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It's a space shooter first. You could probably play an entire campaign without ever going into tactical view except to buy ships at a Warren.
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Apr 7, 2015 14:52
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Kairo posted:Third fronts are always cool but it's a lot of work to add what is essentially a new faction, even if it's the same models. Someone also mentioned an awesome ancient leviathan ship a few pages back. Same deal. Just to be entirely clear, i dont mean a whole pirate "race", just the occasional isolated act of banditry can be crashed for kicks. Example: You scan the system at the gate, you pick up an escort, two supply dumps and a few civilian ships. One of the dumps is under attack by pirates but that's not knowledge you have until you close the distance. Mechanically that supply dump could also have been just another set of crates guarded lightly, but in this case, it spawned as under attack, an attack that begins as the player enters the system.
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Apr 7, 2015 15:04
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uXs posted:I found it rather confusing to make out what the gently caress was going on but that got better towards the end. Knowing what the symbols mean would probably help too. Totally! This kind of stuff bugs the hell out of me too. I'm not even against simplifying the design in places to solve these kinds of readability issues -- it just depends on the cost/value. Hopefully being able to pause at any time will help players learn a little. uXs posted:I also used to have the impression that it was a space fighter sim first and a tactical sim second, but it seems that it's the other way around? Not posting much but still following development with interest. A lot of stuff was shown purely from the cockpit because a lot of the campaign didn't exist, or parts existed and were awful. Also, for trailers, people just don't care and stop watching unless it stays high-paced. Brandon Sanderson (fantasy book author) talked about the idea of Gardeners vs Architects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glPLTNuhfxA. This actually applies to game dev really well too. I've discovered I am mostly a gardener, which explains Starfighter's course and where it is now. Sometimes I wish it were the opposite. 
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Apr 7, 2015 15:24
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Kairo, I was thinking about the experience mechanic and how you basically ignored the escape pods when you were playing. Since the experience mechanic is supposed to be fairly minor and unobtrusive, and the escape pods are also minor enough that you were ignoring them, what about combining the two and having your pilots shoot escape pods for experience (morale)? Then you have to make the decision between staying in a place and allowing your guys to have fun or getting the hell out before someone bigger and nastier shows up. Something else that might make sense is if escape pods that are left at a battle send out a distress signal as soon as they are able (after jamming). Then you could use that as an opportunity to attack a site, fly away, and then attack again when the reinforcements arrive and start rescuing the pods.  Maybe it's just the evil bastard in me but I hate seeing heretics go free.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:08
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Kairo posted:Totally! This kind of stuff bugs the hell out of me too. I'm not even against simplifying the design in places to solve these kinds of readability issues -- it just depends on the cost/value. Hopefully being able to pause at any time will help players learn a little. Sure, but also don't pay too much attention to what I say because it's just the perspective of someone who once watched an hour-long internet video. What's way, way more useful is sitting someone down in front of the game and watching what they do and what works and what doesn't. I know you have testers and that's good, but I don't know if you're sometimes watching them play the game. Because you should. It's how Valve games are so user-friendly as they are, they use a stupid amount of first-time testers and look at what they do and don't do.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:15
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Yea he is right let us test it lol
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Apr 7, 2015 16:18
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uXs posted:Sure, but also don't pay too much attention to what I say because it's just the perspective of someone who once watched an hour-long internet video. What's way, way more useful is sitting someone down in front of the game and watching what they do and what works and what doesn't. I do as much focus testing as I can. Some companies have even been generous enough to let me use their usability facilities and run playtests there. Some other testers send me videos of them or even their kids playing. I'm pretty familiar with this process after going through MS's user research, and probably don't do enough of it. But that's how it goes with limited time and resources. Also, I've watched almost every one of the hundreds of trade show playthroughs. Nothing makes you facepalm more than watching someone who waited in line to try your game in VR have a really hard time with it. Edit: Of course, this tactical/campaign stuff will need to get put through the gauntlet since it's so new, but I think have a pretty good process for it. Your readability comment is not the first time I've heard it -- I was just letting you know I agree with you and it's always in the back of my mind.
Kairo fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 16:32
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Perfect!
