Hey guys,

While it's not my first priority, I've been working on a design doc for a Star Sonata battleground, which I think would be a lot of fun and provide a fun PvP outlet. It's still pretty rough, but I wanted to post it here to get feedback and suggestions. Thanks.

Star Sonata Battleground

Main Design Principles

• Instead of waiting to get a certain number of people for a battleground and then starting it, battlegrounds will start at set times every day (e.g. once per 12 hours), and be flexible in how many players participate, with a minimum of 1, and some maximum (40?) past which, it would just split people into multiple simultaneous battlegrounds.  In general, the more, the merrier!
• Battleground will be made up of multiple galaxies, each of which has multiple versions, so each battleground overall will be a random mix and match, giving a lot of variety.
• The main source of tension/decision making is between fighting and farming.  Players need to farm to get more powerful and to upgrade their central base, but they can also fight each other to disrupt the other side.
• All skills and outside possessions are ignored in the battleground.  In this battleground, everyone is equal at the start, more like a MOBA.  I think this will be easier to balance and make matches than if people bring in their crazy-OP set ups from the normal game.
• Farming for power increases is either communally beneficial in some cases, or harvesting very abundant resources in other cases so there is no fighting amongst teammates over farm.

Overview

On a fixed schedule, e.g. once per 12 hours, there will be a special battle in Star Sonata.  People can somehow sign up, and at the appointed time, everyone online with the battleground option checked will be transported to a special battleground instance where they will fight.  Each side has a user base, and when one of the user bases is destroyed, the other side wins.  The winning side gets tokens and also a battleground win, which will be displayed in the forums and a high score page.

Teams

Players will be put into two different squads, regardless of team or any pre existing squads.  The battleground can hold an arbitrary number of players, but probably if it's over some threshold, then multiple battlegrounds could be spawned.  The teams will be split based on past performance in the battleground.  Players will be ranked by a heuristic such as wins - losses/2, sorted, and then split.  It will then look for swaps to make the teams more fair.

Battleground Characteristics

• Player skills and classes will have no effect inside the battleground.
• Deaths and XP will not have any effect.
• Credits will not be dropped
• Glory and infamy will not be affected.
• Players will be given a ship, and that ship, its items, and drones, will not carry over outside the battleground.
• Certain items will have a "battleground" tag added to them.  While in the battleground items with a special battleground tag are always dropped when the ship they are on is killed.
• "Toss overboard" is permanently disabled in the battleground to prevent players from feeding one super-player on their team or from feeding the enemy team.
• Attacking allies will not be allowed.  (including tractoring?)
• Battlegrounds will track certain statistics, like damage done by player, kills, and deaths, which can be viewed in a stat dialog.

Galaxies

There will be five main galaxies arranged in a cross, with locked DG galaxies that are initially hidden leading from the bottom gal and spiraling around the outside in a circle.  On the left and right are the home galaxies of each side.  In the middle is the main area of conflict.  On the top is the asteroid mining galaxy.  On the bottom is the DG galaxy which leads to multiple levels.
                        / Mining gal | \
Home gal       --- Central gal ---  Home gal
                         \ |DG entrance gal /
|DG boss gal

Home Galaxies

The home Galaxy for each side is locked to only that side.  It has an AI base where people can dock to make upgrades that is also a towing station.  The AI base deals in Moosterium rather than credits.  It does not sell ships, only ship upgrades.  There are 3 wormholes leading out, which lead to the mining Galaxy, DG Galaxy, and central Galaxy.

Central Galaxy

The central Galaxy contains a user base for each side and several permanent drones.  There are gates to the two home galaxies and the mining and DG galaxies, and all four gates are very far from each other. (10k?).  Near the upper gate is a planetary system, and near the lower gate is a series of nebulas, a dark sun, and power up spawners.The user bases start out far away from each other, near the gates to their respective home Galaxy, but each base slowly moves toward the center.  Each base has 3 weapons for close range, medium range, and long range, that do a lot, a medium amount, and a small amount of damage.  The bases have super items that spawn temporary drones that move toward the enemy base.  The bases are immune to transference so that players can't AFK auto-heal their base.

Asteroid Galaxy

The asteroid Galaxy is Paxian themed and has a couple Pax NPC's that are invincible and shoot mining bullets.  It has a big asteroid belt that the players can mine for metal and Moosterium.  Metals are used for upgrading the players AI base in the center Galaxy, and Moosterium is used for upgrading ships in the home Galaxy AI base.  Some of the asteroids will spawn hostile pirate AI when they're blown up, and some will spawn power ups.

DG Galaxy

The DG Galaxy will be like a 2-level DG Galaxy.  The entrance gal has guards which lock the wormhole to the boss.  The number of guards will scale with the number of players in the battleground.  Here will be multiple boss levels that unlock in order after each wave of guards is cleared.  Each new wave of guards is triggered by the previous boss getting killed.Players on both sides can keep an eye on the number of guards and know when it's getting low, that the boss will be unlocked for everyone to fight over.

