Principles of running

[BrecMadak]

Don't have any idea how devs been planing to improve running, but i've my words to tell.
From arpg's the most true one that handled this mechanic gotto be Nox for the fact that the start and ending of the moves were smooth and not just something instant - sharp, which would be pretty unrealistic, but progressive.

Since SG will be a realistical rpg, many real things should be considered and well thought out. Additionally Nox has combined walking and running back then, the closer you hold your cursor to your character the slower your character was moving or vice versa;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=iB3nzY9jHwU#t=88s

Nox was an H&S rpg unlikely SG will be but still, there are things that could be borrowed and shaped. Such as even running in full plate mail was not that struggling as believed still you should accelerate later than the one that wears a leather armor let's say, or skid/thrown out while you are in a full plate mail - the momentum will have a dinner with you.

So it would be nice if participants could mention their rpg game that he/she thinks x handled best out of crowd and then contribute some.

 

[The Urban Spaceman]

Now that you mention it I don't think I've ever seen walking, running or climbing stairs/objects done particularly well. Things like appearing to have no friction or weight & floating up stairs are all very common in my RPG experience. I always thought it looks crap when you can run forwards, backwards & sideways at the same speed! Resident Evil comes to mind as a franchise that did quite well I suppose but there's still the animation jerk when you switch from walking to running or vice versa.

On the subject of armour I feel quite strongly that in order for SG to break the generic mould wearing full plate armour should come at the cost of reduced mobility, speed, stamina, ability to carry objects & ability to cross water. Sure you might be able to run a distance if you were charging into battle, adrenaline could play a part there, but generally just exploring the wilderness in full armour without a mount should be so tiresome & time consuming as to render it unfeasible.

 

[Infidel]

Such as even running in full plate mail was not that struggling as believed still you should accelerate later than the one that wears a leather armor let's say, or skid/thrown out while you are in a full plate mail - the momentum will have a dinner with you.

Full plate armour was considerably lighter and more flexible than erroneously portrayed in contemporary media. Modern soldiers carry much more weight in their normal kit. A fully armoured man was quite capable of sprinting, jumping and even rolling. But I think for the sake of gameplay there should be a trade off between defence and mobility, particularly if your character hasn't invested in the skills required for a particular type of armour. Perhaps noise should be more of a problem than weight when using heavy armours.

 

[The Urban Spaceman]

Figured I'd better do a little research on the subject of medieval armour weight! Came up with this... http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=510691
Seems like my impression of plate armour weight was a bit exaggerated. As long as there is some trade off then I'll be happy.

 

[Tony]

Figured I'd better do a little research on the subject of medieval armour weight! Came up with this... http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=510691
Seems like my impression of plate armour weight was a bit exaggerated. As long as there is some trade off then I'll be happy.

A better source of information regarding medieval armor is this video (which was posted in a different thread). It explains a lot more about the subject and the second half of the video actually shows footage of someone wearing armor and performing different actions.

 

[The Urban Spaceman]

Sorry I didn't have the patience to watch it when you first posted. I did try to skip to the good bit but I just kept coming up with lecture material. I was on my phone, as I am now. Considering my interest in SG I should really take the time to watch it thoroughly on my PC. I would prefer not to be entirely ignorant on the subject lol

 

[nox]

A better source of information regarding medieval armor is this video (which was posted in a different thread). It explains a lot more about the subject and the second half of the video actually shows footage of someone wearing armor and performing different actions.

I hadn't seen that clip, thanks a lot Tony that was really cool.

 

[Tony]

I hadn't seen that clip, thanks a lot Tony that was really cool.

No problem. I'm not the original poster of the video - I just borrowed it from a different thread since I figured it was appropriate here too. Glad you enjoyed it as much as I did

 

[BrecMadak]

I always thought it looks crap when you can run forwards, backwards & sideways at the same speed!

Yes, i meant this actually !

The thing i want to add is let's hope there would be a sprint implemented as a limited time that is affected by how high our endurance is, and many others like how long you have been moving with that armor, how freshly you have given your last fight etc etc. I wouldn't want to be running on the same speed just because i hold my mouse button, cause this would break tension and immersion i think.

i too haven't watched it till the end Tony, so thanks for bringing up once again.

 

[Bibidibop]

On running, I think it should be possible for the character to run non-stop for many hours, as long as the load is below 100 lbs; however, this should be separate from a sprint, and the more load, the lower your daily mileage should be. If you're naked, running in mild weather then you should be able to run 50 miles, over 12.5 hours; the Romans carried 60 lbs kit and moved 20 miles a day, and full armor is usually the same weight, then built a fort every day to rest; weight on one's legs has an disproportionate effect on mobility, so if you wear only the upper portion of armor, the 20 miles should be realistic, but if you wear all of the armor instead of packing part of it, then the distance, completely guessing, might only be 18 miles per day.

