Combat is uninteresting

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Some of the changes in 0.6.7a have highlighted this issue for me. Basicly, you 
look at your health, either heal or attack, then repeat. There is very little 
to it beyond that.
I understand some of the comments here may be because we only have the start of 
the game and so a basic selection of enemies, items and quests, but I would 
make them unnecessarily than not.

I've noticed this particularly with the recent changes. I have everything set 
to the fastest options, no confirm attack, auto pickup loot, instant combat 
speed. Combine this with using the trackball to move and I barely even notice 
when an enemy gets in my way. Once in combat, any trackball direction counts as 
a screen tap and causes an attack, allowing me to get through my attacks in 
very fast, and the enemies are instant. All I have to do is keep half an eye on 
my HP and heal when necessary.
This is even the case on a new game, I started one last night and once I had a 
decent sword and a couple of levels (a few minutes work) it got a lot easier.

So I could just change the settings to slow everything down you say?
I could, but the underlying problem is still there. Combat doesn't require 
attention and isn't challenging or varied. Having it so sped up just highlights 
the issue, it doesn't cause it.

So what can be done about this?
I can think of a few possibilities. Specifically changing the combat UI to give 
more focus and control to the combat, adding more variety and tactics to combat 
(skills and spells as discussed elsewhere) and more variety to the enemies.

When it comes to the UI, I can think of two areas of change that would improve 
things. Firstly, and not specifically related to combat, don't have any buttons 
at the top of the screen. When I play I hold the device in my palm and interact 
with my thumb. I can't easily reach the top of the screen without moving my 
whole arm and when I do I cover the screen with my hand. I can't be the only 
one who plays this way. I would suggest having the players health and xp (and 
other pertinent information, mana, stamina, e.t.c.) in thin bars at the top of 
the screen at all times, and keep buttons at the bottom of the screen. Maybe a 
row for accessing the character screen, inventory, journal (spells, quests, 
map) e.t.c. and a second row of context-specific buttons that change for 
combat, wandering and any other activities that are added.

The second thing I think would improve UI is zooming in to a 5x5 area (enough 
to see where to go if you need to run) around the player when they enter 
combat. This would allow for more detail to be displayed in the game area 
itself. Small health bars by each enemy in a group fight, with a detail section 
for the selected enemy showing the specific numbers, the tiny (on my phone) red 
numbers showing damage on each hit could be enlarged, and making the game area 
square would give a bit more room for skill, spell and item quick access when 
they are added.

Skills and spells are elsewhere, and I won't go into detail here, but I will 
say that they should do more than just beef up the player. They should add 
different strategies to the game, debilitation and disabling enemies 
(immobilising, reducing enemy skills, slowing, making them take more ap to 
attack e.t.c.), evasion/dodge (careful, almost always overpowered if skilled 
exclusively), tanking (soaking up damage), berserk (damage bonus rises as hp 
drops), combos, vampirism e.t.c.

Enemies need more variety, they should use different tactics, much like the 
various options for the player mentioned above.
Groups of enemies that work together to provide different parts of a combo 
would be excellent, requiring the player to seperate them out and kill them one 
by one or risk a dangerous combo (one enemy binds a player, the next delivers a 
special attack that auto crits on an immobilised target, for example). This 
should be dependant on a good way to tell the player knowing what is going on, 
as getting killed when you don't know what is happening is no fun.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by char...@pigotts.org.uk on 11 Dec 2010 at 8:04

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One of the best postings here!
True points. Currently its fighting one monster after the other (avoiding to 
fight 2 of them), fleeing and healing.

I also think spells or skills could change this. (more important on side of the 
player / IMO monsters doing spells would not change much.)

Original comment by SamuelPl...@gmail.com on 11 Dec 2010 at 8:51

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Regarding the UI changes I suggest, here are examples, showing changes in and 
out of combat.
Context specific buttons could be for example stab and slash, or a single 
attack button, available for all combat (though different for armed and 
unarmed).
Attacks granted by skills go in the white area.

Original comment by char...@pigotts.org.uk on 13 Dec 2010 at 2:23

Attachments:

• Combat.jpg
• Normal.jpg

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I like the thin bars, however especially for HP would I want to know just the 
current value without hovering over it, maybe at the right end (same for mana). 
Missing exp could be on the left end and to keep it small, so more of the bar 
is visible, use a multiplier suffix like 1000=k and 1000k=m thus limiting it to 
4 characters - 3 numbers and 1 suffix.

The combat zoom with HP bars below is brilliant. If you fight two or more 
monsters now, there is no way of knowing which is monster closest to being 
killing.

Original comment by kims...@gmail.com on 20 Dec 2010 at 12:03

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Good ideas, but makes the whole thing a bit more heavyweight. Should think 
about that.
At the very least, I prefer battery time and ease of use in case of mobile 
games :) and current interface is decent enough for me.

Original comment by surrano on 21 Dec 2010 at 2:41

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Skills and player effects can help this issue.

Original comment by sdeva...@gmail.com on 10 Feb 2011 at 1:02

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Issue 152 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by sdeva...@gmail.com on 10 Feb 2011 at 3:33

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zooming only helps if you have animations to watch or some kind of play between 
the relative locations of the player and monster.
perhaps there could be combat sequences. if you attach a monster at a 
particular point of their attack/defence sequence they take more damage. 
something like that would warrant a zoom feature.

the problem might be more that people are not attacking the higher level 
monsters and just spending more time on the low level ones. i suggest adjusting 
the exp reward based on the difficulty/risk involved in the fight. level 
quickly with dangerous monster but get little loot and don't level at all with 
easy monsters and get lots of loot ("Like taking candy from a baby" Mr. Burns 
:).
so if you fight a bit the run away and heal then come back and finish fight you 
get higher exp (and you need better flee skill) .

i find that its not worth fighting high level monster as i spend so much time 
waiting to heal or even longer travelling to a bed. i get more exp per minuet 
killing small things and only occasional stopping to heal but _that_ is 
boring... i want to risk it, fight something big and get something back from 
it. imo if a fight (or 2-3 of the same kind in a row) is not going to leave you 
almost dead its more of a slaughter than a real fight!

i hear that quite a bit of time has been spent on balancing the combat/skill 
system but i feel this aspect might have been overlooked.

also seeing the enemies conditions like stunned, bleeding, etc. would make it 
more interactive i think. just need to add a row of icons under the enemy 
health bar. they have some conditions as player so 98% of code should be there!

Original comment by HeB...@gmail.com on 17 Feb 2014 at 11:17