Encouraging teamplay

[warbie]

I thought it’d be more productive to make a thread on my biggest gripe with DB, which is the lack of teamplay and interaction between players, rather than endlessly ranting. Up to this point my experience of DB’s teamplay tends to be meeting up with team mates in passing and helping each other out in that short window of opportunity with an ammo/med pack, or a revive etc, before moving on. Or not. Just as often we pass each other by. There aren’t prolonged periods when we’re all together. I’d be interested in a devs response as this is perhaps the intention? More of a focus on merc autonomy and less on team interaction. That would fit with my brief experience of mobas. I’d also be interested if the rest of you guys share this experience/frustration and/or see it as as a big an issue.

In previous games teamplay was encouraged via various methods that ensured players were in the same areas at the same time. As a medic there were often people near by, in your los, that needed health and reviving. It wasn’t uncommon to have entire teams together in one relatively small area, and all with a view of each other (the latter part, imo, being the key factor). So I guess what I’m asking is - is this the intention for DB? And if so, how can we encourage people to work together? I’ll admit I’m not a fan of methods like aoe buffs etc as they seem overly contrived, but really anything that would get people interacting would be a bonus. And if this a isn’t the intention and we’re meant to function more independently, how do we get people together at key points when interaction is needed?

[tokamak]

The focus on autonomy is because people have been clamouring it for a full year now. They want fair duels and that’s what the got, a game consisting of a series of duels. But hey, at least the duels are somewhat fair.

[warbie]

The focus on autonomy is because people have been clamouring it for a full year now. They want fair duels and that’s what the got, a game consisting of a series of duels. But hey, at least the duels are somewhat fair.

Not sure i’m with you there. It was pretty much as fair as it gets - or at least as we’ve seen in a game of this type - in RTCW and ET. Everyone had the same weapon, movement, similar hp etc, yet there was far more focus on teamplay than we have in DB. I don’t see the link.

[montheponies]

The focus on autonomy is because people have been clamouring it for a full year now. They want fair duels and that’s what the got, a game consisting of a series of duels. But hey, at least the duels are somewhat fair.

Same as warbie, not recognising either the clamouring for autonomy or the link to the somewhat lacking teamplay. Equally what we have is nothing like balanced 1v1s - a lot is predicated on merc choice and situation.

Personally I think teamplay on pubs is always going to be variable, but moreso if you remove community/clan servers as that has in the past at least led to folk building up relationships with other players over time - a bit like playing 5s with the same people. So my concern is more that teamplay will become even less apparent once you move to ranked matchmaking, as you’re partnered with random folk.

Clan/comp play shouldn’t be a problem for obvious reasons…

[Kendle]

warbie, you’ve already answered your own question :-

We all want teamplay and mercs working together, yet the maps and spawn times don’t encourage this at all. Infact they do the opposite. It’s impossible not to sound like a broken record here. ALL the games of this type worked best when teams were together. That’s the point of all these skills, right? Working together with the people around you. In RTCW and ET spawn times put people together and the maps funnelled them to objectives/choke points. The results were two teams colliding at clear, predicatable front lines, with plenty of space to allow for teamplay to happen. In DB you have constant streams of people running towards vague front lines down various, often narrow, routes, and it plays out like TDM. This isn’t a minor difference.

To encourage teamplay in DB 3 things need to happen :-

1. Rigid spawn waves, sufficiently far apart to allow significant numbers of players to get killed in the interim to ensure many players spawn together in each wave.

2. Clear front lines with sufficiently open routes so that everyone’s going to the same place but not along narrow easily camped corridors (i.e. significant map changes required).

3. Class specific objectives, because it’s no good all arriving at the same spot at the same time if no-one knows who’s doing what when you get there.

In short, DB needs to implement the basic mechanics that worked so well in previous games, specifically RTCW and ET.

However, any mention of the words RTCW or ET around here gets you labelled oldskool and ignored, not least by SD (at least the ignored part). And that’s why I think we’re all wasting our time here. It’s been said many times, by many people, over many months (and even years), and the game is still not going that way. It’s safe to assume therefore that it never will.

[warbie]

warbie, you’ve already answered your own question

I wanted to take a different tack this time and see what other people, perhaps even a dev, thought about this - rather than copying and pasting what I, you and other people have said umpteen times. I haven’t seen a single dev comment on this - which is crazy given how repeatedly it has been raised. We get multiple threads theorising merc abilities and new game types, but the lack of interaction between players seems to be the elephant in the room that just a few of us (given that the rest of the people who cared about this have long since left the beta) continue to try and address. Is everyone else happy with the level of teamplay and interaction we have now? If so, then fair enough. There really isn’t anything further I can do to contribute. If there is, how do they think it should be approached? If SD don’t want to implement the above points, what’s their plan to encourage teamplay? Do they even recognise this as an issue? It’s something so screamingly obvious every time I play that it’s hard to fathom how anyone can be discussing anything else on the forum.

