So as you may or may not have heard, I have put all current projects on hold, and revived the game mode. I have worked all night on it, doing a lot of the stuff I've been meaning to do for quite some time, and have fixed a lot of the issues that were holding back some of the progress.
I figure it's due for an update, to let you guys know a few more things about the gamemode, and some of the changes being made behind the scenes. Also to let you know how much is left before the first beta. First off, let me start by explaining what this is.
Realms is a gamemode I started work on a few years back. It started out with ONE simple idea: A way to play and progress through FRG without needing to play TTT.
Realms is NOT a MMORPG. Realms is much more modest in what its trying to achieve. I want to make a smaller PvE focused gamemode, that you can play with or without others, at any time and chose your own goals, with its own separate player progression, and its own unique loot and traits. The ultimate goal in the gamemode is to level up your player, put stat points into abilities that enhance your player, so that you can take on tougher enemies, and hunt for rare/unique loot. You can bring your weapons into it, anything you obtain anywhere else is allowed, however, your damage is subject to modifiers which are applied based on your players stats (or gear as well). I'll explain more about that later on.
Okay now that that is out of the way, let's talk about some of the things I have been working on, on and off, since the last devblog/update.
First off, I have revamped a lot of my original Player Stat plans, and finished implementing a few of them last night. Let's go into detail about some of these.
Let me first explain damage: Damage in Realms is not 1:1 your weapons damage, like you are used to. There are numerous modifiers applied to it to scale it in more interesting/RPG-esque ways, including RNG chances at 'crit' hits, which increase your damage dealt quite a bit for that shot. Since the last update, I've completely removed the possibility to proc 0's based on the enemies defense stat. Instead, the enemies defense stat is used to apply a damage dampener proc upon your incoming damage. The higher their defense, the more likely your damage dealt to them will be dampened a bit. The amount its dampened is currently determined between your level, their level, your str + dex, and their defense.
Lets talk about 2 of the stats:
Now say I take a normal eerie galil into realms to fight an enemy, right now:
As you can see, I don't really do too much damage. my damage range is 1.9 - 5.2 (oh yeah, Damage does not round in realms!), however, now lets make my strength 100:
As you can see, I absolutely shred it with 100 strength, however, my damage varies quite wildly. You can see some 4's, 8's then some much larger numbers.
Now lets see what happens if I decrease my strength to 50, and increase my dexterity as well:
Much more consistent.
You can build your player to play how you'd like. If you'd like to be a super hard hitting dude and rely on huge crits, you can min/max your stats and gear to do everything to maximize your highest possible hit.
If you'd rather be more consistent, but lose out on those harder hits, you can do a mix between.
If you want it all, you can attempt to find armor sets or realms specific traits that increase the strength/dexterity of your player while equipped!
Another thing I improved upon dramatically is the 3rd person mode's accuracy. It is now PERFECTLY accurate and your shots will meet where you're aiming pretty much every time.
The first iteration of the system suffered from inaccuracy due to differences in perspective between where you're looking in 3rd person, and where your player is actually looking/what they can actually see.
As you see here (yellow = player trace, green = 3rd person view trace), it was easy to get completely misaligned due to perspective differences. This caused me a lot of frustration. The original method just did a trace from the 3rd person view, and made the player face towards the position that trace hit. It worked sometimes, but other times you'd hit a tree when you were trying to aim behind it.
So then I tried moving the 3rd person camera over a bit to more align with the player:
This worked rather well, only a few very small issues with it not aligning, however the player took up way too much of the screen here, so that was also no good.
Then I started thinking, source engine fires bullets from players eyes then covers it up by using effects to shoot a particle from your weapon, to the location where your hit-scan bullet hit. I thought I'd try the same thing and finally I arrived to this solution:
As you see here, my shots are always going to where my crosshair is pointing.
The way I achieved this is basically: fake it 'till you make it. It actually adjusts your players shoot position to shoot from the 3rd person crosshair, rather than your player models Eye position, then it just fires a tracer from your weapon model to the location the bullet shot from your 3d perspective hit. It works like a charm, and you never feel like you're hitting a tree or something else when you're not supposed to.
