U15 ALPHA SPOILERS - The base and "outgame" progression

[slender iron]

The idea of the base and upgrading it as you play the game is cool, but the way its implemented is just not good, not good at all.

There were a lot of complaints about the menu being confusing and unintuitive, and suddenly we replace it all just to have "John Synthetik" walking around a base, its just a SLOG.
Why is this a trend in co-op pve games????

Just have the base as a "drone" view and have use select the buildings with our mouse cursor (PLEASE), like the menu's of grand turismo 4.
Much more easier to navigate and you can still visualize your base getting upgraded as you progress through the game.

Speaking of progression, only earning the required currency by killing bosses is just not good, have other ways to acquire it, also make harder difficulties more rewarding to earn it.
Currently it just feels too time consuming.

Some buildings (Menu features) should be available to the player at the start instead of later (specially PEARL and the library), considering the quests and the things they provide to the player.

[tame reef]

there's a thing called OCP, adding something new always better than modifier current thing. base view and drone view should both exist for player to choose to use.

[primal heron]

This is what I've been saying too since I tried the patch the first time. 100% agree

Birds eye view would be so much better than walking around in every way possible

[high granite]

im planning of adding shortcuts in the escape menu so you can instantly go to each menu in case you don't want to walk but so still people who want to walk can do so

about blueprints, I dunno

I checked the cost, all T1 buildings are just 1 blueprint

this is 1 boss kill each only

We can talk about T2 buildings

its 10 blueprints which is around 3-4 runs each

maybe 10 is a bit high

I reduce Barracks, Medical 5 > 3

Armory 10 > 5

AI Core 10 > 5

T3 can stay its not that important and so you have something to grind a bit later on

--
you guys think the shortcuts are enough? but this way you can walk and instantly go

[primal heron]

Is the idea of birds eye view out of question?

I've read like 20 different people complain about the main menu, even before release of u15 alpha

I bet there will be plenty more

Teleporters AND shortcuts to avoid the fundamental design

C'mon man

[high granite]

Why would I consider people complaining who haven't even tried?

theres 1000 games with hubs where you walk, it definitely can work perfectly fine

now you got your classical menu to open the menus?

ill do a poll later and see then after the buttons are added

[slender iron]

got an idea for this

Show what is still locked based on what escalation you are (from the war effort)

[primal heron]

This is REALLY rough around the edges and missing a ton but I really think this would be much better. Great overview, you can see currency, add popup windows for mission and latest upgrades, it would still feel alive (soldiers walking around, birds etc)..

[slender iron]

respect for illustrating it

[primal heron]

Yeah just makes sense

Also makes it way easier to add further content and buttons both top and bottom for out game progression. Could even be the same black bar as "in game" for some continuity.

[leaden bluff]

I think it would be cool if there were a couple things to play with in the hub world that didnt functionally act as a menu. I like the look of the hub world, and the short distance between places keeps it from being a tedious place to go back to, but IMO some small things like a football on the beach that you can kick into some nets, or a shooting range, or maybe a little duel arena if you have others in your world, that kind of stuff would be a great touch. Hell, even a boombox that lets you change the background music while you're in that hub instance

I can think of so many times I played a multiplayer game that has those kinds of hub worlds where we would waiting on a third or fourth person to join, and we would just play around with those little minigame things in the hub while we waited, and it was always fun 🙂

[primal heron]

Better version

[primal heron]

Made an improved version 👆 Something along those lines

[primal heron]

@high granite 🙏 🥹

[high granite]

this will eat a lot of performance like this

[verbal gale]

Didn't stop you from using unity.

[high granite]

there is a difference between baseline a bit expensive and loading a full map in one screen

Unreal 5 is also expensive, its just modern rendering

[verbal gale]

A bit? What's the threshold where it's better scaling compensates for the baseline cost?

[high granite]

the baseline cost is ok for the game, it does run on steam deck, it could be better but overall way better than we initially thought worst case

this is a very complex game with a lot of enemies and a lot of cutting edge effects afterall, maybe not all elements are but many

[primal heron]

If you'd go with my example above; make an option for main menu to be frozen or live rendered?

Or only a few selected items cast a dynamic shadow and the rest is prerendered

[violet cave]

I like this a lot honestly. Even better if you could go from the walk around to "zooming out" into this mode
I do like the base, it's neat but honestly in every single co-op game with a hub every player eventually just uses hotkeys (if available) or the shortcuts. Seconding that they usually need novelty things or minigames to stay interesting, alternatively DPS and build dummies to test on which is already covered by the firing range