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What should be our next map and game mode?


Verain

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Lets not count Denon TDM- obviously that "should be" our next map, but I sort of mean the next fresh one they are designing.

 

 

What about game modes?

 

 

For game modes, try to avoid something that would be SUPER hard to program, or something that eliminates ship types ("in this map, railguns don't work").

 

 

Go!

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  1. I still want Domination with either mobile satellites (e.g. like Denon now, but make A and C rotate around B) or, similarly, mobile spawn points that periodically come into turret range of satellites.
  2. Some kind of escort mission, in which neutral freighters or whatever are plying their routes and the attacking team must blow them up, defending team must prevent same.
  3. A variant where one player is "it" (and possibly has a buff like double damage or a nerf like half engine speed). Killing the player makes you "it". The winning team at the end is the one with the most time clocked as "it", or some combination of that with total kills, or something. I'll acknowledge the people who dislike powerups in TDM would really hate this gametype.
  4. Each team starts with a capital ship and has to blow up the other team's.
  5. PvE mode.
  6. Freeflight mode, around the fleet.

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I've always thought a capture-the-flag type of game would be really cool for GSF.

- The premise could be a Republic/Empire squadron who have arrived at the site of a battlefield to collect survivors in escape pods. To "capture the flag" a ship could fly into a pod (much like flying into a powerup) and then have to get this pod back to the capital ship on their side of the map. If the carrying ship is killed, the pod is reset.

- The game could be to collect as many pods as possible, or to simply have a single pod to be retrieved - maybe the admiral from each side - first side to get their pod back to base wins. (Thinking Warsong Gulch from WoW here, if I've done a bad job of explaining)

 

Also, I'd love a capital ship assault. You could set it up in rounds like Voidstar, where each side has a turn on offense and defense. The goal on offense would be to destroy a series of hardpoints on a capital ship (engines, then shields, then bridge), and obviously the defending side would stop them. Even cooler than the Voidstar setup, though, would be to set up the scenario as the two capital ships engaging each other with fighter support, and the first side to destroy all the hardpoints on the other ship wins. Then each team has to decide how to balance offense/defense.

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New Map:

 

I still really want to see an indoor map, one with a large facility (perhaps a orbital ship factory)

 

Basically think deathstar, corridors, several medium sized chambers, and a large central area. This is my dream map =/ though I seriously doubt that we will get it. IMO if it was large enough it would not hamper any ship class (it couldn't have tiny corridors like deathstar, but bigger tunnels would work nicely)

 

New Game Mode:

 

Assault IE cap ship, space station, or other target with multiple destroy points (that people have to work together in order to take down)

Edited by DamascusAdontise
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Next map? Well I don't know, I would love to see another planet atmosphere. Maybe Cato Neimoidia then? Would be a lot if fun to be flying around a battlefield of bridge cities strung between rock pillars. Would be great with a lot of horizontal obstructions in flight paths instead of vertical or free floating obstacles

 

As for new game mode? Well I personally would like some kind of assault game mode where we were attacking the other teams cap ships. I mean we can target cap ship turrets (though I have no idea if we can destroy them) and bioware can create turrets and drones that can be destroyed. I'm not a developer, but I want to believe that bioware could create a ship, put destroy able objects on it; some drone turrets, some stuff that doesn't shoot back, and then the fighters could swarm in to destroy it. One team would defend and the other would attack. If the ship is successfully destroyed then the attackers win, if the defenders can protect the ship the defenders win.

 

That said, I don't think teams should switch attacking and defending in the middle of the match. Just make a match be one side attacks and the other defends. Then divide the maps between the pubs and imps; pubs defend kuat mesas, imps defend list shipyard.

 

And it doesn't have to be a battleship, it could be an attack on a space station or fortress or something. The idea is to give players stuff to shoot at other than just players.

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I think some type of hardened objective assault/defense (like capital ship) is what would garner most popular support and hype.

 

And it shouldn't be too hard to implement in the current GSF engine, as long as the objective doesn't move.

 

Basically, just make a big capital ship, put it in interesting terrain that blocks long range LOS to some elements (like a huge repair facility), and slap a very big number of very durable targets/turrets on it--each with different defensive qualities that reward different weapon choices, ship classes, and components.

 

For example, the capital ship's target points could be things like:

 

Turrets (all with far more hit points than a satellite turret--some with heavy shields, some with heavy armor, some that shoot lasers, some ion, some railgun, some missiles, some EMP's).

 

Shield generators that prevent damage to other objective points.

 

Spawners that create repair drones to heal other objective points.

 

Target scramblers that slap various debuff on attacking fighters.

 

A bridge (perhaps the final objective?) that gives various buffs to defending fighters.

 

A hangar, which functions as a close respawn point for the team on defense that round

 

Other endless options. Most of which can be created using tweaks of existing turrets, drones, mines and other components.

 

Ideally, some qualities of the ship should be randomized from match to match, so as to frustrate the formation "ideal" assault squads and tactics.

 

You could make it symmetrical, with both teams simultaneously defending their own ship while attacking the enemy ship, or you could make it asymmetrical, with each team getting its turn to be on offense and defense in two rounds (like Voidstar).

 

The nice thing is that, while it's still PvP, there's a lot of PvEing to do ... and built right, a team's PvE objective-killing efficiency and smart play may be just as important as their PvP dogfighting skill.

 

Built correctly, the objectives could really give Bombers something to bomb and Strike fighters something to assault. Gunships actually wouldn't be ideal for direct objective assault, since they couldn't get high sustained damage on the objectives. But they'd still be vital for defense and fighter support.

 

There'd need to be some creative way to reward mobile variants. Perhaps some of the objectives (like shield generators) might be located at points away from the capital ship objectives.

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I would add something which is not appealing for local hardcore players, but could attract new players. Therefore behold Kessel Run non-combat race :D Minigame in minigame.

 

Mode: Race. No weapons allowed.

Map: Existing map (Kuat, Lost shipyard) just with added checkpoints (Denon is not interesting map and nobody would race at battlefield anyway)

Ship: This would be hard decision, but there is no way how could e.g. bomber race with Scout. So avaiable would be just one or two default ships (one a bit more faster, one a bit more manoeuvrable). Or maybe more ships with different design but more or less same techncial specification.

Description: Fast race (1 or 2 round) around map thru checkpoints. Ideal place for checkpoints would be tight places like hole in asteroid, tunnel in rock etc. Since there is no collision system betwen ships, all could start from same spot. First who fly thru checkpoints in correct order is winner.

Race end in some time ( 1 minute?) after first ship cross finish line or after reaching time limit. In that case winner is pilot with most checkpoints.

If ship crash, respawn at start but it is no need to fly thru already obtained checkpoint.

There should be NO boosts to maintain Star Wars feeling.

Reward: Few credits, maybe some Title for lots of win. Possibility to modifiy ship (colour, some accesoried not affecting ship performance) Nothing great. It should be more for fun than for reward. And of course it should generate Top time scoreboard, so people have something to brag about.

 

Within GSF it would need separate queue, because its too much different from Domination and TDM.

 

It could be easy to implement and amazing for some new players. Veterans can train their piloting skill if nothing else.

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Lets not count Denon TDM- obviously that "should be" our next map, but I sort of mean the next fresh one they are designing.

 

 

What about game modes?

 

 

For game modes, try to avoid something that would be SUPER hard to program, or something that eliminates ship types ("in this map, railguns don't work").

 

 

Go!

 

How about open space. Free form flight. Joystick support. PVE mission that can be played with friends.

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I think some type of hardened objective assault/defense (like capital ship) is what would garner most popular support and hype.

 

And it shouldn't be too hard to implement in the current GSF engine, as long as the objective doesn't move.

 

Basically, just make a big capital ship, put it in interesting terrain that blocks long range LOS to some elements (like a huge repair facility), and slap a very big number of very durable targets/turrets on it--each with different defensive qualities that reward different weapon choices, ship classes, and components.

 

For example, the capital ship's target points could be things like:

 

Turrets (all with far more hit points than a satellite turret--some with heavy shields, some with heavy armor, some that shoot lasers, some ion, some railgun, some missiles, some EMP's).

 

Shield generators that prevent damage to other objective points.

 

Spawners that create repair drones to heal other objective points.

 

Target scramblers that slap various debuff on attacking fighters.

 

A bridge (perhaps the final objective?) that gives various buffs to defending fighters.

 

A hangar, which functions as a close respawn point for the team on defense that round

 

Other endless options. Most of which can be created using tweaks of existing turrets, drones, mines and other components.

 

Ideally, some qualities of the ship should be randomized from match to match, so as to frustrate the formation "ideal" assault squads and tactics.

 

You could make it symmetrical, with both teams simultaneously defending their own ship while attacking the enemy ship, or you could make it asymmetrical, with each team getting its turn to be on offense and defense in two rounds (like Voidstar).

