Dullahan said:In a virtual world that is completely open like Pantheon, the potential for trolling already exists en masse. I don't think having a semi-collision type system like suggested above is really going to change anything. This is a highly cooperative game where player reputation will matter. If they do it right, that kind of behavior will naturally be discouraged. Honestly, arguing on the basis of potential for griefing would mean they would have to overhaul the game entirely and change their plans and tenets drastically going forward.
very true i mean prehaps it is time to stop blaming mechanics for greifing and instead make sure the geifers pay the price in the comunity instead.
There are some really good points here, both for and against.
So what is "immersion"? I admit, I may be using the term loosely, or perhaps very broadly. It is true that it shouldn't be used as an end all for discussion. It is a form of escapism, something many gamers use as a tool to aleviate stress, and kick back and enjoy a form of entertainment. But what does it mean exactly? Simply put, it means that Someone is involved very deeply in what they are currently doing, and they become absorbed in the fantasy to the point that their reality is temporarily replaced by what they are experiencing , utilizing some of their senses.
So why bother with a frustrating system that could encourage bad behavior from an online community? Because it could add some fantastic tactical opportunities. While I do not want a game that mimics real world, I would like a world to at the very least be believable within its own setting/environment.
I believe I remember VR saying that they wouldn't include a system unless they felt it added more than it detracted. There are a number of reasons against that I have read, people setting their characters in the middle of a doorway (and with a development team that is planning on little to no instancing) this is possibly the most valid argument I have come across.
It shouldn't be difficult to set a time on becoming afk, emotes (ie. /dance) shouldn't cause the timer to hang indefinitely. If you do not have an input for a set amount of time from the player, then they are logged out to the loading screen.
Besides, this comes right down to the type of community you have. Good communities will work together towards a common goal, and with other good systems and tools that are put in place, the argument of wide spread trolling becomes irrelevant. Pantheon players will rely heavily on their own Reputation with others. If you have a bad reputation, no one will play with you. Period. If the fear of bad community is the only reason to say "no", I fail to see how that is a good reason to design how the character models interact with each other.
@Ashvalid, I could see how that would cause issues. (sorry didn't see your response) I suppose it would depend on how frustrating they are willing to make that particular mechanic of the game, and if the mechanic of Character Collision is constant, or if there are certain situations where it just needs to be ignored. One way to circumvent that would be to give the person on the ledge an exhaustion timer, if you hang onto that cliff for too long, you run out of stamina and fall to your death lol
Having collision turned off while AFK would probably be a decent enough compromise. I still think it is a pointless mechanic with no upside outside PvP (aside from the nebulous "immersion" argument), but at least it would mean if your intention is to make an ass of yourself, you have to physically be at the keyboard do it.
I think that expecting the community to police it is pretty naive, but I am a pretty cynical person at the best of times.
Agree with you on the policing, itvar. I think, by and large, I am in favor of a game that allows for some mechanics that allow reputatioin to be more freely built or destroyed than our modern MMORPGs do, but the assumption about community policing and reputation building is that players are going to be around to build those relationships. You don't want to create a bunch of mechanics that don't add significant value to the game if those mechanics have the significant potential to drive players out of the game before they get to that point.
I admit that the first thing that came into my mind with this discussion was the part when they were climbing. Seems like it would be easy to just hang there and laugh as you see people bounce off you. VitaKorp3n proposed a limit to your ability to hang on, through some exhaustion mechanic, that I think would solve that particular problem and also actually be pretty realistic by itself. I guess I don't care really which way they go, but if I had a nickel for every time I was told to "stack on me!" in raids, this game would be shipping tomorrow.
I'm a proponent of collision of any kind and type. Just as I should not be able to pass through a tree, rock, door, stone column or an NPC, neither should anything be able to pass through me. The argument against collision is just as thin as the argument for it. Declaring collision as exploitable and open for griefing is overexpressing just how often such things actually happen. I only ever recall having an issue with player collision when adventuring in SolB. Nowhere else in EQ1 or 2 had that ever been an issue. Never experienced it in DAoC..Planetside..Planetside2..SW: Galaxies...Anarchy Online....I think you get my point. Griefing through collision is not as common as people preach it to be so not having it isn't going to make that big of a difference.
