Weekly Mutations to help Test/Prototype NEW ideas...

(PixelTwitch) #1

So, a very simple one today guys… (for me at least)

I would like to know your thoughts on a WEEKLY MUTATION server. This would follow the same principle as the Mutation game mode on Left 4 Dead, basically allowing you to play the same core game with small changes that could help guide the development with very small baby steps towards a feel that we all enjoy.

Here is the wiki page for Left 4 Dead’s Mutation mode…

This would be perfect for testing things like the spread, time to kill, respawn timers and even merc limitations… The mutations should not be used to drastically change the game but genitally nudge it… This idea combined with “ECHO” should allow a wide range of analytics’s to be grabbed from the playerbase.

Also, you never know guys… We may find something fun! lol

(Glottis-3D) #2

this.

OR ELSE!!!

:slight_smile:

(Glottis-3D) #3

lol at 3rd option

there was a promod…though…

(PixelTwitch) #4

all in good faith :wink:

(BomBaKlaK) #5

Not interested

(onYn) #6

Generally a good idea, that´s why I voted for yes. That should have been done ages ago tho. Now, with all the new players, you probably will end up playing CS or CoD with UT graphics.

(Glottis-3D) #7

i thought of it as a beta-test option. giev some levers and tools to the gamers.

(onYn) #8

They just should be playing on servers where we have no access to… The way it is right now, the guys that may be somehow interested in this game, will be scared away because of other people simply recking them times 10.

(Kl3ppy) #9

I voted no because it is simply too late.

(Hyperg) #10

I agree with the idea in principle, but I’m not sure that some of the details you sketched for the mods themselves will work well for the current state of the game.

L4D2 had already taken care of most of its core gameplay (which was already validated by L4D) when those mutations appeared and they refer to game logic mostly. There are variables that you mentioned there (which relate to core combat mechanics) which have a very sensitive relation to the development process because they affect sound assets, animation assets, fx and all the eye-candy that “supports” a balanced “profile” for a gun and player movement. If you just branch out a set of variables and let them loose on a server, it’s a “bit” difficult to adjust your production to snap to whichever mutation wins. Given how patches unfold and what the development vlogs show us, it’s clear that whatever core gameplay changes get into a build, they also come with a layer of polish, to better convey the ideas.

Stuff like number of mercs, timers and what usually falls into the meta-game category does indeed represent good material to be put on such a test server , but I think that some of these variables will most likely be configurable (there was a debate about this before).

(potty200) #11

I am neither for or against this one. I didn’t particularly like them in l4d. Rarely played them and I feel it might split the community a little if this was implemented.

(Snotling) #12

I went for the 2nd choice sicne I never played this game mod on L4D. I remember some fun game modes on QW like the Dust but nothing more interesting than the main mode.

(PixelTwitch) #13

As someone who is a MOD here… If your telling me that its too late and this is the game we are getting… I am wondering why I still have it installed >.<
No but seriously… Why do you believe its to late to have a server that has a different respawn timer? or Different max HP for mercs?

The value you get from hard data vs changing for the most part some “default values” in classes is huge?

(Kl3ppy) #14

First oft all, I am not a SD member :wink:
I think it is too late because we, the alpha tester, asked for this since almost a year. We asked to test different spawn timers, different HP values etc. But we never tested some settings, we always got adjusted timers but never really tested settings to find good ones. We also had a discussion about really testing crazy ideas. But we never had this Kind of testing. But oft course, if we get to test this, I would go for it and test it.

Edit: I do believe that SD didnt made the best of having gamer involved in the alpha stage. When i joined the alpha, i thought i will test some crazy ideas, maybe to find something superb which made dirty bomb unique. But instead SD relied too much in echo. It is a good tool to find weaknesses but it cant measure fun. And fun is IMO the most important thing in a game. I am having no fun because dirty bomb doesnt know what it wants to be. It is somehow between CoD/BF and ET/ETQW. Everything dirty bomb offers is already on the market. The only difference to the games i named is, dirty bomb is f2p.

(PixelTwitch) #15

[QUOTE=Shifty.;498936]First oft all, I am not a SD member :wink:
I think it is too late because we, the alpha tester, asked for this since almost a year. We asked to test different spawn timers, different HP values etc. But we never tested some settings, we always got adjusted timers but never really tested settings to find good ones. We also had a discussion about really testing crazy ideas. But we never had this Kind of testing. But oft course, if we get to test this, I would go for it and test it.[/QUOTE]

Ah thats good to know…

Well making “changes” to a game is very different to having just a single server… Providing the reason that SD did not decide to try different things came down to fear or effort, I do feel that something like this would be doable. Also, a simple system like this would allow for much smaller changes one at a time and allow you the chance in future to stack changes to see if they work together.

Whilst sure you would need to do a bit of work to get these ideas working, due to how the unreal engine works to my knowledge the effort required for such simple changes should be quite small (specially when it comes down stuff like TTK, Weapon damage, Respawn Times and Ability cool downs). It would require a little more effort to work on HUD changes and full system changes… but start small right?

I think the biggest difference to previous suggestions is that it does not force anyone into playing a certain way to test the changes…

I have my fingers crossed dude… Because I simply feel lots of the issues SD has with trying things comes down to insecurity.

(Mustang) #16

I think the reason is that Smooth didn’t want us to do his job for free. :wink: