Infantry Combat

[Eluem]

Personally I'm more in favour of slower cover-based combat, rather than run n gun Quake-like.

And since the game is centered around stations and ships, infantry combat should definitely favour staying on the ground, rather than flying. Treat it as last resort to your feet back on something, rather than viable approach to combat.

I agree with not too short TTK, but also would like it to devolve in DPS fest. The person who hit first or is in better position should definitely have upper hand.

So things I'd like to see:
Slow acceleration for jetpack. So no silly left-right insta-strafing. Maybe also noticeable difference between front and lateral acceleration.

Acceleration on the ground shouldn't be instant either, but certainly more responsive than jetpack.

Recoil. And I mean actual force that can send you flying if you went for really big guns. Extra magnet on the knee to help mitigate it.

Bullet impact force. So if you're being shoot at, the first response should be seeking cover, not shooting back.

Nearby hits affecting your aim by shaking the camera. Sometimes called suppression mechanics. I know it's controversial, but I like it. So if your cover is being shoot at, you either change it or wait for the shooter to run out of ammo, not peak and shoot back.

I like charged jetpack-assisted jumps, but they should be possible only from the ground, close to perpendicular to it and forward.

I like the idea about OHK weapons warning the victims. Although I'd rather have the light beam to always appear before the shoot. So sniper press trigger (or go into scope view) to activate the gun, and can shoot 2s later. Then bullet trail can stay for prolonged time (also 2s) to reveal camper possition.

Well it seems like many of us want very different things.

I don't want it to feel bouncy like quake... Tribes is a very different feel... But it's still more counterplay focused. You don't win a fight just because you took the first shot and forced them into cover. You can actually battle each other openly... But again it's not because it's super bouncy or because it's a slugfest.

It's because you always either need to be very close to hit consistently enough with a high rof weapon which is hard or you need to hit them directly with two slow moving projectiles or get 3-4 aoe hits.

Getting hit and near hits can heavily disrupt you but not to the point where you can fight back.. Mainly because they can't keep doing it constantly. It's very hard to land clean hita.

I'm working on a prototype of a game idea that's inspired by starbase but entirely focused on Infantry combat and it will represent what I hope they do or at least something close to it.

 

[CalenLoki]

Definitely different things. IMO fast combat doesn't synergy with battlefield engineering too well.
I'll use two games as and example:

Ace of Spades classic (currently called Build & Shoot) has slow movement and very fast TTK.
So the battle is pretty much won by the person who start firing first, unless the person being fired at can get to cover fast.
In that game any cover, even the most basic trench, really makes a difference between life and death.
Despite being old, abandoned by devs and looking like shit, it still has small loyal active playerbase.

Ace of Spades by Jagex is continuation of the game, after Jagex bought the rights.
They added very fast movement (jetpack), extremely fast terrain digging and destruction (OP shovels, RPGs, MGs, ect.). They also improved graphics and netcode.
The gameplay got really fast. Cover became useless. Building became useless.
Game died.

I'm using those as examples, because just like in SB they are focused on building your battlefield. Both before and during the battle.
Only other pvp shooter that I know that does it is Fortnite. Never played it, but fortifications there have much different feel. Very throwaway, temporary and single use. You don't design them to serve entire army for hours-long battle. Just to survive next five minutes yourself (or with few buddies).


Anyway. I came here tonight with important question: What is the plan regarding balance between light and heavy weapons? Why would I choose SMG if I can afford minigun?
Possible solutions:
Turning speed reduction? Aim delay? Walking sway? Slower movement speed? Reload time? Physical hitbox? Dynamic crosshair? Lower hip-fire accuracy? Slower switching between hip fire and sight?

Just don't say price. It doesn't balance it in any way.

