/v/ - Video Games

Good morning.

>>15391171

Sounds interesting but how would you apply them? as in, would any class be able to use all weapons or maybe something like a "weapon crate" that grants a specific weapon or upgrade to the class?

>>15390251

Go on.

>>15391254

Well, I still need to pinpoint any possible exploit of said basic mechanics, I was thinking about cheap abilities being too spammable if energy regens while in combat or people playing too passively if energy regens outside of combat.

>>15390251

I've been thinking the same thing actually. The primary resource is ammo, but each weapon's RMB is a power that charges up over time and resets on switch. None of them are win buttons, many of them are for defense or mobility rather than damage.

Each class could also have a power that charges up over time and isn't dependent on any weapon, so you can "multiclass" in a way by equipping non-default weapons. For example, the medic class might have an area healing power, but have the option to not use a healing weapon. The only weapon restrictions would be four slots and a total weight limit.

I like the upgrade crate idea too. There could be two types of powerups, one that upgrades the player's held weapon, and one that upgrades the player's class.

>>15391558

When it comes to loadout limits I was thinking of a 3-4 slot limitation that would mean each "card" or modifier uses from one to 3 slots, if anything I would like the classes to just have one weapon with two or more variants, let's use Junkrat as an example, there would be the "Dud" variant which increases blas radius but grenades no longer explode on contact (they deal a small amount of damage upon direct impact) so they would work more or less like Demoman, then the Sticky variant which reduces blast radius but grenades explode in contact with any surface.

How about having several ammo types, and each class uses ammo differently?

Example: Bullets, rockets, batteries.

CHARACTER 1: Gun shoots bullets, rockets used for rocket jumping with special boots, batteries used for a stun-baton melee weapon.

CHARACTER 2: Sidearm shoots bullets, rockets used for primary weapon, batteries used to power energy whip for map traversal and melee.

CHARACTER 3: Bullets/metal are used for a turret, rockets are used to lob grenades, batteries are used to deploy a small shield for damage absorption.

Each character would have an "overcharge" ability that charges doing different things.

CHARACTER 1 would charge their meter by stunning enemies with the baton, at which point they get a "rage mode" where they're faster and (mostly) invulnerable while whacking people with a baton.

CHARACTER 2 would overcharge by dealing damage and when activated would not have to reload for a while and go berserk.

CHARACTER 3 overcharges by absorbing damage, and then deploys overcharge creating a larger, more invulnerable shield.

Or maybe have a character that doesn't "overcharge" at all, but as they continue to do their thing they build a percentage meter that increases total health/damage dealt/reload speed, whatever their niche is.

Maybe add a perk slot for each character, to augment playstyles, depending on if people use CHARACTER 1 to rocket jump more or just like whacking people with a baton.

In this system, every character has three abilities, some attack, some defence, (varying between characters depending on their "role" as attacker or defender or support) and one super ability, and each ability has its own resource to acquire by controlling map points or just doing pick-ups.

>>15391611

(cont)

After thinking about this some more, I think making a three-way control-point style game would work well, with each control point acting as a recharge station for a particular resource, playing on the old Unreal Tournament Domination game mode.

This way you could prioritise capture of points depending on team composition. If you see an enemy team that relies most heavily on rockets, you cap that point and deny them access to it.

As for other character builds, you could have a robot character who needs batteries just to be able to move. When it has battery charge, it moves quick but the battery charge depletes while moving, when it runs out, it goes slow. It gets no actionable ability from it, just better than normal mobility when powered up.

And then, just to help balance the game out a bit, have a feature where if the enemy team has captured all the points and has total resource control, a "desperation mode" gets activated where the losing team's overcharge fills much faster, allowing them to reclaim some points and create some proper back-and-forth.

Maybe swap bullets for "metal", as it allows for armour and melee weapon abilities too, instead of just being another projectile, and relegate the projectile archetype to the rockets resource group.

>>15391611

If that's the case I would go for something more "universal" like ammo, explosives and batteries, still, having more than one resource could make things a little too complex, we could allow batteries to be replenished faster somehow, the problem for me is not having the abilities being abused by finding ways of regenerating energy too fast.

>>15390251

Cooldown is absolute bullshit, but that's far from the only problems CRAPCUNTS have.

