Dear Splash Damage

[Jonny_Hex]

I will start making maps a focus of some posts. =]

Much appreciated. New map changes, no matter how small, can make a big difference and invalidate previous feedback.

Anyways…derail over. Carry on.

[Samurai]

On the subject of maps, please continue to identify the problems. Our LDs are very receptive to feedback, and very passionate about making changes to support the evolving core mechanics. Updating the existing levels as the gameplay evolves is a personal priority of mine. So keep it coming.

I personally haven’t given any feedback really in regards to maps, mainly because i don’t really know what sort of feedback would be useful to you. I mean bug reports get posted all the time, which is helpful, but what sort of things are you looking for other than this that would be useful in regards to map feedback?

[rapid_shot]

It’s almost certain at this point that we won’t add strafe jumping, and we don’t want ‘dancing’ to be so effective that it alienates players (very few games have ever had this mechanic).

Wouldn’t be so effective against an RPG. Just sayin!
Upon further forum reading, I redact my above statement. LAW will be my friend.

In all seriousness though, this is what made those “alienated players” find their satisfaction in RTCW. Giving them a weapon that required little (but still some) skill (ie: panzerfaust; say what you will but it did require SOME skill to make it effective) would even it out even more than it currently is. This potentially “alienated player” would then be given a chance rather than relying on another teammate or luck to kill a great player.

This would give the people what they want in regards to strafe jumping and gives some a chance against great players that they otherwise couldn’t kill (~ 1 - 10 k/d ratio).

Love the rest of those comments though. Keep up the great work!

[acQu]

This Saturday, 20 GMT: trickjumping session with SD crew on tj mods in W:ET Or ET:QW, but i don’t know that

Strafe-Jumping is awesome. To be totally honest: there was some time i always took this for granted, like some form of natural law. I only realized slowly that the games lacking it were actually not that good, but still managed to compensate through other things (example PS2 with a really bad infantry movement system, but great vehicle mechanics compensating for that).

However, i think not implementing a strafe-jump system will be the most dissappointing thing for players outside the alpha who don’t know about it yet.

[INF3RN0]

[QUOTE=Jonny_Hex;440355]Much appreciated. New map changes, no matter how small, can make a big difference and invalidate previous feedback.

Anyways…derail over. Carry on.[/QUOTE]

Research the previous data run objective layouts, have at least 2 forward defensive zones (not including the obj itself), have more meaningful persistent side-objs, and encourage forward defensive play with either the mentioned multiple attractive forward chokes or forward spawns. Lot’s of the suggested fixes for current maps have helped alleviate issues, however it hasn’t quite fixed the overall layout. The images in the basics thread pretty much summed it up. Maps are like 50% of the experience .

[Nail]

A tone that suggests rather than demands would, I believe, have a more positive response.

[INF3RN0]

A tone that suggests rather than demands would, I believe, have a more positive response.

For me personally I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have no real control over anything or any weighted influence over anyone else. My wants towards what game I’d like SD to make is very different than the feedback I’ve been giving for the most part lately. All I hope to do is to help with the development of whatever SD throws at me and think about their goals. I’ll do as much as I can to test these things and suggest means of making them work better even if they ultimately fail, but I’ll at least give them a chance first. Most anything new takes a lot of time and effort to get to an acceptable state- I just look at every game that ever existed.

At the end the game might be hugely different or not to my personal liking, but I’ll still do what I can to help make it work well as its own game. I’m totally fine with not liking the game just because it doesn’t appeal to me as long as it’s functional, but I’m really hoping that all the stuff I’m not used to will grow on me instead. My thread on going back to the basics for example wasn’t meant to be a “just do it like the old games” or demanding, but instead a means of pointing out how the core elements that already exist in DB can be further improved upon. This game has been provided to me for free after all, so I’ll maintain some level of hope for the time being.

[SockDog]

I don’t think that was directed at you Inf. You’re very much eloquent and and detailed in your posts and it shows you’re coming at this from the perspective of making DB better through providing feedback for SD to digest rather than saying you know more than they do or laying down a painfully biased opinion.

