Door gameplay
swalk
Say hello to my little friend. Join Date: 2011-01-20 Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
Say hello to my little friend. Join Date: 2011-01-20 Member: 78384Members, Squad Five Blue
<div class="IPBDescription">How to improve the current idea</div>The current idea of marines being able to lock the doors for 5 seconds is a very useless feature gameplay wise.
It's not enough time to have an actual impact on gameplay.
However, I don't think the solution is to make the time longer.
I think the solution is to make doors be locked and unlocked by the commander again.
However, the doors should be locked on gamestart, to prevent the commander having to tediously go around the map to lock them.
But locked doors should be openable by hive 1 aliens, so gorge can open it with a cyst(infestation), and skulks can damage and destroy it.
The marine commander should be able to replace a destroyed door(needs to be build by a MAC or a marine).
This adds some strategic choices for aliens, and forces the marine commander to be aware of the doors.
So if something is attacking the door, he should unlock it and let the aliens through so he can weld it later on.
But he can warn his marines.
So I would like to see the different states of doors be like this:
<b>Locked Doors</b> (This state at gamestart)
Can be opened by marines on the door panel
Can be damaged and destroyed by skulks and other aliens(have HP in this state)
Can be opened by infestation(should take about 5 seconds)
<b>Unlocked Doors</b>
Doors open for both teams
They can't take damage
<b>Welded Doors</b>
Can only be opened by an onos
<b>Destroyed Doors</b>
Can be replaced by the marine commander for a resource cost.
It's not enough time to have an actual impact on gameplay.
However, I don't think the solution is to make the time longer.
I think the solution is to make doors be locked and unlocked by the commander again.
However, the doors should be locked on gamestart, to prevent the commander having to tediously go around the map to lock them.
But locked doors should be openable by hive 1 aliens, so gorge can open it with a cyst(infestation), and skulks can damage and destroy it.
The marine commander should be able to replace a destroyed door(needs to be build by a MAC or a marine).
This adds some strategic choices for aliens, and forces the marine commander to be aware of the doors.
So if something is attacking the door, he should unlock it and let the aliens through so he can weld it later on.
But he can warn his marines.
So I would like to see the different states of doors be like this:
<b>Locked Doors</b> (This state at gamestart)
Can be opened by marines on the door panel
Can be damaged and destroyed by skulks and other aliens(have HP in this state)
Can be opened by infestation(should take about 5 seconds)
<b>Unlocked Doors</b>
Doors open for both teams
They can't take damage
<b>Welded Doors</b>
Can only be opened by an onos
<b>Destroyed Doors</b>
Can be replaced by the marine commander for a resource cost.
Comments
Your system also adds immersion to the game; it's like the facility is locked down after having detected Kharaa presence, and that's when the game starts.
Aliens being able to open doors early on only opens up for more strategies.
Use the vents to get to the marines fast.
Or attack the door(or let the gorge/commander open it) to give the marines an unpleasant surprice if they are unaware.
Also, I believe that part is already planned for doors by UWE.
The difference between my suggestion and their plans, is basicly just the locked door state as far as I can remember.
Cory posted the different states of doors in another thread some time ago, but I couldn't seem to find it. It was something along the lines:
Doors will always be open for both teams unless marines go and press they keypad next to the door(5 second lock).
Welded doors can only be opened by an onos.
I feel that it gives less gameplay value compared to my suggestion.
The 5 second lock is not enough to be useful, even doubling it wouldn't be very useful either.
It requires a player to go to the door and lock it. And it opens when the player gets close to it(alerts nearby aliens).
I feel that doors should be the marine equalent to vents, easy marine access, harder for aliens.
Doors being open for aliens(if a marine havent pressed the keypad in the last 5 seconds) nullifies the advantage doors give to marines.
That also causes a some imbalances on the current maps, which was designed for doors giving the marines an advantage.
And I agree, doors as a Marine advantage as vents are to Kharaa. Although, what are you thoughts on Power Nodes affecting door state?
The 5 second locking is not meant to be useful, by itself, which is the reason the time length is so short. It is there simply to prep the door for welding.
Locking and unlocking doors were too disruptive to the game flow, for something that was so easily done, and it also would have made welding much less important. Welding is a more interesting mechanic, as there is a real choice to make. It takes more time and resources to do, but it is more permanent. It can lock down routes to protect a marine area, but it also means the marines can't use that route either.
--Cory
Locking and unlocking doors were too disruptive to the game flow, for something that was so easily done, and it also would have made welding much less important. Welding is a more interesting mechanic, as there is a real choice to make. It takes more time and resources to do, but it is more permanent. It can lock down routes to protect a marine area, but it also means the marines can't use that route either.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yes, it was, because aliens had no means to counter a locked door.
