View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0008028 | Valley 1 | Gameplay Idea | May 22, 2012 3:56 pm | May 22, 2012 5:13 pm | |
| Reporter | Bluddy | Assigned To | |||
| Status | considering | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 1.026 | ||||
| Summary | 0008028: Towards a new model of background object damage | ||||
| Description | Problems with the current model of hurting background objects: 1. If you use melee weapons, you keep destroying your own platforms, which you often need when you use melee. 2. You don't get enough reactions from background objects. For example, trees don't do anything to regular firepower, but fighting in the woods should have some effect. This applies to many other objects. 3. No sense of destruction from fighting stuff inside (similar to my other mantis about this), or from shooting massive spells outside. 4. An all or nothing approach feels artificial. You either hit background stuff or don't, which means that you don't really feel like the background items are there. The new model is: 1. Every spell (including enemy spells) can hurt background objects to some degree. This can be termed the 'collateral damage level' of the spell, and is much less than the full power of the spell. It simulates what would happen in a 3d field: if you're fighting in the forest, presumably your spell would cause damage to background objects but still slip past them. 2. As your spells (and enemy spells) pass past certain background objects, the objects reduce the power of the spell while taking damage. This means it's a good idea, for example to hide among or behind trees: though they won't protect you completely, they'll take some of the damage and thereby reduce the damage of the spell (until they're destroyed). I'm not sure if the damage removed from the spell should be equal to the damage the spell does to the background object, but different spells should get their damage reduced differently by background objects. 3. Melee spells still hurt background objects the most. This is needed for mining. 4. Need to account for background object widths. A water tower is very wide, but will only reduce incoming spell damage once ie. when it passes through rather than the whole time it moves past the object. In fact, the chance of hitting a water tower is pretty small, but it should still take a little damage from spells and reduce a little damage. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | Feature Suggestion | ||||
|
|
Clever, but can you imagine trying to explain that to new players? I just don't see it happening. |
|
|
I don't think it's hard to explain at all. All a new player knows is that as he's shooting stuff, background objects slowly get destroyed. He slowly learns that hiding behind trees etc is good for him. |
|
|
Hmmm, maybe. It's an attractive idea in some ways, but there are CPU costs involved as well as the fact that you're going to be clearcutting everywhere you go. I'm not sure I'm really thrilled with that; it's worth mulling and potentially exploring sometime in the future, at any rate. |
|
|
IMO, it'd be really, really annoying to have trees blocking everyone's spells and it'd just encourage people to avoid wooded areas. And having things like Towers and Buildings block spells? That'd just be a mess. I get what you're trying to do with the "Collateral Damage" thing, and it'd be cool to see magic-slinging destroy some of the area... But it would really start to eat CPU, as x4000 said, and, to be honest, the way most background things just go "Poof" instead of blowing up with satisfying explosions and debris flying wouldn't really make the damage really satisfying. |
|
|
I'm not sure it'll be annoying to have trees blocking your spells -- they're also blocking enemies' spells. Also, they don't block them 100%. They just reduce the damage somewhat. I think this also makes sense -- you can't snipe an enemy effectively from half a chunk away when there are objects in the way. The same applies to the enemies. So this makes melee spells more tempting. In any case, this can be decoupled from the idea that background objects take hits. If players really won't like background objects reducing damage a little, they'll still like background stuff exploding around them. This is also pretty important if you want to have interactivity with many different kinds of objects. @x4000, Regarding deforestation, I think the key is that background objects will only take a little bit of damage from non-melee spells -- not enough to quickly eliminate a forest from the entire chunk, but enough to show scars of battle where there was one. Inside would be a different story -- the chances of hitting things inside a building/cave are much higher, and the objects should reflect that with lower hitpoints. Any fight inside should destroy a whole bunch of stuff. Regarding CPU costs: I'm not sure they'll be that high. I think that remains to be seen. And @Nanostrike, regarding the point you made about 'poofs' -- you're right. But I think cool explosions with debris are possible -- the explosive espers are proof of that (at least of the fact that cool explosions are possible). |
|
|
In terms of CPU costs, I can tell you they will be much higher because every frame each spell will have to check all the nearby background entities to see if it is colliding and thus damaging them. It can't be done spaced out over time because otherwise spells that move fast will just zip through. It's not like the CPU will go through the roof, but it's a substantial cost. For most outdoor combat, there are a lot of trees in your way. It seems to me like the only real effect of this is that trees gradually get whittled away, and until then combat proceeds in slow-mo in terms of damage taken by all parties. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 22, 2012 3:56 pm | Bluddy | New Issue | |
| May 22, 2012 4:01 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0024610 | |
| May 22, 2012 4:03 pm | Bluddy | Note Added: 0024612 | |
| May 22, 2012 4:07 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0024613 | |
| May 22, 2012 4:12 pm | Nanostrike | Note Added: 0024615 | |
| May 22, 2012 4:29 pm | tigersfan | Internal Weight | => Feature Suggestion |
| May 22, 2012 4:29 pm | tigersfan | Status | new => considering |
| May 22, 2012 5:09 pm | Bluddy | Note Added: 0024629 | |
| May 22, 2012 5:13 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0024630 | |
| Apr 14, 2014 9:30 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Category | Suggestion - Gameplay => Gameplay Idea |
