With exception of thugs, almost all classes can beat them to death by triple punch/sidestep strategy, since SWAT troopers have insanely slow triple punch combo, medicore kick combo which leaves them open a lot, punch forward attack which telepgraps itself too long given the damage (and collision issues) and finally, rear throw which deals no damage (bug). The only ways to effectively have a chance to win over opponent as vanilla SWAT trooper are:
- special attacks spam (are same as Striker's), 2 attacks
- Lion Axe kick spam, 1 attack
- throw spam, 4 attacks
- mixture of all of the above
Nice. From all possible attack moves the SWAT trooper has, only about seven are useful. The rest produces too fickle results to be used against human players. Similar with Elite troopers. They look meneacing, but only about seven/eight moves are actually useful, rest gives your enemy option to retaliate.
Or should we introduce even more cooldowns? Maybe apply cooldowns to ALL moves, so instead of making top-notch combat system, we change genre of the game to semiMMORPG.
]]>The two factions TCTF and SYND face off against each other. Both factions start of with only two classes but as they complete objectives / defeat their enemies in any way they level up their classes aswell as adding two new ones:
Syndicate:
level 1: grey fury, grey striker
level 2: blue fury, blue striker, comguy, blue tanker
level 3: red fury, red striker, elite comguy, (cooler accesories/armour, nicer looking shoulder antenna perhaps) red tanker, red elite, red ninja
TCTF:
level 1: female cop, male cop
level 2: female tctf, male tctf light, merc sniper, (with different melee moves) robot (supposedly the same abilities as the tanker but different melee attacks)
level 3: female ops, male ops light, merc sniper ops, robot ops, SWAT ops, tctf ninja/spy/recon troop
As the factions progress through levels the classes unlocks new moves. (heavy kicks and punches perhaps)
Strikers and furies would be able to stagger their opponent with a quick footstomp while female and male cops uses the willow kick to stagger their opponent.
The tctf robot and tctf spy would have different meleeing abilities than their enemy equivalent tanker and ninja but more or less have the same role in the match.
Please dont concern yourself about thoughts how to make this work, I'm just wondering whether you guys think this was a nice idea.
]]>I don't think Strikers should be a balance class though. They need to have some sort of unique advantage. Perhaps less cool-down after throws, specials and knockdowns? Wider range?
Maybe ComGuys should have infinite ammo? Might sound kind of bad, but as long as you didn't buff the guns (maybe nerf a few) I think it could still be balanced. He'd just be good at suppressing people, but he wouldn't be able to move that fast with his gun out or get very close.
As for the rest of the ideas, I love it and I'd be interested to see how they play out. I hope the multiplayer project continues at some point.
]]>I think the ninjas footsteps sounds should be nerfed or removed completely since the only way to sneak up on an opponent by creeping is if the opponent is standing still or walking which I cant think of why a player would do that in a war zone.
I think bosses shouldnt exist in a normal deathmatch but instead be available in a special gamemode where you are the master of a team and by picking your boss you also pick his/hers followers. Griffin: TCTF. Konoko: Civilians. (rebels) Mukade: ninjas and merc snipers. Muro: furies, tankers and comguys. Barabas: Strikers and elite strikers.
That's my 2 cents
]]>I find in single player at least, Konoko's wider range of moves gives her an edge over the less varied, more specialized classes. Hence, I think the move count should generally be the same for all classes, and characters should be weakened a bit for having a wider variety of moves. Hopefully, this would mean adding new moves to all classes but Konoko and Fury, but I haven't been around long enough to know what you guys can pull off.
I think making the Comguy / Henchman / Agent a weapons-based class is a good idea, but starting with extra ammo is a bad idea. Melee fighters don't run out of ammo, so the only way to balance the Henchman's ability to run out of their specialty is to make them stronger than other classes while he has it. This has an unfortunately high chance of making them practically unbeatable until they run out of ammo, at which point they're useless. Perhaps instead, make them very weak at melee combat and limit their max clips to 3, but make them regenerate a clip every twenty seconds or so? (Assuming that's possible. I'm not much of a modder yet.) Probably give them very good disarm throws as well, to make taking their gun less of an instantaneous loss.
At first Elites seem to be a straight tank, but they actually have a surprising amount of area of effect to their attacks. (For examples: Cannonball, their directional kicks, their rising punch, and their forward punch all have more width than I, at least, noticed until recently.) Considering large, slow characters are the ones most likely to get ganged up on anyway, the Elite could be optimized for fighting more than one enemy.
