Lorenzo Arteaga
Game Designer
FLIGHTLINE FRENZY
Game Designer & Programmer
Duration:
3 Month
Role:
Game Designer & Programmer
Tools:
Unreal Engine 5.3
Photoshop
Miro
Trello
Github
Overview:
"Flightline Frenzy" is a prototype based on Titanfall 2's combat and movement mechanics.
My goal with this project is to explore design decisions and how they're implemented in-engine by reverse engineering Titanfall 2's various mechanics and systems​.
Team Size:
2
Design Goals
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Fluid and Dynamic Combat
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Varied combat strategies
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Encourage player freedom, creativity, and skill
My Role & Ownerships
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Create overall combat standards.
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All programming tasks.
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Design and implement the player character and weapons.
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Balanced all player and enemy abilities by tweaking parameters.
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Kept constant communication with my teammate, who is in charge of Level Design, to ensure the best player experience.
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Camera Design.
Design Breakdown
MECHANICS
Melee Attack: The player can perform a single knife blow that kills enemies in one hit. Melee attacks in Titanfall 2 are designed to be lethal and capable of taking down opponents in one hit to emphasize the intensity and high-stakes nature of close-quarters combat. This mechanic encourages players to utilize melee strategically, since players can easily die at close quarters too.
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A melee attack also gives room to breathe for players whenever they run out of resources with weapons, so there's always an option available in combat.
Melee_Hit
MELEE_HIT_ENEMY
MELEE_HIT_AIR
Explosive Grenade: The explosive grenade is a standard explosive device that can be thrown to deal area-of-effect damage to enemies within its blast radius. It detonates shortly after being thrown, making it ideal for clearing out groups of enemies or flushing out opponents from behind cover. Players can strategically use normal grenades to control chokepoints, disrupt enemy movements, or soften up heavily armored targets before engaging in combat.
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Sticky Grenade: The sticky grenade adheres to surfaces upon impact, allowing players to strategically attach it to enemy or walls. Once attached, the sticky grenade explodes after a short delay, dealing significant damage to anything in its vicinity. This makes it particularly effective for ambushing enemies, setting traps, or targeting fast-moving enemies that are difficult to hit with traditional thrown grenades.
Grenades
Grenade_Clip_SemiExplode
Grenade_Clip_AutoExplode
Grenade_Clip_Full_Explode
StickyGrenade_CLIP
Time bomb: The time bomb is a double tap activation grenade. On tap once the player throws a projectile in an arc, on pressed again the time bomb is destroyed and creates a sphere where verything inside its radius slows its time down. Any actor or object can enter and exit this sphere. Upon exiting, the time of the actor or object inside it returns to normal. The sphere self-destructs after certain time from being activated.
Time bomb
Time_Bomb_Air
Time_Bomb_Enemy
Weapon mechanics: Player can equip themselves with a wide variety of weapons and each share the following actions:
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Shoot: The player fires a bullet that deals damage on contact (projectile/hitscan depending of the weapon type) in their crosshair direction.
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Aim: The player can zoom and center the camera on their weapon's reticle to improve their precision.
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Recharge: The player can reload their ammunition at any moment, based on their maximum and current ammo quantity. This may involve manual reloading, where players must perform a reload animation or press a button to reload, or automatic reloading, where weapons reload automatically when empty.
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Swap: Players can only hold one weapon at a time out of a maximum of two, but they can also swap between them at any moment.
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Switch: Players can switch their currently wielded weapon with another one found around the level.
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Each weapon has their own attributes:
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Mobility: Speed at which a weapon can enter in ADS (Aim Down Sights) mode.
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Fire rate: Speed at which bullets are fired when shooting.
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Projectile Behavior: Depending on the weapon, projectiles may behave differently. Some games feature hitscan weapons, where the projectile instantly hits the target upon firing, while others simulate projectile physics.
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Weapon Handling: Weapon handling encompasses factors such as recoil, weapon sway, and reload times, which affect the ease and accuracy of shooting.
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Damage Calculation: Damage may vary depending on whether the target is hit in a vulnerable area, such as the head or torso, the weapon type or distance from the player.
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Feedback and Visuals: Effective shooting mechanics provide clear visual and auditory feedback to the player, including muzzle flashes, bullet impacts, hit markers, camera shakes and sound effects.
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Tightness: Backward force experienced by the player's weapon when fired during ADS. This affects how the weapon behaves during sustained fire. Players must learn to anticipate and counteract their weapon's tightness by adjusting their aim to maintain accuracy.
