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#76 05/17/10 17:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

I haven't played any multiplayer games that relied on hosts for balance, but it sounds like you and Iritscen both have and know what you're talking about here, so I'll take your word for it.
(And just to be clear: balancing multiplayer via managing the game setup does not necessarily have to involve giving the hosts any control over the game setup.)
I suppose giving mapmakers control over balance is a similar issue? I'll have to think about that one.

I'd be all for giving people options to make it more like the original Oni curing hosting, but trust me on not making that the normal setup. As for mapmakers, since there is nothing to base any maps off of, it would be nice for it to not be a whole other problem near the size of making the level itself, of balancing where weapons spawn/how fast, ect.


Yeah, I kept playing Oni despite its flaws, which I thought were numerous. We should probably have a discussion/dedicated thread to figuring out what it is about Oni that people do and don't like, so that we know what to keep and to change.

So did I, but look at this place, it's hard the Halo or Blizzard forums. I think finding out what people were disappointed in with normal Oni is a great idea.


If everyone is going to leave within a few years, then yes, whether we like it or not. We may as well do the best we can as we go along, but we should keep in mind that after we initially balance them we will eventually need to balance them again, or else let them be unbalanced.

Look at Marathon, That came out in the mid 90s, like 1993-1996 If I remember right, and people STILL play it online. Myth II came out in 1998, and people still play that online. By comparison, the Ghostbusters game came out late 2008, and no one plays it online.

That is the issue, since this has never had multiplayer before, I figure a lot of gaming blogs and gaming news sites will spam "Old Bungie fans find way to add multiplayer into Oni!" So we will have this influx of people that:

A. Played Oni before, and want to try Multiplayer.
B. Never heard of Oni before.
C. Are just interested in it for modding's sake ( I do this often, try out games only to see things people have doing with them)

Now, we don't want everyone to just go "Oh, that's pretty cool" and play it for a few days, and never come back. So, yes, we want people to stay, and it's imperative to have the first impressions be good.


I don't think there's much of a problem with having a few unused guns, but at the same time, there's also not any problem with changing those unused guns so they're worth using. I think very few people would be sorry to see the original PSP go.

If we are trying to keep things interesting, why leave guns in that simply are there to waste your time? Considering the small number of guns that Oni started with, I think we should use everything we have. Again, having a gun that is just useless 90% of the time is bad game design.


I think Oni's guns are way more varied and weird than Halo's guns, so the differences between their applications in 1v1 and teams are going to be more extreme. The Screaming Cannon, for instance, is likely only going to be useful for zone control, which will probably be more useful in teams than in 1v1. And the SBG and VDG can both hit several people at once, and so on. As far as I know, Halo doesn't have anything like that, and if we're going to replicate Halo's gun balance, we'd probably have to radically change those three guns at least.

Having worked on balance for games/mods before, I think you over estimate what it would take to balance the weapons. Just because those weapons can hit more then one person doesn't mean they *have* to be used against more than one. While the screaming cannon would be hard to balance against the other guns in 1v1, it could still be used, shoot, knock down, for example.


I'm curious, how would this make the weapon more effective?

Have it behave a little like a machine gun rocket launcher, but the catch is that you have to keep your aimer on the person at all times, otherwise the missiles have a low chance of hitting. Might be worth trying.


Iritscen: Again, what do you mean by "unfair moves"? I've literally never heard anybody else describe moves as "unfair" in any other fighting game, and the meaning isn't intuitively obvious.

While other people gave some good player examples, what about say, you spawn in an internet game, and someone uses a VDG on you, you get stunned, they knock you down, and when you get up, they just do it again, over and over, until you die, not being able to do anything about it? That sounds like an 'unfair move' to me on the guns side.


-JG


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#77 05/17/10 17:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Leus wrote:

Also, I think characters like Konoko and such should perhaps be genericized...  Like...  TCTF Agent or something, would play exactly or pretty much like Konoko, maybe different health, somewhat different look?

I tend to agree.  I don't think it makes sense to have more than one Konoko running around in a level, or Muro, etc., therefore it's probably more logical to either make the move sets available in the form of new generic characters, or at least make sure that the classes like ninjas and furies have move sets that are good enough that characters like Mukade or Muro won't be missed.  I wonder how others feel about the idea of not getting to play as the named characters in MP?

Yeah, I kept playing Oni despite its flaws, which I thought were numerous. We should probably have a discussion/dedicated thread to figuring out what it is about Oni that people do and don't like, so that we know what to keep and to change.

So did I, but look at this place, it's hard the Halo or Blizzard forums. I think finding out what people were disappointed in with normal Oni is a great idea.

If someone does start such a discussion, all I ask is that you keep it more limited than, say, this thread, so it doesn't sprawl out of control.  You could make a new thread for each point of consideration (like the points I listed on the "Food for thought" page on the wiki), so we don't get confused and start talking about multiple things at the same time.

Jon God wrote:
Iritscen wrote:

I'm curious, how would this make the weapon more effective?

Have it behave a little like a machine gun rocket launcher, but the catch is that you have to keep your aimer on the person at all times, otherwise the missiles have a low chance of hitting. Might be worth trying.

Ooh, I like that.  One of the annoying things about the Scram is that you have no control over its accuracy.  Adding a higher level of tracking to the missiles whenever the player keeps the gun aimed at the target sounds like a good solution.


