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#51 05/13/10 15:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Not to beat a dead horse, but I was reminded of something else. The smoother, and less cheep you can make the gameplay, and the more options you give the player makes it easier to get into a game. If you really want to bring in new players, especially for new mods and MP when it gets here, don't focus only only the hardcore 'been-playing-for-the-last-9-years-players' and try to make it fun for everyone.


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#52 05/13/10 17:05

Paff
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From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
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Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Jon God wrote:

Not to beat a dead horse, but I was reminded of something else. The smoother, and less cheep you can make the gameplay, and the more options you give the player makes it easier to get into a game. If you really want to bring in new players, especially for new mods and MP when it gets here, don't focus only only the hardcore 'been-playing-for-the-last-9-years-players' and try to make it fun for everyone.

Heh, careful lest arguments start up again. tongue

I definitely agree with this as a general concept. In terms of translating it from a general concept to more specific thoughts regarding various aspects of Oni's engine and contents, I'm not sure how to comment on it without kicking this thread back into argument mode. If you want to talk about it in PMs or something though, I'd be down.

Last edited by Paff (05/13/10 17:05)

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#53 05/14/10 05:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Well, I will abide by the mods, and not start up any debate too heated.

However, I come from the Myth community where people are always trying to figure out how to get new players, as the player count very slowly drops.

I would say it would do you well to try and make it easy as possible to get new players hooked, because, while it's the same for new games, it's too a much larger degree for older games, that if it doesn't grab them quickly, they will just move on.

I feel once Multiplayer materializes, lots of people will download and buy Oni just to try it "What? An old game by Bungie?" "What? A that has a mod that gives it multiplayer?" ect. The trick is not to let the moment pass, but make sure they want to do more then play it for 15 minutes, but instead get as sucked in as we are.

I feel one key way to do that, is to bring better weapon balance to Oni's single player. (If you want to hear my other ideas, point me to a topic about sharing ideas for Oni's future)


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#54 05/14/10 15:05

Gumby
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From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: 08/30/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Jon, you might as well post it here. I don't mind if you guys debate on things, as long as it doesn't turn into flaming. I just am done participating in them myself. smile


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#55 05/14/10 17:05

Iritscen
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From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Yeah, nowhere will you find us saying that debating is bad.  On the contrary, I want people to be vocal so we know what they want out of things like MP.


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#56 05/14/10 22:05

Paff
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From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
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Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Heh, okay, let's talk about it then. I'm not sure if we should talk about it in this thread or make a new one specifically for that topic. Either would probably be fine I suppose.

Jon, I'll let you start off, since you brought it up and seem to have lots of thoughts to share.

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#57 05/15/10 10:05

Satyr
Member
Registered: 03/22/10

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Tbh, I haven't read the whole thread. The only thing I have to say about balancing the weapons, is that I think the SBG should be powered down. All the other weapons (including the mbow) are easy to survive. The SBG is way too powerful, imo. It knocks you over, and by the time you can get up you get knocked down again by a second blast that is most likely fatal. The fact it has quite a lot of shots in one ammoclip, and it can be fired quite rapidly, assures certain death to all who face the weapon.

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#58 05/15/10 14:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

That's why I was thinking of completely redoing the SBG, kinda like i redid the VDG


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#59 05/15/10 17:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Well, I am not sure how much more I can add at the moment. But as I added before:

The key to getting people to keep playing something that they are not immediately taken in by, is to keep the gameplay itself fun, and interesting. I can think of other ways to keep people interested, like new graphical effects, and the such, but none of those would keep someone 'just visiting' Oni hooked nearly as long as smooth/balanced gameplay.

As far as weapons go, I think the easiest way to tell if one is unbalanced, would be to imagine spawning with one, surrounded by people with other weapons, or even, spawning with one, while spawning near someone with another weapon. If you were the exactly equal skill level, who would win? If you make all the weapons work in the situation, where you feel that any other weapon would at least have a fair chance, then things start to feel balanced.


Personal opinion on each of the weapons:

• Campbell Equalizer - I think perhaps, at least for MP, the recoil should be toned down a subtle amount. This doesn't mean turning Konoko into stone hands, just making it more useful against guns that don't have kickback.

