About the asymmetrical teams

(Rahabib) #21

I would say BF took the easy way… make the differences small enough that they aren’t a big deal.

The hard way is to do it like AVP :wink:

From the available info, it looks like et:qw is going to be somewhere in between.[/quote]

agreed. BF2 isn’t asymmetrical by any stretch of the imagination. The differences are so minute that you don’t need to adjust any tactics to account for the differences.

I think that the “classes” are similar enough with the “roles” unique enough that it keeps things different - yet balanced.

For instance, a medic can go in and “revivie” players on the field which keeps the front line moving if the medic is good. However, the stroggs have to create new spawns off of the same dead soldiers which can add a simple twist to the tactical usage - and interesting battles over those same dead bodies. Since Stroggs have to kill a GDF player to create a new spawn, they need to be used in conjunction with someone/thing that can kill the enemy for them to be able use the corpse spawn. A medic just has to be near a fallen soldier, perhaps with some cover (not that I am saying its an easy task).

same with the weapons, each will have anti vehicle and anti infantry style weapons, but they will function differently. Its not just rock paper scissors with everyone having the same rock, paper and scissors. its completely different which makes it more tactically compelling to me.

(carnage) #22

I would say BF took the easy way… make the differences small enough that they aren’t a big deal.

The hard way is to do it like AVP :wink:

From the available info, it looks like et:qw is going to be somewhere in between.[/quote]

agreed. BF2 isn’t asymmetrical by any stretch of the imagination. The differences are so minute that you don’t need to adjust any tactics to account for the differences.

I think that the “classes” are similar enough with the “roles” unique enough that it keeps things different - yet balanced.

For instance, a medic can go in and “revivie” players on the field which keeps the front line moving if the medic is good. However, the stroggs have to create new spawns off of the same dead soldiers which can add a simple twist to the tactical usage - and interesting battles over those same dead bodies. Since Stroggs have to kill a GDF player to create a new spawn, they need to be used in conjunction with someone/thing that can kill the enemy for them to be able use the corpse spawn. A medic just has to be near a fallen soldier, perhaps with some cover (not that I am saying its an easy task).

same with the weapons, each will have anti vehicle and anti infantry style weapons, but they will function differently. Its not just rock paper scissors with everyone having the same rock, paper and scissors. its completely different which makes it more tactically compelling to me.[/quote]

i think there are limits to just how different they can make the teams from a fun point of view. If it was so entirely different that players would play the game with the intention that they would only play GDF then your either going to get unbalanced teams or people who are unhappy because they are playing as storgg who suck

(McAfee) #23

I never thought of it that way. Hopefully both sides will be as popular. But yes, we’ll see some people who just prefer one side over the other, maybe going as far as never playing the other side.

Unlike “other game engines” we do have spectators, so you are not really forced to play on the unwanted side. This is better than having the player “not cooperating”. You could wait there a few minutes, and the sides shoud balance pretty soon. Just don’t stay as a spectator the whole game.

Note that without spectator capability, the only way to switch teams (when autobalance is on) is when your team is 1 up. If teams are currently even it is impossible as it would create an inbalance of 2, you’ll notice the “other games” suffer from this.

(Rahabib) #24

well thats what I was basically trying to say. The classes are similar enough, yet the roles are varied just enough to make it asymmetrical but still balanced. Both “medic” types are essentially keeping the front lines moving, just different aspects of how its done. BF2 didnt approach it that way and instead just had 2 sides same roles just slightly different stats (damage accuracy etc.)

Also, anyone who plays games that are slightly asymmetrical will testify that there is some “stacking” that goes on, but with good server admins and team balancing in the game, it shouldn’t be too much an issue. QW isn’t as asymmetrical game play as something like, Natural Selection, where getting balanced teams by something other than brute force is an impossibility.

(Ifurita) #25

Also, asymmetry should work out OK in a stopwatch environment since each team switches sides and gets a chance to attack and defend - thus symmetry over the entire round, but asymmetry within a single map.

(ayatollah) #26

I would just like to add that if you class BF as asymmetrical then surely so was W:ET. Both teams had SMG’s, one MP40 and one Thompson, but one had a slower rate of fire but slightly higher damage, whereas one had a faster rate of fire with slightly less damage.

But I would call neither game asymmetrical, we’ll leave that for ET:QW.

As Iffy said, stopwatch negates people wanting to play either side as they have to play both. But in my experience, good adminning of servers means everyone on the server should be happy.

(nappy) #27

If you want to see really asymmetry in a MP game checkout http://tremulous.net/. The game is basically humans vs. aliens. There is a small unpaid group of developers working on the game, so the balance is not yet perfect. But with decent teams, it’s still loads of fun.