 

[Burnside]

the nitty-gritty of weapon handling definitely makes or breaks a diversity of weapons- having cool options and flavors of firearms does enliven gameplay, but only in two cases, when the weapons are intrinsically hard balanced against each other and are DPS neutral, second when every weapon brings something novel to the table- otherwise you really need to work to make a bunch of mostly similar things stand out from each other with the various qualia and feels of the weapons- aiming, shouldering, reloading, drawing/switching, even alterations to the player's movement/reactions with each weapon (i.e. smaller weapons give you a faster aim, big weapons actually slow you down and make the weapon feel heavy and awkward)

 

[Eluem]

Definitely different things. IMO fast combat doesn't synergy with battlefield engineering too well.
I'll use two games as and example:

Ace of Spades classic (currently called Build & Shoot) has slow movement and very fast TTK.
So the battle is pretty much won by the person who start firing first, unless the person being fired at can get to cover fast.
In that game any cover, even the most basic trench, really makes a difference between life and death.
Despite being old, abandoned by devs and looking like shit, it still has small loyal active playerbase.

Ace of Spades by Jagex is continuation of the game, after Jagex bought the rights.
They added very fast movement (jetpack), extremely fast terrain digging and destruction (OP shovels, RPGs, MGs, ect.). They also improved graphics and netcode.
The gameplay got really fast. Cover became useless. Building became useless.
Game died.

I'm using those as examples, because just like in SB they are focused on building your battlefield. Both before and during the battle.
Only other pvp shooter that I know that does it is Fortnite. Never played it, but fortifications there have much different feel. Very throwaway, temporary and single use. You don't design them to serve entire army for hours-long battle. Just to survive next five minutes yourself (or with few buddies).

I played Ace of Spades before jagex ruined it. I didn't know the original was still around, thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to find it and see if anyone still plays.

What I'm describing won't be anything like those games. In fact, Starsiege: Tribes has a massive focus on bases and in many modded servers, base building. In default Tribes you could only build some simple turrets and resupply stations. In modded versions, you can build actual structures, walls, or deployable bases. Despite the mobility, these things are hugely important. The key is to keep mobility momentum based. It makes it so you can't dance around in the open too easily. You need to rely on the way the map is laid out to keep momentum. If you're caught completely out in the open, you can still move an fight but it's way easier for your opponent to take you out.

Anyway. I came here tonight with important question: What is the plan regarding balance between light and heavy weapons? Why would I choose SMG if I can afford minigun?
Possible solutions:
Turning speed reduction? Aim delay? Walking sway? Slower movement speed? Reload time? Physical hitbox? Dynamic crosshair? Lower hip-fire accuracy? Slower switching between hip fire and sight?

Just don't say price. It doesn't balance it in any way.

This really is off topic relative to this post. However, I do agree that different weapons need to be balanced with appropriate pros and cons, not price.

The example you gave there is pretty trivial to balance. There's a ton of solutions:
-Minigun has a long wind up time
-Minigun has a really long reload
-Minigun burns through ammo, might need a teammate to carry additional ammo
-Maybe Minigun is very unstable without being "deployed"

There's a bunch of other options to balance these as well.

 

[Eluem]

the nitty-gritty of weapon handling definitely makes or breaks a diversity of weapons- having cool options and flavors of firearms does enliven gameplay, but only in two cases, when the weapons are intrinsically hard balanced against each other and are DPS neutral, second when every weapon brings something novel to the table- otherwise you really need to work to make a bunch of mostly similar things stand out from each other with the various qualia and feels of the weapons- aiming, shouldering, reloading, drawing/switching, even alterations to the player's movement/reactions with each weapon (i.e. smaller weapons give you a faster aim, big weapons actually slow you down and make the weapon feel heavy and awkward)

I agree with everything you say except dps neutrality.

Slow firing, high burst damage weapons should actually have lower dps than high rof weapons. Reason being that you can get more damage out per time exposing yourself rather than per second.

If you stay fully exposed for the whole time while using a burst damage weapon against a high rof weapon, and the high rof user hit their shots consistently, the high rof user should probably win.

I personally prefer using burst damage weapons and there are other drawbacks to them in that each missed shot is more significant of a loss for them.

I'm not suggesting huge differences, just that there are reasons that they shouldn't be necessarily equal across the board given accurate hits. There are reasons for them to vary.