• Black Adder SMG - This one is difficult, perhaps lowering the spray amount (For solo and MP), and upping the damage (for MP)? I feel it might make it just too good at close range, but as it stands, I feel it will be a huge disadvantage to have compared to other weapons.

• Plasma Rifle - All I can think of, is upping the damage a little for multiplayer.

• Phase Stream Projector - Hmm. I feel like this would quickly become the most annoying weapon to fight against. Perhaps making it, at least for multiplayer take a _little_ more of the shot to knock someone down, and it possible, make it not effect people on the ground, so they don't just keep getting knocked over the second they stand up.

• SuperBall Gun - We talked about this before. Perhaps making the cool down time between shots longer, Perhaps making the shots not explode into multiple smaller nades unless it hits a target, or making you unable to holster/drop it for a time between shots.

• Van De Graff Pistol - This is fine for single player, I'd say, for multiplayer, perhaps lengthen the stun time a little, as it wont be the most useful, I'd think.

• Scram Cannon - Ugg.. I don't even know, this weapon was the least useful in single player, I thought. I have been having a lot of trouble trying to make it more of a useful weapon. Anyone else have any ideas?

• Mercury Bow - For single player, how's about a scope? wink For multiplayer, maybe a slightly longer slow down?

• Screaming Cannon - In it's current form, I think it works for single player, and probably would work alright for multiplayer, however, I don't see it being a very fun gun to use in MP. That's just personal opinion though.

• Wave Motion Cannon - Are we even including this in MP?


It also might be worth looking into making backbreakers do more damage, and such things. I will think of more, and post later.


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#60 05/15/10 19:05

TheCreature
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From: Michigan, USA
Registered: 12/15/09

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Personally, I'd keep the multiplying grenades.  Maybe take the damage down, but I feel that the grenades are too integral to take out.  What if we made it so that the bouncing/ricochet option takes more ammo, as a secondary function?

As for the Scram, could we make it so that the missiles break formation and begin seeking earlier?  Or if they shot out in a short burst, one at a time, instead of all at once?  Or, we could replace it entirely?  With one of the add-on weapons?

Maybe we could kick up the damage on the Equalizer a bit too?


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#61 05/15/10 20:05

Paff
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From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
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Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Alright, here's my thoughts on everything so far.

Jon God:

Jon God wrote:

The smoother, and less cheep you can make the gameplay, and the more options you give the player makes it easier to get into a game. If you really want to bring in new players, especially for new mods and MP when it gets here, don't focus only only the hardcore 'been-playing-for-the-last-9-years-players' and try to make it fun for everyone.

I agree with this. My current theory is that for any game, including Oni, to do well in the long run, it wants two things:
1. Lots of fun for curious new players to get hooked on when they try it out.
2. Extreme depth to keep those players playing for a long time. Depth pretty much means keeping the gameplay interesting and fresh, but still fundamentally the same, for a long time. It can be accomplished either via lots of content (like WoW) or via having lots room to improve one's skill (like chess).

Basically, it needs to focus both on new players and on been-playing-for-the-last-9-years players. It also needs to focus on players in between those two extremes, and on players who have been playing for more than 9 years.

#1 and #2 above are going to be up to the players' tastes, though. I know vanilla Oni certainly has had both of those for me so far. However, as we can all see, there aren't very many of us left, which means that it didn't have both of those for a lot of people.

I'm not sure how we can figure out how to make #1 and #2 in Oni more universal for people. Perhaps if we discuss with each other the things about Oni that got us hooked, turned us off, and have kept us playing for so long, we'll be able to find some general trends?

On changes/rebalancing in general:

I think that if we actually change the guns/characters/mechanics, we will want to do it very carefully. Many of the players that Flatline will bring in will be people who played Oni back in the day, and now want to play the same game, but with multiplayer. If they show up and see that all the weapons are totally different than they were before, I think many of them will say "What the crap? This isn't Oni! This is some random stuff that uses Oni's engine. I'm outta here.".

Others will be excited by the new stuff, of course, and I'm not sure what proportions of players would feel each way.

