War For Cybertron - No Combiners
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 2:51PM CST
Categories: Game News, InterviewsPosted by: Blurrz Views: 45,603
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Would you play a multiplayer video game in which you only controlled one limb of a character, while your friends controlled the others?
Looks like we won't be seeing any 'combiners' in the upcoming Transformers video game, War For Cybertron. As reported by the Godzilla of video game websites 'Kotaku', we won't be playing with the likes of Devastator, Superion and so forth. Check out a snippet of the article below...
Matt Tieger, lead designer of the War for Cybertron games, said that this is an idea his team has thought of, but it doesn't seem like it would ever work. Consider the gamer who would play as the Mixmaster of Scrapper, the Constructicons who formed Devastator's legs. Said Tieger: "They guy who is the kneecap, what does he do?"
..while the rest can be seen at Kotaku here.
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Posted by SlyTF1 on March 3rd, 2010 @ 2:58pm CST
Posted by Scatterlung on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:08pm CST
Posted by omegaprowl on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:16pm CST
Posted by partholon on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:24pm CST
TBH though combiners should really be their own game done ala socom navy seals.
Posted by Megazarak on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:27pm CST
Posted by Ultra Magnus on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:28pm CST
This will still be a sweet game without the Combiner characters.
Posted by yellow Camaro on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:35pm CST
Posted by Blackstreak on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:43pm CST
I agree, this game will be awesome even w/out combiner technology. There is this neat little trick that game publishers have started to do for years now. It's called expansion packs. They could always figure out the combiner details later and release it as an expansion pack.
Posted by NassaDane on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:45pm CST
And when has Kotaku been a "Godzilla" ? i only heard about it late last year.
Posted by Prowl1529 on March 3rd, 2010 @ 3:49pm CST
Posted by Iconicon on March 3rd, 2010 @ 4:08pm CST
omegaprowl wrote:one...i agree, they're already giving us a great amount of goodies with this game as is and adding a combiner where you can only control one limb at a time would just suck! two...if the game is based prior to first contact with earth, that would be there would be no combiners yet cause the contructicons were the first combiners to appear (correct me if im wrong) but they didnt appear right away in the television series.
I believe combiners were there before contact with earth. There was an episode where we learned about why Omega Supreme hates the Constructicons so much. In it he reflects back to Cybertron when he and the Constructicons were friends. Megs turned them against him and gave them their combining technology. This was all before Earth. I think it was season 2. I'll have to go check the dvd.
It would suck to just play a single limb though. In the future as a team concept maybe that would be fun.
Posted by Blozor on March 3rd, 2010 @ 4:11pm CST
Posted by Scatterlung on March 3rd, 2010 @ 4:48pm CST
One person in control of the body, the others take on weapons points across it. So whoever is playing the core body is in control, meanwhile, everyone else controls turrets belonging to their component (i.e: Brawl's cannon).
That worked alright in Star Wars. If you think its not fair on some of the players, think about the AC130 Spec Ops 'Overwatch' from Modern Warfare. One player's up in the air, invincible, while firing on bad guys, whilst the other is on the ground facing said bad guys head on. The same strategy would apply: The body parts will each have to work together to defend the core body as he completes objectives.
There's your team work.
Posted by Mechastrike on March 3rd, 2010 @ 5:52pm CST
Posted by Unicron Singularity on March 3rd, 2010 @ 6:36pm CST
Posted by Pawnofthefates on March 3rd, 2010 @ 7:12pm CST
However, I don't feel that they should be excluded from the game entirely. They could still be implemented in the game as an integral part of the story, and you can still keep the team gameplay mechanics.
Just imagine having a five (or six) party team consisting of the Combiners as individuals. You play like you would on the other levels, acting as one character while the others are controlled by AI and switching the controlled character on the fly. Then, when you meet a certain requirement (i.e.: gain so much energon to use, everyone at a certain health level or above) and the level permits it (enough room to manuever) you can activate the combine ability and unleash some Devastator fury on your enemies. Voila. Problemo solved.
At least that's how I'd do it. Thoughts?
Posted by Atalya on March 3rd, 2010 @ 7:23pm CST
Technically the Constructicons have a history on Cybertron, but even that is fairly rife with contradictions. Megatron claims to have built them in their first appearance, and the Autobots certainly seem to be surprised at this group that can turn into an even bigger slaggin' bot. Omega Supreme's tale of woe is about the only "evidence" that they existed prior to their debut on Earth.
