Guild Wars 2

What kind of chaos would happen if player bodies had collision?

Pros:
-Less dungeon skipping
-Smaller zergs
-Zerg is forced to use tactics
-WvW towers can be defended by blocking the enemy after wall goes down
-Less stack “exploits”

Cons:
-Troll blockers
-People can get stuck in a zerg
-Lion’s Arch bank problems
-AI (minions for example) blocks owner

These are only pros and cons I came up with and I am sure there are a lot more of them

The hitbox wouldn’t need to be as large as the players character. I.e. if a human is 1m wide, the hitbox would only be 0.5m wide. Norns would have slightly thicker hitboxes and asuras thinner.

What would this create?
Will people start running on the right side of the road?
Will people pay more attention to what others are doing around them?
Will parties find a good mix of ranged and melee players?
Will zergs develop a frontline, mid-line, backline?
Will zergs cease to run through other zergs with 30-40 people stacked tightly to eachother?
Will it cause major problems in the PvE world?
How will it affect balance?
Would asuras become the ultimate zerg infiltrators?
Would norns become the ultimate front line defenders?

solrik.6028:

What kind of chaos would happen if player bodies had collision?

Pros:
-Less dungeon skipping
-Smaller zergs
-Zerg is forced to use tactics
-WvW towers can be defended by blocking the enemy after wall goes down
-Less stack “exploits”

Cons:
-Troll blockers
-People can get stuck in a zerg
-Lion’s Arch bank problems
-AI (minions for example) blocks owner

These are only pros and cons I came up with and I am sure there are a lot more of them

The hitbox wouldn’t need to be as large as the players character. I.e. if a human is 1m wide, the hitbox would only be 0.5m wide. Norns would have slightly thicker hitboxes and asuras thinner.

What would this create?
Will people start running on the right side of the road?
Will people pay more attention to what others are doing around them?
Will parties find a good mix of ranged and melee players?
Will zergs develop a frontline, mid-line, backline?
Will zergs cease to run through other zergs with 30-40 people stacked tightly to eachother?
Will it cause major problems in the PvE world?
How will it affect balance?
Would asuras become the ultimate zerg infiltrators?
Would norns become the ultimate front line defenders?

TERA has different sized hitboxes and it made anyone who was serious about the game forced to play an Elin. Hitboxes need to be universal.

Been suggested about once a week for 16 months.

never gonna happen, mostly due to performance issues and griefing potential.

GW1 has/had body blocking capabilities – both foe and ally. People hated it…. I can sort of see why they removed it here.

As stated above, gw1 had this feature where players could body block other players. This also would happen in pvp and could make or break the match. While I believe player positioning is an extremely important role in pvp, simply blocking a player from there objective is a bit unfair. Let’s leave it to player skill being the determining factor of matches instead of simply standing in their way.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

GW1 has/had body blocking capabilities – both foe and ally. People hated it…. I can sort of see why they removed it here.

The reason people hated it was because walking in GW1 was automated through clicks and skills made you run to your enemies through the fastest path. In this game you steer your character, so you shouldn’t be bumping into others if you’re anywhere near an experienced gamer.

Besides, don’t you ever bump into people in real life or do you pass through them? xD

zacsux.2098:

… simply blocking a player from there objective is a bit unfair.

It’s as fair as it gets because it proves some players use their brains. Imo the fastest thinkers should win fights, because they have strategic insight, aka. skill in battle. Also, nothing guarantees that you’d win if you blocked a keep door from a zerg. Hell, you’d still need to be more than average to win from the zerg.

Have you ever wondered what chaos would ensue if player abilities affected other players? We’d all immediately die from friendly fire in every encounter. Player body-body collisions are simply a small aspect of a more realistic model of the results of player behavior. Personally, I think the current model is fine.

It is not fine, not for PvE nor for PvP. I have supported the idea of body-blocking before and will again because that is about the only solution to stacking, the bad design that is killing both PvE (dungeons) and WvW.

