Suggestions for Battle Tag

[Sauss-Ente]

A couple of thoughts to the Battle Tag mode.

There was a 16-player round yesterday and I think it showed some things that could be improved.

In the beginning of a game, too many pile-ups happened, where all cars stacked together in one heap and the target was changing almost randomly from one car to another without much happening for almost a minute. I think if the range to catch the target player would be smaller, it would be easier to get a target to break away and get the pack moving, which is what makes the mode fun, playing catch-up.

Though that felt more of a hindrance because of the sheer mass of 16 players. For let's say 10 players, I think the target range is quite suitable. Going even further, the collision detection in RVGL looks that great, that I'd expect it to be a fun mode if only direct collisions were counted.

At first, I thought it was too difficult to spot, who the current target is. Names are moving so fast... can't even keep track. In close action, the arrow is not much help either, as it's rotating all around. So I think relying on graphically making out the target is highly important. Between all those colours, the green glowing target car was hard to make out in the crowd. The night and arena tracks were better there, because the green light was nicely reflected on the floor and walls. However on the garden tracks, it was difficult to see green light on green grass. Maybe red light would have been better on those maps? Could be brighter as well.

I think some players criticised the long ends of a tag battle game, when the last pair of players are battling it out. Maybe save the last minute if there is only one active player left? End the game right there? Add the remaining time (for the statistics) and call it a day?

An exciting game mode in any case, very fun to play. I applaude the development of Re-Volt & RVGL.

[ZipperZbieracz]

First of all, Re-Volt was not designed for 16-player lobbies. The original player cap for lobbies was 12 players. 16 player lobbies were introduced to RVGL to make it easier for more players to join in without having to play a second lobby, so less players would be excluded from playing if they joined a little bit later than the early joiners. You can see the same thing in pickup races, they tend to turn into massive piles of pickup use whenever the lobby is 12+ players. Originally, 12-player lobbies were always quite messy and that's what they are. Whatever pileups/pickup mess happens in 16-player lobbies is irrelevant in terms of Re-Volt/RVGL design, nobody is going to change core mechanics (like green zap range) to "fix" something that never even existed in the first place before RVGL. There is also no requirement to open the lobby to 12 players or 16 players, it's host's job to set the cap to make gameplay enjoyable.

As for the green glow being not too visible on some maps – well, finding the star holder is one of the challenges of Battle Tag. You won't get a huge lightning bolt from the air pointing at the star holder, go and search for him. And as you said, it's easier on some maps, harder on others, it's a thing of track variety and that changes the gameplay difficulty.