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SynOne
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Posted - 2014.04.13 22:29:00 -
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Apologies for the late input. I joined Dust514 during Murdu's Trials and have been watching to see in which direction the new CCP dev team will take this game. While I am enjoying all the new technical advancements CCP Shanghai has brought to FPS genre and the Uprising Updates I cannot help but ask what happened to fun?
As someone who has been playing the Battlefield series since the 1942 Wake Island demo I can't help but compare dust514 to Battlefield. More specifically the Battlefield 2142 game. Unlike 2142 the 514 game suffers from being tech focused. With so much interest in the link between the EVE Online and Dust fun has taken the back seat. So far the great work the Mr Gaudechon's dev team has done is very much focused on setting up the base gameplay. With that being said here are my suggestions on how to bring the fun factor into Dust 514:
1) What happened to Audio?
To start I just want suggest some more audio. The room the Dust soldiers live should have some background audio. With all those screens it seems odd that there is not a single speaker to be found. This is a perfect opportunity to add radio, music or announcements. Radio can add immersion as well passive communication. Imagine the player setting up a fit while in the background audio clip plays letting the player know changes happening in the game. These changes can be game development changes, faction warfare changes or story line snippets. The audio can also be more personal by informing the player how many of their contacts are online and how many are playing games.
The Audio can be used more to set up tension and entertain the player during the matches. For example during the match audio cues can be used for important moments such as near death, bleeding out, hack active alarm, low clone level, squad spawn point active, all control points lost tension drone sound and etc. Currently when you are waiting for a medic to revive you there is only few text clues to letting you know that the option is available. Most of the time waiting to be revived is a time waster. With a strong heartbeat audio cue the player can be alerted that he is still alive. The nearby medic can also get an audio cue letting him/her know that there is a solider ready to be revived. The audio cues for the medic will be the heartbeat as heard by the medical profession, through a heart monitor beeps. The flat line sound would play every time a revive timer runs out and the medic did not revive the downed player. The soldiers might be clones but until the heart stops every solider will experience the near death experience fully and emotionally. So should the player. The cloning technology can allow you to live a thousand lives. But do not forget the fact that to live a thousand lives you would have to die 999 times first. The audio can be a useful component in adding emotion into the game just the same way as the films do.
Lastly letGÇÖs not forget that while Halo has Cortana EVE online has Aura. Aura as AI assistant can become the default AI for all the space buildings and ships. It can add a personal touch and a sense familiarity between games.
Fun Factor: Being emotionally attached to the game will lead to more joy and more sorrow being felt while playing the game.
2) The long walks
Sprint function is too old fashioned to be the only way to speed up infantry movement. As much I would love to be able to afford to wait/buy for a vehicle every time I respawn it is just not the best solution. If I wanted to quickly get down to a point on the map I would need something fast and easy to get. This is where the micro warp drive comes into play. It would work by creating warp bubbles on both feet. With the warp drive active the player would essentially start to glide across the map. As if the player is on ice and the warp bubbles are skates. The player would be able to travel up to 4 times the speed but with no offensive capability. If the player hits an object during the warp the suit will take a damage depending on the speed of the impact.
Small Infantry Micro Warp Drive:
PW: Low
Speed: x2
Cool Down: 60 seconds
Duration: 15 seconds
Signature radius: x2
Medium Infantry Micro Warp Drive:
PW: Medium
Speed: x3
Cool Down: 70 seconds
Duration: 30 seconds
Signature radius: x3
Large Infantry Micro Warp Drive:
PW: High
Speed: x4
Cool Down: 80 seconds
Duration: 45 seconds
Signature radius: x4
Fun Factor: The MWD can get you across the map at lot faster pace. Keeping you in action more so you do not miss most of the fun respawning. It would make snipers work for their kills and allow you to pretty much skate your way round. If that is not enough can you guess what would happened if you went off a cliff or up a side of a hill? |
SynOne
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Posted - 2014.04.13 22:31:00 -
[2] - Quote
3) TiDi to go
While we just spent some time speeding up the battle now would be a good time to create something to slow it down with. The Cyno Bubbles. A cyno grenade would explode on timer or first contact. On explosion it would create a cyno bubble slowing down anything in the bubble to a crawl as well as suspending gravity. The cyno grenade does not issue any damage allowing the player to activate the grenade while still in his/her hand. The cyno grenades would replace the normal grenades. If two or more are activated in the same area they would not multiply the effect. The Cyno bubble will affect all suit sizes and all vehicles the same way.
