DIRTY BOMB UPDATE: Version 17437

(warbie) #261

I’d rather be chuck norris :slight_smile:

Tricky to say, there would probably be all kinds of knock on effects.

Having distinctly different classes sounds a whole lot better on paper than it does in practise. Especially when we start messing with health and movement speed. So we have a slow tank-like heavy class and to play it well you have to play to it’s strengths, play smart etc etc. It sounds great until you get in game and realise there is no playing smart - you’re just controlling a slow guy who has more health health. That’s it. It doesn’t add anything. If anything it dumbs things down paper/scissors/stone stylee. It also, more importantly, borks the combat balance.

(ImageOmega) #262

I am with you. I think increasing a class’s prowess by giving him more health is artificial and lazy at best. Giving him back his mobility (or at least some of it) and equal health is probably a better idea. Still, every opportunity I get to talk about increased base movement speed I will. ;]

(Kendle) #263

I have an issue with all this talk about a Medic must be able to beat a Soldier if he has a fraction of a percentage point better aim.

No he mustn’t.

The Medic’s team’s Soldier should be able to, but not necessarily the Medic himself. That’s team-work.

I don’t mind Soldiers killing me, they’ve got a better gun. If I want to kill them I go Soldier. If I want to stay Medic and get past them I wait for my Soldier to kill them for me, or try another route. If I can kill anyone with any gun based on one ability (tracking aim) alone I don’t need team-mates (other than for objectives, which would still be the case either way). Surely that’s the opposite of team-work?

For the playing field to be completely flat, for all 1-v-1’s to be entirely fair, and all about the aim and only the aim, then everyone needs to have the same gun and be done with it. Distinguish classes only by the extra “kit” they carry and what they can do with it.

I wouldn’t mind that, it’s what RTCW was after all, but it needs to be one or the other, and the class distinctions need to be even greater than they are, and we need to remove health regen from all classes and remove ammo racks as well, otherwise given 5 classes of equal combat ability we’ll all pick the one that can heal itself, and don’t pretend we wouldn’t.

This is a fundamental issue, evenly matched guns with distinct (and necessary) class roles, or the rock / paper / scissors approach to team balancing (as opposed to individual player balance).

And it would help if SD decided which, and told us which, so the one’s not liking the answer can go do something else with their time. :slight_smile:

(warbie) #264

In a perfect world :slight_smile:

I agree - it’s not going to happen. The differences can be tightened up a little, though, and I don’t think health and speed need to be messed with. Give soldiers a better gun, that’s fine. Give them something explosive - something that makes it fun to be a soldier.

(ImageOmega) #265

I agree that there should be class distinction and that’s why I was advocating a place for snipers and soldiers instead of a reduction of classes. I do still think headshots should be pretty even across the board which wouldn’t quite put medics on par with soldiers, but at least give them an opportunity to kill them first due to superior aim.

I am not sure rock, paper, scissors works in a FPS. What mechanics would allow a class to counter another class? The core of being able to out damage or kill is based on your ability to aim. So, unless certain classes took more damage from certain guns I don’t think a paper, rock, scissors analogy fits. Though, I do see what you’re getting at. There should be other things to balance play and keep classes support, objective, and damage based.

(Humate) #266

What mechanics would allow a class to counter another class?

Range, and damage fall off I would say are the obvious ones.

(INF3RN0) #267

As long as we are just aware that in a lot of cases people are actually aiming at their targets fairly well more so than being empowered by a class. I usually get killed by a good player rather than a peon :wink:. The game is fairly slow compared to what most people here are used to, so I can only expect that it’s going to even things up because of that. The fact that you can kill fairly fast a lot of the time makes the game definitely more about positioning and situational engagements. The thing with medic is that they are a lot faster than most everyone else, however soldier can kill people with body shots too quickly imo. I would mostly like to empower the non-soldier classes to be able to get headshots more consistently via creep spread reduction if anything, and probably a bit more headshot damage as well. If I am playing a class with a special ability that helps me gain mid-fight perks then I wouldn’t expect to kill my opponent straight up unless I knew I could out aim them. Anything otherwise would just be imbalanced. Medic had most of its self healing removed, which was one of the main ways medic was able to out play a soldier- so now I think that needs to be compensated if it is going to remain like that.

