Assault mode
Since October 2016, the main focus of the game has been Rush mode, where the attacking team must capture two control points by setting off a timed hacking process.
There were a few problems with this mode:
- The game is designed for 1v1, possibly 2v2 or 3v3 at the most. Rush games work best with large teams. In a 1v1 Rush game, the players often just take turns capturing one control point, then the other.
- Sitting still and holding X to hack a control point is not very exciting.
- The control points don't really interact with any other systems in the game. At best, they encourage you to camp in a single spot and wait.
The core consists of a number of modules which must be individually destroyed:
All turrets must be destroyed before the core becomes vulnerable. Turrets work like this:
I also realized that minions are important enough that they should be a part of every match, rather than being available as an optional ability. So now, they spawn automatically over time.
Where do they spawn from? Well, I wanted to give more reason for players to capture batteries other than just gaining more energy. So now, they also function as spawn points. You can choose to spawn from any battery you own.
This mode takes the game back toward the earlier MOBA experiments, but without some of the failed aspects (large bullet-sponge health bars, last-hitting).
Sniping tweaks
Your shield now goes down while sniping. High risk, high reward!
Active armor tweaks
You can now reflect incoming bolts, increasing their speed and damage. Useful for fighting turrets.
Misc
There are tons of other changes to talk about. One example is the "toggle zoom" option. Instead of holding RMB to zoom in, you can click it to toggle the zoom. I think unsexy accessibility options like this are super important. The new AI system is also still under construction. I'll be showing the game at Vector conference next weekend, so hopefully I'll get a lot of feedback to move forward with.