Muro's long combos have a tendency to leave him open, but he has a lot of moves that are good for safely covering ground, especially if you make his forward dodge an attack and give him monster Muro's rising punch. (Probably as a separate attack though, such as back, forward+punch, and nerfed a bit.) Furthermore, his attacks tend to be hard to block, and his grabs would probably be some of the strongest once he gets in close. These would make him fairly distinct, I think, though perhaps similar to the Ninja. His punch combo would definitely have to be nerfed, though, such as lowering the damage drastically and removing the knockdown.
I think the SWAT / Trooper's main flaw is that they don't have enough good attacks, with the only widely useful attack being standing Lion's Axe due to its power, unblockable nature and (as far as the Trooper's concerned) speed. Their punch combo tends to be to slow to actually combo with. Standing Lion's Fist isn't great to begin with, but its poor collision (intentional or not) makes it generally worthless. (Raising its damage and knockback would make it useful, though.) Rising Lion's Axe doesn't have much range or damage, leaves the Trooper vulnerable and usually doesn't knock anyone over, meaning it usually does more harm than good. Rising Lion's Fist is a decent attack, but its short range compared to the Trooper's size coupled with the Trooper's difficulty in using rising attacks quickly typically makes it too hard to pull off. (That last bit might be a moot point if they block low attacks while standing, though.) To note, their crouching foward kick, which is shared with the Striker, is pretty much unescapable without Andrashi's Melee.
I never really used the Strikers or Tankers much so I don't have any thoughts on them yet, and the others don't really need improving on. Theoretically speaking, would a multiplayer class rebalance affect single player as well?
]]>But yeah, there will have to be seperate animations for front grab a rear grab, for each fallen_forward and fallen_back.
And after that, although it would be less of a priority, we could make new ones and vary them per character style. I'll make the ground grab my next priority then.
]]>Make a new TRAM file, copy of some throw source, for example KONCOMthrow_fw_p. Change its name for example to KONCOMthrow_gnd_f. Do the same with throw target animation. Add to the TRAC file. Now you have extra animation pair in TRAC: KONCOMthrow_gnd_f, KONCOMthrow_gnd_f_tgt.
Next, in AnimTypes, there are unused types for double and triple directional punches (172 PF_PF, 173 PF_PF_PF). Bad and good news - these are defunct, you cannot perform double or triple directional attacks. BUT we have enough variability via range of 3-combos of punches and kicks, so why not to misuse these AnimTypes for something else.
So, in KONCOMthrow_gnd_f_tgt set its AnimType to be for example PF_PF. Also, set its AnimState to be FromState Fallen_back, ToState Fallen_back.
IMPORTANT !!! Remove all FromState shortcuts, otherwise this throw pair will probably mix in with standard throws !!!
At the end of this step, we have KONCOMthrow_gnd_f_tgt with no FromState shortcuts, with AnimType PF_PF and with FromState Fallen_back.
Good. Now head to KONCOMthrow_gnd_f. Go to the throw part, and look for AnimType of the target animation. Since it is a copy of a standard punch throw, there will be a link to the AnimType Thorwn1 if I recall correctly. Change it to...yes, PF_PF ^_^. Also set a bit larger throw range so you can test this feature with ease.
That's all. Pack files back to DAT/RAW/SEP format, go find some poor victim, knockdown him on back, position yourself so you are at its feet, facing him, press forward + punch. Wyipeedoo, there you go with ground grab in Oni ^_^.
For starters, get Muros front throw animation pair (leg breaker) and cut the beginning in XSI, so the animation begins with victim already on the ground. That way you get nice simple ground grab placeholder animation.
Some extra notes: When character is knockdowned, its "object" keeps standing up and oriented as if character was standing. That means to execute ground grabs you have to be facing directly the grounded opponent and stand at its feet (front grab) and at its head (rear grab) for fallen_back. Of course if we are talking about fallen_front, it's reversed - standing at fallen_fronted's character feet will result in rear grab, standing at its head will lead to front grab.
That is important as throw source animations share executing AnimTypes with standard throws. But if all AnimTypes and AnimSets are set correctly, there is no way for animation mismatches as throw source animations are picked according to proper throw target animations. And that is why these ground throw target anims should not contain any FromState shortcuts, only Fallen_back or Fallen_front FromStates.
Another Great Wall of Text ^_^.
P.S.: Hey Mukade, shorten Muro's leg grab anim, do this and post a video. Please. I would like to see this two years old idea finally alive, being done by next generation of Oni modders. Thanks ^_-
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