Quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
Okay, how about a permanent/temporary weapon system? Have your "equipped" (via the inventory screen) weapon. You hit the "draw" button, and he gets it out. However, in the heat of battle, you can pick up other weapons, boards, rocks or anything else and wield it. Your "permanent sword" goes back into the sheath and the "temporary" weapon takes its place in your hand.
But what if the player wants to throw his permanent weapon? If he then picks up a temporary one, you're in the exact same situation as above. You have a sword to stow but an incorrect sheath. Unless you're saying he can't get rid of his permanent weapon without inventory access?
I have a feeling I'll be trying to stick with the invisible sheath trick. It was the solution I was using before I posted (someone probably seen the RPG-walls post with my dude carrying a sword and shield on his back). It lets me do anything I want and requires the least amount of work :)
Quote:Original post by MSW
Say the player is holding a sword and has a battle axe holstered to thier left side...some ugly creature is chargeing them that is more prone to damage from the axe...so the player switches weapons...the animation of the player putting the sword in the right side mounted sheath is played...then the animation of the player retrieveing the left side holstered axe is played...and now the player is ready to do battle.
The player can holster and draw weapons very quickly, as he's standing, moving, running, jumping, or falling. You can literally stow or draw a weapon in about two running steps. I'm not sure about swapping weapons, as I haven't made animations for any weapons but swords yet.
Quote:course the more perceptive players may reailise that simply dropping the sword and arming themselves with the axe can be done much faster then running through the swap out animations.
My game will rely heavily on tricks like this. You could also thrust your sword into the enemy for a bonus amount of time. The sword will stay lodged inside of the enemy, slowing them down and causing constant damage until they die. You could also rip it from their body before or after they die.
Quote:..but then once done with battle players would have to go back and pick up the sword...which is also a point of detail that could possable make the game unwinnable
If you can drop swords, and there is a special sword that is required for later, the player character should warn the human player about it before he goes too far from the drop zone. Thanks for the headsup on that. I can add a little flag to tell map objects they are important and to send the player a message when he goes too far away from them. He gets a message, then "thinks to himself" on screen as to not interrupt the action. Also, for what it's worth, only generated objects will be removed in my game. Editor-placed NPCs or objects will remain indefinitely, even if dead. That means you could run all the way back and find that sword. Not that I would want to force anyone through that.
Quote:A simple and quick animation of the player character reaching into his backpack works very well. It informs the player that the character is swapping weapons (particularly usefull, over just poping the new weapon into place; when swapping between simular looking weapons).
Backpack swapping is nice, but there are a few problems. The first one being that the character would have to be wearing a backpack. Characters are naked in my game unless you put some pants on them (or they come pre-equipped with pants :). Buying and equipping backpacks sounds fine, but their bulkiness would really limit the types of armor I can make. I plan on having very large armor parts, like shoulder pieces that are so huge, they hide your head from side view. Holsters are easy enough to push outward by certain amounts to fit any armor. But a backpack would look a bit goofy over your dark-side light-modular fire armor. If I added backpacks, they would probably only be equipable over clothing layers, and they would only serve as to increase your inventory space. Meaning you could equip large armor over the backpack and it becomes invisible. I couldn't allow the player to reach into it, this way.
Quote:Also...I hope there are TONS of very important gameplay actions available to the player when all his weapons are holstered/sheathed...and I don't mean just talking to NPCs!
Why do you say that? If there weren't, the player would never need to worry about it. He could just keep them drawn until he decides to visit a village. I would actually prefer to keep my game this way, but there are too many things that require hands to interact with things. So weapons get in the way.
You can hoist onto ledges, shimmy across them, climb up them, be running and drop to hang from them, climb ropes and ladders, open and close doors (I'll probably have to eventually make combat animations for these). Most heavy actions can happen with both weapons drawn and without. But some things require that your hands be free. Also, when a character goes into combat-mode, the only buttons that perform the same thing as they did in relaxed-mode is the combat mode button and jump. This means all of your controls are devoted to combat, or relaxed actions. Similar to getting in and out of cars in GTA.
I really appreciate all of the suggestions.