Some of the following document is specific to malformed WarCraft-isms inherited by ASSFAGGOTS, and of course there are some additional problems inherent to CRAPCUNTS, but most of its complaints apply to both "genres":

https://learntocounter.com/why-dota-sucks-introduction/

>>15392493

Honest question, the CRAPCUNTS thing stands for something or is just what it sounds like?

>>15392565

Lurk for 6 gorillion years, newfriend.

>"cooldown memory simulator with instant win buttons."

The problem with OW is that this is open for every character regardless of if they survive or nah,

Take CoD (of all games), any strong (ish) support skills are available after completing a killstreak, those being attack helicopters, UAV, Counter UAV etc.

If you wish to have the big fuck off skills like Overwatch then you need to earn it, rather than here, you've played for 2 minutes here's your ult glhf.

Something that OW could do really well is have optional side tasks to get the Ultimate, Almost similarly to how a Medic in TF2 to get an uber charge that doesn't take thousands of years to build, has to get balls deep into the battle. If you want an ultimate ability, earn it by going balls deep and then reap the rewards there of.

If you want to encourage Teamwork, these points could also be something like whoever claims the ultimate cannot use it themselves but rather has to give it to someone who can and but emphasis on that choice.

The other big thing with OW's ultimates is outside of a few, it is just Clear the screen of enemies. Hey, who remembers playing the SNES Megamans? The Centaur Flash was such a fun weapon, right? right? nah. A good idea would be that each ultimate could be used to support the team in their efforts rather than being something that an individual can claim for themselves. Take Tracer, Tracer's ultimate is that she is able to go back through time and heal any damage she's taken.

Not bad, but we can do better,

With Tracer being the character who can fuck with time, why not make it that she can throw a grenade that slows all enemies caught up in it, and speeds up allies. With the previous idea of having ultimates being their own goal seperate from the main objective. This gives Ultimates a huge sway in how a battle goes, but, can also have some form of counterplay to them, similarly to a Medic's Ubercharge.

How about skills? Are skills in general a bad idea?

No, but you need to know what somebody can do at a glance, with OW's huge cast of characters, it's pretty hard keeping up with all of them and whoops, someone picked an off-meta choice and now you don't know how to counterplay them. Having "Skill Ammo" would also be effective, allowing Ammo control be a form of counter play despite not knowing what the opponent could do.

Take League of Legends, (There's a reason why I'm choosing awful games), when a new character comes out, each skill has some stupidly over-complected effect to it, but, if most characters can be counterplayed by playing against the person playing like hiding in the bushes or baiting out skills.This isn't so straight forward in a shooter game but the same general concept can be applied.

>>15392625

>Tracer's ultimate is that she is able to go back through time and heal any damage she's taken.

that's her regular skill, her ult is a sticky bomb, a player would generally throw it on a tanky enemy and then use the warp back to get away from the blast zone. It's one of the most fun ideas in OW in my opinion but it all falls apart in practice. Again one of it's biggest flaws with ultimates is that you can't tell how much bar your enemy has, so if that tracer is running toward you you can't know if she'll throw the bomb or not or is just being a dumbass. The archer guy Hanzo has an ult that pierces through walls in a giant screaming death dragon, you can hear him activate it but players will just use it next to a wall.

>>15391611

>CHARACTER 1: Gun shoots bullets

real shit?

>>15392625

>The other big thing with OW's ultimates is outside of a few, it is just Clear the screen of enemies. Hey, who remembers playing the SNES Megamans? The Centaur Flash was such a fun weapon, right? right? nah. A good idea would be that each ultimate could be used to support the team in their efforts rather than being something that an individual can claim for themselves.

Graviton Surge came to mind, also, no, Tracer's ultimate is a sticky bomb with medium radius which can kill anyone under 300HP (no armor included), her recall is actually an ability on cooldown.

>>15392625

I really wish some of you would actually try to play Overwatch before making these dumb posts or ideaguy's threads.

>The problem with OW is that this is open for every character regardless of if they survive or nah

And thus it's balanced because while your oponent has skills to use at any time, so do you.

>then you need to earn it, rather than here, you've played for 2 minutes here's your ult

Ults in Overwatch are awared with time but at a very slow rate. Performing the role of your class or dealing damage charges them much, much faster.

