SRB2 Battle! Multiplayer Gameplay Mod (V8.6)

SRB2 Battle!
Also known as "BattleMod"

SRB2 Battle is a gameplay modification which radically transforms multiplayer versus into an all-out brawl!

Spoiler: Previews

Featuring:

• New mechanics for PvP game modes
• Ring-consuming special abilities for each character
• Arena, a deathmatch game mode focused around small stages and close combat
• Survival, to see who can be the last person standing!
• Control Point, where players compete for dominance on one of several capture zones on the stage
• Diamond in the Rough, a mad rush to steal a single diamond on the map
• Battle CTF, a version of CTF that utilizes the new battle mechanics
• Twelve maps, all designed with Arena and Survival gameplay in mind
• User config included, allowing players to customize their buttons for Battle-specific abilities.
• Modder accessibility, allowing scripters to create their own special abilities and interact with Battle's melee system

Download V8.6 (11/15/2020)

Gameplay and Console Manual

Mapper's Manual

Scripter's Manual

Spoiler: Special thanks

Many of the folks in SRB2 Discord #scripting for advice and troubleshooting support throughout Battle's development
Everyone on the Master Server who helped to test this and provide feedback while it was in beta
Krabs, for his tireless work on the Arena map visuals and design
FlareBlade93, for contributing his excellent Pumpkin Peak stage to the Arena rotation
Kays, for beta testing and helping to provide screenshots for the gameplay manual
SMSAlfredo, for his "guard" script which served as the foundation for parrying
Everyone here, for playing and supporting the mod with their creative content

REUSE DISCLAIMER
Please receive permission and give credit to the below users before reusing the following content:
DirkTheHusky: Instashield graphics (from Insta Shield)
SMS Alfredo: Sonic Battle "shield" graphics, guard scripting: Sonic Battle Collection
Flame: 2D Dynamic Camera (from Smash Cam)
TehRealSalt: Fang targeting and shooting systems (from Simple character rebalancing)
Kaysakado: Respawning Objects and Bustable FOFs

• Any lua scripting not listed above may be freely reused.
• All music included with BattleMod may be freely reused.
• HUD graphical assets not listed above may be freely reused.

Full Credits


Patch Notes

[MellowJacket]

This looks promising and I'll see about testing it in a netgame tomorrow! But all promotional images in the opening post need to be uploaded as message board attachments instead of being hosted in an external site such as imgur.

Additionally, your rar file contains a single pk3 file, which is already compressed and doesn't need to be contained in a rar.

I will look at this when I can though!

[CobaltBW]

All files have been reuploaded.

[ManimiFire]

That looks phenomenal! I like these kind of modifications to the multiplayer game modes. I'll have a look on it when I can.

[Chrispy]

I gotta say this is a lot of fun and an interesting take on multiplayer! the match gameplay is very nicely paced, the fights for the control panel are intense while the time between panels are more relaxed. Has a very good flow of gameplay to it. The abilities between the characters feel very well balanced while also being in-character. I don't have any taste for ringslinger so if this were to become the default match I'd be more likely to play.

[Fres]

Now this is interesting.

I'm not really big on ringslinger anymore, so something like this seems like a nice change of pace! Gonna have fun trying this out!

[MK.exe]

Oh sweet the finally release! Great stuff

[RomioTheBadass]

Neat, going to give this a shot later today, although I admit I'm going to miss weapon rings and the first-person view.

[Rumia1]

I really had a lot of fun with this in CTF! The new abilities are wild and unique. This fits my playstyle a lot more than vanilla CTF does so it feels a lot better. I would however like to make a suggestion that if friendlyfire is turned on, the physical attacks would be carried over to other gametypes like Race and Competition.

[Puppyfaic]

and thus, PVP modes were saved forever.

i'd say the only thing that could make this better is actual map design itself, which is obviously not something a gameplay-only mod can touch. though you did somewhat attempt this with your re-purposing of weapon panels, it's not immediately clear that they give score due to the fact that you didn't change their graphics, so it still looks like they should award you their respective weapon rings.

[Spectorious]

This was honestly super fun to test! Definitely a hell of a lot more engaging than default ringslinger.

As this time around for Match and Team Match at least, there's an actual objective that encourages and rewards quick thinking, good team composition and good team coordination. Super glad you were able to pump this out, hopefully this'll show up on some MS servers for a good while going forwards!

[CobaltBW]

Originally Posted by Rumia1

I would however like to make a suggestion that if friendlyfire is turned on, the physical attacks would be carried over to other gametypes like Race and Competition.

I tried having collision on during test runs, but I found that the spawns and certain other bottlenecks of the map design end up making race feel degenerative and claustrophobic. I think having a race with melee combat enabled would work a lot better with maps specifically designed to accomodate for those abilities.

