Making Damage and Repair Engaging

[Shanie]

Damage is a big deal to me. It can differentiate a game of numbers to a game of physicality. From "I have 5 health left" to "my Frame is literally falling apart in front of me and there's a fire in the reactor". I'd like to talk a bit about the concept of damage in this game, and how field repair could play a part. It's long, but I tried to make it an engaging read.

Going back to Firefall, damage was temporary. Field repairs used near-instant nanites and maintenance in general was a simple money sink. This made damage feel temporary, and the depth was shallow. When you got "hurt" which was nothing more than your health number going down and VFX, a simple usable or a Medic could patch you right up in seconds. If your equipment "wore out", you went to a repair box and clicked a couple buttons and no problem, back in action. Is this engaging gameplay? If so, how deep did it feel?

Cue Em8er. The Battleframe is dead, long live the Omniframe. Which Frame you choose imposes a series of new hurdles, like how these fighting tools stay maintained on the battlefield. Nanites (the same healy tech-magic from Firefall) should have more limitations in Em8er, mostly due to the fact that nanite magic shouldn't be as powerful on Medium and Heavy Omniframes as it is on smaller units like Light Frames. Clicking and holding heal and waiting for longer the bigger the vehicle (cue: Planetside) just doesn't feel satisfying, and is totally unengaging. So how can you make damage gameplay more interesting for these large-scale Omniframes? How do you make their Time-To-Live longer without just giving them a bigger pool of health? How do you make people feel that Light Frames punch above their weight class? How do you make the front line feel dynamic, living, and breathing?

Limitations of Nanites
First, you make Nanites limited. No longer the cure-all, they can only do so much.

What I mean by this is the Light Frames take nanites fully: nanites work great on Light Frames. If you come back to a medic and you have only a single piece of Omniframe left hanging off your body, those nanites will put you all the way back together, tip-top shape, and you're back on the front line like you weren't scratched. Just like Firefall. This gives a Light Frame great mobility, not just that it's quick, but it's quick to repair and they don't even really have to leave the fight. It makes the Light Frame feel as if it punches above its weight class.

Nanites work alright on Medium Frames. Not as perfect as on Light Frames, if you take a big hit, some of your armor may not be able to be repaired into tip-top shape, but the nanites can patch the gaping holes in that armor.

Nanites work poorly on Large Frames. Big hits are big damage on Heavy Frames, and you need to get real repairs. Sure Nanites can get you back into shape if you're at the brink, but that "shape" is a "get out of here you piece of Swiss Cheese" kind of shape.

Localized Damage
As the size of Frame grows, the more dynamic the damage model has to be to support these Nanite Limitations. A shot in the leg is not the same as a shot in the chest or a shot in the arm. The limbs, head, and the rest need their own armor and health pools, meaning if you take critical damage on those, the Omniframe should be negatively effected but not necessarily destroyed. Light Frames can push forward through sheer force of will if they haven't been vaporized from the hit, but as for the others, leg damage can result in a limp, worse accuracy through arm damage is possible, your jump-jets can misfire, or you need to land gentler on that broken leg else you risk a hard time attempting to stabilize your Frame. The Medic can come and shoot you full of nanites to take the edge off the damage, but then she'll tell you to run. Run away. Fall back to the MFB.

Forward Aid
Cue the Mobile Field Base. Operated by a small crew, these low-armor & low-defense vehicles (maybe Frames?) can be deployed just behind the front lines and are a critical tool to keep the line from breaking. They are the tool with the "big guns": Repair Printers, the heavy equipment necessary to literally print the armor back onto the Frames.

Due to the low armor and the critical need for these units, the team operating them needs to be smart. Picking a deployment spot that's relatively safe from fire but accessible by the forward team is important.

A Heavy Frame found itself flanked by Tsi-hu and had it's leg crippled. His comrades drove the enemy back but they didn't have a Medic on-hand. Does the MFB take a chance and move to the Heavy Frame, or does the Heavy Frame hobble its way to them? In an abundance of caution, the Heavy hobbles to the MFB. It's nerve wracking being crippled out in the field, not knowing when you could be flanked again. But he makes it safely, and the MFB wraps a layer of material around the Heavy Frame, like a cocoon, and begins to print.