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#78 05/17/10 21:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Apologies in advance for the wall of text.

on "unfair moves":
In general, it definitely sounds like it's worth looking into dealing with most of those. We'll have to see once we actually get multiplayer of course. A couplea questions:
1. What's wrong with long throw ranges? Just them being good if you get forced to fight near cliffs? On first impression, that doesn't sound problematic.
2. Iritscen, you mention "combo spam", and that brings up another point of potential terminology confusion. Basically, do you mean "combos" in the sense of a set moves that can only be performed as a sequence, like the Triple Hit Haymaker, or do you mean it in the sense of a set of moves that, if the first move hits, the rest of the hits are guaranteed to hit?

(Also, I'd definitely call those "frustrating", "spammy", or "game-breaking" instead of "unfair", but that's a minor point.)

on character balance:
It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, if Oni gets big-enough, there will be some dedicated players for any given character/class, and it would certainly be better if we didn't hose them by allowing their character/class to suck. On the other hand, as long as people know when they choose their character which ones are good and which are bad, most people can avoid the bad ones, and we really only need several balanced "top tier" characters to have a deep and interesting game.

on character uniqueness:
It's surprising how little they need to differ from each other to actually be radically different. In Melee, Fox and Falco literally have the exact same moves. But they have (mostly slight) variations in priority/speed/knockback trajectory, and also different running speeds/jump heights, and this causes them to be played completely differently (at a tournament level, anyway).

on character classes:
1. I always thought it was silly that Konoko was the only female TCTF trooper in the game, although it's never been a big deal for me.
2. The vast majority of fighting games have individual people, rather than classes, for the characters. So, if two players both prefer to use Character X, and those two players want to play against each other, then there end up being two Character Xes on the screen fighting each other. This is an extremely common situation. It's a little goofy at first, but I don't think it's a big-enough deal to warrant not including Barabas/Mukade/Muro.

Mukade wrote:

I had a thought, but this could be a bit of work... If you were to have a characte setup UI before joining the game. Like, choose a model, and choose which moves you want to add to the character. Like, the UI compiled a new TRAC file for your character. If you check off "Ninja Super Punch" It copies the three or four lines of code into the TRAC that makes a character able to perform that move.

Reminds me of the race design in Master Of Orion II. At the beginning of the game, you'd have a certain number of "design points", and could allocate them to give your species different abilities, like being telepathic, or better at flying ships, etc. Something like that for Oni would be really cool, but as you say, probably a lot of work.

on guns in multiplayer:
Personally, if I were playing 1v1, I'd prefer to use either no guns, or really bad guns with limited ammo. In teams, I'd want it to be more guns-focused, but still with ammo limited-enough to force some barehand combat. For small groups, like 2v2, I guess I could go either way. But we'll have to wait until we have multiplayer available, and see what everybody likes.

on the feasibility of balancing the characters right away:
Yeah, we should almost certainly try to have them pretty balanced to begin with, but over time we're going to learn new techniques and combos for all of them, and it's going to significantly change our understanding of what they need in order to be balanced. So we should try to balance them right away, and periodically rebalance them as we learn more about them.

JonGod wrote:
Paff wrote:

I don't think there's much of a problem with having a few unused guns, but at the same time, there's also not any problem with changing those unused guns so they're worth using. I think very few people would be sorry to see the original PSP go.

If we are trying to keep things interesting, why leave guns in that simply are there to waste your time? Considering the small number of guns that Oni started with, I think we should use everything we have. Again, having a gun that is just useless 90% of the time is bad game design.

Sorry - what I meant by "unused guns" was "guns that aren't put in any maps", rather than "guns that are put in maps, but players don't use them". Personally, I think even if we don't end up using the PSP in any maps and don't change it to be worth using in maps, we'll have enough guns for this to be an excellent game. However, if we can change it into something really cool and use it in lots of maps, that's even better.

Jon God wrote:

Having worked on balance for games/mods before, I think you over estimate what it would take to balance the weapons. Just because those weapons can hit more then one person doesn't mean they *have* to be used against more than one. While the screaming cannon would be hard to balance against the other guns in 1v1, it could still be used, shoot, knock down, for example.

I may be overestimating the problem. And I'm not 100% sure that there will be a major problem, so we'll have to wait and see.

Iritiscen wrote:

If someone does start such a discussion, all I ask is that you keep it more limited than, say, this thread, so it doesn't sprawl out of control.  You could make a new thread for each point of consideration (like the points I listed on the "Food for thought" page on the wiki), so we don't get confused and start talking about multiple things at the same time.

Definitely. My current idea is to have one "main thread" where the OP contains a list of everything people like/dislike, and people can post in it to add things they like/dislike; if people wanted to discuss any particular item from that thread, they'd have to create a separate thread for that item.

Last edited by Paff (05/17/10 21:05)

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#79 05/17/10 22:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Jon God wrote:
Iritscen wrote:

I'm curious, how would this make the weapon more effective?

Have it behave a little like a machine gun rocket launcher, but the catch is that you have to keep your aimer on the person at all times, otherwise the missiles have a low chance of hitting. Might be worth trying.
Ooh, I like that.  One of the annoying things about the Scram is that you have no control over its accuracy.  Adding a higher level of tracking to the missiles whenever the player keeps the gun aimed at the target sounds like a good solution.

