237 réponses à ce sujet

[Pandaman102]

Roxlimn wrote...

It's already functional. You're informed obviously when the enemy dies, and it disappears after. In that sense, it's an effective feedback device over just standing animation.

So your original complaint isn't that the chance of an enemy staggering a few seconds before dropping was what was confusing, but every death animation in DA:O was confusing? I thought you were referring to the one animation where the enemy would be stabbed, stagger for two or three seconds, and finally drop to the ground - which not all of them were.

In that case I honestly don't know what to say. The original death animations were plenty feedback for me, even when distracted, and simply never came across my mind that anyone is unable to recognize something so obvious. I suppose exploding giblets would be more functional for those who had problems with the original animations, but for everyone else that's tossing out any attempts at realism for zero improvements to functionality.

Roxlimn wrote...

The only way to make it equivalently instant to explosion is to make the animation transition from standing to prone similarly brisk in every instance of death, and there's no way to make that more realistic than bodies exploding.

Again, I can't comment much since I don't go around cutting people down, but the same goes for you, so it's pointless for us to try and bicker over this point. Theoretically I could dig around some video site and link execution videos so we can both see how fast bodies drop in real life, but I'll probably get banned for that.

[Roxlimn]

Pandaman102:

So your original complaint isn't that the chance of an enemy staggering a few seconds before dropping was what was confusing, but every death animation in DA:O was confusing? I thought you were referring to the one animation where the enemy would be stabbed, stagger for two or three seconds, and finally drop to the ground - which not all of them were.

In that case I honestly don't know what to say. The original death animations were plenty feedback for me, even when distracted, and simply never came across my mind that anyone is unable to recognize something so obvious. I suppose exploding giblets would be more functional for those who had problems with the original animations, but for everyone else that's tossing out any attempts at realism for zero improvements to functionality.

Generally, I meant the standing animation (as I mentioned before), but I'm really just supposing. Perhaps other people found the other death animations too subtle as well. Shrug.

Again, I can't comment much since I don't go around cutting people down, but the same goes for you, so it's pointless for us to try and bicker over this point. Theoretically I could dig around some video site and link execution videos so we can both see how fast bodies drop in real life, but I'll probably get banned for that.

Actually, I'm a doctor and I used to live in a rough neighborhood. You'd be surprised at what people can live through.

Generally speaking, stabbing anyone anywhere doesn't make them instantly fall prone as if they'd been suddenly subjected to a downward hurricane-force windblast. Gravity tends to work somewhat more subtly. Even then, most stabs don't lead to instant death, so victims generally slump down in a controlled fashion - somewhat slower than being totally poleaxed.

[Pandaman102]

Roxlimn wrote...

Generally speaking, stabbing anyone anywhere doesn't make them instantly fall prone as if they'd been suddenly subjected to a downward hurricane-force windblast. Gravity tends to work somewhat more subtly. Even then, most stabs don't lead to instant death, so victims generally slump down in a controlled fashion - somewhat slower than being totally poleaxed.

Isn't that a bit of a biased sampling though? You dealt with the people who did survive, but that's in the hospital which is usually removed (granted not all patients are peaceful when they come in) from the actual time and place of the wounding. Your experience would be relevant to behavior of the wounded as they try to escape, but it doesn't really apply to the specific situation of someone dying on the spot and lacking any muscle control to keep themselves upright anymore - which is what we're discussing.

Certainly it would be a lot more realistic and grisly if, at the end of every battle, you have the dying and the desperate moaning and bleeding all over the place, and if it only took one well-placed hit to take down the toughest opponent instead of the whittling of hitpoints, but that really isn't within the scope of the game we're talking about, sadly.

[Roxlimn]

Pandaman102:

I also take histories and such, so I'm also relying on the accounts of people who were at the actual scene of the fight. In one case, both combatants were brought with serious hacking wounds and we'd had to drug them to keep them apart and peaceable.

Actual deaths in a violent encounter is actually remarkably low. You'd think it'd be something like 100% from games, but actually a 50% casualty rate from a battle is considered hideous attrition (casualty still doesn't mean dead).

In general, animals and people are much more prone to dropping from nonfatal injuries, they don't drop like Hatton, for instance. I've actually seen multiple firsthand fights to the death between dogs and roosters. An instant kill is pretty rare.

About the only way you could "die on the spot" would be a massive shock to the nervous system - decapitation, massive blunt head trauma, or some similar injury. Even then, you won't get blasted to the ground instantly. You'd have to fall, and that'd take maybe a second or two. There's no way blasting guys prone the moment they die will look or feel realistic.

[Sabriana]

This is getting wildly absurd.

It's not a good tactic to resort to pulling thin arguments out of equally thin air. The exploding bodies are part of a valid criticism. If you can't tell when/if your enemy is dead any other way, then you need to reevaluate your perceptive qualities. Pixel people exploding in a burst of enough blood for 3 regular people when poked with a toothpick is silly.

