Lin Chiao Feng wrote:

Read: "Not at launch."

Unfortunately, it's also likely "Not any time soon". It'd be a lot of work for a pretty small amount of gain.

I'm more disturbed that both of those videos show big men abusing women... I suppose there must be videos of women beating on men, too... somewhere.

RUMBOGUTHORUMOR wrote:

Isn't the point of being a superhero or villain is to be godly powerful? To waste huge hunks of metal like it's nothing?

It's not really a question of wanting super-powered characters in a computer game who can toss trains around. The real question is how you get a game like this to do that without it looking downright stupid.

RUMBOGUTHORUMOR wrote:

Lothic wrote:
RUMBOGUTHORUMOR wrote:
Isn't the point of being a superhero or villain is to be godly powerful? To waste huge hunks of metal like it's nothing?
It's not really a question of wanting super-powered characters in a computer game who can toss trains around. The real question is how you get a game like this to do that without it looking downright stupid.
An example of how it would look "off?"

Plenty of other people have mentioned the various problems related to this in this thread already. Bottomline I'm sure someday some MMO will be able to manage decent looking 3-dimensional grappling/wrestling but with all due respect to MWM it's likely going to take a large art department working on it for a long time with a huge budget to devote to it. These are things -most- companies would be unable to do much less MWM.

Redlynne wrote:

Suplex the Train and it just looks stupid.

Stupidly awesome!

I'm sure women really want to beat up their grandfathers, or is that the Butler? He must have spilled coffee on her. These poor targets aren't even Trying to resist.

Be Well!
Fireheart

RUMBOGUTHORUMOR wrote:

Redlynne wrote:
RUMBOGUTHORUMOR wrote:
An example of how it would look "off?"
Normal sized man versus "huge" body type.
Now start thinking in terms of normal sized man versus Giant Monster.
Wrestling and Grappling only "work" when you're dealing with similarly sized (and similarly shaped and similarly "constructed") opponents. Man versus man, for example. It also presupposes that you're fighting in a standard earth gravity circumstance, rather than in free fall (or on the moon or on Mars). It presupposes that your opponents need to breathe (offer not valid with robots or rocky/plant/crystaline entities like City of Heroes' Devouring Earth faction). There are a lot of things that need to be "just so" in order for grappling/wrestling to be a "valid" way to fight an opponent.
Long story short(er) ... grappling and wrestling require that opponents fall into a Too Narrow Category of sizes, shapes and physiological vulnerabilities. If all you fight is "humans" (and normal sized ones at that) then it works fine. As soon as you start broadening the range of possible opponents (and environments), it starts to fail (in terms of generalized applicability) in a hurry in the context of being consistently animated and applied in a computer game.
You can shoot guns/wands/shoulder pets at anything and it will look acceptable.
You can karate chop/axe kick pretty much anything and it will look acceptable.
Suplex the Train and it just looks stupid.

Well I mean how would shockwaves and earth based attacks work in free fall as well, it would work similarly, you would slam them on the air.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyvBNHW0hoQ
In this video the Grappler suplexes a monster that was two times her size without fail. To create the leverage point basically means she would grab his hips rather than the waist. I mean in Champions Online currently there's the Mega Destroid event underway and where is the melee only slashing and punching these giant robots? Their feet. I mean if you want to try and rationalize that it wouldn't make sense either because all that attacking should only destroy their feet but not their torso. I'm not expecting special throws like arm bar and lock and stuff, more like the throws that can sort of swivel into an animation that is awesome like suplexes, power bombs, shoulder throw, frankensteiner for an overall full body experience.
And I know people make similar concerns with enemies that are smaller or rounded with a non-humanoid body type, I assure you with a full body grab and throw it won't look that "off" really. I mean there are games where wrestling moves that are performed on monster plants for crying out loud. The thing is wrestling and grappling martial arts were actually designed for a smaller enemy to throw a larger enemy to begin with. With video games it can be taken further into fantasy like everything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-89dCHHnnYA

What Tyche said.

All add, and reiterate, just because some games have some grappling moves does not not mean that the same is equally possible for all games.

We could probably pull off limited grappling sets for throws if we had static - that is very limited range - of humanoid body models.

This game allows the player a large amount of customization of their character avatar and will feature a wide range of shapes over time.

This variety presents a lot more complexity when it comes to making grappling work. And that is just for throws.

With aesthetic decoupling we have a nother set of hurdles to over come when it comes to other than throwing grappling moves.

For the most part, aesthetic decoupling and mechanics do not influence one another. Grappling can require specific mechanics we don't have yet. Grappling with multiple opponents and aesthetic animations with customizable avatars are exponential layers of complexity.

