Unvanquished Forum

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<Norfenstein>	also thinking through a variation on free upgrades
<kharnov>	oooh
<kharnov>	people would definitely be interested in that
<Norfenstein>	problem with free upgrades is that every upgrade has to be balanced assuming a constant stream of people rushing with it
<Norfenstein>	so you can't have things like Gloom's kamikaze, which is only balanced because it costs 2 frags
<Norfenstein>	I was just thinking maybe time-limiting upgrades would be enough, and that's basically equivalent to reducing the free fund time period (and not giving funds for anything else anymore)
<kharnov>	what do you mean by time-limiting upgrades
<Norfenstein>	if your tyrant dies in 5 seconds you can't go tyrant again for a little while
<kharnov>	oh yeah
<Norfenstein>	(or another high-value class)
<Norfenstein>	haven't thought it all the way through yet
<kharnov>	i'd like to see that
<Norfenstein>	but it'd be an easy change if it ends up making sense
<`Ishq>	I also had a different direciton wrt free upgrades.
<`Ishq>	All the base classes are free
<`Ishq>	But perks cost money
<`Ishq>	And the perks will define how you use the classes
<`Ishq>	For instance electricity is a perk
<`Ishq>	Barbs can be a perk
<`Ishq>	Pounce for lower classes can be a perk
<`Ishq>	Kamikazi can be a perk too
<`Ishq>	*kamikaze
<`Ishq>	Might also need some of norf's suggestions wrt to time limiting though
<Norfenstein>	structurally, that'd be equivalent to how unv/trem work
<`Ishq>	With a little more flexibility
<Norfenstein>	yea
<`Ishq>	And the potential to have different adv classes
<`Ishq>	"adv"
<`Ishq>	And potentially classes with multiple perks
<kharnov>	so get rid of advanced aliens and just have perks?
<`Ishq>	Whether this added dimension is more fun is unknown though
<`Ishq>	This is Viech's idea basically
<kharnov>	how would perks work
<`Ishq>	What I propsed above
<kharnov>	how would they be represented
<kharnov>	do humans get perks?
<`Ishq>	Perks are addtional abilities that aliens get. I'm sure we'll have some way of identifiying them. Texture changes or something idk.
<`Ishq>	Humans wouldn't get perks.
<kharnov>	they should be shown similar to how the human inventory is shown, then
<kharnov>	little icons
<`Ishq>	Sure.
<`Ishq>	That doesn't matter as much
<`Ishq>	What the humans see is more important
<kharnov>	perhaps you buy them from the same menu type as the armory
<Norfenstein>	I'm more focused on finding the structural system that we like best, because we can't start designing classes/upgrades/perks/fun things until we know what the web of balance will look like
<`Ishq>	True
<kharnov>	okay, i can get behind that
<kharnov>	you are the game designer here
<Norfenstein>	regarding upgrades in general: gloom was basically just complicated team fortress; tremulous gated upgrades with stages; and unvanquished has a tug-of-war thing going on with momentum (which boils down to gating things with a lot of little stages)
<kharnov>	that's a pretty concise way of putting it
<Norfenstein>	I'm worried that more gates means more "match-ups" (to use a fighting game term), which can exponentially increase what you have to balance
<kharnov>	what do you propose to resolve that
<Norfenstein>	but it might be okay if stages just give you more options without making you stronger
<kharnov>	oh
<kharnov>	yes
<Norfenstein>	hence you'd need something like funds or cooldowns so you could have strong things at all levels
<kharnov>	so more momentum = more options, but to get stronger, you have to actually be good at the game and get perks or whatever by killing things?
