Hail Elyrians!
It is another shiny day! I feel like it’s been ages since the last shiny day, what with me not being available to post a shiny last week or the week prior, but I’m back so let’s shine!
Some of you are probably aware that lately I’d been working on “advanced traversal mechanics” – AKA Parkour – as my primary focus. As the lead designer for the game, I’m the start of the production pipeline. I work with Caspian to translate his vision and designs into actionable specs that the team then takes and implements.
(Sometimes there are visual aids!)
For example, when it comes to traversal mechanics, I spent many days working with Caspian, hashing out what was required and what wasn’t to get moving through the world feeling good for an adventuring player. When that head-to-head collaboration was complete, I had a set of rules and guidelines at my disposal that I could use to build an actual specification for each of the world movement actions a character could take. I knew, for example, that a character that had the right knowledge and skill could vault over objects. What I didn’t know was how that would be implemented. I didn’t yet know how far you would move while vaulting, which controls you might use to make that happen as a player, how much stamina that might require, etc.
So, my job over the next period was to take those guidelines and rules and translate them into actual descriptions of what it feels like to perform these actions as a player, what controls are used and any other technical or mechanical considerations (such as how two possible player actions work together) that might be involved. Once this design spec was done, Caspian and I scrutinized it again, going back and forth as we discussed the implications that things like the defined control schemes and level metrics, such as jump height or sprint speed, would have on the design. Only after we were both satisfied was the spec considered “ready.” And once it was ready, that’s where the rest of the team comes in.
(Super technical visual aids!)
With the ready spec, a cross-functional strike team of folks on the team (folks like Souzou and Jörmungandr) can be brought together to begin the process of implementation and integration, be that in the form of bringing in old prototypes, such as our mine run from Pax a couple of years ago, or implementing entirely new versions of those mechanics, depending on the requirements of the spec. (In the case of the traversal mechanics, we are using a different physics engine than we had been when we made the mine run, which makes integrating some mechanics from an early prototype difficult. Additionally, the spec called for slightly different behaviors based on what we had learned with our past prototypes)
For the last little while, that group has been implementing some of the traversal stuff, including wall climbing, wall running, ground sliding, and a few other mechanics. There’s still a ways to go before it’s ready for prime time, but I’m always happy when I see folks just jump into the work and produce fast results. Our early prototypes really helped in that regard – they taught us a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Thanks to those prototypes we avoided some serious time sinks and had the rough forms of these mechanics, the form you're seeing in the video below, operational very quickly.
But, as I said, there's a ton of polish to go and that does mean that what you are seeing in that video is incredibly early work, but it was in and working quickly, and now we have the time to polish out the rough surface and let the fun shine through.
Well that’s it for today; I hope you enjoy it!
Until next time, stay shiny my friends!
Posted By Laviran at 06:08 AM - Fri Oct 18 2019
Please no wall crawling. Spider-man there shouldn't be able to climb vertical walls without any ledges to grab onto. Everything else looks great.
I was just thinking that. Please no spiderman-esque tricks. It is bad enough Ass. Creed is unrealistic, don't make CoE have to deal with people scaling "slippery" walls nobody in real life would able to traverse.
Mayor Glen D'Aren (pronounciation: Dáran)
Will there be in-game skills associated with what vertical angles you can climb?
My initial concern being that if anyone can climb a vertical surface that kinda makes castles walls a lot less useful.
Posted By Regwilliam at 02:41 AM - Fri Oct 18 2019
Is parkour going to a difficult skill to learn? I hope so otherwise castle walls are going to be pretty useless if folk can just free climb over it. Devs please answer this
Well I guess it will depend on at least two circumstances. At first the type of wall as I guess a more or less polished wall will have nothing you could grap and make climbing that way impossible but a damaged, not maintained, overgrown or raw wall will offer the possibility to climb.
The second might be your weight as I guess climbing without inventory and pretty much naked will be easier than climbing in a heavy armor with a bulging inventory…at least I guess this will be valued and will have influence on the stamina usage.
