Hopefully this hasn’t been asked before on this sub, but I was wondering why so many games struggle with good hit boxes? Why are they even “boxes” in the first place? I would assume they would just be carbon copies of the character model instead of having individual boxes that stretch out over the characters body.
In: Technology
Because it makes for shit game feel. Well-designed hitboxes slightly “cheat” in the player’s favor to compensate for subconscious biases. If it’s really close, the player is going to assume they just barely dodged out of the way or just barely landed the hit, whether they did or not. So the hitbox of the player that determines whether you take damage is slightly smaller than the visible model, and the hurtboxes of your attacks are slightly larger. This is an intentional game design decision, not simply a technological limitation.
To see what it’s like in 2D, check out any flash game where the creator just used the sprites for collision detection instead of bothering to create hitboxes. This is what “perfect” collision detection feels like (spoiler: absolute garbage).
Latest Answers