Hitboxes: lazy/bad programming or best idea ever?

[boagman]

I'm definitely a vote for the former.

I find hitboxes, in all of their iterations, to be a phony way of doing things. Yes, there are games which have hitboxes which I appreciate as being good or even great, and yes, if you want to compare the protagonist hotbox to the Weak Point of a given enemy, you may be able to make a point.

That being said, I find them just, just *wrong*. My ship is my life. If you hit my ship, I should be dead, or at the very least, damaged, period. None of this "The very center of your ship, where the pilot is, is the only spot that really counts for damage/death." I call BS on that, and find it to be a visual distraction...at the very least, it's unfair to me.

Call me a wuss if it helps you feel better. Blame it on my distaste for bullet hell/manic shooters (that's not the only reason). I find it to be outside the scope of logic, though, since, if a hitbox is necessary, why bother having any superfluous graphics around it at all? Have a single cursor/pixel, and let it emit as much firepower as possible. I'd find that pretty silly as well, but at least the whole experience would be *cleaner*, and I'd consider it better, I would think.

Clip my wing, do I not bleed? Shoot my capsule, do I not burn in space?

[trap15]

Realism + video games =

[Squire Grooktook]

I find it to be outside the scope of logic, though, since, if a hitbox is necessary, why bother having any superfluous graphics around it at all? Have a single cursor/pixel, and let it emit as much firepower as possible.

That wouldn't look as cool though.

With the small hitbox, you get the maneuverability you need AND the nice aesthetics. Now, I know your going to say "BUT IT DOESN'T LOOK COOL SEEING BULLETS GO THROUGH MY SPRITE", but regardless, it still looks WAY cooler then have all crafts represented by a single dot.

Also lol, how the hell could it possibly be LAZY programming? These devs must spend forever tweaking the hitboxes and painstakingly drawing the high detail sprites/models that go around them. Doing it your way would be the lazy thing.

[Thjodbjorn]

Hope you're not playing any games from a top-down or sideways perspective. That's also pretty unrealistic. Better just stick to flight sims.

[Squire Grooktook]

Yeah, have you ever though about how, when you get to boss screens where the screen is no longer scrolling, how the hell does the ship move backwards if the thrusters are on the back? And how does it completely violate all the rules of physics in moving without any inertia? Fucking video games man...

[BulletMagnet]

I find it to be outside the scope of logic, though, since, if a hitbox is necessary, why bother having any superfluous graphics around it at all? Have a single cursor/pixel, and let it emit as much firepower as possible.

Methinks that the advent of visible hitboxes in a number of recent shooters has helped with this, without limiting the designers' visual possibilities; if nothing else, guiding a plain ol' box or circle around the screen would look kinda silly in most cases. As for why hitboxes ever appeared in the first place, I know one of the Cave guys said it was partially due to their desire to create a "manic feel" or something like that, but it also stands to reason that a simple shape is a lot easier to avoid hazards with than some whack-a-doodle spaceship/airplane design with wings and whatnot sticking out at all manner of odd angles. Sure, it's not very realistic, but also a lot less frustrating.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

What you're essentially saying is that the hitbox should be the scale of the ship. But then either the ship is huge and takes up too much of the screen to be fun (and there are plenty such terrible shmups out there) or you want everything scaled down until your ship is literally a tiny dot and you're squinting to differentiate it from the enemy bullets. That would cause a problem whose technical term would be "looking like a piece of shit".

I suspect your complaints are related to your experience (or lack thereof) with the bullet hell genre. The visible hitbox or small hitbox on bigger ship sprite is not the only spot you look at, when you play a shmup you're not just staring at your hitbox. Having a large ship sprite relative to a much smaller hitbox helps you quickly judge if you'll be hit or not, or where your position is in the middle of a cloud of bullets, especially in games where a hitbox isn't visible like Dodonpachi or Progear. It's actually very helpful to have a large ship in Ketsui relative to the tiny spot near the rotor where your hitbox is, as you can more easily and quickly judge visually where you are even when you don't need pinpoint precision, and then you can keep your eyes peeled more around the hitbox itself when making precise dodges.

There's a reason shmups have evolved the way they have.

