Man down!

[Omnires]

This thread is all about revive systems in games and thinking about what would be the best type of revive system for Em8er, if there is one.

For example, when a player is downed in the middle of a crowded chaotic battle how would other players know they need and where to find them?

Given that this is a sci-fi game. I don't think it is unreasonable to think that all the mechs and g-suits to have emergency rescue beacons built into them. That not only lets other near by friendlies know that they need help but also sends out pings to let everyone know where they are. Not unlike the real emergency rescue beacons we have in life that also give GPS (as a GPS network might not have been built on Em8er yet) and two way radio communication on open emergency channels.

Although there is another option for the mechs in the game for players to pick from then they go down. The black box self destruct button that will blow up the mech in such a way that the enemy can't learn any of their secrets. Good for the times where you don't want other players to revive you and you want to try and kill all near by enemies at the same time.

I remember in one space battle game when your ship blow up your character escapes in a life pod. They could still fly around as stuff while in the pod calling for help. Can could be picked up by other ships to join their crew for awhile until your new ship spawn is off cool down. Although I don't think that game ever made it out of alpha build despite having some good ideas. Every player had their own ship but they could join another player's ship to buff their stats as players did things like reload faster than the A.I. crew.

 

[Pandagnome]

One thing i remember in a show was how ants would all swarm to a food source for this example the food source is a pilot :O

So could the enemy pattern give an idea of what is happening e.g. If you are in the sky gliding or in the dropship even Air surfing and notice a pattern such as a bunched up swarm of Tsihu could that mean they are planning an attack or are they taking down someone!!

What about if the pilot was inside a cave or somewhere not in the open unless you have something like this to locate.

In the film Eraser this rail gun scan looks great, imagine a medic or someone equipping this so that they could tag a player for support and that player downed could accept or decline.

I know most cool stuff appears on things that are for wiping stuff out but when you see things, how perps are hunted down and even locating missing or stranded people in search & rescue that is great too.

This doesn't just mean us as pilots, our pets can be very helpful too

What if dropships had option to use something like this from above things can be easier to see but when your working as a team combining all that

- Pet (optional drone support)
- Pilot using scan/scope
- Air Units with specialized cam

These 3 together can form a better intelligence in locating the pilot who is down and that could mean medics / support type can have more interesting ways to play their game and save lives!

 

[Omnires]

I'm a fan of things like asymmetrical styles of play in games. Even more so when there things like different roles / classes you can pick from. Because it mean two people can be asked to do the same task, but completing the task in totally different and valid ways. By not forcing everyone to play the same way you allow for players to find and enjoy their own personal style of playing even more.

For example. I remember years ago getting one of my friends to play an MMO with me. Because of her personality type she tries to avoid conflict as much as possible even inside of games. But lucky for her in the game we was playing it was totally viable to play as non-meta builds and still be great at the game. Because of that we ended up picking a build for her that had more or less maxed out defense and health on top of having like 3ed most powerful healing magics in the game outside of pure mage builds. She had no real attack power outside of basic stuff but she didn't need too as she often never want anywhere alone. She was in effect immortal because she could always heal herself and faster than most things in the game could do to her. Although because of her low attack power she couldn't kill them ether if they could heal too. So her tactic was stand in the middle of the battlefield and cast healing magic on everyone. Even though she was built like a tank she wasn't. She just hated being on the backlines with the other mages and liked being close by the damage dealers uncased something did attack her (Some enemies had the ability to do things like teleport so they bypass the tanks and warriors to attack the healers in the back). Even though it was not META build she was so happy to play that character because it let her be herself. And she even became known as one of the players to ask for help when doing things like caravan runs (players could trade goods back and forth between towns for NPCs) or doing endurance type battles (there was few dungeons and boss fights where the goal was not to kill everything but just survive the battle until the time ran out.). She was the Immortal healer and I was the unstoppable blades (I love playing dual wielding blade masters), a team of 2 people who could take out raid bosses that was designed for 50+ people before the devs nerfed our builds to hells and they became unplayable. It is memories like that which is the reason why I love non-meta builds.

