Merc "Ultimates"

(INF3RN0) #1

It hasn’t been talked much about for a long time now, but if it’s going to become a part of the game we might as well start discussing it.

What is an “ultimate”? What are potential risks? What would it add to the game?

Based on what I felt SD wanted “ultimates” to be are highly situational or skillful to use tools for each class or each individual merc. This doesn’t mean an ultimate would be an auto-target OHK weapon or anything that gives simple stats advantage per say. Instead these ultimates would need to be very dependent on a number of variables to make them useful at all. The bonus of these however would mean that if used to their maximum potential a team or player might be able to impact the game in a few given moments or base some strategy around their use. The difference between an “ultimate” and a standard tool would be that an ultimate would have an extremely long c/d and would need to be used intelligently to be truly impacting.

The potential problems with ultimates would be (1) making them indeed skillful/situational and balanced among all classes/mercs. (2) allowing the ultimate system to provide fair opportunity between both defending and attacking teams. The first part is straightforward, just ensure that all ultimate abilities meet the guidelines. As far as ensuring that ultimate distribution was always fair is a bit more difficult. SD suggested ultimates be unlocked based on earned XP, but that presents some obvious problems. My suggestion would be to make ultimates available after a set time for all players (say 3minutes), and once used by a player would result in their ultimate c/d bar across all classes to reset and begin to recharge. There after making the “ultimates” available again after X amount of time throughout the rest of the game.

The equivalent of this idea of “ultimates” in an FPS already exist. CS has economy. Quake has item/power up spawns. The main turn-off with these systems is that in many cases it becomes all about being the first to gain momentum, after which it is an uphill struggle for the other guy. This can be easily avoided via something like I previously suggested. The good thing about having something like these proposed ultimates is that it adds an interesting creativity and dynamism to the game play and give the much needed definition to classes/mercs. It would also give Xt the unique feel it needs when it comes to class based obj game play.

Ideas for Ultimates

A lot of this was discussed in the actual progression unlock thread, so I’m just moving my original thoughts here. Please post your own as well, and try to make them follow the guidelines of how these things would be intended to function.

My idea on ultimates would be to offer 2 choices per class or character. These two choices would fall into the category of a “support ability” or an “offensive ability”. These abilities would also need some more significant potential than the normal abilities to warrant them as “ultimates” to begin with. I think it would be best to avoid any straight damage abilities or access to superior weaponry, but instead just offer a specialized tool that only becomes truly useful if a player/team can follow up on it.

Just some of my own random thoughts…
Supportive;
Medic- AOE Revive Grenade
FOPS- Global resupply (instant ammo resupply)
Soldier - Grants a single frag grenade to all teammates (stays available in inventory until used)
Engineer- Mobile Cover (moveable cover of some kind)
Recon- UAV

Offensive;
Medic- Adrenaline (gives a move speed boost to one player, which lasts until death or X seconds)
FOPS- Smoke (a long lasting large AOE smoke grenade)
Soldier - Flash bang (large flash radius on this one)
Engineer- Deployable MG
Recon- Ability Lock Grenade (temporarily disables normal and special abilities from being used for X seconds by effected players)

(Vahntao) #2

Gonna be sad if they go the Firefall route with ultimates being an 'I win button". I would also like to point out that almost everyone hated ultimates in Firefall pvp.

(INF3RN0) #3

That’s what should be avoided of course. If you have any ideas of ultimates that are more fitting to that criteria then please share them.

(FireWater) #4

I’m not sure how you do ultimates and not have it be an iWin button. Ultimates in MOBAs are balance because of a lack of one hit kills.

In this game, it is not necessary, and will not attract gamers to the game.

Red 5 wanted ultimates to be a “feel good” ability, meaning even if you are getting your ass kicked, you still do an ultimate to feel good.

Problems with this logic

  1. If you were low on the scoreboard, chances are you didn’t get enough kills to build up your meter

  2. Whatever benefits you give to the poor, you also give to the rich at a faster rate. Skill communism failed in this regard because good players will fill their ulti meter fast, use ulti, gain ground/score points, and rinse and repeat. In RTS games, this maybe called a slippery slope. In FireFall it was a no friction landslide.

