Some Hints to Up the Fun

I have some suggestions to up the fun of this game.
I am a CTO of a game company in Tokyo (which shall remain nameless), and have worked for Eidos, Vivendi Universal, Atari, Lucas Arts, and Ubisoft in the past, between game design and lead programming.

It would really help increase the longevity of the game to focus on the community side a bit more.
As it is now, chatting is fairly cumbersome. The text disappears after a few seconds, it has a very short limit on length, there are many times when chat is not possible or the chat log gets blanked out, and it requires 3 Escape key hits to remove the chat menu if you dont want to type anything.

Yes there is a forum here for community development, which is one step, but allowing a community to form entirely within the game is essential.
Most people miss my chat messages because it is off to the side and disappears before they get out of the heat of battle.
I also dont know when my friends have joined because it doesnt warn me when people join.


Once I have gotten into a game, I have yet to find a way to determine the name of the server so I can tell my friends when they got online.


The game is obviously very fast-paced, so you wont find many chances to chat in the heat of the battle. But that makes it even more important to have a chat menu that does not disappear. By the time things cool down the text is gone. Even if my friend glanced over to read it, he cant reply until he respawns, and by then he forgot what I said.
Instead of making the chat text vanish, make it ~50% (tune it on your end of course).



I am still struggling to understand why my bots will spawn weaker when my ball is down.
This game pushes towards angering the players, which is why most of the chat I do see (when there ever is any) is just trash-talk.
When the game begins leaning to one side, it just keeps tilting. When my ball is down, my bots should be stronger, not weaker. The game should work towards balance, not to the point of overthrowing player skills, but to the point that temperatures do not flare so much.

From the other perspective, when their ball is down, frankly I would rather beat them only just barely rather than stomp them. Why?
Because players who get stomped leave and I have no one to play. It would be much more fun and pay a lot more money if the game went on a bit longer and the other guy(s) stayed around for the next match.



Community and allowing players to connect on a personal level in the game are very important for the longevity of the game.
As it is now, players simply quit when they lose and brag when they win.
Why? Because none of the other players have any connection to them. They are all just guys in suits shooting.

When people have the means to start making friends from within the game itself, there will be a lot less trash-talk, longer games, and more people sticking around to play longer.


L. Spiro

i have to agree on the chat part, its pretty bad tbh, also the type limit is very short and it i accidentally press y or u i have to press ESC 3 times b4 i can play again.

The part about the bots, im guessing its to help the winning team to actually finish the game, although i honestly dont think thats really necessary on the PC.

1 thing that does bug me about the current system is how easy the money ball can be rushed and as soon as it drops there is near to no way to fight back if you have 1 or 2 "new" (to be nice) players in your team.
Your bots will be weaker then while the enemy bots will be flooding your base, and you wont be able to fight back much because your be pretty much spawncamped, under skilled (buying skills, you wont gain much money once your ball drops (no phun intended)), and buying towers will be hard as well with a lack of money or the enemy that will hammer them down in 2seconds again because they have enough bots to shield them anyway.

Completely agree on the chat improvement comments.

Me too. I can see coming up with the "The team should be punished for having their ball pulled down" argument. I can also see it shot down rather quickly with "Eeeh.. their ball is down. Isn't that punishment enough?".

At that point the other team can more or less completely bypass bot lane management anyway and go straight to the ball. With the other teams bots being weaker it becomes even less of a concern.

As defenders you are already spectacularly on your heels at that point - and then the other team is given a further advantage.

Interesting design choice to say the least.

O hai! I agree on the chat, it could use a little love. MNC is very fast paced (even in the lobby) so the number of people actually using the chat is limited. The same was true for other, slower paced games like Demigod though: Although we waited up to 10 minutes in the lobby before match begin there was hardly any conversation unless we started it.
I do agree that there should be the option for meaningful chat though.

Interesting point. I don't think your bots will help you if the other team has a semi competent Assassin or Tank. They just cut through bots like nothing. Even tripled health wouldn't keep those bots alive for more than 5 seconds.


You can join servers your friends are playing on through the Steam interface. Click on the little arrow next to the avatar in the friends list and select 'Join Game'. You can even auto queue if the server is full.

In most of the games I play, either their ball goes down a few times for a short period until we finally build enough forces to keep it down, or by the time we get the ball down we have a huge army on it.

In both cases, weaker bots just add insult to injury.

Case A: Game is nowhere near over. One bot managed to get through and he was killed. But for 1 minute or so all of our bots are spawning weaker. We have a legitimate chance at coming back and this rule ruins it.

Case B: When the flood gates are open, it wouldnt matter if the bots were the same or even stronger. So why make them weaker? The other team will win anyway. Giving us weaker bots is just pouring salt on the wound.

It is true it can be done, but ideally there should be a buddies list in the game itself, or at least an icon next to buddies in servers. Or a list of players in the servers.
Bringing people together makes a huge difference in the impact of your game, so every detail helps.


At the same time, I dont want to just complain.
There are things Uber got right:
#1: A world ranking. Makes you want to say to yourself, Let me just get below 2,000, then I can quit for the night. Adds a good hour to your game time.
#2: Collectables and unlockables.
#3: Heavy variety of characters and playing styles.
#4: A lot of server options, such as limiting the number of classes per team.
#5: Leveling system, even if it is meaningless. It makes you want to play until you get to the next level.


