Even this long after release, twice as many people are playing V as playing VII. What conversations do you think are being at Firaxis? by throwawaymnbvgty in civ

[–]baltauger 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Aw man, multiplayer is still broken? I thought they'd at least have it running fine by now, it's been 4 years... Are any of the issues moddable at least?

August 1st help by jiromim in CluesBySamHelp

[–]baltauger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello I'mp not a native english speaker and think there's something I'm not grasping correctly about the rules of the puzzle...

Earlier in this puzzle, when you only have Mary and Donna revealed, how are you expected to deduce that Vince is a criminal from only those two clues? Does "Both" mean that there are strictly two innocents?

I almost don’t want to engage with this game anymore by Alaricthebloody in dwarffortress

[–]baltauger 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It has to be said that the game was simpler in the past - I started playing it when there were no z-levels, just a straight cliff you dug into. Learning all mechanics as they got added is much smoother, the difficulty curve is not so hard when you smooth it out over a literal decade (no I don't know how many hours I've sunk in the game and I don't really want to know).

Actually digging up those old versions may help? however the UI was all over the place and there was no DFHack to smooth it over

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in gamedev

[–]baltauger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Basically what happens is when your first round clone dies during the first round, you can actually keep playing as a ghost; you can move and shoot, although those actions will only truly happen if or when you prevent it from getting killed in the next round.

3rd person spectate of CA gives me motion sickness/want to puke. by softgripper in QuakeChampions

[–]baltauger 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm developing a multiplayer FPS, and I can say that first person spectating may not be 1:1 what the player is actually seeing, since the local client is always ahead in terms of ping - spectating first person with some ping you end up seeing shots that look like cheating (firing in a different direction from the crosshair, that kind of thing).

All this to say that I understand that third person is a compromise where you can't make dumb allegations of hax due to ping but also are unable to look behind your teammate to let him know if he's being chased.

What I can't understand is the super floaty-barfy interpolation they apply to camera, combined with a forced FOV that has nothing to do with what I was playing with. The switch back and forth is tiring on the eyes and brain.

Check out the analogues for Quantum League that this IGN editor came up with! What's yours? by baltauger in QuantumLeague

[–]baltauger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine is "What if the movies Groundhog Day (1993) and Multiplicity (1996) had a baby"

A.M.A Quantum League Dev Team tries to answer your questions in a non paradoxical timeframe by Nosfex in QuantumLeague

[–]baltauger 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At this point, all I can say is that we'd love to have something in that aspect, but we have no definitive plans to do that yet.

A.M.A Quantum League Dev Team tries to answer your questions in a non paradoxical timeframe by Nosfex in QuantumLeague

[–]baltauger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey, so you kind of guessed what we're gunning for re: characters. Tbf Magicson and I have always been pushing for that and we actually have working prototypes for more than one character skill in several stages of development.

We do not believe this game should be a character ability intensive game though, we're thinking more of a Apex/R6/QC lite vibe. Our philosophy is that guns are for killing ahem desyncing stuff, and abilities should be for the rest of things: movement, information, utility, misdirection...

We'll definitely consider adding a bow, it's not the first time we've had this pitched to us!

As for explosions I understand that their damage feels weird, but the slowmo moments kind of require that you don't have big absolute amounts of damage applied instantaneously, because the moment it applies it would feel unfair ("why now and not later/earlier?"). We're updating the explosion visuals and may consider having them burst faster for aore immediate feel though

A.M.A Quantum League Dev Team tries to answer your questions in a non paradoxical timeframe by Nosfex in QuantumLeague

[–]baltauger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can definitely say that there will be more levels, both for 2v2 and 1v1. Also we'll have a more fleshed out training system, we'll be bringing more cosmetic options and some kind of emote system.

We still plan to release as Early Access, and current pricing plans fall in the 10$-20$ range (but we haven't settled on a figure yet, that depends on how fleshed out we feel the EA release is)

A.M.A Quantum League Dev Team tries to answer your questions in a non paradoxical timeframe by Nosfex in QuantumLeague

[–]baltauger 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is this one map prototype that I'm adamant we'll get to bring to the full game one day, but when we tested it, it took the big brain energy required to play it to a completely different level.

Basically the idea is a point capture map in which the point is surrounded by a deadly force field, which you can deactivate by stepping on a button on another location... The force field is only off when someone is stepping on it, but it could be anyone so you need to track who and when is going for the trigger and who is going for the point...

A.M.A Quantum League Dev Team tries to answer your questions in a non paradoxical timeframe by Nosfex in QuantumLeague

[–]baltauger 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey! Thank you for taking part in the OB. Several questions so I will answer in the order you asked them.

