Combat overview

(warhammer inspired)- morale abilities that charge and on certain levels/tiers can be fired; that consumes the whole resource  and are kind of an ultimate (high tier of morale abilities unlockable deep in specialization) - this system can handle zerg fights as in a zerg vs zerg fight ‘morale’ will build up faster

Combat should be action oriented with emphasis on rock-paper-scissors type of abilities and statuses (counters), reaction and foresight.

Reaction - have counterplay on crowd control but also on different kind of single target/ranged abilities. All of those on cooldowns.

Foresight - have (very) short duration buffs that alter effectiveness of enemy abilities - inspiration from Blade and soul, WOW (spell reflect)

Revolve around the generic skill “basic trinity” (BT)

1. hard/precise hit with long buildup with no cd that ignores the defensive ability
2. interruptible by short buildup short cd light attack that triggers cd on the hard attack,
3. no buildup long cd defensive ability that triggers long cd on the light attack if it succeeds of defending it

 **Illustration: light>heavy>defend>light**

 **Mouse bound - lmb fast attack click, lmb hold heavy attack, rmb defend**

The animation of a heavy attack should flow from the fast attack and triggers after holding the lmb over 0,5 sec so player could feint a light attack and trigger defend from enemy and continue to channel to hit them instead with heavy

Light attacks should do about ⅓ of dmg that a heavy attack does

* Rough calculation: light attack 0,5 sec buildup, triggers 4 sec cd on heavy attack if lands during buildup
* Defend 6 sec cd, lasts 1 sec, instant cast if successful triggers 4 sec cd on light attack
* Heavy attack 2 sec buildup, ignores defend
* There should be as little ui as possible that needs to be tracked during combat.. At most hitpoints (just a bar, not necessarily numbers) and a resource indicator

**Generic stuff available to all factions, specialized stuff only to a particular faction**

* F.e. basic stealth available to all factions but being able to mimic other factions and infiltrate only balance
* siphon(sacrifice) to friendlies chaos skill line available to all, life leech and siphon from friendlies only chaos
* Grouping up to boost defensive stats available to all; healing only balance
* mouse not remappable - lmb always light/heavy type of ability, rmb always defend

* ! While having Ranged equipped will have to have different movement abilities.. Overall faster speed to kite in between enemy catch up movement abilities
* **have equipped weapon determine availability of certain types of skills like in guild wars So f.e. that while wielding ranged weapons have movement that is like temporary buff of movespeed and when wielding melee weapons have charge/leap, spellcasting type of weapon teleport etc.**

 **! offer a choice within each spec (up to a reasonable amount) that will be on a scale between ‘foolproof’ and ‘skiller’ - for example ranged chaining skill of lesser efficiency but easy to target or single target skillshot with huge damage.. Same with melee - short duration buffs to open counterplay as skillshot or skills that can be animation cancelled, combos and on the other hand pbaoe**

* Another example of the above concept - ranged projectile heal that heals to full and gives a buff based on how much health it restored (duration/efficiency) -  skillshot
* Ground targeted duration blobs that heal whoever steps on them (like in crowfall) or ranged aoe/pbaoe channeling heal

## Buildup times

Each skill has a set buildup time (which can be 0, so the skill is instant cast).

Upon use of a skill, buildup meter will rise until the skill is fired at 100% of it.

Buildup has two stages.

During buildup of stage 1 player can move freely.

During buildup of stage 2 any move will reset the skill to end of stage 1.

Each stage can start on different % (there is no set time).

Most melee skills will have just stage 1. Most ranged 2.

## Cooldowns

When used, a skill can have a cooldown that prevents that skill from being used right away.

Player can abandon buildup at any time, but past stage 1 it will incur the normal skill cooldown.

If interrupted at any stage, it will trigger cooldown aswell (unless it had no cooldown to begin with).

Certain skills (CC) and tactics can affect cooldown or buildup time on skills, even on those that have none, or move the % of the stages, but not the number of stages (a skill with just stage 1 won't receive a stage 2, it would just be confusing).

