Gameplay idea's

[Demigan]

Just a list of gameplay idea's you would like to see. Add your own!

• Assault
  • Attack an enemy encampment and destroy/steal specific equipment.
  • Possibilities for having to explore the encampment and track down codes or shield generators to progress.
  • Alternative approach available when using stealth
  • This can also be called an extermination mission in the event that the player needs to enter a critter-nest and take out the queen or food suplies within, which decreases the amount of enemy critterspawns in the area and can make an near-impossible mining site available.
• GTA
  • Enemies are moving some valuable equipment through the area. Hijack the equipment and bring it to a friendly encampment before it leaves the area.
  • The T.H.M.P.R. already functions similarly after it is finished with mining. Only the enemies will try to destroy it rather than hijack it.
• Racing transport
  • For whatever reason, something small enough to be carried by a player/player-controlled vehicle needs to be transported across a piece of land. Work together to get it there ASAP and keep it out of enemy hands while the enemy sends more and more forces to intercept you.
• Exploration
  • Important equipment/technology can be found somewhere in the area. Explore while avoiding/fighting enemies until you find it.
• Racing elements
  • Grab some equipment/technology/resources and try to escape with it while endless waves of enemies try to stop you.
    
  • Potentially the mission can be solved through stealth if you can give your enemies the slip after you grab the equipment.
• Exploration&king of the hill
  • Defend an object/area while others search the surrounding area for equipment, either to destroy the equipment and allow your team to get away or to bring the equipment back and fix the object/area.
• CTF versions
  • Example: The enemy has an encampment in the area. Your team places an encampment nearby and tries to capture something (security codes, equipment, technology). If one team loses too many goodies (flags) to the opponents you are forced to leave by command and that team has lost.
• Attrition
  • Two teams deploy in an area and duke it out. Both teams have a limit to the amount of resources they have available to fight/respawn/build vehicles&aircraft. The first team that runs out will leave the battle.
  • Potentially both teams can have a fortress or encampment to defend.

 

[Beemann]

Honestly I think the best thing was to avoid one of the glaring mistakes FF had. In ye olde FF people expanded outwards to zone limits in almost no time at all. Travel time wasn't negligible but there were enough resources to stay out there for ages anyway. If the goal of FF, and by extension Ember, is to have players cooperate and build their way out from "spawn", as well as fight to unlock new zones, a few really straightforward changes could be made

1. Everything is a resource
Your abilities are weapons or gadgets and need to be refilled after a certain number of uses. That means no infinite heals and damage abilities

2. Combat resources in unclaimed territory are scarce
Short of finding an enemy outpost, you shouldn't be coming across much in the way of free HP and ammo

3. Enemy bases and building platforms drive gameplay
Because travelling beyond civilized boundaries is difficult, controlling overbuilt bases, or defending owned bases and platforms is hugely important. This could be alleviated somewhat by adding manned base turrets and giving new players an easy but important role while they learn the game

4. Roles are further differentiated through supply
A scout character may have a weaker/more situational weapon or might have a lower base movespeed but have more ammo, or they could have a high base movespeed and hope they don't run into trouble. More raid-centric (and I don't mean instanced dungeons) roles could be all about moving in, dumping ammo into targets and heading back to a recently built supply drop. Solo players are frontiersmen and can sneakily cap small enemy emplacements and scout out good building/mining opportunities and beacon them and groups become the builders and conquerors. Random events are there to throw wrenches into the mix

Beyond that, adding in a roaming Jewel Beast-tier monster (basically a town-destroyer, for the 98% of readers who haven't played Romancing SaGa) or two would be pretty sweet, as would special enemy units ("we need you to stop these biker space pirates ASAP")

 

[Vladplaya]

I like both of your guys ideas. Things to do, are always great to have, but as @Beemann suggested, it should be tough to expand, as the challenge will keep the game more interesting even when there are not to many things to do in the beginning.

Good stuff!

 

[Omnires]

Bounty hunt
In an NPC enemy kills to many players or friendly NPCs the controlling Human faction of that area will place a bounty to kill it. The players and friendlies it kills the higher the bounty on it becomes. Things with a really high bounty get a title based on that they are and how they like to kill.

Interlinking missions
Have some missions be linked together in such a way that even players doing different things are still helping each other. For example. One player takes on a job to look for resources at some random area on the map. One player takes a job to mine a number of resources to meet a quota and ship it back to town. Another player takes a job to protect shipments to and from town.
You get the idea. Some of the jobs, not many just some, will overlay with other players are doing. So you'll be working together even without being on the same mission.

