TP "Wall climbing" - A rather technical view

misterspider

Problem:
I remember reading a Dev post an eternity ago about why it is not possible. I think the reason was that area models (houses, terrain, etc.) are not coded in a way to support it. Plus, it obviously needs dev time to implement. The more work it involves, the more unlikely it is it will happen. So it has to be easy!

Easy solution:
Walls can be detected by collision detection. Once you hit a wall, the climbing part of your TP starts. Climbing is done by reusing a flight power in that very moment which however only stays active while in contact with the wall. The direction you move in is determined by how flight determines where to go when hitting a wall, similar how you slide slightly upwards when going forward while also tilting a bit up, only for climbing the player obviously moves up and down much faster. You avoid an unwanted loss of contact with the wall by locking the player's movement along the plane of the wall. You stop holding onto the wall when you get over it or by jumping. I suggest adding a weaker Acrobatics for movement while not climbing for better mid-air maneuver.
Animation-wise you can use an altered Beast walking animation or whatever suitable assets there are that can be reused for it. It only needs to be rotated perpendicular to the plane you climb on. New animation parts are probably necessary for the transitions between climbing and jumping/walking.

Variants (to afford developement costs):
- Normal (as described above)
- Adding the usual Fx effects to your hands and feet like darkness , ice , fire , etc.
- Rolling up the wall (aka Hyperball / R.A.D. Sphere)
- Summoning handles/spikes you hold onto while climbing (like Bastian in the NeverEnding Story)
- Crushing marks/footsteps on the wall while climbing as if you punched holes into it

Closing words:
This TP represents a very cool and interactive way of exploring and enjoying the maps. Climb on the highest building in MC or Teleios Tower in Canada and really feel like you deserve to be up there.
You cannot fight while climbing. That would just make things unnecessarily complicated. Yes, this TP would probably be objectively inferior to any flight TP, but it would feel 1.000 times more awesome. Plus, it adds another immersive TP option to customize your hero!

championshewolf

There are several reasons it won't work, and no there is no easy solution for it. The way the engine is coded, you are always oriented towards the axis, not the ground. So while you can collide with a wall, you can also collide with NPCs and players. This type of collision coding is wonky, if you've ever happened to brush past a street post in DCUO, you will know this as you do a a mach 8 wrap run around the street post before you continue moving on wards.

It just simply won't happen in any foreseeable fashion. It won't be easy to code, and there is no easy solution.​​

raighn

Unfortunately the work needed to make this happen would involve an entire engine re-write and a rebuild of every map in the game... Granted many of the maps need some touchup work as is... For example, there are multiple spots in MC where you can actually see under the map without any camera placement shinanigans.

misterspider

Hey, thank you for your answers.

Alright, my big question is why would it need an entire engine re-write and rebuild of every map? I'd love to understand it.

Is it the player model rotation issue or the collision detection issue?

Following the given logic, the collision issue with NPCs/players/street posts could be circumvented by not applying climbing to clickable objects.

How is there a problem with rotating the toon's model when it already gets rotated freely using the Hyperball TP? Like with that TP you keep the player oriented as usual (for control, collision, etc.) but just rotating the visual presentation of your toon.

raighn

The way the engine is coded and how the maps were built makes it so that any incline exceeding X-degrees has 0 traction, collisions with said surfaces cause the player to slide/fall until they reach an incline that is under the set value... as it stands currently we already have collision detection with every surface we encounter, but the programming of both the internal engine and the individual elements of the map itself cause us to fall off of steep slopes and walls.

The system you propose would require configuring the system to handle an exception clause to the normal collision mechanics. Skipping such an exception clause entirely would result in the proposed TP causing the player to be stuck in place only able to climb upwards/downward even when on a flat surface... best case scenerio this would result in the player constanly hopping short distances when they try to move forwards/backwards... worst case scenerio they will have to move sideways or continually mash their jump key to move at all...

And even with that exception clause it will cause collision with even the smallest vertical incline to force the player into climb mode...

Transisioning out of climb mode in and of itself proposes a whole set of problems even... they either A ) edit every map to have a tigger zone at the top of every climbable surface... or B ) do what you propose which would frequently result in players getting stuck falling off buildings when they try to climb over the top onto the roof... and to have any sort of proper animation for climbing over the edge would absolutely require option A...

soulforger

There just isn't enough money going into the game to have the engine overhauled for anything cool.

misterspider

Got it. Great explanation, raighn! Thank you!