Hey there!
First things first: I'm a noob at crawl. Probably many of the things I propose here are tainted by lack of game knowledge, and I should know better than to open my face hole about something I'm inexperienced on. However, I feel like I want to contribute to Crawl in the long run (maybe once I get as far as to beat it, I'll try and make a patch!) so I guess getting into game design discussions is going to be fun =)
So, take these suggestions with a grain of salt. Anyway, sometimes opinions from an outsider are useful as they are more likely to show a different perspective. I am writing this with full knowledge that it will be hard or maybe impossible to implement (or simply people won't like it) but i'd enjoy it if it brings some debate. Maybe, just maybe, you will like it, in which case that will be a great motivation to look into the source code and start working on it!
Getting on topic... I LOVE this game. However, my major gripe with it is that melee combat is comparatively boring, both in terms of execution (tab tab tab), flavour (lack of weapon differentiation) and restrictive skilling. I have read in the Wiki the initiatives for a weapon and melee skill reform, and I agree with most of it. I understand weapon skills are intended to provide your character with an interesting choice. However, in its current implementation, it feels more like an arbitrary restriction. Unless you're interested in stabbing, whether or not your weapon skill was the "right" choice entirely depends on the loot you get. Delaying your choice of weapon skill until loot unravels doesn't seem to be an option, and even if it was, it would just delay the issue.
To make melee a bit more interesting, I'd like to propose an alternative scheme that makes it possible to mix and match passive abilities and exploit them even after switching weapons. In fact, the key point of this proposal is enforcing the idea that an adventurer may want to keep more than one weapon type handy and switch depending on what challenge he's facing. Complementary weapon types should be the objective. Here is what I'd change, step by step:
Changes:- Remove all weapon specific skills: Just do away with all of them. It will make sense in a moment.
- Rework the Fighting skill; split it into Endurance, Short Range Combat and Long Range Combat : Here is one of the times where my newbie perspective might come handy. "Fighting" is a misleading name for a skill that increases your HP. its effects, along with those from the specific weapon skills would be redistributed as follows:
- Endurance: Increases your max HP. Maybe some secondary effect for flavour?
- Short Range Combat: Improves Damage in Melee, accuracy, and attack speed (essentially, it combines the offensive part of Fighting with the Weapon skills)
- Long Range Combat: Improves Damage at range, accuracy and attack speed (similar)
So far, a character with level 27 on Endurance and level 27 on Short Range Combat would be equivalent to a character with level 27 fighting and level 27 in all current weapon skills. This may be seen as a raw increase in power for a given amount of points, but can be tweaked if it poses a balance issue. Anyway, this is just to set the framework for the skills that would be introduced. Also, as you will see, with this system it will be more viable to become a true melee specialist, perhaps making things like a Demigod without any magic a viable endgame build, by using combinations of weapons in a smart, tactical way. As another good side effect, decoupling Fighting into its offensive and defensive components makes it possible for a magic user that just wants to dabble into melee to focus his efforts, getting Short Range Combat to max level rather than both Fighting and a weapon spec. This also applies to glass cannon assassins and other similar builds, who might want to maximize damage output without harming the flavour of their role by increasing HP.
Make Flails and Whips a separate cathegory from Maces: Any attempt to give those proc abilities should differentiate between these two cathegories... I think we can all agree a mace is mechanically different to a whip! Introduce specific "Combat Maneuver" skills: This is slightly different than the approach of giving every weapon type a different proc. Instead of weapon skills, these new "move" skills would make it in, which provide passive procs and bonuses for several weapons, being specially effective (+30%) for one weapon type. In fact, one such skill is already in the game in a format very similar to what I'd love to see, and that skill is Stabbing. So here is a possible list for melee:- Stabbing: Enhances the damage of attacks made against monsters unaware of your presence. Works best with Short Blades. Works for Long Blades and Polearms.
- Disarming: Chance to disarm an armed monster, throwing his weapon to a random adjacent tile. Works best with Whips. Works for Short Blades, Staves and Unarmed combat.
- Arcing Blows: Increases the likelihood of performing an arcing blow, that will hit monsters in adjacent tiles to your target. Works best with Axes. Works for Long Blades, Staves and Maces.
- Dazing Strikes: Increases the likelihood of performing a dazing blow, and the time the monster will spend dazed. Works best with Maces. Works for Staves, Unarmed Combat and Whips.
- Piercing Thrusts: Increases the likelihood of performing a piercing strike, reaching an additional tile in the direction of the attack, ignoring the AC of the first target. Works best with Polearms. Works for Long Blades.
- Rending Strikes: Increases the likelihood of peforming a rending strike, making the enemy bleed for X% of the damage over time. Works best with Long Blades. Works with Short Blades, Axes and Polearms.
- Sweeping Attacks: Increases the likelihood of peforming a sweeping attack, throwing the enemy to the ground. Works best with Staves. Works for Whips and Polearms (Essentially it forces the monster to perform an action, "XXX monster stands up" that will take longer for heavier and slower monsters).
- Opportunity: Increases the likelihood to react quickly to enemy movement, attacking as the monster tries to move into, or away from an adjacent square. Works best with Unarmed Combat. Works for Short Blades, Maces and Whips.
