When I designed the hangar system, I had one thing in mind; speed. I wanted everything to be done quickly. All the buildings have very short build times. All the upgrades are instant. The point is that everything is designed so that you need to spend as little time there as possible.
With that said, I may introduce an option to immediately remove you from your hangar if you get attacked or other such polish if it is needed.
The plus sides of this is that it's instantly intuitive. I had a certain tester who never even needed the system explaining, nor ever indicated any confusion. It lets me implement a clear, gated tech tree which I never could with the item system. Upgrades are a lot more fluid and the potential for expansion is nigh limitless.
Overall I'm expecting some refinement to be needed but right now I'm very happy with it. It's not just for the player's benefit either. It would take me hours to create new items and their associated upgrades in the old Catalyst. It also created some pretty ingrained bugs (the ress bug was caused by the game running too many item triggers as it restored your gear, for example). So far the new Catalyst, which has all the major systems already in place, has 11 triggers. 5 of which are tutorial triggers (the tutorial is now a series of button highlights).
It's just really clean and fluid and feels 10x better to play with and create for, in my opinion.
Sure i totally understand that you don't spend hours in the hangar but it would still feel better if you remain some connection to the actual map while building weapons or reading tooltips for them, like still having the minimap available or something giving you a clue that you are under attack.
That would imo increase the feeling that the player is in control over his units any time quite a bit. Dunno it just feels weird that you don't know whats going on while upgrading and stuff.
I don't think you may be able to do it in this version, but I've always wanted to see pieces of models be connected to items. Example, you buy 2 goliath gattling guns, siege tank shredders, and a viking body. You'd have a viking, with siege tank wheels, and goliath arms! :D Maybe you can implement that in a MUCH later version or not at all, but I've always wanted to see that in an sc2 game. :D
It's just like imagine you are raiding in wow but from time to time you have to open a menu that totally disconnects you from your raid and your surroundings to raid better. That would feel weird wouldn't it?
So all i'm saying is that being able to look at the minimap while upgrading stuff would just combine the two disconnected "gamemodes" into one fluid experience.
The minimap idea works great, I've added that right now. It also allows those "Your units are under attack" alerts to properly display on the minimap even while you're in your hangar.
Also, I'd compare it more to your equipment menu from WoW!
Also, I'd compare it more to your equipment menu from WoW!
Yeah now that you know whats going on outside it is comparable to an equipmentmenu in wow whereas before you had no clue, it was like a different "gamemode".
Hold on, hold on! I haven't been following this map lately (we tried other maps too) but there is a new version of this map out or what? What's the progress in a nutshell?
Also, since today's update, I'm unable to upgrade bought items any more... whenever I L-click them, it looks like the cursor "grabs" the item instead of upgrading it. Known error? Or is it just me?
Thanks! Keep it up. This is my favorite gametype.
Hold on, hold on! I haven't been following this map lately (we tried other maps too) but there is a new version of this map out or what? What's the progress in a nutshell? Also, since today's update, I'm unable to upgrade bought items any more... whenever I L-click them, it looks like the cursor "grabs" the item instead of upgrading it. Known error? Or is it just me? Thanks! Keep it up. This is my favorite gametype.
There was an update to the old versions? O.o
Also, if it grabs the item, it might be a lag issue. You can usually drag-and-drop items, so something might be delaying the info sent from your mouse to the bnet server, and it thinks you held the mouse for longer than you did. Try making a quick click and not moving the mouse for a second or two afterwards, if that wont work, double or triple click :/
Also, about the new version, its NOT out. Still in development. Its been tested for video recordings, but thats it. But i think it should be done pretty soon, saince Eiviyn seems to be pretty fast with such things.
But the map is so down atm, i cant find it and if i would, nobody would join! Its time to remove the first and second place, btw. And its time for a new custommapsystem, and..and...and.......-.-
played the map long time not.... chatrooms would be so nice. create a chatroom called:Catalyst.
