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.
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.
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!
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.
I actually plotted out this 3 way node system with that in mind a while ago. I might terrain it someday, but yeah, one step at a time!
And yeah, I have the bare minimum abilities for now. There are 5 ability tiers, and I want 2 per tier and 1 ultimate (9). Long term I want 3 per tier and 2 ultimates (14).
After that I want 2 special upgrades per weapon (they'd be gated, so you'd upgrade from the weapon and require a certain vehicle level so as to not overwhelm new players). As an example the upgrades for the Napalm Turret are fire that slowly follows nearby enemies and targets that are hit by napalm turrets are coated in napalm, dealing damage over time to themselves and any nearby targets.
It's all appreciated! Even if I can't directly use most things, I've gained a lot of ideas from this thread. I asked for abilities but I now have a big long list of potential weapon upgrades and other cool things I wanted to add in the future.
Though I do love the Seeker Missile stun. That's awesome and definitely will make an appearance. It's exactly the kind of ability I want; never loses power throughout the game, avoidable but you can make it difficult to avoid via abilities or location.
Cloak works like stealth in WoW. You can't cloak in combat. Your weapons are disabled, you move at a reduced speed and anyone who moves close enough to you will decloak you. I felt cloak was too useless in Catalyst though, so now while your weapons are disabled during cloak, your abilities are not.
Most of the abilities you mentioned are already in the game as weapons. There's a Napalm Turret which leaves a trail of fire behind.
Auras I would put under passive effects. There are a few auras but they are all buildings and quite... different. The Munitions Disruptor snares all missiles around your vehicle, making them easier to dodge or shoot down with point defence turrets.
I've left healing completely out so far. There's only 3 healing abilities so far. Call Mule. Repairs your vehicle. Has very low health but repairs very fast. Basically it's there to save you having to repair at your base, but due to it's health, it's unsuitable for combat. Logistics drone; has a science vessel type repair beam. This counts as a weapon and means you'll have less firepower. The counter is blowing them up. Finally, the repair zones in your base, though they are quite redundant with the inclusion of the Mule to be honest. There's zero reason to go back to your base other than a safe haven and I quite like it that way.
Aye, but I do like the cloaking device. Probably doesn't fit the current vehicles but I plan to add more, will have to add that.
Yeah, passive abilities won't happen. Damage ones, well, the ultimates are mostly damage abilities. It's intentional as they're designed to assist in the end game siege, so over the top damage abilities are okay. I'll demo a few of my favourites later tonight.
Still need 1 ultimate for the mech, 2 ultimates for the fighter and tank, and 2 regulars for the fighter and tank. Again, abilities are not for direct damage. They are to gain favourable advantages over enemies. This isn't DotA. Your weapons deal damage. Your abilities are for avoiding it, reducing it or making things easier to deal it.
Tank Tier 1
Assisted Thrust
Fires a shell into a target ally. Increases movement speed by 25% for 12 seconds. 15 sec cd. Don't worry, they won't mind.
Battering Ram
Slams a target unit, knocking it back and stunning it for a short duration. Melee only.
Tank Tier 2
Matrix Shield
Grants 40% of your health as shielding for 12 seconds.
Juggernaut
Reduces damage taken by 40% but reduces movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Tank Tier 3
Containment Field
Locks your movement for 12 sec. Reduces damage taken by 50% for you and any ally within the field.
Deployable Shield
Drops a shield generator at the target location. Absorbs damage from any ally underneth. Lasts 30 sec.
Tank Tier 4
Smoke Bomb
Creates a smoke field at the target location. Any ally or enemy within the field will take vastly reduced damage.
I'm currently in the process of redesigning the whole map from the ground up and it's not even in a playable state right now. But yeah, I plan to get a method of uploading to the US before I release this time.
I'm making some changes around that. Firstly, the stuns are all avoidable.
Overcharge is a 2 second stun. What happens is your vehicle stops moving and starts casting the ability. A glow effect appears around your vehicle to show what it's doing. When the ability is complete, a shockwave appears around your unit and anything still close will take damage and be stunned. The radius and cast time are subject to change, but the aim is that if it is used with a snare and harpoon, it will be barely escapeable. The goal here is that you use your abilities to counter your opponent's abilities. For example, in this situation, the scout can Micro Warp Drive out. The tank can use damage reducing cooldowns. The mech can simply get his Overcharge off first or similar ability.