My suspicion is that people who used to play Oni and come back for multiplayer will be plenty excited even without changes, and that the more changes we make, the more people we'll turn away. This is part of why I'm so keen on methods for balancing multiplayer via managing the multiplayer game setup, rather than via changing the guns/characters/mechanics.

On multiplayer rebalancing:
I don't think it'll hurt to speculate a little bit about multiplayer balance now, but I definitely stand by the idea that we won't actually know what we're doing until we have multiplayer available and have played it a lot. I really don't think there's too much point yet in discussing all of the guns in depth from a multiplayer perspective. There's just too much we don't know about what human players are actually able to do to fight with/against each of the guns, as compared to what the AI does to fight with/against those guns.

One note: I think people are sleeping on the VDG, and that they shouldn't be. Five backbreakers per clip on a gun that shoots instantaneously and doesn't have to be aimed is no joke. I think the VDG pistol is probably the third best gun in the game, and has the best chance of being able to compete with the MB and SBG in multiplayer. It has a decent chance of being downright better than them on close-quarters maps.

Its glaring weakness, of course, is that it's useless against force shields, but I imagine the availability of those will also vary per map. And I suppose its other glaring weakness is that you can avoid the stun by jumping just before you get shot by it, but then human players will probably wait to shoot until your jump is finished. I dunno. It's hard to say without having multiplayer available to try it out, heh. tongue

On the Scram Cannon:
The only useful things that I can think of about the Scram Cannon are:
1. It does a lot of damage instantaneously at point-blank range.
2. The other player has to dodge the rockets once they start homing, and dodging rockets interferes with aiming.
3. You don't have to aim it.
4. It can shoot around corners.

I haven't messed with applications for it too much yet, so I can't speculate too much on how good it actually is in either singleplayer or multiplayer. I think there's a reasonable chance that it's good for shooting people whenever you knock them down with barehand attacks. But it's a really weird gun, and I definitely don't understand it very well yet.

Last edited by Paff (05/15/10 20:05)

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#62 05/15/10 22:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Okay, a few things

@Scram cannon: it's possible to make the "seeker" aspect of the shots  increase, so as to make the bullets harder to dodge. I think just this little change would make it a gun worth using, and I believe the only thing that needs changing is one or two lines in the XML file

@Van de Graff pistol - Have you tried my new VDG mod? It nullefies the ability to pull fre backbreakers, but has a whole new fun filled effect. Look for it on the mods page, try it an tell me what you think. Btw, if the you the effect is too great, in advance, I'll tell you im planning on releasing an update for it to make it a bit less powerful

@Bringing in new players - The problem isn't so much how can we make it better, the question is publicity and advertising lol, we have none. It's a great game, but no1 knows about it. I think 90% of people, if they were to try this game would love it, after playing through it. And being part of a good community adds to that experience. As long as we don't change what makes this game what it is, there are no problems there. (Those elements being good combat system, good story, good characters, good music etc...) theres not much chance of screwing those over so bad that no1 will play, anyways, as soon as someone releases a mod that does this, I'm sure the Oni community will catch it pretty quick and shoot it down. That's why it's good to have people who know the game how it was, and know how to improve upon it without diluting it too much.

@Phase Stream - Yeah, that is one useless gun ingame, maybe against force shields is best, but why do that when you can kill them and TAKE their force shield. This is one of those guns that someone can completely change the effect and no1 will care.


@SBG, as i said, planning on changing it in the near future, stay tuned smile


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#63 05/15/10 23:05

Gumby
Member
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: 08/30/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

First off, I must say this: When MP comes out in beta form, there is a large probability that most guns will be disabled due to syncing issues.

VDG - lowering the amount of stun time would help balance it

SBG - for MP, making it have two firing modes is a definite possibility. Unfortunately, the AI (other thanBarabus) have issues using two modes. In the short term, making it so the secondary grenades don't knock down might help.

Scram - I'm attempting to make this suck less. smile Only partially succeeding though.


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#64 05/16/10 02:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Mukade, I haven't tried that mod out yet, but will do so soon. smile

Also, I forgot to mention before: I definitely think that the characters will need to be rebalanced eventually, and that's probably going to be more important for the long-term than gun balancing. Relatedly, I think I'll stick a poll up asking about which character(s) people prefer to use.

