Quote:
I didn't think this was the case at all, so my apologies. But if that is indeed the case, then Alpha's suggestion's golden.
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
If you mean other NPCs, then I should note that, Council notwithstanding, most "normal human" enemies are all roughly the same size. Some are slightly bigger than others, true, but not by much. The Freakshow do tend to be bigger than most, but they get a miracle excuse. All the rest, as far as I've seen, seem to be about on par with each other.
|
I will zap all of the citizens of Paragon City with my ULTO-SHRINK-RAY-BEAMOMATOR and all will be right!!
Really, adjusting all of the civillian NPCs down a tad will do the job. No real problems. I don't think it's a problem if SKulls loom over the civilians (Hopefully the purse snatching animations won't be affected greatly...).
Truly... the reason is simple for why the NPCs are so tall...
It's the water.
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Quote:
This is why I specifically said "civilian NPCs, pedestrians, and contact NPCs". I did not mention enemy NPCs in that list. I went on to say how scaling enemy groups might be problematic despite some of them being of ludicrous size. Then I started rambling about possibilities.
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
That is a LOT of work with potentially disconcerting consequences. Rescaling civilians to match the ruler should be easy. There are something like 20 models for them, and all civilian-exclusive. Everything else, however, features SO many models it's probably not economical to do so. And that's AFTER deciding who should be how tall. I mean, how tall should a Blood Brother Chopper be? He doesn't have any reason to be giant, but he could be a short guy or a tall guy, so 5-7 feet, maybe? Should the Freakshow be bigger? Should the Nemesis army soldiers? The Vanguard are already tiny, because they were made to scale, but should Malta soldiers be big?
And even supposing all of that is changed, what we're left with is a world where our heroes one day wake up and are GIANT compared to everyone else. This means rescaling each and every costume's height to match the new environment, which is not only a lot of busywork, but actually requires a paid-for booster pack that many claimed wasn't worth the buy, so presumably many don't have. Don't take me the wrong way - I WANT to see this. I want to see either the ruler adjusted to fit the in-game reality or the in-game reality changed to fit the world's actual scale. Or maybe we could have the world upscaled somewhat to fit the NPCs? I don't know. I'd like to know that normal people are actually normal unless they have a reason to be huge, but I'm not sure that's feasible to do at this point. |
Quote:
I'm pretty sure I mentioned the problem of this making villain NPCs out of scale somewhere in there, especially when they're threatening a civilian. NPC villains are "significantly" taller than standard civilians as it is, an scaling down JUST the civilians has the potential of making, say, the Hellions look like they're all seven feet tall by comparison.|
Originally Posted by Kyasubaru
This is why I specifically said "civilian NPCs, pedestrians, and contact NPCs". I did not mention enemy NPCs in that list. I went on to say how scaling enemy groups might be problematic despite some of them being of ludicrous size. Then I started rambling about possibilities.
|
Of course, I can't actually say for certain, as my characters tend to be on the tall side, but again - my 7-foot-tall (on the ruler) woman was just about even height with most Skulls and Hellions last I measured up, and even at max slider now is only moderately taller than them.
Thankfully, this means her Legacy Broadsword is HUGE! Pity weapon customization caused weapons for women to scale down into being utterly puny and BABs has staunchly refused to give us bigger ones since.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Alternatively, there are people like me who prefer the weapons that scale down. That giant Legacy sword might work for much-taller females, but on my 5'6" character it simply looks ridiculous. I have a 6'5" warrior woman, but she wields an axe and honestly I don't recall whether the Legacy version is equally as outsized, I do know I chose another one solely because it could be recolored.
I set my characters' heights as if they were people from this world, I'm not really going for "looms over everyone and is larger than life" for any character. I do have a character with a Beast form, a 7' Huge werewolf as opposed to her 5'5" petite normal self, but that character's not looking to tower over all either, there's simply supposed to be a marked difference in forms. Honestly even at 7' it feels kinda cramped in some areas, on caves for instance I keep the human form, but ya know, in real life something that big and bulky would be cramped too.
Well, whatever, if enough people feel the height weirdness is a problem that needs fixing, and the devs agree, who am I. Concept matters, I dig ya. I do like the forced-perspective explanation though, that's quite interesting and something I'd not considered before.
