If you haven't read the current plan so far, please read it now.
[url]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2686[/url]
This is just a proposal for the details of mod gameplay and features.
I've had some time to tinker with the engine and get a feel for what's possible, and also how difficult each task is. Unless the team gets lots more active members, many of these features will not be fesable... but I'm hoping that discussion this will spark the interest of more people to fill the ranks.
note: Unfortunatley I don't have time to write this up all at once, so expect this post to come in several installments [:)]
Classes
- each controlled very differently, effectively each is a type of gameplay in it's own right.
- cooperation and co-dependence between the classes is vital, as such teams will likely require 3 or more players. AI for bots in this mod will likely be too difficult to implement and so we'll need to have some kind of multiplayer testing going round the clock. (volunteers anyone? [:D])
Heavy
In essence the heavy is a big guy, in an even bigger suit of mechanical armor who dominates head on combat at medium to long range with exessive splash damage fire.
Movement & Control
- Played from first person
- Heavies cannot jump nor enter small buildings because of their size.
- Cannot accelerate or change direction quickly. Though their top speed is equal to that of a support, that speed will only be reached between fights.
- Heavies are played from first person with a "roaming crosshair" (the aiming direction will follow the centre of the view, not be locked to it)
- A heavy's aiming direction is a tad sluggish, though nowhere near as bad as the onslaught golaith turret.
Combat
- Heavies are very tough, and are not thrown around by explosions.
- When hit a heavy's aiming direction is knocked around. In heavy vs heavy fights the person who can keep better control of their aim will usually win.
- The heavy's rockets can be auto-aimed at very long range by a support player's marked target
- The mortar is practically usless without a support player to mark the target
Weapon layout
- melee: armored fists, alt fire knocks opponents flying to the side (requires charge)
- primary weapon: chain gun (mid range weapon), alt fire uses AP ammo
- secondary weapon option #1: rocket launcher, no alt fire, short pre-fire delay and with warning noise, projectile accelerates midair, slow reload. Explosion will appear on map if seen by a team member.
- secondary weapon option #2: heavy mortar, used in tandem with the support's target painter to give aiming assistance on hud. Remote camera mini-window shows target from support player's view (if present).
Notes:
The heavy is most at risk from undetected coverts at very short or very long range (melee assasination or sniper fire). A detected covert will fight evenly with a heavy in melee, however detected coverts and supports should avoid direct combat with a heavy unless there's no alternative.
Covert
** the below is not going to be easy to implement, and may need to be changed **
Movement & Control
- The covert is played almost entirely from 3rd person perspective with a state based movement system very similar to the one in in Prince of Persia Sands of Time except with allowances made for FPS style level design.
- Coverts move very fast compared to the other classes
- Can hang/leap from, climb up and traverse most ledges
- It's uncertain if "Wallrunning" is possible in the engine, but it is an option
- Will grab the ledge instead of falling from a ledge high enough to take damage from/too high to jump back up.
- Jumping is delayed till the player reaches an edge if running.
Combat
- The covert has no mid range weapons, and relies on stealth, speed and other players to overcome this.
- A covert does not appear on the enemy team's radar if cloaked, and only support players are able to spot cloaked coverts easily.
- Being attacked or performing any form of attack/non-movement action will cause a covert to uncloak.
- If cloaked, the covert can "assasinate" an enemy with a melee attack when their back is turned, which will kill them instantly (to wounded state) and silently (with no death message).
- The covert's sniper rifle is very loud, has a long reload time for each shot and the location that the rifle was fired from appears on the maps for both teams. This is intended to make sure that the primary "sniper" role of the game is filled by having a support player marking targets for the heavy's rockets and mortar. The covert's long range role is intended as a counter-sniper to break sniper seiges.
- The covert's medical unit has two uses, it can be used by the covert to heal a player who is standing still (using it's own energy supply which recharges slowly) and to revive dead "wounded" players. Reviving a player however uses a special type of ammo, and very little of this ammo can be carried. (very similar to the medics in wolfET)
Weapons
- Melee: Dual knives of some scary sort. Uses own 3rd person combat system, so needs to be treated differently from the other weapons.
- Primary weapon: Anti-armor sniper rifle, fired from prone position?, Super loud, announces firing location on map. Kills heavy with a headshot, supports/coverts with a torso or headshot. Very long reload time.
