Saving the Drama: Replays,Slo-Mo, AARs

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I may have mentioned these separately before, mostly as comments in passing - I believe I have somewhere - and I've seen an earlier thread asking for a combat replay of the entire battle (which is more ambituous than I would hope for) but I thought that collecting and expanding upon them would be more sensible:

* the occasional "slow-motion" graphic focusing on the impact of your weapon on its target. Example: the battle is fast and furious as usual and then you shoot your arrow at a Dark Knight killing him and for an instant the game focuses in slow motion on the arrow's impact and his dramatic fall from grace. This could be optional or used only on the death of an enemy war captain or based on the difficulty of shot. I'd think if used very sparingly - say once or twice per battle - it wouldn't be disruptive.

* at battle's end, allow the player some time to reflect on what's just happened here, and view the fallen, instead of simply jumping to the inventory screen.

*mentioned by me & others earlier, an after-action-report (AAR) of some sort, listing casualties by unit types, friendly and hostile. I would expand upon this to include links to an overall stats screen: #of enemy defeated, #of enemy captured, etc.

*if possible, anytime during the battle, a short replay of the last few seconds.

Offhand, I can think of GTA:San Andreas where you could watch a slo-mo of an "insane stunt" or stats showing "enemies wasted" - I use that merely as a reference to what might be done in M&B.
 
I'd give my left arm for replay + freefloating camera. You could make some pretty impressive cinematics given the right tools...
 
yea a replay mode would be sweet...

now you could actually prove you took all those dark knights on with nuthing but a butcher knife...
 
Well, it appears that there are independent ways to make a movie out of the battle, see FRAPS.com, but it's obviously not as convenient as an in-game replay.

What I was more interested in was something more than just the abrupt shift to the inventory screen at battle's end and of the suggestions, I've felt the unambitious addition of a post battle battle report screen was the easiest to implement.

However, it's the actual details of what might be shown on that post-battle screen that I've never actually pondered. For example, we might like:

* Enemy Killed :
8 Vaegir Footmen
4 Vaegir Veterans
2 Hired Blades
1 Caravan Master

* Total Enemy Killed:
15

etc. etc. but it could be of any form of course. It'd be mostly meaningless in practical terms of course, but the point would be simply to add variety and some "goal" to aimed towards in the way that other games tell you how many troops you raised, or gold you've dug, or techs acquired. It would have the virtue of not requiring elaborate graphics or a complete overhaul of the game's focus.

Anyhoo, just putting it out there for the more ambitious or energetic to demolish or enhance.
 
These ideas are great! I still think its important that the player should be able to turn all of these features off easily. One of my big annoyances with Rome: Total War was that it kept interupting the battle with a whole bunch of cutscenes. What was worse, the battle kept going while the cutscenes were playing! While they were only a few seconds long, it still got on my nerves.

Another cool way to do after action reports would be to present them in the form of a map of the battle field. Every place where your or an enemy's troops died would be marked with a dot. Under the dot would be some text stating when that person died, and who killed them. It would be a cool way to 'recreate' what happened in that battle. Of course, this would take a while to code, so I'm not going to loose any sleep over it if it doesn't get implemented.
 
I like the 'At battle's end' idea. As it is, in tournament, after the last guy dies, I quickly turn around and survey the fallen corpses of my pitiful foes........ Before I get kicked out... A slow zoom out and rotate would be quite nice, do it when you're knocked out too.

Come to think of it, that's about the only thing with battles I DON'T like alot... The end. You're just suddenly dumped out of it, whether you win or lose. It's like 'WHAT!? How did I ... Oh, pah, it says Head Shot: 128 damage. Gyah.' It'd be nice if it rotated around so you could see your fallen form with an arrow sticking in it... :smile:
 
What's wrong with adapting good concepts from other games, and there are plenty you could pick up from Operation Flashpoint :wink:

Like parts of the command interface... :cool:


Anyway, death/end-of-battle cams would certainly add a little to the atmosphere and give you a better feeling for your accomplishments - but it would also be good to be able to terminate and continue the game with a single keystroke.

Similarly to the end it would also be nice to have a little camera flight over the battlefield at start to get a better idea of the location, though w/o the enemy disposition. Might even give the player access to the inventory after that, so he can choose his outfit (weapon, horse, e.g. courser with lance in plain terrain, warhorse and battleaxe if hilly).


Recording the whole battle (e.g. like IL2) would certainly be great, but if the code is not already designed with such a feature in mind, it might be a bit too much to ask for...
 
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