[tokamak]

I wanted to take a different tack this time and see what other people, perhaps even a dev, thought about this - rather than copying and pasting what I, you and other people have said umpteen times. I haven’t seen a single dev comment on this - which is crazy given how repeatedly it has been raised.

What Exedore recently was hopeful. Or did you mean means of communication between players? Because I don’t think merely expanding vsays or somethign will help in this.

This is something we’re experimenting with internally at the moment. In the roughest terms possible, we doubled the effectiveness of all abilities to see what would happen, and the initial results were positive. Lacing movement into this is our next step… no promises at the moment of if and when this will go live, but as I said I think it’s been positive.

[INF3RN0]

There’s been plenty on improving the team play in the game, but not all of it meshes with what fans are used to. Maps and side objs of course motivate the team’s strategical goals. Then in the DB merc system you have the potential for ability synergies, counters, proficiencies, etc. I’ve been making an attempt to flesh out ideas on making the agnostic obj system function in a more strategical manner recently. If you look through some of those threads, you can see Anti saying a lot of ‘we’d like to do that’, but then of course there’s no confirmation on much anything. I get the feeling the game is going to be released into OBT after some further polishing on current features and the matchmaking system before they start making any major changes. Hopefully the future mass public desire more.

Mentioning RTCW/ET doesn’t make you ‘old school’ in the least, I’m old school too. It makes you stubborn, because it’s a cynical/biased approach to every situation by avoiding the attempt at anything new or more beneficial to the non-veteran. I’d gladly support discussion from any person from any game if they tried some original thought, so if that’s what this thread is for and not another one of those ‘if it aint broke don’t fix it threads’ then awesome!

[warbie]

What Exedore recently was hopeful. Or did you mean means of communication between players? Because I don’t think merely expanding vsays or somethign will help in this.

I mean purely in terms of players interacting with each other - such as giving someone a health pack. Mercs could have the most interesting and complimentary abilities going, but if they’re not spending time near each other, which for the most part is what we have now, it means very little.

[tokamak]

So far SD has done a good job in avoiding the buff-chores like in Brink. That was a decent way for a console but for a PC all the synergies can be a lot more subtle.

Ammo stations, auras and powerfields are more interesting than constantly having to keep everybody’s buffs up.

The Brink-like buffs can be a part of this game but they’d have to be temporary effects used strategically on a few players and the obtained score gained from this should be reliant on how useful that buff has been to the recipient.

[Kendle]

Mentioning RTCW/ET doesn’t make you ‘old school’ in the least, I’m old school too. It makes you stubborn, because it’s a cynical/biased approach to every situation by avoiding the attempt at anything new or more beneficial to the non-veteran.

And again you prove my point, mention RTCW / ET and your opinion is dismissed.

I don’t want a RTCW / ET clone, and I’m plenty open to new ideas, I just want the foundations to be right. For a team based objective game of this type (as in basic genre, one team attacks, the other defends, not one life per round) the 3 key concepts I mentioned above are pretty much a necessity.

Beyond that however the game can be as different as you like. There can be 3 classes, or 10, doesn’t matter. There can be 20 Mercs or 50, doesn’t matter. Each Merc can be totally unique, each one of a completely different type unlike any others. There don’t have to be Medics or Engineers or Soldiers. The objectives don’t have to be blow something up / build something. The maps / locations / story / art / assets can and should be completely different. Maps could be linked ala ET campaign, except the next map in the sequence is decided by the outcome of the previous, assets could be transferred between maps, secure the EV in one map, you get to use it in the next, fail to secure it and you don’t. etc. etc.

There are gazillions of things DB can do to be unique, but if it pretends to be team based objective game it needs the key concepts that make a team based objective game a team based objective game. That’s all I’m arguing for, and currently DB doesn’t have those.

[tokamak]

Beyond that however the game can be as different as you like. There can be 3 classes, or 10, doesn’t matter. There can be 20 Mercs or 50, doesn’t matter. Each Merc can be totally unique, each one of a completely different type unlike any others. There don’t have to be Medics or Engineers or Soldiers. The objectives don’t have to be blow something up / build something. The maps / locations / story / art / assets can and should be completely different. Maps could be linked ala ET campaign, except the next map in the sequence is decided by the outcome of the previous, assets could be transferred between maps, secure the EV in one map, you get to use it in the next, fail to secure it and you don’t. etc. etc.

See that point is much easier to relate to than merely kicking against classless objectives.

