I Made NEW COMBAT for my PIRATE GAME | Multiplayer Devlog

[@tomweiland]

WE'RE BACK! I know it's been a while, but hopefully the wait was worth it. Thanks for watching guys :) Also, I played around with some mic settings since the last video...does this sound better than in the past?

[@angadbasandrai4814]

Make the gun rotate just once

[@tomweiland]

@@angadbasandrai4814 then it would rotate way too slowly, and if I speed it up I'd have to drastically reduce the time it takes to reload, which I don't want. The animation is entirely temporary anyways (it won't do any rotations at all in the future), so it's not really worth the time it would take to tweak it.

[@changedev.198]

@@tomweiland A quick single spin, then a vertical hit to Ur knee. Might be a great animation. Like cod...

[@angadbasandrai4814]

​@@tomweiland​Makes Sense BTW It does sound better

[@_germanikus_]

Mic Sounds better

[@codinginflow]

I appreciate the honest view

[@tomweiland]

Happy to provide it :)

[@PatriotZest]

Hopefully u release this game before karlson 😂

[@changedev.198]

2069pal

[@tomweiland]

We'll see...both of us are dealing with the horrors of multiplayer 😅

[@that_kaii]

mate u gon have to wait til 2069, in the meantime, play MUCK.

[@btiwari-games5279]

Does dani used Riptide networking for muck???

[@that_kaii]

@@btiwari-games5279 no, its tom weilan's networking, a free and openspurce networking solution for unity, he has toturials on it in his yt

[@eerie5450]

Came across your channel earlier tonight and watched a few of your vids on the progress and it's been great to watch and see how far it's come! Excited to see what's next keep going, it looks amazing! 😊

[@tomweiland]

Thanks, glad you've been enjoying the vids :D

[@kerebharrison459]

It would be could if there was a large pirates bay like area that generates somewhere in the world. It is a spawn/safe zone where players can go throughout the game to buy supplies, upgrade their ship, start quests (more about them later), and trade rare items with other players. Quests would let you generate money without selling materials It would give you somewhere in the world to go to and complete the objective, something that is related and would make quests better is if you could make a crew, where you all shared the same ship but could do quests and other activities together. I also think it would be cool if there was a building system where you could build on islands and ships. You would have different building materials that could be built on each. For example you could only build larger houses or docks on islands, but you could build cannons weather instruments and various other smaller but more functional items on boats (some of which you could also build on islands too). I would add to the atmosphere and gameplay if there were weather systems and natural disasters, like hurricanes and tsunamis, these could damage or even sink your boat and destroy things you build. Making ocean monsters or rare bosses that give good items would be cool. I know only one of these features would be a huge amount of work and I completely understand not wanting to do any of these, also sorry if I mentioned something you were already planning on doing, I'm new to your channel, but I can't wait to see what you do with your game :)

[@tomweiland]

Thanks for all the suggestions :) Crews will definitely be (and technically already are) a thing. A building system is planned, although exactly how it's going to work isn't something I've thought about too much, and ship modifications will also be part of it. I'd definitely like to have storms in the game, but I'm not sure about tsunamis and hurricanes-those are quite extreme events where it wouldn't make sense for players to simply be able to avoid them, but mechanics that negatively impact players without players feeling like they could've done something to prevent it tend to make for frustrating experiences. Big, scary sea monsters are most definitely going to be a thing 😉

[@FancyDakota]

I know it's been months and there's a lot of pressure on yourself to get this project going and finished (so no pressure! :D), but I have a really cool idea that I wish existed in SoT. Imagine you're in a ship battle and you fight for everything until your last swing or shot. After a few hours on the server, you eventually go back to where you were sunk, and you see the ruins of your previous battle, your previous ship, and memories. Imagine seeing your ship on the ocean floor slowly fading away as it becomes a distant memory. I think it's an awesome idea :D

[@tomweiland]

It does sound cool, but does it make sense in practice? In most places where you sink (particularly in battle), the water will be so deep that the ocean floor is way, _way_ down (so far that I'm not even going to bother actually rendering/simulating a floor down there), so where should the wreck be in those cases? Sea of Thieves' shipwrecks that you can explore usually sit just below the water surface, but if you're sitting there in the water watching your boat sink, it would be strange to see it go down 10-15 meters and then just stop and float there. If I let it sink any deeper than that though, no one will ever notice it by chance, and even you probably wouldn't find it again unless you know the _exact_ location. Also, I can't think of any other logical point for a boat to stop sinking, other than the ocean floor-which as I mentioned before technically only exists in the shallows around islands. I suppose I could potentially make only boats that sink near islands turn into shipwrecks that hang around for a while. That way boats that sink in the open ocean wouldn't be floating there strangely (I've always thought SoT's shipwrecks were a bit weird that way) and also wouldn't bog down servers, while sinking near an island could result in a shipwreck that you can explore later. It's an interesting idea, but even if I do implement it at some point, it wouldn't be for a long time as it's definitely not high up on the priority list :P

[@GamesBySaul]

Nice work :) even just getting yourself organised and sorting a Trello is such a massive task so nice work! :D

[@tomweiland]

For sure! I'm really glad I took the time to do that.

[@v4lk394]

You could try adding some camera effects/moving when you swing or get a block or something. nothing too extreme but in my opinion it gives the Games that use this mechanic a ton of more Depth

[@tomweiland]

It'd definitely have to be subtle, but that could definitely add to the immersion. Not really a priority at the moment though :P

[@xzippyzachx]

The cutlass fightin' mechanics are off t' a good start! I cant wait t' destroy ye wit' me blade! :p

[@tomweiland]

Is it just me or does the pirate speak get worse every time 😂

[@RugbugRedfern]

Glad to see a lot of complexity with the melee mechanics! Great video :) Getting pretty hyped for the game at this point

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, now I "just" have to sort out the networking stuff so you can reliably make use of those mechanics (and to see if they're any good in practice) instead of sliding around on the ground like it's made of ice 😅

[@Trippy.nordic]

Swings depending on movement. Moving right will swing right doing damage and so on for other directions. Same goes for block. This will make sword fighting a lot more dynamic.

