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 STARSIEGE: DEADZONE is a corridor extraction shooter developed by Prophecy Games (a Hi-Rez offshoot) Older folks might recognize Starsiege for being the same universe as the Tribes games. This can be cause for excitement - and disappointment: there is NO skiing in this game, but there ARE Cybrids (and other players) to murder!    What is a corridor extraction shooter? Similar to games like Hunt: Showdown, Escape from Tarkov, The Cycle: Frontier, and Dark and Darker - the premise is simple: 1) Equip a space man with weapons and consumables, 2) Board a derelict ship filled with Cybrids (evil robots) and other players, playing in teams of 1-3 (que dependent) 3) Search for loot - dropped by enemies, found in boxes, and from dead players, and 4) Extract with your findings! The 'corridor' part of the name comes from the setting: you're running around derelict ships built out of rooms and corridors that are procedurally assembled.   Why should you care about Deadzone if you already play other extraction shooters? It's unique in a few ways: 1) There are AI controlled enemies. Cybrids come in lots of different flavours, some far more threatening them others. They are not in and of themselves a huge problem, but they can severely complicate things if you are fighting other players. You can also use this to your advantage by luring them towards enemies. 2) The combat is quite unlike the games listed above. Honestly, it feels a lot like playing Halo - right down to the floaty jumping. Players have shields and health which can be regenerated with consumable items. There's a generous variety of weapons, each with a niche they fill out. 3) Lots of player Abilities. There are a bunch of these, and each player can bring 2, ranging from things like an AOE scan to automated turrets and holographic decoys. A lot of these might be pretty familiar if you've played the later Halo games. There are also a bunch of special enhancements tied to your armor (explained later). 4) Reactive lighting. Almost all sources of light in the environment can be shot out, and lurking around in the dark is a huge part of getting the drop on other players. As the map 'shrinks' - it literally explodes into outer space, forcing players to move towards the center of the derelict ship. 5) Designated ques for different level players. This is a bigger deal than most games admit: it's not fun joining a game and being curbstomped by someone you can't possibly kill. Deadzone addresses this by splitting the ques based on the tier of equipment you are bringing: no gear lords in the newbie zone - but your friends can ferry you higher. 6) The game is free! That's right. Free to play - and thus far the developers have avoided the gaping pit of pay-to-win incentives. Paying for the game unlocks cosmetics and stash tabs, neither of which are at all mandatory to enjoying the game. If you're interested, you can find the game here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2170420/Starsiege_Deadzone/   ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Various Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AleFNHGuRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgbJLcPwNm8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ DETAILS Equipment: Equipment is the heart of every extraction game, since it's the stuff you are going in there to collect and play with. It comes in five varieties, and six rarities (common, uncommon, rare, epic, legendary and exotic) Predictably, the higher the tier, the better the item. The higher tier of items you are equipped with, the higher tier of que you will be forced to join when you play: no bringing exotic armor to the low-level areas! The varieties are: Vendor Goods - Purely for sale Crafting Materials - Used to craft weapons and armor, allowing you access to better equipment earlier and more cheaply than buying them outright. Consumables - Used to restore shields, hp, or grenades to throw at bad guys, and ammo for your guns. Weapons - What it sounds like! Find gun, use gun! Armor - Unique in that it is a permanent upgrade to your spaceman, and cannot be lost, but you can also never find armor. It also comes with it's own stats that can affect how you play. Weapons: Weapons come in three types: Kinetic, Energy and Melee. Kinetic weapons are ideal against players, as they are hitscan. Energy weapons tend to be projectile based and do increased damage to Cybrids. Melee weapons are either a knife (fast attacking) or and axe (slow but very damaging). The kinetic weapons are all HITSCAN, and are:  - Your starter kinetic weapon. Free on every spaceman. It's not terrible, but will lose a fight to almost any other kinetic weapon wielded by an equally skilled opponent. You generally want to bring something better. - Your work horse. Does everything and does it pretty drat well. - Lighter than the SMG - your ADS movement with this thing remains very high, and it can shred enemies if you consistently land headshots. - Your mid-long range scoped gun. Has 12 shots and can generally kill an enemy in 4-6 hits. Versatile, but suffers up close. - The close range all-in commitment. If you land both hits from a reasonably close range, this will kill anyone. If you miss, though, there might be trouble. - For you Destiny fans, this handles like you'd expect. 