## Tactics

(warhammer inspired - tactics) a character will have upto 4 modification traits that are unlocked while training the skills tree.. Those will have minor positive and negative aspects (increasing or introducing buildup or cooldown, increasing resource cost) while giving some advantage in other aspects allowing players to fine tune their build

? have them separate per skill like in d3 or in one gradually unlocked bunch like in warhammer?

examples:

* skill loses efficiency slower when not slotted
* skill has longer cooldown but shorter buildup (if appliable to both, otherwise not applied)
* skill has positive effficiency multiplier but also resource cost (focus/rage) (can use less often but with larger impact)
* opposite of the previous tactic
* skill trains profeciency faster but lowers the speed of other skills currently being trained
* skill suffers less penalty when used as an opposing faction

## Skill tree hexgrid

* **Skill tree is based on weapon use a circle separated into 6 segments. clockwise**
* **In the center is dual wielded, unarmed, throwing or 1h used by all**
* **On top is two hand use of staff -  a pure magic (dps+aoe) spellcasting**
* **To the right of it is ‘fetish’/mutated limb - spellcasting+melee, like a combination of marauder and zealot from warhammer - wielded kill trophy or a mutated limb and a melee weapon -  chaos domain - lifeleech melee+spell debuffs**
* **To the right of it bottom right is two handed ranged weapon**
* **Directly down is mixed ranged and melee weapon - balance domain - pure tech, skirmishing, hybrid weaponry**
* **To the bottom left is two handed melee - cleaving weapons, polearms**
* **To the top left is 1h and board - a domain of order - kinda like paladin, heals - spellcasting+melee**

### Examples of weapon styles and their skills

* S&B - movement shield charge, morale shield wall rear facing teardrop mitigation channeled buff shield wall, cc shield bash (stun)
* STAFF Spellcasting two hand - movement short range teleport with duration movespeed buff, morale ranged targeted aoe, cc long range disorient
* FETISH/MUTATED LIMB - movement fast crawl (creepy), morale pbaoe debuff+selfbuff, cc snare+self buffed movespeed
* 2H RANGED - movement movespeed buff, morale ranged targeted aoe, cc long range root
* MIXED RANGED/MELEE - movement movespeed buff, morale melee PBAOE kb then snare, cc scattershot (short range disorient/confuse)
* 2H MELEE - movement pole vault,  morale sweep (aoe kb), cc knockdown
* center hex - unarmed, towards its top left - throwing, towards it’s top right 1h+u, towards bottom dual wield /  movement something like whirling blades/charge/leap, morale whirlwind (aoe channel dps), cc parry (disarm)

### So in total - the more up from center the more supernatural, the more down from center is tech

* **“Pure faction weapons” only available to that faction**
* “dual-faction” weapons like staff, twohanded and twohanded ranged have aspects only available to one or the other factions (unlockable branches)
* Multi Faction weapons - unarmed, thrown, 1h, dual wield available to all factions

For example: staff as cross between chaos and order will have a branch for aoe dots for chaos and branch for aoe hots for order as well as aoe dps for both

## Controls:

1. Basic trinity: Lmb - light/fast attack, can be done while moving
2. lmb hold - heavy/aimed attack, buildup will get set back or slower when moving; the amount of setback will be melee -low, ranged - medium, spell - to start; damage itself won’t interrupt it unless it’ll be from light attack; heavy attack can be aborted at any time after the 0.5 sec required to activate. (? aborting animation should be non-zero length?)
3. rmb - active defense, can be done while moving (Those three skills will be socketable like in d3 but still fall in the same category (so lmb click will be always light attack but the type of light attack and combo followups will differ)
4. Mousewheel Scroll up - movement skill, remappable to different key, one type per weapon, modifiable
5. Mousewheel Scroll down - crowd control, remappable to different key, one type per weapon, modifiable
6. **BDO style Combos 1-2 deep as a proc from the basic trinity, will be basically direction key(+shift on 2nd combo)+lmb/rmb**
7. “Morale” abilities on hotkey (1-3 max) - instant cast, not interruptible even if channeling
8. Non Combat ability (mining resource, harvesting tech, cannibalizing etc)
9. **Basic movement - shift sprint, double tap direction dodge - consumes the anti-cc resilience bar ? mixing stamina with CC resilience? Can lead to venues of specialization - faster start of regen/regen speed for mobile characters, more gains from being hit by CC for tanky characters**