[@Trippy.nordic]

To also decrease the likelihood of just standing there and blocking. Even more so than the system that you put in. Alas this is all my opinion

[@tomweiland]

But what if I want to move right while swinging left? I'm trying to imagine what you're suggesting and I feel like tying attack directions to your movement might make it feel clunky... I think I'm going to keep it as is for now, at _least_ until I can get some proper testing done (once I've fixed up the latency issues), and if combat turns out to need more depth we'll slowly try adding things. I do appreciate the suggestion though :)

[@hated6745]

Few ideas for combat: 1. Importance of body parts: basically certain body parts take more or less damage and could possibly affect play like a leg hit might slow the player down. 2. If body parts become important you could add a "high/low" block to protect certain parts or even force more precision attacks from the enemy. Ik these are a little complex and probably will be difficult to add until you fix the server side of things but they're just a few ideas.

[@tomweiland]

They're not bad ideas, but I'm not sure I want to go to that level of complexity. I _might_ make headshots do more damage than hitting the body, but having different effects for which body parts are hit would require much more complex hit detection, and there's currently no way to aim at something with the sword aside from just looking there-it'd be difficult to _purposely_ target a specific body part...

[@hated6745]

@@tomweiland yeah I understand, thanks for the consideration!

[@tomweiland]

Thanks for the suggestion :)

[@benrex777productions9]

What beautiful animations and graphics:) I know it's a stand-in and I'm not any better. I'm curious where it's going though. Keep on going, you are doing well. Especially since it is multiplayer

[@tomweiland]

Definitely an artistic masterpiece 😏

[@amykyst]

It's looking good! Thanks for the opportunity to help test these mechanics. :)

[@tomweiland]

No, thank _you_ for helping me test and record clips. Now if only the movement was more responsive...

[@amykyst]

@@tomweiland Gotta get some animations on that player model!

[@tomweiland]

😓

[@richardstevenson371]

I just spent two days learning networking with Mirror in Unity. I tried to convert a simple action puzzle game to multiplayer code (Only about 3000 lines) and boy I don't envy you. ^^' Keep up the good work!

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, networking is a pain-but it's also worth pointing out that it's _much_ more difficult to convert an existing game to multiplayer than it is to just build it as multiplayer from the very beginning :)

[@muffindev3307]

For the combat do the animation with sword more faster , also add a small knock back to the player the sword attacked , add more feedback that you touch a player with your sword, also when the sword attacking and the opposite player blocked it do a feedback that you missed the attack.

[@tomweiland]

Pretty much all of that is planned, but now that the basics are there, it's not really a priority until I get the rest of the gameplay loop sorted out.

[@muffindev3307]

@@tomweiland Good luck , and your game looks good , just need more polishing for animation and that

[@AzraelTheManHandler]

If you wanted to go all in on the melee mechanics you could do like a for honor/chivalry style fighting system. Where which way you hold block vs swing will determine if you successfully defend yourself

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, I'm not sure I want to go that far, even just because I'd imagine that implementing that in a multiplayer context would be an absolute nightmare. Not trying to torture myself more than necessary 😂

[@AzraelTheManHandler]

@@tomweiland fair enough! I will come up with a nice system somewhere in between lol

[@TylerGreen]

Your water shader is amazing and your t-poses intimidating

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, the t-posing player model is the stuff of nightmares... Glad you like the water though :)

[@TylerGreen]

@@tomweiland haha I liked it all was just joking around about t-posing

[@tomweiland]

I wasn't joking about the t-posing though. It _is_ the stuff of nightmares :P

[@TylerGreen]

@@tomweiland haha someone should make a zombie type game of a hoard of t-posing zombies rushing towards them

[@CodeWithTom]

Great video. You may be able to drastically simplify some of the scenarios around reloading by having an ammo reserve which gets replenished when you interact with the ammo crate, but doesn't automatically reload your gun. That way you don't have the issue of figuring out when to trigger the reload animation when interacting with the crate in various states. Looking forward to seeing how this game progresses!

[@tomweiland]

Glad you enjoyed it :) It might simplify the coding for me, but it would complicate things for the player. With a gun that can only have one shot loaded at a time, I don't think it makes sense to require players to manually trigger the reload-all it would do is give the player an extra button they have to press...

[@Schokobanane]

looks very good!... love the Video.

[@tomweiland]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it :D

[@radialguy8450]

Just discovered your channel. I love it

[@tomweiland]

Glad you like it :D

[@noaholmgren3442]

You could Always try and implement a Charge Up attack with the swords. An attack that does more damage but if the opponent blocks it you will also get you stunned for longer. No pressure tho this is your game and you should follow your own vision for it. dont overscope and try to satisfy everyone cuase that rarely works out. Good luck with the project.

[@tomweiland]

Hmmm...so what's the benefit of that for you? If your opponent can just block your heavy/charge attack like normal, and if them doing so stuns you even longer than normal, would anyone ever actually use that? It'd just be leaving yourself vulnerable, without any real benefit for you-very little reward for a lot of risk. I'm pretty confident that if Rare took the charge attack in Sea of Thieves and made it possible to block it, no one would ever use it in combat again (only for mobility), except _maybe_ in situations where their opponent isn't carrying a sword of their own to block them with. It could work if it wasn't blockable (or required some kind of charge block to block it), but that might be too similar to Sea of Thieves 🤔

[@noaholmgren3442]

@@tomweiland Good point. Perhaps for the charged Up attack the opponent would have to block with full block stamina or whatever you would Call it. In other Words you would only have a very small Time frame to block it and timing would be key. Its just an idea tho. Im pretty sure you could make it work with the correct balencing but perhaps the combot would feel clunky. I dont really know its simply an idea.

