As you can imagine with a third person RPG, the player will spend quite a lot of their time waving their weapons around and unloading devastating magical spells upon their enemies. In TADO we wanted to avoid very high paced action combat, but we also didn’t want to be in a place where combat was a matter of simply time.
During Steam Next Fest one of the things we got quite a lot of feedback on was combat, particularly as it related to melee strikes. TADO had a system where as you swing your sword your character would lock in place, play the related animation and deal damage.
This promoted, for melee least, you to stand toe-to-toe with the enemy slashing and blocking your way to victory, but it also came with some less than ideal user experience. Lots of people reported finding they would regularly miss their first attack, like when you're happily running forward you swing your sword missing because you weren't expecting to dead-stop mid run when you attacked.
The other issue was one of general ‘cluckiness’, the stopping and swinging would lead it to feeling quite unresponsive at times.
To make matters worse, we also had a number of abilities which when used also moved you forward somewhat, for example if you’re dual wielding the flurry attack would take a couple of steps forward leading to the opposite occurring and overshooting your intended target, not fun.
So where’s all this rambling going? Well since Next Fest melee combat (and to a lesser degree Magic) has been reworked to feel more dynamic and you can see a glimpse of this in surrounding clips. Your character when swinging will, based on what’s in front of them, either step forward/continue moving or stand still and swing if the target is too close. This in practise works well, as you run towards an enemy when you swing your blade your character will step into the attack, if you’re already nose to nose your character will swing without moving forward which in both cases should lead to a satisfying crack as the blow lands.
We’ve also added a target locking system, its mainly useful for melee, although ranged players can take advantage of it to. When locked to a target your character will always face them and strafe/circle around them, this feels particularly nice when you're fighting a boss or large enemy, where you want to keep your view focused on what its doing whilst navigating the dangers around it.
This does also work with ranged combat, but it won't lead your shots for you, so you're still required to aim if you want to hit something that doesn't want to be hit!
Overall this has made the combat feel a lot better, more in your control, which has also made the dodges and other movement skills feel more responsive and more useful overall.
See you all soon adventurers!
Monty