Deployables?

[Seahonk]

I think there's an interesting mathematical relationship here that should be exploited, and I think I know how. Consider a manned turret that attacks enemys' tethers.

Along a player's tether the part farthest from them is moving slowest, and is easy to hit; the closer to them you get the harder to hit their tether. What's more:
The difficulty of the shot scales with placement along the tether less the more closely you are aligned with their direction of travel. So if you are rewarded for shooting a player's tether close to their body you are also automatically and necessarily rewarded for being directly in front of or behind them. What's more, since we're talking about deployables that must be placed ahead of time, you are being rewarded for anticipating the enemy's likely paths. Not just places where they will be, but their full vectors.

I think the most interesting possibility here is a manned deployable, like a mounted turret, which does little damage but, if you hit an enemy's tether, immobilizes it at that point. Mechanically, it should simply recalculate the tether from the point of its impact. The incentive to take the difficult shot is built into physics: if you hit near the original grapple you're barely altering the enemy's momentum. If you hit right next to their body you can turn a long graceful arc into a 10000 RPM centrifuge. But if they're good maybe they can release at just the right time to recover, or turn your attack into a helpful speed boost. Again, this is harder the closer to their body the shot lands. It's an opportunity built right into physics, and it strongly rewards skill on both ends, attacking and defending.

[Fixious]

I'm probably gonna have to go back on everything I've said regarding deployables. The more I play Telos the less I see them being all that viable, or the role of Engineer even being a thing. 5v5 means everyone's focus is on either their flag or grabbing the enemies. There's no time to set up defenses, other than activating a defensive Burst. I like the concept as it is in Tribes but with 5v5 being the limit it really isn't possible. Base deployables on the other hand I can see (base turrets, ammo stations, etc). Things that are already in place.

[Radman_Ahmadi]

Hope im not too late here. I'm pretty new to telos, havent actually played it at all. Ive played a crap ton of tf2 though, and a fair amount of tribes, ns2, loadout, and some other fps games that featured sentries or turrets. Coming from that backround, its my opinion that sentries have no place in these kinds of fps, or in any objective based real time action game.

1 . Poor skill indexing

There are three kinds of skill in real time action games: Mechanical, tactical and strategic skill. Mechanical skill is any kind of action where the challenge isnt choosing the right option, but simply executing it (ie aim, timing tests, coordination). Tactical skill is choosing the right option based on information youre given as you are in the game (ie, reloading at the right time, choosing the right target, moving the right direction). Strategic skill is the decisions you make before the action starts (where to attack from, what weapons to choose)

Sentries in TF2 require almost none of these skills (at least before we factor in unlocks). They require no aim to drop and use, they create very simple tactical decisions (hit your sentry until you cant save it w/o dying), and have ZERO strategic skill after you decide to want to use an engie since optimal sentry locations dont change, ever.

This is obviously a problem because no matter what kind of competitive game you want to create, you want to make players feel like they are good at the game. And what is the easiest way to do that? Create tools that require/reward skill. To a new player, it could seem like tf2 engie requires a lot of skill to be effective. But to the veteran, we already know what optimal engie play is, and it lacks a lot of depth. Also the fact that the power of the sentry does not skill with player skill, so it will inevitably be strong or weak depending on your skill level.

Unlocks change this a bit, notably the wrangler. Making the decision between healing and shooting can take some skill to do right, and choosing the right targets to shoot takes some good game knowledge. But even then, we reach other problems with sentries.

2 . Discourages player interactions.

What is the purpose of setting up defenses? No, it's not to fool players to walk into them; that is not a viable long term goal. The real purpose is AREA DENIAL. In other words, keeping the enemy out of an area, usually the are you are in.

I will concede that area denial can be used in small spurts to create dynamic and fun gameplay by temporarily changing the combat area. You can see this with grenades, temporary aoe effects, and sometimes explosive spam. It can force players out of turtley positions, and make players create tactical decisions on the fly.

