Greetings Earthbreakers fans! Previously we talked about how much feedback we received from the Steam Fest demo, and talked a little bit about where that feedback fell with respect to the game. This time, we thought you might like to hear about what we're actually DOING with that feedback.
Game development is an iterative process. For Earthbreakers, we break the design into sections and then try to layer in systems as we go. For example, the demo had base-building and classes, but it wasn't the full experience we know we want to end up with at launch. Going forward, we are breaking down the game into three basic sections: the base, the classes, and depth. Bases revolve around anything to do with base building and all of the things base building controls like the flow of power progression and tech. Classes include everything class and combat-related, including new abilities, alternate fire modes for weapons, upgrades, etc. Depth includes adding layers on top of the previous two sections - upgrades for base structures and turrets, branching upgrade paths for classes, new vehicles, capture points, map design, etc.
(inside our work-in-progress monochrome 3D model Tech Center)
Today we will talk about the first of those sections: base building. We wanted to add in the WHOLE base, not just half of it. We don't need to have all of the structures fully functional, but we did need them in place such that they could be built and destroyed and had the correct basic functionality. This also includes breaking the build order and tech tree up into the real version we envisioned, where the barracks controls infantry classes, the factory controls vehicles and the tech building controls team upgrades and features.
Of course this means that our demo map needed to be expanded. One of the issues with base layout is travel time; since (for example) engineers tend to quickly move between structures to keep them healthy, we needed to look at how long it takes to get from structure to structure. Tied to this was another feedback item we are working on - movement speeds. It was pretty much universally stated in feedback that our movement was too fast. We like having a more arcade-y feeling game, but at the same time we don't want it so fast that players have difficulty using their weapons. Because of this change, travel times on maps went up, so structures needed to be closer together to make sure engineers can defend and players don't have to run too far for their upgrades.
(An early look at a couple new placeholder structures to test gameplay)
Part of base building is economy. A lot of feedback referred to the difficulty of paying for some upgrades and rebuilding structures. While we want losing a structure to be a major blow to a base, we don't want the rebuilding process to be frustrating. Fortunately, some of those high prices were a placeholder balance-wise to keep the progression at a steady pace within the limited content we had for the demo. Now that different structures handle different upgrades and there are more buildings to build, we don't have to lock things economically to compensate for time. Structure rebuilding will use the same donation system you use when building structures the first time, and many of the upgrades have been drastically reduced in price.
All of this, of course, ties into the other two sections (class and depth) to some extent - no part of a game exists in a vacuum, and pulling one lever can move something you never intended. But we'll save more in depth coverage of the classes and depth for a later date :)