Before we get into this weeks release, I want to share with you some key parts of the historical time line to explain how seemingly unrelated things work together in Polaris.
- Negative Ninth millennium UST: Earliest Trekat civilisations.
- Negative Eight millennium UST: First human civilisations.
- Negative Seventh millennium UST: First Elaran and Brotick civilisations.
- Late Negative Eleventh and Early Negative Tenth Centuries UST: The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment; a portion of Earth civilisation undergoes a sudden growth of technological knowledge and social development. In the timespan of one or two generations, Humanity develops universal gravitation, accurate timepieces, calculus, and much of its human- and sentient-centric philosophy.
- C. -847 UST: Izarin Jezira born.
- -822 UST: Jezira Empire consolidated; Izarin begins his rule as God-Emperor of Elar.
- -780 UST: Izarin Jezira dies; beginning of the Jezira dynasty.
- -457 UST: United Human State ("Human Unity") formed.
- -346 UST: Humans become space faring.
- -321 UST: Humans develop energy shield technology capable of absorbing many direct energy strikes, sparking a renewed interest in historical Human fencing.
- -319 UST: Humans make first contact with the Velkin.
- -317 UST: Humans make first contact with the Brotick.
- -310 UST: Shield technology traded between the Velkin and the Brotick.
- -237 UST: Human-Velkin war begins.
- -236 UST: General Alejandro Profokiev of the UHC publishes his Methodology of Modern Warfare, detailing the novel combined melee-and-ranged tactics that were being fielded by Human, Velkin and Brotick armies of the time.
- -230 UST: Methods of dispensing medical nano-technology via melee weapons is discovered. Nanite designs previously discarded for being too aggressive are produced in large quantities.
- -212 UST: Nine tenths of the Velkin fleet self-destruct inside the atmosphere of Earth, carrying antimatter loads and scorching the planet. UHC government crumbles; six of the twelve off world colonies secede to form the Free Allied Human Colonies. Refugees start fleeing from the United Human planets, forming the first nomadic human refugee communities. Human corsair activity increases.
- -205 UST: UHC surrenders to Velkin Collective; Human-Velkin war ends.
- -201 UST: Elaran become space faring.
- -197 UST: Elaran make contact with the Velkin, Brotick, Bileath, and scattered Humans.
- -196 UST: Elaran acquire high-energy shield technology from various sources. Within the year, Elaran scientists develop the low-energy shield that deflects melee assaults as a "technological curiosity."
- -159 UST: Jezira-Velkin war starts.
- -158 UST: Low-energy shield prototypes are dusted off by Elaran scientists, who use them to great effect in the few ground engagements that happen during the Jezira-Velkin war.
- -156 UST: Attempts are made to combine the nanite dispensing abilities of melee weapons with high energy weapons, all attempts fail.
- Late -63 UST: The Velkin homeworld of Velkk surrenders, ending the Jezira-Velkin war.
As you can see, shielding technology to defeat high-energy weapons made such weapons not entirely desirable in all battles. More primitive methods were once again developed for those close quarters battles where high-energy weapons were just not as effective. Due to this combined form of combat technologies were developed to increase the effectiveness of melee weapons, which proved to make them more damaging than high-energy weapons in many cases.
When the Elaran developed, and later deployed, their low-energy shielding technology their fighters had an extreme advantage over all others. Many attempts to combine the improvements made to melee weapons into high-energy weapons failed, the nanites simply could not survive in a beam of highly destructive energy. To this day the combined melee-and-ranged tactics are still the core of every foot soldiers training, though the touched tend to shun such methods as their own abilities are far beyond what a common foot soldier could accomplish with a gun and sword.
Now on to the feature part of this week’s release.
Tears of Polaris will use the balance and affliction model of combat for all PvP and PvE, ship and organization level combat is for another release. For those that are not familiar with such a system let me give you a brief explanation of how it works.
Each player has a set list of “balances” ranging from healing to attack. The most common are Balance(for physical activities), Equilibrium(for “magical” or mental activities), Sip balance(for using curing liquids), Salve balance(for APPLYing items to the body) and Eaten balance(for eating curatives). Each of these balances have their own timer, and different activities use longer amounts. In most cases if you are “off balance” then you cannot do another activity that uses that balance.
