Combat

This page is meant to be an introduction to combat mechanics in Project: Gorgon.

Contents

Armor, Health and Power

Armor, Health and Power bars as of the alpha build

Armor

Armor currently appears to reduce the damage taken.

Armor can be topped up during combat with Armor Potions, though it seems to make barely a difference when in trouble.

Health

Health can be topped up with Potions during combat.

Combat abilities also can heal over time (see Mentalism) or heal by a flat amount.

Power

Power is consumed by using abilities. The amount of power available is determinant if one wants to take on more than a single enemy in a dungeon.

Power can be topped up with potions, which is relatively useful in some situations. It can also be topped up with the general ability (insert name) which as a long reuse time. Lastly Power regeneration can be enhanced in combat through Mentalism abilities.

Rage and Special Attacks

This goblin has both the Rage icon and the Vulnerability red glow going on.

Rage is the energy source that powers monsters’ special attacks. As you hit monsters or they hit you, they gather Rage, and when their meter is full (an orange looking hand), they user their super power.

Many player skills, like Sword and Psychology, have abilities that hamper monster Rage. For example Psychoanalyse will slow down the rate at which the enemy builds rage, while Sword Parry will reduce the enemy's rage by a flat amount.

An enemy's special attacks will be revealed to the player in the target window when the relevant Anatomy skill is of sufficient level (ie. by fighting this type of creature long enough).

You can tell when an enemy uses a special attack by the overhead icon.

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I’m leaving the Rage system alone for now, until we have more players grouping up. Looking at the stats for small group combat, it looks like groups use rage-depletion a little more often. So it may be that I can tailor Rage to be a more compelling group-combat mechanic, where one person in the group has the “rage-keeper” role. That could be interesting.

Movement and Kiting

In a game like this, where you can find all kinds of clever ways to stack speed buffs, it’s possible to run extremely fast. This is a problem in a combat, where the players can be much more mobile than the monsters.

One way the game currently addresses this is that you can not “sprint” backwards, just walk backwards. So if you want to get away quickly, you have to turn around.

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But that change by itself doesn’t solve anything, because the game doesn’t force you to face your target to attack things right now. This means you can turn away from the monster, run down the hall at high speed, and keep shooting arrows — the arrows would go through your head and hit the monster behind you. This is silly and bizarre.

Kiting is something the devs want to address eventually, although it is intended to allow some amount of kiting — "archers should be able to move and get a few extra attacks in".

Vulnerability

Monsters periodically go into this vulnerable state, and some attacks do extra damage against vulnerable monsters, so it’s sort of a whack-a-mole mechanic — you use your vuln-boost ability when you see the monster flashing vulnerable.

A big red glowing thing happens when the monster is vulnerable, plus it makes a sound.

An icon flashes over the monster’s head when they’re vulnerable, and the tutorial cave has an explanatory tip about this (when you get your first Sword ability that does extra vuln damage).

Regeneration In and Out of Combat

(about regeneration available from skills such as Mentalism, note that it is quite low like 4 Health every 4 seconds)

(about regeneration available from potions)

Interestingly if you "mezz" a creature for long enough (eg. Tell Me About Your Mother, the "In combat" indicator will disappear and one tick (?) of out of combat regeneration will happen, even though the creature is still aggressive.