Community Question: Create a Class

(SockDog) #161

[QUOTE=Humate;408536]I get you. But I think the doggy biscuit is built in.

If tokamak [sorry just using you as an example] has trouble beating players on his own, the doggy biscuit is to team up with other players, so that -
a) hes not waiting in the spawn queue all the time, hes has access to medics that revive him
b) he’s ensuring he has more gun power on his side when there’s a fight which increases his chances of survivability.

The only thing he has to give up, is ability to control detection.
Most player’s in toks position will gladly give that up though…

Now lets say they are given another doggy biscuit like a healing aura (:() that heals players within a certain radius of a medic.
Dont you think that would cheapen the team-work required when things dont go smooth sailing?
They already have the resource advantage, they already have the weapon advantage.
Wouldnt it be better to give that healing aura to a medcrate and allow the players to decide whether they want to fight near it?[/QUOTE]

And yet you still see spawn camps met with suicide sprinting from the spawn or objectives being attacked with 1-2 players against an entrenched enemy. I totally agree the advantages are there but they’re not obvious enough for many players to consider over blinding persistence to just keep trying over and over.

What can you do to make it more obvious? W:ET had players drop essential items, ETQW had a focus on moving the battle line and spawns as the match progressed, Brink had it’s buffs and there was of course a spattering of visual cues and aids. None of them can honestly be said to have worked. People seem to stick together for the duration of the dependency and then wandering off didn’t really matter to many.

Like I said, the benefits of being close to your team need not be vastly overpowering, the key would be to promote a prolonged interaction rather than a short term one. Providing healing regeneration of 20HP is probably not even one bullet worth of health but it does serve to underline that being around a medic is better than not being around one, likewise for some ammo etc. All classes would of course still be able to drop their regular payloads to provide proper boosts.

Crates etc would be good if not for the fact that once dropped they are stationary, good for defenders but not so much a moving attack force. That not only promotes playing near a crate rather than the team but also becomes redundant because the crate would already be supplying ammo/health etc.

So yes, it would tip the scale further for the side that coordinates together but then isn’t that the point? Play together and be stronger, play alone and you’re weaker.

(montheponies) #162

these threads seem dominated with attempts to create false mechanisms to force players to work together on random pubs.

rather than spoiling the game mechanics with unbalanced ‘aura’ or ill-fitting rpg elements, why not either let people do what they’ve always done, ie. settle into a server that has like minded players, admin’d by decent folk or introduce a passive player rating system at the end of a round - seem to recall this being introduced recently on a rpg (name escapes me) and despite having bugger all influence in the game it has led to a change in player approach.

(Humate) #163

I dont believe the re-genned healing will entice lemmings to stop being lemmings.
If they cared about survivability they wouldnt lemming in the first place right?

So in a sense it will only benefit those that already play as a group; a group which already has the resources.

(tangoliber) #164

Some things I’d like to suggest from my previous brainstorming:

I prefer structures and packs to context-sensitive actions. I assume that most of us agree. There is just something elegant in the game logic of tossing out a health pack, either at a player, or onto the ground.

Turrets, Field Regen Units, Field Repair Unit, Health Packs, Health Pack Dispensers, Ammo Packs, Ammo Pack dispensers, Phase/Teleport Gates, Deployable Shields, Proximity Sensors

-Deployable shields would be a great addition, I think. (Think of the ones in Tribes: Ascend that people use to block flag carriers.) They could be used to protect the player who is setting the bomb/repairing the crane, etc. Or they could just be used to provide cover in key areas. This would also add more use to EMP nades. (They were already pretty important in Brink)

-If Phase/Teleport Gates are introduced, then I think the Operative class should be able to go through enemy gates, so that he can see where the other phase gate is…and it will probably lead him to their stash of dispensers.

-I think that turret mod abilities would be interesting. A medic could attach a health pack dispenser to an engineer turret. Or a soldier could attach an ammo dispenser. Maybe they can also build their own independent dispensers…but simply attaching a mod onto a turret would cost fewer resources or pips than building their own.

(SockDog) #165

[QUOTE=montheponies;408541]these threads seem dominated with attempts to create false mechanisms to force players to work together on random pubs.

rather than spoiling the game mechanics with unbalanced ‘aura’ or ill-fitting rpg elements, why not either let people do what they’ve always done, ie. settle into a server that has like minded players, admin’d by decent folk or introduce a passive player rating system at the end of a round - seem to recall this being introduced recently on a rpg (name escapes me) and despite having bugger all influence in the game it has led to a change in player approach.[/QUOTE]

The discussion revolves around obvious and long standing gameplay issues, being wilfully ignorant of them won’t make it go away and using a tiny minority of gamers as an example of a wide solution doesn’t help either. Nobody would say that experienced players would need these enticements or helpers to play a game properly, the point is that to make a game widely popular you need mechanisms to quickly teach new players good and successful behaviours. It’s about smoothing out the learning curve in a passive way (as direct means seem to be ignored) rather than just expecting players to work through it (never going to happen for many gamers) or stomping the learning curve into some dull flatline.