<Norfenstein>	with funds you'd have to be good; with cooldowns you'd just have to wait if you die too soon
<kharnov>	also, if all forms are available at the start, can we remove the whole concept of transitioning between forms and just lock you into whatever you spawned with? you would have a spawn delay based on the form you picked, with dretch being fastest and tyrant slowest
<Norfenstein>	I don't want to make people sit in spectator while waiting forever to spawn, it should be you spawn as something weaker and try to stay alive a little longer for your next big upgrade
<kharnov>	you could remove the general spawn delay entirely and have dretches spawn very quickly
<kharnov>	1-3s delay between dretches, 10-20s between tyrants or whatever
<Norfenstein>	yea, though you might want to have the general spawn delay anyway so there'd be a reason to have more spawns
<Norfenstein>	or maybe not, dunno
<kharnov>	why not pick where you want to spawn
<kharnov>	then you'd have a reason to put spawns in all sorts of places
<kharnov>	and you could react to threats better
<Norfenstein>	yea, location would be the difference
<kharnov>	you could pick them off the minimap, or cycle between them while spectating
<kharnov>	a resulting tactic of that would be aliens sneaking in a cluster of eggs in a hidden area near a human base, and then spawning their big aliens there
<kharnov>	of course you'd have to get a granger there in the first place and go undetected while it's all building
<kharnov>	which would severely punish dumb humans that don't go and scout around their base
<kharnov>	would also help break ties
<kharnov>	good luck turtling in your base all game when the aliens can send wave after wave of big shit at you
<Norfenstein>	might be possible to make higher stages seem stronger by making the things in them especially good at countering the enemies things from one level lower
<Norfenstein>	so stage 1 is rock, stage 2 is paper, stage 3 is scissors, or something
<kharnov>	i like the sound of that
<kharnov>	though
<kharnov>	at this point i think "tier" would be a better term than "stage"
<kharnov>	"stage" is too reminiscent of the hard stages of tremulous
<kharnov>	plus it's one less letter in length
<Norfenstein>	clearly superior
<kharnov>	and it sounds appropriately MMO-y
<Norfenstein>	if we do do rock-paper-scissors tiers, maybe the thing to start with is to NOT have any tiers and just balance everything together, and then later decide when things should be unlocked
<Norfenstein>	might be a good idea anyway if there'd be a point in the game in which everything is unlocked

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<Norfenstein>	 you guys! what if tier = number of perks/upgrades/items you could equip?!
<`Ishq>	 Potentially
<Norfenstein>	 then we'd be free to have any unlock schedule we wanted (1: everything unlocked from the start, 2: a fixed unlock order we decide on, or 3: every game a few RANDOM perks unlock at every tier)
<M-TimePath>	 I like that idea
<M-TimePath>	 Unlock slots
<`Ishq>	 Tier 3 = exploding goons with barbs and electricity
<Norfenstein>	 YES
<`Ishq>	 Sounds fun
<Norfenstein>	 you'd still have to pay for perks (with either credits or a cooldown if you die too early)
<`Ishq>	 Yeah, somehow
<`Ishq>	 Let's get these ideas down and then priortize them
<`Ishq>	 #1 priority is to improve spiker
<`Ishq>	 And then we can let these other ideas trickle in
<`Ishq>	 This is definitely an idea to test out
<Norfenstein>	 and we'd be free to design some "perks" with flaws built-in (more health but bigger hitbox, or whatever) that would have lower costs
<`Ishq>	 Right
<`Ishq>	 And perks that help break the building advantages human maintain until aliens get adv goon
<`Ishq>	 But, I think build points already help reduce a lot of that turtle building
<Norfenstein>	 I have a list a short list of things to try in the short term
<Norfenstein>	 -a list
<`Ishq>	 Yep awesome
<Norfenstein>	 simplest: remove reactor -_-
<`Ishq>	 Buttt the beautiful model :(
<Norfenstein>	 no mercy when it comes to editing!
<`Ishq>	 haha
<`Ishq>	 But why bother removing the RC
<`Ishq>	 It already does nothing
<Norfenstein>	 people have already started using it as a free barricade :\
<`Ishq>	 LOL
<`Ishq>	 Yeah, that was funny
<`Ishq>	 Problem is, it will be built by default
<`Ishq>	 I guess we can have the RC/OM blow up on map start
<`Ishq>	 And then disable it
<Norfenstein>	 it's not too important, if there's not a simple way to get rid of it
<Norfenstein>	 I'd also like drills/leeches to not cost anything, since it sucks to have a complete base and want to expand but have to take something down just to get more BP
<Norfenstein>	 maybe just forbid building them where efficiency is less than some%
<`Ishq>	 Could be interesting
<Norfenstein>	 shouldn't be a major change, just removing an irritant
<`Ishq>	 Yeah probably
