   No HUD in a Fighting game ?
  Heya I was browsing some ideas and one of em was this one. What if I totally removed any kind of HUD in my fighting game and left it over to the players to see how in a bad or good state you and your enemy are. I can depict this with bruising up the players when they are serverly beaten, and changing the way they are moving around and breathing and such. When theyre beaten up theyre body will hang low allot more and breathing will be heavy when theyre dead tired and bruised and such. How would this work, well or not ? And what visual things can I use to let it show even more how the players are feeling and such ?   
  Possible but diffcult. Bruises and bleeding etc are hard to translate to knowing exactly how much you can take. With a health bar you can know that you can take maybe 2 more punches for example.Why are you so opposed to a HUD? You can put in a very minimalist design...   ;  You'd need something that would work as a good indicator even if the characters are moving all the time. Different idles and skin changes (Bruises, blood) will probably be next to unnoticable when the characters are flying around the screen doing moves.What could work, however, is armour flying off when a character gets hit a certain amount of times. 3 hits, and shoulderpads come flying off and breastplate cracks, 3 more hits and helmet/sunglasses break off, etc. Make sure it's fairly consistant (An average of 3 standard hits per state change or whatever) and that the items flying off can be clearly seen. Maybe scale them up slightly, add a particle effect, a white 'flash' and a loud sound when they break and make broken parts of the items bounce around the arena for a while.This way, the player can see items missing from their character and they can have a good mental gauge of how damaged they are.   ;  im not very opposed to it, but I am a little bit youre right there haha. Well I think its a bit weird that your taking a beating and you keep looking good and fit and all, but then when your bar is almost empty one hit and youre falling to the ground like a sand bag all of a sudden. And its also that when your health is low your enemy can see this as well, so your at a big disadvantage here you cant bluff your way out of that he knows that 1 good punch and your gone, so he will and can use to his or hers advantage. The other thing is that when you hide this a fight becomes a bit more exciting you never know how much you or your enemy of a beating still can take , maybe it adds a bit depth and excitement ?   ;Quote:Original post by PlayfulPuppyYou'd need something that would work as a good indicator even if the characters are moving all the time. Different idles and skin changes (Bruises, blood) will probably be next to unnoticable when the characters are flying around the screen doing moves.What could work, however, is armour flying off when a character gets hit a certain amount of times. 3 hits, and shoulderpads come flying off and breastplate cracks, 3 more hits and helmet/sunglasses break off, etc. Make sure it's fairly consistant (An average of 3 standard hits per state change or whatever) and that the items flying off can be clearly seen. Maybe scale them up slightly, add a particle effect, a white 'flash' and a loud sound when they break and make broken parts of the items bounce around the arena for a while.This way, the player can see items missing from their character and they can have a good mental gauge of how damaged they are.Hey those are lovely ideas, but what if they are not wearing any armor, thinking your average tekken/virtua fighter character here, would clothing rips do, and that eventuall they will lose parts of that , not everything wouldnt want them fighting in there PJ's ofcourse.You are both right this is very hard to do, but I really want to play with the idea here and think of as many things as possible. I will add ideas when they come up, thanks for your input ! Any more ideas :D ?;  I was thinking more along the lines of Soul Caliber style characters. A design like what I mentioned would require the characters to be wearing at least 3 large-ish items that could be broken off (Which could be a fun design challenge for the characters themselves).You could make the fighters become more sluggish (You could do this by having 2 or 3 sets of each animation and blending between them depending on your characters state) but it would be hard to identify by the players and it would give an unfair advantage to the winning player. As a result, only the first 10 seconds of the battle would be important, as by that time one of the players is going to be at a distinct disadvantage. As another problem, you'd have to do 3 versions of each characters animations, which would be very painful indeed (Unless you used a complex IK system to animate the characters, but this would probably be even more difficult).The final option (That I can think of) would be to have a 'state change move', where when your opponent recieves a strike that will bring him down the the last 1/4 of his health, you character preforms a special, identifiable move that signifies the opponent is almost finished. This is similar to the concept of the breaking armour/accessories idea, but it relies on the players keeping track of how many 'special animations' have played.   ;  Depending on your control interface, this question strikes me as similar to Silent Hill's approach: they have the controller start to vibrate mimicking the heartbeat of the character, and it gets faster and harder as you get closer to death.   ;  Call of Duty had no life bar, but an important indicator: a red haze on the edges of the screen and a heavy breathing sound. For me that worked well.In a chaotic fight, changing characters may not be a very quick and obvious indicator so perhaps you could do something with the screen here as well. A hazy and reddish look is something you can't really ignore... :)Or another sort of outside indicator, like the crowd going wild as when they see one of the characters is struggling to keep it up, or the opponent shouting some intimidating words when he knows his opponent is nearly finished.   ;  I think all of these are good idea's, deformable meshes, texture and bump-maped damage indication, different animations and sounds, it just depends on which one you want to use. I think using visual cues on the players avatar could work well, depending no how you do it. After a match or two, even if the player doesn't know his exact health he'll be able to tell when he's just about had it.On Metal Warriors for the SNES for example, you didn't have a health bar, but your Mech was pink. The more damage you took, the darker the color of the mech got, until you started sparking and lost your arms and ability to shoot, that was about the time you had to seriously consider bailing before you explode.Bioforge by Origin also used a visual texture damage system, it was kindof hard to tell sometimes when you were badly damaged or not (not that high resolution, and textures weren't that visible). And Resident Evil 2 altered the way the player stood and moved depending on how he was hurt, Yellow he held his side while moving, orange he'd walk with a limp and hold his side, red he'd drag his foot, and holding his limp arm.   ;Quote:Original post by PlayfulPuppyYou could make the fighters become more sluggish (You could do this by having 2 or 3 sets of each animation and blending between them depending on your characters state) but it would be hard to identify by the players and it would give an unfair advantage to the winning player. As a result, only the first 10 seconds of the battle would be important, as by that time one of the players is going to be at a distinct disadvantage. As another problem, you'd have to do 3 versions of each characters animations, which would be very painful indeed (Unless you used a complex IK system to animate the characters, but this would probably be even more difficult).Hey I love this idea, its cool to use that and it is very logical. Once your battered and buiten heavily your body responds more slower to what you want to do , that idea is PERFECT thanks ! About that technical side I will worry about that later one step at a time, cause im already getting a headache when I read that :PQuote:Original post by Morkai1Depending on your control interface, this question strikes me as similar to Silent Hill's approach: they have the controller start to vibrate mimicking the heartbeat of the character, and it gets faster and harder as you get closer to death.Very nice indeed ! But this would only be possible if this would be to become a console title which at this point isn certain yet, it may be cross-platform though. So this is a neat idea I will certainly keep in mind. Thanks !Quote:Original post by Captain PIn a chaotic fight, changing characters may not be a very quick and obvious indicator so perhaps you could do something with the screen here as well. A hazy and reddish look is something you can't really ignore... :)Or another sort of outside indicator, like the crowd going wild as when they see one of the characters is struggling to keep it up, or the opponent shouting some intimidating words when he knows his opponent is nearly finished.And another nifty idea I like the crowd yell idea, and the idea of the opposition noticing it and making some kind of remarks to the other one. This is a nice and not to big of a notification. So that it will still be subtle, and it still needs you to pay very good attention to notice it, thanks !Well thanks for your input yall these are great ideas that I can work with and you have really already helped me here, thanks !And ofcourse more idea are always welcome, I have decided to stay with the method of bruising up my fighters and make them look more weared out in the way they move and behave to depict how far beatn up they are though...I also have three parameters, body endurance and willpower. Body will depict how much your body can handle, torn muscles, broken bones etc etc. Endurance is how well your condition is, if you behave like a tank and non stop attack your opponent with your strongest punches and moves, you will wear your self out soon, so you have to use tactic and planning to find the rythm of your fight. Willpower is your mentality, it acts like your morale, if its high you will fight better and can endure more, if its low it will do the opposite. These 3 factors decide the overal state of your fighter, and using these three to your advantage will promise the outcome of your fight. Would this be to much or would it be cool, this question is more for the Virtua Fighter oriented players out there that like depth and such in a fighting game. In manouvering you have the choice of left,right, back and forth sways, this speaks for it self ofcourse. If you were to use a double back sway you will move yourself away from a safe distance from your opponent, to recover or plan your next move more carefully, or just as a overal strategy. When you use a normal backwards sway it will act as a duck or evase if the enemy throws a punch or kick at you and you will still be fairly close to your opponont for a swift counter or so. A double forward sway will place yourself behind the opponent so you can attack him from behind if you are fast enough and the opponont permits this. Well I have more but I would love to hear your input on my ideas and on the ideas from the previous posters, thanks and sorry for the long post !   