Sirendor.1394:

It is not fine, not for PvE nor for PvP. I have supported the idea of body-blocking before and will again because that is about the only solution to stacking, the bad design that is killing both PvE (dungeons) and WvW.

I totally agree that the stacking-to-win tactic needs to be fixed, but in a different way other than adding player body interactions. This just isn’t a feasible way to fix the issue simply because too many players would abuse it and make the game not enjoyable.

Imagine what would happen in WvW as the tower gate falls and that 40-man zerg tries to rush that tiny little hole.

1.) Invaders get stuck and clog the entrance
2.) Defenders bodyblock the gate nonetheless
3.) People on AC’s make it rain lootbags

Sirendor.1394:

Also, nothing guarantees that you’d win if you blocked a keep door from a zerg.

What if the door was blocked by players from the same server as the zerg?

What if you logged in to your citadel only to have a ring of players blocking you in at the waypoint?

Griefing, that why bodyblocking can never happen.

Vol.7601:

Imagine what would happen in WvW as the tower gate falls and that 40-man zerg tries to rush that tiny little hole.

1.) Invaders get stuck and clog the entrance
2.) Defenders bodyblock the gate nonetheless
3.) People on AC’s make it rain lootbags

You forgot a couple of things. Why would body-blocking suddenly erase crowd control? Those defenders would be forced to pop stability if they wanted to prevent gaps. And even stability has it’s limits.

They could add in something similar to “Revealed State” in stealth. 4 seconds in which you can’t use stability again, to prevent abuse. In those 4 seconds the attackers could throw CC on the defenders and try to break through, but even then the battle would not be won necessarily. If the defenders were good, they would regroup and retreat to another chokepoint.

It would force strategic play from both groups.

Body-body collisions would work in an ideal world where everyone plays the game by the same rules of fairness and good sportsmanship that you subscribe to. Unfortunately, that’s not reality.

As already described by others, body-body collision mechanics would become the ultimate griefing tool in WvWvW.

Understand that I, too, would prefer a more realistic model which incorporates body blocking for many of the reasons outlined by the OP. However, the potential for abuse is just too great.

Sirendor.1394:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

GW1 has/had body blocking capabilities – both foe and ally. People hated it…. I can sort of see why they removed it here.

The reason people hated it was because walking in GW1 was automated through clicks and skills made you run to your enemies through the fastest path. In this game you steer your character, so you shouldn’t be bumping into others if you’re anywhere near an experienced gamer.

Besides, don’t you ever bump into people in real life or do you pass through them? xD

Unless you’re zerging….. boy would that be a mess…

As has been repeatedly pointed to me, I shall now pass on to you…. this isn’t real life.

Body collision wouldn’t work for obvious reasons, just take the JP’s devs like to throw in every LS. One ill-placed toon could lock out the progress for the entire server for hours.

There’s three simple things that would make WvW better; counters to prevent night capping and tighter matchups to even the zergs out. Finally there’s the issue with all the fair weather players screwing balance. Who only care about WvW if their server get an early head start, because the rewards are so lackluster compared to say a FSG champ-train if they aren’t steamrolling the opponents.

Imagine the rage, there is the champion, right in front of you, but you can’t hit him with your sword because there is too many other players!

Get out of my way, I have the most DPS, I should be clipping his nails!

You are not even level 80, come back later and don’t waste “space” here!

You are a ranged class, stow your melee weapons and take your ranged weapon!

Make room, I am awesome guild leader of awesomeness and these are my 40 minions!

Oh boy, the immersion is endless

(I just bumped into an NPC in a single player RPG on a flight of stairs … urks)

Something to address stacking is absolutely paramount to WvW and PvP being taken seriously (or even being considered functional) as game modes. I could also see the desire for it to fix the stack and spam in PvE but that’s a lesser issue in my opinion.

