Uber Entertainment Livestream April 24th Recap

http://www.twitch.tv/uberentertainment/b/522705218

It’s that time again! Time for another one of Uber Entertainment’s Livecasts where they talk about the game and offer a Q&A session.

• The Livestream starts off with pretty spinning planets.
• They heavily hinted at trees catching on fire coming really soon.
• Then they showed off burning trees.
• Puns everywhere!
• Units can shoot directly at trees and the trees catch on fire.
• The fire effect is temporary, and it’ll look better in the future. There’s also a cackling fire sound.
• If enough trees catch on fire, the fire will spread to nearby trees.
• Uber cannons also catch on fire.
• Right now fire does not spread to units or buildings. Currently the plan is probably not. We’ll see.
• More puns!
• Trees are partly apart of pathing. Eventually units will have to walk around trees.
• So trees can then be used to slow down incoming unit movement and they’ll block projectiles, so that’ll greatly alter gameplay. Which is awesome! We wanted terrain to alter gameplay, and we’re getting it!
• We can reclaim trees! So we now need to reclaim trees before constructing buildings.
• It looks really cool when units fight and leave charred remains of no forest.
• Fire spread is random. Doesn’t necessarily spread to the entire forest.
• More balance changes to fire spread are still coming.
• The guys then roasted marshmellows over their green screen fireplace.
• Remember guys, balancing a RTS is a process. Uber needs to try out lots of different extremes and drastic changes and crazy stuff. Most of it won’t work, but it’s a process. Uber has to break the game to fix it.
• They start a game so we have some eye candy and explosions to stare at.
• Uber then talked a lot about the various balance changes and their thought processes.
• Uber talked a lot about risk vs reward when it comes to teching up. Lots of talking about teching up and “windows of opportunity.”
• They talk about theory crafting and about how balancing based on theory crafting and numbers often falls short, so we gotta balance the game based on “feel.”
• Uber is trying to get the “pacing” right. How long to games last, how long does it take to tech up.
• They then talked about the Grenadier and trying to create unit diversity. They also said there will be overlap in units and some T2 units that will be direct upgrades.
• They want T2 to be a “reward.”
• They’re fine with some T1 units becoming obsolete once T2 comes out.
• They then talked about economic progression and “when to go to T2.”
• The Uber cannon is gonna become a little more powerful.
• Expect the roles of some units to change over the coming weeks. Some new tech is coming online soon so we’ll have some big changes to go alongside it.
• More upcoming balance changes to Orbital gameplay! Like the Space Station and the Anchor shooting over an enemy base.

Q&A Session

• The Ant/Pounder/Whatever will never ever be called the “Ant” again.
• Questions about the Galactic War. The answer is “soon.”
• They’re recording computer voices for the voice over. So there will be voice prompts about various events.
• There are plans for a more in depth introduction tutorials. Possibly even interactive tutorials. But that’s later.
• Uber is pretty happy about the direction of Orbital. They have a good course direction. It’s moving in the right direction, but isn’t done yet.
• There are things in the works to improving biomes. The Biomes won’t change much, but the things in the biomes are gonna be cooler.
• They aren’t actively working on allowing for more than 10 players. That is still coming, but there’s still way too much performance optimizations yet to come. They still plan on having 40 or 100 player battles, but they’re working on other stuff. Performance needs to be improved a lot more before they increase the number of players.
• (more puns)
• Uber is excited about the burning trees, replays, and orbital changes.
• Uber is really enjoying trolling by renaming the basic tank. And the more everyone talks about it, the more they enjoy it. Looks like we won’t get the real name until 1.0 release.
• Uber hinted at continuing with the Monday Night Combat franchise.
• Toy Rush will be out sometime in may. It’s an attack and defend tower defense role.
• Uber has 32 team members now! A year and a half ago they were about half the size.
• They trolled about micro transactions and Facebook integration.
• Astroid belts are on the way! They seem to be in the mostly planning stages for astroid belts. They’re tossing around a lot of ideas and working out all the details.
• They don’t plan on adding more colors. But there’s the added difficulty of running out of colors for 40 player matches… we’ll see.
• They don’t do their testing by automation. They do it by actually playing the game. They are hiring a test ninja who would (by all appearances) get to get paid to play the game and test it.

I'm confused.

Meant to say "or buildings."

Thanks for the catch. Fixing now.

Ok good, thanks for the recap as always! I was just confused while i was watching the stream since I didn't see a burning tree spread the fire to another... Hopefully they can make a diminishing duration for fire, meaning that as the fire spreads, the duration of the fire and the ability to jump from tree to tree is lower - to stop entire forests going up, but allowing for some significant forest fires.

That's kinda how it already works. A single tree on fire isn't likely to spread to another tree. But a group of trees on fire probably will spread to other trees. The intensity of the forest fire determines how much it spreads.

There's also randomness built into the system. Sometimes trees will burn quickly, sometimes they'll burn for a while. Sometimes they'll spread, sometimes they won't.

It sounds like a pretty nifty system and it's only going to be improved from here.

2 quick questions regarding trees:

1: When reclaiming trees do you get any resources, if so what (from previous games I'd assume energy)?

2: Although fire won't spread to buildings and so on- will it cause damage to things too close? For example if a large force of doxes is approaching is it possible to set the forest on fire to damage / destroy the units moving through the trees?

Thanks for the recap, I missed the fire 'cos I connected later.

A note on colors and cap limit to players in a single session. They said that they're not planning at the moment to allow more than 10 players at the same time. Otherwise performances will drop under an acceptable level.

Here is a picture of Scathis ajusting the balance.

I love the random Balrog in the fire that's superimposed on the green screen - just watch it @7:22

Lol those replicators never knew what hit em'

Sweet. Fire is indeed a nice touch!

Yes, we do get resources. We do get metal.

Previous in games? In SupCom you get metal from rocks/trees.

How much? They're still balancing that.

No. They said fire won't spread to units or buildings. I said that in the recap. It seems that they plan to not have fire damage spread to units or trees. We'll see though.

Ah, sorry I took the not spreading as not causing building to catch on fire themselves. Thanks for the clarification.

Uber said that the fire itself won't spread to units/structures. It does however cause AOE damage in a small area (see ~9:20).

Although now I'm confused at what you are saying, based on @cdrkf's response

Uber had said that (currently) a forest fire won't damage units or buildings. That may or may not change.

I'll just PM Forest and see if he can hop on here and clear it up.

Incorrect - watch again at 9 minutes 20 - "It will do burn damage in a small radius" (direct quote from @forrestthewoods)

Except they also specifically said the fire won't "spread" to units or buildings.

It won't spread. It will do some damage though.

Btw. Here's some images!

The Uber Cannon clearing the trees looks boss