(tokamak) #268

Being a good shot should enable you to perform better as a class, that’s what made ETQW so rewarding. There was a synergy between both. In DB there’s just shooting and after that you’re done. ETQW didn’t allow you to get by based on class abilities alone, you had to fight in order to execute your plans.

In DB however, fighting is as far as you can go in executing your plans. After you’ve killed a couple of guys and cleared an area then you’re basically done and there’s nothing else you can do.

Shooting should increase the maximum player’s potential, it shouldn’t BE the maximum player’s potential.

Now do explain what you mean with ‘better class comp’ and how you don’t consider that a relevant asset of a team, that will be interesting.

(Caerid) #269

I think one route that SD could take would to create an environment where a class’ strength is only leveraged out through class synergy/teamwork. For example you could make it so the soldier has a higher hp ceiling but spawns with base hp. Only way to have him max out would be through medics healing him off. You could take it a step further and maybe have it so he can carry more ammo as well, with him spawning with maybe 60-90% of base ammo or something. Of course these two examples are easily exploited, but it creates another layer to the soldier of having to be a little more self aware about things.

I’m all for class distinction but I don’t believe firepower superiority is the right way to go with it. I say this only because these kind of balance mechanics usually seem fine at pub levels but it only gets exasperated at higher levels of play.

(Maca) #270

[QUOTE=Kendle;436571]I wouldn’t mind that, it’s what RTCW was after all, but it needs to be one or the other, and the class distinctions need to be even greater than they are, and we need to remove health regen from all classes and remove ammo racks as well, otherwise given 5 classes of equal combat ability we’ll all pick the one that can heal itself, and don’t pretend we wouldn’t.

This is a fundamental issue, evenly matched guns with distinct (and necessary) class roles, or the rock / paper / scissors approach to team balancing (as opposed to individual player balance).

And it would help if SD decided which, and told us which, so the one’s not liking the answer can go do something else with their time. :)[/QUOTE]

Yes, it is a real problem, which stems from something that seems simple, are there many guns, or not. But since SD seems to be going with the many-guns route I don’t think we need to go complete RPS. I don’t think the weapons should be so RPS that one class always wins a certain other class, but for example balance them by damage drop-off in body shots.
Fops has lower RoF, even single shot rifles, and has the least bodyshot damage drop-off
Medic has faster RoF but bigger bodyshot damage drop-off
Assault MG bodyshot damage drop-off would be almost as small as Fops but larger mags and maybe more recoil, other crazy weapons availible to him
Engy would have most damage drop-off but almost no recoil, shotguns availible to him. Medic and engy weapons have base bodyshot damage slightly smaller than Fops and Assault. Covert is sniping somwhere.
And the clincher is, like ImageOmega has said, that the HS damage is pretty much equal across the board and doesn’t have much damage drop-off on any weapon, this way the good medics can beat absolutely bad soldiers quite often and even on long range. But people should keep in their mind while playing a class, that at certain ranges some classes have some advantage on bodyshots.
It isn’t RPS, but the classes have some distinction between them. The weapons aren’t the same across the board, but they aren’t OP in any situation.
And THEN we could concentrate on the actual class abilities to differentiate classes, because that should really be most important.

Or is this dumb? Is RPS the only way to go if there are many weapons on the game?

(woll3) #271

Thats pretty much the way it is now, lets not forget that we dont have Access to all different loadouts, and thats why i said in another thread that an overview from a developer would be a real help at the moment.

