Who wants/needs this physics shenanigans anyways?


(.FROST.) #1

I already said a couple times, that the movement system in DB feels a bit like I’m skating on ice, or something like that. I kinda get why people would put this realistic shenanigans into their games, but instead of making it more realistic***, it becomes some sort of meta-game in itself to even compensate this strange inertia(and other realistic effects).
You already don’t physically feel what your virtual body is doing, why would you want to have a layer of artificial inertia on top of that?

***I know how much you guys hate this word, but I’m using it for the lack of a better term.

Take the driving in GTA for example; many of us have a drivers licencse and know how driving a car actually feels like, but the driving in GTA, and most other open world games, is much more difficult, than driving a real car. To make the driving there more realistic it would have to be less realistic from an inertia POV. The same goes for stuff like bloom effects, which you can’t compensate with your real eyes, because your eyes are the PC screen and it only shows what the graphics card would tell it. If the engine tells the game it has to obstruct your vision in a certain way, you just have to cope with it. And what might look good on a virtual sight-seeing tour, or on screenshots, can be a real pain when you are actually playing that game. That bloom stuff is obviously not a problem in DB, since you can conveniently switch off most of the candy effects, but the inertia is still present, no matter what you are switching off. And since your ear is not connected to this virtual world you have to fight what you’d normally compensate without thinking.

Long story short: Exactly the most realistic stuff in a game makes it unrealistically difficult to play, since you can’t react, or compensate for it, like you would in reality. So to make a game feel actually realistic you would have to reduce the amount of physical feedback and make everything as responsive as possible.

I’m not trying to convince people to entirely remove inertia from DB, or what, since I know that’s how SD and many players wants it to be. I just wanted your opinion on this topic in general.

PS: I’m once again sorry for the wall of text above, but like many times before I kinda “feared”, that I couldn’t get my point across otherwise.


(.FROST.) #2

Ah crap, I wanted the poll to be open. Could some admin change the poll to open votes? And since you are at it, dear admin fairy, could you also change the words “feed” and “back”, in the poll caption, to just “feedback”? That’d be awesome :slight_smile: Sry for the inconvenients.


(Violator) #3

You can turn the sprint FOV off, but the inertia thing is annoying in most modern engines. I do a bit of Unity3D dev in my spare time and had to write my own character controller as the default ones use as you say realistic physics with friction and inertia which means you can’t stop on a dime. In DB I’ve kind of got used to it but horizontal strafing in particular in a fight you have that extra bit of sliding while you ‘dance’ which makes it more awkward - this is common to most MMS who go for realistic physics over precise control.


(.FROST.) #4

Yeah, right, gladly SD has put in options to switch off the sprint FOV, the weapons inertia and a couple other physics features. I just have put it in the poll, because I wanted a general opinion from you guys on this physics stuff. And there are some games where you actually just can’t turn sprint FOV off. I think Bulletstrom is one of it.

But question; would the UE3 potentially allow to simply set the inertia value to zero, so one could actually stop on a dime? It has to be possible.


(PixelTwitch) #5

The issue with letting you stop on a dime is it would give you an unfair advantage for two reasons… 1 simply you have more control and 2 it can be horrendous to aim at someone with instant direction switching. In the game Shootmania the first beta had this very issue and it turned the game into a side step simulator.

Also, this accel and deaccel is used in modern games to allow animation blending as well.

Personally, I like the stop on a dime thing… However, not even games like Quake and Warsow have it… (obviously both are faster than DB). Also if they ever add real network compensation you simply cannot do it with instant changes in direction due to the fact it will cause warping on direction change.

EDIT!! Its a shame you never made a poll option for leave it as it is.


(stealth6) #6

Last time this came up I think they said they can’t / won’t make it any faster than it is otherwise the animations get messed up.


(.FROST.) #7

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;500911]The issue with letting you stop on a dime is it would give you an unfair advantage for two reasons… 1 simply you have more control and 2 it can be horrendous to aim at someone with instant direction switching. In the game Shootmania the first beta had this very issue and it turned the game into a side step simulator.