The difference between a player that hangs back safely and another that goes in and actually helps can reach the point where the second player uses his Ultimate for every 3 times the other player does.

>Something that OW could do really well is have optional side tasks to get the Ultimate

That already happens. Healers gain extra charge from healing, tanks gain extra charge from tanking damage, etc.

>If you want to encourage Teamwork, these points could also be something like whoever claims the ultimate cannot use it themselves

Forced teamwork isn't popular for a reason. You already have people complaining they can't carry games alone, telling them that their toys are for someone else and they need to rely on their team to use their abilities wouldn't make this better.

>The other big thing with OW's ultimates is outside of a few, it is just Clear the screen of enemies.

False. They look like that to bad players, but after playing a few games you notice that things aren't as easy as they seem.

Soldier's infamous auto-aim ultimate is the often quoted example. Fun thing about it, you can't get headshots while using it. A Soldier can easily be killed be another Soldier with 51% accuracy to the head.

It's a skill meant to apply pressure and force retreats, it only kills those stubborn enough to stay.

Same thing for Dva's Ultimate, with a big flashy warning that's meant to clear points, not really kill anyone unless you're dumb enough to stick around.

Even things like McCree's and Pharah will put the hero in vulnerable positions and even expose them harder against their counter so they need proper use or they aren't gonna kill anyone.

Besides, Half the Defense Heros don't have "clear screen of enemies" ultis, like Widow or Torb, Tanks don't have abilities like that either with the exception of Dva and Supports neither. You're greatly exagerating both the amount and even their effectiveness.

You mention Tracer as an example (and you got it wrong, her Ulti is a sticky bomb) but you do not understand her concept at all or how well she was designed.

She has a weapon that empties really, really fast and is only usefull at a very short range. She's meant to blink in, magdump someone and blink out. Her reload time is meant as a breather for your brain to look around and figure where to blink next.

Her Ulti charges very, very fast with the damage she deals so she doesn't even need to get kills since her purpose is to break formations with flanks and sneak attacks. Her abilities compliment that very well but allow for counter play too, since she's only usefull in close range, where she's vulnerable and her rewind ability can backfire when you can predict where she'll appear too.

>OW's huge cast of characters, it's pretty hard keeping up with all of them

It's about 20+ heroes, not that many and they aren't that hard to understand especially when they have a very specific way to play.

We aren't talking TF2 where the same class can perform several different things and you need to figure it out looking at their weapons. Here, if you see Winston you know he has a shield and that he can jump around. That's it.

>>15392574

That only really works in a no respawn game/mode. If thermite could respawn there's no use to counting charges.

>>15392746

this is true, but it's more of an example of how you can keep tabs on what the enemy can do without having an autistic understanding of every possible cooldown

>>15391611

Different ammos for different things does nothing to differentiate the game. It's neither bad nor good, it's just a meaningless idea that at worst makes things less clear.

If Bullets = "Offensive ability", Rockets = "Secondary Ability" and Battery = "Movement Ability" it would be clearer for the players the worth of each ammo type and it's uses or what they need based on what they want to do without having to consider at first what character they were playing.

You could also position ammo based on that, with Bullets near areas where shootouts are expected to happen, Rockets in secondary paths and Batteries are all over the place.

>CHARACTER 1 would charge their meter by stunning enemies with the baton, at which point they get a "rage mode" where they're faster and (mostly) invulnerable while whacking people with a baton.

That's basically Briggite from Overwatch. She charges faster by dealing damage in melee and her Ulti gives her speed and armor as well as nearby teammates.

>CHARACTER 2 would overcharge by dealing damage and when activated would not have to reload for a while and go berserk.

That's Soldier 76, he doesn't have to reload during his Ulti and while he gets no extra damage (or headshots) he gets auto-aim since he's supposed to go berserk and make an hard push.

The perk system you suggest was basically Gigantic, that allowed you to play the same character in different ways depending on how you specced him, including using your Ulti more often or simply having better stats.

>>15392757

Ebin meme.

>>15390251

If you are considering using Energy to balance abilities, this only comes into play if the rate at which you regain it can change, otherwise what will happen is that every fight starts with a massive spam of abilities until Energy is depleted at which point the rate at which Energy is replenished becomes the cooldown.

You also have massive problems balancing this since you have essentially 2 phases in combat, the spam phase and the cooldown phase, where changing the cost of an ability means less uses in the first phase and slower use in the second one.