[SeventhSentinel]

Ringslinger was never good. This on the other hand is pretty great. My small brain kept trying to use the fire button to shoot using the active weapon panel, but once I played enough, I started to understand how things worked. I tried Sonic and Amy; I couldn't seem to do anything productive as Sonic, but knocking people off the Auto Ring platform in that THZ-inspired stage? Priceless. Best multiplayer experience I've ever had in SRB2. Good show.

[Rumia1]

Originally Posted by CobaltBW

I tried having collision on during test runs, but I found that the spawns and certain other bottlenecks of the map design end up making race feel degenerative and claustrophobic. I think having a race with melee combat enabled would work a lot better with maps specifically designed to accomodate for those abilities.

Maybe I'm just one of those people who enjoys having a degenerative and claustrophobic race experience. From my experience playing in 2.1 with PhysAttack.lua and Collide.lua loaded, people ignored each other for the most part and went for the goal but it was still hillarious to me when people would get knocked out of the way or killed at a crucial moment. I love chaos in these sorts of gamemodes.

[MellowJacket]

This is absolutely wild. I had a great time on trying out a few rounds of this. Have you considered making Fang's bombs team colored though for team game modes? Right now if I see a bomb in the middle of a team fight I have no idea whose side it belongs to until it explodes. (Similarly, this extends to Elemental shield flame trails. But that was an issue in vanilla SRB2's team game modes as well)

[Krabs]

I've gotten to play it for only a small bit of time but holy crap is this fun. Since the weapon rings are completely different in function, it might be a good idea to use emeralds or emblems as the sprite instead.

[CobaltBW]

Originally Posted by Whackjood

This is absolutely wild. I had a great time on trying out a few rounds of this. Have you considered making Fang's bombs team colored though for team game modes? Right now if I see a bomb in the middle of a team fight I have no idea whose side it belongs to until it explodes. (Similarly, this extends to Elemental shield flame trails. But that was an issue in vanilla SRB2's team game modes as well)

I actually did think of that offhand, but it totally slipped my mind. I'll work it into the next update.

[little guy*]

Wow, this is fun! I helped beta test it (I can only remember one error) and I'm glad I did. This is now my favorite way to play multiplayer games that use ringslinger.

[Krabs]

Just played it for a few hours in a couple different servers with varying playercounts. It's freaking fantastic, but still needs work. Here's my detailed thoughts:

Spoiler: Character abilities

I really dislike the autoaim mechanic and prefer it off, especially for metal. Since everyone's running around so fast, being unable to lead your shots makes combat really difficult.

Speaking of metal, I tend to never use his charged shot, and only ever use the minimum charge, fast shot. The ability to fire such a big beam with a simple tap is good enough to win fights alone, so charging it feels a bit worthless. I also feel like being able to aim upwards shouldn't be possible, since it's not easy to aim in third person.

Amy's shrink ray is fun, although I think it's a bit silly that she runs faster than the beam travels. Perhaps the duration of the shrink is a bit long.

Knuckles seems like the best defensive character, and his ability is pretty cool. I think, in order to make him less of a one-trick pony, the minimum digging time should be shorter in exchange for less rocks, allowing the move to be used in more situations than just panel/flag defense. Unfortunately his sluggish glide landing animation from vanilla just makes him unfun to move around with.

Fang feels incredibly defensive as well, since his bombs have a long cooldown and are somewhat precise to land direct hits with, so usually I end up spamming them in tight corridors. He's just not as fun to use since it feels like i'm crossing my fingers whenever I attack with him.

Tails's ability feels kind of unsatisfying to use since it's pretty automatic. Perhaps a targeting reticle would be more fun to use? It's really fun to fight *against* tails, though, since his attack is strong but also telegraphed.

Spoiler: Match / Team Match

Personally, I feel like the whole weapon panel system isn't the best solution to make match more interesting. Since every player tends to swarm around the panel, the best strategy is to try and snipe the panel when the timer is very close to hitting 0, which is easily done using knuckles' digging ability. I don't want to sound too harsh, but I think the way it is now this mode is almost luck based. Even then, it's really fun fighting all the different characters in this mode when the panels aren't around.

Spoiler: Tag

No gripes here. It's incredibly fun and using the egg robo is a blast too.

Spoiler: CTF

I'm not sure leaving CTF as-is was the best idea - removing weapon rings inherently makes it more difficult to attack people in general. Because of this, flag carriers seemed very very difficult to catch. Still, it's really fun using all the character abilities in tandem with each other to set up a defensive wall.

[Rumia1]

I'd like to suggest that Tails' sentry have less startup time for attacking things, I have a hard time getting it to do anything useful outside of just popping monitors as I run by and hitting stationary foes.
I'd also like to suggest that an arrow pop up over the head of who/whatever's being targeted