Combat Improvements

11.09.2011

In our last Driftmoon alpha, there was little reason to use bows in combat, since (1) the arrows were limited, (2) you got the bow pretty late in the game, and (3) most of the monsters were far easier to defeat using melee weapons. We're changing that right now, bows will be much more useful from now on! I thought about a hundred very complex ways to make that happen, but finally I realized it's not nuclear physics. We simply needs some monsters that are easier to defeat using melee weapons such as swords, and some monsters that are easier to defeat using ranged attacks, such as bows.

We're now in the middle of weighing different alternatives that would make it convenient to react to the new varying enemy types. For example, now that I frequently want to change my weapon set, a button that changes between two weapon sets would come in handy. I could reserve the right mouse button for this purpose.

Another problem we've been thinking about is that some of the attack skills, such as the Retreat skill, should actually work outside combat. But you can only activate the skill while in combat because the skill buttons only show up when you're fighting someone!

So I'm thinking that we could turn the current quick item slots into two-purpose slots, meaning you could fill them with skills as well as items. We'd get rid of the current skills list that only appears in combat. I think this opens up a lot of possibilities for modding, with the player being able to activate skills out of combat. Since skills are just scripts, modders could make skills that make the player invisible before combat, or skills that make the player change into a werewolf shape - all without requiring the player to carry special items to do that.

The only problem that I see with the multipurpose slots, is that you'd get 10 slots less! Any ideas? Don't need more than 10 slots? Go Warcraft and add as many slots as the screen edges can take (but you'd loose visibility?)? Make the weapon set button, the right mouse button perhaps, switch to another set of 10 slots?