I'm curious to see how that would be done? How would you get the game to register that the crosshair is on the target, and to get it to have an effect (other then a enlarging of the croshair) It's a good idea though, and if Irit thinks it's worth a shot, then, I think he knows sumthin i don't

Paff wrote:

It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, if Oni gets big-enough, there will be some dedicated players for any given character/class, and it would certainly be better if we didn't hose them by allowing their character/class to suck. On the other hand, as long as people know when they choose their character which ones are good and which are bad, most people can avoid the bad ones, and we really only need several balanced "top tier" characters to have a deep and interesting game

But that's the beauty of balancing, yes certainly some characters would be brought down a notch, to deal with "unfair moves" but other than that, who says you have to bring the heroes down to match with the underlings? why not bring the low to high, and make each character just as fun to play. Would also help with the issue of having, say, 10 konoko's running around.

Reminds me of the race design in Master Of Orion II. At the beginning of the game, you'd have a certain number of "design points", and could allocate them to give your species different abilities, like being telepathic, or better at flying ships, etc. Something like that for Oni would be really cool, but as you say, probably a lot of work.

Exactly, something like that smile Perhaps even customizable colors of outfit? (RGB) Just brainstorming

Iritscen wrote:

I tend to agree.  I don't think it makes sense to have more than one Konoko running around in a level, or Muro, etc., therefore it's probably more logical to either make the move sets available in the form of new generic characters, or at least make sure that the classes like ninjas and furies have move sets that are good enough that characters like Mukade or Muro won't be missed.  I wonder how others feel about the idea of not getting to play as the named characters in MP?

yeah, I agree, generalize sounds good. Also, to avoid duplicates, all one would have to do is create 5 or 6 textures per character, asid from generic green,blue and red, to give a wider variety of user preference. Although, keeping the "hero" characters for progressive "tournament" type gametypes, they should be included.

Jon God wrote:

That is the issue, since this has never had multiplayer before, I figure a lot of gaming blogs and gaming news sites will spam "Old Bungie fans find way to add multiplayer into Oni!" So we will have this influx of people that:

A. Played Oni before, and want to try Multiplayer.
B. Never heard of Oni before.
C. Are just interested in it for modding's sake ( I do this often, try out games only to see things people have doing with them)

Now, we don't want everyone to just go "Oh, that's pretty cool" and play it for a few days, and never come back. So, yes, we want people to stay, and it's imperative to have the first impressions be good.

Agreed in full. This, I guess, is the reason why we're planning all this now. So when multiplayer gets to the stage where we can connect to each other. We don't release public prematurly, but use all the information and ideas gathered BEFOREHAND, apply them, and THEN release it. If we release before some key elements are applied, all that "publicity" we hope to get will be wasted, and the whole thing will wind down before it reaches max potentiel. So, as I said, may seem early, but that just gives us more time to plan.

This is an interesting thread, glad it go started. Haven't been around long, and already making your mark Paff smile


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#80 05/17/10 23:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Mukade wrote:
Paff wrote:

It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, if Oni gets big-enough, there will be some dedicated players for any given character/class, and it would certainly be better if we didn't hose them by allowing their character/class to suck. On the other hand, as long as people know when they choose their character which ones are good and which are bad, most people can avoid the bad ones, and we really only need several balanced "top tier" characters to have a deep and interesting game

But that's the beauty of balancing, yes certainly some characters would be brought down a notch, to deal with "unfair moves" but other than that, who says you have to bring the heroes down to match with the underlings? why not bring the low to high, and make each character just as fun to play. Would also help with the issue of having, say, 10 konoko's running around.

In retrospect, I worded my statements above horribly, and you may have interpreted it differently than I meant it (entirely my fault). I'll try again, much more carefully:

On the one hand:
Once Oni has enough players, if people can choose their character/class freely, there will probably be some dedicated players for every character/class, including the boring ones like Male Cop. That is, there will probably be at least a few people who only play Male Cop because for some reason, they like Male Cop more than any of the other characters/classes. Male Cop, currently, is probably really bad compared to most of the other characters/classes. If we do not improve Male Cop, people who like Male Cop will be forced to choose between losing most of the time, or playing a character they're not particularly attached to. Because of this, it would be good to buff all of the bad characters to the point where they can compete with the good characters.

On the other hand:
If it becomes common knowledge that Male Cop is bad, most people who care about winning will try to find a good character/class they like, and we'll end up with a lot of people playing the same several characters from the top end of the spectrum. If those several characters are balanced against each other, and almost everybody uses them, we will have a balanced game with enough characters to make things interesting and diverse. There will be some unfortunate Male Cop users, and there will be some underused characters, but for the most part we will actually be very well off.

(And I definitely agree that, aside from nerfs to eliminate "unfair" moves, we should focus on buffing the bad characters, rather than nerfing the good ones. I know I'd feel constrained and annoyed if we were to nerf Konoko for being too good, and I wouldn't mind her getting buffed if she turns out to be too bad, and I imagine most players would feel the same way.)

Mukade wrote:

This is an interesting thread, glad it go started. Haven't been around long, and already making your mark Paff smile

smile

Last edited by Paff (05/17/10 23:05)

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#81 05/17/10 23:05

Gumby
Member
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: 08/30/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

If I were to keep Male Cop as a combat class, I would make them more item focused than other characters. Possibly able to start off with two guns, extra ammo, and extra hypo maybe.

