So-called “improvements” are only worth it if the end result is worth the time and effort it takes to impliment them. I remain unconvinced that what you are arguing for will produce a positive gameplay result that justifies the effort devoted towards the “improvement”.
I have also noticed that not once have you addressed my concern that BM assassins will be “sitting ducks” if they climbed obstacles instead of jumping on top of them. Do you not remember how easy it was to shoot at fast zombies whenever they were climbing up stuff? I do not want the assassins to be killed just as easily because of this, if not even more so since they take less damage than fast zombies more or less.
The AI for the assassins is already admitted by Raminator to be immensely complex. This seems to me that they have put extensive thought into the ability of the assassins to navigate areas effectively. This is ‘simply’ (simply in the sense of the limited scope of the activity, not the complication of implementing ) animating such navigation. I’m suggesting that back flips and such used in the original half life may look ‘neat’, but it would be more likely that different animations would fit better for larger more extreme maneuvers. If using an existing animation to navigate an area makes it look crappy, or silly, I’d say it’s definitely worth it.
Parcour is more than just climbing in the sense of ( to use your example ) fast zombies, where they simply hand over hand climbed drainpipes etc. The more useful technique would be momentum jumps where transfer of energy is used to perform a fast second jump by carrying through from the first to perform an even larger jump. This could be used by assassins to gain even higher ground. More effectively breaking the line of sight through change of level.
As an example in the second encounter with the assassins there main area is covered in containers, with a high walkway along the top of the room. It wouldn’t look quite right for an assassin to do a single jump from the floor to the upper walkway. It would simply be a little bit silly looking even given their increased abilities. However, using a jump on top of a container immediately followed by a second jump using weight transfer would allow them to ascend to the upper walkway faster than performing one jump onto a container, resetting themselves, and performing a whole new jump. Not to mention it would be better visually, as the assassins are meant to be super agile and capable of rapid fluid movement.
Except that we have no way to determine this, since we have yet to completely see the areas where assassins dwell. Therefore, your claims that assassins will look silly preforming backflips in certain areas is only speculation at this point, since you do not know yet the specific areas that the assassins may look silly doing high jumps, or if such places even exist in BM’s level design.
Let this be a lesson to you to explain things clearly the first time, since having assassins climb obstacles was the main point of contention in this thread before you brought up parcour.
It doesn’t matter what the levels look like, they would look silly doing a back flip to certain heights, and while we don’t know the specifics of the areas, it is safe to assure ourselves that ,based on the original, the areas will have certain similarities.
I highly doubt the fights against assassins will be in the duct work. The very nature of the confrontations lends itself to a certain style of area.
I brought up the idea of parcour initially, before the issue of ‘climbing’ ever came up. When I initially brought up this line of topic I simply mentioned parcour as a method of ‘climing’ ( which would essentially be repeating jumps ) several pages ago. I never put akin to regular climbing.
I do admit that assassins being able to backflip their way to the Moon would be silly. Which is why coding can obviously limit the height of assassin’s jumps to whatever looks good enough.
Exactly now with that given, it can be presumed that they will not be able to jump up onto ALL possible ledges. However, if it was set up that they can immediately segway into a second jump from roughly half way to the final height, they could gain an added ability, making them an even more formidable enemy.
Ideas which wither in the face of my scrutiny are unworthy ones; these ideas must be rooted out as aggressively as possible to seperate them from the few which may have a chance.
This only makes sense if you regard the Devs as incapable of making decisions based on merit; a gang of brainless monkeys who are obsessively compelled to implement every single suggested feature unless an appropriate amount of forum posts oppose them. You can’t really think Black Mesa is being developed that way…can you?
But the Devs rarely post around these parts for the most part. Therefore, the BM Community has always had the right to evaluate each other’s suggestions; otherwise, only the Devs would have been able to reply to suggestions.
Now: do you have anything to say about assassins or will you keep whining about the posting habits of forum users?
only what I said earlier when i debunked your statement that climbing can’t be “fast.” And I didn’t say you guys don’t have a “right” to post a dull 2 page wall of text argument, that would be hyppocritical of me, what I said it that it is impossible to imagine how it could be described as “necessary” (unless the reasoning fits into the category outlined).
That video is meaningless: it probably took that climber numerous tries to learn how to safely climb that cliff in 140 seconds. Assassins will not have that luxury… and they do not require it anyway if you have listening to Max.
Right, video evidence of the falsity of your previous statements is “meaningless” because the guy climbing fast in the video had practice climbing fast. Of course it is. :rolleyes:
While I think parcour assassins would be cool, as far as it getting implemented, it depends on the amount of work to go from where things are at now to there, compared to the benefit gameplay-wise it would provide.
If all that is need is small compared to the gain, they might include it. If the amount of work to get it looking good, for only a few mins of gameplay, it probably isn’t worth it, even though it’d be cool.
Each cliff surface is unique and requires a different pathway of climbing it. Not planning things out before a speed climb would be moronic and lead to certain injury or death. The same climbing preparation principles logically apply to assassins, who won’t have as much specialized training in climbing techniques, and are skilled in more effective means of vertical movement anyway (as Max mentioned already).
I’m not really suggesting the entire style of navigation or whatnot of assassins be changed. More of a few more animations and such might provide options for their ability to navigate the map more effectively. A lunge animation over smaller objects, or a double jump from one high object to a second higher object.
Being as the AI for assassins is already so long, I wonder if these sorts of things are added already or not. I doubt we will be told because that may be revealing too much. So maybe discussing what we think are good ideas or bad ideas might still be of some minimal brainstorming mention internally. If not, well I guess it’s all for not, but at least it is ideas that haven’t already been said a thousand times right?
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