But this topic,....Bnet 2.0 epic Fail detected
Hold on, hold on! I haven't been following this map lately (we tried other maps too) but there is a new version of this map out or what? What's the progress in a nutshell? Also, since today's update, I'm unable to upgrade bought items any more... whenever I L-click them, it looks like the cursor "grabs" the item instead of upgrading it. Known error? Or is it just me? Thanks! Keep it up. This is my favorite gametype.
This is a problem with the inventory system, which bugs me since beta. I ALWAYS grab the item, I am too stupid to not move my mouse when clicking, it seems.
There was no recent change to it, though, maybe you simply did not notice it first.
I'm at a stage now where I'm just putting the finishing touches in place.
The terrain is complete.
The internal structures are complete.
The capture system is complete; I'm so proud of the new capture system that I wanted to video it, but it's probably not exciting enough for that!
All skills are complete.
The bare essential upgrades are complete.
I dare say that the game concept is just so much cleaner and refined now. There is a definitive early game, mid game and end game, all with their own gradual conclusions (that is, over time, more tools become available to end the current metagame to the better team, without a snowball effect). Game length is aimed at around 40 minutes for roughly even teams.
I'll probably be aiming to have a closed beta test within the next few days to sort out any unforeseen balance issues or gameplay bugs, with a release (hopefully) soon after.
That sounds cool and do you display a capture-bar now when taking over a control-point?
It's a custom made bar that displays when you mouse over a control point. The left side is red, and the right side is blue. The bar will slowly creep towards one side while one team's vehicle is near. If one vehicle of each team is near, they will neutralize eachother. If 2 vehicles of one team is near, and only 1 of the other team, then it'll progress slowly towards the 2 vehicle team.
It also takes into account your bar display settings. If you have it set to "Always", then the control point capture bar will always be displayed. If not, then it will only show when you mouse over the control point.
It's entirely done in data. The only trigger used for control point capture is to change the minimap ping.
Thanks for the replies and keep it up, Eiviyn! I can't wait to try out the new map! I'll be sure to play it with my friends and let you know how it went.
So all the core concepts are in. Everything works and it's all nicely polished. Did some basic testing and fixed all the oversights I made.
I don't want to repeat the same mistake I did with Catalyst though. I don't want to be adding new content weekly, but rather in monthly patches or similar, with weekly balance changes/gameplay improvements until balance and gameplay are stable. People complained a lot about this, and in hindsight I should probably just get all my ideas into the game before I release it.
This is mostly focused on what you build "inside" your vehicle.
Right now there are 3 basic choices. Weapons, counter weapons (guns, an aoe missile snare), and drones. I want to expand this.
Here is my concept;
3 major internal structure types.
1) Weaponry
This type is mostly damaging weapons. There are 3 types of weapons; light, heavy and missile. Each type has their own associated upgrades, for example you can upgrade heavy weapon damage which will improve all of the weapons of that type.
Light weapons are generally short ranged weapons with special attributes, for example the napalm turret leaves a smoldering patch of damaging fire in it's wake. The flak turret is highly effective against infantry and drones, and unlike most weaponry, cannot miss. This trend continues.
Heavy weapons are your big hitters. They do a lot of damage, but with a slow fire rate. These are your go-to weapons to demolish hardened targets like other players. To make other weapons useful, heavy weapons are soft countered by multiple targets. That is, a player who focuses on drones or engaging a player surrounded by creeps will make heavy weaponry less useful, and make mixing your heavy guns with lighter ones to clear the creeps a valid tactic.
Missile Weapons are your long range hitters. Typically focusing on hitting multiple targets or generally huge splash damage. Not too effective against players, but their range creates some options. One problem with the original Catalyst was that missile weapons were the only choice early game. I feel this is alleviated by the new systems somewhat, but I'll be keeping an eye on this weapon type the most.
Counter Weapons Point defence turrets can shoot down incoming heavy or missile weaponry. Light weaponry either cannot be shot down or simply fires so many projectiles that they can overwhelm pdd. As such, pdd soft counters heavy and missile weaponry, but is soft countered by light weaponry.
