump over things and on to things with much less stopping, and dashing to maneuver in midair and travel over small gaps or onto ledges. The reason why movement is so jarring is because you have to maneuver over each 1x1x1m block one at a time, frequently stopping to do so. With this system of movement you can skip blocks and more places from a given point, ie. more options. *copy pasted from page two
Smaller miscellaneous changes:
Red invincibility when hit should be removed and attack speed should be (greatly) limited for both player and monsters. This creates a variable timing element based on weapon speed.
3rd person cross hair should be located above the player rather than on it's head
A motion blur/trail effect should follow the sword when you slash so you can actually see the range of the weapon
TL;DR:
Give the player more options in combat
Shield
Better movement
Redone ranged weapons
Difficulties balance gameplay towards either attacking or fleeing with safehousing being an option in all difficulties
Creepers redone (so that you can do something about them but are still very dangerous)
Closing and conclusion:
These changes would give the player many more options to play the game like they want to, as a survival game playing some hapless miner, or play as a monster slaying adventurer, or a balance of both.
Please give feedback on my philosophy of minecraft and the way I chose to implement balance or other topics. Please don't reply "this is a survival game, we want the combat to suck," because we have heard that argument a lot and I have taken that into consideration. If all my suggestions were taken, you could still play it as a survival game with attacking being a poor option and focusing on running away and avoiding and blocking off rather than killing. As at the top, please don't reply "this would be too complicated, you're trying to make this WoW" (I hate wow btw mostly because of it's combat.) just because this is a long post.
I agree with pretty much everything you stated. It's for these same reasons that I have no interest in the combat in this game. Don't get me wrong, I like the ideas of creating barriers, defense structures, traps and such... but offensive combat is needless tedium, with no viable rewards.
It's beyond me how anyone enjoys up front, in your face, full on offensive combat in MC as it is now. And yet, somehow, people do. They want more monsters to fight in this clunky manner. I don't get it. I find the barriers, defensive structures, and traps to be far more interesting ways to deal with enemies, not to mention far more productive and ultimately rewarding.
But to each their own, I suppose. Definitely want better combat mechanics, yes.
Nah. Combat's pretty good as is. It isn't slow at all if you have the bow & some arrows, too. rather fast in fact. If you have a sword of diamond it's over in seconds.
remember that it isn't CombatCraft, guys. Combat we have at the moment is functional, and the main focus right now is new features and bug fixes.
also, creepers are immobile while about to explode. That's how you get away.
Its an alpha game, features are still being added.
Combat is probably not that high on the list.
However, by viritue of adding new mob type with new ability, new combat sytem may evolve out of that.
Yeah, Knytt pretty much nailed the distinction here. It's not "Combat" it's just dealing with part of the natural hazards of the game. There is absolutely no situation thus far where you are required to kill a creature in order to advance through the game(ie, being able to kill, mine, grow, or build something that you couldn't before) Zombies drop feathers which are already covered by chickens, skeletons drop arrows, but you can craft those yourself. Creepers drop gunpowder, but you only need that if you want to blow something up, and spiders drop string, which is really only essential for building bows, which is only useful for killing stuff from a distance. Even if you do want those resources, it is still possible to find them from battles that enemies have had with each other, rare occurrence that it may be.
Quote from Abstractor »
Well if that is really what this game is about, then the game would be over after you accumulate at least 16 blocks and 1 torch.
wat?
oh wait, I get it. No, you're wrong. Knytt wasn't saying teh WHOLE GAME is ONLY about defense against creatures. He was talking about the PORTION of the game you are referring to as "combat" is only "defense against creatures".
I don't agree with double jump and things. This isn't an MMPORG... Shields? Ok, why not?
I think I do agree creepers are the most problem, and due to the fact that they spawn like five a night. Skeletons? Eh, could be a bit easier. And also, creepers are kinda considered a boss like a slime.
That's not the focus of the ENTIRE game though, that's only the focus of the "combat" portion of the game. Besides, you'd only need 10 blocks and not even the torch to survive indefinitely, 4 pillars of 2 blocks on each side of you, 3rd block on top of one of the pillars and then a block on the side of that 3rd block to close the ceiling over your head.
