Melee design and stamina system concept

New Member
★ Black Lounger ★
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
Apr 15, 2003
Messages
4,628
Best answers
0
Skiwan's ESF Design Doc

All value's in this design are estimates and merely here for ease of visualisation, values need to be tested tweaked in real time game for effectiveness and balance.

Stamina


Some people are against the idea of adding yet another limitation to the game. This is not how I see it. If implemented correctly and not to be attached to a "limitation" stigma, I'd see it as an oppurtunity to add more gameplay elements, and create a wider toolset for stratergy. First things first, this is the outline for the stamina system that i have in mind:

- 200 base stamina for your average class
- As a guideline for the purpose of this outline (to be tested and confirmed), stamina comes back at a rate of 15 stamina per second after 3 seconds of no stamina draining actions. Movement does not effect stamina or its regeneration, this includes teleport and swoop.
- All beams are to be given a stamina cost also dependant on charge time, increased with turbo use. For arguments sake and to put some loose figures on it, KHH would cost 30 stamina minimum charge 100 fully charged. ki blasts, generic beams, lazers/eyebeams and discs all require no stamina use.
- Beams charges that bring you below 0 stamina while charged will incur a penalty based on the time it would take for the stamina to regenerate to 20
- Basic melee would cost 20 stamina per hit (40 with turbo), however can always be performed with 20 stamina and will never reduce your stamina below 20, but would infflict reduced damage and shorter knockback while at 20 stamina.
- Teleports within the time delay would cost 10 stamina and would delay stamina regeneration for 3 seconds, you cannot teleport within the time delay with 20 stamina or less, you may teleport freely when at 20 stamina, but not rapidly.
- Damaging attacks will incur a stamina damage on the target, -10 stamina for basic melee for example, and -50 for KHH. Enviromental damage such as walls and floor would be -10 stamina. Damage taken does not stop regeneration of stamina, instead regenerates stamina at at a lesser rate - 10 per second for 3 seconds after a damaging attack.
- Powering up at full ki will increase stamina regeneration by 100% (30 stamina a second)
- Advanced melee and stamina will be discussed under advanced melee/cqc

Movement

The stamina system could extend to take more limitation relief from ki, the following figures are guidelines;

Jump - Costs 10 stamina
Walljump - Costs 15 stamina

Recovery/damage prevention

Slide - Costs 10 stamina - Holding jump while being hit towards the floor at an angle will stop damage being taken and allow for a jump or teleport while sliding
Leaping away - When hit direct directly into the floor while holding space will cost 10 stamina and then 10 more to leap away in a specified direction.
Wall recovery - Costs 10 stamina.
Block - Stamina reduction through damaging attacks delays stamina regeneration for 3 seconds and the blocker is pushed away from the attacker slightly, no damage will be taken by the blocker from melee.

Basic melee

Basic melee would be much like 1.2 basic melee, with knockback speed and distance increased and hit cap removed. However it would make sense to bring more control to the victim of a basic melee attack introducing defense and maneuverability.

knockback would be split into 3 different stages;

INITIAL HIT : No control --------------------------------> Blocking enabled ----------->Teleport enabled ---> FULL STOP

The length of these arrows represent the distance of knock back and the different stages abilities become activate. The start of knockback you have no control over your player, during the last half of knockback you may use block and the last 1/4 of knockback you may teleport in a specified direction.

Advanced melee - To be renamed to - Close quarters combat (CQC)


The most important factor in this design was to create a close quarters combat system that would blend seemlessly with basic melee and at the same time have both systems compliment each other. This method is able to include independant character combo's while being simple and allow retaliation for defenders and also fit the fast paced style esf has whilst being completely free form in its use. The stamina system would be a key part in its use.