[@tomweiland]

🤔

[@nickcamilo9207]

It seems like a better mechanic would be if the block only lasted a second or two, and then it should have a cool down for a second or two. That way players are rewarded for timing it well, and likewise, punished for using it too early/spamming it. I feel that even with the block efficiency diminishing over time, it would still be very frustrating to fight someone that is just holding it down. Wonderful work, thanks for sharing another great video. 👍

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I want (and need) to experiment with once I have some actual play tests going :)

[@bobdkdmeneme5746]

For combat inspiration I’d recommend looking at Chivalry, Chivalry 2 and Mordhau as they all have melee combat system’s that fall into the style of easy to learn hard to master gameplay mechanics you’re interested in. A lot of games start with a rock, paper, scissors foundation/design philosophy so that everything has a place and nothing is objectively better than something else, in a sword combat context, something like slash, block, shove for example. I’d also recommend reading some of or at least looking at the manga: One Piece, it has a vast pirate world and a unending number of unique ship, character/monster and weapon designs. I think One Piece would serve as a great source of inspiration for anyone creating a pirate game. Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts, I hope this helps and I can’t wait to see what your project will become in the future. 😁

[@tomweiland]

Thanks for the feedback! I've had a few other people tell me I should be looking at games like Chivalry, Mordhau, For Honor, etc. so that's definitely something I'll keep in mind. My main concern though is probably that (at least from what I can tell) the combat mechanics in those games rely heavily on timing, which is potentially very prone to latency issues...

[@bobdkdmeneme5746]

@@tomweiland There is also the game The Culling, this game didn't do to well in the long run as the devs clashed with the community and introduced unwanted reworks so the game eventually died, but when it first started out it got very popular for having a interesting first person melee combat system and from what i recall it was a lot simpler than the aforementioned games. latency is always going to be a nightmare to deal with so a simpler combat system would hopefully help to lessen player frustration and delay between player, to server, to player input and output. if u can design a system that is easy to understand, fun and has potential to be expanded upon that will be far better than trying to make something similar to the levels of complexity of the other games we mentioned. these games are also very reliant on high quality animation and timing, like u said, and while I'm limited in my knowledge of programming multiplayer games i know it will be potentially further complicate the latency problem and increase player frustration if it's not synced perfectly. In short, simpler is better, i think a combat system that is more than swing sword, shoot gun, like how sea of thieves is, for example, would make for a more fun experience as i feel a lot of games do that style of combat design and revamping that would help the game to stand out and feel unique and refreshing. However don't forget it's still your game so work within your ability level and keep perspective on what u want the scope and complexity of your project to be like. a lot of people, me included, will have an idealised version in their mind of what we would like this game to turn into. Don't get too overburdened with trying to live up to everyones expectations and be decisive with what u think is and isn't possible and or just doesn't fit the game. Remember, keep it simple. Anyway i didn't mean to rant so much, these are just some of my thoughts, i hope it helps.

[@wackydawg1082]

Also, one fun mechanic you could add could be making it possible to launch yourself with the cannons?

[@tomweiland]

The problem with that is that it's identical to Sea of Thieves. It also doesn't make a lot of sense, but I might add mountable catapults in the future, and it'd be much more realistic for those to be able to shoot players (among other ammo types), so that might become a thing.

[@wackydawg1082]

@@tomweiland oh i didn't realise that SoT also had that mechanic

[@tomweiland]

In that case I'm impressed you came up with it :P

[@davaronas686]

You could add a mechanic for breaking the guard to spice things up a bit. Like in chivalry 2 a kick stuns the opponent if he was blocking, but it does not stop the enemy in their attack, so kind of like a rock paper scissor mechanic

[@tomweiland]

That could definitely work, but it's something I'll need to think about. I don't even know what button I would bind that to 🤔

[@KamranWali]

Awesome vid! The game idea is very interesting. Really like the feel of the environment. Also the the sword and the gun model looks really kool. I have noticed that while the player is moving the bullets are a bit off when firing the weapon like they are out side the weapon barrel for both the gun and the canon. Also a small advice keeping track of the game progress through trello, I use github instead, is good in the long run. There were countless times where I forgot some features or bugs to fix bug thanks to keeping track of them actually saved lots of time. Any way best of luck in your game development. :)

[@tomweiland]

Glad you enjoyed it :) The bullets sometimes spawn "outside" the barrel because of some old network code that's half disabled. I'll probably deal with that when I go back and fix the latency on the movement.

[@TheRealTorG]

The whole duel at the end looks like someone wrangling a kite in a hurricane.

[@tomweiland]

😅

[@Wiqser]

Your project idea is amazing, there is not a lot of pirate games that would bring the immersion you are planing to archieve on such level. :-) Good Luck..... PS: Hope we meet in multiplayer when you will be famous :-)

[@tomweiland]

Thanks, that's really nice to hear! Glad you like the idea :D

[@Maxb0tbeep]

You should definitely add particles when someone is hit by a bullet or sword so its easier to tell if you hit them, you could also maybe add a health bar above everyone

[@tomweiland]

Particles, sounds and animation variations for sure-more feedback is definitely necessary. Probably no healthbars though, as I want to keep UI as minimal as possible.

[@kken8766]

yea.. just last week I hit the same roadblock as you too. it is like suddenly the game I worked on for so long doesn't look fun to play anymore. After putting many thoughts, my lesson learned from this is that I should start building the game's visual appeal first, so as to have something pleasant to look at. That could motivate me more than looking at prototype graphics all the time...

