Combat

 Sustained actions are holding attacks for a period of time as a “wind up”. The longer you hold the swing, the harder the attack will hit. With any swing, one can only “wind up” so far before they reach their full power potential and have to release. The quicker you que and release an attack, the faster your character will attack but the 

 Sustained actions are holding attacks for a period of time as a “wind up”. The longer you hold the swing, the harder the attack will hit. With any swing, one can only “wind up” so far before they reach their full power potential and have to release. The quicker you que and release an attack, the faster your character will attack but the less damage they will do. This system allows for a fluid/natural feeling with light and heavy attacks, allowing players to adjust the timing of their swings to create opportunities.  

 Attacks in general will be a set duration of time and will vary based on the type of weapon equipped. No stats or items can modify the speed of those attacks. After an attack is done, there will be a “vulnerability” period. This is a required component to have as it allows for a natural rhythm to combat with an attack then a counter attack etc..  

 Dodge: will be more of a side step rather than an exaggerated dive.  The distance one dodges whether in cloth armor or plate armor will be the same. The stamina cost to dodge will change though based on the armor type worn. This will be based on a stamina cost to “dodge” per item worn. Doing a dodge will cost a base amount of stamina and

 Dodge: will be more of a side step rather than an exaggerated dive.  The distance one dodges whether in cloth armor or plate armor will be the same. The stamina cost to dodge will change though based on the armor type worn. This will be based on a stamina cost to “dodge” per item worn. Doing a dodge will cost a base amount of stamina and then each armor piece will add a slight additional cost on top of that base dodge cost. The goal of this is to reward and/or penalize players for what type of armor sets and combat play style they chose to use. 

Feint: is the concept of pretending to swing a sword but swing cancelling that attack and moving into a different attack. This technique was used in real medieval combat. Feints allow for more highly skilled players to create an opening in a less experienced player’s battle rhythm to cause the opponent to do a block early and thus leave themselves open for an attack after releasing that block. 

Block, Parry & Riposte: These actions will have less stamina usage than an attack to encourage players to be wise in how they engage in fights. A Riposte is similar to  a Block or Parry except that it is achieved by an attack, timed at the perfect second to meet an enemy's attack, block and then cut through to the enemy.

 Stamina Management will be a very important and critical element of Carpe Noctem’s combat system. There will be a stamina cost for almost all combat actions. Upon exhaustion a player will be temporarily unable to use their primary weapon and will have to switch to a secondary weapon. If they are then exhausted on the secondary weapon, th

 Stamina Management will be a very important and critical element of Carpe Noctem’s combat system. There will be a stamina cost for almost all combat actions. Upon exhaustion a player will be temporarily unable to use their primary weapon and will have to switch to a secondary weapon. If they are then exhausted on the secondary weapon, they will not be able to do any action except basic movement. When exhausted, the player will have a short timer that will count down until stamina can be recovered. Upon expiration of this temporary exhaustion, the player will regain significant portion of their stamina bar back to resume combat.

 In Carpe Noctem, we are developing a system that allows for damage to be done to player based on where they are hit. If a hit happens on a limb, then it will do damage to that limb. When the limb’s HP drops to 0, the limb will cease to work and the shield or sword being wielded in that arm will have severe degradation to it. Example, swo

 In Carpe Noctem, we are developing a system that allows for damage to be done to player based on where they are hit. If a hit happens on a limb, then it will do damage to that limb. When the limb’s HP drops to 0, the limb will cease to work and the shield or sword being wielded in that arm will have severe degradation to it. Example, sword arm is hit multiple times during combat and that arm’s HP drops to 0. Once this occurs, the animation of the player character will adjust and make it look like the arm is broken. This not only will adjust animations, but it will also double the time it takes to swing a weapon as well as the recovery (vulnerability) time after swinging said weapon. 

Adding this system will add additional excitement and depth to the game. This system will be added to both arms and legs. Knocking out a leg will make the leg “broken” and cause the player to move much slower.

If a broken limb is repeatedly damaged. It will start to affect the core (head/torso) which will eventually kill the player. 

To remedy this situation, a player will have to heal/mend these broken limbs through either traditional medicines, or by praying to the Saints.

 Once a player or humanoid NPC reaches 0 HP, instead of falling directly to the ground, they will “stagger” in place for 2 seconds before dropping dead to the ground. This gives the attacking player an opportunity to do a fatality to the staggered player before they die. Doing a fatality will lock in place both the staggered player as wel

 Once a player or humanoid NPC reaches 0 HP, instead of falling directly to the ground, they will “stagger” in place for 2 seconds before dropping dead to the ground. This gives the attacking player an opportunity to do a fatality to the staggered player before they die. Doing a fatality will lock in place both the staggered player as well as the player executing the fatality into a short cinematic animation/camera sequence before releasing both players from said sequence to continue playing (if it's the attacker) or to the death screen if its the player who has been vanquished. Once a fatality is started, it cannot be stopped. This will create a calculus that must be thought through by an executioner before they pull the trigger on the fatality. If a fatality animation is initiated and that player is damaged while in the animation, they will have no ability to defend and will subsequently be at a significant disadvantage after being released from the animation. If their own HP is dropped to 0 while performing an execution, then after the animation has finished, the executioner will then stagger themselves and die. 

All weapons will come with a default fatality. Additional fatalities per weapon can be learned by rare book drops in the dungeon or through the in-game cash shop. Aside from looking cool, fatalities will offer no buff or competitive advantage. 

 The Death Item system is that when you die, the 3 (can be any number) most expensive items you have, equipped or in inventory drop on death. Since this was a persistent world environment and our game is a dungeon extraction system, we will modify this concept slightly. 

In Carpe Noctem, there will be two bags the player has with them when

 The Death Item system is that when you die, the 3 (can be any number) most expensive items you have, equipped or in inventory drop on death. Since this was a persistent world environment and our game is a dungeon extraction system, we will modify this concept slightly. 

In Carpe Noctem, there will be two bags the player has with them when they enter a dungeon. 1) is your general loot bag. 2) will be the death item bag. The death item bag will only allow for death items. These are specific items in the game that have varying costs. More on this below. Upon the death of a player, the player will drop their entire general loot bag which consists of items the player has picked up while in the dungeon. Also, the player will drop their 3 most expensive items that they brought into the dungeon with them which could be a combination of their armor pieces, weapons or (preferably) death items from their death item bag. 

The main idea behind this is that players are able to build and craft their dream custom armor sets without losing those sets upon death. The death items act as an insurance policy. So, the better/more expensive your armor set is, the more expensive the death items you need to bring with you are. The purchase price of these items will create a silver sink in the economy. The liability is, if you bring in good armor, you better be willing to lose a lot of silver if you die. This also encourages players to kill other players to get value in the form of expensive death items that they can sell for a fraction of their original purchase price from a vendor or from a random drop in the dungeon. The cost of death items vs. their sale price is another lever that we as game developers can tweak to mitigate rising inflation in our game economy. The concept of death items applies to both PVP and PVE servers. On PVE servers, only your party members can loot your items if you die.