boat physics in mmo's

cochs

Curious how much value you would put on realistic vs less realistic physics when it comes to how boats/ships work in mmo's.

For example Atlas doesn't use physics at all, it just does some simple logic to make ships rock a bit as if they were responding to the water, but it's not really.

Archeage goes a bit further, I think most noticeably in the bugs they have where ships can interact with each other badly.  But they do have some amount of real physics driven  buoyancy.

I'm curious about this as I work on a team where ships are a big part of the game.  We have done a couple of iterations with more and less physics for the ships.  The more version waves impact ships a lot, big waves can push you around and effect your speed, sometimes even effect line of sight.  We can also do things like tidal waves and whirlpools.

But it's a significant amount of work for more realistic physics.  And looking at all the videos and comments on Atlas I seldom if ever hear people complain about lack of more realistic physics.  So we are still undecided on which way to go.

There are also multiple ways to do more realistic physics, honestly you could do down a rabbit hole on that.  Customized physics would ultimately be better, we actually did a version of that.  But to get all the finer points of that to 'just work' vs using the engine's built in physics, I'm guessing would be around 2x the amount of dev time.  And the version using the engine physics around 5x the dev time of the Atlas no physics let's just fake some boat rolling and be done with it.

So probably more then most players care to know, but given that bit of insight would you think it's worth the time to have better physics? To the point where you can build more game mechanics around it?  I'm interested in as a player would you really put much value on it?

Cryomatrix

At the end of the day, boat physics is like exorbitant frosting on a cake, looks nice, but doesnt make or break the cake

TEKK3N

Not bothered at all.

Jemcrystal

I don't play Atlas I play it's sister game Ark.  Rafting was well done imo.  Is it exactly like real life?  No, but don't care.  It's immersive enough. 

Rafting wasn't useful to me until the Valguero map was introduced.  We're still waiting to hear from Wildcard devs what Genesis' Turtle entails.  

Think Ark's rafting was better done than Witcher's sailboat.  Any other game I have played with boats/raft did not let me have piloting control.  Or was to beta-glitchy to mention.

Asheram

Have you played Blackwake?

Hatefull

I have yet to play a game that comes close to being on a boat...but I also don't feel like my gaming life is missing anything because of that. Archeage did well enough imo.

SirAgravaine

I would expect a ship to operate as it does when it is being piloted by an experienced crew: a bit of skill and a whole lot of mother nature. Does realism matter to me if this is achieved without taking actual physics into account? No, probably not.

vegetableoil

when it comes to physics for boats, world of warships comes to mind, it has inertia, even swing when the waves comes to your boat, but it's just a moba not an mmorpg. another one is war thunder. it's also similar in term of physics, but in the end game play is a lot more important than the physics. It's nice to have but not mandatory.

Dibdabs

I couldn't care less about boat physics in games... or spacecraft physics, meteorology, geology, flora, fauna, whatever.  It's just a game.

Noobmaster_95

Dibdabs said:

I couldn't care less about boat physics in games... or spacecraft physics, meteorology, geology, flora, fauna, whatever.  It's just a game.

Exactly

Phry

Noobmaster_95 said:

Dibdabs said:

I couldn't care less about boat physics in games... or spacecraft physics, meteorology, geology, flora, fauna, whatever.  It's just a game.

Exactly

And yet games that excel in those areas tend to be more successful than those that do not, the number of games that get called out on 'half-assing' it, well, the only ones it keeps in business are youtubers.

Quizzical

It depends on the game.  For a game where the point of boats is to make it easy for players to go where they want on the water, realistic physics would wreck it.  For example, Puzzle Pirates does not and should not have realistic boat physics.  For a game like Kerbal Space Program where grappling with realistic physics is much of the point of the game, greatly simplified physics such as WASD to move in the direction you want would be totally out of place.

Sovrath

I'm all for realistic boat physics.

Cleffy

Not sure how that would work in an mmo. Pirates of the Burning Sea used instanced combat to get around the netcoding. Programming any type of physics on a massive scale mmo would be rather complicated and resource intensive.

some-clueless-guy

Don't boat physics come as a package with Nvidia Waveworks nowadays?

Phaserlight

The video game I've played for 16 years bothered to program in a fairly deep Newtonian physics system, and it definitely adds a lot to the game; you have to take into account things like mass, thrust, torque, as these will all have a huge impact on combat.  This has the added benefit of making the combat intuitive while retaining its depth. The depth is not due to penetrating inscrutable layers or rules, but rather all the ways in which the combat may chaotically unfold.

If it's within reach, do it. 

Amathe

There should be a percentage chance for you to heave when on a boat.