Attacking a player is done with individual attacks, such as FIRE a weapon or SWING a sword, taking an appropriate balance. These attacks can do damage and/or give an affliction. Afflictions have adverse effects to the player, such as becoming tied up or randomly falling down. Some attacks can be room effects, and some of those room effects can linger in the room randomly “firing” for as long as the ability lasts. To defend against afflictions there are various defenses that can protect you, and baring that you can attempt to cure it by using curing abilities or taking a curative pill. In most cases death happens when your Hit Points(HP) reaches zero, though there are some “instant” kills that can be done as long as the target has a preset list of conditions(such as being tied up and not moving for 8 seconds). Most mental actions take Mental Points(MP), and if you run out of MP you are unable to do any abilities that require it.
Hitting and MissingAlmost all attacks in Polaris have a chance of missing, unlike in many other games where “magical” abilities always hit. Your chance to hit is based off your statistics, depending on the type of attack, your skill in that ability and a few other factors. Most abilities can also be dodged, which is based off of the target's statistics. Both hitting and dodging can be effected by other abilities and traits. In addition, many abilities have a chance of hitting another target, to include your allies, depending on how poorly you miss.
Combat RangesCombat in Polaris is broken into three main ranges: Melee, Missile and Long. Both Melee and Missile range are within the same room, where Long range is defined as being one room away. By default all players are at Missile range, and can ENGAGE a target to move into melee range. Unless you leave the room, which comes with a chance of tripping as you run, or tactically RETREATing you will stay in melee range with a target until the combat ends. Any attacks that are defined as melee range, such as striking with a sword, will always miss if you attempt to use it at missile range. Missile range attacks on the other hand can be used at melee range, but with a higher chance of missing and in some cases lower damage/effect. Both engaging and retreating take a small amount of balance, though there are some attacks that engage as part of the attack. There are some abilities and traits, which will be explained later, that also have an effect on ENGAGE and RETREAT.
Minor BalancesIn ToP we have added in the concept of minor balances, both for physical balance and equilibrium. Minor balance is the last second of balance, in which you can attempt to use that balance again. Not all abilities and actions can be used during minor balance, and most of those that can will suffer from an increased chance of failure and a longer than normal balance time. For example, normally you cannot move if you are off balance or equilibrium, but with minor balance you can attempt to give with a chance of tripping as you run away.
Minor balances can be configured to show you when you have regained minor balance, only be displayed on your prompt, or be turned off. The default is to only display it on your prompt.
The command MINOR <command to execute> will automatically execute that command when you next regain minor balance or equilibrium.
CurativesSipping curatives, which are liquids with a high concentration of curative nanites, are used mainly for restoring HP and MP. These take a small amount of time to work, and thus you will slowly regain HP/MP over approximately two seconds. There is one, very rare, item that can instantly cure you, which I’m sure someone will discover shortly after Polaris opens.
Curing afflictions is done by a different form of nanites, which come in two types. The first is highly aggressive and must be taken in a pill form. These type will cure you after a short delay, but get their job done so quickly that you will have curing balance back in a shorter period of time. The second is less aggressive and is normally taken via a “hypospray” style injection and will cure you instantly, but with a longer balance time. The aggressive form CAN be taken via an injection, but will cause you damage (give you a new affliction) in the process of curing you. Both forms are first manufactured into storage vials, and then either transferred to a canister or crafted into a pill. If transfered to a canister it can either be used for a spray, or inserted into a melee weapon to be delivered upon impact. Besides curatives, there are also nanites specifically designed to cause damage, normally used with melee weapons.
Physical DamageThe body can only take so much damage before it breaks. Physical damage, or wounds, is a way to represent this. Many attacks, and almost all melee attacks, can cause physical damage to specific body parts. Those that are trained can use this to their advantage to cause further damage (afflictions) to another players limbs. Those that are highly trained in high-energy weapons (guns) can also cause afflictions to highly damaged limbs.
For melee weapon users there are seven main attacks, three general, three special and one basic. SWING is the basic attack, and is a fairly uncontrolled attack that does not target any specific limb. Swing causes slightly more damage than any of the other six attacks. THRUST, CLOBBER and SLASH are all targeted strikes for piercing, blunt and slashing weapons. These attacks all cause damage to the targeted limb, as well as a chance to dispense nanites from a canister that is inserted into the weapon. PIERCE, BASH and HACK are all targeted special attacks that do not dispense nanites, but can cause afflictions to the targeted limb based off the condition of the targeted limb and the ability of the attacker.
