Development Roadmap: Q4 2015

[Erik Asmussen]

Wanted to create a fresh post with information on how I'm planning on adding to Disco Dodgeball over the coming months. I can't commit to specific dates on these, but this is roughly the order in which I'm going to approach the next several updates.

Bugfixes & Content

The 5.0 'Remix' update was huge, and as such there's a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up & various fixes to apply. It's also been a while since I added new Workshop content so I'm planning on adding a new batch. I've gotten a ton of great Rule suggestions and I'd like to add a bunch of those. Plus there hasn't been a new level in a while, so I will try to add a new one.

Dedicated Servers

This has been a long-requested feature and I think it's finally time to tackle it. My goal here is to provide access to a free 'server-only' version of the game that you can run on a machine you control. It'll basically be a permanent lobby that you & your friends can join in on, and will very likely have better pings than the current public servers. Additionally, you can list your server on a public list that others can join. I'll also need to develop admin commands because the room's 'Host / Master Client' will actually be the server client that won't have an active player directly controlling it.

DRM-free version

Hopefully this won't take too much work, as I've tried to isolate all the Steam commands in their own classes. But I think it makes the most sense to have this available after the dedicated servers update, since that'll be the most common use case for wanting a DRM-free build.

Split Screen Local Multiplayer

Now that I've updated the controller plugin, I can begin thinking about local multiplayer. Unfortunately I've designed a lot of the game to assume there's only one local user, so it'll be a lot of refactoring to make this functional. There's also definite performance issues I'll need to look into.

Updating the Demo

The demo is now massively out of date, so I'll need to spend some time updating that copy. Shouldn't be too much work, but it's been a low priority for a while and just hasn't gotten done so I need to bump it up the priority list.

Missions

This has been on my radar for a while, but again just hasn't been a high enough priority over the other things I was working on. The idea here is to have a bunch of infinite, randomized, gradually-increasing mini-goals you can achieve for Mission Points, which will earn you badges in-game you can display on your round-end profile pic.

So that's what I have in mind, let me know what you think!

[X Kirby]

Workshop Content is a plus, especially if we get more content developers, but I think adding in Dedicated Servers should be a higher priority right now. Then again, entirely up to you.

As for Local Multiplayer and Missions, yes please. Especially Missions, as it gives us an incentive to keep playing (which I haven't been doing).

[Erik Asmussen]

Yep - I think it's pretty clear the game isn't as 'sticky' as it could or should be. I mean, it has been out for a long time, and it's a lot to expect players to keep coming back to a single game for over a year - but I can tell by the dropoff that occurs whenever I get a large influx of new players that it's not getting sufficient traction with new players.

The game mode creator was definitely something intended to help with retaining expert players, but I know that new people need something more as well. I think building new progression elements, and doing a better job of presenting / highlighting the ones that are already in the game, are what is needed there. Hence, objective-based mini-missions.

Additionally, I'd like to create a series of badges you can display on your round-end profile. These would be special icons you can earn for getting certain scores on challenges, collecting all the cosmetic decals, leveling-up your trading card badge, beating Arcade mode, and for earning certain mission ranks.

Definitely open to other ideas / suggestions on this part.

[NetroX]

Will there be a dedicated server for linux?

[Erik Asmussen]

Unfortunately, the server will only run on Windows: https://www.photonengine.com/en/OnPremise

Although the clients can connect from Win / OSX / Linux.

[Ω ScAVENGE Ω]

The badges on the end match table is not too good of an idea imho as only 3 players are listed at best.

How about have some badge on the front of your body (we got stickers in the back already) or maybe floating above your head or something.

[Erik Asmussen]

My rationale is I want to increase the reward for earning your way on to the round-end scoreboard. So if you have some interesting badges, you'll only really get to show them off if you do well during a round. I think also if they're always visible, then they just become noise.

I'll keep it in mind though, because maybe there are other rewards / cosmetics that would make sense being displayed more commonly, or perhaps on the Tab scoreboard.

Do any other people have strong feelings about how / when badges should be displayed?

[X Kirby]

Badges should be displayed on the Scoreboard if they're significant enough. I don't think putting them on the bots is the best idea. Displaying them if you're an MVP during a match is fine though.

[chicken-]

Hooray for dedicated servers! ;D

I'd like to suggest an option to turn off the nametags for enemies in Host Settings because my friends and I would much rather play without tracking eachother through walls/pillars.

[Erik Asmussen]

Great idea, that should be easy to add with my new Rules system. Been requested before but now is a good time to start adding that kind of stuff.

[checkers_warfare_increased]

Originally posted by Erik Asmussen:

Great idea, that should be easy to add with my new Rules system. Been requested before but now is a good time to start adding that kind of stuff.

I think that's also a good option to, as well, put it as a client-side options modifier. Would work better for montage style shots too.

[O'Rayan]

You could provide server builds for different platforms (Linux, Win, OSX) with Unity Pro. We would just need to run it in batchmode / nographics. Why do you need to be tied to photon servers?

[Erik Asmussen]

All the networking in the game relies on Photon protocols - handles creation of rooms, transferring messages between players & the server, serialization of object data, etc. So at this point it needs to be tied to Photon Servers.

I will additionally need a way to build in a broadcast / discovery of people's servers that they run themselves. I was hoping to piggyback on Steam's Matchmaking for this, but ideally I'll be able to find a solution that doesn't require a Steam login for DRM-free builds. This will also require some UI work in the game to make functional.

[O'Rayan]

Alright, I know that Unity's networking is very flexible and 3rd party networking systems generally use an extremely similar API to make it easy to switch between networking solutions. But it would take a lot of testing if you would change that so I understand it's not worth it. Anyways, I really love your game and I hope its popularity will grow a bit more. You've done an amazing job!

[1600 frogs]

I'm not completely sure where to put this so I'll just put this here.On maps that have 2 layers (Most or all of them do) balls often fall to the ground floor and force players to go down there, causing the players to not even go to the top floor for the most part. I don't know if there is anything to prevent things like this hapening or not, but I was wondering if there is some way you could make it work that balls untouched for a while would maybe fade to a different color over time and eventually respawn in another loction. That might be the fix to that little downer to the overall fun of the game. Hope I helped :)

[Erik Asmussen]

Yep, that is definitely one of my concerns with gameplay. As of several versions ago I started adding little ball railings all around the arena, which stops dodgeballs from falling over the edge but doesn't interfere with player movement. However, it's only a partial solution and in general the majority of loose dodgeballs do appear on lower levels.

I'm a bit worried about teleporting them, because I'm not sure how reliably I could determine that a player is not currently planning on picking one of them up, and I think it'd be very frustrating to have a dodgeball disappear when you need it.

The solution may be some visual indicator of how long it'll stay before respawning, but the tradeoff there is adding complexity for new players.

At any rate, it's a known issue, and maybe I can add in a modifier that respawns dodgeballs so people can try it out and give feedback without the risk of major disruption.

Feel free to start new threads btw with suggestions / feedback like this.