 

[DropnLock]

One of the things I liked seeing in some MMOs was that "community" resource gathering for a bigger picture goal. Like in WoW when we all had to work to get resources and materials for Qirathi.

Having something like that I think would work strongest in Ember since it sounds as if we are working to terraform a planet and doing so will require the assistance of all who are there to contribute as best they can

 

[TheSilentSnap]

There are all interesting ideas, I'll add my own:

1. A lack of fulfilling casual gameplay over hardcore gameplay. Not in a way that the game is hard, and time consuming to the point that you spend forty minutes trying to do the same thing over and over again, but rather that the game doesn't try and talk down to me. I have no reason to believe this would be the case, which is great so far. I don't want to be told very quests take place, or when they are taking place. I want my ability tested to the limits, I don't want to be treated the same way as the player that can't take having to stop fetching things and actually go learn how to handle a different task.
2. Significant differences in the roles. One of the worst things the MMO market has today is this issue of lacking different roles. They will have every class work in a similar fashion, only having perks and downsides in certain parts of a level/dungeon. The Warrior is a little better at fighting the boss fights, the mage is better at taking out small hordes of enemies, the archer is great at fighting small traces of targets. That's great, but they don't expand that. Present me a level/dungeon in which one of these classes suck. Present me greater differences than that. Even if you play warrior the whole time, if you come into dungeons/levels where you suck and rely on your team, or its the other way around, you will get a good measure of what it means to be in your role than if all classes lacked great differences and never get put in such situations to outline them.
3. Throwing in the action first. I would prefer not to be introduced to inventory tutorials before I actually get to explore the game. Tutorials should be optional at anytime in the game if possible.

That's a lot to ask for if I'm honest.

 

[Demigan]

Bounty hunt
In an NPC enemy kills to many players or friendly NPCs the controlling Human faction of that area will place a bounty to kill it. The players and friendlies it kills the higher the bounty on it becomes. Things with a really high bounty get a title based on that they are and how they like to kill.

Maybe it would be possible to look at how many players a particular creature kills per creature spawn. If a certain creature kills lots of players per spawn, you are more likely to encounter a hero-unit.

Kind of like diablo, where a random creature can receive additional stats and strengths. You could also automatically grant such a bonus to any creature that survived a fight with X players, regardless of that creature killing anyone.
That way a group of creatures that has fought several players will become an elite group and you'll have to deal with such threats more often.

You can give incentive to attack them by increasing their rewards, adding a bounty-mission to hunt them down and even a threat by increasing enemy spawns and AI capability as long as these elites stay within the area.

 

[Omnires]

Maybe it would be possible to look at how many players a particular creature kills per creature spawn. If a certain creature kills lots of players per spawn, you are more likely to encounter a hero-unit.

Kind of like diablo, where a random creature can receive additional stats and strengths. You could also automatically grant such a bonus to any creature that survived a fight with X players, regardless of that creature killing anyone.
That way a group of creatures that has fought several players will become an elite group and you'll have to deal with such threats more often.

You can give incentive to attack them by increasing their rewards, adding a bounty-mission to hunt them down and even a threat by increasing enemy spawns and AI capability as long as these elites stay within the area.

In some other MMO where one the things player can do carry cargo to different outposts, NPC bandits will randomly spawn on the routes leading to different towns. The bandits mean goal is not to kill the player but to steal their cargo. The more the different bandit groups steal the higher the bounty that group of bandits become. Players can take missions to track down the different bandit groups to try and recover what was stolen. The reward you get is based on a percent of what you recovered. Although if you can find and kill a bandit leader you'll get an extra bounty reward based on your wanted poster.

I can see something like this happen in Ember with NPCs trying to steal resources from players as they use thumpers and stuff. And then players looking for revenge will go pick up a wanted poster and hurt down group that stole from them.

 

[Beemann]

A lack of fulfilling casual gameplay over hardcore gameplay. Not in a way that the game is hard, and time consuming to the point that you spend forty minutes trying to do the same thing over and over again, but rather that the game doesn't try and talk down to me. I have no reason to believe this would be the case, which is great so far. I don't want to be told very quests take place, or when they are taking place. I want my ability tested to the limits, I don't want to be treated the same way as the player that can't take having to stop fetching things and actually go learn how to handle a different task.