So shields would be an appropriate addition because they would allow you to better defend yourself if you were attacked by a skeleton from up close, as would a little dodge move so you could try avoiding attacks or getting just a little further away from the blast radius when a creeper blows up nearby. The rest of the ideas are just too much.
Of course I'd like a shield to defend, I already have suggested shields myself, but more than that begins to detract from the true focus of minecraft, which can be summed up as "survive, gather, build" If you start adding more skilled combat, the enemies would need to be more skilled and aggressive as well, at which point the combat begins to take precedence over the "gather and build" aspects of the game. Same thing for magic unless that magic is specifically geared towards traveling and the creation of more complex (possibly mobile) structures.
you keep on going "the combat is boring as it is" but the combat isn't the point of the game. You don't gain experience for killing them, you don't collect hearts to increase your health, you don't get gold to buy stuff with. Combat isn't the focus, the "gather and build" is really the focus of minecraft, and the "survive" portion is meant to provide a little pressure to help motivate the "gather and build" aspects.
I understand that you want more combat, but this isn't the game for that. Let me help you visualize the situation: Think of this game like a scene in a movie. "gather" and "build" are talking at a restaurant about something important. While they talk, "combat" is served for them to eat. In a REAL restaurant, people would start digging into the "combat" and you'd see them slice it u, chew, and maybe even comment on how it tastes, etc. But the focus in this movie scene is on "gather" and "build", so you likely wont even see them eat more than a single bite before they go back to talking and you wont even ever see them finish the meal at all.
Sorry to tell you this, but Minecraft may actually NOT be the game for you. If you like the gameplay of Dark Messiah, then that will be great any time you play dark messiah, but you can't expect Minecraft to incorporate and focus on combat the way dark messiah does any more than you can expect Dark Messiah to incorporate and focus on the lego-like building aspects of Minecraft.
Yeah, Knytt pretty much nailed the distinction here. It's not "Combat" it's just dealing with part of the natural hazards of the game. There is absolutely no situation thus far where you are required to kill a creature in order to advance through the game(ie, being able to kill, mine, grow, or build something that you couldn't before) Zombies drop feathers which are already covered by chickens, skeletons drop arrows, but you can craft those yourself. Creepers drop gunpowder, but you only need that if you want to blow something up, and spiders drop string, which is really only essential for building bows, which is only useful for killing stuff from a distance. Even if you do want those resources, it is still possible to find them from battles that enemies have had with each other, rare occurrence that it may be.
Quote from Abstractor »
Well if that is really what this game is about, then the game would be over after you accumulate at least 16 blocks and 1 torch.
wat?
oh wait, I get it. No, you're wrong. Knytt wasn't saying teh WHOLE GAME is ONLY about defense against creatures. He was talking about the PORTION of the game you are referring to as "combat" is only "defense against creatures".
Exploring any amount of distance and running into monsters when you mine. Non-moveable spawn points are also a big problem. I want to see what this world has to offer and I also want the thrill of monsters but in the current game state, I can't have both. I keep the peaceful setting on most of the time.
If the game is all about defense then there still need to be better escape mechanisms, see movement suggestions. Sprint + 2 block jump would fit into this philosophy.
As it is, monsters are just annoying, they are just a hassle rather than being a fun addition to the game. I am just suggesting a way to rectify this. This issue should be high on the priority list as new monsters are also high on the priority list.
Please do not "critique" my post by saying that I don't "get" this game, it is insulting and not constructive.
I understand that you want more combat, but this isn't the game for that.
You understand me wrong then (if you are specifically replying to me). I just want the combat when it happens not to suck. If I'm not supposed to kill everything then I would like to be able to avoid it to some degree.
We have discussed here a lot about "what" minecraft is. I think somewhere we should make a thread on this topic because determining "what" minecraft is is important.
Also, abstractor, can you link your suggestion about Dark Messiah combat?
Actually I was specifically replying to Abstractor in pretty much all of my posts so far.
And combat still isn't required for accomplishing those things. You can also dig a different path around your enemy, block the enemy off with a wall, then dig a pit 3 blocks deep before bringing the wall back down, then letting them fall into the pit and placing a single block over them to seal them in.
