This week's question from the newsletter is about auto adjusting the distance for ring-to-floor and apron-to-ring flying moves. Do you think it should be done to increase the success rate of such moves or do you think the distance should be set and leave it up to the player to make sure his opponent is properly in place?
I think auto-targeting makes sense, as long as it looks alright. I mean lets face it, you aren't going to launch yourself out at an opponent if you don't have them lined up, and animations tend to be sorta without aim most of the time. If the dude is close to the apron and you sling yourself over at him, you aren't going to put as much force into trying to get out there, you are just going to kinda hop over and fall onto him. In the same vein, if you are launching yourself out at him, and he is 3-feet to the left, you probably shouldn't be doing it from 3-feet to the left, but from right in front of where he is.
Remember that in pro-wrestling almost all of the dives are complete cooperation between the two men, and very rarely will you see somebody not be in place with their arms up ready to catch their opponent. Its dangerous if you don't. Once in a while somebody will take a nasty looking bump to the floor, but they are usually crazy people.
Thanks for the feedback, Spunk. So in your example, if the opponent is close to the apron you would prefer the move auto target and connect even if it looked a little odd to essentially drop down on him? Did I understand you right?
I can get behind the auto targetting, within reason. It may look a little unnatural at first, but isn't the sort of graphic slip up that ruins a game.
As long as the guy doesn't magically slide into place from 4 feet way or something it should be fine. I do think you need to have move differences between body styles...a 500 lb wrestler doing a flying spot shouldn't be able to fly as far as a 225 lb wrestler. The 500 lber should be able to try the move, just not as porficiently.
I know, a 500 lber SHOULDN'T be tryng those moves, but you know once the CAW is in, someone will be making that type of character.
Also the auto target shouldn't mean that it HITS 100% of the time. If you lock the auto-target in that way, I wouldn't be happy with it.
The auto target will make it easier for people to hit the high spots that everyone loves. The non-auto target means people have to think about when to break these moves out more carefully. I've played games with both and can adjust my play style accordingly as the game mechanics demand.
While it may not be as attractive graphically, I would prefer to have moves reliably target opponents. If that means a bit of sliding, I can deal with it. Smackdown already has tons of sliding around due to targeting and range issues, and I can say despite the glitchiness, I think the decrease in goofy looking misses is worthwhile. You don't see real wrestlers giving the audience a chance to chant 'you screwed up' 5 times in all of their TV matches.. ;)
Personally I would say auto aiming but only if the oponent is within a certain area. By that I mean auto aim if the oponent is in roughly the right area, but if they are miles out, or far too far in then you should miss.
I was thinking that you could do the auto target, but what if instead of changing the animation to suit the distance, why not just change the move entirely? Like you could break it down somewhat like this: You have 3 or 4 basic distance lengths based on how far the guy is from the turnbuckle, -directly below the buckle, -short/medium -long. For each distance, instead of altering animations, you could create the auto target set to use a different, more suitable move based on distance. An example would be a Frog Splash. No one would ever do a Frog Slash on a guy sitting right under the turnbuckle, so instead, the wrestler could do maybe a small monkey flip off the ropes if they're a smaller guy, or a stomp off the 2nd rope if they're big. Then you could use a different move for longer jumps, like a head butt, another such move you would never do at close range. Bigger wrestlers would not even have access to those longer moves. Another move that is rather short that comes to mind is the Shooting Star Splash.
I think this would also be more realistic too, because whenever you watch matches, most guys do certain moves from the same distance nearly every time. Plus, by changing the move automatically, it would also add a little variety to the match, and it would be simple to do for the players, as they don't really need to do anything but press one button! I think that would solve the problem of odd looking turnbuckle moves. But I don't know how practical the idea is.
I agree with a lot of what was already said about having an auto targeting system. As long as it is within reason. Like what was already said about the different weight classes should effect it as well. I remember it being like that in the old AKI engines. The smaller(faster) guys could fly farther. Anyway the defender should be in the target area(within reason) as the attacker starts his move or otherwise he will miss.
Question: how does the camera system in Uprising work currently?
The reason I ask, is that there's a significant amount of fudging you can do to address these kinds of issues that you can cover up by making changes to the camera.
For example: you've got Super Topeman outside the ring, getting to his feet, or whatever. Mister Twister is inside, ready to bust out a springboard senton. In one system, he'd run, jump onto the top rope, then just flip forward. If Topeman was in his path, the hitboxes would collide and they'd go sprawling. In another, he'd jump up, flip, and magically fly whatever the distance is to Topeman.
What you could is instead have the camera change position for this awesome high-flying, high-risk maneuver and show the action from the floor, behind Topeman. When you make this camera angle cut, you can automatically move both wrestlers to the appropriate location, letting the animation play out in a way that looks best. As long as this happens instantaneously during the angle change, it should mask the fact that you're re-orienting your wrestler models.