And if you include energy spawns, the game becomes more about hovering them so you can spam even more.

You also have an extra issue where Abilties will compete with each other for the same resource, so there are abilities that will see little use because why use those when you can save for the other one? Warframe is a notable example of this and Channeling is gonna be removed specifically because of this.

In the end this is just overcomplicating a simple concept for no gain whatsoever. You have abilities that aren't supposed to be spammed so they are placed in a cooldown that lets you easily balance them with it's duration and even holding charges like Tracer having 3 charges for her Blink.

You're not supposed to depend entirely on them, abilities compliment your weapons and you can shoot those when you are waiting for the cooldowns.

If the issue is that an ability is too powerfull, you don't solve it by slapping a cost on it, you'll have the same problem whenever the player has the resources for it anyway. You solve it by reworking the ability instead which is what Blizzard already did plenty of times.

>So what do you think? the only other aspect I could consider are slightly different loadout settings for the class specific kit, not as much as TF2 does, maybe something akin to a card system like in Paladins.

One aspect of TF2 that used to be praised was the silhoute recognition where you could tell what a class was and what it can do at a quick glance. They then fucked it up since now you need to keep track of every weapon they are using as well.

Why would you seriously want this again? If you want a character to perform a different role, make a different character altogether.

>>15392787

>If you are considering using Energy to balance abilities, this only comes into play if the rate at which you regain it can change, otherwise what will happen is that every fight starts with a massive spam of abilities until Energy is depleted at which point the rate at which Energy is replenished becomes the cooldown.

Yep, I was thinking that maybe different classes will recharge faster or slower depending on what they are supposed to do.

>>15392768

Don't you have some cuntboys to be jacking off to?

>>15392745

>And thus it's balanced because while your oponent has skills to use at any time, so do you.

>Everyone is OP therefore nobody is OP

Sorry son but video games don't work like that. In the instance of OW it is who throws the ults first and thus the game becomes a clusterfuck ala League of Legends.

Even then, if it's a 1vs1 then it comes down to who shot first.

>Ults in Overwatch are awared with time but at a very slow rate. Performing the role of your class or dealing damage charges them much, much faster.

But you still get it.

You don't get Ubercharge in TF2 by doing fuck all. You can hang back and only go in for ultimates.

>That already happens. Healers gain extra charge from healing, tanks gain extra charge from tanking damage, etc.

You missed my point. My point is having something outside of the main task, such as a flag or object that's away from the main objective that would divert players during times of stalemates. I'm thinking like the Smash ball in… well Smash. This would put pressure on teams during stalemates, to claim either the ultimate or, to keep on objectives

>Forced teamwork isn't popular for a reason

To be fair, I'll concede this point, thinking about it further the idea of passing an ult to a chum probably isn't the best idea.

>It's a skill meant to apply pressure and force retreats, it only kills those stubborn enough to stay.

>it only kills those stubborn enough to stay

So it does auto clear the screen.

>Same thing for Dva's Ultimate, with a big flashy warning that's meant to clear points, not really kill anyone unless you're dumb enough to stick around

>Throw on point and you've controlled either the point or KO'd half the team

>Widow, Torb etc.

I did say outside of a few, there are a few ults that are pretty gud even for OW. Personally, I really like Zarya's ult, it has counter-play, utility and isn't a click button to win deal.

>You mention Tracer as an example (and you got it wrong, her Ulti is a sticky bomb)

I have been made aware of that, My mistake, I guess I was mistaking Tracer for another character who also creates a trail and able to revert back to a previous point and also has some from of a bomb… 'cor, can't think of what character from another popular shit game does that.

Now, nothing about my idea for an Ult goes against that, if anything, it would go more with this idea of going in and flanking. If she has the ult and there's pressure on a point, she can slow the team and pop enemies off. However, as you said, if someone sees her coming then well there goes the alt

>It's about 20+ heroes, not that many and they aren't that hard to understand especially when they have a very specific way to play.

20 so far, but with how Blizzard are churning out characters this is going to increase. Saying that they have a specific way to play really doesn't help your case of having to keep an idea of what every character can throw out at any point in time.

