Sneaking Now & Future Improvements
We finally have started working on sneaking. Sneaking is something we have wanted for quite a while, but we really didn't know how we were going to put it in Northern Regime. Since there is reputation in the game and how some enemies won't attack unless you have poor reputation or if you have a weapon out.
Here are the basics of the sneaking system.
- Enemies have a field of vision of 90 degrees on the Y and X axis. If you enter that area and you are near enough they will notice you and begin watching. If your reputation is poor or if you have a weapon out they will begin attacking.
- If one enemy of the specific camp you are near attacks you, he will also let his fellow camp members know, and they will all start attacking
- We have introduced silenced weapons, such as old rifles and some pistols. Because we don't have melee weapons sneaking wouldn't make sense otherwise, unless you were just attempting to steal resources. We don't have silenced rifles clips yet so we just turned down the rifle volume and increased the pitch to sound less threatening.
Some things we want to add to make the experience more realistic and challenging
- Enemies triggered by noise, such as opening chests, walking to close, or mining materials nearby. We would also like to take in account the speed and sound of wind to diffuse certain situations.
- Enemies as of now do not wander or patrol their area. This would help make sneaking into camps harder, more strategic, and an increase in realism.
- There is definitely a lot we can do with this new implementation, so if you have any ideas please feel free to comment on this post!
Enemy Fortress'
Enemy camps haven't been what we originally imagined them as. We didn't notice it either. Camps have consisted of around 4 tents, a couple resources, and 3-4 enemies total. That was really it. It wasn't immersive, exciting, fun, or realistic. It just didn't seem right. Here are some things we added to make it a lot better.
- Full-scale fencing or some fencing to guard the perimeter.
- Guard towers to give enemies increased visual distance, as well as an easy identifier for the player notice camps before it's too late.
- Loot chests you can take after defeating the camp unless you sneak passed the soldiers. These chests contain mostly all resources including ammo.
- Created blueprints for camps the player can trade resources to get, from other camps or tribes. This will make it easier to deceive your target or to sneak in more efficiently.
- The layout is larger in general and more spread out to a bigger degree. Camps before were very compressed, it made it feel far too fake.
- We have added much more foliage, rocks, and trees. This makes the camp dense and harder to identify. It also makes gun fights more challenging as it is harder to spot the area where an enemy may be attacking from.
This are some basic additions that do really make it a better and challenging. We are going to continue adding to this. We want raiding to be a big part of gameplay, and as now it is still now where we want it to be.
Things we would like to add
- More structures like tree blinds the enemies can hide in and surprise the player.
- Enemy traps like holes in the ground near entrances that the player could fall in.
- Possible camp allies that would come to their aid if in serious trouble.
- Camp scouts. They would patrol larger areas around the camps radious to be on the look out for possible threats. They would alert the camp if you were to be spotted.
- Camp bounty hunters. These men would be paid to hunt you down after you have attacked their camp, poor reputation or not.