Thoughts on FPS - MOBA

Hi, I thought I'd share this idea I have had for a year or so now... I'm not planning to make it at the moment, to be honest I have tried I did get a some prototype thing going in Torque3D but I got stuck. Also I went at it alone... Anycase I just want to put the idea out there and hear some feedback on it.

Okay I did say FPS & MOBA in the Title... I just want the re phrase that and say not directly mixing the two genres... but the general idea of it all. First of I know that MOBA's are special the way its build and setup esp the camera is whats actually making the game, since its mostly just about tactics/ganking, and so on. Having a over view of the map is whats its all about. Taking away that and putting it all into a first person view kinda screws it up. So what I'm saying is taking only bits of the MOBA. The map size, the lanes, the limited items and limited level and so on... I could have just said a "lite rpg". *Kinda lost track what the point was.. anyways don't want people to jump to conclusions...

Okay so back to the idea:
The idea is you have two teams, or 3 even 4 maybe. But lets stick with 2 for now. You get 4 elements. Fire, Water, Air, Earth. Each player will have a First person view of the world, they will have 2 weapons Primary(long range/rifle/whatever) Secondary(Short range, pistol type). "Kinda think of Borderlands" and then also a throwable/placeable. I'm not yet sure about player specific skill trees or abilities/spells whatever, I'm kinda over that... A player though will have to make a choice in at the start of the match, by choosing a base element type. The base element type will directly influence you weapons and role in the game.

Each weapon type (primary/secondary/throwable/placeable) will have 4 shard slots. Now shards them self are basically the focus of the game, you gain shards by killing ofc. or by crafting them.(this part i havent thought out so much, but it could make it interesting with a time based crafting system, where you kinda put pressure on the player since the whole game kinda runs like a moba. so you can't hang around the base all day...) Also there will be no ammo, you kinda use "mana" as ammo, base weapon fire with no shards for instance, take the same amount of points a normal setup would have similar to lets say 50 rounds or w/e, when you do special things via combos or random procs it takes a bit more up to alot more...

Continuing with shards. Shards them selfs will be randomly generated, based of the game info(start/mid/end) levels of players and so on... they will also contain a set of stats. Since Str/agi/int arent really in use I guess stats like Firerate, Damage, crit, element chance could be taken. Unsure of the stats/stat names. Anyways going on, shards will also have a purity rating, the purity rating will work with the element type and base element in constructing the effects the shard gives when its slotted. So to put it in a scenario:

Base Element: Fire
Primary Weapon: Fire shard(Very Pure, nice dmg), Fire(mid pure, Burn DoT), Air(mid pure, high crit), Earth(mid pure, +HP)

( So adding some extra info here, each shard type has some type of thing it should be known for, like Fire = Damage, Air = Fire rate, run speed, Earth = tanky + def +hp, Water = Resource + heal )

Coming back to shards dear goodness #_#, the idea is simple that you slot shards onto the weapon to form the spells and abilities. So what i mean by this is when you take the setup i made above you could end up with a primary weapon that fires like a flame thrower which also has a possible proc from the earth shard that could cause a AoE that slows, aswell as a 3 fire focus on a burning DoT. Hope this makes sense.

So in a match people can build what they want. if you want to play support you would props go for water, tanky go earth and fire, pure dps go Fire and Air and so on. No the whole trick comes to getting al this S*** generated... I said that each weapon type will have 4 slots open for shards so this basically comes down to players having 2 custom weapons like in any other normal shooter and a throwable/placeable each with there own type thing. Like the flame thrower idea you can have a pistol that slows the crap out of players and then quick swap and burn the crap out of them, maybe place a "device" that adds a temp buff for whatever or debuff on them. The other side of it is I liked doing raids in wow / rift so the way i see all of this is to be kinda played with that "style" in mind but in a moba environment with the speed of a fps.

Basically the choices you make into slotting certain element types of shards into a weapon and also counting your base element will all be taken into account and will then spit out a set of things the player can use, this is where crafting can come in and make possible openings to customize a shard, esp when a shard has the possibility to change the final outcome of the weapon. I forgot to mention that when you fire your weapon without any shards it will have the base element effects, when you slot a shard based on purity/chance it can alter the fire effect of the weapon, i was thinking that in the game you can have 2 slots that focus around modifying the weapon stats, 3rd slot usually proc types and the 4th slot could be activated via a combo of some type like forward(w) and two or 3 fast clicks or whatever.. just and idea atleast..
other than that the very first time i thought about this it was all based on chance, but over time it kinda made some sense to let players have control over some stuff... I dono.. anyways

Whoa... Getting all this info down is pretty messy... Im sorry Ill try and see if i can rewrite the 3 docs i made for the idea so that its well put out...