Combat TrackingPolaris tracks all combat through a complicated set of routines, intended to always know who is fighting and who their allies and enemies are in that combat. Tracking starts with the first attack made, and ends only upon death or after ten seconds of no attacks from any party. During the combat the tracker will determine who your allies and enemies are based off your actions and theirs, and it is this dynamic list of allies and enemies that is used by many abilities. Instead of running of a set list of people that you must declare as an ENEMY or ALLY for certain abilities to work, such as healing all of your allies in the room, Polaris will look at the list from your tracking record and use those allies that have proven themselves to be allies in combat. This list is cleared when the combat is over. While 95% of abilities, that need allies and enemies, use the dynamic tracking list there are still a few that will run off the list declared by each individual player. This tracking system also includes mobs, and is used by much of the PvE system that I will describe later. It also allows us to very easily verify if someone assisted in your death, in the case of an issue or dispute that needs administrative intervention.
CombinationsDue to the combat tracking system, which records the last 10 aggressive actions that you have done, we are able to create “hidden” combinations for players to discover. Some of these require the secondary actions to be done on minor balance, while some others do not. One example would be the Exalted’s Scissor Cut ability in Swordplay. This ability allows you to SCISSOR <[SLASH|HACK]> <[UP|DOWN]> <target> which will hit either one arm then a leg or a leg then an arm, based on which hand you use and which direction you attack in. If you do hit your opponent, and then on minor balance use the scissor cut attack again, in the opposite direction (IE if you did UP then this time you do DOWN) t will form a combination doing increased damage, and without the normal increase in balance time for attacking on minor balance. Since I mentioned handedness I should mention that each player has a preferred hand, which defaults to the right hand and can be changed ONCE to the left hand. This only has a minor effect on combat in that, minus having certain skills, your chance to hit and damage with a melee weapon in your off hand will be decreased.
CelerityOriginally I wasn’t intending to discuss this during this release, but I’ve changed my mind as it is a very integral part of the combat system. Celerity is a way of building up strength during combat. Until the addition of Celerity combat is done in a top down manner, that meaning you start with full HP/MP and normally many defenses and weaken as the fight goes on. Celerity works in reverse in that you start with nothing and gain as you fight. One way to describe it is to look at Star Wars, the fight starts with swinging lightsabers and ends with throwing the Senate at each other.
The way we have implemented Celerity is that, almost, every attack you make in combat will earn you one point of celerity. Celerity will decay over time, but if you keep up an active offense you can build up a large amount of Celerity. Some normal abilities will gain an additional effect with increased Celerity, such as the KickFlip ability in Swordplay which will give a short stun if you have over 4 Celerity. The real strength of Celerity comes in the additional abilities that many skills have. These abilities are designed so that your average player does not need to learn them, and should not until they have learned their other abilities and know how to use them well. These abilities, in most cases, will use Celerity to do very powerful attacks.
For example the Overrun ability in Swordplay costs 4 Celerity and will run your opponent down, while doing two melee attacks. It will also take your opponent, and yourself, out of the melee group you were in and put you into a new melee group that only has the two of you in it, as well as knocking your opponent down. This is useful if you’re in a large melee brawl and want to pull someone out of it, while doing a good amount of damage. Another good example is the Flurry ability in Swordplay which costs 10 Celerity and can do up to three attacks at once with up to a 10% damage increase, depending on rank.
We feel that the addition of Celerity will help add more to the arsenal of a skill fighter, without increasing the requirements of entry into the realm of PvP combat. For most fighters they can basically ignore Celerity until they are really ready to step up into the level of top-tier combat, where it will really become an important aspect.
As you can see we’ve tried to change the standard model of combat into something that adds more depth and more choice, but at the same time without increasing the complexity and barrier of entry for the average player. For example, the two types of curing can be used by a skilled fighter to heal at a faster rate, but the less skilled fighter can just use the “normal” pills and not be at a great disadvantage for it.
There is one other thing that has an effect on PvP combat, but I will discuss Traits at a later date.
Combat in Tears of Polaris, How PvP will be in Polaris
Feb 14 2008, 03:45 PM