Quote:
I don't so much mind the fact that weapons scale down itself, as much as I mind the fact that there are no truly LARGE weapons. The argument that "it wouldn't look good" no longer holds water for me, not when I can use RIDICULOUSLY oversized boots and gloves that, in all honesty, don't look good in most cases, but still look good on the right costume. Besides, we're given the choice between small characters and large characters, but if you make a female, you are solely restricted to small weapons.|
Originally Posted by Primal
Alternatively, there are people like me who prefer the weapons that scale down. That giant Legacy sword might work for much-taller females, but on my 5'6" character it simply looks ridiculous. I have a 6'5" warrior woman, but she wields an axe and honestly I don't recall whether the Legacy version is equally as outsized, I do know I chose another one solely because it could be recolored.
|
The Rularuu Broadsword is pretty big, right? In general, yes, but because of how female weapons scale down and how the Legacy Broadsword does not, the Rularuu Sword ends up being distinctly smaller by comparison, and also paper thin. The Romulus Sword is kind of OK on a female, but that's an unlockable. That's one of the reasons I actually suggested a Weapons Booster Pack, because I'm hoping if they add enough, someone will slip up and add in a large weapon for a change.
And yes, ALL the character creation axes are distinctly smaller than the Legacy War Axe, to the point where I have to wonder if my axe-wielding female warrior will be able to get a decent-sized weapon that's NOT legacy. It's kind of sad, to be honest. Weapon Customization was supposed to give us more choices, but because of how weapon scale, if I want a BIG weapon, I only really have one choice, and it's the same choice I would have had all along - Legacy. There's no reason we can't have bigger weapons for females, but we just don't.
Quote:
| I set my characters' heights as if they were people from this world, I'm not really going for "looms over everyone and is larger than life" for any character. I do have a character with a Beast form, a 7' Huge werewolf as opposed to her 5'5" petite normal self, but that character's not looking to tower over all either, there's simply supposed to be a marked difference in forms. Honestly even at 7' it feels kinda cramped in some areas, on caves for instance I keep the human form, but ya know, in real life something that big and bulky would be cramped too. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
I have given this a lot of thought, and just from what I have seen (buildings and such not really taken into account, this is just the people) there is a decent amount of consistency. Council, generally, are taller than NPCs, Skulls and Hellions tend to be more average, Rikti are huge. Gotcha.
The one single thing that would make the biggest difference is changing the height scale in the creator to read a bit differently. I can think of three examples where that alone would have been a perfect fix for me.
1) My first 50 was a 'troller who, by concept, was short, because not only was he young (19-20-ish), but was much more of a mind over matter type. He was always short for a guy, standing about 5'5" to 5'6". Only after the ability to edit the height slider came out was I able to make him look like an adult. He's now "6 feet" according to the game, and still on the short side... shorter than most of the gangs.
2)When trying to make a scrapper of mine "average", since he was sort of a Longbow knockoff, I set things to somewhere between 5'10" and 6'... I then noticed that when he was fighting Hellions in Atlas Park, they were ALL taller and "beefier" than he was.... he didn't look like a child, more like he looked like he'd been photoshopped in at the wrong proportion.
3) Most recently, I made a Rikti. Knowing how tall they were, I decided to make him 7 feet tall... the instant I got him to Galaxy, a civilian walked by who WAS TALLER THAN HIM! (City of Giants, I tell you!) I huffed, deleted and rerolled him, and maxed out my height slider.
When comparing people to a host of other things, sure, proportion in the game is a bit off. I can live with that. It seems to me that, for the most part, the size of the people is decently proportioned enough that they relate well to each other. What I would love to see is to have the character creator recalibrated so that, by default, we don't make "normal size" heroes that are dwarfed by everybody else, including the pedestrians.
As a final note, I am also in the boat of "if it's a supers game don't make the females automatically a foot shorter than the men"... but there are enough unbelievably ridiculous gender biases in the character creator that I'm not even considering that one worth the fight. I don't have time for an hourlong rant. 
@Trystan Laryssa
Quote:
I have always thought this also. In the "old days", Council and 5th changed as you got higher level. Starting off as normal soldiers, eventually becoming more of a "spec ops" type soldier, and then eventually becoming a "super soldier" in the 25+ range. Despite this, their weapons and abilities always remained identical, which I feel was a missed opportunity.|
Originally Posted by Clebstein
I don't mind Council being ridiculously tall, but I wish it was more linked to their ranks. It's bad enough they're all (mostly) wearing the same uniform, but I can't even pinpoint the bosses by their size! Oh, a super tall guy, that must be an Archon! Oh, no...that was just a minion.
