I know I am sort of the boogeyman of this forum, but I love you guys, I really do. I want people to have fun playing hero shooters, but besides Paladins and Overwatch there isn’t an alternative.
I’d like to make that a thing.
The last couple months I’ve been learning Unreal engine and really getting into it. I have a concept for a game and have been making up the blueprints for it.
The core idea of my game is a different take on the hero shooter concept that I know straight away is gonna trigger some knee jerk reactions, but I want you guys to pause and actually think about what I’m saying here and let me make my case. And all I ask is for constructive feedback.
Are you ready?
K, here goes nothing:
Does hero selection and hero swapping need to be a thing in a hero shooter?
I am not saying Overwatch should ever go this route, but over the 5 years I have played Overwatch over the course of a couple thousand hours I have seen a persistent pattern where the build-a-comp and hero swapping metagame within Overwatch has negatively impacted gameplay.
I have thought long and hard about this.
Here’s what I’m proposing as an alternative:
- 6v6
- prepackaged teams
- one team is a team of grunts, the other a team of demons/ghouls
- the demons wanna keep a gate to another dimension open so their buddies get through, the grunts want to escort a device that shuts it down, demons are defenders, grunts attackers
- the sides swap in between rounds
- You dont choose your character, but your role in the game. First come, first serve.
- 6 Roles. Main tank, off tank, ranged dps, flanker, main support, off support.
- 1 shield per team. It has a set duration (think Rammatra). You can’t hold a shield up indefinetely.
- the ults are the same for each character. It is a damage multiplier. Think “quad damage” or “Udamage” in quake or unreal tournament.
- During ult if you get an enemy low and are within commando knife range you can drop the rip and tear on them sort of like doom eternal. For example, shotgun guy will roadhog hook them, barrel stuff into them, and blow them apart. Ninja guy will slice them in two. Engineer guy will shoot out a destructo disk to take their head off.
Just a couple examples of cool stuff I wanna include:
-
A demon off tank with a flameflower. One of his abilities he absords shots coming at him and crunches up the bullets in his hand. For a few seconds he can throw it back at them for a fraction of damage absorbed. He can also leap in with a ground pound.
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A dark ninja/oni/demon ninja that can kick off walls up to three times and dash sort of like tracer minus the invisibility a couple times, if he’s above an enemy he can ground slam with his katana sort of like the flying swallow in Ninja Gaiden black.
-
A steriod grunt/doomguy with a quake 3 style boom shotty. Has a riot shield able to move in with it for 4 or 5 seconds. Can burn a cooldown to bash in with it. Can chuck a grenade that sucks people towards it.
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Engineer guy. Wields a plasma gun. Whips out Fortnite blueprints to make things. He can make a portable jump pad for his teammates to bounce on temporarily or blueprint up a couple healing pylons on the ground for instance.
Here’s my vision:
No nice characters. Mean and viscious. Horror tropes. A little gore here and there. Boomer shooter guns with Overwatch/Paladins like abilities. Fewer characters, but with more packed kits. No hit q or y to win game. You pop your ult you gotta hit the shots and put work in with it.
No mtx. No cosmetic bullcrap except some skins and I’m not charging for that.
Social features in the game. At least a chatroom for LFG.
Thoughts?
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There is a lot of dead hero shooters out there. So it is always risky to make one.
But, if it is a home project, I wish you the best, and I’ll be there on day one waving the flag for you.
One thing I think people are subconsciously getting aggravated about is this insane wokism with Overwatch where it’s overly nice and cartoony with a bunch of patrionizing token diversity.
Maybe people for once want a little testosterone in their shooter. Characters that are out to spill blood and not shoot hearts and puppies at you while they spam rainbows to heal their team up.
Some people like that. I get it. But I think there’s a demographic kind of wants to get out of Disneyworld and move into a different game universe. You know what I mean?
Your not wrong, that is for sure.
“Remember kids, brush your teeth and say your prayers before every match or Garrett will throw you in a sack and carry you off to his beet farm in Yakutia!”
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You say that like it is a bad thing.
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Yakutian beets seem nice at first, but they’re actually very fragile and desperate for attention. If you show them the barest amount of human decency they will turn you into their personal therapist.
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I really think a direct OW competitor with some polish could eat OW’s lunch. The previous attempts were competing with OG OW. It wouldnt be hard to compete with modern OW.
Not picking the specific character would keep me from playing the game.
I disagree with this. I don’t mind the diversity in OW. They aren’t hitting us over the head with it.
Honestly, any hero shooter that’s made well could shut OW down. Pick any idea for a this genre, implement it well with a solid team and you’ll have a good game. I have a friend from college who has started a few companies. In his words: “ideas are the easy part, everyone in the world has great ideas. The part that makes it a succeed or fail is finding the right team, and how you implement the ideas”
At minimum the route I am going is the easiest to develope for multiplayer kind of game.
Only having 12 characters rather than like 35 that right there exponentially lightens the workload.
Also a lot of what Overwatch does is fluff. Skins, emotes, voice lines. Then seasonal event content. Then all this pve crap they tried to make.
Much of it is flair that has nothing to do with the core gameplay experience which is all I care about.
The animations and character models I am probably going to have to get some outside help on, but believe it or not programming the gun and abilities and even getting basic multiplayer architechture in a game actually surprised the heck out of me how not difficult it is.
I can not describe how much I love your post.
It is god damn poetry.
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This is interesting. I like the idea of not being able to pick your character - it reminds me a bit of the Undercroft (your weapons and character are randomized).
At first I didn’t like like it because I usually stick to a favorite character/gun, but it’s growing on me and made me realize how to adapt my playstyle on the fly.
But enough about me, I hope this project goes well and I’ll be happy to test it…but I think that’s against forum rules or something…who knows.
In Overwatch you rarely get a game where the moon and stars align and it works to create a fun experience.
At least half the time “our tank was hard countered and wouldn’t swap” “our Genji ran straight into a Winston” “they had a Pharah and our DPS wouldn’t swap”.
Then when it comes to choice. Is it really choice? If you care about winning put yourself in the shoes now of the person who wouldn’t swap. They prolly just wanted to play a hero, but the enemy brought out y hero so now they are expected to swap from x if they care about winning.
Also all the toxic build a comps. Double shield, double sniper, double tank buster.
You can’t have double of anything if I simply do not allow that to happen. You can’t build some cheese bunker comp if that’s not possible. You don’t need crap in the game like Brig if a full on dive comp isn’t a thing.
It WAY WAY easier to create a balanced and consistent experience when both teams get the same tools and it just comes down to who play what better.
Also if people think Rein + Zarya is the mecca of good gameplay (ask anyone nostalgic about OW 1). Cool, I can make the game that and be done with it.
No Ball + Hog. No bs. Rein + Zarya. The other team gets another tank duo (and support and dps duo) designed specifically the synergize together like that with no stupid hard counters to worry about. You swap places in between rounds.
Have fun!
I’m creating something that I actually want to play.