 

The nice thing is that, while it's still PvP, there's a lot of PvEing to do ... and built right, a team's PvE objective-killing efficiency and smart play may be just as important as their PvP dogfighting skill.

 

Built correctly, the objectives could really give Bombers something to bomb and Strike fighters something to assault. Gunships actually wouldn't be ideal for direct objective assault, since they couldn't get high sustained damage on the objectives. But they'd still be vital for defense and fighter support.

 

There'd need to be some creative way to reward mobile variants. Perhaps some of the objectives (like shield generators) might be located at points away from the capital ship objectives.

 

I support a symetrical version (both sides attacking & defending simultaneously) of this suggestion.

 

Maybe you could tie all respawn points to destructible hangars so that defending them becomes important and hyperspace beacon's value in tactical play will increase even more to make up for the lackluster performance of minelayers compared to dronelayers.

Edited by Davionix
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While I love the idea of assault/defense, I worry that GSF doesn't really offer any good ways to defend a destroyable objective. How would you prevent enemies from destroying the defense turrets around satellites in domination? You can't do much more than slowing the attackers (with few weapons that are available only on certain ships) or destroy them. If you want to destroy an enemy before he can do any damage to a destroyable objective you'll be most effective with range which means that defense will consist of walls of gunships at best.

 

For this reason I fear that a symmetric assault/defense scenario would simply turn into a pure assault game about which team can inflict armor penetrating damage faster.

In the asymmetric case you would encounter gunship walls for defense and not much else, unless there are a lot of LoS options, which would render gunships quite useless in that game mode. I dislike both options.

 

I would love to see a functioning asymmetric assault/defense game mode, because it is the closest possible to a deathstar-race, which is what I want to have. However, I think this would be better for a PvE scenario, because the defending team just hasn't enough options to do its job.

 

 

 

Next map: Apart from Denon TDM, I'd like to see TDM maps over Korriban and Tython.

On the wall of crazy: A map in the Maw, including some anomalies on the map that will destroy ships that get too close.

 

Game Mode: I've said my piece about the deathstar-race above. If they can make it work, it would be great.

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While I love the idea of assault/defense, I worry that GSF doesn't really offer any good ways to defend a destroyable objective. How would you prevent enemies from destroying the defense turrets around satellites in domination? You can't do much more than slowing the attackers (with few weapons that are available only on certain ships) or destroy them. If you want to destroy an enemy before he can do any damage to a destroyable objective you'll be most effective with range which means that defense will consist of walls of gunships at best.

 

For this reason I fear that a symmetric assault/defense scenario would simply turn into a pure assault game about which team can inflict armor penetrating damage faster.

In the asymmetric case you would encounter gunship walls for defense and not much else, unless there are a lot of LoS options, which would render gunships quite useless in that game mode. I dislike both options.

 

I would love to see a functioning asymmetric assault/defense game mode, because it is the closest possible to a deathstar-race, which is what I want to have. However, I think this would be better for a PvE scenario, because the defending team just hasn't enough options to do its job.

 

 

 

Next map: Apart from Denon TDM, I'd like to see TDM maps over Korriban and Tython.

On the wall of crazy: A map in the Maw, including some anomalies on the map that will destroy ships that get too close.

 

Game Mode: I've said my piece about the deathstar-race above. If they can make it work, it would be great.

 

I believe maps can be designed to have a sort of choke points to give defenders a place to set up a defensive perimeter. Example :

 

Satellite B at Kuat Mesas Domination map.

 

Unlike ground PvP, a good pilot with the right ship at the right position can tie down many people for good amount of time, hopefully preventing zerg rushes to enemy capital ship.

 

I can already imagine interdiction drones sprinkled in minefields slowing down a zerg rush and requiring enemy to either bring counters to them or clearing the obstacles manually while dealing with enemy fire etc.

Edited by Davionix
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While I love the idea of assault/defense, I worry that GSF doesn't really offer any good ways to defend a destroyable objective. How would you prevent enemies from destroying the defense turrets around satellites in domination? You can't do much more than slowing the attackers (with few weapons that are available only on certain ships) or destroy them. If you want to destroy an enemy before he can do any damage to a destroyable objective you'll be most effective with range which means that defense will consist of walls of gunships at best.

 

For this reason I fear that a symmetric assault/defense scenario would simply turn into a pure assault game about which team can inflict armor penetrating damage faster.

