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Basic Combat
By IndecisionLabs
Information on combat mechanics in Knights Within
   
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Created by
IndecisionLabs
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Category: Gameplay Basics
Languages: English
Posted
30 Oct, 2024 @ 2:01pm
193 Unique Visitors
3 Current Favorites
Guide Index
Overview
Introduction 
Movement 
Ranged 
Melee 
Ability 
Stun 
Resolve 
Armor 
Status Effects 
Buffs 
Support Drops 
Damage Application Types 
Damage Calculations 
Comments
Introduction
This is a brief summary of some of the game's combat mechanics to provide more clarity
These notes are also available within the game in the Escape menu under the info tab

last updated: Oct 30, 2024
Movement
  • Sprinting increases movement speed while preventing actions
  • Dodging Evades incoming attacks while interrupting actions
  • Dashing moves your location without preventing actions
Stamina is your movement resource.
  • Dashes, Dodges and Sprinting will consume Stamina
  • Stamina regenerates over time
Holding Sprint while Dashing is the default way to perform a jump. There's no purpose, but it's there for those who can't play without a jump button
Ranged
Your firearm is your tool for ranged combat. Standard shooter practices are in play.
  • You can fire from the hip or aim down sight to improve your accuracy
  • Ranged weapon damage does reduce as distance to target increases
Modify your playstyle with gear customization of your rifle.
Melee
Your greatsword is your tool for melee combat.
  • Attacking performs a series of swings, with the type of swing being dependant on your currently selected style mod and what sequence of the combo you are in
  • Different swings have different stats:
    • Swipe (horizontal swing, hits the most enemies)
    • Cut (diagonal swing, causes the most stun)
    • Thrust (forward stab, deals the most damage)
  • Energy is the resource that you use to block attacks, Shove enemies or Energize, it regenerates over time. Shoving enemies sends a level 2 stun that ignores resistances
  • Cleave scales the width of the cone where your swings will connect. It also determines how much damage reduction each subsequent hit within the same swing does.
Modify your playstyle with gear customization of your greatsword
Ability
Your spear is your ability
  • Abilities are useful for large impacts to offense or defense in a short amount of time
  • Abilities can be used without cost but have a cooldown
Modify your playstyle with gear customization of your spear

Stun
There are 3 levels of stun that can be triggered:
  • Flinch (level 1) - interrupts the targets current action
  • Stagger (level 2) - interrupts and prevents the target from performing actions for a short duration
  • Knockdown (level 3) - interrupts and prevents the target from performing actions for a longer duration

There are 2 ways of applying Stun:
  • Primarily, shown with text ‘Interrupt/Stagger/Knockdown’. These ignore stun resistance
  • Secondarily, shown with numbers ‘Level X Stun’. These are reduced by stun resistance

  • All stuns applied add to a stun counter, which triggers the corresponding effect when reaching a stun level
  • Enemy Stun meters decay over time
  • Enemies have different Stun resistances that reduce the stun value applied to them
  • Players do not have stun counters, they are simply dealt Interrupt/Stagger/Knockdown directly
  • Bosses have a Stun meter that basically functions as a much larger stun counter that skips Flinch & Stagger states and goes directly to a Knockdown once maxed. This stun meter does not decay
  • Stun Force affects the duration of Stagger and Knockdown effects

Resolve
  • Performing Melee actions (dealing damage, blocking and shoving) will add to your Resolve
  • Resolve covers your Health Bar, and will take all combat Health Damage before your actual health will
  • Resolve decays slowly over time
Armor
  • Certain enemies have Armor that reduces the damage they take from direct attacks (Bleeding is unaffected).
  • Armor is a percent value. An enemy with 20% Armor takes 20% less damage from direct attacks
  • Armor Penetration removes a percentage of a targets armor.
    • An attack with 50% Armor Penetration will have its Damage reduced by only 10% on an enemy that has 20% Armor.
    • If that same attack had 100% Armor Penetration, it’s full Damage would go through
Status Effects
Slow
  • Reduces movement speed by 33% for duration
Bleed
  • Does damage every second for duration (20 to enemies, 1 to players)
Debuff/Break/Fracture
  • Increases direct damage taken by 30% for duration
Weaken/Vulnerable
  • Reduces direct damage dealt by 30% for duration

Status effects can be removed early with any Cleanse effect

Status Detonating
  • Applying a Status Effect with the Detonating keyword onto a target that already has that status effect applied, will double the effect for 1 second and deal 25 extra damage
Buffs
Details on some of the game's Buffs:

Static
  • While you have any amount of static, dealing or taking damage from a close range enemy triggers a static discharge
  • Static discharges consume X stacks of Static to hit X number of enemies in close range for 50 damage and dealing a level 2 stun
  • Static discharge has a cooldown
  • Gaining Static while already at max stacks will instead trigger Static Discharge, ignoring the cooldown

Barrier
  • Barrier is a temporary damage mitigation that decays over time
  • When barrier absorbs an attack, the amount of damage the attack would have dealt is instead removed from the barrier
  • If you don’t have enough barrier to completely ignore an attacks damage, the remaining damage carries through onto your health or shields
Support Drops
Call in support drops to help you survive missions
  • All support call-ins have cooldowns
  • Ammo drops provide a % of total carry capacity
  • Health drops provide a % of maximum health
    • The more health drops you call in relative to the current mission stage, the longer the cooldown becomes
  • Rez drops will revive fallen allies (Co-op only)
    • Rez drop’s cooldown begins when an ally is killed
    • Rez drop’s cooldown is extended if another ally is killed while already on cooldown
  • Completing objectives reduces the active cooldown of Support call ins
Damage Application Types
There are 3 damage application types:
  • Melee
  • Ranged/Projectile
  • Area of Effect
There are exceptions to these rules, but in general:
  • Melee attacks bypass shields and always apply their Stun
  • Projectile attacks are consumed by shields and will only Stun or Status if shields are broken
  • AOE attacks function the same as Ranged ones but hit everything in an area
    • Ground based AOE attacks are an exception, with secondary effects ignoring shields
Damage Calculations
Order of operations:
  • Your weapon stats in the gear selection process create your attacks base damage value
  • Headshots and heavy swing modifiers are applied
  • All other modifiers are combined additively, and then multiplied onto the value
  • Damage is sent
  • Enemy modifiers (like armor or status effects) are combined additively, and then multiplied onto the value
  • Damage is dealt
  • Some modifiers (like critical strikes), will then deal their extra damage based on the final damage dealt
For example:
  • Damage stat X on a rifle results in 60 base damage
  • If a headshot is made, the base damage is altered to (60 x 1.25) = 75
  • If you currently have a 10% extra damage buff and another 20% damage buff, you would send (75 x (1 + (0.1 + 0.2))) = 97.5 damage
  • If the enemy had 10% armor, they would be dealt (97.5 x (1 - 0.1)) = 87.75 damage
  • If you had critically hit (extra 50% damage), you would then deal an extra (87.75 x 0.5) = 43.875 damage

Defensive Order of Operations:
  • Evasion > Blocking > Barrier > Shields > Resolve > Health