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First person melee, why does it suck so bad

The FPS combat in riddick was done extremely well, with a great feeling of perspective. The answer to your question is perspective, it's hard to get right, and it's hard to make it feel real because you can't see your body....unless you implement it like riddick.

Without having played the game, how can you really comment on 'what we have seen so far?' You haven't even seen the best there is to offer currently.

Here's some melee in riddick:
http://www.gamespot.com/pages/video_player/popup.php?sid=6099379&pid=919755

It's not perfect, the block is still cheesy, and there's no grappling. The problem is the perspective, do any advanced spinning moves, and you'll lose track of what's going on.

I think for FPS games to really have good melee, they'll have to use a combination of 3rd person and 1st, so that when you do a spinning kick, or tackle a guy, the camera zooms back and you can see your actions.

This problem isn't really isolated to FPS either, combat in most games is extremely unrealistic, using cheezy blocks and unrealistic moves.
 
"Can you answer my question about Chaos Theory Tekno, or are you still giving me the cold shoulder?"

Don't know the answer.

"That's still not true first person melee combat, though. You're not controller all 3 variables are you?"

You don't control all 3 variables in 3rd person melee combat, so I guess there's no "true" 3rd person melee combat either? What is "true" first person melee combat?
 
scooby_dooby said:
The FPS combat in riddick was done extremely well, with a great feeling of perspective. The answer to your question is perspective, it's hard to get right, and it's hard to make it feel real because you can't see your body....unless you implement it like riddick.

Without having played the game, how can you really comment on 'what we have seen so far?' You haven't even seen the best there is to offer currently.
Click to expand...

Exactly, Riddick's melee combat was intuitive, fast, responsive and had really good weight to it (though not as good as Condemned). More people need to play the game before bitching about FPS melee.
 
Only if you can grapple in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic…

Seriously, why hasn't grappling been implimented in an FPS, besides of the crappy collision detection in most games?


I would like to toss people around in a death match setting or at least in the regular game. Not as much as doing a jump kick or a body slam to cause air damage.

Is Oni that good for a PC game and will it work in Windows XP?
 
Matt_C said:
Only if you can grapple in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic…

Seriously, why hasn't grappling been implimented in an FPS, besides of the crappy collision detection in most games?


I would like to toss people around in a death match setting or at least in the regular game. Not as much as doing a jump kick or a body slam to cause air damage.

Is Oni that good for a PC game and will it work in Windows XP?
Click to expand...


?
 
Wafflecopter said:
[/B]


?
Click to expand...


I meant to say that in first person mele combat, why hasn't there been grappling at all in those games, like tossing a guy arround. I was trying to make a sly reference to implimenting some Gunstar Heroes gameplay into the first person format.

The last FPS like game that did some major combat including grappling (from what I've read) was the PC version of Oni.
 
Matt_C said:
I meant to say that in first person mele combat, why hasn't there been grappling at all in those games, like tossing a guy arround. I was trying to make a sly reference to implimenting some Gunstar Heroes gameplay into the first person format.

The last FPS like game that did some major combat including grappling (from what I've read) was the PC version of Oni.
Click to expand...

Your wording was wierd. Thought you were trying to say something else. Yeah, never played Oni, but the level design was infamous.
 
Matt_C said:
Only if you can grapple in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic…

Seriously, why hasn't grappling been implimented in an FPS, besides of the crappy collision detection in most games?


I would like to toss people around in a death match setting or at least in the regular game. Not as much as doing a jump kick or a body slam to cause air damage.
Click to expand...

I think I read a Game Developer a while back that talked about the complexity of collision detection. I'm not going to try to explain it all because, honestly, I'll sound idiotic because I'm not a coder.

However, I do remember reading about how complicated / processor intensive it would be to have polygon range detection, instead of bounding boxes. This is where you have a mesh that is basically a low-poly invisible clone of your 3D model, surrounding the object like a very very close, dynamic bounding box.

Then you have to take your character's range of motion, and the AI of your opponent into consideration. Is your enemy going to be able to duck a punch that you swing? Can your opponent block a kick, then counter? Is he able to lunge at you? Can he pull a gun on you?

How about the animation and control of your character? When you're hit in the side by a 2x4, does it make you stagger, temporarily unable to control your character? If another opponent attacks you while you're sqabbling with another enemy, how are you able to control blocking/attacking multiple opponents?
 
Deep stuff but I didn't think about the ducking bit since I never recalled the early 2d shooters invovling in AI countering and ducking since that concept belonged to the domain of fighting games.

I would not expect enemies to crouch or counter in my shooting/fps games since I am acustomed to simplier games.

As for being hit, why not the person be temporarily invulrnerable like the old 2d games of yore? Sounds cheap but I find that to be a great equalizer in gamplay when you are in a bind.

I wonder how you can do those kind of things in an Unreal Tournament/2k4 mutator?

mr jones said:
I think I read a Game Developer a while back that talked about the complexity of collision detection. I'm not going to try to explain it all because, honestly, I'll sound idiotic because I'm not a coder.

