A recent lack of activity?

(BomBaKlaK) #61

At least 24 or 32 is enough, I don’t really like 64 players game.

(Ruben0s) #62

Hmmm imagine more than 8vs8 on the current maps… That would be terrible. Seriously the more I think about the maps, the more and more I worry about DBs future.

And splashdamage saying that they reach a point of no return gives me less hope as well. We will end up with a lot of maps that will be skipped all the time, what a waste of resources will that be.

(MrEd) #63

Who said ‘point of no return’? I must have missed that memo. As has been said before, this is no boxed product game so has no concept of ‘finished’, only that of achieving ‘a good balance’.

To clarify though, looking at 16+ player servers is not a priority at the moment as the current goals are to improve performance and quality for the current format of the game.

Unfortunately, a lot of the time the polish that we’re doing is (like Draska’s 825 randomly placed walls) almost invisible and the list of issues we’d like to polish is even longer than the list posted here on these forums. A lot of the time, things that seem conceptually simple can be the hardest things to implement. As has been said before, there are no magic bullets that will make DB a great game, only hard work and endeavour.

All that is here in DB now has been done in 20 month long milestones. Imagine what can be achieved in 30, 40 or 50.

Here’s a quick list of some work in progress tasks that people are working on right now to solve some of the biggest issues that have been highlighted on these forums:

  • Base game performance
  • Clearer HUD & IFF design
  • Character lighting & identification
  • Prototype map objective reworks (e.g. escorts & carries)
  • Map movement clipping improvements
(Mustang) #64

This is the post that has got our (mine/Ruben0s/Kendle/strychzilla/MrFunkyFunk/etc.) knickers in a twist.

[QUOTE=Anti;450802]I think most of our current multi-item doc runs are a result of us trying to balance the objectives in a space that was already too well defined and progressed for us to be able to change them significantly enough. Unfortunately all maps reach a ‘point of no return’ of sorts at some point. :frowning:

We are aware that the doc runs are not as good as they could be though and we’ll try to address that in future maps for sure, plus we’ll look at what else we can still do in existing ones to improve them.[/QUOTE]

We all kind of thought that these things would be addressed further down the road, but apparently once art is added that’s the end of the road with regards to objective layout.

I don’t get what the point of putting in 825 invisible walls is until the actual map design is decent enough. Ruben0s was talking about the actual maps, and not all the other stuff you mentioned.

We understand that it’s not realistic to have maps at the blockout stage for 12 months, but there should at least be solid before the art goes in if re-jigging isn’t possible afterwards, or re-jigging should be made possible.

P.S. Sorry if I included your name but you don’t feel this way, scim-reading and all that.

(MrEd) #65

Anti didn’t say those maps are locked down, just that it’s harder to change them now that there’s art in them.

When I say this isn’t a boxed product, it means that there is no Xbox LIVE style constraint that means we have to let players play with just the basic data present on the game disc they bought in the shop on day 1.

Every decision about the game we make is a matter of cost versus benefit. Yes, changing arted up levels is expensive but if the benefit is that an unplayed map becomes a great map and that’s cheaper than creating a whole new map from scratch then it’s worth it.

(Mustang) #66

He also said somewhere (IRC maybe) that rotating an objective through 90 degrees (refering to transmit objectives) on the maps with art just isn’t feasible anymore.

So instead tried to balance it with having multiple datacores instead of re-working the map layout to work for a single datacore and that on these maps it was likely this is how things were going to be.

I don’t want to derail this thread too much, but just because the words “locked down” weren’t said, they were very much implied.

Please don’t think I’m taking every thing every SD employee says as gospel, I would hate to stifle communication through fear of saying something that doesn’t come to fruition. It’s just that I believe Ruben0s’ concern for this matter is justified at this time, and I agree with him.

(MrEd) #67

[QUOTE=Mustang;452767]He also said somewhere (IRC maybe) that rotating an objective through 90 degrees (refering to transmit objectives) on the maps with art just isn’t feasible anymore.

And instead tried to balance it with having multiple datacores instead of re-working the map layout to work for a single datacore.

I don’t want to derail this thread too much, but just because the words “locked down” weren’t said, they were very much implied.[/QUOTE]

It really is about the cost vs benefit - if it’s cheaper to make a new blockout map that is mostly the same but with a 90 degree rotation in the carry then that’d be the best method to try first. Ideally you’d have both types of maps available, then when map votes and server rotations come in we’d very quickly see which maps get played and which don’t.

One of two things will then happen, either the map is good and gets played or will nearly drop out of circulation altogether at which point it becomes a bad return on investment and either needs to be renovated or written off. It’s exactly the same model McDonald’s or any other high street chain store use when working out which stores to decorate and which ones to close.

Arted maps at this stage achieve a few things:

  • They allow us to work out exactly how far we can push the technology.
  • How the visual style aligns with the play style, where they clash and where the art can aid in match flow.
  • Art also helps sell the game via videos & images to players who expect a certain level of visual polish before they will play a game.

Now that the base lines for DB have been established and there is a clearer idea of exactly where the game needs to go in design, art and technology, there will be plenty of opportunity to evolve great playing blockout maps within the VIP community before those ideas are fed back to the wider playing community through new maps and revisions of old ones too.

(Dormamu) #68

[QUOTE=potty200;452543]…
Why are you not playing as much right now?
…
What do you want to see MORE of? Do you want more draft games, scrims, cups or just more active publics?
…
Enough with my jibberjabba now![/QUOTE]

  1. Some work related. Tho, for the most part is the lack of auto-shuffle, i can play 2, 3 or 4 uneven matches, but after that is Alt+F4 all the way :smiley:
  2. Keep up the draft games, scrims, cups, active publics, the more the better :D.
(Mustang) #69

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to MrEd again.