[Nail]

absolutely not directed at INF3RN0 in any way

[sunshinefats]

In terms on map feedback, I would say, for me at least, it’s hard to give feedback without being able to play games on them. It’s difficult for me to get a feel for a map just running around randomly by myself. I’m assuming you guys need feedback on how the maps play after all and problems with that aspect of them first and foremost. With the servers being empty most of the time I’ve only managed to get games going with 1 or 2 people at a time(who were kind enough to try to teach me the ropes) and only once on a full server…so again, it’s difficult to give decent feedback with only that small amount of experience on the maps. On the other hand, some of the core gameplay things are easier to spot so of course, it’s easier to give an opinion on those. Perhaps letting us play with bots would help in that regard…but I expect something like bot imlpementation is much easier said than done, so I doubt that’s a realistic option at this point with so many other things on your plate.
At any rate, thanks for the update though

[BMXer]

Not that I really need to pile on but the lack of a proper movement system is a HUGE disappointment to me. I just can’t see myself taking DB seriously beyond the initial money tourneys if the movement is not fun.

Anti saying they have pretty much decided to not even try strafe jumping makes me sick to my stomach. Is there any hope left for a REAL PC game?

People have been playing. clanning, scrimming,etc ET and Quake for many many years. I personally think the movement systems plays a really big part in keeping players interested. I think ETQW would have been the same if not for the vehicles and crap netcode. The skill cap becomes infinity with strafe jumping. I think SD is passing up a MASSIVE opportunity to create a game that people will actually be playing a year or two after launch.

[zeroooo]

Yes! Good post!

ty

if you want to, i can tell you my and i think thats the opinion of most of the competitive players here

maps are too long thats cuased by too many objectives…
remember ET:QW, u had about 3-4 objectives, with balanced teams, map time could also take about 15-20 minutes…

the problem we see here, is that you cant even finish the map in some matches, check out london bridge, the ev station is way too long, or the ev is too slow, or was it in your mind to create maps which cant be finished when the teams are balanced?

waterloo was the best map

it WAS the best map, since you tried that thing with the 2nd wall the map is strange, doesnt make that much fun than before…

this are just some points, if you would like to know all our (sid) opinions to the maps just write us/me a PN and we could send you a detailed list with positive and negativ things on each map…

if you want to

[Rex]

[QUOTE=Anti;440294][ul]
[li]We want to make movement more skilled, fun and in depth, but maybe not quite to the extent some of you would like. We’d like to try a few things to do this (crouch jumping, maybe more adjusting to, or removing of acceleration, plus some other stuff). Some of these will take a lot of time because of how the game works, some are lower priority than finishing some other features, some will only happen after other tweaks are tested. I can’t tell you when you’re likely to see them in a patch, but I’d say we’re not done looking at movement. [/li]
It’s almost certain at this point that we won’t add strafe jumping, and we don’t want ‘dancing’ to be so effective that it alienates players (very few games have ever had this mechanic). If we were building a slightly different type of shooter we’d probably look at these mechanics as well, but we don’t feel it’ll work for DB or its business model.
[/ul]
[/QUOTE]

That’s all nice what you said about upcoming improvements for spread and spawn times, but I have to agree with many others here concerning the movement.

Movement which is more skilled, inculding a certain depth without strafe jump is a contradiction for me. A pity you didn’t mention any specific details how to achieve this depth. Hence I have problems to imagine, because holding down shift can’t be what you intend.
It’s really sad, that you don’t give strafe jumping a try at least as we do with so many other features and changes.
Why are you searching for other mechanics, if the easiest one is already right in front of your door?

I also wonder why it would alienate players, because strafe jump doesn’t necessarily mean ‘dancing’. So what are the reason which speak against it?
“very few games have ever had this mechanic”, well that’s right, but your former games had this and why they are so special compared to games nowadays!
The only reason I could imagine why you speak against it is, that it would scare beginners just because they aren’t familiar yet. But this isn’t the case as soon as they figured out how it works and realise what a great opportunity this is to improve their gameplay.
It’s like with everything else, you need to be willing to learn new things.

[acQu]

Yes, on a scale from 1 to 10 of importance, a strafe-jumping system is (without cheating on the subject and trying to make it bigger than it is), a clear and objective 10. If it will not be there the dissappointment will be big, especially for the oldschool fanbase. I guess this will be the killing blow for them, so to speak (yes it’s THAT important).

Sure, there might be a switching fanbase, new guys come in, old leave. Guess that is the way it goes

And it really sounds simple, i mean there is no theories, it is the most simple put and probably the most frequent request here in the community. I would say EVERYONE wants it, or 99% … well, too bad, i am always willing to adapt though, if i feel that there is other fun stuff i can try …

[Rex]

I would say EVERYONE wants it, or 99% …

Yep, not even necessary to open a poll, because that’s what all their games had in common.

