Randomness

[Vainamoinen]

Hello everyone,

Today an idea crossed my mind and I thought that sharing it with the GoIo community might help forging it something better and why not concrete?

Background

After playing for some time already to Guns of Icarus, I'm starting to loose grasp on the game.
A problem that a lot of us face I'm sure, playing for so long creates a kind of "already seen everything feeling".
Then I thought what games do I still enjoy playing after so many years, even for a bit from time to time.
Well there was MOBAs, L4D, FTL, The binding of isaac, a bit of minecraft maybe?.
I play also a lot of board games IRL, a bit of MTG and I mixed all that and tried to find a common element.

I also read a topic on this very forum about someone proposing to add the weekly mods L4D style to give some spic to the game.

And I came to this conclusion for now:
The key is randomness.

In L4D you never know what you will face and when (or what you will get and when as infected).
In FTL , Isaac, minecraft, the world are entirely random.
But what about MOBAs then?
Well like in magic and board games I play, I found out that what I really enjoy is actually the do the best you can do with what you get, aka drafts.

While it is quite unthinkable that GoIo makes totally random worlds, I've come out with 2 ideas that might give you some food for thoughts.

The Concept


To bring randomness in GoIo, we have to be really careful.
We can't just say, hey let's put everything random and see how it works.
My two ideas would come on top of the current system to build 3 different types of gameplay.
The 3 types would be: "free"(current), "ship draft", "limited supplies"


The ship draft

In this first gameplay type, the captain can't choose the ship they are going to fly while the players are joining the lobby.
THe choice would be made once the game is ready to start and each captain would have to choose out of 3 prebuilt ships loadouts selected out of a database of viable ships.
The idea would be to have a database of ships updated by the devs, consistent enough to provide variety without being gigantic.
This database could be built based of the successful builds encountered in the competitions for example.
It could also contain very specialised ships (ships dedicated to disabling for example), as well as all rounded builds.
For example choice between:
      "The crazy pyromancer" : Pyra wth 2 flamethrowers on the front and 2 hades on the side (ok not very viable but you get the point)
   OR   "The Turtle" : Galleon Full Hwachas and mines
   OR   "The minced and roasted": Squid with carronade, flamer and mine launcher in the back

The algorithm for the ship choice could be totally random (with risks of having 3 specialised builds) or semi random ( 1 specialised, 1 close range, 1 long range for example).

The captains would have 2 mn to press ready before the game starts automatically. The crew (but the captain) could still change jobs at that point. Everyone can change tools.
The captains already have the captain chat enabled.


Limited supplies

Think of this gameplay type as if you had to go to war and you were too late to leave.
All the other took the supplies and you have what left.
How does it take form?
Simple, yet again the captain can't choose the ship, or well they might be able to choose the hull but remains to be decided.
Once everyone is ready, each team get a screen similar to this one:

   Captain 1 (Junker)|                                          |   Captain 2 (Galleon)
   Your turn            |                                          |
________________|_______________________|__________________
   1x banshee         |<          1x flare                > |   1xHwacha   
                            |<         2 x Hwacha            > |      
                            |<          1x Flamer             > |      
                            |<      2x Light Carronade    > |      
                            |<          1x light flak          > |      
                            |<         1x lumberjack        > |      
                            |<         2x heavy flak         > |
                            |<         5x mine launcher    > |
                            |<            0x banshee         > |

   
   
And again, 3 mn in total to choose your equipment and prepare your ship (20s for captain to discuss+ 10s per turn to choose weapons max *12 max weapons (2 galleons) + 40s extra ust in case)
The captains would choose one after the other the items (to avoid someone taking his build and ignore the other captain).


Problems:


If the builds are totally unequal or if the weapons offered are not as strong as the other team:
   It's random yes but you have control over this chaos. There might be a disadvantage but like in real life, you have to do with it and you try to make the best of what you have .
My captain is afk
   Well, I was thinking of the crew highlighting their preferences to the captain, to help in the captain's choice. If the captain is afk we can take the gun/ship with the most preferences. If all are equal wellthe it's randomized choiced amongst the proposed.
If someone leaves the game
   GOod question, well if someone leaves isn t it the same as with a normal lobby? If it's the captain leaving I don't have a solution yet.
   

What now?

   
Anyway, enough spoken, I would like the opinions and ideas of the players about that. Would you like to have a feature similar to this?
Would you have other ideas to bring some randomness into the game?


The chance is very slim that this will ever be implemented but who knows maybe the ideas will reach the devs and they will get some inspiration from it?

[Crafeksterty]

I think your word for Randomness is an odd one concerning this.

Draft pick is not exactly random, it is more of a limitation, while the randomness of L4D is made so to not be predictable on every new playthrough, like you said of "Seen everything".

But this is all out multiplayer game, meaning you have not seen everything. I remember a long time ago on a stream someone managed to fire the Lumberjack across Canyons on the position of a spire that camped there. Unfortunatly the spire moved by then, but it was really awesome.

