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#26 02/07/12 03:02

Loser
Member
From: somewhere in da Czech Republic
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Yoriko, I designed Barabus based on vanilla combat system (so Earthquaker move cannot be interrupted by melee).

Idea behind this boss battle is to prepare for it - get hypos, get ammo and get some gun like Mercury bow, which can knockdown the opponent. Then watch carefully for Barabus's moves and knockdown him with a gun each time he tries to do the move.
You are playing with combat system mod. Of course in the mod defeating the Barabus will be easy since in modified profile, Earthquaker is set to be wake-up move. Just spam punches.

On a sidenote, same with Muro. He has his kick special set as a wakeup move, so you can deal a lot of damage simply by standing near and spamming punches.

His A.I. setting is not riddiculus, in fact it is flawed. He should have throw as a wake up move, THEN followed by Earthquaker. That way player would not try to get close and interrupt him. Timing is OK. Are you forced to stop doing any attack just because some timer says you so? No. And neither is modded Barabus (two seconds delay are to prevent A.I. loops from happening). I like it when A.I. has exactly same chances as player.



Also Gumby, altering Earthquaker is not such a big deal. Remove BlastDamage and make the particle simultaneously spawn a certain amount of invisible "damage" particles. These "damage" particles are supposed to to be sent in a XY plane equally in all directions near the floor. Near the floor, not exactly on it, since we need an ability to stop and delete the particle on contact with wall. Directions in which these are set should be set manually in master particle's emitters. For example if we decide to spawn 12 damage particles, then let them spawn so there is 30° angle between their directions.

Next, each of these "damage" particles has its lifetime, its speed etc etc and what is important, its collision radius. We need it to be so large that at the edge of Earthquaker perimeter, there is no place to slip between two collision radiuses of two neighbour damage particles. That of course means that there is a varying height up to the radius height above ground where the collision happens as well. I guess that is OK (can be thought as an air "shockwave" near ground).

Depicted workaround was designed a few years back, but then I remembered your big NO regarding anything I suggested with particles ^_^.

Last edited by Loser (02/07/12 03:02)


"I am just a mere reflection of what I would be."

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#27 02/07/12 04:02

tokenoftime92
Member
From: Sopron, Hungary
Registered: 12/10/11
Website

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Thank you. The only problem was that he run away and regenerated and when I could get close enough to hit him he stopped the regeneration and earthquakered my ass off. So technically he was invicible due to the regeneraion rate. He always restored that much health that I could not kill him. If you check my video punches do work, but that's a very boring fight. Oni deserves more versatile fights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxkl3JbWmBc around 24:30


Oni Flatline is the sh@t.

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#28 02/09/12 00:02

Loser
Member
From: somewhere in da Czech Republic
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Trust me tokenoftime91, redesigned Barabus is defeatable even in his vanilla form, in which his Earthquaker cannot be interrupted.

Defeating vanilla Barabus (Earthquaker cannot be interrupted) when his health drops so low that he starts regenerating - key is to anticipate the Earthquaker and shoot Barabus with Merury bow in the middle of the stomp, then approach him, deal close combat damage, get some distance. He either gets up and tries to Earthquaker or attempts to regenerate. Either way you have a distance, so Earthquaker won't reach you but on the contrary with dash jump kick forward you can get close to Barabus within a quarter of a second in case he starts regenerating.

That is strategy to defeat vanilla Barabus. For modified close combat, just spam punches as his melee profile was not designed with vulnerable Earthquaker move in mind.


And since I already went out of closet with jumpable Earthquaker, HERE ARE ONI FILES FOR THE MINI MOD. I will not provide package not because I am lazy, but because I don't know package numbering conventions and I don't want to cause unnecessary mess.

With this mod Barabus's Earthquaker can be jumped over. But because Earthquaker telegraphs itself pretty much, I didn't want to make it too flat, as that makes the attack totally useless. You have to jump flip over the Earthquaker at the right time, otherwise near-ground air shockwave will still knock you over.


"I am just a mere reflection of what I would be."

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#29 02/09/12 00:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Yes, he's defeatable, but I agree with token, that it IS a very boring fight. He blocks very much, since Konoko does much quicker attacks, and when he does attack, I can usually dodge/block them, or just interupt usually. Until he starts doing Earthquaker, and regenerating, then it just gets annoying.


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#30 02/09/12 11:02

Loser
Member
From: somewhere in da Czech Republic
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Guys guys, I worked with what Bungie offered me ^_^

I agree with you two that duel with Barabus has a certain point where it starts getting a bit prolonged, but that is a curse of all battles where one side can regenerate. Question - do you keep fighting when you are low on health and inject a hypo? Answer is roughly 90% no, you start running in circles waiting for the hypo to take full effect. And Barabus does similar thing.



