Game Chat with Tiy and Rho

<Tiy> So guys
<Tiy> lets talk about combat
<Tiy> give me your thoughts on the shield stuff

<Agronis> Will there be unblockable attacks and/or attacks that you won't be
able to shield Tiy?
<Tiy> yeah there will be Agronis

<Tiy> I kind of want to slow the game down a bit more than your usual
platformer too
<Tiy> I'd like the combat to be more methodical and thoughtful
<Tiy> than run and gun
<Tiy> what do you guys think of that

<DoctorRagnarok> Any chance that shields will be used to push an enemy
backward?  i like when you get that distancing mechanic
<Tiy> If the shields pushed enemies back, you wouldnt be able to counter
attack them though right?
<Tiy> I mean, maybe we could make that an optional button you hold
<Tiy> to make the shield do that
<Tiy> its an interesting idea


<WelshPixie> Tiy - does 'methodical and thoughtful' also apply to multiplayer?
For example - KAG has the shield mechanic, but with so many people playing
together, everyone tends to just button-mash
<Tiy> WelshPixie, methodical and thoughtful will scale with multiplayer
<Tiy> something im really trying to do, and part of that is slowing the game
down, will be giving players a role to play in a team
<Tiy> i dont want to say "classes" because there wont be classes


<Agronis> Also another question; can your shield protect you from blows to the
back, or do you have to turn around and face the correct direction Tiy?
<Tiy> Agronis, you have to face the correct direction


<Tiy> one of the choices you have to make is
<Tiy> Should I be an all rounder? Or should I be one component in a team
<Tiy> For example, you could equip lots of healing items, and armor that gives
you healing bonuses
Tiy> and play as a healer
<Tiy> its not a class, but the role is there


<bFusion> Tiy: so roles are based off gear worn instead of skills and
attributes
<Tiy> yeah bFusion


<NaturallyMade> so basically, there is equipment you can have to act as a
class, but no pre-defined "Classes"
<Tiy> I don't like the idea of sticking a role to a player
<Tiy> because i think thats just an artificial way of making the player play
the game again
<Tiy> NaturallyMade i dont want players to switch *rapidly* between classes
<Tiy> by that I mean
<Tiy> i dont want a player to have
<Tiy> 5 different armor sets in their inventory
<Tiy> and flick between them, so one second theyre a healer, the next they're
a tank
<Tiy> so my solution is
<Tiy> make playing a role require a lot of items
<NaturallyMade> Tiy oh yeah, i get that, just that, maybe i wanna be a healer
on a certain run down to a planet, and a hunter on a different run.
<Tiy> so youll need to stash your other items back at base
<Tiy> exactly
<Tiy> so effectively you can bring a new build to each new planet


<Arcore_> Tiy, is there something in the game to sneak in the game? Like
rogues in WoW :o
<Tiy> you can also crouch in starbound
<Tiy> so crouching behind cover is a tactic


<Agronis> What about implementing cooldowns on armor equiping and slower
equipment switching Tiy?
<Tiy> Agronis I think cool downs are just kind of annoying, personally
<Tiy> I mean it works
<Tiy> but its something the player shouldnt have to consider


<Tiy> I want prepping for a planet to be a big part of the game


<Arcore_> Tiy .... will - there - be - cloaks - to - hide - from - enemies?
<Tiy> Arcore_, it's an interesting idea
<Tiy> havent planned that yet


<XZolon> Tiy, I know you don't want to release any boss info yet, but are you
thinking about making large-scale team bosses?
<Tiy> i cant talk about bosses too much yet, but they will be there, and
they'll be fun


<LadyAijou> Tiy, what kind of storage capacity ARE we looking at?
<Tiy> LadyAijou, player storage is small but implemented in a unique way


<bFusion> Tiy: microtransactions! FIFTY CENTS PER SLOT!
<Tiy> no microtransactions :P


