Walking Part 2

[Sedrefilos]

Others have taken approaches on this. DOS 1&2, for example, have characters walk if you click at a close destination and they pick up speed and run if they have to go far. Dynamic and neat. Others games have a walk-to when you click once to the destination and they run if you double-click. Not that I care much about walking, but this are two simple ways to implement it imo.

[algroth]

I might be mistaken, but I assume that most players who want walking in Pillars do so so as to slow down world exploration and to aid in their immersion as roleplayers and so on - at least this is what I recall reading on the subject. The video on the OP goes about a pretty different matter, and that is the character design and personality as seen through their own unique gait. I'm personally not a big fan of the Street Fighter example linked since I honestly find its sexualization a tad juvenile, it almost borders into teen smut. I do, on the other hand, love Ivern's gait from League of Legends and have heard countless people comment on it:

 

 

This argument can also be used with regards to running, or animation in general. For the companions and other important NPCs the gait, whether walking or running, could have custom animations such that they better reflect who the characters are or what they are carrying. Some of that does seem to be making its way into Deadfire already, going by the way Xoti holds out her lantern before her while running, but it could be translated onto other characters as well. Edér could have a more relaxed jog to him, being a fairly athletic and robust person, while Serafen, being of a smaller race, could be trying more frantically to keep up with the pace of the longer-legged characters. All of this doesn't really speak in favour of a walk toggle so much as animation and attention to character detail, though.

[Lephys]

No one actually has a problem with the idea of a walking toggle. They likely don't see it as essential for realism seeing as there will be countless other breaks from reality in game. Always joggging in a break most people can cope with which is why some people feel other things should be prioritised first.

 

It's objectively no less necessary than a non-combat stance in addition to a combat one. Everyone could simply jog around everywhere with their weapons out. Why waste animation resources on a non-combat stance?

[rjshae]

From time to time while walking, characters should make an easy Reflex save or randomly trip and fall onto their faces. If combat starts before they can stand up, they begin prone.

[Wormerine]

 

No one actually has a problem with the idea of a walking toggle. They likely don't see it as essential for realism seeing as there will be countless other breaks from reality in game. Always joggging in a break most people can cope with which is why some people feel other things should be prioritised first.

 

 

It's objectively no less necessary than a non-combat stance in addition to a combat one. Everyone could simply jog around everywhere with their weapons out. Why waste animation resources on a non-combat stance?

I was never bother by my character running with their weapons out, just as I am not bothered that my character is more fit than I am and runs everywhere. I am also not bothered that I don't need to wait in a line to buy stuff, and that shops are open 24/7 and that traverns always have a free room even though I never book them. The stash was a very welcome addition, even though it doesn't make much sense and it is nice to have a quest log to remind me what I was doing after 2 weeks of not playing.

[daven]

Others have taken approaches on this. DOS 1&2, for example, have characters walk if you click at a close destination and they pick up speed and run if they have to go far. Dynamic and neat. Others games have a walk-to when you click once to the destination and they run if you double-click. Not that I care much about walking, but this are two simple ways to implement it imo.

I believe the same thing happens in Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/etc. That's a pretty good way to do it I reckon.

[Wormerine]

 

Others have taken approaches on this. DOS 1&2, for example, have characters walk if you click at a close destination and they pick up speed and run if they have to go far. Dynamic and neat. Others games have a walk-to when you click once to the destination and they run if you double-click. Not that I care much about walking, but this are two simple ways to implement it imo.

 

I believe the same thing happens in Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/etc. That's a pretty good way to do it I reckon.

Oh yes they did. It annoyed me a lot. I would much prefer walk/run toggle.

[Baltic]

 

No one actually has a problem with the idea of a walking toggle. They likely don't see it as essential for realism seeing as there will be countless other breaks from reality in game. Always joggging in a break most people can cope with which is why some people feel other things should be prioritised first.

 

 

It's objectively no less necessary than a non-combat stance in addition to a combat one. Everyone could simply jog around everywhere with their weapons out. Why waste animation resources on a non-combat stance?

I'm not entirely sure if you're referring to the combat stance or the lack of sheathing weapons in Pillars 1. If you are referring to the stance it has some minimal use in informing you if the start and end of combat. If you are referring to the lack of sheathing they didn't need to change that, people were able to accept it in the first Pillars. Also the main difference is that Obsidian has already added those. We are not arguing that they should have put a walking toggle in instead of something else. Instead we are asking them to put something extra in the game. The features already added have no baring on this discussion unless it changes to a request to swap them out for a walking toggle.