- Special gear option #1: cloak/disguise device.
- Special gear option #2: medical unit.
Still to come
--Support class
--Gameplay rules
--Campaign mode
--Hud design
--Advanced graphical features & effects
I'm still onfused as to what the gameplay will be like. are we talking fast UT style action where everyone strafes around everywhere, or are we talking slower, more strategic COD style? i'm assuming it wont be fast UT style, as that would elliminate a lot of the stradegy gained from classes and clas interaction as players simply strafe and jump about (even assult maps in UT, the most like our mod, is like this).
so i'm assuming it will be slower ala teh many WWII style games. but how slow? are we talking very low health, or more health so you can take a beating? i think it should be somewhere in between these two extremes. make movement and action slower so you can have more stradegy and teamwork (holding ground, attackers advancing strategicaly, coverts able to sneek up on players cos they ARNT running and jumping all over the place). but i would giev them more health than the almost one hit kill style WWII games, but not as much as UT. also i would make movement a little more faster and agile. basicaly so there is pleanty of fast action (so you dont have to crawl accross the map to get into possition) but still a huge emphasis on stradegy (slow enough so that you cant rush across open ground at the enemy).
hard to say exactly what i mean.
comments? what were you originally thinking Souri?
quote:Originally posted by LiveWire
I'm still onfused as to what the gameplay will be like. are we talking fast UT style action where everyone strafes around everywhere, or are we talking slower, more strategic COD style? i'm assuming it wont be fast UT style, as that would elliminate a lot of the stradegy gained from classes and clas interaction as players simply strafe and jump about (even assult maps in UT, the most like our mod, is like this).
so i'm assuming it will be slower ala teh many WWII style games. but how slow? are we talking very low health, or more health so you can take a beating? i think it should be somewhere in between these two extremes. make movement and action slower so you can have more stradegy and teamwork (holding ground, attackers advancing strategicaly, coverts able to sneek up on players cos they ARNT running and jumping all over the place). but i would giev them more health than the almost one hit kill style WWII games, but not as much as UT. also i would make movement a little more faster and agile. basicaly so there is pleanty of fast action (so you dont have to crawl accross the map to get into possition) but still a huge emphasis on stradegy (slow enough so that you cant rush across open ground at the enemy).
hard to say exactly what i mean.
comments? what were you originally thinking Souri?
I was thinking that we'd have it a bit like this :
- the covert class would be about as fast as a normal UT player, but with lots of moves.
- the support class would be slower, similar to COD or WolfET. Probably without all the super agile wall jumping moves... or at least not able to do them much before getting tired.
- the heavy class should have the same top speed, but far less acceleration/deceleration. Perhaps the top speed could be a bit higher and allow a heavy to carry another player on it's back.
It's something that probably needs to be playtested before we can say how the gameplay will be affected for sure. But we definatley don't want the deathmatch-style speed destroying any kind of strategy.
Kezza pretty much has it on the ball. I agree, I prefer it kinda like ET and not the incredibly fast/twitch fest kinda game that UT is, or the incredibly slow/low health/quick kills that you see in the other side of the spectrum.
Anyway, Kezza's ideas listed in the first post are awesome, and I reckon it'll make for a very cool game. [:D]
Just a reminder that another summary of the mod ideas is at the [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2686"]Sumea Mod State thread[/url] which was posted previous to this one. It's got some ideas that are pretty cool.
Yeh, I'm not really into the fast paced twitch-fest that Unreal Tournament 2k4 (and Quake 3 et al) is, particularly the player vs player deathmatch/capture the flag modes. The problem is that most of the time when you encounter a fight, you and your opponent are jumping around like crazy and real fast too, so it becomes a guessing/prediction game as to where your opponent is landing/jumping next and hitting them with some splash damage. Also put in the fact that some of the weapons are really powerful, so you're likely to get gibbed real fast.
That's probably why UT2k4 Assault sucked so much. Some of the weapons are too powerful and everyone has them with a fair bit of ammo too. When you had all these players trying to get to one lever or through one choke area, and everyone has rocket launchers etc, it turns into spam fest that you can't strategically get around.
So yeh, things will have to be changed for the mod - slow the running speed down a bit, lower the jump heights, powerful weapons/rocket launchers need powering up or have a real limited supply of ammo etc. I'm sure we'll be doing a lot of tweaking and testing to get right.