<Tiy> I'm sorry if I'm not answering everyone, its sometimes hard to keep up
<Tiy> also there are some things i dont want to discuss yet, because we're
still experimenting with features on some things
<Tiy> and i dont want to say "hey yeah this is going to be like X" and then
when we're done its like Y


<LadyAijou> Reason I asked about storage though is just that with the sheer
amount of available loot, players are going to want to collect, and if your
inventory is very limited, its going to force people away from that
<Tiy> LadyAijou, collecting is a bigggg part of the game
<Tiy> we're putting in all sorts of things to encourage that


<Agronis> So you mean you don't want to be like peter molyneux?
<Tiy> Agronis, pretty much
<Tiy> its a balance between, allowing players to collect everything they want
to collect
<Tiy> and not allowing them to have access to everything at once


<Agronis> Could you perhaps make a way to beam back collected resources to
your space station Tiy?
<Tiy> Agronis ¬_¬


<Hug_> Tiy, can you imagine drving in a drillcar?
<Tiy> Hug_, drillcars are cool :P


<GenC> @TIY have you guys read the thread about you Devs having your own
planet and have a Precense literally in the game (like how the Ancients are to
Star Gate )
<Tiy> GenC I saw that yeah, fun idea :P
<Tiy> I'll be like
<Tiy> a level 1
<Tiy> piglet
<Tiy> called Tiy


<NaturallyMade> Tiy if by tactical you mean, not just running across the
planet swinging your sword killing *cough* slimes *cough* I'm in. :P
<Tiy> well
<Tiy> the strategy I HOPE to get in
<Tiy> revolves around team synergy, good movement and placement and using the
right tools at the right time
<Tiy> An example might be
<Tiy> lets say you have a team made up of 2 ranged soldiers and a support
medic
<Tiy> the support medic tosses down a force field that boosts the power of the
soldiers guns if they shoot through it
<Tiy> that sort of thing
<Tiy> I'm basing it on the RPGs I used to play
<Tiy> stuff like guildwars


<Hug_> Tiy. What if there were a cannon that shot out eletric balls that would
expand until it came in contact with a creature and it would electrocute
them?!
<Tiy> sounds cool Hug_


<Arcore_> @Tiy , How is the multiplayer gonna be? Do you need to invite people
to your singleplayer world or like you need to startup a server and that
stuff?
<Tiy> Arcore_ at the moment, multiplayer revolves around space stations. When
you start a new game, you start a new space station. You can invite players to
that station and visit worlds together
<Tiy> a server hosts a station save
<Tiy> and the server will have options for allowing character imports from
local files
<Tiy> or forcing players to start a new character on the server


<Kiofspa> @Tiy what kind of things will large public servers have to protect
against things like griefers?
<Tiy> Kiofspa, griefing will be much less of an issue in starbound. The space
station is essentially not griefable. There will be an option to disable
things like explosives on homeworlds. And regular planets you won't really
care so much about
<Tiy> I want each planet to be a throw away experience
<Tiy> not something you become attached to
<Tiy> that way, I can do all sorts of hilarious things with planets


<Arcore_> The worst thing about this is that some ppl will find a way to cheat
or grief items .... This wont happen if every savefile is gonna be saved on a
cloud service ...
<Tiy> Arcore_, we're considering a whole login deal
<Tiy> its a complex thing to set up, and it can be quite costly too
<Tiy> I think the most important thing is making sure cheaters don't ruin
other peoples experience
<Tiy> it's not a huge deal if they want to ruin their own


<JermEx> Tiy will shields be procedurally generated as well?
<Tiy> JermEx, yeah


<Agronis> If you make it so that cheaters can't ruin peoples servers that
require their own server-side characters then I believe that will be enough
protection against cheaters

<JohnDevince> Tiy, I think a height slider would be pretty boss!
<Tiy> yeah a height slider wouldnt work :(
<Tiy> sorry


<Kiofspa> @Tiy can you explain why some of the screenshots have different
interfaces, like some with the hotbar on the right - is it customizable?
<Tiy> Kiofspa, because we updated it a few times :P


