Kind of sounds like Sunken Harbor where anybody would be game. It would still be all out PVP. If I remember right the better players would wreak havoc with the lesser experienced players taking advantage. I can't see killing your fellow soldier with so many enemies in the game, just to prove who is the best player, or has the biggest balls.
- Status
incoming wall..
General feedback, from memory. I still find movement inobvious and clunky.
Landing on rocks is a lot easier now, thanks for that.
I can't figure out how to dodge. Press space, let go of the keyboard, double-press a and nothing happens. triple-press quadruple-press nothing nothing. If I stand on the ground it doesn't work. All movement must exist in all contexts. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Don't make me load up a different set of movement mechanics into my head for every scenario, be it gliding, falling, jetting or anything. You want fluid movement in a movement-based game, you need to instead think in terms of priority. For example: cooldown > dodge > glide > fall
If jetting (cooldown) I cannot dodge. If gliding I can dodge. If falling I can use cooldowns, dodge or enter a glide. I can also imagine upgraded abilities to allow strange things like dodges during boosts, for high agility builds.
I wonder what the feeling would be like if you entirely removed the shift key to deploy wings and the hotkey for the boost cooldown. Replace them with double-tapping w. If falling, jumping, etc, then double-tap enters glide. If at a high angle or already gliding, then it boosts.
You also mused about added agility for lighter mechs. I already wrote on that, and I stand by the mechanics I described, but at the very least make it possible to "dodge back and forth" by having a dodge have a shorter recovery period and even interruptable by a cooldown or another dodge, even in the same direction. This will grant them a "zig zag" dodge.
See how many keys and combinations you can remove and load into the wasd keys. I have to hurt my hands to slide. If I enter into a run then hold s perhaps that would slide me.
Why not entirely remove the shift key? Just enter a run after moving forward for a short duration. The lighter the mech the shorter that duration. Then you can have an ever-increasing movement until a top speed is reached. This gives a couple of possibilities for equipment - reaching top speed faster or top speed ceiling increase. Have you ever played Okami? It's a PS/2 game also ported to Windows/Steam. It does this movement type, entering into a slightly different view mode and spawning flowers. It's the most incredible movement I've ever seen.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/587620/
It is truly worth exploring gameplay videos to examine this movement. I can make any as needed, and I'd be willing to give my Steam info so you can try it yourselves. Move, jump, dash, charge, momentum, friction, changing directions.. are all amazing.
Here's my interpretation for Ember:
- hold w to walk
- long-hold w to walk and then enter into a run (after a delay)
- letting go of run slows down into a walk then gently stops
- from run, tapping s skids to an immediate stop
- from run, holding s skids into a slide
- from run, holding s and continuing to hold s ("long-hold s") continues the slide for as long as the terrain or other mechanics allows
- when stopped, space to jump
- when stopped, long-hold space to jump then at its maximum height begin burning fuel to boost higher (do not force a double-tap of space; make it just like long-holding w to walk-then-run). Also, thermal/wind mechanics can apply.
- When walking, tap space to jump in that direction
- When running, hold space to enter into jump in that direction. When the same distance as a standing-jump it will begin burning fuel to gently push in that direction.
- If in the air when jumping, tapping or holding any direction key will push in that direction, using a light amount of fuel and will temporarily pause fuel regeneration. Recovery from this temporary pause is immediate (discussed below)
- Fuel refills after a short delay. Modified by equipment.
- A long-hold of space works exactly the same as running, with the same timing/delay. It goes from a gentle hover which barely counteracts gravity into height into an ever-increasing strength of boost. The ramp-up time, the upper ceiling on the movement speed and the amount of fuel it burns are modified by equipment. An equipment slot for a boost/jet cooldown is a separate mechanic. By default I can imagine a light mech having no upper limit on speed; they only run out of boost speed when they run out of fuel. They would "zip" through the air but have a predictable landing arc if they have no fuel (so subject to grapples on the way down!). I can imagine a heavy having a much lower speed but they can sustain it for an incredible amount of time, letting them essentially be an poorly-mobile airborne weapons platform. I imagine a heavy being immune to grapples but just have grapples nudge them and consume more fuel.
