The problem, I think, with having 4 things needed and 4 things required is that the Hunter only needs to find one, and can then just camp it. Since the prey HAS to get all four, he is royally screwed. This is why having something like 6 with only 4 required makes it so the hunter can't just camp and win.

Uh, that's (partially) why I mentioned you could also use explosives.

Camping really isn't as big of a deal as az left the impression it was, also. Especially if you make good use of bunkers.


On that note, I might make the bunkers not burn on their own, and use some other mechanic (driven by the Hunter, maybe?) to gradually deprive them.

Edit: Also, don't expect this soon. I'm going to redo the map from a (way) earlier version to properly implement all this crap.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 1 2012, 11:24 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

Ah OK the explosives right. Yeh that's not a problem then.

I think that Prey should not be able to win by killing Hunter. Even if killed, the Hunter should be respawned, maybe with some drawback that is not terribly severe (short time delay before respawn, or lose all gas, or a combination of these).

The Prey's only objective should be to avoid the Hunter, survive, and escape, with any number of methods at his disposal to do so. The more ways to reach the victory objective, the more strategy will be involved in doing so.

The Hunter's only objective should be to track down, draw out, and kill the Prey. The fact that camping is currently a valid strategy, even if a skilled Prey can manage to overcome it, is something which should be addressed in a significant way.

Each one should be entirely dedicated to their own objective, and anything which potentially distracts them from it or rewards them for ignoring it are things which are detracting from the gameplay itself.

I wouldn't mind adding this, but no reasonably competent Hunter player should ever have a right to die to the Prey in the first place.

I'll probably add it so less people raeg quit before getting up to that 'reasonably competent' level, though.

You could have killed Oh Man a dozen times over with the time you invested into "camping". Play a few more games, first, then get back to me on this.

You mean camping? That is a valid point, but keep in mind the goal of creep+sunken colonies isn't to camp, but for (limited) area denial/area deterrent. There's room for distraction in believing camping is valid, sure, but if there's no mechanism of shrinking the world around the Prey, some of the intended effect is lost. Offhand, I can't think of a good way to accommodate both issues other than what I have now...

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 2 2012, 1:22 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Camping is valid, I used it and won. I could have potentially beaten him faster by not camping, but that would have taken considerably more effort. I literally did nothing the entire game, while he ran around doing everything. I was just looking idly at the gate, letting my unit patrol without even looking at the minimap. I never actually tried hunting even once (in fact I purposely hid from him quite a few times, using Attune to avoid some near encounters) and I still very, very easily won.

He is literally called the Hunter. He should have to hunt. Being capable of winning without hunting defeats the purpose and detracts from gameplay, one way or the other.

He spent half the game attacking rocks. Watch the replay and tell me that was anything even resembling efficient use of time.

Not that that was his fault, entirely. That's why I'm going to rebuild the map from (near) scratch.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 2 2012, 4:54 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

What channel do you guys congregate in? I want to play with someone...

Usually donuts.


I've thought back to my original reasoning for making the Hunter's mana generate as opposed to needing to be acquired, and my recollection was that if the Hunter wasn't succeeding at hunting, they wouldn't be getting the chance to use abilities to help them hunt, and thus stay (relatively) unsuccessful. For the times they are able to be "successful" (as in, correctly intimidating and stalking the prey and assaulting their sanity), then they could start compounding upon their success exponentially, and much of the game's outcome would emphasize the initial chance event(s) that begins the Hunter his winning break.

I would need to balance this for the Prey to contend with the Hunters' chance successes for "acquired mana" to work...

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jan 2 2012, 6:06 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Yeah, I'm not sure if being able to steal gas via Cry is fair, I think it may be better as it is. Having attune be free though (as it's basically free anyways), and having gas regen based solely on its successful use in tracking the Prey, seems like it would be fitting.

How do I define tracking as opposed to passing by coincidentally? I could award gas for either, which could double as an alternate Attune function...

If I'm not doing it that way, awarding it for Cry (and possibly chasing/super close proximity) might be the only 'correct' option here...

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 2 2012, 6:55 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Well Attune only works when the Hunter is standing still, the Prey is moving, and the two are within a certain distance of one another.

If you make it so regen only occurs during this time, that would give the Hunter a compulsion to track him, and to be rewarded for it.

Attune is its own reward already. Getting mana from standing in place doesn't seem right to me on top of that. I think the reward should come from actions of active consequence. I could probably balance that to work right...

Anyway, since you're suggesting distilling the gameplay to a simpler subset of its current self, I'm contemplating a radical change to the formula to try out. For science.

1. No doors, or else they're extremely breakable (except locked/blocked doors, obviously). Or maybe hunter can just force open doors without utterly breaking them (as in, they can be subsequently re-closed)?
   
2. No hiding spots, or else Hunter can eject Prey from them easily (say, by using Cry ability up close).
   
3. Hunter cannot be killed! Prey literally has only the option of running or trying to hide.
   
4. Prey's inventory is unlimited, but items still drop from stim running.
   
5. Objective to find and activate levers remains.
   
6. Hunter has no "camping" abilities.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jan 2 2012, 10:09 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Not sure if I like the concept of an invulnerable Hunter. I feel like the map is really fun as it is now and if you're gonna overhaul the gameplay you should make a separate concept for it.

Yes, it's a project branch/fork. That's the idea.

I may merge branches with cherry picked parts that I like, though. I forget what this kind of development method was called (just prototyping?).

So it turns out version rollback was a bad idea. It was much easier to just hedge trim my existing code triggers after all, but now I do worry about testing anomalies showing up down the road. Well, I guess I should have a bit more faith in my abilities.

Anyway, some progress updates:

• All 'loud' sounds (prey or hunter) now give an indication of distance, but no exact pings (except when Attune in use).
  
• Attune is now wholly passive ability without any mana cost, and cannot be toggled. For science.
  
• Speaking of mana, with the upcoming fork I might get rid of it altogether, and keep Cry with its long-ish cooldown. Recall that Cry gives away the hunter's position, so using it liberally (with or without prey nearby) won't serve you well.

Sounds like I want to try this again

This wasn't the remake of Astrogears. Interest has been lost.

no u

Rock moving revised. It now item-izes the rocks so you can drop them at will like any other item, which then turn back into non-item, actual rocks.

Also freed up the other player slot for a second observer player, by popular demand. Don't like how creating a hosted map defaults you to an observer slot (now that it has the most player slots of the forces), but whatever.

Attune is now a passive, mana-free ability. In fact, with the fork I'm going to do away with mana completely, but until then I'll treat the map like I'm not. Note that Attune now only indicates distance when the Prey is moving and near, rather than exact minimap pings. Of course, you still need to be motionless for it to work.

Cry has a neat side function now: It can eject Prey from hiding spots (bunkers) if activated when nearby. Wouldn't be too useful on its own, except I'm giving the Prey a special affliction that occurs when they're being chased by the Hunter that prevents them from entering bunkers. With this, if they get ejected, they must get enough distance from the Hunter to reenter a new one. Also, bunkers no longer burn down over time, and must be manually destroyed.



As for Creep/Sunken colonies, I'm still mulling over this. What I might try as an experiment is letting the hunter place a lump of "sticky" substance that he alone can pass through, but the prey gets tangled up in unless they bring explosives or some other compound.

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Jan 7 2012, 5:34 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.