Or you could back yourself up to a wall or corner, place 4 to 6 blocks around you so you have a wall between you and them, dig down one block, break one of the lower blocks in the wall you built, and then attack the skeleton's legs from where they can't fire back at you, but it also works on other enemies as well.
Think about it, what about if you dug into lava? You'd block off the lava and find another route around the lava. Why are enemies different from that?
This is what I mean where focusing on the combat detracts from the primary focus of the game. If people had "sprint" then they'd just run from enemies instead of trying to build obstacles to inhibit the enemy's progress.
Think about it, what about if you dug into lava? You'd block off the lava and find another route around the lava. Why are enemies different from that?
This is what I mean where focusing on the combat detracts from the primary focus of the game. If people had "sprint" then they'd just run from enemies instead of trying to build obstacles to inhibit the enemy's progress.
So all monsters should be dealt with by digging around them or putting blocks in their way? That is what I find tedious, a little counter-intuitive and very slow. I would MUCH prefer to deal with them in a little more straight forward way. It also makes weapons more of an auxiliary item, you might as well pour lava on their heads (except for the fact that you have a more limited supply of lava on-hand because buckets don't stack). What if you are out in the open? Not much to do against a skeleton except stay in your bunker or run away and aggro a couple of creepers and another skeleton.
Enemies differ from lava in that they pursue you, have ranged attacks, explode and generally are way deadlier.
Judging from the screenshot of hell, you won't be able to block off enemies because a lot of it is open. especially against flying enemies. The whole concept of hell seems to be somewhat combat focused, dungeons as well
Regarding maneuvering.
Facing a 2 block high obstacle, a player can jump, and held down jump, which trigger the player to "climb" up to the second block. This will only work if there's enough space on top of the second block for you to stand up (else, you just stay right there).
You're expecting the game to become something different than what it is.
I'm not sure you fully understand the point of the Alpha -> Beta -> Release stages.
This is what you're going to get. Things will be added, bugs will be fixed, Graphics might be changed levels may be different, but this is it. Combat MIGHT be improved, but it's NOT going to become the center focus of the game like you seem to imply.
Let us keep this civil. I realize that some of what Grey wrote was presumptuous but your post was bordering on hostility thus escalating this from a discussion to an argument. I would like to thank you both though for your input and keeping this topic lively, lets just reduce the a little :smile.gif:
As to dark messiah, while it looks really cool, it also looks too involved. Such a system would certainly tip the game towards combat focused, which, as many have stated, is undesirable.
I think what we want is a simple system that would make combat more interesting.
I suggest that anyone that has been here for a while reread the OP because I have changed it up and added little bits here and there.
I like this spectrum of more combat/less combat wanting people we have here. Makes this more interesting. If Grey is 0 and Abstractor is 10, I would put myself at around 4-5. :biggrin.gif:
Oh and don't try to belittle me to get your point across.
I want to put together a proper post of response to some of that drivel you call posts, but this one really gets me.
He's not supposed to belittle you?
Have you read any of your posts before you clicked submit?
No?
I suggest you go back and read a few...
Quote from sabata2 »
I'm not sure you fully understand the point of the Alpha -> Beta -> Release stages.
Please don't be hostile.
Also he was belittling by saying "I'm not sure you fully understand..." rather than just stating his opinion. He could have just said "That's not the point of the Alpha ->..."
By Beta the game is pretty much complete. And the changes between Alpha and Beta usually aren't huge (gameplay wise). Only made obvious the fact that you didn't understand this.
Also, you can address both things in one post... or edit your post.
And he isn't focusing on combat. We went over this in the "needs" thread. There's 3 ways to deal with mobs. Build a safehouse. Kill the thing. And Run the hell away. All three of those are the subset of How to deal with "surviving enemies".
By introducing a new enemy it does nothing to force one option over the other. You just have to make the choice more often than before.
(He obviously has to balance the Ghast if he couldn't kill it, but that isn't putting a preference on battle, it's making Battle just as good as Build or Flight)
By Beta the game is pretty much complete. And the changes between Alpha and Beta usually aren't huge (gameplay wise). Only made obvious the fact that you didn't understand this.
Also, you can address both things in one post... or edit your post.