L. Spiro

I agree with how having weaker bots upon shield drop decreases the overall fun of the game when there's still a fighting chance. Though, I think it's to just to push the momentum of the match even more aggressively so that it doesn't eventually fall into overtime. And we see far too many matches ending in OT already.

One specific problem I've seen with the chat is that if you start typing a message as soon as you die, it gets blanked out a second later when the camera shifts

Chat also loses focus frequently during the team-select screen. Causing you not to type anything.
And more recently after it does this I click back on the box, finish my message, hit Enter, and nothing appears.
Have to type it again, though I think it will appear later during the game.


L. Spiro

I've noticed the not-appearing messages in the lobby too.

The strange thing is they still show up in the console. I haven't been able to tell if they're actually visible to other people

Another thing I've run into with chat is the character limit. I end up having to break one thought into several messages, and only so many of those stay on the screen.

I'm not sure the chat cache is cleared between servers. I recently played a 1v1 and the other player had to vent a little after the match and said some nasty words. When I joined the next server that same message was visible in the chat history under the stats and everybody was like: WTF? I don't think the 'author' was even on that server during the match.

Wondered about that too. In DotA, the enemy creeps become stronger if you killed their buildings and not stronger, so other way round which I would prefer.
There are some reasons why the MNC system is bullshit .

I wish we could toggle the bot spawn strength with the moneyball shields down. I'd like to play it sometime with the bots at, say, 300% or so just to see.

Maybe the weaker bots was Uber's way of saying "you need to work together" to push the enemy back.

Isn't it actually the other way around, and your creeps become super creeps when you destroy the enemy buildings? :!:

Yes, I was wrong.
But making the own creeps weaker is still a bad idea, I would prefer the DotA-style. Making the own bots stronger if the moneyball is down and let the enemy team get more money from killing the superbots so they can push back with the extra cash and then our moneyball is down and the enemy bots get super and then we can push back.

More fun with pushing back and forward etc.

I'm pretty sure they made bots weaker when your moneyball is down for several reasons.

1. To reduce the number of games that end in overtime. Not EVERY round has to conclude in a storm of saved-up juice and jackbots; strategy and teamwork should be used to push forward and win.
2. Encourage less passive playing. What happens is there will be one or two central clashes, and less mindful teams will simply ride this stalemate out until the end. With this system, one team gaining the advantage forces the other to either adjust their strategy (It obviously isn't working) or accept eventual defeat.

Are we talking about the same game? I see dumb noobs everywhere. And the juice thing in overtime has to be changed somehow, but that's the job of the developers.

If it is teamwork and strategy you want, the chat box will need to be fixed first.
Then, quick-chat commands will need to be introduced.
For example, VVA = Attack!
The text would be written into the chat box to be read, but you would also hear my characters voice saying it in the game.
Uber has spent a lot of voices for the game, so I assume this is fairly trivial.

Shortcut keys could include:
Attack!
Defend!
I need a Support. (Or something to tell your local support to follow you and keep you charged).
Enemy turret destroyed.
Build turrets!

-> In one game, someone manually typed that the enemy ball was down to one hit left (and overtime). I looked up and realized this, so I took a cloaked assassin over and got that hit (he was right, literally 1 hit was left). So quick commands explaining to target the enemy ball, enemy turrets, or enemy bots would be good.

You could even send some of the Pro tips over to the quick-chat menu, since it would help us to help the newbies on our team to learn the game without us having to do a lot of manual typing.


Additionally, comical quick-chat messages would really help to lighten the moods of players.
Things such as Doh!, Ah crap!, and Oops! would go a long way towards not making players storm off the server in anger, or brag in victory.
In evading a guy, I walked off the edge. I wanted to send a global Ah crap! over quick-chat but that is not something I will type manually.
When you see a guy making jokes after deaths you probably know he is cool and you have made a friend. This is what I mentioned before about community.



Back to the weaker bots.
It was argued that tanks and some class would just waltz through them anyway.
That is true but so does every other class when they become weaker. With my assassin I normally have to stick around to do 2 hits on a Black Jack, but when the enemy ball is down I just do a dash and move on. It allows all classes to storm through the bots and juice up on the way. It tilts the odds far too much.

We can examine the pros and cons.
Mood:
Win = Happy +5
Lose = Happy -5
Super Win = Happy +6 (and maybe a little guilt)
Super Lose = Happy -10 (and typically storming off the servers)

The negative sides far outweigh the positive in terms of mood. I dont really feel any better when I smash the other team (in fact I feel both guilt and concern that they wont stick around for the next game), but I sure hate being smashed.
And dealing with all the COME ON TEAM YOU SUCK spam after the match makes the game even less enjoyable.

Gameplay:
Going into overtime is not such a big deal. Thanks to the overtime rules, a defeat in overtime is fairly meaningless (at least emotionally), and I have taken their ball down from 100% to 0% by myself in overtime when we were at ~25% for most of the match, making a very epic comeback that surprised people and kept them playing.
We need these kinds of things to keep the game interesting.
Additionally, overtime typically means lots more money and a heavy improvement on your world ranking. I dont see anything wrong with that for either team. Drawing the game out is the wrong terminology (and concept), but letting the game linger is beneficial to everyone in terms of income and mood.


L. Spiro