Which is why I'll circle back to what Dr. Tyche said. If we had the resources of a AAA game (funding to cover man power) then maybe it would be a consideration.

TitansCity wrote:

Tannim222 wrote:
This variety presents a lot more complexity when it comes to making grappling work. And that is just for throws.
With aesthetic decoupling we have a nother set of hurdles to over come when it comes to other than throwing grappling moves.
For the most part, aesthetic decoupling and mechanics do not influence one another. Grappling can require specific mechanics we don't have yet. Grappling with multiple opponents and aesthetic animations with customizable avatars are exponential layers of complexity.
Which is why I'll circle back to what Dr. Tyche said. If we had the resources of a AAA game (funding to cover man power) then maybe it would be a consideration.
I do remember Dr Tyche showed a video of a grappling system with a crashbody who use some grappling rope on walls or even balls or corner or sticks... what is the difference if clothes are "grappable" ? or maybe it was just for travel power ?

Just travel or for general TP Foe type use.

Tannim222 wrote:

The appropriate term would be grapnel for the travel power.
Change location of caster to target or location can be skinned like using a travel power. The same goes for changing the location of a target to the caster.

What happens as a result would depend on Mass, right?

Be Well!
Fireheart

Tannim222 wrote:

Fireheart wrote:

Tannim wrote:

The appropriate term would be grapnel for the travel power.
Change location of caster to target or location can be skinned like using a travel power. The same goes for changing the location of a target to the caster.

What happens as a result would depend on Mass, right?
Be Well!
Fireheart

No. We don't use mass vs magnitude in our mechanics.

One presumes that if the power is a rush-type power, the caster goes to the target, and if the power is a pull-type power, the target comes to the caster. A mad engineer could show you the math but from my perspective it looks like additional forces are in play locking down whoever isn't supposed to move. ^_^

TitansCity wrote:

Doctor Tyche wrote:
Just travel or for general TP Foe type use.
Tahnks :)
Tannim222 wrote:
The appropriate term would be grapnel for the travel power.
Change location of caster to target or location can be skinned like using a travel power. The same goes for changing the location of a target to the caster.
And so, grappling could not be possible ? i mean, without too much work ?

Grappling, no, it requires extensive work.

Moving a target by changing its vectors is easy. This can be animated to look like a teleport, using a grapnel gun, a rope, etc...

The moving targets part is easy, synching variable length bones to varying shaped meshes properly all the time, figuring out mechanics that work with the rest of the mechanics of the game, completely different story.

Phararri wrote:

The mmo Vindictus pulled it off.
They even have special grapples for bosses. You can suplex, piledrive, throw, punch, and headbutt enemies. You can even slam them through pillars or against walls.

I'm pretty sure no one here said those things were impossible to do in a game. But it's obvious that to implement those things well in a MMO you'd have to focus a lot of time and resources to that relatively limited area of the game.

I'm comfortably assuming that Vindictus didn't spend too much time offering a huge number of different classes/powersets for its players. That likely allowed them to focus on unique melee animations that would be prohibitive in CoT because this game is trying to offer a WIDE range of character types. I'd rather have as many classes/powersets for players as possible in CoT than for the Devs here to spend too many of their limited manhours making a handful of complex grapple maneuvers look good. Frankly I personally doubt I'd even play a character type that relied on physical wrestling/grappling of any kind and I'm sure I'm not the only one who would say that.

If CoT ever decides to add significant wrestling/grappling content it should do it -after- launch. It would involve far too much time/effort for too little pay-off to do it any other time.

Doctor Tyche wrote:

Vindictus has a very VERY limited character creation system. Everyone of a set class is the same size. This greatly simplifies the work needed for a grappling system. On top of this, there remains serious clipping issues during the grapple, which are hidden due to the speed.

Yes this doesn't surprise me at all. Software in general (not just games) often relies on various tricks/shortcuts/compromises in order to implement features that are "just good enough" to be released but if you looked at what's actually going on closely enough you'll see it was just a cleverly constructed house of cards. It's basically the digital version of the "sleight of hand" magicians use to make something look "magical".

Doctor Tyche wrote:

you'll spot the issues.

