Curious about Hitboxes

[mannon]

I've always had a few curiosities about hitboxes in Halo. I have the same questions now, but I'll keep them limited to Halo:Reach since I don't intend to go back and play the others in multiplayer anytime soon.


First off does Halo(Reach) use per poly hit detection or generalized hit boxes? I know that the various armor pieces do NOT get hit detected, but that's not what I'm asking.

Are the hitboxes affected by shield condition? In other words, I've always noticed that the shield effect is slightly larger than the player model, visually showing a barrier around them. I've always wondered if this also meant that a shielded player had larger hitboxes, making it easier to hit them, but harder to kill. For me anyway, it has always felt harder to get those last few shots once their shield is gone, but that could be purely psychological.

Also are the hitboxes actually the size of the player, or are they bigger? Often it feels like the hitboxes are somewhat larger than the visually displayed player model, though this could be auto aim at work or could be the shield thing.


Anyway I just thought I'd ask since I can't really test anything right now. Well... I could test in Halo 2, but I'm more interested in Halo:Reach and wouldn't want to assume they are exactly the same without proof.

[n1gh7]

For the shield one, no.

HOWEVER, Halo has auto-aim, so bullets "curve" so the hit boxes are relatively larger....

With the bloom thing it is now harder to tell if things are because of the hit box or auto aim or bloom, too many factors....

PS: The head hit box encompasses the neck.

[skitrel]

You're right, the hitboxes are in fact slightly larger than the player model, this compensates for some of the armours later in the game which are absolutely massive.

For a good indicator of hitboxes, I suggest playing swat, there's a particular problem that occurs with getting headshots from behind a person.

If you aim directly at the head, most of the time it will only flinch them instead of killing them, however, if you aim just above the head you score the headshot.

On your question about the type of hit detection, it's called hitscan and attaches to an invisible per poly hitbox. Bullets travel at infinite speed and follow a linear trajectory, if an object is in the trajectory's path it registers a hit.

The flared shield is extremely close to the exact hitbox shape in game. Previously the head hitbox was slightly larger (in beta). It's theorised that this was to account for the hayabusa larger vertical head, there were many complaints about the hitboxes being messed up and the theory is that Hayabusa isn't in the game because of this.

[mannon]

Yeah I'm quite familiar with hitscans, just wondering what the actual shape of the hitboxes was like... whether it was an approximation of player shape via literally animated boxes of various sizes like in CS, or if it was actually based on a per poly intersection between hitscan and player model more like SoF2.

I've always suspected the hitboxes were bigger than the player model in Halo. It's always felt like the shield glow is about the real size of the target, at least to me. And I'm not really surprised at slight head oversizing. I imagine they tune the size of the head hitbox based more on testing and desired balance than anything concrete.

I guess my feeling like people are harder to hit (and kill) once their shield goes down is probably just psychological. heh It just makes it so much more disheartening to lose a firefight when you see their shield drop but just can't quite make the shot to kill them before you die...

[skitrel]

I know what you mean about the last shot thing, there's some serious psychological effects that come into play once you get to that point.

By the time you've got them down to that you've (at least) fired 4 shots, generally this ensures that your bloom is now beyond skill and into the luck zone, the decision to be made at this point is whether or not to continue spamming or give it a second to recalibrate. Most people just continue spamming and pray to god, finally dying because they got out-lucked out by the other player.

I recently watched the first videos from the pro tour, all the pros are just relying on spamming, the luck difference is negligible. There is one core difference between their gameplay and what I see used by most people though, the pros aren't aiming for the head.

Instead, aim for the upper chest/neck, this ensures that when you spam even your missed headshots have a high chance of scoring body shots, 7 shots can be fired in the time it takes to reset the bloom for the 5th shot, leaving the opponent at only 1 shot (anywhere on body) You can usually count on the opponent to at least miss one shot too giving you the 8th shot. You also have the added benefit of potentially scoring the head shot anyway using this method.

Obviously this only counts towards short and mid range combat, at long range spamming is just stupid.

I'm fairly certain that there are other ways to ensure hits even with high bloom, I think strafing while aim on one particular side of an opponent causes shots to go to a certain side of the bloom, I haven't confirmed this yet but I've definitely noticed myself compensating for it in my playstyle lately, something I think I've learned based on feel. If this is the case then bloom can in fact be manipulated to remove the luck factor.

It would make sense that there may be a way to manipulate it, what with the bendy bullets halo has always had.