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Apr 7, 2015 16:56
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Tasty video Kairo. The aesthetic has been the thing keeping this on my radar, but the gameplay loop you're showing now really has my ears perked up. The odd little bits of terminology and world-character leaking through is the cherry on top -- reminds me of the similar kinds of quirky settings that I enjoyed in early Bungie games (before Lore became a lot more explicit and front-and-center). Do you have (share-able) thoughts about the "meta" cycle, the way things go from game to game? The playing field is apparently randomized with a daily/weekly seed -- any other progression or longer-term goals? What I'm really saying is: we can call this "TIE Fighter meets Homeworld meets Dark Souls meets Spelunky" right? 
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Apr 7, 2015 18:28
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 You guys got me to finally sit down and fix this. Fighters, turrets, and drones will go for pods if there are no better targets. I'm not even shooting here. Perf seems ok so far. Edit: This is a war crime, btw. It still makes me feel bad. Johnny Law posted:Do you have (share-able) thoughts about the "meta" cycle, the way things go from game to game? The playing field is apparently randomized with a daily/weekly seed -- any other progression or longer-term goals? This is a pretty crazy topic, but I'll try to keep it relatively short. Maybe write a blog post about it when the game has shipped and has either done OK or crashed and burned. To be honest, I am still figuring the meta cycle as I go. There definitely needs to be more meaningful variety per campaign (like things you see one day, but not the next), so I'm trying to find efficient ways to do that other than having different High Council fleets and layout. As far as meta progression, I'm still figuring out what's valuable. Spelunky was/is indeed a huge inspiration, and their between-playthrough progression is limited to characters and shortcuts. I still can't get over how elegant that game is in so many ways. I still fire it up, even without a lot of the hooks that keep players coming back to other games. I think I would be OK with only having you unlock harder-to-play houses as you go, at least for 1.0. I'm also pretty OK with it being a game you come back to just because it'll be some different police chase or battle every time you boot it up. It's VERY hard to say no to cool ideas, but it's necessary to triage, especially at this scale of operation. If ES does well enough for me to do this all over again, I can hopefully afford to do something bigger/better. Homeworld, TIE, Spelunky, Eve, Dark Souls, Mordor. The game's title should just be "Enemy Starfighter: Pastiche-ception" I'm also partial to "Poor Man's Sky" whenever I'm looking at how unsophisticated my random generators are. Kairo fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 19:59
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Kairo posted:
I mean sometimes its ok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8LVlYJ5eJU
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Apr 7, 2015 20:25
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Kairo posted:To be honest, I am still figuring the meta cycle as I go. There definitely needs to be more meaningful variety per campaign (like things you see one day, but not the next), so I'm trying to find efficient ways to do that other than having different High Council fleets and layout. As far as meta progression, I'm still figuring out what's valuable. Spelunky was/is indeed a huge inspiration, and their between-playthrough progression is limited to characters and shortcuts. I still can't get over how elegant that game is in so many ways. I still fire it up, even without a lot of the hooks that keep players coming back to other games. I don't know if this is a wank or not, but since you seem to be using a Chess naming convention, you could take a look at Chess 2. The way he adjusted the basic set of chess pieces is kind of interesting, and could translate into basic adjustments to the fleet characters you already have (like if a side has no bishops or extra horses or whatever). Maybe this doesn't line up. I got the impression your characters were chess pieces, but maybe you just have a few of them and their names are coincidental.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:32
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Kairo posted:
Add an options toggle to turn that bit of AI off, that'd help with anyone else who feels squeamish about it, something i can understand.  I mean, i love the idea of being a bastard, and what way to convey it even more that yes, you are a bastard, your people are bastards, you are not the nice guys here. But at the same time, its better to not make the player so uncomfortable they quit playing. Also it'll feel good personally to be the only competent "I'm not wasting ammo on 'pods." ace in the squad.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:41
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In space no one can hear you recite the geneva convention.