That said, Trypticon was built by the Constructicons out of a human city, so it's not like War for Cybertron is adhering too closely to canon. Not that they could anyway.
Posted by Shadowstream on March 3rd, 2010 @ 8:27pm CST
Posted by $kywarp on March 3rd, 2010 @ 8:52pm CST
Posted by Hairball178 on March 3rd, 2010 @ 10:32pm CST
As far as Combiners go, just give me the limbs as playable characters. Maybe make their unique power to where they 'summon' the other limbs to form the gestalt for a limited time, or somethin akin to 'calling in' an air strike attack.
Posted by Blackstreak on March 3rd, 2010 @ 10:50pm CST
Defensor also had no origin given on Earth. Doesn't mean he was not around on Cybertron. It wasn't until the 3rd season that we got to see some siginificant time on Cybertron so that leaves plenty of history we just don't know about.
I like the idea of using a combiner as 'an air strike' or a favor called in like in Mercenaries. I can just see it now both sides calls in a favor and a combiner shows up to duke things out between them.
Posted by Colinus Maximus on March 3rd, 2010 @ 11:48pm CST
Posted by Cyberstrike on March 4th, 2010 @ 7:08am CST
Posted by dragons on March 4th, 2010 @ 7:44am CST
combiner situation who says it has to be 5 make t 2 one person control legs, the other contrl the top half arms, or make conbiner where one person controls it armada game prime flys firginting unicron he cant fly without using jetfire combined form that only took one person not 2.
but honestly i dont care either way as long mutiplay is good and god characters to play as in mutilplayer mode
Posted by Shadowman on March 4th, 2010 @ 8:59am CST
Mechastrike wrote:it's okay if we don't have combiners in the game, we already have Trypticon and Omega Supreme. they're big enough to kick ANY combiners butt.
And unfortunately they're unplayable...
dragons wrote:combiner situation who says it has to be 5 make t 2 one person control legs, the other contrl the top half arms, or make conbiner where one person controls it armada game prime flys firginting unicron he cant fly without using jetfire combined form that only took one person not 2.
But that's the problem, I don't want to only control half the robot. I want to be the entire robot.
Scatterlung wrote:Why can't this just work like Star Wars: Battlefront?
One person in control of the body, the others take on weapons points across it. So whoever is playing the core body is in control, meanwhile, everyone else controls turrets belonging to their component (i.e: Brawl's cannon).
That's similar to an idea someone had for a Targetmaster-styled system. My answer is also very similar: I don't want to give up control of my character to someone else just so I can control one gun.
Posted by Scatterlung on March 4th, 2010 @ 2:14pm CST
Shadowman wrote:Scatterlung wrote:Why can't this just work like Star Wars: Battlefront?
One person in control of the body, the others take on weapons points across it. So whoever is playing the core body is in control, meanwhile, everyone else controls turrets belonging to their component (i.e: Brawl's cannon).
That's similar to an idea someone had for a Targetmaster-styled system. My answer is also very similar: I don't want to give up control of my character to someone else just so I can control one gun.
But see, I would say that 'in the heat of battle' (depending on how seriously you take it) you wouldn't have time to complain. Just get in that turret and shoot for all your worth!
Posted by Shadowman on March 4th, 2010 @ 2:46pm CST
Scatterlung wrote:Shadowman wrote:Scatterlung wrote:Why can't this just work like Star Wars: Battlefront?
One person in control of the body, the others take on weapons points across it. So whoever is playing the core body is in control, meanwhile, everyone else controls turrets belonging to their component (i.e: Brawl's cannon).
That's similar to an idea someone had for a Targetmaster-styled system. My answer is also very similar: I don't want to give up control of my character to someone else just so I can control one gun.
But see, I would say that 'in the heat of battle' (depending on how seriously you take it) you wouldn't have time to complain. Just get in that turret and shoot for all your worth!
Yeah, but that fails on two fronts:
1. I still don't want to give up control of my character to someone else so I can control one gun. There is no way I would ever agree to that.
2. There's no benefit to turning five smaller combatants into one big one. You just become one big target. Even if you control one turret, you can't reposition yourself for a better shot unless whoever controls the main body wants to, not to mention, the main body will be moving a lot, so it would be difficult to hit all those small targets who are killing you.