Overall, if you wish more action versus Barabus (which I would like to deliver to you with pleasure), some serious tweaks have to be done.

1.) Oni's combat system suffers from old Street Fighter cliché "fast and weak VERSUS slow and powerful". Barabus, elites and SWAT troopers are insanely slow with their attacks as opposed to Konoko, furies or ninjas.

2.) Another old but still used up to this day fighter games feature which takes effect in Oni is absolute lack of momentum. If a character is hit, she/he is ALWAYS interrupted with no question raised about a power of the incoming hit or the character's current condition. That means if somebody is attacking with an attack which looks to have meneacing fullbody force, defender can stop the attacker completely by connecting with a standard simple standing jab. Taht miraculously nullifies all the momentum and attacker plays hit animation as if it was not approaching with fullbody force a split second ago.

3.) Finally, Oni lacks active block/parry/reversal mechanics and throw escapes.

Those three points are a part of the reason why Barabus's boss fight looks the way it looks. Barabus uses powerful moves, but they take too long to execute. Since any faster melee attack interrupts Barabus's moves with no difference betweeen momentums taken into account, the fight is then clearly in favor of faster attackers, who will not let slow characters to finish moves. Mukade, you even mention this, that you can easily disrupt most of Barabus's attacks and force him to strict defense.

Because of the described system, all bosses have a few unfair advantages to make them more a challenge:
- Barabus has Earthquaker and health regeneration
- Mukade has partial invisibility, teleporting and Devil Star attack.
- Muro has half of his moves set to be unblockable, has a very damaging front throw and special attacks with insane speed and reach
- Mutant Muro has temporary invulenrability, lightning repel attack, lightning attract attrack, Earthquaker-like move and most of his attacks are unblockable.





So if you guys wish to have more action with Barabus, let's cooperate. I have a few ideas on my own and maybe we will reach a conclusion of some sort.
1.) Strip away "his" cannon. It is only a hidden tool to make duel with him easier since he is kinda dull when he has the gun in his hands.

1.) Earthquaker move should be altered. I would like to see some impressive display of sheer energy, some proof that he is at least partially affected by Chrysalis. So instead of stomping ground, he should have something similar to Starkiller's attack - spherical blast of energy, maybe make the visuals look as if it made plasma from hot air near Barabus. This attack would be deadly (more damaging than Earthquaker) but it should have moderate windup time and also consequences on Barabus's health (damaging him as he uses it), thus tje A.I. will be altered to use it only once in a while. It would also justify why this aggressive killing brute has something defensive like health regeneration in his repertior - to rejuvenate himself after the blast.

2.) Incorporate usage of his jetpack. Barabus should have punch special where he uses the jetpack to ram himself into the enemy. His dodge moves should incorporate the jetpack to make the Barabus dodge way faster than he does now. Also thanks to the jetpack he should be given the ability to jump higher than he currently does.

3.) Make his moves faster. I don't need him to be as fast as furies, but he needs to be able to compete, otherwise we are back to special spamming and throws spamming.

Any comments or suggestions?

Last edited by Loser (02/09/12 12:02)


"I am just a mere reflection of what I would be."

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#31 02/09/12 15:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

I like your ideas. In fact, this is just a thought, but in most boss battles, in other games at least, boss battles involves doing things to stay alive. What you could do is make it so that you aren't supposed to just take the hit from Earthquaker, but make it so that you need to get to cover to dodge it. To that end, we would need to edit that map a bit to add convinient cover, and I'm not sure we'd be able to do that? I know we can do new maps, but  haven't seen any old ones reimported, so idk.

Another thing I was thinking, was if we could do, and this is a bit more drastic, but it might be worth a try, is to somehow incorporate the "canttouchthis" cheat into the combat, so he can't be thrown, but take away his block, and even perhaps, if possible, make it so that his moves can't be interrupted. This would make the player actually need to dodge his moves, instead of interrupting, and we wouldn't have the problem of him constantly blocking a long series of punches/kicks only to have to do Earthquaker and regenerate. I think though, that if he tries to regenerate, it makes him vulnerable to knockdowns, and thus, ground attacks as well, giving the player some time to dish out some unhindered damage. I'm not sure how much of this stuff is possible, and how much of it would be balanced. If this did work, we'd then have to test it, and maybe alter his health accordingly. But this way, it would be a completely different fight, and unique in it's own sense, aside from regeneration and earthquaker.

