Merc Interactions

(NeroKirbus) #1

I have posted about this before over a year ago, and the recent patches have worked on this immensely, but it should be expanded upon greatly. The Valve games do this extremely well and it makes competitive games much more immersive.

What I would like to see are more interactions between the characters, including snide remarks against enemies when you kill them, thanking allied mercs for supportive actions, and the character getting “pumped up” when on a killing spree.

It would be rather neat if each merc had a rival one, this would allow unique interactions, where if they are on the same team they would have passive aggressive ones, and if they are on the opposing team, they have extremely aggressive ones.

I understand this is a low priority right now since balance and mechanics are king, but I am in the dark for the plans for these types of ideas.

(Szakalot) #2

thanking allies for support already happens (ammo, hp); so do auto-taunts on killing sprees.

(Silvanoshi) #3

As both yourself and Szakalot have mentioned, there actually have been some improvements in this area of the last little while. While not everything is automatic, v-says allow you to do the vast majority of what you’ve mentioned above - the one exception being the “rival” idea.

If you haven’t seen it already, the v-say menu (accessed by pressing V in-game and then following the correlating number for callouts), allows you to actively choose whether or not you want to say quite a few things :).

(NeroKirbus) #4

[QUOTE=Silvanoshi;520482]As both yourself and Szakalot have mentioned, there actually have been some improvements in this area of the last little while. While not everything is automatic, v-says allow you to do the vast majority of what you’ve mentioned above - the one exception being the “rival” idea.

If you haven’t seen it already, the v-say menu (accessed by pressing V in-game and then following the correlating number for callouts), allows you to actively choose whether or not you want to say quite a few things :).[/QUOTE]

I actively use the V-says already, but I forgot about the automatic thank you’s occurring. They don’t stick in my mind as much as they do in TF2.

It would be grand if taunts automatically occur during some sort of grand plays; it’s a huge hindrance to go through 3 menus just to taunt someone. The V-say menu is great and it’s amazing that it’s exactly like the W:ET one, but hitting so many keys just to reply gets very annoying during game play. Even if it’s muscle memory to me and many others, it’s not as convenient as the automatic replies that other games provide.

(.FROST.) #5

[QUOTE=NeroKirbus;520483]I actively use the V-says already, but I forgot about the automatic thank you’s occurring. They don’t stick in my mind as much as they do in TF2.

It would be grand if taunts automatically occur during some sort of grand plays; it’s a huge hindrance to go through 3 menus just to taunt someone. The V-say menu is great and it’s amazing that it’s exactly like the W:ET one, but hitting so many keys just to reply gets very annoying during game play. Even if it’s muscle memory to me and many others, it’s not as convenient as the automatic replies that other games provide.[/QUOTE]

One word; “macros”. Put a couple of your most important V-says on a regular keyboard key you normaly wouldn’t use during gameply, or buy yourself a keyboard, that already has seperate keys for all kinds of sweet macros.

(NeroKirbus) #6

I do have one, I’m just quite lazy to actually bother with that. It’s a poor reply, but it would add to the active atmosphere if they were automatic. I understand it’ll take time for the newer players to actively use it and get used to it, but the v-says are more or less player interactions, rather than character to character interactions in my eyes.

The prime examples I can mainly think of are TF2 and Dota 2 where the characters themselves have unique lines they say to one another. Nothing gets me more pumped when a scout chuckles when he gets a triple kill, as well as the countless other quotes those games have. The feel of the character actually acknowledging his victory or feat adds a tremendous amount of personality and the feeling of them actually living somewhat.

Having a character specific menu for which taunts to say under certain conditions would be awesome. that would be a simple solution.

(Szakalot) #7

A nice way to handle this I can think of, is to limit use of some taunts (‘special taunt 2’ and ‘4’ in particular!) to multikills & killing sprees. Say, you just destroyed a few people, a sub-menu in your vsays becomes temporarily accessible where you can pick one of these taunts. Limiting their use would make them feel more unique, and choosing one yourself will make it more personal, rather than your character going out with an automatic vsay.