Healing Weaponry I'm sure this one doesn't need explaining. The new independent turret AI allows better prioritization for repair beams and such, so hopefully this type will see new light.
This concludes the weaponry section. All of this is already in the game and fully functional, in addition to a few drones.
2) Production
The production archetype consists of 2 main types of structure.
Drone Bays automatically produce drones, similar to the drones from Catalyst. The difference is that these structures all independently build and maintain 1 drone by themselves. That is, if you have 12 drone bays, all 12 will build independently rather than the old model of building 1 drone at a time, regardless of how many drone items you had.
There are a few different types of drone. The types aren't important really. They are generally all short range and lightly armoured, but very quick to be replaced. There are a number of drone support structures too. Basically, focusing on drones turns your vehicle into a walking aircraft carrier, with all the associated advantages (long range, low risk strikes). An aircraft carrier type vehicle will beat out a defensive type vehicle (next section), but lose head on to a weaponry type (last section).
Barracks type structures are the second production style of building. The way this works is that you build a structure inside your vehicle. This costs minerals. This structure allows your vehicle to build something in the field at an energy cost. For example, a barracks. So you spend your minerals on say a "Barracks construction kit", which allows you to build 1 Barracks. If the barracks dies, you can replace it for only an energy cost.
The barracks, for example, will produce units Nexus Wars style. I can already hear the screams, but hear me out. Firstly, the barracks will only produce up to 3 marines, similar to a drone bay. If a marine dies, it'll produce another to maintain 3 marines. The marines will attack towards the enemy base. "So how is that different to Nexus Wars?", well, if your barracks is safely in your base, it will happily produce 3 marines and the marines will slowly trudge towards the enemy base while the barracks sits idle. When they die, it will produce 3 more. However, if the barracks is close to the front lines, the production rate will be closer to the fatality rate and you will, overall, have higher production.
This keeps in line with the style of the game. To reinforce this (this part is conceptual), buildings will only function while near your vehicle, protoss pylon style. This could potentially be rather annoying and perhaps the production limit would be enough to ensure keeping your production buildings on the front line, but it's a potential fallback. There would be multiple types of barracks; Marines, Marauders, Medics, Ghosts, Firebats and some infantry artillery unit like a mortar team from wc3. Barracks buildings would need to be first purchased inside your vehicle before they can be placed on the field, after which the only subsequent investment is energy.
Defence
The last archetype. Again this is split into two types.
Support consists of things like internal radars (think the radar from Catalyst, provides radar info and debuffs enemies) and placeable structures that play a supporting role (such as a repair station). Internal buildings would simply function like weapon turrets do, except they would provide buffs/debuffs around your vehicle. Placeable buildings like the repair station would function like the above mentioned barracks; first a precursor building is built internally and then the structure itself is built costing energy. If the energy cost building is destroyed, it may be rebuilt, costing only energy.
Defence towers would be the final type. This is pretty self explanatory. Placeable turrets of various types for various purposes. They would, again, function like the above method. Think turrets from Catalyst, only rather than purchasing a turret item, you purchase a turret building. You place the turrets from a special tab on your vehicle. The final tier defence structures are artillery pieces designed for sieging the enemy base.
About half of the above is already ingame. The defence and barracks sections are conceptual right now. I'm interested in people's thoughts.
Defense and barracks sound really neat :) Cant wait to see those. And i also cant wait for a full 5v5 test to finally see how the map really is going to turn out!
Good luck with continuing and i really hope it rises up in popularity really fast :)
Yea, i know, i didnt say much. Its late, and i already talked with you a lot and the only new things to me are defense and barracks, which again sound absolutely awesome. I think that being able to build a bunch of marines/rauders/medics will be a valid strategy to taking control over certain locations and keeping a lot of pressure on because of the strength of creeps.
