Re: [Help-liquidwar6] Some Liquid War 6 news

[Kasper Hviid]

Hello again - I know I'm awfully late, but congratulation with the
update - this is *really* great!

So, now we have team profiles. Red Alert, Aliens vs Predator
Starcontrol and Starcraft has also explored the idea of using
non-symmetrical teams. I like it! It could bring an entire new
dimension to the gameplay without altering the basics. I really look
forward to play around with it!

>From what I understand, team-profile-[color]-[effect] will be defined
in rules.xml of the map. This could be used to  by fine-tuning each
map to give a specific single-player challenge. Each rules.xml could
also have a value to define the number of bots and their color-teams
in standard single-player.

However, if each teamcolor should have a fixed characteristica (great
idea), shouldn't their settings be defined somewhere globally, instead
of in each levels rules.xml?

When deciding the global team-colors characteristica, similar colors
could be given similar properties. For instance, cold colors (colors
with low wavelength) could be slower.

The "special actions" could also be designed as powerups which appears
randomly, and is used by whoever touches it first with his cursor.
This won't be as tactical, but will add some cheap fun to the game.

I hope to get the time to do some more levels - I had some ideas I
never got finished.

 - Kasper



2011/7/28 Christian Mauduit <address@hidden>:
> Hi,
>
> I've been on vacation lately, this means I got time to code a little bit, so
> things are moving again.
>
> So where are we?
>
> Well, current snapshot
> http://ufoot.org/liquidwar/v6/snapshots/20110728snapshot has a bunch of new
> stuff in it, including:
>
> - the new (well, they date from 2010 but I had not included them yet) bitmaped
> cursors by Kasper, definitely looks better.
> - bubbling sounds "à la" Liquid War 5, I really missed those!
> - a basic score screen. It's raw, I find it ugly, but at least it's a start
> and it displays informations. I omitted the "history" of the game suggested by
> Kasper, it's sad for in reality the game does record the information so "all I
> need to do" is to display it, but I just postponed that fancy part. Sorry
> about that.
> - a few bug fixes (yeah, in one year, I did find bugs)
> - new Debian packaging (.debs will be back again for next release)
> - serious code cleanup (I did opacify most of the internal algorithmic stuff
> so that implementing new graphics backends can be done the right way, this is
> good news as far as ports to other platforms, including mobile such as GP2X or
> Android, is concerned)
> - "team profiles". What is a team profile? Ha! Good question. In short: it
> allows teams to behave differently, for instance, red attacks a little
> stronger than other colors, but in turn, green might resist better to attacks
> while yellow is fast (but weak!) compared to others. This, of course, can be
> disabled (yet an option again...) but I believe it makes the game more fun to
> have asymetric behaviors. It still stays Liquid War, with very basic cursor
> control and that's it, but it changes the experience to be strong, or fast,
> or... There are 4 parameters which are changeable per teams, they can be:
> * aggressive: increasing this makes you attack stronger
> * vulnerable: increasing this makes *being attacked* stronger
> * mobile: increases the "nb-tries" parameters, rather arcane parameters, but
> can change the fluidity of your team, I need feed-back on this one
> * fast: you just plainly move faster, attack faster (or conversely move
> slower, attack slower, if parameter is low)
> - a lot of "under the hood" stuff which makes us closer to a working networked
> version of the game, but alas still not ready (a good pile of job still, even
> if it's not that bad, it certainly requires heavy work)
>
> Now to come back on the team profile subject, I've set up very basic settings,
> but I'd like to come with some fine-tuned nice-to-play settings, that could be
> kept and make it a different yet reproduceable experience to play red, or
> green, or blue or any other color. IMHO it's not that bad it some colors are
> "weaker" than others, I imagine the first 3 or 4 colors (red, green and up to
> blue or yellow) might need to have settings that make it fair to play any of
> them, but I'd just think it nice to know that if you play pink, you're gonna
> need to be strong. In that spirit, winning in pink on network could be the
> nirvana of LW playing, cause you win with a handicap. Of course, all those
> features only an option, but I'd strongly advocate to make them the defaults.
>
> As a side note, this technically opens the gate of "alliances" between teams,
> as to implement the above features I already needed to create a matrix of
> "when team X attacks team Y, damage is Z". My only problem with this is the
> interface, I can't find a way to make this intuitive, how to allow, on the
> fly, blue and red to become friends. The "on the fly" is important, settings
> alliances at game start might be fun, but I suspect it's an order of magnitude
> less funny that being able to make friend with green, then go treacherous and
> betray it for blue ;)
>
> Next... (for there's a next subject) I'll probably, in a future that I expect
> "near" implement some "special actions". A special action would just be a
> trick that one could trigger from time to time (not too often, once per minute
> could be fine). Something you fire when you're in deep trouble or when you
> want to overcome some hard-to-work ennemy. There would be two categories for
> this, one would be "special states" where your team behaves differently for a
> limited time (about 3 seconds) and the other one would be "special changes"
> where fighters are moved, recolored, exchanged, in a special manner.
>
> I already brainstormed on that subject, and came with 10 ideas:
> 1) INVICIBLE: you're not damaged, all your fighter with max health, for a few
> seconds only, course
> 2) BEZERK: super-attack mode, you damage others super fast, limited time (like
> the previous one)
> 3) TURBO: you're super fast for some limited time
> 4) TELEPORT: all your fighters come to the "optimal" position instantaneously
> 5) ESCAPE: all your fighters come to the farest point on the map, scattered at
> the opposite of your cursor
> 6) SCATTER: all the fighters, of all teams, spreaded randomly all over the map
> 7) FIX: all fighters stuck, can't move, but your team. They can't be attacked
> either, they are just freezed, only you can move.
> 8) MIX: fighters stay in the same places/slot, but colors are mixed, that's
> say the map ends up with all colors being mixed in a random semi-homogeneous
> way
> 9) CONTROL: you don't control your team any more, instead you control other
> teams, you can lead them wherever you want
> 10) STEAL: you steal a percentage of other fighters
>
> This is not implemented yet, but it's just very high on my todo list.
>
> This idea list should, IMHO, stay limited to 10. My position follows: with 10
> (not less, not more) well calibrated, fun, effets, we can by default affect a
> special action to each color. Technically you'll still be allowed to play 2
> BEZERKS against each other, but the idea is that by combining the team profile
> mentionned previously, and the special action, we might give a special
> character to each color. In the long run, we might even personnify this, and
> to some extent "scenarize" the game, having cap'tain Red fighting colonel
> Yellow with the pink Monster lurking somewhere on the map.
>
> 0.0.10beta will come soon (for sure, before the end of summer, ideally this or
> next week), it will include the team profiles. I'd still like it to have some
> initial version of the special actions I mentionned, the idea would be to
> allow players to experiment all this, and then for 0.0.11beta there could be a
> complete solo game with 10 nice levels chained, where you play alternatively
> every color available, in different contexts, so that you get a good overview
> of the whole game aspects.
>
> Then network game would remain a classical
> "pick-your-level-and-specific-options-then-ready-set-fight".
>
> Have a nice day,
>
> Christian.
>
> --
> Christian Mauduit <address@hidden> - http://www.ufoot.org  ___ __/\__
> Liquid War 6 - http://www.gnu.org/software/liquidwar6      / _")\~ \~/
> "Les amis de la vérité sont ceux qui la cherchent et non _/ /   /_ o_\
> ceux qui se vantent de l'avoir trouvée" - Condorcet     (__/      \/
>
>
>
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