Weapon_Mechanics
AIM_CLIP
Shoot_Enemy
Shoot_Weapon_Air
Recharge_Clip
Swap_Weapon_Clip
Switch_Weapon_Clip
Weapon types: There are a varied amount of weapon types, each with its own attributes to fulfill different roles, encouraging player creativity by offering a wide range of strategic options.
Weapon_Types
AUTOMATIC_RIFLE_CLIP
SUBFUSIL_CLIP
SHOTGUN_CLIP
HEAVYMACHINEGUN_CLIP
SNIPER_CLIP
REVOLVER_AND_AUTOMATICPISTOL_CLIP
ENEMY AI
Enemy types: Enemies are planned to oppose a significant scalable challenge for players to overcome. For that there is aggression management that stablishes how many enemies are able to attack at the same time and where should they locate during combat.
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To encourage player creativity and push them to create strategies while creating combat encounters that helps them feeling powerful and avoids frustration there are different enemy roles and archetypes:
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Fodder:Depending on their role, fodder enemies will exhibit different behaviors, but they all share a common objective: to serve as a source of weapons and ammo for players during combat encounters. Fodders are easy to kill and do not pose much of a challenge when encountered alone, but they can be considered dangerous in large groups. They can wield any weapon type.
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Aggressive: They will constantly attempt to close the distance with the player and will wield close-quarter combat weapons such as shotguns, submachine guns, etc.
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Cautious: They will aim to maintain their distance from the player and will use long-distance weapons such as automatic/semiautomatic rifles, heavy machine guns, or hand cannons.
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Static: They will remain in their position regardless of the situation. They may wield any kind of weapon but can be easily spotted. They might be equipped with sniper rifles for engagements at considerable distances.
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Kamikaze: Discourages passive playstyles by having them charge towards players at any given moment. Upon reaching the player or getting killed, they explode, dealing area-of-effect (AOE) damage to everything in their radius. This mechanic not only widens the player's strategies but also encourages creativity, as it introduces a new source of AOE damage for players to consider when encountering enemies.
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Melee: Melee enemies resist attacks more effectively and constantly engage players without waiting any aggression management, harassing them and compelling them to prioritize dealing with this enemy for a clearer field of battle.
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Enforcer: As the name suggests, enforcers are designed to neglect player's mechanics and force them to adopt new strategies in combat. To achieve this, enforcers inherit a build-up behavior from fodder enemies. They are proficient in wielding all types of weapons and share common behavior based on the same sub-classes. Additionally, enforcers are equipped with an energy shield that covers them from player attacks within a 90-degree angle, further complicating the player's approach.​​
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They force players who are abusing one-shot killing weapons like the sniper rifle into switching to new weapons like the shotgun or a submachine gun, they can also be defeated by throwing a grenade at their backs since its an open spot for players to abuse, etc...
ENEMY_TYPES
ENEMY_FODDER_STATIC_CLIP
ENEMY_FODDER_AGRESSIVE
ENEMY_FODDER_CAUTIOUS
ENEMY_KAMIKAZE
ENEMY_MELEE_CLIP
ENEMY_ENFORCER_CLIP
Design Challenges
Weapon design: I knew I needed varied weapons in the game since I wanted players to have different strategic options to confront enemies. From there I planned a wide variety of options. Ultimately I choose a well stablished set of archetypes since I felt like it brought a more familiar feeling of power to the player.
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However, while these choices may have fallen short in terms of uniqueness or originality compared to, for example, a 'ray weapon' or a wildly imaginative saw blade submachine gun, I prioritized the feeling of empowerment that these familiar weapon archetypes offer over the ability to run around disintegrating enemies with unconventional guns.
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New Ability: Since I wanted to add something to the experience, I decided to implement a new ability that could serve both traversal and combat beats.
For that I implemented a time bending mechanic that is familiar to use since its an already existing resource and mechanic within the game (grenade // throw-grenade) and can be useful for platforming sections by throwing it and slowing level elements or by creating a safe zone for the less experienced player to breathe or the more experienced players to take advantage of.
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Engaging combat encounters: Players tend to optimise the best way to play into their "fun" way to play, to find the tight spot with enemies and offer an affordable challenge enough to push passive players into action and not refrain hectic players from their strategies I used familiar enemy archetypes and then defined different behaviors in order to create readable and interesting battle encounters.
There are enemies that pushes players to move, while being held by an aggression management system along with others that directly neglect usual player abusive tendencies of overpowered weapons. This, makes for a dynamic combat environment that rewards creativity and active gameplay rather than repetition and fear.