Also, make each infantry unit have a "specialty", you can basically use the melee game advantages to make it seem more "natural". Firebats are good vs Infantry (marines, medics, ghosts), marauders are good against armored infantry (so firebats and rauders) and players, while marines are shooting fast and larger in numbers, making them decent against all other infantry, but able to kill drones very fast. Dont know what to do for the ghost. let him nuke stuff? lol. Maybe take reapers instead of ghosts ;) Really fast fragile units that just eat marines, medics and other reapers alive.
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Thats exactly what i meant by bombardment :) Cant wait to try out the map again and that you get a playable version out for a full game :)
@iamtoolazy: Go
When I designed the hangar system, I had one thing in mind; speed. I wanted everything to be done quickly. All the buildings have very short build times. All the upgrades are instant. The point is that everything is designed so that you need to spend as little time there as possible.
With that said, I may introduce an option to immediately remove you from your hangar if you get attacked or other such polish if it is needed.
The plus sides of this is that it's instantly intuitive. I had a certain tester who never even needed the system explaining, nor ever indicated any confusion. It lets me implement a clear, gated tech tree which I never could with the item system. Upgrades are a lot more fluid and the potential for expansion is nigh limitless.
Overall I'm expecting some refinement to be needed but right now I'm very happy with it. It's not just for the player's benefit either. It would take me hours to create new items and their associated upgrades in the old Catalyst. It also created some pretty ingrained bugs (the ress bug was caused by the game running too many item triggers as it restored your gear, for example). So far the new Catalyst, which has all the major systems already in place, has 11 triggers. 5 of which are tutorial triggers (the tutorial is now a series of button highlights).
It's just really clean and fluid and feels 10x better to play with and create for, in my opinion.
@Eiviyn: Go
Sure i totally understand that you don't spend hours in the hangar but it would still feel better if you remain some connection to the actual map while building weapons or reading tooltips for them, like still having the minimap available or something giving you a clue that you are under attack.
That would imo increase the feeling that the player is in control over his units any time quite a bit. Dunno it just feels weird that you don't know whats going on while upgrading and stuff.
I don't think you may be able to do it in this version, but I've always wanted to see pieces of models be connected to items. Example, you buy 2 goliath gattling guns, siege tank shredders, and a viking body. You'd have a viking, with siege tank wheels, and goliath arms! :D Maybe you can implement that in a MUCH later version or not at all, but I've always wanted to see that in an sc2 game. :D
It's just like imagine you are raiding in wow but from time to time you have to open a menu that totally disconnects you from your raid and your surroundings to raid better. That would feel weird wouldn't it?
So all i'm saying is that being able to look at the minimap while upgrading stuff would just combine the two disconnected "gamemodes" into one fluid experience.
Hope that made any sense xD
The minimap idea works great, I've added that right now. It also allows those "Your units are under attack" alerts to properly display on the minimap even while you're in your hangar.
Also, I'd compare it more to your equipment menu from WoW!
@Eiviyn: Go
Alright thats really cool and i think it will make the whole thing more intuitive thanks eiviyn :)
Yeah now that you know whats going on outside it is comparable to an equipmentmenu in wow whereas before you had no clue, it was like a different "gamemode".
must play... v2.0....
Hold on, hold on! I haven't been following this map lately (we tried other maps too) but there is a new version of this map out or what? What's the progress in a nutshell? Also, since today's update, I'm unable to upgrade bought items any more... whenever I L-click them, it looks like the cursor "grabs" the item instead of upgrading it. Known error? Or is it just me? Thanks! Keep it up. This is my favorite gametype.
There was an update to the old versions? O.o
Also, if it grabs the item, it might be a lag issue. You can usually drag-and-drop items, so something might be delaying the info sent from your mouse to the bnet server, and it thinks you held the mouse for longer than you did. Try making a quick click and not moving the mouse for a second or two afterwards, if that wont work, double or triple click :/
Also, about the new version, its NOT out. Still in development. Its been tested for video recordings, but thats it. But i think it should be done pretty soon, saince Eiviyn seems to be pretty fast with such things.
