Advanced AvA combat - On the neccesity of tactical elements in PvP

[Croomar]

Dual Universe's general Avatar vs Avatar combat system is still a topic to be discussed as most of it also lies in the dark for the community.
Nonthetheless, I'd like to discuss a related topic: 
How and if different tacical gameplay elements can benefit AvA combat and which elements can be used meaningful.

 

Having said that, it's also important to think about if certain tactical elements even make sense at all in an MMO like Dual Universe, what is feasible and what may be too much.
However, I personally felt it would be disappointing if ground combat only consisted of aiming and shooting around with different weapons with barely any features around. Seeing how many non-tactic games adapted features from tactic shooters, implementing certain elements can bring a lot more depth in combat situations.

 

So I thought of different features that many tactic shooters implemented. Surely you wouldn't expect DU to feature a full list of these and become a full-fledged shooter by the way, but I'd like to list a few specific ones that I think could be discussed well.

Advanced movement systems

A good basic for most tactic shooters is a movement systems that allows the player to take on different stances and have the character interact with objects and world elements during movements.

Usually, this consists at least of being able to stand, crouch and lie down as stances (Battlefield, Arma), some shooters go even further with additional stances in between these three or being able to sprint in different modes and combine them into slides or throwing yourself down.


But another element of this feature is the interaction with the environement, for example being able to leap over obstacles (The Division, Ghost Recon), sometimes even climb on elements 

 

 

These elements can commonly be seen in third person shooters, but more first person shooter adapt them as well.
First person shooters also sometimes feature the possibility to lean over to a side to look around corners. (R6 Siege, Squad)

 

Does DU need this?

Interacting with the world would be great, but DU is a Sci-fi game. Cimbing a building or being able to leap over small objects would not be necessary if we can use our jetpack for it. In fact, the jetpack allows for a far more complex movement system as it creates an larger, 3 dimensional space to fight in. Jetpacks are also found in modern action shooters more and more and open other options, such as walking on walls or power leaps.
However, being able to go prone is something that a jetpack can't replace and what I personally like to see in any game. Games with advanced physics or cover systems also include the leaning automatically.

 

Cover system

Especially in recent years, cover systems have been implemented in a majority of tactic shooters. It allows the player to position his character to any surface large enough and "stick" to it, moving along its course. With this, you can peek out to shoot and largely avoid getting hit easily. The problem with these systems is that they don't blend well with 1st-person, which is why most games with cover systems are 3rd-person shooters or switch into 3rd person as long as the character stays in cover. Another problem is that games with cover systems usually revolve around these (The Division, Gears of War, Rainbow Six: Vegas). Having a full cover system in DU would likely mean more work for a possible 3rd-person perspective or that combat takes place behind cover, which is fun for many but can become tedious at times.

This where the soft-cover system comes in:
Some recent games have implemented a cover system, that doesn't require your character to stick to a surface. Instead, the player positions his character regularly behind cover. As soon as he aims, the character will automatically look over or around the cover. The recent Ghost Recon Wildlands mixed these systems through an animation that seemingly lets the character stick to the surface without actually entering a sperate cover mode.

 

While it's questionable if DU needs this, it would certainly be a nice feature to get just a bit more depth in the overall combat system as it opens more possibilities in combat and prevents the rushed, senslessly action-rich gameplay seen in low-effort productions.

Kits / Roles

Typical for an MMORPG is a class system. Shooters feature them as well sometimes, although "kits" are used more often in modern shooters as the less static pendant to classes. Kits feature a set of equipment that can usually be changed in or between rounds. Together with these kits, certain roles of a player are associated, which are often similar to traditional classes in RPGs. We have healing kits like medics, damage dealers like the normal rifeman or assault, a subsitute for tanks are usually kits with heavy weaponry like rocket launchers or LMGs and engineering kits for what in any other RPG can be a summoner, tamer or an engineer as well.