I can think of two suggestions, one if collision is not allowed because of technical limitations, and one if it is.

If collision is possible: Add collision between enemies, all the same size in spite of how large their actual visible model is, additionally, make a display option allowing collision boxes to display on the ground around characters. Between allies, create a status affect called Crowded, which causes a 50% decrease in movement speed and prevents skill use for so long as your collision box is clipping in to an allies in PvP, WvW, and instanced PvE. However note that in PvE all players would be considered allies. In open world PvE, only the decrease in movement speed would apply.

If collision is not an option: Add the Crowded status affect as stated above, except it will work permanently on allies, but only briefly on enemies, with an internal CD.

Yes undoubtedly people would grief with this, horrible childish people have figured out ways to grief with every thing from musical instruments to costume brawl to the LFG system, and they will continue to do so with whatever content is added. But the griefing allowed by this will be significantly lessened, and it’s not like players have no course of action, there is a reporting system.

@ earlier posters

As I don’t want to look like an unreasonable person: I was merely stating he obvious and defending the point of the body blocking. In theory it is a great idea. In practice… well there’s technical limitations, anti-abuse concerns and generally the rule of “Unwanted Consequences”. It might sound great, until bam one consequence ruins it all.

I do think discussing the topic is good. It’s not because it might not be possible at first sight that it is in fact impossible. We shouldn’t rule it out until it is clear that either it works (with fixes for problems that might occur) or it doesn’t work, because there are more problems than solutions.

@ Conncept
Both mechanics involve creating a system awareness of boxes and their mixing. The second solution seems like it might work and is actually a very nice idea in general if body blocking were to be implemented.

As I see it with your mechanic “Crowded State”.

• You would not be able to pass through enemies.
• You would be able to pass through allies, but would not be able to attack while your “mass” boxes overlap.

The 2nd remark is a bit problematic: what if an ally decides to annoy you and run through you interrupting your attacks? It seems subject to problems. Would be very interesting if you had a fix for this though!

Problems I see with body blocking so far:

• Dead players: they shouldn’t be blocking you. Stomping them should make their collision boxes dissapear.
• Stability: add a “Destabilized State”: for 4 seconds stability buffs on you will no longer take effect. This triggers when using 2 consequent stability shouts within 40 seconds of eachother.
• Allied blocking aka. griefing: allies shouldn’t be able to stack on eachother, but neither should they block eachother off without reason. The fix I see for this: when within 1200 range of an enemy you can’t pass through allies.

Aeonblade.8709:

solrik.6028:

What kind of chaos would happen if player bodies had collision?

Pros:
-Less dungeon skipping
-Smaller zergs
-Zerg is forced to use tactics
-WvW towers can be defended by blocking the enemy after wall goes down
-Less stack “exploits”

Cons:
-Troll blockers
-People can get stuck in a zerg
-Lion’s Arch bank problems
-AI (minions for example) blocks owner

These are only pros and cons I came up with and I am sure there are a lot more of them

The hitbox wouldn’t need to be as large as the players character. I.e. if a human is 1m wide, the hitbox would only be 0.5m wide. Norns would have slightly thicker hitboxes and asuras thinner.

What would this create?
Will people start running on the right side of the road?
Will people pay more attention to what others are doing around them?
Will parties find a good mix of ranged and melee players?
Will zergs develop a frontline, mid-line, backline?
Will zergs cease to run through other zergs with 30-40 people stacked tightly to eachother?
Will it cause major problems in the PvE world?
How will it affect balance?
Would asuras become the ultimate zerg infiltrators?
Would norns become the ultimate front line defenders?

TERA has different sized hitboxes and it made anyone who was serious about the game forced to play an Elin. Hitboxes need to be universal.

well lets be honest people go Elin because Elin= Sexy Lolis

Collision will never be implemented into this game.

You will destroy a large number of skills not to mention the whole stealth mechanics, let alone the amount of trolls out there.

