Activity Announcements

(DarkangelUK) #1

Just curious what everyone’s thoughts are on these. It seems that no matter what you do, it’s globally announced to the entire server. “DarkangelUK is repairing the EV” “DarkangelUK is planting C4” “DarkangelUK is constructing the barricade” “DarkangelUK is disarming the C4”. Personally I’d rather a lot of that stuff was removed, it kind of ruins any surprises or sneaky tactics. Sure leave the actual end result being announced “C4 planted” “They’ve repaired the EV!”, but please don’t announce every single thing that happens as it happens.

(Volcano) #2

Agree with all of this

(Anti) #3

We’re going to be reducing a lot of this stuff around secondary objectives, and maybe we could reduce some of the stuff on primaries as well, but not having key state changes on objectives displayed at all is not going to happen.

We’ve played like this before in earlier builds and it’s just hugely furstrating when you felt your team were defending well and then the opposition ‘stealth’ achieves the objectives. Without that information it also encourages defenders to defend at the objective itself, making for a pretty crappy and un-fun frontline.

(DarkangelUK) #4

I can understand the point, but I also don’t want to be penalized on offence by it as well. Seems there can be some sloppy defending going on which is then covered by a big announcement telling everyone what’s happening… it’s like the defence have an extra man on their team.

(Anti) #5

I think once we better balance spawn times and objecitve times though that this will happen less, or at least will be a very risky way to defend.

(iwound) #6

[QUOTE=Anti;418378]…
We’ve played like this before in earlier builds and it’s just hugely furstrating when you felt your team were defending well and then the opposition ‘stealth’ achieves the objectives. Without that information it also encourages defenders to defend at the objective itself, making for a pretty crappy and un-fun frontline.[/QUOTE]

so whats the point in having other routes or stealth at all if defence have motion detectors on everything that announce who is doing what and exactly where.

why is not fun if defence actually defend the objective. i thought that was the whole point of the game. the alternative is being pushed back to spawn although attack has earned the right to move forward.

im with DA here its not only like an extra man its like having a really good security system installed. i tried this on repairing ev on london bridge while it was stuck under the bridge.sneaking around, got grassed up by the game and never even planted. i needed that extra time to plant then prepare for defence of my c4.

what your saying is that if we cant break though defence then tough, your not allowed to find alternative ways of playing.
defence should only be allowed to delay the inevitable not actually defend successfully all the time.

“DarkangelUK is planting C4” = darkangel has his back to you and is a very easy target with no weapon ready.

(rookie1) #7

maybe some can be said globaly and some team only side
(as there is no full description of maps <things to do> I learned few of them by these annoncements )

(murka) #8

It’s kinda like etqw radar. Sneak planting the sewer north was next to impossible with a psi radar up. I thought communication was a big part of team-based games. Pushing the defence frontline should not be without a risk. If there are too many paths to cover then I’d rather have a stab at map layout.

(Anti) #9

[QUOTE=iwound;418386]so whats the point in having other routes or stealth at all if defence have motion detectors on everything that announce who is doing what and exactly where.

why is not fun if defence actually defend the objective. i thought that was the whole point of the game. the alternative is being pushed back to spawn although attack has earned the right to move forward.

im with DA here its not only like an extra man its like having a really good security system installed. i tried this on repairing ev on london bridge while it was stuck under the bridge.sneaking around, got grassed up by the game and never even planted. i needed that extra time to plant then prepare for defence of my c4.

what your saying is that if we cant break though defence then tough, your not allowed to find alternative ways of playing.
defence should only be allowed to delay the inevitable not actually defend successfully all the time.

“DarkangelUK is planting C4” = darkangel has his back to you and is a very easy target with no weapon ready.[/QUOTE]

Other routes still exist to bypass a defence. You use them to get your team to the objective and start the plant/repair and your team can then cover you whilst you’re at the objective. Stealth is still useful, alternative routes are still useful, but rambo ‘back door’ plants aren’t going to be effective. And let’s be honest, they shouldn’t be, this is a team game and you’ll need some team work.

As it stands the current system is very close to ETQW and nobody had issues with it in that game, in fact many preferred it over W:ET as it gave better feedback, especially on pubs.

Defenders camping on the objective itself generally makes for way more spammy play and isn’t really fun for the defending team as it provides no variety. Ideally there need to be a number of choke points and positions that are viable for the defenders to hold to help protect an objective. Allowing more variety in clan play as well as giving them the option to hold a ‘high line’ and then still drop back and defend if that breaks.

This is also better for attackers too because it does give the option to try and skip that choke point via alternative routes.

As I said, there is some stuff here we can and will be stripping back, there are other bits we can probably make more subtle but still leave there for those it’ll help, but we’re certainly not going to cut it all out.

(Anti) #10

Most teams would kill the radar at this point and then push the north grate. Even then you couldn’t really sneak plant, but the point was you used the alternative route to catch the defence out and force them to defend from a direction they weren’t used to or setup for. Once the attackers had that north room getting into it as a Strogg was very hard.