Posted by Scatterlung on March 4th, 2010 @ 8:24pm CST
Shadowman wrote:Scatterlung wrote:Shadowman wrote:Scatterlung wrote:Why can't this just work like Star Wars: Battlefront?
One person in control of the body, the others take on weapons points across it. So whoever is playing the core body is in control, meanwhile, everyone else controls turrets belonging to their component (i.e: Brawl's cannon).
That's similar to an idea someone had for a Targetmaster-styled system. My answer is also very similar: I don't want to give up control of my character to someone else just so I can control one gun.
But see, I would say that 'in the heat of battle' (depending on how seriously you take it) you wouldn't have time to complain. Just get in that turret and shoot for all your worth!
Yeah, but that fails on two fronts:
1. I still don't want to give up control of my character to someone else so I can control one gun. There is no way I would ever agree to that.
2. There's no benefit to turning five smaller combatants into one big one. You just become one big target. Even if you control one turret, you can't reposition yourself for a better shot unless whoever controls the main body wants to, not to mention, the main body will be moving a lot, so it would be difficult to hit all those small targets who are killing you.
1. Well, I wouldn't make it so you'd only have one gun. Each member of the team has a special ability, and in the combined form you'd still be able to use it (assuming its a shield or something) so that would be an extra. Also, adding more turrets to all sides would make it fairer. But this still doesn't sell it. I would still cite, though, the strategy and team work involved as a key feature. If you don't want to be part of a team and use said abilities strategically to defend the whole, be a character who doesn't combine. Obviously the fact that behaving as a team should reap a higher bonus for each kill or objective completed, rewarding cooperation.
2. Again, you become more obvious and easy to hit, so it becomes more important to use that forcefield or shoot back and defend the bulk. As for hitting smaller targets, it still comes back to team work. Do your bit, and hope your allies are doing theirs and I don't see much reason other than tiny details that you couldn't get a lot done.
I think it'll boil down to "No! I wanna be the big guy, not the leg!" otherwise.
Posted by Shadowman on March 4th, 2010 @ 8:52pm CST
Scatterlung wrote:1. Well, I wouldn't make it so you'd only have one gun. Each member of the team has a special ability, and in the combined form you'd still be able to use it (assuming its a shield or something) so that would be an extra. Also, adding more turrets to all sides would make it fairer. But this still doesn't sell it. I would still cite, though, the strategy and team work involved as a key feature. If you don't want to be part of a team and use said abilities strategically to defend the whole, be a character who doesn't combine. Obviously the fact that behaving as a team should reap a higher bonus for each kill or objective completed, rewarding cooperation.
Giving up control to someone else isn't "teamwork," even if you still have some minimal amount of control.
Scatterlung wrote:2. Again, you become more obvious and easy to hit, so it becomes more important to use that forcefield or shoot back and defend the bulk. As for hitting smaller targets, it still comes back to team work. Do your bit, and hope your allies are doing theirs and I don't see much reason other than tiny details that you couldn't get a lot done.
But that's the problem, all of that is significantly more effective when you AREN'T one huge target. I can still defend my allies while also retaining my ability to move of my own free will. This is why they aren't implementing this: "Teamwork" doesn't mean "give up control," and a lack of control isn't fun.
Posted by amtm on March 4th, 2010 @ 9:19pm CST
SlyTF1 wrote:These guys are going way too overboard with this. You shouldnt have to play as a body part, you should be able to play as the WHOLE frekn Transformer.
My thoughts exactly. Why is playing as one limb, or as the gunman versus the guy on the ground, even being debated? How idiotic is that?
This makes about as much sense as Michael Bay saying dinosaur bots don't work...then giving us, let's see...some crappy wannabe one-eyed skeleton cat bot as ravage, a scorpion bot that doesn't transform as scorponok, a fly bot that can't do anything but wear a satellite dish and get ripped apart as an insecticon, a farting pile of rusted metal as jetfire...yeah, you get the point.
Posted by 8 bit on March 4th, 2010 @ 11:03pm CST
Ultra Magnus wrote:It would be cool if you could control the one of the team members and all the others were AI controlled, and you could switch between them like in the Lego games or the Legends games. Of course when the group combines you would have full control of the Combiner form.
I had always thought this would be a cool idea also; for a single player game. Might not work too well online with multiple players and one giant robot though.
