I just had this mindbogglingly awesome idea while I was at work today. What if StarBound incorporated more agility in it's player controls? Right now, you can jump and walk and such, and that's fine, I suppose... But what if you could also dash, and rebound off walls, and do flips and duck and crawl and climb!? What if there was just a wide variety of "skills" a player could use all just based on combinations of jump and directional buttons? Like, check this out. ~BASIC SKILLS~ Here's a list of skills everyone would be able to do by default. But, while everyone has access to these skills INITIALLY, wearing certain gear might disable some of these. Like if you wear armor that's too bulky, you might not be able to duck or crawl, or if your armor was too heavy you might not be able to sprint (which disables actions that require sprint, such as long jump and slide, as well) or wall kick. STRAFE - Quickly tap back, then quickly press and hold forward. You will travel forward while facing backwards (this would allow you to keep your shield up as you run backwards to block attacks from behind). You will continue strafing until you let go of the key. SPRINT - Double Tap left or right to sprint in that direction. Hold the button to keep sprinting (eats stamina or whatever?) LONG JUMP - Jump while sprinting. You'll go farther, but not as high. WALL KICK - While pressing against a wall in mid-air, press Jump again to kick off the wall. (Physics could get involved here, so if you did a wall-kick from a sprint-jump, you would kick off the wall in more of a horizontal direction. Whereas if you wall-kick from a regular jump, you'd have more height and less distance.) LEDGE GRAB - Hold against a ledge while descending beside it. You'll grab it and can climb up. DUCK - Press down. Hold to stay down. CRAWL - While ducking, press a direction to crawl. Will get you through tight spaces. SLIDE - While sprinting, press down. You'll go into a belly-slide! ~ADVANCED SKILLS~ These are skills that would require some kind of special gear (NOTE: "MARK OF SKILL" can be something like a Black Belt.). Just like with basic commands, wearing certain types of gear can negate these abilities (Like if your armor is too heavy, you cannot use skills afforded to you by the MARK OF SKILL, anyway. Climbing Gear and Flight Gear would still work for you, though). SIDEFLIP - Requires a MARK OF SKILL. Hold Down + Left/Right and press JUMP to do a "side-flip". You'll perform a short-distance flip in the chosen direction (left or right). TRIANGLE KICK - Enhanced Wall Kick. Requires a MARK OF SKILL. You can now control the direction of your rebound by holding either towards the wall or pressing away from it. Holding towards the wall (or the "UP" Direction) will give you more ascension and keep you closer to the wall. Pressing away, or down, will give you more distance from the wall, and less height. WALL CLING - With CLIMBING GEAR equipped, press against a wall to cling to it. From here, you can Wall Kick or Wall Scale. WALL SCALE - With CLIMBING GEAR equipped, press up or down during a WALL CLING to climb up or down. HOVER - With FLIGHT GEAR equipped, HOLD the jump button in mid-air to activate HOVER MODE. You can now move freely in any direction until you de-activate HOVER MODE (hold JUMP until it turns off), or your fuel/MP runs out. FLOAT - With FLIGHT GEAR equipped, hold the jump button after you reach your peak! You'll descend slowly. (Does not require MP. Consider it a parachute.) Can you imagine!? I mean, there's probably some other stuff that could be added but I can't rightly think of anything else right now! This would add such an incredible new level to gameplay if it were used! It might be askin' for the Moon and Stars, but this is a suggestion forum! And I plan to suggest!!!
I think a lot of these would fit with the supposedly advanced combat engine, so we'll have to wait and see what they have in mind when gameplay videos are released .
Being able to attack directly after rolls and backflips, or even while ducking/crawling, adds a whole new layer of strategy, and could probably end up being key to winning some boss fights. Imagine whipping out your pistol mid-backflip and firing away at the dude you just dodged? Or going into a really heavy slash after charging in with a Sprint?
Another awesome idea...the combat could be like a 2D Devil May Cry xD. I'd love to see so many of these implemented into the game. It's very feasible too as it's a simple 2D game, there's so much potential...God I just can't wait to finally have something to look forward to in my free time.
