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A simple push...


pusianka

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Ok I caught myself like fourth time willing to push the guard off the edge in FM. It especially appears in my mind when someone stands next to the water tank or a pond. What do you think of that? Would you like to have it implemented, after all it shouldnt be too hard to make unlike many ideas that you can see lately in this section. I'd personally found a great pleasure in that.

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Nah, too much slapstick, too much like T3 where guards slipped on oil puddles and a good thief seldom has the need for such violence...Don't take me wrong, but I believe there is too much animation work for such a thing that will almost never be used...

 

 

Reminds me of Hitman Blood Money where you can kill people and make it look like accidents wink.gif

 

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This sounds like a neat feature. I think a generic falling animation and a generic landing-crouch animation are all you'd really need, and they could be used in several other places - what happens presently in dark mod if a trapdoor opens under and AI or the bridge he's standing on collapses? Something not very natural-looking, I'd wager. Eventually, it would be good to have falling and landing animations, even without the push feature. It's only slapstick if you design it that way; on the contrary, a person falling to their death can be a pretty disturbing sight.

 

I'm guessing the logic would be something like run a check of the distance from the AI's feet down to the floor (either periodically or only on certain events, I dunno how the dark mod works), and if it's greater than some threshold, they go into the falling animation. If they die when they hit the ground, they become a ragdoll, otherwise they go into the landing animation. Then if you wanted to implement the push, all it would do is move the AI a small distance (you could probably get away with using the normal walking animation if the distance is short enough - no need for a getting-pushed animation.) If they didn't fall off anything, or if they only fell a short distance (less than the threshold) like being pushed off a single step of a staircase, they wouldn't go into the falling animation at all, they'd just get alerted and turn around to attack you.

 

Now, getting pushed down a staircase would be a whole other can of worms...

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..But how to implement the pushing itself?

 

The player equips hand and clicks mouse to push?

The player has nothing equipped and click pushes?

The player simply runs into the to-be-pushed AI?

 

Anyway, I think blackjacking already covers the 'sneak-behind-and-do-something-nasty' game mechanic. Why would the player push the AI, if KO'ing is possible? Also pushing ability will change map gameplay very much.

 

What if the mapper wants to have the player start without any gear and focus on avoiding AI? Having the ability to push AI's around would break the mapper's plan. The unarmed player would be able to deal with AI's.

 

What if the player pushes AI in combat or in other alert states?

 

And finally: for the pushing to work properly we would need the possibility to make AI go ragdoll and then resume back to real AI. With that the AI would fall down as a realistic ragdoll. And if they didn't die because of the fall, they would get up, angry. Without that the AI would just look stiff when it is pushed, not good.

 

Next thing people want is the ability to hit an armed AI in the face and steal his sword.. Or maybe take human shields and fire arrows behind them?

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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A push move would certainly add new gameplay possibilities. I'm thinking that's not a bad thing. I can't imagine it would break many plans - it does no good unless the AI is on the edge of a precipice (or next to a dangerous object, fire, moving gears, etc.) The mapper pretty much has to set up a situation where the push would be useful. Otherwise, it just alerts the AI. I'm thinking once they're alerted, pushes would no longer affect them (they're ready for it and bracing themselves for an attack.) But even if it did still affect them, it's not a good tactic since they'll be slashing you to ribbons. I don't see why you think the AI should go ragdoll when it falls - I don't go ragdoll when I fall. I guess I sort of wave my arms for balance and bend my knees so I can absorb the impact when I hit the ground - a falling animation.

 

"Next thing people want is the ability to hit an armed AI in the face and steal his sword.. Or maybe take human shields and fire arrows behind them?"

I guess you're going for some kind of slippery slope fallacy? Picking certain weapons from unaware guards could be neat, though - I thought it worked well with picking the pagan shamans' wands in Thief 3.

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Oh, I was thinking pushing an unsuspecting target would move the victim forward and make him fall prone. Hence ragdoll. Also falling anim wont help with gears and other things you mentioned, ragdoll does. Also, you could push a guard down and slip by before he gets up, giving at least some kind of new gameplay effect.

 

No slippery slope, I am refering adding common hitman game maneuver additions to tdm.