[Lephys]

The features already added have no baring on this discussion unless it changes to a request to swap them out for a walking toggle.

 

A feature having been already added has no bearing on its ability to pertain to this discussion. Especially as it depends on how someone is using said feature.

 

Also, I feel like you've misunderstood me, because you seem to think I'm arguing against walking being in the game, when it is quite the opposite.

 

Allow me to elaborate: Combat-vs-noncombat stance = a distinct set of character animations that is already in "the game" (was already in the first game, so it's probable that it will be in Deadfire). What does this mean? That a line of reasoning was already followed leading to a "second" animation set being deemed worthy of their time and resources. What is walking? A "second" animation set for the characters, which we are arguing in favor of being deemed worthy of the developers' time and resources to add to the game.

 

So... total bearing being had there.

[Baltic]

 

The features already added have no baring on this discussion unless it changes to a request to swap them out for a walking toggle.

 

 

A feature having been already added has no bearing on its ability to pertain to this discussion. Especially as it depends on how someone is using said feature.

 

Also, I feel like you've misunderstood me, because you seem to think I'm arguing against walking being in the game, when it is quite the opposite.

 

Allow me to elaborate: Combat-vs-noncombat stance = a distinct set of character animations that is already in "the game" (was already in the first game, so it's probable that it will be in Deadfire). What does this mean? That a line of reasoning was already followed leading to a "second" animation set being deemed worthy of their time and resources. What is walking? A "second" animation set for the characters, which we are arguing in favor of being deemed worthy of the developers' time and resources to add to the game.

 

So... total bearing being had there.

I very clearly presumed you had the same stance as me, pro walking toggle. I find the point I am trying to make very articulate so sorry. As I mentioned earlier combat stances have a very minor use in signalling the beginning and end of a fight. The current request in this thread is for Obsidian to add the toggle alongside everything else in the game. It has been their decision to (so far) not spend any money or time on this feature. This suggest to some degree that they do not see it as worthy of their resources. Everything else in the game they have already decided is worthy of them. Unless we are trying to request that they put the funds for one feature towards a walking toggle instead, the mention of other features add nothing as their existance does not give Obsidian the resources for the toggle or the popularity to make it worth adding.

[Daemonocracy]

I personally have skipped many games for this only reason, tyranny included. I can play games ignoring little annoyances because I don´t have any OCT, but this is a annoyance you see 99% of the playtime. It´s not the lack of drinking potion animations or any other stupid thing. It's something your character does all the time. A person walks unless he has a reason to run. I think it's not that hard to understand. Some game developers or hardcore players fail to see this point of view because they don´t play like normal persons, they are always testing things or running to the next point of interest. Not all people play like that. For me, the game is in the journey, not in the achivement.

 

It's not necessary for me to enjoy the game, but as the OP mentioned it is one of those little things which I do miss when gone. The SFV video was perfect because it highlights how much personality walking has over running (though I would to have a Dwarf that runs with two limp wrists flapping about). I guess I'm old fashioned and like every little detail I can to roleplay my character.

[Wormerine]

 

The SFV video was perfect because it highlights how much personality walking has over running.

 

Well, no, it shows how character can be characterized via dedicated animation. If they used same walking animation for every character it would be just generic. And if it was a runner and they would put the same about of money into animating each individual character's run I am pretty sure they could achieve a similar effect. 

 

I am pretty sure the original request was to include an option to walk, not to create unique walking animation for each character. 

[Daemonocracy]

 

 

The SFV video was perfect because it highlights how much personality walking has over running.

 

Well, no, it shows how character can be characterized via dedicated animation. If they used same walking animation for every character it would be just generic. And if it was a runner and they would put the same about of money into animating each individual character's run I am pretty sure they could achieve a similar effect. 

 

I am pretty sure the original request was to include an option to walk, not to create unique walking animation for each character. 

 

 

I was thinking more along the lines of specific walking animations that could be selected for different characters. Running could also have its own personality for each character, but I was thinking of my observations while people watching, where everyone seems to have their own walk however subtle it might be.

 

I don't expect anything to be changed in the game.