Now that I think about it, this is similar to what a lot of wrestling games do for downed opponent finishers (spears, People's Eblows, etc.) Wherever your character was, they pop to the centre of the ring so the animation can play out. It's cinematic, and can work very well, even in multiplayer matches.
[quote][cite] PWX_Dave:[/cite]Thanks for the feedback, Spunk. So in your example, if the opponent is close to the apron you would prefer the move auto target and connect even if it looked a little odd to essentially drop down on him? Did I understand you right?[/quote]
I'd prefer for that, yeah. If the dude taking it has to shuffle back a few steps thats fine, because that is what happens in actual pro-wrestling.
[quote][cite] Outrider:[/cite]I was thinking that you could do the auto target, but what if instead of changing the animation to suit the distance, why not just change the move entirely? Like you could break it down somewhat like this: You have 3 or 4 basic distance lengths based on how far the guy is from the turnbuckle, -directly below the buckle, -short/medium -long. For each distance, instead of altering animations, you could create the auto target set to use a different, more suitable move based on distance. An example would be a Frog Splash. No one would ever do a Frog Slash on a guy sitting right under the turnbuckle, so instead, the wrestler could do maybe a small monkey flip off the ropes if they're a smaller guy, or a stomp off the 2nd rope if they're big. Then you could use a different move for longer jumps, like a head butt, another such move you would never do at close range. Bigger wrestlers would not even have access to those longer moves. Another move that is rather short that comes to mind is the Shooting Star Splash.
I think this would also be more realistic too, because whenever you watch matches, most guys do certain moves from the same distance nearly every time. Plus, by changing the move automatically, it would also add a little variety to the match, and it would be simple to do for the players, as they don't really need to do anything but press one button! I think that would solve the problem of odd looking turnbuckle moves. But I don't know how practical the idea is.[/quote]
This sounds like an awesome solution IMO. It's a bit confusing and I don't know whether it's feasible or not but if it's do-able I think this is DEFINITELY the way to go. Breaking it up into 3 different distance ranges and having one button for a dive attack which automatically chooses which move to pull off would be a great way to handle things. From there the move could still auto-target unless the opponent succesfully initiates a counter/dodge.
By doing things this way it would still give the satisfaction of auto-targeting and would minimize the awkward automatic sliding of characters. Different suitable moves could be assigned to each distance and could be selected in CAW. Larger grapplers would only be able to select the nearest two distances and could default to sliding/rolling out of the ring for the furthest distance.
If the opponent is outside a suitable range for the diving attack a press of the diving attack button should always default to sliding outside the ring or a fake attack.
Implementing this would mean a lot more work and programming but IMO it would provide the best results by far.
Leave it up to the player. Aerial moves are high-risk moves that you don't do that often and they should take a bit of skill and planning to pull off. Let's turn it around and look at this from Player 2's perspective. If Player 1 goes for, I dunno, A top rope lariat and a standing player 2 snaps out of his confusion and is able to move, Player 1 can magically hit him every time because his move auto adjusts. It would just seem cheap to have auto adjusting to me.
[quote][cite] Spunk:[/cite][quote][cite] PWX_Dave:[/cite]Thanks for the feedback, Spunk. So in your example, if the opponent is close to the apron you would prefer the move auto target and connect even if it looked a little odd to essentially drop down on him? Did I understand you right?[/quote]
I'd prefer for that, yeah. If the dude taking it has to shuffle back a few steps thats fine, because that is what happens in actual pro-wrestling.[/quote]
I have to agree with this. Auto-targetting and hitting moves seems more important than perfect animation.
The auto target would be great to a degree. The way I see it is that Jeff Hardy should be able to hit a move anywhere in the ring. Kurt Angle should only have a middle ground.
I agree with auto target but with exceptions. Each wrestler should have a defined range (shortest to longest) for aerial moves. If the opponent is too far from this range the move should miss, but if the opponent is in range but not perfectly lined up the move should still land. There should also be a way for the opponent to evade or reverse aerial moves. Pretty much what KFR42 and killerb said.
I agree. Not everybody should be hitting every move in every location. I think it ought to require a bit of skill to set up, but it shouldn't be a once in a blue moon thing to actually hit it. I agree with the majority and saw to do it how No Mercy did it.
I think the way they did it in ASPW 3 was pretty well done too, even down to the opponent actually wiggling a little so they could take the move and be in the correct position.
Why should the opponent wiggle into position? Sure I understand why it is done on live TV, but on a game it would be annoying if your guy just auto-matically set himself into position to be attacked.
like many people here said, no mercy got it right, you had to time it right just like in real life in order to hit it, and even if only your leg hit the guy he would sell it. and the jumping distance was predetremined for each wrestler as a caw option. so you could assign undertaker with a long jumping distance, and andre with a short distance.
