Hopperorouk did you get my messages? I sent them to your profile page.

Here is the document I'm making for Shanzhai's backstory, this will probably be done in a week give or take

Backstory: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSd8ricwd-3IpsotLk7f9ryJ6Dspw-vaWuxTkAED5ytbCeLoqddO2rTsWZ7ZJfU9j9xf3f-Mge00QYk/pub

Shanzhai's character concept (writing): https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQUso-gIltPO_zNQniJFu20oUme6TEXltwXgOBH604ikNXVbG0_vA8iCZAACCPysjGcU2Uj4Veb6_CM/pub

Hopperorouk if you've taken into consideration some artists in mind, I would like to be apart of the process ( :

I had this hades division melee focus character idea
His name is Shanzhai (copycat in Chinese) and he looks like this kabuki ninja looking melee fighter

His abilities are his superior procedural and photographic memory that allow him to learn the fighting style of any chatacter just by watching them, he can then detect the opponents next attack

Ability: photographic reflexes : shenzhai can mark an elite or a raider to study them, if the marked target uses melee in line of sight,
shenzhai gains the ability to use their melee style+their movement speed+their finisher animation for 10 seconds

if shanzhai engaged the copied target in CQC within those 10 seconds, he can
 jump out of a grab throw from a copied target once
reduce damage done from copied character strikes by 50%
inflict 50% of the damage from a failed strike to the copied target





Weapons: shanzhai uses a collection of classic flint lock rifles that fire rounds that explode in a small radius and explosion damage falls off over radius distance
headshots won't cause a damage fall off in the explosion radius

What are his downsides? His weapons falls off over distance
And if he copies a council elite or raider he gains reduced movement speed

The target also has to be in line of sight and use his melee once for him to be able to copy the target

I think it's a step in the right direction ( :
Shanzhai's ability's parameters make him more balanced and you've also better described how his gameplay would work too.

The limited duration of the ability and the decreased movement speed pressures the player to engage in combat. Furthermore, trying to use the ability while on low health, can be risky, this can give the Shanzhai a higher skill ceiling.

• If you need to hold the ability button down in order to start copying and your engaged in combat, then would you still be able to use CQC moves, in order to avoid strikes or counter grapples?
• Also does the copying only have to work on strikes or can it also work on all CQC moves? I can see how it can create mind games, but that's just how CQC works in general, I don't think this will add mind games to CQC any more than their already are
• If Shanzhai can only copy one enemy at a time, then would the copying process be like Sooma's ability, in the sense that she has to move her crosshair's over her teammates in order shield them, but instead over enemies; or would it be more like Shae's weapon targeting, in that the enemy closest to her crosshair's is targeted?
• I had a great idea for mind games! What if Shanzhai's CQC ability was weaker, but in return he had two abilities, like Iune. His second ability would be to create an identical clone of himself that automatically moves in a direction. He could summon this clone forward toward an enemy so they could strike it, giving him an opportunity to use his ability on them. Maybe their could be a character talent that allows the clones to scale low-walls and ledges, follow the nearest enemy or have increased health

[li]What if he had a rifle that fired smoke bombs or one that could be charged up to fire a volley of throwing stars?[/li][/list]

I thought of a character trait and backstory for Shanzhai, I based it on his ability of 'photographic reflexes' and how it wears off after 10 seconds; It was also inspired by elements of the character 'Task Master' from Marvel https://www.marvel.com/characters/taskmaster/in-comics under 'photographic reflexes,' last paragraph, and someone by the name of 'Mad Jack'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZRVpYPFOl0

Premise: Shanzhai was a war veteran, like Hans and Lycus, except he had experimental neuro-cybernetics implanted in his body that allowed him to precisely mimic other peoples movements down to their smallest gestures--at first.

Part 1: His origin began when he was orphaned by Lycus Dion: One day, when he was 8, he was on a trip with his mother to surprise his father at work on his birthday. Shanzhai was pretending to be asleep to avoid talking to his mother about his father, because whenever she talked about him, she felt frantic, distressed and was keeping her guard up, this reconvinced Shanzhai that his parents were going to get a divorce a little bit more each time.

They were taking an old train from the early 21st century, she told him that she use to ride it with his grandfather when she was a little girl. The train sloped downward, descending into a tunnel, stopping midway through and creating a shearing noise with bright, flying sparks visible from his closed eyes. Suddenly an explosion destroyed half of the road: the lights turned off, even the backup power wasn't working. Shanzhai looked around to see what was happening, he looked out a window on the left side  of the train and suddenly an explosion burst through the tunnel on his right


There was a side-effect soon after the surgery: When he first activated it as a demonstration to his superior officers, the cybernetic enhancements worked as designed, but he soon experienced muscle spasms and retrograde amnesia. The engineers and doctors stabilized his condition, but failed in treating the newly developed symptoms: he could no longer use this ability automatically and had to concentrate in order to activate it. Every time he activated it, he developed tunnel vision while it was active, afterwards it would trigger a form of short-term, procedural memory loss.