I'll finish off this devblog with a few Frequently asked questions:
That's all for now guys, I know it's not diving too much into specifics, but I figured some of you may be interested to know at least some things that are going on behind the scenes.
I have a few more things to finish revamping, then I'm going to focus on adding enemies and uniques. Depending on if I run into any snags, or try to implement the instancing feature, and as long as nothing else comes up, the beta will happen sometime after that.
I figure it's due for an update, to let you guys know a few more things about the gamemode, and some of the changes being made behind the scenes. Also to let you know how much is left before the first beta. First off, let me start by explaining what this is.
Realms is a gamemode I started work on a few years back. It started out with ONE simple idea: A way to play and progress through FRG without needing to play TTT.
Realms is NOT a MMORPG. Realms is much more modest in what its trying to achieve. I want to make a smaller PvE focused gamemode, that you can play with or without others, at any time and chose your own goals, with its own separate player progression, and its own unique loot and traits. The ultimate goal in the gamemode is to level up your player, put stat points into abilities that enhance your player, so that you can take on tougher enemies, and hunt for rare/unique loot. You can bring your weapons into it, anything you obtain anywhere else is allowed, however, your damage is subject to modifiers which are applied based on your players stats (or gear as well). I'll explain more about that later on.
Okay now that that is out of the way, let's talk about some of the things I have been working on, on and off, since the last devblog/update.
First off, I have revamped a lot of my original Player Stat plans, and finished implementing a few of them last night. Let's go into detail about some of these.
Let me first explain damage: Damage in Realms is not 1:1 your weapons damage, like you are used to. There are numerous modifiers applied to it to scale it in more interesting/RPG-esque ways, including RNG chances at 'crit' hits, which increase your damage dealt quite a bit for that shot. Since the last update, I've completely removed the possibility to proc 0's based on the enemies defense stat. Instead, the enemies defense stat is used to apply a damage dampener proc upon your incoming damage. The higher their defense, the more likely your damage dealt to them will be dampened a bit. The amount its dampened is currently determined between your level, their level, your str + dex, and their defense.
Lets talk about 2 of the stats:
- Strength.
- This stat defines your maximum damage, relative to the weapon you're using. Note that it can exceed your weapons base damage! The higher you make this stat, the harder you can hit, but the more your damage will vary on average. This also affects your crit damage in a non 1:1 ratio, meaning more strength = higher crit damage multiplier ON TOP of already doing more crit damage because of higher hits, but that is subject to change.
- This stat defines your maximum damage, relative to the weapon you're using. Note that it can exceed your weapons base damage! The higher you make this stat, the harder you can hit, but the more your damage will vary on average. This also affects your crit damage in a non 1:1 ratio, meaning more strength = higher crit damage multiplier ON TOP of already doing more crit damage because of higher hits, but that is subject to change.
- Dexterity.
- This stat defines your minimum damage, relative to the weapon you're using. If you raise this too high above your strength, it becomes your new max damage, and your strength becomes your minimum. Increasing this stat makes your damage more consistent.
- This stat defines your minimum damage, relative to the weapon you're using. If you raise this too high above your strength, it becomes your new max damage, and your strength becomes your minimum. Increasing this stat makes your damage more consistent.
Now say I take a normal eerie galil into realms to fight an enemy, right now:
As you can see, I don't really do too much damage. my damage range is 1.9 - 5.2 (oh yeah, Damage does not round in realms!), however, now lets make my strength 100:
As you can see, I absolutely shred it with 100 strength, however, my damage varies quite wildly. You can see some 4's, 8's then some much larger numbers.
Now lets see what happens if I decrease my strength to 50, and increase my dexterity as well:
Much more consistent.
You can build your player to play how you'd like. If you'd like to be a super hard hitting dude and rely on huge crits, you can min/max your stats and gear to do everything to maximize your highest possible hit.
If you'd rather be more consistent, but lose out on those harder hits, you can do a mix between.
If you want it all, you can attempt to find armor sets or realms specific traits that increase the strength/dexterity of your player while equipped!