If ultimates are in the game, I will request a refund because it will break the game.

(Volcano) #5

i was under the impression that this was getting removed or reworked,

(Smooth) #6

That is likely to be the case. We’re currently discussing what we want to do with this.

(.FROST.) #7

[QUOTE=FireWater;472758]

  1. If you were low on the scoreboard, chances are you didn’t get enough kills to build up your meter

  2. Whatever benefits you give to the poor, you also give to the rich at a faster rate. Skill communism failed in this regard because good players will fill their ulti meter fast, use ulti, gain ground/score points, and rinse and repeat. In RTS games, this maybe called a slippery slope. In FireFall it was a no friction landslide.

If ultimates are in the game, I will request a refund because it will break the game.[/QUOTE]

Lol, never heard of “ultimates” in a shooter game, but I guess they are there since Modern Warfare introduced airstrikes and stuff; never heard of them being called ultimates though. “Ultimates” and “Meter” is usually something I know from games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

And even though what you(FireWater) says is true, -what the “poor” gets, the “rich” are getting even faster-, there could be some mechanic to equal that out. NOT!!! saying though, that I’d like it(ultimates), but I’m only saying, that there could be a way around. In Street Fighter for example your meter builds up from a variety of things; active and passive stuff. I wouldn’t go so far to suggest getting hit, builds up meter, but doing objectives could also contribute to your meter, or supplying your team-mates and stuff like that.

(attack) #8

noooooooooooooooooooo
global ammo resuply ?!
gives everybody a nade?!

…
sry but misslike
im fine with smth like molotov
but not smth “big” like this
its still a shooter

(.FROST.) #9

[QUOTE=attack;472791]noooooooooooooooooooo
global ammo resuply ?!
gives everybody a nade?!

…
sry but misslike
im fine with smth like molotov
but not smth “big” like this
its still a shooter[/QUOTE]

Agree^. There could be very, very subtle stuff, like say a reconnaissance drone, that spots only OPFORs in the open; even guys under a bridge would stay invisible, and the duration would also be quite limited(shorter than the Recon’s ability). Something like that would also be kinda “realistic”(I know how much you guys like this word, just wanna tease you:wink:), as oppossed to grenades and ammo that miraculously wanders into your pockets and pouches.

(k1ruaa) #10

Please no, don’t bring ultimates I don’t want this game to become an ability spam game. There is a lot of abilites already and it’ll increase with each merc so… let’s keep it to this. An airstrike for example can already be considered as an ultimate tbh.
But yeah, bring back the grenades instead :stuck_out_tongue:

(attack) #11

well since everybody death player has a wallhack and hartbeeb is a wallhack too :smiley: ,drone isnt needed :smiley:

(tokamak) #12

I want kill(revive/objective/action)streaks that give a small passive bonus to the merc. The bonus could be as simple as extra health, regen, ammo regen, firepowe or accuracy or whatever. It grows up to some extend and then it stays until you respawn.

That way it pays to get into the match, dive in, get useful but also gives you something that you want to protect and grow and for that you need to stay alive.

This in turn adds more weight to dying and killing in the game. It becomes more meaningful and through that the combat becomes less spammy and frivolous.

It’s not just some gimmick, I think this is an essential mechanic to stop the game from being as messy as it is now.

(Rex) #13

No sorry, we are not in LoL. Unlocks via xp should be sufficient.

(.FROST.) #14

That was the point. It would be some kind of reward, but not too excessively.
.

It was a mere example and I’m not for “Ultimates” anyways, but if they have to be in the game, then they shouldn’t be a total game-changer. And since this ability is(as you’ve mentioned) already in the game it wouldn’t destroy the current gameplay. It could be an alternate ability for the FOPS, or whatever; but again, I’m fine with no ultimates at all.