Easily done? Part of my suggestion is that doors are locked from gamestart.
This has nothing to do with welding doors, I do know that is planned and what it will do for doors.
This is about locked doors, and the advantage doors should give marines, just like vents give aliens a travel advantage.
This is causing imbalances on summit. (as well as the new vent in sub, I've commented on that in the summit thread)
Marines have a very rough time capping any resources(door in ventilation), or even holding base(random spawns; lots of vents in/near most of the spawns on summit).
The door placements on mineshaft doesn't really affect gameplay in the same way as on summit, or even the custom map ns2_turtle.
Summit and turtle was made with doors giving the marines an advantage in mind, now that advantage is gone.
My suggestion adresses that, it alerts marines when there is something scratching on the door.
Quoting myself :p Whatever suggestion, be it swalks or mine, suggests that something needs to be done about doors. With your current idea Cory, you are basically making doors the weldable vents from ns1!?
So something that used to be a marine tool for an advantage, is now a tool for their own destruction.
Weldable doors have no offensive advantage, only defensive. They only reduce marine's mobility and access to different parts of the map while aliens still have their vents to move where they want. I do not see why a marine team would want to hinder their possibilities of map control? They aren't blocking aliens, only themselves, hows that for disrupting the flow?
Even if you suggest that marines still have their portals, portals are not invincible and are very prone to alien attacks. Marines still need a form of mobility.
What player suggest would be even cooler, mapper controlled doors where they set the rules of that door. It might be unintuitive, but this is not a puzzle flash game. It is an 'elitist' game by nature. I have intentionally done unintuitive things in my custom map ns2_turtle, it was hard for people to get it, but once they understood the purposes they loved these features. Things that ask for intelligence rewards by a feeling of intelligence.
And to meet player and Cory's requirement make two models of doors:
1) the automatic door that open only for marines and
2) the open door, which is always open if not welded.
Then the mapper can choose which type of door works best for particular situation.
The 5 second locking seems a bit complicated to me, it could be pretty confusing for the new players.
Even with the current system, you probably should have the following relation ship.
Door+Infestation/No Power=Default open.
Door+No Infestation=Default Automatic
Door+Locked+No Infestation=Default Closed, openable with marine use (because locking a door should have a downside.)
Door+Welding+No Infestation/Infestation=Welded Shut, must be broken/unwelded.
Door+Locking+Infestation=Default Open.
And that's fine. I don't think skulks/lerks should be able to break open doors (though a nice resounding clang when they hit them would be satisfying to the skulk and people on the other side) but fades, gorge bile bombs, and onos should be able to bust them down.
That being said, I find it odd there are so few doors around.
1) All doors are closed, only open for marines, and shut automatically
2) A door (mapper choice) can start broken and always open
3) Welding a door fixes it to work like point 1
4) Onos (and infestation, over time) can smash doors open, breaking them
That would be intuitive to me.
Evil_bOb1's points are all valid from a pure balance and gameplay point of view, but i'm among those people that love the whole "weld the doors, aliens are coming!" concept and wish there would be away to add it in a fun and balanced way to the game.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And that's fine. I don't think skulks/lerks should be able to break open doors (though a nice resounding clang when they hit them would be satisfying to the skulk and people on the other side) but fades, gorge bile bombs, and onos should be able to bust them down.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think something along those lines would lend itself really well to the overall feel of the game, because it would mean that doors can be made an big advantage in early game to marines (after all it's their home turf) and as the game drags on and aliens spread more around the map and get more hives the tactical value of these doors goes down because it's more likeyley that a lifeform will be able to break them.
But like allready mentioned i belive it's impossible to come up with a working system for a "universal door" and in the end it will come down to the mappers how the doors react to what. Because balancing welding/breaking features on a door also should be dependant on the placement of said door.
Making a door weldable/breaklable/not breakable/whatever can have very different effects depending on the layout of the map and the doors placement.
So maybe it's best to leave things like that really to the mapper, instead of trying to come up with a universal door that's balanced in every situation and place.
however i would like the mappers to be able to define how the doors work. If UWE can facilitate this in the spark editor, im sure the mapper community will have a field day with it. We could have maps with alot of doors, and the doors connected to powernodes, so if aliens destroy the powernodes they deny the marines use of those doors until they rebuild the powernode
It adds an extra strategy for aliens in the earlygame.
Good commanders will open after a few bites(when his marines are ready on the other side), so he can weld it later without rebuilding it.
So the time biting doors as skulks would be very brief in most cases.
<!--quoteo(post=1900191:date=Feb 6 2012, 02:46 PM:name=ogz)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ogz @ Feb 6 2012, 02:46 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1900191"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->as cory has mentioned.. the 5 second ting is preparation for welders/welding, so lets wait for that to come in before complaining about the system :)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I fail to see how this can not be discussed.