8 shots, generally kills in 4-6. Very satisfying and versatile, and you keep high ADS movement. - Like the assault rifle but better at longer ranges. Sustained and highly accurate damage, but the DPS is lower than the other automatics. - An upgrade over your 'freebie' starter gun. Does the job but really you should use something better. - Like the pistol, but it is silenced and negates the muzzle flash. This can make it an excellent weapon to ambush people from dark areas. - Another close-range weapon. Very strong but you can't afford to miss many shots, with slightly better range than the Autopistol. - A deep commitment to long range. Very powerful but slow firing. A headshot will generally do about 75% total shields/life to an enemy. Excellent for third-party fighting and for opening shots.Energy weapons shoot PROJECTILES (unless otherwise noted). They are:  - Your starter Energy weapon. Unlike the boarding pistol, this thing actually holds its own and is often plenty strong enough to kill Cybrids until you find something better. It has a ridiculously high magazine capacity for a pistol. - Almost like a DMR, but with projectiles that fly in a very flat arc. Surprisingly powerful, and can kill players very quickly if you catch them by surprise. Excellent against Cybrids if you headshot. - The energy version of the Sniper Rifle. Shots take a while to charge, and do reasonably high damage to players and Cybrids, but headshots are almost mandatory. Feels very clunky to use. This is a HITSCAN weapon. - A mid to close range powerhouse. This will eat all of your energy ammo, but it absolutely shreds what you point it at. Can generally only be out-DPSd by the likes of the shotguns, and murders players as happily as Cybrids. This is a HITSCAN weapon. - Your bread and butter Cybrid killer. Unlike the kinetic pistol, this thing absolutely cleans up when you are fighting robots. Honestly you almost never need anything more than this to clear out the map - though it won't be as good against players due to the projectile speed. - The standard anti-Cybrid gun. It's an assault rifle that shoots projectiles. Does excellent damage against Cybrids, but is harder to use against players due to the projectile travel speed. - A semi-automatic energy shotgun. This thing shreds Cybrids and players alike. An excellent gun only really limited by it's range, as one would expect from a shotgun. This is a HITSCAN weapon. - For all of you TRIBES fans, the spinfusor is here! And it's honestly not great... It does amazing damage to Cybrids, including an AOE splash. It's pretty weak against players but has an edge-case usage for splashing damage around corners or into hidey holes. Very clunky to use.Grenades:       Pretty self explanatory. Come in a variety of flavours, some more for utility than others. Armor: Armor comes in six different slots for your spaceman. Unlike all of the other equipment and consumables, this cannot be lost. Armor also cannot be found during play! Instead, it is something you are expected to buy and craft and upgrade as you play, or earn through completing missions and leveling up.  Armor comes with up to three potential stat bonuses: Shield/HP bonus - the higher the rarity, the more of this you get. Exotic tier armor gets you more than twice as chonky as an unarmored opponent. Mastery bonus - starting at Uncommon (green) tier and going up to Epic (purple), armor will have up to 3 'Mastery' bonuses. Masteries give passive benefits and can alter the behavior of Abilities (see Abilities below). Trait bonus - Legendary and Exotic armor adds one and two possible bonuses to your character. These are general boosts like reload speed, stagger resistance, etc. This is an example of Rare armor. It only has 2 mastery bonus points - where an Epic armor would have 3. It has no trait bonuses:  Masteries  There are 10 different Masteries, and your Armor comes with bonuses that can bring these up to 6 different levels, earning a bonus every 2 levels. Epic and higher armor provides you with a total of 18 (6 pieces with 3 points each) possible Mastery points. This means you can max-out 3 special traits at most, or spread the points around for more variety. The masteries and their benefits are as