IMO it should be like this:

Soldiers have Access to Machine guns, Assault Rifles, Grenade Launchers and Carbines

Medics to SMGs, Pistols and Carbines

Engineers to Carbines, Pistols, Shotguns and Machine Pistols

FOPS to Assault Rifles, Carbines, Battle Rifles and Pistols

Covops, dont need to explain that.

that way every class has the access to a medium ranged weapon, but certain classes are able to deal more damage on certain ranges.

(Maca) #272

Except currently the HS damages differ wildly, as does bodyshot damage, that was the main thing to be changed. And some weapons currently have huge spread, I forgot to mention that should be changed also.
Basically what I was saying was to narrow the differences in some areas.

(Kendle) #273

Yeah, perhaps that was the wrong phrase to use, but we need some happy medium between having lots of guns and where some people seem to want to be which is any class meeting any other class in any scenario results in the best (tracking) aimer always winning. The only way that scenario works is if the 2 protagonists have the same gun.

On the assumption that’s not going to happen let’s get past this and work with SD to develop the game they want to develop, accepting it’s not neccessarily the game we would want to develop.

(jopjop) #274

[QUOTE=tokamak;436585]Being a good shot should enable you to perform better as a class, that’s what made ETQW so rewarding. There was a synergy between both. In DB there’s just shooting and after that you’re done. ETQW didn’t allow you to get by based on class abilities alone, you had to fight in order to execute your plans.

In DB however, fighting is as far as you can go in executing your plans. After you’ve killed a couple of guys and cleared an area then you’re basically done and there’s nothing else you can do.

Shooting should increase the maximum player’s potential, it shouldn’t BE the maximum player’s potential.

Now do explain what you mean with ‘better class comp’ and how you don’t consider that a relevant asset of a team, that will be interesting.[/QUOTE]

Well put.
This is what made public play in etqw so much fun and so much nerve breaking. People could get something out of the game even without shooting a bullet and i know players where this was exactly the case :smiley:

Sometimes when we were drinking and playing while on mumble (sounds sad i know but it was superfun) with friends and some were so drunk they could only do sand cakes in refinery we used take an armadillo and drive around shooting in the general direction of stroggs or lemmings objectives or something else recreational.

When competing on the other hand there was a main class, the medics, who formed the firepower and plowing force for the objective classes and this in my opinion worked great. The other classes were necessary and didn’t fall short in fights they were just more vulnerable without self heal option which meant the medics have to take care of the obj guy… in many cases playing with the “germans” (yes samu and dthy you are now germans too… also lausl but i think hes not here… yet), when playing, obj you didn’t even see the enemy because they did their job so well, sometimes you didn’t even see your own team. Then there were times you could only see the enemies but not your team but that’s another story. Point was that I think there should be a base class like the medic and the other classes are necessities stated by the objective and situational tactics. Again this applies for competitive gaming not so much public where everyone is playing their own game what ever they are doing.

ALSO UNLEASH THE KORDIN!!!

(tokamak) #275

I’ll be the one to bite that bullet then and say that there should be classes superior in combat and there should be classes inferior in combat. Those superior in combat, IE the soldier, needs to have that role and he should have a distinct edge in combat. People who are primarly concerned with efficiently fragging as well as controlling shootouts should always want to play him.

Other classes have other roles, we have two support guys, one objective lemming and one intel/saboteur. These roles need to be deepened out further as well. Shooting needs to be important but it should mainly serve their ability to carry out their roles to the fullest. Class abilities should not be a little chore you do in between combat.

(jopjop) #276

[QUOTE=tokamak;436639]I’ll be the one to bite that bullet then and say that there should be classes superior in combat and there should be classes inferior in combat. Those superior in combat, IE the soldier, needs to have that role and he should have a distinct edge in combat. People who are primarly concerned with efficiently fragging as well as controlling shootouts should always want to play him.