However static area denial does not lend itself to new combat experiences. Instead, it rewards players for camping, and discourages aggression from enemies. While you may argue that discouraging aggression is a strategic decision that a player would make, I would argue that such a mechanic has no place in a multiplayer game. The appeal of multiplayer is interacting with other real players and making decisions based on their decisions. Reducing player interactions actively works against the fun that the developer should be trying to create.

A successful successful sentry means the other team will never have a good opportunity to actually fight your team. A game where nobody actually fights doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me.

The only way I can see sentries as improving game is where it is too easy for the aggressor to just jump in and do whatever he wants. In the case of tribes, without sentries, its way to easy for an offense to jump in and get out with the flag at any time with little response from defense. But imo, sentries arent the solutions in that case, there are other ways to reduce the power of offense w/o having a feature that frustrates players.

[JustinPierce]

optimal sentry locations dont change, ever.

I don't see this as a universal problem with sentries -- I think sentries can be designed, along with the design of the maps and other weapons, to require a more dynamic approach to placement strategy. If there's an optimal position, it becomes entirely predictable -- the easy way to solve that is to provide a tool to deal with that. Say there's a weapon that can kill sentries without a direct line of sight so if you know where one is ahead of time, you can kill it without putting yourself at risk (as a general example). If the sentry user keeps placing them in the same 'optimal' location, they'll be easily countered every time as long as the game gives players the proper tools. Now the mind games start. When the 'best' placement is too predictable and there's a legitimate counter, the less optimal placements suddenly become viable. Now as the sentry placer, you're not just thinking about the 'best' place to put it -- you're trying to read your opponent's mind, trying to predict where they think you'll put it, so you can place it somewhere else and surprise them.

Here's a more in depth look at these sorts of mind games: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/7-spies-of-the-mind

[Radman_Ahmadi]

ou can kill it without putting yourself at risk (as a general example). If the sentry user keeps placing them in the same 'optimal' location, they'll be easily countered every time as long as the game gives players the proper

Sure. In my head I always have the TF2 sentry as an example, which is too binary imo. If it were as simple as choosing the BEST way to deal with each sentry spot, that could lend sentry placement to some kind of yomi skill. But in TF2 at least, you would need to have the CORRECT solution for the sentry spot, or youre shit out of luck... which also needs some mind-reading skill, but it really just punishes you for what is essentially randomness. That's part of the problem with sentries in my opinion; there is not enough of a gradient in dealing with them.

There was a TF2 balance mod a little while back that didnt really take off, but was made some interesting changes in pursuit of fixing the problems TF2 finds when it is played to win. One of the changes was to give sentries a random spread that ramps up the longer it is targeting a player. Not only did this feel better and more fair to new and old players, but it also gave players more options surrounding sentries (which means more decisions).

[Grandy]

I have avoided posting on this thread.. keep coming back to it but never want to actually express how I feel about these kinds of things.. not least because there's so much to talk about. It would seem the main "point" being discussed here is turrets as deployables, but there are a number of different deployables to think about as well that feature in a number of other games in the genre..

• Healing/Ammo-related: medi-packs/ammo-packs/stations/areas
• Movement-related: blockades/doors (of some description)/grenades/players ( )
• Damage/Trap-related: turrets/grenades/mines/spikes

Tribes:Ascend has 'stations' that refill health and ammunition and allow you to change loadout (quickly instead of dying) - usually located near each team's base. There are base turrets, powered by the generator, which are easily avoidable if travelling at any kind of speed, but does significant damage if you're too slow. I haven't played T:A in so long that I don't fully remember if they still have the deployable turret which does small damage, but can be re-stocked and more placed.

• Nice utility to quickly change loadout without being invincible (due to positioning and how open the areas usually are)
• Ammo can be a problem, so it's reasonable to be able to restock at base
• Base turrets are an interesting idea, they do punish slow-goers, giving another incentive to getting your movement down. The deployable turrets do significantly less and from what I remember don't really do much damage at all.