[Squire Grooktook]

Even in traditional shmups with larger hitboxes, hitbox dissonance is used a lot. Konami shmups almost always have hitboxes that are smaller then the sprite, and even Darius and Rayforce have a percentage of the ships sprite that is immaterial.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Aren't Mushi's hitboxes actually explained in-universe as being the result of the energy the enemies shoot only affecting humans and not giant beetles/wyverns?

[AntiFritz]

Yes, I can't think of any other shmups that actually explain it either.

[pochacco]

if a hitbox is necessary, why bother having any superfluous graphics around it at all? Have a single cursor/pixel, and let it emit as much firepower as possible. I'd find that pretty silly as well, but at least the whole experience would be *cleaner*, and I'd consider it better, I would think.

someone already made this

they're called noiz2sa and rrootage

[NzzpNzzp]

Being killed by getting hit in the wings/vertical stabilisers sounds like the worst thing ever. I mean, can you imagine playing as Lord British or something with an accurate hitbox? Two giant fins sticking out just begging to be shot, oh man.

[Squire Grooktook]

if a hitbox is necessary, why bother having any superfluous graphics around it at all? Have a single cursor/pixel, and let it emit as much firepower as possible. I'd find that pretty silly as well, but at least the whole experience would be *cleaner*, and I'd consider it better, I would think.

someone already made this

they're called noiz2sa and rrootage

iirc Rootage has a teensy tiny ship still incasing the hitbox, it's just made out of vector lines.

[shmuppyLove]

The flipside, i.e. poorly-defined or stupidly large hitboxes are also horrible.

Realism + video games =

Too true, and yet I'm still going to say this: if you were to consider what the objects would look like if they were real, things would be three-dimensional, and it's completely conceivable that a bullet or some other small projectile could "miss" the player character in a way that would look like, from a top-down or side-view perspective, passing "through" part of the ship.

In conclusion, DO A BARREL ROLL

[Squire Grooktook]

In conclusion, DO A BARREL ROLL

Yeah, in the ESP series I like to imagine that the player characters are matrix dodging or doing such gymnastics through bullets that graze the sprite.

[Kollision]

Good topic, to which I can only add an instant winner: Chaos Field.

In Chaos Field your ship isn't destroyed when you "lose a life", instead you see a brief collision animation and the ship keeps going (until you die your last life and the ship explodes for good - GAME OVER!)
I always thought it was the perfect way to implement the life concept in a shmup, so if I ever develop one that's what I'll do.

[boagman]

Having an entire ship be the hitbox does not necessarily equate to "looks like crap", though. Viewpoint. R-Type. Pulstar. Blazing Star (IIRC). I could go on and on. All of these are "Don't let your ship get hit *at all, anywhere*!" games, and I would posit that none of those would fall into the "looks like crap" camp.

There are some that, yes, certainly do, but I still find it a cheap device to employ. Perhaps "lazy" was a poor choice of words on my part, but I can't help but feel that it wasn't too wrong a choice for it, either.

And to the guy (whoever it was) that claimed it was because I suck at bullet hell shooters...wake up, man. Read the OP. Whether I'm great at them or suck at them notwithstanding, it has no bearing on the topic at hand. There are some games with hitboxes that I enjoy and think are great...but the whole hitbox thing still detracts, even from the best of them.

I'm not asking if a certain genre is good or not. I'm asking if a certain device is properly effective, which I would argue it isn't really, or if it is, there's a far too great overdependence on it. Thus, the possibility of "laziness".

[boagman]

The flipside, i.e. poorly-defined or stupidly large hitboxes are also horrible.

This is probably a good part of the issue as well; thank you for fleshing that out.

[Jeneki]

Psivariar.

When a bullet passed through you, you become more AWESOME. Do this a lot and you become REALLY AWESOME. However beware, there is a limit to how much AWESOME you can take at a time, get too greedy and you'll become so AWESOME that you literally explode.

[Squire Grooktook]

I don't think there's any argument for it being an ineffective design choice, if there is I'd like to hear it. I don't see what's cheap about it either. Seriously, give me a good reason why it doesn't work beyond just "it's not realistic" or "it doesn't look good".

[boagman]

I don't think there's any argument for it being an ineffective design choice, if there is I'd like to hear it. I don't see what's cheap about it either. Seriously, give me a good reason why it doesn't work beyond just "it's not realistic" or "it doesn't look good".

How about "It isn't necessary"?