If you really paid attention in EQ1, player collision wasn't based upon the model of the character but a much less narrower column so that solution was a compromise to full bounding box collision. Pantheon can employ the same solution, partial overlap allowed but not full pass-through.
Another reason in favor (besides its just wrong to be able to walk through people)
a High Ledge that can't be climbed
Ranger Kneels
Warrior Stands beside him
Summoner Climbs to the Rangers back, the Warriors shoulders and on to the ledge where he summons the rest of the party up.
Something like this would add to the game, it would add to player interactivity, it would make a summoner useful and necessary for this particular adventure, and it would be impossible without collision.
I haven't seen a situation like this in a game before, and without player collision we never will.
Dullahan said:I like character collision and also what it can bring to combat. We already know there will be some collision mechanics involved in combat with certain abilities. Hopefully this is a thing with players as well. Yes, it has grief potential, but so will many other things in Pantheon or any virtual world.
IMHO it has (and has had) huge grief potential. That said, if you or anyone have any ideas on how we could turn it on but also avoid the griefing, I'm all ears :)
PRO: There are some clever uses of tactics it would allow (most actually weaken player effectiveness vs mobs)
Think of current 'all our tanks/backstabbers' actually able to hit the boss with no collisions.
CON: Substantial avenues for griefing and, in some cases, encounters may prove massively difficult.
Blocked doorways/banks
Players knocked into each other like skittles by the dragon's tail / breath weapon...
There are ways to turn on player-player collision and still minimize 'griefing'. This does not change the increased challenge for (particularly Boss) content it would give, however. This may, of course, be a good thing?
SAMPLE METHODS :
1. AFK players' collision meshes reduce/drop after 3 mins of no actions (or no change of X,Y,Z co-ords)
2. Collision meshes drop in designated 'town', 'Village' or 'safe' areas.
3. Players have <1 coefficient of friction and have 'inertia'. Bumping into a person will stop you, but slowly move them if you push.
These would do pretty much what is wanted (reduce griefing). The change of tactics needed to fight a Raid Boss when you cannot make sure your tanks can all get to close combat range, your rogues get to optimum back-stab distrance in 'safe' rear-facing points or the real danger of clerics being scattered like skittles when the front tanks are 'feared' straight through them is another matter!
Imagine being in the cliffs on those narrow icy paths and someone is up there in an inlet and just runs out and bumps players off the cliff... It can go on and on how collision can be abused. For that matter would it not be possible to jump on someone's head between a gap to get over to an area not intended or bypassing the climb skill?
I don't think this will ruin immersion as much as people are saying... Come on, look at the last Twitch stream... You really think you won't be fully immersed in that beautiful world, just because you ran through another player down a path? How about when a perception flag pops up and you get tunnel visioned into finding the cave mentioned? There is immersion all over, and we did not really get to hear the music or full sound.
I really don't think it is a feature that HAS to be in place considering the headaches it could create along the way, let alone, causing the Dev team to have to devote a TON of time creating troll proof content. Go without it and let them keep going on the great work they are doing.
My two cents...
What if you could hold a keyboard button and for a short period of time pass through players without collision?
I would rather just have collision and let the community deal with them, but maybe this would work as a just in case measure, doesnt really help with getting bumped off a cliff tho i guess
Aradune said:Dullahan said:I like character collision and also what it can bring to combat. We already know there will be some collision mechanics involved in combat with certain abilities. Hopefully this is a thing with players as well. Yes, it has grief potential, but so will many other things in Pantheon or any virtual world.
IMHO it has (and has had) huge grief potential. That said, if you or anyone have any ideas on how we could turn it on but also avoid the griefing, I'm all ears :)
There are two pretty good suggestions here. One to make the collision part of the model just a smaller cylinder in the core rather than the entire model. Another is the Final Fantasy option which is initial collision but then to allow the character to pass through after a short time.
That said and as someone mentioned, collision has existed in many games including EQ, and it's never been a big problem in my experience, despite what some alarmist are suggesting.