For starters, I'm fairly sure there wont be a whole lot of scripted/instanced content. The original plan for FF was to have content be dynamic and randomized. You walked out to area X to mine ore Y and a giant death tornado appeared at the same time as an enemy patrol. Deal with it

With regards to your second point about classes, the content that will be there will need to be balanced so that solo play and groups can work. I sincerely doubt that they'll stick to such rigid, single-role classes in such a system. I wouldn't really consider it "challenging" to have simply picked the wrong loadout at spawn anyway. The challenge should come from the encounters and their context

Throwing in the action first. I would prefer not to be introduced to inventory tutorials before I actually get to explore the game. Tutorials should be optional at anytime in the game if possible.

Optional tutorials tend to get skipped, which is why most games force you through them at least once. I'd agree though that not everything need be tutorialized. We are well past the point where things like wasd and mouse aim should be an obligatory part of the "learning" process in every game

 

[Demigan]

1. Significant differences in the roles. One of the worst things the MMO market has today is this issue of lacking different roles. They will have every class work in a similar fashion, only having perks and downsides in certain parts of a level/dungeon. The Warrior is a little better at fighting the boss fights, the mage is better at taking out small hordes of enemies, the archer is great at fighting small traces of targets. That's great, but they don't expand that. Present me a level/dungeon in which one of these classes suck. Present me greater differences than that. Even if you play warrior the whole time, if you come into dungeons/levels where you suck and rely on your team, or its the other way around, you will get a good measure of what it means to be in your role than if all classes lacked great differences and never get put in such situations to outline them.

I really think the "every class works" idea is better than rigid class roles.

Take the RPG trinity. A tank will go into the fight with one goal: Tank. It has basically one strategy. It might have multiple different tools to achieve it, but most of the time he'll just draw aggro, use some damage reduction abilities and tank that crap.

I think it would be better to have players swap roles during the fight, and make those roles depend on enemy composition and capabilities. You can still have a medic class or engineer class for instance, but even the medic class should have a role to tank, or a role to debuff, or a role as a damage dealer against creatures weak against the medics weapon specs.

I still have trouble playing RPG's after I finish the storyline. If all you can do is basically the same no matter what enemies are attacking you, then you've seen it all after the first 5 minutes of the game, and I just finished a whole storyline of it so no point continueing right?

But if your actions depend on what enemies are thrown at you...? Take these Tissue's. Imagine tanking them while they are humanoid, but it's the fast players that "tank" the damage by avoiding it's attacks when they shapeshift into the big creatures and the tanks having to take a DPS or debuff role.
Solo combat would on average have the same difficulty, but the difficulty would change on whether the enemy composition is easy for your loadout or not. That doesn't mean it should be impossible, just that it should take more skill.

 

[avalon1k]

Throw stuff at us that we don't see coming. Do some minor updates (like adding a new enemy type) without notifying us. That keeps the game fresh. That's what I liked about beta in Firefall. Not all changes were announced.

 

[Pandagnome]

i liked the idea of starwars pod racers it was a fun game especially to be able to upgrade and have different types of pods
maybe there can be something on those lines with mech racers and my fave game super mario kart on the snes!

 

[Daynen]

I would like to see enemy forces actually build their forces and bases in preparation for war. This would give us a very real reason to scout enemy fortifications to report data to command, allowing them to reallocate forces where needed. If no one properly recons the enemy, we face a huge attack at an unprepared location.

It may be more difficult in Ominframes than human-shaped battleframes, but some good stealth gameplay would be fun. This might open up the opportunity for silencers on weapons to reduce their noise and detection radius, giving us the chance to infiltrate a force or base with a minimum of combat before blowing up their generator or stealing data or tech or the like.

Mark's said that vehicles will factor into the game; I hope to see a need for players to drive something other than Ominframes to support the ongoing war/expansion/gathering efforts--and I don't just mean a daily for cash, I mean an actual NEED to get stuff from place to place, explore, find information, analyze, or defend stuff. Cool tools are cool, but if you have no need to use them, they get shelved.

For most of these things to happen, one thing needs to be true: enemy fortifications and hostile terrain need to be dangerous and durable enough that we can't just randomly rambo our way through in a standard omniframe and clear things out. Bad gameplay needs to be punished with defeat in order to motivate us to think bigger and contribute to the war effort. There need to be ways to win that require people in more than one place at once so no one can singlehandedly take down entire structures or steal war-winning secrets. Otherwise, if a single soldier can win it, why is it even a war?