the current state of gameplay, and where it's going.

[krtv`]

there's been a lot of great ideas, but there's no direction at the moment. what do we want the gameplay of unvanquished to be? what is my/your/our ideal gameplay? what make's it fun, what makes it rewarding, what makes it worth playing? these are all questions that should be answered.

what is the pace?

fast? slow? somewhere in the middle? what should average game length be? how much combat/idle time in game will players experience?

what is the main genre here?

do we want to go for more deathmath oriented with building as a side objective? or do we really want to expand on our rts portion of the game?

what do players want??

newer players have much different goals than players coming trem with almost a decade of experience now. how high of a skill ceiling do we want? veteran players may want to become unstoppable machines of destruction that can't be stopped by anything provided they play the game right, newer players want to be able to compete with veteran players, or atleast, be able to not be completely destroyed by them. they also want to be able to learn, understand, get better. while experienced players usually have the most understanding of the game, they're still biased, they have different definitions on how the game should be played. we want to appeal to as many audiences as possible.

where are we now

let's take a look an indepth look at our current gameplay

a quick synopsis

i shall attempt to describe how unvanquished got to where it is now, i may miss/misinterpret/give a wrong reason for something, so correct me if i'm wrong.

unvanquished derived from tremulous's gameplay, which had many problems across it's 1.1 and gpp varities, some of the biggest of those were:

• camping

• repetitive gameplay

• many balance woes

• many more but yeah

so to start, unvanquished began with some tweaked values, made things like goon pounce, tyrant trample, rifle range, etc, general "quality of life" improvements, which made the game slightly more fun to play, but we still had repetitive game play, and camping. a few improvements and additions here and there like jetpack changes, price changes, and the works up until momentum was introduced.

what is momentum and why problems did it aim to solve?
from the gameplay changes article

The old stage system has been entirely replaced with a more flexible momentum system. As a team expands across the map and successfully takes out members of the opposing team and their structures, they will receive momentum, which unlocks upgrades in a linear fashion. However, momentum constantly drains at a slow, steady rate. This means that a team must keep expanding and engaging the other team, or else they will lose access to their upgrades. Our intent with the momentum system is to remove camping as a legitimate tactic, encourage base expansion, and prevent late-game stalemates.

which is neat, however, it hasn't really met the goals it set out to achieve. camping still happens pretty often if you don't build outward early, base expansion doesn't always happen as there isn't much of an incentive to build, and if building does occur, the game is dragged on pretty far due to the almost unlimited bp-ish tactic of turtling by building as close to base as possible/rebuilding, with the "soft sudden death" component not really taking effect into very late into the game. also if a successful forward base is actually built, human forward bases are a lot stronger than aliens forward bases.

so what do we wish to do from here?
i think it would be a good idea to iron out momentum before moving on with implementing anything too big. i believe momentum still holds a lot of potential, there's some pretty simple changes that can make it more effective, and if this is going to the fundamental base of our gameplay, we should make sure it's a solid one.

• make forward bases smaller, and more spread out (an ideal forward base would be 2-3 rets, 1-2 rocket pods, an armoury, node, drill, and medi)

• allow quicker recovery time from losing a forward base

• balance out alien forward bases to be more able to compete with human forward bases.

• make building and expanding an even bigger impact on momentum stages (my ideal: rotation based means as one goes down, you and your team adapt by making another one somewhere else on the map, the team that can adapt and react faster should be the victor here)

