My Game Design Problem

[Siberianhusky89]

Well, actually, I'm concentrated on the form as an art. The medicinal part (as they call it), is just the form. The other part of it is called the application. We practice the application and push hands at the "Dojo" I go to. But the thing is, they use punches and kicks, however... They're not quite like how you might think. First off, they're not used very often... Second, it's more or less "pushing your enemy" with the punches or kicks. They're not actually using muscle to hurt their opponent, but still using their balance against them or bending their bodies to proportions that would cause fractures and such.

[Kodiak]

Yes, but this is the truth for most martial arts. You simply cannot practice them 'all out' without hurting others. They have been modified to ensure their practitioners are not seriously harmed in their quest to improve their skills. However, at their origin many years ago, they were intended to hurt and finish the fight.

If anything, the concepts you learn while practicing at your dojo probably don't require much modification/improvisation/inspiration to turn into something more dangerous should the situation call for it. Given the fighting context of the game, it isn't unreasonable to assume that the character has adjusted his art accordingly.

If this isn't the way you want to go, perhaps you could explore the avenue of imposing penalties to the opposing character, such as slowing his actions down for a time while he is under the re-orienting effects of the punches/kicks?

[EvilLlama]

What kind of environment are your characters fighting in? You can add something akin to a pit of spikes that kills/inflicts damage, and players can try to push their opponents into those. Tai Chi characters' offensive attacks would do less damage, but assert a much larger backward force. Even if it ends up being a slightly weaker character, it would also be more fun to play because it always feels awesome to send one's opponent flying, regardless of actual damage dealt.

Another thing you could do is have a throw attack that doubles in power if used as a counter.

Keep in mind that the downside of using a keyboard/buttons as the control scheme, the player is very limited and is not going to get the actual "feel" of martial arts. You could rework the control scheme such that the mouse is used for special attacks, in which case the throw could be done by clicking on the opponent and dragging the mouse to indicate the force and direction of the throw. If the direction the mouse is dragged is the direction the opponent is moving in when the mouse is released, then force is increased greatly. This could be balanced by having the opponent be free to move until the attack is executed when the mouse is released, so successfully pulling it off would require skilled reflex/timing on the part of the player.
If you choose to add the mouse attack, it'd be best to used the WASD keys instead of the arrows because most players are right handed.

[Siberianhusky89]

Originally Posted by Kodiak

Yes, but this is the truth for most martial arts. You simply cannot practice them 'all out' without hurting others. They have been modified to ensure their practitioners are not seriously harmed in their quest to improve their skills. However, at their origin many years ago, they were intended to hurt and finish the fight.

If anything, the concepts you learn while practicing at your dojo probably don't require much modification/improvisation/inspiration to turn into something more dangerous should the situation call for it. Given the fighting context of the game, it isn't unreasonable to assume that the character has adjusted his art accordingly.

If this isn't the way you want to go, perhaps you could explore the avenue of imposing penalties to the opposing character, such as slowing his actions down for a time while he is under the re-orienting effects of the punches/kicks?

Possibly... I was thinking of giving him a command move so that he'd kind of use a push that'd cause the opponents to be thrown back a bit. I'm probably going to ask my Sifu if he'd help me with this problem as well, he might know what I could possibly do. With Tai Chi, there are more deadly moves and such, however, the most deadly was probably the weapons form because back then, they didn't really have guns to use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEbupVWZ6mk

This is Taiji Chaun (Chen Style). Some of the stuff he's doing is just for flash, but otherwise, this is how Tai Chi is. I will try to take your advice though. Also, notice how he isn't attacking first, but being attacked.

@EvilLlama

It's more of a Street Fighter type thing (Not exactly like that at all, but that's the closest I can determine it as since it's an easy example). Also, doing such a thing would cause problems. The thing is, with most fighting games, people normally want to face 1 on 1. So using the mouse to throw would cause too many problems because you can't connect 2 mouses (From my knowledge) onto 1 computer (Unless maybe it's USB or something), not to mention that normally, a keyboard would cause problems in a fighting game.

Example: Online, when I play a fighting game, it's kind of a nuisance to fight with a keyboard and you're kind of thrown off your game because you can't perform a move properly or as well as you should be able to.

Thank you for trying though. : )