rM Community

As mentioned in this news post, we've already implemented a big chunk of the core functionality for IA!. With the groundwork practically done and out of the way, we've shifted our focus to some of the bigger gameplay-related features we've planned to include (and have already begun prototyping).

You've seen us mention time and time again our commitment to building a tight-knit relationship with our community, working hand-in-hand to create the best games possible. In addition to your own invaluable ideas and suggestions, we'll be asking you for feedback on specific topics many times over the course of IA!'s development, feedback which will help us ensure we're on the right track.

It's worth noting that with IA! being a spiritual successor to Overwatch (OW), we'll be making many references to the mod in these posts.

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To kick things off, we'd like to discuss one of OW's most liked (and underdeveloped) features, and what our plans are for it in IA!.

→ GP Roles

Roles are very similar to classes found in other games but with two major distinctions:

• Unlike classes, players don't select roles before joining the game; instead, roles are granted to players after picking up special role items found in the level.
  
• Unlike classes, roles don't define every weapon and ability a player has available; instead, roles give players additional tools.

You can find out more about how roles were implemented in OW by reading this Blog entry.

One of the most interesting aspects of point #1 is that it allows players to drop those special items at any time during a round (either intentionally using a bind or when their in-game characters die), giving other players a chance to pick them up and take over their responsibilities. As you'll see shortly, this can be particularly useful in levels where roles could help the GP team progress faster.

Point #2 allows characters to retain their custom look and any weapons and equipment players have selected as part of their loadout, which is a perfect fit for IA! as GP character personalization is an important aspect we have planned for the game. What we're currently considering is for each role to grant one active and one passive ability, and a role-specific secondary function to the character's primary weapon (alternate fire).

We currently have five distinct roles planned for IA!, described below.


The first two are roles that help the team survive longer:

Defender

The Defender role was the first to be implemented in OW; it offered players a portable Riot Shield with limited visibility. It proved difficult to use, especially when trying to protect others on the team.

The third-person view used in IA! will help solve that problem, as it makes it easier for Defenders to protect those around/behind them when using a projected shield as an active ability. A passive ability we've been considering is an AoE force field covering a certain radius around the Defender and protecting anyone within, activated automatically by incoming fire/danger. The alt-fire hasn't been discussed in detail.

We obviously don't want to make Defenders completely invulnerable, so we've been considering giving their abilities a limited HP count which, once depleted, would disable them for a certain amount of time.


Medic

The Medic role in OW replaced (wall-mounted) Health Chargers found in many Half-Life² levels; it offered players a portable MedPack with limited healing power and a timed recharge. It proved difficult to use, particularly when trying to heal other players that won't stand still. Like the Riot Shield, holding the MedPack also prevented players from being able to contribute to the fight (they had to constantly switch between their weapon and the MedPack).

Automatically (but slowly) healing players that are in range of the Medic is a passive ability we've been discussing for this role. For the alt-fire, adrenaline-filled syringes fired at teammates (boosting their resistance and speed) is also an option we've been considering. We haven't discussed the active ability for this role too much, but one idea we've been tossing around is to allow the Medic to provide an instant HP boost to all players (with a long cooldown period to encourage the Medic to use that ability strategically).


The next two are roles that help the team progress faster in the level:

Technician

The Technician is a new role introduced in IA!. Our goal with this role is to give players a way to bypass stationary obstacles within the level (doors, traps) by disabling them, and to complete "console/hacking"-type objectives (as seen in OW) much faster.

In addition to speedy objective capturing, Technicians can (for example) disable the locking mechanism of a door much faster (and with a smaller failure rate) than any other player, giving the team quicker access to a new section. Technicians could also be able to (temporarily) disable traps and sensors placed throughout the level by the OP.


Engineer

The Engineer is also a new role introduced in IA!. Our goal with this role is to give players a way to bypass stationary obstacles within the level (walls, traps) by destroying them, and to complete "generator"-type objectives (as seen in OW) much faster.

In addition to speedy objective capturing, Engineers can (for example) breach through a wall and give the team access to a parallel section (bypassing any obstacles the OP has waiting ahead). Engineers will also be able to (permanently) destroy traps and sensors placed throughout the level by the OP (but are limited by the amount of explosives available to them).


