Maniaplanet Forum

After really enjoying a few rounds of the combo mode, I found there to be a few obvious improvements that could be made. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice and refreshing gamemode to try!

First off, I don't understand the lobby system. Why not just have the two sub-modes separate, it's annoying to constantly go back and forth. It would be better to switch the game mode to the new elite system, allowing for teams of variable size, just making sure there are equal amounts of people on both sides (and at least 2 on each team I guess).

After that, I'm unconvinced about the win/lose conditions. It does make for a pleasant change from usual point scoring, but it can lead to excessively short matches... It feels a bit contrived to start hiding just to run out the timer. I'd draw the comparison with Jailbreak, where to me it feels completely different: as a last man standing on a team, you can't just wait it out, and have to put yourself out there to save your team. Here, there's a bit of incentive with the combo breaking, but I'm not a fan of promoting hiding in such a direct way.

Then, I think the weapon switch mechanics are not very well made. Using the 1 2 3 4 keys is a bit cumbersome, and having many weapons available simultaneously seems at odds with the rest of the game mechanics... it can lead to some rather silly spam up close between arrows and nucleus, which is made worse by the fact that there are no meters onscreen indicating the charge level of the weapons beside the weapon currently used.
I don't think I have a good answer as to how to improve the situation. Either have some on-screen indication of charge level of other weapons, or change the charge system (e.g. having a single unified charge level for all weapons?).

Of course most of the tweaking to get a better gamemode consists of simple scripting, and it's great we can have modes like this now, with pickups. I'm sure this opens up the way for a lot more cool stuff!

Anyone else want to chime in and suggest improvements, or other directions the game mode could go?

sheaf wrote:which is made worse by the fact that there are no meters onscreen indicating the charge level of the weapons beside the weapon currently used.

I would ask for a color grading in the number color in order to show the nb of charges... white = 0 red = 1 or more
Or even a litle quad near the weapon symbol that gets filled

Thing they mostly need to fix is the weapon pickup system.
Having your ammo stack is straight up silly. When you pick up a weapon it should give you a certain, finite amount of ammo for that weapon, and the weapon spawn timers should be reduced to compensate.

Those are my thoughts, but I'll address your comments as well.

Using the 1 2 3 4 keys is a bit cumbersome

You can rebind these keys.

and having many weapons available simultaneously seems at odds with the rest of the game mechanics...

Perhaps, but it's awesome and really fun. So theres no problem.

there are no meters onscreen indicating the charge level of the weapons beside the weapon currently used.

Not a big deal, you can keep track of the timers in your head.

releaseGG wrote:

Using the 1 2 3 4 keys is a bit cumbersome

You can rebind these keys.

Would prefer mouse wheel to scroll between collected weapons, I didn't find a way to set that.

Edit: http://forum.maniaplanet.com/viewtopic. ... 35&t=18466