I don't remember if the 5th Column is the same way, but I find it amusing how short Requiem is. "Everyone focus on Requiem!" "I can't see him?!" "I think he got stuck under Rommy's boot" |
I think they still do, actually. However the new 5th Column spawns on the street are a jumbled mess of uniforms. Shame how these little details get forgotten, even by the devs.
Quote:
This is what drives me nuts. If I want to make a giant Hulk-style character and set them to seven and a half feet tall, they end up about the same height as half of the just-a-normal-guy characters. And about eye level with civilians.
|
Originally Posted by Kyasubaru
The problem with scaling yourself relative to the NPCs instead of the height measurement is that others won't do that.
So one person scales their character to the NPCs and decides that they're all 6ft tall, so they make their guy what they perceive to be 6ft tall to match. Another person decides to use the creation window height measurement to put his character at exactly 6ft as indicated. Both of your characters are supposed to be 6 feet tall, but one character ends up noticeably taller than the other. I think this would drive people like us (OCD maniacs who can't stand discrepancies like these(and yes, I'm one of them!)) mad. "I'm 6 feet tall!" "I'm 6 feet tall too!" "But you're a whole head shorter than me." "... Crap." |
Having Vengeance and Fallout slotted for recharge means never having to say you're sorry.
Quote:
Babs talked about this a LONG time ago. Essentially, he said using BIG swords with the current sword type animations would look silly - the swords wouldn't have the proper weight "feel" to them, or something like that. He didn't say anything about the actual costume, but I'm sure they would look good on a costume.
|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I don't so much mind the fact that weapons scale down itself, as much as I mind the fact that there are no truly LARGE weapons. The argument that "it wouldn't look good" no longer holds water for me, not when I can use RIDICULOUSLY oversized boots and gloves that, in all honesty, don't look good in most cases, but still look good on the right costume.
|
I remember trying to make a Mercs MM a while back. I initially had the height slider at around 6 foot 2 or so. Then in the tutorial I noticed that the level 1 Mercs were so much taller. Cue much aggravation and relogging to try to match the heights. >.<
Quote:
I'll give you Thor, but for what it's worth, Superman is "supposed" to be around 6 foot 3.|
Originally Posted by Captain_Electric
This may have more to do with the genre than with the eccentricities of NPC designers. Take a look through the racks in your local comic book store, where out-of-towners like Superman and Thor stand tall around 7 feet, and villains like Doctor Octopus loom over their victims, not beneath.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Electric
But even "ordinary" heroes like Batman seem to stand taller when suited up, just look at them standing next to sidekicks or damsels in distress.
|
Tales of Judgment. Also here, instead of that other place.
good luck D.B.B.
Quote:
What BABs talked about in that thread (the one about the Buster Sword) was that he didn't want to see a weapon the size of the Buster Sword (which, by the way, is taller than a man and about as wide as a man at the shoulders) used with the current animations for Katana. I actually kind of agree with that - the Katana animations tent to be fast and elegant.|
Originally Posted by Felderburg
Babs talked about this a LONG time ago. Essentially, he said using BIG swords with the current sword type animations would look silly - the swords wouldn't have the proper weight "feel" to them, or something like that. He didn't say anything about the actual costume, but I'm sure they would look good on a costume.
|
HOWEVER
This doesn't mean Katana can't have BIG swords, it just means HEAVY swords would look odd for it. LONG swords, however, should not be a problem.
Moreover, I'm talking about Broadsword here. The weapon already has slow, lumbering, inelegant animations more befitting of a large weapon, which the set barely has any of, especially for women. Back in the day, BABs cited scaling weapons to fit the model as being a fix for a nasty and unnecessary system limitation. As he explained it, regular weapons could not be of regular sizes and we shouldn't look to them for being big, but that didn't mean swords that were big by design would not be introduced.
As it turns out, that's exactly what it meant.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Captain_Electric
A human like Captain-America, a most relevant example here, looks MUCH different after being exposed to super serum
|
I'll say!
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
That picture has always bothered me.... because I can't seem to figure out rationally the shape of Cap's SPINE in that picture.
Is his spine in the shape of a question mark or something?