<Norfenstein>	 if I can figure out the best way to do sort-of-free upgrades, we should try that this Sunday too
<Norfenstein>	 I'd consider that the highest priority
<`Ishq>	 ok
<Norfenstein>	 or, I don't know, maybe not since the cooldown thing is mostly just another way to credits
<Norfenstein>	 but it should be an easy change
<`Ishq>	 Not really
<`Ishq>	 Cool down is not akin to credits since you can die and get kills really fast and maintain
<`Ishq>	 And maintain your evolution stuff
<`Ishq>	 But with a cool down
<Norfenstein>	 they serve the same purpose
<Norfenstein>	 is what I mean
<`Ishq>	 I suppose, though a cooldown is more harsh
<Norfenstein>	 eh, not how I'm envisioning it
<`Ishq>	 Maybe
<`Ishq>	 Just my first thought when I thought of a cooldown
<Norfenstein>	 I'm thinking your "cooldown" would coincide with you being alive, so you'd only notice it if you died quickly (obviously, "quickly" would be a longer time for more valuable loadouts)
<Norfenstein>	 basically: turn buying-with-funds back on, disable getting funds from anything but the free fund timer thing, and greatly reduce the free fund interval time
<Norfenstein>	 a hacky way to do "cooldown"
<`Ishq>	 Perhaps. Just consider the case where you spawn, get 5 kills, and then die really fast
<`Ishq>	 You can respawn as rant
<`Ishq>	 However with an X sec cooldown, that is no longer the case, depending on X
<Norfenstein>	 oh yes, it'd be worse in that case
<`Ishq>	 brb getting water
<Norfenstein>	 the reason I came up with it was just so that you couldn't have a steady stream of high-value loadouts
<Norfenstein>	 so you can't just rush mara after mara into a turret grinder
<Norfenstein>	 (but you COULD do that with dretches, more or less)
<Norfenstein>	 but anyway, the point was, we could move forward with testing using either this or funds-as-usual, I think
<`Ishq>	 Oh norf
<`Ishq>	 Something interesting that we found out during one of our dev tests:
<`Ishq>	 We  had toyed with the idea of a "minimum wage" proportional to your momentum
<`Ishq>	 And you basically got a fixed amount of evos on spawn based on team mometnum
<`Ishq>	 And that ran into the problem we saw with free upgrades
<`Ishq>	 Immediate rushing as mara or whatever else people could affort
<`Ishq>	 afford
<`Ishq>	 Perhaps we could combine that with what we have
<`Ishq>	 A cooldown for the mininmum wage
<`Ishq>	 *minimum
<`Ishq>	 but evolution with evos
<Norfenstein>	 to be clear, I think free upgrades, or that CAN be balanced, it's just that you'd be restricted in what you could add to the game if you wanted it to be fair
<`Ishq>	 I agree
<`Ishq>	 I think there are multiple ways we can attack this
<`Ishq>	 But, out of curiosity, what do you think we accomplish with free upgrades?
<Norfenstein>	 I was trying to think of an answer to that actually; I think people liked it just because it was fun/novel
<`Ishq>	 So for me:
<`Ishq>	  Free upgrades is a way to promote teamwork and aggressive play. People are afraid of dying so they play conservatively to preserve their credits/evos.
<`Ishq>	  If that is not a factor, they play much more aggressively.
<Norfenstein>	 yea, that was the best reason I could come up with too
<`Ishq>	 A metric that use for "fun" is the number of skirmishes outside both teams' bases
<Norfenstein>	 I like that upgrades are a team-wide goal, but I'm not sure why I like that
<`Ishq>	 And aggressive play helps that
<Norfenstein>	 honestly I'm not sure if I like it all just because it's a different system than what I've played with for... uh, like 17 years
<`Ishq>	 I can say that I enjoyed it on aliens. It was a lot of fun for me to be able to rush continuously.
<`Ishq>	 I can also say that because of that, there was less strategy and team communication. Each person could be their own one man army
<`Ishq>	 On humans, i was really frustrated
<`Ishq>	 I couldn't leave my base effectively
<`Ishq>	 If I met a dretch, I was basially dead
<`Ishq>	 dretch with poison*
<`Ishq>	 or any alien with poison for that matter
<`Ishq>	 So me not being able to leave my base coupled with aliens continuously rushing my base
<`Ishq>	 Made it feel overwhelming and doomed
<Norfenstein>	 which is kind of weird, being afraid of dretches with free upgrades on but not with it off, but I kind of felt the same way (and didn't last Sunday with free upgrades off)
<Norfenstein>	 I'm hoping the cooldown idea I'm going to try to find time on Saturday to implement will be the best of both systems
<Norfenstein>	 are you still thinking about Urban Terror's stamina system and sliding and ledge-climbing?
<Norfenstein>	 I don't remember what was different about it, but I didn't mind UrT's stamina while not liking Trem's
<`Ishq>	 I don't know so much aobut stamina
<`Ishq>	 Definitely exotic movement
<`Ishq>	 Ledge climbing is less useful to me tbh, but sliding, wall jumping, and other fancy movement types are definitely planned.
