about 2 years ago - Rocket League - Direct link

Transcript (by Youtube)


0s [Music]
2s welcome to under the hood a brand new
4s video series all about what we're
5s working on here at psionics we'll talk
7s about new game modes changes coming to
9s rocket league and much more be on the
11s lookout for more videos throughout the
13s year but for now it's all about our
15s brand new mode knockout
17s knockout is all about car combat up to
19s eight players battle it out in a new
21s free-for-all elimination mode use
24s attacks and grabs to stun and launch
25s your opponents to their destruction
27s while blocks and dodging will help keep
29s you in the game the more speed you have
31s the more devastating your attacks will
33s be find yourself being blasted into the
35s stratosphere do your best to recover
37s from the hit and get back to the arena
38s using jumps and boost the last player
41s driving wins and i'm here with josh
43s mikey and skyler just a few of the folks
45s here at psionics who have been working
46s on knockout for the last few months
49s josh
50s you talk about the inspiration behind
51s this new mode it's a lot different than
53s anything we've ever brought to rocket
55s league before yeah sure i mean
57s we took inspiration from all over the
59s place for this one where we started was
62s to kind of go back to our roots with an
64s internal project called crash course and
66s for those who don't know that game
68s it was a floating platform in space
70s where you would try to knock other
72s players off into space with power-ups
75s and one of our favorite power-ups was
76s one where you would sort of turn this
78s turn an opponent into a kind of a
81s floating ball and they would fly off
82s into space and then they would have to
83s try to recover back
85s and while we would ultimately drop a
87s ball into the map and create soccer
90s we always thought there was something
91s compelling about this trying to recover
94s back to the platform thing
96s so that's actually where we started with
97s knockout we went back to that original
99s map we dropped in some
100s some power ups from rumble and we were
102s off and running and while that led to
104s some fun uh you know you would drive
107s around the map you get a boot and then
109s you kick somebody into space
111s and that really just didn't have that
112s skill ceiling that we were looking for
115s so then we moved to
117s looking at vehicular combat games things
119s like twisted metal vigilante 8 some of
123s our favorites you know
125s and
126s what we realized pretty quickly is those
128s are all projectile based combat games
130s and while we love those games that
132s didn't give us those that like car to
134s car really visceral uh action that we
137s were hoping to have um so from there we
140s kind of looked to another unlikely genre
143s and brawlers and some of our favorites
145s like like super smash brothers or even
147s going back to dreamcast and looking at
149s uh power stone which is an awesome game
152s i love power steel yeah so cool so yeah
154s once we started going down that route
156s and we uh you know started integrating
158s that really really satisfying car to car
161s combat and those really big visceral
164s interactions um yeah once we introduced
167s that into the game we sort of never
169s looked back why don't you walk us
170s through the design philosophy behind the
172s new game mode yeah so we look at
174s knockout as a whole new paradigm for
176s rocket league it's a way for us to sort
178s of expand the boundaries of what a
180s rocket league experience can be
182s over the years we've been making modes
184s and experiences that are that kind of
187s conform to a few rules like
189s two teams
191s players control rocket-powered cars and
193s there's a physics object that they try
195s to influence in order to score but we
197s always knew rocket league could be more
198s than that and you can just look at the
201s great creators within our community
202s they're creating things like rings and
205s dribbles challenges and those things
207s break one or more of our rules and still
210s feel distinctly rocket league so when
213s we looked at this mode we were really
215s saying like how can we make something
216s that's fun and feels like rocket league
220s which sounds really simple but when you
222s start to build a
224s fighting game with rocket powered cars
226s in 3d space that gets pretty complicated
228s pretty fast
229s speaking of challenges
231s sky can you walk us through some of the
232s technical challenges that we ran into
234s when we were making knockout sure well
237s this is our first uh player vs player
239s mode and i would say
242s one of the initial challenges that we
244s faced was actually player player
245s interaction because normally you have a
248s car and a ball
249s and the ball is usually bigger and more
251s predictable has no inputs you can easily
255s aerial and figure out where it's going
256s to go
257s when it comes to player vs player they
259s can change directions dodge do whatever
261s so we wanted to expand
264s the attack ability the attack radius for
266s the moves
267s and
268s this allows us
270s to make it easier to interact back and
272s forth and it also allows players to use
275s any vehicle they want yeah hitboxes
276s don't matter anymore right exactly
279s did we have to make any physics changes
281s in knockout compared to soccer yes we
283s did
284s so we ended up adding support so that
