Real-time Pagan/Diablo combat

[Scythifuge]

Greetings, (sorry for typos in advance, I am using my phone and hit neighboring letters bow and then and overlook them often.)

I brought this up in a previous post that was full of other topics, and I can't help but to continue to think about it.

There are times in Ultima VII where characters, creatures, and even objects can suffer damage from explosions, spells, and stray bolts and what not.

How difficult would it be to create a mod, or add as an option, the ability to add an attack key, or even just a mouse click, that would cause the avatar to swing his/her weapon without targeting anything, but that if something that can be damaged is within the arc of the swing, then damage is calculated normally?

One of the chief complaints of Ultima VII is that Origin dropped the ball with the combat mechanics. I feel that by giving the player control over the attacks, it would create a more comfortable playing experience. With that said, the combat is somewhat realistic, because in a chaotic battle situation, you really aren't able to order your party to attack specific targets.

The other question relates to the tactical combat that someone was working on a while back.

How difficult would it be to add code that auto-paused combat after each combatant took a swing? For example, the avatar os travelling with Triolo, Shamuru, and Dokray. They are attacked by four smilodin populators and an dinosaur. The game immediately pauses. The player then selects each party member and clicks on the desired targets. Unpaused, each character takes a swing, including the creatures, and then pauses again.

The idea is to add option that differ from the automatic chaos that drives many players away. I personally wouldn't mind a Pagan/Diablo style clickfest, because in those games, I at least felt like I had more control. In the Savage Empire remake, I plan on having tall grass and vines blocking things, and a machete-wielding avatar swinging the blase to clear paths. Nasty things will be lurking in the brush, and could be smacked by being in the machete's arc, while the avatar clears a path.

This would also allow guns to be fired once, instead of clicking in an enemy and the avatar blasts off all of the ammo.

Or better yet, add a formula based on dexterity (and if two or more characters have the same dex, then dex+combat, and if the same, dex+combat+int, and so on,) causes that character/creature to swing first, then the next low value and so on.

[agentorangeguy]

There was something in exult implemented that sort of created a paused combat situation where you could control who targets what. You go to the misc options and under combat options, turn on space pauses. Then during normal combat, press the space bar then alt- right click on your party member, then the target cursor comes up, click the target and hit space again. you can even make your party members go to a location if you click on it.

[Scythifuge]

I remember reading about that, and it was what initially gave me the idea for further combat modifications. The paised-combat is definitely an improvement over the original.

[Scythifuge]

Another idea is that of a weapon swing can have hit detection, then we could have the play strike multiple enemies with one swing, maybe tying the hit detection probability to a formula involving dexterity and combat (and maybe intelligence and strength.)

[Dominus]

I'm sorry to say that this is not possible without recoding the combat system. Slashing Dragon started to do that a while ago but never got too far before being distracted again

[Scythifuge]

I understand all too well how difficult it can be to focus on such projects!

I do hope that more programmers eventually become interested in enhancing Exult Studio and adding more options, and get it to the point where we can make full, original games with E.S. without the limitations present in Ultima VII.