As an FPS enthusiast, it’s nice to hear more discussion about Star Marine and things like capital ship boarding. They also addressed directly the issues with AC/SM servers and that they have a few critical issues to address to improve their performance.
The most exciting thing from this for me was the discussion around the possibility of using the experimental modes in AC/SM for a capital-ship boarding mode! It’s great to seem them finally realizing the power of these modes and moving towards doing something with them.
I know these episodes are long, so I wrote up some annotations:
Attending this SC Live Session:
Sean Tracy - Sr Director of Tools and Tech Content
Duncan Buntin - Lead Gameplay Programer, Arena Commander Feature Team
Questions:
CIG always had plans to bring back online lobbies, but the feature continued to be pushed. After help from the new Turbulent teams, private lobbies are coming back in 3.20 as a feature called Custom Lobbies. Custom Lobbies will be more robust and have more options than anything private lobbies had.
Yes, custom lobbies will support this.
Rankings are being reworked to get rid of the current exploits. CIG is focused on using this system to help with matchmaking. No specific details atm.
New Specturm badges will be coming for game modes. CIG wants to drive progression through rewards via ranking and for things like winning a match (of tank royal, for instance).
Yes.
Eventually.
Probably not until after medical mechanics are complete for SQ42.
Yes? They said that they know there are issues but there wasn’t really anything concrete in their response.
Sean and Chris really want this. There are issues blocking it right now (probably whatever killed ToW). Experimental modes are the first step towards this.
No, they will only use existing assets. This is to keep the AC/SM small and not duplicate effort. Level design people will be busy on other things, but those things could be integrated later into AC/SM.
Sometime after 3.20, they would like to add AI to experimental modes. The Good Docter was designed specifically to be a PvE survival mode, but AI was not ready yet.
AC/SM are both for focus testing and for integration into the PU as standalone game modes. This has always been how they are intended and described. Sean acknowledged seal clubbing in AC :D
CIG is focused on making other modes besides battle royal better. Squadron battle and duel modes should help resolve this problem. Battle royal will always be the competitive mode.
Duncan has seen these requests from competitive orgs. They would like 2v2 and 3v3 modes.
Sean wants this. Being able to jump into AC during quantum jumps would be a perfect example of this and they would love this. There are obvious tech challenges so there’s no real plans here. Sean wants the sim pods to work.
Limits will be different depending on game modes.
They could maybe.
Different types of gameplay should be expanded to AC (mining, salvaging, etc). No solid plans.
A lot of talk about what they want, but nothing solid.
There will be a map in 3.20 where you can go down to the planet (Winter Circle, which is an atmospheric flight map. This is a brand new planet that the AC team worked with the Planet team on).
Some random discussion about Master Modes and working with Evocati on the Experimental Modes here.
CIG is working on a system called Maelstrom that controls destructable objects.
Dujncan: Something like an infection mode. Asymetric teams where 1 person or a small team of people have much more powerful equipment that the rest of the lobby.
Sean: Theaters of War :D and asymetrical teams.
Sean: we want to deploy ToW as an experimental mode. Performance issues are still blocking it and player count may start with only 20 players.
Thanks for typing these up. I don’t always have an hour to spend watching dev chats that may or may not have anything good in them.
No problem. I watched it on 2x speed 😄