DevTracker

[Ronyn]

"Target marking" can mean a variety of things, though; what they mean to the players involved depends on the context and framework of the game....
Target marking can also mean deep scanning a unit to glean detailed information and transmitting that to your squadmates so they can have advantages like a lead indicator on their target reticule, highlighted weak spots, lock-ons for tracking missiles, or visibility behind terrain. This line of thinking lends itself well to the idea of "true recon" that I've mentioned in some threads, giving such players a real chance to shine as a role.

Imagine the feeling of getting a mark on your prey hiding behind cover, sticking to him while watching your squadmate unload a rack of missiles which curve around the plateau and chase him down to the thunderous tune of an explosive payload. Mission accomplished, all thanks to a skillful target marking and your ability to keep him in your sights.

Ah yes. These are the kind of creativity meets functionality style ideas that I like to read about and pass up the chain.

While it's true that old-school shooters that feature nothing but weapons and movement are capable of things like team coordination, intelligent gameplay, and satisfying plays, the whole point of adding abilities into the mix is to expand the players options in new and unique ways.

 

[Grummz]

Gambling at the NPC R&D division will be RNG though, as it is gambling. High risk, slim chance of high reward...great drain on economy

But nobody will be required to gamble on R&D to be effective at game. Esp because of how we are going to weave a skill factor into all weapons and abilities.

 

[Ronyn]

But that's exactly my point....In other words, they aren't ways to make the core function itself more varied, they're just different factors, which is something I said prior when talking about gameplay mechanics that weren't simply hp values and dps numbers

As I said, this is probably an issue of how we choose to describe a thing rather than any disagreement of what is actually involved. My main concern is that the designer makes it a point to actively seek out greater variety in combat actions, actively seek out deeper expressions of a role or concept... regardless of how they choose to describe it.

As an aside, I'm not much of a fan of standard target marking. The decision making and tension created by having to rely on non-visual cues adds quite a lot to combat

I don't disagree about the decision making and tension created by having to rely on non-visual cues.
That said, I think we must be careful about how we apply overarching standards like those. They are important for sure, but it can get to the point where we end up rejecting so many outside-of-the-games-norm options for specific classes/roles that we end up limiting ourselves. In the end class/role variety can suffer. Which would lead us right back to the concerns Daynen was voicing.

Note: I'm not necessarily for or against target marking itself, that was just an illistrative example for discussion.

 

[Grummz]

No, Em-8ER focus is not RNG. There will, of course, be some RNG, but nobody like a grind lottery.

 

[Ronyn]

There's no arguing that combat is going to be a huge part of Ember and I'm not suggesting we create enough functionality for some of us to settle down and just become mechanics in the middle of a war. What I'm trying to get at, in a broad sense, is that there's more to war then shooting, aiming and shooting. Those are fun skills to master, sure, but we've already done that with lots of games. Ember needs to do more than that.

The game world needs to reflect the challenges of war with enemies that do more than just appear and shoot, environments that are more than just 'walkable/not walkable,' equipment that requires some thought, skill, maintenance and care to use properly and scenarios where we NEED to use that equipment properly or fail.

Indeed, I agree. I am glad I understood you correctly.