[Karkarov]

It's objectively no less necessary than a non-combat stance in addition to a combat one. Everyone could simply jog around everywhere with their weapons out. Why waste animation resources on a non-combat stance?

Well that's a bad example, as there is a great reason why you need an "at ease" stance and it's gameplay based.  Simply put, it's a indicator to show you are locked in / out of combat. 

 

Example:  A fight goes poorly, your team is getting beat down, you decide to take the better part of valor.  How do you know when you have run far enough away that you escaped combat?  Easy: Your characters switch to their "at ease" stance.

 

The reason I have a problem with walk toggle is this.  For a feature to be included in a video game it needs to meet one of two requirements.

 

1: You need it for gameplay reasons, your game will just be missing some feature or function it requires without this thing.

Example: The earlier thing about at ease versus ready for combat stance.

 

2: It is a really cool, fun feature, that may not be needed for gameplay, but it adds something fun that is worth the investment.

Example: Bif the Understudy.  Thanks to Bif you could kill critical NPC's without the plot being broken.  You could have done this by simply making those characters unkillable, but Bif is funnier.

 

A walk toggle does neither of these things.  It isn't needed for gameplay, and like I said somewhere before, player metrics are going to tell you the vast majority of players want to move faster in top down RPGs.  So moving slower is not considered "fun" by most players.

 

PS: Why is someone comparing a league of legends character who is huge to anything in Eternity?  Your characters will be too small on screen to make out much detail of any movement animation they have, much less how they hold their wrists, or expression.  Also now you want, not just walking animations, but unique walking animations for specific characters????

Edited September 10, 2017 by Karkarov

[Guest 4ward]

 

i believe Lephys is asking for walking being the default and not for a walk toggle. Which is what i‘d like to have as well. As mentioned, someone running to catch up to a walking char as in BG2 is more effective than characters running with different animations. When animations are slower they‘re more recognizable than when the movement is faster IMO, also i would bet there‘s more walk animations than run animations. But again, the simple trick in BG2 is at least equally effective. Then there‘s immersion and there‘s people out there who care about that. Then slowing down combat movement speed would IMO be cool; i don‘t want to be forced into playing in slow mode. Running is cool, i get that. But as Lephys mentioned, if you make it appear only occasionally then it gets even more cool and special. I did suggest tying it to endurance, you toggle to move faster and it affects your endurance, you take a talent let‘s call it ‚condition‘ and that char can move faster for a short time without losing endurance. So yeah, it‘s not likely that‘ll change for deadfire, but it‘s fun discussing it IMO.

[gogocactus]

What Lephys said

Off-topic: oh my god, Lephys, you are back! I missed your presence (and your puns) on these forums. I'm glad to see you could resist your excitement in anticipation of PoE2 no longer and had to share it with us on the forums =P.

 

That said: go(go)(gadget)~~~ walk-toggle!

Edited September 10, 2017 by gogocactus

[Lephys]

I very clearly presumed you had the same stance as me, pro walking toggle. I find the point I am trying to make very articulate so sorry. As I mentioned earlier combat stances have a very minor use in signalling the beginning and end of a fight. The current request in this thread is for Obsidian to add the toggle alongside everything else in the game. It has been their decision to (so far) not spend any money or time on this feature. This suggest to some degree that they do not see it as worthy of their resources. Everything else in the game they have already decided is worthy of them. Unless we are trying to request that they put the funds for one feature towards a walking toggle instead, the mention of other features add nothing as their existance does not give Obsidian the resources for the toggle or the popularity to make it worth adding.

 

My apologies. It is I who misunderstood you. I now know what you mean. You have a good point, but I think it is for us to discuss the merits of ideas, and for Obsidian to decide their value and priority. Whether or not they are going to decide to somehow get walking into the game should not have any bearing upon whether or not we ask that it be in there if at all possible (reasonably, obviously -- we don't want them to remove a chapter of the story so that resources can be re-allocated for walking animations).

 

But, yes, in a way, we're asking them to reprioritize, if that is what needs to reasonably happen. In Pillars 1, we all asked for individual stealth. Before the game was actually coded and built, it was planned. So, A, B, and C were in the plan, none of which were individual stealth. Would we have liked for them to have removed something else and put Individual Stealth into the plan? Yes.