And he isn't focusing on combat. We went over this in the "needs" thread. There's 3 ways to deal with mobs. Build a safehouse. Kill the thing. And Run the hell away. All three of those are the subset of How to deal with "surviving enemies".
By introducing a new enemy it does nothing to force one option over the other. You just have to make the choice more often than before.
(He obviously has to balance the Ghast if he couldn't kill it, but that isn't putting a preference on battle, it's making Battle just as good as Build or Flight)
It was not what you said, but the way you said it that was belittling, you could have made the same observation without making assumptions as to his level of knowledge. However, that is besides the point.
I like that we have established a premise: there are three ways of dealing with a monster which should be in balance, build a safehouse, kill it or run. (or rather that you have established a premise that I strongly agree with)
I would like to analyze these three ways in terms of the set difficulty level.
Building a safehouse should be equally viable for all difficulties, there is no reason why it wouldn't. Blocking off passages could be considered a subset of building a safehouse.
Killing should be more viable on easier difficulties.
Running should be more viable on harder difficulties (because they are tougher to kill).
So the challenge is to balance these three elements so that they are equally viable on normal mode.
Right now building a safehouse heavily outweighs the other two options and killing comes at a far second because running just doesn't work with current aggro radius, mob distribution and player mobility.
There shouldn't be a way to make safehouses less viable therefore fleeing and combat should be either more viable or more rewarding.
Fleeing seems like the hardest one to make viable. Perhaps by fleeing you could save time over building a safehouse or you could lure monsters away from valuables faster than killing them.
***IMPORTANT, READ BEFORE REPLYING***
Do not assume that this is a suggestion for over-complicated combat just because the post is long. This post includes a lot of reasoning, analysis and game design philosophy.
This suggestion is long so here is the
Table of contents
Intro
Attacking
Fleeing
Creepers
Difficulty settings and their effect on gameplay
More on movement
Smaller miscellaneous changes
Tl;DR
Closing and conclusion
Intro:
read the tl;dr for an outline if you want.
When dealing with monsters, you have three options to deal with them: safehousing/blocking them off, fleeing and attacking. As it is, attacking and fleeing aren't very viable or rewarding. The only thing monsters do right now is to force you indoors and limit what you can do. This makes variety in monsters arbitrary as they are all just dangerous things to shut away. If you want to kill them, you have to slowly and carefully carve out the perfect hole in which you can swipe at their legs or if you are outdoors, run inside and lure them into your trap or wait til they burn in the morning.
Don't get me wrong, trapping monsters and then drowning them or killing them with cacti can be a lot of fun and can be quite rewarding, however safehousing requires a little bit of time to set up and in a lot of situations safehousing is incredibly inconvenient. The following are suggestions for improving the other options when facing monsters.
If attacking had more depth then you would have more freedom to explore, dungeons would be fun, adding new monsters would be justified. By this I don't mean that attacking would be easy, just less tedious.
If fleeing were more viable then you could actually survive when a skeleton jumps on top of you in a mine, lure monsters away from valuable resources in dungeons without taking much damage, you would again have more freedom to explore and you could survive a full night outside and actually benefit from it.
If these three options were more balanced then the player can do more stuff. The player would be happier
Some people feel that monsters are there to hunt you down. Fair enough, setting difficulty to "Hard" should make attacking less viable and fleeing more viable. If you like combat and want to hunt zombies, then setting the difficulty to "Easy" should make it more viable.
Attacking:
What is needed to balance attacking? When in caves, ways to approach skeletons with less risk and ways of mitigating creepers creeper damage when they sneak up on you. To approach skeletons, two things are needed: shields and more maneuverability.This post has a reasonable shield description in it although the stealth slow I think might be a little bit much.
Movement should be smoothed out in two ways:
1a) a way of getting up two blocks instead of just one. This can be accomplished in 4 different ways, ledge grabbing (functions a lot like wall climbing below), jump increased to 2, tap space short hop (1block) and hold space high jump (2block), and double jump.