 

Anyway, I don't think it will fit tdm, unless someone describes convincing way to implement it in practice. But my view is insignificant anyways, so no point convincing me. Just sayin' that suggestions like this and their consequences should be thought thoroughly.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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It would definitely have to be a push/use thing I think. As bumping into ai alerts them, you couldn't just nudge them off.

 

I don't think I'd ever do it personally.

 

I liked the oil patches in T3, even had it working in T2. I don't think it's slapstick, but in T3 it was. Because the guards slid weird, flapped their arms, plus they had the funny buggy eyes... If done right it wouldn't be slapstick.

ie: the guard just slips and collapses and grunts. Not slide 40 feet like T3 flapping arms like bird...

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Pushing an AI would alert them too. I think you can get by with just nudging. I believe I've nudged AI off of platforms before. Just barrel into him and he'll nudge. Not as precise, but I think enough for as often as it comes up.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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..But how to implement the pushing itself?

 

The player equips hand and clicks mouse to push?

The player has nothing equipped and click pushes?

The player simply runs into the to-be-pushed AI?

 

Anyway, I think blackjacking already covers the 'sneak-behind-and-do-something-nasty' game mechanic. Why would the player push the AI, if KO'ing is possible? Also pushing ability will change map gameplay very much.

 

What if the mapper wants to have the player start without any gear and focus on avoiding AI? Having the ability to push AI's around would break the mapper's plan. The unarmed player would be able to deal with AI's.

 

What if the player pushes AI in combat or in other alert states?

 

And finally: for the pushing to work properly we would need the possibility to make AI go ragdoll and then resume back to real AI. With that the AI would fall down as a realistic ragdoll. And if they didn't die because of the fall, they would get up, angry. Without that the AI would just look stiff when it is pushed, not good.

 

Next thing people want is the ability to hit an armed AI in the face and steal his sword.. Or maybe take human shields and fire arrows behind them?

 

Ok I was thinking of it as hands move so when you're not equiped. Please Sotha this is really strange that you are here to post such things like having the AI not alerted. You can set the thing so that the player cannot be spotted or cannot be spotted more then [insert number]. I thought this could be used since its:

1. Pleasure

2. helpful in getting rid of a guard or just pushing him out of your way when running away.

3. It can develop new combat tactics(however I must admit I do see problems with it being balanced so this point shouldnt be taken seriosuly)

4. great if you wish to lock someone in a room or a closet. you just hide and wait and when someone crosses your way you push him in. and lock the door!

 

But I must admit that its mainly a nice feature. Every stealth game have such nice feature move. Hitman - dressing in others clothes, Splinter Cell - grabbing to interrogate, Thief - arrows :D, seriously I dont know what to place in here... probably black jack move. We need such features!

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Regardless of whether you're for or against the push, what do you think about adding falling and landing animations, for all those miscellaneous situations where an AI could end up falling (a trapdoor opens under them, the bridge they're on collapses, etc)? Would this mess-up their path-finding, or would they realize where they are once they land and continue?

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I'd like a pushing feature, but the whole idea reeks of 1st person body awareness. Simply impossible to maintain suspension of disbelief without body awareness. Funny this topic came up because I've been pacing around my apartment thinking about weird potential TDM features all day, most of which involving body awareness or control over limbs.

 

Long story short, if a player can't see or use his hands without a weapon equipped the entire point is null. Otherwise, there's other topics to cover. If a player pushes an AI, whether its going to topple over a ledge, or otherwise, either the AI must ragdoll, or a stumble animation must be created. In the case of insta-ragdoll, its not really fair because its like giving the player free flashbombs. Instant daze at the click of a button, infinite uses. Not a fan of this idea. If a stumble animation(s) were created with fall-off-ledge detection for radolls, maybe this could work. but how to detect falling off ledge vs. fall down short non-lethal flight of stairs?

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if an ai falls too far, which isn't very far in armour they aint going to get up, they're going to be dead or knocked out, same with ai without armour, and unsuspected fall means that there no preperation to protect against the fall which then kills you, or broken bones (as ai dont have bones in the proper sense then its a fatal wounding), or knocked out. so you wouldn't need getting up animations, you could switch directly to dead ragdoll or knocked out ragdoll, depending in how much damage the ai took in hitting the ground or any obstacles on the way to the ground.

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Regardless of whether you're for or against the push, what do you think about adding falling and landing animations, for all those miscellaneous situations where an AI could end up falling (a trapdoor opens under them, the bridge they're on collapses, etc)? Would this mess-up their path-finding, or would they realize where they are once they land and continue?