We have spoken about his already and our CTO, Daniel, has said that we can make a soft collision system for certain areas but can you imagine a group or guild of people up to no good entering Amberfaet and all jumping and hanging off the first rock climb, anyone following would not be able to progress due to the slightest collision, same goes for other areas that are narrow with a guild full of people lined up 5-10 characters deep, it has the potential to block people from content, progression and enjoying their time in-game due to the actions of others.
This is something we will still need to look into further and test befoe making a decision either way as there are good arguments from both sides.
Could simply disable collision while in climb animation, or alternatively tie climbing activation to stamina as well as drain stamina while hanging. That way a player only has a few seconds to before they fall and have to stop and regenerate to reactivate the climb skill. Or both, because I think it makes sense for climbing to require stamina anyway.
Dullahan said:There are two pretty good suggestions here. One to make the collision part of the model just a smaller cylinder in the core rather than the entire model. Another is the Final Fantasy option which is initial collision but then to allow the character to pass through after a short time.
That said and as someone mentioned, collision has existed in many games including EQ, and it's never been a big problem in my experience, despite what some alarmist are suggesting.
I don't think collision has existed in as many games as people think. Maybe it's selective memory, but I had to go back and log in to several games to make sure I wasn't just pulling that out of my backside. I saw Planetside and PS2 brought up as examples, but those are MMOFPS games, which is hardly relevant. EQ2 and Rift certainly don't have player-player collision (EQ2 turned it off years ago). Now Eve certainly does, because bumping is a thing. Outside of that, I can't think of a tactical or relevant reason, other than...immersion...why collision is such a big deal.
But, I am definitely interested to see the ways to make it work. I am still personally on board with the AFK compromise.
EQ is honestly the only game I can think of in recent memory that has player collision.
I'll reiterate that it isn't even necessary for PvP, having PvP'd extensively in both DAoC and EQ2 and never felt that collision would have improved either game.
Also worth noting is that collision isn't a requirement to have a mechanic where mobs slow down when passing through players. A simple proximity check can achieve that. In addition, that mechanic in and of itself seems highly abusable.
Collision can add another layer of complexity to combat. As a tank you would have to make sure not to block paths of your allies.
For PvP I can actually see the biggest influence, with collision you would legitimately have roles dedicated to try and block narrow places such as bridges and doorways, a role a tank could take in PvP, and archetype usually not very good in that kind of content.
For the problem of trolling I feel pretty confident in that technology has come far enough for either making narrow doorways into a thing where if someone stands still there for too long the character gets moved to the side or that collision is turned of entierly in populous places where it could become a common problem.
I am not sure though if collision is a feature that is worth the headache of how buggy and exploitable it can be sometimes.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
Tanks have been an essential part of PvP in pretty much every PvP game I've played. Not sure what you mean by "archetype usually not very good in that kind of content". Collision as a mechanic in PvP only really makes sense in an action combat system like TERA, imo. Traditional MMO mechanics don't really have the tools to allow for it to be meaningful.
That said, your second paragraph is exactly why I find it useless. EQ has had collision for all 17 years it has been a game and never once has it had a positive influence on the game. Instead, you have raid leaders docking people DKP for not shrinking because it's virtually impossible to raid unless you do.
There are many mechanics that will exist in Pantheon already (taunts and various forms of CC) that adding collision seems redundant and likely to cause issues beyond the scope of any benefit it may provide.
Why is it in the last year or two I have been back playing EQ1, (that still has player collision), I have not seen or experienced one instance of the Grieving being talked about? I know it CAN happen, I experienced it once back in 1999 or 2000.
My dog in real life has teeth, so he has the potential to bite somebody, but just because he has teeth does not mean I should have him put down. And some dogs will indeed bite people, that's no reason to put all dogs down, and if you did you would ruin a lot of experiences for a lot of people, because one dog bit somebody.
I just think it's a LOT of fear about very little.
Zorkon said:Why is it in the last year or two I have been back playing EQ1, (that still has player collision), I have not seen or experienced one instance of the Grieving being talked about? I know it CAN happen, I experienced it once back in 1999 or 2000.
My dog in real life has teeth, so he has the potential to bite somebody, but just because he has teeth does not mean I should have him put down. And some dogs will indeed bite people, that's no reason to put all dogs down, and if you did you would ruin a lot of experiences for a lot of people, because one dog bit somebody.
