Swimming and underwater

[temnix]

Characters can already swim (and those that deign to instead of flying and teleporting over the landscape do), but only on the surface. The basic physics are already in place, I'm sure. The developers would have to think about breathing and other aspects, but they are all quite within the scope of an early 2000s game. Morrowind had them. With underwater exploration many great opportunities would open up.

[Vic Raiden]

AFAIK "swimming" is just running a little below the water surface, just with a different animation. To get actual deep-water swimming to work, I think the characters should have their travel powers turned off and substituted for a reskinned version of flight if they dove deeper... but for that to be of any use, the devs would have to model the bottoms of all these bodies of water, which I don't think is ever happening given just how much work it would take. That said, I like the idea and wish it was feasible.

[lemming]

Note, you can go underwater in at least one location:  Cimerora in one of the cave missions.  There's a pool you can swim underwater

[Doc_Scorpion]

2 hours ago, temnix said:

The basic physics are already in place, I'm sure.

Sure, the ability to go underwater was introduced in whatever Issue Cimerora was introduced.  The problem is likely that every single body of water in the game would have to be entirely redone (as the underwater landscape almost certainly doesn't exist) in order to enable this functionality globally.

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, Vic Raiden said:

AFAIK "swimming" is just running a little below the water surface, just with a different animation. To get actual deep-water swimming to work, I think the characters should have their travel powers turned off and substituted for a reskinned version of flight if they dove deeper... but for that to be of any use, the devs would have to model the bottoms of all these bodies of water, which I don't think is ever happening given just how much work it would take. That said, I like the idea and wish it was feasible.

Correct. What we see as swimming is just a different animation for running.

 

2 hours ago, temnix said:

The basic physics are already in place, I'm sure.

Technically, yes, the basic physics are already there, it is just the flight mechanics. Where you run into problems is the surface to air interface.

 

1 hour ago, lemming said:

Note, you can go underwater in at least one location:  Cimerora in one of the cave missions.  There's a pool you can swim underwater

 

36 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Sure, the ability to go underwater was introduced in whatever Issue Cimerora was introduced.  The problem is likely that every single body of water in the game would have to be entirely redone (as the underwater landscape almost certainly doesn't exist) in order to enable this functionality globally.

Where is this? I'd like to try it. So far I've only found one spot on a single map where you can go underwater, but you lose the swimming animation when you get to the bottom of that space and run normally until you get high enough to be affected by the water tile again.

[Vanden]

6 hours ago, lemming said:

Note, you can go underwater in at least one location:  Cimerora in one of the cave missions.  There's a pool you can swim underwater

 

This is like the "Viggo Mortensen broke his toe in that one scene" of CoH

[lemming]

5 hours ago, Rudra said:

Where is this? I'd like to try it. So far I've only found one spot on a single map where you can go underwater, but you lose the swimming animation when you get to the bottom of that space and run normally until you get high enough to be affected by the water tile again.

Shows up often in the ITF and randomly in other Cim missions.   Just ran a few trying to reget it, but it's eluding me. I did note at one point, innertubes will go underwater there

 

[Rudra]

9 minutes ago, lemming said:

Shows up often in the ITF and randomly in other Cim missions.   Just ran a few trying to reget it, but it's eluding me. I did note at one point, innertubes will go underwater there

 

That doesn't look like the same map I'm used to going underwater on. (No large chunks of debris that fails to keep you from getting your feet under the water tile, and thus your head underwater, disabling the swimming animation.) Thanks for the screenshot though.

[Frozen Burn]

If you've ever played around in creating a base, using the various water effects allows you to do different things. 

 

There are a lot of water "blocks" (we'll call them) that you can only swim on the surface.  These, you mostly cannot see under - like the water in Talos, IP, around the Rogues Isles, etc.  