 

I don't think pathfinding would be messed up. If the area the AI falls to has an aas32 grid (which can be forced with aas_flood entities) the AI can pathfind there.

 

There are, however, other issues: a trapdoor is an entity and the AI does not see it. All he sees is the hole in the ground. He would avoid the trapdoor/hole in his pathing. The only way to get the AI to walk on the trapdoor would be to put monster_clip on it.

 

But monster_clip is worldspawn and cannot be triggered to go away. I see it a big problem how the AI would be forced to step on the trapdoor so that the suddenly opening trapdoor would open and let the AI fall down. The same applies for collapsable bridges and the like: AI will not go there if it is not monster_clipped. If it is monsterclipped, the AI will walk in air on the monster_clip even if the bridge collapses!

 

With ragdolls something like that could be done: there is a trapdoor with monster_clip. The AI walks on the trapdoor (he can do so as he sees the m_c). The player pulls a lever, which opens the trapdoor. As the trapdoor opens, a high-damage trigger_hurt kills anyone standing on the trapdoor. The dying AI then transforms into a ragdoll. Monster_clip does not stop ragdolls, so the ragdoll falls through the trapdoor making a neat effect.

 

You see, that's the problem: the AI's are not designed to fall down. They avoid worldspawn edges where they could fall down. They won't step on hatches that could open and make them fall. Ragdolls can fall and look good doing so.

 

And what comes to the example I gave, I've not tried it. I think it will work. Can anyone tell does monster_clip affect ragdolls? I don't think it does, but it is imperative for the example to work.

Clipper

-The mapper's best friend.

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I see this in as a weapon. Instead of a sword or blackjack you get a gloved hand come up, palm forward. Hit attack and the palm thrusts forward and back. That won't automatically move the AI of course. It needs code to move the AI in the right direction and make him stumble and animate.

 

It might go in the vine arrow slot. I don't know if that is totally abandoned though.

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I wonder if it would be ok to have weapons beyond the 1-0 weapon slots, you have to get to them by the weapon-cycle button, or give mappers the ability to switch slots.

 

Then we wouldn't have to fight over what can get limited slots, and we could come up with all sorts of alternative weapons or moves that aren't standard, but mappers have the ability to use them for their own maps and there's some variety.

 

I think a setup like that could allow a maneuver like this, then maybe others we've talked about before, hand combat, kicking, other medieval weapons ... not in the standard set, but mappers can use them. I mean, have a framework to allow for alternative weapons that aren't standard, but allow for variety. And players get the idea that there's the standard set of weapons, but some FMs have these alt tools for their own flavor, and it won't be confusing because they know they can use it if they see it in the weapon-slot.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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I remember at least one Thief FM where you had to cycle to reach a new weapon.

 

But I'd prefer a mode switch to switch in a new bank of slots. Say you press Shift + Attack (shift attack geddit?) and all the slots are changed. However you could still double up your favourites so they are in both banks. Maybe only one new weapon and all the rest are the same slots.

 

For instance I see the push complementing the blackjack so I'd put it on the same key. An air arrow that blows out flames without alerting an AI who is very close I'd switch with water. Vine and rope; Moss and crunchy, fire arrow and dark bomb, noisemaker and silence bomb and so on. :laugh:

 

Do gas arrows already blow out flames? It'd be cool if it was inflammable so gas arrow aimed close at an AI standing near a torch = flaming human torch guard running around screaming. Then while he's distracted you can safely push him off the parapet into the moat. ;)

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I am glad to see that I am not alone with this idea. The more people write here the better. I still don't quite get the problem that Sotha is telling I'd do it without any ragdoll. If the enemy is pushed then we need two anims. Pushing and being pushed. Then if he falls down then third anim of falling. And then the last basing on the height. So it's either death(no anim just ragdoll), falling to the ground anim(something like fallin to the ground then getting yourself up a little and maybe screaming for help?), or simple fall if it's small distance with a crouch when incountering ground. That's how I would do it. If I had any skill.

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eh I knew it! You're tryin to have a revenge after my post in inventor scientists topic... I said sorry! And I really meant it! ;)

 

ok anyway, we are definetly far from the point when product does everything we desire. So we're still able to talk on the topic of features

Edited by pusianka
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