Also, to be clear regarding what I mean by "exposing" yourself. Even in a game like Tribes where you can actually battle someone in an open environment and evade, there's a difference between moving evasively and moving to line up a shot due to projectiles inheriting momentum and simply using your own movement to match their and make it easier to hit (this also happens in hitscan shooters).


Edit:
To clarify my high rof vs burst damage concept, assume a game where everyone had 100 health and there are two weapons.

There's the chaingun with 2 damage per round and 13 rounds per second. Hitting every shot kills in ~4 seconds of continuous fire.

There's also a massive hand Cannon that shoots one shot every 4 seconds an does 50 damage. It can kill in 4 seconds of continuous fire as well.. However, you can also take one shot and hide/evade for 4 seconds and then take your follow up shot.

The chaingun user needs to be exposed for 4 full seconds while the hand Cannon user only needs to be exposed for however long it takes them to aim and shoot their two shots and then evade for 4 seconds between them.

 

[CalenLoki]

This really is off topic relative to this post. However, I do agree that different weapons need to be balanced with appropriate pros and cons, not price.

The example you gave there is pretty trivial to balance. There's a ton of solutions:
-Minigun has a long wind up time
-Minigun has a really long reload
-Minigun burns through ammo, might need a teammate to carry additional ammo
-Maybe Minigun is very unstable without being "deployed"

There's a bunch of other options to balance these as well.

Oh. I assumed the thread is for general infantry combat suggestions.

I wouldn't call anything trivial to balance. Otherwise so many games wouldn't fail at it.
It's not only about balancing between two completely different weapons. Also affect of attachments/modules within single weapon. ATM that's only different mag sizes. But why would I choose the small mag for gauss rifle over big one? Of your example, only longer reload time is relevant, and it's not severe enough (unless it's like 3x longer)


I totally agree that burst damage is an big advantage over continuous damage.

 

[Eluem]

Oh. I assumed the thread is for general infantry combat suggestions.

I wouldn't call anything trivial to balance. Otherwise so many games wouldn't fail at it.
It's not only about balancing between two completely different weapons. Also affect of attachments/modules within single weapon. ATM that's only different mag sizes. But why would I choose the small mag for gauss rifle over big one? Of your example, only longer reload time is relevant, and it's not severe enough (unless it's like 3x longer)


I totally agree that burst damage is an big advantage over continuous damage.

I shouldn't have said trivial. That was not what I truly meant. What I meant was that there are many levers to balance on between two high rof weapons. There's much more to it than just firerate and then I listed many things that could be done to balance between them other than money.

The reload time is definitely not the only thing that's relevant. I think the most potent changes are actually low stability without deploying and the wind up time. Those two changes make the Minigun completely useless at the things you'd use an smg for.

I would also like to say that I don't think burst damage is strictly better than continuous damage.

It's only a big advantage in situations where you can enter and exit safety somehow.. Either through cover, a dodge mechanic that only works when you're not shooting, advanced mobility that interacts with gun play and has different ways that you'll move when trying to hit vs trying to evade (Starsiege: Tribes), or many other options.

If both players are out in the open and there isn't a huge impact on how you can evade when you're not shooting, continuous fire starts to look way better.

You need your cross hair on target for longer, but missed shots don't have a huge impact on your damage. This is one reason why high rof weapons are almost always advantageous in close range.. Unless a burst weapon can one shot (like a shotgun) lol... But then you're massively changing dps again.

 

[Brushes]

Fallen limbs as melee weapons.

 

[Burnside]

 

[Eluem]

I'd really like some dedicated antipersonnel defensive weapons. Since we have rockets I'd like to see some EMP launcher or lightning gun designed around dealing damage to EXOs without damaging surrounding systems. It'd be harder to use, probably less damage or range or whatever, but it would be good to have a go-to weapon for defending your electronics core or other critical systems, or attempting to rapidly board and clear a structure or ship without collateral damage so you can exploit it faster.

Lets face facts here, if you start shooting pilots dead you're going to shoot up a lot of control panels.

There is some sort of non-lethal Arc Cannon planned. They showed it in a few of the trailers.