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#65 05/16/10 06:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

@Mukade: I think it's true that no one likes the PSP and that it just doesn't seem worth using in SP mode.  However, note the weapon description: "This device is a miniaturized version of the vehicle-mounted phase projectors deployed during the Freedom Riots of 2012. It emits a continuous beam of energy that can stagger or topple enemies."  Perhaps in MP it will be useful to stun a group of enemies, preventing the opposing team from firing at your guys, while your teammates pump them full of lead.  We might want to leave this one alone until we see if it lends itself to strategic gameplay in MP.

@Paff: Character rebalancing is definitely important, and Loser put massive amounts of effort into balancing characters for the purpose of playing as those characters, whether in SP or MP (see "Andrashi Melee System" in AE).  There's probably more tweaks that are needed, though.  We probably won't know until we can test MP and see if there are any unfair or spammable moves left.


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#66 05/16/10 11:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

@ Gumby/Scram, have you tried like I suggested and making the shots better at seeking (like Mukades' devil star kind of seeker abilities, or slightly inferior)

@Irit/PSP Yeah, but it takes a concentrated beam to knock a player down, and that is extrmely difficult to do at a range, since there is no easy way to aim it, and it is a simple matter to dodge it. If you were to use it to suppress enemy fire, it's kind of pointless because one would assume they are shooting from far away, therefore, hard to hit. It's a good concept for a gun, I would suggest giving something extra such as:  a "seeker" property to make it easier to hit people, an aiming capability, laser sight and crosshair or making it more powerful (easier knockdown) It is a gun with much unexploited potentiel.


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#67 05/16/10 14:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

@character rebalancing:
For character rebalancing, I mostly meant making sure that the characters are about evenly matched against each other when they're in human hands. Getting rid of spammable moves/making their movesets more diverse in application is definitely worth looking into as well, though. I haven't messed with the Andrashi Melee System yet, but I will at some point. Also, what exactly do you mean by "unfair" moves?

(Also, if multiplayer Oni turns out anything like Super Smash Bros., we're not going to fully understand multiplayer character balance literally for years after multiplayer comes out.)

@PSP:
For the PSP, it's hard to say without having multiplayer available, but I think it has a good chance of being downright worthless, and very frustrating and dumb if it isn't worthless. I'm pretty much expecting to never make any maps that allow it unless it gets radically changed, heh.

@1v1 vs teams:
You reminded me - the balance of the guns and whatnot will almost certainly be different in 1v1 maps as opposed to teams maps, and it'll probably be tough to make them 100% balanced in both 1v1 and teams. I suppose having a money system like CounterStrike would allow us to deal with that pretty easily, by having different prices for the guns in 1v1 as opposed to teams. That's really looking like a very good option to me, if it's possible.

Also, I suppose the same thing applies to different map types (close-quarters, wide-open spaces, etc).

Last edited by Paff (05/16/10 14:05)

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#68 05/16/10 15:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

On changes/rebalancing in general:
I think that if we actually change the guns/characters/mechanics, we will want to do it very carefully. Many of the players that Flatline will bring in will be people who played Oni back in the day, and now want to play the same game, but with multiplayer. If they show up and see that all the weapons are totally different than they were before, I think many of them will say "What the crap? This isn't Oni! This is some random stuff that uses Oni's engine. I'm outta here.".

Others will be excited by the new stuff, of course, and I'm not sure what proportions of players would feel each way.

My suspicion is that people who used to play Oni and come back for multiplayer will be plenty excited even without changes, and that the more changes we make, the more people we'll turn away. This is part of why I'm so keen on methods for balancing multiplayer via managing the multiplayer game setup, rather than via changing the guns/characters/mechanics.

Okay, first off, yes, if you change anything some people will be unhappy, but that's the way of the world. Some people probably don't even like the idea of AE, but it shouldn't stop us from using it to make a more interesting, fun and better game.

