SD wants to earn some money with the game. But what do they want to sell?
I think if they make the game as simple as RtCW they will not be able to earn money with different mercs because its all to close together…
If u ask me there is no way to make a good competition game free 2 play and earn money with add ons.
[QUOTE=Anti;436322]We’re quite regularly, and passionately, having that same debate here. I think our gut tells us that we should be making the classes more powerful and unique so that they stand out, more in the mould of characters and their roles in a MOBA game, or perhaps TF2’s classes.
That feeling is always at odds with our desire to also please our existing fan base from our previous games, whom we believe (based on our own experiences and from some feedback here) don’t really want that great a distinction between classes, but rather prefer all classes to be good ‘fraggers’ with just a variety of unique utility abilities added to each.[/QUOTE]
You should go with you gut feeling, many people here are trying to get you to make ET2 or ET:QW2 so they can carry on playing their favourite game with the few 100 people left playing it.
You need to make money from this game, and you need 1,000’s or 10’s of 1,000’s of people to be playing it. You need to appeal to a wider audience than is represented by those currently in Alpha IMHO (again, with the greatest respect to everyone here).
Yeh, IMO that sentiment just doesn’t work. It worked great with RTCW and ET, but this game HAS plethora of weapons compared to those. That is a fact, that very most likely will not change. So we need to build the game around that idea if we want it to work.
I’m not saying we should go full TF2, but if we had 4 classes, we could more easily devide the weapons in to different categories. Medic has the mid range SMGs, Assault being the weapon master has MGs and other crazy situational weapons, Engy has close range shotguns and MPs, and Fops has semi-automatic rifles and ARs. If there was five classes then covert would be easy to categoriz with his sniper though. The only thing that should be universal, the only thing that should be left so people with high skill CAN frag everybody, is having zero spread. I’m not going to post my “different ways to balance weapons sans spread”-post again, but that’s the gist.
If the game has multiple weapons like it does now, and if those weapons are used to maintain balance between classes, then it is absolutely crucial to have some kind of theme for each class when it comes to weapons, similar but not necessarily what I’ve written here. Otherwise the result will just not be balanced and simple
I don’t know if I’m talking **** but this is just my honest opinion.
[QUOTE=Kendle;436321]Inferno, you should try paragraphs 
In the context of complaining about Medics being not an attractive enough class to play anymore, how does taking away one of their abilities make them more attractive? That’s what I’m trying to get at here.
[/QUOTE]
It makes them more functional as a medic. The main thing is that you keep saying “taking away an ability” when the ability still exists, but just for teammates. Like I said I just want a good balance between medic’s abilities and killing efficiency. Not everyone wants to be as supportive of a medic, however they shouldn’t expect to be able to kill a soldier or fops with just as good of aim by just running head on everytime either if they have the advantage of self heal. People should be more inclined to pick a class based off it’s team value instead of how many more frags they can get solo. Soldier brings aggressive killing to the team already, fops brings ammo, engineer defenses/objectives, covert (well idk). Medic should bring that health/revive variable, however when most medics just want to be self-sufficient fraggers it just makes everything else less necessary. It just doesn’t make sense when people say that medic would be pointless without self heal… sure it adds a cool tactic, but then you have to be willing to sacrifice something for it. I’d just like to hear a more clear reason behind how it would all work, other than “remake RTCW” because it worked there- need a more detailed explanation. I mean ETQW wasn’t that faulty either, but that’s mostly because everyone in the higher level comp just played medics with other required classes. It was functional, however it was flawed.
If I didn’t use quick reply I probably would have paragraphs haha.
True, it could marginally limit profits. But I’m nost sure it would be that much, because if there were four classes they could make more mercs for each class much much more easily. And of course the number of skins and things wouldn’t necessarily go down, they would just be distributed between the four classes.
[QUOTE=Anti;436322]
That feeling is always at odds with our desire to also please our existing fan base from our previous games, whom we believe (based on our own experiences and from some feedback here) don’t really want that great a distinction between classes, but rather prefer all classes to be good ‘fraggers’ with just a variety of unique utility abilities added to each.