That would be all for melee. It may look like a lot of skills, but considering the weapon specific skills are out, it adds up to a similar amount. There should be a similar list for ranged maneuvers. Please note that I did my best to respect the philosophy of weapons in DCSS, which means: All effects are passive, and all procs are positive, with no such things as knockback or other effects that would be undesirable (with the exception of cleaving attacks, which could bring up a prompt in the relevant scenarios).
The fun thing, in my opinion, of this skillset is that it's possible to mix and match. Obviously, multiple proc effects could only happen where it's applicable and makes sense (it should be possible to make an arcing + dazing blow with a mace, but not an arcing and piercing strike with a sword). Anyway, there are many reasons why a player might want to train many of these at once (unlike the current system). For instance, an assassin really devoted to daggers could train all three of Stabbing, Opportunity and Rending Strikes, therefore becoming deadly in melee, where as an assassin hybrid would prefer to stick to Stabbing. For the aforementioned assassin, this would naturally bring up many options to the table. Aside from being specially good at daggers, he would naturally be able to switch to unarmed combat in order to deal with mobile enemies, or take a long blade for a more hit and run style.
I tried to make every skill so it appeals to a different situation, and they're often opposed in nature. For instance, Sweeping Strikes and Opportunity are respectively good at dealing with slow and fast monsters. The first one will make huge monsters trip and fall, and it will take them long to stand up, giving you the time to finish them off unharmed. This wouldn't be too useful against a bat. However, Opportunity will make the bat's life miserable, by attempting to strike every time it moves in and out. Let's expand this example:
Arbus the Monk has decided to level up Opportunity and Sweeping strikes. Upon entering a room, he finds two dangerous zombie bats and a huge ogre. Quickly, he thinks of all his possibilities. He is confronted with the following choice:
a) Equipping his Staff and going for the ogre. By making it trip, it will be slowed down and easily dealt with. However, the bats might hurt him bad in that time.
b) Going bare handed, using his lightning fast reflexes to hit the bats as they move around, while focusing on the ogre.
c) (and this is the cool part of the system) Realize he's carrying a whip, which isn't a weapon he particularly expected to use, but that uses both abilities to a medium degree. Using the whip, he may be able to make the ogre trip while striking the bats. Perfect combination!This should always remember a viable tradeoff, which implies the "preferred" weapon for a specific maneuver shouldn't be more than 30% more effective than the rest at doing that particular thing.
Other examples of maneuvers that help in different scenarios are as follows:
Disarming- Only useful against armed opponents (obviously).
Rending- Good for hit and run strategies. Use when you can kite the monster, and not against swarms of fast creatures.
Piercing- Use in small enclosed areas, and against heavy armored creatures. Not to use in the open.
Arcing- Opposed to piercing. Use against surrounding enemies.
Etc
I'll suggest some more combos to give you food for thought, as they highlight the emergent properties of this system:
Runaway combo: Mace with Dazing Strike, Arcing Blows and Opportunity. By equipping a mace with these skills trained, it is possible to strike monsters that are chasing you (both reflexively and actively) potentially hitting more than one at once and dazing them, allowing you a clean escape.
Ogre Killer: Whips with Disarming and Sweeping Attacks: Everyone knows the power of Ogres comes from their weight and terrible spiked clubs. Tackle both at once by disarming them with your whip and keeping them unbalanced.
The Hallway Grinder: Polearms with Piercing and Rending Strikes: Line all your enemies up in a hallway and sew through them. By piercing and applying rending strikes, the second monster in line will already be hurt when you get to him, so less work to do!
As you can see, there are many possibilities, that offer several degrees of specialization in weapons, and much, much more flexibility in building melee classes. As a character levels up, he might want to start with vanilla Short Range Combat and then specialize along the way depending on loot, or build a specific strategy based on mixing and matching certain procs, changing from weapon to another, etcetera. In this system, I imagine players like true medieval knighs were: Fighters competent with all weapons, that switch from one another when the situation requires for it. While weapons by themselves don't change, they indirectly gain a lot of charisma, since each weapon type is the ONLY capable of certain combinations. For instance, you will find no weapon capable of stabbing, arcing and rending other than the Long Blade. So if you want an assassin that deals a lot of DoT damage and can also defend against multiple opponents in a pinch, that's your weapon of choice.
I also think that this system is not too obscure for new players. All these are clear in what they do and there's less punishment for using a "wrong" weapon that you have acquired than currently. Also, beginner, more simple races could have a straight boost to learning "Short Range Combat" and a penalty to specific maneuvers so it is even simpler to decide how to build, while not penalizing the understandable "wow, awesome loot, I want to try it!" feeling that all of us newbs have. All of these effects are fed to the player through the combat log. Stuff like "Your sweeping attack makes the orc fall over!" "The orc stands up" are not too dissimilar from the current "You slice the Rat like a ripe Choko!" and don't get in the way while learning a game, even if you're not completely sure how they work.
That was it. Sorry for the long read! I hope you guys enjoyed it, and be sure I'll keep updating it with your suggestions and ideas if you did.