Aiming System

This was one of the biggest issues I had with Spore's combat system- You couldn't aim. You just had to click and hope that your creature would attack fast enough, or that the other creature would miss (if you can miss, I can't remember, I haven't played the game in a long time).

So, my idea was, giving some sort of aiming system to the game. This would mostly apply to long range attacks, but it could also work for short range ones, by just letting you turn and move your creature to make it most likely to hit your target.

Accuracy could increase or decrease along with whatever the creature's main sense is, and along with the creature's intelligence. I just think that allowing the player to aim for themselves would make the game easier.

PCaddict wrote:

This was one of the biggest issues I had with Spore's combat system- You couldn't aim. You just had to click and hope that your creature would attack fast enough, or that the other creature would miss (if you can miss, I can't remember, I haven't played the game in a long time).

So, my idea was, giving some sort of aiming system to the game. This would mostly apply to long range attacks, but it could also work for short range ones, by just letting you turn and move your creature to make it most likely to hit your target.

Accuracy could increase or decrease along with whatever the creature's main sense is, and along with the creature's intelligence. I just think that allowing the player to aim for themselves would make the game easier Wouldn't a Pac-Man based combat system be easier?.

In Spore, I don't think you could miss.

But an aiming system is a good idea, the auto-aiming most games seem to have is silly, it takes all the strategy out of it. In Spore, I'd be hammering the number buttons in combat as fast as I could to get maximum power, which obviously is the wrong way to do combat. It's boring.
So, with aiming, there's strategy: You can attack the legs, meaning you could then safely attack from afar, very defensive; you could be tactical and get the vital organs; or you could take the brutal approach and bonk 'em on the head.
I like this idea, and I don't think the combat system has been talked about much; the calculation of the damage done to the enemy (not a bar, but damage to various body parts), yes, but not how combat actually is done. Thanks for bringing this up.

The method of attack should be through the normal way of moving your limbs (and body) in a way that would injure the opponent. I recall we had an idea for a system in the OE in which you could set up a series of positions through which the creature would move, and this series of motions would be assigned a button (or combination of buttons). I don't know if that has been finalised, but I'd like to mention we need not only positions, but speed, the force put into it, and maybe more specific things, too, like whether this action will stop if there is an obstruction (walking would stop if there is an obstruction, for example, but head-bonking wouldn't, the head in the way of the bonking is supposed to be bonked).
Another important thing is movements which require tools, or movements that work slightly differently if a certain tool is held (like head bonking with a palm would involve slightly different movements if the same goal needed to be achieved with a head-bonking stick. The OE could choose the appropriate movement while the player only needs to press one global head-bonking button.

P.S. With OSX Lion, I can hold letters and get variations, like I hold 'e' and can type: è, é, ê, ë, etc.
Thāt'š håñdÿ, mÿ pürçhæśė ïß ñøw ôffįčîàłłÿ worthwhile.

Oh, and I found the character list, with one coloured symbol that seems to work here: ⛎
To the next post! ⤹↓⇓⇩⇣☟⬇⥥↡⇂⇃⇊ ↧↯⇟⤵

I had a combat concept back in the really old days- it might be around here somewhere.

How about if its in first person make the mouse look like the object or organ or bone that you attack with
and i think we should make a thread for the combat system in general because we humans want a good combat system in our games

EDIT: Lets try to fuse the systems and then build upon them

For ranged weaponry, the system is simple: point and shoot, with some "charge up" time for weapons like bows and arrows or miniguns.

For melee weapons, it's worse. I suppose we could have two systems, Uteen's one where you record your moves, map them to keys and then use these moves by pressing the keys, and Kaosrain's one where you can directly control one of your arms. The second system is more dynamical, but might get annoying quickly. The first system also allows more complex moves.

How exactly would the recording work like?

as for my system in oe you would like put the parts into "slots" and in the fight the mouse moves the limb or organ or something and click to attack and pressing a button woud change the limb or organ or something slot

Again, there are two possible ways we can go for in the recording process: either use your system to allow recording simple moves and then combine these simple moves into more complex ones, or do it in the way most animating software does it. The second method will most be easier both for programmers and players, but a lot of care would be required not to end with awkward moves.

Where would we record the movements?

Scio wants the OE to be available at anytime, so it might just be packed there. Might also be an independent "editor"

Commander Keen wrote:

Scio wants the OE to be available at anytime, so it might just be packed there. Might also be an independent "editor"

Animations are controlled in the behavior editor. My old idea was to basically animate by pulling joints around, then having the game procedurally determine how others would have to move to get the joints to where they were.

~sciocont wrote:

Animations are controlled in the behavior editor. My old idea was to basically animate by pulling joints around, then having the game procedurally determine how others would have to move to get the joints to where they were.

It's been a really long time I have heard anything about the behavior editor, and it's not even on the wiki, so I have just supposed the concept was trashed.

As for the concept of pulling joints around, that's the way most animating software does it. This might have the problem of looking awkward if not enough keyframes are saved. That might be solved by using complex curves and a bit of randomization, but that might be too resource intensive.

