Physics: Is it a good idea?

Our wonderful effects professional and skill designer extraordinaire Russel said to me that something like physics might be a long-term goal for PoE. This initially got me excited. After all, Diablo 3, Grim Dawn, and Torchlight 2 will all have physics to some degree in their games, so why should PoE be left behind?

Well, I booted up Titan Quest last night out of nostalgia and was reminded of how horrible a feature physics can be. Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 do this with some grace, but I think PoE, we depend on monsters being where they're supposed to be when they die, for moves like Detonate Dead and powers that have to do with resurrection like Raise Zombie or Dominating Blow (how silly would that be to send a monster flying only to have it stand back up half a screen away and fight for you).

Here's my solution!
Multiple death animations per monster type, per death type. That'd keep things fresh. What do you think?

I think Physics is a difficult problem to tackle.

On the one side, they can spruce up any battle visually.
On the second side, even that has to be done carefully in my eye, or it feels unrealistic. Take D3 as an example: The monsters barely are effected by Physics as long as they are alive, but as soon as they enter rag doll status, they're extremely susceptible to even a light breeze. It just feels off.
On the third side, physics cost processing power, so if you're able to (for example) include Physics when you're smashing caskets and urns, the fragments will have to vanish quickly as to not put a steady strain on the physics engine. And I honestly dislike this "un-permanence" physics have given us. I disliked it in Doom 3 when the monsters 'decomposed' shortly after you had killed them, and I dislike it in D3 when any monster you have slain simply vanishes after a few seconds.

I'd rather take "crafted" animations that allow for the corpses and debris to remain on the ground until I leave an area and give it an air of permanence.

All in all, I'm not opposed to Physics, but they have to be done right. I'm only taking from a visual perspective here since I don't like Physics-based combat all too much. It feels very gimmicky to me.
Maybe only have them in effect for monsters where it makes sense, and only in limited form. As in: The 'main corpse' can be moved by physics and debris/body parts can be severed and then have "physic"al properties attached for the time they are 'live', but they vanish after a time. The 'main corpse' stays, but becomes unresponsive after a small 'grace period' in which no physics are inflicted upon the rag doll.

That way, you could have all the 'Oomph' you wanted, impact and so on, and still retain permanence and a (hopefully) stable frame rate.

I also like having corpses littering the ground. They disappear after a few seconds in T2 as well. It kind of takes you out of the game.

I think PoE has it right, honestly. Only with a select few skills would it really make sense for monsters to go flying.

Here's my idea:
A move like heavy strike would make a monster go into a death animation that causes a set amount of knockback according to your strength.

Death animations and knockback can vary according to skill types and tiers. I think monsters should have a variety of animations to die in. It'd probably take ages to program this, but it's probably less costly, at least, than completely adding a physics engine from the ground up.

Could be a small system with three deaths.
First is a minor hit or standard death.
Second is a major impact with some gory consequences.
And the final third one is a brutal overkill, somewhat of a rare critical of the major hits.
Both the second and the third hits would have a required overkill damage attack, otherwise it would just feel random and uninvolving.

So instead of finishing a lowhitpoint monster with a light attack for conserving mana or other more cool reason, you can opt for hitting it with the strongest you got and hope to watch it explode into blood, flesh, bones and intestines. If you do, you should at least be almost guarantueed a level 2 death with a good chance of scoring a level 3.


I agree that a bad physical engine would probably do more harm than good since this kinda work is seriously difficult. Even with experts and masters on your team, it's gonna be a rough ride to make it look real and feel right.
Better to settle for simple and agreeable, which I think they've been doing so far, even if there's more that could be done, the animations in place are good, just not varied enough.

I like PoE death mechanics. No "physics," please! ='[.]'=

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Raycheetah wrote:

I like PoE death mechanics. No "physics," please! ='[.]'=

So do I (and apparently everyone in this thread) :-D.

I love Dorkmaster's suggestion of "three degrees of death". it reminded me a lot of the violent dismemberment animations in Fallout (the first two games).
But it could also be coupled to how much health you have left when you kill a monster, meaning that a desperate struggle for survival might feel all the more sweet if you don't only win it, but the mob is taken out in a especially vicious way.

But I still think that minor use of a physics engine could be beneficent to the game as a whole.

Physics On -> My Laptop says "Kaboom"

No Physics -> :)

Physics -> My Laptop = TNT

Physics isn't only for ragdolls, if GGG could find ways to use this in PoE it would be great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0xRJt8rcmY

Very nice demo xxnoob.
Personally after watching a few D3 videos and paying attention to the physics I would have to say that it simply makes the character feel too powerful. But that concept of three degree death did sound interesting, as long as our guys dont feel too powerful, Im happy.

Well, okay. I'm just used to references to "physics" usually being a demand for the sorta moon-launch ragdoll garbage seen in certain other games. Any change/enhancement to the death effects should fit in with how PoE feels, now, or it risks a move toward that other paradigm.

As it is, if GGG could implement some more visual chrome to PoE, sure, but the game is already very visually "pretty," and there has to be a point of diminishing returns on their investment of time and money, relative to higher-priority game elements.

So, yeah, if Bill Gates decides to buy Diamond Supporter packs for everyone at MicroSoft, then, by all means, let's go for the goodies. Meanwhile, I can enjoy the rippling water and blowing grass, and not having my computer choke and die on graphics I'm not missing. =^[.]^=