Anyways, If we were do do what I suggested, his moves would stay the same speed, and possibly damage, if it were balanced enough, since he would be made stronger in other areas. In a way this is reinforcing the "strong and slow vs. weak and fast", except that we're actually making him stronger. The changes I suggest are more logical considering his bulk, and daodan abilites. Any of this stuff that would not be possible? And that includes modifying the map to add cover. If not, then maybe we can think of something else, although I think a sphere makes more sense, whether we change it's mechanics or not. Realistically, you SHOULD be able to jump over an Earthquaker, but not a sphere.

But anyways, I really hope we can change this battle, I've always hated fighting him.

Last edited by Mukade (02/09/12 15:02)


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#32 02/09/12 15:02

Lukas Kreator
Member
Registered: 05/07/10

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Some help:

  • The "chr_unstoppable" function acts exactly like the "canttouchthis" cheat and works on any individual character. Can be disabled anytime;

  • Most levels can be imported from Oni, but I've never tried to export any of them back. Probably works;

  • Making him unable to block would probably require fighting profile modding, if it can be done. BSL probably can't help.

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#33 02/09/12 19:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Should just give him fistsoflegend instead big_smile

Anyways, I'm sure we might be able to find a workaround for it. How about making it so that being hit doesn't interrupt his moves. Possible?


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#34 02/09/12 19:02

Lukas Kreator
Member
Registered: 05/07/10

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

All his moves will be uninterruptable as long as he has "canttouchthis".
As for blocking, you should wait for a reply from Loser, because I know little regarding combat profiles and it might be possible.

Last edited by Lukas Kreator (02/09/12 19:02)

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#35 02/10/12 01:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Well, if we can't swing that, we could try without it, and see how it pans out. Might just need to reduce his health (or increase it less) to balance it out.


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#36 02/10/12 06:02

tokenoftime92
Member
From: Sopron, Hungary
Registered: 12/10/11
Website

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

I made a video about this. Read the description.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2WaefU-PUg


Oni Flatline is the sh@t.

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#37 02/10/12 09:02

Striker
Member
From: Toronto, ON
Registered: 03/10/08

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

tokenoftime92 wrote:

I made a video about this. Read the description.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2WaefU-PUg

I couldn't help but notice that your chr_lod is set to a low value (maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I saw a blocky striker). Try opening up the diary, enabling developer mode and using the console (`) typing "chr_lod 4" without the brackets.


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#38 02/10/12 12:02

paradox-01
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Where did Loser release the laser sign mod??

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#39 02/11/12 11:02

Loser
Member
From: somewhere in da Czech Republic
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

I didn't release it, so far I made it only to show it is possible. Maybe in the future somebody will create it for all weapons and release it. It is not a big deal, just invisible "projectile-like" particle added to each gun. These invisible particles do nothing apart from having set alert and dodge radiuses to some deliberate value. Ingame as long as the weapon is held by any character, these particles are kept being fired in a line of fire. Then any A.I. character which collides with them tries to avoid them - and here we go with line of fire dodging A.I. characters ^_^.





Token, your test clearly shows A.I. character actually DO dodge. Time from 00:09 to 00:11, striker's dodge behavior kicks in repeatedly and he dodges incoming plasma balls. Overall regarding your video, knowledge is the key.

For first, it looks like those strikers have default cca 10 frames timer-to-start-dodging. Bungie West did that to simulate human reflexes, but over long years of playing Oni I think big fat ZERO suits that timer the best.



Another important feature of Oni is switching between melee mode and general mode. There seems to be a hardcoded distance between A.I. and its enemy, at which A.I. switches from general pathfinding mode to combat. And in combat a bit different rules apply. And as you clearly showed in your video, when in melee mode A.I. struggles a bit betwen two needs - need to dodge projectile versus need to go to enemy and attack him with some close combat attack. That is why at close range you shoot striker and he seems not to be reacting on it. It was probably designed by Bungie West in order to force the A.I. to melee attack its armed enemy if the distance between these two is not too large.

Imagine if striker was dashing. He would eat a plasma ball or two at close range, but in exchange he would get quickly close enough to beat you with melee attacks. The awkward situation in your video is caused by a balance issue left in by Bungie West - strikers which run forward are slower than backpedaling Konoko.



Another thing your video points out is a pathfinding issue. Pathfinding A.I. logic does not take into account possibility to jump over obstacles. That's why you can hop on higher platform but as for A.I. striker, he is given instructions by engine to use sloped edge (no jumping needed). EdT tried to cover this shortcoming since he has limited access to certain resources, but even his work was quite glitchy and probably shows why Bungie West didn't incorporate this feature in the game.



