Enemy Jumping Animations

[shut]

I'll be blunt. Right now, they're absolutely hideous, even worse than the enemy jumping animations of Vindictus: Season 2 (which, frankly, are an absolute disgrace to the Source engine).

It just kills my immersion every time I see a Grineer slowly jog over to the edge of a platform and then magically leap forward at twice his original horizontal speed onto a platform ten feet above him in a choppy, glitchy-looking arc that completely defies the game's gravitational acceleration. It's painfully obvious that the jumping mechanics are triggered by invisible "markers" placed at certain points on the map rather than true enemy AI. It's even more painfully obvious that these are predetermined animations, rather than "true jumps" that are affected by things such as, you know, gravity.

 

Are these just placeholders? Will they be updated anytime in the future?

Edited November 16, 2013 by SortaRandom

[Drazhar14]

It's more like teleport dodging than jumping. And I agree, the current animations are ridiculous. 

[Arlayn]

It's more like teleport dodging than jumping. And I agree, the current animations are ridiculous. 

Maybe they have boosters in their boots, or some form of gravitational boost that gently blast the ground, or reverse gravity on ground creating the lift, and bring it back again to normal allowing them to fall back down on the next platform. Its sci-fi its the future... Nothing has to be explained to be honest... That's like asking Dr. Who to explain in every detail how the phone booth works...

[DAFIRE]

man,the grineer are training to became heavy armored  ninjas!!,and they're practicing teleporting!!

[WondahBoah]

I'll be blunt. Right now, they're absolutely hideous, even worse than the enemy jumping animations of Vindictus: Season 2 (which, frankly, are an absolute disgrace to the Source engine).

It just kills my immersion every time I see a Grineer slowly jog over to the edge of a platform and then magically leap forward at twice his original horizontal speed onto a platform ten feet above him in a choppy, glitchy-looking arc that completely defies the game's gravitational acceleration. It's painfully obvious that the jumping mechanics are triggered by invisible "markers" placed at certain points on the map rather than true enemy AI. It's even more painfully obvious that these are predetermined animations, rather than "true jumps" that are affected by things such as, you know, gravity.

 

Are these just placeholders? Will they be updated anytime in the future?

Vindictus in and of itself was kind of a disgrace to the Source Engine... Or maybe that was their terribad PR and staff...

 

Enemy AI has been a problem from day one. People, as well as devs of other games, think that "making an enemy harder to kill" by boosting stats qualifies as improving AI. Giving the enemy the ability to make more detailed decisions about a situation, as well as the ability to choose to enact them is really how it's done.

 

For example, Grineer are clones with deteriorating DNA and flesh, yes, but they're cloned super soldiers/space marines. They aren't stupid. They should move tactically and with purpose. This might mean flanking, sending out weak units, or employing turtle shell defense on a heavy to keep it alive. Commanders should be given a nerf, and placed within units to issue commands. If the commander dies, they shouldn't completely lose competence, but they should be a little less cohesive. As they wear heavy armor, they really shouldn't be able to jump. They only ones that should be able to jump--and do jump attacks, if implemented--should be light units and rollers.

 

 

The Corpus are even smarter, albeit weaker. They also prefer to hide behind their proxies(canon lore, that is). First of all, there should be more robots afoot, or at least, more regular MOAs. Second of all, they should be programmed to fight tactically as well, rather than run aimlessly like Corpus soldiers. The "soldiers" should be more prone to defensive and self preserving tactics (greedy, selfish merchant class), while their MOAs do the attacking. Every now and then they should peek out from cover to lay down some fire. The only Corpus to be focus on attack should be the Mechanic--who should really be 1.15x bigger than the soldiers, rather than 5000000000x bigger--who is armed with the Supra and Shield Drones for days--they're mean to be on the field to repair MOAs, but they need to defend themselves as well.

 

bit longer than I intended, but basically I'm saying AI as a whole needs fixing, not just those atrocious jumps.

[shut]

Vindictus in and of itself was kind of a disgrace to the Source Engine... Or maybe that was their terribad PR and staff...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there, buddy. Vindictus was arguably one of the best F2P games out there before Han Jae Ho got his grubby paws all over it and introduced everything that the playerbase didn't want. Didn't win the "Best F2P MMO of 2010" title from IGN for nothing. XD

 

bit longer than I intended, but basically I'm saying AI as a whole needs fixing, not just those atrocious jumps.

 

That, I can agree with.

This thread is mostly directed at the enemy jumps specifically, though. Discussion about the combat AI itself can be left for another topic. XD

 

 

 

 

Maybe they have boosters in their boots, or some form of gravitational boost that gently blast the ground, or reverse gravity on ground creating the lift, and bring it back again to normal allowing them to fall back down on the next platform. Its sci-fi its the future... Nothing has to be explained to be honest... That's like asking Dr. Who to explain in every detail how the phone booth works...

 

I get what you're getting at, but really, there's no reason to even attempt to back up lore-wise what is obviously a flaw in the game system itself. XD

Edited November 17, 2013 by SortaRandom

[AuroraSonicBoom]

The most jarring view has to be Infested ancients jumping, as their new model uses the animation of the old giant runner ancient.