Where did the destruction go!?

[Zloth]

I watched this video and got surprised by entry #7

View: https://youtu.be/RyxbhyLwnCg?si=goj5iVZ74jQhJtDr

He's right, the destruction physics has been fading away. There's still some here and there in various games and even some games that concentrate on them, but the popularity seems to be going down, not up. NVIDIA's included physics engine never seems to get an update anymore, either.

Falcon blames it on the way we focus so much on realistic graphics, but I'm dubious about that. First, I would think that all the dynamic lighting and raytracing stuff would make destruction easier, not harder. I'm no graphics expert so I could easily be wrong there, but, I mean... "dynamic" and "tracing" aren't static things. Second, the trend downward pre-dates the latest graphical bells and whistles.

 

[Pifanjr]

I think the answer, as for most of his points, is that it just doesn't improve the game enough to spend time/money developing it.

Red Faction: Guerilla for example sold about a million games, which isn't bad, but is similar to games that don't have extensive destruction mechanics. So developers have very little incentive on adding them to games that will probably sell fine without them. Which you also see with Far Cry, another example named in the video, where removing destruction mechanics doesn't seem like it impacted sales negatively at all.

 

[Brian Boru]

I wonder did the destructibility get many player kudos, beyond the initial ooh and journalistic hype? He showed some of it from Far Cry 2 and Crysis. FC2 fans rave about the fire mechanics in it, so I turned on longer & wider fires in the FC6 mod I use. Cool for a few times, but then it was mostly in the way, waiting around for it to subside before I could go in and loot the goodies or access a building, or whatever. I turned it off.

Crysis was fun for a few building blow ups too, and it had some tactical use when there were enemies in a building—but again, sth I ignored after the initial 'look at that'. You could shoot tree trunks and big branches too in Crysis, but again, no lasting appeal.

The one destructible I get an ongoing kick out of in Crysis is the little fuel cans on the back of jeeps—shoot it on fire and 5 seconds later the truck goes boom!

I suspect Multiplayer decrease is due to the Battle Royale upsurge—it would be a similar target audience, no?

The one from the video that I'm wholeheartedly behind is the UI degradation. FC's menus UI improved over time from abysmal in FC3 to good in FC5—not great, but not detrimental either. However, FC6's menus are pretty bad, to the degree that I settled on some config and rarely bothered to change it afterwards. Typical example is the different ammo for different enemies—within the same fight! What were they thinking? Weapon comparison? Forget it unless you have loads of time to spare or it's your thing.

 

[Zimbaly]

It's a shame. I loved it in battlefield. Would love to see a battlefield 2142 sequel with buildings and ships you could put holes in to breach, or take down a building on some guys. Hell a Star Wars game would be amazing like that.

I hope it picks up again..... also I'll always love my Ageia Physx card.

 

[Frindis]

It always makes me a bit sad when you can't destroy bottles, windows, and such in a game. You would think just having those put in would not take up too much developing time and at the same time bring in juuuust a tad of realism.

 

[ZedClampet]

Destruction is kind of cool, but, for me personally, it's just an extra feature that doesn't really do much for my enjoyment of the game. The real problem is the expense (he says it's a lot less expensive than ray tracing, but he's only talking about technical performance). Destruction adds a huge amount of time to development and is very difficult to do. There was a huge Xbox game that spent many years in development where they constantly touted its destruction physics, but after years of working on it, they finally decided to pull it out of the game. I think it's very possible that some new tech will come along that will make destruction physics an easy add to a game, and then you'll start seeing it again. Imagine AI analyzing an object and determining on the fly how it would destruct.

As for the rest of the video, he's really only talking about the top 1 percent of games, the AAA games and big multiplayer affairs. In the other 99 percent, things like modding have never been better. It's like lamenting that there are never demos anymore. What people who say that are talking about are the games they like to play. For the rest of us, there have never been more demos than there are right now.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I imagine having destructive levels makes level design very difficult as well. Whats the point having multiple paths with different ways to get around using abilities and tricks when ultimately the player can just flatten every standing structure in the place and make a level into one room.

The games I remember that did it like Red Faction and BFBC2 made it a headline feature, the games that are still heavy on physics simulation it do the same I think. Everything else pretty much carried on without it.

Anyone feel free to correct me, as I understand it Nvidia Physx is still used as part of Unreal and other engines. I assume its just one option similar to how a lot of games used to use Havok.

 

[SirDJCat]

I don’t think anyone’s mentioned it yet but The Finals’ big feature is complete destructibility in the maps and it actually works really well without impacting performance. It’s actually pretty neat that you can form strategies around it like knocking the objective into a more defendable position.

 

[Zloth]

I wonder did the destructibility get many player kudos, beyond the initial ooh and journalistic hype?

I'm wondering that, too, though mostly about myself. I loved it when it first showed up. (City of Villains did a great job with it for the Mayhem missions way back in 2008.) Now, I need a video to point out to me that I'm barely seeing it anymore.

Well, now I've been reminded, and I have an appetite for destruction all over again!

 

[Brian Boru]

level design very difficult … when ultimately the player can just flatten every standing structure

I suppose using different materials would be the simplest solution—eg anything concrete or wood goes 'Boom', whereas anything metal or stone goes 'Did you hear sth downstairs, dear?'

I have an appetite for destruction all over again!

Just watch a play a Kojima movie game and the narcotic effects will soothe your troubled soul.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I suppose using different materials would be the simplest solution—eg anything concrete or wood goes 'Boom', whereas anything metal or stone goes 'Did you hear sth downstairs, dear?'

Thanks yea that was pretty obvious, I have a talent for looking through whats in front of me and seeing whats in the distance instead.

I don’t think anyone’s mentioned it yet but The Finals’ big feature is complete destructibility in the maps and it actually works really well without impacting performance. It’s actually pretty neat that you can form strategies around it like knocking the objective into a more defendable position.

Hadnt heard of that game, sounds interesting.

 

[JarlBSoD]

It went to Battlebits

In all seriousness though, I think most games don't realy benefit much from it and i would guess the devs think the same and decide to spend their time on other things instead.

 

[Frindis]

It went to Battlebits

After it got Teardown

Teardown on Steam

Prepare the perfect heist in this simulated and fully destructible voxel world. Tear down walls with vehicles or explosives to create shortcuts. Stack objects to reach higher. Use the environment to your advantage in the most creative way you can think of.

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