Another thing I improved upon dramatically is the 3rd person mode's accuracy. It is now PERFECTLY accurate and your shots will meet where you're aiming pretty much every time.
The first iteration of the system suffered from inaccuracy due to differences in perspective between where you're looking in 3rd person, and where your player is actually looking/what they can actually see.
As you see here (yellow = player trace, green = 3rd person view trace), it was easy to get completely misaligned due to perspective differences. This caused me a lot of frustration. The original method just did a trace from the 3rd person view, and made the player face towards the position that trace hit. It worked sometimes, but other times you'd hit a tree when you were trying to aim behind it.
So then I tried moving the 3rd person camera over a bit to more align with the player:
This worked rather well, only a few very small issues with it not aligning, however the player took up way too much of the screen here, so that was also no good.
Then I started thinking, source engine fires bullets from players eyes then covers it up by using effects to shoot a particle from your weapon, to the location where your hit-scan bullet hit. I thought I'd try the same thing and finally I arrived to this solution:
As you see here, my shots are always going to where my crosshair is pointing.
The way I achieved this is basically: fake it 'till you make it. It actually adjusts your players shoot position to shoot from the 3rd person crosshair, rather than your player models Eye position, then it just fires a tracer from your weapon model to the location the bullet shot from your 3d perspective hit. It works like a charm, and you never feel like you're hitting a tree or something else when you're not supposed to.
I'll finish off this devblog with a few Frequently asked questions:
- Does Realms have its own currency or Inventory system?
Realms does have its own currency. Your current inventory and coins will be useful there too, but realms will have a variety of exclusive items that can only be used on the game mode (such as Armor sets) - How many players will Realms support?
I'm looking at 32 players per server, with multiple servers. I may be looking into porting my 'realm' system from IoD (instancing) and applying 'channels' to realms so the map isn't too over populated. - Is there anything else to do besides kill stuff?
Currently, it's all about killing enemies, leveling up your player, and hunting rare realms unique loot (such as sick armor sets). - Can I use any playermodel on realms?
No. Realms has its own specific playermodel, thus coinshop accessories are also disabled on the game mode (armor sets would look super weird with tons of accessories every where). - Will there be any bosses?
Yes! There will be 'world bosses' that have a chance to spawn each time you kill an enemy. These wont have crazy mechanics, and will mostly pretty simple due to the fact they can pop up almost anywhere, and wont have a specific arena designed for them though, but they will have unique loot only they can drop, so they are worth killing. I also Currently have plans for one world dungeon, which I don't want to disclose too much about, but I'd love for there to be more. They could even be seperate-server type events like IoD, but with more people. - When is the beta, and is it closed or open?
I don't have a date yet, I have projects on hold for this, it all depends on if I run into anymore roadblocks or demotivate. But you guys help keep me motivated with how much you are looking forward to this. However, it's also quite nerve racking because there's a lot of hype that has been built up for this, and I don't want to disappoint. I have a feeling a lot of you are thinking this is some huge open world MMORPG type gamemode, but it's not. That is simply not practical to do in GMOD, way too many limitations, so lets try and keep our expectations modest!
Oh also, it will be a closed beta for the start of it, just so I can make sure everything functions as intended, and get good feedback before unleashing it to the full community. You only get one first impression, and a lot of times that means a lot when it comes to games. I am hoping to use feedback gathered from a closed beta to much improve upon my ideas, and hear what you guys think of everything in general. - Will there be quests or anything?
The first thing I will be implementing in terms of 'quests' or 'tasks' is akin to runescapes "Slayer". You will talk to an NPC on the lobby (or maybe within realms), and they will assign you a random amount of a certain monster to kill. Completing it could grant you some points to spend on something from them (TBD) and some bonus XP possibly.
That's all for now guys, I know it's not diving too much into specifics, but I figured some of you may be interested to know at least some things that are going on behind the scenes.
I have a few more things to finish revamping, then I'm going to focus on adding enemies and uniques. Depending on if I run into any snags, or try to implement the instancing feature, and as long as nothing else comes up, the beta will happen sometime after that.
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