[CF-Devel] seperating skills (was RE: brief introduction)

[Mark Wedel]

Tim Rightnour wrote:

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      Well.. off the top of my head.. I had planned something like this:
     
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      Slash:
     
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              Sword-like
     
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              Axe-like
     
     
 Cleave might be a better term here.  But even with that, different swords would
be used much different - something like a short sword is more likely to use a
slashing type than a two handed sword would.

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      Pierce:
     
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              dagger-like (think stiletto)
     
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      Stab:
     
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              spear-like
     
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              knife-like
     
     
 Other than a difference of weapon size, dagger and knives are pretty similar.

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      Slice:
     
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              katana-like
     
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              rapier-like
     
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      Whip:
     
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              whip-like (we don't actually have any yet though.. eh?)
     
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      Bludgeon:
     
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              Club-like
     
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              staff-like
     
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      Crush:
     
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              hammer-like
     
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              mace-like
     
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              flail-like
     
     
 IMO, hammer, mace, and club are going to be pretty similar.

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      Combo:  (I stole this from you, I really like this)
     
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              polearms, halbards, etc.  The idea here would be to have different
     
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              kinds, like in DND, so one might be slash/pierce, and you would have to
     
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              know both to wield it.  Like you said, the best damage type would win.
     
     
 One issue is that how to use a weapon may not have a lot to do with its attack
type.  And pole arm type weapon (whether is is slash/cleave or pierce) is going
to be quite different to use compared to a dagger or sword, simply because of
the very large size.


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      The problem with doing these as attacktypes.. which I originally had planned
     
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      on, is that we are running out of room in that bitmask.  Unless we want to make
     
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      the leap and make it a 64bit int, I'm not sure what we can do about that.
     
     
 At least as of now, it looks like there should be space for 8 more attack types
in the current 32 bit structure.  IMO, adding 3 or 4 more would get excessive
and perhaps make things too complicated - humans are going to have to tune the
monsters to resist these attack types, so they have to be able to think about
how they interact with the monster.

 Off the top of my head, this would be the attack types that might be necessary:

 small piercing (arrows, bolts, daggers, knives)
 large piercing (spears, javelons, polearms).
 bludgeon - basically anything not sharp, like clubs, flails, maces, hammers,
falling rocks, etc.  Skill
   to use some of these different ones may vary
 slash - katana, scimitar, small swords
 cleave - axes, large swords, pole arms used in that fashion.

 the two piercing types could pretty easily get merged into one for attack types
- those type of weapons are generally aimed at weak points in the armor or can
try and penetrate deeply through the armor.

 IMO, the difference between slash and cleave is basically how the weapon is
used - on a cleaving type weapon, the idea is to hit the object with solid
force, and in pretty much all cases, the weapon will need to get pulled out in
the opposite direction it went in (think about chopping a tree down with an
axe).  These would try to produce deep wounds, but be very slow weapons.  On the
counter, the slash weapons idea is to use that the momentum is carried through -
so generally a quick attack, not very deep, and much less effective against
armor because it is more a glancing blow.


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      Perhaps there is a better way of doing this.  Simply making every skill
     
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      available in scroll form right off the bat seems too easy.  Perhaps just upping
     
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      the chances of it showing up in a shop would be enough.  Maybe guilds really is
     
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      the way of doing it.  Join a guild of fighters and learn some attack types.
     
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      Perhaps the payment could be non-monetary, and level based, for a level 10
     
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      player, it might be, "bring me the head of an orc and I'll teach you swords".
     
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      Just a random thought.
     
     
 IMO, the guilds are the ideal way, the problem is that it is a non trivial
amount of work to add all these guilds and various quests and so forth.  At some
point, we probably need to bite the bullet and actually do this.