Honestly you might want to make two different situations for this. There should be moves you do to people who are up against the apron, and there should be moves done to people who are a set distance from it. Both of these moves should auto adjust to a certain distance. If your opponent is beyond that distance, you should automatically not be able to jump out of the ring. That way you prevent someone from doing diving attacks onto you by means of moving away from them. Simple. It also makes timing very important. Also, in CAW you could pick what you do if someone is out of range. You could set up your wrestler to hold himself up the ropes, bounce off them and go back to the ring, or slide to the floor. The big thing you do not want is to make people hit this move automatically, but at the same time you don't want them to miss them and go splat all the time. Getting this right will go a long way to making matches feel realistic and balanced whenever a high flying wrestler is involved.
As a suggestion to add onto this, I think it would be very fun if someone could choose, either by commands during a match, or by selection in CAW, to make this a hit or miss move. People should be able to take chances and jump as far as they can at their opponent as an act of insanity or desperation, but it should cost them the match if they miss. Most importantly, people need to make that choice consciously and it needs to be a rare occurrence unless someone really wants to be a risk taker.
I know most of this has been said already, great thread people.
Maybe you jump then you do a minigame to set your trajectory, so technically if your opponent trys to escape you can set your guy to jump at that position before he gets there.
I think it should be auto targeted in No Mercy the move looked "perfect" only for the guy that's doing it and honestly I can rarely land a move without auto targeting like Smackdown games .In Games like No Mercy u have to kill the guy so he can't stand up and then maybe just maybe you can execute a flying move from the apron SUCKS!
Well in real life it's kind of like this: Person A is on the ground and person B is on the top rope. Now person B has total control over what direction he jumps and whether he jumps 5ft. or 15ft. but obviously he is going to aim for the spot where person A is. So I don't know which category that falls into but when person B presses the jump button he should jump for the spot person A was in when he presses the jump button.
I think SvR does auto targeting and it's horrible. I just hate it when you do a kick-ass move to the outside - let's say some corkscrew thing - you wouldn't even touch the opponent but WOW! Your wrestler changes his direction WHILE FLYING and without any contact to anything else! Is he superman? No, better! He's JOHN CENA~!
Chose the natural and better looking way and not auto-targetting.
Auto-targeting is fine against stunned (standing) or downed opponents, in LOW 3:Showdown you will get "locked in place" when your opponent does a diving move against you, which means that even if you are halfway across the ring from him you will be locked in place while his diving attack connects, needless to say it's extremely annoying. I have no problem with downed opponents "lining up" to make the animation connect properly, ASPW 3 does it, and from what i have seen it looks perfectly acceptable.
I think issue really ties into how running in general. If you can only run north south east and west, it will be harder to make these moves work. If you run directly towards your opponent you will not have to auto adjust sideways very much, just for depth.
I forgot to say that auto targetting would take the difficulty and the fun out of those moves. As long as diving moves are hard to perform, they won't be used often and it'll be a greater success if you hit one. But with auto targetting, it'll be just senseless spotting, trying to jump out of the ring as often as possible. It would suck A HUGE LOT. So, please do not implement it. I mean, how much fun is it to do a move without any difficulty or risk? That may be fine for 10-year-old Smackdown-players, but not for us... or atleast for me. DO IT FOR ME!!!!
[quote][cite] Foo:[/cite]Question: how does the camera system in Uprising work currently?
[/quote]
For now it is a single pan and zoom camera much like any other game if you turn camera cuts off in the option menu. We could definitely fudge some things if we added a camera cut whenever we wanted to reposition something. SvR does that a lot and I personally don't enjoy it that much.
So what we've talked about regarding auto targeting after your feedback is that most would prefer we didn't make things too terribly 'idiot proof'. In other words, some situations should remain high risk and carry a significant reward for skilled players who can pull them off. I think that's a good compromise.
Just to address PunkDraco's comment, you do in fact auto target your opponent if you press the run button without any additional direction input. So running moves have to potential to auto target to a degree because you will target your opponent's position at the time you pressed the run button. If your opponent moves out of the way you will not follow him. No heatseaking running attacks ;-)
I'm very reluctant to lock an opponent into position for flying moves for the reason OD50 pointed out. It removes your ability to react and evade in real time.
I really think that if you make it so people do not always go for the crazy flying moves that this wont be a problem. If people want to over ride this default and fall to there dooms, thats cool too.
Ultimately I'd like the flying system to be even more manual for the experienced players. Give you control over each axis of rotation and the in/out pose during flight to perform flying moves manually rather than have them animated. But that concept is a lonnnnnng way from even being tested.
Not sure if I'm a huge fan of that one, its wrestling not skydiving. I don't want to be tested Skate style just to do a Plancha, unless theres an equivalent for your power guys to uber up their moves.