 

NQ already stated that DU will not feature a fixed class system, but a skill tree with which players can specialize in a certain direction.
These may be associated with roles as well, but in terms of overall DU gameplay. That means that AvA combat would only be one direction for a role in the whole tree.
By fanning this direction of the skill tree out, a role system could be integrated into the game instead of having players assume different combat roles themselves or be determined solely by weaponry, which would be another possibility as well. A broader skill tree would  also mean stronger in-depth specialization, more directions to go and being able to combine skills and equipment effectively.

 

Communication channels

A working chain of command is essential for successful operations. A complex strategy needs to be executed correctly, which is why everbody has to know their part in it. But a single squad also needs to be able to adapt to the situation in the field, which is why higher ranks make decisions and forward them to the single members. Sadly, most games neglect this complex procedure and only give access to an all-chat and team-chat, traditional MMOs mostly also to guild / clan / alliance chats. This is good, but not enough for a working chain of command. Sadly, the commonly used 3rd party programs like TeamSpeak, Skype and Discord can't satisfy this problem either. 
Squad implemented a good first start for this - a Radio channel for Squad leaders, for the squads and for proxmity. Squad leaders can discuss plans and strategies together, forwards them to their squad, that can in turn confirm and report single events while members can talk to people outside their squad or their immediate group through the local channel. Additional, the chat window allows to send messages to the whole team.
I wouldn't expect DU to include VoIP, but besides the regular chats of traditional MMOs at least being able to have multiple chat channels for use inside organizations could be a lot to work with. These channels could maybe even be linked to the RDMS to decide who can type or read in it.
If we take this step a bit further, being able to create a certain amount of custom channels would come in handy for all possible situations. In that case maybe not only for use inside an organization, but even for creating prviate chat channels with password protection to invite people from everywhere in the game.

 

Weapon customization

Not neccesarily a tactical feautre itself, but brings with it a lot of tactical depth, similar to kits and roles.
Most MMOs feature equipment customization to some extent, mostly by upgrading quality and / or level of the gear. Fantasy MMOs also often allow to insert gems in sockets to boost a certain stat of the weapon.
 

 

This is a very basic level of customization, but being able to put mods, modules, upgrade chips or whatever you want to call it on a weapon would definitely be imaginable for Dual Universe.

Advanced customization allows the players to choose various components of their weapons like scopes, barrels, magazines, triggers and stocks. Somtimes, this is done when assembling or crafting your weapon and will determine the end stats of the finished product. In some games, this is an option in menus or on a crafting station (Fallout, Ghost Recon)
 

 

While this certainly is a lot of work on the development side, the result is always a fun feature that would be a great addition in a sandbox game like DU. In a game you can create your own buildings, cities, vessels and societies, why exclude weapons from it?

Interactive maps

The last and shortest feature on the list is interactive maps. There are only few games in which you can customize your maps. But like with communication channels, a complex strategy needs to be explained well. Being able to illustrate and visualise a strategy or tactic is a great help and makes for a fun feature. Having a map you can draw on and show other players can be a great help to communicate even without words, this doesn't even need to be in real time. It'd be enough to craft a map, edit its content, save it and pass on the next player. Seeing as this is already the case with the blueprints in DU, making maps similar to them might not be too difficult on the development end. 



Now you're asked. What do you think of these features? Would you like to see some of them in Dual Universe as well? What other elements would you prefer and what would you want to add to reach a deeper combat system?

[Anaximander]

This is not a shooter game. It has no real-time bullet physics and it's not based on how much of a twitch-monkey you are, but how cool you can remain in a fight and juggle different elements, like your opponent's direction in relation to you, your speed, your effective range and tanking capabilities or lack there of. More or less "pick your fight".

So, no, if you expect Ubisoft Tactical Shooter #25125267 this is not the game for you. It's about people in leadership positions calling a target and people being smart enough to know what they are doing to focus said target down. It's about how well people can react on taking damage, AKA "don't stand in the fire zone". You get hit in DU? Get behind cover. It's a combat system about taking out the head of a squad to disorganise them and figuring out who's the leader.

Who's the leader? The person behind cover coordinating their troops. Or the person wearing the expensive looking armor that provides intel bonuses to people around them (aura area buffs).