In combat, the difference between armored and unarmored shouldn't be that great, especially if you were born a noble, in which case you would have lived your whole life preparing for armored combat. You should be able to move just as easily armored as you would naked, just for somewhat less time, but that time could easily be an hour instead of multiple hours. Just think of (American) football players (they actually fit the physics of true nights nicely) they wear a light armor and sprint for 76 minutes spread over 190 minutes. In game terms, being well armored should just be better.

I think the only limits for armor should be cutting into maximum carry capacity, increased body density (if swimming gets in), imperceptibly slower running (except in quick travel where it should be very noticeable, especially with leg armor), slightly faster endurance loss (faster with leg armor).

However, there is one limitation I would love to see: since we will be able to kill anyone and take anything, I think plate armor should have to be refitted for the player character. A real life suit of full plate is carefully fitted to a particular person, and being even a little off could probably cause issues. I propose, unfitted plate should result in speed, endurance, sight, load, and reaction time reductions, as well as an endurance recovery reduction which lingers for a few days after taking off the armor, but to which can be partially adapted through use. The main way to get around unfitted armor should be to take it to an armor smith for fitting, for a handsome fee, but not so handsome as a new suit; however, even a fitted suit should not be quite so good as a completely bespoke suit, which should have the real I'm-not-wearing-anything feel.

 

[Infidel]

However, there is one limitation I would love to see: since we will be able to kill anyone and take anything, I think plate armor should have to be refitted for the player character. A real life suit of full plate is carefully fitted to a particular person, and being even a little off could probably cause issues.

Interesting. Considering the player's body type is defined by a point between 3 extremes, what if armour had a hidden attribute* of the same data type which was set to match the body type of whatever character the armour spawned on or was created for.

Then there could be a penalty (mobility, noise, effectiveness, whatever) based on the variance between your character's body type and that of the armour. This penalty could be removed by having an armour smith refit your armour (aligns the armour's hidden field with the body type of the character), or reduced by investing in the appropriate armour skill (directly scales the fit penalty by a %).

* This hidden attribute would not affect the visual appearance of the armour in any way, it's just a background field to calculate how well or poorly a piece of armour made for someone else fits your character.

 

[Bibidibop]

Interesting. Considering the player's body type is defined by a point between 3 extremes, what if armour had a hidden attribute* of the same data type which was set to match the body type of whatever character the armour spawned on or was created for.

Then there could be a penalty (mobility, noise, effectiveness, whatever) based on the variance between your character's body type and that of the armour. This penalty could be removed by having an armour smith refit your armour (aligns the armour's hidden field with the body type of the character), or reduced by investing in the appropriate armour skill (directly scales the fit penalty by a %).

* This hidden attribute would not affect the visual appearance of the armour in any way, it's just a background field to calculate how well or poorly a piece of armour made for someone else fits your character.

The penalty could be split into two factors: your idea relating to body type, and my with the armor not being made for the player. Looted armor of your body type could fit best, but still not as good as a suit made specifically for you. Looted armor from outside your body type would have the worst penalties. I still like the idea of refitted armor never being quite as good as completely custom armor, but it should probably be subtle.

 

[Infidel]

The penalty could be split into two factors: your idea relating to body type, and my with the armor not being made for the player.

The post was about a possible method of implementing your idea rather than a new suggestion. Since the shape of a character's body is defined by a field* representing a point between extremes a similar field could be used to define the body shape a piece of armour was crafted to fit. This would be a simple way of determining how well a piece of armour fits any character and from that determining how large a penalty to apply to a character wearing armour of a poor fit.

Consider that a custom tailored piece of clothing or armour made for one person would fit perfectly on an identical person. It doesn't matter who it was crafted for because both people are the same shape.

* If I had to guess this field is probably a set of weight values, one for each body type morph target. The morph targets would then be combined proportionally by their corresponding weight values to produce the final body shape of a character.

 

[Bibidibop]

Consider that a custom tailored piece of clothing or armour made for one person would fit perfectly on an identical person. It doesn't matter who it was crafted for because both people are the same shape.

The issue I see is, if the body system has too few variations, then the likely hood of finding a perfect match will be too high. Even someone with a body which is extremely similar shouldn't necessarily be exactly the same, which is why I think the one more value of bespoke-yes/no would be good.

