First Impressions Thread - Off Limits mod for Half-Life 2

BELOW ARE MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS, not my final verdict. I hope it helps.

1. What am I supposed to do in this game and how do I do it?

Those were my main question marks when jumping online to play the game. I had a look at your guide but didn't find an adequate run-down of this.

I knew I was supposed to capture points but, how? And where are they? There are no HUD-elements to guide you to the next point and the minimap isn't large enough to accommodate the various points. You can only see your near vicinity.

So the game definitely needs, whether or not it is in-game, a brief gameplay goals summary and walkthrough. Now, I didn't play long enough to fully understand all of the mechanics (I am way too tired to continue at the moment) and I'm sure it wouldn't take long but it's definitely worthwhile to smooth out this bump. Your players will be able to become productive members of their respective teams faster and the chance of players leaving in frustration will be reduced.

On-screen hints/tips/markers when spawning would be a good addition, but not a must.
So generally, give players a better understanding of the game earlier.

2. Thoughts on the gameplay
(disclaimer: my gameplay session was not long and was not on a well-populated server, around 8-10 players).

First, I was surprised by the fact that you have a loadout screen. I have seen small tidbits of media from the mod and thought the game was class-based. I would definitely say that it would be more fitting in the game, but maybe I'm just a grumpy old man. I think just selecting weapons or class is enough and allows you to get into the game faster. I would put shield- and ordinary grenades on cooldown timers or that they draw from a common energy bar that slowly recharges. I would also advocate infinite ammo for guns (or does the JN give ammo? heh). Purchasing stacks of ammo feels out of place in this game and I wasn't able to locate any clear way of resupplying.

I was befuddled by the arsenal. I found the choice of weapons in the game to be weird and lacking a theme. Personally, I would've liked a pure selection of custom-made sci-fi themed weapons (like the middle-left one here: Media.moddb.com).

The weapon-feel in general seemed nice but I tried out a few weapons and found that balancing was a bit off and that you can't go wrong with one of the assault rifles. Shotguns seemed REALLY tame. I would recommend you clean up the arsenal, perhaps drop some of the weapons, and ensure that you have distinct weapon archetypes with pronounced strengths, weaknesses and good balancing. It wasn't clear if the weapons performance were mirrored between the teams but I'd definitely have it that way.

The gameplay's strengths lies in the weapon handling (of some of the weapons), the balancing of health/damage, the map layout and the player characters abilites. I liked how you haven't constricted the player to a sluggish pace like in Call of Duty or other modern shooters. You can sweep around the battlefield more swiftly and firefights are a lot more agile then in other shooters. I like this. Aiming and firing feels good. I do not need ironsights in another game and the spread seems balanced (not super-accurate and not all over the place either).

Also, cut the vehicles. They do not fit in with the gameplay at all. They look silly when driving around and it feels a bit derp. You have strong enough player mobility.

3. Nice stuff

* Maps, they look terrific
* Maps also appeared to have good layouts (again, hard to comment without grinding the game for a bit)
* Good overall gameplay feel, loved the mobility of the character, the un-penalising fall damage and the weapon feel

There you go, these are my thoughts and nothing else (i.e. not a list of DEMANDS lol).
I'll play more over the coming days and I reserve the right to embarassingly withdraw opinions written here.

Also, I haven't mentioned anything about weapon models, animations and so forth because... I'm not bothered really. The game looks good enough and I'm primarily interested in that it plays well. Superduperproduction values are best served by game studios. It isn't, and shouldn't, be the focus of mods.

Thanks for your feedback, and especially the last comment. For instance, neither me or wes can animate, its an art on its own imo. We need to rely on contributions and we know eg the player anims could be a lot better. But we hope to create an entertaining game nonetheless - i for one am not bothered at all with the player anims being somewhat silly in the heat of battle. Things that do bother me for instance is the crappy shotgun reload skipping anims ( also because thats my fault - but on my todo list )

Someone wrote: (or does the JN give ammo? heh).

heh, this isn't a bad idea perhaps

Also, I'm glad you can also see past the animations and weapon animations. To me personally, after working so hard to get these as they look now in game and looking the way they do I'm more than happy with them. I know they aren't the best, but if you know the amount of work it takes to get them working and resources it takes you'll understand it's not easy to get it done properly. This made harder by the fact that I'm no animator, neither is Keats, and we haven't had help from an animator in over 2 or 3 years? So we did as best as we could to get the current weapons in game and looking ok. I don't think they take away from the actual game play.