(Nail) #70

covered ya bud

(Nail) #71

I’d love to be on, but left wrist not working makes it hard, while sturgeons figger out where to put the pins, the only appliance I have is for shooting, curls my fingers in a way sorta keyboard counter productive, I’m available as target anytime tho

(BomBaKlaK) #72

[QUOTE=Ruben0s;452758]Hmmm imagine more than 8vs8 on the current maps… That would be terrible. Seriously the more I think about the maps, the more and more I worry about DBs future.

And splashdamage saying that they reach a point of no return gives me less hope as well. We will end up with a lot of maps that will be skipped all the time, what a waste of resources will that be.[/QUOTE]

Yes I got big worries about this to !

For me the maps are to much “brinkished”, we don’t want to spend hours in some narrow corridor, CPMA did it much better.
We need bigger maps with bigger amount of slots ! 24 can be the right number and 32 can be fun on some big maps made for it, for public game I mean.

Brink servers with 16 players was the second major issue, tiny maps with tiny player count,
Really hard to keep a full server with a small amount of players, so no real community around.

(BomBaKlaK) #73

[QUOTE=MrEd;452763]Who said ‘point of no return’? I must have missed that memo. As has been said before, this is no boxed product game so has no concept of ‘finished’, only that of achieving ‘a good balance’.

To clarify though, looking at 16+ player servers is not a priority at the moment as the current goals are to improve performance and quality for the current format of the game.

Unfortunately, a lot of the time the polish that we’re doing is (like Draska’s 825 randomly placed walls) almost invisible and the list of issues we’d like to polish is even longer than the list posted here on these forums. A lot of the time, things that seem conceptually simple can be the hardest things to implement. As has been said before, there are no magic bullets that will make DB a great game, only hard work and endeavour.

All that is here in DB now has been done in 20 month long milestones. Imagine what can be achieved in 30, 40 or 50.

Here’s a quick list of some work in progress tasks that people are working on right now to solve some of the biggest issues that have been highlighted on these forums:

  • Base game performance
  • Clearer HUD & IFF design
  • Character lighting & identification
  • Prototype map objective reworks (e.g. escorts & carries)
  • Map movement clipping improvements[/QUOTE]

ok so nothing is locked ? then what about map scale and improvement ? cause at some point you need to fix something or is it already kind of “definitive” ? (I mean by this, if that’s just minors improvements about the flow, some new routes or something who don’t need a full rework)
what about the scale ?
cause that need a big rework or maybe a total rework of all the maps. can we expect some real changes ?

I don’t see any biggest issue, maps are 50% of the game, and for the moment this is not a big success, If there is nothing going on then I have big worries about the game life time. For pub play 16 is not enough. we need more ! I vote for 24 like the good old days.

Comp game = Credibility and advertising
Pub game = Money !

you need both of them.

(blacktyger) #74

Guys that’s all true, maps are unbelivable important. Look at proq3dm6 - after 11/12y people still play it lol! Same with standard 6 map W:ET, after 5y break i’m looking only for them on pubs and still got fun as hell. I know every rock and leaf there but still maps are just great.

I don’t care so much about 16+ players for now (no players for that atm), but bigger map = more movement and we all know it, is one of the biggest part of W:ET gamestyle. In ET being solo on map wasn’t problem, there was always something to do. New trick jump, faster obj run, polishing cfg.

Before i purchase Legendary pack (witch is a lot of money in Poland) i read “Captures the magic of ET”. Sorry but not for me atm.

Sorry for english ( ͡º ͜ʖ ͡º)

(RasteRayzeR) #75

Even better when you know that Tim Willits made that map in 30 minutes LOL

(pulley) #76

the game sometimes feels like playing a singleplayer game with only 1 route to finish the map

(Anti) #77

I thought I’d qualified what I said in the post quoted above later in that thread, but just to be clear (and as MrEd has said), technically nothing is ever ‘done’ and we can always go back to it. However, the cost of some big changes, like considerable map flow alterations to near final art maps, are very costly to do with regards to time and resources. At some points you just have to accept a map won’t be perfect and get on with making a new one which learns from the last.

That doesn’t mean any of the maps we have now are fully locked down, we’re still adjusting elements of flow on them as you’ll see next patch.

(Anti) #78

Could you point out the places you feel this is worst? I know of some, but in other cases I feel maps are varied enough. It would be good to know what you feel are the worst areas and the best areas.

We’re constantly battling to balance the maps such that there is variety and options, but that there are also the choke points and front-line that make Objective mode different to the porous maps of games like CoD and BF.

(Mustang) #79

My personal favourites right now are Camden stages 1 and 2 and Waterloo stage 2.

It’s interesting to note that all of these whilst having 2 or 3 main routes also have a 3rd or 4th sneak route (under bridge, through tunnels and through subway then up defense back stairs) without being the randomness and constant backrape that is London Bridge 2nd barrier.

(BomBaKlaK) #80

[QUOTE=Anti;452796]I thought I’d qualified what I said in the post quoted above later in that thread, but just to be clear (and as MrEd has said), technically nothing is ever ‘done’ and we can always go back to it. However, the cost of some big changes, like considerable map flow alterations to near final art maps, are very costly to do with regards to time and resources. At some points you just have to accept a map won’t be perfect and get on with making a new one which learns from the last.

That doesn’t mean any of the maps we have now are fully locked down, we’re still adjusting elements of flow on them as you’ll see next patch.[/QUOTE]

Ok ! So things are near the final approach at some point.
But actually on 5 maps, I like 1 map and even this one is still a narrow corridor …
So if you release a game with 6 maps that’s make a lot of tiny little 1 way maps for the game release.