[quote][cite] Colly:[/cite]Not sure if I'm a huge fan of that one, its wrestling not skydiving. I don't want to be tested Skate style just to do a Plancha, unless theres an equivalent for your power guys to uber up their moves.[/quote]
Skate proved to be successful though, so if skate can do it I think wrestling should try.
It may work it may not. If it where my call I would wait on that much control of wrestlers mid aid. I would try it in a high flying spot game influenced by PWX and if happened to fit into PWX Id add it via free update.
[quote][cite] dratsab:[/cite][quote][cite] Colly:[/cite]Not sure if I'm a huge fan of that one, its wrestling not skydiving. I don't want to be tested Skate style just to do a Plancha, unless theres an equivalent for your power guys to uber up their moves.[/quote]
Skate proved to be successful though, so if skate can do it I think wrestling should try.[/quote]
Yes, but the point of Skate was to show that the realistic main part of skateboarding is in controlling height, distance, etc as opposed to holding trangle and grinding phonelines. The same can't be said of wrestling games where an occasional highspot is a minor part of the overall idea.
I love the idea of auto-targeting, but within reason. I cannot stand when I execute a flying move and I shoot over the head of a stunned opponent (for example). So, here's how I think it should work: Auto-targeting should line up with the opponent at the time of execution (ie where the opponent is at the time of the button press to do the move). If the opponent is stunned, he would not be able to move out of the way, and the move would connect. If the opponent is not stunned, he would obviously be free to try and move out of the way of the move. The trajectory would be locked at the time of execution, and if the opponent moved, the move would miss. And, yes, there should be a certain window for a reversal/dodge as well. This of course, still leaves significant 'danger' for the player executing a flying move. I really like the idea of the "three distances" of moves. This would provide a clear range of practicality for the programmers, and would aid in keeping the gameplay more realistic. I don't like the idea of different distances doing different moves. The problems with that idea is that it A)would be hell for the poor programmers, and B)destroys my free-will in the CAW system. The exception would be allowing the player to set all three animations for each of the flying move situations, which brings me back to A)hell for the programmers. Maybe that system could be integrated into the next iteration of PWX? The "three distances" could be adjusted by whatever stats determine your "aerial attack ability". If weight is going to affect jumping distance, then that too would adjust the range of the "three distances". The idea of the "three distances" would make it pretty practical for the programmers, allowing them to 'simply' create four animations for each move. Three for the execution of the move, following from launch to landing on the mat (ie a 'missed' move), interrupting this animation for if/when the move connected, blending into the 'connect' animation. Since the auto-target adjustment would be made at the moment of execution, it should not look strange at all. And the three animations should free computational resources and look more 'natural', instead of the 'chopping up' system currently in use.
[quote][cite] Colly:[/cite][quote][cite] dratsab:[/cite][quote][cite] Colly:[/cite]Not sure if I'm a huge fan of that one, its wrestling not skydiving. I don't want to be tested Skate style just to do a Plancha, unless theres an equivalent for your power guys to uber up their moves.[/quote]
Skate proved to be successful though, so if skate can do it I think wrestling should try.[/quote]
Yes, but the point of Skate was to show that the realistic main part of skateboarding is in controlling height, distance, etc as opposed to holding trangle and grinding phonelines. The same can't be said of wrestling games where an occasional highspot is a minor part of the overall idea.[/quote]
Maybe you could tweak your suplexes with it too! Like using a euphoria engine some day, and being able to control how your suplexes land by controlling height, your arms, your legs, etc.
[quote][cite] PWX_Dave:[/cite][quote][cite] Foo:[/cite]Question: how does the camera system in Uprising work currently?
[/quote]
For now it is a single pan and zoom camera much like any other game if you turn camera cuts off in the option menu. We could definitely fudge some things if we added a camera cut whenever we wanted to reposition something. SvR does that a lot and I personally don't enjoy it that much.
So what we've talked about regarding auto targeting after your feedback is that most would prefer we didn't make things too terribly 'idiot proof'. In other words, some situations should remain high risk and carry a significant reward for skilled players who can pull them off. I think that's a good compromise.
...
I'm very reluctant to lock an opponent into position for flying moves for the reason OD50 pointed out. It removes your ability to react and evade in real time.[/quote] Keep in mind, however, that being "locked" into a certain spot doesn't mean you're helpless. Just because the camera pops your players into a realistic-looking location, doesn't meant that the potential victim couldn't hit the reversal or attack button with the correct timing and pull off a dodge or intercepting dropkick (for example).
Whatever you do, just try to get a good balance between needing skill to pull off and looking like a complete tard for missing a plancha on a dizzied opponent. Hell, there are flying moves in FirePro that I still can't figure out the timing for! Just promise me you won't have moves like that. ;)