Really though, a "vanilla" MP game would probably have these classes selectable: Femcop\Konoko, ninja, TCTF, elite, striker, tanker, muro (possibly a model change possibly not).

I see no reason anyone would choose Male Cop (other than for shits and giggles) when one could go TCTF SWAT and have the same moves but more.


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#82 05/18/10 05:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Paff wrote:

1. What's wrong with long throw ranges? Just them being good if you get forced to fight near cliffs? On first impression, that doesn't sound problematic.

Loser was concerned that in MP mode, players would be throwing each other all over the place, because as I said, there's no escape mechanism.  When I played Marvel vs. Capcom, they had added escapes to the Street Fighter system, allowing you to roll out of a throw.  I think something similar would be nice to add to Oni.

Basically, do you mean "combos" in the sense of a set moves that can only be performed as a sequence, like the Triple Hit Haymaker, or do you mean it in the sense of a set of moves that, if the first move hits, the rest of the hits are guaranteed to hit?

The latter.

Paff wrote:

1. I always thought it was silly that Konoko was the only female TCTF trooper in the game, although it's never been a big deal for me.

Don't forget about Karen!

Paff wrote:

2. The vast majority of fighting games have individual people, rather than classes, for the characters. So, if two players both prefer to use Character X, and those two players want to play against each other, then there end up being two Character Xes on the screen fighting each other. This is an extremely common situation. It's a little goofy at first, but I don't think it's a big-enough deal to warrant not including Barabas/Mukade/Muro.

Yes, but let's face it, fighting games don't really have much story or realism to them, the premise is just an excuse to stand in front of various 2D backgrounds and whale on each other.  On the scale of realism, Oni is definitely higher, which is why it's just too weird for me to picture Konokos and Muros running all around.  Plus, I think that if they were available, players would tend to choose them too often even if they had been balanced against the generic classes, making the situation worse.


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#83 05/18/10 13:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

on "unfair moves":
In general, it definitely sounds like it's worth looking into dealing with most of those. We'll have to see once we actually get multiplayer of course. A couplea questions:
1. What's wrong with long throw ranges? Just them being good if you get forced to fight near cliffs? On first impression, that doesn't sound problematic.

That would highly discourage the use of any hand to hand beyond just throws. Why punch someone, which has a chance to be blocked, if you have a chance to throw them, which cannot. If you go with that, it makes Oni feel hardly unique, I mean we could just as well play Halo hacked into third person.

(Also, I'd definitely call those "frustrating", "spammy", or "game-breaking" instead of "unfair", but that's a minor point.)

I would call those things unfair.


Sorry - what I meant by "unused guns" was "guns that aren't put in any maps", rather than "guns that are put in maps, but players don't use them". Personally, I think even if we don't end up using the PSP in any maps and don't change it to be worth using in maps, we'll have enough guns for this to be an excellent game. However, if we can change it into something really cool and use it in lots of maps, that's even better.

Yeah, I don't see any reason to just leave PSP as Bungie did, as shown by many other parts of the game, Bungie wasn't finished with Oni. If we already have the gun, animations and such, why just throw it aside. smile


But that's the beauty of balancing, yes certainly some characters would be brought down a notch, to deal with "unfair moves" but other than that, who says you have to bring the heroes down to match with the underlings? why not bring the low to high, and make each character just as fun to play. Would also help with the issue of having, say, 10 konoko's running around.

I've been waiting for a chance to talk about some ideas here. In terms of heros it could be done in the style of Battlefront II, or Metal Gear Online. (The former being, after X time has passed, the best player/s on a team get to spawn as heros if they wish. The latter: After a round ends, the next round, the players that had done the best in the previous round get to play as the heros)

I think, what might be interesting too, would be to have team games that are round based have an option to learn moves over the course of the rounds, so, you start out lacking throw, and special attacks, and as time goes on, and how many kills you get, between rounds, you learn "new" attacks. Sorta like single player.

Also, in terms of weapons, I had another thought. You could make it work like the original Metal Gear Online, letting people choose what weapon they want to start with, but keeping some only collectable via map pickups. As long as the balance is close, it could still be fair. (Re: things will still need to be balanced better)

One last thought to toss in here, Killzone 2's multiplayer is partially class based, it works as such: You can choose a class, each class has 2 special abilities, a major and a minor. After selecting a class, you can choose the minor ability from any other class, but the major ones are tied to what classes you have. For example, the medic in Killzone 2 can only spawn with the ability to revive, but could use the engineer's secondary special, to fix turrets. Also, each class is locked to starting with certain weapons, like, engineer can only spawn with shotgun, but has his choices in pistols. Lastly, you can choose 'no class' and have no special abilities, but be able to spawn with any weapon. How this relates to Oni: Imagine spawning, and choosing a character, then based on who you choose, you get access to different starting weapons. (Sniper starts with Bow, but is weaker/has less moves. Meanwhile, someone playing as Knonoko starts with the Equalizer.) Just food food thought, here.


If it becomes common knowledge that Male Cop is bad, most people who care about winning will try to find a good character/class they like, and we'll end up with a lot of people playing the same several characters from the top end of the spectrum. If those several characters are balanced against each other, and almost everybody uses them, we will have a balanced game with enough characters to make things interesting and diverse. There will be some unfortunate Male Cop users, and there will be some underused characters, but for the most part we will actually be very well off.