It’s a very difficult line to be walking I can tell you :)[/QUOTE]
I think it really is going to be hard to do it all in a pleasing fashion. I do however think people don’t want a simple ability based meta-game like TF2/Brink nor do they want all the classes to blur together. I think that you can get somewhere by combining weapons and abilities in a way that offers something situationally unique, however doesn’t limit a class to a single play style. We do however need the free base loadouts to set the middle ground, so perhaps having those classes seem to blend together isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I do strongly feel that the opportunity for one class to kill another should always be there, however if a class gains ability based advantage then that should be factored in. Most classes currently seem to feel quite balanced- however medic/covert are the odd ones out. Again there’s always a lot more stuff happening in the bigger picture that causes grief towards certain classes.
Soldier: Body damage is very high, thus allowing a player not getting headshots to do well.
Medic: Takes more headshots to kill someone and can’t really kill as much (self-packing mid fight no longer being an issue makes this a bit undeserved).
Covert: Has gimmicky abilities and is played mostly for the weapon.
Engineer: Doesn’t do much more than main objectives.
FOPS: Again more for the weapon and EV objs (though I seem to get lucky with the arty myself).
And then overall the max spread while moving ends up diminishing the value of head aim. The solution to the number of kills players were getting with just increasing clip size was really only avoiding the real problem, which was that the weapons were just not that accurate at max creep. This might be under the fear of making the game too hardcore, but a good match making system will negate any of the problems there. I just have to say that every patch where the creep spread get’s an overall reduction results in people wanting to pick classes more for the roles they server rather than the weapons they have. If people do feel like they have ample opportunity to best all other classes if played correctly, then you get a lot less selfish play styles. The opportunity to kill becomes fairly similar, but the differences are made through the use of unique abilities. The point at which I truly feel like I can have more influence over the outcome of the game by playing a class really well to help my team via shooting and abilities combined rather than just trying to maximize my personal fragging capability, is the day when I will be happiest.
I don’t mean exactly like TF2, I think we’ve established what we’d like our mechanics for firing and movement to be like, even if they’re not final or polished, those values are still the same (high paced, accurate etc). I was just using it as an example in terms of how much classes differ from each other in terms of play style and role.
TBH, before we can say the Spread is bad, i would like to see the hitreg fixed, that should have more priority in my opinion, sometimes im getting 10 hitbeeps while only having 2 hitmarkers, sometimes i can even see myself bleeding like a pig without taking any damage, so before we can make a decision on that, we need a better hitreg.
Regarding the classes, i would like to see that every class has one allround loadout with the Hk53/Aku or whatever and then you can have specialized loadouts for each class in terms of combat range.
It would help to have spawn waves in this game, and insta-spawn bug fixed.
Hard to determine if maps are balanced at all without spawn waves and with that bug.
Fix carryable bug which still occurs as they can be picked up prior to the actual stage of the map starting, and just while you are at it- make them not carryable too 
This is another thing that really needs to become more significant too imo. It would end up benefiting medics abilities for the team as well, and making gibbing actually worth while. Plus the never ending waves TDM feeling would probably lessen and good teamwork would be more rewarding/encouraged.
Well obviously it makes them less functional because they can heal 1 less team-mate than before, and the ability that’s taken away is the ability to self-heal. Again, how does that make the Medic a more attractive class to play?
I agree with everything you say (before my eyes go dizzy trying to read a wall of text), but I can’t see how losing self-heal achieves any of the things you, or I, want.
edit: several posts in the meantime …
+1 for spawn waves, again don’t understand why we haven’t had wave re-spawn implemented yet, the poll was overwhelming and there’s no real argument against it. Agree with Inferno that doing this will help Medics as well, as currently there’s no real cost / benefit of 1 team being mostly alive while the other is mostly dead, so mass reviving isn’t really needed.
[QUOTE=Maca;436326]If the game has multiple weapons like it does now, and if those weapons are used to maintain balance between classes, then it is absolutely crucial to have some kind of theme for each class when it comes to weapons, similar but not necessarily what I’ve written here. Otherwise the result will just not be balanced and simple
I don’t know if I’m talking **** but this is just my honest opinion.[/QUOTE]
If they go with their guts feelings and want to go the TF2-esque way you’re right the classes need a clear-distinctive identity through their weapons to make them unique and enticing to players (since it won’t be by mercs models that are rather similar atm).
