New game mode: Boss Mode

[BlueSaiyan]

First off, I object to your 'lost in an epic way' comment in the first paragraph. How would it be epic what so ever? It'd just be the boss flying about, someone approaches him, he owns them, and beckons the next opponent.
The game does, factually, have a high skill ceiling, with a very steep learning curve. That means, a lot of beginners would simply get murdered by someone with more HP, greater attack damage, and faster speed.

That's very true. I'd suggest a new player learn the ropes in TDM or FFA before taking on the Big Bad Wolf that's the fun in this mode. It's called 'Boss' mode for a reason. You wouldn't march straight to Sephiroth (insert any final RPG boss here) at level 1 even if you could, would you? People gain 'Levels' in this game by training their skills. You need skills, team work, and strategy to beat and to BE the boss. But from my experience from when this game was popular... There's only like 1-2 fighters per server which clearly surpass all others using the techniques they've learned through hard training. The boss having advantages is MANDATORY though, as he is expected to be able to take on an entire room of foes single-handed which requires a great deal of focus in and of itself.

And as for you insulting Grega's argument as it is, it is obvious that this game mode specifically gives the better player an extreme advantage. It gives it MOBA syndrome - the good players just completely dominate all the newbies. However, in standard TDM mode, the good players do, in fact, give a slight advantage to the team - but in turn, when the opposing team is stronger, the weaker team will get stronger more quickly, thus balancing out.

Uhh, remind me how I insulted him again, lol? I thought we were having a civil debate here. My sights are focused on developing this idea with the help of all you fine people, I hold no grudges.
But anyways, the better player will always have the advantage no matter what game you're talking about, but if a superb player gets the boss, people only need to do at least 20 damage to break even (meanwhile his allies still heal)... BUT the number '20' for HP recovered per kill is totally negotiable and we can change it to, say, 10, if that's what the majority of folks here would agree to be more balanced (since his health does scale up according to the number of players joined).
And yeah, we do still have that power level balancing system in place here because if the boss's power level is multiplied by 3 then weaker players will in fact get more benefits for landing hits on him. But remember, a new boss player is chosen at the end of the round, so it's not going to be constant nonstop domination.

If you have a better player here, he is going to own them with a greater character in all respects, both artificially and skillfully, and even get back up to max HP. I mean, say you have B, the boss, against SP, standard player. Say the boss is good at the game - to prevent you yelling back at me "No, that wouldn't happen, because it isn't that unbalanced, and whinewhinewhine!". The boss is going to zip around the player, basic melee will do what - 20 DMG per hit? With the average 2x Basic Meleé, you're gonna get 40 HP every time B scores a hit, and with the average character HP max of about 100 or so, that means that with only 5 basic meleé hits, SP is gonna be dead, and B is going to have a HP bonus, to completely negate the 5 HP or so of damage that SP could do with a basic melee hit.

Are you proposing we should reduce the number of HP gained per kill to.... 10 instead of 20? 20 did seem a little bit high to me, BUT imagine an average player as the Boss, fighting equally (or better) skilled opponents. He will NEED this health bonus to survive the waves of enemies. In every game you'll ever play with a Survival mode in it, the player HAS to receive health for completing waves in order to keep the game going. This is mandatory, but the number itself is arbitrary.

Also, you seem to be taking the direct wording of Grega's post and either grammar nazing them to make them sound stupid, or just deliberately misrepresenting them. He meant, as I'm sure you know, that this is not a RP game. Each of these characters don't represent the very 'character', they represent the play style of each character. From my experience with the game, Krillin is focused on melee, and Buu is focused on Ki attacks. When have you ever actually seen anyone Role playing on a good old server of ESF 1.2.3? No one selected Goku and started quoting him, or playing sound board clips, unless it was a planned event. Also, for the not noticing the difference between SSJ Goku and Krillin. Basically, either you're not good at this game and don't use the 'G' button, or even double tap W as Goku, heck, have you even seen the gameplay demos for ESF:Final? Take the game play videos - they dance around one another with the melee thing. You can hardly tell one from the other if you're gonna be at any sort of distance from them. There's a lot of clustering around one another. Not to mention all the dust explosions and what not, it'll be hectic as fck.

