Sers

[Marrt]

My name is Martin,
i just had to join this Forum as the number of games without game-play, increases by every minute. DIABLOIII is coming up and i watched a couple of Vids and found out: YOU HAVE TO STAND STILL TO CAST SPELLS! WTF, how can someone take the action out of game-play with such an annoying mechanic, its 2012! In the Year 2000 Nox failed to reach the masses like DiabloII did, but i always thought that Diablo was totally inferior because of this Stand-Still while doing fuck mechanic and was unjustifiably hyped. I'm still face-palming when i see DiabloII as its commercial success vs. Nox reminds me how Gaming Industry works...

I played the Nox2 Demo, i instantly remembered the old days and thought about what really made Nox so appealing to me.
-realistic Line of Sight
-shitload of abilities
-shields
-skillbased combat
-shooting fireballs and rays, essentially playing the mage guy

So after nearly 12 years without anything comparable to Nox released i decided to try my luck. I'm close to finish my academic career and i felt capable of creating something. A friend of mine showed me this awesome gaming tool, Unity.

So now im in the middle of developing my game: a tribute to Nox if you want, take a peek, its only 700kB in size:
hoster1 http://marrt.elementfx.com/
hoster2 http://marrt.site11.com/

i implemented most of the basic stuff but its already pretty overloaded, so just press 'SinglePlayerTestLevel' and roam around a bit. ATM i'm adding gadgets to substitute the lack of magic. of course its a gunship in the sky rather than a wizard in a tomb but its all about gameplay, not presentation.
Please dont mind the graphics as its only a gameplay study until now, no awsome textures or models, just gameplay-design, thats why its only 700kB.

[Morden Tral]

Already there


http://www.livestream.com/noxcast/video?clipId=pla_561fbf01-518b-436d-8a8e-cff79ec9742a

[Marrt]

Yeah, i played the demo already,

are you gonna add some new features or are you aiming for a direct nox1 -3dPort?

features that would be awsome are a option for wasd movement with strafing capability (the skills will be on q e r f 1 2 3 of course with shift and alt multiplying the keys to link on skills available at a time)

even the goddamn gargoyles in hecubas temple were able to strafe as far as i remember...

[Morden Tral]

No they couldn't, and no strafing wouldn't fit nox at all. Also the demo is about 40 features short of that video.

Wasd movement is too slow and fucked up to work in nox.

[#zx.pr0jk]

No they couldn't

Some small flying creatures would strafe to the side to dodge projectiles. Imps in particular could; possibly mechanical flyers as well. Try it with the flare wand.

[Morden Tral]

Really? weird, I don't remember them doing that. But then again you never see those online and i quit quest years ago.

[Jekate]

I remember imps doing it. Not mech flyers though.

[Marrt]

The little Imps did, and the crossbow gargoyles did, im absolutely sure. i always played with the first staff the shots this yellow slow sparks, and it made them successfully strafe away because the projectiles where so slow. in this video strafing is also there but hardly visible but his second blast shows it:
GOTO 1:41 if it doesnt jump automatically

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/EHIRlQDGhxA&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/EHIRlQDGhxA&rel=0</a>

i remember me trying to find out a maybe hidden way to make my character strafe(i was young). It was really the only flaw in the control of the character that you had to move your mouse 90 degree relative to the character to make a litte sidestep and then back 90 degree to realign cursor with target. of course you can turn left, jump, and realign while jumping without stopping movement in the evading direction but that always felt so uncomfortable when seeing these little bastards dodging your stuff while shooting at you simultaneously. its just that it could be much easier when adding strafe capabilities. buttons for an alternative movement mode would be there:

WASD -move
QERF  -skills (with shifting buttons: lshift, alt)
12345 -skillbarswitch

the jump feature could also be made an essential dodge feature with your character doing a fast evasion step when moving in a direction while pressing jump.

anyway, just some thoughts, when can we check the 40 new features ourselfes  ?

[Morden Tral]

See the problem with that is that good wizs already don't have a moment of not pressing buttons and that layout is really awkward. Also stutter stepping in a game with huge aim reliance is just a hinderence to smooth and enjoyable gameplay. The nice thing about the 90 degree mouse sweeps was the level of accuracy and pinpoint snap aiming that you had to develop over the years of playing the game.