The current/planned doors are useless to marines until they have welders.
And when the door is welded, only aliens(onos) can take advantage of it.
It completely removes the marine advantage of doors. And it doesn't add much to gameplay/strategy.
This system give aliens the advantage with the doors, since doors block line of sight for marines.
And I agree, doors as a Marine advantage as vents are to Kharaa. Although, what are you thoughts on Power Nodes affecting door state?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think the doors should be unlocked if the power goes down.
If it is welded, only onos should be able to break it.
So the only time marines would do it, is if they plan to heavily turtle(awesome gameplay yay) up => less routes for aliens to attack, but also less routes to get out of your area.
Things that would make sense locking are vents.
Things that would make sense unlocking are doors.
Buy some time with elevators.
Kinda like it usually was in ns1, marines could choose to get a better path by welding and unlocking a inactive door, or marines could weld a crazy good vents that lead into key areas.
Down sides on this are, jetpackers wont be able to use this nice vents, and the quicker path also works for aliens - so marines need to use this very tactical.
Ns2 is not like css zombie mod, where you try to block areas and camp behind.
The ways doors are used currently would slow down marines more than aliens. (summit xroads door, a quick alternative path into xroads, or mineshaft doors to this "safe" route around dres into the techpoint before cave(dunno the name atm), and cave - if you weld this you need to either go trough dres or from drilling down into the hole and vent => which wont be fun after we get falldmg in the game)
Also doors mean, if the marine comm cant beacon marines need to take extra long pathes if they are on the other side of such a welded door.
<ul><li>doors need power to function. Without power, marines and aliens can open and close doors manually by using them.</li><li>a door with power can only be opened by marines (but does this automatically)</li><li>a welded door can only be opened by onos or welder</li></ul>
<u>Maybe:</u>
<ul><li>a infested door can only be opened / closed by aliens (use key)</li></ul>
I don't like the mentioned idea of using a door to lock it for 5 seconds just to have time to weld it. This is unintuitive. Just use the welder on a door(-frame) and the door should close automatically followed by the welding animation.
This!
Making gameplay mechanics intuitive goes a long way of making the game self-explanatory, removing the need to add extra tooltipps that clutter up the HUD and confuse new players even more. But imho having to use the door before welding it when it's usually opening/closing on it's own would feel strange and confuse people not knowing all the involved gameplay mechanics.
Let's put a bunch of those in every map, make them lockable/weldable and turn them into a major gameplay element.
Yeah.
Some routes are alien based, vents.
It would be nice to have marine based routes, doors.
Of course they would not be primary routes, but secondary that allow the different teams to move around the map in a different way.
For example, imagine a hallway crossing the map laterally from two opposed bases perpendicular to this hallway. You can have circuitous routes around the hallway that takes you to one side of another, but controlling the doors allowing for aliens to pass directly from east to west or west to east (assuming north and south base positions) would play a major gameplay role in slowing aliens down in response.
Compare that sort of door to the door just outside marine start that goes to crossroads. Ultimately you can get past it pretty easily and gameplay doesn't change much with or without them.
I think too many people are looking at NS2 like it's unreal tournament where blocking objects just slow you down when it's not that game.
Wouldn't compare it to unreal tournament, but what's often an issue in the NS2 community is people wanting "fun on a public server, with insane stuff" vs people that want an "perfect competitive balance" and because of that they dislike many "crazy" game mechanics that the first group of people would love. Because adding crazy gameplay mechanics also tend to make the game harder to balance.
It's the same mindset that makes some people go "Removing control from the player in an MP FPS game?! Can't have that!"
Kinda sad.. because some of the most fun abilities in NS1 had been those that had been controverse. Devour and stomp come to mind...
Then again, I may just be looking at this from the wrong view with incomplete understanding, which is quite likely. I personally want to feel immersed in the game, I don't care for HUDs, tool tips, gamey elements, and weird unbelievable movement because the game for me isn't about testing my skill against others really, it's about escapism for a while where I can be something else. In the end, we all have our hang ups, myself included and so ultimately anything I say on the topic is really very arbitrary. I find the push of certain people to make NS2 like a tournament or arena shooter with very old (and I don't think that equates to good) shooter elements/movement/style of play is kind of annoying. I honestly wouldn't spend money on that sort of game typically.
It's why when I find Quake and UT being touted as great FPS games I kind of cringe, because they're classic tournament shooters, but I don't think that makes them great FPS games on their own.
Because none of those things I consider to be fun gameplay-mechanics. Now it's fair to disagree on that, but aren't there already a plethora of games that market to that crowd? NS1 was what you described as "classic", and it's not that strange to express desire for NS2 to be so too, especially considering fast\free-flowing games have started to become a niche.