The Cons very heavily out way the Pros.

the lack of “Collision” is proof the playerbase chose to be able to move through units as it shows they disabled the Melee Assist box wich does exactly what you want = stop players from running through others

It would make zerg-on-zerg collisions very interesting.

Also adds an element of strategy — like block off a downed ally or foe to allow/prevent revive.

Rezzet.3614:

the lack of “Collision” is proof the playerbase chose to be able to move through units as it shows they disabled the Melee Assist box which does exactly what you want = stop players from running through others

Wait… what? There is such an option? Did I turn that off when I started? (I had someone tell me “disable this, enable that” to make the game more playable right at the start.)

Anyway… I don’t think collision is the way to deal with stacking. I have my own idea on how to solve it, but I think it would horrify most people if ANet did it. (“Most people” includes the ANet Devs.)

Sirendor.1394:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

GW1 has/had body blocking capabilities – both foe and ally. People hated it…. I can sort of see why they removed it here.

The reason people hated it was because walking in GW1 was automated through clicks and skills made you run to your enemies through the fastest path. In this game you steer your character, so you shouldn’t be bumping into others if you’re anywhere near an experienced gamer.

Actually GW1 had the same controls as GW2 except for jumping. Clicking was just another way to do the same thing but not recommendable in competitive play.

The reason why GW1 was able to support body blocking was never having more than 24 players in one map, except for towns – but non-hostile players didn’t body block so that wasn’t an issue.

Palador.2170:

Rezzet.3614:

the lack of “Collision” is proof the playerbase chose to be able to move through units as it shows they disabled the Melee Assist box which does exactly what you want = stop players from running through others

Wait… what? There is such an option? Did I turn that off when I started? (I had someone tell me “disable this, enable that” to make the game more playable right at the start.)

Anyway… I don’t think collision is the way to deal with stacking. I have my own idea on how to solve it, but I think it would horrify most people if ANet did it. (“Most people” includes the ANet Devs.)

always been an option

body block in WvW should have been implemented long ago…. people blocking gate/wall opening ? use balistas…. not hard to think right? duh !

body-body collisions would be a disaster for several reasons, the least of which is that the very hour it was implemented, people would park and AFK their characters at key points in jump puzzles that would make it impossible for others to finish them.

I think (in terms of balance only, not in terms of the importance of the change or the technical issues) it would make sense to allow true blocking only for hostiles (so you could block in PvP and use control skills to remove blocking players). Allowing true blocking for friendlies would just encourage griefing.

If you want to reduce stacking, I think it would make sense to give enemies access to more small-AoE attacks, and to increase the target cap for hostile (only!) AoE effects as the radius of the effect decreases.

Rezzet.3614:

Palador.2170:

Rezzet.3614:

the lack of “Collision” is proof the playerbase chose to be able to move through units as it shows they disabled the Melee Assist box which does exactly what you want = stop players from running through others

Wait… what? There is such an option? Did I turn that off when I started? (I had someone tell me “disable this, enable that” to make the game more playable right at the start.)

Anyway… I don’t think collision is the way to deal with stacking. I have my own idea on how to solve it, but I think it would horrify most people if ANet did it. (“Most people” includes the ANet Devs.)

always been an option

Mhm… It’s pretty amusing seeing all these people say “there’s no way that it will be done” when it’s already in the game, eh?

For those who haven’t used it before:
-It makes it so that ANY hostile you have targeted obeys collision rules, even other players who don’t have the option selected (which is pretty funny when someone tries to run through you in PvP and gets confused).
-Any target you don’t have selected can pass through you normally, and you can pass through them.
-If the target selected is a player, they can still dodge through you normally.