Or we could continue to balance things for a little while until it's at least pretty close to fair. smile I'd rather have a larger selection of characters to play as.


Loser was concerned that in MP mode, players would be throwing each other all over the place, because as I said, there's no escape mechanism.  When I played Marvel vs. Capcom, they had added escapes to the Street Fighter system, allowing you to roll out of a throw.  I think something similar would be nice to add to Oni.

Or, how's about a counter button? I always thought Oni could use one.


-JG


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#84 05/18/10 13:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Gumby wrote:

If I were to keep Male Cop as a combat class, I would make them more item focused than other characters. Possibly able to start off with two guns, extra ammo, and extra hypo maybe.

Really though, a "vanilla" MP game would probably have these classes selectable: Femcop\Konoko, ninja, TCTF, elite, striker, tanker, muro (possibly a model change possibly not).

I see no reason anyone would choose Male Cop (other than for shits and giggles) when one could go TCTF SWAT and have the same moves but more.

That's a good idea, to make male cop, item based. That would mean that TCTF SWAT would need to have an increase of damage, if you have 2 chracters with the same moves and damage, will you pick the one with the item buffs or without?

What about those of us who like to play with custom characters/movesets D:

Agreed, I suggest giving characters that have the same moveset as another, a different moveset. Like Mukade/generic ninja  TCTF Heavy/Black Ops SWAT/Cop etc...

Loser was concerned that in MP mode, players would be throwing each other all over the place, because as I said, there's no escape mechanism.  When I played Marvel vs. Capcom, they had added escapes to the Street Fighter system, allowing you to roll out of a throw.  I think something similar would be nice to add to Oni.

Or, how's about a counter button? I always thought Oni could use one.

Yes, I had considered that possibility, if you could time a punch at the same time they do a throw, and it would pull off a "counter" move. In fact I'm pretty sure I suggested it in the Mod Ideas thread. This would take some changing of game mechanics, prolly won't be easy. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea

Last edited by Mukade (05/18/10 13:05)


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#85 05/18/10 17:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Loser experimented with throw countering a while ago, but he found the engine was too limited to make it work just by hacking game data.  It would require some serious engine hacking.


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#86 05/18/10 21:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Gumby wrote:

I see no reason anyone would choose Male Cop (other than for shits and giggles) when one could go TCTF SWAT and have the same moves but more.

I also have no interest in Male Cop, but I guarantee you that there's someone out there with different taste than us that would for some reason prefer Male Cop to TCTF SWAT.

on throw ranges:
I just realized - by "long throw ranges", did you mean throws that involve throwing you a long distance, or throws that can grab you from a long distance away? We may have been talking about different things, heh.

Also, what seems most broken-ish about Oni's throws to me is that the grab seems to happen instantly - so if you're in range to get the throw off, it's strictly faster and less blockable than any attack in most characters' arsenals. I don't know if throws are instantaneous in most fighting games or not, but in Smash, the time it takes to get the grab off is one of the biggest reasons why grabs/throws lose to attacks.

Also also, how does throw escaping work in MvC, and how were you thinking of having it work in Oni? It seems like we'd have to be careful there in order to not break the "holy trinity" of block beats attack beats throw beats block.

on character genericization:
Hmm, your reasoning makes a lot of sense. Couplea thoughts:
1. It might be fun to turn Konoko into two classes - Female TCTF Trooper and Terrorist.
2. I don't suppose Barabas/Mukade/Muro could be given new textures and turned into classes?

on Jon God's game setup ideas:
I haven't played those games, so I can't really envision/comment on how those game modes would work. In terms of the successive rounds where you learn moves, it might be interesting, but it also might be annoying to not have all of your moves at the start. Basically, I'd be interested to try it out, but I'm not sure how much I/everybody would like it.

Jon God wrote:

Or we could continue to balance things for a little while until it's at least pretty close to fair. smile I'd rather have a larger selection of characters to play as.

That'd definitely be ideal, but I'm not sure if it'll be feasible to do it right away instead of spending that time/effort on other things.

Last edited by Paff (05/18/10 21:05)

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#87 05/18/10 21:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Iritscen wrote:

Loser experimented with throw countering a while ago, but he found the engine was too limited to make it work just by hacking game data.  It would require some serious engine hacking.

Yeah, I was thinking as much, I just don't see any settings in XML or any BSL code that could do it. But as I said, we can still dream right?


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#88 05/19/10 00:05

Gumby
Member
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: 08/30/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Also also, how does throw escaping work in MvC, and how were you thinking of having it work in Oni? It seems like we'd have to be careful there in order to not break the "holy trinity" of block beats attack beats throw beats block.

You just have to press a certain combination quickly before the main portion of the throw starts. Haven't played MvC in forever though.

In most games missed throws leave you open for a short period. Unless we dedicated a new key to throwing, this would screw up Oni's controls, because throwing shares keys with forward+attacks.


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#89 05/19/10 05:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Paff wrote:

I just realized - by "long throw ranges", did you mean throws that involve throwing you a long distance, or throws that can grab you from a long distance away?

The latter.  smile

Also also, how does throw escaping work in MvC, and how were you thinking of having it work in Oni?

http://www.shoryuken.com/wiki/index.php … ch_Hitting

It seems like we'd have to be careful there in order to not break the "holy trinity" of block beats attack beats throw beats block.