Mix and Match

There will be at least two versions of the central galaxy, asteroid galaxy, and DG galaxy, and when the battleground is created, the exact composition of which one will be chosen at random.  This way, each battleground experience will be a little bit different.  For example, different versions of the DG galaxy will have different NPC's in it that drop different weapons.  So one version might have a lot of lasers, while another might have a lot of long range mag cannons.

Ship Upgrading

Players can upgrade their ship in 3 ways.  They can purchase new basic items in their home AI base for Moosterium, like better engines, better energy, better shield, etc.  They can buy ship upgrades in their home AI base for Moosterium.  And lastly, they can get powerful weapons from defeating bosses in the DG galaxies.  Players will start in zebucarts, and can upgrade to wingships, bulk traders, and various other mostly common ships.

User Base Upgrading

Players can dock at their user base and drop off metals and build upgrades to the user base.  There will be a series of one-use BP's that, aside from their main product, produce and equip a follow up BP, so that there is no dissent or decisions for the main upgrade path.  A lot of the upgrades will have to do with increasing the bases range so that is can outrage the other base, drones, and players.  Players can also possibly get other BP's elsewhere, like from a DG boss or maybe if there is an NPC base somewhere.

Win Tokens

Every player with at least one kill on the winning side gets a win token.  Win tokens can be spent in a special AI base for loot.

One Problem: multiclienting

One potential problem could be the people might multiclient a bunch of accounts and sign them all up, either hoping to get more win tokens, or using accounts that get put onto the other team as spies.  Not sure the best solution to this.  Maybe force all accounts on the same IP to be on the same team?  But then if there are a bunch of good players in one house, they could gain an unfair advantage...

Current Problems with this Design

• Individual farming creates conflict between teammates

• Shared Moosterium?  Every time one person scoops one, a Moosterium spawns in every ally ship.  But the. No one wants to be the chimp farming.
• Or else, have the farm be so abundant, that there isn't really a limited resource except for time.

• Getting best weapons from the DG could be too snowbally

• Maybe killing a boss drops a modded weapon, but also adds the weapon to both shops for purchase?

• Lack of upfront classes could hinder teamwork

• Players choose one of our existing classes upfront, and get a different themed starting ship based on it?  Maybe they unlock the classes by leveling their main character?  Or maybe they get a starting augmenter+weapon based on the class?  Seems like there would need to be a dialog as the battle is showing for people to choose their class and show what others have chosen, so the team can get the right balance.
• Classes could probably be added after alpha.

• No events to give the game structure and catalyze coordination

• Make the boss spawns in the DG Galaxy happen on a timer and announce to everyone when they spawn?
• Have periodic "super asteroids" that spawn on the other side and announce them so players can rally around that.
• These can probably be added after alpha.

Possible Classes

Speed Demon

• Speed Aug
• Tracking laser (mining)
• Radish Torch super item

Seer

• Stealth aug
• Mining Parasite weapon that gives slow and vulnerability
• Stealth Mine super item (does mining, and detonates when the short timer is up)

Zerker

• Multifiring aug
• Second ion peashooter
• Envelopment super item

Sniper

• Range/damage/-firing aug
• Physical weapon
• Big giant bullet super item (more about lots of knock back than lots of damage)

Shield Monkey

• Shield/regen aug
• Shield transference
• ?

Engineer

• Resistance/elec aug
• Energy transference beam
• Drone super item that shoots mining and will attack asteroids if no enemies in range

Gunner

• Damage aug
• Weapon with two bullets?
• Missile super item

Fleet Commander

• Ship mastery aug
• Field gen that gives +damage
• Super item that launches a fighter that does mining damage

This sounds pretty interesting. A whole new way to play SS sounds really fun and all these additions could be great for the game. However, please please please for the love of god dont make the ships the ugly as zebu, bulk and all those others ships we have in game already.

For the love of god PAY SOMEONE to make some new menacing looking ships for this pvp zone. Market this as an expansion to the game put some ads out and see the profit

/signed on using nicer graphics than the current low tech ships. Otherwise, SS MOBA ftw!

I would say only 1 character from 1 IP allowed in this zone at a time. I know its easy to change your IP but thats a start at least.

Decent idea. Could be much better done, though that translates into more work.

This is a quick work up for a new map.

http://i.imgur.com/MbnniTA.png

Red Galaxy is Red HQ
Orange Galaxies are Red Outer Galaxies
Green Galaxies are Neutral Middle Galaxies
Purple Galaxies are Blue Outer Galaxies
Blue Galaxy is Blue HQ

Black Lines are the warp corridors players can use to move from galaxy to galaxy.

The HQ galaxies contain one userbase and a couple of heavy defense pillboxes that deal double damage to enemies if said enemies attack an allied player inside the pillbox defense range. The HQ galaxy contains an invincible AI base that allows players to buy items (similar to most MOBAs) so players who chose a "class" aren't stuck when the enemy hard counters the "class".

