Greetings, Defenders
Last week, we revealed our plans for the future to the community here on ModDB. Overall, everyone was very supportive of our decision, providing lots of helpful suggestions and feedback. If you have not already, we encourage you to follow our ModDB page and join our Steam Group to stay updated and involved with Full Invasion 2.
In this article, we will be taking a brief look at some visual improvements that will be coming alongside the next version of the mod. If you would like to see more of this in the future, let us know!
There are a lot of items in Full Invasion 2: Amber — around 9,000 of them in total. Compared to Native, that’s nearly 15 times the amount of content in items alone. When there is a full lobby of players fighting hundreds of bots all wearing different equipment, it’s easy to understand why the model quality in Full Invasion 2 has to be very low.
But, as we’re planning to remove a lot of the unused content from the mod, that gives us a lot of additional space to work with. As you can see from the screenshots, we have been able to make significant improvements on the mod's visual elements. By improving the texture quality, we’re hoping the mod will not only look better, but be more vibrant and look less ‘dark’ to our players.
If we were to make these improvements in Amber, it would make the module practically unplayable. These visual improvements are something we can only accomplish by rebooting the module, making them exclusive to the new version we’re releasing.
The plan is to improve all factions and maps which are staying as much as possible, including the invading factions (but to a lesser degree). Any factions which we add (or re-add) in the future, depending on the models which are available to us, should hopefully benefit in the same way.
There will be new content added to our ModDB page as consistently as possible until release, so be sure to follow our page. We would love to see more fans becoming involved and sharing their thoughts on the mod, as it helps us form a better understanding of how the community feels.
If you have any questions about the next version of the mod, please ask them below. If they're good, you might see them featured alongside your username in a coming article!
How do you decide which content will remain (assuming that from the non-removed factions some content is removed) and be improved in visuals?
The decision on what content will remain is based on the trends we have seen since the launch of Amber, the options we think certain factions have, and the sources we have available to us. For example, we see that a lot of people like to play as the Greek City States, but we feel that as a faction it lacks variety and depth.
So we got in contact with the developer of a new Greek era mod called Fires of War (made by Antonis), and he gave us permission to use his assets, which we can make good use of to revitalize the faction.
So basically, for a faction to be in the new version:
1) They need to have good, quality sources,
2) They need to be based around an era or setting that we think players will enjoy,
3) We need to have a good idea on how to structure the faction in a good way (enough classes, good progression, etc).
Look forward to not unbearable chainmail textures on the unavoidable and otherwise equally reprehensible LOTR mode!
Ah wow, in addition to needless content being finally removed this was also a much needed change. Some of the armours, especially LoTR's, were horrible to look at. Hope the Japanese faction is on the table too as some of the armours there need a slight touch up (looking at you too Ninja's with poor quality and black clothing which needs desaturation).
Great! That's the thing which I was waiting for a long time! Good job guys!
looks much better. some armours in Gondor also need to be changed
Wow nice specially these textures quality is great.
Some suggestions
Heroes :
Currently their cost is high. Only top tier players really get to them (if there are no polls). I think it would be more fun if a little more had access to them. Not 40 Aragorns but the content of the mod actually used a bit. The more players get stronger the further you get etc.
Some of them feel weak but still cost a lot. (Bad weapons + No info on armor value + Mediocre Stats)
Maybe make those cheaper? Buffing some of their armors or at least giving some info on their defense stats would be neat.
I hope with the revised factions you plan to give Heroes to those that were played a lot but didn't have any/or very few.
Items :
The gold change from the Heroes would also help with legendary weapons. If you have to invest less for them you can roll more weapons. Legendaries have become less frequent since the introduction of the Heroes since people are splitting up money.
2 Handed is pretty strong currently. Maybe buff some 1 Handers ? Most of them have terrible range. The base game had 1h axes and swords that had these good stats. Loved using them.
Would also make cavalry play a bit easier for players.
(Maybe add a stronger more costly version of ammunition? Not every faction has a hero with legendary ranged weapon and rolling for them is pure luck. Sometimes in later waves ranged feels a bit weak vs tanky opponents. Also please Fire Arrows everywhere for visibility)
Maps :
GOD PLEASE CHANGE THAT ONE MINAS Tirith. Invisible walls and AI getting stuck.
Kings Landing : Put the Random Item Boxes closer to the point where you actually fight.
We already have plans to overhaul the hero system and rebalance the factions in an effort to fix the mod's progression system.
"2 Handed is pretty strong currently. Maybe buff some 1 Handers ? Most of them have terrible range. The base game had 1h axes and swords that had these good stats. Loved using them.
Would also make cavalry play a bit easier for players."
As I'm working on implementing the sources we'll be using with the new version, I'm also creating extra versions of several 1 handers, longer than their base model, because I feel the exact same regarding the range of 1 handers. I personally prefer 1 handers that hit at least 100 range, but that's probably because I'm a cavalry scrub. :P
"I'm also creating extra versions of several 1 handers, longer than their base model" Please don't. The main issue i had with most weapons in the previous versions was because some of them had invisible ghost reach.
Please don't bring that back to place. It would be much cooler if people evolved and got better, instead of the items saving them.
"The main issue i had with most weapons in the previous versions was because some of them had invisible ghost reach."
Oh, absolutely. These longer versions will have custom models to account for the additional reach. Sorry for the ambiguity in my other post, with "longer than their base model" I meant to say "with a new model that's longer than the base model".
The prices for items will also be looked into with the new version, with every (relevant) stat taken into account when calculating an item's price. This means that these longer versions of weapons will be more expensive than the "normal" ones.
Also keep in mind that this is only done for classes where we feel like a long one handed weapon is needed, but lacking, like Rohirrim Cavalry, who currently in Amber only have access to small and medium-sized one handed weapons. We're not changing every item to be longer and thus more powerful.
That is better, thank you for explaining.
Could you please make map The Wall from GoT for FI2? It would be great, I saw that kind in Napoleonic Wars on FZH zombie server.
Castle Black is actually the map with The Wall.
Can we please have a completely blank square map. A map that is just one blank, flat, straight square of a field. This would be good, because the whole reason why I play this MOD is because my ****** laptop can run it. And often, the maps lag up my PC. But also, it would be good, because it would mean players will have to band together to build forts and barricades, and construct some kind of defences from the completely bare map.
In addition, it would be good to test Unit versus Unit in Single Player (Host Game). This would mean there is no bias or people just have a blank slate in which to find out what works better.
Otherwise great job guys, keep up the hard work.