Question is - what is purpose of that video? To show that eleven years old game has A.I. issues? Even with its various A.I. flaws, Oni has so far the best Artificial Intelligence I have ever seen in action games. Ability to remember enemies, ability to pursuit without knowing exact location, ability to interact with the world, to recognize friend and enemies....and all of that is done on the fly.

No scripting needed, in contrary to nowadays action games, where A.I. characters are just "actors" and scripter has to give these actors their instructions - "when spawned go there, pick that, then go elsewhere, sit there in cover, and with some random coefficient look out of cover, shoot, then hide. Finally, die."

In Oni character si spawned, maybe given its patrol path and that is all. It is autonomous unit in the game world. Beautiful ^_^.


"I am just a mere reflection of what I would be."

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#40 02/11/12 12:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

They just don't make 'em like they used to ;(


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#41 02/11/12 12:02

Valkyrur
Member
From: Russia
Registered: 12/04/11

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Mukade wrote:

They just don't make 'em like they used to ;(

Blame the AI handling in ID-Tech based engines.

(And Cryengine, goddamn, you need to fucking hold the AI's hand for everything they do when making maps with NPCs)


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#42 02/11/12 12:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

I find that (sadly) in most games nowadays, it's not about fighting enemies in 1 v 1,2 or 3. It's all about being able to mow down clusters of enemies without a second thought. Not realistic at all in my opinion, but then they don't really need smart AI. They need to make more games where each opponent is a challenge that can reduce your health. THat's another area where Oni wins smile


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#43 02/11/12 12:02

Valkyrur
Member
From: Russia
Registered: 12/04/11

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Mukade wrote:

I find that (sadly) in most games nowadays, it's not about fighting enemies in 1 v 1,2 or 3. It's all about being able to mow down clusters of enemies without a second thought. Not realistic at all in my opinion, but then they don't really need smart AI. They need to make more games where each opponent is a challenge that can reduce your health. THat's another area where Oni wins smile

Again, ID-Tech based engine design encouraged that kind of "Mow down enemies" game design.

Hell, even DOOM and Quake were full of cannon-fodder AI that need to rely on numbers rather than actual skill.

Now of course, there is Halo and some other FPS games that do deviate from that.


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#44 02/11/12 12:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Halo was, incidentaly, also Bungie smile
But yes, now that you mention it, the AI was smarter in Halo, although not quite to the same degree, and even then, it was leaning towards the cannon fodder side.


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#45 02/11/12 12:02

Dirk Gently
Member
From: Boston, MA
Registered: 06/12/09
Website

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Mukade wrote:

Halo was, incidentaly, also Bungie smile
But yes, now that you mention it, the AI was smarter in Halo, although not quite to the same degree, and even then, it was leaning towards the cannon fodder side.

Halo AI was pretty dumb. I wrote a number of tutorials on how to vastly increase stock AI ability to function intelligently. Most AI in Halo 1 could not throw grenades at you unless they were specifically OK'd to do so.

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#46 02/11/12 16:02

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Loser: Please release the files for the laser sight mod.  Then we can play around with them too smile

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#47 02/12/12 07:02

Loser
Member
From: somewhere in da Czech Republic
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Alrighty guys, here we go:

HERE are files regarding Barabus. Of course they are all just swap work, I don't have animation tool. Also, presented melee A.I. is kinda broken as I wanted to test out how jetpack works in a duel. Feel free to lariat spam him to death or triple punch spam him to death, he has no solid countermeasures for it.

And HERE are files for line of fire dodge. Example contains modified w1_tap and modified striker_easy ONCC files. The mod adds invisible particle to the weapon and also requires tweaking ONCC gunfire dodge parameters, otherwise the effect is not too much visible. Also, I recommend having dashing mod applied, otherwise the effect is not too visible.



And with this request fulfilled, I am again going out of busines. Bye all ^_^.

Last edited by Loser (02/12/12 07:02)


"I am just a mere reflection of what I would be."

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#48 02/12/12 20:02

Gumby
Member
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: 08/30/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

I can already tell an obvious problem with LoF dodge: enemies will dodge it whether or not they can see you. Good idea though.


Iritscen: roll
Iritscen: it's amazing this program even works
Gumby: i know
Iritscen: and that statement applies to my code, not just yours

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#49 02/12/12 23:02

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

Could you maybe put a range on the particle so things like sniper rifles and such wouldn't have so much problem?


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#50 02/13/12 17:02

Gumby
Member
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: 08/30/07

Re: Complete redesign of melee profiles

You could, yeah.


Iritscen: roll
Iritscen: it's amazing this program even works
Gumby: i know
Iritscen: and that statement applies to my code, not just yours

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