Sprint is already a thing, they did speak of it, although, if it depletes "player fuel" that remains to be seen. 

NQ said they go for a combat system like EVE's (probabilistic hit-chance) but given how they go with things, the system will end up looking more like Mass Effect's RPG-ish dice rolls with dynamic values (you move you lose accuracy, etcetera). Case in point, if done right, it won't be noticable. But don't expect your reflexes to matter as much as they would in SQUAD or R6:Siege. Although the tactical value stil lremains - the enviroemnt is fully destructible after all.

I also got the question of if weapons are a seperate customisable entity answered in the GDC stream with JC. The answer is yes. Armpors not so much, but they do seem to want that for a later point. 

This is a good point to indicate, that EVE's combat system works well cause of each "ship" (in DU's case, an armor worn by players) having a "role bonus". Snipers get more range on their weapons, while logistics (repairs, healers, etcetera) get reduction on repair modules costs in energy, while "tanks" get more resistances to damage, while having attached bonuses to certain size of weaponry. Howver, since it's avatar combat, I'd say NQ can come up with better ways than flat bonuses to armors on certain playstyles, while maintaining the core idea of some tihngs. Like making each armor have a "strength modifier" that increases how well you can handle a weapon's recoil, thus being more accurate or having a faster attack speed. So, a high caliber, fast shooting machinegun would handle normally in the hands of a player in eavy armor, while it would be terrible in the hands of a person in light armor, but a heavy armor player would have less pseed, but could handle an assault ifle WAY better than a player in light armor and so on.

I.e. the Combat Recon cruiser in EVE, is a ship that is immune to detection by directional scanning - it's by its nature, a Ranger class kind of role. But there's also Stratios, the spaceship equivalent of a Nightblade class from Elder Scrolls Obvlivion (a cross between a rogue and a warlock) that can cloak and drain you of energy while it deals damage with drones (or w/e DU's equivalent will end up being, like machine pets or something). Note, Combat Recon is not using cloak, it is STILL possible to probe its location, but it can also surprsie gank people way easier and it has the ability to crowd control and tank well.

Combat is more than "bang bang" or "pew pew".  In large scale, sure, firepower is a thing you need. but in small group combat, the person that can drain you dry of energy will beat you to death with very little dps. Or a person that can crowd control a large number of players, that person can easily turn the battle.

So, what you call "kits" in EVE we call doctrines. "Bring a [ship Type] with [ship Fitting #2325]. Shield Doctrine fleet ". So, in DU, this can mean "we got people who can replenish shields, you guys come in battle with shield generators, light armor (since you don't need it, you rely on your shield) and Ballistic wepaonry (so you don't drain your batteries by wasting energy on the gun, giving your shield more life-span ".

Of course, in small groups, again, it comes down to what kind of "setup" you go for, similar to any MMORPG with world PvP.

As for Stances, yes, that's an excellent idea. Letting a person get more Accuracy bonuses and / or range depending on their stance, but at the cost of speed - essentially, if you get spotted, you'll be easily shot, but if NQ utilises ray-casting, it also means you reduce your profile, thus reducing your literal chance to be hit in the cobmat algorithms.

This is the point I have to mention the game is only in 1st person. They abandoned the idea of a 3rd person view for avatars, cause it would make the first person pointless, and "cover" systems work by pre-planned surfaces. Guess what's even better though, crouching behind anything.

If NQ is going to implement ray-casting, that remains to be seen, one thing for certain, they do have their LOD tech figured out, so they can do a form of "shooter" like Fallout's VATS (which is also based on probabilistic values, like movement, yours and the enemy's ) only real-timish, so you could be getting more "dodge" chance depending on how much of your body is exposed to the attacker.


TL; DR : Don't expect a high-octane CoD MMO. Games like this work by uniform doctrines in large numbers, not "I want to play Heavy assault today". You need to train a long while to get to using a heavy armor efficiently and heavy armors cost far more than light armors, as you take time to trian how to use a cloak, or specialise in general. In smaller groups, you need to have people with specialisations on board, the usual RPG "party", of healer, crowd control & tanks, and long-range damage dealers.

