The Return of Stances
Or something like that…
It’s been almost three years since I’ve tried to first implement stances and I think I finally have managed to succeed to do the first step towards working stances now. Erion had a stance which seemed to work, even though I didn’t get much player-testing from his side since he was mostly passive with that character too.
Stances now will as, before, provide the user with one special stance action or enhancement you might say. Some skills now will come with one or several stances. I’ve also changed so that a speciality has gained special stances instead of what they had before.
Some stances will be necessary to be able to do some things wile other stances will disable some skills, techniques or whatever. As before Littlemen will have Nimble Stance as one of their Racial Abilities. Stances will all do one or many different things and there will be more many stances some stances are meant for recovery, defence or support while others are for different kind of attack and active combat. Even mages will have their special stances. Most weapon skills will probably have their own stances as skill techniques.
Stances are meant to be swift things, so they probably won’t cost much if anything at all. But they should be applied while in difficult combat and it’s meant that they should become necessary for survival and to even manage real combat. I have my ideas but the only thing I know for certain is that skills, stances and techniques are the future of Nianze. Numbers will not always matter, it’s choices and tactics that will be a major factor in the outcome of battles. But it’s only a vision, maybe it doesn’t work… some things are best left to the imagination.
Best regards,
Herid Fel
How will you change stance? You talked about swift changes, what about after each action? When you describe an action, you say what you do and what stance you end up in. So for example, “I punch him in the face and take a step back and go into defensive stance.” Then it is the next characters turn.
That is exactly how swift the changes are so you get the general idea yes. Most stances will be free-action stances but must be done in combination with an action, offensive or defensive but always when you get to act. (This means that you actually can change stances every time someone attacks you, even though it’s not your initiative).
Sounds good.
I’d like to think that yes. Hopefully it will work out as intended. It’s just the matter of keeping you alive and provide the possibility to use everything.
Well I think its nice that you give stances another try as it can bring more depth and diversion in combat, hasnt really worked that well before usually because its been to slow to change. But as you describe it as swift and able to change when its not your turn sounds great.