[Shooting / FPS] Highway to Hell

[Dz1rT]

This is an extremely old project of mine which I stumbled upon and decided to revisit recently. Currently I finished with my initial goals for it, but the scope and content is far too small for anything else than Map Development. Throwing it out here because of curiosity mostly.


Name of the creator: Me

Summary of the map gameplay/objectives:
It's a shooter (sort of) arena with some zombies shambling around. Currently has only one game mode - Team Deathmatch, where teams compete for points throughout several rounds, until one of the teams wins enough rounds to achieve victory. Gameplay is chaotic and unbalanced, players spawn at random points with random weapons. The arena is constantly flooded with zombie hordes to keep things even more chaotic. Nothing serious, just fast shooting session for a couple of minutes.


Map features:

• fast-paced action;
• non-target shooting;
• pseudo-diverse arsenal of 8 weapons + punching'n'kicking;
• supports up to 12 bots on each team (bots assigned through in-game menu, don't add computer players in the lobby - they won't work);
• crowds of zombies lumbering about;
• a lot of death.

 

[Dz1rT]

Legitimate bump.

 

[n00b]

Played it for a couple of minutes, I liked the custom animations, the fact that there were bots, and the silly GO!! sound byte

the game was alright, if not slightly generic and underdeveloped; what's some stuff that you plan on adding to this?

 

[Dz1rT]

Played it for a couple of minutes, I liked the custom animations, the fact that there were bots, and the silly GO!! sound byte

the game was alright, if not slightly generic and underdeveloped; what's some stuff that you plan on adding to this?

Generic I can understand, it's a simple deathmatch with some zombies thrown into the mix. But underdeveloped? What exactly underdeveloped you felt about it?

About adding stuff: I don't know. Additional modes, maps, weps, etc.

 

[n00b]

Generic I can understand, it's a simple deathmatch with some zombies thrown into the mix. But underdeveloped? What exactly underdeveloped you felt about it?

About adding stuff: I don't know. Additional modes, maps, weps, etc.

well as it is right now there's only one game mode, one map to play on, and only a handful of weapons to use, so it just feels incomplete. Which is why I asked what other things you were planning on adding

i would advise working on adding more weapons first
you could probably add in secondary weapons like grenades, mines, and so forth; it would give players the opportunity to mix and match primary/secondary abilities which ultimately yields more diversified playstyles and depth to the game
also, you could also add tertiary abilities or even melee weapons, which would benefit the game even more

after you've developed the weapons aspect of the game more, you should probably work towards adding more game modes, which i find to be the second most important. Ideally, I think new game modes should provide a different enough scenario that the "meta" is shifted away from the usual TDM fare (for lack of better wording)
for example, imagine a game mode identical to TDM, except you only have 1 life. despite being such a simple change, it would most likely change the "meta" drastically to benefit more cautious/defensive playstyles. This is interesting because it allows alternative playstyles to excel and possibly be more effective than the usual "TDM run-and-gun"
tl;dr you're introducing even more depth to the gameplay by adding game modes

thirdly you should add more maps, because playing on the same layout gets boring


tl;dr adding more stuff = more gameplay depth = fun


also finally some random small suggestions
- you should be able to pick your weapon and not just get a random one; either that or there should be a gameplay option to make weapons random/non-random
- kicking should be a target ability

 

[Dz1rT]

Granades is something I considered, however at the moment I don't know how are they are going to be different from the grenade launcher, and how that would impact already dynamic and deadly gameplay.

Game currently has 8 weapons, and I sometimes go a match without even getting to hold some of them. I plan on adding a couple more, but not a lot.

Melee is, unfrotunately, impossible, as character models lack any melee attack animations aside from fists.

Switching to permadeath is easy, making bots cautious and aware of their mortaltiy is a lot harder.

About random small suggestions:
- in the current TDM mode ability to pick weapon would mean you spend time doing so, which goes against the whole vibe of dynamic massacre. You can always pick up weapon you want from the ground, there are plenty of those lying around usually.
- it might become, when I'll find a suitable dummy for it.

 

[n00b]

Granades is something I considered, however at the moment I don't know how are they are going to be different from the grenade launcher, and how that would impact already dynamic and deadly gameplay.

Grenades and secondary items in general would be the most useful when you're out of ammo on your primary weapon. Also it's just a nice way to mix up your attacks and would overall just spice up the gameplay

You can also have secondary items that are more about utility than offense, like having an item that heals you or something

Secondary grenades don't even have to be that different from the grenade launcher (which means less work), aside from being limited in quantity like in most shooters

Game currently has 8 weapons, and I sometimes go a match without even getting to hold some of them. I plan on adding a couple more, but not a lot.

i don't really have an issue with the primary weapons, it's just that there's nothing to really complement them, i.e. secondary weapons ayy

Melee is, unfrotunately, impossible, as character models lack any melee attack animations aside from fists.

not impossible if you do some animation transfers

you can either use oinkerwinkle's animation transfer or matrix eater
oinkerwinkle's is pretty simplistic and easy to use but doesn't always work due to bone incompatibilities or something
i haven't personally used matrix eater, it's more complicated to use but i'm bretty sure it can accomplish much more, including working around aforementioned bone incompatibilities

Switching to permadeath is easy, making bots cautious and aware of their mortaltiy is a lot harder.