This last role has a special purpose:

Infiltrator

The Infiltrator is a new role planned for IA!. As you can see in the concept above, Infiltrators can automatically assume the shape/size of the nearest prop or unit, allowing them to blend in with the environment. They can also use this passive ability to trick sensors, preventing traps and alarms from being triggered. Since they can still move even while being disguised (which gives the OP a chance to spot them), they could also temporarily render themselves completely invisible using their active ability (which has a cooldown period).

We'll be revealing our specific goals for this role (and how it'd be used in a level) at a later date.


While we've described how specific roles first introduced in OW are being improved in IA!, it's worth pointing out that we also have plans to overhaul or redesign some of the more general aspects of the feature. For example, we'll be making characters equipped with a role much easier to find by fellow GPs (both in-world or on the Minimap), and will be giving players valuable role-specific information on their HUD (like the ability for Medics to see their teammates' Health level very easily).

Last but not least, with the addition of more roles than are available in OW, it becomes possible to limit the amount of different roles usable per round so that each round can offer even more variety (adding to IA!'s replay value). The plan is to allow GPs to vote for a certain number of roles during the pre-round warmup period.


We're now counting on you to share as much feedback (comments, suggestions, questions, etc..) as possible on what we've described above, and we'll be looking forward to showing you the end result of our collaboration in a Spotlight video blog as soon as we're done implementing the feature in the game!



Please note that the features and details described above are subject to change.

What we're mostly looking for is feedback on the five roles we've described above (and the feature as a whole), but feel free to suggest your own roles as well!

A1win, on 21 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

Alt-Fire: Perhaps allowing the defender to sacrifice all their shield hit-points at once to place a stationary (not to mention temporary) shield? (Basically allowing the defender to place a "portable" shield of sorts.) Or allowing the defender to buff other players with additional shield/armour?

A1win, on 21 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

If IA! contains the same (or similiar) incap-feature as Overwatch, I'd recommend allowing the Medic to instantly revive a fallen GP when their active ability is fully charged.

A1win, on 21 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

A1win, on 21 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

Active/Passive/Alternate abilities? Concerning the Technician, because they can open locked doors, I'm assuming they'll also be able to lock doors behind them?

A1win, on 21 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

Interesting...I'm loving the idea of becoming a prop! The Infiltrator (or should I say Infil-traitor?) can only become invisible whilst they're undisguised, right? You mentioned the active ability, what's the passive/alternate ability?

A1win, on 21 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

Whilst it's nice to give the players a choice, I do hope there's going to be random element introduced when it comes to selecting which roles are used in each round. Otherwise the players will quickly favor a dominant strategy and the replay value will become greatly diminished.

WAXT, on 23 February 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

Based on all the discussions we've had so far (and that's been based on everything we've seen/learned from people playing OW), the Revive feature might not be added to IA!. We're waiting to see how everything else flows first.

WAXT, on 23 February 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

I honestly don't think we even talked about it. Would it be just to prevent OP units from following?

We haven't really discussed the passive/alt-fire much for those roles.

WAXT, on 23 February 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

I don't think it matters either way. One thing we forgot to mention is that the passive ability won't work if units are aware of your presence (if you shoot at them for example).

The active is the invisibility, the passive is the auto-disguise. Haven't discussed alt-fire.

WAXT, on 23 February 2012 - 10:55 PM, said:

If we design our levels properly, there won't be a dominant strategy (you also can't predict what the OP will do no matter what your objectives are).

AndY, on 23 February 2012 - 11:37 PM, said:

Pretty much. Maybe there could be a map (custom or official) where the OP is attacking and the GPs have to hold out by sealing doors, preparing defenses, etc.?

AndY, on 23 February 2012 - 11:37 PM, said:

Alright. I'm just trying to get an idea of which abilities are still available for discussion in the ideas and suggestions forum.

WAXT, on 23 February 2012 - 11:56 PM, said:

They all are, nothing's set in stone yet.

