Welcome to the 78th edition of our Ready or Not Development Briefing, dated September 27th, 2024!
This edition delves into a new motion capture session that we’ve utilized to gather vital gameplay and cinematic footage for the upcoming DLC and future Ready or Not content. We will also outline some of the new features currently in development, such as AI item caching, suspect loadouts, variations in the hesitation system, suspect squad systems, and an updated ban manager.
In other exciting news, our development team will participate in an AMA on eXputer’s online forums! If you have pressing questions for us, ensure you submit them using this link before the deadline on Oct. 3rd: https://forums.exputer.com/threads/ready-or-not-devs-ama.957/
Note: These development briefings are meant to keep you informed about portions of our ongoing work on Ready or Not. Please be aware that these updates do not cover everything we are currently working on. Content presented in these briefings may still be a work in progress and subject to change.
While we won’t be revealing the cinematics related to this mocap (no spoilers!), we will discuss some of the useful work completed for upcoming changes, particularly the suspect item caching and enhancements to the AI hesitation system.
Item caching introduces a new system where suspect/civilian AI can arm themselves during missions. The project’s name eludes to its primary function, enabling the creation of weapons caches for suspects to use as fallback points.
Early prototypes of this system explore ways for suspects to resupply, acquire weapons, and even armor. This means an unarmed suspect who escapes your sight may reappear with a firearm and body armor. Maintain control of the scene.
(Videos below: Mocap data portraying suspects equipping themselves via the item cache system)
To add nuance to AI encounters, our hesitation system is being refined with more variations in the animations used by suspects and civilians. For example, the existing quick animations where a gun is haphazardly thrown to the ground will be slowed down, increasing tension in gameplay with more deliberate movements.
(Video below: Lower the weapon slowly)
Additionally, a variety of world-building actions and conversation animations were recorded during this session for future integration.
Currently, your SWAT team is the only organized squad capable of true coordination during the chaos of a mission. While suspects may occasionally complement each other’s actions, they lack genuine coordinated complexity.
The Suspect Squad Behavior system aims to change that by enabling certain suspects to assume leadership roles, orchestrate attacks against your team, share information, and regroup effectively.
Information sharing will allow suspects to communicate the last known positions of enemies when encountering each other, establishing a foundation for the rest of the squad behaviors.
High-ranking suspects may be designated as leaders based on their background, making them high-priority targets capable of issuing orders against your team if not neutralized.
The ‘rally’ behavior enables suspects to actively call for nearby allies to either back them up or attack your team’s last known position.
If unwilling to engage, suspects can use the ‘regroup’ behavior to seek allies, gather information, and coordinate future actions, possibly deciding to patrol together.
The item caching system complements our new feature for expanded suspect loadouts. This system allows suspects to use weapon attachments, like flashlights and optics, and switch between multiple weapons as needed.
Each mission has been revised to grant suspects varied chances of possessing specific secondary weapons, melee options, or being unarmed, and whether their weapon starts holstered or not. If a suspect depletes their primary’s magazine, be ready for their sidearm.
Previously, suspects only drew secondary weapons for specific actions, but now they can access their full loadout and switch between items contextually, provided the item is available in their individual loadout.
A notable upcoming feature is the ban manager, enhancing your ability to control matchmaking, even when you’re not the host.
Our existing ban system only applies if you are the host. It does not affect client players joining a server, where previously banned players could still match with you or host a game.
With the new ban system, anyone can ban another player from future matchmaking regardless of who is hosting.
If you are the host, banning a player will immediately kick them from the server, as it does now. If you ban a player while not hosting, it won’t affect the current match but will prevent future matches with that player.
You will also be able to permanently mute a player’s text and/or voice chat, eliminating their communications from your matches moving forward.
Our recent mocap session has provided high-fidelity animations to enhance upcoming cinematics and feature updates. The features discussed here are still in development but are on their way to implementation. Stay tuned for more updates on upcoming content, and share your thoughts on the preliminary information provided.
This concludes our 78th development briefing. Thank you for joining us. Be sure to check in next time for more development news!
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VOID Interactive