However, I do remember reading about how complicated / processor intensive it would be to have polygon range detection, instead of bounding boxes. This is where you have a mesh that is basically a low-poly invisible clone of your 3D model, surrounding the object like a very very close, dynamic bounding box.

Then you have to take your character's range of motion, and the AI of your opponent into consideration. Is your enemy going to be able to duck a punch that you swing? Can your opponent block a kick, then counter? Is he able to lunge at you? Can he pull a gun on you?

How about the animation and control of your character? When you're hit in the side by a 2x4, does it make you stagger, temporarily unable to control your character? If another opponent attacks you while you're sqabbling with another enemy, how are you able to control blocking/attacking multiple opponents?
Click to expand...
 
I still think Thief has decent melee. It isn't great, and it's definitely simplistic, but that's also kind of the point of the game since it's a stealth game where you aren't supposed to have to fight a lot. And when you DO have to fight, it's effective enough. I think the game was just designed around melee for most of the combat instead of arrows - usually (with all of the special arrows) you use those for their effects instead of damage. Anyway, blocking and parrying in Thief is doable, and overall Garret isn't supposed to be a fighter.
 
And is it me or does, say, the "B" button suck for melee in games such as Halo 2? What about when they're running around you and you're trying to turn with the right analog stick and press B at the same time? It sucks. LB or RB FTW.
 
TeTr1C said:
And is it me or does, say, the "B" button suck for melee in games such as Halo 2? What about when they're running around you and you're trying to turn with the right analog stick and press B at the same time? It sucks. LB or RB FTW.
Click to expand...

You can change taht though so that you click the right joystick to melee. But the trade off is that you gotta press a face button to use zoom/scope.
 
One of the biggest problems with doing melee in first person has to do with camera and field of view. What's the normal FOV on most FPS games? 60 degrees? Maybe 90 degrees? You've got a nasty case of tunnel vision--most humans have approximately 200 degrees of vision, and that's without even turning their heads!

This works out ok with FPS games for gunning, because you generally are at shooting at something at range... so that 90 degrees is significant due to the range to the target. With melee, your opponent literally has to be directly in front of you, or you can't see them. Literally, someone two feet in front of you, but three feet to your right won't be on screen as he is roundhouse kicking you in the face.

So any sort of chaotic brawler with multiple opponents who move around and try and flank you or anything becomes a nightmare for the player.

Some sort of one on one dueling/boxing type game could probably be FPS style pretty easily, but anything involving multiple fast combatants takes a ton of effort just to tackle this basic issue.

That doesn't even really consider the fact that some of the most enjoyable part of melee combat in games comes from seeing your character do outrageous attack animations or movements that are generally wasted in first person.
 
platypotamus said:
One of the biggest problems with doing melee in first person has to do with camera and field of view. What's the normal FOV on most FPS games? 60 degrees? Maybe 90 degrees? You've got a nasty case of tunnel vision--most humans have approximately 200 degrees of vision, and that's without even turning their heads!

This works out ok with FPS games for gunning, because you generally are at shooting at something at range... so that 90 degrees is significant due to the range to the target. With melee, your opponent literally has to be directly in front of you, or you can't see them. Literally, someone two feet in front of you, but three feet to your right won't be on screen as he is roundhouse kicking you in the face.

So any sort of chaotic brawler with multiple opponents who move around and try and flank you or anything becomes a nightmare for the player.

Some sort of one on one dueling/boxing type game could probably be FPS style pretty easily, but anything involving multiple fast combatants takes a ton of effort just to tackle this basic issue.

That doesn't even really consider the fact that some of the most enjoyable part of melee combat in games comes from seeing your character do outrageous attack animations or movements that are generally wasted in first person.
Click to expand...

post of the day^^ finally someone tackles the human peripheral vision argument
 
platypotamus said:
One of the biggest problems with doing melee in first person has to do with camera and field of view. What's the normal FOV on most FPS games? 60 degrees? Maybe 90 degrees? You've got a nasty case of tunnel vision--most humans have approximately 200 degrees of vision, and that's without even turning their heads!

This works out ok with FPS games for gunning, because you generally are at shooting at something at range... so that 90 degrees is significant due to the range to the target. With melee, your opponent literally has to be directly in front of you, or you can't see them. Literally, someone two feet in front of you, but three feet to your right won't be on screen as he is roundhouse kicking you in the face.

So any sort of chaotic brawler with multiple opponents who move around and try and flank you or anything becomes a nightmare for the player.

Some sort of one on one dueling/boxing type game could probably be FPS style pretty easily, but anything involving multiple fast combatants takes a ton of effort just to tackle this basic issue.

That doesn't even really consider the fact that some of the most enjoyable part of melee combat in games comes from seeing your character do outrageous attack animations or movements that are generally wasted in first person.
Click to expand...

This is what i wanted to read, was that too hard people?

with this said, the way wii fps games control this COULD be a simple solution to the FOV problem. I dont know until games actually come out though.
 
sp0rsk said:
This is what i wanted to read, was that too hard people?

with this said, the way wii fps games control this COULD be a simple solution to the FOV problem. I dont know until games actually come out though.
Click to expand...


Heh, thanks.