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, it's definitely a balancing act between graphics and mechanics. Models you make and shaders you write early on almost always end up being replaced (or at least heavily modified), so you could argue that working on that stuff before mechanics is a waste of time, but constantly looking at prototype graphics is very uninspiring (and terrible for videos, if you happen to be making devlogs). On the other hand it's easy to get sucked into making it look cool, to the point where you end up with a project like mine where it _looks_ decent but there's nothing to really _play_ yet :P

[@kerebharrison459]

I've made another comment on some ideas that I think would be cool to see but I've got more. I think that you should make ships upgradable instead of buying new ships. At the beginning of the game you get to chose from a selection of ship, each better for different things, like fighting, freighting, exploring, etc. Each of the ships would look slightly different and have different stats and starter equipment. For example the freight ship would be larger, come with lots of storage barrels, but also be slower, the fighting ship would come with more cannons and other basic weapons and have more health but not have much storage, and the exploring ship would be faster, but have less health. All parts of the ships would be upgradeable, like you could upgrade the sails to better materials or a different shape, you could upgrade the material the ships are made of, and you could upgrade the cannons. Something cool is if there were other ships that moved in generated routs around the map, these would have ai crew and you could rob these ships. Because all the ships have have advantages and disadvantages players should be able to make guilds formed from multiples one or militiaperson crews. Each crew only occupies one type of ship but the guild could be made up of many ships. If you did it like this players could be most efficient when carrying out tasks and exploring. Maybe you could chose different professions at the beginning, not only pirates. Each profession would have a different purpose and home base/safe zone(mentioned in another comment). Some example professions would be navy, they hunt down the pirates, freighter they move materials around the map and can work for anyone but can also be attacked and stolen from by anyone(these could replace the ai crews I mentioned earlier). I am aware of how much work this would be and also how drastic of a change this would be so I will 100% understand if you refuse.

[@tomweiland]

Not so sure about _upgrades_ per se, as that kind of implies that things are improved all around. You'll definitely be able to make modifications to your boat which will affect properties like speed, but I want to make sure that any benefits you gain require a tradeoff to ensure things stay balanced. AI ships would be cool, and I'd like to make it so you can not only rob/sink them, but also take the boat for yourself and use that instead. Not sure about guilds, as being able to team up with large numbers of other players would make it virtually impossible as a solo player (even when fighting against a single other ship, solos may already be at a disadvantage because the other crew might consist of multiple players). It would also make it so skill and experience takes a back seat, as long as you have lots of players you're teamed up with. A good crew should be hard to sink, but against a group of 5+ other ships all working together, there probably wouldn't be much hope for them. That's fine, but I don't want to incentivize such large groups of players to work together.

[@kerebharrison459]

@@tomweiland Thank you for reply, I'm very happy to see your opinion on my ideas. Can't wait to see what you do with your game.

[@wackydawg1082]

When is the new networking tutorial coming out Tom? Great video btw

[@tomweiland]

The new solution is currently publicly available in a beta state. I'll get to work on videos once I'm more confident that most of the bugs are ironed out, and I also want to make some performance improvements before then. Glad you liked the video :)

[@meetthesylveon3181]

It is beustfull i havy bean loking to this for 5 hours and i can't stop waching. I am exited to play your game. Sorry for the bad inglish i am from Brazil

[@tomweiland]

I'm glad you're enjoying the videos :D

[@thefuturecontrol]

This game has gone so far. I am so excited for it

[@tomweiland]

Me too 😅

[@Skeffles]

Brilliant to see that gun in game and funny to see the glitches you had when testing sword play. I definitely think SoT has good sword mechanics with block/quick/heavy attack. Perhaps you don't want to copy that since you've got to distance from that game but it seems pretty standard for games.

[@tomweiland]

Yeah I want to avoid copying SoT, which is partially why I haven't added any sort of charge attack yet. Hopefully combat will feel okay without it-if not...well I don't know what I'll do then :P

[@Skeffles]

@@tomweiland perhaps you could go with something more controlled for the sword combat. Maybe something like mordau with sword directional mechanics.

[@yoouussef]

i died of laughter when i was wattching ur duel with oscar lol 🤣

[@tomweiland]

😅

[@TheDrover15]

Make it so your swing animation stops if you are blocked/stunned (this will tell the player that their swing failed), make the sword do more damage - a kill should be 4-5 hits (this will make the fights go faster), and when blocking you should be slowed by 50%.

[@tomweiland]

Not sure about _stopping_ the animation, but it definitely needs some kind of variation for when you get blocked, but that won't really be a priority until I get the rest of the basic gameplay loop done. The low damage on the sword is deliberate-I've played a lot of Sea of Thieves, and I really think 4-5 hits is too fast for a kill. I'm probably not going to give food the kind of healing power it has in SoT, so you won't be able to just heal through getting slashed, which would make 4-5 hits to kill even quicker. I want fights to be a little more drawn out so they don't end as fast, and we won't know whether 10 damage per sword hit does that without making it too slow until we can get some proper testing done. Thanks for the reminder about the block speed reduction though-I kind of forgot about that :P

[@theanimationman6219]

Add energy bar for the defence and attack so its gona make the combat way interesting

[@tomweiland]

Probably eventually. Not a priority for now though.

[@kingjawdev8102]

Just came here, game looks super cool!

[@tomweiland]

Thanks, glad you like it :D

[@__Rizzler__]

Nice bro. This games render is brighter than my future

[@tomweiland]

Thanks 😅

[@Visigoth_]

😀👍 I wanna see active ragdoll procedural animation! - lol... I'm enjoying the channel.

[@tomweiland]

Hmmm, that could make for some comedic moments, although I'm not sure if it fits the vision of the game that I have :P

[@ZooHair]

exquisite fighting skills sailor

[@tomweiland]

Thank you, captain.

[@bennettbong729]

Make a tridend and ship customization

[@tomweiland]

Ship customization, definitely. Haven't really thought about tridents, but it could make for a decent spear-like weapon 🤔

[@bennettbong729]

A fish catching thing

[@andrewbeany9992]

I can't wait for this to be released

[@tomweiland]

Same 😅

[@CodemasterJamal]

You've come a very long way, my friend. Keep pushing. I would really like to see how this game goes once you've got player animations in. Also, have you ever thought about adding grenades or special physical skills with the sword?

[@tomweiland]

Grenades, _possibly._ What do you mean by "physical skills"?

[@CodemasterJamal]

@@tomweiland like a specialized sword attack. You could use particle effects and a unique animation for special attacks. They can do more damage. You could also look at holding down the button, to do a physical attack that deals more damage. You could also look at double tapping and animation canceling. Those are all unique things you could add to your game for some additional gameplay with combat.

