The Importance of Player Collision

ArchivedUser

Hey guys I was watching the recent live streamed Intrepid did and noticed in the the game play footage they had player collision. This was pretty exciting to me because most MMOs I've played dont have player collision. Now there is plenty of reason to not have it, mainly cause it opens up trolls to abuse it; for example body blocking doorways, npcs, and pretty much anything they can. This I'm sure will piss a lot of people off but I wanted to express the utter coolness it will have on the side of combat and tactics in both PvP and PvE. In games with no player collision big PvP battles will usually evolve into 2 large opposing zergs that are closely packed and focus entirely on ranging down any fool to come into their collective range. This can become repetitive and leaves melee players often times left out or dead. With player collision though it opens up rolls for melee on battlefield as a screening force or even to hold enemies in a death funnel like a breach in a castles walls. How cool would that be? Even a small disciplined group could change the result of a battle with tactics enabled with player collision. There are many more examples I'm sure we could all think of and that's the beauty of it. Player collision adds another level to gameplay that just is not there without it. As for PvE im not the best but even then i imagine it would create a need for raid leaders and members to adapt differently to boss mechanics, instead of just running out of the "fire circle" you're running out of the fire circle in a disciplined manner as to not block someone else inside.
anyway rant over.

I'd love to hear what you guys think of this design feature because I don't think I've seen it mentioned before. If anyone else is as excited as I am for the PvP tactics potential be sure to let me know.

Heres the link to the stream footage of the player collision (13:40)

ArchivedUser

There is also spell collision.We have know for a good, long time about the system. There are still things that they need to clarify about a system of hard vs soft collision out of combat so that people can't grief each other by parking mounts or themselves in doorways or on top of stuff to grief, but other than that it looks to be coming along nicely.

ArchivedUser

Thats awesome mate thanks for posting that I had no idea it was already confirmed. The more I learn the more excited I get

ArchivedUser

Good to know.  For PvP, collision is a need.  For PvE, collision is a deficit.  Will be interesting to see how they implement friendly, soft, physical collision and friendly spell collision.

ArchivedUser

glak said:

Good to know.  For PvP, collision is a need.  For PvE, collision is a deficit.  Will be interesting to see how they implement friendly, soft, physical collision and friendly spell collision.

I disagree. Forcing players to take note of each others position is a boon to me as it will make it harder to zerg down bosses. I don't think we should be able to stack on each other.

ArchivedUser

I think @glak took my clarify statement to mean that they are going to have a separate system for PVE? No, what I mean is that we have hard collision right now, which has inherent problems when the inevitable douchebag realizes that he can block everyones access to the bank or tavern by just standing in the doorway and not moving. To get around this some games have hard collision while in combat, and soft collision while out of combat. Soft collision means that the character can move past or through others when both are not in combat. IS has never stated that they plan to implement this system, my comment was just pointing out that they will have to address it further down the development line or have to deal with an avalanche of harassment/griefing CS tickets with people reporting others for parking mounts in front or on top of places blocking access and so on.

TL:DR Hard collision confirmed. Soft collision speculation.

ArchivedUser

Collision adds more emphasis on how the in-game physics will affect overall Combat - and thats good. Its another important stepping-stone to have but ...

we still need to see more Action Combat. So far, only the Mage & Ranger has some sort of Action Combat. And I'm still hoping for at least 30+ Abilities as opposed to having 10-15 abilities.

Lots of other things we need to see first before we get to that

ArchivedUser

Archeage had full collision.

As I've mentioned in other threads on these forums, collision caused that game probably it's biggest issue, with people blocking the way for people to complete trade routes.

There were minor issues with players blocking NPC's and the like, but they are actually minor compared to players blocking actual gameplay.

However, after a 1100+ post thread, with almost 150k views, Trion eventually simply said that any use of collision to block another player outside of combat will result in the player being despawned, any vehicles used will be destroyed (they are able to be repaired again), and continued abuse will result in 'unspecified' additional action.

All issues stopped over night - without a single actual change to the game taking place (even though some changes came later on).

Point is, as long as Intrepid clearly define what they are and are not ok with, and are willing to step in when people go beyond what they say is ok, a full collision system won't result in any major issues.

ArchivedUser

Am i the only one imagining players going full kamehameha and trying to create the biggest spell collision just for the youtube views?

ArchivedUser

VoidShadow said:

Am i the only one imagining players going full kamehameha and trying to create the biggest spell collision just for the youtube views?

The first thing that came to mind was Dragon ball ^^

ArchivedUser

Player collision is great, I'd say the minority would have major issues with it though

ArchivedUser

Cant forget all the fun times I have had standing just back from a doorway with a hoard of enemies on the other side that can only attack you on a 1v1 basis.
Hold the door!
Combat simply isnt combat without CD.

