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Indivisible: Lab Zero's Action-RPG! (General Discussion)

Best run animations:

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Tank said:
I didn't get to ask this in the stream. Will Ajna's bow and arrow only have like eight aiming directions or will it have 360° directions? With a frame/picture for each degree?
I think there's an answer in your question.
 
Not-So-Saint said:
I think there's an answer in your question.
I'm asking will there be 8 static directions kinda like metroid or will she be able to fire at all/most angles like an actual archer would need.
 
Tank said:
I'm asking will there be 8 static directions kinda like metroid or will she be able to fire at all/most angles like an actual archer would need.
From the video posted earlier in the thread, I think it's 8 static directions?
 
Tank said:
I'm asking will there be 8 static directions kinda like metroid or will she be able to fire at all/most angles like an actual archer would need.
I think there's an answer in your question - will we be doing a ridiculous [360 or even 180 frames of animation] * [number of frames in a bow shot] just so you can aim with an analog stick, for a game that is playable with the keyboard in which aiming with an analog stick would make basically no difference most of the time?
NOPE.
 
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Senjin said:
Sooo... mostly blocked by trees/debris to hide the incomplete animation?


Let it be noted that I have not actually seen the referenced show and am judging entirely based on the presented gif.
What about Batman's new walk animation?
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Much as I love you, Tank, I'm still not sure why you asked that.
She also doesn't have to go pick up her arrows like an actual archer would need to...
 
"Targets that need to be shot at 27.5°- My only weakness!"
 
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I asked cause the 45 degree angles she's shooting at just seem weird to use for a bow and arrow since the arrows look like they are gonna use a parabolic arc and fly pretty far. With an angle like that and the distance they can go the camera is gonna have to pull back pretty far to see where they are landing. So more shallow angles would be nice. I knew when I asked that 360° with a frame for each degree would be too much. But more than 8 directions is the answer I was hoping for.

Tldr: I was fishing for things I'd like :p
 
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If in doubt, just make the arrow a magic thing of light they goes straight until disappears.

A tad lazy, but reduces the possibility of problems.
 
Tank said:
I asked cause the 45 degree angles she's shooting at just seem weird to use for a bow and arrow since the arrows look like they are gonna use a parabolic arc and fly pretty far. With an angle like that and the distance they can go the camera is gonna have to pull back pretty far to see where they are landing. So more shallow angles would be nice. I knew when I asked that 360° with a frame for each degree would be too much. But more than 8 directions is the answer I was hoping for.

Tldr: I was fishing for things I'd like :p
So how would you do more than 8 directions outside of the analog stick?

Sent from my SM-G928R4 using Tapatalk
 
Tank said:
I asked cause the 45 degree angles she's shooting at just seem weird to use for a bow and arrow since the arrows look like they are gonna use a parabolic arc and fly pretty far. With an angle like that and the distance they can go the camera is gonna have to pull back pretty far to see where they are landing.
Or...just not see where they land until you reach that spot?
 
@J-Boogie said:
So how would you do more than 8 directions outside of the analog stick?

Sent from my SM-G928R4 using Tapatalk
So right now the bow and arrow looks like it works like this.
Hold direction, tap arrow shoot button, shoot that direction. (Or if no direction is held shoot forward)
For keyboards to get more than 8 directions you can hold the arrow button down then tap up or down to change the angle. Tap left or right to look left or right. If you want to quickly get back to those static 45° angles hold those directions instead of tapping up and down. And from the static angles you can still tap up or down to get the extra angles. Hope that makes sense.
 
It does but it's also kind of terrible, sorry man.

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Oh man, I'm getting flashbacks to Dark Castle on Genesis. No thanks!

Yeah, if Samus is cool with 8 directions, I think Ajna will be fine.
 
@J-Boogie said:
It does but it's also kind of terrible, sorry man.

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Why is it terrible? You still use the same buttons to get those 45° angles but now you have options.
 