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Apr 7, 2015 20:42
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Thinking about escape pods, I think it would make a lot of sense if your ships just automatically killed them when there's nothing else to do. Like if you're sitting around in the tactical screen planning your next move you would occasionally see an escape pod blow up because a gunner got bored and hey ammunition is cheap. It would really add to the idea that you really are the bad guy who is not to be hosed with, especially if the radio chatter included laughing and joking every time they killed one. There was a bug in the earlier builds where the point defence system would mark escape pods as incoming missles and vaporize them. I'm not sure if Kairo has "fixed" that or not. e; Whoops should've finished reading the thread, feel free to ignore this. Dodoman fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 20:47
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Add a soundclip so the pods scream and then cut to static when you pop them. edit: I wasn't serious 
Beach fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 20:51
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I like the ideal of subtlety about it. Don't have the scream- make it the sort of thing to where you only notice it when you hear the shooting while going to do something else, early on. After all, you're the bad guy- do you care that they were scared before they died? Or is it all in the name of the Emperor?
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Apr 7, 2015 21:05
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Beach posted:Add a soundclip so the pods scream and then cut to static when you pop them. This sounds like a good idea until you realize it will be basically nonstop scream and static once a fight gets going.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:07
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Beach posted:Add a soundclip so the pods scream and then cut to static when you pop them. Screaming and shooting unarmed "people" can influence the ESRB/PEGI ratings. Something to keep in mind.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:08
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Honestly it would be coolest if you don't really hear any audio from or communicate the rebels at all, just the emotionless military com chatter of your death fleet. The idea is that you are one of the most elite badass evil dude starfighters ever, and I think a much more interesting way of conveying that is to portray the empire doing really horrible things and making barely any mention of it, rather than playing it up.
turn off the TV fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Apr 7, 2015 |
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Apr 7, 2015 21:10
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Have a panel on the cockpit flash "EVIL IN PROGRESS" whenever your fleet enters mop-up pod-killing mode, so people get that they're playing the bad guys. Everything else is too subtle.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:45
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Fish Fry Andy posted:Honestly it would be coolest if you don't really hear any audio from or communicate the rebels at all, just the emotionless military com chatter of your death fleet. The idea is that you are one of the most elite badass evil dude starfighters ever, and I think a much more interesting way of conveying that is to portray the empire doing really horrible things and making barely any mention of it, rather than playing it up. Agreed, but keep the hostile military chatter. Escape pods are on the civvy frequencies, and you dont care about that in the middle of DOGFIGHTNING FOR YOUR loving LIFE! 
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Apr 7, 2015 21:47
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DatonKallandor posted:Have a panel on the cockpit flash "EVIL IN PROGRESS" whenever your fleet enters mop-up pod-killing mode, so people get that they're playing the bad guys. Everything else is too subtle. End game reveal that you were fighting orphans and puppies all along tbh.
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Apr 7, 2015 21:49
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ThisQuietReverie posted:Screaming and shooting unarmed "people" can influence the ESRB/PEGI ratings. Something to keep in mind. Unless you get an AO rating those don't really matter anyways. See Modern Warfare 2.
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Apr 7, 2015 22:23
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Maybe the escape pods can (sometimes) shoot back, little dink dink shots that don't do much damage, but kind of bump your ship around, slightly altering trajectory and mildly irritating you. And occasionally one will try to ram you for extra damage. I think you'd get pretty much everyone on board with war crimes then. Inconvenience MY play will you?
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Apr 7, 2015 22:39
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ThisQuietReverie posted:Screaming and shooting unarmed "people" can influence the ESRB/PEGI ratings. Something to keep in mind. IMO, instead of pods, make them black boxes with the Ship's AI on board who chatter weird computer nonsense like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFgeustBpFk
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Apr 7, 2015 22:43
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Just remember, Kairo, goons frequently have really bad ideas. As an example... you should make one of the houses a something awful reference. 
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Apr 7, 2015 22:47
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Allow bigger ships to collect escape pods so you can ransom them for extra spacebux in the warren M&B style. Or if you have some pods in your inventory when you reach the warren, give the option of buying "cybog drone pilots." Their icon should be a brain in a jar with wires coming out of it.
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Apr 7, 2015 22:51
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Fish Fry Andy posted:Honestly it would be coolest if you don't really hear any audio from or communicate the rebels at all, just the emotionless military com chatter of your death fleet. The idea is that you are one of the most elite badass evil dude starfighters ever, and I think a much more interesting way of conveying that is to portray the empire doing really horrible things and making barely any mention of it, rather than playing it up. "Oh, hey Frank, back from your raid early?" "Yeah, I got bits of escape pod jammed in one of my maneuvering nacelles." "I kept telling you not to fly so close when you pop 'em...now pass me another can, wouldja?"
