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I really like what I’ve seen of the grappling hook thus far, the spiderman feel. Anything that gives a sense of skill accuracy and flow is always great imo, with gliders, I say go with a kind of stiff slow tilt. Like old pilotwings 64 or batman’s gliding. That sense of only having partial control really adds to the “Oshtoshtoshtosht” kind of thrill, and that feeling of reward when you pull out of a high speed dive barely avoiding deadly collision.
Also I’d like to make a note of character customization..There is something to be said about presenting the players with equally viable choices… There’s a consideration to be made between uniforming everyone to spiderman style movement (Attack on Titan flashbacks…perhaps this is not a bad idea) vs giving them ways of expressing their unique character and personality. I think of DC Universe Online’s choice of superpowered movement customizations where you had to select whether you ran super fast like the flash or flew with powers or wings or technology, or they had a selection for gymnastics based movements with a grapple zip line etc. I can think of other options such as Corvo’s blink, or wall and ceiling running like natural selection..Dragon’s dogma (excellent combat engine) let you summon an ice platform as a wizard, blablabla. Which powers are exclusive? Which can be used in tandem etc? These are important considerations. Terraria had a neat idea of letting you craft useful movement gear together in a dota-shop kind of utility tree. Tribes 3 I think it was had a neat dynamic between skiing, grappling, and jetpacking.
Consider also how this is to tie in with combat. DC Universe handled heroic movement by essentially disabling it in combat and giving players rooting type skills, the EQ Next/Landmark community seems mostly upset over the extent that heroic movement has been demonstrated and exaggerated. They feel it detracts from the old EQ immersive RPG feel. I personally believe this may not have been the case if it were not so floaty and arbitrary. Think risk/reward and skill curve. Those are pretty much nonexistant in what we’ve seen there. Tribes didn’t isolate movement from combat at all. You’d diskjump off of players faces while swinging around their base on a grapplehook without restraint.
With regards to full flight, WOW had specific zeppelin stations, these followed specific scenic routes to move players between key points. With more procedural worlds, I could see something like this being done well as a kind of slow fast travel arranged by minimap.. WOW meets GTA in a sense…hopefully with some occupational tasks like pocket inventory management aboard the zeppelin for those players who don’t want to stop and stare at the scenery for 5 minutes as it goes by (But why wouldn’t you want to, seriously?) This gives the player eye candy, a bit of a break, or time to clean up his inventory, check the wiki or hit up his kitchen for snacks. You could set the destination by explored minimap only, so friends could take each other to familiar terrain otherwise inaccessible alone etc.. This encourages the more perilous on foot/by mount exploration.
These are just some ideas I’ve had, and they are very open ended. We know nothing about our combat engine and therefor nothing about how movement will and should tie into it. We could go for minecraft but it wasn’t boasting anything special there. Less can be more, or we may rather like to see innovation. Wildstar’s prompts bored many players to death, though if it weren’t for the excessive telegraph it may have been okay. I haven’t played it so I do not know.. WOW’s combat is antiquated and I imagine many would not find it welcome in a game like this. I don’t even feel high animation and sound quality saves its drawn out rooted autoattack snorefests, but MMOs are traditionally not so great at handling masses of dynamic combat data either. Planetside 1, 2, and to some extent MAG on PS3 I think were attempts at remedying this, but SOE has access to some serious resources. I won’t even pretend to begin to understand the logistics of such projects or whether that is feasible… On an unrelated note Guild Wars 2 and others abandoned the tank dps healer trinity (+ controllers) with questionable results. Everyone was kind of an everything, which is okay for solo I guess but it disincentivizes partying up and strategizing to begin with. Personally I like the old trinity for pve multiplay but I like the idea to make it more flexible than a punishing respec. Maybe changing an armor set or equipment between runs.
I’ve gotten a bit off topic I realize, so I’ll conclude. This is still a baby project and we have yet to really decide what it’s going to be, what we as players, gamers, backers and developers want. The public often doesn’t know what it wants til its given to them, and if you give them what they say they want they may hate you for it. The key thing to remember is whatever the dream is, for you developers personally, collectively, and your backers as a disagreeable collective, there is a relationship between the avatar and his abilities, the allies he’ll meet, and the world and its challenges they’ll face.. These should be developed mutually held in mind, for one picture, one taste of zen gaming perfection. Whatever that may be.
PS: In contrast to all my MMO references, in this case less may be more. I’d like to reference a game called King Arthur’s Gold for a potential combat model. Though 2d it’d translate well to 3d, very very simple yet effective with ability to charge sword or bow for double slash/triple shot with guard break properties. This works well with fast and dynamic movement in combat scenarios. Where weak shots will not do, charged shots will. Its the same reason the old megamans were fun. I just want to artfully/skillfully grapple swing/wall jump (double taps! Unreal 2k4 style!) my way through bullet hell nonsense to land my charged shots on otherwise resilient or dangerous foes. Much work to do. Much work indeed ^^
TLDR: Create movement systems with combat in mind and combat with movement in mind and team play dynamics with all of that and skill/challenge curves in mind. Say no to mindless easy mode. WOW style zeppelin slow fast travels by minimap markers ala GTA. Play Batman Arkham City (for the gliding mechanic), DisHonored, Unreal 2k4, Chivalry, Serious Sam 3, and King Arthurs Gold, Megaman x4, DC Universe Online, and Terraria, or even a good role based hoard game like Killing Floor or Alien Swarm and ask yourself what makes these fun as you do this, write down your best answers, then put all of whatever that is…in this. 😀 I want this game to be excellent.