He was considered a failure of the project and stationed to a low-level military base at the South-Eastern coast of Japan: an old nearly abandoned military base first founded after new initiatives were took to protect

1. That could be very interesting, and refreshing for the character...especially that it's not actually impossible to have different cultural origins these days

2. Ok let me describe the ability again...what it does is ...you mark one enemy, only one..if they use any melee animation in line of sight, you gain their melee animations+finisher animations+their movement speed, but all these traits are just visual...as CQC rule is basically the same for every character...the animations are just something fancy to look at

The true ability is what you can trick the CQC system with...i told you he gains 50% less damage from the melee strikes he copied...but that's boring and doesn't have any mind games to it...i think the true way to do it is to let Ai play for you if you encouter a strike that you copied...the character(shanzhai) will automatically dodge, if he grabbed, the character will automatically strike

3. His talents will be about different things...mainly focusing on the marked target/copying time/copying speed etc etc

4.what i mean is he managed to get his hands on retro unusable rifles that can still get the job done after he me made some self made modifications to it

• Response to bullet point #2: I dislike the idea that an AI would be in control when using the copycat ability, it doesn't have any strategic merits. It does create mind games when the enemy doesn't know they've been copied, but that's only assuming this ability isn't perceivable to the enemy, which was one of my previously unanswered questions (Reply #3: second bullet point, lines 7-8)
• As previously stated in the fourth bullet point of reply #1, how would these weapons be different from each other?

Realistically speaking, I don't think it would be very fun to have an automatic ability that adds no new mechanical uniqueness to the game; most of the characters, beside some like H.I.V.E., have an ability that's distinguishable from basic character functions and weapons: No one else can turn into a hulking monster like Loaht, no one else can create an summon a high powered gate like Valeria; many abilities can overlap, like Alicia's and Han's or Mikahs's, Doldren's and Shae's; and in some cases like Harec's stalking ability and Iune's 'Blink' weapon.

Automatic CQC doesn't add new mechanics to the game; at least with H.I.V.E. she has to build-up her ability in close quarters with infected enemies before she can use it. The copy cat ability requires more functional elements to be a more well rounded, balanced ability, otherwise it's just an instakill button. The ability needs more manual effort.

In conclusion, each character's ability plays a big part in what their general and derived playstyles are and they should make gameplay more engaging, not less.

I had this hades division melee focus character idea
His name is Shanzhai (copycat in Chinese) and he looks like this kabuki ninja looking melee fighter

His abilities are his superior procedural and photographic memory that allow him to learn the fighting style of any chatacter just by watching them, he can then detect the opponents next attack

Ability: photographic memory : shenzhai can mark an elite or a raider to study them, if the marked target uses melee in line of sight, shenzhai gains the ability to use their melee style+their movement speed+their finisher animation he also gains 50% damage reduction from the melee animation that he copied

Weapons: shanzhai(getting really tired saying that name, but the name doesn't matter) uses a collection of classic flint lock rifles that fire rounds that explode in a small radius and damage falls off over distance

What are his downsides? His weapons falls off over distance
And if he copies a council elite or raider he gains reduced movement speed

The target also has to be in line of sight and use his melee once for him to be able to copy the target

I have a few technical criticisms, and some trivial notes

• First why is his name Chinese instead of Japanese if he looks like a kabuki ninja?
• Part of his ability is predicting enemy attacks, but how would that work mechanically and in real time, especially in CQC? Would this prediction take the form of a visual simulation, like an animation or an image of the enemies next attack? Furthermore, how would it work on players: its possible for the ability to predict the NPC AI's next actions by feeding it the AI's behavioral programming, but I think predicting player actions would require storing a large amount of data on each player's behavioral patterns and a lot of processing power to convert the information in real time
• What do you mean by melee style, is there supposed do be an advantage? Do you mean their melee damage, because for playable characters, unless you've equipped the proper talents, melee damage is the same for all of them, meanwhile grunt and elite melee damage varies based on elite type, faction and level scaling (match difficulty)
• How would the flintlock rifle models be different, and how old would these rifles be? If Spacelords takes place in the future, then what would be considered 'classic,' because both Hans and Lycus have weapons that would probably be considered 'classic' in the present, even though some of them are quite advanced
• Finally, how would his ability be balanced for antagonist matches? If someone plays him as a raider and they can predict what the grunts next attacks will be, then they could potentially know what the antagonists commands are when it's an attack on a raider

In conclusion, I feel some of these ideas could have potential, but right now I think they require some polishing, there are too many gaps that don't explain how these ideas would work in practice.

Can you make an option to remove hud or some elements of the screen?

Is this a question or a suggestion?