What on earth are you talking about? OH. Oh jeez. Side Flip is supposed to be used by pressing Jump while holding that direction. *FIX*
I've never been a fan of gear giving the player new acrobatic abilities (unless it's obviously required in real life, for example a midair flip while using a jetpack) but I like where your head is at.
Mm. I definitely think that giving abilities based on gear should make sense. Like not being able to fly unless it happens to be a jetpack or something. The adventurer in me demands to be able to flip and jump and climb and stuff so I can explore every last nook and cranny!
Nice ideas, I hope they all get implemented into Starbound, if they haven't been already. How about having the ability to crawl on walls with magnet-equipped gloves, or swing on things with a grappling hook made with propelled artificial spider silk (while wearing a blue and red suit)?
Now we're getting into vanity items... and ridiculous ideas that only work in cartoons. Magnets are how you climb walls, and even then only powerful ones on metal. Though it wouldn't be any less fun.
I think dashing and wall jumping (as seen in megaman games) would fit the adv. combat very well, but because of the randomly generated layout it would be rarely useful. the extra sprites needed for these new moves would make this even more difficult to add in, which is a shame because this is a really great idea!
There are slopes now, remember. So dashing's taken care of at least. And it'd come in handy for dungeons and other buildings, if you wanna build a rad-ass dungeon that requires lots of dashin' and wall-jumpin'. I know I'M gonna... True. This would take a bit of work on the spriter's department. If they think it's a good enough idea, though, I'm sure they'd find the worktime. That's why, more than anything, this idea needs support! We gotta show 'em we want it, and that it'll pay off if they do it!
Hm, I think helping another one up could be done so simply as having a kneeling animation when pressing down (also camera shift downward?) and making the character's back a platform. The kneeling animation could be also reused as a crawling animation for going through narrow spaces (balanced by not being able to use weapons or tools while crawling?) Edit: Yes, i totally read the whole thread. Stupid me. Oh well. :l
I have an idea to expand apoun the crouching if the charaters in this are 3 blocks high (like terraria) then why not add a take cover ablity? if your standing next to a 2 block high wall then you can crouch next to it and enter cover and you will take less damage (great for glass cannons). now your thinking what if i dont have a 2 block high wall next to me am i screwed? No! thats where portible cover comes into play. Portible Cover: allows you to pull up a 2 block high red wall (that enemies cant hit you through but you can pass through it before it dissapears) (you can buy more portible cover wall colors later on in the game) and it would be a tech item most likely or (if implemented) a skill/ability. (yes i like parenthasees)
Excellent ideas! I'd prefer the wall jumping to be more like Super Metroid's wall jumping mechanics, which are relatively easy to handle, but hard to master. If this is implemented it's going to be awesome, and will have another incentive to use light armor, people are going to have a heck of a time trying to hit someone moving around like a deranged monkey given twenty cans of mountain dew.
Indeed! And imagine some agility moves applied to combat in particular. Low, crouching leg-sweeps, forward dashing lunges... a wide variety of melee combat techniques can make swordplay a thousand times more interesting. Also, agreed on the Mario Wall-Jumping thing. At first, I was like "what, no... MegaMan X wall jumps are vastly superior", but that may be exactly WHY it needs to be Mario-Styled. If people could climb vertically by just repeatedly wall-jumping, they wouldn't need climbing gear. So less controllable wall jumps are actually a better idea for balance reasons.
I think it's a great idea, but I see a few snags. It there was to be a variety of motions that rewarded players with agile fingers, I think that's leaving out a certain percentage of people that do not or will not possess that level of agility. For that reason as well, I'd prefer to see this kinds of motions be non-essential to the game play. It would serve to enhance it, surely, but not be necessary for progression. If it were to be implemented, in my opinion, it would have to gradual and plot driven (think Super Metroid). Not trying to be a negative Nancy! I personally like the idea, and I'm sure a little more polishing would help it come closer to implementation.
I would really like combat related movement actions, particularly ground slams that knock enemies back. However, what if these combat abilities cost energy? Not a lot, though.