I’m not sure what would be the most elegant way to incorporate it into the HUD/interface though.

(spookify) #8

[QUOTE=Szakalot;520487]

I’m not sure what would be the most elegant way to incorporate it into the HUD/interface though.[/QUOTE]

The HUD needs soooo much work! :eek:

(Anti) #9

We have some lines that are supposed to trigger on the occasional re-spawn, as well as when you earn certain badges, but they don’t seem to playing when they should at present. Probably some bugs that need hunting down there.

Definitely agree with your suggestion though and we’ve been planning to do some very similar things

(.FROST.) #10

I’d find selecting taunts during a match a bit distracting, but what about unlocking/buying taunts, that you can pre-select for a match. They then would be played automatically when you kill someone. I think Gotham City Impostors has such a system. One taunt that got me laughing everytime was; “Take a good look. What??? Not at me!!!” and that in this stupid voice, I still have to smile, when I’m just thinking about it.

(NeroKirbus) #11

[QUOTE=Anti;520489]We have some lines that are supposed to trigger on the occasional re-spawn, as well as when you earn certain badges, but they don’t seem to playing when they should at present. Probably some bugs that need hunting down there.

Definitely agree with your suggestion though and we’ve been planning to do some very similar things[/QUOTE]

That’s very exciting to hear, because currently the merc’s have very little personality outside the V-says.

I had the same idea Frost, it would be awesome if that would make it in the game eventually.

(AssortedStuff) #12

Blacklight Retribution had a good method, where you’d click the taunt key, a wheel with the available taunts would show on screen and you’d select one with the mouse. It would take less than a second.

(BomBaKlaK) #13

Be able to bind them on the keyboard as we can do in ET or ETQW is perfect. (cfg tweak)

(tokamak) #14

In HotS the heroes are saying subtle things to each other without player involvement. Like “You really should get replenish at the base” just little heads ups and remarks.

On top of that there’s the player communication which heavily relies on clicking on objects on the minimap. “I want to assist this mercenary” “I want to push this forst” “I want to defend this objective”.

Less useful in an FPS but perhaps a pop up map for that kind of communication would work.

For player-to-player interaction ETQW was brilliant. V on a player or objective and a quick menu on applicable commands with the most probable one as default…

(Floris) #15

[QUOTE=tokamak;520560]In HotS the heroes are saying subtle things to each other without player involvement. Like “You really should get replenish at the base” just little heads ups and remarks.

On top of that there’s the player communication which heavily relies on clicking on objects on the minimap. “I want to assist this mercenary” “I want to push this forst” “I want to defend this objective”.

Less useful in an FPS but perhaps a pop up map for that kind of communication would work.

For player-to-player interaction ETQW was brilliant. V on a player or objective and a quick menu on applicable commands with the most probable one as default…[/QUOTE]

I was thinking how in pub it is very hard to coordinate. This might be the biggest gripe I have with pub play in Dirty Bomb at the moment.

Perhaps that could be resolved by having auto voice messages send between players, e.g. if someone sees an enemy planting, he could automatically say “they are planting!”. Or when you see a lot of people rushing in from one way (“five hostiles rushing long”). Or when you spot the objective carrier (“objective is taking north way!”). Or when you see the enemy transmitting, planting a side objective, or a class which has some class based advantage (:sniper at the chapel!", “engineer at the south gate!”, “gib, they have a medic!”)

Based on distance between you and your teammates this could either be communicated using some sort of taunt (for close range teammates) or using a radio message (for long range teammates and for more important messages). It would be cool if the radio communication is only enabled once a team has build a command post (or “com(munication)s centre”) for example. Some mechanisms are needed to reduce spam (for example only the first person to spot enemies rushing in for a period of 20 seconds sends a message), but at the same time players could be rewarded with some XP for getting an early spot,

You should have an option to mute the radio, for example in scrims this kind of communication is handled by the players themselves. In a pub however using voice is often frowned upon (people have crappy mics 80% of the time, and if you say too much you will be asked to stay silent).