Plus allowing multiple players to stack within each other makes an absolute mockery of radius of effect, whose sole purpose is to ensure only X amount of people can fit in that space and act as an automatic AoE cap. Exploited to maximum effect by the zerg ball.

ArchivedUser

I am not sure if i am so excited of this player collision. Just imagining battleground or raid situations where pugs are bouncing like flipper balls making the whole fight a mess.. *sigh*

ArchivedUser

Ferryman said:

I am not sure if i am so excited of this player collision. Just imagining battleground or raid situations where pugs are bouncing like flipper balls making the whole fight a mess.. *sigh*

Players will learn...they always do.

ArchivedUser

cant wait to wait in line

/the division flashbacks

ArchivedUser

glak said:

Good to know.  For PvP, collision is a need.  For PvE, collision is a deficit.  Will be interesting to see how they implement friendly, soft, physical collision and friendly spell collision.

No, it's not needed for PvP...
It doesn't really matter, with it and without it, PvP both works.

On the other hand, if there will be, it is 100% that it will be exploited.

ArchivedUser

MADE said:

glak said:

Good to know.  For PvP, collision is a need.  For PvE, collision is a deficit.  Will be interesting to see how they implement friendly, soft, physical collision and friendly spell collision.

No, it's not needed for PvP...
It doesn't really matter, with it and without it, PvP both works.

On the other hand, if there will be, it is 100% that it will be exploited.

Agreed. I have not played a single mmorpg where collision would been a must. It can be interesting, but my fear is that this feature will cause more troubles than what it brings to the game. 

McStackerson said:

Ferryman said:

I am not sure if i am so excited of this player collision. Just imagining battleground or raid situations where pugs are bouncing like flipper balls making the whole fight a mess.. *sigh*

Players will learn...they always do.

Some will, but not all of them. I just dont want to see these catastrophic battles where some players will ruin others gaming experience because weird and stupid solutions. I remember how this happened almost daily in WoW and there was not collision at use. So that "always" is a bit little too much imo.

That spell collision sounds interesting though unless players at same side can block your spells too.

ArchivedUser

I forget which game it was in that had collision, but you could nudge those AFK/blockers.  Some people would come back to game and find themselves far away.  So if we can nudge people who are in the way, it won't be so bad.

ArchivedUser

T-Elf said:

I forget which game it was in that had collision, but you could nudge those AFK/blockers.  Some people would come back to game and find themselves far away.  So if we can nudge people who are in the way, it won't be so bad.

Seems legit solution to push players out from safe zones, into a pack of mobs, down a cliff or into a PvP enabled area :DDDD

ArchivedUser

I love the idea of player and spell collision. I agree my personal concerns with it are in player hubs but I have a feeling with the node system that there will be substantial investment in player communities. On the other hand I wouldn't mind if in towns and hubs collision was turned off and as soon as you leave into a combat prone region it was automatically turned back on. It may not be the best solution but why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ArchivedUser

Spell collision sounds interesting

ArchivedUser

In several games blocking an NPC was prevented with alternatives to the standard interact with the nearest collision primitive key binding, they had options like interact with npc or interact with loot, if the physics is good people trolling are just as likely to get themselves shoved out of the way and iall players on the doorway dogpile will be pushed over, the into reason they could block anything on other Thames is the players had no way to apply impulse or relative velocity it just cancelled all parties momentum on rigid body collide. 

ArchivedUser

Not if i said this but

• having player collision will open new pathways/ options for combat.  If Magical-Beam Struggles are (possibly) planned to be a thing ... that means that HitBoxes & Avatar Physics will be neat to experiment with - adding a " pinch " of hardcore/ technical-side of combat

Meaning .... Ability HitBoxes, Character HitBoxes and Avatar Physics will be neat to see in play

ArchivedUser

You remember the physics solved in the first halo when the rigid bodies jitter correction for being at rest would overflow from to many nearly zero impulses and you could fly in a warthog....

Yeah emergent behaviour offers far more fun

I always wanted to change the world not the laws of physics anyway

To their detrindet physics is dependant on the shape of primitives used... Ironically the almost least useful term hit box is almost valid for the games people cubes is problematic in.

Not an easy shape to move your averrga box, it's always hard to make it behave like as well as a convex hull would.

Difference between trying to get past a cat in a refridgerator or your gran ona  spacehopper

ArchivedUser

@debuggin
the only thing i can think of is how hitboxes & physics will be on the client-side of things. 

ArchivedUser

Ever gone zorbing.... The giant inflatable balls you get inside then roll around to wage war on your friends... bouncing everywhere... Yeah