thank you so much for the anacrusis and this channel. it's the first time i've seen a legend on a field be so honest and talk to everyone like this. i bet you get a lot of shit for it, being public has a lot more downsides than upsides considering your success.
Thank you so so much for talking about this, this is the kind of topic/problem that you have to either resolve by your own through experientation, either know how to tackle due to experience as a game designer, or in my case, learn from others (game design is hard to learn). Thank you! These are the kind of things that fly over your head as a player...you only notice them if they are missing.
The AI director in L4D has always been super interesting to me, its surprisingly simple but works quite well. I've been personally working on a personal project thats semi-inspired by L4D so I think i've probably watched and read every single talk Valve ever did about the AI director, and I've probably spent more time using the console commands just to look at what the director is doing than actually playing (although to be completely honest I never really liked actually playing L4D, the gunplay just isn't for me). It definitely is interesting to hear about improvements to the director in the Anacrusis, I may have to pick it up just to check it out, that sale pricetag is pretty tempting... Although I would like to know if either the regular game or the mod development kit has ways to sort of see what the director is doing? I know a lot of UE games tend to disable the console for release builds, and the mod support seems to be more for content creation like maps and skins rather than scripting or changing gameplay, although I could be wrong!
The thing that felt weird to me in The Anacrusis about finding weapons was that I couldn't really tell what the differences between the different guns were. You pick up a mk1 SMB at the start and later on you find a mk2 SMB. And because it's an automatic energy weapon, it just shoots nondescript energy, as opposed to the very different feel between firing every weapon in L4D. you pick up the lightning version of the SMB and now your energy bullets are a different shade of blue, but it's still just a gun that does nondescript damage when you point it at enemies and pull the trigger. In L4D2, even just switching between the three tier 1 SMGs produces very different sounds, the guns look very different, and the visible damage done to common infected is different. That's kind of lost when using weapons that fire sci-fi energy.
Yeah this is the failure as the weapons are different and behave differently but not disclosed. We did at one point pre 1.0 and people were confused/overwhelmed so as a small team with lots to fix - we picked simplicity. Lots of hard choices at the end.
This is great stuff. I've not played the anacrusis yet but did you guys ever consider or experiment with using Doom-style keys in this way? Like an item that the director moves around that is REQUIRED to reach the exit? I guess railroading the player like that might be less interesting than making it a choice as with the guns
@@chetfaliszek Could you talk some more about this decision? Also, I noticed in anacrusis that there’s no alternate paths/blockages like there are in a couple parts of the parish, notably the graveyard for example. Wouldn’t that be a way to promote replayability?
It is so dependent on the game and what you have taught players and their expectations. Just as you are testing - do they have an aha moment (even if easy) and fun solving it? I hate obvious "puzzles" that are really just work...
Generally, I've heard it's good to show the "door" first before showing the "key", so that the player knows the goal they have to work towards, rather than solving the puzzle accidentally and unintentionally simply by travelling the path of least resistance.
@@chetfaliszek maybe that’s the issue I’m running into, I wanted to make the puzzle as a break in pacing and not because I had an idea for a fun puzzle, maybe I should find another way to make a slower paced section of the mod
Some of the creatures were moved from behavior trees to goap to give them a little more complexity. Myself i haven’t used it personally when goofing around. I haven’t used a utility Ai system but isn’t that a bit of what unreals new state tree system is moving toward?
@@chetfaliszek GOAP is awesome. Tried to make my own planner before cause i'm trying to shift away from BT's. Not sure about Unreal's system (Unity user) but i'd imagine so cause they have great tooling and are always adding stuff.
Hi, I don't know if you read comments, but I have real trouble getting job in the game industry and thought it's a good place to ask for an advice. I worked for company developing mobile games as a Unity developer for two years, I also published a game on iphone and then on Steam. While I apply for job I don't even get to the interview part. I have a suspicion that HR looks that I only have two years experience working for company and then just reject me. Do you have any tips or insights? I really don't understand why I have problems getting a job, even though I developed and published games myself which advice is everyone gives and says is the most important to get a job in game industry.
@@chetfaliszek Do you think advice to make your own games to get into the game industry is still good in 2024? It seems to me that people hiring gamedevs are looking only at hard numbers of how many years you worked at a studio and don't care about anything else.
![[UNCUT] ชาวบ้านถาม “นายกอุ๊งอิ๊งค์” ประชาชนมีกิน มีใช้ กี่โมง? I คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ I 16 ส.ค. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/tKZvOzLIJJc/mqdefault.jpg)
thank you so much for the anacrusis and this channel. it's the first time i've seen a legend on a field be so honest and talk to everyone like this. i bet you get a lot of shit for it, being public has a lot more downsides than upsides considering your success.
Thanks! And some days.. I def feel the downsides, but the conversations with people make it worth it.