[QUOTE=Humate;408542]I dont believe the re-genned healing will entice lemmings to stop being lemmings.
If they cared about survivability they wouldnt lemming in the first place right?

So in a sense it will only benefit those that already play as a group; a group which already has the resources.[/QUOTE]

Maybe not, I accept the enticement may or may not be suitable for what I’m suggesting but the mechanic seems sound to some degree. Reward, in an obvious manner being with and around your team. Hell, maybe just a guitar riff and lots of peggle fireworks would be enough. :slight_smile:

(Humate) #166

I know youre not a stats guy, but are you a medals guy?

(DarkangelUK) #167

I’m just curious if you any of you played RtCW at all? The Rambo medic syndrome didn’t seem quite as prominent in that game, and I personally believe the reason for this is due to the lack of unlocks. Once a medic in ET reached top rank, that made him a pretty formidable force… even just self shotting on adrenaline meant you only took half damage. In RtCW, the additional bonuses for extra health/ammo packs picked up at the beginning of the match maybe allowed you to take 2 or 3 more hits and gave you an extra clip (2 if you’re a medic as you start with less) so the group orgy at the start wasn’t as necessary or game shaping as the others. Just seems the original premise was broken due to stuff being added, and the ideas to fix it is by added even more, when really the simpler times of RtCW had it right IMO.

(SockDog) #168

No, I just know that some people need that brain crack to feel a sense of progress. I enjoy MP most for the experience of playing with others. It’s probably why I like L4D2 campaign most as you’re all pretty much heading in the same direction and even a poor player (who is trying) can add to that experience.

Stats I don’t mind. I just take them as secondary or a curiosity. I generally oppose stats though because for many people they promote poor behaviour and I’d rather live without them if it meant people played for playing not for some perverse stat achievement.

I’m with you on this, RTCW was great fun and indeed was simple. I think taking that core gameplay and adding different things to address the issues it had would be a magical thing. I tend to just stick with the W:ET/ETQW references because I don’t see SD or gamers accepting a game that doesn’t have a ton of ancillary crap attached it it.

(Humate) #169

Pretty sure the brain crack was responsible for the birth of the lemming tactics… although it seemed to continue even after everyone had reached supreme commander. I’m cool with a medal - “Stay within the proximity of 5 team-mates for 500 hours” or something similar.

(SockDog) #170

/me imagines thousands of servers with everyone huddled together and idle. The apocalypse is truly upon us. :slight_smile:

(Humate) #171

Make it 1000 hours then :stuck_out_tongue:
Didnt realise playing as a group was that rare.

(DarkangelUK) #172

[QUOTE=SockDog;408550]
I’m with you on this, RTCW was great fun and indeed was simple. I think taking that core gameplay and adding different things to address the issues it had would be a magical thing. I tend to just stick with the W:ET/ETQW references because I don’t see SD or gamers accepting a game that doesn’t have a ton of ancillary crap attached it it.[/QUOTE]

I wonder if it’s actually due to demand that developers fill their games with progression nonsense or if they just think this is what the players want due to other games having it and feel pressured to add it. My most favourite games to date, RtCW and Quake 3 never had this nonsense, and to date I’ve never played a shooter that’s equalled their pull on me, and I play a lot of shooters. Feels like too much emphasis is placed on ego stroking and making the player feel accomplished via unlocks and virtual pats on the back rather than the gamer garnering some self satisfaction from their accomplishments and their gained skillsets. I’m not saying those shouldn’t exist, just not to the extent that developers are taking them.

(montheponies) #173

I think you’ve missed the point - SD adding **** created the problem. RTCW was simple in the same way that chess is simple. W:ET and QW aren’t anymore complex - they just add **** that’s hard to balance and cause frustration.

The premise that gamers ‘these days’ are so clueless and require handholding to work as a team is just hollow and leads to really silly mechanisms that are trying to fix what always has been a minority issue.

(SockDog) #174

[QUOTE=Humate;408555]Make it 1000 hours then :stuck_out_tongue:
Didnt realise playing as a group was that rare.[/QUOTE]

You Mayan have just ended the world. :slight_smile:

I see a few things happening. Forgive me for some overlap here.