I know from experience in gaming here that if you give people incentive to play other characters (ala Sonic Adventure on Dreamcast) then the replay value for said game increases tenfold! (in that game, literally, lol.) If we had a choice, we'd probably just stick with our favorite 1 or 2 characters... but if there were incentive to branch out and try others, and learn to like them, we'd all play this game for a much longer time and discover new fun in the process! It ALSO would detract from 'Uber players' dominating the server with their favorite characters (unless they get the Boss of course, which quite frankly is BETTER than having 3 extremely skilled players all on the other team of fighters in terms of balance.)

For the health regen thing, the boss will easily dispatch 20 HP in a single basic melee hit, like i mentioned before. That means that the boss can set the team back 40 seconds in one hit. Not very balanced. And then if you increase the health regen, it'll be unbalanced again. This is indeed quite the conundrum we have here, the only thing I can think of is to take away the whole hp regen feature.

Thanks for recognizing the challenges we face! I know from watching the development of World of Warcraft's update patches over the years, that new ideas are tried and then balanced accordingly, so we've just got to find a happy ballpark here with good concepts, and then it will be up to the team to tweak it to an exact balanced number. I will increase HP regen to 2 per 10 second instead.

Also, how would a boost in PL help anything? That would just be awful. The boss is meant to start out as SSJ. Fine. No respawns. Fine. SSJ transformations of all the SPs out there. Fine. Boost in PL? No. Because speed and HP does not revolve around PL, but rather transformation, it would boost each SP up to 80% of the boss, or there about. That almost equals a 1v1 match, and is that really balanced? Sure, the boss could hit harder, but would he be able to hit?

That's what I'm saying. I proposed the boost in Power level in order to allow him to ascend to the next level much sooner than anyone else, thus maintaining his mechanical advantage. I do feel that he should maintain his superiority, but, everyone wants standard players to be able to transform... So, if the boss has increased health pool, health regen per kill, AND increased power level (thus beam superiority) AND the ability to damage other SP's with collateral damage.... Are not these enough to maintain his superiority in the battlefield? Maybe not, once enough players transform, but at THAT point the boss should be able to ascend to level 3. It's got to be balanced in such a way that the boss can always transform 1 level higher than everyone else....... The only thing worries me is the rate at which others could leech power level off of him. Perhaps this can be tweaked some how. Or perhaps we shouldn't tweak it, and perhaps the server should simply restart once every 1 hour in order to reset balance in all players.

As for the thing about beams, as the great sage --BOT-- Skyrider puts it, "melee > beams". How many times have you seen someone use nothing but beams? Okay? How many times have you seen someone use nothing but melee? And so that proves my point.

We're not entirely sure that beams are not being given boosts using the new SAM system which could make them viable methods for quickly turning a foe to ashes. There's variables here which we have no info on yet... But in regards to power level, it also allows a fighter to simply swat away the strong beams of most opponents.

Also, I think of ideas, but before I post them, I realize that they are indeed terrible, terrible unbalanced pieces of fck. I'm afraid that you don't do the same thing, while revising your own work.

I guess that's why I'm the spokesperson for bad ideas! Lol. No but seriously, I really do value everyone's input to ensure balance in this mode. Civil debates like this one and others are highly constructive. I'm the queen bee here trying to get everyone to work together whether they know it or not so thanks to everyone here for posting.

 

[EndreVanan]

No but seriously, I really do value everyone's input to ensure balance in this mode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypocrisy

All you're doing is trolling, man... I asked you for creative input and all you could do was complain. What's the use in that? You have tourettes of the fingers.

Trust me dude, your analogy made zero sense because it in no way correlated with anything I've said or done thus far. The secret to analogies is for them to coincide with the nature of something that someone said... Yours is just totally wacko. I'm not sure why you insist on trolling me, but like I said earlier....

"it's very easy to be a hater. It's harder to provide solutions. If someone can provide me with a solution or a tweak, it suggests he's got the ability and thus intelligence for higher-thinking... it's soooo easy to just say "i hate this or that" without a solution. Did you know that listening to complainers is literally bad for your mental health? But there's a distinct scientific difference between a person who complains, and a person who complains for a plea for solutions. I'm interested in the latter "


Now let's leave it at that because I feel like I'm arguing with a child.... Now I'm actually legitimately wondering how old you are... Oh dear.

We've all heard your disdain for my complex system, I get it... You want the super dumbed down simple version of "Cell VS all" or "Broly VS all" but you can't fathom how little replay value a mode like that would have. Mine offers diversity, replay value, and it's unique. Honestly I was expecting all sorts of complex ideas from people here, because I personally find it fun to think of.... that's why I added the "Yes, but here's what I'd like to change" voting option.

