Grey Goo was featured at E3 last week! Once again, Andrew Zoboki was brought into the limelight to describe and explain the mechanics of Grey Goo and its three factions, while providing us with some more gameplay footage, showing the graphics and colours of the factions and interface. More importantly, the Goo's Epic Unit, The Purger was showcased. Its powers of mass destruction are to be reckoned with!
The video with the commentary can be found
here. In addition, GameSpot also released the gameplay footage of the rampage of the Purger without its commentary
here.
We will now dive into the details of the gameplay and analyse the nitty-gritty details of the game mechanics:
Changes
1. Name Changes
There have been some changes to the naming to the Units and Structures of all of the factions. These name changes are trivial but interesting details that we have observed from the E3 gameplay plus commentary video.
The "Small Factory" has been renamed to just "Factory" for the Beta faction as seen from the comparison below:
However, the different factories / production structures can be differentiated from the more advanced production structure which is named "Large Factory".
For the Human faction though, instead of the term "Assembler", the ground production facility is renamed "Factory", strangely enough. The information on the Greybox website describes the production facilities as "Assembler" or "Large Assembler". The comparison below shows otherwise:
Another name change is the Harvester / Collector unit that is automatically produced from the Refinery. In the first gameplay reveal of Grey Goo, taken from the livestream, the unit was named "Collector". However, in the E3 video, it is named "Harvester":
The name has been changed and the armour rating of the harvester has been removed from +3 to 0.
As for the Human faction, the harvester unit called the "Porter" is renamed as the "Harvester":
The name has been changed and the armour rating of the harvester has been removed from +3 to 0 as well.
It seems that the harvesting unit has been renamed to a homogeneous "Harvester" to reduce confusion of unit names. While this makes identification of the units easier, the variety in unit distinction has been reduced just a bit.
Last but not least, the Goo faction received a slight name change. The unit formally known as the "Mother Protean" is now renamed as the "Mother Goo". The comparison below describes it directly:
2. Unit/Structure Changes
The Goo Faction was revealed last month with the developer commentary video. It showed the Mother Protean and the Small and Large Protean. During that commentary, the video showed the statistics of the Goo Proteans as seen here:
The Mother Protean has 2000 maximum hitpoints and does nine units of damage. The Small Protean has 125 maximum hitpoints and does three units of damage, while the Large Protean has 400 maximum hitpoints and does six units damage.
During the E3 showcase, the stats of the Mother Goo and its Proteans are changed rather significantly:
The Mother Goo now has 1500 maximum hitpoints. The Small Protean has 175 maximum hitpoints and the Large Protean has 525 maximum hitpoints. The damage ratings of the Goo have also changed: The Mother Goo does six units of damage, the Small Protean does four units damage while the Large Protean deals eight. Hence we can see that the Mother Protean / Goo seems to have been nerfed a bit while its Protean units have increased hitpoints and damage to increase their survivability and durability. This probably works to make Goo units more independent and expandable (not expendable) to deny enemy expansions while reinforcing its own.
Other changes include the Human Gladius. The comparison below shows that the Gladius has become slightly more durable with the increase of 10 hitpoints to 130:
These are probably some of the few / many changes the development team has made in the attempt to balance the game and make it more playable. After all, the development team has been testing out the workings of the game themselves in order to produce a game that provides a fun, entertaining experience for players. These changes are not going to be final considering there are few more months ahead before release. But we will keep you up to date on the other changes as soon as newer videos and information become available.
Game Mechanics
There are a couple or so details that could be observed about the Game Mechanics.
1. Shared Team Viewing
In 2v2 games (or 3v3 and 4v4 games if such game modes are offered), it is possible for players to see how much resources his/her teammate has. This can be achieved by simply clicking on the headquarters of the teammate (Headquarters for the Beta faction & The Core for the Human faction). This will then indicate in the User-Interface how much catalyst is contained in the Base's reserves.
This was observed from the E3 video commentary. The Goo player was teamed with the Beta player against the Human player:
The Goo player could see how much catalyst his teammate has by viewing his headquarters
As for looking at the Goo faction, a teammate can probably tell how much resources he/she has by checking the Goo Size and its hitpoints. By doing so, in team games, players can more effectively launch offensives and make better-informed decisions so that they can support their teammate or adopt an aggressive play to pressure the enemy.
However, it is not possible for one to determine the amount of resources an opposing force has. This is shown in the screenshot below when the Goo player moused over the Core of the Human base:
The Goo player could not see how much catalyst the enemy has in his reserves.
2. Unit Ammunition Reloading
Certain units have to reload their ammunition after delivering their payload. We know that air units such as the Nimbus and Scimitar have to reload after dropping their bombs. Whereas for the Goo faction, the Tempest has three shots of anti-air charges that reloads after a period of time.
In the E3 video, we are able to observe the Nimbus reloading after its bombing run. It appears that the Nimbus takes no time in reloading - Taking off promptly after landing to restock its bombs. This reminds us of Tiberian Twilight where the Vertigo bombers of the NOD support class reload its bombs immediately upon returning to its Support Crawler.
3. Music Transition
In the gameplay video without the commentary, the music follows an intelligent system. The game soundtrack for that particular faction transitions from an ambient to a battle theme the moment the Goo faction engages with the Human opponent. This feature will set the mood for warfare and is an interesting one. It clearly follows the transition that can be found in Red Alert 3 as well.
