Combat Improvement General

You want to learn to into combat? Okay, sure, why not. I will give some advice to the peoples who read this.

First, and foremost, is that unless you're the killer(And often even if you are!), the goal is not to kill who you are fighting. The goal is to survive the fight, and hopefully injure them enough that they can't go right back at it, as well as have time to go interact with others and roleplay. RUN AWAY if the situation calls for it - If you're losing the fight, if you're low on health, if you want to gather something, if you want to look for allies, run away. Learn to get out of combat and duck fights. This is the single most important thing you can learn and come to understand, because dying because the other person got a couple lucky shots in and you were too stubborn to flee means you still died and lost.



Clicking skills & strategy

Contrary to what you might think, clicking skills matter very little. My mouse is awful, my aim is awful, and my rate of clicking is really rather low. What does matter is your ability to predict and lead, the strategies you use. Watch who you are fighting, get familiar with how they move, and then click along where they're going to be moving. For example, say they keep coming at you in a U shape. Don't try to react with your clicking, click along that movement they'll make. Reactionary clicking only works for people who are REALLY good at that, or have a high click speed and litter the area with clicks as though they were using a shotgun. For the purposes of a gun comparison, most of us are using dinky flintlocks. Move yourself along with their movement when you can predict it for brainlessly simple clicking(and hope they're not reading you better than you're reading them).

Another strategy, best used in things like hallways, is to keep your mouse in one spot and maneuver yourself and your opponent so they keep walking into your click-spot. This way you can focus all your attention on your movement, and only have to make minor adjustments to your mouse position. Freeing up that small bit of attention can actually make a bigger difference than you'd think.



Weapon selection & energy conservation

Most people seem to have a basic idea of what's a good weapon. Billhooks, metal bats, sometimes axes. Heavy hitting weapons to kill people dead fast. Unfortunately, they all have their downsides. Namely, efficiency. Things heavier than a hammer do less damage than the energy required to use them - Meaning, if they fight back non-lethally or just try to move away from you, you will run out of energy before you kill them. What this also means is that if you swing anything at them once, they WILL be able to run from you if they're not locked in somewhere. Why? Because they have 100% energy, and you're down to 80% or less from attacking. More than enough extra tile distance away that you will lose them, making the entire attack a waste of time and resources. Not necessarily a bad thing if wasting their resources is the intent, or if you have all the resources so you can chip them down.

Moving back to non-lethal response, using anything other than a knife will leave you so winded that you could probably be counter-killed by someone using just their fists. If they try to retaliate with their fists, or a bat, or a bokken, switch to a knife, your fists, or get out of there. They will win the trade, you'll be knocked out, and summarily killed/cuffed/disarmed/what-have-you. Note, also, that being very careful about your energy consumption is even more important with the addition of missing. Missing, if you're not entirely sure of the mechanics, is what happens when you try to attack from outside range, but within 2x range. For example, the range of fists is 15, I believe. Clicking on someone when you're within 16-30 range will make you swing, but miss, taking up the energy and putting you on swing cooldown. This means, if you're not careful, you will end up with far, far less energy than is required to kill someone using a heavier weapon, and even more vulnerable to a counter with a non-lethal weapon. Personal suggestion? Try to never be below 50% energy in a fight. Get in a couple axe swings, and switch to something less intensive, for example. Get the burst to put them on edge and make them panic, then edge off the extreme.



Running & evasion

Running is important. Vitally important. You might think it's meaningless if you're locked in, but 'evasive movement' falls under running, in my opinion. When running in hallways, what is most important is knowing the map layout. The vents, the room entrances, never being unsure of where exactly you are, and every single direction you can run and every single way someone can get to where you are. To prepare for having to sprint away from an angry mob of five people who just realized you're in fact the one who killed the blue haired girl in the lounge, you need to spend a long time wandering around. Pay attention to what all you can see from where, what corners and angles are dead zones to view, and pay attention during games where there are chases happening and take notes. Pay attention to how and when someone loses someone else, and keep it in mind. Duck into rooms that are never checked or used, take circuitous routes, use the upstairs to loop back on your own trail and then hide out. Experience is probably the most important thing, as well as watching your energy. Never run at 0% energy so your energy can regen, try not to fall below 20% if you can help it so someone can't clip you with a single punch and have you completely screwed. Oh, and don't stairwell camp. I hate you if you do, and please don't learn anything useful from this because you don't deserve it.

