I've seen quite a few posts in this forum asking OOO to patch out the Stun glitch, but I haven't seen any containing potential solutions that OOO could use to do this. Now, since it's a glitch, and therefore a programming issue, you may wonder how anyone not working for OOO could possibly find a way to fix it. Well I think I've found a way! I could be wrong of course, and yet I suspect I'm onto something.
I'll share with you some of my reasoning first. As far as I can tell, SK's engine clashes somehow with any attempt to change the speed of an animation in the middle of that animation. This is responsible for the Stun glitch, which causes attack hitboxes to come out prematurely if Stun begins or ends during an attack's startup. I'm guessing that the glitch hasn't been fixed yet because fixing the clash I referred to would require fundamental changes to SK's engine, which I'd expect to be more work than the team wants to do. So I've been thinking about what could be done instead.
In case there is any doubt about the importance of fixing this glitch, here's an illustration of just one of the many ways that it would benefit the game. There is a bomb in SK called the Stagger Storm. As I'm sure most people who read this are aware, it creates a cloud of mist that inflicts Stun on enemies. However, as Stun can cause players to be hit unexpectedly, this weapon is currently completely impractical to use. If the glitch were fixed, the bomb would suddenly become very useful, and far more players would want it in their arsenal. The fix would effectively add an entirely new weapon to the game!
So then, on with my suggestions...
How to fix when Stun begins: When a knight hits an enemy with a powerful attack, the enemy will go into an animation of reaction to the hit, interrupting anything it was doing beforehand. These animations range from short jerks (see: Trojans) to falling down (see: Gremlins). My suggestion is for getting Stunned to trigger this animation, preventing any attack from coming out. For enemies that have multiple animations of this type (such as Zombies), I recommend going with the shorter one, since Stun is going to be very powerful once this glitch is fixed. This same solution could potentially be applied to knights as well, though the SK team would have to make sure the animation isn't triggered by the effects of a Swarm Seed. Knights could reuse the Zombies' animation if they don't have one of their own.
How to fix when Stun ends: My suggestion here, for both knights and monsters, is for this to interrupt whatever they're doing by bringing them to neutral. Note that for monsters this means they can immediately attack; this way they won't hit the player unexpectedly due to the glitch, but nor will they miss out on a chance to attack. As for knights, this may not be a perfect solution due to the potential for it seeming like a new glitch to players who suddenly find themselves standing still after they were winding up to attack. It would be up to the SK team to decide whether or not this is preferable to knights being able to trigger their own hitboxes prematurely by starting an attack right before Stun ends.
However, in addition to these suggestions, I have also thought of an even simpler alternative that would be a more perfect solution than the above if it's feasible. When I say "simpler" here I mean simpler in concept. This is to say, I don't know how simple it would be to program in. Basically, could it be possible to just program attack hitboxes to not appear at the moments Stun begins and ends? I've figured that this solution has been tried, since it's so seemingly obvious, but perhaps not. If it hasn't, perhaps it could work! This sort of polishing of the game's fundamentals can make the overall experience more enjoyable for players and give the game an even greater potential for success!
I'd love to have a chance to talk with someone on the SK team so I can get clearer on what's holding up these changes and help resolve the situation more easily. With my eye for identifying problems that matter and finding solutions, I think I could make a meaningful contribution to getting this and possibly other things fixed, if given the opportunity. If you are on the team and are interested in discussing any of this with me, please contact me! My email is gametrekker@sbcglobal.net and I'm GameTrekker on Skype and AIM.
I'm also open to thoughts and suggestions from anyone else who reads this, of course.
It's been said that stun glitches some attacks whetever they started before or after the monster got hit. It wont work.
Or it'll become a copy of shock, sans damage. Or overpowered if the animation is long enough to prepare another attack.
And the 'simpler solution' is cheap and dirty. Might work but look awfull.
If the problem is aniamtion timing, an even dumber solution would be to make stun affect movement but not attacks. This might make stun useless tho.