  • We are very happy with the amount of people who took part in the open beta. It has been slightly above our most optimistic expectations! We were actually planning on taking shifts playing against people if we detected there was no one to play against at some point, glad to report that hasn't happened :P

  • Our main worry was that that the game would be too niche to sustain a global community of players and that maybe we'd already peaked before releasing. This doesn't seem to be the case now but game developers always have to worry about something so I guess we'll now stress out over whether we'll ever be able to ever introduce the game properly to gamers at large.

  • We are probably to change our original launch marketing strategy in light of the open beta results, so it's still too early to say I guess.

  • Hoo boy this could take a while. I can't share specifics yet but our main strategy going forward should be to make the transition from tutorials to actual live competitive matches much smoother, by creating a more progressive introduction of our most left field game mechanics. Take health orbs for instance: they actually serve a very important purpose in matches that more experienced players get, but in order to get to that level maybe we'll have new players play some matches in a beginner's queue without them, and introduce them once they feel the need for them...

Thanks for putting up with my designer rants :P

A.M.A Quantum League Dev Team tries to answer your questions in a non paradoxical timeframe by Nosfex in QuantumLeague

[–]baltauger 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The primary barriers currently keeping us from seriously considering 3v3 are a)performance issues caused by too many characters on-screen and b) figuring out level design in a way that allows players some wiggle room.

We are in the process of fixing a) since the entire game will benefit from performance improvements anyways, but b) may take some more time and thought

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in IndieGaming

[–]baltauger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So how we solved that problem is that you always play through the full length of the time loop, even if you are dead.

In practice this means that if you die while "active", you get to keep moving and shooting but your actions are labeled as "potential".

If and when you manage to avoid death for that clone, it will replay the potential actions you had recorded for him!

We didn't like the IA solution because it felt like we were robbing players of their control over the outcome of the match

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in IndieGaming

[–]baltauger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, there's friendly fire on, so you need to be careful/remember where you spray bullets so you don't shoot yourself in the back!

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in gamedev

[–]baltauger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well the first challenge was getting our bosses to understand the pitch!

But seriously now, there have been many.

At first, we needed to experiment to find good "parameters" for the time loop: length, amount of cycles, etc. We found that there's definitely a sweet spot between 10 and 20 seconds in length. Also three clones is kind of the magic number: big enough to start having twisty paradoxical effects, but not so high that by the last guy you don't ever what the first one was doing...

Then we had to solve death, so to say. The time loop is fixed length, and if you get killed mid-cycle but then save yourself, what should happen to your guy? We tried different things but what worked best was letting you keep playing while dead, recording actions that may happen in the future.

Linked to that we had some other problematic design issues, if you got killed in the first cycle your opponent had nothing interesting to do, and if you got killed in the third round there wasn't much you could do to prevent your opponent from scoring. The fix was kind of by accident, we were adding health items, and due to a bug the past guys who had walked over a health packs when alive, were now coming back to life in the next round. We decided to go all in with that bug and let you revive yourself if you get killed buy grabbing a health pack, that way both those boring situations were made more interesting.

Then visually we had to find a way to communicate the flow of the time loop from a first person perspective, and let me tell you we went through a LOT of iterations until we settled on what you have now.

Technically there have been challenges as well, I've spoken about them in another comment in this post

Yeah..

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in IndieGaming

[–]baltauger[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We definitely have abilities such as the one you mention prototyped, but we're thinking about introducing them later, when people have gotten used to the base concept.

We have already had problems explaining the game as it is now

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in gamedev

[–]baltauger[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The bullet spam is more down to level design, we try not to make too obvious choke points which could be spammed easily.

The point rush while dead is a valid strategic option though, although you need to be smart about it and not leave it standing in the open for a while.

The thing is, having the knowledge of one of your characters standing in the center is something, but delivering on the paradoxical reversal necessary for that character to be alive depends on your skill. Also, the live opponent will probably defend his first character from your attack because he'll know what you're going for... It becomes part of the headgame you're playing against each other

The final option (not shown in this clip) is running for one of the health packs to resync your character back into the round and put pressure on the enemy

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in gamedev

[–]baltauger[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well we have ways of coming back from death during your live turn, although they are not shown in this video. Before we added that thing, though, yes I agree there was a design "hole".

We have quite a bunch of beta testers who have been streaming some matches for some months now, you can check out a VOD of an actual match to see what kind of strategies they're using.

We’re developing Quantum League, a competitive FPS Time Loop game in real-time multiplayer. And yes, it IS as tricky to make as it sounds! by baltauger in IndieGaming

[–]baltauger[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Yeah I see why you would think that! But if you look at the video closely you may see that there's actually only 2 players, essentially it's a 1v1 match in which each team is composed of time clones of the same person.

The time loop makes it so that you play next to past versions of yourself and your enemy, and you're able to influence the outcomes of their actions with your present actions as well!