Character Building
Radix
Join Date: 2005-01-10 Member: 34654Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2005-01-10 Member: 34654Members, Constellation
There's an element of atmosphere lost when you move from a "first contact" scenario to a "great war" scenario as NS2 is seeking to do. This suggestion attempts to alleviate some of that problem.
I was thinking about what I liked about some of the more atmospheric games I've played. Some MMO gameplay came to mind, as well as Diablo and Incubation: Time Is Running Out.
One common thread behind all of these game types is that your character is both (a) built dynamically as the game progresses and (b) empowered through mathematically balanced, but qualitatively randomized upgrades.
Take Diablo for instance. Not only were the dungeons pseudorandomized in their construction and quests, but the items (which are my focus here) were randomized in the same way. Now Diablo had a very extreme "loot" treasure system which doesn't lend itself to a skill-based tactical deathmatch mod like Natural-Selection (or assumedly, NS2) but it <i>does</i> seem like it would make sense that some armor, weapons, and other "goodies" would have been left behind by the initial encounter (NS), and could be considered a form of "loot" if it were desirable for gameplay to implement them scattered throughout maps as mappers directed in the later war (NS2).
The items could be made variable or static, for example, an entity "armory_chest" could be implemented into hammer without terrible difficulty. The entity would have a field for whatever item it would spawn for the player that opened it. If the cvar "sv_randomloot" were on, the engine would spider the given item's type and power level in relation to a table of possible item choices, and pick one of them to spawn when the chest was accessed. If sv_randomloot was off, that process would be skipped and the given item would be spawned. It may end up that randomized loot is too game-breaking for organized play, while it creates a reasonably-balanced and significantly-more-immersive element while playing on a pub.
I personally like the idea of these items being highly valued and very important, as though the tools <i>of old</i> had some special significance, and would be highly sought-after. If they were, it would add a serious new objective especially to large maps, and would increase atmosphere while increasing the tactical side of gameplay.
In conclusion, consider in Incubation the amount of trouble a player might go to, to acquire an opportunity to open a chest, so as to gain more credits or a better upgrade of one sort or another. I believe that feeling of "treasure hunting" could be added to a strategic skill-based shooter like NS or assumedly, NS2, without damaging the skill elements but rather enhancing them via the catalyst of new and more immersive elements of gameplay.
What do you think?
I was thinking about what I liked about some of the more atmospheric games I've played. Some MMO gameplay came to mind, as well as Diablo and Incubation: Time Is Running Out.
One common thread behind all of these game types is that your character is both (a) built dynamically as the game progresses and (b) empowered through mathematically balanced, but qualitatively randomized upgrades.
Take Diablo for instance. Not only were the dungeons pseudorandomized in their construction and quests, but the items (which are my focus here) were randomized in the same way. Now Diablo had a very extreme "loot" treasure system which doesn't lend itself to a skill-based tactical deathmatch mod like Natural-Selection (or assumedly, NS2) but it <i>does</i> seem like it would make sense that some armor, weapons, and other "goodies" would have been left behind by the initial encounter (NS), and could be considered a form of "loot" if it were desirable for gameplay to implement them scattered throughout maps as mappers directed in the later war (NS2).
The items could be made variable or static, for example, an entity "armory_chest" could be implemented into hammer without terrible difficulty. The entity would have a field for whatever item it would spawn for the player that opened it. If the cvar "sv_randomloot" were on, the engine would spider the given item's type and power level in relation to a table of possible item choices, and pick one of them to spawn when the chest was accessed. If sv_randomloot was off, that process would be skipped and the given item would be spawned. It may end up that randomized loot is too game-breaking for organized play, while it creates a reasonably-balanced and significantly-more-immersive element while playing on a pub.
I personally like the idea of these items being highly valued and very important, as though the tools <i>of old</i> had some special significance, and would be highly sought-after. If they were, it would add a serious new objective especially to large maps, and would increase atmosphere while increasing the tactical side of gameplay.
In conclusion, consider in Incubation the amount of trouble a player might go to, to acquire an opportunity to open a chest, so as to gain more credits or a better upgrade of one sort or another. I believe that feeling of "treasure hunting" could be added to a strategic skill-based shooter like NS or assumedly, NS2, without damaging the skill elements but rather enhancing them via the catalyst of new and more immersive elements of gameplay.
What do you think?
Comments
be it night goggles or a silencer in a locker room, or a grav gun in a labratory, or a jackhammer / pneumatic drill in a mining area... just as long as there isnt a "treasure chest" full of them that could equip the whole team.
they should only create a slight benefit, and not be too overpowering. the emphasis should still be on the gameplay and winning the map, so the game doesnt turn into a treasure hunt.
my question is, what sort of random goodies could the aliens get?
