Additions to Lugaru 2: Training (and weapon aiming)

[Eric]

I decided to seperate the topics in the "Additions to combat system" thread. The following are quotes of recent comments in regards to Training (and now somehow it also has ranged weapon aiming).

About fighting an imaginary alter ego:
Zelda comes to mind... Shadow Link, which copies you almost perfectly. The only damage you can get, though, is from maybe falling down a cliff while playing around. But fighting imaginary people doesn't really seem very efficient in training.

I still really like that training idea though, I mean what's the difference from training with those rabbits and real ones. Turner gained all his moves and techniques from practicing this way (I mean, I don't think he had to kill that much stuff, before the raiders came), oh yeah and jumping off that really high tower for acrobatic skills.
And for people (the users playing Lugaru), it should be alot easier to train than just practicing levels over and over again. You could execute all your attacks without killing the opponent. Maybe you could try doing moves on a defensive opponent or reverse moves on an over aggresive opponent (like some way to switch their attitudes like in training).
If Turner fought enough wolves to be able to copy them, people could practice alot easier and could probably pull off that knife stealth kill on 3 wolves (I can't, I keep rolling too far and dying, since it's too hard to practice that without getting a mouth full of foot).

edt: added in the fact that this thread talks about ragned weapon aiming too

[Nuky]

Well, you always got them trees and sacks of hay. >_>

[Zantalos]

Ha ha ha, lets see you try cutting the throat of a tree (you strangled a scarecrow to death in "Hitman" though...), Turner will bust open every knuckle he has if he body punched that anyways (break his foot in half too). Stacks of hay sounds like a good idea I guess, only if Turner gets to use weapons like manuel aiming bows and stuff (manuel aiming might mess up the games speed, but maybe it will just create more speeds. By giving you more things to do in Lugaru, but lets not forget about giving the enemies lttle red lines or something like Blackshades. Seriously though).
Oh oh oh, how about a special store that sells everything for the aspiring warrior: wooden weapons, hay stacks (trees?), and other training equipment

This is the actual post that sparked it

...evil black birds that try to eat out your eyes? venomous snakes? natural disasters? earthworm jim? cave bats? his alterego? something feline? you know... big cats?

followed by

I really liked how in the tutorial you would fight yourself. You could practically imagine Turner all by himself, training his moves out in a closed off, isolated area. It was alot cooler than just fighting random enemies or fake enemy targets as most games do.

It may not be called his alter ego, but it should be just the same as the tutorial imaginative enemies. You should be able to think them up (spawn them up) whenever you wanted to (or in special areas), just like in the map editor by pressing a button. The main reason for this, is so that you could test whatever you wanted to do. If you just got a new weapon and you didn't want to mess it up (or there's just no enemies to be found), you could just think up of an enemy yourself and practice away. This would make things alot easier (and cooler), since you could train without fear of accidently killing your opponent too fast or getting killed by him yourself (though maybe you should take damage if you get knocked into walls and such, just enough to knock you out if you work too hard). I really liked that tutorial, I was just dissapointed that it ended so fast (although for teaching you, it wasn't too long or too short).

Ya, and dont forget. At least one person said that it was a great idea.

That's a great idea!

[Eric]

Stacks of hay sounds like a good idea I guess, only if Turner gets to use weapons like manuel aiming bows and stuff (manuel aiming might mess up the games speed, but maybe it will just create more speeds. By giving you more things to do in Lugaru, but lets not forget about giving the enemies lttle red lines or something like Blackshades. Seriously though).

I don't know how good of an idea manual aiming weapons are for the Lugaru style of play. It would require a different type of percision than the game currently has.

Training would be a great addition to Lugaru though. I always have a hard time learning exactly how to do a move when my opponent is trying to do hsi own moves as well.

[Crill3]

Noo! We gotta have manual aiming bows & spears!

[Zantalos]

There could be this really awesome toggle effect that's kind of like Blackshades, maybe exactly like black shades. You run around and do your little thing but then when you hit a button, you aim with your bow just like how you'd aim in blackshades.