1b) Wall climbing. Wall climbing is already included with ladders but should be made more viable by being able to climb walls for less cost than using many ladders. I suggest some sort of climbing glove. All this does is provide the same movement as ladder spamming while not requiring a lot of ladders. It would have durability that drains fairly fast making ladders a better option for frequently traveled areas. It would also allow you to hold left click to grab something rather than time a right click correctly. There should also be a maximum velocity in which you can grab a wall at so that you can't save yourself from a fall so easily. I want to stress that this would not add any new mechanics to the game, it would only making climbing walls more accessible resource wise.
2) either a double-tap dash, makes you quickly move 2 blocks (seems to be favored), or limited sprinting.
If this is implemented, then these movement changes will be moot (although climbing gloves would still be nice) viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36988
When outside, the above movements can be used and is sometimes necessary but also is more dangerous. Alternatively you could use more accurate, faster projectile speed, more knockback, slower firing weapon to keep them back (like crossbow!). Bow's should be closer ranged, less accurate and fire faster. All of these are true in comparison but the bow's attack speed needs to be reduced.
Fleeing:
The main problem with fleeing is that there is little reward and little variety, If you want to avoid monsters, you might as well make a 1x1x2 house and sit there for the night. There is no benefit over safehousing and there is little benefit over attacking (taking less damage). Something needs to be out there at night. Something that you want to get to, especially in hard mode. Running and luring would allow you to get to it without being insta-murdered. It might take longer than just slaying everything (unless it were hard mode) but you wouldn't risk your stuff as much.
For more variety, movement enhancements should do fine. More dynamic monsters too. (skeleton, strafe and run away; everything else, run away)
Creepers:
Creepers are fine when you can see them from a distance, you can bow them/bait them/slash-run. The problem is when the creeper surprises you. When a creeper jumps on top of your head, there should be two options: attack or flee. based on the situation and the difficulty level, they should both have their own merits. The main changes are variable damage based on proximity (if this is not the case), longer fuse for longer reaction window (we aren't all professional CS players with .09 second reaction time) and either for the explosion to get smaller or do less damage OR for the trigger time to be extended if you deal damage to it. For fleeing, the explosion radius should be changed so that if you reacted very fast or baited perfectly, then you will be able to get out of the blast radius entirely. If you didn't react very fast or baited poorly then you would be closer to the center of their explosion meaning more damage. For attacking If you have fast reaction time and good spacing then you can kill it when it triggers. If you don't have that, then it explodes for less damage. This makes either choice viable and not an all or nothing situation.
Difficulty settings and their effect on gameplay:
Some changes other than stats will be needed to make the easy/hard difficulties balance properly. In easy, other than making mobs weaker, the creeper should get more reduction in damage when hit and slightly longer explosion delay. This would make the attack option more viable. Mobs would also have a smaller aggro radius. For hard, mobs should have a bigger aggro radius and move faster, creepers should have a smaller explosion radius and shorter fuse to compensate but the increased health and damage would make attacking a poorer option unless cornered.
More on movement:
Making movement less clunky would change more aspects of the game than just combat. It would affect platforming and general travel. *By clunky, I mean that you frequently have to stop moving due to terrain so you can jump. The more fluid system involves: jumping two blocks allowing you to jump over things and on to things with much less stopping, and dashing to maneuver in midair and travel over small gaps or onto ledges. The reason why movement is so jarring is because you have to maneuver over each 1x1x1m block one at a time, frequently stopping to do so. With this system of movement you can skip blocks and more places from a given point, ie. more options.
*copy pasted from page two
Smaller miscellaneous changes:
Red invincibility when hit should be removed and attack speed should be (greatly) limited for both player and monsters. This creates a variable timing element based on weapon speed.
3rd person cross hair should be located above the player rather than on it's head
A motion blur/trail effect should follow the sword when you slash so you can actually see the range of the weapon
TL;DR:
Give the player more options in combat
Shield
Better movement
Redone ranged weapons
Difficulties balance gameplay towards either attacking or fleeing with safehousing being an option in all difficulties
Creepers redone (so that you can do something about them but are still very dangerous)
Closing and conclusion:
These changes would give the player many more options to play the game like they want to, as a survival game playing some hapless miner, or play as a monster slaying adventurer, or a balance of both.
