Some news on dogfighting gameplay
MS – The biggest thing recently has been the physically based damage system, and everything that encompases. When we get this set up, it’s going to be a big sweeping balance pass across the games. If we’re changing weapons, we have to change ship health. If we’re doing that we have to change shields, power, coolers, we have to update everything to bring in line, but it’s also such a huge sweeping change that we really start to get time to kill numbers, which are a bit low right now, we can start getting those up to a better place in this one big pass, so it’s really just exciting for how it’s going to help shape the game in the coming months.
JP – So, you change one variable, it creates this cascading effect, does that mean you have to involve other people in the process?
MS – Not, well, for what we’re doing at this point, it’s definitely a big cascade thing, but the other big goal is to build it up so in the future, once this is out, it won’t be that much of a ripple, we’ll be able to change things a bit more compartmentalized than having to do this big broad sweep.
JP – trying to do some of the heavy lifting up front so you can do the lighter load later.
MS – Exactly.
JP – You’re also one of the people we go to when we have a balance update, or a balance question. Do you want to go into where you see the game at now and where you’re trying to get it to?
MS – Absolutely. Right now we’re a little too fast. Two seconds on a target, and you can just bring them down just tons of missiles, you can bring someone down a bit fast, so we definitely need to grow that time. Ideally somewhere in a 15-20 second range, maybe a little more. It shouldn’t be a minutes long fight on a 1v1, but it shouldn’t be a blink and you’re dead moment either. It should be something where, you need some time on the target, and you really get to feel like you’re maneuvering well, you’re targetting well, to keep your weapons on that target, as opposed to the just killed them instantly. So, that’s going to be one of the biggest things the new damage update’s going to bring, is going to stretch that time out a bit more and make it feel weighty.
JP – When you think about balance, is it this long process you have in your head of incremental changes that are happening almost constantly, or is it big chunks of changes? Like, we’ll do a lot of things on this day, then this day, or is it kinda…
MS – So, the goal is to be incremental. Right now, especially the system we have to do a big chunk where, the best way to describe balance is a pendulum. You pull it back, so right now we’re pulling the ball back and getting ready to let it go. Even once we release it, it’s going to be swinging back and forth until it settles down into that nice middle ground. It’ll never settle down, it’ll never come to a stop, but the range, and how far off that balance is is going to get dialed in more and more as the project goes on.
JP – Thank you so much for coming on man, thank you for taking the time to come down here and talk to the backers, and, well, back to you guys!:
