Reacting to recent online feedback

Making the changes to my game’s AI something players can actually notice and react to has been a consistent challenge since I started the project. While they certainly felt the difference in gameplay overall, reception to the soldiers themselves has always been a bit mixed. A key issue here has generally been a lack of any new visuals that really convey what the soldier is prioritizing in any situation.

Recently one solution I’m looking towards is adding in little extra bits of animation from other characters already in the game. I haven’t given it much thought in the past, but I’m realizing a big part of what makes Half-Life 2’s soldiers feel a tad robotic is their lack of “transition” animations. When standing up to shoot or stopping from a run, they immediately snap from their current attack to shooting at you, giving you no time to see their change in state and react. Trying out these crouching animations from the Metropolice has really shown me there’s a lot of value in this stuff.

Here’s a small demo on my YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRkLCEAdZvo

At the moment, any change in behavior is entirely just driven by animation, basically no decision making was changed to actually get them hunkering behind cover like this. In the near future I’m considering a few more things like this, such as having to ready their weapon and aim at you after running. The main goal here is creating clear moments of opportunity and danger for the player, giving them a play experience that rewards deliberate and smart choices.

All Hail The Algorithm!

Speaking of my YouTube, for whatever reason the algorithm has decided to really blow up my channel. Thanks to anyone coming from YouTube to read this, I really appreciate it! Posting this stuff hasn’t just been good for promoting the game though, it's also been a half decent way of getting a feel for what people care about in the game.

Reactions to the Disruptor immediately gave me the confidence to start making more tweaks to it, including increasing its size and giving it more deliberate situations where it can or can’t shoot. It’s still a tad on the janky side but the little dude will be performing optimally and annoying the shit out of playtesters soon enough!

I’m also realizing it’s not entirely clear to people when the Suppressor is or isn’t ready to shoot, even with the current audio cues. People seem to actually expect it to be even more lethal than it currently is, and honestly I think I agree. I’m planning to do a balance pass to address some of this stuff and just putting a video out has already given me some good ideas on what’s worth focusing on before I get a new playtest build out.

Balance Goals

A key thing I’m trying to get right in this game is an experience that’s equally harsh as it is fair. Getting shot should feel punishing, yet it needs to always be clear to the player when they’re about to take damage. While playtesting is absolutely needed to get this totally right, even just basic feedback on a video helps a lot more than I assumed it would.

Main things I’m going to be focusing on and showcasing (possibly in edited videos since my YouTube is suddenly taking off)

• Clear tells when an enemy is about to attack you
• Finding more ways to showcase an enemy’s state through animation
• Incentivizing the player to close the distance with their enemy more often

Over the next week or two I’m going to be trying to hammer out some solutions to these problems while I get a new playtest build out so look forward to an article on that plus a bunch of behind the scenes content.

Thanks for reading,

-Bradley Toliver