Hmm... Now that I think about it. She was kind of like a real life version of this character, but we did stuff way back in the late 90's before the mega and anime existed.

 

[DHYohko]

I recall that if your mech gets destroyed you essentially eject onto your currently equiped mount so you can run away and call down one of your spare frames. thats all they have so far though.

 

[Pandagnome]

I recall that if your mech gets destroyed you essentially eject onto your currently equiped mount so you can run away and call down one of your spare frames. thats all they have so far though.

Ah i did not know that i just assumed you'd just be out of the mech and having to spawn the mount/bike.

Can the pilot suit be upgraded just like meks or our mounts/bike in some way?
I like the customization of those with things that help not just for moving/escaping but to do something else than just do its main function e.g

- Mount with mine layer to poop away and slow anyone chasing
- Bike with turbo boosters and can cook things if they get too close to the rear or sides
- Pilot G-suit Camo tech v2 these are suits that make it harder for opponents to see in certain situation/environment

 

[Omnires]

My question is will the bike have weapons on it? Like can I have guns and missiles mounted on my bike? Because like I said many time before I don't like the idea of the pilots being helpless when they are not in a mecha.

And for some reason I'm also picturing some of the real life motorcycles that used in war time. Like the ones with sidecars that have machineguns mounted on them. Or things like recue bikes.

 

[Wyntyr]

 

[redsimon#0945]

My question is will the bike have weapons on it? Like can I have guns and missiles mounted on my bike? Because like I said many time before I don't like the idea of the pilots being helpless when they are not in a mecha.

And for some reason I'm also picturing some of the real life motorcycles that used in war time. Like the ones with sidecars that have machineguns mounted on them. Or things like recue bikes.

Perhaps it would be possible to use personal sidearms from the bike?

However, I would be ok if neither one was possible. The game is about the Omniframes, so if you want firepower you would have to hop into one.

Sure, bikes with weapons are cool, I love them in 40k, but this is not that kind of game.

 

[Pandagnome]

It doesnt have to be a powerful weapon but at least something to use also customization for the way we can ride the bike such as some kind of jump jets to give it a nice air time fun.

A great way to make an entrance

Novelty bike skin could include clown horn.

I had a little dribble when i saw this it was like the bike had a hard shell mode too

One thing i am thinking off is how fast is the different Mechs going to compared to the bike/mount?
Could the mek capture the same feeling of riding a speedy lgv at night with turbos across the wilderness?

 

[chalk#4300]

I like the way Blade & Soul handled revives. When your HP hit 0 you'd go into a downed state, and if you managed to crawl away you could do a quick meditation and bring yourself back. IIRC another player could show up and revive you as well, which would be faster.

A similar system could work in Ember. While it would play out a little differently given the context, the overall goal would be to make death a little less predictable, with more chances to come back without needing to respawn.

There could be four possibilities:

1. Your mech and pilot both get completely destroyed. This will require a respawn, and will work pretty much the same way every other game handles death.
2. Your mech is destroyed/disabled, but your pilot is alive. This could trigger randomly, based on perks/upgrades, or how far over the 0 HP threshold you were taken. Your pilot would have to free themselves from the wreck, get to relative safety, and call in a new omniframe. This would be faster than respawning, but put you at risk of getting attacked while trying to pry yourself out of your mech and get to cover.
3. Your mech gets low on HP, so you choose to eject. This gives you some serious air before activating some kind of glider, letting you get to safety faster and call in a new omniframe. This would be the fastest way to get back into action, but also limited in some way to keep people from just spamming ejects whenever they're low to stay in fights indefinitely.
4. Your mech is destroyed and your pilot is unconscious/critically wounded. This would be the most similar to the usual way games handle downed states. Another player would have to show up and get you back on your feet. If they want to get fancy, this could involve a cool little animation where the reviving mech takes the downed pilot out of their omniframe and administers some kind of space drug to get them operational again.

 

[Pandagnome]

If the pet was a med pet can it help some way?
If the pilot was downed would that mean the pet is downed too?