<`Ishq>	 Any thing to break the monotonous backtracking dodge humans are forced to use.
<Norfenstein>	 I think ledge-climbing is neat
<`Ishq>	 Also, the fear of dretch is less for dying, but more of "losing time"
<`Ishq>	 Like, you'r ehalf way to their base, and by the time you get anywhere close, you have 10hp
<`Ishq>	 It would best if you could get close with full health and medkit
<`Ishq>	 So you can actually inflict damage
<`Ishq>	 ledge climbing can be neat, I suppose. Especially when coupled with walljumping
<`Ishq>	 UrT jump maps were insane
<Norfenstein>	 might break our maps, but THAT'S OKAY
<`Ishq>	 nah, would just allow future mappers to be more creative
<`Ishq>	 Also, with jetpack, ledge jumping's advantage to reach places is kinda negated
<`Ishq>	 I can't imagine how exotic movement can break any maps
<`Ishq>	 Since everything is accessible to anyone with wall climb, pounce, and jetpack
<Norfenstein>   I guess that's true, would just be rare places where humans could access a little earlier, or have better routes through a map
<`Ishq>   Yep

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<kharnov>	hey norfenguy
<kangz>	hello Norfenstein 
<kangz>	I agree with most of your ideas but think we should go full modern shooter
<kharnov>	?
<Norfenstein>	chest-high walls???
<kharnov>	lol
<kharnov>	quick time events
<kharnov>	press F to pay respects to the dead granger
<Norfenstein>	auto-aiming
<kharnov>	microtransactions
<kangz>	more like regenerating health
<kharnov>	pay 10 grangercoins to win the game
<kangz>	no death penalty
<kangz>	noob friendliness etc
<kharnov>	so you're saying human health regen
<kharnov>	i like the sound of that
<kharnov>	medkits are dumb
<kharnov>	do we need to keep medkits Norfenstein 
<kharnov>	i mean that seems like a simple change, dropping them and giving humans health regen
<Norfenstein>	human regen means aliens can't hit-and-run
<kangz>	yeah kharnov, it isn't that simple
<kangz>	you need to remove the death penalty for something like this to work
<kharnov>	death penalty?
<Norfenstein>	what do you mean by "death penalty", because there has to be something that "penalizes" death
<kangz>	you shouldn't lose upgrades
<kangz>	you lose time however
<kharnov>	well
<kharnov>	free upgrades kind of resolves that..
<Norfenstein>	that's what I'm thinking with the idea I talked about the other day; upgrades are still "free" but if you're dying too much you have to wait longer (lose time) between using the better ones
<kharnov>	yes
<kharnov>	that is a good idea
<Norfenstein>	we COULD make it so everything is just free, but then we'd have fancy Team Fortress
<kharnov>	i don't have anything against that..
<kharnov>	asymmetrical team fortress sounds awesome
<kangz>	Norfenstein : something I wrote yesterday https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/unv-gameplay-ideas
<Norfenstein>	sure, it'd be legit, but having some kind of cost (in this case time) for better upgrades means we'd be free to have some upgrades that are stronger than others, which greatly increases the design-space
<kangz>	it is basically an assymetrical team fortress yeah
<kangz>	you could have upgrades that cost more than others to unlock
<kharnov>	asymmetrical team fortress with human "classes"
<kharnov>	a good use for the three human models (soon four) that we now have :P
<Norfenstein>	I don't think we can consider gates/unlocking when designing this stuff, because everything still has to be balanced somehow when everything is unlocked
<kharnov>	current human male, new human male, human female, battlesuit
<Norfenstein>	unless we just want it to be a race to the top tier, where you get stuff strong enough to guarantee a win
<kangz>	I think players could have personal unlocks, with all players getting the same unlock "credit"
<Norfenstein>	I don't follow; is that just funds you use to buy things, or are the locks as permanent as stages in current-unvanquished?
<Norfenstein>	locks/unlocks
<kangz>	When the team fulfills a team objective, all players get unlock credit that is used to unlock permanent player options
<kangz>	but the unlocks are per player
<Norfenstein>	it does seem like we're reaching a consensus that team-wide goals (stage-up) are better than invidual goals (get credits to buy better gun)
<kangz>	so you can have a per-player "build"
<kangz>	once a player unlocked a part of a build, it is always free for him to reuse it
<Norfenstein>	I see; that's a smart way to do unlocks
<Norfenstein>	there are a number of ways to do unlocks, but I think it's a side-issue in general
<Norfenstein>	since, like I said, everything still has to be fun when everything is unlocked
<kangz>	death only sets you back in that you have to walk back to the enemy, and you lose 5 seconds in the lobby
<kangz>	sure
<kangz>	right now our weapon are on a scale: lucifer is better than pulse that is better than lasgun (kinda)
<kangz>	what we want is to offer options that are equivalent in term of power but are very different
<Norfenstein>	I assume things would re-lock in reverse order of what you chose if staging-down is included?