Does attack really beat throw?  But I will say that I'm not convinced we need to add something like tech hits until we see how badly throws can be exploited.  I think it's been asserted that you can spam someone with attacks, causing them to keep guarding, and then grab them and throw them before they can leave the blocking animation, but I haven't tried this extensively with the AI and none of us have tried it in human vs. human matches, so we might need to wait and see.  However, I'm not in favor of adding any buttons to Oni for any reason; we can work with what we have.

1. It might be fun to turn Konoko into two classes - Female TCTF Trooper and Terrorist.

Yes, but let's not duplicate existing classes needlessly.  We already have female TCTF and female Syndicate classes.

2. I don't suppose Barabas/Mukade/Muro could be given new textures and turned into classes?

Barabas has the same moves as the Elite Syndicate soldier.  Mukade is a ninja.  So neither of them need to be "adapted"; their movesets are already available, less the unbalanced super moves.  Now Muro doesn't seem to have anyone like him, so maybe we could give some of those moves to Comm Troopers or someone.


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#90 05/19/10 15:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

I still don't like the idea of taking out the more original movesets like Muro's, and dumbing it down the the basic moves and characters.

@Gumby, if we were to change the button to thorw, or otherwise make thorws harder to pull off (add more conditions or something) I think would greatly compliment the MP side when it arrives. Thus, throws would probably be modified to do more damage, but people would be more force to excercise other combos and especially escape moves. This would be a more, looking for the word - onboard?- way of fighting. It's quite mindless to do fw_punch and have your move all played out for you with no way for the opponent to stop it, so you have to work to score a hit, and to pay attention to what you're opponent does. I'm not saying take out throws completely, just make them less common. Or even, somehow, create an "energy level" and they can only perform a throw when they have a certain amount of energy, so as to use the throws efficiently and strategicly.

Also, I think we should keep sort of a record on the first post of this page or something, so we can keep track of things we've sort of settled on, some things that are still up for debate and discussion.

Last edited by Mukade (05/19/10 15:05)


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#91 05/19/10 17:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

I don't think anyone was talking about taking out Muro's moveset, just moving it to other characters so we don't need to see six Muros running around in a match.


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#92 05/19/10 18:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Yes, I had considered that possibility, if you could time a punch at the same time they do a throw, and it would pull off a "counter" move. In fact I'm pretty sure I suggested it in the Mod Ideas thread. This would take some changing of game mechanics, prolly won't be easy. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea

Would it be possible to not make it counter, but just make you both stagger?


I also have no interest in Male Cop, but I guarantee you that there's someone out there with different taste than us that would for some reason prefer Male Cop to TCTF SWAT.

Those people would lose.


I haven't played those games, so I can't really envision/comment on how those game modes would work. In terms of the successive rounds where you learn moves, it might be interesting, but it also might be annoying to not have all of your moves at the start. Basically, I'd be interested to try it out, but I'm not sure how much I/everybody would like it.

Aye, for an option, not always enabled. I just thought I'd throw it out before I forgot about it.


Unless we dedicated a new key to throwing, this would screw up Oni's controls, because throwing shares keys with forward+attacks.

I think this might be worth trying.


Does attack really beat throw?  But I will say that I'm not convinced we need to add something like tech hits until we see how badly throws can be exploited.  I think it's been asserted that you can spam someone with attacks, causing them to keep guarding, and then grab them and throw them before they can leave the blocking animation, but I haven't tried this extensively with the AI and none of us have tried it in human vs. human matches, so we might need to wait and see.  However, I'm not in favor of adding any buttons to Oni for any reason; we can work with what we have.

Halo's concept was a refined concept from Myth, which is: "Rock, Paper, Scissors." in myth, Dwarfs throw molotov cocktails, which take out melee, bowman shoot arrows which take out dwarfs, and melee take out bowman. In Halo, it's between weapons and vehicles. It doesn't seem like this was as well fleshed out in Oni, perhaps we could flesh it out a little more with the balance.


@Gumby, if we were to change the button to thorw, or otherwise make thorws harder to pull off (add more conditions or something) I think would greatly compliment the MP side when it arrives. Thus, throws would probably be modified to do more damage, but people would be more force to excercise other combos and especially escape moves. This would be a more, looking for the word - onboard?- way of fighting. It's quite mindless to do fw_punch and have your move all played out for you with no way for the opponent to stop it, so you have to work to score a hit, and to pay attention to what you're opponent does. I'm not saying take out throws completely, just make them less common. Or even, somehow, create an "energy level" and they can only perform a throw when they have a certain amount of energy, so as to use the throws efficiently and strategicly.

I like this idea.


-JG


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#93 05/19/10 20:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Gumby wrote:

In most games missed throws leave you open for a short period. Unless we dedicated a new key to throwing, this would screw up Oni's controls, because throwing shares keys with forward+attacks.

Doing an attack that you weren't trying to do does leave you vulnerable to some degree, but certainly not as much of one as if nothing happened at all.

on attack beating throw:
In Smash it certainly does, and as I understand it it does in at least some of the "traditional" fighting games as well. I technically don't know about fighting games in general, but had always assumed that rule held for most of them.

on throw escapes/techs:
I definitely think we can nerf overpowered throws in simpler ways, but we'll have to see. As far as adding buttons goes, middle click might be acceptable, but it does seem like something we should try to avoid.

