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[Soulliard]

I'm thinking 4 normal characters, 2 AI-only slots, and one 'character' reserved for environmental hazards, and one 'character' reserved for attacks that harm everyone.

[Bremze]

To add to the game modes, i'd like to see a choise between smash brother ring out only, the setup thats used now and stamina only mode where the maps loop or something.

[William Broom]

Eh, I dunno about that. I think we need to be careful about what modes and options we offer and whether they really add anything to the game. Ring-out mode would probably play almost the same, since you still have to wear down your opponent's health to have a good chance of KO-ing them. And it might create balance issues.

[Soulliard]

I think it's a good addition. It'd be easy to add, too.

[Rostiger]

So, it seems I'm the only one who's not really understanding the meaning of those last posts, but I guess I'm also the only one here who has never played Smash Bros. 

Please be patient with me, stupid questions ahead!

I'm thinking 4 normal characters, 2 AI-only slots, and one 'character' reserved for environmental hazards, and one 'character' reserved for attacks that harm everyone.

What is the difference between environmental hazards and hazards that harm everyone? And how does that translate to a 'character'? Like one of each maximum in a stage?

... stamina only mode where the maps loop or something.

What do you mean by Stamina Only Mode? Playing through looping stages as long as you can? Who wins then? The one who throws the controller first?

i'd like to see a choise between smash brother ring out only, the setup thats used now...

Ring-out mode would probably play almost the same, since you still have to wear down your opponent's health to have a good chance of KO-ing them. And it might create balance issues.

So Ring-out is NOT the setup currently used? What is it then?

[medieval]

What do you mean by Stamina Only Mode? Playing through looping stages as long as you can? Who wins then? The one who throws the controller first?

It probably just means that you won't die by falling off the stage, meaning that it is purely about punching one another's brains out.

[Soulliard]

What is the difference between environmental hazards and hazards that harm everyone? And how does that translate to a 'character'? Like one of each maximum in a stage?

Heh, I'm being a little overly technical here. Every time a character is hit with an attack, they are briefly immune to the attacker. This prevents a character from being damage twice by the same sword slash, among other things. There are currently 8 different slots for 'characters' that another character can be immune to.

Environmental hazards would be stage-related, such as the Bonesaw bombs. Attacks that harm everyone are character-related, such as Liero's chiquita bomb. These two categories could probably be combined into one, though.

So Ring-out is NOT the setup currently used? What is it then?

Ring-out only. You can't kill a character through damage alone.

[Rostiger]

Environmental hazards would be stage-related, such as the Bonesaw bombs. Attacks that harm everyone are character-related, such as Liero's chiquita bomb. These two categories could probably be combined into one, though.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. 

I'm thinking 4 normal characters, 2 AI-only slots,...

Does that mean when there are four human players, you still can add two bots to the match?
Or will it be four players max per match?

You can't kill a character through damage alone.

What? Of course you can. Best example: I play alone, choose two characters, punch one into a corner and kill him as many times it takes until his lives are gone. Match over. Killed by damage alone, no?

Sorry if I'm a bit slow, but I want to understand these issues, so I can update the first post. 

[Bremze]

You can't kill a character through damage alone.

What? Of course you can. Best example: I play alone, choose two characters, punch one into a corner and kill him as many times it takes until his lives are gone. Match over. Killed by damage alone, no?

Sorry if I'm a bit slow, but I want to understand these issues, so I can update the first post. 

See in smash brothers you can't kill a character by damage alone, you have to hit him out of the ring, but that gets easier the more damage is inflicted to him.

With stamina mode I meant only emptying the enemies hp bar counts as a kill, though now that I think of it, both current stages are designed without looping in mind, so that wouldn't work.

And the current setting is a combination of the two above.

[Rostiger]

Ah, I see, but why would stages need to loop for stamina mode? And isn't it basically the same as ring-out mode, only that falling off the stage doesn't count?

If that's the only difference, I'm not sure if it really would make any significant difference in game play...

On another note, any comments on the standard mode? Should it be like last man standing or should the game end as soon as the first player dies?

[William Broom]

What he means by looping is that when you fall off the bottom of the screen, you loop around to the top.

