A recent lack of activity?

(tokamak) #201

There’s this huge draw-bridge running over the Thames, I heard it’s pretty famous, I imagine people could spend hours fighting over that object and it’s controls.

(tokamak) #202

Well, the carry objective is the most dynamic thing DB Is currently offering.

(INF3RN0) #203

“Radical” is worth the wait whatever it may be for me. I’m simply less motivated to play over time because of how shallow the game play is overall, and anything that expands on the meta, variety in strategy, and player freedom might be enough to do the trick. The only time I play to simply polish my aim is in TDM, so for a game like this I want as much as I can get. Maybe some people only need shooting and objs, but for me it was the huge dynamism of some of the old games that kept me going and not necessary the shooting mechanics or obj types.

More than likely the stuff we see won’t work perfectly at first, but if it promises to be an interesting layer to the game then I hope to see it form into something great. I’m pretty sure the term “radical” is used because a lot of people will receive it as being that, simply because it won’t be something we expect to see or we haven’t yet figured out. I only care about making things functional and solid parts of the game and not “gimmicks”, but that’s where things sometimes start out at first.

Also it’s important to note that throughout alpha we give impulsive responses that in many cases fade away or completely change after just a few weeks of play. It’s much better to try and put in the time to constructively brainstorm development into experimental ideas in the hope that they eventually work, rather than demanding their removal. After all what would Quake be without items and such wide weapon variety, CS without eco, etc, etc. Albeit some things definitely prove to be unworkable, but you do have to wade through lots of failures to get something worthwhile. It is alpha so we can easily handle ourselves I would think… they are building the game in the other room as we play it.

All I expect is some originality and functionality, which will make it more “old school” than a simple shooter or a cookie cutter clone. I am a fan of old games simply because they were all so different and yet all so good that they set the standard. It wasn’t specific parts of their game play and mechanics that made them so good, but rather that they properly carried out original concepts that challenged the player in completely different ways.

(Hundopercent) #204

I’m baffled how SD considers me a troll when you make posts like this…

(tokamak) #205

Okay, what objective is more dynamic than having a player run around with it at his own leisure?

(INF3RN0) #206

They do let you say pretty much anything you want you know… as long as you don’t end it with promises of physical violence and crude insults :wink:. Plenty of people criticize a lot of things and don’t get banned.

(Anti) #207

We don’t think you’re a troll dude, we understand your point of view and actually agree more often than you’d expect. We just wish you weren’t so rude and abusive to us and everybody else on the forum when making your points, it’s not needed.

Just to be clear for those talking about my use of ‘radical’, I don’t use that word in terms of all FPS games ever, we’re not suddenly going to do a Zero-G paintball shooter :slight_smile: What I’m saying is that we’re likely to do a few tests that stray from some of the conventions we’ve established with our game modes and abilities in our previous games.

(Kl3ppy) #208

[QUOTE=Anti;454737]
Just to be clear for those talking about my use of ‘radical’, I don’t use that word in terms of all FPS games ever, we’re not suddenly going to do a Zero-G paintball shooter :slight_smile: What I’m saying is that we’re likely to do a few tests that stray from some of the conventions we’ve established with our game modes and abilities in our previous games.[/QUOTE]

Thats why I joined the alpha, to test something new in SD games :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #209

I’m not really looking for new modes, I just want to see the objectives be more interesting.

Take Seawall Battery. That map didn’t have objectives as much as it had areas that could be locked and unlocked again. The only real objective was placing the dynamite at the gun. Everything else was there to gain access and control crucial points on the map. Points that could then be retaken again.

This turned the entire map into one big battlefield where the frontier could be pushed back and forth and expanded and contracted and you could just feel your brain cracking at coming up with the right solution for that moment.

ETQW already departed from that with much more staged objectives that couldn’t be regained. With the exception of Quarry, all maps consisted of roughly three to four battlezones that mildly overlapped. Brink in turn, with the exception of Security Tower, went much further in segmenting the maps.

DB went full on segmentation. The only game that outdoes DB is TF2 where you basically play completely different maps that just happen to be in the same theme.

