show weapons on back (3rd person), good idea or no?

i realizes there is no right or wrong but just curious, most games i've played don't show your weapons inventory on your back, i guess this is because you would get too cluttered and not look great in 3rd person view

but on the other hand, if you are after realism, if you pick have a bow or a shotgun or something, you are going to store it on your back

in my game i'm thinking you don't have a big weapon inventory and only get stuff you find on the ground or take from someone's cold dead fingers

so what you think, show on back or no?

i guess i could make it a user preference

 

Don't make it a preference. Too many preferences are the cop-out of the lazy or timid designer.

I can't imagine it would ever be a good idea to show the player's entire inventory on their back, but if there's a primary weapon or tool, and it makes sense to carry this on your back, then I say go for it. That'd be a nice touch.

 

I don't think it should be a user preference, it should be up to you, the creator. I think though, the most realistic I've seen is to hold the unequipped large weapon in your spare hand, like on the old Hitman games and Max Payne 3.

The best examples of carrying on the back I can think of are Uncharted 4 & Death To Spies 2, as the large weapons actually have rifle slings / straps for this very purpose, along with the expected animations - rather than magically attaching to the character's back like some kind of magnet lol.

 

I vote no, more work for little reward. This is the polish phase IMO.

 

It is a polish phase but I don't think it is a lot of work (if it is just displaying model on the back of character).

 

'Don't make it a preference. Too many preferences are the cop-out of the lazy or timid designer. ' that describes me perfectly, lol

not sure its a polish phase thing because of the animation for drawing the weapon, i should either decide to add a draw weapons from the back animation now or never i think

i'm inclined to add it since a big part of the game is finding and using stuff including weapons, so nice to see what you have available without having to open an inventory.

but most of these comments say don't add it and thinking you all have valid points

also, since very few games bother with it, i guess most big game companies with highly paid designers have already figured out its not needed

 

where on the back? what rotation? different positions and rotations for different objects? should it be a physical object? which joint type should it use? how do I stop it clipping weirdly with the player model? should it block bullets? do we need a new animation for grabbing various weapons from your back? right shoulder, left shoulder, lower back, upper back?

Each question means more design considerations and development time. Unless it's important for your game, leave this sort of stuff to the end of development.

 

You don't need to animate it, and if you choose to animate it you don't need to make it seamless.

Some big budget games do seamlessly animate this kind of thing (eg: Red Dead Redemption 2), but plenty of games just have a generic animation and then things pop into place. As long as you're clearly signaling to players what's going on you can come and add fanciness later.

 

I think asking question like this in isolation is an approach that will lead to lot of wasted time and heartache.

The answer comes from your one sentence summary of the game. Or your elevator pitch.

"A realistic, tactical MILSIM for the Armaholics crying for greater immersion."

That game needs weapons on slings and realistic animations for maneuvering them.

"A fast paced shooter in cartoon style similar to fortnite."

That one can probably do with weapons appearing into hands by magic.


The point is, know clearly what the end target is and point all things towards that. Rather than make things up as you go along. If you are exploring for the sake of trying to figure out where you want to go, then mock up simple version of both styles and try it out. You want to know what the end-user experience is but also gauge the workflow too. How will it complicate production? Is it worth the payoff?

 

User preference is for things like - do you want an overall vintage treatment, or straight HD look. Blood or no blood. For something as integral to the gameplay - ie - interacting with weapons from user input throughout the entire game, that is something that should not be a user preference.

This decision is more complex than just showing it on the character model or not. Giving it as little thought as that - will ensure the application of doing it will be shoddy and not be of a high standard production value. What is that saying - anything worth doing is worth doing right/good/well. And the other saying - 1 hour spent in pre-production can save 40 hours during production. I might have made that last one up - but it is very true.

Pretty much agree totally with those above who pointed out this is something important that should be considered from multiple perspectives. Giving this single option due diligence now in pre-production might save time later making sure the feature is aligned practically and functionally.

- Complexity/Development time = how long it might take to develop a polished 'feature'.
- Is it a nice to have, or is it functionally important to gameplay. You stated doing this could overcome having to create an inventory. That might save you a ton of time - working out an inventory for the player character.
- Will the character carry anything that has a talley. IE 20 arrows, 100 bullets, 8 grenades, 5 keys. If so how would you display that (it can be done, but how would you do it)
- Functionally - will the character need to make fast actions, switching weapons. IE Legend of Zelda killing one particular enemy requires Link to use 3 different types of weapons in specific order during specific times of the battle. If you want to create realism, having the weapon on the back isn't really enough, you will need to create animations for each weapon draw. Pulling a two handed sword from your back is a completely different motion than drawing a recurve bow from your back. Additionally reversing those draw weapon animations often do not look good. So unique stow animations will need to be created for each weapon type. Those take development time, as well as gameplay time, if the character needs to make swift percisely timed motions with specific weapons - that might not be something you want to spend time - making sure the timing is exact. Animations can be sped up or slowed down, but if certain weapon draw actions are too quick - it might look a little odd - too much MMO 1st generation.
- If the character will carry multiple weapons at the same time and he wants to pull the battle axe - which is the one weapon on the bottom - closest to the players back - how will he do that without all the weapons clipping through each other - looking bad.
- Will each weapon have physics - so player mesh will not clip with weapon tips, handles during animations. The attachment point might require additional animations to be added to make the weapons move accurately during player motions, running jumping, ducking, parrying, swimming, rolling. etc etc
Functionally - does the player character 'need' to see the weapons. Will the player have numerous weapons - so it is important to see them - during gameplay, or will he only have 2-3 weapons so it is easy to keep track of those weapons without having to see them at all times during gameplay.
Will the weapons have magic / enhanced effects coming off of them. How will those effects look when stored on the back, or during gameplay when they are not in the players hands.

For a couple examples of games that do back inventory pretty well. See the latest God of War. See Darksiders. I'm sure there are numerous others.

 

Just do something like Katamari Damacy. Have everything but the kitchen sink on the players back.

 

i'm doing a tomb raider like game and i see in tomb raider 2013 lara has the bow on her back, so i think i'll go with that

 

depends, if you can carry only two weapons at a given time - sure, why not?

hold a rifle with a pistol in a holster, hold a pistol with a rifle slung on your back, that adds to immersion for some people (myself included).

if you have a GTA style armory in your pocket - no.

Spoiler

 

If the inventory is a small number of fixed slots, I think showing it on your back is fine. If the inventory is variable in size or quite large then I wouldn't show it.

 

I would say it depends on whether or not it's important to gameplay. The only reason I could think it'd ever be important is if you have a PvP mode. It's quite useful to know what kind of weapon an enemy has in their backpack. If I see a guy using a pistol, but notice a rocket launcher strapped to his back, I will certainly keep my distance. Otherwise, I'd say no, too much work for very little reward.

 

I went back and fourth on a game I worked on relating to holstered weapons. I do tend to enjoy it better when I can see them but I base my choice on function or gameplay first. My game had limited weapons and no real visible inventory so to me it made since to show them. Also you could only have one of each type equipped. I think on a game with tons of different weapons being able to be equipped at any time I would not worry about holsters.