In the asymmetric case you would encounter gunship walls for defense and not much else, unless there are a lot of LoS options, which would render gunships quite useless in that game mode. I dislike both options.

 

I would love to see a functioning asymmetric assault/defense game mode, because it is the closest possible to a deathstar-race, which is what I want to have. However, I think this would be better for a PvE scenario, because the defending team just hasn't enough options to do its job.

 

 

 

Next map: Apart from Denon TDM, I'd like to see TDM maps over Korriban and Tython.

On the wall of crazy: A map in the Maw, including some anomalies on the map that will destroy ships that get too close.

 

Game Mode: I've said my piece about the deathstar-race above. If they can make it work, it would be great.

 

The objectives would obviously need to be far more hardy than the satellite turrets, which have no shields and 1000 hit points. These are easily manhandled by slugs, BLC's, rockets, etc. Anything that can deal 1000 damage with armor piercing in short order.

 

But imagine an objective with 10000 shields (that regen) and 10000 hull, with 50% damage reduction. Plus repair drones that spawn to repair any hull damage. It would take a Gunship--even several Gunships, quite a while (and a lot of laser energy) to chew through that. That's assuming they have a long range LOS to it.

 

Defenders will have ample opportunity to engage them.

 

And it's not like a Scout could just park next to the objective and sit there blasting it with BLC's.

 

With huge hit point objectives, laser energy management (and missile ammo) become much more interesting mechanics. And ignoring a defending fighters to focus fire on the objective will never work--the defenders will tear you up. A win will require a balanced approach.

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I can already imagine interdiction drones sprinkled in minefields slowing down a zerg rush and requiring enemy to either bring counters to them or clearing the obstacles manually while dealing with enemy fire etc.

 

To which I present you the NovaDive which will charge in with Distortion Field up, maneuvering a bit such that it is even harder to hit, using EMP discharge at the right moment. Unless these target objects have very much health, they will be destroyed before you can build up the minefield again. To make it worse, one or maybe two NovaDives are enough to allow a whole Squadron of RocketPod fighters to zerg the objective.

Mines and Drones are good defenses, if the attacker needs to stay in the area for a prolonged time (like near satellites which have to be defended after capture). Any objective that can be left again after a quick assault cannot be protected due to EMP discharge.

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I wuld suggest an Armed Escort / Boarding as a game mode.

 

One team must escort a cargo starship (movable target) through a map via several checkpoints, when other team should destroy it . Or, as more funny and complicated option, the other team shall escort the boarding team (also a destroyable objective) which shall try to board the enemy's starship and the other team shall try to prevent this by destroying the boarding ships. The routes of the objective ships can even take several variants across the map (which can be briefed to the players before the start).

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Pylan said yesterday that in the dev stream, GSF wasn't going to be receiving any updates for the remainder of the year. Back to E:D and SC then!

 

Confused. What dev stream? There was no dev stream yesterday. If you mean Pylan said something yesterday about a dev stream, what dev stream? The last major GSF dev stream said they couldn't reveal anything on the roadmap regarding GSF for this year, but that they were working on a major balance pass.

 

Are you referring to something more recent?

 

Honestly, I don't think any of us expect any content for GSF this year. We know that BioWare is focused on Strongholds, Flagships/Conquest, and 3.0 expansion. I think this thread is just wishful brainstorming.

 

I do hope we get the aforementioned "balance pass" this year. And a Denon TDM map would be nice.

 

As for SC, I think it'll be late 2015 before it has any decent space combat action that could compete with what we've already got in GSF. If ever. What they showed so far, while graphically gorgeous, was slow and boring. It makes even Strike Night look fast-paced.

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Confused. What dev stream? There was no dev stream yesterday. If you mean Pylan said something yesterday about a dev stream, what dev stream? The last major GSF dev stream said they couldn't reveal anything on the roadmap regarding GSF for this year, but that they were working on a major balance pass.

 

Are you referring to something more recent?

 

Honestly, I don't think any of us expect any content for GSF this year. We know that BioWare is focused on Strongholds, Flagships/Conquest, and 3.0 expansion. I think this thread is just wishful brainstorming.

 

I do hope we get the aforementioned "balance pass" this year. And a Denon TDM map would be nice.

 

As for SC, I think it'll be late 2015 before it has any decent space combat action that could compete with what we've already got in GSF. If ever. What they showed so far, while graphically gorgeous, was slow and boring. It makes even Strike Night look fast-paced.

 

He told me yesterday about a dev stream (not a GSF stream, but a dev stream for the game) and they mentioned what BW's focus for the remainder of the year is.