Printing is a mini-game where you analyze the Omniframe and focus your repairs. You may be flanked at any time and the Cocoon will need to be stripped away, so how do you triage? Do you focus on the areas of most damage, do you focus on the torso of the unit to keep the Omniframe Pilot safe? Do you make sure the weapons are in good shape first? Thankfully, you realize you can worry less because the Heavy Frame's team made a defensive perimeter in front of your Cocoon to keep you safe. Suddenly new players who just joined the game appear behind you; they noticed the defense of the Cocoon and flew over, asking questions and playing rear guard. You can take your time bringing this Heavy back to tip-top shape and send him on his way and welcome the Newbies.



The Power of Command
This kind of repair system underlines the importance of a well-coordinated team. Strong Squad Leaders communicating with their Platoon to maintain a good front line. A coordinated back-end team with a specialty of fast, skill-based triaging to keep large frames in tip-top shape. The addition of new objectives that don't need to be marked as "quests": Keep the MFB safe. Gameplay elements that create themselves on the field are the best kinds, and damage is one that creates all kinds of gameplay if added right.

 

[lupinine#9635]

Point 1: While yes nanites do "heal" the dont just effect organics, but also mechanics, with an increased "health pool" it takes longer for a medium to heavy frame to get back in the fight the problem firefall had was that healing was either to good or ticked so fast dmg felt shallow.

Resolution 1: Have a mechanic in-game that disables abilities as you are damaged so in a fight you are slowly being disabled but not taken apart, also dont over do it with healing power, healing should feel easy to do but not powerful to an extent of "Hahahaha damage *laughs in HoTs* time to HoT (HoT: Heal over Time)"

Addition to Resolution 1: When out of combat you have a small regen but it be tied to a fixed number nothing added to it meaning if you want to do group content youll wish to have a "healer/biotech".

Point 2: Targeted damage is a tricky business fallout I'm looking at you, while it is immersive it's for the most part feels meh to a player in general or is out right hated. Rather we need to feel our frame is what we need it to be but with drawbacks of (example: I in a heavy frame have 3 healing abilities, having a large Health pool and the most armor it should reduce the healing based on armor value to self and double of to self to allies keeping healing low and still impactful and still with freedom of choice instead of to much please nerf it in its entirety, allowing for ease of nerf and buff as you have an equation for how much it should pump out.

This is all I wish to touch on.
~Lupinine

 

[Omnires]

I like this idea. Mostly because when I play games with large faction wars, player governments, and multi-tired alliance systems, is mostly play as one of the vanguard units and/or a mercenary who specializes in assassinations. And having a players with a clear chain of command where the leaders have their own abilities and stuff to help the other players is great.

In one game I played. When there was guild vs guild wars over control of an area before the battle would start someone in the guild had to be picked to pilot the guild's flag ship. As the only way to win the guild battle was to destroy the other guild's flag ship or use your flag ship to capture the most points/bases in the area before the timer ran out. The flagships was massive next to all the other ships the players could use. But it didn't have much in why was firepower. Rather most of its abilities was geared to defense and support of other players in the area. AOE healing field, AOE shield dome, Teleport beacon (to let players teleport to the flagship's ship rather having to look for it if they was killed and sent back into orbit), and an AOE buff that boosted the attack power and speed of guildmates. It was also a game of cat and mouse in those wars. As some in the guild would go out to hunt of the enemy flagship while others would stay behind to protect out flagship while it flying around trying to capture bases or avoid being ambushed.

The idea of things like a mobile command center and recovery/health point is nothing new to me. I also played mecha games where as if parts of your mecha take to much damage that part could just fall off. And trust me, there was a good number of people who enjoyed taking apart the enemy bit by bit rather than out right killing them. I know because I was one of them. I would snipe the weapons out of their hands, shoot the joints in the arms and legs, take out thrusters/fuel tanks, and other thing they could use to fight back. Just as way to toy with them. Sometimes in PVP wouldn't even kill them. Just leave them there on the battlefield as bait to lure in their teammates or wait until the blow themselves up to fore a respawn or match over.