TF2 has med-kits and ammo-kits placed at strategic points on the map, as well as an ammo/health stocking area within each spawn area that is regularly used; They also of course have the medic, who can heal others, and has a consumable ubercharge invincibility (or some other utility like crits) once being alive and healing others for long enough. In regards to movement and traps, there are sticky bombs for the demoman which provide just about the same thing. I'll comment with respects to payload/point capture game-mode:

• The game-modes are stage-based, much like Telos being stage-based. The placement of the health/ammo kits are generally to supplement the defence of the base, to keep players in the area longer.
• Large health packs in some areas, small health packs in others - same for ammo packs. The small packs are still useful to supplement supplies, especially if ammunition/health has been used to get across the map (yes, I'm looking at you, rocket/sticky/turret jumpers)
• Medics are one of the main ways that teams can push objectives and clear out deployables. They keep the player alive while they try to get adequate hits on the deployable, enabling the rest of the team to then push through the players.
• Sticky-bombs are used as traps, placed generally where an enemy player cannot see them. If you can see a demoman, you can presume the main entrance or exit is booby trapped (if they know what they are doing).

League of Legends - a couple of the maps have health/mana pick-ups, and the base 'fountain' spawn area is also a restoration platform for health/mana. LoL also has champions that can heal others in an area - Janna's ultimate heals a large area around her and knocks enemies back (useful for disengage from a fight), Bard has little temporary pads that people can walk over for health and a small movement boost and Soraka can click-heal others and globally heal all players on your team with her ultimate. Heimerdinger has placeable turrets (up to 3) that fire at nearby units and has the ability to place an empowered turret using his ultimate, and Zyra is plant-like able to plant seeds then "hatch" them into spikey plants which attack nearby units then die after 5-10s.

• Bard's little pads are handy to be placed across the map for future usage. They aren't that strong in terms of the heal, but the move speed boost is nice to get around with.
• Heimerdinger's turrets de-activate when he strays too far away from them. This means he has to be close and drawing people to him in order to be most effective.

I realise LoL and some of these mechanics aren't exactly related to Telos (or deployables exactly persay) but it does have some interesting mechanics in there that could be translatable to a deployable or a weapon I suppose LoL also has several mechanisms for slowing and stunning opponents through 'deployable' skills, but since movement is a different kind of theme, their application is more liberal in champion design.

CS:GO - you wouldn't think much in terms of deployables, but I include this here simply for grenades. While not stationary deployables, their use is often as a deterrant, or to provide a small length of persistent damage, which matches the use of a turret, albeit for a small period of time. The incendiary grenade is especially useful for stopping enemies' paths and forcing them to either wait for it to expire or to face the damage.

But how would these work with Telos?

Health/Ammo-related
I do like and can imagine versions of ammo/health "kits" of some description belonging somewhere inside the Telos universe. I think you could add these under the guise of 'scrap metal' that both "heals" your mech and provides some ammunition.. can imagine some kind of dispenser that comes out of the ground inside the buildings or attached to asteroids that could provide this.
Another potential idea would be to allow players to recycle parts of the floating dead opponent mechs to heal yourself and top up your ammo.
Bard's pads make me think of a placeable medical item that could heal within a small area, deployed onto a surface.

Movement-related
There's not enough ways to gain speed out in 0g still. I look at Bard's pads and think.. hmm.. a speed 'gate'. Friendly players entering the gate get a set speed increase., could potentially expand it into a multi-use thing, where enemy players entering the gate would then get either a temporary (slowed for 3 seconds then resume previous speed) or just a set speed decrease.. could be interesting.

I think we've already debated before and said that anything that interrupts your speed is going to be annoying for the opposing player.. I find the idea frustrating to think that the time spent gathering up speed could be completely shot down by something movement impairing, hence the potentially avoidable speed gate - temporary speed loss then being preferable over a set speed loss!

Damage/Trap-related

So, now for the "main" topic.. sigh.
I still really don't know how I feel about turrets/sentries.