Adding in wasd movement would if anything slow the pace of gameplay down or just simply not be used at all (if optional).

[Marrt]

i think you got me wrong, i didn't mean to remove the mouse, without mouse nox would suck balls.

its just that the "you can only move forward" mechanic makes it impossible to e.g. run away and shot some fireballs in the enemy direction. knight fights would be more fast paced if you can sidestep more easily. thats the same reason that magicka is a little awkward  to play but they have this 8 elements mechanic which is its own kind of gameplay.

"...wizs already don't have a moment of not pressing buttons..." there was no skill in nox that had to be channeled by holding a button, they were all triggers, i dont think it would make any difference in skill activation if you can move with rightclick and WASD and shoot with QERF - or - only move with rightclick and shoot with asdfg

[#zx.pr0jk]

Magicka isn't awkward and WASD would make the entire game feel floaty. Walking toward the cursor makes it easier to keep track of yourself when particles are flying everywhere.

People can already dodge left and right without strafe keys. Facing and vectors are a big deal to game balance.

You can achieve the same effect as left and right strafe by using Jump at the right times. I've seen it used numerous times over the years.

Any warrior worth a shit is going to circle their target between swings, and doing so is in no way difficult.

The list goes on why wasd is neither needed, nor good for gameplay here.

[Marrt]

hmm, well that are some points. i agree, but i dont get what you mean by game balance, do you mean that strafing would make a class imba or smth? and that this movement is also justified for balance reasons?

[Morden Tral]

How much time did you spend on nox multiplayer? If its been awhile or the answer was "not much" I'd suggest that you go and play some. I understand that your game demo is to be "nox like" but after playing it the controls felt incredibly awkward for a fast paced action game.

[Marrt]

Yeah, im still evaluating some movement possibilities, therefore there are currently 3 modes in my demo, you can cycle through them by pressing 'X'

-default is arcade = wasd relative to camera (caus all ppl who tried my demo liked that the most, i hate it)
-regular = wasd relative to ship (my favourite)
-rotateWithShip = kind of unpolished 3rd person which lacks some features

the current mode is also stated above in the green text. you can rotate and tilt camera too: IJKL

and of course i will add the original Nox movement too, but first i have to add my trigger script correctly on my network instantiations...

The last time i played nox multiplayer was january on a LAN but the guys there played it first time and they really...sucked... so that wont count i guess. before that there was a gap of at least 3 years or so... i dipped in some sinlgeplayer to check the visibility mechanic again in march... anyway, i have no doubt that you guys would own me in nox anytime. just wanted to hear your opinions and thoughts on controls in general. 

Edit:
Ok, Updated my game, press 'X' two times to cycle to NoxMovement (should be indicated in green on top),
its more like Nox:
Move Forward: RMB
Triggers: LMB, A, S, D, F, G
Space: AimingSplitscreen
- i also increased the rotational limit to 5000 when in nox mode, for instant direction changes that are needed in this mode
- u may have to press 'F5' to manually refresh the gamefile of the unityPlayer

[#zx.pr0jk]

If you're making your own game, you can determine the best system for it. Maybe wasd is needed, maybe not. If players are enjoying one way over another, it's worth considering. Games are supposed to be fun after all. I don't know how your projectiles are sourced or how you're handling targeting over variable ranges, but you should decide on a viewport early in the process before people get used to it. You can't balance skills/projectiles/w.e with everyone playing a different game.

For Nox, wasd is not beneficial. The game has been designed with the assumption that players will do all actions in their facing direction and along their movement vector. The design simplifies gameplay. You're either attacking, or you're evading. If the person is attacking you, they have to look at you(with only two or three exceptions off the top of my head). If they are running from you, they can't attack you. If they want to attack you, they'll need to change direction, run at you, or stop. So you can more intrinsically determine your opponent's confidence, their routes, when they're attacking, and when you're safe to engage or run.

I can't tell you what would work for your game, but just 'tacking in' a radically different means of movement for Nox would require redesigning skills from the ground up and gameplay so foreign, it wouldn't be Nox. I'd like people that look back on the game to stop saying things like how the movement and targeting interface are dated and unwieldy. It was a design choice, and not some kind of engine limitation, although this implementation has inherit functional perks.