Let's talk about combat

[Hume2]

I found that combat in Minetest is a bit confusing and might use some improvements.

Have you noticed that when you are attacked by a few monsters at once, you are hopeless with a stone sword? Also in 5.0, it's planned that iron ore will occur deeper, which will make you even more hopeless.

The full-punch interval is a nice feature but it leads to confusion. If you are raged and hit a mob by a stone sword too frequently, it doesn't do anything, so you feel like something is wrong here. It's because the damage is rounded down to zero, so it does zero damage. You actually have to click ... wait ... click ... wait ... click ... wait, which is quite boring and unusable when you are attacked by multiple enemies.

My suggestion is changing this:

tflp / (tool_capabilities.full_punch_interval or 1.4)

to this:

math.sqrt(tflp / (tool_capabilities.full_punch_interval or 1.4))

The full punch interval will still play a role but your rage will make you stronger. Also knockback should be applied to all hits, not only full punches. The knockback will then depend on the damage taken. With these two improvements, you won't be so hopeless against a smaller horde of enemies while possessing only a stone sword.

What do you think?

[davidthecreator]

I think they should also increase damage of wooden and stone swords...

Stone from 4 to 5

And wood from 2 to 3

[texmex]

On the topic of mob combat: have you noticed you’re never really fight them but really only go to war with their selection boxes? xD

[davidthecreator]

On the topic of mob combat: have you noticed you’re never really fight them but really only go to war with their selection boxes? xD

As long as the mob dies, I don't care what I'm hitting.

[texmex]

On the topic of mob combat: have you noticed you’re never really fight them but really only go to war with their selection boxes? xD

As long as the mob dies, I don't care what I'm hitting.

Immersion much?

[Hume2]

On the topic of mob combat: have you noticed you’re never really fight them but really only go to war with their selection boxes? xD

Well, yes, you're right. I personally don't mind fighting against selection boxes but I'd like to enjoy the battle. Clicking with a long period and retreating isn't satisfactory enough. If clicking faster makes me stronger, I can feel the battle better. (tested myself)

[davidthecreator]

On the topic of mob combat: have you noticed you’re never really fight them but really only go to war with their selection boxes? xD

As long as the mob dies, I don't care what I'm hitting.

Immersion much?

When you light an explosive / shoot a projectile, you are technically both, hurting the explosive/bullet, and forcing it to hurt itself even more, to blast/hit the mob... But...

That's how combat works.

[Astrobe]

Recently I tried to mix a bunch of mods together to make a very simple-minded shooter; just run around and kill stuff with guns. In one of my attempts, I used sci-fi mobs which introduces all kind of robots. I was able to kill a robot with a stone sword, pretty easily.

Discussing the combat system out-of-context won't bring us anywhere. You might have armor, you might have guns and you might face dinosaurs or robots or zombies. Saying that one should increase the damage of the stone sword by one or doing this or that... Sure, it may indeed be good for your game, but it also won't make sense in another game. I have no problem with the fact that my players would be in deep trouble facing more than two monsters with just a stone sword (actually even a steel sword, I removed the stone sword that made no sense in my case). That's normal, my game design is that there are not many monsters, but they hit hard; my player I advised to avoid dangerous places (and run away if they see something obviously too big for them) until they have a decent equipment - which used to be common sense (until F2P video games started to center their design on player retention, in other words "don't make them cry and ragequit cuz that's not how you get their money", and so players more and more expect to kill anything that come their way with whatever is in their character's hand).

Combat is a whole system that includes mobs, weapons, armor, environment... You have to adjust the damage here, the HP there, etc. to make things work according to what you want. Maybe you want a lot of easy-to-kill mobs, maybe you want a fewer-but-hard-to-kill mobs (often you want both, but in different proportions than the next game).

[Hume2]

I think, you didn't get the point. This thread isn't about making sword X stronger or making monster Y weaker or changing the full punch interval. Of course that I can balance them for my needs. This thread is about how the damage is calculated from the punch interval. It's about changing the game mechanics so it will be more fun to fight monsters. Of course that this will rebalance the current mods. I can change "tflp / (tool_capabilities.full_punch_interval or 1.4)" to "math.sqrt(tflp / (tool_capabilities.full_punch_interval or 1.4))" in mobs redo myself easily but there's also something similar hardcoded in Minetest engine.

[jas]

Can't right mouse button to jump, and it messes me all up. I been playing a little bit of UrT lately, and it's stressful switching between games because of it.

[Astrobe]

I think, you didn't get the point. This thread isn't about making sword X stronger or making monster Y weaker or changing the full punch interval. Of course that I can balance them for my needs. This thread is about how the damage is calculated from the punch interval.

I think my answer was on point, but I indeed forgot to address your main question:

The full punch interval will still play a role but your rage will make you stronger [...] What do you think?