<XZolon> Tiy: Are you looking at possibly having cast-time/charge-time based
weapons? Like an energy cannon that takes two seconds to fire
<Tiy> yeah
<Tiy> there are going to be alllll kinds of crazy weapons and tools
starbound, drives me even more exited about it >_>'
<Tiy> there will be tools that are useful in combat sure


<Agronis> Will monsters/enemies take falling damage Tiy?
<Tiy> you know we havent discussed falling damage yet
<Tiy> they probably will
<Tiy> theres no falling damage in the game atm
<Tiy> need to implement it
<Tiy> i dont see why we would limit it to players


<BrainAfk> Tiy: Some mobs have 'natural' shields right? why not natural anti-
fall damage bodies?
<Tiy> well sure
<Tiy> some mobs can fly
<Tiy> etc


<Kiofspa> @Tiy is the currency called Pixels?
<Tiy> yes Kiofspa


<Tiy> so another question
<Tiy> enemies dont hurt you on touch
<Tiy> as I said elsewhere
<Tiy> you can walk up to them and take no damage
<Tiy> they have to hit you
<Tiy> the question is
<Tiy> do you think you should be able to walk through them
<TheFacelessOne> No.
<Agronis> No
<JohnDevince> No
<Rho_> good, i'm glad
<Rho_> because that's what we're thinking too
<Rho_> tiy means through as in, can you walk past an enemy without taking
damage
<Rho_> i.e. it only damages you if its "attacking"
<Rho_> however, if you can walk through them, then that means we can be
creative and have say, enemies that are "asleep" and you can sneak past


<Rho_> how do you guys like this
<Rho_> enemies only damaging you on touch if they're "aggressive", you know?
<Rho_> so neutral/friendly enemies you can walk by just fine
<Rho_> that way you can still have friends :)


<NaturallyMade> Rho_ YES! and say like, lizard enemies, if you steal their
eggs, they attack.
<Rho_> yeah NaturallyMade, a creature i've recently made
<Rho_> i made two, one big and one "small"
<Rho_> and its going to have lots of "small" ones around it
<Rho_> and if you mess with any of the small ones
<Rho_> the big one will mess you up


<Agronis> Will building around passive monsters cause them to aggro? So that
you don't just build a cage around a passive mob and then shoot through a hole
you make?
<Rho_> Agronis i don't think so, but that's super mean and you should feel bad
>:[


<Tiy> this is the system I'm considering at the moment.  Enemies have a "line
of sight" (already in the game), so they can "see" you and become aggressive.
When an enemy is aggressive you can't just walk by them, they push you back.
But if you have the correct stealth items, you can hold shift (which makes you
walk, already implemented) and go into sneak mode, in which case you can walk
right by
<Tiy> an enemy. If the sneak items are good enough


<JermEx> Awesome Tiy , but will sneaking carry over into PVP combat?
<Tiy> hmm sneaking in PVP
<Tiy> who knows :P


<LadyAijou> Tiy, sounds good as far as enemies, but how does that change with
passive creatures, things you'd be trying to catch for example?
<Tiy> LadyAijou, I think you should be able to walk past passive creatures


<JohnDevince> Tiy. What gave you the idea of having multi platform? Because I
must tell you the Mac portion will bring a 14-15 % increase!
<Rho_> it's already multi platform
<Rho_> it'll be released on pc/mac/linux
<JohnDevince> I'm asking what gave you guys the idea?
<Rho_> because people always asked for a terraria mac port
<Rho_> for ages
<Tiy> JohnDevince, well I think everything should be multiplatform if possible
<Rho_> and that ^^^^
<Agronis> How hard is it to port C++ over to mac anyways?
<Rho_> not hard at all iirc
<Rho_> it already runs on mac as far as i know
<Tiy> its not really a port
<Tiy> macs support C++ fully