I am not a fan of the sentry in TF2 at all - if they have a reasonable engineer and a good player or two then it often feels like you're quite scuppered without waiting to either:
a) Have a decent medic on your team and keep him alive long enough to have uber,
or b) Be the decent medic and hope that you heal a guy who knows how to play..
It all depends on the map/placement of course as to how hard this is to pull off, but there's some pretty optimal placements out there.

LoL's Heimerdinger at least makes their usage visible, as the player would have to be close to his turret(s) to have them deal damage, which I think is a nice payoff.

T:A's base turrets are alright too because you feel like a badass for avoiding these massive mortar shots heading your way.. if they do hit, they hurt, but they're not too tricky to avoid with the right prep.

Overall.. would still prefer to not see turrets/sentries appear in this game.. but who knows.

I might see that a grenade or plasma cloud of some kind could be used like incendiaries, click to throw, release to explode? Would make a player prefer to use another route, but I would advise not making that trigger the health loss from having boosted - by all means make it so that the 'current' health goes down, but don't make it lose the temporary health.. if that makes sense. I already think that any AoE weapon you might add should not affect this, as it would be so damn difficult to avoid the damage, making it just not worth boosting at all... if you aren't gonna avoid the hit, might as well keep the health... would prefer to reward players that are able to boost to avoid said AoE damage. The fact that your current health and potential overall health would go down is enough of a punishment for being hit by AoE damange I think.

I think that's about it; shall likely edit again later once I've had a chance to properly re-read it.
Pardon the length.

[JustinPierce]

I like the idea of speed gates! My gut says they just do nothing to enemies -- only affect friendlies. Agree that it'd probably be annoying to be slowed.

I agree that turrets are tricky, but I think it's a problem worth solving. It's good to acknowledge the weaknesses of existing turret implementations, but to me the takeaway isn't to give up, but to use that analysis to solve the problems.

In an old (2010) prototype, I addressed this a bit --

The small beam would track players well, so it was very hard to avoid but it only did a small amount of damage over time -- essentially, it creates a space for the defender to have a slight upper hand. The larger beam would do a lot more damage, but it tracked slowly -- it was something you could avoid if you were paying attention, but it was still a threat to keep things interesting. Plus, the dual laser beams created a nice laser light show

But that's just an example of a single, small iteration -- I think I can do better.

[Grandy]

Agree that it'd probably be annoying to be slowed.

I'd say that it'd be only a slight inconvenience to be slowed temporarily, or even by a small set amount - the main annoyance would be to have a change in direction and path I think since it's already hard enough to keep speed up while moving around.. to have your path changed through knockback of any kind would be pretty frustrating, especially if it were to damage you as well..

But that's just an example of a single, small iteration -- I think I can do better.

I'd much prefer to see other non-aim-related skills and items to aid or support your team-mates than a turret, especially if the only 'skill' involved is selecting it in loadout and placing it mildly hidden somewhere near your base.. if you can make it a skill for the player in order to use, then I am interested to see what you come up with, otherwise they'd just be an annoyance everyone has to live with.
We shall see I guess.. I am just very sceptical.

[Rooster128]

Throwing this in here. Make gameplay design decisions that reflect this meta and you won't go wrong. (I'm sure from playing Tribes 1 base CTF you'll understand most of this.)

http://tribespapers.blogspot.com/2014/05/farming-guide.html

TL;DR - Make the farmer/engie type role about the objectives and the combat first and foremost, with deployables being an important but otherwise secondary/tertiary objective. Turrets should do little damage by themselves, but you should be able to deploy many of them, spaced apart. And the farmer's own weapons and motor skill should take precedence over his turret farm.

Personally I'm in the camp where turrets shouldn't be in the game at all- you should focus on motor skill. But if you do add turrets/deployables in, this is the only way of doing it right, imo...

[JustinPierce]

Experimenting with the first deployable

[Fixious]

Well that should certainly help with chasing. Is one friendly and the other enemy, hence the color change? That or some kind of cooldown effect is at play (something Legions did).

[JustinPierce]

Yeah, color coded for teams (don't get boost from enemy gates).

Will probably come back and refine the art later.