To me it reads like a toddler turning his nose up at broccoli and shouting "NO!" even when that's not what's being meant (but I can't tell what you really mean because you don't elaborate, see what I'm getting at.) Even if it's just a matter of preference, it's hard to see eye to eye with someone who doesn't give you reasons why they see something a certain way, which leaves the human brain, in all it's inadequacies, to "fill in the gaps" and this gap filling is pretty much the evident every day on any internet forum.
As for plethoras of games to market to that crowd, depends on what you mean. RTS/FPS games with aliens? Not really, there's really only one. I don't find it all that thrilling to be immersed in special operator number 27 from some acronym laden military organization (though some people do.)
Immersive games, sure, there are some, but they often are riddled with problems related to poor execution of immersive elements/poor support/planning (AvP2010) and none of them have a community where you can actually speak to the dev team in progress and have them listen, which puts NS2 in a very unique spot.
Fast, free-flowing games don't strike me as much more niche than heavily immersive games. The FPS market is dominated by soft military sims right now and has been for a very long time which basically straddle the line between immersives and free flowing games.
The newest fast, free-flowing game coming out right now is the new Tribes, I can't think of any big name immersive FPS though at the moment.
They are fun gameplay-mechanics, when you are not on the recieving end of them :P
That's the thing too many people forget, this still is an FPS-RTS hybrid and part of what makes RTS games fun is crazy abilties that allow for crowd control, area control and buffing/debuffing. Many of these mechanics have by their pure nature to depend on snares, stuns, blinds and similiar effects to make them actually work in an FPS game against human players.
I think devour is a perfect example for this, so many people have a problem with devour because they don't like control taken away from them.
But i on the other side love devour exactly because of that, it takes control away from the player putting him in his place, it makes clear to the marine that in the grand big picture he is just a random grunt that doesn't really matter.
Too many people want their "marine gameplay" not to be hindered by anything, they want to be the perfect rambo that can handle any situation on their own. That's why they do not like snares, stuns, blinds or similiar stuff.
Imagine Valve would have thought similiar when building L4D, then L4D basicly wouldn't have any teamplay at all. L4D's approach to natural teamplay only works because they add a ton of snares, blindes and stuns that force the players to work together. I believe NS2 has a little bit of room for a similiar dynamic to enforce teamplay in a natural way..
As for devour. I liked it because it felt like they didn't pull any punches on it. You were eaten, you are in his stomach, that's it. Dying didn't bother me, sitting in his stomach didn't bother me, I thought it was a fun aspect of the game.
As with anything though, I can see how that sort of thing can get annoying if your looking at an onos stomach constantly in the game due to spamming.
I don't like an obfuscated screen period, so that's the annoying flashlight (or rather mist-generator), the ridiculous fog, the seizure-inducing red-flashes when on low-health, the stupid blurring when being melee'd with a rifle, the vomit-colours of alien-vision and indeed many more things. This isn't particular to NS2, I always try to kill all kinds of blurring, depth-of-field and other assorted post-processing effects (current-generation technology just can't do it properly yet). What I really wanted was for NS2 to just stick to non-intrusive graphics-upgrades (higher texture-resolution, higher polygon-count, more complex geometry WITHOUT OBSTRUCTING MOVEMENT).
Then there is the issue with movement, I don't like it when it feels like you're on rails, and that's what NS2 really feels like (although it is getting slightly less). The slow walking-speeds, low jumping-height, ###### INVISIWALLS. When the map's brushes are doing all the clipping, you're on the right track, it gives you certainty and freedom, whereas in NS2 I feel like I'm in a walled-garden. Never sure whether you're going to make a jump over a railing, never sure whether you're allowed to go in a particular area.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->As for plethoras of games to market to that crowd, depends on what you mean. RTS/FPS games with aliens? Not really, there's really only one. I don't find it all that thrilling to be immersed in special operator number 27 from some acronym laden military organization (though some people do.)
Immersive games, sure, there are some, but they often are riddled with problems related to poor execution of immersive elements/poor support/planning (AvP2010) and none of them have a community where you can actually speak to the dev team in progress and have them listen, which puts NS2 in a very unique spot.
Fast, free-flowing games don't strike me as much more niche than heavily immersive games. The FPS market is dominated by soft military sims right now and has been for a very long time which basically straddle the line between immersives and free flowing games.
The newest fast, free-flowing game coming out right now is the new Tribes, I can't think of any big name immersive FPS though at the moment.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
When I mean fast I mean quake-fast, CoD\Battlefield is elderly-folks fast. I would try out Tribes, but it's pay-to-win, and I'm kinda resistent to that.
The constant comparisons to L4D are getting silly, L4D's infected-team is completely built around the concept of entangling the survivors, they haven't many other means of defeating them, whereas NS' aliens need no such mechanics to put the marines in their place.