Hi everyone !
Today , I will share my opinion about the exclusiveness of  in-games cosmetics .
In my opinion the exclusiveness for cosmetics is a bad thing , it's frustrating , and a true pity for the player and the dev team. MercurySteam is doing such an amazing job !  They worked for something that new player can't buy ( and support MercurySteam by the way) and can't use now ,  because , the new player started the game too late. In my opinion its such a pity .  I want to support MercurySteam , I want to buy "the love is in the air" emotes , I want to buy the 4 exclusive skins. And I don't think I'm the only one.

My suggestions are the following : make the event related cosmetics buyable the whole year, but very expensive compared to the others , and far more cheaper during the event (but more expensive than others cosmetics).
And make the exclusive skins buyable in a pack , or individually.
In my opinion its best system , players can support and buy their favourite cosmetics , and MercurySteam is payed for their (amazing ;)job.

Let me know what you (whoever you are ) think about that ,  and have a nice day !:D

Limited time cosmetics and emotes can be frustrating, but I think it's part of a long term financial plan: In some games there are in-game stores that sell event exclusive cosmetics and emotes and offer limited time discounts, these put pressure on the player's fear of missing out. This motivation can come from the player viewing content as either an external reward like having it as a status symbol or an enjoyable accessory.

In conclusion: limited time purchasable content and discounts, like event exclusives are good for the Spacelords economy, because they drive more sales. And more sales means the developers can have a more flexible budget and a better safety cushion, which can come in handy when trying out new and different ideas or changing the direction of the company when it needs to.

I Agree with you. But, if the game is suposed to be PvEvP, make it fair for both sides.
Ok, antag plays against 4 raiders
Antag has a entire army of grunts/elites/looters/captains/brawlers/snipers to back them up.
If the match overcompensates a antag just because of his lower mmr, makes it unfair to raiders. Even for a full squad of raiders, that makes the match a whole bullshit.
Grunts will not stop shooting untill they kill you. Their weapon will never jamm. Elites will shoot as soon as they get wounded and will take like 80% of your health (if you are lucky enough). The ammount of aleph requirements skyrockets 50-80% above the normal.
Low Blow for example: 5+ engineers spawning and they can drain the pressure in less than 5 secs even with 5+ alephs on the generator.
Things like that made many of my friends quit. The AI is broken when it's above 60% dificulty, playing as a raider feels like a punishment at that point.
Idk... I just want MSE to listen to us and stop making changes on their own. the best thing for me and I believe lots of players think the same was, the mind game involved on CQC.
That's what hooked me the first time I played. My very first match was against a lvl 300+ alicia on low blow. I had no Idea what to do but when I got my very first kill on cqc against a antag, that felt so good.
When you used to fight elites for aleph to complete objectives was the challenge that made the game so fun.
But now... If you're losing a cqc, roll and drop aleph bombs.
If someone grapple you, you're more likely to survive, even if thrown against a wall.
Idk... The game used to be fun... now is just a: play 5 matches and wait for another day to play again kinda of.

I already told you about some ideas to make match difficulty easier in exchange for giving enemy NPCs semi-random traits

I have never gone passed 50%, but below that, I think grunts usually jam their weapons once out of every three reloads

Are you saying you that 'the game has become less fun, because CQC is less skill-based with the addition of aleph bombs and non-lethal grapples; the task of searching and extracting aleph from elites has become extinguished now that aleph spawns separately from elites; and that the daily rewards system is less enjoyable now?'

I felt like their were positives and negatives to the change to grapples depending on how you look at it: Assault Elites with invulnerability are much more easy to deal with for raiders, which makes it harder for antagonists; Doldren's in general were nerfed significantly, because well-timed grapples after using astral form were a major part of their strategy and this has made them less effective against characters like Mikah, who has extra health and can teleport if she has a chance to react. I would argue that grapples can still instakill if you throw enemies off the map.

I feel aleph bombs can undermine raider builds and characters devoted to crowd suppression and the role in general.

However, even with automatically lethal grapples and the absence of instant aleph bombs, there were already weapons, characters and talents that could give players the upper hand in CQC e.g. H.I.V.E.'s plague, Ayana Kwena's Legacy, both of whom could fire their weapons in just a single move, Loaht's ability. Also, though this is small, on the last stage of 'No Reservations,' snipers are the only source of aleph.

What I can agree with you (to some extent) is that the daily rewards system needs to change. I'm not saying I like the old-old design where you could earn blueprints daily by completing certain missions, which is what I think you were referring to. I feel ambivalent to the five daily rewards per day you can earn from any mission, what really frustrates me is the anticipatory design it lacks from it's previous form: When I started playing Spacelords, it was in solo queue and the learning curve was intimidating, but what the daily rewards could vary from regular blueprints to rare blueprints; what made it anticipatory and what made me login to Spacelords was to see if today's daily rewards offered a rare blueprint, because they were pretty much a random occurrence that would happen every week or so. If they brought that back, a good chunk of Spacelords replayability would come back, I know it.

I also wrote about reward system ideas: sections 4b, 4c and 4d

https://www.spacelordsthegame.com/community/index.php?topic=31748.0