MAV - Basically Chromehounds

So it's in Alpha right now. $10 and you get all updates forever at no additional cost.

http://www.bombdogstudios.com/

Won't be able to get a good look at it until after work.  But a quick glimpse of the mech on the front page said "chromehounds".

Yeah, it's still in very early Alpha. Features they will implement before launch the chromehounds MP map, where different factions fight for control of the country. Should be amazing once it's done.

Did you make the purchase?  Or are you waiting?

I sure did.

Haha, what a rip-off.

No way I'm trusting guys who show so little innovation with my money.

If it was an open-source remake, I'd be cool with it. As it stands, I just don't agree. Seems like profit over passion.

S7 Epic wrote:Haha, what a rip-off.

No way I'm trusting guys who show so little innovation with my money.

If it was an open-source remake, I'd be cool with it. As it stands, I just don't agree. Seems like profit over passion.

Meh, $10 is cheap enough that I'm willing to go in on it and see how things turn out.

Well played sir, well played.

So very true Epic.

S7 Epic wrote:Haha, what a rip-off.

No way I'm trusting guys who show so little innovation with my money.

If it was an open-source remake, I'd be cool with it. As it stands, I just don't agree. Seems like profit over passion.

Hey, I am Chad, the developer behind M.A.V. I stumbled over this post and I was really interested in what you said because one of the biggest things I have been dealing with is people wanting an exact clone, which M.A.V. is surely not. While I have some fairly obvious influences of chromehounds, I think there will be enough distinctness that it won't fall into 'knockoff' territory. 

Also, about the profit thing. MAV runs a negative balance, as any purchases go directly back into the cost of making the game (server costs and artwork typically). I have a full time job and have been working on MAV purely out of passion. I am just happy making a cool game.

If you are slightly interested in the game, try checking back in a month or so, I plan to have an updated demo that will allow you to make a judgement for yourself.

oh snap.  Did this just happen? lol. I know I'd be glad to give it a try sometime.  I was a big fan of chromehounds, and having a game that is remotely similar has me excited.  I know I'll be keeping an eye on this as it develops further.

Thanks for posting Chad. I'm sure we'll all be keeping an eye on it as it develops further.

@ Epic ...  LOL

PWND!

Don't know if you'll come back, Chad but if you do, could you point out what the core gameplay differences are between this and Chromehounds? From what I see, everything is exactly the same. This is something of a shame because whilst Chromehounds was good, it was far from perfect and there were definitely improvements to be made.

The only unique element I have seen is the construction of walls/turrets/defenses (scrap the walls IMO), which could be kind of cool, however, on a wishlist of additions/fixes to Chromehounds, it's not the highest.

Anyway, if you read this, I'd recommend engaging in a separate discussion about ideas. This clan had a very active (and very large) Chromehounds division and also played it competitively, so I think there's probably a lot of knowledge here that could be useful in regards to creating a great game.

Cheers.

I miss playing chromhounds now

S7 Epic wrote:Don't know if you'll come back, Chad but if you do, could you point out what the core gameplay differences are between this and Chromehounds? From what I see, everything is exactly the same. This is something of a shame because whilst Chromehounds was good, it was far from perfect and there were definitely improvements to be made.

The only unique element I have seen is the construction of walls/turrets/defenses (scrap the walls IMO), which could be kind of cool, however, on a wishlist of additions/fixes to Chromehounds, it's not the highest.

Anyway, if you read this, I'd recommend engaging in a separate discussion about ideas. This clan had a very active (and very large) Chromehounds division and also played it competitively, so I think there's probably a lot of knowledge here that could be useful in regards to creating a great game.

Cheers.

Hey, I would love to talk about the game! I don't really know where to post and what not as I found your post from a Google Alert. I am very new to this community.

From a core gameplay standpoint, yes the walking around and shooting is very similar to chromehounds. Especially right now, as the game only has 'free battle' type game modes, it will feel very similar. Here are some of the ways I feel make MAV stand out though (when just taking the free battles into account):

1. I spent a considerable amount of time designing and developing a procedural part system. This means each part is made of smaller parts that all contribute stats to the final part (like the borderlands weapon system). This allows me to develop a large amount of smaller parts that can all combine into hundreds of thousands of combinations, meaning the variety of weapons and parts can be incredibly high. In my public development plan you can see I have planned for 20 different types of weapons. This allows a large variety in play styles.