Iritscen wrote:

I think it's been asserted that you can spam someone with attacks, causing them to keep guarding, and then grab them and throw them before they can leave the blocking animation, but I haven't tried this extensively with the AI and none of us have tried it in human vs. human matches, so we might need to wait and see.

Huh. I haven't had much success with this as Konoko at least, but we'll have to see.

Iritscen wrote:

Yes, but let's not duplicate existing classes needlessly.  We already have female TCTF and female Syndicate classes.

You'd mentioned "Karen" before, and I don't know who that is. The only female TCTF class I know of is Female Cop, which is not nearly as cool as TCTF Konoko just because of the uniform. tongue

Also, by "female Syndicate", do you mean Furies? They're radically different from terrorist-Konoko-in-dark-jacket-and-sunglasses, so I don't see how it'd be duplication on that end.

And again, it takes a surprisingly small amount of difference between two characters/classes for them to end up with radically different playstyles, so I think it should be easy for us to make similar-but-unique classes. (Assuming it's fairly easy to change move damages/speeds/priorities and characters' run speeds.)

Iritscen wrote:

So neither of them need to be "adapted"; their movesets are already available, less the unbalanced super moves.

1. Nerfing the supers to not be unbalanced should be possible, and doing so for Barabas/Mukade and including them as classes might be worth doing.
2. Even if we don't include their supers, the aesthetic differences are very significant.

Mukade wrote:

Also, I think we should keep sort of a record on the first post of this page or something, so we can keep track of things we've sort of settled on, some things that are still up for debate and discussion.

That's a good idea. It's going to be a lot of work, though. It might take me a couplea days to get it all up.

Jon God wrote:
Paff wrote:

I also have no interest in Male Cop, but I guarantee you that there's someone out there with different taste than us that would for some reason prefer Male Cop to TCTF SWAT.

Those people would lose.

Exactly. tongue Which is why we would ideally buff Male Cop if we get the time.

Jon God wrote:

Halo's concept was a refined concept from Myth, which is: "Rock, Paper, Scissors." in myth, Dwarfs throw molotov cocktails, which take out melee, bowman shoot arrows which take out dwarfs, and melee take out bowman. In Halo, it's between weapons and vehicles. It doesn't seem like this was as well fleshed out in Oni, perhaps we could flesh it out a little more with the balance.

Do you mean we should flesh it out at a move level, or a class level? I'd be in favor of the former, and opposed to the latter. (Some version of the former is essential to having interesting fights, and the latter would make it impossible to have even fights between different classes.)

Last edited by Paff (05/19/10 20:05)

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#94 05/19/10 20:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Paff wrote:
Gumby wrote:

In most games missed throws leave you open for a short period. Unless we dedicated a new key to throwing, this would screw up Oni's controls, because throwing shares keys with forward+attacks.

Doing an attack that you weren't trying to do does leave you vulnerable to some degree, but certainly not as much of one as if nothing happened at all.

So, you're not in favor of adding a new key, right?  My general feelings on combat in Oni are that, since Oni's combat was most heavily influenced by Street Fighter, we can't go wrong by following SF's lead.  SF has no block or throw button, and even the new tech hit system requires no new buttons to be added to the game.  Granted, SF does have strong and weak attack buttons for both punch and kick, but then again Oni's combat is a bit less technical, so I don't foresee the need to add any keys to the controls.

on attack beating throw:
In Smash it certainly does, and as I understand it it does in at least some of the "traditional" fighting games as well. I technically don't know about fighting games in general, but had always assumed that rule held for most of them.

I'm not sure if it holds true, because I'm actually not sure what we mean when we talk about attacks "beating" throws.  Can you explain how this is the case in, say, Smash Bros.?

Paff wrote:
Iritscen wrote:

I think it's been asserted that you can spam someone with attacks, causing them to keep guarding, and then grab them and throw them before they can leave the blocking animation

Huh. I haven't had much success with this as Konoko at least, but we'll have to see.

Let me clarify; being able to lock someone into a block animation can be a balancing issue, but if you can throw easily without even doing that, then the problem is even bigger.

Iritscen wrote:

Yes, but let's not duplicate existing classes needlessly.  We already have female TCTF and female Syndicate classes.

You'd mentioned "Karen" before, and I don't know who that is. The only female TCTF class I know of is Female Cop, which is not nearly as cool as TCTF Konoko just because of the uniform. tongue

Karen is the lighter-haired woman, probably the "female cop" you refer to.  If she gets beaten by the droids in the training level, Shinatama says, "Poor Karen!"  She has most of Konoko's moves, if not all of them, but I believe her normal melee profile doesn't call upon them.  Turn on the "Brutal AI" mod, then watch her kick serious butt.

Also, by "female Syndicate", do you mean Furies? They're radically different from terrorist-Konoko-in-dark-jacket-and-sunglasses, so I don't see how it'd be duplication on that end.

Well, I think some of us are trying to avoid making named characters available in free-for-all matches and having to resort to "Konoko in red" versus "Konoko in blue" situations like in fighting games.  Other modes, like the "pyramid" I mentioned before or a mode where, say, Konoko is being hunted by various Syndicate thugs played by other humans, would be a good opportunity to use the named characters.