Then again this could be on of the cheapest things ever,* David would have to program such an advanced pathfinding system. It just doesn't seem possible for any one to do, it may not be worth it game-wise, and programming-wise (i'm sure I'm not using 'wise' in the correct way).

And did you guys know? (you probably did) That you can attack rabbits in map editor, and they'll defend themselves with reverses and handsprings. The perfect way for me to test out that ninja style flip throwing, I just have to remember that float jump is on (more like low energy rocket jump, takes forever to fall back down to the ground ).

*standing over an edge just a bit too high for enemys to jump to

[Nazgul11]

Noo! We gotta have manual aiming bows & spears!

Yeah. At least manual aiming bows. Cause if you had a bow, and it shot on its own like a knife does in L1, that would be pretty cheesy.

[Zantalos]

Cheesy? Ha ha ha ha

Imagine Turner doing a flip jump whilst scoring a headshot on a nearby enemy, that'd be really tight, and most likely impossible to do while manuely aiming (I dunno, those bunny hoping, no scope guys from Counter Strike might be able to pull that one off).

And nice one with the title Bob

[Nazgul11]

Ok well it might not be MEGA cheesy, but I think I would still like to be able to aim a bow myself.

[levbot]

i like the bow/ melee system used in the game Savage, where it switched in between 1st and 3rd person views.

[Eric]

I think that would be nice having aiming in a first person view. Would have to see how feasible that is; namely what the transition between the regular third person and first person aiming would be like.

[lpod100]

I think first person aiming would be cool too, but I think there should be at least some help from the game. for example auto range for bows, where a button measures the distance to the object you are aiming at, after which turner automatically adjusts how high to shoot (i got that from the beta version of DropTeam ).

but yeah, david would have to totally change the style of combat to allow for first person aiming. maybe there could be levels specifically designed for ranged weapons, like a siege level, where you are one top of a wall and have to repel the hordes of enemies charging your fort. that would give you the best of both worlds, though it would probably require some extra programming and wouldn't be very consistent with the rest of the game.

[»StaffShock«]

wouldn't be very consistent with the rest of the game.

I don't think we should have things like first person aiming or red lines for aiming, since that would kind of take away from the HUD lacking idea of the rest of the game.(Which I love)

However, a spear with two attacks would be pretty cool. The running attack could be a kinda lunge-stab attack, and if you were in front of a a guy, a click would make you knock the guy down with the butt of the spear so you could stab him on the ground.

[Nuky]

I don't think we should have things like first person aiming or red lines for aiming, since that would kind of take away from the HUD lacking idea of the rest of the game.(Which I love)

Normally you do aim with your own eyes, you know...

[Zantalos]

Ha ha ha! Nice one Nuky! What are you trying to say Staffshock? Seeing through you're eyes is no longer considered natural? But I guess that could be more dissorienting than it should be, and the fact that it's going to be really hard to move aroung while you're shooting might take a hit on gameplay a little. If bows are put into the game, it should be kept in third person, seeing arrows on Turner would be really cool (in the quiver), having it in FPS might require more work to make up for the HUD. How else are you going to know how much ammo you have? I can't think of any other way.

I don't know why games don't have this effect when throwing things like grenades, some games have such an awkward throwing system, I can never hit targets that I could easily hit in real life. But bows should be a bit easier, I don't think you would need this kind of feature. That kind of aiming is great for things needing lob shots with area damage, like trying to shoot a M203 or mortar round, it's impossible to hit anything accuratly without it (of course you can hit anything up close with the M203, I'm talking drop shots). Bows are very easy to use, unless you're trying to go 'middle ages' and shoot armies by aiming right for the sky, you probably won't have a problem shooting someone(It's really easy to hit targets in Oblivion, maybe too easy?).

I think the bow would just be for stealthy situations, you could take just one shot before the enemies notice you, and once you're spotted it should be fairly easy to avoid the arrows (at least close the distance really fast). Combat is going to be focused on close range fighting I think, castle sieges would be fun though.