Please give feedback on my philosophy of minecraft and the way I chose to implement balance or other topics. Please don't reply "this is a survival game, we want the combat to suck," because we have heard that argument a lot and I have taken that into consideration. If all my suggestions were taken, you could still play it as a survival game with attacking being a poor option and focusing on running away and avoiding and blocking off rather than killing. As at the top, please don't reply "this would be too complicated, you're trying to make this WoW" (I hate wow btw mostly because of it's combat.) just because this is a long post.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56267
It's beyond me how anyone enjoys up front, in your face, full on offensive combat in MC as it is now. And yet, somehow, people do. They want more monsters to fight in this clunky manner. I don't get it. I find the barriers, defensive structures, and traps to be far more interesting ways to deal with enemies, not to mention far more productive and ultimately rewarding.
But to each their own, I suppose. Definitely want better combat mechanics, yes.
My humble LPs can be found here.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=56267
PLEASE ALSO SUPPORT:
Sabata & Grey Acumen's "New Nether"
Grey Acumen's Minecraft 2.0 Suggestion Series
remember that it isn't CombatCraft, guys. Combat we have at the moment is functional, and the main focus right now is new features and bug fixes.
also, creepers are immobile while about to explode. That's how you get away.
Om nom... Nom, nom.
Combat is probably not that high on the list.
However, by viritue of adding new mob type with new ability, new combat sytem may evolve out of that.
wat?
oh wait, I get it. No, you're wrong. Knytt wasn't saying teh WHOLE GAME is ONLY about defense against creatures. He was talking about the PORTION of the game you are referring to as "combat" is only "defense against creatures".
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I think I do agree creepers are the most problem, and due to the fact that they spawn like five a night. Skeletons? Eh, could be a bit easier. And also, creepers are kinda considered a boss like a slime.
So shields would be an appropriate addition because they would allow you to better defend yourself if you were attacked by a skeleton from up close, as would a little dodge move so you could try avoiding attacks or getting just a little further away from the blast radius when a creeper blows up nearby. The rest of the ideas are just too much.
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you keep on going "the combat is boring as it is" but the combat isn't the point of the game. You don't gain experience for killing them, you don't collect hearts to increase your health, you don't get gold to buy stuff with. Combat isn't the focus, the "gather and build" is really the focus of minecraft, and the "survive" portion is meant to provide a little pressure to help motivate the "gather and build" aspects.
I understand that you want more combat, but this isn't the game for that. Let me help you visualize the situation: Think of this game like a scene in a movie. "gather" and "build" are talking at a restaurant about something important. While they talk, "combat" is served for them to eat. In a REAL restaurant, people would start digging into the "combat" and you'd see them slice it u, chew, and maybe even comment on how it tastes, etc. But the focus in this movie scene is on "gather" and "build", so you likely wont even see them eat more than a single bite before they go back to talking and you wont even ever see them finish the meal at all.
Sorry to tell you this, but Minecraft may actually NOT be the game for you. If you like the gameplay of Dark Messiah, then that will be great any time you play dark messiah, but you can't expect Minecraft to incorporate and focus on combat the way dark messiah does any more than you can expect Dark Messiah to incorporate and focus on the lego-like building aspects of Minecraft.
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Exploring any amount of distance and running into monsters when you mine. Non-moveable spawn points are also a big problem. I want to see what this world has to offer and I also want the thrill of monsters but in the current game state, I can't have both. I keep the peaceful setting on most of the time.
If the game is all about defense then there still need to be better escape mechanisms, see movement suggestions. Sprint + 2 block jump would fit into this philosophy.
As it is, monsters are just annoying, they are just a hassle rather than being a fun addition to the game. I am just suggesting a way to rectify this. This issue should be high on the priority list as new monsters are also high on the priority list.
Please do not "critique" my post by saying that I don't "get" this game, it is insulting and not constructive.
You understand me wrong then (if you are specifically replying to me). I just want the combat when it happens not to suck. If I'm not supposed to kill everything then I would like to be able to avoid it to some degree.
We have discussed here a lot about "what" minecraft is. I think somewhere we should make a thread on this topic because determining "what" minecraft is is important.
Also, abstractor, can you link your suggestion about Dark Messiah combat?