Explain to me how the same manic experience can't be pulled off using the entire ship as a hitbox and just more spread out/fewer bullets. It's still the same amount of skill required to properly navigate through, without the need for all the hocus-pocus of "What's going to hit/kill me, and what's not?"

That's a pretty good reason, that. Being able to see what's going to kill you, and then, if and when it does, *knowing* what the borders are/were, then it's a much more fair fight.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Having an entire ship be the hitbox does not necessarily equate to "looks like crap", though. Viewpoint. R-Type. Pulstar. Blazing Star (IIRC). I could go on and on. All of these are "Don't let your ship get hit *at all, anywhere*!"

Ahahahahaa - oh wait, you're serious?

I've not played much of any of the others than R-Type Leo, but I know for certain the hitboxes in Blazing Star do not encompass the entire visible ship. They're on the larger side than most shmups but they're more forgiving than they appear.

Explain to me how the same manic experience can't be pulled off using the entire ship as a hitbox and just more spread out/fewer bullets.

See my first post. Also, having the 'entire ship' be a hitbox would literally require a boxy type ship, or having to worry about your wings getting clipped. Also note that since you're bloodthirsty for fake, poorly placed realism, you'd need a system whereby getting hit or just barely grazed is less damaging than a hit on your cockpit where the pilot is...

Oh hey, how about just make small hitboxes with no damage for grazing and only damage when a bullet hits a critical area, what a novel concept!

[boagman]

Having an entire ship be the hitbox does not necessarily equate to "looks like crap", though. Viewpoint. R-Type. Pulstar. Blazing Star (IIRC). I could go on and on. All of these are "Don't let your ship get hit *at all, anywhere*!"

Ahahahahaa - oh wait, you're serious?

I've not played much of any of the others than R-Type Leo, but I know for certain the hitboxes in Blazing Star do not encompass the entire visible ship. They're on the larger side than most shmups but they're more forgiving than they appear.

Then I apologize for the error in naming Blazing Star. It has, indeed, been a while.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

In Chaos Field your ship isn't destroyed when you "lose a life", instead you see a brief collision animation and the ship keeps going (until you die your last life and the ship explodes for good - GAME OVER!)
I always thought it was the perfect way to implement the life concept in a shmup, so if I ever develop one that's what I'll do.

This was actually one thing I really liked about ESP.Ra.De & Espgaluda - I never got why in Touhou the characters explode when they're hit. A 'you took damage' animation without actually dying makes much more sense and looks much slicker. I'm surprised it's not applied to shmups with planes/ships more.

Another reason small hitboxes + bullets with small hitboxes became popular is because you can dodge in a much smaller window. If your hitbox is huge, you have to move much sooner in order to dodge a bullet - in older games or euroshmups with large hitboxes you can start moving as a bullet's about to hit and you'll still take damage. Newer manic shmups though, even a last second dodge can save you, and that's what makes them feel so slick. They're difficult, but not unfairly so, and you feel like an absolute boss when you're navigating dense clouds.

[Formless God]

Bigger hitboxes = less space for everything.

just more spread out/fewer bullets
manic

Uhh ...

"What's going to hit/kill me, and what's not?"

I don't have this problem.

*knowing* what the borders are/were

[NzzpNzzp]

Having an entire ship be the hitbox does not necessarily equate to "looks like crap", though. Viewpoint. R-Type. Pulstar. Blazing Star (IIRC). I could go on and on. All of these are "Don't let your ship get hit *at all, anywhere*!" games, and I would posit that none of those would fall into the "looks like crap" camp.

I haven't played Viewpoint, but the hitboxes in R-Type/Pulstar/Blazing Star are all way smaller than the sprite. It's actually kinda funny, since most of the ship designs in those games are real blocky so they wouldn't have the problem of wings/fins sticking out getting hit, yet the devs still made the hitboxes much smaller. You should probably reflect on why they did that.

[BIL]

All that matters is that the hitbox is appropriate for the game designed around it. You wouldn't want Raiden DX's in Ketsui or vice versa.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I agree that games where the hitbox is difficult to discern with smaller hitboxes can be annoying though. I have serious trouble when playing Cyvern or ESP.Ra.De figuring out or remembering where the hitbox is on some of the characters. I have much less issue on stuff like Progear or Donpachi where the sprite has more visual cues you can look at where the hitbox is.

Visible hitboxes are nice, I've always like the way Futari does it (hitbox is semi-transparent in rapid mode, hitbox is opaque and easier to see in laser mode).

