Hi, it's been a while since my last blog post. I'm still playing ShootMania with my team 'Alter Ego'. I recently joined the admin team for ShootMania on
cybergamer.com.au we will be running competitions for ShootMania, head over to our forums if you are interested in playing competitive ShootMania in Australia. Moving to steam was a fantastic thing and the numbers in Oceania right now are at an all time high. I'm really enjoying playing the game at the moment and the improvements since the Alpha release are phenomenal, if any developers get the chance to see this you have all done yourselves proud.
ShootMania as it is now is a brilliant game, it's simple enough your common layman can jump in with little to no FPS experience and have fun in game types like Royal, Battle and the many custom modes like Jailbreak. I believe ShootMania needs some complexity added to it, not through more additions to the movement system either. Below are some suggestions to improve the game as a whole.
Things ShootMania needs:
- User Interface
- Although the user interface has been reworked and is now amazing compared to what it once was, but it still needs work. The menu needs to be re-designed so it comes together into one area, at the moment it's too spread out between different titles and games. The path between opening the game and joining a server needs to be as quick as possible, because sadly - people are inherently lazy. If the separate title screens such as Joust / Elite were to be removed off the menu and placed inside the main "Shootmania Storm" title in a different section it removes a step that needs to be taken in order to play and also reduces the clutter.
- Default Configuration
- At the moment the default configuration is not newbie friendly, it needs to be tweaked to a standard acceptable for people completely new to first person shooters and/or PCs.
- Things that need to be set as default:
- Input Settings
- Y Axis set to 1
- Mouse acceleration set to 0
- Specific laser sensitivity disabled
- Fix the chat bug where it will spam chat if either chat key is bound to enter (alternatively rebind it by default)
- Interface Settings
- More crosshairs that come with the game
- Complexity
- As it is ShootMania has a very good movement system, it's simple enough for the amateur player to be able to move around a map. Yet complex enough for a professional player to be able to show his superiority with it. The movement system does not need to be changed.
- Fixing the complexity issue by adding new weapons:
- To fix the issue of complexity and raising the skill ceiling for players I think new weapons need to be added to the game, the recent Beta 3 option that gave defenders a choice of weapon to use on defence was a great idea that lacked execution. This brilliant idea needs to be revived with some new additions to the weapon armory for defenders.
- New weapons ideas (these are just weapon theories, I would be happy to test them out and give feedback to your development team. I've highlighted my favourite ideas)
- Grenade launcher:
- Moves in a parabola, bounces off walls without losing much momentum, loses a lot of momentum when it touches the ground. Alternatively when it hits the ground it loses all momentum and sticks to it.
- Energy Drain:
- Similar to a nucleus, either has the speed of a nucleus or rocket. Takes an armour point on direct hit, has an Area of Effect radius the same as a nucleus. On Area of Effect hit it knocks back the enemy and drains a percentage of their energy.
- Lightning Gun:
- Idea modified from the quake lightning gun, drains opponents armour over time. If you don't take off an armour point and instead get it down to say 40%, you then don't hit during a period, the armour will begin to climb back up to full. This can happen from 1%.
If you made it this far thanks for reading, if you want to see more posts or tutorials about ShootMania let me know in the comments. Below are some contact links for myself and my team Alter Ego. Happy fraggin'!
~ Sam "sam1" Wayne - ShootMania Admin | Alter Ego player