• reward building more, via score/credits/upgrades/propose more stuff

• make the main bases (bases directly surrounding overmind/reactor) strong very quickly, this change might have to come from updated layouts, but it'd be better to not have to spend too much time at the beginning of the game actually in your base

but we also need to figure out what we want from momentum and gameplay in general, such as the questions i stated in the beginning

i'll go ahead and post my opinions

pace: players should always have something to do, whether that is repairing, rushing, defending, building, etc. players should not be afraid to lose things, whether that is upgrades, bases, etc, and to do this, the gameplay needs to allow a clear path to recovery. forward bases should be small, and should come and go as players rotate around the map in a power struggle. building should be sped up (it's already pretty sped up from tremulous, but even more!!).
genre: combat should be a huge component of the game, but coordinating, base building should be equally as big, both combat and building should require strategies to be applied. there shouldn't be a time where there is no combat taking place until the very last minutes of the game where one team is hunting down the remnmant of hte other.
my wants: i want to be able to individually make an impact on my team and swing the game in my favor if i work incredibly hard to!!!! but i also want to be able to include my team more, be able to quickly assemble them, communicate my ideas/suggestions/strategies with them, and help people adapt to the change state of the game. also if i suddenly had retrograde amnesia and lost my memories of the last 7 years i want to be able to learn the game quicker than i learned how to play tremulous, a nonabrasive change here would a tutorial mode, which is already planned. rallying your team should be easy and rewarding.

what are your thoughts? what can be done to fix the current gameplay, and what do you want the gameplay to be like in the future?

[norfenstein]

My opinions:

Genre: I'd like Unvanquished to be a FPS that's fun enough to stand on its own, but made even better with the strategy and teamwork opportunities provided by RTS and character-advancement elements.

Why not a true hybrid? Because I think the closer you move toward a true RTS the more that strategic decision-making has to be consolidated into fewer and fewer players in a team, with the terminus being one person in-charge* and everyone else being chess pieces.

There's nothing necessaily wrong with that, but I think it makes for a much nicer game to spread out that fun and responsibility more evenly.

*I already feel some of this "strategic consolidation" in Unvanquished compared to Tremulous: in Trem I would never hesitate to respawn as a builder and throw up some acid tubes or turrets as needed, but in Unvanquished -- since build points are a finite resource (regardless of how plentiful they might be in an actual game) -- I always hesitate and wonder who on my team is "in charge" of building that might get mad if I wreck their strategic plans.

Pace: I think the game should be a constant push-and-pull between the teams: one side gains the initiative and either uses it to win the game, or trades it with the enemy by blowing themselves out on an offensive, or squandering it by doing nothing. It'd be fine if this exchange happens once in the first five minutes and ends the game, or repeats over-and-over again until both sides decide to let the map timelimit expire. Offense should always be a stronger option than unforced defense.

On an individual level, the game should be fast-paced, but with opportunities for a variety of play-styles (aggressive, defensive, stealthy, strategic, support, etc.).

Suggestion: I think fundamental changes are called for, but one thing that would be very simple to do right now is remove power/creep restrictions on building. Let people build anywhere without having to first build a structure they don't really care about. I'd go so far as to say remove the reactor and overmind too -- there really doesn't need to be any "core" objectives other than the enemy spawns.

[Comet_]

I think fundamental changes are called for, but one thing that would be very simple to do right now is remove power/creep restrictions on building. Let people build anywhere without having to first build a structure they don't really care about. I'd go so far as to say remove the reactor and overmind too -- there really doesn't need to be any "core" objectives other than the enemy spawns.

Whats to stop it from becoming very stalematey and similar to those cancerous UBP servers where nothing happens for 2+ hours? Also, rets in alien spawns?

[norfenstein]

I think you're misunderstanding: structures would still cost build points, you just wouldn't have to make a repeater or egg first.

[Comet_]

I think you're misunderstanding: structures would still cost build points, you just wouldn't have to make a repeater or egg first.

I can imagine the S1 rolls that would take place with this; like this would enable hardcore sieges on base which no one likes. Perhaps it should be only available after a certain stage.

I like the no creep restriction but I feel the OM and RC provide an interesting alternative path towards winning. Enabling the push-pull style of the game that you alluded to. If there was no centralized base it would be an easter egg hunt for both teams with a more gimicky feel. I like the established feeling of one base vs another alien stronghold where both teams fight to take the other's.