You made some good feedback, I don't agree with the vehicles though. Once you play Undersiege you'll like to drive from point A to B because of the huge walking distance between. Also, vehicles can be used to break through enemy defense lines. For instance when you attack the final base in Styx (an enclosed parking lot with only one way in and out), you can use a vehicle to drive past the enemy lines and step out and attack them from behind as well now, breaking their defense and enabling you to kill their JN and capture the last spawn point. When vehicles are used improperly I'm sure they might feel unneeded, but I think they are needed for sure. Depending on the game play situation at hand.

I played some more. Prepareth for my day 2 game report!
I still stand by everything mentioned in my original post right now.

The vehicles
I know the area you are talking about Wesley and I can see how the vehicles can play a part. But I don't think they fit in with the gameplay pacing at all. It feels a bit like Garrys mod when someone jumps into one of the vehicles and just blasts around randomly. And it's very hard to shoot the passengers. I disagree with you on this one!

The HUD
You need HUD icons for the capture points and for the juggernaut. Since everything revolves around the juggernaut you can't have a match brought to a stalemate by not finding him (he should be displayed for both friends and enemies). Once he's killed, you should display the point available for capture on your HUD (transperent icon visible through walls).

You also need in-game hints of what to do like "Capture the points! Hunt down the enemy juggernaut to unlock new control points for capture! Protect your own juggernaut." when the round starts. You've seen how many people need to ask online how you capture points ("omg I am blocked by this solid red/blue-coloured wall, how do I cap"?). A message that is triggered when near a locked cap point that displays "This capture point is currently locked. You need to kill the enemy Juggernaut to unlock enemy capture points!" would help players by quite a bit (they'll go "aaaah okay let's kill that son-of-a-bitch!").

Balancing
As you know, shotguns are just terrible
In all seriousness I feel some weapons are just 100% better then the others. The SMG's don't really fit a role and you are basically best off just getting an assault rifle. The juggernaut minigun needs some form of buff as well.

Summary
You have the maps in place. You have the solid mechanics there. You have assets like weapons, characters etc ready.
You need to smooth out the bumps in the gameplay/presentation to really allow the game to reach it's potential.

Oh and by the way. I know you're going to hate me for this but... I think minimaps should ONLY display playable area. It would help navigation immensely.

Edited by: puddpuddpudd

Someone wrote: Summary
You have the maps in place. You have the solid mechanics there. You have assets like weapons, characters etc ready.
You need to smooth out the bumps in the gameplay/presentation to really allow the game to reach it's potential.

Hence the beta
The hint stuff you mention and the weapon balancing I totally agree, but that's all up to keats
I'm sure he'll be playing it as well tonight or tomorrow and make his own notations.

Minimap does only show the playable areas, but perhaps the border isn't enough, maybe I need to make the outside areas red or something... I think adding 3D icons on spawnpoints will already fix the minimap issue anyway

The outside areas are distracting. Putting a red overlay or just making the background more transperent would help.

What I meant by the final comment is that all the stuff I mentioned first don't need any real re-working. A lot of people are complaining about those things because it's easy to spot that, for example, some of the anims aren't perfect. People are far less inclined to stress the importance of the gameplay pacing, balancing etc. Which are the areas I think you should focus on.

I've just wrapped up work on my own mod and I know how useful player feedback was for me so I hope you find my rantings useful

Edited by: puddpuddpudd

I mostly agree from my first impressions also.

I think the weapon balance needs to be looked over a bit. The damage should be tweaked a little though, I feel no need to take cover or get to a better position when I am facing anyone other than a juggernaut.

I think the vehicles are fine, don't need anything TOO easy to handle or else everyone in a car would have an extreme advantage over people who aren't in cars
Also, are enemies suppose to be able to get in the car with someone from the opposite team? Because I was quite surprised that some enemies confused me for being on their team and hopping in my car.

I believe there should be icons for the for the capture points also for the hud. These maps are big and anyone can easily get lost.

The maps are greatly detailed and look really nice. I too cannot comment on how well they fit for gameplay situations as I have not played enough.
I much rather believe that pointing out gameplay problems is easier than textures and modeling problems. Who cares what the guns or models look like if the game mechanics can't make them seem real or playable enough.

Someone wrote: Also, are enemies suppose to be able to get in the car with someone from the opposite team? Because I was quite surprised that some enemies confused me for being on their team and hopping in my car.

Yes, that is correct. I thought I had this in my guide, but I didn't. Going to add it now.

There is still always the guide you could look into and learn everything the game has to offer in 5 to 10 min It's also linked in game and opens in game so you don't even have to get out of it to read or check up on the guide! It's in the team selection menu under Auto team and spectate, named... Guide !

Moddb.com

But we will look into the whole indicator stuff and make vehicles stand out more that are drivable. There have been some good feedback on this already.