There is always a route and sneak attack, ship builds or combinations that arent used. Instead of expective the game to deliver a difference, be a difference.


Ive already played against odd team comps, skill and styles that really change up the way my team plays and encounters.



I for one, just want more 2v2/3v3 compatible maps that are like the Canyons or Paritian or Fjords and etc. Those 3 maps are pretty much the deal now.

[Thomas]

When I first read the title, the thought that popped into my head was "There's no way we could get something like that." But after reading it, it seems pretty viable. A little complicated, but still something that could function well. There's always issues of course, but I feel something like this might help convince players to try out different things, and it sounds like fun.


Some other things I think might help the 'randomness' (not really random, more like the unknown) is hiding the ship and character loadouts of the enemy team, and perhaps also making the map completely random and not known until the match starts. This just makes players try to plan with their team mate more, instead of picking a ship specifically for a certain map, or to try and 'counter' the enemy ships.

When you play certain maps, you can generally expect certain kinds of ships to pop up. Like on dunes or fjords, you're more likely to get some long range builds because of the openness, while on paritan rumble, canyon, and duel at dawn, you're more likely to see some close range ships.

Players often pick the ships based on the map, and in some cases even pick ships that they believe will directly counter their enemy. Adding those unknown elements can make it a little more exciting. Who are you going to be facing? Where will it be? Are you going to have to change how you engage the enemy based on those things?

[Vainamoinen]

There is always a route and sneak attack, ship builds or combinations that arent used. Instead of expective the game to deliver a difference, be a difference.


Ive already played against odd team comps, skill and styles that really change up the way my team plays and encounters.

While I agree with you that it is possible to play weird combos, I'm not totally sure this will work, unless you are willing to lose all your games.
In a normal game people will generally play a rather solid build, approved and tested by hundred of games.
They know that if a band of random players are in the ship , the will handle, as the ship is made for that.

So that means there is a very very high chance I will have to face two of these in a normal fight, and that also means that I'm basically screwing 7 other players with my "fun" build, because I'm definitely on sub par and if I get beginners on my ship they will definitely be totally lost in this unfamiliar build.

Of course I could play my fun build in a stomp match, but they does it really matter what weapon I use to kill people discovering how the game works.

So I'm not sure, shooting a bullet in my leg and see how fast I can run versus normal runners is a good way.

It's the same in MOBAs, would you play Drafts if the opponent team, with similar skill, had access to all the chars.
Or in magic, play drafts while the opponents is playing with his own deck.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Glad to see someone carried on the idea I started with that serverside mods thread. This is one of the concepts I noted.

Yes randomness is a good thing. It gave L4D a shot in the arm and Valve actually added some of the game modes as full time additions when they saw which ones people loved the most. It did not kill stock gameplay but gave people something else to do that would mix it up and keep them playing.

I like the supplies idea but I'd probably take it a step further. Make it so you don't have unlimited ammunition. Or do that in a variation of CP battle. Ships start with very limited ammo and can only resupply or gain unlimited ammo when they've capped a point. Defenders get the ammo while attackers get a buff to ramming damage. Call it say, desperation.

[Vainamoinen]

oh!! Limit the ammo on the ships!!! What a fantastic idea.
I'm already hearing my crew saying , I m out of ammo on the gat please change fire sides, or please go resupply.
It would be quite cruel for beginners but that's where the good gunners would really shine as they would be able to show what they can do wit hte limited ammo.

It would also bring quite good strategy as you can't camp a point, you have to consider the supplies.

You could push the concept quite far, like limited the gas available, and have the ships have a capacity based on their hull size/tank.
Ferexample squid is very nimble and has 4 engines, it burns a lot of gas and doesn t have big supplies, but the ship is light so it doesn t consume as much as a galleon which has enormous supplies (could it even act as a supplier to other ships??)
And when the ships explode they could have their tank exploding and spread fire to the too close ships.

Limiting suppliies for the ships open a lot of new possibilities!!

[Squidslinger Gilder]

This is where we'd have a hardcore mode of the game diverge. There has been talk about that in the community off and on. Think fuel supply would be extreme but limited fuel supply on things like kerosene or moonshine would work. Same with Hydro.  Hardcore mode would bring those in along with limited ammo.

That probably would appease those who want nothing but stock gameplay as the hardcore would be a mutation that would only be played by a few people. But then you'd risk people complaining for the other mutations or risk no one playing the hardcore mutation.

You could tie it all into the CP gametype but remember, if ships run out of fuel and are dead in the air, they can't do anything. Players would leave the match and it would potentially be even more boring. So either way, they at least need to be able to move. Why they'd gain a ramming buff so even if their ammo is depleted, they still have a way of posing a threat to the defending team.

[Vainamoinen]

Hmm but instead of a out of fuel situation, it could be more like low on fuel supplies.
While it doesn't stop the ship, it would slow it down by for example 50% (something similar to damaged engines).