[@kairu_b]

So much progress!😁

[@tomweiland]

😅

[@Rumplestiltzchen]

now this is pog: also a stun animation would also probably help make it easier to use

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, more animations will definitely be necessary to provide extra player feedback, although I'm not sure if it's something worth prioritizing so soon (before finishing the basic game loop).

[@Finneganmac]

I could have sworn I watched a devlog you made about client prediction, but in this one you mentioned how you haven't done that yet, which sucks for me because I wanted to ask you some questions about it lol.

[@tomweiland]

That's probably because I _did_ make client prediction, and I _did_ make a devlog about it :P The only problem with it was that it completely broke down when moving on boats (extreme jittering that made it basically unplayable), so I disabled it all again. Somehow I need to find a way to rebuild (or re-enable) it while avoiding the jittering this time-still not sure how I'll do that, which is why I'm not looking forward to it 😅

[@shinystick241]

Make it so that players can build the boat, that would be pretty cool!

[@tomweiland]

I don't think I'll let players build their own boats, as that'd require a modular system which won't produce good-looking ships-but you'll be able to make various modifications to your boat that change how it looks and functions.

[@arthurds4810]

When I was dealing with the animation I also struggled with the animations when switching the weapon while the reload animation is playing. I fixed it with a animation in which there was just a event which will call a function in the gun class and switch to another weapon. And whenever player presses the switch button it should trigger the animation and change the gun. The transition to the animation should not have any exit time or transition duration. I hope this will help!

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, it sounds like I set mine up pretty similarly. The main problems for me were that since the game is multiplayer and the server manages all the logic, I had to ensure that clients actually know when those triggers need to be set. Thanks for trying to help though :)

[@kas-lw7xz]

I just never did it, so much I looked against it. I just do IK now

[@RobLang]

Superb devlog, as always. I think using timing is the perfect way to got that combat sweet spot of easy to start, difficult to master. How do you do the sword hit detection? Is it an arc of Raycasts? Keep up the great work, Tom!

[@tomweiland]

Currently it's a Physics.OverlapSphere check to find players in range, and then I do some math to check if the other player is in front of where you're facing. If that all checks out, I do a single raycast to check if there are any obstacles in the way and to make sure the other player isn't blocking your attack. I'm definitely going to have to change that though, as it's not very representative of the range of motion the sword has (and the ray could hit a wall when only _part_ of a player is exposed), and currently all the logic runs as soon as you click, so it's impossible to anticipate attacks because the animation only starts by the time the damage has already been dealt 😅

[@RobLang]

@@tomweiland I like the layered approach you took, starting with the super fast sphere overlap. I imagine that getting anticipation working over the network is going to be tricky given client prediction. Thanks for taking the time to explain that!

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, making sure you _can_ anticipate attack is going to be hard, especially on higher latency...

[@gamergreat9505]

Idea: Maybe as soon as the player has blocked an attack, the sword goes back to the idle position so the player has to press the bloke button again. This would leave a window where the player is unprotected and the enemy player can deal some damage.

[@tomweiland]

Well currently that would essentially force the player (or strongly encourage, since they can't just keep blocking) that did the block to counter attack. It wouldn't really be much of an opening for the attacking player since they would be unable to attack again for a short moment because their previous attack was blocked. Of course that could all change in the future though.

[@havexx4814]

I can't wait for you to make another devlog video, I myself am also making a pirate game. I was mostly inspired by One Piece and Sea Of Thieves. I really recommend to watch One Piece specifically if you're stuck on game ideas.

[@tomweiland]

Hopefully soon 😅

[@CapnMoza]

I think in edition to the blocked player still taking a bit of damage, I think that if you have the players sort of push away from one another after so many sword slashes could help to break up stalemates

[@tomweiland]

Sea of Thieves has a similar mechanic, so that's probably a good idea. Then again I don't want combat to feel identical to that in my game...

[@surjeetsohal6517]

Ideas 1) you should be able to change the water quality I mean like the one u have currently and one with more realistic graphics 2) make the planks on the hull 3D 3) make the sails actually catch the wind so where there is less wind the will be more like flat and where there is more wind they will be more like going out and catching the wind 4) make the interior of the ship actually have stuff like barrels, maps, lanterns, a prison cell 5) make a animation for water flowing in the ship when there is a hole in the ship 6) add treasure chests 7) add super sick graphics 8) add AI enemies 9) add a telescope thingy 10) make different types of flags which mean different things like the jolly Roger, the black flag, alliance, legendary, shark hunter, in sea of thieves 11) add Kraken's and megladons Plz implement these ideas I always wanted to have a pirate game like sea of thieves so unfortunately I don't understand programming so plz add these ideas :)

[@tomweiland]

1. If by "more realistic" you mean stuff like reflections, that's definitely something I'd like to add. If you mean significantly higher poly counts (mesh resolution, that's unlikely to happen as I want to keep the low poly style. 2. Yep, although it's not a priority. 3. Yes. 4. Yes. 5. Yes. 6. Yes. 7. Again, depends on what you mean. The low poly look is probably here to stay. 8. Yes. 9. Yes. 10. Yes. 11. Not sure about those specifically, but I'll definitely be adding sea monsters in the future. Keep in mind that this project is essentially still in a pre-prototype stage, so while I have big plans and lots of ideas to polish and fill out the mechanics & features, most of it is pretty low on the priority list and will stay there until I've actually got a gameplay loop in place.

[@surjeetsohal6517]

@@tomweiland :) thanks for replying

[@lucastodisco1007]

Hi bro, I just saw all your videos and I already want to play it haha, congratulations on all that work, have you already thought about when you will release the demo? greetings from Argentina

[@tomweiland]

When I release a demo depends entirely on when I manage to get the game to a playable state. I've been working on fixing the movement responsiveness, but it's been super slow work, and after that there's still a lot to do before there's a proper gameplay loop in place, so unfortunately I really have no idea when I'll get the first people to help me test.

