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Diabotical - 2GD's Arena FPS - LAUNCH DAY!

Venser

Erudite
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,765
Location
dm6




I'm in. Let's go!


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Venser

Erudite
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,765
Location
dm6
For being in closed beta, the game is in better state than I expected. The gameplay is pretty fun, the sounds are a bit too weak. The main thing I would change is increase the rocket knockback. Popping up eggbots in the air and finishing them with an air rocket or a rail would be pretty satisfying. But overall good first impression.
 

Citizen

Guest
Doesn't look bad, nice and smooth gameplay, reminds me of warsow. I wish the player models weren't cybernetic humpty dumpties tho
 

Biscotti

Arbiter
Patron
Joined
Nov 24, 2015
Messages
561
Location
Belgium
I was gonna say I was willing to wait for the Epic exclusivity to end before giving this a whirl, but then again this is an arena shooter we're talking about. It'll be long dead by then.
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
2,892
Can't believe how bad my rockets and lg got due to being so easy to use in QC....
 

Venser

Erudite
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,765
Location
dm6


Duel, free-for-all and a bunch of new maps will be available for week 2 closed beta. I have 2 extra keys if anyone wants.
 

abija

Prophet
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
2,892
Did they give any reason for duel being custom only?
 

Xmantis

Novice
Joined
Jan 16, 2019
Messages
29
I tried playing the closed beta and got my ass handed to me. Reminds me of trying to play UT99 back in the day.

It seems like the kind of game that would be satisfying to be good at.
 

SkiNNyBane

Liturgist
Patron
Joined
Dec 13, 2017
Messages
1,090
Location
NY
Grab the Codex by the pussy
Game is going to be the shit eventually. My main problem is how shitty the maps are. I just don't dig the whole getting stuck on random shit and having people hide behind random structures. I want things to be more open area and less bullshit.
 

7h30n

Augur
Joined
Aug 14, 2012
Messages
311
So far my first impressions are very positive. The game runs silky smooth, HUD can be fully customized by dragging and dropping elements, and the gameplay is just a tiny bit different than Q3 to make it interesting for me again. Though I feel the movement when walking is a bit too floaty and shotgun seems way too nerfed compared to Q3s.
 

culliford

Novice
Joined
Apr 25, 2015
Messages
13
Location
Sweden
Based on the developer's comments it seems they're gonna make a lot of tweaks for game modes, weapons etc to make the competetive scene happy.
 

Durandal

Arcane
Joined
May 13, 2015
Messages
2,117
Location
New Eden
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
One thing I never liked about dueling in Quake (Live) is how snowball-heavy it was. You would get killed, then depending on the map your opponent would find and kill you within 8 seconds since you respawn with nothing but a MG, and RNGesus felt that out of the three farthest spawn points from your opponent, you should respawn at the one closest to your opponent which also has no nearby weapon pick-ups. The winner would get rewarded for winning with more winning, and you would just have to accept your inevitable death depending on how unlucky your spawn was.

The more snowball-heavy the game is, the more matches will turn into one-sided stomps the bigger the difference in skill levels between players is. Which is made more painful by the long length of a match (10 minutes). The winner will usually get bored since they don't really need to try to win, and the loser will be too demoralized by the asskicking to really try their best--yet there's still 6 more minutes on the clock. This is less the case between two players where there's a massive skill disparity but both players still have solid fundamentals and know what options they have to turn the match around, but if you're starting out you won't have the opportunity to learn these fundamentals if the only people still playing arena shooters are Quakedads who have been doing so for over 10 years.