SD, this is something really IMPORTANT you have to consider once again!

[Anti]

[QUOTE=Rex;440461]
The only reason I could imagine why you speak against it is, that it would scare beginners just because they aren’t familiar yet. But this isn’t the case as soon as they figured out how it works and realise what a great opportunity this is to improve their gameplay.
It’s like with everything else, you need to be willing to learn new things.[/QUOTE]

For every player that stays to ‘figure it out’ there are significantly more that will ignore the game and go back to what they know.

Is the number of people that will get turned off by it bigger than the number of people that would come for it? We don’t know. You guys don’t know. None of us can know until we release a game. Until that point we can only make a guess and gamble on the outcome.

[Rex]

For every player that stays to ‘figure it out’ there are significantly more that will ignore the game and go back to what they know.

No, for those who don’t figure it out the normal/basic movement will remain, as they are used to in other games.

[Humate]

Crab walk = dancing
Jump crouch = dancing
Crouch spam = dancing

Ofcourse the mechanics/strategy of forcing players to aim on both axis, might initially seem confusing to newer fps players, since they are probably used to a damage model which allows them to get frags shooting players in the toe.

/cough x 2

[ImageOmega]

[QUOTE=Anti;440294]We want to make movement more skilled, fun and in depth, but maybe not quite to the extent some of you would like. We’d like to try a few things to do this (crouch jumping, maybe more adjusting to, or removing of acceleration, plus some other stuff). Some of these will take a lot of time because of how the game works, some are lower priority than finishing some other features, some will only happen after other tweaks are tested. I can’t tell you when you’re likely to see them in a patch, but I’d say we’re not done looking at movement.

It’s almost certain at this point that we won’t add strafe jumping, and we don’t want ‘dancing’ to be so effective that it alienates players (very few games have ever had this mechanic). If we were building a slightly different type of shooter we’d probably look at these mechanics as well, but we don’t feel it’ll work for DB or its business model.[/QUOTE]

First, again thank you for being transparent with the alpha community. I know a false sense of entitlement can come across, but my goal is to merely discuss and play test. You being open and eloquent with your ideas gives this community a platform to do so with the same fervent direction as when a new patch is released.

I am glad to see you say you’re looking at ways to make movement more fun or in depth. I think the best way to do this is to remove player restrictions in capabilities. Crouch jumping is an excellent example of this. I am all for a higher jump height and if that means that you need to learn to crouch jump to accomplish this then that is a great way to bridge the gap. Adding slight key press combinations such as this does favor the more skilled if only slightly. The trick is being able to perform certain jumps when the moment counts or in the heat of battle.

But, isn’t this same key press combination movement alteration the same as strafe jumping in that regard? Now, I have already stated in previous threads that I understand that this game will most likely not have strafe jumping. In fact I think that the sprint button replaces strafe jumping in a simplistic fashion. A single key press is much more intuitive across the board for new players and veterans alike. But, let’s consider that people enjoy strafe jumping and you have a crowd of gamers out there that are hungry for that mechanic. Can’t these same pc gamers teach the newer generation something so simple? Now, I understand not everyone gets how to strafe jump. I remember a recent “cast” I helped with for QuakeLive and I was floored at a player’s inability to strafe jump even though he clearly thought he was. I think that was a very very special case and the player still enjoyed the game. But, I do see how some players could be alienated by this inability to strafe jump well.

What if there was a speed limit cap on strafe jumping? I mean the whole purpose of it would be to get from A to B faster especially over short distances. But, does that interfere with the sprint mechanic as it stands? Also, is it off putting for you to see players jumping around at all times?

Battlefield 3 makes movement interesting because you can climb over almost any obstacle. It makes moving through maps a breeze and limits the player only by his creative process of finding a climbable route. I know personally I’d climb odd routes just to sneak up behind an enemy to get a knife kill in.

TF2 had interesting movement, but really only with a few classes. The solider could rocket jump, the demo man could nade hop, and the scout could double jump. Having a few mechanics like this meant everything in making sure you got to a point or position faster than your opponent.

What else would DB do to make movement more “in-depth” or “fun”? I don’t think there is much more to do beyond what has been tried before (without getting too crazy and ignoring physics and/or giving players jet packs). Strafe jumping would be an elegant solution to this if it is still on the table at all. However, if there is one thing to consider how about increasing the base movement speed and having the back pedal speed match strafing which in turn would equal the forward speed as strafing does now.