- If I land and hold w then I return to walking then running. However, this is modified by the amount of forward momentum I had. It is therefore possible to quickly enter into a run from a landing. Because I enter into a run, I can also immediately enter into a slide if I choose.
- If I double-tap any movement direction at any time then I burn fuel to jet in that direction. It can be any direction, but perhaps it is more appropriate to have it less effective backwards and more effective forwards.
- A double-tap then long-hold a direction key will burn fuel and move in exactly the same manner as a long-hold of space. If in the air it will jet forward. If on the ground, I can enter into a run or an immediate slide in this manner.
So movement becomes:
- tap is "do a bit of that"
- hold is "keep doing that"
- long-hold is "do that then escalate"
- double-tap is "immediately-more"
----
Now about melee, because that's coming in soon..
Okami has a mechanic where you can dash, which pushes you into an immediate run if you hold movement. This is an obvious and fun mechanic to get going quickly. This would need to be its own button on a controller. However, it is worthy of significant research to hijack the melee button in the same way that the punch-dash exists in No Man's Sky.
Melee can be different when standing fairly still, moving consistently in a direction or running. What a punch-boost then allows is an immediate run-melee mechanic. If, therefore, the player of a heavy mech wants to wade into combat with their zweihänder, then can now run in, perform the hard melee slash (a "run-melee"), then melee-boost to perform a backhand followup like a sweeping shield knockback. This is precisely how a heavy melee player thinks. You can now create melee combo moves that aren't just "swing this way then that way" but now have an added dimension based on movement type, movement direction, movement force, momentum, etc.
Examples:
- Melee: Standing still-ish is a jab, moving is a roundhouse, running is an uppercut.
- Sword: Standing still-ish is a spear, moving is a that-direction-in slash, running is a wide-slash.
- Hammer: Standing still-ish is a top-down swing, moving is a that-direction-in swing, running is a leap-smash.
Two in a row of the same performs a variant. e.g. a slash from up-down then has a followup slash down-up.
While I'm at it, long-hold of melee would wind up for a hard attack in the same way that a run would (spending some boost energy while building it)
So we now have:
- w to walk towards enemy
- long-hold w to run
- space to jump
- long-hold space to jet
- long-hold space to get to gain airborne momentum
- double-tap q to dodge a grapple (maybe let go of space, maybe not)
- double-tap w to regain forward momentum
- let go of space before running out of fuel
- just before landing, long-hold s to enter into a slide
- sliding into an enemy maybe does a small knockback/stun (but sacrifices momentum)
- momentum into a group
- tap melee to use remaining momentum for a melee (hard-melee) entering into the crowd
- dash-melee to followup with a shield knockaway
- long-hold melee to build up a hard-melee
- as things recover and charge back into melee, let go
- kaboom
So there is something like a hidden 3-stage momentum meter associated to how powerful a landing, knockback or melee are.
All of the above is possible with just direction keys and one attack button. A controller would need much more thought.
General feedback, from memory. I still find movement inobvious and clunky.
Landing on rocks is a lot easier now, thanks for that.
I can't figure out how to dodge. Press space, let go of the keyboard, double-press a and nothing happens. triple-press quadruple-press nothing nothing. If I stand on the ground it doesn't work. All movement must exist in all contexts. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Don't make me load up a different set of movement mechanics into my head for every scenario, be it gliding, falling, jetting or anything. You want fluid movement in a movement-based game, you need to instead think in terms of priority. For example: cooldown > dodge > glide > fall
If jetting (cooldown) I cannot dodge. If gliding I can dodge. If falling I can use cooldowns, dodge or enter a glide. I can also imagine upgraded abilities to allow strange things like dodges during boosts, for high agility builds.
I wonder what the feeling would be like if you entirely removed the shift key to deploy wings and the hotkey for the boost cooldown. Replace them with double-tapping w. If falling, jumping, etc, then double-tap enters glide. If at a high angle or already gliding, then it boosts.