Tank said:
Why is it terrible? You still use the same buttons to get those 45° angles but now you have options.

Because you have to look at this from a number of angles: sure it's more options but are they necessarily good? What would be added by trying to add more angles? Is it for puzzles? Or is it for enemies? Then you have to ask why is that better than just repositioning yourself? And this would mean that it'd only be good while standing, yeah? Put yourself in the developers chair and ask yourself if it'd be worth implementing something like this instead of just sticking with '8' directions. (I put things in quotes as it's only going on the belief that at least one of the player states will let you shoot in all 8 directions)

And this isn't even getting into the programming and whether you have to put in exceptions for jumping or crouching if you're not supposed to do 'fine' aiming then or even the additional artwork required.

Tl;Dr version: you say you like the idea but from a design perspective do the pros of adding it outweigh the cons from an outside perspective?


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Could have a toggle for "Smooth" aim (Hold Action, Hold Up will go up) and "Tabbed" aim (Hold Action, Tap up to go 45d Up, Tap again for 90d Up)

edit: oh.. still on the subject of "360 vs 8 way". yeah... uh.. If this was any typical sprite game, it'd be easy to manipulate the arms/bow. This is all hand drawn. It's a no go. Just be content with 8 way.
 
While this is already done-- what is the gameplay benefit of having 360 degrees of motion for aiming your bow, and how does that reflect on making content for that mechanic-- Level design, enemies, placement of items, and task difficulty;

8 degrees of action is easy to grasp, you can design around it much easier than having say, like, 32 degrees or 360 degrees; You also have to consider that arrows have gravity to them? So if you know the behavior of an arrow aimed at 0 degrees-- since of course, you know how long until arrows start to be suspect of gravity, their mass, all that junk; Imagine that but for a huge range of angles, and room for error

That all aside, uh.. gameplay trumps selling points?

I just wanna superjump with the staff, that thing is COOL
 
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@J-Boogie said:
Because you have to look at this from a number of angles: sure it's more options but are they necessarily good? What would be added by trying to add more angles? Is it for puzzles? Or is it for enemies? Then you have to ask why is that better than just repositioning yourself? And this would mean that it'd only be good while standing, yeah? Put yourself in the developers chair and ask yourself if it'd be worth implementing something like this instead of just sticking with '8' directions. (I put things in quotes as it's only going on the belief that at least one of the player states will let you shoot in all 8 directions)

And this isn't even getting into the programming and whether you have to put in exceptions for jumping or crouching if you're not supposed to do 'fine' aiming then or even the additional artwork required.

Tl;Dr version: you say you like the idea but from a design perspective do the pros of adding it outweigh the cons from an outside perspective?


Sent from my SM-G928R4 using Tapatalk

The pro of having more angles is you won't have to reposition your self because you can get the angle right from where you are. And I may be assuming wrong but arrows may fly farther/closer the longer/shorter you hold the button. More angles means you can shoot a farther distance without having to spend time charging. More angles more control. Also since you slow down mid air there is no reason why you couldn't use extra angles in the air. Plus cycling through each direction would look smoother with more angles. Of course they could add In between frames to make those transitions smoother but at that point you may as well make those tweens aimable directions since you have to do the work any way.

On the amount of extra art. 16 directions would be a good number of directions. 0° 23° 45° 68° 90° ..... half angles between the current angles. I won't pretend to know how many frames those extra directions would need but I'm sure there are work arounds to make them less work ? (The noob animator in me says just rotate some art a little but that way of thinking is a good way to get chewed out :p)

I guess I am on the outside so from an outside perspective more angles more control is better.
From the inside (lab zero) perspective it's more work.
 
Tank said:
The pro of having more angles is you won't have to reposition your self because you can get the angle right from where you are.
This is not always true, or even the majority of the time. :^P If you have to shoot into a gap you have one valid angle.

Tank said:
And I may be assuming wrong but arrows may fly farther/closer the longer/shorter you hold the button.
Uncharged shots are affected by gravity, charged shots currently are not.