286s you can do multiple dodges and double
288s jumps
289s and you can do them in rapid succession
291s and
292s the reason for this is so you could do
293s multiple attacks while in the air before
295s touching the ground for a reset again
297s and now there's no time constraint like
300s saw car you can do them at any point in
301s time
302s while moving around
304s yeah we'll give players a ton of
306s opportunities to get back to the map if
308s they get blasted way off to the edge and
310s you will you definitely will
313s can you talk about some of the changes
314s we had to make to the camera system to
316s help accommodate for target lock of
318s course uh
319s so one of the things that we wanted to
321s solve for was being able to follow
323s players easily and so we added support
325s for target lock and support so you could
328s cycle between targets
329s uh doing this allows you to find the
332s person that you want to get and go after
334s yeah with seven other players in the
335s arena with you it's definitely a target
337s rich environment absolutely
339s so mikey with knockout we're bringing
341s three really unique brand new arenas
343s into rocket league can you talk a little
345s bit about the design and inspiration
347s behind the new arenas yeah definitely
349s from the get-go from my time here at
351s psionics i've always wanted to create a
354s nastic ball court themed arena
356s and with knockout that seemed to be the
358s perfect time to finally get that
361s look that style
363s in the game which i was super excited
364s about combat focused yeah exactly it's
367s combat focused um
369s and and what we ended up doing and going
371s with was
372s mixing that mesoamerican theme with like
376s retro wave art style you know blend it
378s together and then yeah this is this is
380s what we got this is how we got it in um
384s i love it yeah that's that's that's all
386s me dude
388s aztec you know
390s mr american themed and just lasers dude
393s lasers are awesome everybody loves
395s ladies
396s so with these three new arenas uh what
398s are their names and talk a little bit
399s about the differences between them yeah
401s so we've got quadrant
403s carbon and calavera with quadrant
407s we wanted that just to be a simple map
409s easy to play on just introduce the
411s player into the game space and knockout
414s and you know see what it's all about
415s four equal spaces breaking up the flow
419s keeping everything nice and tight but
421s still separate enough so that people can
423s engage in smaller group combat just the
426s right amount of distance yes that's
428s that's a big thing there uh the distance
430s and the metrics of each map the next one
434s carbon yeah so that started off as a
437s multi-tiered map
438s and in the beginning i went you know
440s pretty extreme had
442s platforms like everywhere and people
445s just uh had a hard time getting uh to
447s the different platforms a little too
449s much chaos too much chaos it was really
451s hard for uh
453s less skilled players
454s they had a hard time seeing what was
456s going on above around
458s and even just getting to
461s the different areas so that got
463s condensed uh to three tiers then
465s eventually two tiers and then i added
468s ramps connecting the tiers just to allow
470s people a little bit easier to flow and
472s again to get uh to help less skilled
475s players get to the different parts of
477s the map and calavera which is
479s my personal favorite actually
482s i got inspiration from my son
485s he had a school project they were making
487s new friends for
490s dia de los muertos and he did his own
493s drawing of a sugar skull and i was just
495s like
496s i love skulls that's freaking awesome
499s purely aesthetic let me just throw a
501s skull
502s down there and then see how that plays
504s out and for some reason it just worked
507s very well the holes that the eyes the
509s nose the mouth like having the player
512s drive around those
513s made for great flow
515s um the spikes which is like a spike
518s headdress that's when i first introduced
520s hazards by the way it's just fun to
522s drive around it's risky but if you can
525s get a throw in there or start bashing
527s away one for lower skill players you're
528s not relying on watching somebody way off
530s under the corner of the map you have a
532s closer target
534s yeah let's talk about the hazards of the
535s spikes you see them in all three arenas
537s and uh gives players a different
540s opportunity to get knockouts instead of
542s having to launch opponents all the way
543s across across the arena right yep yep so
547s yeah visually the spikes which is kind
550s of like a headdress look super cool and
551s i was like let me add some spikes to
553s that see what happens and it was like uh
555s in that specific section like a
557s high-risk high reward it was a dangerous
559s area but it was it was really fun
561s fun to play didn't we have uh a big like
564s dome of uh
566s like spikes like what what were we
568s calling that down thunderdome right yeah
571s yeah thunderdome yeah uh that was that
574s was crazy so what happened was having
577s that platform up high with the thunder
579s dome with the inverted spikes in it
581s people just kept flying up to the top
582s and 1v1 wanting each other and what
586s ended up happening was everybody would
587s just watch
588s so it kind of took away from the overall
590s flow of the of the match
592s and so we decided uh you know maybe we