What I'd like to see is that the role items should be more spread around in the map rather than having them all in the spawn area. Sort of like the citadel map in Overwatch, but possibly even more random and spread out. That way, there won't be a dominant strategy since you wouldn't know where you'd expect to find the role items.

I would like to see some kind of highlander feature. Pretty much the limit on each role is 1, so not everyone has a role and thus there are still some people who can focus on just shooting scum down.

leiftiger, on 24 February 2012 - 08:34 AM, said:

The problem with that is that it won't allow the GPs to form any strategy at all, which is one of the problems in OW that we feel should be avoided this time around. We'll soon be talking about a feature we (internally) call the Tactical Map which will help GPs better plan their assault (or defence), and the roles they've selected during warmup will play a big part in that strategy.

rickinator9, on 24 February 2012 - 08:53 AM, said:

I agree with the logic, however.. In OW, the number of role items found in a level changed based on the number of active players at the start of a round, but never exceeded 4 in total (so 4 roles for a full server of 7 GPs).

As IA!'s player limit might be much higher than OW's max of 8 (at the very least, we're considering 16 for some levels), one of each role won't be enough. If we make it scale in the same way we did in OW and have a max of 50% rounded up (so 8 roles for 15 GPs), would that work?

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

Personally I feel like there should be more "common" GPs, having more than 50% being a specific role kinda makes roles ineffective in a way.

leiftiger, on 24 February 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

I share the feeling, and that 50% is just a rough estimate. With the assumption that every role has something that can potentially affect all players in the team (like the medic healing aura can), it doesn't really even make sense to scale the number of roles up linearly based on the number of players. It will scale up, but most likely not on a 1:1 basis. It also seems that one player should only be able to be healed by one medic aura at a time (and same for other multitarget role abilities), so that stacking them up wouldn't cause imbalance.

leiftiger, on 24 February 2012 - 01:44 PM, said:

A1win, on 24 February 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

We could reduce the number; for example, 40% rounded up (6 roles for 15 GPs). But yes, this is just a number to give a general idea. We'll need to discuss how scaling works in detail.

I have a couple of questions.

1- Why is the engineer called engineer instead of demolistions or something similar?

2- Are the props going to randomised in some way? I can imagine a OP learning the map layout and attacking anything out of place.

3- Could the OP player have some kind of special unit that but turns off certain powers for a while? Something like a tazer that breaks disguises or perhaps enemy technicains that can turn stuff back on again?

4- Would there be some default vote for the GPs or would they be screwed by apethetic players?

One possible alt fire for the defender could be either a stronger, but more directional deployible cover or perhaps a reverse cover, sealing enemies in a AOE bubble for a breif time. This would give the defender a use at times where you are constantly moving.

Liking the sound of the medic power. One thing that bothers me on alot of games is classes not doing their job. The alt fire syringes should have massive amounts of auto aim. If you play medic in Killing Floor, you'll see how much of a pain it is to hit people. Oddly, one idea I had for a game I'll never make was for a combat medic similar to yours, but who's abilities charge by killing, or at least taking part in combat. This way, the medic isn't religated to just sitting in cover providing heals.

One problem with the roles as items system I could see would be players rushing for the best one. I have noticed in OW people tend to quit after the OP is chosen and they aren't picked. So I am concerned that people could go "I didn't get class X. I'm out of here."

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 12:24 PM, said:

Is this "Tactical Map" anything like the map in Alien Swarm?

A1win, on 24 February 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

What about scaling the amount of health given based on the current number of "leechers"? For example, say the medic heals 10Hp per second for one player, when another player joins the healing aura both players receive 5Hp (per second). Once a third joins then each player could only receive 1-2Hp to try and discourage grouping around the medic. This also prevents medics huddling together making themselves immune (unless medics cannot receive healing from other medics anyway).

Perhaps players cannot be healed by the medic's aura whilst the medic is currently healing (and vice versa)?

Sabre, on 24 February 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

• --
  
• A very good point.
  
• Not a bad idea, it might distract the OP from focusing on more important tasks though.
  
• Random?

Sabre, on 24 February 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

There's not a whole lot that can be done about that now is there.