 

[Cannon Machine Ballista]

I suggest adding more grenades and shrapnel weapons, high-speed grenades are really great, you can quickly kill opponents and blast small holes in the ship at close range！

 

[FranklinZ]

I suggest adding more grenades and shrapnel weapons, high-speed grenades are really great, you can quickly kill opponents and blast small holes in the ship at close range！

Maybe magnetic grenades that can stick to the enemy ship?

 

[Squeegee]

Try to make the most of infantry combat and the theme of endos not being squishy humans:
-Implement more movement mechanics for endos
-Charge jetpack to dash this would also possibly make space dueling more interesting (which will likely happen pretty often when scavenging if your ship breaks during a battle)
-Sprinting
-Sliding
-Fluidly sprinting into sliding into jumping onto a wall
-Keep time to kill high (it should take quite a bit of damage to disable an endo)
-Avoid 1 hit kill infantry weapons (big things like direct hits from huge weapons is fine)
-Make leading important
-Make it possible to repair yourself in combat when you're not under fire

The movement is the most important part to me. Fluid and fun infantry movement will be pretty important with the scale of the game and the fact that you won't always be able to rely on your ship. It'll often get torn up and you'll be forced to bail and try to hitch a ride or something. Ideally, it should still feel fun to fight another endo even in open space.

Perhaps look at Starsiege: Tribes and Fallen Empire: Legions for some interesting ideas about fluid movement and damage. Titan Fall is also an obvious thing to look at.. however it has the same damage model as CoD. Which I don't think is appropriate for a game like Starbase. Starseige: Tribes is a much better place to look. Though it would need to be adapted for open space and angular terrain. Which is why I suggest movement options like bursts of speed and sliding.

I also mentioned this on discord:
https://discordapp.com/channels/423790999052222464/590464706548989952/678393466040090634

Having a crazy amount of movement would make the bigger infantry fights not fun imo. Would be way too much shit happening with people dashing around everywhere. But i do like having a high TTK and the ability to repair yourself.

 

[FranklinZ]

Having a crazy amount of movement would make the bigger infantry fights not fun imo. Would be way too much shit happening with people dashing around everywhere. But i do like having a high TTK and the ability to repair yourself.

Correct. Robots should be able to tank some hits, unlike fleshy humans.

 

[Eluem]

Having a crazy amount of movement would make the bigger infantry fights not fun imo. Would be way too much shit happening with people dashing around everywhere. But i do like having a high TTK and the ability to repair yourself.

Depends on how the movement mechanics are implemented and if there's a pro/con to going for additional movement vs other things.

Could have standard movement, very agile movement while giving up your backpack slot that can give you other things, very slow movement while giving up your backpack slot to get much more armor or ability to move larger equipment/weapons.

I know they've sort of half revealed some concept stuff if different backpacks behaving very differently and giving different pros/cons

 

[Nmgamer]

When i here the words infantry combat i think of tye robots painted res and blue playing real life risk

 

[SixShot]

While the agility would seem flashy, I think the most that could feasibly be introduced is Q & E for leaning, and even then, I enjoy that the game can keep the focus on ships, and while increased movement doesn't take anything away from ships, I just don't see much of a necessity to focus on endos over designing starships. Other people have already said this in this thread, but I'll say it again, we don't really need Titanfall mechanics, the difference between the two games is night and day, and there's just no need to overcomplicate infantry combat.

Another note, on a more technical side, it is important to consider that this is an MMO all in one world, someone in North America fighting someone in Australia, would just be an incredibly cheesy fight, even with higher TTKs, having played titles like rainbow six siege on a semi-competitive level, I can assure you increased movement mechanics and agility will just lead to frustration, especially with ping times having the possibility of being 0,3 seconds just for a one way trip, this can lead to up to 0.6-7 second delays between two players. A simple, functional, and functional PvP system is all that is required. I know you said high TTKs might help, but the ability to 'quick peak'/strafe in and out of cover within a fraction of a second can, with high ping, lead to a situation where you can be killed/take heavy damage before seeing the enemy on your screen.

TLR: Just don't see it as necessary, and the high-ping possible on MMOs could make agility game breaking