...

You're what some might call "creatively bankrupt". I put up with your attitude for PAGES and all I got out of you was "bigger auras" L-O-L. Thanks.

Yes, it's very easy to be a hater. It's harder to provide solutions. If someone can provide me with a solution or a tweak, it suggests he's got the ability and thus intelligence for higher-thinking... it's soooo easy to just say "i hate this or that" without a solution. Did you know that listening to complainers is literally bad for your mental health? But there's a distinct scientific difference between a person who complains, and a person who complains for a plea for solutions. I'm interested in the latter

 

[Grega]

Correct me if im wrong, but you said the winner would have the privilige of choosing his role first. Meaning he has a greater chance at being boss.

By limiting the players choice of characters, you also cause people to leave because they couldnt get their fav char. This is a dethmatch game, not an RPG where people would actually roleplay. People fight 1 on 1 not because its how it was in DBZ, but because there is no point in doing it in a team since there is no bonus to doing it in a team. So the result of templay is "kill stealing".

The no fight area was designed so that you could see the entire field. As for the transparent thing, that would still cause confusion at longer distances. Remember ESF needs diamond indicators to even see the opponent in the distance, let alone tell if he is transparent or not. While we removed the diamonds from the final the issue is still there and there still is a marker.

The time frame of 1 minute is ehough to trade maybe 1 or 2 hits if the opponents are both fighting defensively, but lets say there are 5 people in the rotation. That means that you get to fight 1 minute, then do nothing for 4 minutes and then fight 1 minute again. Even if you let them fight in between the time by some mechanic, it would just confuse people by getting slapped with a "Hey stop fighting him, fight the boss" message.

If you want my take on the boss mode then here is the idea.

A 2 team deathmatch style gamemode LIMITED to 4 people.

When you join the game, select a character and all that, you are put in to team B, while anyone that comes in after the first person to join gets in to team A. Team B gets double health and stamina, and his KI consumption is cut by 1/3.
Then a match team A vs team B starts in a 1 vs all format (1 vs 3 in this case). The match lasts until either team A gets 10 deaths or team B gets 5 deaths (individual scores for team A are not shown)

After the round ends there are 2 possibilities:
- team B won. The person stays on team B, the round restarts.
- team A won. The person who dealt the most damage to team B is selected to be the new team B, round restarts.

PL gain is tripled and transformations are all instant. PL catchup is also set so that you gain PL, but not loose it.


Explanations to the decisions:
- Team B is the boss, so he gets some stat buffs. Stamina and HP are important, but the most important is KI. So he gets double HP and stamina while draining 1/3 less of his KI on all moves. This means that he can play competitively against the attackers.
- Team A are the attackers. While they dont get any buffs, they are in a 3 on 1 situation, so they can use the number advantage to take down the boss.
- Everyone fights at the same time until the score is reached, so there is no down time for any of the players, making the game a lot more interesting for everyone, not just the ones fighting.
- The boss wining resulting in reselection is there to encourage a fairer gameplay environment. The boss is in a 3 v 1 situation, so if he manages to continuously win it just means that the skill gap is big enough to break ANY game mode.
- The boss selection from the team A victory is there to select the best player of team A to be the next boss. Since kills only show who got in the last hit in, counting damage serves as a better way to see who was the most useful in wining the round.
- PL gain being tripled is there to ensure people get to the higher transformations within the short round time.
- PL catchup set to gain only is there to ensure that no one gets left to far behind in the powerlevel/transformation aspect of the game.
- The deaths being counted instead of kills, is because i thought this up with the idea of enabling friendly fire. Preventing the attacker team to simply go gun ho with big attacks, since they can hurt themselves more than the boss, making the game a bit more strategical on their end.
- Not showing the attackers K/D ratio encourages them to play as a team, instead of a bunch of individuals trying to get the best score, as well as prevents people from pointing fingers at someone blaming him for the loss of the round.
- The different death counts are there to provide a stable playing field. Since the Boss has double the HP, and since his KI attacks have a bigger chance of killing more than 1 person he also needs more kills to win. ATM i counted it so that each team looses an approximately equal amount of damage to loose. 5 Kills on the boss is the same as 10 kills on the attackers damage wise.
- No class limit by default. Letting people play who they want, would prevent them from leaving if they cant get the char they want.
- Round restart forces all stats to reset.

Possible extras:
- Custom skin for team B. While the stats and attacks are of the character the player selected, he could get a custom skin with generic big beam, big ball and overhead charge animations to cover for all the possible attack charges. He would have enough models to cover all transformations, while only having access to the level that his selected character has.
- If on team A you can see your own K/D score, but not that of the others (for the curious ones)
- An option to the server admin. At server setup he can specify the number limit of characters, limiting the players choice to the specified number of classes. (the admin can set a max limit of characters IE 2, limiting each character to only be selected by 2 people, before becoming unavailable for selection)
- Hardcore mode option. Deaths set to 10/5. Characters get permadeath. Once you die, you are forced to select a different character, with all characters that died being unavailable to be selected. You retain the PL you had with your old char for when you respawn with the new one.

I thought up the hard core mode to add a little more strategy to the mix. If you select your best character first, you run the risk of loosing him first. So strategically, you should save him for last and build up your PL with the others. HOWEVER since its team based that means that one of your team mates can select the char you want before you can get him. It also means that the first selection the entire team can have the same character, since none of the characters are dead yet. So the team must communicate in either wanting three of the same char at the beginning or saving their best chars for last. With there being 11 characters all together and being able to select the same char on the first go, you are ensured to keep playing until the end of the round, even if the boss wins. In the worst case scenario 1 person will be stuck without a character for the duration of 1 death on the attacker team.

Now i pretty much thought that up as i typed it out. So there may be some things in there that seem off, but all in all this way you get a game mode that is constant action with no down time and no extra complex systems for people who die. And while it is greatly in favor of the attackers, it still presents a challenge for the best players, since they will pretty much get drafted as the boss who is at a disadvantage. And as said i thought it up with friendly fire enabled to negate the number advantage against the boss a bit.

Hows that for a boss mode solution?

Again your idea is not bad, but you are ignoring the players entirely. Making people wait makes them leave, giving in extra complex systems will cause confusion, and in the end it will have no replay value, because everyone will be to frustrated to play it. When designing game modes, you HAVE to factor in human behavior. Quite honestly your idea would only factor in as a roleplay game mode, nothing else. And ESF is not a roleplay game by design. Its a straight up action game with a fast pacing. Just look at the backlash of advanced melee. The first complaint people had was "Im in a fast action game, and then i stop the action to play DDR". Only later did people start ignoring it for the possible retaliation of a successful hit, with nothing you can do about it. But the first thing was stopping the action. So how do you think people will react with a game mode that forces them to wait round unable to do ANYTHING while randomly coming up to fight for a minute.

 

[BlueSaiyan]

Correct me if im wrong, but you said the winner would have the privilige of choosing his role first. Meaning he has a greater chance at being boss.

No, what I said was that whoever got the BOSS role would get to choose his warrior first (assuming no duplicate characters.) And, I also said that there would be an option that people could select when joining a server that would say "I Prefer the Boss Role", and all that would do is make them more likely to get the role than people who do not press the button. I thought it'd be a good idea to set up something so that those brave enough to play the boss role could have the option of getting it over someone else who doesn't really want it, or is not prepared for it.

By limiting the players choice of characters, you also cause people to leave because they couldnt get their fav char. This is a dethmatch game, not an RPG where people would actually roleplay. People fight 1 on 1 not because its how it was in DBZ, but because there is no point in doing it in a team since there is no bonus to doing it in a team. So the result of templay is "kill stealing".

It's also like trying to catch a fly in mid-air with chop sticks ... I've tried to jump in to fights, and when two people are going at it, it's hard to hit anyone with anything other than energy attacks...
But the notion that people are leaving because they don't get their favorites worries me... Shouldn't all fighters in this game be enjoyable to play? I guess I'd just like it by default to be 1 character per player, but I'd be willing to see an option to toggle it off... But I for one would be willing to play with ANY character knowing that the next round will soon be here and then maybe I can get Goku next time.... I wanted people to feel immersed and unique for the characters they get. I wanted to set an atmosphere. With a game mode like Boss mode, what incentive would ANYONE have to pick a lower tier character if they had the option not to? I worry that there will be fighters in this game that see no play time, because it's simply impossible to balance everyone perfectly.... and I understand that this isn't an RPG, but, we're all here cause we like DBZ right? So... why not make a mode where people FEEL like they are a part of it? (that's just the way I see it) We've already got TDM and FFA modes in which people can choose whoever they want.... This is my opinion, and it's not likely to change for this mode, but I do understand your point of view that people will complain because they can't just pick their favorite fighter every time. And then part of me thought that the whole concept of 'Boss Mode' WAS partially role playing... It's a recurring theme in the series of DBZ; heroes must band together to take on one ultra powerful warrior. What other game has this mode with the boss being a real player?? Is not it's mere existence a tip-of-the-hat to the series?

The no fight area was designed so that you could see the entire field. As for the transparent thing, that would still cause confusion at longer distances. Remember ESF needs diamond indicators to even see the opponent in the distance, let alone tell if he is transparent or not. While we removed the diamonds from the final the issue is still there and there still is a marker.

I do share concern of people interfering with the main fight if they're dead and in 'Ghost form'. There's plenty of online games out there with a "Cloaking" device/skill in which a person can see themselves but nobody else can see them except for other members on their team, which would make sense to technically put Ghosted players on the same team (team 3, dead people) and enable Friendly Fire so they could train up and continue fighting one-another .... The team switch and the invisibility would trigger when a person dies ofcourse.This would be totally awesome. I realize some of my concepts are idealistic, but I'm here to have fun creating this fantasy mode and I do not realistically expect the team to have the time to implement some of the more complex aspects of my idea. I wish I could help develop it but I know nothing of your methods of coding ESF:F.

The time frame of 1 minute is ehough to trade maybe 1 or 2 hits if the opponents are both fighting defensively, but lets say there are 5 people in the rotation. That means that you get to fight 1 minute, then do nothing for 4 minutes and then fight 1 minute again. Even if you let them fight in between the time by some mechanic, it would just confuse people by getting slapped with a "Hey stop fighting him, fight the boss" message.

They wouldn't exactly "get slapped with it" as I proposed a message in the HUD that would show who the next person up to fight the boss would be, so, he'd have an entire 60 second heads up with a count down before it's his turn to fight the boss.
But in regards to wait times, yeah, that's why i initially proposed to limit the number of players for this game mode to 6, but people started to complain about that. In theory, the players will decide themselves what's 'Too much' in terms of wait times and players per server. What I mean is if there's too many players in one server then the people will decide whether or not they'd like to wait and then join a different server if the numbers get too high... If they're willing to wait despite the higher number of players well then I say power to them.

If you want my take on the boss mode then here is the idea.

A 2 team deathmatch style gamemode LIMITED to 4 people.

When you join the game, select a character and all that, you are put in to team B, while anyone that comes in after the first person to join gets in to team A. Team B gets double health and stamina, and his KI consumption is cut by 1/3.
Then a match team A vs team B starts in a 1 vs all format (1 vs 3 in this case). The match lasts until either team A gets 10 deaths or team B gets 5 deaths (individual scores for team A are not shown)

I do like the idea of simply slashing his ki consumption by 1/3. That's the kind of mechanical advantage he would need to be the boss... This I think might be a better method than my idea of simply letting him be more transformed than everyone else.
I just worry about having multiple people all gang up on the same guy at the same time. Doesn't this seem a little stressful from a psychological stand point? Wouldn't it breed frusteration? I mean, I know in this age people are used to simply fighting non stop without a moments rest, but, to me it seems a bit stressful on the mind.... though it's up to the people, really.

After the round ends there are 2 possibilities:
- team B won. The person stays on team B, the round restarts.
- team A won. The person who dealt the most damage to team B is selected to be the new team B, round restarts.

I prefer the second possibility in this case, for this particular scenario. If the guy stinks as the boss it'd be a waste of time to let him get ganged up on if he lacks the skill to fight multiple opponents simultaneously.

PL gain is tripled and transformations are all instant. PL catchup is also set so that you gain PL, but not loose it.

I agree 100% that there should be no loss in powerlevel in any Boss Mode.

Explanations to the decisions:
- Team B is the boss, so he gets some stat buffs. Stamina and HP are important, but the most important is KI. So he gets double HP and stamina while draining 1/3 less of his KI on all moves. This means that he can play competitively against the attackers.
- Team A are the attackers. While they dont get any buffs, they are in a 3 on 1 situation, so they can use the number advantage to take down the boss.
- Everyone fights at the same time until the score is reached, so there is no down time for any of the players, making the game a lot more interesting for everyone, not just the ones fighting.
- The boss wining resulting in reselection is there to encourage a fairer gameplay environment. The boss is in a 3 v 1 situation, so if he manages to continuously win it just means that the skill gap is big enough to break ANY game mode.
- The boss selection from the team A victory is there to select the best player of team A to be the next boss. Since kills only show who got in the last hit in, counting damage serves as a better way to see who was the most useful in wining the round.
- PL gain being tripled is there to ensure people get to the higher transformations within the short round time.
- PL catchup set to gain only is there to ensure that no one gets left to far behind in the powerlevel/transformation aspect of the game.
- The deaths being counted instead of kills, is because i thought this up with the idea of enabling friendly fire. Preventing the attacker team to simply go gun ho with big attacks, since they can hurt themselves more than the boss, making the game a bit more strategical on their end.
- Not showing the attackers K/D ratio encourages them to play as a team, instead of a bunch of individuals trying to get the best score, as well as prevents people from pointing fingers at someone blaming him for the loss of the round.
- The different death counts are there to provide a stable playing field. Since the Boss has double the HP, and since his KI attacks have a bigger chance of killing more than 1 person he also needs more kills to win. ATM i counted it so that each team looses an approximately equal amount of damage to loose. 5 Kills on the boss is the same as 10 kills on the attackers damage wise.
- No class limit by default. Letting people play who they want, would prevent them from leaving if they cant get the char they want.
- Round restart forces all stats to reset.

I do like the idea of hiding kills and just counting damage, that would indeed be more fun than KD/R.... Oh and I also agree with Friendly Fire for your mode... I've always been a big fan of FF in any online team based game, personally... it makes it more realistic to me and discourages mindless button mashing. But on another note, even with triple powerlevel gain, these rounds seem too short to get to anything beyond SSJ in my opinion unless transformation requirements are lower than I know. There's nothing wrong with your system if that's what people want then fine, but I personally am not a fan of the 3v1 scenario. I am a bigger fan of the 1v1 scenario, that's my personal preference but I am still interested in everyone's point of views.

Possible extras:
- Custom skin for team B. While the stats and attacks are of the character the player selected, he could get a custom skin with generic big beam, big ball and overhead charge animations to cover for all the possible attack charges. He would have enough models to cover all transformations, while only having access to the level that his selected character has.
- If on team A you can see your own K/D score, but not that of the others (for the curious ones)
- An option to the server admin. At server setup he can specify the number limit of characters, limiting the players choice to the specified number of classes. (the admin can set a max limit of characters IE 2, limiting each character to only be selected by 2 people, before becoming unavailable for selection)
- Hardcore mode option. Deaths set to 10/5. Characters get permadeath. Once you die, you are forced to select a different character, with all characters that died being unavailable to be selected. You retain the PL you had with your old char for when you respawn with the new one.

I'd like to comment on this hardcore mode... It faces the same problem that my mode would face, which is, yes you should keep your power level, BUT then the most obvious choice is to pick someone like Vegeta or Cell who start out at a higher power level, because if you'd picked Gohan then you'd be at a disadvantage in that regard. I do find the concept of your Hardcore mode interesting in general, though. It's definitely worthy of consideration.

I thought up the hard core mode to add a little more strategy to the mix. If you select your best character first, you run the risk of loosing him first. So strategically, you should save him for last and build up your PL with the others. HOWEVER since its team based that means that one of your team mates can select the char you want before you can get him. It also means that the first selection the entire team can have the same character, since none of the characters are dead yet. So the team must communicate in either wanting three of the same char at the beginning or saving their best chars for last. With there being 11 characters all together and being able to select the same char on the first go, you are ensured to keep playing until the end of the round, even if the boss wins. In the worst case scenario 1 person will be stuck without a character for the duration of 1 death on the attacker team.

Now i pretty much thought that up as i typed it out. So there may be some things in there that seem off, but all in all this way you get a game mode that is constant action with no down time and no extra complex systems for people who die. And while it is greatly in favor of the attackers, it still presents a challenge for the best players, since they will pretty much get drafted as the boss who is at a disadvantage. And as said i thought it up with friendly fire enabled to negate the number advantage against the boss a bit.

Hows that for a boss mode solution?

