Chapter 525: Combat System
Moreover, players also want to be able to constantly see their characters' appearances, clothes, and movements.
Sacrificing a tiny bit of immersion in exchange for so many advantages is why most of the big AAA titles on PC adopt this perspective.
If the third-person follow camera were to continue being used on the VR platform, the biggest problem would be that the advantages of the VR platform wouldn't be fully utilized.
The greatest advantage of the VR platform is immersion, which definitely cannot be sacrificed.
At the same time, because the player's actual field of view on the VR platform is also 124 degrees, and players can feel tactile feedback from different parts of their bodies when attacked, the issue of limited vision simply doesn't exist. There's no need to worry about not being able to find where the enemy is.
The last remaining problem is that players can't see their own character's appearance and movements. Actually, this is also easy to solve. Chen Mo plans to add two features.
One is a replay system. Players can record their battles in levels and boss fights and replay them from a god's-eye view. This way, players can freely watch what they looked like while fighting.
The other is a god's-eye observation mode. Players can freely switch to a god's-eye perspective to observe the character's appearance, making it convenient for those who care about looks to equip outfits and perform dance moves.
This way, the first-person perspective issues on the VR platform are basically all resolved.
Additionally, another advantage of Dark Souls in VR mode is that distance control becomes more precise, and immersion is stronger.
Of course, it will also be more painful...
But then again, suffering is the core fun of this game anyway.
Next is enriching some specific combat details.
With the support of the Pangu System, it becomes possible to build a more complex combat system.
The changes the Pangu System brings to the Dark Souls combat system are mainly in three aspects.
First, the judgment of hit locations is more precise. When players use the tip or the blade of a sword, or perform different actions like slashing, thrusting, or stabbing, hitting different parts of a monster's body produces different effects.
The monster's armor will deliberately have some gaps. For example, typical knight armor has very hard plate armor on the outside, but at the joints, only relatively soft chainmail lining is worn.
If the player can pierce through the gaps in the armor, they can deal more damage to the monster.
At the same time, hitting different parts of the armor will calculate the impact force on the enemy based on the strength of the strike, also dealing some damage to the enemy.
Of course, the game still retains settings like backstabs and executions, but the trigger methods are different from the previous games. In the original, players only needed to be behind and slightly to the side of a monster to attempt a backstab, but whether it actually succeeds now depends on the Pangu System's calculations.
Second, the judgment of force throughout the game becomes more precise.
Different weapons have different impact forces. When dealing with heavily armored enemies, heavy blunt weapons like great hammers are much more useful than swords.
In the original Dark Souls, as long as the player could lift a greatshield, enemy attacks hitting the greatshield would only drain stamina. But in this modified version, if an enemy attacks a greatshield with a hammer-type weapon and the player's strength attribute isn't high enough, they will still take slight damage.
At the same time, players can clash weapons with monsters. When the player's blade and the monster's blade collide, the system calculates the difference in strength between the two sides and determines the result of the collision based on that, providing feedback to both parties.
If two evenly matched enemies clash weapons, both blades will bounce back slightly after the collision, consuming some of the player's stamina.
If one side's stamina is completely depleted, it will produce the same effect as a parry, resulting in a noticeable stagger.
Under this setting, players actually have more opportunities to go all-in, and it also brings the combat closer to real fighting.
Of course, such a change also has a problem: attribute differences might make battles more one-sided. If one side's strength and stamina both overwhelmingly dominate the other, then weapon clashing becomes a one-sided slaughter.
In response to this, some additional small adjustments can solve it, such as setting thresholds for strength and stamina, modifying the matchmaking algorithm for player-versus-player fights, or supplementing the weaker side's attributes.
Of course, these are matters for later and only need to be considered in detail when creating the online mode.
Third, the richness of combat can be increased.
In the original Dark Souls, if a player triggers a backstab on a monster, the monster will have a relatively long invincibility frame while falling down. Before the monster gets up, the player cannot deal any damage to it.
Of course, this design has many other considerations, mainly related to game balance. Chen Mo intends to adopt a different approach.
In a real knight duel, if one side successfully backstabs the other, the outcome is already decided. The backstabbed side has only death awaiting them.
So Chen Mo's modification is this: once one side is backstabbed and then kicked to the ground, the other player can perform a follow-up attack, such as leaping high into the air and smashing down.
(In the original game, some special weapon arts could pursue downed enemies, but the number was limited.)
The backstabbed side must roll in time to dodge this attack, or else they will suffer high pursuit damage.
Additionally, Chen Mo introduces a new setting: the limit stamina value.
In critical situations, when the player's stamina bar is already depleted, if they still need to perform a roll, they can overdraw their stamina.
The amount of limit stamina that can be overdrawn is very limited. After overdrawing, the recovery speed of the original stamina bar slows down.
Once the limit stamina value is fully replenished, the recovery speed of the normal stamina bar returns to normal.
This setting is essentially like a burst of potential in a moment of crisis. Many exhausted people, in order to survive, often erupt with a very powerful force at critical moments.
After adding this setting, having your stamina completely drained by a combo doesn't leave you completely helpless; at least there's still a chance to save yourself.
(In Dark Souls, stamina can actually be understood as energy. Rolling, attacking, blocking, and other actions all consume it, but it can't be called "stamina" because in Dark Souls, the "stamina" attribute affects the character's equip load—these are two completely different attributes.)
With these changes, the entire Dark Souls combat system becomes more complex and varied, and much closer to real combat.
Some special combat methods are also allowed. For example, like the battle between the Red Viper and the Mountain in A Song of Ice and Fire, where the Red Viper, a leather-armored unit, relies on agile footwork and a poisoned spear to continuously attack the gaps in the Mountain's armor, "almost" achieving victory through poison accumulation—this can also be realized under this combat system.
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