And to the guy (whoever it was) that claimed it was because I suck at bullet hell shooters...wake up, man. Read the OP. Whether I'm great at them or suck at them notwithstanding, it has no bearing on the topic at hand.

I'm sorry, but it is important. I know, because I thought exactly like you did when I first started playing Cave games like DoDonPachi; my first bullet hell shmups were ones with visible hitboxes like Touhou; before that I'd only played older console ones with hitboxes relatively close to the ship sprite size. Gradius V was the only console bullet hell shmup I owned for a looong time (you can clearly see your hitbox, the cockpit, in that game). Trying out stuff like DaiOuJou when I was inexperienced with that style of game and it was all "WTF how do I tell where I get hit?!" for quite some time. But now that I've played them more, I understand why the design has flourished, it makes sense.

[Squire Grooktook]

How about "It isn't necessary"?

Yes it is. The unique play style and feel of bullet hell would be lost otherwise.

Explain to me how the same manic experience can't be pulled off using the entire ship as a hitbox and just more spread out/fewer bullets. It's still the same amount of skill required to properly navigate through, without the need for all the hocus-pocus of "What's going to hit/kill me, and what's not?"

It's not the same amount of skill, or rather it's an entirely different play style and skill set being involved. In a bullet hell shmup, there's a lot more ways the devs can challenge you. There are a variety of things you have to keep track of, such as what's at the complete other side of the screen, that aren't taken account of in traditional shmups (or at least, the model you provide).

Like seriously, I dare you to try and envision a remake Dodonpachi with your idea, and make it have the same feel. I dare you.

Don't get me wrong, I think I actually like traditional shooters more (it's a close one though), but they are completely different, and what you are proposing kills a unique and very enjoyable play style that I very much enjoy as well.

Also I've never had any doubt what kills me and what doesn't. Even my very first night playing ESP Ra.De (my first bullet hell), I pretty much undestood intuitively that the the hitbox was simply a pixel or two at the 0,0 axis of my movement, and I never had any problems with it. Bullet Hell hitboxes are perhaps more intuitive then regular shooters (for me at least).

Another reason small hitboxes + bullets with small hitboxes became popular is because you can dodge in a much smaller window. If your hitbox is huge, you have to move much sooner in order to dodge a bullet - in older games or euroshmups with large hitboxes you can start moving as a bullet's about to hit and you'll still take damage. Newer manic shmups though, even a last second dodge can save you, and that's what makes them feel so slick. They're difficult, but not unfairly so, and you feel like an absolute boss when you're navigating dense clouds.

Yeah, you have to react sooner in regular. There's also the fact that when you have non static globs of bullets (Like what you'd see in a Gradius recovery), you have to be aware of all their trajectories, otherwise it's very easy to end up "running out of space" when you try to dodge into a place where your hitbox doesn't fit. This isn't really a problem with bullet hell, if you can see a gap, you can make it through.

[MathU]

I very much agree that it's unintuitive. However, while I can't really explain why, the smaller-than-sprite hitbox system is a proven method for nearly all 2D action games and not just shooters. You'll find it in just about any platformer you play as well. It just makes games seem more fair for the player. It allows for more freedom in visual/graphic design while keeping the collision zone small to promote more elaborate enemy attacks.

Just imagine playing Metal Slug with the hitbox actually represented by the on-screen character, for example. You would have to program in morphing collision zones for the legs, arms, and upper body, and the highly-animated sprites would probably have to be cut back. Every time your character reaches out for something either while aiming or an idle animation (like when you have them near a ledge) there would be the possibility that a hazard could clip your hand and kill you. As a player, would that seem very fair?

Smaller-than-sprite hitboxes are not simply found in bullet hell shooters either; they've been a 2D shooter genre staple since the late '80s at least.

Having an entire ship be the hitbox does not necessarily equate to "looks like crap", though. Viewpoint. R-Type. Pulstar. Blazing Star (IIRC). I could go on and on. All of these are "Don't let your ship get hit *at all, anywhere*!" games...

As someone else pointed out, you may want to check those again. In the original R-Type at least the hitbox is in fact smaller than your ship. It also got smaller as the series went on; by R-Type III the hitbox had been reduced to a mere thread encompassing about half the canopy and only a small portion of the ship body. The hitboxes in most shooters you play are probably smaller than you think.