The tactical value of the current implementation is actually somewhat high while the risk for abuse is pretty low, since frendlies can’t body block you (or grief you in LA) and even enemies can still be dodged through, yet it’s possible to do GW1 style pulls in group content similar to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8NgsqRolAk&list=LLROrad6zXswzD1A3G3tbXZw
except in a more limited fashion… you simply let a ranged squishy drop a long range AOE and send in the melee to cleave down the mobs that uselessly try to run through them. The ranged puller then dodges back and forth through the melee to keep the mobs nice and balled up… That being said, it’s tougher to pull it off in this game than GW1 and not really needed for most content though…

I believe that the potential for abuse is actually the least of the concerns though, the bigger issue is that collision mechanics are pretty resource heavy. WvW already has lag issues with big crowds, I wouldn’t want to see what happens when two zergs run into each other when every player has this option selected…

I have played games with body-body for players and it is horrible. Even if they are not trying to be a creep you can get boxed into areas and not able to do anything. Leave it as is.

Collision was terrible in gw1,MM’s could block you easily till you died out of pure frustration.Think how it would be in wvw…chaotic mess,when people get bounced around,getting stuck everywhere they move beause they bump into foe’s..it really would be a mess,and make things unnecessarily annoying.

Also,the amount of griefing that would happen isn’t something you would want to see in this game..

Guaranteed severe server side lag. The only con that matter. There are technological limit to Massive multi-player and server side collision/trusting player client.

Everything else is a choice. (realism vs idealism)

They could test it on low pop servers?

solrik.6028:

What kind of chaos would happen if player bodies had collision?

The kind I’m happy not to be a part of.

I guess it really depends on how ‘solid’ the body blocking is.
If your a solid unmovable rock, then yeah I can see a whole slew of problems resulting from that.
But what if it were a softer approach, where the area around you is more like a bubble.

Where if two players are pushing up against each other, that can just about overlap, perhaps even clip through each other. But once they stop moving they will gradually push away from each other until they come to a resting position.
So if someone is in your way, you can kind of push them out of the way, to a limited extent.

In addition skills that move you will ignore body blocking, as well would dodging and perhaps even jumping. So blinking or leaping over an opponent or ally trying to prevent you from going up the stairs is easily done.

And it could just straight up be turned off in some areas, such as Towns, Jumping Puzzles, around Vistas, etc.
Or it could be a combat only thing.

I think there is plenty of room between 100% and 0%.

Would love to see that for just one day.
You could turn it off in bigger cities.

Would definitly have an interesting impact on dungeons and PvP over all.

Yoh.8469:

But what if it were a softer approach, where the area around you is more like a bubble.

Where if two players are pushing up against each other, that can just about overlap, perhaps even clip through each other. But once they stop moving they will gradually push away from each other until they come to a resting position.
So if someone is in your way, you can kind of push them out of the way, to a limited extent.

You could do something like that in CoH, if you knew how. People often used it for griefing. Being able to move other PCs around without their consent (outside of PvP, naturally) is bad.

Yoh.8469:

I guess it really depends on how ‘solid’ the body blocking is.
If your a solid unmovable rock, then yeah I can see a whole slew of problems resulting from that.
But what if it were a softer approach, where the area around you is more like a bubble.

Where if two players are pushing up against each other, that can just about overlap, perhaps even clip through each other. But once they stop moving they will gradually push away from each other until they come to a resting position.
So if someone is in your way, you can kind of push them out of the way, to a limited extent.

In addition skills that move you will ignore body blocking, as well would dodging and perhaps even jumping. So blinking or leaping over an opponent or ally trying to prevent you from going up the stairs is easily done.

And it could just straight up be turned off in some areas, such as Towns, Jumping Puzzles, around Vistas, etc.
Or it could be a combat only thing.

I think there is plenty of room between 100% and 0%.

Interesting. Hadn’t thought about that. Blinking/leaping/ could pass around, but if you leap and bump against the box, you should really not pass. I still think it owes more advantages than disadvantages to have body blocking. It shouldn’t be hard to disable it in cities either.

Sirendor.1394:

It is not fine, not for PvE nor for PvP. I have supported the idea of body-blocking before and will again because that is about the only solution to stacking, the bad design that is killing both PvE (dungeons) and WvW.