It would seem to be the best strategy for EVERYONE to pick the same fighters ALL the time which, as im sure you can tell from me already, I am not a fan of... Personally, I thought you were referring to a system in which everyone could pick any fighter they wanted and if that fighter got killed then they could not select him again that round, but, let's say that my goku died and i couldn't pick him again... YOU still could, but if yours died, then you couldn't. I thought that's what you meant, that everyone got their own seperate pool of hardcore fighters.

Again your idea is not bad, but you are ignoring the players entirely. Making people wait makes them leave,

I've eliminated waiting for dead players, but in regards to living players, it's my personal theory that the people themselves will simply join a less populated server if the numbers get to high.

giving in extra complex systems will cause confusion,

When I see this mode playing out in my mind it is not overly complex... Invision a 1v1 fight with a timer in the HUD which signifies the next person to fight... Not that complicated! And then when you die you'll respawn as a ghost and you can continue to fight other ghosts... Nothing overly complex there.

and in the end it will have no replay value, because everyone will be to frustrated to play it. When designing game modes, you HAVE to factor in human behavior. Quite honestly your idea would only factor in as a roleplay game mode, nothing else. And ESF is not a roleplay game by design. Its a straight up action game with a fast pacing. Just look at the backlash of advanced melee. The first complaint people had was "Im in a fast action game, and then i stop the action to play DDR". Only later did people start ignoring it for the possible retaliation of a successful hit, with nothing you can do about it. But the first thing was stopping the action. So how do you think people will react with a game mode that forces them to wait round unable to do ANYTHING while randomly coming up to fight for a minute.

Advanced melee was good in theory, but it's so slow visually, that it doesn't even really look like DBZ to be honest. What's with the big bubble too? It just simply lacks the feel of DBZ... Judging from the new melee clips that I've seen, you guys are definitely taking it in the right direction.

In closing, it seems that the only REAL problem with my mode is "What can the other players do while they wait for their turn?" Well, I acknowledge that, and will have to think about that one. Personally I would not mind waiting, and then dying, and getting to fight non stop... BUT taking consideration for those with less patience, I'll see if I can come up with a creative solution, like perhaps have a specific "warp point" in every map almost like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber (but on Namek it could just be a Cave that you'd walk up to and it'd transport you to another room) in which it's free for all living players to access, and FFA is enabled upon entry, and no damage is taken. So it's like a "training arena" and once you see in the HUD that you're up to fight in 1 minute, then you've got to get out there and get ready for your turn.... But I realize this idea is asking a bit much of the team.

edit: I'm going to draw up some pictures which would illustrate my vision, just for fun. It'll take a little time to create but that's okay I enjoy this creative process. I'll post them when I'm done.

 

[Grega]

I never intended the boss to win in my mode. The boss wining would be a rare occasion and worthy of an achievement if we had those. The idea is to gang 3 weaker players against one thats better, who has a stat buff to help him deal with it, but still isnt OP versus the superior numbers. Thats why he can continue playing the boss if he so wishes when he wins. If he looses, the player who dealt him the most damage gets to be the next boss. If a weaker player is the boss, then he gets taken apart and is put in to the attacker team next round.

The round time isnt all that short if you consider the increased HP for characters that is in the final, and so the round should be long enough to reach the highest forms.

The character death thing is as you said the first time. Only when first selecting a character can everyone choose the same character. After that they are limited to characters still alive. So if one of the Gokus dies, and Vegeta dies to, then the person picks Cell, the next person will not be able to pick any of those 3.

Also PL is overrated. What counts in ESF is KI, speed and player skill. No amount of PL difference can cover that.

The complex systems i was talking about is exactly that ghost mode. There is no need for it without perma death. By including something as detremental to ESF as permadeath, you had to come up with a complex way of keeping the players in the servers while they wait for the round to finish. Adding a whole new layer to the work of the coders who not only have to create a new team that is playing FFA while the others are playing a weird MK tournament game, but this new team also has to be rendered differently while still being normally seen by themselves. Lots of extra work for a problem that wouldnt be there without perma death. And now you said to have something similar but limited to an area inside the maps which also ties in level designers and possibilities of your game mode not working on all maps.