Yea I forgot, making new game modes could be tough because you have to add new behaviors to the AI

i don't see any way around this, you either must clench your fists and trigger new AI behaviors every time you add a game mode/weapon, or just ditch bots entirely

honestly i'm not really a fan of bots in PvP-oriented games; there's just a certain appeal to competing with other human players and being able to outskill them, whereas bots have no ability to adapt and inevitably become predictable and boring. In other words I'm inclined to suggest that you should remove bots because they make adding new features rather troublesome

- it might become, when I'll find a suitable dummy for it.

i'm not sure what you mean by this, do you mean you're looking for an appropriate base ability to use??

because I can think of plenty target-type abilities that you could use

 

[Dz1rT]

Animation importer? Interesting. I'll look into it.

Remove bots? Who else I'm gonna play with?
And I spent so much time implementing them, making them separate entities while being controlled by a single player

Can you list them, target-type abilities?

 

[n00b]

Remove bots? Who else I'm gonna play with?
And I spent so much time implementing them, making them separate entities while being controlled by a single player

Dood just submit your map to MMH and/or ENT gaming, then you can host the map with their hosting bots.. although it might take a day or two for them to add the map to their database

if you don't want to remove bots then wutev, but as i've said it will just make adding new features a pain

Can you list them, target-type abilities?

the Channel ability is probably your best bet because its sole purpose is to be used as a template for abilities; basically the fun thing about this spell is that you can change its target type (no target, point target, unit target) and its base order id (which prevents overlapping with other spells)

here's a better and more in-depth explanation: Short Tutorial: The "Channel" Ability - and why it is great | Brigand's Haven

also, if ur too lazy to read that, here's a list of some target abilities on the top of my head
- carrion swarm
- cluster rockets
- blizzard
- impale
- flame strike
- healing spray
- stampede (if i remember correctly)
- shockwave (pretty sure the terrain distortions this ability causes creates massive lag so dont use this lol...)

and the list goes on

 

[Dz1rT]

The channel ability is currently used for AK47 and Flamethrower, and it sux thb because it doesn't supports the attack animation properly (or I just can't do it properly with channel).

I also been trying to port melee animation with the easier option, but for no success at the moment. The harder soft - I can't seem to find anywhere. Only guides, no actual installer or anything.

 

[n00b]

The channel ability is currently used for AK47 and Flamethrower, and it sux thb because it doesn't supports the attack animation properly (or I just can't do it properly with channel).

not sure what you mean, do you mean that you can't get the animation to work?
not sure what to say then, maybe you could play the animation through triggers instead of through the object editor

I also been trying to port melee animation with the easier option, but for no success at the moment. The harder soft - I can't seem to find anywhere. Only guides, no actual installer or anything.

this is probably it
Modeling Resource: Customized Vertex Editor

 

[Dz1rT]

The channel ability has a wierd copared to other abilities animation implementation. It has a built-in timer that resets animation upon expiration (regardless of if it was interrupted or not, so if you got knocked up by a granade launcher right after you began shooting, it will reset the animation mid-air), however if you input 0, then it won't play the animation at all, so there is no actual good way work around this that I know about. I used to wait 0.01 second after the cast and then play attack animation on the shooter, but it both looked and felt wierd and delayed.

 

[n00b]

The channel ability has a wierd copared to other abilities animation implementation. It has a built-in timer that resets animation upon expiration (regardless of if it was interrupted or not, so if you got knocked up by a granade launcher right after you began shooting, it will reset the animation mid-air), however if you input 0, then it won't play the animation at all, so there is no actual good way work around this that I know about. I used to wait 0.01 second after the cast and then play attack animation on the shooter, but it both looked and felt wierd and delayed.

Ya I dunno what to say lol.. I made a similar shooter map, but I used Impale/Carrion Swarm as base abilities and had no strange animation issues

you could probably ask around in the world editor help forum

also can you post the triggers that are used for firing each gun, i'm just curious to see how you triggered it
alternatively could you post an unprotected version of the map because that would make it much easier for me to look at the triggers :^O

 

[Dz1rT]

Well, why would you? I said it was the channel who screws up the animation, that's why I use it only for fast-shooting stuff like AK47 and Flamethrower (no other spell I know of has a capability of 0 cooldown).

I'm am currently at the work, so I have no access to triggers, however they are pretty simple. Hitscan weapons are Integer loops that trace a line until they meet any object they can hit. Projectile weapons just spawn a dummy which travels until it meets something it can hit.

 

[n00b]

(no other spell I know of has a capability of 0 cooldown).

I have no idea what you mean by this, there are plenty of spells capable of having a cooldown of 0 seconds?

Well, why would you?

I guess looking at the map directly would give me some insight on the finer details, which I probably can't pick up from this discussion alone
I'm also bored out of my mind and have nothing better to do

 

[Dz1rT]

I have no idea what you mean by this, there are plenty of spells capable of having a cooldown of 0 seconds?


I guess looking at the map directly would give me some insight on the finer details, which I probably can't pick up from this discussion alone
I'm also bored out of my mind and have nothing better to do

Only channel allows you to repeatedly smash it. Others go on soft cooldown.

Things we are discussing are not related to triggers :O

 

[n00b]

Only channel allows you to repeatedly smash it. Others go on soft cooldown.

Things we are discussing are not related to triggers :O

okay this took me forever to figure out, but I'm pretty sure the soft cooldown is related to the "cast backswing" and "cast point" values in the object editor, found on units

just set them to 0 and see how it goes

 

[Dz1rT]

Wow. Thanks for the tip. That've changed a lot of stuff :O

 

[Silva]

Simple but fun!