Why combat is not more physical?

franksalbe

I was watching the few movie clips  from the over the shoulder cam.

I was wondering why the avatars look like they are just bashing each other.

it seems that they didnt implement any physics in terms of blows pushing you back or anything. All i saw was 2 avatars hacking at each other and little red numbers flying out of them.

Will this be the limit to their  combat in terms of interperting our avatars actions in battle?

Anofalye

I don't know.

And honestly...it doesn't bother me.  Someone else might answer you better than me, but for me, this is flashy detail, nothing more...there is nothing wrong with flashy details, but it isn't what I am looking for.

It prolly depend if you are more a RPG or an ACTION fan I guess, a rpg fan will overlook these details as some other aspects matter a LOT more...for action fans, I guess this is more important.

In facts, I would prolly be playing Stickman the MMO if it design was good enough for me...the main problem would be to see it, to realize it is there...this is a jungle and spotting the right design is quite hard sometimes.

franksalbe

Totally agree with you there Ano.

I just found it a bit odd.

I myself dont care since I cant stand much of the MMO's out nowadays so I play MUDz.

HJ and AoC are the only 2 games I see me spending money in and HJ has the lead for the only reason that this Leveling to 20 alone thing AoC is introducing is not really hitting me right. I already hate the concept of leveling period.

Their reasoning is so that you can learn the game at your own pace on your own and have your own miniadventure interms of coming up in the world to join the ranks of everyone else. No one asking you a hundred questions and chats filled with milliions of questions.

But i was wondering about this and it dawned on me. Isn't that one of the best part of the game. That is when an MMO community is at it's best. Everyone talking learning new strategedies, form new comrades, etc. I like the husle an bustle of the newbie zones.

*shrug* anyways that just my 2 cents

Techleo

 AoC and Gods and Hero's are actualy my prefrence when it comes to RP combat. It gives me a visceral feeling of accomplishment in City of Hero's when i time a shot just right and knock a foe off his feet and down a wall. Lol that satisfaction of seeing him crashing to the ground is priceless. In fact last night was perhaps one of my favorite RP moments in a long time. I was fighting a rather talented villian in Sirens Call zone which was a jump specialist. Well I just couldnt catch him so I get atop a building, mind you im a speed runner so it took me awhile. I lay in wait... here he comes I JUMP!!! WEEEE.. ok thought going thru my mind is ok going aim for this bastard i only get one moment to hit him. Gota hit him to break my fall or im toast. WHAM!! Hes right under me, im on his back and i slam a claw thru his back. We fall, hes stunned and a pack of lower level hero's dogpiles him. This to me captures the real joy of combat. The what ifs. Mind you I think HJ will capture this feeling. Just not in the way i currently like.

Agent_X7

Hehe, yeah, nothing is more fun than using knockback to throw some poor hero off the top of a 100 story building and watching him plummet to his death.

Hell, it's fun just doing it to NPCs.

HJ-Illuminat

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Originally posted by franksalbe

I was watching the few movie clips  from the over the shoulder cam.
I was wondering why the avatars look like they are just bashing each other.
it seems that they didnt implement any physics in terms of blows pushing you back or anything. All i saw was 2 avatars hacking at each other and little red numbers flying out of them.
Will this be the limit to their  combat in terms of interperting our avatars actions in battle?

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We have physics with some abilities. The few we showcased at E3 may not have been caught on film. Even the Dragons breath attack caused knockback.

Sorry for the lack of responses by me lately folks. I've had a busy summer.

GM Illuminatis
World Builder
Hero's Journey

franksalbe

Ahhh ok... that sound fine.

Agent_X7

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Originally posted by HJ-Illuminat

Originally posted by franksalbe

I was watching the few movie clips  from the over the shoulder cam.
I was wondering why the avatars look like they are just bashing each other.
it seems that they didnt implement any physics in terms of blows pushing you back or anything. All i saw was 2 avatars hacking at each other and little red numbers flying out of them.
Will this be the limit to their  combat in terms of interperting our avatars actions in battle?

We have physics with some abilities. The few we showcased at E3 may not have been caught on film. Even the Dragons breath attack caused knockback.

Sorry for the lack of responses by me lately folks. I've had a busy summer.

GM Illuminatis
World Builder
Hero's Journey

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ACK! What are you doing out of your hole! Get back in there and build more! *cracks whip*

kopema

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Originally posted by franksalbe

it seems that they didnt implement any physics in terms of blows pushing you back or anything. All i saw was 2 avatars hacking at each other and little red numbers flying out of them. 

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I haven't seen the specific clips you're talking about, but I'm painfully aware of the phenomenon.  I've see it in most RPG's and MMORPG's.

In fact nearly all of them. But I'm not just talking about "knockback" effects.  Why the heck are people who are involved in mortal combat so gosh-darned bored, polite and patient that they're willing to TAKE TURNS hitting one another?  The character skin graphics have improved a thousandfold in the last 15 years, but the combat animations are stuck in the same rut they've always been in.

World of Warcraft at least has its characters twitching and bouncing on their heels between swings.  That's not much, but at least they're doing SOMETHING besides standing there like mannequins.  And it's possible to do even more than that, and have reactive between-attack animations. For example, the game Neverwinter Nights seemed to do a decent job of it several years ago. They incorporated clever parrying and dodging animations even among multiple characters all the way from halfling to dragon size. 

I'd think in this day and age reactions like that would be a minimum.  But they are by far the exception rather than the rule.

You can wax on about 'adventure' all you want, but let's face facts: since Sierra went the way of the dodo, RPG's have been all about combat. Even the fraction of time spent in the game that you aren't directly involved in fighting revolves around combat in one way or another. When you quest, craft, market, or heck even go fishing for that matter, it's nearly always to get something to make you FIGHT better. 

Well, why not embrace that unavoidable fact into all aspects of the game design?  Heck, when I get a new set of greaves (or whatever) I don't want to just read a spreadsheet of statistics to tell me they're an improvement over the old ones -- I want to FEEL when they deflect what would otherwise have been a crippling blow to my shinbone.  That's the kind of thing that has to be built into the game from the ground up.

I don't see why studios don't fully develop their combat systems during alpha stage and then build everything else in the game - including even things like the physics engine - around the combat. Because once you have that down pat, you can add content, quests, etc. from here 'till doomsday. But without engaging combat to form the basis, everything else in the game suffers. 

For some reason though, it seems like a lot of game designers take the opposite approach: they sort of tack on a combat system after game development is well underway. Why?

If I were a publisher and somebody came to me with a demo of the most realistically engaging and immersive combat system in the world - and nothing else - I'd start throwing money at him like it was going out of style to slap together some content for one game, and hopefully a pile of sequels (or I guess add-ons if it's an MMO.)

But if somebody came to me with the most extravagant graphics engine ever built, scenic vistas of a world twice the size of Texas, and lackadaisical fighting animations, I'd be like: "Hey, that looks really cute. Give me a call if you can ever manage to put together something that looks like it might make for a fun game."

Dyng-Johan

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Originally posted by kopema 
You can wax on about 'adventure' all you want, but let's face facts: since Sierra went the way of the dodo, RPG's have been all about combat.

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..at the same time, thats when it started to go all wrong.

As long as all game developers reduce the "meaning" of RPG it will just become worse. Just because you can improve your axe-skill, dont make the game a "roleplaying game". And as long game developers insist of using the boring AD&D levelsystem it will allways focus on combat (atleast this goes for mmorpg´s).

So I wouldnt mind at all if the developers makes another turn, and move away from combat abit, and wax on some more adventure.