The power level of a given chest would be mapper-defined by the type of item he gave as an argument to the entity. If he wanted to make a "win the game" item, it could be done, but more often it would probably be something like a shotgun or other basic upgrade that the team got for "free".
You'd have to make it substantial enough that going to a given room to get an item was worth the opportunity cost of <i>not</i> capping the node in the next room <i>instead</i>.
<!--quoteo(post=1640742:date=Jul 26 2007, 08:27 PM:name=Buzzou)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Buzzou @ Jul 26 2007, 08:27 PM) [snapback]1640742[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->my question is, what sort of random goodies could the aliens get?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Personally I'd rather not go into that tangeant in this thread unless someone has a really killer idea. The thread isn't centered on balance - you can add a balancing feature to the aliens anytime you want, and I'd much prefer you <i><!--coloro:red--><span style="color:red"><!--/coloro-->did not<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></i> add a "mirror" feature to give aliens this same aspect ingame. That turns the gameplay into brown sludge with minor graphical adjustments between teams, which is extremely boring.
You are correct for not wanting to give goodies to aliens as well as as it makes the two sides similar and their differences is one of the things that makes NS great. However, this idea swings in favour for the marines in terms of balance so the aliens must get some sort of counter. The answer is let the aliens destroy these stations, some times for a random (and minor) resource boost. This makes these locations a minor objective in the game. However, you would have the aliens quickly knock all these out in the first couple of minutes of the game so the marines should have to be able to get then back. As a result they should repair themselves and/or be repaired by marines, thus delaying the rate at which they produce items.
SO:
A station that issues a bonus every min if not destroyed, if destroyed it regenerates for 1 min before generating an item after 30seconds. Aliens get 0-2 res for destroying the station, the probability for res could be linked to whether the station had an item in it or not.
BONUS LIST:
MED STATION
Pheromone neutralising shot ~ blocks sent of fear for 1min
Cat pack
Med packs 30-100 health
ARMOURY STATION
Ammo packs 3~4
Welder/shotty
HMG/GL ~ once the marines have advance armoury but not before
On that logic, there's no reason the chests have to be stationary. Another potential flag could allow the chest to react to physics, defaulting to yes, to allow the entity to be moved with a great deal of strength, in relation to its mass, which could be mapper-defined as well.
I would want these to be much more valuable than mere healing stations in most cases. Picking up an item is a qualitative bonus with real psychological effect, while adding some health is cheap and adds virtually no gameplay satisfaction or atmosphere to speak of.
Letting aliens eat them kind of defeats the purpose. It'll just be "ok, we need one skulk on nodes. BOB! Go eat their chest spawns then get nodes!"
the items would need to have some sort of effect on the map environment, and the team in general, not so much on the individual player that picks it up.
how annoyed would you be if you were spawn camped by someone that just discovered a quad-barrel shotgun, or something just as stupid?
and finally, the advantage they provide the team should be mininal. a marine team should easily be able to win the game without finding any "treasure chests". that way if the alien team does find and destroy them, its no big deal and you continue the game as normal.
basicially, they shouldnt be too powerful that either team purposefully wastes time trying to locate them, instead of getting on with the proper job at hand.
yeah, but i dont think getting an "amulet of protection" or "+9 claws of attack" NS equivalent would really help the game either. turning the game into a FPS diablo/warcraft clone would kill it for good.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed, that's why I <i>addressed every one of those issues</i> in my first post.
<!--quoteo(post=1640796:date=Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM:name=Buzzou)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Buzzou @ Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM) [snapback]1640796[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the items would need to have some sort of effect on the map environment, and the team in general, not so much on the individual player that picks it up.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why?
<!--quoteo(post=1640796:date=Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM:name=Buzzou)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Buzzou @ Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM) [snapback]1640796[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->how annoyed would you be if you were spawn camped by someone that just discovered a quad-barrel shotgun, or something just as stupid?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If I were eccentric enough as a mapper to include an item argument to the chest entity that were powerful enough to somehow be randomized into a quad-barrel shotgun (which shouldn't be possible, because it shouldn't exist in the game to begin with), I wouldn't let the opposing team have it in the first place. If they <i>did</i> somehow get it, during a hive siege for example (assuming NS2 has siege cannons at all), I would hope to have enough situational awareness to avoid being spawncamped by this ridiculously overpowered weapon, and I would likely remake my map with better choices for the chest entities. Hopefully the community would reject it because of its unbalanced nature, and I would learn from that, and become a better mapper.
<!--quoteo(post=1640796:date=Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM:name=Buzzou)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Buzzou @ Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM) [snapback]1640796[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->and finally, the advantage they provide the team should be mininal. a marine team should easily be able to win the game without finding any "treasure chests". that way if the alien team does find and destroy them, its no big deal and you continue the game as normal.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I addressed this in my first post, the power level of the item is chosen by the mapper.
Also, please note that I'm not proposing a Diablo-style loot system. I think when you read MMO or Diablo you thought we should start randomizing the amount of claws a fade can use, that's not what I meant at all. I'm just saying that you can choose "shotgun" as an argument to the chest, and it can pick from any number of near-10-res equivalents to that weapon that are <i>already in the game</i>.
The advantage (as I said in my first post) should be high enough to make it worth the opporutunity cost of not capping "the next node" but obviously low enough so that you don't make these "free res" hotspots so gamebreaking that the rest of the map is avoided in favor of them.
<!--quoteo(post=1640796:date=Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM:name=Buzzou)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Buzzou @ Jul 27 2007, 01:55 AM) [snapback]1640796[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->basicially, they shouldnt be too powerful that either team purposefully wastes time trying to locate them, instead of getting on with the proper job at hand.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Obviously not. I completely agree.
Who here has played System Shock 2 or even to some degree Deus Ex? Do you remember finding (and hacking) the vending machines? Or how about the cracking open the crates? Or even that storage closet?
Why wouldn't a space station, mining outpost, space ship, or terra forming colony have places like that in their maps?
While it was a struggle for me to understand your initial post, something about your response in the previous post sparked a memory of finding a candy bar in a vending machine for a tiny bit of health and then hacking the vending machine so it would instead give me a tiny bit of ammo, which subsequently used nanites as well!
Hmm, a little bit of res used on these objects in the game, say 1 res, would that balance this idea out?
And even further balanced out by the fact that I remember the possibility of Dynamic Infestation shutting down objects in a room discussed by the developers?
There could for example be a total of ten node locations on the map. Of those, five must be filled. Of those five two must be alien only two are marine only and one could be captured by either side for example.
With the game's dynamic scripting, it would be simple to include a framework code that would allow map designers to make their OWN nodes - using one of any prebuilt or custom models.
The main issue I see with my idea is that clan players would certainly complain. Adding any random element could cause them to fail a game because a good node for the alien spawned next to their base, causing them to lose. This might cause it to be turned off for clan play, or for the ability to program in fixed node arrangements. This would be the same for every game allowing clanners to plan their techniques around a static framework of nodes.
<!--quoteo(post=1641176:date=Jul 29 2007, 11:10 AM:name=Redford)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Redford @ Jul 29 2007, 11:10 AM) [snapback]1641176[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The main issue I see with my idea is that clan players would certainly complain. Adding any random element could cause them to fail a game because a good node for the alien spawned next to their base, causing them to lose. This might cause it to be turned off for clan play, or for the ability to program in fixed node arrangements. This would be the same for every game allowing clanners to plan their techniques around a static framework of nodes.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo(post=1640736:date=Jul 26 2007, 07:21 PM:name=Radix)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Radix @ Jul 26 2007, 07:21 PM) [snapback]1640736[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->The items could be made variable or static, for example, an entity "armory_chest" could be implemented into hammer without terrible difficulty. The entity would have a field for whatever item it would spawn for the player that opened it. <!--coloro:lime--><span style="color:lime"><!--/coloro-->If the cvar "sv_randomloot" were on, the engine would spider the given item's type and power level in relation to a table of possible item choices [based on the res cost of the item given by the mapper], and pick one of them to spawn when the chest was accessed. If sv_randomloot was off, that process would be skipped and the given item would be spawned.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--> It may end up that randomized loot is too game-breaking for organized play, while it creates a reasonably-balanced and significantly-more-immersive element while playing on a pub.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not convinced that randomization would be too gamebreaking though, as the res-cost cap should balance the items out mathematically, while maintaining that sense of "treasure hunting" that I'm going for with this idea.
Consider the possibility of starting in Waste hive instead of Fusion on Tanith. It's a significant drawback, but no-one boycotts that map because of that element of chance.
@Redford: Your idea has merit, but in my opinion, is by-and-large completely unrelated to this thread. You may want to start your own post about it, since it sounds very interesting to me, but as I said before, two of the primary elements I'm addressing in this post are that these upgrades are focused on the marine (not the alien) side of gameplay, and that they be qualitative and satisfying to the player who picks them up, rather than simply being a new form of scripted sequence.