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Feedback for Robo Recall Developers

Dantac
Protege
First of all, thank you for this fun little game. I'm not a fan of shooters or arcade like games but this one, because its VR and so well done, has become my daily exercise routine (4 days playing, 2 lbs weight loss.. a workout with fun plugged in...better than a gym!). 

Feedback:

1 - The action is too fast to allow the player to truly enjoy the defining fun features of the game. For example the 'Return to Sender' , melee combat, aiming the weapons and using your body/hands movements... the deflecting bullets with your guns,etc,etc... that is all buried under the need to destroy robots as quickly as possible because they just overwhelm you with numbers or worse, you are on a timer (god I hate that). You miss out on experiencing the game because you have to rush things. 

I would suggest to add a new game mode that slows the action down a bit and provides you with more challenging gameplay other than 'the horde must be killed quickly'. How to do this:

a- The 'grab' points in robot bodies could be made into places where if your bullets hit for X damage they will pop that body part off. This damage should give more points than melee ripping body parts off (its harder to pull off).  

b- Increase hitpoints of the regular robots to those of elite robots (the ones with the shields). 

c- Change grab+rip body parts off system to require the player to grab the robot's body part and 'charge' your 'rip off' strength by pressing the index trigger. If you do not charge it you do not rip the body part off you just pull it/stretch it. 

d- Melee: You should be able to grab robots by any body part not just the torso area. Aka if I grab a robot's arm then I should be able to ragdoll-pull it or throw it (or toss it to the floor,etc). 

e- Decrease the number of robots per 'wave'. This is counteracted by the fact that each robot now takes much more damage to bring down.

f- Improve the combat feel and immersion by having the robots use COVER and tactics. Just popping in front of you and standing there shooting won't do given that #e prevents them from having overwhelming numbers..despite them taking more damage/etc. If the robots were to shoot once at you then move to some cover object between you and them it'd improve gameplay tremendously. The speedy/teleport preventing robots have a great AI for the 'move when shot at' so please use something like that. 

g- Teleportation facing. Simply said, the arrow system sucks. If I need to teleport to my far right I rotate my head 90 degrees to the right, aim the teleport icon to be next to the driver's door on a car, rotate the facing arrow to point forward (same direction car is facing)..and teleport... I end up with with my body's back against the door of the car. This is very un-natural and causes disorientation. Only way to avoid this is to aim the teleport icon and before releasing the thumbstick to teleport, rotate your own head back to look forward to where your real body is facing and then let go of the thumbstick to teleport. 

A better system is to have the direction that the teleport arrows point to not set where your robot's head will be pointing at when you teleport but rather be where your default setting's orientation is (where the arrow in the white circle at your feet points to) set to.

So, for example, in the same situation as above, if my real body is aligned with the default orientation is and I look to my right, aim the teleport to the driver's door on the car and set the arrows to point forward (same direction as car faces) then when I teleport in my robot's body will be facing 'forward' while my head will be facing to the right.

If instead of looking 90 degrees to the right (aka your real life chest pointing at the car) to aim the teleporter you had rotated your real body towards it and aimed straight ahead to teleport with the orientation arrows facing the front of the car then you'd end up with your robot's chest and head pointing at the door of the car. 

A more complex example is best described using compass directions but using the same example as above. If your default orientation setting points 'north' , your real body is rotated so your chest and legs are facing 'east' and your head is rotated so you're looking 'south' ... and you aim the teleporter to the south with the orientation arrows pointing 'west' ... then when you teleport your default orientation point will be set 'west', your real life body will be pointing 'north' and your head will be facing 'east'. Sounds complex but its much more natural for you the human to get your bearings AND it also helps you keep your real body aligned with the default orientation setting as you play. 


2 - Movement/Locomotion: Teleport system sucks. It sucks so much I hate it. It removes the immersion factor because instead of moving you're teleporting... but I understand the limitations of the VR play area mandates something like this to be implemented. I also hate using thumbsticks to move (in the games that use it) because its just not immersive or natural to move with your thumbs..especially when you're also having to use your hands to shoot/do stuff.

There are ways to make the movement be more natural without having your body actually walk the distance. I have 5 different locomotion/movement methods... and imo, they should all be implemented and each assigned their own button in the touch controllers (press button to toggle to that locomotion system)...and this way the player will have much better control. 

Since some people are left handed I'll just label the controllers as 'main hand' and 'offhand'. A right handed person's 'offhand' is the left hand. There should be an option to set a controller to be 'main' or 'offhand' in the game settings. 

First, let's begin with the two default available modes via the thumbsticks 

Locomotion 1 : Thumbstick in one controller. 

Uses the thumbstick as a gamepad..aka you move thumbstick forward your character walks or runs foward depending on how steep you tilting the thumbstick forward. 

Hand: Offhand controller (so you can aim gun/grab with main hand). 