[@lucastodisco1007]

@@tomweiland aaah of course, well anyway, it is a very good advance everything you have done, there is little left

[@tomweiland]

Believe me, there is a _lot_ left to do 😅

[@lucastodisco1007]

@@tomweiland Hey bro,Hey bro, what app(software) do you use to building shapes? I'm curious

[@tomweiland]

I use Blender for 3D modeling.

[@yaarrghmematey]

Admire that fact you are building everything from the ground up, by yourself!

[@tomweiland]

It's definitely great for helping me learn more, and it _might_ be better for the long term of this project, but it certainly doesn't make things quick 😂

[@yaarrghmematey]

@@tomweiland A lesson for those that think making a game is fun and easy ;) This will indeed be good for your future, which is very bright in my books, you are very talented, keep up the good work!

[@tomweiland]

Thank you for the kind words, that means a lot to hear 😊

[@beardordie5308]

What caused that crazy bounce/fast/flying issue?

[@tomweiland]

2 colliders on the player. I had moved one of them to a different layer to fix an issue with hit detection (players were taking double damage from the sword) and I forgot to disable collisions between the two layers, which made the physics engine go wild :P

[@LameSlime]

@@tomweiland how much time did it took?

[@paulmeynckens6676]

I remember I made the same mistake once.

[@tomweiland]

@@LameSlime to fix it? Like 30 seconds, once I knew what the problem was.

[@LameSlime]

@@tomweiland and how much time it took to figure out the problem

[@JustStart562]

I think you should add the ability for the player to take up the ammo boxes or crates and store them on there ship

[@tomweiland]

Maybe 🤔

[@paradonmusic]

Lmao that speed bug, player be zoomin

[@tomweiland]

Not just speed, but flight too :P

[@TheRunningSongs]

If ur basing this game on the Greek myths I would say it would be amazing if when u died and if ur ship sunk u got sent to Davy Jones locker where there would be a fee to pay to raise your ship from the depths and repair it. It would be way better then just respawning!

[@tomweiland]

Last time I checked, Davy Jones wasn't part of any Greek myths :P I was thinking of just respawning you at a port and making you steal an NPC boat or something. Alternatively, Poseidon could be the one bringing your ship back out of the water-obviously not right where you sank though, so in the end that'd be very similar to just having a new boat appear somewhere...

[@TheRunningSongs]

@@tomweiland having Poseidon rise ur ship at a doc would be a godly sight, having to pay him would be funny and a use for money, or if ur looking for a way to add money and something to buy having a way to customise ur ship with more cannons and maybe even more sails would be a good way to A: make players take more care for their ship, and B: have them pay a price to raise their ship, keep up the great work, love watching ur vids!

[@jamisonstockrahm4549]

U should add treasure maps and shipwrecks etc.

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, I'd definitely like to include those kinds of things eventually, but when I do I really want to make sure I come up with something different from the way Sea of Thieves does it.

[@changedev.198]

UpVOTE!!!

[@dmcgames6453]

I’m new to the series but I noticed that the boats in your game look like bigger versions of sailboats that I sail. I was wondering if you could make points of sail in the game, such as irons and you can’t move forward in irons, and things like that

[@tomweiland]

I do want to mimic real life sailing as closely as possible, but obviously there's going to be some things that are just too complex or inconvenient to make for fun gameplay. I'm not sure yet if I'll make it possible to sail _directly_ into the wind, but having to tack as much as you would in real life could quickly become extremely tiresome...

[@dmcgames6453]

@@tomweiland that makes sense

[@dmcgames6453]

@@tomweiland maybe you could go faster when tacking back and forth? Like you go a lot faster in close hauled than in irons?

[@rileyp-b2859]

procedual structures something simple like a dock that has an ammo cheast that has a 2/3 chance of spawning on an island.

[@tomweiland]

I feel like the handbuilt approach might be better, particularly when it comes to structures. It's hard to make procedural generation feel fresh/different every time. You'll probably never see 2 identical structures in Minecraft, but once you've explored one nether fortress, the others don't really feel like something fresh.

[@jul.smhhhh]

Have you considered adding water foam to the top of waves or are you saving the after effects for when you finish game mechanics, also name idea Sails on the Horizon

[@tomweiland]

Maybe eventually. I _should_ be focusing on mechanics, but I might see if I get some reflection/refraction working 🤔

[@jul.smhhhh]

@@tomweiland thanks for the response, I will be excited for when the game comes out.

[@angelrubiov]

Very cool and relatable as a dev

[@tomweiland]

Glad to hear it! Anything specifically? Maybe I can ensure that future videos stay as relatable as possible if I have a better idea of what made it relatable for you :)

[@AlexAlex10703]

i would like a 5 min vid of you and your freind playing this game (with the bugs!)

[@tomweiland]

Unfortunately there isn't much to _play_ yet. Like I mentioned in the video, it's mostly just a disjointed collection of mechanics. But maybe we can make that happen once the gameplay loop is in place.

[@stickguy9109]

As a dark souls fan I would love to see parrying and backstabbing mechanics. Also make it so that when a player jump hits it deals more damage like in Minecraft. Last thing that would be cool is a special attack that does a ton of damage but you can only use it once or your sword will break or something.

[@tomweiland]

I'd definitely like to have parrying, but I'm not sure about jump hit crits. I've always thought it looks really stupid when players are constantly jumping in fights, so I don't really want to add mechanics that encourage/require that in order to do maximum damage...

[@BusinessWolf1]

Make the block effectiveness falloff diagetic. Meaning, make the character tilt the sword to show it.

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, something like that would be good 🤔

[@gnt542]

May I ask you how did you managed to make the player stay and move on the ship while this is moving?

[@tomweiland]

That's just a product of 2 rigidbodies standing on top of each other. Unless you accelerate the bottom one much too quickly, friction will keep them together. Making the player movement respond as expected is just a matter of taking the ship's velocity into account and calculating movement _relative_ to that.

[@akarsh9407]

I know its not much but still here it is IDEA - Make a axe for the game, and players can cut trees to get planks and repair there ship, (easy-peasy. yeah, obviously not easy for you.)

