6 replies to this topic

[kurtcocaine]

First of all i'd like to say you guys and awesome and this game is looking great!
I really liked the team match concept which you demo'd with the bases and the battleship!

I had some suggestion on certain gameplay elements and i though i'd share them with you. I'm sorry i havent read through the other suggestion threads extensively so forgive me if this stuff has already been suggested..

1. You mentioned that the battleship which you launch is destructible which i think is awesome. You didnt really go into the details of how you'd go about doing that.
-Regarding that concept i suggest you put in some sort of orbital cannon in each base which can only fire to space and when the enemy battleship is launched one of your mechs has to go pilot the cannon to bring down the enemy battleship while your team defends you. The orbital cannon should be like a big-behemoth structure, slow turning and with a slowish firing rate but BIG damage. To disable it, the enemy team should have to destroy the energy cells powering it located at the back of the base structure and obviously your teammates are defending the structure. To make the gameplay a little balanced you could make it such that 2 players are needed to operate the cannon thereby making it possible for the enemy team to disable it, so that it isnt just end-game as soon as your battleship is launched.
I think this concept would make the gameplay much more realistic rather than having these relatively small mechs fire at a huge battleship from the ground.

-If you do consider the above idea, I suggest you should make the battleship upgradeable with the team's pooled points to allow shield and damage upgrades on the ship..This would really add to the RTS elements of the game..

-Another idea regarding the battleship is that when it is destroyed, instead of making the ship just go kaboom in the sky and disappear, debris from the ship should rain down over where it was destroyed damaging all units and structures so that if you did go through all the trouble of gathering the points and launching the ship, it would damage there base a bit if managed to come near it but was destroyed.. Also, you might end up getting damaged by some of the debris too..

- and another one is that once your battleship launches it's sensors/radars should provide a satellite imagery type tactical overview of the map in a small screen which opens up in your HUD, maybe not the entire map to make it a little balanced but a really large FOV which obviously moves with the ship clearing the fog of war as it moves.. I guess i'm just too much of a RTS fan!


2. Regarding health and fuel.. you did mention that it was rechargeable and i really think you should do something a little different there to differentiate it from all the other shooters out there (although its already plenty different in the good way!).
- I suggest you implement a system whereby everytime your mech takes a certain amount of critical amount of damage, it's regen limit gets reduced a x% percentage of max (example 1st time it reaches critical it can only go back to max 80%,then 50%,then 20-30%) and in order to go back to 100%(w/o dying that is) the player needs to return to the base for repairs (or you could toy with the idea of having a repair gun so a team-mate could repair you)
- Also, I dunno if this'll seem interesting to you but if the above concept is implemented you could consider giving the heaviest mechs an option of self-imploding by making their reactor core go unstable once they reach the lowest health state dealing a large amount of damage(but not large enough to kill an enemy mech ay >80% health)

3. another couple of random ideas
-Regarding paid cosmetic mods (much like the hats in TF2) if you wish to implement those for some extra cash you could think about dashboard toys inside the mechs
-and how about something like a music player on the mech's console panel which plays mp3's from a certain folder on your comp.. I know stupid and random idea but it would really make it more fun and make the mechs feel more personal..
-weather system and day timing for variation (since only 5 maps at launch). It could either be dynamic(occurs randomly in game) or static(select before starting map).. like dust storms and dusk timing so you have that dusky hew with the setting sun and lowered visibility.
Edit: had another idea abt the weather.. If you base it that the mechs derive their energy from the sun then you could provide a very cool element in the gameplay by decreasing the fuel recharge rate when the duststorms hit apart from the decreased visibility providing a very unique way of how the dynamic environment effects gameplay..

4. included map-editor and mission maker.. i'm sure this would already have been suggested and difficult to do considering your limited staff but if included or even made available after launch but it would really help make this game very popular with pc-users.. esp the mission maker.. who knows someone might make something like DoTa but with mechs..


Anyway those are just some random ideas i had, I dont know how difficult they would be to implement but it'd be awesome if you liked them... I had some other stupid ideas too but too cheesy like mechs combining to make more powerful mechs with one player controlling and the other shooting à la power rangers..   but seriously though dont put that in.. too cheesy!
Also, after watching the video, i feel overall the games look fantastic but explosion and fire effects felt a little dated..


All that said, I would buy this game today for full-price in it's current state!!      

[JackDandy]

The idea I like the most is the regen-limit one.
I understand complete regeneration is a popular concept these days, but I think it would fit the game better if it was only to a certain degree, like the OP said.

[kurtcocaine]

any thoughts on the other ideas anyone.._

[xXxTALONxXx]

I like every fifth word   - lol


He had some good ideas but the first was a bit ambiguous - like most of ours.
^ Maybe some choses where you can re spawn also_

[innociv]

What if the one guy that gets the most powerful defensive weapon, the orbital cannon, is daft and makes you lose the game_  Or even worse , they could sit and it and do nothing to grief..


Upgrading the battleship doesn't sound like a good idea, because you don't know what to expect as the defenders, and aren't you spending those resources to launch it in the first place_  Are you upgrading it in mid air_  Are you delaying the launch_
It should simply be launching when you get the number of resources, so..


I agree about a max regen cap.  Don't want people hiding in battle and having health go up from 10% to 100%.  But raising from 50% to 70% or something is fine.
This would allow for the health regen to be sensibly quick while still limited.

This is an Unreal Engine game, so I'd expect and hope they include full mod tools..
Angels Fall First would make a nice mod on this instead of being on UT3!

[SixSeconds]

Upgrading the battleship just doesn't seem useful to me; it's just a game MacGuffin that moves to the enemy base and deals damage to it. But, if you could spend resources on launching other utilities, like different flavours of drone support (repair, scout, etc.), then that would add a whole new mechanic; do you upgrade your team to have a better shot at a sucessful battleship run, or do you rush the battleship out of the gate and trust your own skills_

Oh, and no cannon, please. A Black Hawk costs $44 million USD (just looked it up), and you can shoot it down with a sub $100 RPG. If we're talking about realism here, weapons always defeat armour in the end. Just think of a mech shooting down a battleship as something akin to a jet sinking a battleship.

[[HWK]Deuy]

There's a few different posts about the battleships now, so I'll just reiterate what I mentioned in another thread.  We have another element that focuses the battle in Siege mode once a ship has been launched.  It's not too far off from the first idea the OP listed, although a bit simpler.  We haven't shown it since we're still working on the art and UI for it.  For the time being we aren't going to complicate the battleship mechanic beyond that, but we'll certainly listen to player feedback once we get to beta testing (NO THERE IS NO INFO ON BETA YET ).