Secondly, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT rely on hosts to balance things. Not everyone wants to take the time to set things up for an online game, so if you do, probably 40%-60% of the people will balance the game via options. Now, that's 60%-40% that doesn't, first off, I know it would bother me to be playing an unbalanced game, second, talk about keeping players playing: Having cheep and unbalanced gameplay is NOT the way to do this, that is a quick way to get players to stop playing.


@Scram cannon: it's possible to make the "seeker" aspect of the shots  increase, so as to make the bullets harder to dodge. I think just this little change would make it a gun worth using, and I believe the only thing that needs changing is one or two lines in the XML file

It was mentioned somewhere here, but I can't find it now: what about making the missiles fire not all at once, but like one every half second, which would make it take a little more skill to use, and be more useful overall?


@Bringing in new players - The problem isn't so much how can we make it better, the question is publicity and advertising lol, we have none. It's a great game, but no1 knows about it. I think 90% of people, if they were to try this game would love it, after playing through it. And being part of a good community adds to that experience. As long as we don't change what makes this game what it is, there are no problems there. (Those elements being good combat system, good story, good characters, good music etc...) theres not much chance of screwing those over so bad that no1 will play, anyways, as soon as someone releases a mod that does this, I'm sure the Oni community will catch it pretty quick and shoot it down. That's why it's good to have people who know the game how it was, and know how to improve upon it without diluting it too much.

Well, it's hard to say, because I talk to people about Oni all the time, and out of everyone I've talked to about it, I think of the people that remember, 90% of them said something along the lines of "meh, that game was full of problems, wasn't finished, and wasn't fleshed out enough" I've heard this for years among tens of people. Sure there will be people like us, but we aren't the average players, and if we deal the deck to ourselves, we'll be the only ones left.


Also, if multiplayer Oni turns out anything like Super Smash Bros., we're not going to fully understand multiplayer character balance literally for years after multiplayer comes out.

By the time most people have left? ^_^


@PSP:
For the PSP, it's hard to say without having multiplayer available, but I think it has a good chance of being downright worthless, and very frustrating and dumb if it isn't worthless. I'm pretty much expecting to never make any maps that allow it unless it gets radically changed, heh.

This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about, I don't think guns should simply not be put on maps because they aren't balanced in general. I don't think anyone can look at that and say it's not simply faulty game design.


@1v1 vs teams:
You reminded me - the balance of the guns and whatnot will almost certainly be different in 1v1 maps as opposed to teams maps, and it'll probably be tough to make them 100% balanced in both 1v1 and teams. I suppose having a money system like CounterStrike would allow us to deal with that pretty easily, by having different prices for the guns in 1v1 as opposed to teams. That's really looking like a very good option to me, if it's possible.

Halo pulled it off. So have a lot of other games, I think with some tweaking for versus, 1v1 will be pretty close to balanced itself.


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#69 05/16/10 16:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Jon God wrote:

Okay, first off, yes, if you change anything some people will be unhappy, but that's the way of the world. Some people probably don't even like the idea of AE, but it shouldn't stop us from using it to make a more interesting, fun and better game.

Yeah, as long as we're careful when we make changes, and don't go way overboard with them, it's probably fine.

Jon God wrote:

Secondly, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT rely on hosts to balance things. Not everyone wants to take the time to set things up for an online game, so if you do, probably 40%-60% of the people will balance the game via options. Now, that's 60%-40% that doesn't, first off, I know it would bother me to be playing an unbalanced game, second, talk about keeping players playing: Having cheep and unbalanced gameplay is NOT the way to do this, that is a quick way to get players to stop playing.

I haven't played any multiplayer games that relied on hosts for balance, but it sounds like you and Iritscen both have and know what you're talking about here, so I'll take your word for it.

(And just to be clear: balancing multiplayer via managing the game setup does not necessarily have to involve giving the hosts any control over the game setup.)

I suppose giving mapmakers control over balance is a similar issue? I'll have to think about that one.

Jon God wrote:

Well, it's hard to say, because I talk to people about Oni all the time, and out of everyone I've talked to about it, I think of the people that remember, 90% of them said something along the lines of "meh, that game was full of problems, wasn't finished, and wasn't fleshed out enough" I've heard this for years among tens of people. Sure there will be people like us, but we aren't the average players, and if we deal the deck to ourselves, we'll be the only ones left.