Advantage: Full range of movement, easy to use.
Disadvantage: Carpal tunnel. 

Locomotion 2: Thumbstick in one controller.

The current teleport system, hopefully upgraded to above listed #g. Has a short timer to re-use (its an 'ability' method of locomotion). 

Hand: Main Hand Controller. (Enables you to teleport and still use the offhand movement thumbstick as soon as you teleport and your main hand is free to aim/grab. You CAN aim and grab and such with offhand too but it's more intuitive to use your main hand first off for that). 

Advantage: One of the three locomotion methods that can be used to move vertically in the game map. Instant travel. 
Disadvantage: As an ability? none. Put your Final Fantasy 15 teleporting skills to good use 😄 

Locomotion 3: 'Ski' pole movement. Hold button down to use; requires one button per controller.

Best way to describe it is that using your controllers you can 'push' your robot body into movements.. like a person on a ski has to use the poles against the snow to get moving. Your robot will walk on its own in that direction with a speed set by how hard you 'pushed'. If you want to move forward then you hold both controller buttons down and move your hands as if pole-pushing yourself foward. Strafe right? Then hold down the left controller button down and pole-push yourself to the right. Your robot body will lose speed as it moves in the direction you pushed...so the stronger you push the greater the distance and the faster the speed you move in. Also, you can rotate your robot's body with it (to align your real body and the robot's body with your default orientation setting) by ..well, rotating in place via pole-pushing. 

Hand: Both Controllers. Each hand can use independently. 

Advantages: Increased movement control and allows you to just set a movement and your hands are then free to shoot and grab and punch. Also, this locomotion can be used in combination with any other locomotion method. 

Disadvantage: You have to stop grabbing/shooting/punching to perform the movement (but you keep whatever is in your hands... in your hands. It doesnt release grip). 


Locomotion 4: 'Iron Man Flight'. Hold down button; Requires one button per controller. Requires Index Trigger to be available.

Some games already experiment with this..and it works. It can even add FLYING to this game. Simply put, you use your 'hand' to point in the direction you wish to thrust and hold the trigger down (need analog trigger for this to control thrust amount). However you don't 'AIM' your hand in the direction as if it was a gun.. you have to point your PALM in the direction. Aka, the thrust will be in the direction the GRIP button is facing.

To make this work, the robot'd body would have to be given a sort of 'antigravity' ability so that if you thrust upwards you won't drop like a rock when the thrust ends..you'd drift in the direction you thrusted slowing down at a certain rate until you begin to fall. If using it to strafe/run boost while on the ground that rate is much higher of course. Not only does this allow you to ..well, shoot and do stuff as you 'fly' but it also gives the player time to adjust and control one's flight vector. 

Note: To 'launch' (aka go from being foot on the ground to flying' you need to use both hands palm pointed down at full thrust. Once you're off the ground you only need one hand pointing down to thrust up (but using both gives you a much stronger thrust). This allows you to launch into flight and quickly grab a robot with one hand then use the other to fly up..and drop the sucker to his doom. 

Hand: Both Controllers. Each hand can use independently. 

Advantage: Enables flight. Allows you to 'boost' your movement speed while on the ground (short bursts of thrust speed you up or strafe you hard/quickly). Allows each hand to be a thruster. 
Disadvantage: You must drop your guns to use it. You must use trigger button to control thrust amount. 

Disclaimer: I use the 'Iron Man' description because its what most people are able to identify. This concept however, actually comes from Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers' novels. The Mobile Infantry suits had thruster jets all around them and were controlled by similar hand motions. 

Locomotion 5: 'Waypoint Walking'. Hold button down; requires one button per controller; aim/set waypoint, set orientation facing via controller movement, release button. Ability on short timer. 

Same system as teleport except it can only be used for waypoints with direct line of sight/no obstacles in a straight line. You set the waypoint marker holo-icon in place, release button..and your robot will walk to that location. As it walks you can move your body and the robot will either walk sideways or backwards as it needs to in order to keep walking to the set waypoint location.

The orientation arrow of the holo-waypoint icon will indicate where the robot's body alignment will be when you get there (you've plenty of time to align your real body with the default setting before it gets there anyway). To rotate the orientation arrow (since this is not via thumbstick!) the game will use that controller's rotation to rotate the arrow icon. 

You can set two waypoints at a time (one per controller) each with their pre-set orientation..allows you to go around or half way around obstacles that way. 

Using any other locomotion method will 'break' and disable this one. Aka if you're mid-way to your waypoint and you use gamepad thumbstick to move or iron man flight or ski-pole then your robot will delete the waypoint instantly and stop the automated movement. 

Hand: Both Controllers. Each hand can use independently. 

Advantage: Your robot walks to location while you can shoot and do stuff. More natural play-feel than the instant teleport. 
Disadvantage: Cannot be used to climb. Cannot be used if obstacles prevent straight-line travel. Walk speed. 


