The Stacked Click Method.

I want to start off by discussing one of my very favourite genres in gaming. The isometric RPG. They are games I always enjoy (even the supposedly average ones) and I have played a lot of them. Be it loot based action or story driven adventure, I love them equally. And love is the right word.

Be it Baldurs Gate 1 and 2, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale 1 and 2, Fallout 1 and 2, NWN, Divine and Beyond Divinity, Sacred 2, Diablo 2, Arcanum, Inquisitor, Drakensang, and on and on and on.

Now, as I said I adore this specific type of game but over the years the combat has never really been experimented with. I don't actually consider this a bad thing, although an idea I had would be welcome to bring some variety to the genre beyond different skilltrees, aesthetics, and story.

It is actually something that I have thought of a bit more recently with things like Dungeon Siege 3, Torchlight 2, and most recently The Adventures of Van Helsing (which I think is great). The fact is that this type of action RPG become very frantic and essentially turn into furious clicking when in combat without too much finesse or thought.

That is where my idea for the stacked click method comes in to play. I'll try to explain my vision as best I can.

Here is the simple version. Click an enemy once, attack once. Double click an enemy, attack twice. Triple click, attack three...you get the picture. This is a very simple concept but as far as i'm aware I've never encountered it in a game of this sort. It is always, One Click = One Attack. Correct me if i'm wrong.

Now I feel this could open up oppurtunities for a real combo based action RPG. Normally it is frantic clicking of the LMB and occasionally RMB for an ability. Now imagine taking the stacked click method and including your abilities within combo's as well but your abilities get exponentially more powerful the further into a combo they are. So if you can remember the order of clicks and execute them correctly you would be able to truly devastate your enemies.

I'll take Flamehammer from Torchlight 2 as an example (if you are unaware of what that is a) play Torchlight 2 b)the aftermath is shown in the picture).

So, triple LMB on an enemy/enemies for three standard attacks followed by a fluid Flamehammer on RMB which is more powerful and has a wider AoE than normal, and then continue fluidly into more standard attacks on LMB. By experimenting with ordered mouseclicks and ALL of your abilties you could gain access to a vast abilty of combos. Healing combo's. Buffing combo's, Extreme damage combo's. AoE combo's. You could even include elemental combos. Say the Flamehammer combo sets your weapons alight for a short time.

Now the idea behind this is to discourage the frantic clicking the likes of Torchlight and Van Helsing often descend in to. I'd have it so clicking LMB relentlessly would work, but would prove fairly ineffective and do less damage.

That is my idea for the stacked click method.

[Raf1k1]

Nice post. I like the idea of having stacked clicks and combos. The issue I see with combos getting more powerful with length is that it can become quite overpowered especially if you can fit stuns and such in there.

Enemies would probably need some way of breaking your combo to keep the gameplay from getting boring since you'd probably be able to macro the combo and just hit one key to take down a horde.

[Pintheshadows]

Very true but if included it would have to be balanced to address that. I wouldn't want to make it to easy to progress. In fact i'd look to make it tough unless you were using the combo's.

Combo breaks and different combo's being effective against certain enemies is also something that would have to be addressed.

[ProfScrewtape]

Magicka has something akin to the combo side of this discussion with the WASD hand combining elements for the spell.