I just think it's a LOT of fear about very little.
No one is fearful, and your analogy makes no sense given the context.
Once again, the issue is people putting the cart before the horse. Before you look for justifications to not include a mechanic, it is best to look for justifications to include it first.
Otherwise, you have an infinitely large list of things you could potentially include in your game and it takes way more effort to find reasons why not to do something than it does to do something.
Right now, I play on Phinigel. Collision offers absolutely nothing positive to EQ. Instead, every time you zone into the Nexus, you have to **** around with crouching and shrinking for 30 seconds (on top of the massive amount of lag) to actually be able to move. There is nothing gained, aside from a ton of annoyance.
I can't even count how many times I've been blocked by some fatass Ogre while trying to zone in/out of SolB. Such a positive experience.
Edit: Also, the reason you don't see any of the "grieving" is because collision in EQ doesn't have any of these supplemental suggestions like "block/snare the mob" or "cause a shove/push aside animation" or "move the player when you collide with their hitbox". So you either have a neutered collision system that is completely worthless, or you make it more robust and introduce a ton of potential exploity issues that need workarounds. Pick one.
Liav said:Zorkon said:Why is it in the last year or two I have been back playing EQ1, (that still has player collision), I have not seen or experienced one instance of the Grieving being talked about? I know it CAN happen, I experienced it once back in 1999 or 2000.
My dog in real life has teeth, so he has the potential to bite somebody, but just because he has teeth does not mean I should have him put down. And some dogs will indeed bite people, that's no reason to put all dogs down, and if you did you would ruin a lot of experiences for a lot of people, because one dog bit somebody.
I just think it's a LOT of fear about very little.No one is fearful, and your analogy makes no sense given the context.
Once again, the issue is people putting the cart before the horse. Before you look for justifications to not include a mechanic, it is best to look for justifications to include it first.
Otherwise, you have an infinitely large list of things you could potentially include in your game and it takes way more effort to find reasons why not to do something than it does to do something.
Right now, I play on Phinigel. Collision offers absolutely nothing positive to EQ. Instead, every time you zone into the Nexus, you have to **** around with crouching and shrinking for 30 seconds (on top of the massive amount of lag) to actually be able to move. There is nothing gained, aside from a ton of annoyance.
I can't even count how many times I've been blocked by some fatass Ogre while trying to zone in/out of SolB. Such a positive experience.
Edit: Also, the reason you don't see any of the "grieving" is because collision in EQ doesn't have any of these supplemental suggestions like "block/snare the mob" or "cause a shove/push aside animation" or "move the player when you collide with their hitbox". So you either have a neutered collision system that is completely worthless, or you make it more robust and introduce a ton of potential exploity issues that need workarounds. Pick one.
I don't believe it's putting the cart before the horse. The way I see it the starting point should be what is reality, that in itself is justification to include it. Now from there, why would we do it any different? Reality is, one person can't pass through another this is the way it is people are solid. There have been several positive reasons posted already why the game should match that and beyond that there has been several suggestions of positive things that it could bring to the game should the devs decided to work with it.
Now if the Dev Team chooses to do nothing with it short of just enabling Player Collision then were back to the only positive about it is immersion (a term I don't like to use and believe is defiantly overused as a talking point, but in this case I see it, it's just odd to walk through people). And I would then probably agree the negatives would outweigh the positives. But I also think creative Developers could add a lot to the game in keeping collision and embracing it and using it. Not even really trying people have already came up with things in this thread.
And before you point out that Reality dictates "people can't cast spells" and "Dwarves and Ogres don't really exists" yes I understand that.. Why would we do it any different? Because we want Wizards, Enchanters, Rangers, Dwarves and Orges etc.. We started with reality and added to it, we didn't take away.
Back to present EQ... I'm not playing on one of the progression servers, what has changed where I don't see any of these problems and you still see them a lot? Player Collision is still there.
Liav said:That said, your second paragraph is exactly why I find it useless. EQ has had collision for all 17 years it has been a game and never once has it had a positive influence on the game.
You forgot to say, in your opinion as I found almost entirely positive. We didn't have to shrink when I played EQ. If it became necessary, that was a design flaw.