Locomotion system 'Combo' movements :

- While in flight (Iron Man thruster), using the gamepad movement thumbstick will slowly drift your character in that direction. 

- While in flight (Iron Man thruster), using ski-pole pushing when near a wall will 'bounce' you off the wall or redirect you. Otherwise you just slam on the wall taking damage based on your inertia upon impact. 
 
- While Ski-Pole moving, if you use iron-man thruster to boost your ground speed (short burst thrust) will increase your movement speed in that direction. Thrusting hard enough to fly however, disables the pole-push directional movement. 

- Weapon+Iron Man Thruster combo: Pointing gun at target then parallel pointing your other hand's iron-man thruster in the same direction when both gun and hand are side by side will 'heat up' the bullet as it goes out and create an incendiary effect upon impact. Robots. On fire. Oh my...

Misc. Wishlist items:

- Enable 'wall climbing' by 'grabbing' the walls. It would allow additional vertical movement and the ability to just grab onto a wall and shoot from up there. You can combine wall climbing with pole-pushing to leap off a wall... or iron man thrusting for a same, stronger leap (or pole-push off to vault into mid-air at which point you have 'launched' into 'airborne' .. then iron man thruster to simply keep flying)

- Add new game mode where you don't get ammo reloads and your own guns are lanyard-tethered to your robot body (aka if you throw them away they will automatically get re-winded back into your holsters/back slots. 

To re-load your weapon ammo you need to get the guns dropped by fallen robots and literally, take the ammo clip/power cell out of the gun and put it onto yours. That is, holster your guns, pick up a dropped gun with one hand, take the clip out of it with your other hand, toss the ammo-less gun out , unholster one of your guns and reload it. Repeat for the other holster. 

You can also reload pistol/revolver ammo by grabbing bullets in mid-air and putting them into your gun. Its the future so let's just say the guns don't use chemical ammo but electro-magnetic propulsion to eject them from the gun at high speeds mmmkay?

I know you reload your gun by throwing gun at a robot and catching it in mid-air... but I dunno that, is kinda dumb imo. Also, I know you can just play by grabbing fallen guns (its even an extra points objective I believe) but there's a problem with that: In combat you try to reach down quickly to grab a gun and end up grabbing your hip holstered gun. Also, grabbing a gun in mid-air and you end up grabbing your back-slot weapon. Not to mention chances are those guns wont have the mods youve upgraded your guns to. 

- Add a new weapon type that goes in the weapon holsters: melee weapons. Among these would be the Plasma Torch blade (search  youtube, Michio Kaku, lightsaber), dual metal rods, energy whips, etc. Just please don't go with generic sword/shield stuff. 

- Why can't I grab the elite robots? If anything it'd be quite satisfying to do so. 

- We can grab, we can punch.. but we can't 'push' . How about using the touch controller so that if your hand is free and you press the index trigger key down without pushing the grip button you end up shoving the target robot? Would be useful for those 'robot on the edge of the roof' moments.. it kind of sucks to have to grab him then toss him.

- Hand to Hand Combat improvements: When hand is empty, grip button pressed and top button pressed (aka thumb finger isn't 'up')  you form a fist. The fist can be given extra punch power by holding the index trigger button down. 

Also, when punching a target, make X damage from punching stagger the target robot back (if he's not grabbed by you) and your robot automatically take a step forward towards that robot so you can stay in punching range. 


That's all for now. 
5 REPLIES 5

cybernettr
Superstar
Wow. Just wow. 

cybernettr
Superstar
"The action is too fast to allow the player to truly enjoy the defining fun features of the game."

 Know what would really be cool? An "instant replay feature." Sometimes the antics of the robots when they get blown away is really funny and something I wouldn't mind seeing more than once!   I'm thinking of installing screen recording software for that very purpose. But how about something that I don't think has ever been done in VR before: I nstant replay in full VR, that allows you to replay the action over and over again but in full 3-D, allowing you to teleport anywhere in the environment and view the action from different angles. 

cybernettr
Superstar
"- Why can't I grab the elite robots? If anything it'd be quite satisfying to do so."

 Yeah, sometimes I really would like to punch them! 

cybernettr
Superstar
A lot of your ideas would be good for a Robo Recall II.  B)

andysonofbob
Heroic Explorer
Well I personally really like the teleportation system in this game.  I think it is quick and intuitive.  Point, rotate, letgo.

I always use my noob mates as an indicator for these things.  Once I have demoed how to use the teleportation system, most (if not all) were quickly teleporting behind the bots ready to dismember!

I really REALLY like the game as it is.  It's pure cathartic arcade.  The Allstar mode does add some hitpoints

BUT

I do like the idea of a gamemode+ like you suggested.  Also, I am totally for having multiple locomotion modes too!