But the map is so down atm, i cant find it and if i would, nobody would join! Its time to remove the first and second place, btw. And its time for a new custommapsystem, and..and...and.......-.- played the map long time not.... chatrooms would be so nice. create a chatroom called:Catalyst. But this topic,....Bnet 2.0 epic Fail detected
This is a problem with the inventory system, which bugs me since beta. I ALWAYS grab the item, I am too stupid to not move my mouse when clicking, it seems.
There was no recent change to it, though, maybe you simply did not notice it first.
I'm at a stage now where I'm just putting the finishing touches in place.
I dare say that the game concept is just so much cleaner and refined now. There is a definitive early game, mid game and end game, all with their own gradual conclusions (that is, over time, more tools become available to end the current metagame to the better team, without a snowball effect). Game length is aimed at around 40 minutes for roughly even teams.
I'll probably be aiming to have a closed beta test within the next few days to sort out any unforeseen balance issues or gameplay bugs, with a release (hopefully) soon after.
@Eiviyn: Go
That sounds cool and do you display a capture-bar now when taking over a control-point?
It's a custom made bar that displays when you mouse over a control point. The left side is red, and the right side is blue. The bar will slowly creep towards one side while one team's vehicle is near. If one vehicle of each team is near, they will neutralize eachother. If 2 vehicles of one team is near, and only 1 of the other team, then it'll progress slowly towards the 2 vehicle team.
It also takes into account your bar display settings. If you have it set to "Always", then the control point capture bar will always be displayed. If not, then it will only show when you mouse over the control point.
It's entirely done in data. The only trigger used for control point capture is to change the minimap ping.
@Eiviyn: Go
Sweet ^^
Thanks for the replies and keep it up, Eiviyn! I can't wait to try out the new map! I'll be sure to play it with my friends and let you know how it went.
Awesome! You might wanna record a video about it just before release! :D I'd love to see that! :D
So all the core concepts are in. Everything works and it's all nicely polished. Did some basic testing and fixed all the oversights I made.
I don't want to repeat the same mistake I did with Catalyst though. I don't want to be adding new content weekly, but rather in monthly patches or similar, with weekly balance changes/gameplay improvements until balance and gameplay are stable. People complained a lot about this, and in hindsight I should probably just get all my ideas into the game before I release it.
This is mostly focused on what you build "inside" your vehicle.
Right now there are 3 basic choices. Weapons, counter weapons (guns, an aoe missile snare), and drones. I want to expand this.
Here is my concept;
3 major internal structure types.
1) Weaponry
This type is mostly damaging weapons. There are 3 types of weapons; light, heavy and missile. Each type has their own associated upgrades, for example you can upgrade heavy weapon damage which will improve all of the weapons of that type.
Light weapons are generally short ranged weapons with special attributes, for example the napalm turret leaves a smoldering patch of damaging fire in it's wake. The flak turret is highly effective against infantry and drones, and unlike most weaponry, cannot miss. This trend continues.
Heavy weapons are your big hitters. They do a lot of damage, but with a slow fire rate. These are your go-to weapons to demolish hardened targets like other players. To make other weapons useful, heavy weapons are soft countered by multiple targets. That is, a player who focuses on drones or engaging a player surrounded by creeps will make heavy weaponry less useful, and make mixing your heavy guns with lighter ones to clear the creeps a valid tactic.
Missile Weapons are your long range hitters. Typically focusing on hitting multiple targets or generally huge splash damage. Not too effective against players, but their range creates some options. One problem with the original Catalyst was that missile weapons were the only choice early game. I feel this is alleviated by the new systems somewhat, but I'll be keeping an eye on this weapon type the most.
Counter Weapons Point defence turrets can shoot down incoming heavy or missile weaponry. Light weaponry either cannot be shot down or simply fires so many projectiles that they can overwhelm pdd. As such, pdd soft counters heavy and missile weaponry, but is soft countered by light weaponry.
Healing Weaponry I'm sure this one doesn't need explaining. The new independent turret AI allows better prioritization for repair beams and such, so hopefully this type will see new light.
This concludes the weaponry section. All of this is already in the game and fully functional, in addition to a few drones.