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Apr 7, 2015 22:53
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The whole automated pod-popping via point defense is a nice touch and all, but frankly I don't care much about anything related to enemy escape pods, I'm much more interested in the rest of the game. 
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Apr 7, 2015 22:57
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Galaga Galaxian posted:Just remember, Kairo, goons frequently have really bad ideas. House Stars of the Missing Eye in Ur
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Apr 7, 2015 22:59
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You guys are looking at this the wrong way. Podding isn't a problem because rebels aren't people. 
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Apr 7, 2015 23:22
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I think the pods are cool for flavour but tying a game mechanic to them would just make into a chore after having to sweep a field a few times for max resources. Just leave the player to explode a few if he's feeling particularly evil that mission.
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Apr 7, 2015 23:24
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Kairo posted:I'm also pretty OK with it being a game you come back to just because it'll be some different police chase or battle every time you boot it up. This would tend to be my vote. Drawn-out, grindy progression systems have kept me playing games longer than I would otherwise, but I don't know that I've ever honestly felt that they made the game better. Some of my favorite games of all time are short, focused experiences. Some are open-ended sandboxes. Others are long narrative-driven RPGs. None are World of Warcraft or anything much like it.
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Apr 7, 2015 23:35
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Maybe pod popping can be optional? Like have orders you can give wingmen, or an item you can research/buy that will shoot pods for you. The more pods you kill, the angrier and more ruthless the enemy becomes. Kill a lot of pods and they chase you further, or start ramming your ships with theirs one they get shot up a bit. No point in popping the escape hatch if the enemy fighters are just going to shoot me in my defenseless cardboard box. Might as well try to find a free parking spot somewhere close to the door on the bridge. So it basically acts as a difficulty modifier. Start playing on baby cakes easy, start annihilating their ships, and popping pods for a little extra dread, or even just to showboat, and the defense forces respond a little more war crimey back at you. e: maybe have the different forces have different response levels? Like the Lane Marshals already play it a little loose and when you start killing their pilots, they start throwing mustard gas in shells that pierce armor and shields and start lowering the effectiveness of your cap ships until they get the gas locked down. High council fleets may respond the same way, but it might take them more pods to lose before they resort to those tactics against you because they are under more of a spotlight of their high profile position. Syves fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Apr 8, 2015 |
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Apr 8, 2015 00:01
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Syves posted:Maybe pod popping can be optional? Like have orders you can give wingmen, or an item you can research/buy that will shoot pods for you. The more pods you kill, the angrier and more ruthless the enemy becomes. Kill a lot of pods and they chase you further, or start ramming your ships with theirs one they get shot up a bit. No point in popping the escape hatch if the enemy fighters are just going to shoot me in my defenseless cardboard box. Might as well try to find a free parking spot somewhere close to the door on the bridge.  This would be great.
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Apr 8, 2015 00:15
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Syves posted:So it basically acts as a difficulty modifier. Start playing on baby cakes easy, start annihilating their ships, and popping pods for a little extra dread, or even just to showboat, and the defense forces respond a little more war crimey back at you. This is a great idea.
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Apr 8, 2015 00:34
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I love it so long as the mechanic only works if you leave witnesses. Although I guess finding destroyed escape pods would be rather obvious. THE HERETICS KNOW OF YOUR ATROCITIES.
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Apr 8, 2015 01:05
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Really, all this talk about pod popping and no-one suggests ripping the Beast missile conversion screams from Cataclysm?
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Apr 8, 2015 01:24
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Syves posted:Maybe pod popping can be optional? Like have orders you can give wingmen, or an item you can research/buy that will shoot pods for you. The more pods you kill, the angrier and more ruthless the enemy becomes. Kill a lot of pods and they chase you further, or start ramming your ships with theirs one they get shot up a bit. No point in popping the escape hatch if the enemy fighters are just going to shoot me in my defenseless cardboard box. Might as well try to find a free parking spot somewhere close to the door on the bridge. So popping pods are like tiny bonfire ascetics? Ok.
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Apr 8, 2015 01:43
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