New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

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MightyCucumber
Posts: 13

New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

Unread post by MightyCucumber » Sun Dec 06, 2020 12:37 pm

I've discussed this with Ciccio along with some other guys, and reached the conclusion that the optional introduction of a brand new pickup would spice up the game and bypass some of the unbalanced pickup drop rates, long effect times (looking at you, zaps), and other random rng chaos that tends to happen in races:

A Shield pickup.

This pickup would have a very low drop rate, so that interactions between players could still happen rather normally throughout the race - however, if you're lucky enough, you'd find yourself protected by a quicksilver layer of immunity that would make you live through every sort of mayhem that's thrown at you, for a very short period of time (4-5 secs perhaps?)

This sort of mechanics was seem in Re-Volt's sucessor, RC Revenge:

Image

Speaking with Ciccio, he also told me that this would probably be one of the easiest new pickups to introduce, since its basically a silver sheet enveloping the car (like the Battery or Zap glow) and it cleans all the effects of other pickups on the car using it.

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Another thing that has been discussed in the past, is a new interaction between pickups (akin to battery cleaning zaps/stars) - Water Balloons defusing the Bomb.

Since the Bomb has a fuse, it teoretically can be put out by water - if a car yielding a Bomb would put itself in arms way of a Balloon, the bomb would be automatically cleansed. This would be a rather interesting gambit, because while the bomb effect on each car is mostly randomized, the effect of Water Balloons in some cars would be rather predictable. This would also spark new interactions between players, since you would not want to "balloon" a player already yielding a Bomb ahead of you.

Lastly, since Water Boxes are actually a thing already present in the game, why not also cleanse the Bomb whenever a car steps into one?

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Once again, these new additions would be completely optional, as to not hinder the classic gaming experience.
Last edited by MightyCucumber on Sun Dec 06, 2020 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ciccio
Posts: 40
From: Italy

Re: New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

Unread post by ciccio » Sun Dec 06, 2020 1:55 pm

I don't really know about the water in general defusing the bomb (how about garden/nhood2 ripple streams?), as in it would be very nice to have in team races, but in free for all it would make little change (and I don't know how hard it could be to implement).
The shield pickup on the other hand is something I'd like to see and test online, because it may need a lot of balancing with existing pickups, but I'd be definitely happy if it got implemented.

One thing to consider is how would the shield work with existing effects? If you got your wheels oiled would you be able to remove the oil using the shield? If you got zapped and used the shield it would obviously cancel the zap effect, but what if you had the shield and got zapped (without getting zapped because of shield)? Would the temporary invincibility from zap work from the moment the shield dropped or from the moment the zap first occurred?
It's important that if new pickups like this get implemented, interaction with other pickups is considered.
MightyCucumber
Posts: 13

Re: New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

Unread post by MightyCucumber » Sun Dec 06, 2020 5:56 pm

The way I see it, if you use the Shield after getting zapped, the effect of the zap remains (since you were zapped before triggering the immunity effect).

As for the rest of the interactions, the Shield would basically nullify all other effects on your car - in case of oils, you'd probably still be able to see the oil trails your wheel leaves, but the car would behave absolutely like normal. You wouldn't also be affected by projectiles like balloons or rockets (they'd hit and explode on impact, but they would have no effect on you). Shockwaves wouldn't also be able to send your car flying either.
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ciccio
Posts: 40
From: Italy

Re: New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

Unread post by ciccio » Sun Dec 06, 2020 8:46 pm

Oh, so the shield wouldn't nullify the zap/star effect like a battery, which is simpler I guess. Do you think you should be able to pass through balls and fake pickups?
MightyCucumber
Posts: 13

Re: New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

Unread post by MightyCucumber » Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:51 am

That's a nice question - I assume the Shield could work as a "ghost" effect, in which the cars would simply phase through such obstacles.

I dont know how easy or feasible it is to draw such behaviour from the Time Trial Ghost for example.
nahman48
Posts: 22

Re: New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

Unread post by nahman48 » Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:54 pm

Shield pick-up sounds great! I am looking forward for it being added! Some sort of protection from chaos in races would be neat indeed. Though if that were to be implemented, how about some original icon for it? Something that would clearly indicate function of power-up?
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ciccio
Posts: 40
From: Italy

Re: New Pickup Idea: Shield / Ballon + Water Interaction with Bomb

Unread post by ciccio » Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:17 pm

MightyCucumber wrote: Mon Dec 07, 2020 12:51 am That's a nice question - I assume the Shield could work as a "ghost" effect, in which the cars would simply phase through such obstacles.

I dont know how easy or feasible it is to draw such behaviour from the Time Trial Ghost for example.
Should be pretty easy since the game does this already when people are lagging or are unfocused away.
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