You might be wondering what we are doing here, and why there hasn't been much updated on the website. Well, the simple answer is, we have been working on Distant Hope so much, that the website content, and updates got pushed into the background.
We will start to post updates more often, to keep you guy's updated of the progress.
Capture Areas
We have added basic capture area's to the map. The capture points will play a big part of the gameplay of Distant Hope. The current logic of the capture area is this:
- Each capture point will have a progress value with a range of 0.0 to 100.0, or more to make the capture take longer
- The progress value of 100.0 is the point at which the capture point would be taken over and would turn neutral. Capture strength (for defender and attacker): a multiplier used against the number of players on a particular team that are on the capture point
- Every 0.1 seconds or so, the "progress value" of the capture point will be increased or decreased depending on the situation
- The more player's of the attacking team, the faster you will capture it
- The more defender's on the area, the harder it will be to capture.
Example:
Attackers have 5 players, defenders have 2
Capture strength of attackers is 1.0, and for defenders 1.5
Think (occur every 0.1 seconds):
- Calculate the capture strength of each team by multiplying the capture strength by the number of players, so 5.0 for attackers and 3.0 for defenders.
- Subtract attacker's strength by defenders, so 5.0 - 3.0 = 2.0, and then add this value to the "progress value" of the capture point.
- If the defenders had 4 players, it would actually favor the defenders and decrease the progress value (5.0 - 6.0 = -1.0).
- This example might be ideal for a capture point that is more valuable than a normal capture point: more difficult to attack and easier to defend.
Stamina
We have added a basic stamina system. All player's will have a stamina value (which will be different, depending on the player class used). Actions like sprinting and jumping will reduce the player stamina. As with the max stamina value, the amount of stamina that is decuted for each action will be determined by the class, and loadout. For example, if you are a heavy assault, then jumping would require more stamina than a sniper (No classes have been decided yet).
Having a system like this will make the game more ballanced so where one class may have an advantage over another in one are, there will always be drawbacks in another area.
First Map
Xanthi has been hard at work, working on his map for Distant Hope. Here are a few teasers of the progress
Remember to head over to our forums if you have any questions, ideas, or are interested in helping out. Click Here for the forum.
Information and mechanics are likely to change later on in development. If you have any suggestions or ideas about the capture area, or stamina logic, head over to our forums
ah I like it.
So with the capture point system it differs to Battlefield in that, the more players you have on the point, the faster or harder it will be to capture - but you don't need all players on the point be only the one team - the rate depends on the number of players from each team at the capture point; nor do you need to eliminate the other team on the point to initiate a capture or facilitate a defense - just have more players at the point.
Based on those capture strengths.. The goals for defenders then, would be to stay alive moreso than eliminate the attacking team (though of course it helps), and the goal of the attacking team would be to eliminate the defending team.
Can/will different capture points have different capture strengths for the Attackers and Defenders? eg. could there be a capture point that favours the attackers, or one that is equal? - oh, you've already answered this in the example.
Will there be neutral points, and if so, how will captures be 'counted', as there are no attackers or defenders? Going on from that, will there even be neutral captures a la battlefield/day of defeat - ie. you have to neutralise the capture points, *then* capture it for your team - or will it just be team A or team B holds the point?
I'm kind of sceptical about a stamina system, but alright I guess. I'm used to it from other games.
'love the bridge btw.
keep up the good work :) i'm looking forward to this.
We have a few things we're discussing/toying with involving things along the idea of a 'virtual player' basically a non-existant player on a defending point (closer to 1 team's spawn or maybe not, not sure yet), that has no effect unless the point is actually "active" (capturer on i) if you will, however this may or may not make it into the final product...this would create things along the lines of "minimum players to capture" as well as a faster "recapture" to makes battles last longer as well as make conflicts more fierce...but, as stated, this is still under discussion and has yet to have any form of implementation.
The stamina system is a lesser of two evils in our opinion, we want to go for a realism aspect and keep the game fun, but honestly, in a game like this, things along the lines of bunny hopping are really really really annoying (if you remember playing the classic HL1 mod firearms before there was a decent stamina system you know exactly what I'm talking about). And personally I was always a skeptic about stamina myself, but sometimes it just 'fits'...we're going to try for some things involving stamina that are slightly different than what most people are use to seeing though...can't give details on that yet though because, well, it involves other specifics that we still need to clear up from within.
Specifics on scoring have yet to be implemented, but as we are certain of some aspects of gameplay mechanics we can implement them. This is why the info on capture points has been released. Once we have scoring down we'll release info. And on the topic of capture points, what you pointed out is exactly what we're shooting for, we don't want "1 person can block" setups...we feel that gets annoying in many of the games we play with setups like that (dods, tf2, etc), an "even match" block we feel would be more fitting to the environment as well as keep the game at a bit of a faster pace and still create a strategy and keep it fun. Fun is important.
Also, the map work is from Xanthi, the mapper who made ins_sinjar for Insurgency, the Bridge in the map is the Brooklyn Bridge from New York City. Though obviously as you can see it still needs some texture work done to make it more fitting to the environment. But, as with the whole mod in general, it's a work in progress.
Yes, in regards to not allowing one player to block a capture, we feel this will encourage teamwork. Meaning, say you have 2 people on the capture area, and the other team has 3. You could shout over the voice comms that you need some help, then someone else from the team can break away from whatever they are doing, and help with that specific capture.
We are trying to avoid a basic strategy for teams, where they can just capture point A, then move onto B (or something). But the way that the capture area's will be setup, will mean, that the team has no idea what point the other team is going to capture first. This will encourage the team to be spread over the map, to defend key points in the map, rather than everyone hanging around one or two capture areas.