Also, this accel and deaccel is used in modern games to allow animation blending as well.

Personally, I like the stop on a dime thing… However, not even games like Quake and Warsow have it… (obviously both are faster than DB). Also if they ever add real network compensation you simply cannot do it with instant changes in direction due to the fact it will cause warping on direction change.

EDIT!! Its a shame you never made a poll option for leave it as it is.[/QUOTE]

“Leave it as it is” would be, in the case of DB, option #2. This thread is more meant as a general question on this topic, but ofc “inspired” by DB. I get most of your points(animation blending, smoothing out network inconsistency, etc.), but I’m quite sure, you could still reduce the character inertia by a huge chunk and it would still be accounted for all the stuff you named there.


(.FROST.) #8

So Pixel pretty much nailed it, ok. But SD could simply crank up the speed of the animations in general, or just cut them down a bit.


(Smooth) #9

I believe that our movement acceleration and deceleration is actually even slightly more responsive than W:ET.

Players can go from a full speed left-strafe to a full speed right-strafe in under 300ms. Stopping start to full sprint is 230ms. We don’t want this to be any faster due to gameplay reasons, it’s not to do with animations, physics or realism.

The last time we increased acceleration (by 20% to what we have now) we saw a global drop in average accuracy of around 5% and we’re getting feedback that players are too hard to hit and track. Making it any faster will make the left-right spam quite ridiculous.

I’m not sure what’s giving you the feeling of running on ice, it might be the first-person animations not being snappy enough. I’ll prod the animators about that at some point :slight_smile:


(.FROST.) #10

[QUOTE=Smooth;500916]I believe that our movement acceleration and deceleration is actually even slightly more responsive than W:ET.

Players can go from a full speed left-strafe to a full speed right-strafe in under 300ms. Stopping start to full sprint is 230ms. We don’t want this to be any faster due to gameplay reasons, it’s not to do with animations, physics or realism.

The last time we increased acceleration (by 20% to what we have now) we saw a global drop in average accuracy of around 5% and we’re getting feedback that players are too hard to hit and track. Making it any faster will make the left-right spam quite ridiculous.

I’m not sure what’s giving you the feeling of running on ice, it might be the first-person animations not being snappy enough. I’ll prod the animators about that at some point :)[/QUOTE]

Very intersting(especially the numbers). As for my impressions with the first person animation; I can only say, that it feels a bit spongy, just like many of the cars in GTA. I may not be a great player, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who runs past stuff he wanted to get on to, or against stuff he wanted to avoid. The spongyness is less of a problem in 1vs1 gun battles***, than it is in simply running around, escaping stuff and all that non-shooting situations in the game. Maybe that sounds kinda extra noobish, but that’s my personal impression of it.

***they actually feel quite good, maybe even for the not so responsive/twitchy controls. Maybe SD should leave the inertia(left/right delay) as it is, as long as someone isn’t running. But in return they should increase the responsiveness of the controls as much as possible, when somebody is in sprint state.


(PixelTwitch) #11

[QUOTE=.FROST.;500918]Very intersting(especially the numbers). As for my impressions with the first person animation; I can only say, that it feels a bit spongy, just like many of the cars in GTA. I may not be a great player, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who runs past stuff he wanted to get on to, or against stuff he wanted to avoid. The spongyness is less of a problem in 1vs1 gun battles***, than it is in simply running around, escaping stuff and all that non-shooting situations in the game. Maybe that sounds kinda extra noobish, but that’s my personal impression of it.

***they actually feel quite good, maybe even for the not so responsive/twitchy controls. Maybe SD should leave the inertia(left/right delay) as it is, as long as someone isn’t running. But in return they should increase the responsiveness of the controls as much as possible, when somebody is in sprint state.[/QUOTE]

I actually find that the movement from Reload -> Sprint -> Jump often leaves me jumping on the spot instead of the uber cool matrix dodge I was hoping to muster. I also get frustrated with the slowdown from landing from multiple wall jumps (when wall jump fails) and being at effectively a standstill and having to build up the speed once again. (even if it is only 300ms)

I think the best way to possibly explain it is… There is a distinct lack of “power” in the movements… No feeling of acceleration when going into a sprint (especially after a failed wall jump or reload). No feeling of “thrust” behind a jump (hopefully long jump will increase that feeling)

I kinda wish there was some “thrust/acceleration” gained when sprinting/jumping from a 90+ degree turn. Not like strafe jumping but litirally to allow me to leap out of danger or simply get to where I want to go.

One thing I do not want… is giving people the ability to sidestep like crazy… It already looks really stupid in a fire fight and is well… basically dull and not very fun. Making it any worse would likely finish me off… lol


(k0k0nat) #12

I’m not sure what’s giving you the feeling of running on ice, it might be the first-person animations not being snappy enough.

Try to jump into the first windows on the left side on trainyard, this is basically the perfect moment for this ice-skate feeling.


(Ashog) #13

So what? :slight_smile: 35% is just a number. 30% is also a number, not worse not nicer than 35%. I wouldn’t pay much attention to the absolute value tbh.

and we’re getting feedback that players are too hard to hit and track. Making it any faster will make the left-right spam quite ridiculous.

Yeah, kinda 2-3 noobs from CoD who probably can’t hit a melon from 1 m anyways and who probably even never heard about tracking, so let’s cater the game to assimilate these guys too, why not.

But hey, what am I, we are currently not aiming at esports, right.


(PixelTwitch) #14

Actually the numbers are important when people at this moment in time are still complaining about things like weapon spread.

The average person has around 250ms reaction time in a none stressed environment and a “Pro Gamers” is thought to be as little as 180ms.
So even now in the current build, direction shifts and speed are around the very limits of what humans can deal with (this is excluding “prediction” but that is a totally different topic) In a stressed/busy environment reaction times are generally slower. The human brain also reacts faster to sound than it vision but again not really too relevant here. Basically… Reducing that figure any more will result in a highly frustrating experience that goes against other things the majority of players wanted. The truth is, even if there was 0 spread when you lowered this number you will likely miss more than you would do today. Also, please bare in mind that the reaction time is not including the MS that is added by the game itself so it soon does stack up. I would not be surprised if in reality the sharp movement is already above what a human can react to.

[QUOTE=Ashog;500967]
Yeah, kinda 2-3 noobs from CoD who probably can’t hit a melon from 1 m anyways and who probably even never heard about tracking, so let’s cater the game to assimilate these guys too, why not.

But hey, what am I, we are currently not aiming at esports, right.[/QUOTE]

I must be one of them noobs as well then… Coming from Shootmania I can tell you I am simply DONE with side step simulators…


(Ashog) #15

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;500969]Actually the numbers are important when people at this moment in time are still complaining about things like weapon spread.{/quote]

Please don’t mix spread into this - it has nothing to do with strafe accelleration!

{quote]The average person has around 250ms reaction time in a none stressed environment and a “Pro Gamers” is thought to be as little as 180ms.
So even now in the current build, direction shifts and speed are around the very limits of what humans can deal with (this is excluding “prediction” but that is a totally different topic) In a stressed/busy environment reaction times are generally slower. The human brain also reacts faster to sound than it vision but again not really too relevant here. Basically… Reducing that figure any more will result in a highly frustrating experience that goes against other things the majority of players wanted. The truth is, even if there was 0 spread when you lowered this number you will likely miss more than you would do today. Also, please bare in mind that the reaction time is not including the MS that is added by the game itself so it soon does stack up. I would not be surprised if in reality the sharp movement is already above what a human can react to. I must be one of them noobs as well then… Coming from Shootmania I can tell you I am simply DONE with side step simulators…[/QUOTE]