Yeah, I kept playing Oni despite its flaws, which I thought were numerous. We should probably have a discussion/dedicated thread to figuring out what it is about Oni that people do and don't like, so that we know what to keep and to change.

Jon God wrote:

Also, if multiplayer Oni turns out anything like Super Smash Bros., we're not going to fully understand multiplayer character balance literally for years after multiplayer comes out.

By the time most people have left? ^_^

If everyone is going to leave within a few years, then yes, whether we like it or not. We may as well do the best we can as we go along, but we should keep in mind that after we initially balance them we will eventually need to balance them again, or else let them be unbalanced.

Jon God wrote:

@PSP:
For the PSP, it's hard to say without having multiplayer available, but I think it has a good chance of being downright worthless, and very frustrating and dumb if it isn't worthless. I'm pretty much expecting to never make any maps that allow it unless it gets radically changed, heh.

This is exactly the sort of thing I am talking about, I don't think guns should simply not be put on maps because they aren't balanced in general. I don't think anyone can look at that and say it's not simply faulty game design.

I don't think there's much of a problem with having a few unused guns, but at the same time, there's also not any problem with changing those unused guns so they're worth using. I think very few people would be sorry to see the original PSP go.

Jon God wrote:

@1v1 vs teams:
You reminded me - the balance of the guns and whatnot will almost certainly be different in 1v1 maps as opposed to teams maps, and it'll probably be tough to make them 100% balanced in both 1v1 and teams. I suppose having a money system like CounterStrike would allow us to deal with that pretty easily, by having different prices for the guns in 1v1 as opposed to teams. That's really looking like a very good option to me, if it's possible.

Halo pulled it off. So have a lot of other games, I think with some tweaking for versus, 1v1 will be pretty close to balanced itself.

I think Oni's guns are way more varied and weird than Halo's guns, so the differences between their applications in 1v1 and teams are going to be more extreme. The Screaming Cannon, for instance, is likely only going to be useful for zone control, which will probably be more useful in teams than in 1v1. And the SBG and VDG can both hit several people at once, and so on. As far as I know, Halo doesn't have anything like that, and if we're going to replicate Halo's gun balance, we'd probably have to radically change those three guns at least.

Last edited by Paff (05/16/10 16:05)

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#70 05/16/10 18:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Jon God wrote:

It was mentioned somewhere here, but I can't find it now: what about making the missiles fire not all at once, but like one every half second, which would make it take a little more skill to use, and be more useful overall?

I'm curious, how would this make the weapon more effective?

Jon God wrote:
Paff wrote:

@Bringing in new players - The problem isn't so much how can we make it better, the question is publicity and advertising lol, we have none. It's a great game, but no1 knows about it.

Well, it's hard to say, because I talk to people about Oni all the time, and out of everyone I've talked to about it, I think of the people that remember, 90% of them said something along the lines of "meh, that game was full of problems, wasn't finished, and wasn't fleshed out enough".

There was a time when we were very interested in getting more publicity for Oni; we were going to make a trailer showing our latest modding work and pass the link around.  But we haven't come back to that idea for a while, because honestly, there's not enough to advertise yet.  We don't want to pop the balloons and break the piñata until we're sure we have something to brag about -- an Oni that's like the original, but more polished.  I don't think we'll get a lot of tries at the PR game before people start ignoring us, so we need to have more to show off before we put on the song and dance.

Jon God wrote:
Paff wrote:

@1v1 vs teams:
You reminded me - the balance of the guns and whatnot will almost certainly be different in 1v1 maps as opposed to teams maps, and it'll probably be tough to make them 100% balanced in both 1v1 and teams.

Halo pulled it off. So have a lot of other games, I think with some tweaking for versus, 1v1 will be pretty close to balanced itself.

Yes, I don't think it's a tall order to reasonably balance weapons for both 1v1 and team play.  You're probably over-estimating the complexities here, or else expecting perfection, but I don't think any game has perfectly balanced weapons.  There's usually at least one "that gun" in every game that exasperates people.