[@tomweiland]

Believe it or not, there already is an axe, and you can use it to chop down trees. They drop logs (which don't have a model so far), but they can't be turned into planks yet because there's no crafting system.

[@akarsh9407]

Ok ok i am a new subscriber and viewer so i dont know much about what u have developed in your game but trying to watch it in free time i am a student which is trying to get into game development but still i am so dumb and i still suk at game dev.

[@tomweiland]

Don't worry about it, it's unrealistic to expect that everyone knows everything that's in the game already :P If you want to get better at game dev, start by not linking your intelligence to what you know/how good you are. Obviously it's possible that you're not as smart as the next person (I don't know anything about you), but just because you still "suck" at game dev doesn't make you stupid-it makes you new to game dev. If you stick with it you'll keep learning and getting better. Failing and "sucking" is part of the process.

[@akarsh9407]

@@tomweiland yeah thanks for motivation and you are right falling and suking are a part of this process thanks i will follow this process.

[@andreishilin7529]

I have so many ideas my dude, make different attacks and blocks for one. I understand it's hard but nothing is easy as you can tell😅. Different melle weapons, range...

[@tomweiland]

Different weapon types are planned.

[@n8dev]

yes TOM

[@tomweiland]

yes N8

[@farhanhakim2189]

The water is looking good now

[@tomweiland]

Glad you like it, although I didn't touch it at all in this devlog.

[@shivanshtiwari2871]

And that would prevent property damage! 🤣🤣🤣 - tom 2021

[@tomweiland]

It's nice to know people appreciate my jokes 😅

[@shivanshtiwari2871]

@@tomweiland we absolutely do! Keep up the nice work!

[@OMAR_ALAA774]

I have an idea that will make your game 10x better 1.add a singleplayer mode 2.add a splitscreen mode

[@tomweiland]

1. Highly unlikely. Adding a singleplayer mode would require either rebuilding the whole game or including the server code in the client project, neither of which I want to do. 2. That would only be helpful/nice to have on consoles, and I'm currently not actively thinking about releasing on console. It'd be nice in the future, but I don't want to design the game around their limitations, and considering other platforms is not a priority, especially at this point. The project is big enough as it is for now :P

[@OMAR_ALAA774]

@@tomweiland makes sense. I think you should take inspiration from raft its an amazing game

[@OMAR_ALAA774]

I still think singleplayer would add more replay value and some parts of the world the internet isnt fast enough to play online like where I live

[@DavidCitron_]

Really nice content! But I think you should make attack animation quicker. It looks a bit weird.

[@tomweiland]

There's definitely a lot of tweaking to do in the future.

[@DageLV]

if user has atleast one bullet and gun isn't ready to fire, reload animation isn't playing, then reload. Simple, it covers all scenarios. After its done playing animation, set the isReady to true.

[@tomweiland]

I uploaded this video a long time ago so I don't really remember the specifics of what I talked about-was your comment in response to a certain part of the video?

[@AlarSenpu]

Although it’s a given more animations for combat would be nice. For an example one if a riposte or successfully block a attack. I do think you should work more on the flow of the rest of your game though before you actually go back into animations (Ship building system?).

[@tomweiland]

I 100% agree. I've got the bare minimum for combat to be more than spam-clicking, so the priority now shifts to filling out the rest of the gameplay loop and adding the foundations for other mechanics before coming back to combat. Not sure when I'll get around to ship building, but hopefully sometime soon-ish.

[@DaSpineLessFish]

I think you should consider a stamina system like Mordhau instead of just flat diminishing block effectiveness, would help with attack spamming too

[@tomweiland]

The problem is that a stamina system would be a direct and severe handicap in situations where you're fighting multiple players (as if being outnumbered wasn't bad enough in itself). I'll probably add a stamina-like bar for the block so you can see how long you have before the effectiveness decreases, but I'm not sure I want stamina to affect attacks and other combat-related actions.

[@DaSpineLessFish]

@@tomweiland You could have buffs that give back stamina when you get a kill or blocking attacks from successive enemies in a row will not take any/as much stamina

[@DaSpineLessFish]

@@tomweiland Also just don't get out numbered, can't really counter that gameplay wise. More people will basically always win anyway unless you can clutch

[@tomweiland]

I mean if you have a bigger ship chasing you, all it takes is for the wind to not be in your favor and you'll have 4 people (assuming I make 4 the max crew size) attacking you. Obviously that's a risk you take when playing solo or with only 1 other person, but I want to do my best to avoid giving those that are already disadvantaged due to less numbers even more mechanical disadvantages. Stamina isn't a bad idea in and of itself. It's just that it (like most things) gives a bigger advantage to bigger groups of players. Just like being able to revive your crewmates in Sea of Thieves-when they added that it was another major handicap for solo players.

[@LameSlime]

I like how his reload animation is just flipping the gun (Dani Fan confirmed)

[@tomweiland]

When I decided to go with a flip, I wondered how long it'd be until someone comments this :P Like I said though, the animation is very much temporary. Can you be a game dev without having watched at least one of Dani's videos?

[@LameSlime]

@@tomweiland You can be a game dev without watching his videos but there is something in him that makes me wanna make game and go on . He is energy Booster And even you are energy booster And what r u doing here go and make progress in the games ! I wanna see the grapple functioning properly on the next Video ; )

[@nichegames9590]

This game is huge. It's going to super hAAARRRD to make!

[@tomweiland]

Yeah, it's definitely a massive project :P

[@knowariddle9462]

Add a kick that interrupts blocks like in Chivalry

[@tomweiland]

Maybe 🤔

[@paulmeynckens6676]

Have you ever tried to use an already existing multiplayer library? Like Mirror, MLAPI or the old Unet? I'm not saying that you should convert your game codebase to be based on one of them but you should take some ideas from them : Mirror and MLAPI are both open source.