 

[Omnires]

In the MMO Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine one of the demons I befriended as a pet was a healer who could revive me if needed as long as they had enough energy to do so. This is because in that game your character and your "pets" all had different HP and magic bars on top of being able to act in independently of each other. In the higher end battles I tended to control both my character and pet at the same time to set up personal combos as I made my character a melee fighter rather than someone who just sets back and watch their pets do all the work. But when a few hard battles and my character goes down. It was also great to see my demon dogo or little fairy or angel pet run over me and revive me with their magic.

The reason I had 3 different healing pets in that game was because different beings got more or less powerful based on the time of day and phases of the moon. Some being go more powerful in the light with them being as their most powerful at noon, while some got more powerful in the dark with them being at their most powerful at midnight, some was neutral so was at their most powerful at twilight (the balance between light and dark). And light beings got even more powerful if their was full moon too, while dark beings got a boost from the new moon, and neutral beings got a boost from the half moons. Meaning that is was a really bad idea to fight some bosses on some days without a full maxed out team because they are at the peek of their power. Hell, some of them was even hard on the days they weaken.

 

[Pandagnome]

Shin megami seems to be still going, never played it looks good for the age of the game.

The reason I had 3 different healing pets in that game was because different beings got more or less powerful based on the time of day and phases of the moon.

Having 3 healing pets do they priorities healing you and could they alternate heal to each other if they are targeted for self preservation?.

One thing i remember in a Global agenda there were 3 medics 1 was a pain medic and the other 2 healers it was tough taking them down. Only thing i remember that did take them down for sure was a nuke and at least 2 helot gunners especially in the small rooms because the gunner could just push them back against a wall and they are virtually pinned unless the ammo ran out.

Only down side they would go out with a bang too since they where in the blast radius... anyways it was a way to get them off the others back and others to take the point!

Only played that mode just so i could get those holographic helmet and stuff
It was more fun if they had a vindicator battle with races in my opinion but that never happened so Mario kart was my go to game for that !!!

 

[Omnires]

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine followed Pokemon rules in that even through you friended more than one demon you could only have one of them out on the field with you at any given time. But you could set the demon AI to focus different things. Like attacking, protecting, supporting, stand-by (do nothing unless you tell it too), or free will (it does what it wants based on that demon's personality type). But remember the time of day and phases of the moon doesn't just effect the power of the bosses and wild demons out on the field, they also effect the demons you befriended. Think if Pokemon's type advantage system was time based rather than set at birth. Kind of like real life there some animals I have problem fighting with in the well lighted area but I'll pass on fighting that same animal in the dark just because it has the advantage in the dark.

And in long boss fights you can see where time of day matters. For example let's say you are fighting a boss that draws power from light. You started that battle at night when it is weaken, but the battle is long and now the sun is coming up. And oh no, you forgot that there is going to be a full moon today too. As the battle goes on the time of day gets closer to noon. The higher the odds of one AOE attack doing a full party kill. In other words, it was like every mob in the game has some version of the power Sunshine from the Seven Deadly Sins within them.

For the people that don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyway
What about the idea of self reviving? In some games you don't always need someone else to revive you as long as key things are in place. For example, you befriend a goddess who makes you immortal for given set of time (often only happens when fighting other gods and like in games). Or you can use nanobots to heal yourself but come back in weaken state until you are fully healed. In a few game to keep self reviving from becoming to powerful and making the game to easy they make it so that each time you self revive within a given amount of turn the death debuff stacks on you making you weaker and weaker each time. And there is no way cure the debuff out of waiting it out.

And I know these are games and all. But in real life rapid healing and reviving does come at a cost. To repair and regrow body parts you need energy and resources to do so. This why growing, healing, and/or sick animals eat more than normal to fuel that extra growth and keep the body from eating itself to fuel this stuff. So unless you are eating a lot of food to replace all the stuff you lost on top of fulling all the new cell growth, you'll end up feeling fatigued and hungry after you healed from a near death injury that fast. So those monsters in myths that can heal from almost any injury just eating (for example some versions of vampire myths) are closer to how things would work in reality.