What is Nexuiz missing? (warning, long post)

[Yoda almighty]

hmmm

i watched a video of urban terror and kkrieger. the one thing i noticed in urban terror that i think is better is the animations show the hands a lot. i haven't seen that in nexuiz, and i think that's a relatively unradical thing that could be changed, to lend a slightly more personal feel to the players. and kkrieger just looks boring. the design of the levels basically means you walk forward, shoot things, walk forward, shoot more things, walk forward, shoot things, maybe back up a little while shooting until it dies, walk forward, shoot things, etc.

just my 2 cents

[Lee_Stricklin]

In my opinion Nexuiz gameplay isn't missing a damn thing except some maps. I think what Nexuiz needs is some polish on the animations, models, and a few textures. One thing I think would neat (I think somebody already said this) is if somebody worked on animations for bunny hopping to make it look more believable.

@ Yoda

A single web page is probably bigger than what kkrieger is. The whole demo is only a few KB big.

[Flying Steel]

I think what Nexuiz needs is some polish on the animations, models, and a few textures. One thing I think would neat (I think somebody already said this) is if somebody worked on animations for bunny hopping to make it look more believable.

Yeah that was me, I have a few ideas that could be used in combination, that might aesthetically improve bunny hopping (we need something better to call it BTW).

1) Stride Animation. Basically, you have alternating animations each time you jump- you bound with one leg going back and then the other, etc., which might make it look more like running or such than "hopping" over and over.

2) Jump Boots. Each time you jump and/or land when moving over your usual top speed (10 MPS), a burst or glow of luminous particles (with SFX) comes out of the bottom of your boots. The faster you are going, the more intense this gets. This is like somekind of accelerated particle / repulsorlift device that gives you a boost when running and acts as a cushion when you fall, explaining your special abilities at both.

3) A whooshing wind sound, that plays when you are moving at high speeds. It should start to play when you are moving over the speed limit, and then grow in volume as your speed increases. I can't stress enough how BIG of a difference this would make at giving a sense of speed that is utterly lacking otherwise. For flavor, it should be turned off for maps with a space setting though maybe.


A minor gameplay change that'd also help with polish and enhancing the feeling of speed would be to increasing the minimum speed and maximum damage for collision damage. Running or falling into a floor, wall or another player should start to cause damage at a much slower speed (right now it is set really, really high) and max out at 100 damage rather than 25. Then crashes are fun, while still very rarely impactful (pun ) but it gives you a better sense of your speed and adds just a little more incentive to be skillful in your high speed movement.

One last polish suggestion I want to throw out here is visual player damage/armor. Damage maps (a kind of texture) could show health level, with full health looking normal but with the damage map becoming more opaque and dominant as health gets lower. The damage map could look like anything from blood stains and bruising, to glowing metal and maybe dents/scratches for robots. Armor increases would add armor models to the player models, like helmets, vests, joint pads, a face mask, etc. This would also allow you to know what you are up against in a fight, just as you can see what weapon is being wielded against you.

[TVR]

... A minor gameplay change ... would be to increasing the minimum speed and maximum damage for collision damage ...

Unjustifiable, would completely ruin both all existing impulse values for weapons, and fundamental map design concepts [Jump-pads].

[Flying Steel]

... A minor gameplay change ... would be to increasing the minimum speed and maximum damage for collision damage ...

Unjustifiable, would completely ruin both all existing impulse values for weapons, and fundamental map design concepts [Jump-pads].

I can't see how you've come to such an extreme conclusion.

Only the rocket launcher can produce enough force to accelerate you past max run speed (10 MPS). Jump pads don't just slam you into things at high speeds, they send you into the air on a high arc so that by the time you land at your destination you are not hitting the ground with enough speed.

And remember, Nexuiz only delivers collision damage based on deceleration from dead on impacts.

Currently it seems you start taking fall damage at 40 MPS, I suggest lowering this to 25 MPS (or 30 MPS max). For each MPS of impact speed after that point, I suggest 2 hitpoints of damage be delivered. If you test this on the maps with the speedometer running, you'll find this makes very, very little difference.

You might lose about 10 or 20 damage on the worst fall in Strength and about 40 from the worst possible fall in Silvercity. Only in the crappy designed Blue Sky can you get a 90 damage fall, and if that's a problem you could just replace the Strength with a Shield on the top platform, which would make it less damaging than it is now.

[ai]

Seriously, just to make it clear. Nexuiz is not realistic nor does it tend to be. So pushing for more 'realistic' gameplay for Nexuiz is not the way to go.
If you indeed want a more realistic game then I think Nexuiz is not for you. So stop trying to change it to such. Falling damage isn't, and has never been, a problem before, don't fix what isn't broken.

[Flying Steel]

Seriously, just to make it clear. Nexuiz is not realistic nor does it tend to be. So pushing for more 'realistic' gameplay for Nexuiz is not the way to go.

This is quite clear by now and I believe that if you review the specific value changes that I have suggested, it will logically lead you to the conclusion that they would not create a realistical model for fall damage, not by a long shot. Thus realism is not the intent.

Falling damage isn't, and has never been, a problem before, don't fix what isn't broken.

However this thread is not about fixing problems that are broken, but coming up with improvements to enhance the 'feel' of the game. Or at least that is my understanding.

[parasti]

However this thread is not about fixing problems that are broken, but coming up with improvements to enhance the 'feel' of the game. Or at least that is my understanding.

It's obvious to me that this thread was not intended to focus on game play (player physics, weapon balance). It's ultimately about visual and aural perception when playing Nexuiz and why it comes across as inferior compared to other games.

[Flying Steel]

However this thread is not about fixing problems that are broken, but coming up with improvements to enhance the 'feel' of the game. Or at least that is my understanding.

It's obvious to me that this thread was not intended to focus on game play (player physics, weapon balance). It's ultimately about visual and aural perception when playing Nexuiz and why it comes across as inferior compared to other games.

Most of what I suggested falls under that category, only the fall damage thing uses a different means to the end of better aesthetics, IMO. The impression I got from Mircea was this was okay, that the end of trying to close the aesthetics gap was the main idea.

[MirceaKitsune]

Yes, the intent of this topic was discussing anything that could make Nexuiz feel more complex / modern / alive to the player. Changes on physics or any other possible improvement fall into this category, though my intention was not being ignorant to what Nexuiz is nor to those who are used to it the way it's been over the years.

I should mention that I tried tweaking the physics settings (I've been trying to make a Nexuiz mod that would make everything look and feel more realistic and modern by modifying cvars) and just modifying the physics cvars doesn't change a lot of the feel. As I may have said in the first post, I don't know what exactly is needed to push the feel of Nexuiz to that of more modern games (except more map meshes). The simple / quick / sharp feel might even be created by how the engine renders the scene and movement, to a point.