Sabre, on 24 February 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

1- No reason, you guys can vote for the name if you don't like it.
2- We hadn't thought about that; we'll have to test it in Kismet to see how well it'd work. So basically, instead of always having 4 crates in a corner, the number would randomly vary each round from 2-6 crates for example?
3- Anything the Tech disables is just temporary (so it's automatically enabled again after a short period of time). Having special units might make things too complex for the OP.
4- I'm not sure I understand the question.. votes for what exactly?

Sabre, on 24 February 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

Just to be clear, the alt-fire is a secondary fire function for the primary weapon (think of the SMG in HL2 that has a SMG Grenade alt-fire), so it should be something more weapon-specific and not just another ability.

Sabre, on 24 February 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

We could make the CoF (cone of fire) broad enough and have a large number of small syringes fired quickly so that your aim doesn't have to be too accurate.

Sabre, on 24 February 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

We've thought about it too. What would you guys think if role types were selected during warmup then randomly assigned to players when the round begins? You'd still have the option to drop the role item and give it to someone else if you don't want it.

Or, players could vote for a role during warmup and it would assign the roles based on who voted for them. For example, if players A, B and C voted for Medic and players D and E voted for Defender, then (at the start of the round) one randomly selected player from A-C would get the Medic role, and a randomly selected player from D-E would get the Defender role. Again, they'd still have the option to drop it.

Sabre, on 24 February 2012 - 07:05 PM, said:

Hah, I thought of almost the same thing earlier today. My idea was that the medic could temporarily increase the efficiency of his healing aura from 100% up to 200% by damaging enemies, and after a while of not damaging, the efficiency would drop back to 100%.

I was also thinking about auto-aim for the syringes, which would be better than no auto-aim, but I'm also keeping an open mind to ideas where the medic wouldn't need to aim them at all, or at least would know which player it's going to hit with the auto-aim before firing, perhaps by having some kind of an indicator on the targeted player.

WAXT, on 24 February 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

Well, they both have maps.

WAXT, on 24 February 2012 - 07:57 PM, said:

Wouldn't it be better to encourage people to stick together rather than discourage them? The downside to huddles is that the OP can kill them all with one very well-placed blow.

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

I think there should also be a radial offset for these hypothetical crates. It isn't difficult to remember the exact position and rotation of (static) objects once you've played enough.

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

A1win, on 21 February 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

I was thinking something very similiar earlier today. Basically allowing the GPs to vote for their preferred role and then at the start of the round randomly select a percentage of the team to receive those items. So, using your example above, any two players from A-E would receive their chosen role items.

A1win, on 24 February 2012 - 08:15 PM, said:

Funnily enough I was also thinking along those lines. Whilst the medic has the medi-gun equipped, whenever they hover their aim over an ally the crosshair would lock on following that player (and turning green). To break the lock simply move the crosshair far enough away from the player, lose line of sight or become too distanced from the other player. Lock-on would only take one second, maximum.

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 08:18 PM, said:

You know what I mean -can you draw on it?

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 08:18 PM, said:

Yes, but players should be flanking, covering each other and employing other tactical maneuvers. Not constantly tailing medics for health.

WAXT, on 24 February 2012 - 09:06 PM, said:

It only took us 2 seconds in a discussion to remember how people used it in games like AS: drawing inappropriate things.

So most likely not, we have other plans for it.

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 08:14 PM, said:

There's nothing wrong with the name. I just wondered why he's called engineer when he seems more about blowing stuff up.

The vote thing, as already said, was the vote for roles, will get to that later...

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about alt fire. I assumed that the role would changing a normal smg into smg with medic syringe or smg with force feild?

WAXT, on 24 February 2012 - 09:06 PM, said:

Sounds good. Maybe a no preference/no role option. This way, appethic players don't screw it up for the team. Maybe they only get a role if all the voters have already got roles and they get the left overs?

AndY, on 24 February 2012 - 09:21 PM, said:

I still believe that was a sound plan, it just happened to look like that because you couldn't get your mind out of the gutter.

...although seriously, I did use that seriously as intended once, and after we had a big laugh about how I was the only person to use that feature right.
Edited by Sabre, 24 February 2012 - 09:30 PM.