 

While I didn't EXPECT content, I still wish we got it - GSF has been the rejuvination the game needed to keep my interest. This is the thing that makes SWTOR different as an MMO (limited knowledge, but I've played WoW, Warhammer, and seen enough GW2 to know the differences between them) and keeps interest. IDK, to me it's like building a skyscraper but only putting elevators to the 20th of 60 floors - there is so much more potential there (yet I understand why BW doesn't continue to dev GSF fully: resources, logistics, popularity, Obama, etc.)

 

As for Star CItizen, they just released patch 12.5 today, which has been well received by the community resolving the issues plaguing the game (mainly rubberbanding ships in multiplayer mode). That issue was the single most important factor as to CIG (Cloud Imperium Games) stopped giving out multiplayer access to those who backed after the #200,000th citizen. Now that the issues have been resolved, providing that no additional gamebreakers arise, more multiplayer invites will be sent out (they jumped from like 60k to 200k so it revealed a lot about their system). From the streams I've seen of the Team Matches in DFM, it's really cool, and the balancing that's going on plays a big role too, which they're still working on (they adjusted the Hornet, the Aurora, and the 300i in the last patch). Bottom line is - won't be too far out for quality gameplay. Plus, when you're fighting against 6 vanduuls, the pace of combat is anything but slow (and it helps using a HOTAS :D)

 

Keep in mind, the PU (persistent universe) goes live in 2 years, but we'll continue to be able to play the other modules while they get developed, in addition to Squadron 42 which is the single player game by next year.

 

But back on topic: While BW focuses on the core ground gameplay (which is the reason we bought the game to begin with), the GSF realm isn't getting a royal treatment. Who knows what the guildships do for GSF. It's great for what it is, which is an afterthought. It's actually incredible by that standard, but I'm not even interested in logging on to the degree I used to be. While it's nice to dream, the omission of additional GSF support is discouraging.

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How about open space. Free form flight. Joystick support. PVE mission that can be played with friends.

 

The problem with that is that unless you want PvE targets to be completely scripted, it's almost impossible with current tech. There's pretty much no MMO that uses any significant AI because it would be too difficult for a server to process dozens or hundreds of instances using complex AI. That's why almost all mobs in nearly all MMOs tend to be the type that either just mindlessly stand around or walk pre-designated patrol routes until they are interacted with. Something like that could only really be realistically implemented in a small team game that is hosted on a computer rather than a centrally maintained server.

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I am reasonably certain that similarity of game experience is the driving factor, not some computational complexity.

 

Given that in MOST situations, mob behavior (for example) is really player behavior (specifically tank behavior) it gives the players a great deal of agency over the outcomes of their characters.

 

Also: You wouldn't want Raid A to be at the last boss, who has two moves that, when combined back to back, can kill an undergeared tank, and for that to happen based on Raid A's boss "realizing" it, while Raid B discovers some way (or just lucks into) some combination that convinces Raid B's boss not to stack the moves back to back. This kind of undocumented behavior would pretty much destroy world first raiding- in that example, Raid A and Raid B would both be undergeared, and some undocumented script behavior would determine the outcome. That kind of crap already happens, and it is unfortunate and unintended, but it would be EVERY boss.

 

Simply put, AI isn't for these types of games in pve.

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The problem with that is that unless you want PvE targets to be completely scripted, it's almost impossible with current tech. There's pretty much no MMO that uses any significant AI because it would be too difficult for a server to process dozens or hundreds of instances using complex AI. That's why almost all mobs in nearly all MMOs tend to be the type that either just mindlessly stand around or walk pre-designated patrol routes until they are interacted with. Something like that could only really be realistically implemented in a small team game that is hosted on a computer rather than a centrally maintained server.

 

omg no, I hate you people, I keep explain THIS ISN'T THAT HARD. It has been done before on hardware ten years older than what we have.

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Map: Something in the flavor of the game mode I listed below.

Game mode: Cap ship battles/assault or shipyard assault/defense.

Alternate game mode: Toning down gunships and battlescouts.

 

Nem had some good map ideas way back, I'd like to see some of those. Moving asteroids, so that people can cry about lag even more! Wahaha!

Edited by TrinityLyre
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omg no, I hate you people, I keep explain THIS ISN'T THAT HARD. It has been done before on hardware ten years older than what we have.

 

 

Game AI hasn't budged much since then, and the AI never used up much of the hardware of a 386.

