A Few Ideas For More Skill Based Gameplay.

[Rakaija]

These ideas randomly came to me, and I'd like to see what others think about them.

 

Nonlinear paths to the mission objective. One route would bring you through harder enemies, one through easier enemies, but you wouldn't know from the beginning. You'd have to guess, and feel your way through. Perhaps rewarding side-objectives could be hidden within the more difficult part of the level, giving people an incentive to try the more difficult route.

 

Some missions could somewhat force you to utilize stealth gameplay. Perhaps there would be extremely strong mobs and bosses in your way, and your only choice would be to choose to attempt to fight them, or to sneak your way past and not alert the weaker enemies so that they wouldn't alert the strong ones. Skills from Banshee (if and when it gets working again) and Ash and Loki would be ideal for the stealth scenarios. The strong mobs and bosses would have very strong attacks, capable of almost one-shotting you. You'd have to dodge and avoid the damage, through skills like Volt's shield, Frost's snow globe, or Trinity's healing support. 

 

Have the drop pool at the end based on how well you did your mission. Better, rarer mods would drop at higher percentages depending on how many times your team died, or how much damage you took, or how many times you were knocked down, and so forth. At all levels, every item would have a chance to drop, so you could still get a multishot mod if you died many times, but not as high of a chance if you did the level perfectly.

The drop pool being dependant on skill, people would prefer clan play over pickup groups. Or they would focus on communicating with their team mates instead of blatantly ignoring them. Again, since you can still obtain all mods from a poor gameplay score at the end, it wouldn't be debilitating if your group did poorly, so PUG's are still acceptable.

 

Of course, the enemies would scale in strength based on how many people were in the party. This way, a solo player, if very skilled and fitted with great equipment, could still rambo is way through the level.

[Onite]

 

 

I really agree with alot of these. Another thing they could do, is add bonus rooms. Where if you stray from your objective and go down a seperate path, when you reach a dead end, it ends in a tile thats a bonus room. A room thats full of unlocked lockers and smashable boxes. This way fully exploring is well worth your time.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Onite

[Ju5tice]

hmm, interesting idea

Perhaps pathways could be color coded to represent difficulty level?

 

One path might have more enemies, but also more storage containers and loot while another could have less enemies but be a longer run to the objectives.

[RyojinOrion]

Nonlinear paths - I like the idea, but with the current enemy spawn system, that doesn't seem too viable to me. Perhaps if the way enemies are spawned is changed, then it would be a good thing to implement.

 

Stealth - Yeah, the stealth system really needs an overhaul, no arguments there. Good ideas you have there.

 

Drop pool based on mission stats - The mission stats seem bugged to me, so like with the nonlinear paths idea, something would have to be done about the mission stats before such a thing could be viable. I do like the idea of having higher chances to get certain things if you did well in the mission as compared to if you did badly, though.

 

Difficulty scaled by number of players - This is something I would really like to see. It would make playing online more than a cakewalk.

[Densoro1]

I'm all in favor of nonlinear paths, but I don't want such a clear line as 'this path will be easier, this path will be harder,' even if those things are hidden. It feels a little arbitrary doing it that way, particularly with how enemy health and damage are currently assigned. Rather than simply giving the enemies bigger stats, a path should be made skillfully harder. Build the room so that enemies can shoot you like fish in a barrel without risking much counter-fire, unless an agent really knows what they're doing. But while that tests precision and possibly acrobatic skill, other routes could test your ability to take cover and crowd-control. Rather than just being 'harder,' focus on types of difficulty.

 

In the same way, if your stealth sections punish people who can't cloak then that's a little unfair xD

[RyojinOrion]

Honestly, I'd love to see a DeusEx-like level design where you could choose to take a stealth path, or you could choose to take an action path, but almost never be forced into choosing one over the other. People who can't stealth worth a damn wouldn't be punished for not being able to stealth, and players not so skilled at fighting wouldn't be punished for attempting to get through a tough level by killing.

[Lukap99]

Upvoted.

It's a great idea.