Community, all of our games have featured special abilities that are usually tied to the combat role you’ve selected. Be it the Medic’s health packs or the Lieutenant’s airstrike marker, these abilities are usually limited in some fashion to prevent them being spammed. For example, we’ve had energy meters that would slowly replenish. Another popular approach is to have each ability on a separate cooldown timer, so using one ability doesn’t preclude you from firing off another.
So, what we’d like to know from you today is the following:
In a multiplayer shooter, how should your character’s special / class abilities be powered?
Please vote in the poll above and do let us know in the comments why you think your preferred approach is the way to go. We look forward to your replies!
Is the problem of ETQW not being able to switch game mode to no deployable on the run without restarting the map as soon as the amount of players gets below a certain point. Doesn’t mean it can’t be implemented in next game. Anyone asked about innovations in gaming? That’s one of the things that can be done next time.
Actually I remember vaguely smth like this working either in W:Etpro or ETQWpro. Kinda heavy weapons being disabled in the middle of a game when players disconnect and server gets low on players. Why not having this for deployables/vehicles too?
Another ways is to explain to players while on server to stop using deployables on low player count, that’s how it’s done nowadays.
ETQW was always designed for the larger teams, the removal of deployables/vehicles was a vain attempt at attracting comp play from the ET hardcore which was never going to work. ETQW was a fun, large team game and that’s the way it should have stayed.
[QUOTE=Ashog;405128]Is the problem of ETQW not being able to switch game mode to no deployable on the run without restarting the map as soon as the amount of players gets below a certain point. Doesn’t mean it can’t be implemented in next game. Anyone asked about innovations in gaming? That’s one of the things that can be done next time.
Actually I remember vaguely smth like this working either in W:Etpro or ETQWpro. Kinda heavy weapons being disabled in the middle of a game when players disconnect and server gets low on players. Why not having this for deployables/vehicles too?
Another ways is to explain to players while on server to stop using deployables on low player count, that’s how it’s done nowadays.[/QUOTE]
Wow, really nice point. +1 for that!
Btw I would call it: Dynamic balance
Yeah nothing wrong with dynamic limitations on certain abilities, deployables and vehicles. It can be done really gradually. First only basic equipment is available, more than five players and a deployable or two plus some light vehicles, 8 players and there’s more deployables, medium vehicles, heavy weapons etc.
Even with max teams, on many maps the defending team can, if they so choose, bring up overwhelming numbers of heavy vehicles on early objectives and the attacking team can do the same on late objectives. In future, Splash Damage ought to be more dynamic in responding to the situation in the match if they include these resources.
I dunno, whilst it didn’t attract the ET hardcore it did make the game so much better and to be honest they had already left before those restrictions (only radar and fliers were outright removed) were put in place through the means of modding, gentlemen’s agreement style rules just didn’t work prior to this. However did ET:QW really need to attract those ET fanatics?
I think one (of many) problems with ET:QW was it had ET in the name, I do wonder if given a different name and marketing strategy (not being released 2 months before COD4 for example) it could have held out longer standing on it’s own shoulders, the game shared similarities with ET but wasn’t ET, too many people expected ET2 in same way people expected Wolfenstein to be RTCW2, still don’t get why they did so with ET:QW, you’d think the vehicles and strogg in the trailers it would suggest otherwise, unlike another game that actually did try and suggest it was something it wasn’t.
Maps like Sewer, Salvage, Island and Volcano were perfectly fine for 6v6, 4v4 in ET:QW was pointless dont get me started on it ha but basically it wasn’t ET:QW at all, I think some people wrong assume 6v6 did similar things to the game. 6v6 with restrictions still felt like ET:QW, still allowed for vehicle and infantry usage at the same time, deployables still played a role and one could argue they became more valued when restricted, having only 1 AVT meant you had to pick wisely were to use it rather than placing 6 of them where ever you liked, like what happened during the beta2 matches on valley…
So coming back to powering abilities, if they bring back the likes of deployables and airstrikes/artillery then I think these abilities ought to be team pooled to limit spam along side a personal charge bar. I’m not sure how you’d convincingly pool deployables though, perhaps each faction only has a given power supply for which each deployable takes away from and capturing command posts provides extra power allowing an extra deployable to be placed down. Different deployables could have different energy usage rates depending on their fire power and/or importance and such, be better than simply saying, “You’re not allowed to deploy because we say so”.
ETQW had diminishing returns on at least the artillery deployables. As for turrets, I don’t think I’ve ever seen excessive use being annoying. Maybe for lower player numbers but then again, a maximum amount isn’t going to do a whole lot either.
ETQWpro was so much better than ETQW that when I think and say ETQW I actually mean ETQWpro. The game was usually faster, typically far less spammy, and you could tweak it to fit the number of players you had playing. It also added g_showsightedmodel (or whatever it was). The stuff added really should come as standard; it focussed ETQW into a really well-balanced game.
Personal change bar & team energy pool attracts me the most. Hinders individual spam, and if the energy pool needs to be managed by controlling map resources, it might provide the multiple-objective thing that ETQW forward spawns and Brink command posts didn’t quite pull off. I guess managing it with map assets forces a team to put more effort in if they want to dominate, so it also acts as a mild balancing system?
