Dev Video Update 005 - Stabbing, Exploding, and Teleporting
Like to fight up close and personal? There’s a weapon for that! Here’s the video:
Be sure to watch in HD!I think melee weapons in FPS games too often boil down to spamming left click as you chase someone trying to get in range. Most modern games have addressed this by throwing out the idea of having a separate melee weapon and instead give everybody a lethal, often auto-seeking, melee hotkey they can press whenever they get in range – I think this generally works pretty well, but I want melee (or “the ability to be a major threat at close quarters”) to be a player-chosen specialty rather than a general trait every player has. So with this weapon I’ve tried to solve some of the problems with first person melee weapons and create a toolset for players to build a playstyle around.
Left click stabs and the weapon will highlight the enemy when you’re in range to help alleviate the lack of real depth perception in first person games. The stab does decent damage, but you’ll want to keep holding left click when you successfully land a hit because it sticks them with an explosive. The explosive is on a timer, but the timer is manipulated by how well you track it – the better you aim, the sooner it will explode. If you look the other way or lose it behind a wall, the timer reverses and will expire if you break line of sight for too long. This creates a nice one-two combo that feels good to pull off, provides another avenue to express player skill, and gives the victim an opportunity to react by finding cover or killing you before you can finish them off.
To help close the gap, there’s a short range teleport. Right click and hold to shoot an orb, then let go to teleport to where the orb is. The orb only lasts for a small amount of time so you can only teleport over short distances (sort of like a ‘blink’ ability in other games). The orb will also flash yellow to let you know it’s about to expire – this makes it easier to get a feel for the timing so you can consistently get max distance.
I understand that the ease of teleporting might seem overpowered, but so far playtests haven’t validated that fear. I do have an idea for an elegant way to discourage excessive teleportation, though, so I’ll put that in when it becomes necessary. I generally try to avoid preemptively nerfing things too much – I think, ideally, everything should feel overpowered when used skillfully in the right situations.
Next I want to work on implementing teams and the main game mode objectives – I’m super excited about that!
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