I sometimes see players on my server - probably kids on Android - who stand in place and just spam the punch button when attacked by a mob. Seeing this makes me sad, because they don't use their characters' mobility to avoid losing HP.

That's the kind of gameplay your proposal tends to support, because the intend of the change is to reduce the penalty for spamming the punch button. Well, the fact that I don't like that isn't the only problem with it, unfortunately.

I think that removing or weakening one of the few combat mechanics the game features is not a good answer, because the root cause of the problem, in my opinion, is that there aren't enough combat mechanics.

I'm also a bit dissatisfied with combat, because fighting melee mobs in my game boils down to "kiting" them (it's not completely trivial though, cause there's always the risk of falling in a hole). My current thinking about this is to add more combat mechanics, more specifically enhancing the behavior of the mobs so that they won't be kited too easily. Very specifically, I'm considering the idea of making them teleport somewhere around the player when hit (sometimes), because the general theme of my game allows it.

Of course this probably won't work for anyone else. In your case (stone sword vs angry mob), a possible solution could be to reset the punch interval (actually ignore tflp etc.) when the player hits a different mob (one could imagine that a mob that was just hit has its "guard" up for a while).

[jas]

If there was some visual feedback it would be helpful, or auditory feedback.

[Hume2]

Well, you're right. The combat should be something more than clicking a selection box n-times. The mechanism I suggested supports the noob-like combat but when there are more angry mobs at once, you still need to retreat to dodge the attacks. However, one shouldn't retreat too much, it's not fun either.

I think, there could be different types of attack. Maybe if you press a key and click at once, it could make a different attack.

[firefox]

the formula should have minimum damage set to 1. knockback distance equal to damage dealt (minimum 1).
then you can also fight stronger mobs by pushing them down a cliff or you can keep them away to escape.
punching everything to death with the basic fist can be avoided by increasing mob hp.
and even if that mechanic would make it possible to continously knockback a mob and take no damage, it would only work against 1 target but not multiple.

[Astrobe]

If you make knockback independent from damage (MobsRedo allows this to some extent), you can have a mace that does little damage and has a long punch interval, but pushes back a mob. Then the player can switch between a regular DPS sword and the CC (crowd-control) mace.

I think one should look more towards defensive abilities like CC. A key to block attacks seems difficult to do because few mobs have attack animations (and I think with MobsRedo the damage is dealt when the animation is started anyway).

Games (outside of MT) that I've played often give the players "abilities" (special powers with cooldowns). Some of these abilities deal little or no damage but have special effects: CC (like knock-back, slow, ensnare, confusion), special character moves like teleportation, temporary shield/invulnerability, temporary speed/jump buffs, dashes,...

[Fixer]

Minetest Game does not even have mobs... yet

[ShadMOrdre]

I suppose an on_punch override, that checks for whether the player is jumping, sneaking, sprinting, moving forward or backward, or side stepping, while holding a weapon, (ie, anything that deals fleshy damage) and attacking with said weapon would be the best method of determining the strength and the type of the attack.

IMHO, this mechanic would be far more beneficial than simply toying with punch intervals, tool caps, or altering other mods.

A key to block attacks seems difficult to do

This seems a better use of E than sprinting. Sprinting should be a double tap W.

[843jdc]

Stone swords should shatter into rubble the first time they hit anything. Diamond swords should be removed from the game.

Just my 2 cents

[PolySaken]

Stone swords should shatter into rubble the first time they hit anything. Diamond swords should be removed from the game.

Just my 2 cents

Indeed. we should have:
> find rock on ground
> beat tree with rock
> make stone club
> use club to mine iron

and then there should be a proper steel-making process using carbon-imbuement

and diamonds should be for making non-force tools like a file or saw.

[orwell]

I want to throw my point in too:
I think scaling all HP up by factor 10 would partially solve this. Now that 5.0 has variable player HP max integrated, this step would be logical.

[PolySaken]

I want to throw my point in too:
I think scaling all HP up by factor 10 would partially solve this. Now that 5.0 has variable player HP max integrated, this step would be logical.

Players Have 100 Hp and weapons do 10x?
so diamond = 80 etc.?

[orwell]

Yeah. 200HP, to be exact.
However this would be needed to be adapted community-wide, as everyone needs to scale their groups

[Hume2]

Actually, it's not bad at all. This way, a lot of weak damages can result in a significant damage and doesn't round down to zero.

[Astrobe]

Don't forget to scale armor and enviro damage (drowning, lava, fall (there's a fall damage multiplier property on nodes for that)) too. Healing (food mainly) as well.

[PolySaken]

yeah, that would be cool I think. there could be thorn bushes that do 1 damage and aren't an issue but still hurt