follows:           Note that at level 6, the Masteries all affect one of the Abilities below - with some effects being very significant! It might not sound like it but one of the best upgrades is the Faster Door Opening bonus from the Hacker tree. Abilities: As you level your character, you will unlock more abilities that you can use. You can only ever have 2 abilities at a time, and the choices are as follows:  - A starter ability. Generally useful as a panic button to get you out of a tight spot. - A starter ability, and one of the most useful throughout. Shoots out an AOE pulse that highlights enemies through walls. Generally only ever supplanted by the Motion Tracker. - The dome this projects is generally strong enough to protect you while you pop a shield recharger, or reload a clunky gun. - Sends out a holographic copy of your character that runs forward to distract opponents and draw fire. - Allows you to resurrect a team-mate on-site, instead of trying to find a cloning tube. Extremely useful, but can be very risky to use without cover. - Throws out an automated turret that shoots nearby enemies. Can spot enemies even without light, so it can be very strong in blackout situations. - Teleports you to a point of aim within medium distance. If you've played Overwatch, it's like Reaper's teleport - but with a bright glowing light to give you away if you're not careful. - For you Rogue fanatics. Invisible but not invulnerable. You can still be scanned or detected by the Motion Sensor. - Generally sidegrade to the Scanner ability. The deployable can be shot by enemies, however, and only detects mobile enemies - but it does not expire. - A deployable land mine. I've never seen anyone use this. I don't know how strong it is, but I can imagine it's powerful if you're able to set it in ambush.Note the MASTERY bonus on each skill! These are unlocked by getting your armor mastery bonus to level 6 in that respective trait. Alongside abilities, you can also equip up to 4 Perks. Perks are passive bonuses and range from things like 20% more damage to cybrids, to highlighting lootable items, to lowering ability cooldowns or increasing their efficacy in different ways. Perks and Abilities can be used independently of your armor - but armor Masteries can affect your skills (as noted above!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ TO BE CONTINUED >> Enemies, Environments DarkDobe fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Aug 20, 2023 |
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Aug 20, 2023 04:37
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| # ? May 5, 2024 06:44 |
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CONTINUATION: Enemies: Cybrids come in lots of flavours. I'm going to try and get screenshots of all of them. I am also making up the names as I go along. Most enemies exhibit basic behavior: they will move towards you and engage with various weapons. They are also capable of jumping and mantling to reach players that are hiding atop crates and other surfaces!  Axebot. One of the two most basic enemies you'll encounter. They run after you, and slap you with their axes. Gunner. The other basic Cybrid type. They run around and shoot at you with energy SMGs. Zombie. These guys only spawn in the medbay areas. Unlike the axebot, you do NOT want to just backpedal to avoid them as they do a cone-smash attack. Cybrid Marine. These dudes are unique in that they can open doors, and make footstep noises like enemy players! Not too big a threat but they can be spooky! Spider Crawler. These crawl up to you and poke you. Easy to miss, but quite fragile. Bomb Crawler. Crawl up to you and explode. Dies easily, but can be easy to miss sneaking close! Gun Crawler. These guys are unique in that they will assemble themselves out of thin air to ambush you. They crawl around and shoot at you with an energy SMG. Very annoying. Fly. These little assholes float around and spray you occasionally with SMG fire. Can be annoying in big rooms as they get up near the ceiling and shoot from there. Fat Fly. Hovering Cybrids that shoot Spinfusor discs at you. Hit really hard, but easy to avoid - just don't stand near walls! Repair Bot. Floating robots that heal other Cybrids with an energy beam (think TF2 Medic). Prioritize them when engaging groups! Shieldbot. A big bot with a giant riot shield. You can shoot the tops of their heads. Come in 2 varieties: one with a charge-up SMG, and another with a giant hammer. Launcher. You won't see these guys until later. They shoot bouncy grenades that explode after a delay and can do very heavy damage. Generally easy to avoid unless they corner you. Reaper. These big guys are spawned by special events. Slow, but hard hitting, and can do a very fast and long ranged dash attack.At higher que levels, the enemies can spawn in as 'ANGRY' versions - they are RED instead of purple, and generally do double the usual damage. This makes the gun toting robots from an annoyance into a horrendous threat. Angry Cybrids are not to be trifled with! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Environments: You and your fellow spacemen are raiding derelict ships, which are assembled out of hallways and rooms on a grid. So far there are two primary ship types, which I will call LUXURYand INDUSTRIAL. The type of ship determines the tilesets and rooms that can appear - though some can appear in both.  Boarding shuttle. Where you start the round.LUXURY ships are generally made up of larger rooms with longer sightlines and far less clutter. The various rooms are:   Luxury Cruise. Most tilesets come in a bright and dark theming. Predictably this is the Luxury type ship. Space Gym. The inner area is low-gravity, surrounded by a rectangular hallway. Space Bar. The fog limits visibility, but you can't black out the room. There's a special chest behind the bar counter.  Power Core. One of the neat bigger rooms. Cannot be blacked out, but offers some interesting sightlines around the perimiter. Medbay. This is where you will find the Revive Pods - take your dead teammate's dogtags there to resurrect them. This is the Luxury version of the medbays. Map Room. A neat room with 2 tiers and a big glowing hologram in the center. An escape pod. Interact with it to activate it, and jump on to escape. These appear throughout the round in groups of three - they are single use, and you can steal activated pods from other players.INDUSTRIAL ships feature tighter corridors and more unique, smaller rooms and hallways, as well as some 'special' rooms that guarantee higher level loot.  Shadow Control - a rare room that spawns good loot. So far as I am aware this only shows up on Industrial ships.  Warship corridor. A common room type for Industrial ships. Note the red laser: those are traps that damage you for walking through them - you have to crouch underneath (or send your holo-decoy through!) Warship room. Generally large rooms filled with launch silos. This is one of the biggest ones I've seen - they're usually half this size. Medbay. This is the Industrial version of the medbay rooms.  Cargo Bay. A common Industrial room, comes in various sizes and states of use. Sometimes features a bay door with a special chest inside! Just don't fall or get locked in there...  Hangar. This is a large room with various ships and shuttles inside it (or sometimes none). Also includes an example of the map 'border' destroying the room as it shrinks.  Bridge. I believe this can ALSO appear on Luxury ships. A two-tiered room with some special loot on the captain's chair. Engineering. These rooms come in a few different sizes and configurations, usually with a raised level around the outer edge. A tricky room to fight in with a lot of strange angles and glass walls.  Brig. This can be a big room or a series of hallways. Brigs will have one or more Isolation cells you can open for special loot - and a spawn of Reapers and friends!There are a few more rooms I am missing in each tileset, some that are very rare to show up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Upcoming changes: There are going to be a lot of these. Judging by the developer updates, one of the biggest upcoming changes will be to Armor: Armor will have a chance to break when the wearer is killed, and armor will drop like other items! It will also be added to the loot pool. There are plans to add classes with specific perks and abilities and weapon restrictions. Changes to the ques and overall maps. A developer update following the last big test push is here: https://www.playdeadzone.com/post/q-and-a DarkDobe fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Aug 20, 2023 |
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Aug 20, 2023 04:55
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Where are the H.E.R.C.U.L.A.N.s? I demand to see a Humaniform-Emulation Roboticized Combat Unit with Leg-Articulated Navigation.
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Aug 20, 2023 05:07
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7c Nickel posted:Where are the H.E.R.C.U.L.A.N.s? I demand to see a Humaniform-Emulation Roboticized Combat Unit with Leg-Articulated Navigation. I almost forgot how ridiculous the acronyms in this franchise get. ALMOST.
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Aug 20, 2023 20:37
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What's extra dumb is they're shortened to Hercs anyway and humaniform kind of already implies the whole leg thing. They could have just been H.E.R.C. units instead of stretching the acronym to the breaking point.