Trust me, is this game has part damage in it for enemies there is a lot of fun to had by some people. Also if there is part damage for players there some people can build around that. For example in some of the Armored Core games I had a build that was over the mass limit and couldn't really move. So a lot of people thought it would be an easy win for them. That is until they notice that after I fired my first attack I dropped most of my weapons armor to become super fast and able to kill in 1 hit by using my plasma close range on the cockpit area or using a backstab with my energy sword. If you make mass a factor in this game, than as omniframes loses parts they should also be able to move faster (as long as those parts are not key to movement).

 

[lupinine#9635]

Parts for enemys is fine, however when i quoted fallout i meant the character being crippled.

 

[DHYohko]

doing things like crippled limbs like in old fallout games is probably very complex and would drain a lot of the limited resources the team will have once kickstarter ends.

 

[liandri]

I support limb-specific damage for omniframes. It adds a bit of realism, especially for large omniframes, and it gives a bit of depth to crafting and durability. It could also be incorporated into the AI, where some enemies (or weapon systems, in the case of kaiju) may aim at specific parts to immobilize players.

But I have some concerns. Firstly, echoing DHYohko's point regarding resources. New animations for specific damage, new models/textures for damaged armour/weapons, and the additional code work. Limb damage would be awesome if done right, but Em-8ER has sights set incredibly high already. Maybe it'll come in at a later date, doubtful at launch.

Got some goosebumps from the scenario you described, which I why I'm down for this. Maybe instead of a vehicle, it could be a specialised weapon that locks the target in place? If you're damaged and ping a player, they try to use the weapon on you and you get a pop-up asking if you allow access to your sub-systems. If you accept, you get locked into place and they can repair your limb. Decline, and you keep limping along.

How would this play with calling down new omniframes? Would field repairing only take you to xx.x% durability, enough to keep fighting but you'll still need to repair back at base?

 

[Pandagnome]

Damage is a big deal to me. It can differentiate a game of numbers to a game of physicality. From "I have 5 health left" to "my Frame is literally falling apart in front of me and there's a fire in the reactor". I'd like to talk a bit about the concept of damage in this game, and how field repair could play a part. It's long, but I tried to make it an engaging read.

Going back to Firefall, damage was temporary. Field repairs used near-instant nanites and maintenance in general was a simple money sink. This made damage feel temporary, and the depth was shallow. When you got "hurt" which was nothing more than your health number going down and VFX, a simple usable or a Medic could patch you right up in seconds. If your equipment "wore out", you went to a repair box and clicked a couple buttons and no problem, back in action. Is this engaging gameplay? If so, how deep did it feel?

Cue Em8er. The Battleframe is dead, long live the Omniframe. Which Frame you choose imposes a series of new hurdles, like how these fighting tools stay maintained on the battlefield. Nanites (the same healy tech-magic from Firefall) should have more limitations in Em8er, mostly due to the fact that nanite magic shouldn't be as powerful on Medium and Heavy Omniframes as it is on smaller units like Light Frames. Clicking and holding heal and waiting for longer the bigger the vehicle (cue: Planetside) just doesn't feel satisfying, and is totally unengaging. So how can you make damage gameplay more interesting for these large-scale Omniframes? How do you make their Time-To-Live longer without just giving them a bigger pool of health? How do you make people feel that Light Frames punch above their weight class? How do you make the front line feel dynamic, living, and breathing?

Limitations of Nanites
First, you make Nanites limited. No longer the cure-all, they can only do so much.

What I mean by this is the Light Frames take nanites fully: nanites work great on Light Frames. If you come back to a medic and you have only a single piece of Omniframe left hanging off your body, those nanites will put you all the way back together, tip-top shape, and you're back on the front line like you weren't scratched. Just like Firefall. This gives a Light Frame great mobility, not just that it's quick, but it's quick to repair and they don't even really have to leave the fight. It makes the Light Frame feel as if it punches above its weight class.