Do you think a faster game would put people off? DB is clearly not going to be QuakeWorld warp speed, so I think these smaller incremental changes are highly plausible without alienating the current or new generation of gamers. Who are we afraid of losing? The gamers who don’t actually play games much longer than a week anyways? That won’t put the time or money in to get better at DB or continue to explore all aspects it has to enjoy?

Btw, I saw you mention Warsow and I don’t think that is at all what people want. I could be wrong. I personally hate that level of air control. Speed is one thing, but I am not a fan of changing directions in mid air. Plus, I think that type of movement is the very definition of niche and would only fit a smaller audience. Do you think something along the lines of faster movement and/or strafe jumping would do the same for Dirty Bomb, especially in regards to its business model?

As for damage and spread, as stated in another thread yesterday we’re decreasing spread and creep for next patch, after we test that we’ll also look a little bit at hit boxes. This is an area of the game that will take lots of iteration and will carry on being iterated upon…

Thank you for this. Yes, I think a part of this just comes from impatience for the next patch or just trying to find good times to actually enjoy the game when others are playing.

Spawn times

I think nailzor replied to this perfectly. Glad we can get a few changes to this. I know it’ll be our continuos testing that will help get the spawn times just right.

The game is far from finished, please don’t consider what we have now to be the core of the final game, we’re still in alpha.

I understand this and it saddens me when other posters get upset or want to reprimand the way certain posts come across when we are talking about the future success of Dirty Bomb through its core mechanics. Obviously, this thread proved to be very fruitful and I thank you for that Anti (Johnny_Hex too regarding maps). If I was in any way derogatory or inflammatory then I could understand other posters feeling the need to stifle discussion, but beyond that I think this is forward progress understanding SD’s goals a bit better to further discuss what is important to Dirty Bomb.

We plan to do a few things in the near future to get feedback from you folks in a slightly different way, that’ll be something else we can add to the feedback we get from forums, demos and stats to help us judge how the bulk of the community feel about the game’s direction. We can then use that clearer picture to help us plan our work and continue our iteration of that direction.

I am excited for this. I think some direct threads started by you guys would be an easy way to start. If Johnny_Hex came on and made a post regarding a specific objective everyone would chime in. I am sure what you’re referring to dwarfs this in scope, but when it comes to progress you don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going. =]

[Anti]

ImageOmega, your post came across fine, we’d much rather read this kind of constructive and considered feedback than any sort of expletive filled rant that generalizes or lacks justification. It makes it much easier for us to have a dialogue with you folks

I like this latest reply because you do actually start to explore what other ways we could enhance movement beyond strafe jumping, that is something I’m certain we’d love to see more ideas from you folks about. Maybe to help shape these ideas I’ll share a few of our main concerns with strafe jumping that led to our current direction:

[ul]
[li]Tracking is one of the biggest issues for us, not speed. The combination of speed and bouncing that strafe jumping adds, the many axis you have to start aiming on, is a big worry for us with DB. This is a considerable skill increase that alienates a lot of players, just like mid-air tracking with bullet weapons does in a game like Tribes. To an extent we’re happy to accept speed as long as movement is a little more regular and predictable, although there are some animation constraints here.
[/li][li]Good strafe jumping, like you pointed out with your recent cast example, is actually hard to visualize and understand for many players (I don’t from my experience your example is an ‘odd one out’), unlike a toggled sprint. Depth and skill is good, we want that, but we want it to be understandable to players, they need to know when it is and isn’t happening. Sprint is quite clear in this.
[/li][li]On a similar note we need DB to be what we call ‘relate-able’ to players, to have concepts and a setting that are quite easy to understand for them without prior knowledge of it, as it helps them take in an digest the experience a lot easier. This is why DB has a contemporary military feel, why the guns are somewhat grounded and to an extent mimic existing gun conventions from the real-world or games. Strafe jumping doesn’t sit very well with this, it’s a pure game-ism (it was originally a bug!) and so for many that makes it hard to justify and relate to. Once the alpha/beta opens up I can assure you there will be equally vehement FPS players from elsewhere in the genre that will detest the notion of strafe jumping (it’s a battle that is almost as old as good vs evil :infiltrator:)
[/li][/ul]

If there are ways we can get speed, skill and responsiveness into the game, but keep it understandable and relate-able we’ll do that. Some obvious examples are crouch jumping, we could try sprinting reload (although this has animation concerns), we could try more equal directional run speeds etc etc.

At this stage, we’re still happy to try out certain things, but they need to fit within the sort of constraints I mentioned above.