The Outer galaxies contain a cluster of medium range defensive pillboxes supported by one or two long range defensive pillboxes. The enemy team needs to break at least one of the outer galaxy defenses (noted by a large defenseless pillbox in the center) before they can warp to the HQ galaxy.

The Neutral galaxies contain resources. There are asteroid belts and and mob camps in the Outer and HQ galaxies, but the resource value of the Neutral galaxies far outstrip the resource value of the outer/HQ galaxies. Both teams are expected to clash in the Neutral galaxies for resources and position.

The center Neutral galaxy contains a special mob camp in the exact center that gives special rewards for whoever can beat the other team out of it when the special mob spawns. This is similar to the Elder Dragon/Baron Nashor from LoL.

--

I am partial to the idea of Allied NPCs that mine (home and contestable) asteroid belts for resources to build Allied Fleets going down the lanes to attack enemy positions because mining asteroids manually is boring as fuck, and I as a player would rather kill AI mobs / enemy players rather than sit and farm asteroid belts.

But the presence of Allied NPCs lowers the maximum size of Red/Blue Team.

I like the idea.

Same. I just am curious to see a relative time frame for something like this to be even close to ready to be implemented.

Looks pretty rough, with nothing actually ready. Just an idea. That's great, I love ideas. I just don't want to get hyped for something that probably won't happen for 3+ years.

Really awesome idea!



Regarding suggestions, I think that for Shield Monkey it should get a Shield Battery device for its superitem, pop it when you are low and bam! Back to half health, also regarding shield monkey, it might not be a bad idea to give it a second weapon, so that its not completely defenseless? Not a very powerful one, but something.



As for Zerker, it would be cool if it had some sort of pull superitem mabye? Like the Enranged Engagement Device, which could synergize with seer, FC or gunner to pull a target into the mine/missile/fighter.



For sniper, I think it would be cool if it had a superitem like sniper's blind that acts as a sniper analyzer in the sense that whenever the sniper is in it's small specified radius, it gets a huge bonus to damage and range. But at the same time the sniper is exposed as it has to sit inside the rather small blind in order to maintain those bonuses, thus it would be easier to pick off.



Would the mine explode when someone goes near it? Or is it just a timing thing where you have to lay it in front of your enemy while you are moving?



For SD, having a warp device as a possibility would be cool, also I think it would be cool if the radish torch super item would give any opponant who got hit by it a debuff, making it useable in multiple ways.



For Engineer, considering it's a support class, could the drone be a multi-purpose drone as in it heals and does damage? Also, what if the energy trans beam gave elec to allies, but when used on enemies it drains their regen? Just a thought.



For Fleet Commander it would be cool if it had a dirty bomb device. This could have a cool synergy with a seer, Seer debuffs and slows the target, FC flies over to it and drops a dirty bomb on its face.



For Gunner, I think either the missile or gunner wep should do some sort of AoE to counter clustered foes and deal with AI. Another suggestion would be for the missile to be a disintigrator-type missile, to reduce a target's resists to allow for your team to do extra damage to a target.

That's my two cents on the classes. ./drop the mic

- Chrono

But I really like the Zebucart.
I would like to get some rudimentary alpha version of something like this done in a matter of months, rather than years.

Better re-think that one. For reference I used to play ranked League of Legends , paid probably 500$ for champs and skins, and only gave it up because of Sesame points and the companies total ownership by China. Look up sesame points, it's horrible.

Anyway, the whole team picking thing was one of the biggest issues with the game. Forcing friends to play against each other is a total non-starter.

So imagine if you the player were waiting 12 hours for a window so you and a bud could team up and fight it out in the arena, and then after that 12 hours you ended up on opposite teams. Rage quit the arena, or worse torpedo your team mates. Easy enough if one of you decides to do dick all. YouTube League of Children for examples of the total ass hattery that team mates can bring to the table.

You have to decide, how long do you want a game to be, and how chaotic/directly competitive do you want the fight.

Personally I like the way LoL did it. 20 Minutes minimum, 60 minutes was crazy long, and you would never see a "real" fight over 90 minutes long.

I would also simply make the combat to hectic to be effective as a multi box. You don't see multi box in LoL, because trying to play as two different champs at the same time would be stupid in the extreme. Take away all the levels, all the power, and force the conflict to cross boarders, and multi boxing will be daft.

Put in AI that is on side with the player teams, with given patterns, that if the players help along without resistance greatly increase the effectiveness of the players. (See lane phase in LoL)

Go watch some LoL vids, (I recommend Brofresco or AnkleSpanken they are pretty fun to watch) and see how the team AI (Minions), Hostile AI, (Jungle), and Uber AI (Dragon/Baron) are designed to work.

Don't think classic DG, think contested DG, where you get to open the gate for your team if you do X, make X a contest like killing and it can happen only every so often.

If your Making a MOBA version (GOD DAMB THAT SOUNDS FUN), then really you can learn a great deal by simply looking at the the things that the other MOBA games do.

Fuck the "new" zebu, white/blue for life.

Pretty sure the old Zebucart is available as a skin already?