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Anybody every played those old "Bushido Blade" games?  Sort of a duel fighting game, but if you were struck by a sword, you tended to either die straight out or lose the use of a limb.  Maybe something like that could be a place to start for a visual combat simulator, not turn based.

From a brainstorming end, there's a few "real time" combat games worth noting, in a addition to Blade of Darkness and Bushido Blade. There was "Die by the Sword" which had wonky controls, but they were on to something really, truly great. It just didn't work quite right. It took a lot of skill to fight in that game, though, and it's pretty close to what TROS combat might be like on the most base level. The second is Drakan:Order of the Flame, for PC, circa 1999. That was a much more intuitive sword-fighting game with lots of potential.

I think that a TROS real-time 3rd-person type game would need a few things to work as a sword-fighting game, and it's all about player control (suprise suprise).

First, the player needs to be able to control both the point of origin and the point of finishing for a strike. (Die by the sword had the right idea, but they didn't understand real martial swordplay to any degree). Next, there has to be a quick and inuitive way to enact counters and other non-basic maneuvers.

I can allready see a few ways for this to work, actually.

Jake

When I read TRoS, Bushido Blade was the first thing that came to mind.  It's probably also the extra push I'll need to get some of my locals to play it.  

They are all fans of Bushido Blade, but very scared to try anything non-D&D.  One day, when I brought over a bunch of hardbacks to use as writing surfaces (yes I used TRoS as a writing surface, I'll be ready for my public lynching), one of the more closed minded players picked it up, looked at it for a half of a second, then drop it yelling "Ah, it burns!"  Yeah, this is what I have to deal with.  Suppose it's bad karma for using TRoS as a writing surface.  :P

heh, I remember die by the sword.

Couldn't you use the mouse to control the sword directly?  IIRC it usually just meant swinging the sword wildly cos you couldn't control it fast enough :P

Ah, memories :)

Okay, just my two-cents in on this topic...
When someone in the game would make an attack.. have options come up in a popup window prompting the player to choose the type of attack.
Then that goes into the next window where you either select a zone to hit, or a direction to swing. However, if the players just stands there and makes no input, should it default to 'make no attack'?? AAAAND for defence the same thing can be said with options popping up to be selected like parry, counter, duck n weave.. etc. These commands could be linked to the keypad maybe... or hotkeys or something.
Or you could just go about it linking these commands to hotkeys anyways and disregard the pop-up command window. That would be that much more quick. To expand even more on some more ideas on this, maybe the keypad can act like a zone.. with a cut it would act like 7 is a cut from upper left(from character's perspective, not the targets) 8 is down vert, 9 us the inverse of 7.. 4 is horizontal from left to right, 6 is the reverse of 4... 1 and 3 can be attacks against the lower legs 5 can be the upper legs... 2 can be an upward vertical swing. thrusts work the same way basically... being thrusts against these zones... 7 can be lower arms 9 can be upper 8 can be the head 5 can be the chest... 4 and 6 can be the hands(left and right respectively) 1 and 3 can be the legs... 2 can be the groin..
This of course is not to mention the other keys on the keypad should someone wish to switch from thrusting with a cut n thrust to cutting with aforementioned sword. also any other buttons can be used for any zones I may have disregarded. Same buttons can be linked to different defensive moves.  Numlock can take you between defensive and offensive stances or commands.. and whatever.

*shrug*
-Ingenious

My ideas were similar to the way Ingenious thought of it.
   I imagine it being played 3rd person, and when you get near a possible enemy, you can press a certain button that would start the battle. Gameplay would freeze, and a little menu would pop up, with all the options for battle .. . stance, attack/defend ,swing or thrust, followed by choosing which zone to attack, and then allocating dice, maneuvers, etc. then, once everything as been selected gameplay will resume, and the attack will take place. Reflex rolls would be figured out automatically, of course. man, this could be pretty cool.
    As for SAs, I imagine them just popping up when they would, such as when a part in the story is heavily related to your SA's, or at some times they would be optional, like if one of your sa's is that you hate trollspawn, and you are fighting a gol. Sa's would be rewarded the same way, I imagine, some rewarded when you do something in the story line that would effect them, or just in battle when you do other ones.
   With sorcery, I imagine it would have some preset spells, until you get used to the idea of making them. Once you get the hang of it, you could make your own, but it would be difficult, no doubt, especially with some of the non-combat based spells, (which is a lot of them). If any of you have played the RPG Maker games (if you could call it playing.) I imagine it would sort of be similar to making abilities in that. crap, that would be tedious, and hard. Okay, so sorcery would definitely be one of the more difficult factors of the game. Maybe preset spells would be the best, or at least preset guidelines to spells... I dont know, my brain is not functioning properly (I have not yet had a full sleep since watching a midnight premier of LOTR: Return of the King.... 3 hours of sleep in almost two days..... meh, it was worth it...schools not that important....) back to the point.....
     So, uh, yeah, TROS video game would rock. I can see some awesome gaming here. .... (you have no idea how wonderful it is to think of my two favorite activities combined into one... well, maybe some of you do, but Im trying to enjoy the moment here....)