 

Walking is a naturally lower priority than individual stealth, as it does not have as significant of an impact. Yet the point remains.

 

Well that's a bad example, as there is a great reason why you need an "at ease" stance and it's gameplay based.  Simply put, it's a indicator to show you are locked in / out of combat. 

Example:  A fight goes poorly, your team is getting beat down, you decide to take the better part of valor.  How do you know when you have run far enough away that you escaped combat?  Easy: Your characters switch to their "at ease" stance.

It's actually quite an apt example. The out-of-combat stance isn't needed. There are numerous other ways in which to quickly and easily indicate that combat is over: music, icons, HUD-change, etc. Honestly, it's easier to indicate that without a visual character-model change than it is to indicate whether or not your character is moving faster/slower than normal without a visual character model/animation change.

 

Let's say your main character gets slowed by 15%. How easy is it to tell that you happen to be moving 15% slower across the battlefield when he's just doing his joggy animation, but gliding across the screen slightly less speedily? Same goes for a speed boost.

 

If you were to simply look at the person and see "Oh, they're running" or "Oh, they're blatantly walking," you'd very quickly know what's going on.

 

As for the whole "People obviously want to move faster than slower," slow-er than what, exactly? Do they want to move infinitely fast? Or is there a certain amount of speed with which they want to move? Ultimately, that question all comes down to one thing: In any given part of a game like this, does a player want to instantly skip out of there, or does a player want to move at a finite speed through the area? Barring "Oh, I just want to go back to town now," I would assume that a reasonable player wants to move at a finite amount of speed through an area. Do they want to move 1 pixel per hour? Of course not. Do they want to move at the speed of sound, though? Of course not. It has to be somewhere in-between. So "faster" doesn't really mean anything. And how slowly would you expect physically fit characters to walk? They're not sneaking. They're just walking. People walk for exercise, for crying out loud.

 

Let's look at it one more way. When you see, say, a Lord of the Rings film, and the party is traveling through the woods, are they constantly sprinting at full-speed? Nope. And when they walk for 20 seconds, then crazy stuff happens, do you stop and think "Man... that took way too long. They really should've been moving a wee bit faster through there, maybe a light jog, so that it only took them TEN seconds to get to the fork in the road where they were beset by orcs or some dialogue took place"? Most likely not.

 

The rate at which a player becomes bored watching his characters move through an area has a lot more to do with the pacing of the area and dialogue exposition, etc., than it does with how fast the characters are traveling. And instantly intuitive visual cues of "Oh, my characters are hiking through this tough terrain" or "Oh, my characters are charging into battle like there's no tomorrow" would be plentily valuable, objectively so. Going back to what Baltic was getting at... am I to decide it's relatively MORE important than any of the other stuff they have planned? Of course not. That's not for me to decide. But, is it a pointless request/topic for discussion? Hardly. Nor was my example a bad one for its goal.

 

 

Oh, and @gogocactus: Thanks. . I missed you guys, too. I finally have computer time on a regular basis once more, so I figured I'd drop in on some high-quality discussification.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Lephys

[Lephys]

For what it's worth, in regard to this discussion, apparently characters' idle animation sets made the importance cut. So...

 

Don't get me wrong. I LOVE that. But I don't know how anyone could say, with a straight face, "We'd love to put walking-vs-running into the game, but we just don't have the time or resources. We're too busy making sure your character can idly stand in a sassy fashion, as opposed to some other fashion."

 

(Sorry... I'm kind of playing catch-up here on a lot of the details for this game).

[JerekKruger]

Well idle animations for non-companions will add a lot of character to towns and cities in the game. That said I don't disagree that they aren't all that different. All I can say is that for me, personally, a walk toggle wouldn't get any use at all whilst idle animations will be somewhat appreciated. Had Obsidian not included idle animations I wouldn't have cared all that much however.

[algroth]

Yeah, I reckon that one of the arguments towards prioritizing unique idle animations over a walk toggle is that few will appreciate the latter whereas all will see the former (as unique idle stances probably won't be linked to a toggle). The unique idle animations are part of the general aesthetic overhaul whereas the walk toggle is a very niche-specific optional feature.

Edited September 12, 2017 by algroth

[Varana]

But then, they're also nowhere near comparable in terms of effort and resources. It's not like they'd need to add walking animations - those are already in.