Then again, with armor being made of parts, and not a whole, the check on body similarity can be done per body part. It would let a chest plate to fit, and nothing else, or vice versa; that would be interesting.

 

[Infidel]

Good point to consider though remember the 3 body type morph targets do not constitute the total number of body shape variations a character may have. Assuming a single value ranging from 0.00 to 1.00 (101 possible values if rounded to 2 decimals) defining how heavily to apply each of the 3 body types to the final body shape, then the total unique body shapes possible is:

(1.00 Fat, 0.00 Skinny, 0.00 Muscular) = 1.00 total
(0.99 Fat, 0.01 Skinny, 0.00 Muscular) = 1.00 total
(0.99 Fat, 0.00 Skinny, 0.01 Muscular) = 1.00 total
(0.98 Fat, 0.02 Skinny, 0.00 Muscular) = 1.00 total
(0.98 Fat, 0.01 Skinny, 0.01 Muscular) = 1.00 total
(0.98 Fat, 0.00 Skinny, 0.02 Muscular) = 1.00 total
...
(0.00 Fat, 0.00 Skinny, 1.00 Muscular) = 1.00 total

I don't know the formula for working it out but calculated it through brute force to be 5151 variations. So a perfect match wouldn't be as likely as it may seem from only 3 body type extremes.

Although perhaps a system like this is getting too complex and a simple boolean value defining whether a piece of armour is custom fitted to your character coupled with a fixed penalty that doesn't take into account how well or poorly armour fits might be plenty.

Edit: My calculation was bullocks and did not include only variations totalling 1.00. Recalculated total variations to 5151. Also if each value were not rounded to 2 decimal places, millions of variations could be achieved so it could be very unlikely to ever find armour that fit perfectly even after many playthroughs.

 

[The Urban Spaceman]

Some excellent ideas being put forward here. Will go into more detail when I'm not about to start work!

 

[Bibidibop]

It's good to know there are plenty of options for an armor fit system.

On the matter of running, and fighting, it turns out my analogy to American football is more accurate than I thought. I saw a video where a guy tried fighting for as long and hard as possible in full plate and sword. He is reasonably fit, and was near exhausted at three minutes; the historian running the thing said a knight might have lasted five minutes, and that they had to have had some sort of rotating fighting system, where soldiers enter and exit combat at intervals. The guy who fought said that if he had just a minute of rest he could have continued on much longer. That gives us a nice idea for how long fighting should last in the game.

I'm not sure how long melee lasts in other games--it's not something I payed attention to--but being able to work endurance up to five minutes straight of combat should be pretty great as a top skill goal.

 

[Infidel]

Considering the length of a boxing round is typically 3 minutes with a 1 minute break between each and boxers wear next to nothing, it seems fair to say that if a person can follow the same fight/rest pattern in plate armour then it mustn't be that much of a hindrance (when properly fitted).

 

[martino]

If you want to see some modded day sword fighting check out Kendo (on Youtube). Matches go till there is a result which is usually around 5 minutes but it can go for over 1/2 an hour.
Matches between High School / College student tend to be of a higher energy where as Adult matches tend to be more controlled. (There are also high school teams matches where the winner stays in, It very impressive when one individual takes out the whole opposing team)

Trapped heat from the armour during a match is noticeable.
Having spared against multiple club mates at once for Sh_t and Giggles that 3 to 5 minute window sounds about right. You simple spend almost all your energy repositioning yourself.

 

[the0thMonkey]

Considering the length of a boxing round is typically 3 minutes with a 1 minute break between each and boxers wear next to nothing, it seems fair to say that if a person can follow the same fight/rest pattern in plate armour then it mustn't be that much of a hindrance (when properly fitted).

I don't think this is a very reasonable conclusion. It depends on the intensity of the activity. Boxing is ridiculously energy intensive. While I agree that a suit of full plate is not as much of a hindrance as it is sometimes thought to be (the knight getting winched onto a horse comes to mind), it is hard to avoid the fact that you are carrying an additional 40-60 pounds of metal (however well-balanced it may be).

@Bibidibop, Infidel, and martino

I'm no historian but I can't imagine it being very practical to have soldiers fighting in shifts. It's not hockey. Unless you are a very important noble (and sometimes even then), these men are fighting to the death. This automatically raises the stakes higher than any sport.

Your heat being trapped by the armour is a good point, and these fighters would undeniably be tired and hot, but I don't think respite would be close at hand. If everybody is tired (or everybody fights with a lesser intensity as mentioned above) fighting could go on for a long time.

These are my thoughts.