## Combos

* If the basic trinity skill will succeed (light attack interrupting heavy, heavy piercing defense or defense succeeding to diminish light), the skill will offer chain into a combo
* Combos could reach 3 stages - basic trinity, combo 1 and combo 2
* Between combo 1 and combo 2 enemy will have a very short time to react with a combo breaker
* Combo 2 will be quite powerful, short build time
* Combo 1 will be mostly skillshots, no fire and forgets type of abilities, instant cast
* **Combos will not count as basic trinity skills so will not be subjects to interruptions and defends like them**
* Even heals will be combo-able but triggering of combo 2 will require reaction from the friendly as if combo breaking (positive feedback loop)

## Armor Types

* Three basic armor types - heavy, medium and light/none
* Each resides in the direction of that faction’s preffered weapon type on the skilldrasil
* Heavy offers most protection from all kinds of dmg but has highest stamina consumption multiplier (2.0)
* Medium - medium protection, medium stamina multiplier (1.5)
* Light/none - least passive protection, stamina multiplier (1.0)
* Stamina cost compounded with total encumberance and the ability  to handle it -  character overencumbered with loot the size of a mountain won’t be as agile as someone just carrying their weapon, light armor and some consumables
* No load - multiplier (1.0)
* Light load (<30% max carying capacity) (1.1)
* Medium  load (<70%) (1.3)
* Heavy load (70-100%) (1.7)
* Overburdened (3.0)
* Stamina consumption multiplier could prevent from using that movement type (dodge, movement skill, jump, cc counterplay)
* Armor type will be part of the middle skill hex - any faction can wear any type of armor

## Damage types

 slashing
 blunt
 piercing
 nonphysical

**! skill honeycomb - generic skills like unarmed, throwing, 1h and dw are in the middle hex, specialization weapons are on the 6 outer hexes**

* Skillshots should have better ROI (rate of interest) in comparison to the foolproof fire and forget abilities and AOEs
* **Morale abilities will not generate any morale themselves, not even the channeled ones, nor alter rage, stamina, focus of the casters nor victims**
* Healing and damage abilities should have ROI dependent on how close the target is to death when applied.. The closer the more resource/contribution generated. Finishing blows should be more rewarding than spreading of DOTs.

## Stamina, focus and rage

* focus/rage - a resource that starts between focus and rage on neutral (zero) as certain abilities are used or conditions occus, it either raises or falls

* Stamina - a resource determining capability of using movement skills and responses to crowd control

* Both rage and focus will dissipate towards neutral if not using abilities that push towards one or the other.

* Sprinting, movement ability and dodge moves costs stamina
* ? using other abilities costs stamina as well
* Duration of CCs will be determined by how much stamina is left - the less stamina the longer duration on that target; full stamina - short duration; zero stamina - full duration.
* Stamina starts regenerating on its own after X time of not using it at the speed of Y units/s depending on where on the focus - rage meter
* regeneration does not stop when being damaged or CCed
* Regeneration of stamina starts immediately when CCed
* Player can activate CC immunity on full stamina that will drain it to zero over time in a few seconds of that immunity
* Using defensive abilities increases focus, using offensive increases rage.

* Breaking cc by counterplay lowers rage to neutral, costs a lot of stamina (because acting defensively)
* Getting hit by cc induces rage, landing a cc induces focus
* Each weapon style has abilities that benefit from rage and focus.

1. High rage - no stamina regen , shorter duration of cc received, high leech, shorter melee buildups, abilities more skirmish-y, splash and fast, being hit with cc will build rage
2. Neutral - normal stamina regen, normal buildups on abilities
3. High focus - fast stamina regen with short delay , stronger heals, shorter buildup on ranged and spell, abilities more burst, single target and slow, being hit with cc will lower focus

In general, 1v1 and skirmish size battles should focus on the basic trinity of abilities, the larger the battle gets, the faster morale abilities will build up and the more use they should get (primarily aoe non-resistable abilities).

Example 1 : (of combat between two players A and B) A starts a heavy attack, B decides to interrupt by light attack. A sees that and aborts the heavy attack and uses defend. Defend suceeds and B has a cooldown on light attack. A is given a short time window to use a combo 1 on sucessful defend. After that A decides to resume use of heavy attack because B can’t interrupt it still now.

Example 2 : A is building an aimed attack. B tries to interrupt with light. A miscounts (thinks it’s almost finished) and B suceeds in interrupting. B follows the light attack with combo 1. B tries to link combo 2 but A suceeds using combo break.