Player Movement - Inertia, Weightiness, and Immersion

This possibly could have been addressed already but I've not been able to find information on the Player Movement Wiki, nor can I recall the exact topic being talked about on the livestreams.

TLDR: Basically, World of Warcraft's character movement system heavily breaks immersion during combat. What I don't enjoy about it boils down to character acceleration and turning radius. These are my suggestions to fix the problem I forsee.

[I'm sure that this is not the sentiment of many veteran MMORPG players like Steven (due to system familiarity bias, which isn't neccesarily bad). This viewpoint is coming from a younger player who is looking to get into the genre through Ashes of Creation.]

My Suggestions: I think players should have three states:
- Not Moving: almost instant rate of rotation, and zero-point turn radius (obviously)
- Accelerating: slower rate of rotation, and mild turn radius
- Maximum Velocity: much slower rate of rotation, and largest turn radius

As a note: even at Maximum Velocity, all values should still be considerably smaller than in Black Desert Online. It's my intuition that having Tab-Targeting requires faster turning overall.

Negatives: Poor accesibility, and less responsive gameplay of course!

Counterpoint: WoW's movement (though certainly easy to learn) has a VERY mild learning curve, and apart from some very niche tactics, lacks a ton of depth.

In Closing: My concern lies with the fact that going with a basic character control system (like WoW's) will massively hamper the combat systems, and be somewhat lack-luster amongst the backdrop of this grand MMORPG for players that share my view.

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Comments

LowQuey

I agree there should be some difference in armour types, but not necessarily in your actions. Instead I think movement speed as a whole should be somewhat impacted. A tank in heavy armour carrying a shield SHOULD move slower than a rogue wearing light armour. However on the other hand a tank will also be much fitter than a mage so a mage shouldn't then be able to outrun a rogue, instead using his magi to escape.

OrcLuck

Wanting the game to feel good is expected, but there is a problem of reality that comes into play.

Server ping times etc. I know 100% that MMO infrastructure has gotten really good, but not good enough to satisfy a pure action oriented combat style yet.

I pray the United States internet infrastructure gets investment, I its my most fervent wish that we get to play games with the fidelity of play that you can find in places like South Korea.

I hope we get it some day soon.

Wandering Mist

HellFrost wrote: »

MrBlueSky wrote: »

1. I'm speaking to base movement systems, and not anything to do with combat specifics. This means I'm not concerned with how mobility skills have been implemented for each class.
2. There is a distinct difference between fluid and simplistic. Somebody who tries Super Mario 64 for the first time will suck and call that movement clunky. However if you actually play the game you find that the movement is rewarding and responsive, even fluid.

By your logic, Super Mario 64 would be frustrating because you can't just do whatever you want at any time; you have to build some momentum and be decent at the game.

Imagine Assassin's Creed with WoW movement.

Movement and combat is directly related because if you have sluggish movement, combat will also feel sluggish. You also opened with how movement in WoW breaks combat immersion which for the most activities it does not.

In the end they want action combat system and if you want to feel action the movement must be simplistic, because all your suggestions adds sluggishness and that takes away from the action.

AC/Super or Super Mario are not action games. Look at Devil May Cry if you want better comparison. Imagine if DMC had turn radius. That would completely ruin the action that's going on.

Agreed. You can't really use Super Mario games as a comparison. The movement in Super Mario is entirely designed around precision platforming rather than combat. What you have to ask yourself is, what do you want the player to focus on the most while playing? Do you want the player to have to dedicate their entire mind to just controlling the character, or to the combat? In a game like Super Mario you can make more nuanced movement because that is all the player has to focus on, but in an mmorpg, putting such an emphasis on the movement means the player has less room to focus on the combat.