(DarkangelUK) #11

Can you really claim it for ‘team play’ reasons when it’s a poor team defence that let them through in the 1st place? There’s more to team play than simply being grouped together, distraction and diversion are great team tactics… keeping the enemy busy to allow a team mate to slip through is just as prevalent a tactic as everyone bunching together and trying to survive. ‘Rambo’ and ‘stealth’ are to me 2 opposite terms that don’t belong together.

Defenders camping on the objective itself generally makes for way more spammy play and isn’t really fun for the defending team as it provides no variety. Ideally there need to be a number of choke points and positions that are viable for the defenders to hold to help protect an objective. Allowing more variety in clan play as well as giving them the option to hold a ‘high line’ and then still drop back and defend if that breaks.

You’ve gone completely subjective here, I can only assume you didn’t play RtCW competitively, the only announcements were the basics of ‘dynamite planted’ or ‘gate blown’… I never ever thought that game was spammy or ‘not fun’ for the defending team, in fact I’d say RtCW brought a more intense and pure comp experience than W:ET ever did. It certainly made you try harder, play as a more honed team and concentrate more than relying on an automated system to make up for the holes in your strategy.

(amazinglarry) #12

You could also use some of those announcements to your advantage if you were the offensive team, like on Waterloo during a pug, we tapped the Pump 1 objective and then just ran straight ahead - never finished it but we tried to direct the defending team to the subway station while we went around.

I haven’t really formed a good enough opinion on the announcements either way so far to contribute much more than that lol.

(Ashog) #13

Actually I think that the announcements should be on the contrary kept for secondaries, but removed from the primaries.

This would help to stretch the defense and attack and reduce the congestion at the primaries. Secondaries should be beneficial for the team to do but also more risky to do regarding the global map flow.

But announcing the primary objective enemy activity means penalising unnecessarily the objective doers/undoers, which is bad for the global map flow. imho.

(iwound) #14

[QUOTE=Anti;418394]Other routes still exist to bypass a defence. You use them to get your team to the objective and start the plant/repair and your team can then cover you whilst you’re at the objective.
[/QUOTE]
Me - “hey guys lets go this way instead, cover me”
rest of team - “No”
little to no team play in pub. we are all rambos.

lot more room there. here defender only has to turn and look down and shoot you. in etqw it was needed otherwise you had no time to react. and it didnt say planting only planted.

only if i can persuade enough team members to join me and they survive.

i also dont agree that it forces people to camp an objective. this is a decision taken dynamically by team members. who will always make the mistake of pushing forward too much somewhere. i thought probing a good defence from different places was a fun thing. running into death time and again isnt.

defenders should be made to to cover all routes not lazily spam one bottleneck and think theyre doing a good job.

btw i dont play comp, clans etc i play as an individual along side others. if i cant make my own decisions and have to take a vote as to the next tatic it is going to get frustrating.

… is starting to plant" with enemy close all the time. not good.
… is hacking" or … is fixing with PDA" or … is repairing objective (not eva) good because of time needed to stop this. and once its done its done and time for next objective.

mainly because of a c4 can be a/ undone/disarmed and b/cant be drip armed instead you have to start from scratch each time. so tbh its only the c4 plant i have issue with. it can still be disarmed.
with no planting announcement it allows for an attack on an objective and for it to be undone. repeatably hopefully. eg ET:QW Area 22 1st obj.

also my last point. if as a team (somehow! especially with trickle spawn times.) you all take an alternative route. its going to be pretty obvious to the defence. firstly we’d all have to meet up somewhere after spawning to go together. :stroggflag:
With spawning on my own or 1 other for most of the time it encourages ramboism.

(Scrupus) #15

+1 to this. While we’re at it, I loved the status bar in qw where everyone could see the time status for the primary plant/disarm process. I know engy can see the plant timer on his own C4 but I don’t think others can(?).

And also, overtime on plant objectives please :slight_smile:

(iwound) #16

mind you looking at the alpha video this planting has been removed anyway.

(mortis) #17

Remember fueldump in W:ET? Getting behind the Axis lines and sneaking into the fueldump to plant dynamite was always awesome!

(Humate) #18

Me - “hey guys lets go this way instead, cover me”
rest of team - “No”
little to no team play in pub. we are all rambos.

They can still be used as decoys, unknowingly.

If the defending team expects an all in on one route, the flanker is open to do whatever he pleases until the defence collapses.

(DarkangelUK) #19

Until a big large announcement pops up shouting “THERE’S SOMEONE DOING SOMETHING YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT AT THIS LOCATION!”

(tokamak) #20

[QUOTE=Ashog;418407]Actually I think that the announcements should be on the contrary kept for secondaries, but removed from the primaries.

This would help to stretch the defense and attack and reduce the congestion at the primaries. Secondaries should be beneficial for the team to do but also more risky to do regarding the global map flow.

But announcing the primary objective enemy activity means penalising unnecessarily the objective doers/undoers, which is bad for the global map flow. imho.[/QUOTE]

I like this. That way you can also just mess with the secondaries and move on in order to throw the opponents off.