Overemphasis of combat is detrimental to the game.

[pmar.prj]

When ever weapons activate you are almost guaranteed to die, same for most straightaways.
There is often so many weapons being fired that Unity runs out of audio channels making you unable to hear the 5 incoming missile warnings.
Races often come down to the luck of the draw and decent placement is often impossible due to constant fragging, with racecraft such as proper racing lines or slipstreaming/drafting being pointless due to the player needing to be out of line of sight with the AI in order to ride at an adequate pace, with all passing needing to be done with frags.
On top of that the AI also refuse to be moved by the player’s bike, meaning if they decide to understeer and eat the outside wall, you are going with them.

[Bubblehead]

Hey pmar.prj thanks for your message!

You're right, I have emphasised a lot more on combat than the racing element and I agree a lot on what you're saying. In truth I need a good tutorial to describe how the weapons work - there is an element of strategy that I feel a tutorial would be better of explaining. Some of the weapons have counters for example. The Barrier is great at the start (if a little overpowered currently)

I do agree that at the start when the weapons activate it can be a little chaotic, I have plans to re-work how area of effect damage is calculated - at the moment you can soak up a lot of damage at the start, especially if you're ahead so I may reduce the damage the further you are away from the point of the explosion.

The audio channel problem is a known one, so thanks for letting me know about it! It hasn't been optimised yet as you've found out, FMOD does seems to allocate and expand the cache over play time so it seems to fix itself, but I could do with caching the sounds beforehand.

The AI collision is a known too, but due to the way the physics in game works (and the fact that they are motorcycles) it's quite difficult to finely balance this. On one side if they are too compliant you can simply bash them aside which makes the game too easy and makes weapons pointless. The game driving/handling does lean between arcade and simulation so to get the best of both worlds is difficult!

Thanks for the feedback! :)

[Otakuwolf]

Originally posted by Bubblehead:

Hey pmar.prj thanks for your message!

You're right, I have emphasised a lot more on combat than the racing element and I agree a lot on what you're saying. In truth I need a good tutorial to describe how the weapons work - there is an element of strategy that I feel a tutorial would be better of explaining. Some of the weapons have counters for example. The Barrier is great at the start (if a little overpowered currently)

I do agree that at the start when the weapons activate it can be a little chaotic, I have plans to re-work how area of effect damage is calculated - at the moment you can soak up a lot of damage at the start, especially if you're ahead so I may reduce the damage the further you are away from the point of the explosion.

The audio channel problem is a known one, so thanks for letting me know about it! It hasn't been optimised yet as you've found out, FMOD does seems to allocate and expand the cache over play time so it seems to fix itself, but I could do with caching the sounds beforehand.

The AI collision is a known too, but due to the way the physics in game works (and the fact that they are motorcycles) it's quite difficult to finely balance this. On one side if they are too compliant you can simply bash them aside which makes the game too easy and makes weapons pointless. The game driving/handling does lean between arcade and simulation so to get the best of both worlds is difficult!

Thanks for the feedback! :)

I have not yet purchased the game and I'm currently checking the discussions to understand its current state before eventually invest into it, and in regards of combat I'm just hoping it won't make the same mistakes as Grip Combat Racing.

Long story short: In Grip every weapon has a aimbot level of homing and the game suffers of "Mario Kart Syndrome" in solo play, basically meaning that whenever an opponent fires a weapon is basically a death sentence to whoever is going to get hit (the player).
Furthermore, the issue is compounded by the fact all weapons deal 25% or more flat damage on impact and the barrier is the only reliable way to mitigate said damage... but only for one hit over many that can come at one time if not charged.

That said, I hope there will be a proper skill-reward balancement between weapons power and usability (easy weapons = less damage) or even different ways than counter enemy attacks than using a shield, but also for the races not being the player Vs everyone else unless specified so with a difficulty setting.

[Bubblehead]

Originally posted by Otakuwolf:

Originally posted by Bubblehead:

Hey pmar.prj thanks for your message!

You're right, I have emphasised a lot more on combat than the racing element and I agree a lot on what you're saying. In truth I need a good tutorial to describe how the weapons work - there is an element of strategy that I feel a tutorial would be better of explaining. Some of the weapons have counters for example. The Barrier is great at the start (if a little overpowered currently)

I do agree that at the start when the weapons activate it can be a little chaotic, I have plans to re-work how area of effect damage is calculated - at the moment you can soak up a lot of damage at the start, especially if you're ahead so I may reduce the damage the further you are away from the point of the explosion.

The audio channel problem is a known one, so thanks for letting me know about it! It hasn't been optimised yet as you've found out, FMOD does seems to allocate and expand the cache over play time so it seems to fix itself, but I could do with caching the sounds beforehand.

The AI collision is a known too, but due to the way the physics in game works (and the fact that they are motorcycles) it's quite difficult to finely balance this. On one side if they are too compliant you can simply bash them aside which makes the game too easy and makes weapons pointless. The game driving/handling does lean between arcade and simulation so to get the best of both worlds is difficult!

Thanks for the feedback! :)

I have not yet purchased the game and I'm currently checking the discussions to understand its current state before eventually invest into it, and in regards of combat I'm just hoping it won't make the same mistakes as Grip Combat Racing.

Long story short: In Grip every weapon has a aimbot level of homing and the game suffers of "Mario Kart Syndrome" in solo play, basically meaning that whenever an opponent fires a weapon is basically a death sentence to whoever is going to get hit (the player).
Furthermore, the issue is compounded by the fact all weapons deal 25% or more flat damage on impact and the barrier is the only reliable way to mitigate said damage... but only for one hit over many that can come at one time if not charged.

That said, I hope there will be a proper skill-reward balancement between weapons power and usability (easy weapons = less damage) or even different ways than counter enemy attacks than using a shield, but also for the races not being the player Vs everyone else unless specified so with a difficulty setting.

Hi Otakuwolf,

The weapons are very much physics based, i.e you fire straight ahead, they go straight ahead. When you get hit, you take shield damage, then armour damage then you blow up - nothing slows you down if you get hit, it's purely taking damage in the form of hit points. There are only 2 weapons out of the 16 that are homing, and even then, you have defence abilities that can counter them in the form of flares, shields or defence drones. Combat is much more strategic, like you say, the weapons with shorter cooldown times and are easier to use deal less damage or have less utility. Abilities will bigger learning curves have a higher maximum damage output, but may have smaller use cases, or rely on combos with other weapons to maximise output. Every weapon has a counter, so if you find yourself blowing up to a certain weapon all the time, you can use certain defence and utiilty abilities to counter them. I hope that helps! Different weapons do more/less damage to shields and armour to add even more depth to combining weapon strategies. I do have plans for more ability counters for new strategies in the future!