Tragnar

It would be great if there were accelerating starting animations with movement - even for turning

However the gameplay side of things should not be a complicated math equation - it should feel fluid and responsive, because when you add the inherit lag of mmo games then you could see pretty frustrating gameplay

maouw

SuperMario64 was more of an extreme example where the inertia is really obvious - but you have a point about platformers @Wandering Mist

I think things more along the lines of what Tragnar is saying - stuff that you find in Witcher 3, God of War 4, Assassins Creed etc.

I'm just not a fan of floatiness of movement - and I understand the other extreme, sluggish movement, is equally unhelpful. The latter makes the controls complicated and frustrating, the former lacks a sense of presence in the world.

Tragnar

I should have written it more clear - the acceleration and turning should be only animation illusions - no gameplay acceleration and turning

Wandering Mist

Tragnar wrote: »

I should have written it more clear - the acceleration and turning should be only animation illusions - no gameplay acceleration and turning

But gameplay is tied directly to the animations. If you have them out of sync that is even worse in my opinion.

Tragnar

Best place to look is actually Riot with league of legends - the responsiveness is incredibly high and all smoothness lies only in the character animations - you do not have there any movement accelerations or graduate turnings.

This will only make the game feel incredibly clunky to control

Wandering Mist

Tragnar wrote: »

Best place to look is actually Riot with league of legends - the responsiveness is incredibly high and all smoothness lies only in the character animations - you do not have there any movement accelerations or graduate turnings.

This will only make the game feel incredibly clunky to control

Ok now I'm confused. Are you arguing for or against realistic inertia?

Tragnar

I want realistic inertia, but only in animations - actual player character movement should not be in the slightest a subject to this

Wandering Mist

Tragnar wrote: »

I want realistic inertia, but only in animations - actual player character movement should not be in the slightest a subject to this

What you ask is impossible. Gameplay is directly tied to the animations. If the animations are slow (like in Dark Souls) then the gameplay will be slow. If the animations are fast (like in Street Fighter), the gameplay will be a lot faster. You can't have slower or more "realistic" animations paired with fast gameplay, it just doesn't work.

League of Legends doesn't have realistic inertia in the character movement, except in certain circumstances like Sion's ult charging up to full speed, which is done for balancing reasons.

Tragnar

You literally don't understand my point.

Any added realism for movement should be only in the windup animation - which is usually only few frames (but immensely important)

The gameplay firsthand needs to feel fluid to play and be above all else extremely responsive. By adding movement acceleration or deceleration you basically kill responsiveness - which works for platformers or racing games

Also I have not said anything about fast or slow gameplay - speed of gameplay has nothing to do with the responsiveness or fluidity

Wandering Mist

Tragnar wrote: »

You literally don't understand my point.

Any added realism for movement should be only in the windup animation - which is usually only few frames (but immensely important)

The gameplay firsthand needs to feel fluid to play and be above all else extremely responsive. By adding movement acceleration or deceleration you basically kill responsiveness - which works for platformers or racing games

Also I have not said anything about fast or slow gameplay - speed of gameplay has nothing to do with the responsiveness or fluidity

right but even if you only apply inertia for the wind up or the start of an animation, you are still effectively slowing that animation down, even for just a few frames and this will effect the gameplay. If you don't tie the animations to the gameplay you get a situation where (for example) attacks hit before your character has reached the relevant point in the animation. This is what contributes to clunky gameplay because your eyes are telling you 2 different things at the same time.

Tragnar

That is why windup animations for abilities are supposed to be only few frames long (i.e. up to ~0.1s)

however we were not talking about ability animations (where i believe that animation locking is the worst gameplay imaginable)

For movement itself having players instantly move at max speed is extremely important and the best thing you can do is to implement acceleration animations at already full speed so the only side-effect is slight drifting until the animation matches full speed

maouw

@Tragnar
Yeah! I would love 0.1s of windup - coz windup and follow through are essentially mimicking inertial physics.
Also I'm 100% with you on animation locking - which is why I prefer the 0.1 seconds of actual physics instead of animation locked mimicry.

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