Stuns will be very sparse for this reason. The only other stuns I intended to add was on Repulsion Field and Battering Ram, both basically melee range abilities.
Health will also change. I still want players to die somewhat quickly (10 seconds of taking a beating should put a player out of commission), but only if they either make a mistake, are in a bad spot or are out of cooldowns. To better control this, I'll be getting rid of shield and armour modules completely. I'll make up for this over time by adding more interesting weapons, drones, troop drops and deployable equipment and a few pieces of utility equipment. They may make a return in the future, but for now I'm not going to spread myself too thin.
The way I see things is that your vehicle is basically a video game boss. It has a bunch of skills (your weapons) that can be avoided. It has a bunch of abilities that make avoiding them more difficult, and a bunch of abilities that make avoiding other vehicles' weaponry easier or simply take less damage. In addition to your weaponry, you have drones and troop drops (boss adds) should you choose to take that path. These adds deal a lot of damage and need to be dealt with quickly. On the flipside, the more factories you have, the faster you produce those adds (and allows you to have more), but the less weaponry you will have.
I hope that makes sense. Of course everything is subject to change. I'm nearing a beta version. The only real thing I need to do is finish up the vehicle abilities and add some basic upgrades for your equipment.
As for running out of ideas for Protoss abilities, I've deliberately tried to keep all the Terran abilities very... Terran. Protoss vehicle abilities will be much more magical/time altering in nature and I feel I've given myself plenty of room to expand on this. I'm not even thinking about this yet, however. As I said I've learnt my lesson with taking on more than I can handle before what I already have is polished, and I won't repeat that mistake.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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.
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.
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!
@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.
I have something similar!
I actually plotted out this 3 way node system with that in mind a while ago. I might terrain it someday, but yeah, one step at a time!
And yeah, I have the bare minimum abilities for now. There are 5 ability tiers, and I want 2 per tier and 1 ultimate (9). Long term I want 3 per tier and 2 ultimates (14).
After that I want 2 special upgrades per weapon (they'd be gated, so you'd upgrade from the weapon and require a certain vehicle level so as to not overwhelm new players). As an example the upgrades for the Napalm Turret are fire that slowly follows nearby enemies and targets that are hit by napalm turrets are coated in napalm, dealing damage over time to themselves and any nearby targets.
It's all appreciated! Even if I can't directly use most things, I've gained a lot of ideas from this thread. I asked for abilities but I now have a big long list of potential weapon upgrades and other cool things I wanted to add in the future.
Though I do love the Seeker Missile stun. That's awesome and definitely will make an appearance. It's exactly the kind of ability I want; never loses power throughout the game, avoidable but you can make it difficult to avoid via abilities or location.
Cloak works like stealth in WoW. You can't cloak in combat. Your weapons are disabled, you move at a reduced speed and anyone who moves close enough to you will decloak you. I felt cloak was too useless in Catalyst though, so now while your weapons are disabled during cloak, your abilities are not.
Most of the abilities you mentioned are already in the game as weapons. There's a Napalm Turret which leaves a trail of fire behind.
Auras I would put under passive effects. There are a few auras but they are all buildings and quite... different. The Munitions Disruptor snares all missiles around your vehicle, making them easier to dodge or shoot down with point defence turrets.
I've left healing completely out so far. There's only 3 healing abilities so far. Call Mule. Repairs your vehicle. Has very low health but repairs very fast. Basically it's there to save you having to repair at your base, but due to it's health, it's unsuitable for combat. Logistics drone; has a science vessel type repair beam. This counts as a weapon and means you'll have less firepower. The counter is blowing them up. Finally, the repair zones in your base, though they are quite redundant with the inclusion of the Mule to be honest. There's zero reason to go back to your base other than a safe haven and I quite like it that way.
Aye, but I do like the cloaking device. Probably doesn't fit the current vehicles but I plan to add more, will have to add that.