[Roxlimn]

Sabriana wrote...
This is getting wildly absurd.

It's not a good tactic to resort to pulling thin arguments out of equally thin air. The exploding bodies are part of a valid criticism. If you can't tell when/if your enemy is dead any other way, then you need to reevaluate your perceptive qualities. Pixel people exploding in a burst of enough blood for 3 regular people when poked with a toothpick is silly.

Yes, it's not a good tactic to resort to pulling thin argument out of equally thin air.  For instance, your argument that exploding enemies is "silly" isn't much of an argument.  It's a statement of preference with virtually no logic behind it, and it rebuts nothing put forward thus far.

Besides which it's a strawman even if you somehow put logic behind it.  I don't recall saying that it wasn't "silly."

You can cite existing feedback and indicators for enemy death if you want, but insulting my perceptive abilities doesn't do you any good.  We're talking about game design, not me.

Haters of DA2: Do not be blinded by your dislike of the game.  Let's be clear.  I did NOT say that exploding bodies is realistic, nor have I said that it wasn't silly.  I have only said that it's consistent with the already unrealistic combat, and that it does have a game function.  I have also stated that combat animation in DA:O wasn't all that realistic either, and it could stand to be more unrealistic for presentation purposes, since it was so amateurishly done.

Modifié par Roxlimn, 16 avril 2011 - 01:44 .

[Sabriana]

I'm not getting into a pointless argument with you. You resort to twisting other people's words, and to inventing reasons that are mind-boggling, imo, to defend your point. A point that changes wildly, and resolves into "I love DA 2, and if you don't, I'll talk you to death.".

Exploding enemies are silly as far as I'm concerned. Read the thread title. It asks about the realism of exploding bodies. I state that it's not realism, it's plain silly.

I don't hate DA 2. I think it's 'meh', and incredibly average while far overpriced. Nothing you will say can change that unless you can miraculously change the blatant flaws that I, personally and imo, think the game contains.

Edited to make things even more clear. Or clearer.

Modifié par Sabriana, 16 avril 2011 - 01:59 .

[Andronic0s]

It better be Varric BS, I would be highly annoyed myself if in DA3 it takes place in "real time" and ninjas still drop from the sky, enemies explode when stabbed and gangs have hundreds of members

[Roxlimn]

Sabriana:

Just because it never occurred to you to think of the reasons I brought up doesn't mean that they're nonexistent, pulled from thin air, or invented. Player feedback of unit death is a very real design issue! I am not making that up.

If you want to discuss it further, feel free. Otherwise, you can go on your merry way. I do not seek the convince the close-minded.

[xkg]

Sabriana wrote...

I'm not getting into a pointless argument with you. You resort to twisting other people's words, and to inventing reasons that are mind-boggling, imo, to defend your point. A point that changes wildly, and resolves into "I love DA 2, and if you don't, I'll talk you to death.".

Exploding enemies are silly as far as I'm concerned. Read the thread title. It asks about the realism of exploding bodies. I state that it's not realism, it's plain silly.

I don't hate DA 2. I think it's 'meh', and incredibly average while far overpriced. Nothing you will say can change that unless you can miraculously change the blatant flaws that I, personally and imo, think the game contains.

Edited to make things even more clear. Or clearer.

yes Sabrina - it is pointless. many here and in other threads already just gived up talking to him.

Read my tagline and just let him go - you will feel much better

Modifié par xkg, 16 avril 2011 - 02:03 .

[Sabriana]

xkg wrote...

Sabriana wrote...

I'm not getting into a pointless argument with you. You resort to twisting other people's words, and to inventing reasons that are mind-boggling, imo, to defend your point. A point that changes wildly, and resolves into "I love DA 2, and if you don't, I'll talk you to death.".

Exploding enemies are silly as far as I'm concerned. Read the thread title. It asks about the realism of exploding bodies. I state that it's not realism, it's plain silly.

I don't hate DA 2. I think it's 'meh', and incredibly average while far overpriced. Nothing you will say can change that unless you can miraculously change the blatant flaws that I, personally and imo, think the game contains.

Edited to make things even more clear. Or clearer.

yes Sabrina - it is pointless. many here and in other threads already just gived up talking to him.

Read my tagline and just let him go - you will feel much better

Oh I am. I already made it clear that I won't get into a pointless argument, and I'm quite consistent at sticking to my statements. Just ask my kids

[Roxlimn]

I don't see the point of coming into the thread to say essentially nothing. If you have problems reading that fast enough to read what I've posted, take up speed reading or something. The internet is already far too inundated by sound-bite content that says nothing. Pardon me for trying to have a discussion with some actual content.