[warbie]

There are gazillions of things DB can do to be unique, but if it pretends to be team based objective game it needs the key concepts that make a team based objective game a team based objective game. That’s all I’m arguing for, and currently DB doesn’t have those.

Well put. I think that’s how most of the people who’re considered as being inflexible, die hard RTCW/ET fans feel. We’re not opposed to change. I’d be happy with tapir riding lancers if it turned out to be fun. But we do want decent levels of teamplay and building on elements that obviously worked from previous games makes great sense. Especially when they directly address what are clearly DBs biggest failings at the moment. The knee jerk reactions we see to these suggestions are as ridiculous as dismissing something like headshots. Headshots were so 90s, move with the times.

There’s been plenty on improving the team play in the game, but not all of it meshes with what fans are used to. Maps and side objs of course motivate the team’s strategical goals. Then in the DB merc system you have the potential for ability synergies, counters, proficiencies, etc. I’ve been making an attempt to flesh out ideas on making the agnostic obj system function in a more strategical manner recently.

Indulge me because I’m honestly curious. All the stuff I moan about, and the things Kendle, montheponies and others bring up - do you see these as issues at all? I read your suggestions, tokamak’s, and various others, and often feel we’re on completely different pages. You come up with great stuff, but the way I see it is - you could have the best, most innovative abilities, with synergy, counters and proficiencies etc etc, but if players aren’t together, if they’re running around like headless chickens (which is where we are now), it’s all for nothing. Look at it this way - think of the times you ran out of needles as a medic in RTCW/ET. The amount of healing that required. Team mates dying all around, holding off a concerted push. Does that ever happen in DB? I’ve never seen it. Not even close. We’re not together in either attack or defence. Perhaps I titled this thread incorrectly - it should be ’ suggestions for fixing why teams aren’t ever together’. If this isn’t your experience, pls let me know so I can stop wasting everyone’s reading time.

[prophett]

[QUOTE=Kendle;512454]
There are gazillions of things DB can do to be unique, but if it pretends to be team based objective game it needs the key concepts that make a team based objective game a team based objective game. That’s all I’m arguing for, and currently DB doesn’t have those.[/QUOTE]

Well said. Due to it’s current design, there is little reason to closely support one another like you had to in order to be successful in earlier titles. Having two separate teams doesn’t make it a team based multiplayer in my books.

“Come together as a team to achieve a common goal.” - This is a rarity in DB. Instances of teamwork are far and few between. I rarely get that warm and fuzzy “teamwork” feeling while playing.

[ToonBE]

I don’t get what you guys are whining about… We are playing on public servers without logged in to teamspeak… I just play and do the objective give some ammo, jump into the fight cause I play assault mercs…

You cannot compare this to a private match with your teammates on teamspeak… then there is a huge amount of teamwork needed… certainly you need a medic and reviver, someone who can plant and defuse quickly, you need a ammo supply guy and assault types… There is a lot of teamwork needed in private matchplay… wandering out alone is just plain stupid cause you need to be teamed up with a medic… my team would look like this:
medic
medic
assault
assault
engineer

I don’t get why you are moaining about teamwork… But hey that is because I am not from ET or RTCW or w/e… maybe you guys are mirroring this game to much to those games… For me teamwork is good.

[Sun_Sheng]

I’m also from ET …and RTCW, COD (God help me), all versions of Quake, Unreal, and many other games over the last something like 20 years right back to Pong. What Kendle says is 100% spot on, nailed on the head, and slapped in the face with a kipper.

Even on a pub, you should have teamplay and interaction to a significant level. If I forget ET and just go for a basic Quake or Unreal CTF game, the teamplay is there because the players understand the game and things are clearly defined. Ok, you don’t get so much of the interaction because of the design, but at the same time, when you heard someone grab the flag, the first thought in your mind was “Where is that guy? What can I do to back him up? Can I give covering fire? Can I block the guys trying to return the flag? Am I close to our base and can clear our flag so he has somewhere to cap? etc, etc”. With DB, it’s basically Team Deathmatch with one or two guys on your team who might, just might, help you out if you’re foolish enough to risk your kdr doing the objective.

I know already when I go on the server, i’m hoping for the guys like Mon or Vio, Kendle, etc to be on my team, because I know if I do the objective i’m going to get some backup. Without them and i’m seriously considering if it’s worth me wasting my time. That’s no disrespect to other players, they’re just out enjoying the game, but the game doesn’t oblige anyone to do anything other than frag. As Kendle said in another thread, the problem with everyone being able to do everything is that nobody does it and they just sit around waiting for the other guy. A kind of “Why should I do the objective? Someone else can do it. I’ll sit around spawn, boosting my kdr, or camp the objective with a sniper rifle because I know the arty that can take me out will be directed somewhere else in the hope of getting many kills” etc etc.