Sorcery is something I completely forgot about actually, though my idea is as follows. Maybe instead of having the ability to create your own spells from scratch(as no doubt coding every single possible spell you could ever come up with would take FOREVER and the game would never be released possibly in our life-spans...) just have it be that you might be able to select one or two spell effects at first, then as you get more powerful, upgrade the character, etc... you could move up to 3.. then 4.. etc. Or you might not want that... instead you could choose how you casted the spell... how you moved you hands, arms, body language.. etc. what words you spoke... in which ancient language.. and whatnot. Then the spell effects could be randomized a bit. Of course randomized to the point that you intended to have an offensive spell, so it would choose random offensive effects. It would seriously suck to create a spell that makes a 10000 ton block of stone above someone and have it crash on them but heal them rather than flatten them into a pool of ooze. I think everyone gets my point with that. But there can be many creative ways to handle sorcery and how to make spells. Aside from the standpoint of creating spells, i think sorcery is a mute point.(or is that a moot point??)
Heck, if you even made an area of effect spell, maybe not just have it appear as a cone, or a circle... or a box.. have the player be able to draw a figure of any shape but have the area of that shape equal the area of effect. THAT would be innovative.

-Ingenious
to quote a friend:
'Think outside the box, think inside the box, and think along the line that makes the box.'

A side question: I suppose if we realistically wanted to put out the TROS-core CRPG, it would come out for the computer; but I am keeping a lot of console consideration in mind, in terms of interface simplicity.

There are great thoughts - I am a big fan of Bushido Blade! - but I shall nonetheless interrupt here: there are a few standard tenets or CRPGs as they are commonly known:
* tactical turn-based combat
* "levelling up" your stats
* you have your angstful main character (usu. bishy)

While I am greatly in favor of trashing old-school tenets like these, I also conceived of using a TROS core to subvert these: level up your SAs, have greater control than ever of your protagonist fighter, and take turn-based fighting to new levels of not sucking. <g>

I realize a new alternative to the problem of Sorcery; give the player tactically deep control over his own character, and have him be a customizable fighter. Sorcerers and missile-fighters may join the party, but will work autonomously (led by strategic orders rather than tactical commands), so this provides another avenue for controlling Sorcery. (We worry that player will not care about a supporting PC sorcerer pruning up on spells, but aging side-effects can easily increase the probability that a Sorcerer will just walk off on his own volition)

To reimagine the interface, I'm suddenly afraid of lots of popups and menus - even though those are standard with CRPGs and not out of place. I would rather favor default actions in timed limits:
* you have 2 sec to throw your initiative die or default to white
* you have 3 sec to pick your attack/target or it defaults to chest cut or such

At each of these prompts the action slows down, but for the most part you've entered your choices and you see them acted out in front of you.

Here's another question: what tactical elements of TROS would we choose to make more complex, given the computer's processing speed? For example, would we make all of combat a continuous exchange of blows with partial regeneration of the CP each turn (except for when a player breaks off)?

Quote from: DevI realize a new alternative to the problem of Sorcery; give the player tactically deep control over his own character, and have him be a customizable fighter. Sorcerers and missile-fighters may join the party, but will work autonomously (led by strategic orders rather than tactical commands), so this provides another avenue for controlling Sorcery. (We worry that player will not care about a supporting PC sorcerer pruning up on spells, but aging side-effects can easily increase the probability that a Sorcerer will just walk off on his own volition)

This may sound good from a designer's standpoint, but from a player's standpoint I strongly suspect that people will find it unsatisfying to not be able to play the kind of character they want.  Lots of people enjoy playing spell casters, and I wonder how well this idea would go over at large...

Quote from: DevHere's another question: what tactical elements of TROS would we choose to make more complex, given the computer's processing speed? For example, would we make all of combat a continuous exchange of blows with partial regeneration of the CP each turn (except for when a player breaks off)?

Include all the optional rules about fatigue, to-hit modifiers, extra shock to head, etc. for starters. It always bugged me that the computers with all their mathematical speed usually have simpler fighter systems than most p&p RPGs.
One thought I had was to make the avoiding-multiple-opponents-roll more visual. Every round, no matter if it's a one-on-one duel or not, you make a terrain roll from your CP. The (biggest) loser moves first, so the other(s) can take his movement into account when moving themselves. This would simulate the p&p terrain roll quite nicely, would take advantage of graphics and probably be easier to do than the more abstract terrain roll.