[@tomweiland]

I used UNet back in the day and hated it. Mirror wasn't much better. It's probably a personal preference thing, but it just feels like those libraries rob you of all control. I don't like how so much stuff happens under the hood, and having the server and client in the same Unity project (which I think is required for Mirror to work) is a pain for a project like mine. Haven't tried MLAPI, but I prefer the lower level stuff where I can personally see and decide how things work. Edit: although Mirror and MLAPI are open source, I'm not sure how feasible it is to take ideas from them. As far as I know, they both consist of a lot of code, so I kind of doubt that digging through that to make sense of how they do certain things would be worth the time :P

[@paulmeynckens6676]

@@tomweiland I agree that they do quite a lot of stuff under the hood. It's a bad thing if you want a lot of control but it's fine in my case. I first tried to work with separate projects for the client and the server but having the server and the client in the same unity project is definitely a huge benefit. Both can share a ton of code and assets. It's a huge time (and pain) saving thing.

[@tomweiland]

Oh yeah, the extra features can definitely be big bonus if you don't really need the same level of control, or if you're just building a small game and trying to get it networked. Part of why I don't like having server and client in the same project is _because_ of code sharing. Sure, _some_ code would be nice to share, but in a server-authoritative project like mine, clients almost always need to do something at least slightly different than how the server does it. So while at first glance it might look like my server and client could share a ton of code, it turns out that actually very little is identical.

[@hazytp7150]

The game so far looks amazing but are there going to be any other physics? So like you could connect ropes on 2 ships or throw stuff at players

[@tomweiland]

The grappling hook is as close as it gets to ropes at the moment, and I might add some kind of grenade like weapon in the future-not really sure yet though.

[@makra42069]

like the 360 spinny boi animations

[@tomweiland]

👌

[@77netwar]

I am wondering how your sword combat works in terms of pseudo code. Is it something like the following? if player is in range (if player tag is inside the trigger collider of the target) when the event on the animation (event x on keyframe 20 of animation swordSlash) is played and otherplayer is not blocking, call function DoDamage?

[@tomweiland]

I do a Physics.OverlapSphere check to get the players in range, then I loop through them and find out if any of them are in front of the attacking player. If they are and they're not blocking, I damage them. Currently the attack logic just runs as soon as you click, which is actually something I need to change as it makes it impossible to anticipate attacks (since by the time the animation starts, the damage has already been dealt).

[@77netwar]

@@tomweiland Thank you for very much for your explanation. :)

[@zgthor]

2:20, why not make a bools like, round chambered && gun on hand || chambering && gun on hand, do nothing, else if gun on hand do animation, than have any reload request go trough there. When you switch to a different item make chambering = false or when the animation has ended. This should fix the double reload when interacting with the box.

[@tomweiland]

🤷‍♂️

[@zgthor]

​@@tomweiland I mean that as a question, just the round chambering thought, the chambered round was for sake of clarity; Would chambering round bool solve the problem or the lag would just ignore this?

[@theothercreare]

What did you use for multiplayer? Great video btw

[@tomweiland]

I used to use the networking solution from my multiplayer tutorial series, but I'm now using a much improved (though still in testing) solution: github.com/tom-weiland/RiptideNetworking

[@theothercreare]

@@tomweiland Ok thank you! I will check those out

[@FMontanari709]

What software were you using for music/sound effects? Seemed quite nice... Btw, I recently switched from Trello to Milanote and I found it quite easier to maintain, maybe you should try it (although it's free plan limitation might be quite tedious). What I do, at least for current tasks, is having TODOs with just what I "planned for tomorrow" and gets quite easier to keep going

[@tomweiland]

I was using LMMS to play around a bit. Probably going to switch to Ableton Live's free trial once I have some time to get more serious about it though. Haven't heard of Milanote, might have to look into it.

[@maxg5196]

It's nuts you are trying to do everything yourself in regards to making this game. Programming, Modeling and Art, even music and audio!? Have you ever thought about working in a small team of people with specialized skill sets?

[@tomweiland]

Once I get some kind of playable prototype working I'll consider getting some other people involved-there's simply no way to get a project of this scale done in a reasonable amount of time if I do _everything_ myself. Plus, I don't really like animating, and I'm not sure I'd be able to do music and sound effects since those are especially time consuming.

[@JaschaKuphal]

when u finished ses of thieves and want to do ur own version. looks very cool :). and may i ask in what engine you do this game?

[@tomweiland]

I'm using Unity :)

[@JaschaKuphal]

@@tomweiland thanks :p

[@fulconini]

how about you add different attack types depending on players speed for example if youre sprinting forward at the enemy it deals more damage than when your just standing still

[@tomweiland]

That could definitely work 🤔

[@progger1050]

Will u publish it on steam By the way new subscriber :D

[@tomweiland]

Thanks for subscribing :) If I'm honest I would _prefer_ not to publish on Steam, but that would mean sacrificing a huge amount of potential players, so not putting it on Steam doesn't really seem like an option...

[@progger1050]

@@tomweiland so where u would publish it

[@marra2912]

Plot twist: the Game is actually called "My untitled pirate game"

[@tomweiland]

I mean...meme marketing is a pretty genius strategy, I could turn it into a meme :P

[@tigasm6544]

i'm making my game launcher with visual studio and when i go to create an event this appears: failed to create event handler. How can I resolve this?

[@tomweiland]

See my response to your other comment.

[@voodookittoys7606]

Hey Tom im sorry for bothering you this much but i am also developing my own game an im pretty new to multyplayer. I wanted to ask how you syncronize the waves between server and client because i really got trouble trying to syncronize them and its not working.

[@tomweiland]

The wave position depends on a single offset variable, so it's really just a matter of periodically sending that value to clients to ensure they're still in sync.

[@ThiccyDev]

Maybe you could make it so you just can't hold block indefinitely so you have to time it?

[@tomweiland]

Maybe...although I think just reducing the effectiveness feels better. If your player were to just suddenly stop blocking while you're still holding right click, a lot of people would probably think it's broken, though I suppose the same could be said about you still taking damage while blocking 🤔

[@ThiccyDev]

personally it would feel worse to me to take damage while blocking as opposed to a timed block