Close quarters combat would be initiated by holding left mouse button while swooping into the enemy, this cost's 10 stamina. There would be a 3 second engagement animation where the attacker will make 3 attacks for a small ammount of damage, this is to allow the first attack command to be entered for the attack animations to be prepared. This close quarters combat will maintain the attackers momentum and occur over a distance. From the moment of engagement the attacker would be given a charge bar, the directions pressed by the player would be displayed on the charge bar much like 1.2 advanced melee however these directions are only indicated to the attacker, each direction represents one attack with a short independant animation at the cost of the attackers stamina, all these attacks will land unless the defender has already blocked the initial engagement attack. Each attack will cause damage to the defenders stamina bar as well as health. When the attacker releases their left mouse button they will then hit the opponent slightly away from them, the defender has now in effect left combat with their attacker but they are given a recovery time dependant on the amount of stamina they have remaining, there's minimum recovery time of 1 second and a maximum of 5 seconds, every 1/4 of their total stamina they have remaining will reduce their recovery time by 1 second. During this time the attacker has a 1 second pause of no action, during this, holding rightclick and a direction will initiate a charged basic melee hit, they may also teleport away or attempt to reengage in cqc with just 1 left click, stamina costs are increased for every re-engagement. The charged basic melee attack is called an end finisher and will show the attacker the direction in which they will next hit their opponent, this attack can be charged for up to 4 seconds, the longer it is charged will increase the damage done and the distance and speed of the defender's knockback. If the defender has recovered before this charged basic melee blow has landed they are able to block, counter with a normal basic melee hit, teleport away from the attack, attempt to swoop away from their enemy, or re-engage their opponent in close quarters by holding left click. Both attackers and defenders are effectively given full control over their character in this recovery time, but left click will dash into cqc with the enemy. During the time the attacker is attacking, if they run out of ki or stamina the defender will automatically hit them away with a basic melee attack. If defenders block from the start of combat they recieve no HP damage from attacks, only stamina reduction, if a defender runs out of stamina, they become unable to block attacks anymore.

When two players attempt to engage eachother in cqc at the same time a struggle bar will appear, the struggle is representative of how much stamina each player has remaining. For the first 3 seconds the players attack eachother rapidly in place, after this initial start, the losing player will start to be pushed backwards by attacks, holding leftclick during this time will consume stamina in order to damage the enemies stamina, whilst rightclick will consume ki to damage the enemies stamina, both may be pressed at onced if wished. When one players ki reaches 0, or their stamina reaches 20, they lose this cqc and are instantly the victim of a powerful basic melee strike. When a player attacking with basic melee colides with a member attempting to engage in cqc the player with most stamina will be favoured in the outcome, if the player attacking with cqc wins he will take stamina damage from the basic melee attack but will initate his attack chain as normal, if the basic melee player wins he will knock the opponent away at twice the normal stamina cost.

The CQC combo system

The close quarters combat system will enable attackers to input combo commands. There would be 3 melee combo's shared by all classes, 2 generic ki attack combo's shared across all classes and each class will have their own unique combo's.

- Melee combo's cost nothing but stamina and occur after the last command input, the last attack in a melee combo will cost significantly more stamina, if this decreases their stamina below 20 then the defender will hit the attacker away.
- Generic ki attacks are combo's that at the end of the cqc, will charge an automatic generic ki attack, leaving the defender time to evade if they recover in time, they require an ammount of ki to be consumed when exiting cqc and will simpily not work if the player does not have enough ki.
- Unique combo's are at the cost of ki and stamina, stamina will be used during CQC and ki will be taken when exiting

for example it could work like this :

Melee combo's

(remember each attack uses stamina too)

Light combo: Down, Downright, Right - costs 30 stamina, 3 extra attacks, knocks the enemy away half basic melee knockback distance
Medium combo: Down, Downleft, Left, Right - costs 40 stamina, 5 extra attacks, knocks the enemy away to full knockback distance
Heavy combo: Right, Downright, Down, Downleft, Left, Down - Costs 50 stamina, 8 extra attacks, knocks the enemy towards the ground

Generic ki combo's

Generic combo's require a CQC combo and an End finisher to connect here are some examples:

Ki barrage: left, right, left, right, down, up > end finisher Down < - Costs 40 Ki, hits the opponent towards the ground and begins firing 6 ki blasts in rapid succession.
Generic ball follower: Up, left, down, down, right > end finisher forward (no direction)< Costs 40 ki, hits the opponent away and shoots a generic ball in the direction you aim.

Unique combo's

For example in this I'll use a famous one we can all remember, the combo trunks uses to kill freiza;

Down, left, right, up, right, left, right, down, right, left >end finisher Down< - costs 40 stamina uppon the last cqc attack and 50 ki on the end finisher, Slices up the enemy and then blasts them with a close wave ki wave.

These are nothing but examples of the possibilities of this system.


I hope that wasn't too much of a big read, hopefully you understood it all and hopefully I didnt **** up any explainations or make anything too confusing. There are a few things floating around in my head still like the difference of attack colisions and throwing which I'm still not totally sure about, but hopefully this idea is solid enough to work with esf's current fast paced tactical gameplay. Thanks for reading, would love to hear any comments/crits.
 