Obviously and withtout slowing down :)

But, maybe put a foe on a bubble/cage/psy jail/elect jail/gadget jail/stone block (poor han solo), and throw it on a wall is possible ? Ok, it's not grappling or wrestling but it's approaching the mind power telekinesis of CoH which could allow players to repulse foes
(Telekinesis : Lifts a foe, and any nearby foes, off the ground and repels them. The targets are helpless, unable to take action, and will continue to hover away, picking up any passing targets, as long as you keep this power active. Keeping up this level of concentration costs a lot of Endurance)

Doctor Tyche wrote:

TitansCity wrote:

put a foe on a bubble/cage/psy jail/elect jail/gadget jail/stone block (poor han solo), and throw it on a wall is possible ?
That is relatively easy, and we have that already prepared.

Tyche, God of fortune and prosperity... i love you xD

Redlynne wrote:

Wrestling and Grappling only "work" when you're dealing with similarly sized (and similarly shaped and similarly "constructed") opponents. Man versus man, for example. It also presupposes that you're fighting in a standard earth gravity circumstance, rather than in free fall (or on the moon or on Mars). It presupposes that your opponents need to breathe (offer not valid with robots or rocky/plant/crystaline entities like City of Heroes' Devouring Earth faction). There are a lot of things that need to be "just so" in order for grappling/wrestling to be a "valid" way to fight an opponent.

Long story short(er) ... grappling and wrestling require that opponents fall into a Too Narrow Category of sizes, shapes and physiological vulnerabilities. If all you fight is "humans" (and normal sized ones at that) then it works fine. As soon as you start broadening the range of possible opponents (and environments), it starts to fail (in terms of generalized applicability) in a hurry in the context of being consistently animated and applied in a computer game.

You can shoot guns/wands/shoulder pets at anything and it will look acceptable.
You can karate chop/axe kick pretty much anything and it will look acceptable.
Suplex the Train and it just looks stupid.

Point still stands.
Obviously Vindictus decided to remove the size variable from the equation, so you don't have to worry about grappling "giants" or "midgets" relative to your character's size based on the video that Doctor Tyche posted.

Oh, and one one other thing ...

In a lot of side scrolling fighting games as well as some of the more modern 3D fighting games, grappling moves are designed to be a counter to what are called "turtle tactics" where your opponent just uses Block against every attack. In the rock-paper-scissors design used for those games, Grappling "ignores" Blocks (at the expense of needing to get in close) so as to be able to keep Blocking from become an ultimate trump card. Note that fighting game characters like Scorpion, who used a spiked tether to "GET OVER HERE!!!" reel in opponents from across the screen would have their "ranged" version of a Grapple attack be countered by a Block, while the "melee" version of a Grapple attack would NOT be countered by a Block.

Since City of Titans is not intended to be simulating Block strategy gaming, this is yet another reason to throw on the bonfire as to why Grappling is ... inappropriate ... for City of Titans, since it solves an issue that we won't have (or need to be solved).

[youtube]v79fYnuVzdI[/youtube]

Phararri wrote:

Overall, is was executed nicely.

Well if it's any consolation pretty much EVERY player coming into this game is likely going to be wanting some feature or option that the MWM folks are simply not going to have the time or money to implement. To some forum regulars around here I'm probably still infamously known for fighting for a certain body model option (which I won't even bother to specifically mention here) for several years that ended up as another lost cause like your desire for grappling might turn out to be. In a perfect world every game would have everything every player wanted but that's just not going to happen.

I get that the Devs of Vindictus decided to focus on some feature (grappling in this case) that the makers of this game didn't see as a priority. While that might suck for you just remember that the Devs of CoT didn't make that decision just to piss you off personally. I'm sure they would love to add all sorts of wrestling/grappling to the game and maybe at some point that'll happen. Right now they have to focus on just getting -some- version of the basic game up a running. If they can manage that then maybe they'll be able to add extra complex features later on.

Phararri wrote:

Never said it sucks for me, just saying that this can be done fairly smoothly, [b]if the devs chose to make it a priority[/b]. If CoT does not, that is perfectly fine.
My whole thing was grappling in an mmo is doable, and can turn out fairly good.

And since it's obviously NOT a priority for MWM I'm not sure there's much more to be gained by trying to convince everyone it's "doable". Pretty much everyone here has agreed it's "doable", but simply saying that will not make it so.

Like I said we can't always get what we want - I don't like it any more than you do...

I forgot, BDO has it, to some capacity. It is not WWE perse, but every class has an ability to perform a grapple to smaller enemies. Zerker has an array of holds though. One of which resembles T.Hawk's Typhoon from SF. Grappling is more about "Can we" vs grappling being absent or difficult to implement in an mmo. These are developer studios mind you, so they have the tech & people to do it.

If anyone would have grappling, I would put my money on SoH, due to their credentials in the industry. Atm, I think they are mum on grappling, or refute it. CoT does not need grappling. Nice to have, but it has so much more going for it.