I feel so autistic arguing over this

Overwatch has some problems, but I think that the biggest one it has is the movement. A few heroes have the ability to actually dodge things (Tracer being the only one who can really do it all the time reliably) but in most cases, Overwatch is more of a "tank and heal" game than a "dodge and counter" game. This is mostly due to the fact that everyone (except Tracer) moves like a fucking whale on a broken shart cart. Movespeed is low, decreasing the ability to dodge enemy attacks. Jumping is pathetic and very few characters have abilities that give them height, making the game much less vertical. To make matters worse, many characters have attacks that will literally autoaim or cover such a large area that they cannot miss, making dodging even less effective. What this all boils down to is that situations where a player can defeat a superior force through skill alone are minimized, as no matter what that player does, they're going to get hit. Lowering skill ceilings sucks.

Additionally, while Overwatch's visual design deserves some praise for making visually distinct characters that can be told apart at a glance, its mechanical design offers no such clarity. This is the main problem I have with a cooldown system in FPS games. When you see an Engineer in TF2 and he's not behind his buildings, you can be pretty sure he'll be an easy target if you don't stand around and eat buckshot. If you see a Heavy with his gun rev'd up, you can be sure that you're going to get shredded if he points it at you and you don't get out. If you see a friendly Medic, you know that he can bring you back to full health if you give him some time to do so. The same cannot be said about Overwatch. Let's say you encounter a Junkrat. How many mines does he have? You don't know. He could throw two in rapid succession and just instantly kill you, or he could have both on cooldown and be easy pickings. What about Roadhog? When he turns a corner is he going to heal up, or is that on cooldown? Did he already use his hook? You don't know. There's a friendly Lucio. Is his healing going to be a strong jolt or is that on cooldown and all you'll get is a pathetic trickle? You don't know. Add ults to all this and it becomes even worse, as a character can turn the tide of battle in an instant and you probably won't know it until a moment before you die.

Finally I don't like the emphasis on team abilities and barriers because quite frankly it limits viable strategies. You can do cool flanks and use unconventional routes but why bother when just clumping up into a big ball and hurling yourselves at the enemy is more effective? Ults literally have to be designed around this to counter it, and even still a smart team will be able to counteract those ults, or just use ults of their own that are also team-based. TF2 has team-based abilities but they are few and far between, with the obvious exception of most of the Medic's kit. They're also all alternatives to the stock loadout, a way to customize the way you play. Yes, having team-based abilities encourages teamplay but in pubs, people who don't want to teamplay won't anyway, and in competitive people will teamplay whether they like it or not, so having forced teamplay interactions just reduces player creativity and freedom.

>>15392839

>In the instance of OW it is who throws the ults first

You are gonna have to make a distintion here first: are we talking about regular abilities or Ultis?

Because regular abilities, everyone has at all times but they don't sway the game that greatly on their own, while Ultis are indeed designed to be game changers but not only do they still require a proper use, they are given far more often to the players that perform better.

>But you still get it.

>You don't get Ubercharge in TF2 by doing fuck all. You can hang back and only go in for ultimates.

So what? A Pharah can dump her Ulti and all it takes is a Reinhart raising his shield to negate the 3 minutes she was waiting for it. Meanwhile a Pharah that performs well will have used her Ulti every single minute and do so by flanking before firing so she isn't sniped.

By the way, your mention of Ubercharge is dumb, Medics also get Ubercharges if they just hangback and heal people. Heck, the best strategy is for a soldier to self damage and help the Medic get his charge faster, something that can happen way out of any combat.

You would have a better example if you said the Blackbox or similar items.

>My point is having something outside of the main task, such as a flag or object that's away from the main objective that would divert players during times of stalemates.

I'm not sure it's a good idea in this case. If the players were Solo, it would most likely work as Quad Damages and Super Shields already do in Quake and UT, an object somewhere with a timer that you can get for an advantage.

But for team-based games, this means breaking formation and pursuing a temporary goal before resuming regular gameplay, which is terrible for team coordination.

Furthermore, the allocation of that advantage is a massive problem. Do you give that advantage (let's say a free Ulti) to everyone player in the team that gets the objective? That's far too much and the game now revolves around the secondary objectives.

Do you give it to a single player? Who? At random? That's a terrible idea. To who did the most damage? Healers never get Ults. Etc, etc.

It doesn't work for team based games.

>So it does auto clear the screen.