2. Tactical Gameplay will be rewarded. In chromehounds there was a large amount of skill involved in just moving erratically and timing your shots. It was really a game of just who landed the most shots, which is why the skinny, hard to hit hounds started to dominate. Howitzers became a go to weapon to take advantage of the splash damage and the game really devolved from there. I want ALL play styles in MAV to be rewarding. One of the features that I have in that helps this is the part destruction. This means if a sniper can hit a critical part, it will destroy that part plus the player will lose anything that was attached to it. This also adds an addition strategy element to creating your builds. Properly Identifying an enemies weakness and accurately exploiting that will always trump over just 'shots landed'. There is also carefully balancing at the part level to ensure a 'cascading rock-paper-scissors' with the role types. For example, The 'sniper' weapons and parts all have a lower armor rating, making splash damage weapons very effective against them (heavy gunner). However, the splash damage weapons are slow moving and less accurate, meaning a high mobility MAV can avoid them and attack (scout). And then of course the scout is weak against the sniper weapons, bringing us full circle. This is only a small idea of the concept.

3. Map design.  This is the least present one currently, but being on PC (and ~7 years later) the power to have more impressive maps and locations is much better. Chromehounds had some amazing maps, and some that nobody wanted to play on. I hope to have a large number of very detailed, highly dynamic maps.


As for the Campaign mode, there will be many significant differences, almost all focused at the higher level. This includes, diplomacy, base building, resource management, deployable secret weapons, researching, and a dynamic world map. (I showed a 'tiny' bit of the plans for the world map in a youtube video).

I would LOVE! any feedback the community here has about what they would want to see in the game. I guess I could have listed that as another difference? I am just a dude making a game, so you can email me, send me a message, or whatever if you don't like something. If the community says they don't like something, I will actually listen. So you also have a chance to help shape the game into exactly what you would like to see as well. In fact, there is a entire section of the 'official' message board dedicated to tossing around ideas of what people want to see in the game. The only thing I have said I REALLY don't want to do is laser based weapons and a cockpit view.

Well, I guess thats a good ramble for now! As you can see I really like talking about MAV (and mechs in general), so feel free to ask any more questions!

-Chad

(I had some links to the stuff I was talking about in here, but I have not been a member long enough. It can all be found from the games main page though)

Have you thought about the utility items much? Jetpacks/Flares/etc? I always thought there was a lot of room for expansion in this area. Especially the jetpacks. Would be cool to be able to have them more effective in regards to combat and positioning. Maybe have a limited supply of fuel for the whole game/round, or have it wear down the part after a certain point.

I'm glad you're focussing on the gameplay, I really feel that some weapons were just really ineffective. The sniper rifles in particular were poor. IMO the speed and droop of the projectile made it almost unusable at range and it's impact upon a successful hit was pitiful, so there was no reward for skilled players. Perhaps for snipers the projectile speed could be very high but only damage the part that it hits, then the defending player can be rewarded for shielding too.

P.S. - Please don't let the 'double-double' be effective again, lol. Maybe it can have a minimum trajectory so it can't easily be aimed at feet?

Yes, utility items are a great idea. In fact the 'utility' system is what the walls/turrets/supply building are using right now. They are basically abilities, but with an ammo amount and they exists as physical parts (meaning you can blow them up!). Which leads to great gameplay experiences, like having a person jetpack to get somewhere and a sniper taking out the jetpack in midair, causing falling damage to the first player!

I agree about the sniper weapons, they are a tricky beast. You want them to feel powerful but enabling a long range 1-hit kill weapon doesn't really make the game fun for everyone else. I think the part destruction really plays into this, allowing the sniper to be more of a surgeon then a brute force attacker.

As for the infamous double double, I already did one change to the howitzers to discourage using them as cannons. If you get a direct hit with a howitzer round, it actually deals reduced damage, and doesn't do ANY splash damage. I am also going to be putting in a update to the aiming system to the howitzers to make sure they are more of an indirect fire weapon.

Hmmmm, that howitzer change feels a little harsh unless you're taking range into account and such. I think that's the biggest challenge in balancing them, making sure that they don't actually become under-powered.

Yeah, I think we're agreed on the snipers role. Having a guy on the team that can help disable artillery or cripple any fast moving mechs designed to whizz around towers and stuff. An EMP round could be pretty cool. Assuming the loadouts work the same as CH, you'd really only want one gun with that kind of round, otherwise you'd massively sacrifice dps.

It's also worth noting that water combat was one of the most interesting things in Chromehounds. Maybe having some sort of low ammo capacity round that can fire while submerged would be interesting.