[Pandaman102]

Roxlimn wrote...

Pandaman102:

I also take histories and such, so I'm also relying on the accounts of people who were at the actual scene of the fight. In one case, both combatants were brought with serious hacking wounds and we'd had to drug them to keep them apart and peaceable.

Actual deaths in a violent encounter is actually remarkably low. You'd think it'd be something like 100% from games, but actually a 50% casualty rate from a battle is considered hideous attrition (casualty still doesn't mean dead).

In general, animals and people are much more prone to dropping from nonfatal injuries, they don't drop like Hatton, for instance. I've actually seen multiple firsthand fights to the death between dogs and roosters. An instant kill is pretty rare.

About the only way you could "die on the spot" would be a massive shock to the nervous system - decapitation, massive blunt head trauma, or some similar injury. Even then, you won't get blasted to the ground instantly. You'd have to fall, and that'd take maybe a second or two. There's no way blasting guys prone the moment they die will look or feel realistic.

Sorry, I get what you're trying to say, but at this point we're starting to run around in circles. Your opinion is that "blasting down" is the only possible equivalent to exploding body parts, which I agree isn't realistic. I would like to disagree with your assertion but I can't honestly say "well, there's x, y, and z that is just as visually distinctive and fast", so I can only point out that neither of us really know what happens the moment a person receives a fatal injury from something as sizable as a sword or axe (correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm assuming the injuries you've treated are from untrained people wielding nothing larger than a butcher's knife or cheap novelty katana). Then you reassert your opinion by pointing out not all fights result in instant deaths (nevermind that every death in DA2 is an instant death and we're specifically discussing the death animations, not the realism of combat), therefore "blasting down" is unrealistic.

That being said your responses have made me realize one thing: "body drop" style doesn't mean it has to be an instant "death". It just means the enemy's status has to be visually distinct enough to indicate they're out of combat - but as any guy who's been kicked between the legs or sucker punched you don't have to be dead to hit the floor. If we toss the notion of "instant death" out the window, I can easily argue that "blasting down" isn't the only option: enemies can be knocked down quickly (on one knee, all fours, on their side, etc.) and writhing or trying (and failing) to get back up, but mechanics-wise they'd be "dead". They'd be visually "dying", but in such a way as not to cause confusion.

[Abiogenist]

Um, lol. The trolling in this topic is just hilarious.

I'm an English major and I find it funny high-sounding words are used excessively in the following arguments. It's a public forum, for Chris'sakes, not a court trial!

[Supreez]

You guys are just arguing preference. Roxlimn can never understand why you might sacrifice a little gameplay confusion for more realistic deaths because he could care less about exploding enemies. And you can't really retort Roxlimn because he disagrees with your premise that something needs to be done about it.

Of course enemies instantly vanishing from the battle field is the most beneficial to the player if you simply are trying to make enemies vanish and don't care about anything else. Your not gonna win that argument and your not gonna have much of a discussion.

Its not really a productive argument to say here's why exploding bodies shouldn't disturb you, or here's why they should. That's a matter of taste and you'll never convince each other. A much better discussion would be "how could the devs make deaths look more real without overly confusing the player" or "i don't think the devs could make deaths real and here's why".

[SoR82]

Dont forget your "templar hunters" in platemail doing backflips this cracked me up.

But yes im getting mighty sick of every single bad decesion, ridicolous situation, recylced enviroment being blame don Varric... leave the funny dwarf alone he was one of the few things I actually liked

Modifié par SoR82, 16 avril 2011 - 03:13 .

[Tommy6860]

xkg wrote...


Read my tagline and just let him go - you will feel much better

Wouldn't this be more apropos for a sig?

"Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool, then to open it and remove all doubt!"

Mark Twain

[Roxlimn]

Pandaman102:

That is correct. It is not necessary to blast down the graphic representation of the enemy, or to explode it. As I mentioned before in the thread, Starcraft 2 communicates unit death by leeching colors and darkening the unit graphic. It's striking and very effective. However, it's still not realistic.

PS: I've actually treated patients with bolo wounds. That's a large hacking knife about equivalent to a short sword (but used for hacking). The people wielding them were trained in offense and defense and in practical knife-fighting since they actually did regularly fight with those things. They survived to be arrested.

I am familiar with what happens when a person loses consciousness instantaneously. I've seen it happen multiple times. That's as close as you can get to instant death without actually having instant death. The fall isn't instant. It starts on the instant, but it takes a moment for the body to fall.

Supreez:

I have had no problems with people saying that it's a matter of taste. I have a problem with people saying that it's unrealistic - and then citing THAT as the reason, when most hand to hand combat in DA2 and DA:O is unrealistic.

