Some new Combat Mechanics

One flaw in the combat system that I want to address is the difficulty in fighting many opponents at once. While arguably that it is realistic and it should be difficult, it doesn't make for a fun game play experience. It is certainly do-able by walking backwards and keep swinging - effectively turning a 1 v many into many 1 v 1s, but I want to make it also possible for the player to hold his/her ground. (I am also not going to penalize the backward strategy at the moment)

So I have implemented the following features to help 1 versus many fights:

a) Guards lingers for a bit and stays active for a while when staggered. Suppose if you are guarding top versus 2 opponents, one attacking from right and another from top. If the right swing hit you first, and then the top attack, you will only take damage from the right swing, even tho your character is currently in the staggered animation from the hit coming from right. With the old system, you would have taken damage from both hits.

b) Guard is now usable while staggered. So if a new blow comes from the right while you are staggered, you can quickly guard right and block the attack. However, you may not parry using staggered-guards.

c) Super/Hyper Armor. (Internally known as TP - Tenacity Points). Basically, there is an additional hidden meter that can sometimes prevent your action from being interrupted, while damage applies as usual. This have a dual purpose so that slow, heavy weapons have their place, and to help prevent stun locks.

Whenever a character is staggered, they will gain a bonus to TP based on the severity of previous staggers inflicted on them, making them more and more difficult to stagger in a short time period.

d) Cleaves. (Already announced before but might as well mention it again) Attacks hit multiple opponents with each swing. Weapon and character skill dependent.

e) Stat advantage. (Again, announced before) The Hero category, which the Player is one of, are much stronger individually than the Minions category, but far less numerous.

In the upcoming demo #1, you'll find that the enemies have very little stamina - they can only do a couple attacks and then is forced to back off. Meanwhile, the Player can swing her sword (that is both longer and faster than the Minion's axe) with much more vigor.