This way maintaining the wall will be the best way to avoid unwanted climbing and second will be to make the wall as high as possible to let the unwanted and exhausted intruders falling down before they reach the top.
Count of "Wulfsbargen" in the Duchy "Avaland" within the Kingdom "Tryggr". If not explicit mentioned the above opinions are mine alone and do not reflect those of my Duchy or Kingdom.
Remind me to properly lubricate my walls..
Seriously though, for a wip test that looks pretty cool and I'm sure there will be all sorts of requirements and limitations and counters in game eventually.
Do like a bit of parkour in my games, especially when exploring caves. Just the ability to hop over the lowest picket fence of doom that completely blocks access in most games would be a nice change. Even if both the law and the old geezer living there insist you get of their lawn.
oh.. i dident know i was backing spiderman simulator 2030. i really hope you put some restrictions on what you can climb like that and also make it so that you need special tools to climb. like the claws ninjas used.
the slide looked good tho. hoping for a slide-nutpunch combo :')
Literally unplayable if slide doesn't turn people into bowling pins.
But seriously, crowd control made into something a little more physics / skill - based would be amazing in this setting.
Less of a DDR, hotbar mash, for knockdown, and more things like slides, leg sweeps, and tackles.
I do these things and more: Write as Your Commissioned Elyrian Author, Design Interesting & Helpful Graphics, Create a CK2 - CoE Mod, Curated Anthology of Show Us Your Domain Entries.
Posted By Regwilliam at 10:41 AM - Fri Oct 18 2019
Is parkour going to a difficult skill to learn? I hope so otherwise castle walls are going to be pretty useless if folk can just free climb over it. Devs please answer this
gonna have to assume that even if climbing walls is easy that the walls will have sentries on them
Lets just hope someone does a realism check afterwards and tones down the possibilities. :)
Mayor Glen D'Aren (pronounciation: Dáran)
Remember this is a Parkour course setup to design and test the mechanics. Of course the walls be climbable. Everything will while they test. Pretty sure in game will be a different story though. imo
Divide et Impera
Posted By Focii at 3:05 PM - Fri Oct 18 2019
Remember this is a Parkour course setup to design and test the mechanics. Of course the walls be climbable. Everything will while they test. Pretty sure in game will be a different story though. imo
Yeah I am trying to keep that in mind, but sometimes developers get a bit carried away. One of the reasons why I forsaken my AoC pledge was because I saw their Battle Royale which is supposed to be a testing ground for their combat and people jumping 20-30 meters into the air. I don't want that to happen here with people being able to climb walls like they're a lizard.
Mayor Glen D'Aren (pronounciation: Dáran)
Warframe is a game that I think really nails parkour (and is not anything like CoE, so I feel better about mentioning it here as it will not be a rival). If the devs are not familiar with it, I think it is worth looking at.
Now do the slide, now do the wall climb, go up three times, go down three times.
Countess Aurabella 
I'm a fan of the parkour and climbing stuff and the freedom of being able to climb where ever you want like Conan exiles. But like Conan Exiles proves Climbing can be easily exploitable without proper limitations. I hope COE has strong restrictions when climbing because walls will just be pointless if just anyone can climb. One would be a person cant climb the full length of a standard town/castle wall without environmental help or tools.
Have it that climbing is something you planned ahead to do. uses a lot of stamina and you need climbing tools IE: hooks, rope, pitons, etc to be able to actually go a good distance in a climb. Restricted to lighter armour/clothes or if wearing heavy armor you get tired way sooner. have to take off any heavy gear put it in a bag with rope climb then pull your gear up after. Jump/fall from too high of an elevation change and you can try to cling on to a climbing point but then your grip breaks and you keep falling, But you can keep trying to catch yourself as you fall back to the ground floor.
Aswell it be similar to how in older assassin's creed games climbing is frowned upon by the NPCs and the guards will actively try to warn you to stop or apprehend you if they find you on the roofs or climbing. "Hey you get off the roofs or I'm gonna arrest you scoundrel!"
If any devs read this I recommend checking out Conan exiles climbing videos.
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