Teamplay should come from the game and the game should encourage it and not just with an XP boost. It needs to give people a reason to want to work together. It needs to give the guy who can’t frag at 30 for 10 a reason to play and feel like he or she is valuable. Without purpose, the game is just TDM plus. Ok the game has a purpose, escort the EV, blow up the barrier, but then we’re just back to the whole anyone can do it so nobody does it scenario, because everyone’s off playing TDM.

[k0k0nat]

TL:DR

Played DB for 30mins yesterday.
Public gameplay is just nuts, people always join the 16 slot server which is the worst idea ever.

Sorry but I cant blame anybody who doesnt “teamplay” atm. I basically have no idea what to do on public aswell. FPS drops, backrape, backrape, instant kills.

I even have to say that pixel is right when he says that the movement speed is to high, at least it feels like it is on public. Feels like instagib for UT.

TL:DR 2

I will wait for matchmaking and more ppl. ( And secretly hope for draft and class-based obj.)
Teamplay cant be couraged atm, its all random and skill-less + tactic-less.

[Sun_Sheng]

[QUOTE=k0k0nat;512497]TL:DR

Played DB for 30mins yesterday.
Public gameplay is just nuts, people always join the 16 slot server which is the worst idea ever.

Sorry but I cant blame anybody who doesnt “teamplay” atm. I basically have no idea what to do on public aswell. FPS drops, backrape, backrape, instant kills.

I even have to say that pixel is right when he says that the movement speed is to high, at least it feels like it is on public. Feels like instagib for UT.

TL:DR 2

I will wait for matchmaking and more ppl. ( And secretly hope for draft and class-based obj.)
Teamplay cant be couraged atm, its all random and skill-less + tactic-less.[/QUOTE]

Case in point:

People join the 16 man server because there are lots of people to kill and they can boost their kdr quickly. It has always been the way of things.

In pretty much any game i’ve played, i’ve followed the same process so i’m guessing everyone else does too. I could be wrong. That process is simply to join, pick a half decent merc that I think i might feel comfortable with, go out, get slaughtered, try to understand the game, choose a different merc based on my understanding. In ET that would go something like 'choose soldier, get slaughtered, see people reviving and think that looks like fun, choose medic, run around, get slaughtered a bit more, decide the engineer looks more fun, give that a try, get a plant down, feel useful, deep joy, play again!".

With DB it would go something along the lines of “Choose random merc with smg because that feels most logical, or choose sniper so I can hide and watch what happens. Get slaughtered, fail to understand what’s going on. get slaughtered some more. Give up”. The variation on that would be “Choose random merc with smg because that feels most logical, or choose sniper so I can hide and watch what happens. Get slaughtered, Realise the EV needs escorting or repairing or an objective needs blowing up so try doing that. Get slaughtered because everyone is playing deathmatch and i’ve got no backup. Give up”.

From what i can see, more keys were given out in the last 3 weeks whilst I was off wandering about and the servers should be heaving. I’ve come back and they’re deader than ever. Yesterday afternoon, peak time on a saturday afternoon and there were 3 people on. Crazy, especially considering the forums are quite active so there are certainly people with a genuine interest in playing the game. There just seems to be no motivation and I can only put that down to the lack of fun or enjoyment, and that, that seems to be for all the reasons given above

[ailmanki]

Simple, you can score most by killing, even if you loose the map.
It should be different, if a player succesfully does the objective he should get the biggest score, and one which helped him should get there fair share.
You kill tons on the other end of the map, while one sneaked through and is just planting c4? Those kills should be not worth much, especially if the c4 explodes. Difficult to balance, but that is how it should be. And I guess I already wrote about this 1-2 years ago. As the problem is about the same in ET, people like to go for kdr, and you can’t have high kdr if your willing to push the tank forward. And just having a modifier at the end of the round, who won it, won’t make it either.
The game needs to reward the objective players more, and it needs to reward the guys covering the objective players. Since you can’t shoot while arming c4, or while you carry that objective.

Then maybe you will get more teamplay on pub.

edit: maybe that win modifier could do it… If you don’t win the map, all your kills are worth nothing… So maybe then those guys will go help the objective? Still hard to make fair…

[tokamak]

That’s not entirely true. Sure the top killers are often at the top but I frequently manage to get a top score with only ever making three or four kills in a round.

It’s still not perfect and I think everything could be more sophisticated than merely flat xp-rates for everything, but the distribution is decent.

The K/D ratio however, that’s a problem. It’s too prevalent in the score screen and I personally think it shouldn’t be there at all. It makes players behave different, more individualistic. I’d much rather see an xp/min in that position. That way even late-joiners get a chance of showing off against others.