Also, something that bugged me is that there is usually either no advantage of resting in a bed rather than in the wilderness, or not possible at all rest outside of an inn. If you include fatigue rules, you would simple not be as rested if you slept on cold hard rocks than if you slept in a bed.
I'd prefer a game where you controlled only a single character. You could have more (realistic) micro-management such as food, equipment, clothes and such without making it overwhelming, and you create a stronger bond to thyour character.

A computer could also handle more a complicated damage system that makes calculations based on weight, edge quality, and all those kinds of physics used in forensics and such, no?

I've been thinking about a game of this nature for quite some time. I am studying to be a programmer, and my eventual goal is game development, so unless someone beats me to it, this game WILL be made one day, though perhaps not particularly soon.

My own ideas:

Allocation of combat pool would be click-based, rather than slider based. Sliders are a bit too.. temperamental at times. It'd be simple enough.. A number representing the CP, then a couple switches (+/-) for allocating dice. I'd have two, because some maneuvers require more than 1 die allocation, after all.

My gumps (Graphical User Menu Popups) would be similar in style to those used by Diablo, stylized, and set to be able to be hotkeyed up, or brought up with a click on a graphical button. The POV would be scalable (via keys, or the scroll-wheel on the mouse) from isometric to 1st person, a la Star Wars Galaxies, to allow players to explore in whatever way they prefer. Combat, however, would always pull back to isometric, giving the player the ability to see the combat. When in combat, the character would be Engaged or Disengaged, the former being essentially stationary, except for the semi-conscious motions which accompany battle. The latter would have the character able to move around as normal, but it means that hostiles are in the area, and will attempt to engage the character, or attack with ranged weapons.

Combat would play out almost exactly like in the RPG. One of my biggest pet-peeves is CRPGs that take a great game, scrap the die-system, and just go for "mood".. (Vampire: Redemption, anyone?) When first engaged, a bar would appear somewhere on the screen and would begin to shrink. Before that bar disappears, the character had better have chosen attack or defense. Then the maneuver selection, either via pre-set hotkeys (F-keys, for example) or clicking gumps, location for attack (as applicable)and die allocation. There would be an optional time-limit for making these choices for those who like a little bit of pressure, but it would be able to be turned off for those who want to take time to consider their options. Also, hotkeys and/or gumps could be set to use various skills which can be applicable to combat. Terrain rolls could be used (you guessed it, more hotkeys or gumps) and the character will be prompted to use them when appropriate (such as multiple combatants, or difficult terrain). When it comes time to choose the attack location, a translucent overlay would appear in the middle of the screen with the body shape from the book, perhaps color-coded to give an idea of how much protection the enemy has in a given region. Now, all of these decisions can be made fairly quickly, and will add a certain amount of twitch-factor if the timer option is turned on, but the actual visuals combat will be mostly seamless, as the character act out what the results of the combat are using, of course, full motion-captured graphics.

General exploration and interaction would be similar in play to the Fallout games, with many people to interact with, and where the character's actions can effect different things in the game. Character creation would be necessarily limited by the metastory (you gotta have 'em in CRPGs, unless they're MMORPGs, and even then...) of the game, but fairly open-ended within those limits. There would be multiple paths to follow, and different endings for each path. There would not be multiple lives.. You save often, or you die.

Sorcery I've not thought about. I've some ideas from pondering it briefly while reading this thread, but I'll not worry 'bout 'em for the now. However, my goal would be minimal divergence from the rules as possible so as to keep the same tactical feel, while still maintaining a fluid and attractive game, with customizeability for different styles of play.

Wolfen, you seem pretty on the ball with what you speak of, however I would argue that people such as myself hated the Fallout style of target zone selection. I'm lazy.. and like things with minimal fuss, I don't want to be prompted everytime I swing a sword and such... because from the way I see it, each exchange is like 1 or two seconds right? In a fight then using your system would you not get prompted once every two seconds then? That doesn't sound fun, even if afterwards you would be watching possibly an FMV sequence for the attack... I however, do agree with you that the storylines should be modeled after what Black Isle has done with most of their RPG's, i.e. the many different ways the story can play out..
The fallout series had that, the forgotten realms series, etc.(At least I think Baldur's Gate 2 was quasi-produced by Black Isle, too lazy to check my start menu and make sure.)
I beleive that as we get into the more nitpicky kind of stuff, that we're straying away from what makes the TROS system surpass others; complexity with speed.
Even though the combat is turn based it is still the fastest RPG system I have seen... while having all of the complexity that it does. So just don't over-load the game by raising the complexity too much, or it will get bogged down and take away from the fun factor. Though I know that 'eye candy' is good for a game, if there's nothing to support it.. the gameplay suffers tremendously.

-Ingenious

I'd recommend a mouse gestures menu to simplify target zone selection.  That way a fast click and flick of the wrist will select your target almost reflexively once you get acclimated.

Hey Lance,

Count me in.

Brian.