Crowfall’s latest dev blog talks combat physics, and in particular ArtCraft’s goal “to use realistic physics in as many gameplay aspects as possible.” The team expects emergent gameplay to result from its physics-based approach, since it’s difficult to “predict the results of throwing around massive minotaur and centaur like Pachinko balls in a fight.”
The post details the difference between a typical MMO “chain pull” and a possible instance in Crowfall wherein one player hooks a distant player with some sort of chain and yanks said player into combat range. In other games, the size and weight of the target don’t matter. As long as nothing obstructs line-of-sight, the server teleports player B to player A and the fake physics are masked with animations and particle effects. In Crowfall, character mass can be adjusted in real-time, so the devs can control how easily characters are moved around using realistic physics as opposed to smoke and mirrors.
