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How the gameflow changes completly by using pulse and domes
Battle Royale shooters have always been characterized by massive combat on a large map where only one player or team survives. Due to the magnitude of the map, finding the rest of the players can be a tedious and dangerous task.
So, most of the battle royales have a “Storm” mechanic to reduce the space between players, forcing them to get close and face each other. This mechanic is very interesting in terms of design to create situations where players face one another.
For Domenation, we wanted to rethink the “Storm” mechanic to experiment and try to achieve new possibilities in the genre.
A game of Domenation is structured in three different rounds. At the end of each round an event called “the Pulse” occurs. Like the Storm, if the player comes into contact with it, he will take a lot of damage. However, unlike other battle royales, the Pulse covers the entire map instantly. The only way to survive the Pulse is to take shelter inside the Domes, located in specific areas of the map.
These small differences with the Storm mechanic allow the player to explore the map freely without being permanently limited to certain areas. With this, all areas of the map have the same importance when it comes to exploring.
In other Battle Royale video games that use the Storm mechanic, the zones are used to gradually guide all players to a single central area. This creates a dilemma for the players, forcing them to choose between landing in the central zone where there will probably be a higher number of foes but more loot, or a more distant zone with fewer players but with the danger of the Storm always present.
The way the Pulse works, the fear may arise that there are games where players do not find each other. The appearance of a limited number of Domes forces the player to meet other players and therefore, fight them. For each completed round, the number of Domes that will appear on the map will decrease, so surviving each round will be a major challenge for the player.
In the last round, the Dome will shrink as it comes into contact with the Pulse, giving the need to find and eliminate the remaining players as soon as possible. To set this Dome apart from the previous ones, it will have a golden color instead of the blue color.
However, in other Battle Royale with the Storm mechanic, encounters with other players occur gradually as the game progresses, with a higher probability when the storm starts to spread. This is because players are forced to move to avoid damage from the storm.
When creating a new mechanic that does not follow the same rules as the rest of the genre, it is normal that difficulties and risks appear in the game’s design when trying to provide a satisfactory experience for the players. The possible problems we have encountered regarding the Pulse mechanic are the following:
In Domenation, the player can traverse any area of the map without a Storm limiting the playable space. On only a few occasions in the game, the player must run to the Domes to avoid being damaged by the Pulse. After finishing the Pulse, the player will be able to continue exploring the map.
Therefore, player encounters are mainly linked to the areas near the Domes in the moments close to the Pulse. This can become a design problem, as encounters between players would be limited to very specific times and areas.
To avoid this problem, we have aimed to give secondary objectives to the player that are always present in each round. These objectives will help in guiding the player to areas with rewards since the beginning of the game, as well as possible areas where players can clash.
One of these objectives are the Camps where, in exchange of valuable rewards, players must take down AI-controlled enemies.
When creating a new game mechanic that is unusual in the genre, the developers have the challenge of making it easy and clear for players to understand all these new features. For Domenation, when it comes to the Domes it has been a challenge to give feedback on their location.
The Domes appear at a time set by the designers. However, the location has some randomness, so players cannot know the exact position where they will appear.
To guide the player to the areas where the Domes are, in addition to giving sound and visual feedback inside and outside HUD, it is intended that the player goes unconsciously to the locations near the Domes before they appear. At the beginning and throughout each round, various elements of interest appear relatively close to where the Domes will appear. Once the Dome appears, the player won’t have to travel great distances to be safe. In this way, it is possible for most players to be close to the Domes without it appearing in an unexpected area. Some of these elements of interest to the player are the camps or the airdrops.
The Storm mechanic in Battle Royale games encourages players to travel large areas of the map, making them explore the surrounding areas during calmer moments. This exploration component makes a game last approximately 20-30 minutes if the player is in the top ranks. For Domenation, we were looking for short but frantic games, so the Storm mechanic evolved into the Pulse.
The Pulse, unlike the Storm, appears instantly all over the map for a brief moment. After a few seconds, it disappears and does not reappear until minutes later. Because of these concrete features, the damage of the Pulse must be very high to penalize players who do not seek shelter under the Domes.
Because of the damage the Pulse deals, it can become a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it encourages players to gather in the same point of the map. So it can trigger interesting situations controllable by the design department. However, on the other hand, players who are far away from a Dome and do not arrive on time, will receive a large penalty that can even eliminate them in a matter of seconds, which may feel unfair.
In order to solve this problem, on one hand we have the visual and sound guides previously mentioned in the preceding point. And on the other hand there is the use of consumable objects. If the player explores the map, opens chests, encounters airdrops or clears Camps, he will be able to find consumable items that recover health relatively easily. In the case of not reaching the Dome during the Pulse, the player will be able to recover some of the lost health. So that this dynamic does not become the dominant strategy, in each round the Pulse will do more damage. In addition, in the last round, the Pulse will remain active in the game until only one player remains standing.
As explained throughout this DevBlog, creating a new mechanic brings new challenges that must be taken into account in order to be satisfactory for the player. The Pulse is capable of wiping out anyone in a matter of seconds, so the player must have enough feedback to manage the distance and enough time to reach the Dome alive.
In the development of Domenation, we have paid special attention to take care of the game feel of the game so that it is easily understandable for the players. Visual and sound aids to guide the player to the Domes or the impact of being exposed to the Pulse are some of the most polished feedback elements. The level design to create points of interest close to the Dome has been vital so that the player is not too far away from the future spawn zones of the Domes in a natural way.
Throughout the development new problems or aspects that have not been taken into account will arise, but the most important thing is to know how to detect these design obstacles and be able to solve them so that players have the best experience possible.