As I said before, our goal shouldn't be to balance all weapons at all ranges.  I don't even believe that's possible when you have an interesting variety of weapons like we do.  The goal should just be to make sure that each weapon has pros and cons.  The rest is up to players -- to learn the weapons and pick the one that's appropriate for a given situation.  It might be a good place to start an orderly balancing discussion if we list pros and cons for each weapon, and what range each weapon is good at.

Paff wrote:

I suppose giving mapmakers control over balance is a similar issue? I'll have to think about that one.

On the subject of where the responsibility of balancing lies, between the designers, the mappers and the hosts, I think the hosts need the least control.  I'm not opposed to hosts adjusting balance per se, but rather the complexity that comes with having enough options to adjust balance, and the fact that one person's "balance" is another person's "unfair" because each player has their own strengths.

Paff wrote:

We should probably have a discussion/dedicated thread to figuring out what it is about Oni that people do and don't like, so that we know what to keep and to change.

That's a much bigger discussion.  No one ever really complained about weapons balance when people were talking about Oni, but there were plenty of other complaints.  I documented them here.  That was where we were going to discuss each issue, breaking it out into a new page if it got lengthy.  But I don't think we have the time to discuss that and weapons balance at the same time.  Dunno, maybe you do.  smile


Check out the Anniversary Edition Seven at ae.oni2.net!

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#71 05/16/10 20:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Iritscen: Again, what do you mean by "unfair moves"? I've literally never heard anybody else describe moves as "unfair" in any other fighting game, and the meaning isn't intuitively obvious.

Iritscen wrote:
Jon God wrote:
Paff wrote:

@Bringing in new players - The problem isn't so much how can we make it better, the question is publicity and advertising lol, we have none. It's a great game, but no1 knows about it.

Well, it's hard to say, because I talk to people about Oni all the time, and out of everyone I've talked to about it, I think of the people that remember, 90% of them said something along the lines of "meh, that game was full of problems, wasn't finished, and wasn't fleshed out enough".

There was a time when we were very interested in getting more publicity for Oni; we were going to make a trailer showing our latest modding work and pass the link around.  But we haven't come back to that idea for a while, because honestly, there's not enough to advertise yet.  We don't want to pop the balloons and break the piñata until we're sure we have something to brag about -- an Oni that's like the original, but more polished.  I don't think we'll get a lot of tries at the PR game before people start ignoring us, so we need to have more to show off before we put on the song and dance.

The quote up there of me is actually of Mukade, heh.

I think your thoughts on this end make sense. I think some combo/exhibition videos could also help out in terms of publicity, assuming that a fair number of them are set up well to be entertaining for non-Oni-players.

Iritscen wrote:
Jon God wrote:
Paff wrote:

@1v1 vs teams:
You reminded me - the balance of the guns and whatnot will almost certainly be different in 1v1 maps as opposed to teams maps, and it'll probably be tough to make them 100% balanced in both 1v1 and teams.

Halo pulled it off. So have a lot of other games, I think with some tweaking for versus, 1v1 will be pretty close to balanced itself.

Yes, I don't think it's a tall order to reasonably balance weapons for both 1v1 and team play.  You're probably over-estimating the complexities here, or else expecting perfection, but I don't think any game has perfectly balanced weapons.  There's usually at least one "that gun" in every game that exasperates people.

As I said before, our goal shouldn't be to balance all weapons at all ranges.  I don't even believe that's possible when you have an interesting variety of weapons like we do.  The goal should just be to make sure that each weapon has pros and cons.  The rest is up to players -- to learn the weapons and pick the one that's appropriate for a given situation.  It might be a good place to start an orderly balancing discussion if we list pros and cons for each weapon, and what range each weapon is good at.

K. I think we'll have to wait and try it out once multiplayer is available.

Iritscen wrote:
Paff wrote:

We should probably have a discussion/dedicated thread to figuring out what it is about Oni that people do and don't like, so that we know what to keep and to change.

That's a much bigger discussion.  No one ever really complained about weapons balance when people were talking about Oni, but there were plenty of other complaints.  I documented them here.  That was where we were going to discuss each issue, breaking it out into a new page if it got lengthy.  But I don't think we have the time to discuss that and weapons balance at the same time.  Dunno, maybe you do.  smile

I definitely think we should have just one of these discussions at a time, and I'll check that page out.