As consoles and gaming went mainstream the audience changed. There is now an abundance of gamers who play solely for these rewards rather than play itself. Not sure if that’s due to manipulation through design (brain crack) or simply because they don’t want to invest much to be rewarded.

Progression is a fantastic way to limit a game’s lifespan. Why make a game that appeals for years when you can make one that appeals for X period and then replace it with a new version. Oh hai Activision.

Brain Crack is appealing on a low level. People just enjoy being rewarded and told they are doing great. They want that spelled out, flashed on their screens. While we have ‘team’ games the focus is on individual rewards, this is not only fun for a lot of people but also works against them even thinking about finding entertainment through playing with others.

[QUOTE=montheponies;408557]I think you’ve missed the point - SD adding **** created the problem. RTCW was simple in the same way that chess is simple. W:ET and QW aren’t anymore complex - they just add **** that’s hard to balance and cause frustration.

The premise that gamers ‘these days’ are so clueless and require handholding to work as a team is just hollow and leads to really silly mechanisms that are trying to fix what always has been a minority issue.[/QUOTE]

Ahhh yes. I agree but I also don’t see much enthusiasm to revert back to this. I’m just trying to make the best of a bad job, look at the problems these things cause and try to find a way to balance that without adding more complexity. Yes, that means adding something but I’d like to see that approached in a more passive, temporary manner rather than this mental stuff about complex XP systems, sub classes and 4 bazillion weapon load outs that mean nothing.

(Donnovan) #175

I like the idea of a commander. This is not something new. May be a bit risk to go… but a very nice idea.

(EnderWiggin.DA.) #176

I would argue that the higher rate of fire and the stronger reliance on LTs for ammo instead of ammo racks also helped balance rambo medics. In the case of W:ET, that game was released unfinished and probably not completely balanced in the case of weapons and level bonuses. For example I doubt W:ET would have been released with each engineer getting so many mines by default. In RTCW I thought the LT and Medic classes were really well balanced as one class required the other for success. IMO, that was some of the best balancing of any of the class based shooters I’ve played since 2001.

(tokamak) #177

Yeah I like that. I think that, if the specialisation is possible, that if a medic truly wants to focus on that task he eventually would have to sacrifice his rifle and be limited to a handgun in order to be able to carry really impressive medic tools.

An engineer could go in a similar way. If he has a deployable specialisation then he would need to give up his main weapon as well. In return he could then get a mobile (slow) turret or a predator drone or something. Or what about an operative upgrade that allows him to fire his gun while being disguised with the caveat being that this isn’t a real gun from the get-go. He needs to walk around with a fake weapon for the entire time in order to enjoy being more convincing while disguised.

I just really like the idea of a large diversity between the lethality of players. It created a wonderful dynamic in WoW pvp. In large fights players had to target the fragile support classes first in order to disintegrate the team’s cohestion. In turn, players were forced to protect the weaker classes so that they could keep benefiting from the substantial support (healing, buffs, debuffs) they offered.

I’d like to see that happen in a shooter. Being a good at dodging and aiming would still be rewarded but on top of that you would also need to know your priorities and put those shooters kills right where they matter the most. I want to see a game move away from the simple mechanic of shooting simply at anything that moves. That’s what made Brink lame, the classes were too similar, not recognisable enough and in that it didn’t matter who got killed first.

This scenario however, is not possible if you allow players to be any role at any time whenever its convenient. If you do that you just lose the diversity completely. A player focuses on support one second but drops it immediately and goes rambo simply because in that situation it’s more convenient. It means that there’s no real advantages or disadvantages to a role anymore, and that’s whats so essential for having different roles.

That’s what I’m getting at. There NEEDS to be a large diversity in different roles. Those roles should not be directly determined by the class (hence the specialization and the large contrast between a combat and supply medic) but they need to be fixed at least for the duration of a player’s life if not longer.

I understand the fear that this may limit a player too much. However I think this should be up to the player himself. If a player wants to forego the safety of a balanced build because he thinks he can be especially good in a very specialistic role (either by being rambo or a support role or anything else like saboteur or logistics) then that possibility should be there.

(tokamak) #178

That’s not enough. If you want to enjoy having a really specialistic role then you need to be prepared to carry it through situations that don’t suit you. One life-time is too short an interval and makes it too convenient. My suggested compromise was to make set your specialisation tree in such a way that you get the upgrades faster than upgrades outside your tree over the course of a campaign. That gives you more leeway and rather than a binary choice for the developer it becomes a dynamic choice. They can decide for themselves how much this preset tree weighs compared to an ordinary growth and adjust it with a patch (or like in Brink it doesn’t even need a patch anymore) to balance it further out.