Thank you so so much for talking about this, this is the kind of topic/problem that you have to either resolve by your own through experientation, either know how to tackle due to experience as a game designer, or in my case, learn from others (game design is hard to learn). Thank you! These are the kind of things that fly over your head as a player...you only notice them if they are missing.
The AI director in L4D has always been super interesting to me, its surprisingly simple but works quite well. I've been personally working on a personal project thats semi-inspired by L4D so I think i've probably watched and read every single talk Valve ever did about the AI director, and I've probably spent more time using the console commands just to look at what the director is doing than actually playing (although to be completely honest I never really liked actually playing L4D, the gunplay just isn't for me). It definitely is interesting to hear about improvements to the director in the Anacrusis, I may have to pick it up just to check it out, that sale pricetag is pretty tempting...
Although I would like to know if either the regular game or the mod development kit has ways to sort of see what the director is doing? I know a lot of UE games tend to disable the console for release builds, and the mod support seems to be more for content creation like maps and skins rather than scripting or changing gameplay, although I could be wrong!
The thing that felt weird to me in The Anacrusis about finding weapons was that I couldn't really tell what the differences between the different guns were. You pick up a mk1 SMB at the start and later on you find a mk2 SMB. And because it's an automatic energy weapon, it just shoots nondescript energy, as opposed to the very different feel between firing every weapon in L4D. you pick up the lightning version of the SMB and now your energy bullets are a different shade of blue, but it's still just a gun that does nondescript damage when you point it at enemies and pull the trigger.
In L4D2, even just switching between the three tier 1 SMGs produces very different sounds, the guns look very different, and the visible damage done to common infected is different. That's kind of lost when using weapons that fire sci-fi energy.
Yeah this is the failure as the weapons are different and behave differently but not disclosed. We did at one point pre 1.0 and people were confused/overwhelmed so as a small team with lots to fix - we picked simplicity. Lots of hard choices at the end.
Very interesting hearing about the golden path and how to push players off of it. Thank you for sharing!
this is great info chet, thank you for making these video.
This is great stuff. I've not played the anacrusis yet but did you guys ever consider or experiment with using Doom-style keys in this way? Like an item that the director moves around that is REQUIRED to reach the exit? I guess railroading the player like that might be less interesting than making it a choice as with the guns
We try and avoid forcing behavior past coordinated movements- one way drop downs.
@@chetfaliszek Could you talk some more about this decision? Also, I noticed in anacrusis that there’s no alternate paths/blockages like there are in a couple parts of the parish, notably the graveyard for example. Wouldn’t that be a way to promote replayability?
Its like the roguelike randomization but for enemies. I guess its deeper tham that but I dont have the code.
Do you have any advice for designing puzzles? I’m having a little trouble coming up with one for my half life mod.
It is so dependent on the game and what you have taught players and their expectations. Just as you are testing - do they have an aha moment (even if easy) and fun solving it? I hate obvious "puzzles" that are really just work...
Generally, I've heard it's good to show the "door" first before showing the "key", so that the player knows the goal they have to work towards, rather than solving the puzzle accidentally and unintentionally simply by travelling the path of least resistance.
@@chetfaliszek maybe that’s the issue I’m running into, I wanted to make the puzzle as a break in pacing and not because I had an idea for a fun puzzle, maybe I should find another way to make a slower paced section of the mod
Awesome video! Curious if you have ever worked with UtilityAI or something like GOAP for enemies themselves
Some of the creatures were moved from behavior trees to goap to give them a little more complexity. Myself i haven’t used it personally when goofing around.
I haven’t used a utility Ai system but isn’t that a bit of what unreals new state tree system is moving toward?
@@chetfaliszek GOAP is awesome. Tried to make my own planner before cause i'm trying to shift away from BT's.
Not sure about Unreal's system (Unity user) but i'd imagine so cause they have great tooling and are always adding stuff.
You should really talk about the TF2 Bot crisis.
I did long ago…
@@chetfaliszek my bad - just asked because of the current movent going on again.
Hi, I don't know if you read comments, but I have real trouble getting job in the game industry and thought it's a good place to ask for an advice.
I worked for company developing mobile games as a Unity developer for two years, I also published a game on iphone and then on Steam. While I apply for job I don't even get to the interview part. I have a suspicion that HR looks that I only have two years experience working for company and then just reject me.
Do you have any tips or insights? I really don't understand why I have problems getting a job, even though I developed and published games myself which advice is everyone gives and says is the most important to get a job in game industry.
Hard to say without seeing what you've made or where you worked and at what role but right now is a strange time - especially for big companies.
@@chetfaliszek Do you think advice to make your own games to get into the game industry is still good in 2024? It seems to me that people hiring gamedevs are looking only at hard numbers of how many years you worked at a studio and don't care about anything else.
What about the AI director for Hl2 ep 3?