Will everyone please download the demo for "Mount & Blade."

Basically, that.

It's the single best combat system I've ever seen. For those who don't want to find and download the demo, it uses tiny movements in the mouse to determine the direction of a strike. There are only four positions to strike from, above, left, right, and a forward stab from the middle. You are able to block, but the block button automatically locks on to the nearest threat and perpares a block for the correct position. This means that melee combat is not only fun, inntuitive, and strategic, but it boils it down to only eight animations per weapon, with many animations between weapons being interchangable.

Ranged combat is a standard over-the-shoulder affair, with a charge up time for everything but guns.

DO THIS. Seriously. In terms of ranged combat, this is what most of our players will be used to. In terms of melee combat, you get the most intuitive and easy to use system out there, with minimal animations and a surprising degree of strategy.

Done.

This is a good solution, however there is one problem: For unarmed combat (practically the whole time before Awakening), how will the game know wich part of the organism use for the strike? Keep in mind most creatures will not have graspers at this time.

Commander Keen wrote:

This is a good solution, however there is one problem: For unarmed combat (practically the whole time before Awakening), how will the game know wich part of the organism use for the strike? Keep in mind most creatures will not have graspers at this time.

Been thinking about that. I think then we would need to catagorize some parts as weapons, and animate from there. Advantage? There only needs to be one animation for bite.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

This is a good solution, however there is one problem: For unarmed combat (practically the whole time before Awakening), how will the game know wich part of the organism use for the strike? Keep in mind most creatures will not have graspers at this time.

Been thinking about that. I think then we would need to catagorize some parts as weapons, and animate from there. Advantage? There only needs to be one animation for bite.

An idea I have is a "strike" option. It's basically just for hitting things. You click on the body part you want to inflict damage with, and you click on what you want to strike at, then we have procedures extend the leg/arm/tentacle/whatever to hit the target. It doesn't require a canned animation and allows for things like fistfights to happen pretty fluidly.

~sciocont wrote:

An idea I have is a "strike" option. It's basically just for hitting things. You click on the body part you want to inflict damage with, and you click on what you want to strike at, then we have procedures extend the leg/arm/tentacle/whatever to hit the target. It doesn't require a canned animation and allows for things like fistfights to happen pretty fluidly.

While I like the idea, remember that most people want the mouse to be used exclusively for aiming, and this could interphere with that. It also seems a little to complex for spur-of-the-moment action. I for one would get desperate if I had multiple actions required to defend myself.

Tenebrarum wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

An idea I have is a "strike" option. It's basically just for hitting things. You click on the body part you want to inflict damage with, and you click on what you want to strike at, then we have procedures extend the leg/arm/tentacle/whatever to hit the target. It doesn't require a canned animation and allows for things like fistfights to happen pretty fluidly.

While I like the idea, remember that most people want the mouse to be used exclusively for aiming, and this could interphere with that. It also seems a little to complex for spur-of-the-moment action. I for one would get desperate if I had multiple actions required to defend myself.

We could aim with the mouse, but select the body-part (or body parts, for two attacks at once) with a keyboard shortcut. Again, which do what would either be pre-set (not good with multiple of the same body part) or defined in the editor.

But which editor are we actually going to be using for defining these shortcuts? It seems assumed to be the organism editor, but I think the behaviour editor would be more suitable for this... It's how it behaves, rather than how it is made...

The Uteen wrote:

But which editor are we actually going to be using for defining these shortcuts? It seems assumed to be the organism editor, but I think the behaviour editor would be more suitable for this... It's how it behaves, rather than how it is made...

Uteen... Behaivior is contained within the OE...

Anyways, it anyone still up for my proposal?

Tenebrarum wrote:

Uteen... Behaivior is contained within the OE...

But Scio just told me it's in the behavior editor.. I'm really confused now.

Commander Keen wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Uteen... Behaivior is contained within the OE...

But Scio just told me it's in the behavior editor.. I'm really confused now.

I thought we merged the two?

Tenebrarum wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Uteen... Behaivior is contained within the OE...

But Scio just told me it's in the behavior editor.. I'm really confused now.

I thought we merged the two?

Behavior is a tab within the OE and TE.

~sciocont wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Uteen... Behaivior is contained within the OE...

But Scio just told me it's in the behavior editor.. I'm really confused now.

I thought we merged the two?

Behavior is a tab within the OE and TE.

What I thought.

Tenebrarum wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Tenebrarum wrote:

Uteen... Behaivior is contained within the OE...

But Scio just told me it's in the behavior editor.. I'm really confused now.

I thought we merged the two?

Behavior is a tab within the OE and TE.

What I thought.

I checked the wiki before I posted that, actually, there's no mention of the behaviour part to the OE... Or the standalone behaviour editor. So I guessed from memory and the name 'behaviour editor' it was standalone. Not sure about in the wiki page of the TE, but the OE page definitely needs updating over there.

It shall be done.