Combat System

In this devlog entry I'm gonna try to give more insights in the vision I have for the combat system. It's one of the corner stones of Isoterra and it is a bit uncommon, so let's see what you think.

Styles

Isoterra is Class-less but you have 3 combat styles:

• Melee
• Range
• Magic

This combat styles form a "Combat triangle":

• Melee -> Range
• Range -> Magic
• Magic -> Melee

The combat triangle means that some styles are better when fighting other styles and can be taken as a general rule of thumb to know what to use against other styles.

This does not mean that one style is better than another

On paper this will be done via the Armor the player will have equipped, something similar to:

• Melee armor is strong against Range projectiles
• Range armor is strong against Magic spells
• Magic armor is ... well weak against everything, but the spells are really strong against Melee armor.

Weapon and Abilities

Ok now we know there are 3 combat styles, but how do we decide which one to use?

This is decided by the weapon the player has equipped:

• Melee: Swords, daggers, quarterstaffs, maces etc
• Range: Bows, longbows, crossbows, blowpipes etc
• Mage: Staffs, Elemental Staffs, Toms/Books/Orbs etc

This equipped weapon will decide which style the player is currently using and also which abilities the player can use

Each weapon will have 3 abilities for the player to use. This abilities are not always offensive abilities but could be also be defensive or utility

Switching combat styles

3 combat styles defined by the equipped weapon, but how do we switch between them?

Basically with presets. One of the features Isoterra will have in the Equipment interface is the ability to define which weapon+armor you want to use for each combat style. Then from the combat interface you will be able to switch between combat styles via buttons (keybinds also) and that will automatically switch the weapon+equipment.

This basically means that in combat you have a total of 9 abilities to use, 3 for each combat style and it's up to the player to decide which combination of those want's to have based on the abilities they provide basically

While in combat you'll not be able to change any weapon+armor

The act of switching will not be automatic, it'll be a cast that will not allow any abilities to be used (player can still move) and the time it takes to switch will depend on the player skill level of the switching to style. Still TBD what the base time will look like but something in between 0.5-3s most likely

That weapon and equipment have to be on the Inventory of the player to be able to be used. Which is important as the inventory will be limited to 28 slots. Which will basically mean that inventory management will be a thing. Players will have to decide to focus on full damage of one or 3 styles by sacrificing inventory slots for specific armor of each style, or to go with a hybrid set which will lead to less damage but more inventory

What's next

The next version v0.0.3 will have a simple version of this combat system which will include the ability to switch between combat styles and use 1 ability of each combat style. As all this system is linked to the Inventory and Equipment features that are not yet here, we'll have a simple version for now

Thank you for reading and I'm happy to read any feedback you may have about this system.