I also asked NQ a long while back if the Jetpack is an obligatory item, and they said that it's not, it's a starting item, but it's also replaceable, by what, we can only guess.


Cheers.

[ShinyMagnemite]

Thank you for the tl;dr bit, haha.

[Lethys]

Nice written post there

 

I think we'll see a lot of different varieties with different armors, different weapons and jetpack warfare. Different combinations with different skill layouts will diversify that field a lot. That's why there is a skill tree - to let people decide which way to go with their character.

 

As twerk already pointed out, those kits will most likely be doctrines. With a fully editable world (including ships) you have to have a doctrine for cvc and ava. Maybe logistics (in the sense of a "healer") will be a thing too there (recharging your personal shield, repairing armor, recharging shield of your construct,...) so a fleet and a ground force would need to have a doctrine so all players have the same basic tanking ability (except you're baltec). You don't want your members to bring anything they want - that never ends well. Some will bring close range, some long range, some will hide, some will charge... If you make a move in DU against some target you have to be coordinated. Which brings me to my next point.

 

For comms I'd love to see a chat system like in EVE (custom channels) but only like they do it in wormholes: you don't see who is online atm or who is near you unless they write something. It adds a lot more of deep gameplay if you don't instantly know who and how many players are near you.

For voice I don't think it'll be as bad as in eve. There you needed TS servers capable of dealing with 500 people on a regular basis with all kinds of additional stuff like channel commanders, sub fleet generals and so on.

I think in DU you'll most likely need to have smaller voice rooms for 2-20 people (one ship/squad), but lots of them and only one channel for the fleet commander + the captains of each ship/squad. Maybe extra channels for some logi support, refuel/ammo transports, scouts, blackops and so on but no need for one massive channel.

[Croomar]

This is not a shooter game. It has no real-time bullet physics and it's not based on how much of a twitch-monkey you are, but how cool you can remain in a fight and juggle different elements, like your opponent's direction in relation to you, your speed, your effective range and tanking capabilities or lack there of. More or less "pick your fight".

 

So, no, if you expect Ubisoft Tactical Shooter #25125267 this is not the game for you. It's about people in leadership positions calling a target and people being smart enough to know what they are doing to focus said target down.

 

Just to not let any misunderstandings come up at a later point, this section of the answer is why I tried to emphasize on...

Dual Universe's general Avatar vs Avatar combat system is still a topic to be discussed [by itself] as most of it also lies in the dark for the community.

[and]

 

[...] if different tacical gameplay elements can benefit AvA combat [...]

[and]

[...] it's also important to think about if certain tactical elements even make sense at all in an MMO like Dual Universe [...]

[and]

[...] Seeing how many non-tactic games adapted features from tactic shooters [and vice versa], implementing certain elements can bring a lot more depth in combat situations.

[and]

[...] Surely you wouldn't expect DU to feature a full list of these and become a full-fledged shooter by the way, but I'd like to list a few specific ones that I think could be discussed well.

...in the beginning.

The aim of my post is not to discuss the combat system and its mechanics by itself, but to compare different common features of regular shooter games with very basic explanations on how a non-regular shooter game, which DU is to some extent, could adapt them like many other games did successfully before. The answer gives some important insight nonetheless.

 

 

Having said that, a few of your points are good inspiration to link to what's already been said, like...

[...]

I'd say NQ can come up with better ways than flat bonuses to armors on certain playstyles, while maintaining the core idea of some tihngs. Like making each armor have a "strength modifier" that increases how well you can handle a weapon's recoil, thus being more accurate or having a faster attack speed. So, a high caliber, fast shooting machinegun would handle normally in the hands of a player in eavy armor, while it would be terrible in the hands of a person in light armor, but a heavy armor player would have less pseed, but could handle an assault ifle WAY better than a player in light armor and so on.

[...]

