Laser Tag isn’t really that fun game to play, especially since there isn’t really anyone willing to play it. A lot of the time, especially when there’s only 2 players a single round can take a lot of time, if not end up in a tie doe to players either running around the map trying to find each other or hiding, which makes the overall experience more exhausting for everyone playing.
Here are some of the suggestions I gathered from the community, friends and some of my own on how to make Laser Tag a bit more of an enjoyable experience for everyone.
-
Better Team Balance - Currently team balancing is non-existent as players are split into the teams in order they joined (1st player to Team 1, 2nd player to Team 2, 3rd player to Team 1, etc…). It would make the game more enjoyable if players with large amount of Laser Tag XP had a much lower chance of being on the same team. For example if a game has 4 players, 2 with 300k+ LT XP and 2 with ~5k LT XP the teams would be split accordingly (1 player with 300k and 1 player with 5k on one team).
-
Smaller Arena when playing a 1v1 Match - I know that Duelling is a separate feature that’s planned on being added to the game but until then players don’t really have anything else other than Laser Tag to do 1v1 matches on. For that reason I propose an idea of having a smaller arena, or blocking off the bottom area of the current arena for 1v1 matches, as right now the matches can take an absurd amount of time to complete a single one of them.
-
Invincibility after recharging - In current state of the game players are able to see your nametag and shadow when you’re in a tagged state, therefore allowing them to run after you. Giving players a second of invincibility after recharging would be able to mitigate the problem of being targeted and essentially killed on respawn. (Courtesy of @Comunacho who brought this issue up first)
-
Hitmark indicators - In most shooter games there exist hitmarks telling you where you’re being shot from. This feature missing makes the game a bit difficult to play since the lasers can travel across the entire map and there’s also a lot of spots where players from the opposing team may just be impossible to see.
-
Limit how fast the lasers can be shot - This is another thing that greatly hinders the Laser Tag experience. Currently the game is essentially CPS based and that makes it less accessible for players who cannot click as fast as the others. Players should not be able to empty an entire magazine in a single second because they’re able to click insanely fast in short bursts, which also instantly tags the player they’re shooting at if they hit.
-
And finally, Perhaps make Laser Tag separate from plaza - There definitely could be better ways to go about this idea and I’m sure the team would know better how to go about this but I’m just throwing this idea out there. Sometimes I want to play a game of Laser Tag just with friends and no one else but because the game is directly in plaza, random people can join and as of right now, there is no way to set up a Friends Only lobby for Laser Tag. Splitting the game into separate lobbies could also allow for other modes/mutators like Free for All, Capture the Flag, or ever 4 Team Deathmatch. This would add a lot of variety into the Laser Tag and can potentially lead to more players being interested in actually playing the game. (Props to @The_NUKE and @CloudSky respectively for bringing up the FFA and CTF idea first
)
I think all of the ideas (and potential fixes) are worth exploring at least as a idea and would make for great improvement towards Laser Tag, especially with the upcoming overhaul for it on the horizon.