And yeah, I think standard mode should be a 'last man standing' thing like in Smash Bros. It does mean that sometimes people have to wait around for a while if they've died, but the alternative is just so anticlimactic and arbitrary.

[Soulliard]

A better alternative to looping would be that if you fall off the stage, you would take some damage and respawn without losing a life.

[mokesmoe]

Let me clarify to clear the confusion.
He is suggesting 3 modes.

1. Ring-out: People only die when knocked off the stage, they have unlimited health.
2. Stamina: People only die from running out of health. Falling off the edge doesn't kill you, you just move back up to the top.
3. What we have now: A combination of both. You can die from both running out of health, and falling off the edge.

Hope that helps.

[Soulliard]

I like those options, only for Stamina mode, falling off should still cause some damage. Otherwise, it will get overused as a dodging technique.

[mokesmoe]

I agree to the taking damage when falling, and the 'when the match ends' should be an option like "Match over at X deaths" or "Match over at X people left"

[Rostiger]

Alright, thanks again for clearing things up!

I agree to the taking damage when falling, and the 'when the match ends' should be an option like "Match over at X deaths" or "Match over at X people left"

Hmm, I don't know. "Match over at X deaths" is more or less Frag Mode and using more than one player left and the match ends would seem kind of odd to me.

So, here's a modified version of the game modes list:

• Standard Mode
  Each player has a set number of lives. The player can lose a life by running out of hit points or falling off the stage. The match ends, when there is only one player left.
  
• Stamina Mode
  Same as Standard Mode, except that players don't automatically lose a life by falling off the stage, but it deals a small amount of damage. The match also ends when there's only one player left.
  
• Ring-Out Only Mode
  Same as Standard Mode, except that players can not lose a life through damage, but only from falling (or being knocked) off a stage. However, when dealing damage to another player, he will lose hit points, thus receiving a higher knock back.
  
• Time Mode
  Score a point for every kill, but lose a point for every death. The match ends when the set time runs out. Winner is the player with the most points.
  
• Frag Mode
  Score a point for every kill. In this mode, the player has no lives (not to mix up with hitpoints) and the winner is determined by whoever reaches a set number of points first.
  
• Team Standard Mode
  As standard mode, but with teams. The game ends when one team is completely wiped out.
  
• Team Stamina Mode
  As Stamina Mode, but with teams.
  
• Ring-Out Only Mode
  As Ring-Out Only Mode, but with teams.
  
• Team Time Mode
  As time mode, but each team shares a single score.
  
• Team Frag Mode
  As frag mode, but each team shares a single number of kills.
  
• Tug of War Mode
  The battle consists of two teams. There is a single bar at the top of the screen with a marker in the middle. Dealing damage moves it in one direction, and taking damage moves it to the other. Win by moving the marker all the way to your opponents’ side.
  

Any more suggestions or thoughts? Otherwise I'll take it into the first post.

[Bremze]

Sounds nice, though it might work better if divided in three choices: mode(frag,time,life,team frag, team time, team life, tug of war), limit(x minutes, points or lives depending on the mode choices), type(standard, stamina, ring-out). When choosing tug of war, the second and third is unnecessary.

[Rostiger]

Ah, alright! Good idea, thanks for the input - this could be the perfect when defining the structure of the main menu. 

However, we have wandered a bit far off the interface topic and the new "game modes" don't actually change much within the interface layout or design, so I'll write that up in a new main menu thread.

[shig]

Yeah, also it'd be a pain to test it, because a) you have to get eight people together to play it and b) you have to have six controllers and one keybopard or four controllers and two keyboards. Howevery I could imagine it enjoyable jsut because of the complete chaos that will rule the game. I think I could get a lot of fun out of that, but maybe that's just me.

I always though 8 player battles would be for online matches only. Also, in order to have a decent, or at least semi-understandable 8 player battle, you'd have to make two teams of four, and each team would have its own screen instead of all eight players sharing the same screen to prevent it from stretching too much.

[Rostiger]

As far as I know, there will be no online multiplayer support. I think it would be quite possible with GM, but it would probably add whole huge new heap of work to the project and I think we should stay realistic about this and get a straight offline version done first.

But I don't know what Brain Soup has planned in this area, so I also could be totally wrong..