Look, are we talking 0-1500 rank players here? Because you don't even need Ults to clear the screen of them. Once you get to play against players that can move and fire at the same time, it no longer clears the screen. In fact, Ultis often end fatally to the Hero using them.

It's practically a meme that Pharah get's sniper by Widow\Hanzo\McCree whenever she uses her Ulti, or Soldier overextending because everyone retreats and then finding himself in open ground with no teammate nearby. McCree will also see everyone running for cover and not actually kill anyone and even Reaper gets killed or CC'd most of the time he tries to use his ulti.

>Throw on point and you've controlled either the point or KO'd half the team

That's not accurate. The timer is about 5 seconds but you realistically only get about 3 where your team can stay on point all together.

Even then, that's clustering and clustering gets you killed especially when everyone else can fire from outside the range of the mech explosion as well or use shields like Reinhardts to negate the ulti entirely while still shooting.

>I did say outside of a few

And I contested the "few" part. The "screen clear" abilities are the minority and even those aren't as fabulous as they seem.

>20 so far, but with how Blizzard are churning out characters this is going to increase

Been quite a while since they released another one and they take their time due to an issue during beta where they released 3 at the same time and the meta took forever to adjust itself.

Still, that's the fun for these types of games, that there's variety and lots of different heroes. You're not supposed to autistically know everything about them, you're supposed to adapt to your oponent and what he is doing, something you can do even without knowing the heroes.

The alternative to this, a small roster with a limited loadout, means more games will play out the same and the game will burn out faster.

>>15392939

Right, I should also mention that as far as mechanical clarity goes, it's very hard to tell when you're getting hit how bad those hits are. Are you getting tickled by a long-range Tracer or shredded by a sentry-mode Bastion? You won't know until you either ignore it or die. So many characters throw so many abilities at once that it's impossible to keep track of everything and tell where any of it is coming from or what to do to prevent it.

>>15392827

Nope, because I don't have shit taste.

>>15393019

pick one. Also sage is not a downboat my triggered little redditor.

>>15393024

>pick one

Don't need to.

>Also sage is not a downboat my triggered little redditor

I'm saging because I'm going off topic you cuckchan summerfag.

>>15392939

The point of Overwatch isn't movement except for the few heroes designed for movement options.

The point is proper positioning and if you're out of place, you should not have the ability to quickly rectify that with no cost whatsoever, that's something the oponents should be able to exploit and a mistake you should avoid in the future.

>Let's say you encounter a Junkrat. How many mines does he have?

Let's say you encounter a Demo, how many stickies\grenades does he have in his gun?

> What about Roadhog? When he turns a corner is he going to heal up, or is that on cooldown?

Why would he heal right after turning a corner? He will heal when low on life and if he's firing instead of healing, it's on cooldown.

>There's a friendly Lucio. Is his healing going to be a strong jolt or is that on cooldown and all you'll get is a pathetic trickle?

The character says way out loud with extra volume that bypasses walls for his team when he uses Amp Up.

You get a lot of feedback for these things actually, and most of the time it doesn't actually matter, the cooldowns are short enough that what matters isn't their initial condition but rather the interval between ability uses.

>Add ults to all this and it becomes even worse, as a character can turn the tide of battle in an instant and you probably won't know it until a moment before you die.

Everytime any hero uses an ability, he always shouts a call out that everyone in both teams can hear loud and clear regardless of where they are, with a lot of them even having incredibly flashy effects to go with it. You have every warning you could possibly need to avoid them.

There's also plenty of them that are brain dead simple to predict. A Reinhart walking towards you without his shield is gonna slam it down, A Pharah flanking a team is gonna use her Ulti, etc.

And most of them even have brain dead simple counters anyway, why is it that hard to move behind a pillar when you hear "It's high noon!"

>You can do cool flanks and use unconventional routes but why bother when just clumping up into a big ball and hurling yourselves at the enemy is more effective?

It's not. Plenty of heroes and abilities designed specifically to punish clumping all together. In fact, most of the Defense cast is a specialist in that.

>>15393038

Yes you do, for they are conflicting statements. Also you only stared saging the moment your chapped little ass was slapped.

>>15390251

Take inspiration from fighting games instead of Mobas.

>>15393133

the cry of the IP hop is the cry of a loser