 

But there are other water "blocks" that are clearer and can allow you to swim under them to some depth, depending on how far from the "floor" you've created.  This is evident in the Cimeroran maps that others have talked about above.   and yes, if it goes too high above the floor, you end up just walking around like there is no water at all.  I'm using this swimming effect in my base as well.  I'm also trying to figure out how to do it on a large scale - so far, unsuccessfully.  But smaller shallower areas is working well.  

 

So yes, the swimming animation is there, and it is theoretically possible to do more underwater things, provided the depth of the water "block" is made to be MUCH deeper than it already is.

[Rudra]

22 minutes ago, Frozen Burn said:

But there are other water "blocks" that are clearer and can allow you to swim under them to some depth, depending on how far from the "floor" you've created.  This is evident in the Cimeroran maps that others have talked about above.   and yes, if it goes too high above the floor, you end up just walking around like there is no water at all.  I'm using this swimming effect in my base as well.  I'm also trying to figure out how to do it on a large scale - so far, unsuccessfully.

Place glass floor tiles at the bottom of the water tile, or use a collision wall (which I haven't tried but should work) in the water tile, and you can swim across large surfaces. You just can't dive, because the water tiles don't layer for effect and have no bottom themselves. (I have a lake in one base I'd like to make possible for players to swim in, but oh well.)

[Frozen Burn]

6 hours ago, Rudra said:

Place glass floor tiles at the bottom of the water tile, or use a collision wall (which I haven't tried but should work) in the water tile, and you can swim across large surfaces. You just can't dive, because the water tiles don't layer for effect and have no bottom themselves. (I have a lake in one base I'd like to make possible for players to swim in, but oh well.)

 

Yep.  That's what my whole post was about.  If you have a floor at the right depth with some of the tiles, you can swim under underwater - otherwise, you walk on the floor underneath.  And others, you only swim on the surface.  I too have lakes that I'd like to swim underwater in, but can't unless you make it fairly shallow.

[Timeshadow]

I think the larger issue with underwater design is that it's not fun. Plenty of MMORPGs have tried to do 3D combat underwater and it usually flops with the player base. Most famously, Blizzard developed a whole underwater zone for WoW a while back. It did not go over well. 

 

If you think about it, underwater movement would likely be similar to flying. That probably works ok for ranged toons but if you've ever tried to have a midair duel as melee, you know it's significantly less enjoyable. 

[lemming]

Finally got it via one of Alexandra Sideris' missions

And yes, it's just like flight when you are underwater

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, Timeshadow said:

I think the larger issue with underwater design is that it's not fun. Plenty of MMORPGs have tried to do 3D combat underwater and it usually flops with the player base. Most famously, Blizzard developed a whole underwater zone for WoW a while back. It did not go over well. 

 

If you think about it, underwater movement would likely be similar to flying. That probably works ok for ranged toons but if you've ever tried to have a midair duel as melee, you know it's significantly less enjoyable. 

CO has an underwater zone, and it typically was avoided from what I remember too. It wasn't anything to do with melee having difficulties though, because they really didn't. Mobs preferred range at start, but typically closed after a barrage or two, and didn't try to get back out of melee range if you swam to them. (And the sharks had to be in melee range anyway.) The biggest complaint I can remember from players about the underwater zone was the three dimensions of combat because attacks could come at you from above, below, and every other angle; and many players seemed to have difficulty transitioning into a 3D environment for target tracking.

 

15 minutes ago, lemming said:

Finally got it via one of Alexandra Sideris' missions

And yes, it's just like flight when you are underwater

Dear devs, can we get water for our bases like this? Thanks.

[Coyotedancer]

There's one little place in Grandville where you can go underwater as well... 

 

Exiting the ferry at the Grandville dock, go left along the outside wall. About half-way up the island coastline there's a grassy rise with a pile of rocks. At the base of the rocks is a small pool... It usually has a coralax swimming in it. You can jump in and swim in that deep little puddle with him.   

 

 

 

Edited February 25 by Coyotedancer