...which I'd personally find very interesting to see. I guess it would fall in the category of a class / role / kit / doctrine being determined by gear (instead of just weaponry), but would work in a skill tree in almost in the same way. The advantages are then being unlocked via nodes in the skill tree, some nodes could even grant disadvantages on other roles for especially strong effects. Besides recoil, the bullet spread, or in terms of DU the hit chance decreasing with continuous fire, could be influenced, if we get Sci-fi weapons like lasers there's also a good chance for an overheat mechanic that can be tweaked with armors or skills.

Then again, instead of the skills in a combat branch themselves, points could be invested in wearing the armor that grants these bonuses, which breaks down to what Twerk said in the TL;DR.

 

Combat is more than "bang bang" or "pew pew".  In large scale, sure, firepower is a thing you need. but in small group combat, the person that can drain you dry of energy will beat you to death with very little dps. Or a person that can crowd control a large number of players, that person can easily turn the battle.

 

This sounds awfully like the need for a skill system to me. But could even be implemented in the combat system or upgrade mechanic as well by giving a weapon some kind of alt-fire with different effects, depending on either the weapon itself or any kind of upgrade module you insert. May help to determine roles even more.

 

 

This is the point I have to mention the game is only in 1st person. They abandoned the idea of a 3rd person view for avatars, cause it would make the first person pointless, and "cover" systems work by pre-planned surfaces. Guess what's even better though, crouching behind anything.

 

And that's again where the soft cover comes in, because that would be compatible with any surface there is and would therefore even work with those created by players, as long as it's just recognized as a surface and not only as an entity. 

 

 

 

[..] Maybe logistics (in the sense of a "healer") will be a thing too there (recharging your personal shield, repairing armor, recharging shield of your construct,...) so a fleet and a ground force would need to have a doctrine so all players have the same basic tanking ability (except you're baltec). You don't want your members to bring anything they want - that never ends well. Some will bring close range, some long range, some will hide, some will charge... If you make a move in DU against some target you have to be coordinated.

 

Combined Arms gameplay was something I orginally wanted to include as well, but thought since it's gonna be an essential part of the game anyway, why include it in a collection of far-fetched ideas. But here again, we have the aspect of roles (doctrines) being changeable in some way or another and determined by the gear you equip. This leaves us with the question on how deeply we'd want to be able to specialize in certain roles with fixed stats and skills or if we want to combine them so the roles can be changed depending on momentary requirements.

 

 

 

For comms I'd love to see a chat system like in EVE (custom channels) but only like they do it in wormholes: you don't see who is online atm or who is near you unless they write something. It adds a lot more of deep gameplay if you don't instantly know who and how many players are near you.

For voice I don't think it'll be as bad as in eve. There you needed TS servers capable of dealing with 500 people on a regular basis with all kinds of additional stuff like channel commanders, sub fleet generals and so on.

I think in DU you'll most likely need to have smaller voice rooms for 2-20 people (one ship/squad), but lots of them and only one channel for the fleet commander + the captains of each ship/squad. Maybe extra channels for some logi support, refuel/ammo transports, scouts, blackops and so on but no need for one massive channel.

I agree, not having a full list of players certainly does have its virtues. If at all, maybe being able to see people in a list when your intelligence stat is higher than theirs or their counter intelligence would be a nice feature.

 

Concerning the voice chat, that's partially why I'd recommended different text channels. If you want to forward orders to a smaller group of players in TS / Discord, you need to swich the channels back and forth all the time. In this time, you become unable to react on events ingame and might even miss important information going on in another channel. of course, chat channels need to be switched as well most of the times, but that's still far easier and faster than tabbing out or switching to a second screen, not to mention you can read the chat history at all times.

Combined Arms gameplay was something I orginally wanted to include as well, but thought since it's gonna be an essential part of the game anyway, why include it in a collection of far-fetched ideas. But here again, we have the aspect of roles (doctrines) being changeable in some way or another and determined by the gear you equip. This leaves us with the question on how deeply we'd want to be able to specialize in certain roles with fixed stats and skills or if we want to combine them so the roles can be changed depending on momentary requirements.