Small Cyno Grenade:
Radius: 1m
Duration: 30 seconds
Medium Cyno Grenade:
Radius: 2m
Duration: 30 seconds
Large Cyno Grenade:
Radius: 4m
Duration: 30 seconds
Fun Factor: You see your squad mates HAV about to be destroyed by an enemy infantry. You warp in with a repair tool but a commando has fired the triple rocket volley and it is heading straight for your squad mates HAV. Your squad mate has not seen the incoming rockets and is too busy shooting the enemy on the other side of the map. If this HAV is lost the enemy will be able to take the crucial capture point behind it. Being quick on your feet you activate a Large Cyno Grenade but you do not throw it. You step in front of the HAV placing yourself in the flight path of the incoming rockets. As the rockets are about fly past you the cyno grenade launches a cyno bubble which traps the rockets inside it. Before the rockets exit the bubble the HAV notices what was happening and moves to safe area which causes the rockets to hit a side of building. The HAV then launches a volley of its own at the Commando killing the last remaining enemy in the area allowing you to repair the HAV to full power. That is just one possibility. Another may go something like this; you could throw a Cyno Grenades in the air and set a cyno bubble trap for an enemy drop ship. With the dropship suspended in slow motion your squad mates can have easy shots at it killing everyone inside. Next!
4) I love the view but you need to find a new interior decorator
The war barge pre match warm up room has a lot of potential. The space could be a lot better utilised. The huge table in the middle could be divided into sections. You could have a more reference style map (Look up London underground map) then trying to deploy a wireframe replica. Other sections could contain information on the planet the match is on as well as the type of the match. It can also show the win/loss ratio for the two sides within last 24 hours. Basically pack the table with as much useful information as possible creating a real battle table. The interior of the room can also have a lot more screens, music and general features. There could be information screens comparing the best performing players and worst performing players in both teams. The information would make the battles more personal and inform you more of what waits for you on the planet surface.
Fun Factor: Feeling like you are in a real battle preparation room where there is a lot of information will create the tension/buzz for the next match which would increase the fun you have playing in the match. Plus knowing which guy to pick enemy to pick on and which enemy to run away from would be very useful.
5) The only reason why we have a base in this canyon is because the other team also has a base in this canyon
The following may seem harsh but I am only doing it because I love you. By saying that I mean the level designs in this game suck. I understand that there is no way that anyone can possibly create thousands of different levels for each planet but that does not mean that more effort should not be put into it. You can have a procedural scrip running and creating multitudes of battlefields but that does not mean anyone of them will be fun. We need human beings going back into a procedurally generated map and adding more human logic into them to allow for maps to be fun and memorable.
The maps should be better spaced out. With a large percentage of players spending most of their time on foot there needs to be more dense areas to stop infantry having to walk across miles of open space without a tree or a bush in sight. For vehicles there should be clear open areas next to the dense areas. This way both the infantry combat and the vehicle combat have their own areas of the map to enjoy.
Every map should have something unique about it that the player can identify. Also I understand that UE3 supports heat maps. As the time progresses heat maps should be used to tweak the map slightly. Giving the players the feeling that their previous battles on that map had a lasting impact.
Fun Factor: Finding out that shortcut you used to dominate the enemy with has been closed after some time. This discovery would at first aggravate you and make you feel that your action has caused something in the Eve universe to change (The butterfly effect). Also it will force you try and find new ways to fight even if you are playing on the same map. |
SynOne
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Posted - 2014.04.13 22:32:00 -
[3] - Quote
6) What is that thing! Why are there containers everywhere?
My last point is the level objects/buildings them self. Some are quite iconic and very well done to art of EVE online and others just makes me say what the. Prime example being the grey dome like structure that usually has its twin sitting right next to it. It looks like a pointless huge lump of concrete and underneath it are nothing but pillars and containers. Being underneath these buildings reminds me of a multi-story car park except there are no cars just random open containers. These kind of buildings just donGÇÖt make any sense and they make the map look bad.
The key factor for every one of these maps is colonization. The maps are meant to be based around areas of planets that have been colonized for different reasons. Because of this every building on the map must have a clear purpose that fits into the colonization theme of the map. Colonization is not cheap to do which would mean that every building/object would have a reason for being there.
For example a map that is based on Barren colony which is extracting metals from the planetGÇÖs surface should have big diggers, smelters, metal processing facilities, storage and transport areas, as well as residential areas. Depending on the geography of the map the colony defences should be set up as such as to where the most likely attacks are meant to come from. The arrangement of these maps should also follow the logic of the Planetary Interaction in EVE Online. This would give you 4 types of maps; Extractors, Processors, Spaceports and Command Centre. As we progress from the Extractors to the Command Centre the maps would become less open, less industrial and more secure.
My point being the maps need to be more logical and designed with a purpose in mind. If we are being sent to attack/defend a colony on a planet then there needs to be a clear representation of general worth this area has that would inspire such conflict.
Thank you CCP, all the best. |
SynOne
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Posted - 2014.04.14 23:48:00 -
[4] - Quote
wiseguy12 wrote:Dust stimulates a different part of the brain than other games. It is more focused on the joy of accomplishment and improvement, same as flappy bird. This game does need more audio functions maybe add shield/armor alert. I would like some player operated radio in the merc quarters.
I have tried to have in Dust repeatedly but i keep wanting more. To me the game has potential to be a lot more fun if it exploited the Eve universe tech more. |
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