Cool, just checking
For what it’s worth, I’m firmly in the wanting as little difference as possible between classes camp. A level playing field is why I play RTCW/ET/CS etc. I currently get no satisfaction killing a medic when I’m a soldier, and the other way around feel a little cheated.
I think there is room for both schools of thought here (very distinctive classes and a level playing field) and the idea has been brought up through the thread here. And I think SD has already explored this possibility when they added a lot of loadouts for each class. The thing is, you can have a set there which is “level” as far as weapon balance goes, but with a minimal inventory of class tricks and you can have the loadouts which sway heavily towards class support, as in they can achieve their role faster, but be less efficient combat wise (but their presence can weigh a lot towards completing objectives).
In my opinion there should be always a sum of smart player choices behind each team lineup, anything else is just a mash of assault rifles and shotguns and smg-s having a go at it which has been done already. I want old but I’m certainly up for some “new” tbh.
I still think preset loadouts (mercs) are a bad choice for a F2P model.
You should have 4 (I know you’re going to stick with 5) classes, with a default loadout. Then give the players the freedom to build their loadout the way they want and make more loadouts for the same class purchasable.
Example:
I pick medic default loadout is:
Primary: SMG
Secondary: Glock (****ty w/e)
Grenade: Standard
Special 1: HoT Healthpacks
Special 2: Revive paddle
Active Passive: You regenerate HP twice as fast (+2hp/ps)
I can than purchase a shotgun to replace my SMG, a Desert Eagle (current pistol) to replace my ****ty glock, I can purchase a wide range of grenades like a DoT nade (to prevent the other team from healing) or an AoE revive nade, an AoE heal nade, whatever the **** nade I want and be creative (yet balanced) with it. I can purchase different health packs, we can have one be a HoT, instant heal, have one that suppresses damage by 75% for 2-3 seconds, you can even make a real aggressive medic and have him drop bait packs that actually do damage to enemies that walk over them. Revive paddles can revive players slower but give them a HoT on pick up, have limited charges but gives the revived player invulnerability for 2 - 3 seconds, revives player with less health but it’s instant, paddles no longer revive, has a lower RoF, and does 60 damage to enemies.
Now of course their can be some OP ass builds if you go that direction. How do you control it for comp play? Simple, put a value to every item. Example:
SMG 4 pts
Glock 4 pts
Grenade: 3 pts
Special 1 HoT pack: 3 pts
Special 2 Revive Paddle: 3 pts
Active Passive: Regeneration 3 pts
Total: 20 pts
You can set a value limit on your servers to restrict builds (similar to how you do RAD soldiers.) If a certain build is OP in comp play you can increase the value of the item and thus make the combo not valid in comp play but still fun in pub play.
Example:
Value limit for comp play is 22, your build is 22, you’re using a strong passive with a special nade. It’s considered OP. You increase the value of the grenade by 1 or 2 and the combo is no longer possible.
The benefits of this is you give the players the freedom to build their character the way they want to, the way they want to play and still make a **** ton of cash. Strategy hits an entirely new level but still keeps the same FPS genre. Classes have a very different feel to them and are definitely unique compared to others.
Other passive ideas just to throw them out there.
Lt: Regenerates Ammo
Lt: Packs no long refill ammo but refill a grenade
Lt: Your weapons are more steady when ADS
Sold (base HP is 100): Your sold has +20 hp
Sold: Your conc nades no longer impair movement, your conc nade now do damage
Eng: Your movement speed is increased
Eng: You complete objectives faster
Eng: Your deployables can now be manually set up to decrease load up time.
Sniper: You make no noise when moving
Sniper: You load your bullets faster (higher RoF w/ bolt action rifles.)
I think it’s a better approach with a much higher cash potential.
Agreed. Strip away the items, weapons and perks and the classes are all the same, but with all the choice you need to differentiate between and create distinct classes.
So instead of having preset loadouts, you bring to the table whatever you think it’s ok with your playstyle and inline with the team effort. Yup, this goes into the “builds” category.
Actually something like this happens in FireFall already (system is in flux tho), where you customize a certain class with some abilities and weapons of your choice, but the battleframe (that’s how they’re called) has some constraints for gear load, power consumption and cpu power (each gear piece has a vector in this space).
There are some issues with too much granularity and too few distinction between items (to make each build really stand out) but that’s something really worth trying.