IMO Splash Damage is probably the brightest group of game devs around. I really doubt any of us ( who have never played the game ) will point out a major issue that they have not already considered.

(ayatollah) #28

You are right, they even consodered the Custard Pie Launcher!

(Bongoboy) #29

Sir, if you could see the way we dress, or feed ourselves, you’d reconsider your opinion with no small haste.

(signofzeta) #30

I have found a problem and posted in another thread but find that it belongs here.

How do you stop such “place insult here” who totall lean to one side and don’t touch the other?

Some people are like I’m playing GDF and not touching strogg etc etc.

If GDF is totally winning then I would pick strogg even though I am a GDF fan. Actually I have a preference to strogg, but I equally like GDF so I’m not a side chooser.

How can we stop those who always pick one side? And unbalance the game even more? For balanced teams, those GDF or Strogg one sided guys will just spectate until they are allowed to be their favourite team. That’s just lame. I just hope there aren’t people like that who pick one side just because they are ignorant to learn the other side.

Even though one might think the game is perfectly balanced? If the game comes out, I will assume the game is balanced, but there are those factors called “place insult here” who try to unbalance the game because they always pick one side even when they have more players or at an advantage rendering the other team at a disadvantage.

I shouldn’t be seeing stuff like “which side will you pick etc etc” because both sides are same to me. I like how some people reply with “the side that needs me the most”. I have never seen a Wolf ET post on “will you pick axis or allies” since teams are the same.

(McAfee) #31

I have seen people pick sides in Wolf:ET, the attack/defense role is enough diff for them. It’s true the play style is different eventhough the teams are the same.

If you look at the “old” 6 map campaigns, I think that is one of the reasons people don’t like the railgun that much. They simply don’t like the role switch.

I hope ETQW has a good balance of attack/defense roles, there are 12 maps, so 6 attacking and 6 defense (per team) would be cool. Having them mixed up should be good too, so people don’t get used to attacking only or defending.

The teams are already different, but if in addition to that, you had a team that was constantly taking the same role, than that could separate them more. That’s why I think it should be 6/6

(ayatollah) #32

No the reason people didn’t like railgun was because it was too easy for the Allies to spam the Axis spawn and keep them there for the whole map.

(SCDS_reyalP) #33

Indeed, some of the most popular maps in RTCW were axis attack. Ice and Assault for example.

(Flesh) #34

Honestly, I dont think that there will be problems with ppl that will always play with one team. If its the pub server players- they dont really care which team they are on as long as they get to play, not to mention its a lot more fun trying out both teams. If its the clan players were talking about then its obvious they will have to learn how to play with both teams if they want to stay competitive, as will all those who want to join a clan.

About the maps. I thought, since the GDF are trying to take back all the Earth territory that Strogg captured, wouldnt it make more sense if the GDF were on the offensive most of the time (say 7 out of 12 maps)? The thing is that GDF dont really have to attack. They can defend but still technically be on the offensive, just for the sake of the Quake storyline. Just like the Railgun map in ET - even tho Allies were technically attacking the axis railgun, in practice Axis were the ones who actualy had to attack if they wanted to bring ammunition and reload their cannon.

(Earlydawn) #35

Regarding the Stroyant issue, does it regenerate over time, or do you have to have someone extract it for you?

Also, are the supply stations still in for the medic? What does it dispense?

(kamikazee) #36

Stroyent is made of people, and thus needs to be extracted by processing dead GDF soldiers. The Strogg “medic” class does this.

(Flesh) #37

This one thing is bugging me about that whole Stroyent idea. If Strogg need stroyent to function why do they need to wage war to get it? Why can’t they just clone poeple and then extract stroyent from them?

(kamikazee) #38

Maybe they just like to do things the hard way?

(zig-zag) #39

Maybe each person has different levels/strengths of stroyent and they are just looking for the prime candidate to clone. Not everyone was willing to subject themselves to their test, hence the brute force.

(Dr_Tenma) #40

I think for the Strogg, “war comes first and stroyent is just a bonus”. I actually haven’t played Quake 4 yet, but from what I’ve heard there’s quite a bit of story development compared to Quake 2. Here’s how I think it goes:

The Strogg are a race entirely centered around war. They have no economy, no civilian life, etc. Every single one of them is a soldier - they even fight each other in a gladiator type matches to determine who gets “crowned Makron”. (I thought the Makron was just the name of last boss on Q2, but there was a new Makron on Q4 … it’s now more of a title than a name) I’m sure they started out as biological humanoids but developed the cybernetics/stroyent system later on. Probably as a way to further benefit from the people they killed who were unworthy/unable to be stroggified.