10/17/2019 11:22:57 PMSometimes it’s hard to see the shine beneath the rough surface
Snipehunter
Designer
874 Posts
September 2017
Hail Elyrians!
It is another shiny day! I feel like it’s been ages since the last shiny day, what with me not being available to post a shiny last week or the week prior, but I’m back so let’s shine!
Some of you are probably aware that lately I’d been working on “advanced traversal mechanics” – AKA Parkour – as my primary focus. As the lead designer for the game, I’m the start of the production pipeline. I work with Caspian to translate his vision and designs into actionable specs that the team then takes and implements.
(Sometimes there are visual aids!)
For example, when it comes to traversal mechanics, I spent many days working with Caspian, hashing out what was required and what wasn’t to get moving through the world feeling good for an adventuring player. When that head-to-head collaboration was complete, I had a set of rules and guidelines at my disposal that I could use to build an actual specification for each of the world movement actions a character could take. I knew, for example, that a character that had the right knowledge and skill could vault over objects. What I didn’t know was how that would be implemented. I didn’t yet know how far you would move while vaulting, which controls you might use to make that happen as a player, how much stamina that might require, etc.
So, my job over the next period was to take those guidelines and rules and translate them into actual descriptions of what it feels like to perform these actions as a player, what controls are used and any other technical or mechanical considerations (such as how two possible player actions work together) that might be involved. Once this design spec was done, Caspian and I scrutinized it again, going back and forth as we discussed the implications that things like the defined control schemes and level metrics, such as jump height or sprint speed, would have on the design. Only after we were both satisfied was the spec considered “ready.” And once it was ready, that’s where the rest of the team comes in.
(Super technical visual aids!)
With the ready spec, a cross-functional strike team of folks on the team (folks like Souzou and Jörmungandr) can be brought together to begin the process of implementation and integration, be that in the form of bringing in old prototypes, such as our mine run from Pax a couple of years ago, or implementing entirely new versions of those mechanics, depending on the requirements of the spec. (In the case of the traversal mechanics, we are using a different physics engine than we had been when we made the mine run, which makes integrating some mechanics from an early prototype difficult. Additionally, the spec called for slightly different behaviors based on what we had learned with our past prototypes)
For the last little while, that group has been implementing some of the traversal stuff, including wall climbing, wall running, ground sliding, and a few other mechanics. There’s still a ways to go before it’s ready for prime time, but I’m always happy when I see folks just jump into the work and produce fast results. Our early prototypes really helped in that regard – they taught us a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Thanks to those prototypes we avoided some serious time sinks and had the rough forms of these mechanics, the form you're seeing in the video below, operational very quickly.
But, as I said, there's a ton of polish to go and that does mean that what you are seeing in that video is incredibly early work, but it was in and working quickly, and now we have the time to polish out the rough surface and let the fun shine through.
I am not against the vertical climb but I think that the 1-100 skill levels should correspond to the angle at which you can effectively climb straight up in a percent based system. I think the mastery is the key to the viability here.
It also brings up questions if we will ever be able to climb negative angles or free hang using this system as well. Perhaps requiring gear, technology, tools, and other items such as relic grade climbing gear which could add more grades to what could be climbed.
I don't see this as much of a problem if we can also use this to climb mountains and add more depth to traversing the world if we have mastery with the climbing or beyond 100 skill levels at some point if we gain access to magic or ascension classes like the vamps, liches, werewolves, etc that could potentially use climbing as well.
The slide could use some work but it also has some promise in the context of combat, tripping, etc and I would like to see other similar abilities added for non weapon combat classes like monks, brawlers, etc.
Overall nice work!
If you have items or assets you no longer have use for feel free to send them my way.
So now they are redoing this again too?
Not like we have not seen wall climbing before in the "Dungion Preview" guess it was fake then?
I think the answer to this goes back to their development model of breadth then depth.
SbS made a lot of things early that look functional but in large were likely not fine tuned, maybe felt clunkier to play or see, but it prooved their proof of concept so they could move on to something else.
What we are seeing now is a lot more depth in their production efforts. They are fine tuning the world, the mechanics, they are making it more complete now.
Its not that the earlier things we saw were fake, its that they were really rough examples built just to get a good framework done so they could come back and finish it.
I mean... They explained why it had to be redesigned in this very post... Watru is just a keyboard warrior. You gotta' do a bit more than look at the pretty pictures if you're trying to put in genuine feedback.
If you take 2 minutes to actually read the post, you'll see why you're wrong Watru. The answer is right there.
While its good to see progress on the climbing mechanics, the rest of the "parkour" mechanics seem extremely ... niche.
How many times are we going to need to do an Indiana Jones sliding dash in this game that it needed an animation? Except for these contrived obstacles, where else will that come into play?
While its good to see progress on the climbing mechanics, the rest of the "parkour" mechanics seem extremely ... niche.
How many times are we going to need to do an Indiana Jones sliding dash in this game that it needed an animation? Except for these contrived obstacles, where else will that come into play?
While its good to see progress on the climbing mechanics, the rest of the "parkour" mechanics seem extremely ... niche.
How many times are we going to need to do an Indiana Jones sliding dash in this game that it needed an animation? Except for these contrived obstacles, where else will that come into play?
Sliding into sword attack, or slide to dodge. Used with ingenuity it can probably be put to use for things other than traversing the terrain. Keep people guessing.
May prosperity ever triumph, and life be always held dear.
So now they are redoing this again too?
Not like we have not seen wall climbing before in the "Dungion Preview" guess it was fake then?
So when you program for marketing, program for prototypes, and program a finished game there are things to take into account.
For marketing all you have to do is that one thing..... you don't depend on any other systems to interact with it. You can polish up a single thing no problem. Having it work with all the other 100's of mechanics is another thing.
For protoyping you are only using a handful of mechanics that may or may not translate to the finished product.
Alpha ready game programming is like prototyping but with those 100's of mechanics intertwined. More than likely causing breaks in the mechanics that we as Alpha testers will be able to identify and report.
To say "we have seen this" is inaccurate.
Man must rise above the Earth—to the top of the atmosphere and beyond—for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
(Sometimes there are visual aids!)
