Hello egg fans! Our new Shell Shockers game mode King of the Coop (KotC) has been released, and I’m excited to talk about the victories and challenges we’ve had with developing this new game mode!
Over the three years that Shell Shockers has been around, the game has gone through several stages of development. Those who have been playing for a while will remember a time before bi-weekly updates and consistent new content and maps! Starting from being a tech demo and changing into a surprise hit, our team has grown, and so have our goals.
Given Shell Shockers success, we knew we wanted to give players a totally new way to play the game. The challenge of any new mode is finding a balance between satisfying gameplay, easy to learn mechanics and fun nuances on each map that take mastery to exploit. We reviewed several game modes from popular multiplayer titles such as Demolition, Payload, Infected, Arms Race and more, and thought hard about which game type would fit best inside the framework we built for Shell Shockers.
Based off of King of the Hill, KotC is a new Shell Shockers game mode, in which eggs are divided into teams (red and blue) and work with their teammates to control capture points or “Coops” around the map. Sitting on a Coop for a certain amount of time earns your team a point, after which another Coop will spawn somewhere else on the map. Capture 5 Coops to net your team a sweet reward and earn the title of King of the Coop!
As fans of the Halo King of the Hill mode, and Team Fortress’s Capture Point maps, we decided to forge forward to create our own
“King” mode, which could build on the existing teams mode. Originally coined “Rule the Roost”, we settled on King of the Coop to make it easily identifiable as a King-like mode, while still leaving the coop door wide open for a whole range of rooster puns, which we’ve never been very good at resisting…
Some of the other mode names we concocted:
- Cluckpoint Capture
- Conquer the Coop
- Control the Clutch
- Clutchpoint
- Coop Conquest
The incentives as laid out above would create a small bonus to complete the full amount of captures (which was originally set at 20 before we realised it was drastically too high!). The reward amount was chosen to ensure it’s not quite worth just sitting and farming the mode for eggs, because getting your hands dirty in a public lobby should yield more eggs per hour. Instead the reward acts as a bonus for players who pulled the winning team to victory or even transferred over to the losing team to help them succeed. We wanted to add this reward to team switchers who see one team that needs help, and want to challenge themselves to push against the tide!
Our initial team balance tests went really well! We were thrilled to see how much players loved KotC and we identified several fixes and adjustments to improve the experience.
That being said, early on into development, we noted that it was natural for there to be a few standout players in each public lobby and if they all got on one team, they could snowball wins fairly easily. Because of this, our first update to the game mode (on December 15th), will include adding an auto team balance function in our public game lobbies. This will automatically switch just a couple players from one team to another so that each side has equal access to victory. We hope this creates fair teams while still allowing friends to play together but we’ll keep a close eye on the servers to see how much of a difference it makes!
The proof will definitely be in the egg custard, so we are thinking of other ideas to better balance teams, like comeback mechanics, organising teams by KDA etc to implement if they are needed!
One of the interesting things about the arrival of KotC is that it came at the same time as the Christmas maps were added to the game. Not only did people get to experience their favourite maps, but the maps had been updated to allow jumps that were once not possible, and traverse the winter wonderlands in new ways.
The Capture points on each map spawn one at a time and in a random order. The map with the most capture points, Ruins, has 25 total capture points, meaning a total of 24 possibilities each time the coop moves. Given that, there are actually 24 to the power of 9 ways for the points to spawn…which leads to a staggering 2,641,807,540,224 (that’s over 2 trillion) ways for a match to play out!! This should lead to tonnes of different playstyles based on the sequence of points on each individual map.
What we noticed quickly in testing is that there were just so many ways to play this game mode. Whether you want to grab a Scrambler or Whipper to capture each point with your oval-y mass or you choose to guard the point entrances from intruders with nades, or you just wait hidden up high, for the enemy soldier to push onto the point, before letting an RPEGG rip for maximum carnage – each offer their own unique enjoyment. In fact, in a sniper dominated meta, other guns actually gain in value depending on what play style you are going for, AND ideally your team has access to all of them. A team with too many RPEGGS will be great at taking a point, but lousy at holding it. Dominate an open point with crackshots but miss too many shots or be rushed by one too many eggs and your dreams of capturing the point will become nightmares.
One thing that sets Shell Shockers apart from many games out there is the lack of round end. For players this has the effect of making it easy to jump in and out for varying length game sessions and not feel like you missed out, or couldn’t stay as long as you needed. We find a bunch of players who join up, get as large a streak as possible and then leave just as quickly. For King of the Coop we wanted something a little different, an actual way to “win” as a team. After deciding on the 5 coop capture limit, and for the first time the round will end!… well and then start up again shortly after. We wanted this small benchmark as a way to create that crescendo when both teams are vying for that final point. Capturing it awards a 250 egg round bonus to everyone on the winning team who was either there at the beginning or those who joined the team when they were down in points. We can’t wait to hear how these matches influence game satisfaction. As awesome as that close victory feels, the other team may hate that loss! Ultimately the amount of players who choose that mode from the main menu will let us know how successful it is!
For me there have been a few dev highlights since I started on the Shell Project:
- New Weapons – RPEGG and CRACKSHOT introduced
- Map pool expansion
- Lighting update
- Bi weekly content and Tri-hard weapon included
And now King of the Coop has offered an even larger scope for new gameplay than any of these past changes.
So far the launch is going great, but nothing is without its own challenges to solve. We were thrilled to see how much players loved playing KotC and with the next patch coming on December 15th, we will improve the experience. We will check in to see what you love and what you dislike as we continue to make tweaks to make KotC as fun as possible, as really, that’s what it is all about!
Have something you’re itching to see in Shell Shockers?
Shell Shockers wouldn’t be where we are without your feedback and input! Join our Discord community to give input on the game and help make it as great as it can be! Happy yolking!