I'm not sure about the Wii control being a solution...

On the one hand... mouse-level view changing seems possible, so long as you have some sort of "reset" button that acts as if you have picked up the mouse from the mouse pad (I think I saw a thread with you guys talking about that awhile ago...). Also, not being a keyboard and mouse makes it conceivable that cool melee combos could exist (I can't think of any PC games that had truly awesome melee with a keyboard and mouse?). So it seems like a good combo of the strengths of the PC's FPS controls with the console's melee controls.

On the other hand, you've still got that same FOV, so even with the hopefully good camera control, it would still be difficult/impossible to keep multiple opponents on the screen simultaneously, which means that unless it's an old school ninja movie licensed game where everyone takes turns attacking the player, I think you'd still see some of the same problems.

Unless of course the Wii is coming with that Helmet Visor thing or the R2D2 holographic projector that I see so many of you people posting about at times.... :lol
 
platypotamus said:
Heh, thanks.


I'm not sure about the Wii control being a solution...

On the one hand... mouse-level view changing seems possible, so long as you have some sort of "reset" button that acts as if you have picked up the mouse from the mouse pad (I think I saw a thread with you guys talking about that awhile ago...). Also, not being a keyboard and mouse makes it conceivable that cool melee combos could exist (I can't think of any PC games that had truly awesome melee with a keyboard and mouse?). So it seems like a good combo of the strengths of the PC's FPS controls with the console's melee controls.

On the other hand, you've still got that same FOV, so even with the hopefully good camera control, it would still be difficult/impossible to keep multiple opponents on the screen simultaneously, which means that unless it's an old school ninja movie licensed game where everyone takes turns attacking the player, I think you'd still see some of the same problems.

Unless of course the Wii is coming with that Helmet Visor thing or the R2D2 holographic projector that I see so many of you people posting about at times.... :lol
Click to expand...

well the thing is that wii fps games seem to control by having the cursor towards the edge of the screen, which could possibly give better sense of fov, maybe, prolly not though.
 
I've always wondered why more developers haven't experimented with cues and HUDs to simulate recognizing and tracking peripheral activity. The damage indicator arrows in FPS titles were a nice small step in the right direction, but it's really not much to speak of...
 
sp0rsk said:
This is what i wanted to read, was that too hard people?
Click to expand...

oh! you wanted to read that you are correct, not that there are FPS games with good meele in it.

why didnt you just say so?
 
"oh! you wanted to read that you are correct, not that there are FPS games with good meele in it."

Because he didn't want people to think he just wanted people to agree. He wanted to feel like he was right.
 
Daigoro said:
oh! you wanted to read that you are correct, not that there are FPS games with good meele in it.

why didnt you just say so?
Click to expand...


yes thats it!

no see i wanted to know what exactly it was from keeping devs from making first person melee like 3rd person melee, i dont give a shit what games yout hink have "Good melee" this isnt what this thread is about.

if you cant acknowledge the problems with first person melee in relation to their 3rd person buddies then you are blind.
 
Err, Halo...anyone? The melee used in the Halo games is far and away the best implementation out there, in my opinion. The pace of the game and the design of the combat allow for a fully fleshed out close quarters game here. The melee hits are powerful, reliable (the slight aim correction helps here), and enjoyable to execute. Melee in first person also benefits greatly from the usage of a gamepad, as opposed to a mouse and keyboard, simply due to the smooth, even rotation that you get with an analog stick.
 
"no see i wanted to know what exactly it was from keeping devs from making first person melee like 3rd person melee"

You couldn't figure that out on your own? The aforementioned camera/viewpoint, etc. etc. issues should be common sense. They're 2 different beasts. Just like 3rd person games don't allow for precision aiming.
 
hellyeah4bb.jpg


Hell Yeah!
 
Lost Planet needs a melee attack badly IMO. I feel stupid being an arm's length away from an enemy and only having the option to shoot them.
 
Riddick's melee is simply brilliant. The reactions to the hits were spot on, the physics were right and there were a lot of ways to kill someone with just a shiv. I think I spent more time ****ing up people with my rusty screwdriver than with the assault riffle. So rewarding.

More devs need to play this game so they learn how to implement good FP melee combat.
 
Barnolde said:
But in the good Jedi Knight game, it was usable in first person.
Click to expand...

Are you implying JO and JA were bad, or at least worse, than JK? :lol

Regardless, in terms of lightsaber combat, JO and JA were inarguably far superior.
 
Q:First person melee, why does it suck so bad?

A:limited depth perception...emulating depth of field via a 2d interface does not provide adequate 3d spatial orientation, especially in relation to judging distances of artifacts that are to be acted upon much closer to the origin of the actor.
 
Ristamar said:
Are you implying JO and JA were bad, or at least worse, than JK? :lol

Regardless, in terms of lightsaber combat, JO and JA were inarguably far superior.
Click to expand...

Implying? No.

Bluntly saying it? Yes.

JO (especially JO) and JA sucked ass. What worthless single player games, JO had a mediocre story and godawful level design, easily the worst game in the Dark Forces saga. **** you, Raven.
 
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