 

[BlueSaiyan]

The complex systems i was talking about is exactly that ghost mode. There is no need for it without perma death. By including something as detremental to ESF as permadeath, you had to come up with a complex way of keeping the players in the servers while they wait for the round to finish. Adding a whole new layer to the work of the coders who not only have to create a new team that is playing FFA while the others are playing a weird MK tournament game, but this new team also has to be rendered differently while still being normally seen by themselves. Lots of extra work for a problem that wouldnt be there without perma death. And now you said to have something similar but limited to an area inside the maps which also ties in level designers and possibilities of your game mode not working on all maps.

I totally understand the work thing... I'd like to see ESF:F some time this decade but wouldn't this be cool though?

 

[Reading Rainbow]

What about Ginyu's Body Swap, instant kill attacks like destructo disc and Buu's Candy Beam??

One big thing I don't like about this gametype is WAITING, 1 minute of gameplay with x amount of waiting per each person on the "lesser characters" team. If this feature were implemented in Final I would most definitely not play this mode - voted no.

 

[BlueSaiyan]

What about Ginyu's Body Swap, instant kill attacks like destructo disc and Buu's Candy Beam??

One big thing I don't like about this gametype is WAITING, 1 minute of gameplay with x amount of waiting per each person on the "lesser characters" team. If this feature were implemented in Final I would most definitely not play this mode - voted no.

but did you look at the pictures? Waiting to fight the boss doesn't mean that you can't fight to increase your power level in preparation of battle with the big boss...

Ginyu's body swap would be cool, haha... it'd work as intended. Were you worried that it would be disabled? If Ginyu swapped bodies with the big boss, the boss would still have his health adjusted in real time while maintaining the same percentage of health that Ginyu had when he swapped.. It wouldn't swap the exact number, it would swap the health %.

And destructo disk? Power to ya!

 

[Horatio]

but did you look at the pictures? Waiting to fight the boss doesn't mean that you can't fight to increase your power level in preparation of battle with the big boss...

Ginyu's body swap would be cool, haha... it'd work as intended. Were you worried that it would be disabled? If Ginyu swapped bodies with the big boss, the boss would still have his health adjusted in real time while maintaining the same percentage of health that Ginyu had when he swapped.. It wouldn't swap the exact number, it would swap the health %.

And destructo disk? Power to ya!

Destructo/Frieza disc = instagib.
Not.
Balanced.
What so ever.

Besides, that would indeed make Frieza the most OP boss killer ever. He starts with a pretty high PL, he has Frieza disc, and with a combination - you can in fact just kill the boss one hit. That's not fun. That's a "Who can hit the target the best" game.

 

[Grega]

Destructo/Frieza disc = instagib.
Not.
Balanced.
What so ever.

Besides, that would indeed make Frieza the most OP boss killer ever. He starts with a pretty high PL, he has Frieza disc, and with a combination - you can in fact just kill the boss one hit. That's not fun. That's a "Who can hit the target the best" game.

Just to shoot that one down. In a 1 on 1 using discs is impossible to score a kill unless your opponent is retarded. In which case youll win either way.

 

[Horatio]

Just to shoot that one down. In a 1 on 1 using discs is impossible to score a kill unless your opponent is retarded. In which case youll win either way.

Oh, I see. I play with my friends & PlanetHex a lot of the time, and that seems to work on them.... *cough*.

 

[BlueSaiyan]

Just to shoot that one down. In a 1 on 1 using discs is impossible to score a kill unless your opponent is retarded. In which case youll win either way.

^ this. Lol. It is possible to stand there with the disk and try to throw it off at the very last second, but if the guy's using his head he could just teleport around the guy a couple of times and then WAM!

 

[Dr.Killer]

i understand a lot about this, but can any one help me understanding the complex points using easy english. thanks in advance.

 

[BlueSaiyan]

The pictures pretty much explain it all

It really is true what they say: A picture is worth a thousand words.

if you have any specific questions feel free to ask them and I will answer.

 

[Dr.Killer]

thanks BlueSaiyan, and i do have one question: the players that are going to face the boss, i am one of them but what about the others will they be bots or players that i am going to play with when the first dies?

 

[BlueSaiyan]

thanks BlueSaiyan, and i do have one question: the players that are going to face the boss, i am one of them but what about the others will they be bots or players that i am going to play with when the first dies?

Everyone is a player.

 

[Dr.Killer]

Everyone is a player.

now it is clear. i really like the idea, this will make esf final even more Similar to dbz. it make look cool this way.

 

[BlueSaiyan]

Thank you I think so too.