There are gren-classes in Brink actually: 3 grens for sold, 2 for operative.
Other classes are limited to one at a time. Otherwise this grenade shooting would made insane number of instakills.
One shared pull in QW? Oppressor has separate pool for shields and shares Vio/Mortars.
It’s always better to account for class specific.
Adrenaline, should have a deteriorating effect on the player, no limits (like 1 needle only); But it puts a high strain on your body, which should have some impact afterwards for some time. Like lower health and speed.
Artillery/Airsrtikes, while teampool solves a few issues, it can make the game annoying, cause there can be one fops using it all. So its not really nice.
Yet I have not any good idea for this. Making it dependent per map is no good idea either, unless the resources available are well communicated.
Its an artificial thing, invisible plains which you can’t shoot - dropping invisible bombs… and yet it somehow fits almost perfectly into ET. It still needs skill for timing it correctly, something I still cannot.
Grenade, just like it is in ET. While you can get more nades from a fops, he also has a limit to how many packs he can supply over time.
So grenade spam is no problem in ET, unlike BF3.
Dynamite, IMHO, the chargebar for dynamite and rifle could be separated, maybe even copy scheme from grenades. Have like 3 dynamites per spawn.
PS: I played ET mostly on public servers with lots of peoples (12-40) - medium skilled, more fun oriented.
I don’t really like the idea of a team pool to manage deployable’s I can just see that being a target of abuse, I mean who exactly decrees on the team what the points will be spent on?
Personally I never really saw deployable’s as spammy anyway, the 1 deployable per person dependant on class was more then enough of a limit for me. It was more vehicles and nades that drew the spam stick. I could easily see vehicles being tied to strategic points or whatever they will be in the new game and nade supplies being limited in the same manner too. For example “hold point A” and your team field ops can provide 1 nade per person or something like that.
In that way your creating artificial supply lines that would require players to think about playing more as a team so they don’t get spanked by more organised opponents.
I actually like this kind of idea even though I think medics were too powerful. Maybe their weapon shouldn’t be the default gun which usually is the best. So in ET terms maybe give them Sten.
Yeah spamming needs to be very limited so that one artillery doesn’t block the other team for 15 seconds or so. Although I don’t think it’s a fun mechanic if I can’t play my class fully for example I can’t call airstrikes or can’t use rifle nades or panzer etc. Nerf the weapons and abilities more so we can play the game the way we want.
[QUOTE=ailmanki;405377]Grenade, just like it is in ET. While you can get more nades from a fops, he also has a limit to how many packs he can supply over time.
So grenade spam is no problem in ET, unlike BF3.
Dynamite, IMHO, the chargebar for dynamite and rifle could be separated, maybe even copy scheme from grenades. Have like 3 dynamites per spawn.[/QUOTE]
I actually think the grenade spam is a problem in ET too because fops could give them so much. I think that you shouldn’t get more nades from anything except until you respawn. The dynamite thing is a tough one. Might be a good idea or not. I can see both sides of it.
So happened I was thinking about this problem a few days ago, and I have come to conclusion I prefere shared one with different “cost” of each ability. It makes the game more about tactics and somehow… simplicity. The classical approach seems more fun, and should make less mess on the HUD, so the new players won’t get confused, as well as experienced ones will not have to deal with this extra bar/whatever all the time.
A game with both intuitive and simple interface that comes along with tactical complexity seems to meet some sort of perfection. The interface shall be simple, so the user can fall into the game forgetting about it totally, feeling natural. The game though shall be as complex as possible, thats what makes a good game perfect.
The proposal wouldn’t work in ET:QW as it stands for sure, reduce the amount of deploy spots in a given area and you’re half way there, also I never liked idea of deploy spots inside spawn walls either so get rid of those all together.
I doubt it would lead to much grieving anyway, ET mines were team pooled, yet players generally knew where the best places to put them were, even in maps where mine spots were limited, over a few weeks players will learn to put an AVT on the corner of the main road leading to the objective or an APT facing a bottleneck near a forward spawn and such. A well thought out map layout will help aid this, the map should designed in such a way that you don’t need 4 AVTs, 3 APTs, and crap load of field ops spam to defend an objective. Deployables if included again should complement the action not dominate it.
They usually don’t have any idea what they’re really asking so rather than the question, take the subject and see if you have anything to add on that.
[QUOTE=.Chris.;405471]The proposal wouldn’t work in ET:QW as it stands for sure, reduce the amount of deploy spots in a given area and you’re half way there, also I never liked idea of deploy spots inside spawn walls either so get rid of those all together.
[/QUOTE]
The same limitations are true with vehicles in etqw so presumably they are equally suspect? As with friendly fire, some good mechanics also come with the possibility of stupidity and griefing.
However, rather than a team pool for deployables, I’d rather see them having a decent size radius around them which other deployables can’t be placed in. It’s got less behind the scenes metrics that need to be scaled with team size for balance.