Yeah, passive abilities won't happen. Damage ones, well, the ultimates are mostly damage abilities. It's intentional as they're designed to assist in the end game siege, so over the top damage abilities are okay. I'll demo a few of my favourites later tonight.
Current progress
Tank
4/4 vehicles
6/10 abilities
Mech
4/4 vehicles
8/10 abilities
Fighter
4/4
6/10 abilities
This is taking longer than I thought!
Still need 1 ultimate for the mech, 2 ultimates for the fighter and tank, and 2 regulars for the fighter and tank. Again, abilities are not for direct damage. They are to gain favourable advantages over enemies. This isn't DotA. Your weapons deal damage. Your abilities are for avoiding it, reducing it or making things easier to deal it.
Tank Tier 1
Assisted Thrust
Fires a shell into a target ally. Increases movement speed by 25% for 12 seconds. 15 sec cd. Don't worry, they won't mind.
Battering Ram
Slams a target unit, knocking it back and stunning it for a short duration. Melee only.
Tank Tier 2
Matrix Shield
Grants 40% of your health as shielding for 12 seconds.
Juggernaut
Reduces damage taken by 40% but reduces movement speed by 50% for 15 sec.
Tank Tier 3
Containment Field
Locks your movement for 12 sec. Reduces damage taken by 50% for you and any ally within the field.
Deployable Shield
Drops a shield generator at the target location. Absorbs damage from any ally underneth. Lasts 30 sec.
Tank Tier 4
Smoke Bomb
Creates a smoke field at the target location. Any ally or enemy within the field will take vastly reduced damage.
Is alive!
I've seen the unused Battlecruiser Hurricane model, but it's too low poly to be useable ingame. The laser drill tank is nice, though.
What are the doom bot and tank drone?
Finished most of the mech and fighter abilities. Still aiming for a playable beta version by Monday.
@Szei: Go
I'm currently in the process of redesigning the whole map from the ground up and it's not even in a playable state right now. But yeah, I plan to get a method of uploading to the US before I release this time.
I'm making some changes around that. Firstly, the stuns are all avoidable.
Overcharge is a 2 second stun. What happens is your vehicle stops moving and starts casting the ability. A glow effect appears around your vehicle to show what it's doing. When the ability is complete, a shockwave appears around your unit and anything still close will take damage and be stunned. The radius and cast time are subject to change, but the aim is that if it is used with a snare and harpoon, it will be barely escapeable. The goal here is that you use your abilities to counter your opponent's abilities. For example, in this situation, the scout can Micro Warp Drive out. The tank can use damage reducing cooldowns. The mech can simply get his Overcharge off first or similar ability.
Stuns will be very sparse for this reason. The only other stuns I intended to add was on Repulsion Field and Battering Ram, both basically melee range abilities.
Health will also change. I still want players to die somewhat quickly (10 seconds of taking a beating should put a player out of commission), but only if they either make a mistake, are in a bad spot or are out of cooldowns. To better control this, I'll be getting rid of shield and armour modules completely. I'll make up for this over time by adding more interesting weapons, drones, troop drops and deployable equipment and a few pieces of utility equipment. They may make a return in the future, but for now I'm not going to spread myself too thin.
The way I see things is that your vehicle is basically a video game boss. It has a bunch of skills (your weapons) that can be avoided. It has a bunch of abilities that make avoiding them more difficult, and a bunch of abilities that make avoiding other vehicles' weaponry easier or simply take less damage. In addition to your weaponry, you have drones and troop drops (boss adds) should you choose to take that path. These adds deal a lot of damage and need to be dealt with quickly. On the flipside, the more factories you have, the faster you produce those adds (and allows you to have more), but the less weaponry you will have.
I hope that makes sense. Of course everything is subject to change. I'm nearing a beta version. The only real thing I need to do is finish up the vehicle abilities and add some basic upgrades for your equipment.
As for running out of ideas for Protoss abilities, I've deliberately tried to keep all the Terran abilities very... Terran. Protoss vehicle abilities will be much more magical/time altering in nature and I feel I've given myself plenty of room to expand on this. I'm not even thinking about this yet, however. As I said I've learnt my lesson with taking on more than I can handle before what I already have is polished, and I won't repeat that mistake.