Other classes have other roles, we have two support guys, one objective lemming and one intel/saboteur. These roles need to be deepened out further as well. Shooting needs to be important but it should mainly serve their ability to carry out their roles to the fullest. Class abilities should not be a little chore you do in between combat.[/QUOTE]

WTF get out of my head

(tokamak) #277

[QUOTE=jopjop;436638]Well put.
This is what made public play in etqw so much fun and so much nerve breaking. People could get something out of the game even without shooting a bullet and i know players where this was exactly the case :D[/QUOTE]

It’s what I sold the game to a few friends on. “Just try it, you don’t need to shoot well, as long as you understand what needs to be done you’ll have a blast” .

I won’t take orders from a little snot with such a low postcount :tongue:

(Bananas) #278

[QUOTE=tokamak;436642]It’s what I sold the game to a few friends on. “Just try it, you don’t need to shoot well, as long as you understand what needs to be done you’ll have a blast” .[/QUOTE]Have to agree with this. Lot’s of people had fun with etqw even though they weren’t good shots.

(tokamak) #279

Right!? And dare I say that the good shots were more rewarded than in DB right now. These things aren’t mutually exclusive. Class abilities can be a way to reward the good shots!

But in the wise words of Ze Frank:

“If you make a drawing toy that only rewards people that are good at drawing, then the people who can’t draw, draw penises”

(INF3RN0) #280

[QUOTE=tokamak;436639]I’ll be the one to bite that bullet then and say that there should be classes superior in combat and there should be classes inferior in combat. Those superior in combat, IE the soldier, needs to have that role and he should have a distinct edge in combat. People who are primarly concerned with efficiently fragging as well as controlling shootouts should always want to play him.

Other classes have other roles, we have two support guys, one objective lemming and one intel/saboteur. These roles need to be deepened out further as well. Shooting needs to be important but it should mainly serve their ability to carry out their roles to the fullest. Class abilities should not be a little chore you do in between combat.[/QUOTE]

I have to agree with a lot of this. To me it makes a lot of sense that a single class would be stronger in aggressive fragging because quite simply that’s all it brings to the team- but it does it best in most cases. I think that there needs to be some what of a hierarchy maintained, however it should be possible for other classes to compete under the right approach of combining their abilities with their gun play. At the same time the abilities of the classes really need to have equal team value as that of the fragging soldier. You might not often see a composition without a soldier being able to use their ability play to the same extent of a soldier killing everyone alone. This is where the problem is for me and I would assume others. At this point I think the gap could be closed a bit more, but firstly I don’t feel like the classes really have enough definition to them.

All you really hear about medic is that it has a crap gun and can’t frag very well, but what’s worse is that its abilities have the same lackluster experience. Engineer ends up becoming nothing more than objective whore. FOPS has a decent fragging potential, and sometimes you can get some lucky artillery strikes. Covert is just about using a sniper rifle and feeling cool. Overall I just see the incentive to play classes as being about making getting kills easier or doing the main objective. No one really seems to value the abilities of classes enough to want to play them for that reason over how efficient they are at getting multi-kills. I miss being able to play a class very well for my team and have it really improve our chances of success, rather than feeling like I need to just pick the best killing class to do anything significant. At the same time I do want the aiming skill portion to be just as important and I don’t really want any support-only classes or to over-limit them in the shooting department.

I just don’t see us getting anywhere without first addressing these issues:

  1. Spawn waves+longer (to give any sort of incentive to work as a team vs run head on tdm frag2win)
  2. Creep spread (to enable aim skill to help factor into allowing class hierarchy to be less lopsided)
  3. Sub/side-objectives and forward spawns (to have actual class specific map synergy and give them more purpose and motivate full map usage)
  4. Map layouts (creating ways to motivate engagements to be more evenly spread out by creating 2-3 appealing defensive zones to prevent obj camping from being the best choice)
  5. Promoting more importance of abilities to all classes (not including soldier) to give more of a reason to play them besides the gun they have

In the end I think it’s the combination of a lot of these things that make it all feel so awkward and lacking. I really felt that it was the original inter-play between everything together that made the class based team play really stand out. I loved the shooting mechanics a lot, but that was almost a separate entity from what made the games really good as team based FPS.