More testing revealed more critical bugs. Since I know them I have to fix them instead of releasing a test. Another thing is I can see more clearly now that this game makes little sense in deathmatch and teammatch modes. The emphasis on tactics boils the game down to hiding if you have a weaker weapon and camping if you have a stronger one. Fortunately I did see this when I was designing the gameplay and I already defined the gameplay back when we were working on the weapon sprites with Victor Rojo. The solution is to diversify the teams. Right now I just made weapons for one team and they both use them. This only makes sense in Soldat but not in LD. The teams should be as different as possible.
So one team, called now the Ubermen, has access to all sorts of medium and heavy, gun powder, electro-magnetic and rocket weapons. It is generally an offensive team. The second team, called now the Mutant Men or the Undermen (haven’t decided yet) living underground, are a defensive team. This is congruent with the Link-Dead storyline. The mutants make use only of guerilla tactics. I actually read the Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla to define this team. So, they will only make use of very small guns and rely mostly on covert ops, explosives and traps. Thinking of this makes me very excited and I can’t wait to add some pipe bombs.
In the upcoming days I will squashing the bugs and adding the guerilla weapons.
michal, how canni sign up for the test team 😛 ?
When the time comes I’ll tell you how:)
Seems hard to balance. Good luck.
The only reason dm and tm don’t work like that in soldat is lag…
You can add a ‘realistic mode’ in that way you can’t camp that much cause you can’t watch your back. Throwing grenades to places you are not able to shoot is also possible. Every game should work best if you are camping. (that’s why they always camp in real life…
michal, is it possible to have a chatroom set up so people could ask you some questions about gameplay n such ? im really interested after all these years what changed from your original viewpoint on the gameplay mechanics.
because last days, it kind of seems you’re leaving the slow paced tactical gameplay, and reconsidering a faster style.
could you give more info about the races and weapons they have?
And have you considered vehicles in your gameplay ? cause you havent said a word about them last year, though it seems really interesting to see the Ubermen have more smaller advanced assault suits, versus the mutants old school/improvised big warmachines / hijacked older Ubermen models of wargear.
Armor greatly inflincts gameplay. especially since the Ubermen would probably have Air support, which the Mutants wont have.
As far as im noticing, i see the ubermen kind of as the Combine/Advanced world dictatorship, and the Mutants as the rebels( less equiped, weaker or more improvised weaponry )
also a modding question : you said that there could be # number of teams, does that also mean # number of races, with # number of weapons and gameplay possibilities ?
in other words would you be able to, lets say, reincarnate a 2d platform shooter of starcraft/alien vs predator ? or even more ?
Id really appreciate, and i think alot more followers do, more information about the current gameplay mechanics, and the ones still going to be implented in later versions of the game.
I strongly suggest to consider Armoured units/vehicles in the Alpha, since your basic gameplay ideas strongly induced Vehicle/Mecha warfare. Maybe some sort of assault suit/air unit for the Ubermen and some kind of AT/HMG gun on wheels or an attack drone/UAV for the Mutants ?
Above = just suggestions, its your game, make it fucking awesome. ill play it anyways.
EDIT:
I wish i could code such an awesome game as you are doing
( then i wouldnt need to make so many suggestions xD )
Even though you might hate/be annoyed by me for making so many suggestions or asking questions, i deeply respect you for all the work you are putting in this game
I’m sorry but Ubermen doesn’t sound very good for a team name.
Undermen sounds better than Mutant Men in my opinion.
Just call them Ãœberman the ü adds that little extra evil that like in motörhead. And weren’t there supposed to be mechs in the game?
Well, sounds good.
Ubermen and Undermen arent good names imo. The Dominion and The Survivors sounds better
good luck!!
If a guerilla has to fire his weapon, his mission utterly failed. It’s only tool for worst-case self defense.
the idea with different weapons for different teams sounds nice, but think about the “uberman” name twice maybe
consider me an underman
A couple of points:
1. Having a mix of weapon types can offset perceived advantages:
– Line Of Sight weapons (guns/RPG’s/etc.) that fire in a straight line do instant damage, but are easily blocked.
– Non-LoS weapons (grenades/mortars/etc.) that fire in an arc can clear obstacles, but require both luck and skill to be effective.
– Remotely triggered weapons (claymores/remote bombs/etc.) cause damage from a distance, but only if an enemy is at their location and you can trigger them.
– Target of Opportunity weapons (mines/boobytraps/etc.) don’t require monitoring, but only work if an enemy is at their location, and doesn’t discriminate between enemies and friendlies.
2. One way to balance things might be to allow players to choose what they want to spawn with, with each item having a certain cost, and earning money for kills/objectives/achievements/etc., a la CounterStrike. Going only pistols for the first dozen respawns, and picking up other weapons on the field, might mean that you can save up enough to get the Armageddon X14 Power Armor (with mini-nukes!).
More team name suggestions and opinions are appreciated.
And not “uberman”, but uberMEN.
could you give more info about the races and weapons they have?
I don’t want to talk about it because nothing is written in stone. Although I have all the weapons described and even sprites drawn. For now the idea about tech-weapons vs. guerilla gives you a nice idea about it.
And have you considered vehicles in your gameplay ?
I haven’t seriously considered vehicles besides things like spy drones and mechanical spiders. I will see if mechs fit in the game after version 1.0.
As far as im noticing, i see the ubermen kind of as the Combine/Advanced world dictatorship, and the Mutants as the rebels( less equiped, weaker or more improvised weaponry )
This is a good description. Although they had pretty good weapons in HL2. I want the mutants to have shitty weapons or the ubermen to have really good armor (which gameplay-wise results in the same)
in other words would you be able to, lets say, reincarnate a 2d platform shooter of starcraft/alien vs predator ? or even more ?
Easy. The only thing that isn’t easy to do now is player movement, since that requires a lot of animations and a lot of stuff is simply hard-coded.
Maybe some sort of assault suit/air unit for the Ubermen
I am considering a jetpack for the Ubermen. I don’t plan it but it may become necessary, I have to see how the alpha game plays.
Clawbug: If a guerilla has to fire his weapon, his mission utterly failed. It’s only tool for worst-case self defense.
Exactly. It’s worst-case or to finish off the wounded.
DeadlyDad: You’ll see all those in the final version.
I don’t like the achievement system, cause it seems like bad balance, but we’ll see. I would rather make it really well balanced.
I assume MM has the good sense not to use Dominion. Sorry Underline, but those names just sound too… unoriginal.
Sounds like Spies Vs. Mercs.
Blacksheepboy: Yeah, not too original. But, can you tell me a game that use this name to represent a ‘race’?
Hmmm, honestly I liked the old unit compositions better… something futuristic, with completely different technology trees, but not meaning that one of the two armies is just shitty…
And what about the hackers and all that? Is that all gone?
I hoped for Protoss vs Terran, but now all we get is Terran vs shitty Terran -.-
Hacking will be a big part of the mutant team gameplay. They will use it to hijack technology and units and gain base access.