Ideally you want matches to be close enough to motivate both players to give it their all, which makes for more fun matches instead of one-sided stomps. But it's very hard to find a good match if a slight skill disparity results in a disproportionate frag/map-control difference. Modern fighting games tried to increase the likelihood of close matches by introducing comeback mechanics, but these often reduced the depth of the gameplay by allowing your opponent to force you into the defensive with little effort. For arena shooters (or any game with item control of sorts), positive feedback loops where winners get rewarded with more winning and losers have to claw themselves out of a bad situation are inevitable, but I think games like these can mitigate games from turning into stomps without reducing depth (like how QL made you spawn with 125HP instead of 100 and how QC gave you a brief damage reduction buff on respawn), and Diabotical makes several small changes to Duel which help a lot in this regard:
  • The Golden Frag system gives the losing player more of a chance to make a comeback, and prevents the winning player from sitting on a small frag lead and running circles around the other player for the entire match
  • Green/Yellow/Red Armor now yield 50/75/100 armor instead of Quake's 25/50/100, allowing the out-of-control player to recover faster
  • There is an overarmor limit of 150 (only RA can exceed it), preventing the in-control player from being able to control all minor armor pick-ups if they're on full stack--leaving more for the out-of-control player
  • Weapon pick-ups yield minimal ammo if you have over 40% ammo for that weapon, so the in-control player has to make more detours for ammo pick-ups which makes controlling the map harder, unless they want to risk fighting the opponent while on low ammo
  • Duel maps in Diabotical are actually designed to prevent spawnfragging and spawning in your opponent's line of sight
  • Diabotical has mega/RA spawn at 35/25s instead of Quake Champions' baffling decision to have both spawn at 30s, which actually made it easier for the IC player to control the items since they had to account less for both items spawning at the same time (which would allow the OOC player to nab one while the IC player took the other) and didn't really have to delay pick-ups to prevent that (having to delay the item also gives the OOC player more of an opportunity to steal it or force you to take it pre-emptively)
  • Rail deals a base of 70 damage instead of 80, and ramps up by 5 for each consecutive shot. This actually favors the OOC player more since they're more likely to rely on the rail while doing hit 'n run attacks and are more likely to know where the IC player will be as opposed to the other way around (because the IC player has to pick up the major items eventually). The OOC player will camp those angles more and thus be more likely to hit while the IC player has to respond with a rail reflexively, so on average the OOC player will receive less rail damage but dish it out more.
  • The new smokescreen and slow-field Weeballs are more of a boon to the OOC player than the IC player, since they're more useful for delaying and befuddling your opponent than they are for securing frags, allowing the OOC player to escape more reliably.
  • (Crouch-)Walk speed has been buffed from ~180ups to 210ups, which is more of a boon to OOC players since they're more likely to be sneaking around the map, considering IC players can get away with making more noise
  • The time limit decreases the larger the frag difference is, so stomps won't last as long
On the whole I don't think this will make an incredible difference for getting new players into Duel or having them survive stomps by veterans, but it should be more helpful to intermediate players. The only way to bridge the skill gap between new players and Q3 veterans is to have more learning resources available for each Duel map that actually get into the underlying strategy and what options you can actually take in the most common situations. That, and teaching you map-specific trickjumps, and time trials that let you practice moving along common routes as fast as possible.
 

Venser

Erudite
Joined
Aug 8, 2015
Messages
1,765
Location
dm6
Hey everyone. The test tournament series is coming to a close over the next 2 months. Though a horrible name. It was a nice test for esports longevity, game modes, broadcasting and more.

After we have fulfilled our obligations to the test tournament series and the grassroots fund. We will continue to do esports with mojo as our esport manager, but with a focus on grassroots tournaments.

To the pro players who compete in the 3v3 circuit. To explain my decision here, since we have spoken of potentially continuing the circuit. I think it’s best we focus using available funds on improving Diabotical and achieving company goals.

To be as open as possible about the details behind this decision. The 3v3 circuit in 2021 if to be continued and matured as a product, would probably cost upwards of 400k USD. We have quite a clear plan for 2021 and 2022. Which involves regular Diabotical updates, but also releasing two new games. The projected budget we have (battle pass purchases included!) cover this, with a little room for GD Studio hiccups (delays).

If we were to overspend on esports now only due to our love for it. I would be mismanaging the company and handling employees' careers with us recklessly. Especially if we encounter more problems during development than we'd normally expect. As you know we do not crunch employees or contractors. So delays are a pretty big additional cost.

If things go smoothly over 2021 and this new BR games a hit! Ok we aren't doing a BR. I will happily throw some pop up tournaments for some extra esport coin. If things go better than expected. I’d love to do a LAN in Stockholm, so those wanting a chance to claim a world championship can.

For players who compete in grass root tournaments around the world. We will be announcing some tournaments with community organizers after the Test Tournament Series concludes. It’s a lot of online Duel, 2v2 tdms and a couple of Duel LANs we'd like to support. More to follow!

/James

https://www.reddit.com/r/Diabotical/comments/ktqo4y/diabotical_esports_2021/

lmao they're already puling money out of Diabotical esports to focus on a development of TWO NEW GAMES while still updating Diabotical. They are a small studio. WTF is James doing, going full EA all of a sudden?
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Messages
5,871
lmao they're already puling money out of Diabotical esports to focus on a development of TWO NEW GAMES while still updating Diabotical. They are a small studio. WTF is James doing, going full EA all of a sudden?
I remember James being a huge fan of Bloodline Champions - since the devs made Battlerite (which was a great game) and completely fucked it up, killing the game a couple months after launch, I wouldn't be surprised if one of the games in development was a 2v2 arena battler in the vein of BLC and BR.
 

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