04-14-2005, 10:00 PM
SetBuilder,Apr 14 2005, 02:34 PM Wrote:Two squads of seven, each squad also having a squad leader (7 troops + SL). Ideally, 34 is the best number in competitive play. That way each team can have two squads, two squad leaders, and a captain. Takes a LOT of practice to be able to work in two squads with eachother, and it's pretty much a requirement you know or at least play with these same people a LOT to get to your fullest potential. That in itself though would make the game EXTREMELY playable.
[right][snapback]73958[/snapback][/right]
OK, so we're in the secret cellar of some historical building in London, fighting who knows what. We've got two squads of 8 people, involving different skills that complement each other extensively. One can fight on the other's flank, if the architecture allows it. Now if you were designing the level with this concept in mind (and keep in mind, you may actually be designing a random room algorithm and list of random enemies), do you really think it's going to be an interesting tactical level in single player mode as well? For that matter, is it even going to be playable with 1-4 players? You can't really tie level generation to number of players, unless you lock every game at creation. So at most, you can make lame changes to enemy difficulty, or you can put in an triggered or timed enemy spawn system.
I fear it will lead to a game that is more akin to Diablo 2 or WoW than Diablo (or a good single player FPS, or Angband for that matter), and that concerns me. Because I'm still playing Diablo and Angband, and I pretty much gave up on D2 and WoW a long time ago. But then again, there is nothing in D2 that is really balanced for more than ~3 players and very little of WoW is balanced for more than 5...