"- The covert's sniper rifle is very loud, has a long reload time for each shot and the location that the rifle was fired from appears on the maps for both teams. This is intended to make sure that the primary "sniper" role of the game is filled by having a support player marking targets for the heavy's rockets and mortar. The covert's long range role is intended as a counter-sniper to break sniper seiges."
I like the idea from the next Unreal Tournament where the smoke from the sniper rifle will impair zoomed vision for a few moments. The suggested reload time will help in breaking sniper sieges, and the smoke would also do a good job at helping the enemy spot the sniper location. It will also make the first shot really count for snipers.
Allright here is a concept, and while the art examples are definetly not mine, it may give you an idea for a similar style. The gameplay elements and core concept are mine and will give a consistent and contextual reasons for the classes. My idea is for COMBAT EXOSUITS, and I dont mean power armor, I mean something you climb in around 10 feet tall max. You control the things through a neural interface and are essentially strapped in, and cyberjacked in. The inside of the suits are filled with a nanobath solution and the pilot uses a breathing apparatus and has enviromental controls. Now make the Exosuits modular, so essentially you have variants and different chassis types, which makes them costumizable to a point, varied, and still within a reasonable context. They are then airdropped or deployed onto the battlefield, they have enviromental control so you can put them in any enviroment, which could make for some wild settings. Make three different named chassis types, Light, Medium, and Heavy. Each chassis type has a certain amount of attachments and certain types of weapons it can mount and depending on the chassis and variant will also determine how visible he is to others on thier radar. Here is an example.
Light Exosuit (Hellbat)
Hellbat Mk1 "Striker"
Light Machine gun (Arm mounted)
Enhanced sensor suit, (IR, Night Vision, Improved radar)
Artillery designator
Light Railgun (Shoulder mounted)
Hellbat Mk2 "Ninja"
Light machine gun (arm mounted)
Enhanced sensor suit, (IR, Night Vision, Improved radar)
Visual distortion cloak
Computer hacking interface
Spider mines (deployable chaser mines)
Hellbat Mk3 "Kestrel"
Light machine gun (Arm mounted)
Enhanced sensor suit, (IR, Night Vision, Improved radar)
Jump pack
Emp grenades (Interferes with enemy sensors and energy weapons)
Light rocket pack (Shoulder mounted)
I think you can get the idea where you can go with this, they are all light types but have their own flavor. When an exosuit is destroyed, despite just being fun to watch explode, they can also leave a modular weapon behind, if it fits the chassis size it can be picked up and affixed to a similar chassis. Remember that they are in nanobaths in the suits, so some variant can have an emergency reserve kit (medpack essentially)where they can walk up to another exosuit and heal them. The possibilities for all kinds of variants are there and teamplay can be brought to a new level because while there is a uniqueness to each that suits the players tastes, they fufill distinct roles. Ill add more if this gets any attention, medium exosuit will be a mix between mobility and have the unique support role, medic, engineer etc., heavy will be slower with things like artillery and heavy cannons etc., etc. The variants and possibilitys are pretty large. Here is some concept art, (not mine), but may give a style and direction, I myself like the fact that the technology looks realistic and not over the top, I am not a fan of silly over the top art style. Here you go.
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartHellbat mk2 ninja.gif[/img]
Here is another
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartcloseup.gif[/img]
Some close ups and size comparisons
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartSize comparison2.gif[/img]
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartSize comparison.gif[/img]
An open hatch
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartopen hatch.gif[/img]
A pair of lights
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartPair1.gif[/img]
Here are some heavysmedium flying
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartHeavy type.gif[/img]
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartHeavy pair.gif[/img]
[img]C:Documents and SettingsMikeMy DocumentsMy Picturessumea forumartHeavy exosuit.gif[/img]
Please tell me what you think, Again I reiterate the art is not original but I like the look and feel and can be modifiedimitated it seems believable to me, and not to crazy.
Ok Ill see if this fixes it
[img]icon_paperclip.gif[/img] Download Attachment: [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Ratmilk/200561213422_closeup.GIF"]closeup.GIF[/url]
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Having trouble figuring this out, but here is another attempt.
Insert Image: [img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/Ratmilk/2005612134935_Pair1.GIF[…]
not sure if u saw my other post but are animal mounts (as vehicles) with their own skeleton etc. possible within the capabilities?