This part on the general game/map:
The map will probably have lanes like you would get in a normal MOBA, but i have been thinking about it if anyone remembers the Node maps in Unreal Tournament where you take over the nodes to unlock the core node, something like that could be nice aswell, what I had in mind is to add something that contributes towards the shards. Lets say there are 3 Element Nodes in the map, 1 Prime 2 secondary. Who ever controls the Prime get some boosts towards there shards/elements/gold whatever. Maybe even special creeps. Same goes for the secondary nodes. (damit i dont have the papers with me at the moment, i sure will update the post when i get them, but atleast the general idea is out there(here))

The shop will be similar to the basic moba type pots/basic items that help to fill the gaps, not really sure. hmm other than that i cant remember id have to come back later

Anyways So i hope most of this makes sense since I had to type from old thoughts but yeah, id like to hear what you guys think about the idea, well most of all just the shards/element mix side of it atleast.

Thanks
MJ

 

I think an FPS/MOBA in a fantasy setting would work fine.

I think what need to ask is how do you plan about doing such a large scale game?

Collaboration with profit share? That can be very tricky. You would need to work with people you have real relationships with OR you would need something to actually show people to get on board (this forum is littered with walls of texts about games people want to make).

Solo? That's not gonna happen.

Pay people? Now we're talking. But that means money. You can try kick starter, but make sure you have something to show and a list of games you've already worked on.

If I were you, I'd try making some smaller scale games first for the experience and the reputation.

 

Thanks for the input, Not_Sure.

Yeah solo!? Indeed not gonna happen, unless I get paid to sit at home for a few years

Pay people: Yeah that would be a nice option but as you mentioned money is obviously going to be the issue...

Anycase I'm not planning on doing this as at the moment nor the near future and if i had to I'd speak to my friends which already know about it, but more over I just actually wanted to hear what people would say about this, not that its amazing or so, but I think of it as an interesting idea/change to the usual MOBA that have the predefined spells and so on. Although all in all its actually just about the Shard System if you can call it that.... not much else changed. (Point though I guess it would be a bitch to balance this)

 

A MOBA can be considered a fusion between the FPS and RTS genres. So combine a MOBA back into a FPS and you will get an FPS.

Star Wars Battle Front is an example that comes to mind. You could also mod just about any FPS to get a MOBA feeling result. No point building this from scratch.

 

Kind of my thoughts. Just add more complicated victory conditions to titanfall and you've basically got one. For the most part, it's really just a matter of putting in the right level design and victory mechanics.

 

Just read through your actual proposal again. You have way to many ideas in here. While they all might fit in a single game, they could also fail to do so.

I would strongly suggest that you split the mechanics up, and build a prototype demonstrating each one.

Build a prototype your shard crafting system into a regular FPS. Is it fun. Does the random drop work? Do players actually use a variety of guns, or do they just stick to a favourite?

Build another prototype with the MOBA style lanes for an FPS. Does this actually work?

And so forth for each aspect.

You've come a long way down the design path without a prototype. This is the wrong way to design a game, and is ultimately why so many 'design documents' fail when it comes to actual production. Cool ideas do not always mean cool game play.

 

Sorry, that was presumptuous of me. I've got big projects like that too.

I think it could be very fun and different for sure.

 

Sorry for the DP.

I wanted to mention, you should do a prototype. You clearly put a lot of time and effort into it, so you ought to have something to so people and to tinker with.

You'd be surprised how much you'll learn from making a working concept.

 

I like it so far man

 

*does the prototype dance*

All the suggestions about prototyping the crap out of it are the way to go. Also spend a stupid amount of time on a design doc. You've got SO much stuff there that you'll end up with a massive packet of a design doc, but at least you'll have a plan for whenever you get around to this. Going into a game of this scale without a solid plan will guarantee disaster. When my ex-team attempted a similar concept we had mind maps up the wazoo with links to docs explaining each, color coded by team and function and scope. It became our bible.

Then after all that we abandoned it because it was just too huge, lol. Seven people and we realized, "Nope, not gonna happen if we want this done in less than 3-5 years."

 

Guys, Mar 1 2015.

This is a dead thread.

 

HA! Whoops. I only ever look at the post above mine. I've been deceeeeeeeived!