Friday Update #256

[Golden Girl]

This week, we’ve been doing some more design work on our combat system, specifically various ways that we can enhance the movement that takes place during it, in order to really create the sense of motion that comic book fights have.

For example, one of the first changes we that made from the combat system in ‘City of Heroes’ right back at the start of our project was to scrap the rooting mechanic – locking a character in place while they use a power – which CoH used quite often, even though it tended to work against the dynamic visuals of a comic book fight.
For example, even though in real life standing still to shoot a firearm vastly improves your accuracy, it doesn’t really fit the athletic style of gunplay you’d expect from comic book characters.

Another smaller change to give more of a sense of motion in battle is to add some foot movement to some of the power activation animations and combat stances – in CoH, two characters could be swinging punches at each other, and while their upper bodies would bob and weave, their feet would almost always remain in the same place.
But by adding in a few foot shuffles to the lower body we can enhance the sense of motion in combat, as well as helping with the flow of the transitions between the individual attack animations.


Have a heroic/villainous weekend!

The Heroes and Villains team

[American Gargoyle]

With that, are you going to be doing an "action MMO" like Champions Online? With blocks and dodges?

Personally I hope not as they didn't really implement it too well.

[Golden Girl]

Something like dodging can actually be simulated quite well just with an animation - CoH did it when an attack missed, by making the target sway backwards to avoid the hit.

[American Gargoyle]

I meant under player control, not the computer's control. I hope there is behind the scenes to hit numbers going on rather than making it all about the player's movement and whether or not they're blocking.

[plinkyplonk]

I was never a fan of activating a block and found it cumbersome in all the games I tried that have it implemented. CoH did it right for me with the 'chance to block' incorporating it into the combat stats.