Posted by Requiem Prime on March 5th, 2010 @ 6:33am CST
Then again, I take that back, it wouldn't be hard with 360 and PS3's voice support.
Posted by karellan on March 5th, 2010 @ 8:56am CST
In the combined form, the gestalt would be HUGE, like the movie Devastator in comparison to Skids and Mudflap. The defense/lifebar for this thing is also suitably huge, because it's such a big target.
Control is handled by averaging all team member inputs. Simply walking around would cause extreme damage, and the guns that it shoots would have a very widespread area of damage (either they make huge explosions or fire in a shotgun-like spread pattern). The way damage is dealt would ensure that precise control isn't necessary.
When the gestalt takes enough damage, it splits back into individuals and gameplay continues as normal until they can power up again.
This kind of a setup would basically make the combined form a temporary powerup. They merge, stomp around and destroy buttloads of stuff for a few minutes, and then when they've taken enough damage, they split.
I'm sure a bunch of hardcore Transformers fans would hate this because they really want intelligent, well-defined combined forms, plus they probably want to control the whole damn thing themselves (as unfair as that would be), but from a gameplay perspective, this would work great. Plus it fits into the mythology, since this is basically how the original Constructicons worked when forming Devastator.
Plus, if you had a decent level of teamwork, you could direct this force of nature good enough to really do some damage.
Posted by Shadowman on March 5th, 2010 @ 9:18am CST
Requiem Prime wrote:My mind briefly envisioned a system where one constructicon player would have full control of the gestalt, but it would switch off every few moments from player to player. It's inelegant, but it would carry the idea that Devastator wouldn't be functional unless "all minds agreed (and are paying attention)". The hard part would be getting all minds to know what each one is up to.
Then again, I take that back, it wouldn't be hard with 360 and PS3's voice support.
That still forces me to give up control, even if I DO gain control of the entire combiner form, the problem is that I'd still have to give it up.
8 bit wrote:Ultra Magnus wrote:It would be cool if you could control the one of the team members and all the others were AI controlled, and you could switch between them like in the Lego games or the Legends games. Of course when the group combines you would have full control of the Combiner form.
I had always thought this would be a cool idea also; for a single player game. Might not work too well online with multiple players and one giant robot though.
See, now that's an idea for combiners that works. You control one guy, probably the one who forms the main body, while the other team members are all AI controlled.
Posted by Scaleface on March 5th, 2010 @ 9:34am CST
Posted by xjakeisgr8t on March 5th, 2010 @ 9:52am CST
Posted by Shadowman on March 5th, 2010 @ 9:57am CST
Scaleface wrote:I'd think they could make the controls so that the combiner just does whatever the majority of the member do. So if three out of five memebrs say walk forward, it walks forward. If three out of 5 say fire a weapon, it fires the weapon. It would make the combiner a bit slow, but powerful, which is what they are!
Yeah, but two other people end up being ignored which is the main problem of combiner teams in this sense. There's no way it can be fair to the entire team unless the team itself is some kind of hive-mind.
Posted by Scaleface on March 5th, 2010 @ 12:08pm CST
I'd also guess that any member of the gestalt team can desolve the combination at any time, so they other members wouldn't piss them off too much for fear of them leaving and ruining the combiner.
I'd like to see Targetmasters just played as a player with a AI companion who can shoot aim at an enemy for you. You could even throw him and he becomes a follower, or you could pilot him as a small scout while the bigger guy hides.
Triple Changer, if one mode was a flying mode, could just be a special effect of flying. When they fly they take on jet or helicopter mode.
Action Masters would be easy. They lack alt modes, but heal quicker, are faster and stronger.
Micromasters are easy to. They are small and energy efficient.
Posted by Shadowman on March 11th, 2010 @ 9:13pm CST
Scaleface wrote:I don't see a system like that keeping 2 people from playing, since it would change from moment to moment what the majority rules says. When one guy changes from walking to punch, if 2 others are ready punching the combiner punches. Plus, I'd guess that the players can TALK to one another, so one player might say "PUNCH THAT GUY" and if two others join him in puching punch the combiner punches. If one plays says DUCK and at least two others don't join him, the combiner just stands there.
But that's the problem, I don't want partial control. I want full control. I don't want to just hope the 'bot will do what I want it to, assuming four other people happen to agree with me. Control of my character is not a democracy, nor should it be.