 

 

I discovered, personally, several weaknesses of the AI in X-Wing and TIE-Fighter. It wasn't my goal to find these, nor did me knowing about them break in any meaningful fashion my enjoyment of the game, or others.

 

One I remember quite clearly was a rolling spiral that no enemy AI gun could hit- pretty much ever. Squadron of enemies? No big deal. This predictable and lazy spiral would throw off every enemy shot.

 

 

Now, does that sound easy to fix? Any kind of emergent behavior normally is very hard to fix. In TIE Fighter, I recall that the controls were made worse- if I held a button on the joystick that meant "make my left/right roll instead of yaw", which was a big part of this, now it ALSO meant "make my up/down throttle instead of pitch". Since I needed to roll and pitch to do the move, this made it much harder, and the spiral was now a series of small straight lines instead of all curves- and the enemies could it to some extent. I have no doubt that the control scheme was modified to make it harder to accomplish this move. The AI was never fixed- it probably wasn't possible without a redesign.

 

 

And that is the core problem with AIs- players often don't understand which games get beat up hard and which don't, and in a single player game when you figure out a thing that the AI can't do or won't do, that's correct play. If, say, raid bosses were designed this way, you'd have a really rough time of it. If PvP objectives were designed this way, you REALLY would.

 

 

 

 

 

Here's an example:

 

You eagerly launch the new game mode, which involves each side having capital ships, each of which has objectives on it to destroy. They are guarded by the enemy team and also by some NPC turrets.

 

The design is plain- the turrets are supposed to be overwhelming for one player, who should deal some damage and die, but if you bring three ships you should clear a turret and be able to get out of range before anyone takes hull damage.

 

In this world, if you figure out a way not to get hit by the turret- say, railguns outrange them, or they have to actually predict your future position to fire such that you figure out something that they can't hit- then suddenly you are some unhittable god, but a new player just gets shredded. Then the devs are like "ok, we fixed it so that railguns can't be queued, and we made it so that you can't be missed by the turret". Then your play and experience don't mean less, they mean nothing, and a ship type is gone from the mode.

 

Do you see how they didn't have a KNOB in that example? They couldn't just say "make it better". If you make something with realistic assumptions- such as the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games, where a laser could pass between your solar panels and above your cockpit- and then have the pace of the game entirely perceivable by humans, then humans will always just dominate the scripted and predictive AIs. You need another level of software (which doesn't exist in easy to implement, easy to maintain, or computationally cheap manners) to actually be able to learn.

 

 

What type of software would have been able to target me firing my spiral? The motion for the spiral was pretty simple- I'd take my stick left while holding the "roll" button, then move the stick up and down. Right worked just as well. This meant that I was constantly rolling, and constantly varying my pitch. The code obviously predicted where I was going to be based on my current position and vector, and it also "knew" that I could accelerate or whatever. What it couldn't understand was the reasonably basic pattern that I would continue to increase my pitch to a max, then decrease it. As such, it would land very very few shots. A human would figure it out instantly.

 

 

And again- I want to emphasize- this isn't something they can patch. Not cheaply. AI requires ludicrous hours of test compared to everything else, and the AI has to key based on something- so that if you gave it the ability to understand that roll, it might think the roll was happening at other times. You don't get to say "when the player is doing X" -> go look at that code. It's an emergent behavior. Fixing it would be really hard.

 

 

So you'd have an uneven play experience, with some players thinking something is hard and others thinking something is easy. You'd lose games because your AI was outsmarted, and win because it picked randomly correctly. You'd face a myriad of exploits that wouldn't exist in the game universe, you'd grind against the rough edges of an AI built to be challenging but beatable, a very very hard and arbitrary line that varies based on player.

 

So no, I don't think you'd like any of the AI things.

 

 

 

 

I think you COULD do stuff like:

 

> Four turrets in a ball, rotating.

> Turrets don't shoot through each other.

> Turrets can individually acquire targets.

> Turrets can rotate infinitely fast.

> Turret shots will always hit unless evasion stops it.

> Ball of turrets follows a set path.

 

Now you, the friendly player, know that this turret ball will be a small speedbump on your enemy- he'll have to stand and snipe them, or he'll have to fly in and burst them, but if he just flies past he'll get harried by their shots and worked down.

 

 

But this isn't what most players mean when they say AI. The game could deliver you something akin to a raid experience, with some concessions, but it can't be like Wing Commander or whatever without having all the problems that all those games had that would REALLY be a big deal in a multiplayer pvp environment.

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