Battle for the Ark...pointless?

(QUIK420) #1

Does anyone else see the battle for the Ark and who controls what levels/parts as pretty much pointless? I mean if this was a game like MAG where once you joined a faction you could only play as that faction then it would make more sense. But as it is if you are on the security you can fight for the resistance and vice versa.

I used to not care about playing on the resistance side before the stats page was up because i just cared about the win. However, since the stats site went up I find myself constantly wanting to switch over to the security side even if the teams are unbalanced because I want security to win the battle for the Ark.

Just seems like an odd implementation for a game that doesn’t really have two separate sides at all. Just seems like its sole accomplishment is to make people want to stack sides in favor of whatever faction they like more. :confused:

(tokamak) #2

On a second thought. I think SD can take all the time in the world with the PC stats site.

(Glyph) #3

If you are fighting for Security you are supposed to sabotage your team when you play for Resistance, and vice versa. That is how the Battle for the Ark is supposed to work.

In all seriousness though, the entire Battle for the Ark concept was as poorly executed as the clan and stat site. Why the stats site only tracks Freeplay matches, both private and public, yet not the Campaign is pointless as well. Also, why was clan support not available at launch? Was their goal to have no community left to care about the feature?

The entire stats site was just as poorly designed as the lobby system in Brink. Trying to get 5-8 friends together on the same team for a match is literally impossible on the consoles. In the end I think that the failure of the Battle for the Ark is rather apropos.

(cdoty15) #4

That does seem weird… but I don’t really care yet cause I’m on PC

(QUIK420) #5

It can be difficult on the consoles but Im on the PS3 and we have a pretty big group of Brinkers who play pretty consistently. Can usually get a big team game going for a cpl hours as long as no one has cr@ppy ping. But ya stat site = :frowning:

(wolfnemesis75) #6

I have heard people I play with say “I hate playing as Resistance”. A guy I play with says this a lot. So some do want to stick to a faction also because of the look of their dude, or the idea of the story. Other than that, it is just a fun extra layer to when you are playing. Like rooting for a certain team. It’s just another layer.

My two cents.

(nephandys) #7

[QUOTE=Glyph;339344]
The entire stats site was just as poorly designed as the lobby system in Brink. Trying to get 5-8 friends together on the same team for a match is literally impossible on the consoles. In the end I think that the failure of the Battle for the Ark is rather apropos.[/QUOTE]

See this thread: How to Make a 360 Lobby; 360 Lobby Workaround. This is how on community nights we are getting full 8 man parties into games on the same team with no problems at all. It also lets whoever starts the match pull host. I still want a lobby, but seriously getting your party all into a match on the same team just isn’t difficult. Most of the people we’ve been playing with have said the same once they see it in action.

(Oschino1907) #8

Exactly, I play literally every single night and always get multiple hours in a row of mostly full matches with friends and mostly all one fireteam. Usually more then one game going amongst friends also so always a game to join. Not to mention playing against each other as well to make teams even and encourage other randoms to stay and join up with us.

The problems only extend as far as you let them, there are work arounds and things to do to help with getting full matches going. The community is only as active as YOU can help it to be. We have a group of a few dozen that play on the reg multiple nights a week and new people joining up and playing with us every day.

(Glyph) #9

[QUOTE=nephandys;339352]See this thread: http://www.splashdamage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28248
This is how on community nights we are getting full 8 man parties into games on the same team with no problems at all. It also lets whoever starts the match pull host. I still want a lobby, but seriously getting your party all into a match on the same team just isn’t difficult. Most of the people we’ve been playing with have said the same once they see it in action.[/QUOTE]

Force team balance in non-bot matches (Competition and Old Skool) negates all of that. Add in the fact that you are forced to finish a match even after the entire other team has quit and why not auto-forfeit the match and wait for more players to join? To make matters worse, the game will not move your friends to your team at the start of the next match either. The entire system is downright pathetic for a game released in 2011.

(Overgear) #10

It also seems pointless as I’d be surprised if the defending team wasn’t winning more than 50% of the time.

(KAS--Will) #11

I don’t really mind it… just seems 1 sided because Resistance is dominating security. I’ve been playing security to contribute to some form of advantage for Security, but 1 man can’t do it alone…

(wolfnemesis75) #12

I fight for Security. We must Save Ark!

(bastuden) #13

[QUOTE=QUIK420;339339]Does anyone else see the battle for the Ark and who controls what levels/parts as pretty much pointless? I mean if this was a game like MAG where once you joined a faction you could only play as that faction then it would make more sense. But as it is if you are on the security you can fight for the resistance and vice versa.

I used to not care about playing on the resistance side before the stats page was up because i just cared about the win. However, since the stats site went up I find myself constantly wanting to switch over to the security side even if the teams are unbalanced because I want security to win the battle for the Ark.

Just seems like an odd implementation for a game that doesn’t really have two separate sides at all. Just seems like its sole accomplishment is to make people want to stack sides in favor of whatever faction they like more. :confused:[/QUOTE]

First off I’d like to start off by saying how much this thread wins! Dude you are 100% Alot of people here have never played MAG and if they did probably did not give it a chance and just decided it sucked or whatever, but I must say after playing that game for months, it completely changed the way I looked at FPS’s and I was very upset when I found out the battles in this game was not a persistent world like MAG and that the battle for the Ark pretty much meant nothing

Here is my suggestion take the stat site down and then put the same thing in the game but make it virtual… Let people only play the faction they choose and let us have the ability to click on the virtual map that looks like the stat site to enter into the different battlefields to help our side, when you view this map it also tells you how many people are playing in this Map, how many games are going on and the percentage of who is winning Resist or Sec on that area of the map!!! How sick would that be guys… God I hope you guys don’t hate this idea and really think about what I am saying here, this could be huge and make the battle for the Arch really feel like it means something

Oh and for the people who will say it might make the faction unbalance blah blah blah, that how real war works! It may happen where there are more of one side than the other, but will still be fun imagine it there where twice as much of one side than the other, but the other faction won more battles and where more bad ass, well guess what, this is how it was in MAG, having a bigger faction doesn’t ultimately make you the obvious winner in the battle of the Ark

(its al bout security) #14

thats the way i expected it. lets exterminate some resistance dogs

(bastuden) #15

sorry I spelled Ark wrong, its late over here

(bastuden) #16

Do you think its to late for them to do something like this, I don’t this is something that would kill two birds with one stone, this same virtual map would also be its own lobby system

(its al bout security) #17

its getting late. im not sure this would work on consoles. you could get a job at sd as a guy that just comes up with these crazy support ideas and give them criticism and such. i think this would work out :smiley:

i think it is too late but you definitly have good ideas going on in your noggin:o

(aignetti) #18

great idea, but sd will not listen - they are ignoring great ideas since they work together with bethesda.

only in the competition mode it should be possible to join both sides.

(KAS--Will) #19

I like what their doing with it, despite it not meaning much… still interesting to see what faction is better or has better odds at winning at certain maps. What’s funny is I can see why Resistance dominates on Container City, and Security at Refuel. :stuck_out_tongue:

@It’s al bout security
Go check 360’s stats. :stuck_out_tongue: I honestly would rather see Resistance win, however I am playing Security, because I like fighting for the under dogs, to much team stacking.

(its al bout security) #20

[QUOTE=aignetti;339694]great idea, but sd will not listen - they are ignoring great ideas since they work together with bethesda.

only in the competition mode it should be possible to join both sides.[/QUOTE]

they probably have a mega 2000 page long contract with bethesda. and bethesda acts like all the info they hold back builds hype and is the golden key to the secret to the universe.

id that makes sense. if it doesn’t just listen to this guy.