[mod]Experimental Gameplay

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Gireen
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[mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by Gireen »

Well then this will be a mod for trying out changes and hopefully improvements to the gameplay.
The goal is to reach the most positive effects with the least effort. :wink:
In that sense i think its good to start with the low player gamplay, means 1-2 players.

As by lamefun and others already mentioned 1on1 is for aliens not good since they have to die at some point for classchange. Means the possibility to deevole should be the fist thing. Only around the Overmind and it costs some morph points or doesn't return all used morph points.

Opinions? Other ideas? Cute granger drawings?

fear ma engrish :granger:

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illwieckz
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by illwieckz »

Like hummies being able to sold their weapon, aliens being able to devolve would not be bad if it's a transaction. But due to the nature of aliens being able to regenerate and reload without to return to base, they would be overpowered if devolving costs nothing. We may imagine the evolve points spent to evolve are losts when devolving, or only a fraction of them are recovered (like amount minus 1, or just one in any case). We can either imagine spending 1 evo point to devolve (while the ones spent are losts) or even spend the same amount to devolve than to evolve (double loss) or any variant.

The idea would be to allow people to devolve to not require to suicide itself, which is a pattern I don't like to see as gameplay requirement whatever the topic. We would still need to make it costs something to not unbalance to much the teams. Losing more evo points than the ones spent are probably a bad idea because, aside the fact you may keep a strategic a suicide would make you lose, it would still encourage to suicide in many case which I don't like in any way.

Why not devolving from dretch to granger costs nothing (dretch can suicide very easily in any way), but devolving from higher form refurbs half the evo points, 1 being the minimum.

Note that it's close to another topic: getting rid of the frustrating and broken mechanism that prevents aliens to evolve being close to humans (aliens can be too much close but separated by a wall with a very long route, hence safe). On that other topic, we may just get rid of this mechanism, or implement something that requires the player to make himself safe, like a small countdown. The alien would be vulnerable for this time. It's important the countdown must be very short because in such fast game slowing down mechanisms and countdowns are antipatterns and must be used very carefully. This would only have to be long enough so players learn by themselves they have to make them safe before evolving/devolving. Maybe the countdown time used for human buildables construction would fit it perfectly. We know this time fits well the fast pace of the game, the rate of failure when on pressure does not look so frustrating (except build points are global to the team so losing them is less frustrating).

Experimenting gameplay again is welcome ! :advgranger: :beer: :granger:

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killing time
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by killing time »

Devolving near overmind sounds good. I suggest that there be no change in your evo points when you devolve. This means that in devolving from B to A, you would implicitly lose as many points as you used to evolve from A to B. It also means devolving from dretch to granger would be free, as illwieckz suggests. I like that idea since I often forget that I need to build something, and mistakenly spawn as dretch out of habit.

How should a countdown for devolve and/or evolve work? Are you unable to move? Move, but not attack?

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Gireen
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by Gireen »

The comparison how its works with humans when changing gear is quiet fitting. With that in mind its probably better start of with deevolving being without costs, like selling a weapon.

Disallowing aliens to evolve near humans has its reasons.Without it a small alien could easily rush into a human base and turn into a tyrant. But it feels like the range for this effect has become wider. A possible solution to this could be that aliens can always evolve if they are in visible range from one of there buildings. If just being close to buildings would be enough the tyrant example would be possible again on smaller maps.

fear ma engrish :granger:

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killing time
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by killing time »

I think giving a full refund would be too favorable for aliens. Relative inflexibility in switching class is needed to balance the aliens' huge advantage in mobility.

With devolve refunds, there would also be exploits like trying to devolve if you are about to get killed. Or when you have low health, devolve, deliberately die, and then respawn, instead of waiting for healing.

Even with no points refunded, devolving to granger is still a big improvement over respawning:

  • You can do it quickly - don't need to wait for /kill or find something to kill you.

  • Doesn't feed.

  • Doesn't generate death messages that show the other team what you're doing.

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illwieckz
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by illwieckz »

killing time wrote:

Devolving near overmind sounds good.

Devolving near overmind or egg sounds good because of outposts. Since there is a need for an living overmind to evolve/devolve in any way, this seems ok to require the overmind to be alive and to be near an egg (or the om itself), so dretch spawner can devolve to overmind if spawned in an outpost.

Gireen wrote:

Disallowing aliens to evolve near humans has its reasons. Without it a small alien could easily rush into a human base and turn into a tyrant.

It looks like the idea for a small coutdown that leaves the alien vulnerable would be effective against such trick.

I agree with the fact a full refund would be too favorable for aliens and that spending as most evo to devolve than to evolve is a too strong penalization if we consider the evo points spent to evolve at first are definitely lost.

killing time wrote:

I think giving a full refund would be too favorable for aliens.

Sure, with devolve refunds aliens would just be able to rebuild their base without any counterpart: no feeding the human team, no evo point losing, with their ability to heal everywhere and their speed, they would be overpowered.

Or when you have low health, devolve, deliberately die, and then respawn, instead of waiting for healing.

No need to die, It's faster to recover 100% of the health as a dretch. People would devolve, heal, evolve.

How should a countdown for devolve and/or evolve work? Are you unable to move? Move, but not attack?

That would stick the player in place, a bit like a caterpillar has to nest in his cocoon to become a butterfly. I'm not saying we have to implement some GFX for it. The idea is that the alien player has to find a safe place to evolve. This behaviour (looking for a safe place) would be up to the player instead that to be up to the engine, thanks to the game mechanic itself. The engine would not have to decide if it's a safe place or not, something it's not very good at, knowing it's the right place and/the right time to evovle would be a player skill.

The only drawback seems that the countdown must be short because the game is fast and players would be frustrated to wait if they wait to long, but long enough so the mechanic teaches people the behaviour to have (finding a safe place/moment).

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Gireen
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by Gireen »

Including alien health in the calculation can solve this two problems

morph points spend * percentage of health * return rate

the return rate is then just another wheel for balancing adjustments that has a stronger effect on bigger classes.

A cocoon ... that sound like the hovel could make a return :leech: :grin:

fear ma engrish :granger:

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illwieckz
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by illwieckz »

Gireen wrote:

A cocoon ... that sound like the hovel could make a return :leech: :grin:

Oh yes ! But it would be vulnerable, not like the original hovel. :smile:

I miss the hovel easter egg in perseus…

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illwieckz
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by illwieckz »

I just tried the mod, that looks good and the simple penalization of not recovering previously spent evos seems fair. An interesting side effect is that it's now possible to devolve from advanced granger to granger, which is pretty useless (but harmless). :grin:

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Gireen
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Re: [mod]Experimental Gameplay

Post by Gireen »

illwieckz wrote:

penalization of not recovering previously spent evos

There is no limitation in devolving yet. :confused:
Seems like devolving to granger or dretch returns 0 mps but all other classes return the spend points.

side note, when bots can devolve it turns them into screaming balls of pain while they switch between all available classes at the same time

fear ma engrish :granger:

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