Last edited:
Lost in space
Banned
Joined
Jun 7, 2006
Messages
717
Best answers
0
I'm really liking the idea for the headon collision, tho I haven't really been able to visualize the melee system you purposed.. maybe because I'm sleepy.

But I just want to say besides that, everything else did seem very solid. I like how stamina will required to recover in multiple situations..

Maybe it could be possible for stamina to effect your damage as well. (example: There could be 3 categorizes of damage, each level is triggered by the amount of stamina you have. If you stamina is low, then you do your minimum damage. If medium then for whatever attack, you'll do average damage and so on.)



Also if you add the idea below I think you have complete smexiness.

Balancing players:

All players should fly the same distance and burn the same amount of ki in a single swoop. A player like krillin will take longer to reach the same distance as goku, because he swoops slower. Yet, this means that Krillin also swoops *longer* then goku.

This balances out speeds for all players and gives an equal advantage opportunity.
 
Last edited:
New Member
★ Black Lounger ★
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
Apr 15, 2003
Messages
4,628
Best answers
0
Tbh I think the swoop cap should be removed :\

I'll try to write it a little clearer, step by step

1) intiates CQC by flying into opponent with left click, costs 10 stamina and performs a short attack. The momentum of your swoop continues throughout combat.

2) as soon as CQC is active, a charge bar appears with arrows (like advanced melee works currently) while you hold left click each direction you press will result in an attack at the cost of stamina to you and damages your opponent and their stamina. This is where you can enter combination commands.

3) when you release left click you hit your opponent a short distance away from you, you have a 1 second delay where you may not do anything, after this second you are effectively no longer in combat and may do whatever you want, but the attacker may charge an end finisher with right click and a direction during this time. Your opponent has effectively left combat at this point, but he has a recovery time of 5 seconds - 1 second per 25% stamina the opponent has left, as soon as the defender has recovered they are not in combat and may teleport, hit beam etc as much as they want. End finishers have a maximum charge of 4 seconds, longer it is charged the more damage occurs and the distance they are knocked back is increased, 3 seconds would result in a standard basic melee hit.

The idea is if you wear down their stamina you can hit them with a basic melee hit in a direction you want. If they're high on stamina chances are you wont be able to hit them with your end finisher so your better of teleporting or maneuvering etc. This also gives a place where the defender can counter, say you charge your end finisher u let go, your opponent has recovered blocks your attack and then hits you back with a basic melee attack. It also ties in with the combination techniques described above. Hopefully that helps a little :\
 
Now with Kung-Fu action!
✔️ HL Verified
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
May 13, 2004
Messages
1,761
Best answers
0
Location
England
Looks like your browser went berserk and posted twice David ^^.

From what I understand is, CQC (it'll get a while for me to get used to that) is kinda like basic melee but you choose your attacks like adv melee. The combos there can be used like the ones in adv melee.

I can picture it as in improvement over what we have now but one thing that bothers me are the large waits. It makes it less dynamic.
 
New Member
★ Black Lounger ★
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
Apr 15, 2003
Messages
4,628
Best answers
0
The idea is there is no wait, there's an initial 3 second engagement animation to allow for your first attack to be entered and it flows from attack to attack untill you let go of left mouse button. But yes, seems like you've got a fairly good grasp of what it is :p
 
Force Pit Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2005
Messages
534
Best answers
0
I duno, even though beams take alot of stamina, they are still OP. Instant kill moves. Damage needs to be reduced by alot. Ki attacks also.

Those combos sound like 1.2 advance melee, isnt that being taken out. That mortal kombat system sucks lol (1.2). Wayyy to complicated.

Unless each direction you press is an attack, so you make them up as you go along. Like that?
 
Last edited:
New Member
★ Black Lounger ★
💻 Oldtimer
Joined
Apr 15, 2003
Messages
4,628
Best answers
0
Yup that was the idea.

Swoop > 3 pre-animated punches while you input your first direction > "your combo here" exit combat in methods described above. I could have written it a bit simplier methinks.

Sorry I'm reviving for the sake of discussion/suggestions.
 
New Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
27
Best answers
0
Sounds good but melee system from esf 1.2 suck because you fight in the stopped time...:( I think in esf 1.3 fight could be better
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top Bottom