Evasion in an enclosed area will usually be used in part with attacking someone, but there are still important things to note. For one, use the features of the room to your advantage to buy space and time(If you're not the killer). Duck around tables or desks, use jerky sudden movements to get a bit further away. Maybe shove a few containers if there's any around to make the layout even harder to navigate. With missing being a mechanic now, trying to attack someone around a corner of a container/object will make you miss. Ducking around tables and desks and whatnot could very well cause the person trying to axe murder you to tire themselves out, giving you a good chance to take the axe for yourself and escape, or even kill them yourself.



Miscellany

Pay attention to how you do when you fight. Try to notice when you make a mistake, take note of what you do that gets you killed, and try to improve on those things. Don't let yourself fall into bad habits. Also take careful note of when you do best, and when you do worst. Maybe you perform at your best in small enclosed rooms? Maybe you do absolutely awful in classrooms(I am so bad at combat in classrooms that it is embarassing), but wonderfully in hallways. Take that information and force fights to move into territory that is best for you, by retreating towards those kinds of areas. You always want to be the one leading the fight, not the one following.

DO NOT PANIC. Panic and letting adrenaline get to you will make you do way, way worse. Do your best to keep a level head and think things through as much as you can while actively fighting. Even if you drop extremely low, do not panic. As an example, one time in Ookami mode, I was an ookami and surrounded by both antagonist roles in an enclosed space and dropped to less than 10% health. As they're both long ranged, that should have been it, right? But, I didn't panic, and ate the bananas I had in my inventory, putting me back up to 10%, and managed to both run away and later kill them both. Keeping a clear head is very, very important.

When fighting someone, you gain the 'very bloody' overlay when you are hit to/at below 33%~ health. You can use this to easily gauge when someone is nearly dead, helpful for if you don't want to kill them, but instead cripple, as you'd then switch to a knife. If you're too distracted to glance up at your health or don't trust the on-screen meter(I don't, the thing is wonky), this can be a very easy indicator of when you're low, as well.

Try out the quickbar instead of the quick inventory. It can be very, very handy. Quick inventory has its uses, of course, but quickbar can do some things that quick inventory can't, and might feel easier.

Practice out the ranges of various weapons. Start up a singleplayer game using the BYOND client, grab whatever weapon you want to test out, and go whack the teacher's corpse for a while. Can help you with your timing and stuff, too. Also helps you get more familiar with the layout, where things spawn, and so on.

Little known secret: Bats and bokken have abysmal efficiency. If you're at full and they want to attack you with those? Punch them. Seriously, punch them. As long as you hit somewhat evenly with them, you will knock them out. Do not ever underestimate fists or knives. They are both the most efficient weapons in the game, and you should get used to using them.


That about sums up what I can think of off the top of my head at two in the morning, if anyone has specific questions or whatever, I'll check back on this occasionally I guess.

Throwing takes exactly the same amount of energy as it does to attack with it, and if you're at too low energy to make an actual attack with the weapon, you will drop to 0% energy, and your weapon will hit them and do nothing. The other obvious drawback is that you can miss, and also be disarmed by someone picking up whatever you chucked.

So it seems like you would be a definite advocate of using multiple weapons? I do agree with you that there is no point in trying to take a player from 100 to 0 with a weapon like an axe, because stamina limits just won't allow it unless the fight drags forever. From my experimentation I do think the best weapon to use consistently right now is the pipe. The problem with it, like you've said, is similar to the axe. It isn't impossible to kill them in one go, but it's still extremely draining, and you would have to give up if they switch to non-lethal. However, the factor that I think is extremely important that heavy weapons have that the knife can't address is number of attacks. With the knife, you need to attack more, and put yourself in range to be hit more often. Essentially I think the knife is the perfect weapon if you can avoid being hit, as you will have the stamina to take on quite a few enemies, but realistically myself and others can't always do that. Is this assessment correct or am I missing something?