[daven]

If big head mode is in, this should be.

 

I imagine less people will have used big head mode. What absolutele nonsense including that bollocks.

[smjjames]

If big head mode is in, this should be.

 

I imagine less people will have used big head mode. What absolutele nonsense including that bollocks.

 

Because people want to laugh?

[Varana]

How many people had activated BHM for the whole game because they wanted to laugh all the way through the hours and days of playing, and how many switched it on, had a good laugh, and switched it off again?

[Lephys]

To the "Yeah but a walk toggle wouldn't be used that much, while idle animations would see a lot of use" rebuttals:

 

I agree, actually. However, if you read a little more into the arguments of myself and several others, we don't actually want a walk toggle. It just would've been logistically silly to make an entirely separate thread about put walking in the game, but technically not as a toggle.

 

If you think about it, everyone basically walks everywhere. Doesn't mean we walk slowly. I used to work at Target, and running in the store was simply not allowed. However, I'd sometimes have to make it to one of those "Customer needs assistance" buttons within like... 15 seconds or something, so I'd walk like a man with a purpose. Probably twice the speed of a normal walk. Maybe if you're weak or tired, and/or you're traversing difficult slopes or terrain, you'd probably walk more slowly. It's more muscle effort to move you the same distance. It's all about pacing.

 

Anywho... I'm not saying "calculate the slope of all the terrain and granularly adjust the characters' movement speeds by tiny percentages accordingly!". It's not about that. And it's not about something that is a super tiny technicality (the "everyone walks instead of running" thing). It's just a simple fact. There's no reason for the idle animations other than "Well, everyone doesn't just stand around like statues. Their knees would be locked and they'd pass out!". It makes things feel more natural and alive, and is pervasive throughout a game such as this (every character you see who stands idly is going to propagate the effects of idle animations versus a lack of them).

 

Likewise, there's just as much reason to have natural-feeling movement in the game. Why is everyone jogging/running everywhere? I don't care about the realism of the weight of their gear, and the statistical probability with which people would do that in a real dimension. I just care that it intuitively feels weird. Not only that, but myself and others have mentioned before in this thread that it makes things harder to tell when someone's suddenly moving with a purpose. If you're already running, then how contrasting is a sprint? "Hey guys! Things just got dangerous! Continue to run because we're already doing it!". I likened it to shouting all the time, then becoming the angriest you've ever been. How do you convey the shift in your anger if there's no baseline?

 

Not only that, but as Varana said, NPCs already walk around, so there's already a set of walking animations in existence (in other words, no huge resource cost to the devs to implement this). Even old, not-very-realistic JRPGs used to use walking animations to show that your party was trekking about, and just have them move at however many pixels-per-second they so felt you should move. So, it wasn't a realistic speed, but at least they were not just sprinting all over the place. Then, one day, when we got 3D games, someone just made a cool, energetic full-body running animation, and all dev teams the world over decided "Wow! We should just do this all the time and show off how coolishly we can animate a 3D character model!" And now everyone just still does it, for no reason. All characters run, everywhere, all the time. There are even games in which characters move ABSURDLY SLOWLY, but are still using running animations.

 

Now, when we have plentily fantastic graphical technology to animate an actual walking animation that's not at some absurdly slow "I'm an old man just trying to make my 1-week-long trek to the neighbor's house" pace, no one thinks to even try it? Why not? Wouldn't it be great if your characters could actually run when they had reasons to? "Oh crap, things just got urgent, didn't they? They're BOOKING it!" If you didn't care about that effect, then why care about idle animations, or the effects of the grass blowing in the wind, or people smoking little pipes or making gestures whilst delivering dialog? Either it's important stuff, or it isn't.

 

I won't say "no one" wants a simply walk toggle purely for realism's sake, but that's certainly not all that's being asked for here, or argued in favor of, for that matter. I would ask that you consider all of that before deciding what's pointless. I'm sorry for the wall o' text, but either the matter's important enough for you to consider the full discussion before formulating a conclusion, or it isn't and there's not much point in responding, to be honest. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying you SHOULD care. But you should IF you're going to take part in a topical discussion.

 

So, if people still think it's pointless, I'd appreciate some "Here's what you didn't consider," or "here's why it's STILL pointless" positations, rather than "yeah but it's a silly thing and wouldn't affect much."