  1. The playing field is graded by the player’s ability to utilise the tools available. If you limit the tools you are indeed making a deeper playing field but it’s one with peaks and troughs of randomness. That just sucks.

It would be random if it is deterministic. But right now it’s simply having the odds for or against you. The more specialistic your build the bigger the advantages and disadvantages. Of course all builds should be balanced of having as much advantages as disadvantages (IE they can have a different polarity between them but they should always be a zero-sum).

If all players are sometimes on the backfoot and sometimes in favour then skill starts to matter even more. It will be the best players that mitigate their disadvantage the best and get the most out of the advantageous situations. Terrible players will be completely useless while having their class out of their depth and whenever they’re in the advantage they may not even recognise it.

Creating more favourable and more unfavourable conditions for a certain specialisation only increases the weight a player’s skill has.

  1. Lets also not forget that the game is meant to be fun. I can take being beaten by a better player or better team but to lose because I or my team didn’t have an adequate preselected loadout, that sucks.

But supposing that there’s a such a thing an adequate preselected loadout is imposing your ideal way of playing on players.

Sorry to keep repeating it but I can see what you’re suggesting working in many scenarios but just not in a pub team based multiplayer FPS.

And I’ve already seen it many times in WoW. The objection that WoW is an rpg wouldn’t be valid because in an rpg the differences between classes are much more important than in a shooter.

Actually. Before I click quick reply. I can see perhaps if on joining a pub game there was something like the Dota character and power selector thing (sorry, I’ve only watched one Dota vid). This way each team can select against the enemy and also their own team. Not sure FPS gamers would like that though, nor would it lend well to people dropping in and out of ongoing matches unless you forced them into an existing build. It’s an option though I suppose.

I think Dota has completely random class selection. At least LoL, the original and all other mods and versions I know of have nothing to ‘balance’ the classes amongst teams. In a pub you picked your class without knowing what the team or the opponents had and it really didn’t make or break the match in any way.

(MoonOnAStick) #179

Electrical Engineer
Support class with a deployable battery that can power local deployables from other classes, through electromagnetic induction or some other witchcraft. :wink:

– Mini turrets, Tasers, Radar jamming, Jump pads, Tactical shields*.
– Connect to nearby metal floors, water puddles to electrify them.

*some shield asymmetry would be nice - instantly deployable energy shields that only block projectiles vs solid structures that take longer to construct.

(tangoliber) #180

I agree with you. I think that Nuclear Dawn somewhat achieves this, even though I prefer NS2. It did a good job of making classes and structures dependent on each other, and making the cohesion fall apart if you take out certain roles or structures. Unfortunately, the class dependency depended on cloaking, which I generally hate as a mechanic (outside of NS2, where it makes sense.) Heavies were weak against stealths backstabbing them. Assaults could spot stealths through their heat vision…but were very weak against Heavies. The dependency of structures in Nuclear Dawn and NS2 is probably more elegant.

In an ET style game, I think it would be good to have the basic attackers, the supports, and the “shields”. Shields would simply be classes who deploy energy shields on the battlefield. This uniquely works in Tribes because of the splat effect against fast skiiers. I also think it would uniquely work in and ET style game, because of the objectives. The shields protect the guy who is repairing the objective/setting the bomb, or whatever. And then you might have the field repair unit (another mechanic borrowed from Tribes: Ascend), which repairs those shields and would make it slower to take down. Other players who aren’t trying to complete the objective would want to keep an eye out for the operative, or whatever class has EMP nades that are effective against shields and repair units. Then there are all the other support abilities, like building health or ammo dispensers which wouldn’t be the defenses priority. With all of this, you can still make each class a capable fighter, but I have no personal problem with making some classes weaker combatants or more situational.

What I’m curious about, is how can we really make the soldier and operative roles unique from each other? Tribes: Ascend has the same problem, where the Infilitrator and Raider feel like different ways of doing the same role. Typically, the soldier uses more hard, explosive methods to take out defenses… the operative uses things like EMPs or sappers. But, what can we do to make it so that having both classes wouldn’t be redundant, aside from the soldier’s ammo functions? Of course, the Brink operative design was not bad. It’s most useful aspects was Hack Turrets, Caltrops, and EMP… and it was also the best class for carrying the package on those objectives because it could get to the package unharmed, avoid mines, and use EMP. But I’d like to get away from invisible mines personally…which would take away some of his use. And I’d like to differentiate it further without adding something unelegant like invisibility, or taking away the need to get disguises from corpses.