Nanites work alright on Medium Frames. Not as perfect as on Light Frames, if you take a big hit, some of your armor may not be able to be repaired into tip-top shape, but the nanites can patch the gaping holes in that armor.

Nanites work poorly on Large Frames. Big hits are big damage on Heavy Frames, and you need to get real repairs. Sure Nanites can get you back into shape if you're at the brink, but that "shape" is a "get out of here you piece of Swiss Cheese" kind of shape.

Localized Damage
As the size of Frame grows, the more dynamic the damage model has to be to support these Nanite Limitations. A shot in the leg is not the same as a shot in the chest or a shot in the arm. The limbs, head, and the rest need their own armor and health pools, meaning if you take critical damage on those, the Omniframe should be negatively effected but not necessarily destroyed. Light Frames can push forward through sheer force of will if they haven't been vaporized from the hit, but as for the others, leg damage can result in a limp, worse accuracy through arm damage is possible, your jump-jets can misfire, or you need to land gentler on that broken leg else you risk a hard time attempting to stabilize your Frame. The Medic can come and shoot you full of nanites to take the edge off the damage, but then she'll tell you to run. Run away. Fall back to the MFB.

Forward Aid
Cue the Mobile Field Base. Operated by a small crew, these low-armor & low-defense vehicles (maybe Frames?) can be deployed just behind the front lines and are a critical tool to keep the line from breaking. They are the tool with the "big guns": Repair Printers, the heavy equipment necessary to literally print the armor back onto the Frames.

Due to the low armor and the critical need for these units, the team operating them needs to be smart. Picking a deployment spot that's relatively safe from fire but accessible by the forward team is important.

A Heavy Frame found itself flanked by Tsi-hu and had it's leg crippled. His comrades drove the enemy back but they didn't have a Medic on-hand. Does the MFB take a chance and move to the Heavy Frame, or does the Heavy Frame hobble its way to them? In an abundance of caution, the Heavy hobbles to the MFB. It's nerve wracking being crippled out in the field, not knowing when you could be flanked again. But he makes it safely, and the MFB wraps a layer of material around the Heavy Frame, like a cocoon, and begins to print.

Printing is a mini-game where you analyze the Omniframe and focus your repairs. You may be flanked at any time and the Cocoon will need to be stripped away, so how do you triage? Do you focus on the areas of most damage, do you focus on the torso of the unit to keep the Omniframe Pilot safe? Do you make sure the weapons are in good shape first? Thankfully, you realize you can worry less because the Heavy Frame's team made a defensive perimeter in front of your Cocoon to keep you safe. Suddenly new players who just joined the game appear behind you; they noticed the defense of the Cocoon and flew over, asking questions and playing rear guard. You can take your time bringing this Heavy back to tip-top shape and send him on his way and welcome the Newbies.

View attachment 4601

The Power of Command
This kind of repair system underlines the importance of a well-coordinated team. Strong Squad Leaders communicating with their Platoon to maintain a good front line. A coordinated back-end team with a specialty of fast, skill-based triaging to keep large frames in tip-top shape. The addition of new objectives that don't need to be marked as "quests": Keep the MFB safe. Gameplay elements that create themselves on the field are the best kinds, and damage is one that creates all kinds of gameplay if added right.

Cannot wait we are planning the future, we will need a Joint effort to stop those tsihu poopsters

 

[Shanie]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to give it a read-through. I want to mention I've never played a "heavy mech" game that didn't have your mech fall apart bit by bit or was vastly more cumbersome the bigger it got. MechWarrior 2 & 3 are very dear to my heart even if they are 25 year old games now, and limb damage has always been a thing in this franchise. I feel EDF would be a better game with limb damage on their mech calldowns as well even if they're a "health pool" game but they make up for it by really feeling the weight.

