Jumping Skill

[Sakiro A.]

As far as I remember, there\'s no jumping skill, just a climbing one. (I\'d remember if there was one- I would have invested in it).

You may ask what\'s the point, but seriously, jumping high and long from rooftop to rooftop is one of the funnest things to do in a 3D game. Plus, it really adds to fighting- jumping strait over an enemies head and smacking him while you come down is a very effective combat method because it\'s quick and you\'re hard to hit (especially with a long weapon like a spear). Well, it depends on how the combat is done in this game... I haven\'t really figured that out yet. But if it\'s anything like Morrowind, or a more basic \"press button to attack\" thing, then yeah.

In Morrowind I made a character which has a lot of spear and jumping skill. NPCs would actually stop in their tracks having no idea I\'m behind them after I jump strait over their heads! Buahaha. You really must add a jumping skill in this game.


Also, an unrelated question: when is a version going to be released which has costumizable controls and mouse sensitivity and such stuff? Cauz as far as I know I can\'t change any of that. I\'m picky when it comes to that stuff... and I\'m aching waiting until I can relocate my buttons. I especially need to up the mouse sensitivity, without messing with my OS settings.

[explorer]

I think jumping was discussed before, and they came up with it\'d look too unrealistic. Plus I think it would be slightly unfair if people were jumping great distances... But then again, it would look kinda cool. I\'m 50 50 on this jumping thing. You can still jump on somebody if your in a tree. I\'d like to see some other peoples ideas on this.

[Sakiro A.]

Realistic. Bah. It\'s a fantasy game. Besides, people will only jump really far if they are highly skilled in the area, and I somehow doubt many people will bother focusing on a jumping skill, and thus you wouldn\'t see people jumping around everywhere.

How about this: you can jump about 2 or 3 stories with full jumping skill if you aren\'t carrying much and have a lot of strength (or agility, take your pick). If you are carrying pretty much anything heavy, it weighs you down, and your strength/agility has a factor in it too, thus balancing it out so it\'s not unfair. The skill could also determine falling damage, if falling damage is ever added. (Ok, I\'m basically copying Morrowind\'s Acrobatic skill, but there\'s no shame in borrowing good ideas.)

I actually don\'t recall exactly how high you could jump in that game... I know it was high enough to be quite useful and fun, but not high enough to be stupidly unrealistic. If balanced right, then it could work well. I just really think you should add some sort of jumping skill because it makes the greatest combat strategy ever.

[kyp14]

this would be good as long as they make you die if you jump to hi right now falling from any height in PS doesn\'t hurt you at all

[Rageburst]

Ever played Morrowind? Jumping is so incredibly fun.

The thing is if you fall from too high a height, you\'ll lose a huge chunk of hp.

They also had levititation skills.... some places in fact are only accessible via drinking/casting a levitation spell.... Places where mages frequent for example, don\'t depend as much on stairs.

I think that within a MMORPG context, high jumping or levitation should only be allowed temporarily by casting a spell or drinking a potion..... same with spells that increase run/walk speed.

[Fanomatic2000]

Heh, morrowinds \"acrobatic\" skill is completly unrealistic. I mean, it\'s physiologically impossible to jump as high as you do when you reach lvl 100 in acrobatics.
In lvl 100 you can jump over roof-tops which is a little too much (I agree that it\'s fun however)
There was an older thread about this...

http://www.planeshift3d.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=2374&boardid=11&styleid=2

[Sakiro A.]

The whole idea about MMORPGs is to live out the character you create. Just having skills in attacking and casting spells is boring. You really need skills for movement aswell; athletics, acrobatics, and such. It would make the game much more fun.

Seriously, going up to someone with a high skill in acrobatics and running while you haven\'t invested in those skills isn\'t any less fair then going up to someone with high skill in weapons and armor when you\'ve invested in something else. We need to keep the balance, to be sure, but just because you haven\'t the same abilities when it comes to athletics or acrobatics doesn\'t mean you haven\'t invested your skill points somewhere else which could just as easily be of use to you. That\'s just the reason why skills exist; to make your game play different than other people\'s, playing your own way, right? Doesn\'t mean any one thing is more unfair. Just means it\'s a different choice of skills.