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Aug 20, 2023 21:03
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7c Nickel posted:What's extra dumb is they're shortened to Hercs anyway and humaniform kind of already implies the whole leg thing. They could have just been H.E.R.C. units instead of stretching the acronym to the breaking point. I don't know if that's dumb as much as it is dedicated to making the acronym cool. They just needed to fit an I in there to make it Truly Epic.
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Aug 20, 2023 21:21
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The big patch is out, and the game servers are LIVE AGAIN https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2170420/view/3693569804222148441 Maps are now larger, with various zones of difficulty - teams are assigned objectives they must complete throughout, with the option to extract after finishing one objective. There are now classes, with associated abilities and weapons: Classes and Progression Abilities and weapons are now restricted by classes Assault Base Health: 97 Base Shield: 97 Abilities: Overshield and Phase Shift Equippable Weapons: Kinetic Weapons: LMG Heavy LMG Double Barrel Shotgun Auto Shotgun Bullpup Rifle Auto Pistol Pistol Minigun Assault Rifle Energy Weapons: Pulse Rifle Pulse Pistol Storm Slicer Engineer Base Health: 110 Base Shield: 110 Abilities: Scanner and Turret Equippable Weapons: Kinetic Weapons: Auto Pistol DMR Double Barrel Shotgun Pistol SMG Energy Weapons: Energy LMG Energy SMG Pulse Pistol Pulse Shotgun Spinfusor Storm Slicer Marksman Base Health: 75 Base Shield: 75 Abilities: Hologram Decoy and Proximity Mine Decoy now uses player cosmetics & does not pulse when damaged. Equippable Weapons: Kinetic Weapons: Auto Pistol Pistol Bullpup Rifle DMR Sniper Rifle Hand Cannon Tactical SMG Energy Weapons: EMP Rifle Energy DMR Pulse Pistol Medic Base Health: 102 Base Shield: 102 Abilities: Regen Station and Dome Shield Equippable Weapons: Kinetic Weapons Auto Pistol Pistol Assault Rifle Heavy LMG LMG Energy Weapons Pulse Pistol Crossbow EMP Rifle Energy LMG Energy SMG Pulse Shotgun Recon Base Health: 90 Base Shield: 90 Abilities: Stealth and Motion Sensor Equippable Weapons: Kinetic Weapons: Auto Pistol Pistol Auto Shotgun Hand Cannon Silenced Pistol SMG Tactical SMG Energy Weapons: Energy DMR Pulse Rifle ----------------------------- - Energy weapons no longer have slow projectile times. Energy weapons are now hitscan. - Added a shield damage modifier to all weapons. ---------------------------- There are a ton of changes, but the gist of it is that now the maps / matches are objective driven - and ALL difficulties and loot rarities are available. The deeper you go into the map, the higher tier the items you will find, but also the deadlier the Cybrids. DarkDobe fucked around with this message at 05:35 on Sep 8, 2023 |
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Sep 8, 2023 05:29
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How long till Hi-Rez shutters this game?
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Sep 8, 2023 05:30
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Photex posted:How long till Hi-Rez shutters this game? Honestly probably not long at this rate. The patch is a mix of good and awful things.
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Sep 8, 2023 06:30
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| # ? May 5, 2024 06:44 |
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Extremely cautious optimisim: The current version of the game seems to have filtered out the absolute worst and left the good features: No classes - any character can take any abilities, and abilities are available from level one Difficulty zones - NPC enemies are generally more threatening, and the threat level in the special rooms is significantly higher without being impossible to handle: risk vs reward payoff for the loot Weapon rebalancing - All weapons except explicitly projectile guns are now hitscan, which mostly affects the energy weapons. NPC energy weapons have been reverted to projectiles. Energy weapons do more damage to shields and NPCs. Map collapse - the shrinking circle and exploding map is back, along with randomly-spawning extracts. Why they ever felt the need to do away with this is beyond me! Armor - Armor is no longer a permanent upgrade, but it is also far easier to find, and offers sidegrade benefits. A fully geared dude is maybe 30% tankier than a naked man - but will have far better side-upgrades like interaction speed, item use speed, revive, speed, etc.
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Sep 25, 2023 01:07
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