(Also, it's not so much that I have lots of time, but that I'm very interested to hear what everyone else thinks about these issues, and to figure out why we disagree on what we disagree on, so I don't mind spending a lot of my free time doing this.)

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#72 05/16/10 20:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

@Unfair moves - I understand how moves can be unfair, but I also understand how Paff wouldn't notice these. To better explain to Paff, unfair moves are the types against which people can't do anything about. For example, Earthquaker, this move is easily spammable, and the ONLY way to avoid it if you're within the blast radius is to shadowstep at the right moment, not all characters can pull this off, and those who can aren't always successful. Other moves that can be easily spammed, say for instance willow kick, if it were repeated often enough, could be considered unbalanced. Really, we won't know for sure what's balanced and what's not until we actually try. AI are very different from people.

@Balancing Characters - Same thing I said before, some things we won't know until we try right? But characters like TCTF Cop, who plays them? They're slow, theyre moves aren't great, low damage. An experienced Oni player would be able to put up a fair fight with one, but that's not very many people, and even then, who will enjoy such a boring character, especially when many of the newer characters have unfair advantages, mostly because they're a compilation of all the best moves. I beleive ALL characters need to be made original and interesting.


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#73 05/17/10 05:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Heh, whoops, sorry about the misquote.  I was manually filling in names in my quote tags too quickly.  Mukade raises a good point about the lower-tier characters.  Is it okay to just leave them like that for MP mode, while most players will probably skip over them?  Then again, we might have enough good characters to choose from even without them.  One thought I had was to use the lower-tier characters in an elimination type mode where everyone starts off as a grunt, and the winners of each round move up to a better character until it's just two or three players using Konoko/Mukade/Muro.  But of course no one will probably enjoy playing as the basic cop or Syndicate soldier, so that first round might kinda suck smile

About unfair moves, I wish Loser was here, because he could list every one of them off the top of his head.  But the kind of concepts that he found unfair, and tried to correct in his Melee System, were:
- moves that stun for too long (allowing combo spam)
- super moves with invulnerability (talk about asking for spam in MP!)
- unblockable super moves (he made some of them cause stagger and/or fractional damage if blocked, but now they don't just flatten you no matter what you do to defend yourself)
- throws in general (because there's no escape mechanism like some fighting games; so he shortened forward throw ranges a bit)


Check out the Anniversary Edition Seven at ae.oni2.net!

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#74 05/17/10 06:05

Leus
Member
From: Boone, NC
Registered: 05/28/09
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

I think there could at least be some cool gametype modes involving the weaker characters, like a juggernaut type game maybe where one person is an elite character like Konoko and everyone else is like thugs or something lol.

Also, I think characters like Konoko and such should perhaps be genericized...  Like...  TCTF Agent or something, would play exactly or pretty much like Konoko, maybe different health, somewhat different look?  Mukade would just be a ninja, that works.  Muro could be...  Oh, I know, Konoko could be Female Symbiote and Muro Male Symbiote.  Lol.  I dunno.

Regardless, I'm sure we're gonna have a lot of fun designing a slew of diverse and unique powerful but balanced new characters to choose from.


If we don't change the direction we're going, we'll likely end up where we're headed.

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#75 05/17/10 13:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

I had a thought, but this could be a bit of work... If you were to have a characte setup UI before joining the game. Like, choose a model, and choose which moves you want to add to the character. Like, the UI compiled a new TRAC file for your character. If you check off "Ninja Super Punch" It copies the three or four lines of code into the TRAC that makes a character able to perform that move. I dunno, like I said alot of work, and I don't want to pin it on anyone. Sounds like something we'd do when we have a few more people who know programming (hopefully me, I'm learning some basic programming stuff in non-BSL)

But yes, game modes are a definate solution (at least in part) Except for a free for all, duels, etc... I acutally have a feeling that guns will be much more used in MP, since it is MUCh funner having an opponent that is smart enough to take cover, am i right? It would be a challange.


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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