[Rudger47]

So, as I understand it, the main complaint about DAO's deathblows were that the animations took too long and took you out of the fight.  People got annoyed that they couldn't control their characters for an extended period of time.  While I agree somewhat that some of the kills took too long (mainly the ones against large bosses, like the ogres and dragons), I think there could have been a better way to go about it than just replacing them with exploding bodies.

One of the things that I think could be added to the game is a buff system whenever you perform a deathblow.  So for example, if Hawke kills a normal mob with a deathblow, it would give your team a temporary stamina/mana regen buff and also a damage buff.  So even though Hawke might be preoccupied with some animation, at least you would get rewarded for the cool kill.

To make up for the long kill animations vs the ogres/dragons I think it would make sense if the other enemies would cringe in fear after the kill.  It would be like them losing their morale in seeing their leader so horribly dispatched.

This deathblow reward system can even be incorporated into class skills.  Like take Reaver for example, he could have a passive ability that whenever he performs a deathblow, his damage increases by 100% for a few seconds.  Another would be the Assassin would have an ability that you activate where your next kill is a guaranteed deathblow, allowing you to get the deathblow buff when you need it.  These are just a few simple examples, but I think they get the point accross.

The whole point is to make the player feel they are being rewarded for the kills, rather than feel cheated that they can't control their character during the animation.  I think it can be done, its just up to the developers to find a way to implement it correctly.

I also think that enemies should have their own kill animations (only usable against your last remaining party member).  For the human types they can just utilize the same kills as players, but for the creatures (ogres/dragons/demons) the devs should come up with some crazy looking kills.  Like the ogre could lift the poor sob up and bite his head off then fling his body accross the room.  It would make it way more intense (think resident evil) if you knew your characters could die in such a way.

Finally, it would take a great effort by the dev team to implement all of the above.  The animation team would have their hands full, obviously.  But I think it could definitely work out well, definitely more exciting than the constant exploding bodies.

PS:  And no, I don't blame Varric for the exploding bodies.  I just think the dev team was really rushed on time for this game.  I get a feeling that Bioware is spread REALLY thin right now.  I am hoping that after SWTOR comes out they can refocus on other projects.  But we will see.

[Fallstar]

look we're getting off the point here:
At the end of the day, an arrow does not make someone explode. It makes a hole. That does not cause someone to burst into a dozen different pieces. There was absolutely no reason to make people detonate as if they had dynamite inside them, unless you use walking bomb for example. I don't see how it is possible to defend such a stupid move on Bioware's part. Sure it might amuse a 14 year old kid, but thats about it.

[Roxlimn]

SirLogical:

We're discussing EXACTLY that point. Your objection is that it's unrealistic. Noted and already previously rebutted. Read back through the thread if you're really interested. If you just wanted to vent, well, that's okay too.

[Nerdage]

The first thing I thought when I saw an enemy explode was "Hehe, that's like Baldur's Gate.". Give 2h Minsc the flurry ability in BG2 and he becomes an enemy-popping machine, and damnit if Drizzt in BG1 doesn't burst more than half of those gnolls. So I quite liked it, does it really need to be 'realistic'?

[Pandaman102]

Roxlimn wrote...

Pandaman102:

That is correct. It is not necessary to blast down the graphic representation of the enemy, or to explode it. As I mentioned before in the thread, Starcraft 2 communicates unit death by leeching colors and darkening the unit graphic. It's striking and very effective. However, it's still not realistic.

PS: I've actually treated patients with bolo wounds. That's a large hacking knife about equivalent to a short sword (but used for hacking). The people wielding them were trained in offense and defense and in practical knife-fighting since they actually did regularly fight with those things. They survived to be arrested.

I am familiar with what happens when a person loses consciousness instantaneously. I've seen it happen multiple times. That's as close as you can get to instant death without actually having instant death. The fall isn't instant. It starts on the instant, but it takes a moment for the body to fall.

Ahh, I see now, I was assuming you're in a hospital in urban USA, but given your location I imagine you see far worse wounds than what a ghetto could offer.

I concede that any "instant death" animation is not realistic, so I'll just shift my stance slightly and say it's at least easier to believe (even if unrealistic) than exploding bodies if done properly (like the animations not being actual deaths, but knocked down/crippled and can no longer fight).

[Harid]

I don't recall people complaining about this in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2.

Truth be told, if not for the other problems in this game, I think people would shut the heck up about it.

Modifié par Harid, 16 avril 2011 - 03:52 .

[Pandaman102]

Harid wrote...

I don't recall people complaining about this in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2.

Truth be told, if not for the other problems in this game, I think people would shut the heck up about it.

To be fair enemies were maybe twenty pixels (I'm exaggerating, but you get the point) tall in BG1 and 2, there are only so many ways to show doing massive damage to a tiny icon. Graphics have come a long way since then and a lot of the finishing animations in DA:O, though slow, were the equivalent.