PS: It’s called heart-beat sensor, if I remember correctly :wink:

(.FROST.) #15

[QUOTE=tokamak;472842]I want kill(revive/objective/action)streaks that give a small passive bonus to the merc. The bonus could be as simple as extra health, regen, ammo regen, firepowe or accuracy or whatever. It grows up to some extend and then it stays until you respawn.

That way it pays to get into the match, dive in, get useful but also gives you something that you want to protect and grow and for that you need to stay alive.

This in turn adds more weight to dying and killing in the game. It becomes more meaningful and through that the combat becomes less spammy and frivolous.

It’s not just some gimmick, I think this is an essential mechanic to stop the game from being as messy as it is now.[/QUOTE]

SD will never reward kills. If anything, then they would reward you according to the XP you’ve earned during a match. Rewarding kills would most likely lead to an ugly kill-fest and that’s certainly the last thing XT needs. The focus on objectives is atm basically the only thing that clearly seperates XT from all the other FPS games out there. Even taking that away(indirectly) would really be the deathblow for XT.

(attack) #16

[QUOTE=tokamak;472842]I want kill(revive/objective/action)streaks that give a small passive bonus to the merc. The bonus could be as simple as extra health, regen, ammo regen, firepowe or accuracy or whatever. It grows up to some extend and then it stays until you respawn.

That way it pays to get into the match, dive in, get useful but also gives you something that you want to protect and grow and for that you need to stay alive.

This in turn adds more weight to dying and killing in the game. It becomes more meaningful and through that the combat becomes less spammy and frivolous.

It’s not just some gimmick, I think this is an essential mechanic to stop the game from being as messy as it is now.[/QUOTE]
if you give smbdy a reward for killingstreak all start camp like hell.
the best is still on public some amazing sounds
like momomomomomommonsterkill
ut and quake does that nice.

(attack) #17

[QUOTE=.FROST.;472871]That was the point. It would be some kind of reward, but not too excessively.
.

It was a mere example and I’m not for “Ultimates” anyways, but if they have to be in the game, then they shouldn’t be a total game-changer. And since this ability is(as you’ve mentioned) already in the game it wouldn’t destroy the current gameplay. It could be an alternate ability for the FOPS, or whatever; but again, I’m fine with no ultimates at all.

PS: It’s called heart-beat sensor, if I remember correctly :wink:[/QUOTE]
it wasnt meant as offense im also totaly against this death wallhack.
i sometimes ask myself if smbdy at SD is paid to only get bad ideas

(stealth6) #18

[QUOTE=attack;472878]if you give smbdy a reward for killingstreak all start camp like hell.
the best is still on public some amazing sounds
like momomomomomommonsterkill
ut and quake does that nice.[/QUOTE]

Can’t say I disagree with that! :smiley: In games that don’t do the sound effects anymore I often find myself saying it out loud haha

(Raviolay) #19

I thought the original design for ultimate’s was that you unlocked them during a match? I do find it odd however that they are willing to scrap it considering they won’t budge on the maps. The most probable out come is they will cannibalize the turrets, health grenade and what not and attach them to other [strike]classes[/strike] characters as a ability.

Like Brink? :smiley:

[QUOTE=INF3RN0;472729]
Just some of my own random thoughts…
Supportive;
Medic- AOE Revive Grenade
FOPS- Global resupply (instant ammo resupply)
Soldier - Grants a single frag grenade to all teammates (stays available in inventory until used)
Engineer- Mobile Cover (moveable cover of some kind)
Recon- UAV

Offensive;
Medic- Adrenaline (gives a move speed boost to one player, which lasts until death or X seconds)
FOPS- Smoke (a long lasting large AOE smoke grenade)
Soldier - Flash bang (large flash radius on this one)
Engineer- Deployable MG
Recon- Ability Lock Grenade (temporarily disables normal and special abilities from being used for X seconds by effected players)[/QUOTE]

So your random thoughts are to copy the offensive/defensive killstreaks from MOH 2010…

(Anti) #20

As it stands in the short term we won’t be doing ultimate abilities or in-session progression. We’re going to revisit that stuff at a later date, once we’ve locked down more of the core gameplay and modes.