 

[Lord_Void]

Nice post! I'm definitely going to look at it more in depth later, but it's late and I've "been celebrating" so cheers. 

 

I will say that the game is not going to be a high octane shooter. it will probably be more along the lines of Arma, minus all the customization and control. A rather slow paced engagement spread out over a large area.

[0something0]

I am personally not a fan of hitscan for small-arms combat since it involves much more obstacles and other tactical elements at a much shorter range, which hitscan would greatly reduce the effectiveness of.

 

As for climbing, it could be integrated with crawling to better climb through small spaces and not spend jetpack fuel, as well as being able to take a second to reload or something.

 

As for voice channels, you could have diffrent frequencies like on a acutal radio, and have bookmarked channel for easy access.. You also can encrypt your chat and decrypt it for potential intelligence, though I suspect most would use teamspeak/discord for this.

 

What I want to talk about is space combat. Suppose someone disables the core(is that even a thing? it should be.), and everyone is in microgravity now. what would the movement system look like? Probably WASD for front/back/left/right, mouse look for rotation, and use jetpack for up/down control. Grapple shoes could be used for walking/crawling/crouching on voxels. 

[Pang_Dread]

Yeah like said above the combat is not tactical shooter based so basically tab-target, stat based roles, so I think any talk of tactical shooter based stuff is a non-starter to be honest. Unless you want to donate a few million bucks and a dozen or so more devs not much is likely to change in that regard.

[Croomar]

Yeah like said above the combat is not tactical shooter based so basically tab-target, stat based roles, so I think any talk of tactical shooter based stuff is a non-starter to be honest. Unless you want to donate a few million bucks and a dozen or so more devs not much is likely to change in that regard.

I feared this to be the way the discussion would be headed, so I'm going to say it again for the third time here - 

 

DU is not a regular shooter, which everybody is already aware of, but a sandbox MMO with shooter elements. There are a lot of sandox games out on the market that usually also feature some kind of avatar combat. The problem is, this combat is usually extremely cheap and boring to no end because it features no other elements than shooting by itself and different weapons. Avatar combat is something that is being neglected in 90% of sandbox games and I'd find it a waste of good potential if DU were to take a similar path.

Essentialy, because DU is not going to be shooter, adding certain shooter elements may enrich the avatar combat in this game compared to other games.

This is why I've made a list of different elements, taken especially from tactic shooters solely for the reason that they provide a larger list of features than the regular action shooter or RPG, in order to discuss which of these features could be appropriate to add in a non-regular shooter game like DU is. It's about advancing the simple avatar combat by adapting features that other games regularly provide.

For that discussion, the actual combat system we will get is only of secondary importance. Of course the combat mechanic DU features may restrict some features, but if you look at the list, most elements aren't even connected to the combat mechanic itself and could theoreticaly be added nonetheless.

 

 

However, one point you mentioned is important: The production cost of certain elements. 

As I mentioned in the section of interactive maps, I'd imagine that crafting one and edit it to pass it on at a later point would be fairly easy to program if they have a similar feature with blueprints for constructs anyway. Maybe that would be a feature that could be added relatively fast and easily, and thus cheap as well. But adding maps that update in realtime with what you draw on them certainly is a lot more work, a more convenient feature for sure, but with production costs in mind the first idea may be the better one.

 

 

[0something0]

I don't think making real-time editable maps will be that hard if they got the real-time map already. Just have them in separate layers with the drawing layer having a transparent background, so there are actually 2 "maps" one over another.

[Anaximander]

I don't think making real-time editable maps will be that hard if they got the real-time map already. Just have them in separate layers with the drawing layer having a transparent background, so there are actually 2 "maps" one over another.

Cause shader pathing is easy and RAMs are eternal , amirite?

[Pang_Dread]

I feared this to be the way the discussion would be headed, so I'm going to say it again for the third time here - 

 

DU is not a regular shooter,....

 

 

 

Its not a shooter at all is the point was trying to me. It'll be more of a simulated shooter if that, again with tab-target, target selecting, soft target, etc with hits/misses based on stat roles not twitch skill.