594s better hold off with the thunderdome for
596s now and
597s maybe bring it back later somehow and
599s with thunderdome that
601s basically evolved into sudden ko right
604s yeah so it was sort of like the
606s precursor right like it the thing that
608s made it so compelling was that players
611s knew that every hit was going to turn
613s into a ko right and like there's
615s something really really satisfying about
617s like trying to outplay somebody um and
620s so yeah that would ultimately become
622s sudden ko where
624s every single hit is maximum power and if
627s you misplay that at all you're going
630s straight up into the uh out of the safe
632s zone and it results in an instant ko so
635s you know guys with knockout it's one of
637s our most unique modes ever for rocket
640s league and
642s you know what does it take
644s not just with the three of you but for
645s the entire studio what does it take to
647s bring a mode together like this takes a
649s lot of iteration
651s so we
652s went through the process of
654s essentially starting off as a brawler
656s and then
657s eventually moving on to adding a block
659s mechanic and then the grab mechanic just
661s to add variety
663s and to make everybody at our studio this
665s plate it's happy you know all of their
667s feedback is what has made the most good
669s as it is
670s it really is
671s kind of a you know it's cliche but it
673s takes a village attitude right totally
676s totally i mean like
677s uh
678s we're here talking about it today but
680s there were so many people that put so
682s much into this mode um
684s we you know
686s as skyler mentioned we did tons of play
688s testing tons uh got so much good
691s feedback from everyone in the studio and
693s um you know the team the team that
695s works on something like this is it's
697s large you know like we have vfx audio um
701s we have other engineers ui ux like so
705s many people have touched this
707s qa has done an amazing amount of work on
710s this mode to help us hone in on exactly
712s what makes it fun so um yeah you know it
715s really takes a lot of us a lot of it
717s like a lot of iterating and play testing
719s uh to really try to hone in on what
721s makes it great yeah and getting that
723s feedback from all different corners of
725s the studio so
727s last question i'll start with you skylar
729s what was your
731s eureka moment when you realized how much
733s fun knockout really was
735s i'd say the moment that i stopped
738s trying to test it and actually was
740s enjoying it during the play test
742s i was there and i was just like having
744s so much fun i was like this is gonna be
745s a blast you kind of turn that analytics
747s part of your brain off a little bit and
749s just car combat all the way yes that and
752s the fact from all of our player feedback
754s like from all the play tests it just
756s people were just absolutely loving it
758s and that's always what you want to hear
759s when you've been working on something so
760s long same question for you mikey
763s i remember when skye finally got set up
766s the velocity-based uh i don't know what
769s you'd call it the calculation of when
771s you hit somebody driving full speed
773s getting that maximum
775s hit and just sending somebody flying
778s so satisfying felt so good it felt so
780s good and then just seeing them fly and
783s going to the spikes and yeah it was it
786s was great that was a good moment i think
787s josh has a good story for us on this too
789s right yeah yeah i remember um
793s oh man it was it was probably right
795s after that velocity-based stuff got into
797s the
798s got into the mode there was this
800s incredible uh exchange where i think
802s skyler was coming back uh trying to get
805s back to uh to the platform
808s and i
809s managed to land my first like edge guard
812s i flew out over the you know over the
815s lasers and i just smashed him in the air
818s and he goes flying and honestly from
820s that moment on i was like i cannot wait
823s for the community to get their hands on
825s this the stuff that they're going to be
826s able to do with this mode is gonna be
828s incredible and i can't wait to see it i
830s really can't
831s there are so many satisfying hits you
833s can do for me some of the best moments
835s are
836s recoveries right you get launched clear
839s across the arena you're just at the
842s border but you have enough boost to get
844s back and you just make it back and you
846s end up like riding on the side of the
848s arena and just kind of waiting there to
850s pick your moment somebody comes close by
852s and you peek up and get your shot in
854s there are so many different ways to
856s approach knockout and have a ton of fun
858s with it
859s absolutely yeah and that kind of goes
861s back to that um
863s you know back to our roots a little bit
865s that that recovery mechanic from crash
867s course you know it's like we knew there
869s was something there and we we absolutely
871s love what it's become in knockout so
873s really really excited to get it into
876s people's hands
877s we hope our players will love it as well
879s we cannot be more excited about knockout
881s and we can't wait to hear your thoughts
882s on our new mode in the coming days be
884s sure to comment like and subscribe down
886s below hit us up on discord and come on
889s over to the official rocket league
890s subreddit thanks everybody we'll catch
892s you in the next one
895s [Music]
907s you