First, this is all fantasy and urban legends, until there’s a fact behind this. Please reference the numbers (not that I can’t imagine them being true).
Second, noone complained about faster strafing accelleration in W:ET and ET:QW. People actually welcome it and this is what everyone is trying to tell you here.
Third, even if the numbers are close to human perception threshold, it is exactly what they should aspire to with the settings, because it will allow us to get to the limit of sensations, creating steeper learning curve and a need for constant praccing, facilitating the comp play. Dumbing movement control down will yield you a generic mainstream shooter, not a potential esports game.
Fourth, the strafe speed is same for everyone so everyone is in equal situation. I for once have no probs with people strafing too fast. And I want to be able to dodge enemy fire even better than in DB. This would also help increase the TTK whilst allowing at the same time to tighten the spread.


(Mustang) #16

“Resolution is a number, just like framerate is a number” - Jonathan Morin


(PixelTwitch) #17

Did you not read Smooths post?
Dirty Bomb already has faster acceleration than W:ET…

At witch point just increase the TTK and leave the Spread and Dodge the same as it is now… Making people miss more shots is simply NOT the way you want to increase TTK.

Human reaction times.
http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php


(Ashog) #18

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;500977]Did you not read Smooths post?
Dirty Bomb already has faster acceleration than W:ET…[/quote]
Well, yeah, but he said “I believe” which isn’t as assuring as a fact tho very credible. Also he didn’t mention ETQW. Also, the talk is not only about strafe accelleration but also strafe speed.

At witch point just increase the TTK and leave the Spread and Dodge the same as it is now… Making people miss more shots is simply NOT the way you want to increase TTK.

Hmm, the problem is that it is imho one of the hardest tasks here, how to reasonably increase TTK without having to rebalance too much of weapon play and movement. One of the ways would have been (and was always asked for) decrease of RoF, which however was afaik decided by SD to be the least feasible change (among other reasons also due to weapon audio rates being too laborous to change). “Just increase TTK” means then that only either increasing spread/recoil/spreadcreep (which is for many weapons already on the limit/verge of unfun) or decreasing headboxes from their former ET glory to an actual head skin shape (which has been tried before and increased back after many complaints, but of course not to that ET extent) or decreasing the damage of all weapons across the board (which was tested before and people complained about rubber bullets, especially CoD people) or decreasing the body damage and increasing the headshot multiplyer (that is currently active afaik) is available as tools for increasing the TTK, in addition to a quicker movement/dodging speed. Changing damage distance fall-off is imho a tool more for balancing between the weapons rather than TTK in general, and is a separate topic. Since RoF decrease isn’t even discussed, imho the faster strafe movement/accel and/or the headshot multiplier are the best tools to dealing with too low CoDish TTK. One can of course try all of the things at the same time or make a DoE for these changes but the result will most probably be here an imminent madness of Anti/Smooth/Exedore and co. :slight_smile:
1-2 tweaks at a time please. We still want them sane :stuck_out_tongue:

Human reaction times.http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/stats.php

Yes, agree with general data on average visual response times being around 170-250 ms (some older research indicated as low as 110 i think but might be not totally credible) but I disagree with the linked test as being rather an internet student research game, as opposed to a proper statistical research method. Just read the comments there and it will become clear that the test doesn’t even take into account ping/location/windows settings/vsync/mouselag/polling rates/drivers/screen frequency/local networking /cpu-gpu specs/ and God knows what else. I for once w/o any proper training and trying got only 248 ms on average at best. And I don’t believe this value a cent :stuck_out_tongue:


(Glottis-3D) #19

http://aim400kg.ru/train/?a=pr

gogo check ur reaction times!

fastest have as low as 130ms.

i have 400ms on my notebook’s touchpad
250ms on notebook’s ‘mousebutton’


(.N.E.R.D.) #20

http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sleep/sheep/reaction_version5.swf This is what I use cause it is much more fun ;)))
Regarding TTK I’`d say just drop body hit dmg 50% for 2 weeks or a month and let us try.