Targeted damage is a tricky business fallout I'm looking at you

I find Fallout's design of "crippling" really... unimmersive. I find a text popup with some status effects added to a character is one of the worst ways to do crippling. What's worse, as a Single Player game, there's nobody there to support you, so you're wandering around the Wasteland with a headache and a 50% movement penalty which just feels ...lame? I believe crippled units in need of support is a gameplay feature where your friends support you in your time of need, one of those "we are stronger together" moments that people reminisce about in stories from games long gone. Fallout doesn't have that.

The rest of your points are great to bring to the table. I enjoy the very slow regen idea, as if everyone has packed a handful of nanites for emergencies, that will take a while to get you back into shape while you're all alone and stranded after just barely surviving beyond the front lines.

And trust me, there was a good number of people who enjoyed taking apart the enemy bit by bit rather than out right killing them. I know because I was one of them.

I know exactly how you feel.

But I have some concerns. Firstly, echoing DHYohko's point regarding resources. New animations for specific damage, new models/textures for damaged armour/weapons, and the additional code work. Limb damage would be awesome if done right, but Em-8ER has sights set incredibly high already. Maybe it'll come in at a later date, doubtful at launch.

I agree with the resources requirements, which is a great reason to bring it up now during their frame redesign and development. It's much easier to install these features while they're doing the OG dev instead of later.

Maybe instead of a vehicle, it could be a specialised weapon that locks the target in place?

After I was done writing this and posting it, I was wondering if a Heavy Frame with a giant backpack of materials and a Cocoon system could play as the MFB.

How would this play with calling down new omniframes? Would field repairing only take you to xx.x% durability, enough to keep fighting but you'll still need to repair back at base?

I feel this tool, with its limitations, should be able to bring an Omniframe to near 100% operation between nanites and armor printing. Without it, it would lose some of its major benefits. It also let's people stay in the field longer as a strategy/option and minimize the idea of going back to base "just to repair" if you've come prepared or are nearby a team who has come prepared.

As far as Frame calldowns, I am unsure the strategy that Crixa plans for that. I don't know how much that will "cost" the player in terms of time or resources, but I definitely feel that this should be cheaper in all ways vs. a new unit.

 

[Omnires]

There is something that I do remember happens in some mecha games that do have part damage. This only really works for the ones where the pilot(s) are not located in the head of the mecha. That is destroying the head doesn't stop the mecha because that is not where the pilot is, but rather where it does is take out most of, if not all of, the sensors you have. Meaning things like HUD, radar, and other things go offline because they was located in the head area of the mecha. The reason why the mech can still fight with a limited view and stuff is because of the idea that pilot could just open the cockpit to still see out, if the cockpit is see through don't have to open it up and can stay protected.

Because I often play as snipers or I just have a long range back mounted / over the shoulder mounted high piercing damage cannon on my mecha I would often aim at the head of enemy mechs to blind them making it easier for myself and/or my teammates to move around without worrying about things like enemy radar and long range missiles getting in our way (unless the enemy(s) are just firing wildly with spray and pray tactics.).

It was because of things like this that some people, like myself, would always have a smaller backup radar sensor somewhere else on our mechs. Just in case the head unit was damaged or destroyed we could still lock-on to and track enemies with the backup radar.

 

[Pandagnome]

Since damage are not just going to come from guns and melees, what others damages could we expect and how impactful could they be regarding the usual?

- Accelerating Environmental hazards e.g. mutagen from specific lifeforms luring them, Earthquakes by excessive thumping, Avalanches using heavy weapons to cause debris to fall.

Would that depend on the mutagen variant and if the opponent / player have enough protection, could it by pass shields and not armor or the other way round etc ?

Large size debris falling on someone is going to hurt but how much could it damage a Kaiju?
Maybe it might not even do much but it could slow it down.

Perhaps it may be more severe depending on the exposure duration / shock level and even the number or size of debris impacted.

- Explosives and traps e.g. Energy zapping trap lowers energy of the opponent, Clone trap explodes manually or when a certain number of opponents in its radius etc etc

Some may do Damage over time rather than Direct damage or reduce its energy pool.