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And combat still isn't required for accomplishing those things. You can also dig a different path around your enemy, block the enemy off with a wall, then dig a pit 3 blocks deep before bringing the wall back down, then letting them fall into the pit and placing a single block over them to seal them in.
Or you could back yourself up to a wall or corner, place 4 to 6 blocks around you so you have a wall between you and them, dig down one block, break one of the lower blocks in the wall you built, and then attack the skeleton's legs from where they can't fire back at you, but it also works on other enemies as well.
Think about it, what about if you dug into lava? You'd block off the lava and find another route around the lava. Why are enemies different from that?
This is what I mean where focusing on the combat detracts from the primary focus of the game. If people had "sprint" then they'd just run from enemies instead of trying to build obstacles to inhibit the enemy's progress.
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So all monsters should be dealt with by digging around them or putting blocks in their way? That is what I find tedious, a little counter-intuitive and very slow. I would MUCH prefer to deal with them in a little more straight forward way. It also makes weapons more of an auxiliary item, you might as well pour lava on their heads (except for the fact that you have a more limited supply of lava on-hand because buckets don't stack). What if you are out in the open? Not much to do against a skeleton except stay in your bunker or run away and aggro a couple of creepers and another skeleton.
Enemies differ from lava in that they pursue you, have ranged attacks, explode and generally are way deadlier.
Judging from the screenshot of hell, you won't be able to block off enemies because a lot of it is open. especially against flying enemies. The whole concept of hell seems to be somewhat combat focused, dungeons as well
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Facing a 2 block high obstacle, a player can jump, and held down jump, which trigger the player to "climb" up to the second block. This will only work if there's enough space on top of the second block for you to stand up (else, you just stay right there).
I'm not sure you fully understand the point of the Alpha -> Beta -> Release stages.
This is what you're going to get. Things will be added, bugs will be fixed, Graphics might be changed levels may be different, but this is it. Combat MIGHT be improved, but it's NOT going to become the center focus of the game like you seem to imply.
As to dark messiah, while it looks really cool, it also looks too involved. Such a system would certainly tip the game towards combat focused, which, as many have stated, is undesirable.
I think what we want is a simple system that would make combat more interesting.
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I like this spectrum of more combat/less combat wanting people we have here. Makes this more interesting. If Grey is 0 and Abstractor is 10, I would put myself at around 4-5. :biggrin.gif:
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Please don't be hostile.
Also he was belittling by saying "I'm not sure you fully understand..." rather than just stating his opinion. He could have just said "That's not the point of the Alpha ->..."
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By Beta the game is pretty much complete. And the changes between Alpha and Beta usually aren't huge (gameplay wise). Only made obvious the fact that you didn't understand this.
Also, you can address both things in one post... or edit your post.
And he isn't focusing on combat. We went over this in the "needs" thread. There's 3 ways to deal with mobs. Build a safehouse. Kill the thing. And Run the hell away. All three of those are the subset of How to deal with "surviving enemies".
By introducing a new enemy it does nothing to force one option over the other. You just have to make the choice more often than before.
(He obviously has to balance the Ghast if he couldn't kill it, but that isn't putting a preference on battle, it's making Battle just as good as Build or Flight)
It was not what you said, but the way you said it that was belittling, you could have made the same observation without making assumptions as to his level of knowledge. However, that is besides the point.
I like that we have established a premise: there are three ways of dealing with a monster which should be in balance, build a safehouse, kill it or run. (or rather that you have established a premise that I strongly agree with)
I would like to analyze these three ways in terms of the set difficulty level.
Building a safehouse should be equally viable for all difficulties, there is no reason why it wouldn't. Blocking off passages could be considered a subset of building a safehouse.
Killing should be more viable on easier difficulties.
Running should be more viable on harder difficulties (because they are tougher to kill).
So the challenge is to balance these three elements so that they are equally viable on normal mode.
Right now building a safehouse heavily outweighs the other two options and killing comes at a far second because running just doesn't work with current aggro radius, mob distribution and player mobility.
There shouldn't be a way to make safehouses less viable therefore fleeing and combat should be either more viable or more rewarding.
Fleeing seems like the hardest one to make viable. Perhaps by fleeing you could save time over building a safehouse or you could lure monsters away from valuables faster than killing them.
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