Why are there no ladders?

(Protekt1) #41

[QUOTE=Tast1c;436743]only elevator i saw in a multiplayer fps map, was on N64 james bond the world is not enough; merchant
was really funny riding up and down with it xD[/QUOTE]

They have elevators in blacklight retribution and they are terrible and always been very buggy (I played the game since closed beta up til about 5-6 months ago btw).

(Rex) #42

Ok, finally I found a ladder in the game! But due to the missing climbing animation I couldn’t go up there. :frowning:

ladder.jpg1920×1080 351 KB

(kilL_888) #43

everyone knows the troubles with ladders. up is easy but down? mostly you just fall. leveldesigners need to put a rail thingy at the top of the ladder so you don’t fall and be able to grab the ladder.

ladders may also feel awkward, depending on the implementation. rtcw, et, etqw (and doom 3) did a pretty decent job with ladders. doom 3 actually adopted the “stick to” ladder style from rtcw (you jump in the direction of the ladder and you move towards it, like a magnet.). this was pretty neat. but the problem of getting down still persisted.

animations are another issue. but… i’m not against it. but i wouldn’t moan if there aren’t any ladders.

(Rex) #44

[QUOTE=kilL_888;440262]everyone knows the troubles with ladders. up is easy but down? mostly you just fall. leveldesigners need to put a rail thingy at the top of the ladder so you don’t fall and be able to grab the ladder.

ladders may also feel awkward, depending on the implementation. rtcw, et, etqw (and doom 3) did a pretty decent job with ladders. doom 3 actually adopted the “stick to” ladder style from rtcw (you jump in the direction of the ladder and you move towards it, like a magnet.). this was pretty neat. but the problem of getting down still persisted.

animations are another issue. but… i’m not against it. but i wouldn’t moan if there aren’t any ladders.[/QUOTE]

Falling down was done on purpose just by the way. Makes no sense to put a railing on the top, if most players prefer to jump down and stop 1m above the ground.
Poor argument if you say “ladders may also feel awkward”, but then you name even 4 examples where it worked well.

A few ways to the ‘get down problematic’:

[ul]
[li]You jump down and get damage[/li][li]You jump down and stop at the last part of the ladder, so you get no damage[/li][li]You climb down[/li][li]You slide down and stop at the very end, so you also get no damage (ETQW feature)[/li][/ul]

No idea why getting down should be a problem? If you don’t want to get damage, just don’t climb up there! :tongue:

(.FROST.) #45

[QUOTE=Tast1c;436743]only elevator i saw in a multiplayer fps map, was on N64 james bond the world is not enough; merchant
was really funny riding up and down with it xD[/QUOTE]

Brink had an elevator in Aquarium. You could demolish or repair it.

(kilL_888) #46

[QUOTE=Rex;440286]

No idea why getting down should be a problem? If you don’t want to get damage, just don’t climb up there! :tongue:[/QUOTE]

“getting down” is not the problem but using the ladder to get down is a known issue in almost any shooter, except the ones where you have to interact with the ladder in order to use it. most of the time you just run over the edge, unable to grab the ladder, so you just fall down.

jumping down and using the bottom of the ladder requires appropriate physics and some air control.

with awkward i meant clunky ladder controls. my examples showed ladders done right but there are a lot of other ways to implement ladders that work differently than in the examples i gave. operation flashpoint or the arma series are good examples of how NOT to implement ladders.

(Rex) #47

I don’t think SD would have problems with the implementation. :wink:

(MrEd) #48

Ok Rex, this is going on the maybe list too…

…but only if you can write the design doc for us :stuck_out_tongue:

As with the sliding, what would your golden rules for ladder interaction be?

For reference:

For slide to work it would have to conform to these rules:

  1. You can only start sliding by sprinting and then pressing crouch. Only this combination causes it to happen, so if you’re not sprinting when you crouch, you just crouch, so we don’t have players sliding about all over the place accidentally.
  2. If you let go of crouch whilst sliding you stop sliding and start running upright again.
  3. The transitions between running and sliding, and sliding and running, have to be seamless.
  4. No knocking people over (or damaging them) when you slide in to them.
  5. Releasing sprint whilst sliding immediately stops the slide and the player remains crouching.
(Mustang) #49

I’ll can kick things off:

  1. Be able to shoot whilst on ladder*
  2. Be able to grab ladder at any point (not just top and bottom)
  3. Looking away from the wall should let go of the ladder and allow freefall (whilst retaining ability to shoot off to the side without letting go)
  4. Move forward key to climb up and move backward key to climb down
  5. Should still be able to jump whilst on ladder (e.g. to reach a ledge off to the side)
  6. Crouch to slide down quicker than climbing down
  • This is trickiest to make it look nice from an animation perspective, in my opinion, with regards to both first and third person. Although more so first person, climbing a ladder one handed can be tricky at the best of times. This would be my main reason for not wanting to see ladders if the animation couldn’t be done well enough for a single handed climb without obscuring the view whilst aiming.
(en2ie) #50

Yeah this one would be tricky. If I was climbing wouldn’t I be facing the ladder… and hence have nothing to shoot at?

(Mustang) #51

Your body would, but your head (and free hand holding weapon) could turn and shoot off to the side, or you could peek over the top of the ladder and shoot people on the platform above, or if the ladder isn’t flat against the wall you can shoot through the gaps between the rungs to people on the other side, maybe even to shoot someone directly below, lots of possibilities.