Some may even take off a leg or so the special 3d printing and a good medic is going to be vital.


- Hacking & viruses/bugs (organic / Synthetic) E.g. Hack device to bring self destruction sequence or even attack friendlies who would target you as rogue.

Viruses or bugs administered through slow release canisters, projectiles even nanotech saboteur's

These could turn battles if done right and using their own devices or units against them. Even reducing their effectiveness, may open the window of opportunity for a good diversion while another area is less occupied.

A skill in hacking could be a thing and you may have different levels because some may be complex defenses. Once a virus or bug is in you could have a few choice either working together to isolate that area and destroy it meaning you need to rebuild that area.

You could also create a Viral/bug hunter that may take time but would produce a better result than something being destroyed and wasting resources.

 

[cl_ogar0]

i understand concerns regarding damage intake and recoverring health pool. But just its hard to balance anything (which makes big impact on overall gameplay) if you dont know how the incoming damage pattern is going to look like. You can easily fall into trap of "obnoxious design choices" if you just want to shoot some aliens and randomly your limbs keep breaking for no reason.

But important question is, how does one balance heavy, medium, light frame between eachother, outside of obvious speed modifiers.

Should light frame be able to just shrug off most of bullet / light weapons fire? Most likely not. Should ALL frames take same damage from hazards like poisonous gas? (Doesnt damage your frame but does ouchie owie to the pilot himself)

I like the idea of light frame recoverring majority of health pool easily with heavy frames recoverring over time. But if you think about it, if you tank a BIG plasma cannon hit as light frame, you might not come out alive out of it, whereas heavy frame might just be able to come out barely alive with major damage.

I would actually like some sort of double health bar (think of path of exile energy shield and life and chaos damage bypassing energy shield)
Where one red health bar represents your pilot (human) HP, and the other yellow bar that represents your frame integrity.
And then you could play around with individual frame damage resistances (for example heavy frame being almost immune to light bullet fire, but vulnerable to plasma / anti tank weapons)
Obviously lighter frame would be vulnerable to BOTH plasma and light bullet fire with the advantage of fast movement speed to avoid either.

You can also play around with the kits each frame has so they arent jacks of all trades (for example heavy frame would be good against swarming small enemies due to taking virtually no damage from them and dealing a lot of AOE damage, but mediocre single target)

 

[Omnires]

One big thing about part damage that you can do is have built in draw backs and tactics for things. For example, in some of the more realistic mecha things (like Gundam) they make a note and warning of not attacking or damaging some important parts of a mecha even in the middle of war unless you can completely destroy it in go. Namely things like the power source for the mechas do to the fact that some of models are powered by things like a nuclear reactor, fusion reactor, anti-matter reactor, and other things that turn into big bombs if the energy in them run out of control. This is why in those types of stories people using weapons not powerful enough to destroy the power core in one shoot will also aim around the core and never at it, unless they want to blow up the enemy and themselves and everything around them for miles arounds all at once.

But than there also people who, like myself, can and will make mecha with parts that meant to be taken off or fall off, willing or otherwise. Like in the example I give before about my mecha that drops it's massive heavy weapons after using them to become faster as the battle goes on. I do that because I'm an attack focus fighter / player. But I'm seen people do the same with layers and layers of armor. Allowing them to take way more damage then normal and just drop parts of the armor when they are no longer useful. Again, becoming faster as they lose mass.

Tactics like that come in really handy in games where you can have a smaller mech or exosuit inside of a larger one. Because just as you are about you go own you eject out of the larger mecha while blowing it up to damage the enemy. And if the enemy is still alive you can use the smaller mech or exosuit to jump onto their back or something and keep attacking them, despite being much smaller and weaker you are better able to hit critical weak points.

I know Em-8er is not that kind of game. But there are still some idea that can be used. Because I hate the idea of the pilot's being useless outside of their frames. And some game do take steps to make sure that even if your mech is taken out you can still fight and win if you know what you are doing.