<kangz>	(of course if you unlock "faster rate of fire" than an option will become more powerful)
<kangz>	I don't think there would be staing down
<Amanieu>	I think one of the issues here is that there is a big difference between the FPS and RTS styles
<Ingar>	an RTS has tanks
<Amanieu>	in FPS games, you can either join/leave a team at any time (trem, q3) or games are very short (cs)
<Norfenstein>	it'd probably work without staging down, but you could do re-locks a couple different ways (reverse order, player choice, random)
<Amanieu>	in RTS games the same players stay in a team for the whole duration of a game
<Amanieu>	unlockables & progression makes more sense for this second model
<Norfenstein>	I'm to the point where I think we have to be FPS first, RTS when possible
<Amanieu>	that's fine, but we need to be aware that we are making a trade-off
<Norfenstein>	you're right: with unlocks like kangz says either you're severely penalized if you exit the server for whatever reason, or you basically can re-do your unlocks by rejoining
<Norfenstein>	that progression stuff is really appealing though
<kangz>	nope, you instantly get new unlock points
<kangz>	like the sum of what other player acquired up to this point
<Norfenstein>	right, if you can just do-over what you choose to unlock, then at any time you can change what you have unlocked by just rejoining the server
<kangz>	sure
<Norfenstein>	which means you might as well be able to do that at any time anyway
<kangz>	that's not perfect true
<kangz>	mmmh
<kangz>	with the GUID we could remember players (mostly)
<Amanieu>	if you have a situation where one team has a game advantage (ie, more unlocks) against another team, that automatically makes the game less appealing to people joining in the middle of a game
<kangz>	the balance should be such taht comebacks are possible
<kangz>	due to defender's advantage or lesser bang for bucks for later upgrades
<Amanieu>	but it still sucks if you join since there's a high chance you'll be in the team that is behind (which is the one losing players)
<Norfenstein>	I don't think that's really avoidable
<kangz>	that's already true though
<Amanieu>	but that doesn't really help, it just drags the game on
<Amanieu>	if you want some sort of progression, it has to be strategic: if you choose one build, it works well against some builds but not others
<kangz>	wsure
<Amanieu>	but at that point you need teams to stay the same for the duration of the gam
<Amanieu>	ie, RTS style
<kangz>	the game can be more RTS style for scrims and more FPS style for public games
<Amanieu>	sure, and that's where game modes would come in
<kangz>	uh
<kangz>	that's not what I meant
<kangz>	the game is FPS and RTS but naturally the RTS still will be more important during scrims
<kangz>	whereas in FFA players will join and leave, and reset their build doing so if they wish
<kangz>	afk
<Norfenstein>	I don't want quitting the game to be an accepted part of gameplay, and would really rather not rely on security measures to force people to comit to their build decisions
<Norfenstein>	so as appealing as personal unlock trees is, I'm not sure it's workable
<Norfenstein>	so I can only think of: 1) everything is unlocked (tiers just determine how many upgrades you can equip), 2) unlocks happen in a set order, 3) unlocks are random
<Norfenstein>	or a combination of 2 and 3
<`Ishq>	Randomness seems kinda unfun. Things are left up to "luck"
<`Ishq>	1 sounds really quite fun
<`Ishq>	2 is what we currently have
<`Ishq>	Also 'ello
<Norfenstein>	randomness is fun (I'm thinking of Nuclear Throne, where you have a choice of random upgrades whenever you level-up), as long as you can be happy not getting EXACTLY the build you came into the game wanting
<Norfenstein>	but I think we ought to start with everything unlocked because, like I said, everything still needs to be balanced in that case
<`Ishq>	ie, #1?
<`Ishq>	or just free upgrades
<Norfenstein>	yes 1
<Norfenstein>	this only about locks, not about how things are balanced
<Norfenstein>	next playtest I want to test the cooldown thing we talked about
<Norfenstein>	("cooldown" is not a good name for what I'm planning to do though)
<`Ishq>	Timer?
<Norfenstein>	the effect is basically a "cooldown" but I'm not planning to implement it that way