 

I'm all for improving what they have or intend to make but again must keep in mind the type of game being made ie combat isn't going to be the main focus of the game and the size/budget of the dev team.

[0something0]

Cause shader pathing is easy and RAMs are eternal , amirite?

Its like having 1 tab over another.... except that the top tab is transparent.

[Anaximander]

Its like having 1 tab over another.... except that the top tab is transparent.

Transparent does not mean "non-existing". It's computer code, not quantum mechanics. It's the same problem with the game having "Air-voxels" to simulate pressurised air that people suggestsd. Just because a voxel may be transparent and has no collisions on it, does not make said voxe lnon-existing.

 

Same would be for having two "tabs" or layers of blend on a 3D mesh model to map the "cover" surface. Those things are done in singleplayer-games, cause there you load a chunk of a map, so you can increase the qualityo f the map / arena by enriching it with such things. DU is not that. 

 

Plus, the main prbolem with "Snap-cover" is that it cheats. You get to look behind a wall wtihout actually looking, which kinda makes the first person immersion pointless.

 

There's a workaround with that. Have a person have an equipment slot for "recon drone" which gives them the ability to fly a drone that can scout around corners without risking your head in the process (of coruse the drone can be deestoryed). That is FAR more tactical than a cheat-mechanic like "snap-cvoer over the shoudler view".

[0something0]

This is definitely not what I meant. 

 

So, my thought was this.

 

You have a 2d map of the terrain(or 3d map of the planets and stuff) like in all of those other games. And, there is another layer overlaid on top of the 2d map that you can edit on. Its like having different layers in Adobe Photoshop(and most other photo editors). And maybe make it so a drone/spy satellite is required to get the map or something.

[Anaximander]

This is definitely not what I meant. 

 

So, my thought was this.

 

You have a 2d map of the terrain(or 3d map of the planets and stuff) like in all of those other games. And, there is another layer overlaid on top of the 2d map that you can edit on. Its like having different layers in Adobe Photoshop(and most other photo editors). And maybe make it so a drone/spy satellite is required to get the map or something.

Yeah, that's what I meant earlier on the thread about shader paths. Those "invisible" mattes, will have to be rendered via shaderwork, and this means a second shader path to be coded engine-side to handle it. It's why you can't see thermal signatures through walls in games like CoD (or any shooter) cause they woul need a secodnary shader path to pull that.

 

Even if it's not for thermal signatures, it's still a shader-path work that needs to be done.  AAn alternative is to tie some features to a certain construct or baked voxel mass and tie it with orientation of a "scan". So, if yo u scan soemthing in a line and it's behind an obejstalce your detector can't pass (i.e. lead for X-Rays) then you can't detect things, as this would use the already existing shader on what you can "see".

[Darkmegatron]

I hope this will be a PvP game without CC (crowd control) and a resistance caused by a skill. Every MMORPG has shown me the CC balancing makes impossible and games like Aion, the Imunity is also nothing belonging to a PvP game (dodging only manually, not by a skill). Also, skills should have clear constraints. For example, "Protective shield absorbs 100 damage and then ends prematurely." "AoE hits 1-3 enemies" "This skill will cause 30 damage each time the affected character performs a particular action, causing up to 120 Damage and then terminate prematurely ". Videos on Youtube by Guild Wars 1 and Nestlings Farms show what happens when you use skills without damage.

 

I find abilities that change the character traits for a short time, such as "30% faster running for 30 seconds, 30% slower attack", "15  Seconds for your general armor (which reduces all types of damage) 50% more but you move 50% slower).

 

In Guld Wars 1, the warrior also had adrenaline (energy generated by suffering and causing damage, except DoT`s, and after the fight, the necromancer had life points as an additional source of energy and got some mana if something And the dervish, a melee who worked with enchantments, got some mana and life when enchantment ended. Enchantment of the class. I hope this will be a combat system where the Character also attacks, if one enters it, and does not even answer "their goal is not within reach", although it is in  reach.