I’ve done perhaps thousands of instances in another major MMO and “stacking” was an extremely rare event. The mechanics of the encounter dictate positional requirements, not the absence of body-blocking. I do agree it’s a design issue.

It’s impossible to implement in a MMO.

Mainly because of the lag. The guy you see in your screen it’s really not there. What you see is a prediction of “on where he is, knowing that [insert lag here] seconds before was on that other position and moving at that speed”.
Although you would collide with others, and you would find that as ok, you would see very weird things on others. People getting blocked where there’s noone or people going through others where there is someone.

The only way it works if they kind of enter in a state where they can’t move and they do block. I can imagine someone like holding a shield and nailed in the ground. Then yea, no problems for the lag/position prediction.

It’s just impossible in MMOs, where you can have lags of 2 seconds easily (Client→Server→Client).

Or you can make it server-side, but then you’d have rubberbanding and that’s just another job for the server, to check wether to guys collide. I’d rather not to.

But yea, it’d be nice to have it. Would make the game more reallistic.

solrik.6028:

What kind of chaos would happen if player bodies had collision?

Pros:
-Less dungeon skipping
-Smaller zergs
-Zerg is forced to use tactics
-WvW towers can be defended by blocking the enemy after wall goes down
-Less stack “exploits”

Cons:
-Troll blockers
-People can get stuck in a zerg
-Lion’s Arch bank problems
-AI (minions for example) blocks owner

These are only pros and cons I came up with and I am sure there are a lot more of them

The hitbox wouldn’t need to be as large as the players character. I.e. if a human is 1m wide, the hitbox would only be 0.5m wide. Norns would have slightly thicker hitboxes and asuras thinner.

What would this create?
Will people start running on the right side of the road?
Will people pay more attention to what others are doing around them?
Will parties find a good mix of ranged and melee players?
Will zergs develop a frontline, mid-line, backline?
Will zergs cease to run through other zergs with 30-40 people stacked tightly to eachother?
Will it cause major problems in the PvE world?
How will it affect balance?
Would asuras become the ultimate zerg infiltrators?
Would norns become the ultimate front line defenders?

You forgot the biggest con of all. FPS drops through the roof. PC clip detection was one of the reasons why mass pvp was so bad in Warhammer Online.

Instead of somewhat playable fps in a large wvw fight we’d have 1-2 fps instead.

zacsux.2098:

As stated above, gw1 had this feature where players could body block other players. This also would happen in pvp and could make or break the match. While I believe player positioning is an extremely important role in pvp, simply blocking a player from there objective is a bit unfair. Let’s leave it to player skill being the determining factor of matches instead of simply standing in their way.

Running thru players making their skills fizzle is bit unfair in my book. Also, if you are defending a tower whos gate has fallen in 40 secs, and enemy is running straight thru you to capture said tower, then your are even thiner protection than paper gate.

And isnt group melee combat about clash of sides. Where is clash in Ghost Wars 2?

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Been suggested about once a week for 16 months.

never gonna happen, mostly due to performance issues and griefing potential.

^^^^^ This, just think how it would effect the bank in LA or the BLTP in LA that has one door that folks love to stand in front of, if you think the horns was bad the griefing would go to a whole new level and folks would rage quit by the dozens.

I think you should limit this discussion of body blocking as follows:

1. Blocking only works between players and hostile mobs in PvE (zones, dungeons, etc). No body collision for players in these areas. No collision with friendly/neutral mobs.

2. Block works between opposing players in PvP/WvW (including obs. sanctum which is a competitive zone). No block between allied players.

If you view body blocking with these restrictions then it becomes a more desirable feature. It can be used for strategy in both WvW, PvP, and PvE (tank blocking anyone?). Griefing is eliminated in PvE, and is not really existent in WvW because you can simply kill your foe or waypoint.