When is the sword fighting gonna be accurate??

[Stratos]

Welcome to Ironworks Azimaith!

Well this is how I see it:
Game engine limitations in many games could be one of the reasons that the swordfighting doesn't look completely realistic. I'm no expert on swordmanship myself but I suppose that you could make it very realistic with the technology available. But that would take time and take up alot of the game at the expense of the other aspects of the it. It would be a realistic game when it comes to fighting but the story might be lacking since the developers didn't spend as much time with it.

Then it's also the possibility that the developers of a game don't know a diddly squat about swords.

Also that it don't require much of you to fight in most CRPG's. Not everyone knows as much about swords as you do and if the implement everything there is about swordfighting in a game the battles would be much more difficult. It would take a long time just to learn it for a complete newbie and that would probably mean that there would be sold less copies of the game. The developers want to sell as many games as possible so there is an economic side of it as well.

And last, there's also the fact that most RPG's have more weapons available for you than swords. To make the fighting with the myriads of weapons in a game as realistic as possible wouldn't be possible, or at least very difficult.

[Xen]

Just want to say welcome to Ironworks forums... [img]graemlins/thewave.gif[/img]

[Bungleau]

Originally posted by Aelia Jusa: No one ever seems to get their arm cut off either, or their weapons or shield knocked out of their hands.

I've played at least two games where that happened... in the PC world, it was Tunnels 'n' Trolls, a New World Computing game in the early to mid 1980s where you had the chance to lose a hand in the game (and gain it back, if you were good later on). Once a limb was too damaged, it couldn't work right any more, and detracted from your abilities.

I also remember a PnP game whose name escapes me... PlaneShift or something like that, where you rolled for damage and could indeed strike a critical blow to the head or something similarly severe. Might have been GRPS, too... it's been a number of years.

[Tancred]

The swordfighting graphics will get more realistic when a software company graphics and animation department becomes big enough to actually hire on a swordfighting consultant, I guess.

[Azimaith]

Well even if you look at the NWN sword fighting its a bash fest. You pc stands toe to toe with your enemy and they hit one another repeatedly. No real evasion going on except that rare move where you move back on one foot. Every attack comes from one side and is always at chest level, no attacks to the legs at all. The shield it self hangs at your side limply not even moving to block attacks or even guard your chest from attacks its like its glued to your sides. That could be changed by just changing models or animations. I don't think its so much of a constraint of technology. Naturally I can understand the fact you need to be able to take many blows as your enemies will need to do so as well thats not the problem really, just the animations could look like your actually in combat rather than simply slugging it out statically. And don't even get me started on the weights the slapped on the weapons heh.

[Gabrielles blades]

well, if you want a more realistic sword fight the actual game engine doesnt work the way it would happen in fencing.

I mean, irl, you dont depend entirely on your armor to save you from a blow; you use your sword to parry an opponents blade and possibly riposte; and then theres a ton of forward and backward movement to avoid attacks.

i really dont think the tech is up to the level to make a real fencing battle even fun to do in a game since fencing is actually a heck of a lot of work irl and so would inevitable end up being a lot of work in a game to actually control the character. it would probably have to be in 1st person perspective too since you would need to see where the blade was angling to in order to make the correct parry/riposte combo.

and whats wrong with the weights exactly? varying metals have varying densities; and then there is craftmanship to make say a thinner less hefty blade or a thicker heavy blade of the same basic weapon design.

[Legolas]

It would be sufficient for now if the player wouldn't have to worry about all that. I too think it's possible to add a couple more animations for attacks and dodging and let the computer pick between them randomly much as it does now. But that'd only solve part of the problem. You'd still have the striking one at a time, you'd have combinations that don't make sense and so on.
The game could of course think a few blows in advance and that would let it select more sensible and realistic attacks, simultaneously.
That way, you could create a one-on-one fight with reasonably realistic graphics quite easily.

The trouble is that fighting grows more complex as more people join in, and when they start doing things other than swinging that weapon that makes it all the more difficult (not to mention that different weapons require different ways of striking and evading). Attacks from the from should be better avoidable than attacks from the side or rear, people shouldn't move into a piece of terrain while dodging, and so there are many other factors to take into account.

To include all that requires a lot of time and effort, simply because of the amount of detail you want to put in. And who is going to notice but those who are familliar with the weapons, and won't they find something else that's not quite right anyway?
In nearly all cases, it's simply not considered to be worth the effort. In that way, the circling left and right in NWN can be considered a great step forward compared to the static fighting in BG. Although it does look silly when the characters try to evade when 'fighting' a door or similar...

[Chewbacca]

I think most casual CRPGers don't care much for ultra-realistic melee combat, which is why most games have at the most psuedo-realist combat. It is the whole supply/demand thing.

Plus doing 3d animation for all the possible body/head/armor types for just one new action is a very large undertaking, not something you just casually do. Game developers are always gonna face having limited resources and aren’t gonna be able to please all fans. The absence of cloaks and robes in NWN is an example of this principle in action. Bioware just won't do it, not because they can't, but because it is a huge undertaking that will only fufil what amounts to a superficial thing in the game. I would argue that ultra-realistic combat runs along a similar vein. Sure it would be groovy, but it is not worth the cost, or the things that will be omitted to make up for the cost.

I'm pleased that in NWN my character will block blows with their weapon, duck the occasional blow, and back-step or side step out of the way on occasion as well. Its not ultra-realistic, but it doesn’t destroy immersion either.

[andrewas]

Aurora uses pre-recorded animations. You cant make an animation sequence for all possible moves between all possible characters, the number would be immense.

What you could do is build an inverse kinematic model that knows how to swordfight. They used them in Halo and the movement was a lot more realistic than in the earlier Quake style games. (Although the death animations in the demo I saw were crap. And I havent seen it fight with a sword, I suspect they didnt put much effort into that bit). It would take some effort to code it, but it woudln't be impossible.

Tie it into the current system, so it will fail the block and take the blow if the opponent hits, and parry, deflect or dodge when the opponent misses. Of course, when the character is supposed to parry four blows in one segment (1/10 of a round. 6/10 of a second) then the game will have to cheat. But it should look good most of the time.

I think its possible, but it would take a lot of time and money to get right. And the player dosent have to control it, its just like the current system in that all it does is display the results of your actions.

[ 07-09-2003, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: andrewas ]

[Xen]

You are asking the developers to make a difficuklt task. It is very similar with shooting with guns in movies. The guy makes a jump with i-don`t-know-what-moves and he shoots with one hand. But guns aren`t that accurate. They "kick" very much.