For me, that takes all the dynamic out of a game. The corridors with milestones that can only be taken once, it’s suffocating and highly unappealing. Players aren’t fighting over a point because that point is important to them, like in W:ET. They’re only fighting over a point in order to either add or subtract a few seconds from the average time it takes to capture that point.

It’s a really empty affair.

(iwound) #210

try instant flag caps Anti.
also ghost/partial builds.
sorry had a little ET spasm there.

(tokamak) #211

Yes. If the area itself is very controllable then the capturing can be instant. In the current maps it wouldn’t work because everything is too segmented. It would fracture the entire flow of the game because the maps are linear and stretched rather than concentric or circular.

(iwound) #212

the instant flag cap or as i just renamed it pole-dancing, is epic.
and a very special gameplay type suited well for upcoming covey in disguise sorry in wibbly wobbly stealth mode.

(tokamak) #213

I want both. I want the forward spawns from ETQW, they gave a lot of intrigue to the game and then the flags could be used to affect spawn times or other nice perks.

(Dthy) #214

Oh… :frowning: #chars

(tokamak) #215

Yeah my heart also sank when I read that.

Poor Shattered Horizon. I really miss it.

(Mustang) #216

I think one possible reason for this is that so far we’ve only seen stuff “go in” and not a lot actually “comes out” (dual walls on Waterlook being the only thing I can think of). Now I’m not suggesting that weeks worth of work should just be deleted, so I shall explain with an example.

Taking for instance the healing mechanics, when regen medpacks were first introduced I was skeptical but thought “what the heck, can’t hurt to try”. So we tested them for a couple of weeks, then asked if we could go back to the old system to compare, apparently there was not enough Echo data yet, so we carry on testing… skip forward a three months and they nion the same as when first introduced.

What I was expecting was more like we try regen for a week or two, then back to instant for comparison, then back to regen, then a week or so with a mix of lots of instant followed by a slow regen from the same pack, then small instant with fast regen, then picking up multiple packs speeds regen, then getting shot stops regen, then getting shot doesn’t stop regen, etc.

And a similar thing for most of the “radical” suggestions.

Now, it might be the case that this balancing act is scheduled for further down the road, or for internal testers only, or never, but from our side it is difficult not to be skeptical of such things. However I usually stfu and say “that looks awesome, can’t wait to test” and save my real feedback for when there is something to actually test. I have noticed that others may not be as self-restrained as us British, but tbh after turning it into a conversation rather than taking a single post at face value our thought are often opposite sides of the same coin.

(INF3RN0) #217

[QUOTE=tokamak;454741]

DB went full on segmentation. The only game that outdoes DB is TF2 where you basically play completely different maps that just happen to be in the same theme.

For me, that takes all the dynamic out of a game. The corridors with milestones that can only be taken once, it’s suffocating and highly unappealing. Players aren’t fighting of a point because that point is important to them, like in W:ET. They’re only fighting over a point in order to either add or subtract a few seconds from the average time it takes to capture that point.

It’s a really empty affair.[/QUOTE]

Fish being the lead mapper is from TF2 I believe, so it makes some sense. Draska being the ETQW mapper made Camden, which is a bit closer to the earlier dynamic. The main variable in the older maps was that you weren’t trying to push through a linear path, but instead were fighting across the entire expanse of a fully traversal map with the front line constantly shifting between the objective and the forward spawn. In the “inbetween” zone there was tons of opportunity for strategical setups and you always sought to push out again when the opportunity was available. You could camp the objective sure, but it was usually more exposed and open and didn’t delay the offense in the same way. Forward defenses split up your team, but the worth in it was clearly there. Furthermore these control zones were usable by both sides and in many cases maintaining a presence in them would be advantageous to both offense and defense for the same reason.

(tokamak) #218

Yes all of that. That’s what made ET for me.

(Ruben0s) #219

Yep thats ET. DB maps feel like on rails and this makes the game feel “fast-paced”. If they fix the maps we will see how boring the movement is.

Anyway I am looking forward to the radical changes, as the game really needs it. I bet that they are not even as radical as I hope them to be.

(BomBaKlaK) #220

[QUOTE=iwound;454742]try instant flag caps Anti.
also ghost/partial builds.
sorry had a little ET spasm there.[/QUOTE]

humm some exiting stuff over here !