"Sword and Board: The other white meat" v0.6

[Matt]

So after my comments here and here I thought I should give this whole "make a melee fighter with sword and shield in a Doom engine game" thing a try.

Download is attached. Bear with me with the placeholder graphics, I'm too tired this weekend not to be daunted by the prospect of coming up with decently shitty programmer art for all this.

Mechanics:
Every function can be repeated without penalty just by holding down the button.

Fire = slash/parry
Altfire = lunge
Reload = shield bash/slashing combo
Zoom = toggle shield on/off

Shield bash can be used to block something directly in front of you, but it may be faster to just turn so that whatever it is hits your shield first.

Right now slashes (other than the predefined combo) are almost completely random, with cuts starting away from the shield favoured if the shield is equipped. If your target is too close you will smack them with the pommel instead (with a "Bonk!" in your log to mark such momentous event for debugging purposes).

I briefly tried this in Hexen and Heretic. EDIT: To clarify, that means that 99% of the ingame testing was in Doom. A bit hard to tell what you're doing but not too bad I'd say - at least you're not getting destroyed by those awful men with guns all the time stupid frickin ophidians.

[Captain Ventris]

Ha, simple and arcadey, but with room for skill. I like it. Some random dungeon-generating and some foes with similar abilities could make this a good romp. Keep at it! If you need testing or something at some point, I'd be glad to help.

[Abba Zabba]

This sounds like it has a lot of potential. I'll take a shot at it in a little while.

[Matt]

Made some changes. Didn't like how the buckler would sort of appear out of nowhere only if used but didn't feel like making it constantly present like the shield either.

The combo that replaces the buckler should not be signifiantly shittier than the buckler it replaces. Let me know how it can be improved.

Meanwhile, there is apparently no term for a directly hori2ontal slash in the historical manuals other than the contemporary equivalent of "nub move", so those are out.

[Greenmarine]

Meanwhile, there is apparently no term for a directly hori2ontal slash in the historical manuals other than the contemporary equivalent of "nub move", so those are out.

I would like to know more.

[Matt]

Disregard the above rationale for the update I suck balls

But given the enemy behaviour in the Doom engine games it's highly unlikely that you'd be using a flat cut like that which would cover even less than the limited five-point simulation of a sword cut this mod uses.

Also if I ever get to a contextual selection method for the cut directions it would be way too finicky for our purposes to have to distinguish between a diagonal right/left cut and a flat one.

[Matt]

So I finally got around to making a system of coming up with a direction for your cut.

I could probably make it less finicky and unpredictable but it would likely result in an intolerable delay between hitting the fire key and the attack commencing.

[Nash]

Directional cuts remind me of Morrowind. :D Can't wait to see this with proper graphics.

[Matt]

Never played Morrowind myself but the system is based on my experience with Daggerfall which I infer has something similar.

Right now the cuts work as follows:
- Ascending cut is a tiny bit slower but it's a shorter time between that and any other cut.
- Descending cut does a bit more damage. [EDIT: As of 0.5 it actually does!]
- Diagonal cuts are more likely to hit if you're in a hurry.

The differences right now probably get lost in the noise, though, so there will be more tweaking later.

[Matt]

Made a whole bunch of little tweaks.

Biggest differences are the improved passive shield protection and now you must be moving your mouse while holding primary fire to make a slash.

(Also the "Bonk!" placeholder has been revamped)