Tank said:
Of course they could add In between frames to make those transitions smoother but at that point you may as well make those tweens aimable directions since you have to do the work any way.
No, you most certainly do not "have to do the work anyway". To fix tweening we'd do one smear frame of "going to UF from below it" and one "going to UF from above it", which adds 2 frames per each of the (5, because backward is flipped) directions. This is NOT the same as animating a 15 frame shot for all 180/120/90/60 intervening directions.

Tank said:
I guess I am on the outside so from an outside perspective more angles more control is better.
I disagree with this statement, because it's only even easy to USE with an analog stick, which is 1/3 of the possible control methods. It's actually more difficult with keyboard/D-pad.

I also disagree from a design perspective - Smash TV, Robotron, Megaman 2's Metal Blade, Super Metroid (probably the closest comparison here) etc. all work fine with 8 way shots. Unless you are in a bullet hell environment with strongly constrained shots for yourself that need to hit enemies coming at random angles as the main focus (e.g. Geometry Wars) I don't necessarily think arbitrary aiming is "better" than 8 way. Ignoring the more-work part entirely, I don't think arbitrary aiming buys the game ANYTHING that 8 way doesn't adequately cover.
 
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On a slightly off topic note,

OMG just realized
Mike_Z said:
Much as I love you, Tank

Mike loves me :) <3 <3 <3
 
Cheesedragon said:
Noe he loevs me wanna 1v1 in SG whoever wins his game wins his heart duh.
*looks at cheesedragon's team. Looks at my team* 1v1 no assists... let's do this.
Gota do this on ps3 though. My computer sucks.

Mike has enough love for all to be honest...
 
Tank said:
*looks at cheesedragon's team. Looks at my team* 1v1 no assists... let's do this.
Gota do this on ps3 though. My computer sucks.

Mike has enough love for all to be honest...

K, what's your PSN, i'll add you as soon as i can.

Wait, your computer sucks too much to play Skullgirls? Are you by any chance using one of these?

23593-004-d5156f2c.jpg
 
Psn: drsusredfish
 
Can't believe two users are fighting one on one for the love and attention of Mike. In any case, I read all the past posts regarding the bow and arrow and how it's going to work, so I have another question. Can we expect the kusarigama to work in a similar way? Of course, it'd have different effects (the limited range being the most logical example), but I imagine it will be similar to Samus' grapple beam, at least while exploring stages with large gaps and lots of platforms (yes, I remember there isn't going to be insta-death pits, but maybe some kind of "climb up as fast as you can" area challenge).
 
Fizzxwizz said:
Will I be able to fire an arrow before a fight, initiate the fight, and have the arrow hit them then?
Hey, Mike could probably do that right now using those soft velocity arrows.
 
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Would be kinda cool to set up a premeditated hit, kind of like how enemies trickle in if they get close enough. And I do like to lob Arrows in games that has gravity on them XD

Thing about that is, enemies and players are repositioned when the fight starts... so it might miss anyways..
 
Cheesedragon said:
K, what's your PSN, i'll add you as soon as i can.

Wait, your computer sucks too much to play Skullgirls? Are you by any chance using one of these?

23593-004-d5156f2c.jpg

Nah I bet his rig looks more like this:
ghetto-computer.jpg
 
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superj3 said:
Nah I bet his rig looks more like this:
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I just assumed it looked like this:

TSSTTRWF2S-001-1.jpg

Edit: Nvm, confirmed toasters can run Skullgirls. That's some impressive optimization...
 
I missed part of the stream Eric was doing earlier, but I just watched some of the archive and got a couple screengrabs of those nice WIPs he was showing off at the end. These aren't in-engine, and Eric emphasized that they're definitely not the final look they're shooting for yet, but they still look really cool.
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I love how much closer it's already getting to that initial concept piece, and the textures he's been working on are bringing a lot more life to the environment compared to the Prototype. Good stuff as always!
 
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