You also mused about added agility for lighter mechs. I already wrote on that, and I stand by the mechanics I described, but at the very least make it possible to "dodge back and forth" by having a dodge have a shorter recovery period and even interruptable by a cooldown or another dodge, even in the same direction. This will grant them a "zig zag" dodge.
See how many keys and combinations you can remove and load into the wasd keys. I have to hurt my hands to slide. If I enter into a run then hold s perhaps that would slide me.
Why not entirely remove the shift key? Just enter a run after moving forward for a short duration. The lighter the mech the shorter that duration. Then you can have an ever-increasing movement until a top speed is reached. This gives a couple of possibilities for equipment - reaching top speed faster or top speed ceiling increase. Have you ever played Okami? It's a PS/2 game also ported to Windows/Steam. It does this movement type, entering into a slightly different view mode and spawning flowers. It's the most incredible movement I've ever seen.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/587620/
It is truly worth exploring gameplay videos to examine this movement. I can make any as needed, and I'd be willing to give my Steam info so you can try it yourselves. Move, jump, dash, charge, momentum, friction, changing directions.. are all amazing.
Here's my interpretation for Ember:
- hold w to walk
- long-hold w to walk and then enter into a run (after a delay)
- letting go of run slows down into a walk then gently stops
- from run, tapping s skids to an immediate stop
- from run, holding s skids into a slide
- from run, holding s and continuing to hold s ("long-hold s") continues the slide for as long as the terrain or other mechanics allows
- when stopped, space to jump
- when stopped, long-hold space to jump then at its maximum height begin burning fuel to boost higher (do not force a double-tap of space; make it just like long-holding w to walk-then-run). Also, thermal/wind mechanics can apply.
- When walking, tap space to jump in that direction
- When running, hold space to enter into jump in that direction. When the same distance as a standing-jump it will begin burning fuel to gently push in that direction.
- If in the air when jumping, tapping or holding any direction key will push in that direction, using a light amount of fuel and will temporarily pause fuel regeneration. Recovery from this temporary pause is immediate (discussed below)
- Fuel refills after a short delay. Modified by equipment.
- A long-hold of space works exactly the same as running, with the same timing/delay. It goes from a gentle hover which barely counteracts gravity into height into an ever-increasing strength of boost. The ramp-up time, the upper ceiling on the movement speed and the amount of fuel it burns are modified by equipment. An equipment slot for a boost/jet cooldown is a separate mechanic. By default I can imagine a light mech having no upper limit on speed; they only run out of boost speed when they run out of fuel. They would "zip" through the air but have a predictable landing arc if they have no fuel (so subject to grapples on the way down!). I can imagine a heavy having a much lower speed but they can sustain it for an incredible amount of time, letting them essentially be an poorly-mobile airborne weapons platform. I imagine a heavy being immune to grapples but just have grapples nudge them and consume more fuel.
- If I land and hold w then I return to walking then running. However, this is modified by the amount of forward momentum I had. It is therefore possible to quickly enter into a run from a landing. Because I enter into a run, I can also immediately enter into a slide if I choose.
- If I double-tap any movement direction at any time then I burn fuel to jet in that direction. It can be any direction, but perhaps it is more appropriate to have it less effective backwards and more effective forwards.
- A double-tap then long-hold a direction key will burn fuel and move in exactly the same manner as a long-hold of space. If in the air it will jet forward. If on the ground, I can enter into a run or an immediate slide in this manner.
So movement becomes:
- tap is "do a bit of that"
- hold is "keep doing that"
- long-hold is "do that then escalate"
- double-tap is "immediately-more"
----
Now about melee, because that's coming in soon..
Okami has a mechanic where you can dash, which pushes you into an immediate run if you hold movement. This is an obvious and fun mechanic to get going quickly. This would need to be its own button on a controller. However, it is worthy of significant research to hijack the melee button in the same way that the punch-dash exists in No Man's Sky.