Quote:
Oh, Hyperstrike... you evil being, you! My eyes!! My eyes!! My BRAIN!!! Owww!!!!! |
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
[picture removed for sanity]
I'll say! |
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Bronze Knight
One thing to note here is that If you make a female 8 "feet" tall and stand next to a regular mission door. The top of your head will be even with the top of the door. This would be consistent with doors in "Real Life" for most commercial doors. Many doors in your average household are around 7 feet.
I do however agree that the sense of scale dose at times feel off in COH/V. |
Acctually in the US average residential doors are 6'8" and average commercial doors are 7'. I'm 6'8" IRL (in sock feet) and with my shoes I duck through most residential doors. However I will say that the devs most definately don't pay that much attention to scale.
I understand why though, due to 3rd person viewing everything would feel very cramped if scale were accurate.
Quote:
That depends on what you mean by "everything." There's no reason building floors as seen from the outside should be so low that a person standing up would scrape the ceiling, there's no reason why cars should be so small a civilian doesn't look like he'll fit in there. There's no reason for chairs to be too small to sit on, or for doors to be too narrow to look good.|
Originally Posted by Gabriel Fry
I understand why though, due to 3rd person viewing everything would feel very cramped if scale were accurate.
|
We spend most of our time running through relatively wide hallways, large halls, open-air outdoor environments and, yes, the city streets. There's no need to make THAT any more cramped. What needs to happen, however, is person-to-person scale needs to be made correct. I don't know what camera settings you guys are talking about, but I never have problems being able to see my enemies or feel they are too small, because it's easy enough to judge height head-to-head. That's how I can tell my supposedly big characters are far too short most of the time.
Terrain is one thing. That needs to be inobtrusive to navigate. But other characters should not be drawn bigger than they are supposed to be.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
I'm just glad that we can now adjust our height at the tailor.
Much better than having to delete and remake if one made an error like we used to.
Just please make the non-Tank Freakshow shorter. It's just silly that the head of a 6-foot tall player only comes up to the waist of so many Freakshow models, even the ones without cybernetics or excelsior packs.
Quote:
Well, maybe we can tell something if we get the shield out of the way and strip that pesky uniform off...|
Westley should put on a blindfold: That picture has always bothered me.... because I can't seem to figure out rationally the shape of Cap's SPINE in that picture. Is his spine in the shape of a question mark or something? |
Hmmm...nope, no help there, only more seared retinas.
Dec out.
Most of it is actually crappy perspective. His chest appears to be rotated towards the viewer, whereas his shoulders are parallel to the viewing direction, casing his chest to seem like it's bulging out, and also causing his left shoulder to be attacked to thin air.
Seriously, imagine his chest opening from his back like a fridge door and you'll be close.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Quote:
I would say that if the size of the pedestrians were scaled to the cars and player characters it would look more like CoM (city of midgets). In every game I have played scale has been off. Terrain is always too large (to compensate for camera angles) and NPCs are either too large, or look tiny compared to the terrain.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Terrain is one thing. That needs to be inobtrusive to navigate. But other characters should not be drawn bigger than they are supposed to be.
|
That being said look at a pedestrian next to a streetsign then go stand next to one IRL... Scale it's a matter of perspective...
Quote:
To be honest, most of it is actually Rob's steadfast refusal to actually learn anything about art past what he did initially...which was copy comic books. He gets a nice bit of dynamics out of a lot of his work, but everything else is so horrible it's hard to care.
|
Samuel_Tow is sort of there: Most of it is actually crappy perspective. |
Dec out.
Quote:
And very hard to look at!! |
Originally Posted by Decorum
To be honest, most of it is actually Rob's steadfast refusal to actually learn anything about art past what he did initially...which was copy comic books. He gets a nice bit of dynamics out of a lot of his work, but everything else is so horrible it's hard to care.
|
P.S. I still think simply changing the Civillian NPC and contact heights would go a long way towards a good thing.
I don't mind the enemies so much. I know the buildings are oddly sized and shaped... But 7' plus tall civilians that shove you out of their way is just silly in a bad way
EDIT: Unless, of course, it really just is something in the water
@Zethustra
"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan
If you mean other NPCs, then I should note that, Council notwithstanding, most "normal human" enemies are all roughly the same size. Some are slightly bigger than others, true, but not by much. The Freakshow do tend to be bigger than most, but they get a miracle excuse. All the rest, as far as I've seen, seem to be about on par with each other.