2) Production
The production archetype consists of 2 main types of structure.
Drone Bays automatically produce drones, similar to the drones from Catalyst. The difference is that these structures all independently build and maintain 1 drone by themselves. That is, if you have 12 drone bays, all 12 will build independently rather than the old model of building 1 drone at a time, regardless of how many drone items you had.
There are a few different types of drone. The types aren't important really. They are generally all short range and lightly armoured, but very quick to be replaced. There are a number of drone support structures too. Basically, focusing on drones turns your vehicle into a walking aircraft carrier, with all the associated advantages (long range, low risk strikes). An aircraft carrier type vehicle will beat out a defensive type vehicle (next section), but lose head on to a weaponry type (last section).
Barracks type structures are the second production style of building. The way this works is that you build a structure inside your vehicle. This costs minerals. This structure allows your vehicle to build something in the field at an energy cost. For example, a barracks. So you spend your minerals on say a "Barracks construction kit", which allows you to build 1 Barracks. If the barracks dies, you can replace it for only an energy cost.
The barracks, for example, will produce units Nexus Wars style. I can already hear the screams, but hear me out. Firstly, the barracks will only produce up to 3 marines, similar to a drone bay. If a marine dies, it'll produce another to maintain 3 marines. The marines will attack towards the enemy base. "So how is that different to Nexus Wars?", well, if your barracks is safely in your base, it will happily produce 3 marines and the marines will slowly trudge towards the enemy base while the barracks sits idle. When they die, it will produce 3 more. However, if the barracks is close to the front lines, the production rate will be closer to the fatality rate and you will, overall, have higher production.
This keeps in line with the style of the game. To reinforce this (this part is conceptual), buildings will only function while near your vehicle, protoss pylon style. This could potentially be rather annoying and perhaps the production limit would be enough to ensure keeping your production buildings on the front line, but it's a potential fallback. There would be multiple types of barracks; Marines, Marauders, Medics, Ghosts, Firebats and some infantry artillery unit like a mortar team from wc3. Barracks buildings would need to be first purchased inside your vehicle before they can be placed on the field, after which the only subsequent investment is energy.
Defence
The last archetype. Again this is split into two types.
Support consists of things like internal radars (think the radar from Catalyst, provides radar info and debuffs enemies) and placeable structures that play a supporting role (such as a repair station). Internal buildings would simply function like weapon turrets do, except they would provide buffs/debuffs around your vehicle. Placeable buildings like the repair station would function like the above mentioned barracks; first a precursor building is built internally and then the structure itself is built costing energy. If the energy cost building is destroyed, it may be rebuilt, costing only energy.
Defence towers would be the final type. This is pretty self explanatory. Placeable turrets of various types for various purposes. They would, again, function like the above method. Think turrets from Catalyst, only rather than purchasing a turret item, you purchase a turret building. You place the turrets from a special tab on your vehicle. The final tier defence structures are artillery pieces designed for sieging the enemy base.
About half of the above is already ingame. The defence and barracks sections are conceptual right now. I'm interested in people's thoughts.
Defense and barracks sound really neat :) Cant wait to see those. And i also cant wait for a full 5v5 test to finally see how the map really is going to turn out!
Good luck with continuing and i really hope it rises up in popularity really fast :)
Yea, i know, i didnt say much. Its late, and i already talked with you a lot and the only new things to me are defense and barracks, which again sound absolutely awesome. I think that being able to build a bunch of marines/rauders/medics will be a valid strategy to taking control over certain locations and keeping a lot of pressure on because of the strength of creeps.
Also, make each infantry unit have a "specialty", you can basically use the melee game advantages to make it seem more "natural". Firebats are good vs Infantry (marines, medics, ghosts), marauders are good against armored infantry (so firebats and rauders) and players, while marines are shooting fast and larger in numbers, making them decent against all other infantry, but able to kill drones very fast. Dont know what to do for the ghost. let him nuke stuff? lol. Maybe take reapers instead of ghosts ;) Really fast fragile units that just eat marines, medics and other reapers alive.