BEAT EM UP - NPC - GENERAL MOVEMENT THEORY

[usa423]

@Everynone

Not sure I understand the original ask here. Shouldn’t they move the way you design / need them to move? Are you asking for new ideas or a way to execute your vision?

Sure, just asking opinions of the forum, thats all.

@Everynone

The most straightforward way to implement what we see above without juggling arrays or digging in the EQS:

• opponents move on a strip of navMesh with AI

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! not the navmesh!!!

@Everynone

using a timer, opponents query the players’ volumes at random and fetch the number of opponents inside that are engaged in combat, and their position:

• if the the number < threshold, target the player:
  • prioritise front if a front attacker
  • prioritise back if a sneaky ninja

That is a useful idea.

@Everynone

have a spawn manager that controls the flow of combat and spawns enemies based on whatever factors you desire

Beat Em Up type game Everynone… I mean, it could be like the everlasting skeletons beside Death Bringer on the Sega Genesis version of Golden Axe. But then they didn’t die just had everlasting energy hence no need to respawn. Might work for an endurance mode off the main menu or something, I think the NES Double Dragon had one.

@Everynone

If you can’t get the above right… widgets, mounts, weapons, stats, combos, visuals, sound, storyline and whatnot do not matter whatsoever and actually pull you back from where you want to be. However, once you do get the above going, start fleshing it out, iterate on the abovementioned list:

I do sketches all the time when I need to figure out things.

@Everynone

make the camera work less janky

Of all your suggestions here, this is the one I am focusing on tonight. What is “janky” about it appears to be…let me show you this diagram I’m working on considering camera movement.

Imagine that rectangle represents the playable area inside of a Beat Em Up. Your BEU “Battlefield” if you will. We can divide the two left and right halves into A and B. How I typically approached this was if P00’s (or P01?) world location Y was greater then the camera actor’s Y (actual camera component) Then the in the camera’s actors BP an add actor worldset fed by an event tick would move the camera. Smooth seems to involve subtracting P00’s world location from the the camera actor. But…since I don’t want the camera to get “janky” with it, there is a problem with this I knew I would face down the road, and that is, at the time of allowed camera movement and the notifier, if the player is in A, all is well. But, if the player is in B? You get a quick jerk. While playing the new BEU GI. Joe RIse Of Cobra on Steam, I noticed that the way it accomplishes this situation is to force players to go to the far right of the screen (I made an arrow and called it endpoint in the diagram) and then camera movement returned. I may need to make a separate thread for this issue. So far I haven’t got it.

@Everynone

add a 3rd level with elevation

Definitely want to have some climbing ladders and fences to climb. Nightmare getting NPCs to tread there though I fear..

@Everynone

improve player movement and controls

I just want jump, punch, kick, dash (maybe dash jump), weapons, and things like uppercuts / combos etc etc.

@Everynone

the spawn system now creates waves or 1-3 opponents

I’m not too worried about that, enemy movement behavior is still the top priority atm.

@Everynone

• the game loop now has a main menu, loads a new level, has a game over screen and the credits screen with your name on it
• clear up the comms you messed up big time because it’s a bloody jungle and we cannot find what feeds data to what and why dispatchers dispatch twice

Believe it or not, I have had that before, with mini-boss, but have had to redo so many times I lost a lot of steam lol.

@Everynone

clear up the comms you messed up big time because it’s a bloody jungle and we cannot find what feeds data to what and why dispatchers dispatch twice

ha

@Everynone

start musing about another feature - a new enemy type, one that carries a weapon delivers serious bonks

Enemies that present the weapon, this would be like Linda on Double Dragon, she came through the door and introduced many young players to a whip (that didn’t sound right)

@Everynone

Set up small tasks in your mind, work on 1-2 things at a time, tops.

I’m starting to see that is the best bet in game dev. The longer I spend at it all it feels like my debugging time and or efficiency is improving.

@Everynone

That felt like €0.05.

You are very generous @Everynone , thank you.