Basically, If players want to invest in skills which make them more agile, then they sure as shootin\' should be able to do it.



EDIT: It\'s really not as unrealistic as you\'d imagen; it might not be true in the real world that you can jump so high, but you have to consider that some of the races here are modeled after creatures that are widely known for their jumping. Some lizards jump 10 times their height, and cats can jump quite high too, compared to humans. And jumping high is often featured in 3D games, and most of the time people don\'t go and say \"omg tat\'s imposibalerzzz!\" (EDIT NOTE: I just want to make sure you understand, I\'m not mocking you, I just always quote that way cauz I\'m weird) or whatever; it just makes the game more fun. And I don\'t think whether or not it\'s online should really matter much. It\'s not like everyone will be jumping roofs, as I clearly stated before.

The thing is, I really don\'t think that it will be too much of a problem. How about you just consider adding it, and if it\'s really a problem you can take it out? It\'s not like it\'s that hard to program in, ya know. I\'m still convinced that it would be a feature which would add a lot to the game.

[hook]

the problem with this idea is mostly it\'s hard to implement. not movement-wise (integration in the game), but motion-wise (animation) and control-wise.

there would be quite some effort put in animating avery character to move that way (salto, crawl, backflip, balancing ...) and how the controls would work for it would also be quite hard

i propose sitting a simple /sit command would be ok. it\'s tyresome that you always have to stand :] ...maybe even /lay command so you could go to sleep or watch the sky ...that would be something i\'d REALLY enjoy in PS (it would also be quite nice combined with the camping idea)

[Sakiro A.]

It would really only involve a simple dynamic algorithm involving velocity and such. Really, the science of motion isn\'t that complicated. The hardest thing would be to get blocking right, depending on how blocking is already set up. Blocking can be a dog.

[hook]

i was refering to the animation of the character itself (i wasn\'t clear, sorry) ...but anyhow i\'ve never tried to animate 3d objects, so my post is probably obsolete
but i do get your blocking problem ...that could be (actually it still/already is at some points in PS) a bitch

i\'m making a separate topic for the sitting and laying

[Sakiro A.]

I see what you mean. We could just do it like in Morrowind, you\'ve got your basic jump animation and it just waits at the last animation frame until you hit a floor. It was a tad lazy... but, eh. If you mean a fully dynamic, swooshy omg fluant animation for jumping, that could pose a problem.

[hook]

Originally posted by Sakiro A.
I see what you mean. We could just do it like in Morrowind, you\'ve got your basic jump animation and it just waits at the last animation frame until you hit a floor. It was a tad lazy... but, eh. If you mean a fully dynamic, swooshy omg fluant animation for jumping, that could pose a problem.

yea, that\'s what i had in mind

...man, noone likes my sitting/laying idea

[explorer]

Laying sitting would be fun, like if you typed /sit chair, it would sit you down on the closest chair. Also, Planeshift if layers, if the jumping skill went too far, you might hit the ceiling.

[Fanomatic2000]

Well, there is nothing that says that a full animation can\'t be implanted in the future...
Anyway, I rather play a fully detailed game with great animations than a poor game where the devs just says \"No, that\'s too strenuous, let\'s just make it as simple as possible\".
I don\'t say that the devs doesn\'t care (if they didn\'t, this game wouldn\'t exist), only that details IS important for a game.

[Sakiro A.]

I\'m certainly not denying that, I\'m just proposing for the first virsion that such a jumping skill is added, if it were to be added at all. Not the final version. And, honestly, now that I think of it, making the animation look good and fluid wouldn\'t be so hard. All you have to do is make a few extra animations:

First, a jumping animation.

Next, an \"in deh air\" animation, which would be played at a rate depending on how high you\'re jumping, so that the first frame is after you initially jump and last frame is about when you\'ll hit the ground. (it could even be rotated or something depending on the velocity you\'re jumping at, if you really want to be like fluid.)

And last, a \"hit deh ground\" animation. It could easily be just one animation; just the mid part is slowed.

It really shouldn\'t be that hard at all. The blocking dynamics would still be the hardest part of it (if the current blocking dynamics don\'t do for whatever reason). It may be necessary to make two animations, one for jumping while you\'re running/walking and another for jumping while you\'re standing still.