Small ideas & miscellaneous suggestions!

Request new features or present your ideas.
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Elmo
Dretch
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Re: Small ideas & miscellaneous suggestions!

Post by Elmo »

What if the turrets that went on the ceiling could only be placed a certain distance from the reactor. So they wouldn't go on ceilings too high, they would be more for a last line base defense then something you would use to advance your base.

I also don't really think it would throw off balance much if humans were able to pick things up from fallen teammates, maybe only weapons, or only ammo. But it helps make the humans less base dependent, and the aliens shouldn't need any kind of equivalent, they already can heal and don't rely on ammo. It's really a small change, that helps the humans slightly.

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Anomalous
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Re: Small ideas & miscellaneous suggestions!

Post by Anomalous »

I experimented with wall turrets a while ago – smaller and weaker, but can be placed on any surface. It should be easy enough to resurrect that if we decide that want it.

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Forty-Two
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Re: Small ideas & miscellaneous suggestions!

Post by Forty-Two »

I recently started playing this again, some random thoughts I had while playing (from an experienced/semi-competitive FPS player rather than developer/new player POV):

  • DM seems to be optional.
    You can do it, but zerging the enemy base seems like the best tactic to get upgrades that will let you destroy the enemy base even more. I think a lot of people disagree with me on this and think less of me for wanting an incentive to kill enemies, but I'll say it anyway. Team-based, objective-oriented games don't necessarily exclude DM and individual skill: I've played great games that have both. With this game, I get the impression you want to emphasize the team- and objective part of the game so much that it starts to be at the cost of DM/individual skill.

  • More crosshair customization
    Currently you can choose the scale, and use custom files for them, iirc. One thing I really like with TF2 (there are doubtlessly other games that have it too, but TF2 is one I actively play) is the level of customization. In the crosshair area, it has default crosshairs for each weapon, but you can also choose between different kinds of crosshairs through the menu, as shown here. By editing configs you can switch between these different ones as well, but a menu to choose per weapon is absent.
    I think it would be nice to have at least TF2's level of crosshair customization, and possibly even improve on it by giving a menu allowing you to choose per weapon/class, if possible.

  • Damage numbers and hitsounds
    Back in the days of playing Trem you could judge how hurt an enemy was by listening to the kind of sound they make, combined with the amount you think you hit (ie meatshot with shotgun or just a few pellets hitting), and the feedback the blood gave. After not playing Trem for a while and playing TF2 instead, that system now seems kind of outdated. I'm going to try and quickly describe the options in TF2, which looks like this, to give you an idea.
    In TF2, you can choose in the options menu to enable hitsounds and damage numbers. With the default HUD (and these features enabled), whenever you hit an enemy, the damage you did shows up around them. Most custom HUDs will also show you latest damage you dealt above your own health. For hitsounds, you can use the default or your own hitsound.wav, and you can use two cvars to control how it behaves with different amounts of damage: you can say the higher the damage, the lower the pitch, and vice versa. I think it might be nice to have both damage numbers and hitsounds in Unvanquished. I like how TF2 did it, but maybe it could be improved further by using a cvar for hitsounds, where you can specify your own through the console rather than having to call it hitsound.wav and placing it in a specific directory.

  • Get rid of the class-dependent FOV and put in a slider or something similar
    It was something that annoyed me with Trem as well. I get the idea of it but in my opinion it's an unnecessary gimmick that doesn't add too much. For me personally low FOV is just annoying (it's why I dislike playing mara most of the time), but a fairly large percentage of players can get headaches and motion sickness from low FOV. I'm going to link to this for the time being because I'm too lazy to search for more scientific sources, but it might be something you want to consider.

  • Make as much stuff as possible togglable
    Stuff like view bobbing, flashing crosshairs on hit, etc.. they can be nice, but unless you have some mechanical reason to keep them (ie poison would be less annoying and therefore powerful without view bobbing), it's generally nice to make it togglable so that players can choose for themselves - again, unless you keep it locked for a mechanical reason.

These are the thoughts that got into my mind while playing your game again. Please don't hate me for them and recommend others to not talk to me if you don't agree with them.

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Viech
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Re: Small ideas & miscellaneous suggestions!

Post by Viech »

Forty-Two wrote:

DM seems to be optional.

I agree, base attacks became too efficient in too many situations. We are currently backtracking: With the next wave of changes we want to favor skirmishes and coordinated rushes instead of lone wolf base attacks. The latest turret changes were part of this. You should now be unable to do much harm to the human bases when you attack on your own with inexpensive classes.

Forty-Two wrote:

More crosshair customization

I'm not opposed to crosshair customization but I feel functionality is more important. I'd rather make them more dynamic instead of allowing users to pick among fixed sprites.

Forty-Two wrote:

Damage numbers and hitsounds

Both of this doesn't quite help with immersion. Hitsounds work for arcade style games that trade all their atmosphere for flow (pretty much by definition). Damage numbers are common among RPG where you wouldn't know how much damage you are doing with your current equipment (which doesn't apply to Unv) but apart from that only cartoon shooters use them, for stylistic reasons. For Unvanquished, I'd like to preserve as much of a gloomy atmosphere as possible for a competitive game. The crosshair hit indicators seemed like a good compromise to me.

Forty-Two wrote:

Get rid of the class-dependent FOV and put in a slider or something similar

Agreed. As far as I understand this, we already allow this since SDL2. (There isn't a slider yet since we're going to scrap the current UI.)

Forty-Two wrote:

Make as much stuff as possible togglable

I disagree. A feature that a significant number of players would disable is a good candidate to be cut. The best audiovisual features are those that 1) we would show in promotional material since we feel they look or sound good and 2) are left enabled by people who play competitively. Every feature that only satisfies one cause will make it harder to create a consistent and fair experience for everyone. People who like good graphics shouldn't be at a disadvantage and people who want to play competitively shouldn't be forced to look at an ugly game.

(However, I'm in favor of making exceptions to allow people with epilepsy, reduced color or sound perception and similiar handicaps to enjoy the game.)

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