Hello Riftbreakers!
This week, we will expand on one of the topics we covered in our last Co-Op Status Update articles. More specifically, we will discuss the mechanics of a player’s avatar’s death in multiplayer. For the past couple of weeks, we have debated over this feature and what we can do to make it more meaningful in the multiplayer context. In the latest build of the Multiplayer Beta, we have introduced meaningful changes to this gameplay aspect. This article will explain what’s changing, our reasoning behind the changes, and the goals we’re trying to reach. Enjoy!
Up until now, "dying" in multiplayer worked exactly like in single-player, with the exception of not losing any weapons (due to technical reasons).
The Riftbreaker was never supposed to be a highly-punishing game. While it is true that the enemy attacks can get overwhelming and the player might have to fight very hard to defend their base, we don’t punish the player for failure. At least - not severely. When a player’s health drops to zero, the mech explodes with a high-damage blast that covers a large radius. After a few seconds, the mech is reconstructed and returned to the HQ at full health. You are free to get back into the fight almost immediately. If you play on normal difficulty and above, you only lose one weapon, which you can later pick up. This is precisely what we were aiming for. We want to keep you engaged and give you the tools to fight back.
This led to players developing a sel-sacrifice strat, as it allowed them to get more DPS.
When we started testing multiplayer, however, some problems began to surface. At the beginning of the survival run, the players are quite underpowered compared to the creatures they fight, especially on the higher difficulty levels. This led some players to the adoption of the ‘self-sacrifice’ strategy, where dying and exploding next to the most powerful creatures in the wave often resulted in a higher DPS output than any of the basic weapons could provide. This strategy, while effective, was not the intended gameplay and led to some imbalance in the multiplayer mode. We didn’t want to take away the death explosion. That would feel like slapping our players on the wrist for not playing the way we intended. We didn’t like that and had to figure out a solution - preferably one that would reward players for staying alive rather than punishing them for dying.
We decided that encouraging players to stay alive, rather than introducing punishments for dying was the way forward.
We put our thinking caps on and got to work. We knew we wanted to center our new ‘death’ mechanics around reviving fallen players and started experimenting. When the player’s health reaches zero, their mech enters a new, temporary “deactivated” state, accompanied by a small explosion. This state serves as a window for other players to come to the rescue, allowing for a more strategic and cooperative gameplay experience. The mech can stay up to 30 seconds in that state. During this time, any player can walk up to the deactivated mech (or teleport to it; your avatar is a permanent rift portal even when you’re down), press “interact,” and pick you up. If you do not want to wait 30 seconds, hold the interact button to speed the timer up. Once the time limit is reached, the mech explodes with the well-known self-destruction blast and gets sent back to the HQ.
We utilized some of the mechanics that we developed for the Multiplayer Deathmath test a couple of months ago. It was a good starting point for the system we currently have in place.
We immediately found a couple of sore spots when testing this solution out. First, when players get to zero HP in The Riftbreaker, they are likely surrounded by an army of aggressive and powerful creatures. Other players had a lot of difficulty reaching their downed comrades. Moreover, the reactivation took a couple of seconds in the first version of this system. During that time, the player helping their friend was essentially defenseless. More often than not, we ended up with two mechs down instead of both players surviving the ordeal.
Reactivating a fallen mech takes only a fraction of a second and grants you temporary invincibility. Thanks to this, you can jump in and out of the battle zone with your buddy in one piece.
The first thing we changed was the reactivation time. Instead of making the player wait a couple of seconds with the “interact” button held, we decided that the process should be almost instant. After all, you’ve already done the hard part—actually getting to your buddy’s wreckage. Additionally, we decided to give a temporary boost to both players involved. After successfully rescuing a teammate, both of you get 5 seconds of invincibility and a 200% damage boost to get out of the danger zone safely. With these changes, we saw that players were more eager to help their fallen friends without fear of risking their own skin.
When you get picked up by your co-op partner, you both get a temporary 200% damage boost. Take revenge on those who wronged you!
Since players can now pick each other up and speed up the destruction timer to use the death explosion more strategically to prevent the abuse of death mechanics, it is the right time to bring back weapon dropping. For the past couple of months, this feature has been disabled in multiplayer for technical reasons. Our tech problems have been solved, and the new death mechanics prompted us to reactivate it in multiplayer once more. The weapon they dropped is visible to all players, but only the owner can pick it up. The lost weapon is gathered automatically when you touch it with your mech and is automatically re-equipped in the slot from which you dropped it.
When your own mech is inactive, you can spectate other players. We are thinking about adding the spectator mode as a standalone option - you would be able to watch others play without joining the session as a player.
The biggest issue we are currently fighting is the mech’s visibility in the deactivated state. We all know what the screen looks like during a battle in The Riftbreaker. It contains bodies, blood, explosions, and other particle effects. At the moment, it is tough to notice the wreckage of your teammate among all the carnage. We are trying to combat this by adding various icons, markers, and effects to distinguish the mech from the surrounding objects. However, at this point, it is still a bit difficult to notice, especially when your focus lies elsewhere.
Even when the mech is inactive, you can still teleport ot its location.
Remember, this is a collaborative process. Since this is the first time we have introduced this set of mechanics to the multiplayer mode, nothing is set in stone at this point. All the timers, buff values, and visuals are subject to change. We're eager to hear your thoughts and suggestions. The more issues we can identify at this early stage of testing, the better the game will be for all players when we finally reach the open beta and, eventually, the public release.
If you prefer it, here’s the TL;DR of the new death and resurrect mechanics in bullet points:
- When a player's HP drops to zero, and no other mechs participate in the game, the character blows up and is respawned in the HQ, just as usual.
- When a player's HP drops to zero and other mechs are present, the mech enters a 'disabled' state. The mech can spend up to 30 seconds in that state.
- During the 30-second countdown, other players can walk up to the downed mech and 'reactivate' it by pressing interact. The reactivation is almost instant.
- After reactivating a player, both mechs receive a "Reactivation Boost" - temporary double damage, health regen (up to 50% HP, more or less), and invulnerability for 5 seconds. These values are subject to change.
- The player can opt out of waiting to be reactivated. They can press and hold the spacebar to speed up the 30-second timer. After the timer expires, the mech blows up and reconstructs at the HQ.
- If a player is reactivated from the downed state, they don't lose any weapons.
- If a player is not reactivated in time, they will drop one equipped weapon.
- The dropped weapon is visible to all players but can only be picked up by the player who lost it. Upon pickup, the gun is automatically re-equipped.
- Players can enter all menu screens except the inventory screen in the downed state.
- When your mech is down, you can spectate other players participating in your session.
- The downed mech is marked on the minimap, and players can teleport to it anytime.
- These changes have been introduced to discourage the self-sacrifice strategy of dealing with bosses and increase player interaction during gameplay. This mechanic needs more work and careful consideration. Try playing around with it and see how you like it. We are open to making any necessary changes to make it feel good and natural.
And that’s about it! Let us know what you think about the new mechanics we’ve introduced. We’re open to all kinds of feedback. Tell us what other changes you think would make the co-op play a more sociable experience. We await your comments here and on our Discord at https://www.discord.gg/exorstudios. Also, don’t forget to sign up for our beta test by following the link below. More invites go out every week!
See you next time!
EXOR Studios