Melee can be different when standing fairly still, moving consistently in a direction or running. What a punch-boost then allows is an immediate run-melee mechanic. If, therefore, the player of a heavy mech wants to wade into combat with their zweihänder, then can now run in, perform the hard melee slash (a "run-melee"), then melee-boost to perform a backhand followup like a sweeping shield knockback. This is precisely how a heavy melee player thinks. You can now create melee combo moves that aren't just "swing this way then that way" but now have an added dimension based on movement type, movement direction, movement force, momentum, etc.
Examples:
- Melee: Standing still-ish is a jab, moving is a roundhouse, running is an uppercut.
- Sword: Standing still-ish is a spear, moving is a that-direction-in slash, running is a wide-slash.
- Hammer: Standing still-ish is a top-down swing, moving is a that-direction-in swing, running is a leap-smash.
Two in a row of the same performs a variant. e.g. a slash from up-down then has a followup slash down-up.
While I'm at it, long-hold of melee would wind up for a hard attack in the same way that a run would (spending some boost energy while building it)
So we now have:
- w to walk towards enemy
- long-hold w to run
- space to jump
- long-hold space to jet
- long-hold space to get to gain airborne momentum
- double-tap q to dodge a grapple (maybe let go of space, maybe not)
- double-tap w to regain forward momentum
- let go of space before running out of fuel
- just before landing, long-hold s to enter into a slide
- sliding into an enemy maybe does a small knockback/stun (but sacrifices momentum)
- momentum into a group
- tap melee to use remaining momentum for a melee (hard-melee) entering into the crowd
- dash-melee to followup with a shield knockaway
- long-hold melee to build up a hard-melee
- as things recover and charge back into melee, let go
- kaboom
So there is something like a hidden 3-stage momentum meter associated to how powerful a landing, knockback or melee are.
All of the above is possible with just direction keys and one attack button. A controller would need much more thought.
Likes:
Astro and Pandagnome
Hi g0rki !!
Yes indeed someone has!
One of our AWESOME community members, @Skube , made a video walking through ALL of the things you can test in the latest demo of the THMPR. He also notated in text on the video, what has been improved on from the previous demo. See the video below ...
Yes indeed someone has!
One of our AWESOME community members, @Skube , made a video walking through ALL of the things you can test in the latest demo of the THMPR. He also notated in text on the video, what has been improved on from the previous demo. See the video below ...
I would say after the trashing i experienced in FireFall, if PVP is in, I stop now. This is supposed to the successor to FireFall and i am sure we all want to have fun. Competition between ourselves, is it really necessary? I thought this was going to be more like co-op where we work together for a common goal, you know the way life is supposed to be? Does anyone care?
If you have been paying attention to the streams/discord/e-mails from the team/grummz's twitter, you'd notice that Grummz has clearly indicated that PvP has been implemented solely to test networking systems and weapon architecture. PvP enables testing without having to implement enemy AI and animations, which are still a work in progress.
The final game is PvE. PvP may be a consideration in the future, but that is entirely dependent on the success of the game.
Yes I have been paying attention, no need to be like that, I am entitled to my opinion unless i missed something. With much talk about the different types of gameplay and reference to Firefall, I figured a bit of clarity would be an OK question to ask, apparently not. Thank you anyway.
Likes:
PIghead Elderberry
I guess that did sound like a teacher who would say "have you been paying attention hmm hmm" 
Do not think it was meant to be insulting or directed that way as such, but maybe it was meant to be similar to:
I can understand your concerns and can reassure you that bla bla etc
clarity is always good for everyone \o/
Do not think it was meant to be insulting or directed that way as such, but maybe it was meant to be similar to:
I can understand your concerns and can reassure you that bla bla etc
clarity is always good for everyone \o/
Likes:
PartTimeJedi and Estender
Can you change this angle in gliding animation? His ass seems flying to the left all the time while gliding in the middle of the screen
And if we should collect resource after the THMPR on the surface, maybe its don't necessary to escort THMPR to the base anymore?
Something of that would be nice:
I live in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Somehow ping with the EU server is 92 ms, but with the Pacific server is 36 ms. Is it possible that those names just mixed up? In wich countries exactly are those servers?
And if we should collect resource after the THMPR on the surface, maybe its don't necessary to escort THMPR to the base anymore?
Something of that would be nice:
I live in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. Somehow ping with the EU server is 92 ms, but with the Pacific server is 36 ms. Is it possible that those names just mixed up? In wich countries exactly are those servers?
There's been a rework to the resource collection system. This was part of the subscriber vision book update, but it has also been discussed by Grummz on streams.
Per the new system, the THMPR mines resources, players collect them and bring the resources to a collection drone deployed alongside the THMPR. Once mining is completed, the THMPR will simply be collected from location by your dropship and carried back to base.
The EU server is in Ireland and the Pacific server is in Sydney, Australia
Per the new system, the THMPR mines resources, players collect them and bring the resources to a collection drone deployed alongside the THMPR. Once mining is completed, the THMPR will simply be collected from location by your dropship and carried back to base.
The EU server is in Ireland and the Pacific server is in Sydney, Australia
oh, big thanks for the explanation! With my bad English and hearing disease, unfortunately, I can't hear Chief-chats
Likes:
Mahdi and Maven
I am missing much chief chats at times this forum is great because if someone has missed the chief chat they can look here in the forums and also ask questions.
Em8er Discord is good too, but prefer the forum more
Em8er Discord is good too, but prefer the forum more
Likes:
Mahdi and Maven
Reading from the vision book as well.
Without posting the exact statements, the 'Mining' section does not specify what the role of the THMPR post-mining is. It states that the player can choose to command the drone to return with its stash at any point of the collection process, upon which the drone (and the statements make explicit reference to the drone and none else) returns to the player's stash and deposits its haul. The statement regarding the THMPR being carried off by dropship appears after the statement referencing the drone, which introduces ambiguity regarding what happens to the THMPR while the drone carries the resources back.
However, the catch for me is the fact that the player's stash will, in all likelihood, be a base. If indeed it is a base, there does not seem any necessity for the THMPR to be carried off by dropship, as it has already reached the base by virtue of the escort phase.
Going further and reading through the vision book, there still are references to escorting the THMPR, at multiple points in the book. This is either me reading it wrong or an oversight, or something that needs an addendum to content.
@Shokolad Please ignore what I said for now. This needs clarification from Grummz, atleast for me.
On a personal note, while there is a certain thrill to having the THMPR bound alongside, fighting off Kaiju along the way, it still is an escort quest and getting those right is never easy. For the sake of simplicity and ease of implementation, I'd rather have the THMPing phase end with the resource collection drone being sent off from the mining spot with no escort involved. It does bring it more in line with the thumping in Firefall, but rather 'K.I.S.S' than go grey over botched AI.
Without posting the exact statements, the 'Mining' section does not specify what the role of the THMPR post-mining is. It states that the player can choose to command the drone to return with its stash at any point of the collection process, upon which the drone (and the statements make explicit reference to the drone and none else) returns to the player's stash and deposits its haul. The statement regarding the THMPR being carried off by dropship appears after the statement referencing the drone, which introduces ambiguity regarding what happens to the THMPR while the drone carries the resources back.
However, the catch for me is the fact that the player's stash will, in all likelihood, be a base. If indeed it is a base, there does not seem any necessity for the THMPR to be carried off by dropship, as it has already reached the base by virtue of the escort phase.
Going further and reading through the vision book, there still are references to escorting the THMPR, at multiple points in the book. This is either me reading it wrong or an oversight, or something that needs an addendum to content.
@Shokolad Please ignore what I said for now. This needs clarification from Grummz, atleast for me.
On a personal note, while there is a certain thrill to having the THMPR bound alongside, fighting off Kaiju along the way, it still is an escort quest and getting those right is never easy. For the sake of simplicity and ease of implementation, I'd rather have the THMPing phase end with the resource collection drone being sent off from the mining spot with no escort involved. It does bring it more in line with the thumping in Firefall, but rather 'K.I.S.S' than go grey over botched AI.
- Status