<JohnDevince> Tiy, I think astronaut food would be very nice, finding food
from past Earth life would be a rarity!
<Tiy> I think all food in the game should be chicken pie
<Tiy> with gravey
<Tiy> mmm
<Tiy> there will be a vegetarian option too
<Rho_> man now i want to draw a pie graphic
<Tiy> throwable pies
<Tiy> with procedurally generated filling


<XZolon> Tiy: Is there going to be a mechanic for crew followers for people
who want to play Single-player but still want to hit some of the harder
group-type missions/quests/planets/encounters?
<XZolon> Or will the group-based stuff not show up in singleplayer?
<Tiy> XZolon, I think we're going to scale the difficulty based on number of
players


<LadyAijou> Tiy, can you answer the food meter question? It's been a big argument on the forums now for awhile
<Tiy> food meter?
<Tiy> i think food meters are attrocious
<Rho_> <@Tiy> i think food meters are attrocious
<Rho_> this
<Rho_> food meters ridiculous
<Tiy> Ive never seen a game implement a food meter that wasn't anything but irritating
<Rho_> yeah
<Rho_> the most food should do is maybe heal a bit of health, maybe some other buff for certain foods


<JermEx> Tiy are Quests going to be procedurally generated as well? are there a limit to the NPC's you can find?
<Tiy> JermEx yes and no


<DevilBro> Tiy will there be cooking and alchemy ?
<Tiy> DevilBro, there's no "alchemy", but haha
<Tiy> there's something we havent announced yet :P


<XZolon> Tiy: How do quests work with multiple players on the server? I'd assume there'd be some sort of status console on the space station that shows the station's current quest(s)? That way everyone can participate?
<Rho_> XZolon we're looking at doing that
<Rho_> some kind of central status thing on the station that tracks what/where everyone is
<Tiy> i want quests to be per person though
<Tiy> you know how borderlands does it?
<Tiy> you just take the same quest


<WeHateSand> hey @Tiy, please, do not put durability into this game
<Tiy> durability sucks too
<Rho_> i don't like durability
<Rho_> because then you just spend half the game obsessively repairing everythng to 100%
<Rho_> use it once, repair repair repair
<Rho_> it's lame
<Tiy> time sink
<Tiy> grind
<Tiy> blerhg


<JohnDevince> Tiy, are you implementing mini games?
<Tiy> I'm not sure if you would call them mini games JohnDevince
<Tiy> but there will be arenas
<Tiy> and a bunch of other stuff
<Rho_> man
<Rho_> now i want to add a thunderdome to the space station
<Rho_> TWO MEN ENTER, ONE MAN LEAVES


<LadyAijou> Tiy, can we quick share a quest with other players, so that they can just click to join the quest?
<Tiy> LadyAijou the way its going to work at the moment (although i might change it) is quests are assigned to a party, rewards are assigned to a player
<Tiy> I want NPC dialogue to be in speech bubbles


<Agronis> Will the speech bubbles be able to be seen by every player?
<Tiy> yeah Agronis


<nuthulu> So I take it there won't be voice acting Tiy?
<Tiy> I'm aiming to do a special
<Tiy> made up language
<Tiy> you know how it works in the sims, etc
<Tiy> and the idea will be
<Tiy> that you have a translator device
<Tiy> and yeah
<Rho_> gotta get a bunch of people for planet waz
<Rho_> or maybe we can just play wazzup soundclips


<JermEx> Tiy I hesitate to ask this, but any solid decision on Foreground tiles?
<Rho_> JermEx, we're looking at it
<Rho_> no solid decision yet :(


<XZolon> Tiy: Will players have dialogue options, or are we just going to click an NPC and get chat bubbles of text initiating a quest?
<Rho_> right
<Rho_> like, an "outside" wall on houses that fades out when you enter
<Tiy> XZolon, probably not dialogue options
<Tiy> just an option to accept or decline quests


<JohnDevince> Tiy, shouldn't the effect of how long you took to finish a quest make the quest npc give less reward?
<Tiy> nah
<Tiy> dont want to rush players
<Rho_> thats a can of worms
<Rho_> yeah