Lionheart's combat system

[the new JR Jansen]

Seeing as there was some confusion on the system Lionheart is using, i went to the official forums and found this.

'Combat will be set to a default of one-click attacking with the left mouse button. You click on the bad guy and proceed to beat him up untill he (or you) is dead (ed. note : still sounds like Diablo to me). I believe the current plan is to be able to change this to one-click-one swing in the options menu (ed note : this confirms the Diablo statement allthough it's only the CURRENT PLAN, maybe in a month they have changed their minds.........again). Clicking faster will not make you attack faster (ed note : then what's the bloody point !?).

Action points have been converted to a real-time system by basing your attack speed on major factors like the weapon and your agility and ancillary things like wether or not you have a shield equipped (ed note : shees that's a whole lot to take into account, i want to play a game dangit and not have a mathematics exam. And also take spell effects (probably) and you have to take a lot of things into account which is a pain in RT).

The right mouse button will cast the spell you currently have readied, wich will appear in the right-most quick item slot, the one that is set apart from the others. If it's a radius spell or a spell that targets the caster, you can click anywhere (ed note : and that's very easy to do in RT especially for radius spells, can you say more 'accidental' misfires), otherwise you right-click on the target (ed note : again very easy to do in RT if the target is constantly moving).

The pause is a "limited pause" feature, meaning that you can shuffle quick-items (ed note : oh goody), change weapons, select a different spell (ed note : they aren't saying anything about casting it, just selecting it), look around your characters profile (ed note : shees, as if that is so important during combat), etc (ed note : and what is the etc, seems to me the guy who was posting this just ran out of examples) but not (ed note : and here it comes) issue orders to your characters or other NPC's (ed note : developers, get this through your thick skulls, that's what the pause function in the IE games is used mostly for, not that other garbage, it also takes a lot of tactics away).'

I hope that between all my ranting you guys have found some interesting info.

Sincerly yours and yada, yada, yada.

[Kakero]

cool, that clear that up, now I have to clear my brain from all these long english sentence.

[Dreamer128]

Well, the Diablo Combat system never bothered me. It was just the lack of story line and NPC interaction. Does anyone know if we'll be able to have a party in Lionheart?

[the new JR Jansen]

Originally posted by Dreamer128: Well, the Diablo Combat system never bothered me. It was just the lack of story line and NPC interaction. Does anyone know if we'll be able to have a party in Lionheart?

I went to the official Lionheart site and read the faq and found this.

'Q:is Lionheart party based ?
A:Yes and no. You create one character at the beginning of the game. During the course of the game you will be able to ask other characters in the world to join your party and adventure with you for some quests. But this is your choice. You will also be able to summon magical allies to aid you during combat.So you can play with a party if you want, but if you want to solo the whole game, you can.'

Now that says that you can have a party allthough it doesn't say how you are able to control them. I have a feeling it's going to be ala Fallout where you had party members but couldn't control them in combat. Not sure though.

[Kakero]

emm..do you control their movement while they automatically engage the enemy or do they move by themselves and automatically attack the enemy?

[the new JR Jansen]

Originally posted by Kakero: emm..do you control their movement while they automatically engage the enemy or do they move by themselves and automatically attack the enemy?

Well, if it's like the Fallout system then it's the second one. They move by themselves and automatically attack the enemy.

[TheCrimsomBlade]

well that sucks because thats what I hated about Fallout. Why is it that these game companies like to try to make short cuts in combat? you know the short cuts I'm talking about,like in Arcanum once you started combat you and your followers were commited to it untill they were all dead or you were or what ever you were fighting and all their friends were dead. then in Fallout once you started a fight you had very little control and every thing would attack at the same time.
I did like the way Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 set up there fighting mode, you always had control of all the NPCs on your Team. Meaning that if you wanted to run back to a more stratigic position you could and then you could set your Tanks up front with your Cleric and mages back out of harms way casting spells and then your archers set to pick off the bad guys from high ground,nobody tries to stand their ground when they are out numbered 10 to 1 and then only swing once and let the computer fight the battle for them.
I'll spend over $400.00 0n PC games this year and if Lionheart uses the one hit left click fight to the death system then I'll spend my money on some other games like Grayhawk and Morrowinds next expansion and pass on Lionheart just like I passed on War Craft III.

[the new JR Jansen]

Originally posted by TheCrimsomBlade: I did like the way Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 set up there fighting mode, you always had control of all the NPCs on your Team. Meaning that if you wanted to run back to a more stratigic position you could and then you could set your Tanks up front with your Cleric and mages back out of harms way casting spells and then your archers set to pick off the bad guys from high ground,nobody tries to stand their ground when they are out numbered 10 to 1 and then only swing once and let the computer fight the battle for them.

Sorry, but i found that to be the major flaw in the BG combat system. The NPC's in Fallout acted at least as NPC's and they didn't fight to the death. Sometimes, if they got injured enough, they would run away. The NPC's in BG, once they joined your party, became mindless drones. Doing exactly what the player told them to do. That doesn't give much room for something unexpected happening. I know that some topics exist on how to break up coupled NPC's like Khalid and Jaheira and someone always posts that they stripped Khalid naked and let him run into battle with no protection and only his fists. That's a treu NPC for you (sarcasm). It seems to me that the Fallout system is more 'real' in that sense that they are your friends but act on their own.

[ 02-24-2003, 03:05 AM: Message edited by: the new JR Jansen ]

[Luvian]

I agree with JR, the npc in fallout where more realistic, you could give them orders before the fights, and most of the time, they fought as you asked, but sometimes, one would hit you with an attack, or do a stupid thing, and that was nice, it made battle more realistic.

The only way people in real life could act like Baldur's Gate npc do is if they had a common mind. There is no way they could all coordinate their attacks and skills as we make them do. Baldur's Gate's characters have no personality and will at all. You could send your mage to tank an angry red Dragon while you where running away from the fight to heal up and the character would just dumbly stand there, sacrifing himself.