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#95 05/19/10 20:05

Mukade
Member
From: Ottawa, Ontario - Canada
Registered: 05/29/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

cat and mouse? Damn, that would make a fun game smile


"He looks mean enough to tear my arm off and beat me to death with it. In fact, he looks mean enough to tear his OWN arm off and beat me to death with it."

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#96 05/19/10 21:05

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

A lot of Oni is already "Konoko infiltrates building and fights everyone in it", so I think it would be interesting to adapt that to a MP game type.


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#97 05/19/10 21:05

Paff
Member
From: Karatu, Arusha, Tanzania
Registered: 04/18/10
Website

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Iritscen wrote:

So, you're not in favor of adding a new key, right?  My general feelings on combat in Oni are that, since Oni's combat was most heavily influenced by Street Fighter, we can't go wrong by following SF's lead.  SF has no block or throw button, and even the new tech hit system requires no new buttons to be added to the game.  Granted, SF does have strong and weak attack buttons for both punch and kick, but then again Oni's combat is a bit less technical, so I don't foresee the need to add any keys to the controls.

I'm honestly not 100% sure, but I'm leaning towards not adding new keys.

Iritscen wrote:

I'm not sure if it holds true, because I'm actually not sure what we mean when we talk about attacks "beating" throws.  Can you explain how this is the case in, say, Smash Bros.?

Smash uses kind of a weird throw system, that's split into two parts. Each character has two "grab" moves that are very similar to each other in terms of speed/range/direction. Grabs just allow you to take hold of your opponent. Once you are holding your opponent, you have a few options - the most important of which is to throw your opponent with one of four different throws.

The grabs are slow as far as attacks go, and unlike a lot of Smash's slow moves, you can't move while your grab is starting up. Between the slowness, the immobility, and the limited directions you can grab in, grabs are really bad to try to land, in comparison to attacks. Additionally, when a grab misses, it has a fairly long whiff/recovery time, during which you're vulnerable to counterattacks.

So the overall result is that it's tough to land a grab on someone who's just attacking you, and if you try and fail, you're likely to get hit by counterattacks. Because of this, if one person attempts to fight primarily via attacks and the other person tries to fight primarily via grabs, the person who's fighting primarily via attacks will almost always win out. So in this sense, attacks win out over grabs/throws, or "beat" them.

Iritscen wrote:

Let me clarify; being able to lock someone into a block animation can be a balancing issue, but if you can throw easily without even doing that, then the problem is even bigger.

I'm confused here - in Smash at least, one of the main points of throws is that they give you an option that works against blocking.

My best theory for what you mean is "because blocking people get stuck in their block from attacks so easily, it's too difficult for someone who's blocking to counterattack before the person attacking them decides to mix it up with a throw". Is that correct?

Iritscen wrote:

Karen is the lighter-haired woman, probably the "female cop" you refer to.  If she gets beaten by the droids in the training level, Shinatama says, "Poor Karen!"

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten her. I believe she is one of the "Female Cop" class, but I was remembering them from the TCTF Assault level, in which a couple of them appear. Again, they're not nearly as cool as a generic version of Konoko in her TCTF armor would be. tongue

Iriscen wrote:

Also, by "female Syndicate", do you mean Furies? They're radically different from terrorist-Konoko-in-dark-jacket-and-sunglasses, so I don't see how it'd be duplication on that end.

Well, I think some of us are trying to avoid making named characters available in free-for-all matches and having to resort to "Konoko in red" versus "Konoko in blue" situations like in fighting games.

We seem to have had a miscommunication. What I was suggesting was taking "terrorist Konoko" from the Regional State Building level, changing her head/hair, and making that into a new "terrorist" class.

I think I agree with you that we should try to avoid having multiple of the same character/person running around in multiplayer.

Last edited by Paff (05/19/10 21:05)

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#98 05/20/10 14:05

Jon God
Member
Registered: 01/17/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

A lot of Oni is already "Konoko infiltrates building and fights everyone in it", so I think it would be interesting to adapt that to a MP game type.

Again, let me go back to Metal Gear Online 1 and 2. In one there was a gametype where everyone up 1 person played as guards, and the other player played as snake, who had to steal some microfilm. Snake was much tougher and started with some gadgets. It was quite fun. In Metal Gear Online 2, there is a mode were there are 2 teams, and one side one. The two teams play it like team death match, while the side team consists of Snake, and if there is enough players, a robot side kick, who can stun people. Snake's job is to knock out players and steal items from them. If he steals enough items, he wins. However, if a team kills Snake a set number of times, usually 3-5 times, they win. If not, and the time runs out before any of those conditions are met, the team with the most overall kills wins.

It might be fun to have something like this in the regional state building, with Knonko trying to get the CD, with other players trying to stop her.


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#99 05/20/10 15:05

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Having fun with the long novels? big_smile
Anyways, are we going to see some updated footage of Flatline in near future? I'm just wondering where the project went, since the last preview was two years ago. roll

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#100 05/20/10 22:05

Gumby
Member
From: Seattle, WA, USA
Registered: 08/30/07

Re: Debates And Stuff - Current Topic: Desired Changes In Oni

Nope. smile I'm having to refactor the code because I did it in a really cruddy way.


Iritscen: roll
Iritscen: it's amazing this program even works
Gumby: i know
Iritscen: and that statement applies to my code, not just yours

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