Idea? Expanding Class Meta Passively

(tokamak) #81

Auras require active participation to bring them to bear.

The passive abilities themselves, indeed if exclusive to each unique character become interesting on it’s own because players will have to use the new nuances to their advantage. If you’re suddenly a bit more resilient against bullets then you shift your gameplay accordingly, if you suddenly have more ammo you still need to exploit (in a good way) the new perks to get the most out of them.

Passive buffs greatly reward players who understand the implications of each buff and adapt their playstyle to it. That’s where the fun lies.

Yes. Agreed!

(INF3RN0) #82

Just to be clear I was leaning towards passives that granted bonuses for things separate from combat/teamwork. They would come into play amidst the chaos, but never give flat rate advantage. I’m all about exploring the idea in the least intrusive directions.

(INF3RN0) #83

In my experiences the number of classes you had was more than a UI game lol. It was a huge part of the strategy when it came to judging your plan of attack on an obj, especially in comp. Deciding what tools you might need, and what the risk was if you attempted to over saturate your means in one area. The overall goal here is to expand on that, even if it means giving an extra support ability to most classes if anything. Sure it was always about shooting people in the face, but there was a ton of decision making (at least in ETQW) when your team was struggling to decide what the best class setup would be for a particular obj. I found it way more enjoyable trying to figure out what class arrangement would best suit the team, as the decisions were less about necessary class combinations and more about meshing them to our strengths. Again I just want to feel like there’s a hundred different combinations of classes that could be as effective as the next. I think SD wants to achieve that goal as well, which is why they were asking for highlander tests- that proved a bit too unattractive.

How can we make every class serve a consistent role in most every situation? Help me out- but don’t just say reduce to 4 classes and do RTCW style. After all I haven’t been copy pasting ET or ETQW, but instead keeping in mind the current game direction and coming up with new concepts that might improve upon that.

(tokamak) #84

Very well said. Excellent. That’s exactly the gameplay that turned me an SD fan as it’s not something I can seem to get anywhere else.

It’s not about having aces up your sleeve like in WoW. It’s merely about having a complex battlefield in which you need to commit your assets on the right spots so that you get leverage on the situation. I’m sorry for the business jargon but that’s the only way I can put it right now.

(Kendle) #85

Is it? I wish it wasn’t, I’ve spent far too much of my life on private clan servers working out tactics, routes, positions, set plays, class mix etc. I’d rather shift the emphasis more towards decisions being made on the battlefield, in-game, with players reacting dynamically to evolving situations, on the spot play-calling, co-operation and communications as well as individual skills coming to the fore.

That will never happen, at least not at the top end of competition. No matter the number of combinations the top teams will work out the best for any given situation, and others will copy them, and all those other possible permutations will go out the window. It might take a while, and tactics will certainly change as teams experiment, but they’ll be gradually whittled down to a few optimal arrangements, and then if the game has no flexibility or scope for on the field dynamic game-play where’s the longevity? CS isn’t still played a decade later because teams have yet to exhaust the combination of weapon choices.

I don’t know, but having to have 2 of class A to get team buff B isn’t the answer.

Also, it might be worth remembering the restrictions we already know we’ll be under when it comes to trying to answer that question. SD’s business model involves selling load-outs, not micro-transactions for things like weapon attachments, or buffs which you could call “class attachments”. And via the Barracks we’ll be limited to 1 load-out per class per round.

I’d suggest our efforts would be better directed at helping SD devise new load-outs. Strangely enough, and as much as it pains me to say it, tokamak has made by far the most useful post in this whole thread. :slight_smile:

(tokamak) #86

Look at LoL and WoW, there’s no consensus on what the best combination is and that’s RPG’s, in a shooter the characters will inherently be a lower factor as well.

(Hundopercent) #87

[QUOTE=INF3RN0;451292]Are you sure you would like what he’s suggesting?? SD made ET and ETQW after all.

Old man mentality ie against change. Become open to the new and expansion otherwise call up the RTCW devs and ask for a cookie cutter sequel idk. New concepts have rough starts, but eventually become great with gradual refinement. Now that we have such a long alpha it skips the process of early patching needs. Be an alpha tester, any kid can whine and say do it like before when trying anything new…[/QUOTE]

ctrl+c, ctrl+v is not exactly making a game…

(Nail) #88

and yet you want RTCW2
isn’t that cut/paste

(Hundopercent) #89

Does it really need to be explained? If you’re implying those ideas are even remotely good you should have your jaw realigned by a real wolf player loyal to the franchise.

You didn’t list Brink on your DB trailer for a reason and if you want to list DB on your next game trailer I would suggest you wake up.

(Hundopercent) #90

[QUOTE=Nail;451455]and yet you want RTCW2
isn’t that cut/paste[/QUOTE]

Initially I was very rtcw oriented but I have opened up quite a bit and even made suggestions I’m not entirely in favor of

(Nail) #91

oops, just switched feet

(Protekt1) #92

The meta behind a game like CS is much more determinative than the meta suggested in this thread and still SKILL IS THE DETERMINING FACTOR.

Seriously. Just because there is some meta does not mean skill is out the window. We’re talking about class selection which is already part of the meta. If you really think meta gets in the way of skill, then remove every class, give everyone the same gun, the same hp, the same movement speed, lets all play http://www.kongregate.com/games/lizzard4000/ratz-instagib INSTAGIB!!

Really, meta is great for a game. RTCW + ET + BF + COD all exist because people wanted more than just games like Quake where you run around picking up buffs and weapons (all good, nothing wrong with quake or instagib or UT). But in extremely certain terms, RTCW or ET do not exist without the addition of a metagame. Classes are the prime example of meta in action.

Also, didn’t RTCW have buffs based on class selection? Maybe it was a mod but I remember something about medics adding max hp to each class per existing medic.

(tokamak) #93

To me a larger scale tactics only make the direct micro skills more defining. An experienced player with good mouse aiming will be able to perform much better than an inexperienced player with equal mouse aiming because the experienced player will be able to read, recognise and adapt to a complicated situation.

Large scale tactics or ‘meta’ isn’t there to win you games, it’s there to diversify matches so that players need to huge their insights to adapt to uncommon situations. Without a more important ‘meta’ layer in the game everything will be just a tapdance duel grind until the objective is reached. A game that only consists of that won’t last long.

(rand0m) #94

[QUOTE=tokamak;451542]To me a larger scale tactics only make the direct micro skills more defining. An experienced player with good mouse aiming will be able to perform much better than an inexperienced player with equal mouse aiming because the experienced player will be able to read, recognise and adapt to a complicated situation.

Large scale tactics or ‘meta’ isn’t there to win you games, it’s there to diversify matches so that players need to huge their insights to adapt to uncommon situations. Without a more important ‘meta’ layer in the game everything will be just a tapdance duel grind until the objective is reached. A game that only consists of that won’t last long.[/QUOTE]

So a game of the same “meta” layer will? Are you gonna add talent points to the game now and add new talents during each patch to keep the game interesting? If not the “meta layer” you all want will get just as boring. Sounds like you all want an mmo. Try defiance.

(INF3RN0) #95

Meta will always need to exist in some fashion otherwise it’s no longer a class based shooter, but just a shooter with classes. When the only strategy at play is to pick your best personal killing class then why even have classes at all. There’s too far in both directions- forced hard counters/uber buffs and then absolute focus on just getting frags. If SD has done anything really innovative with classes it was expanding their roles to the point that there weren’t any hard class counters nor was there a demand for a specific combination of classes. Each class had a team role and could frag, so in having such a balanced variety the strategies were almost infinite. So yea Kendle it is possible, and it already happened.

ETQW pro in 6v6 was one of the most diversely played comp scenes I’ve ever seen in a game before. The pub was even more immense with the intended player count. Strangely a lot of the later ETQW pubs felt very competitive and you would have people raging over comms about equalizing classes so that the team could gain momentum from their provisional roles. Of course those roles broke down with the limitations required to play with less and less players due to the game not being balanced for such small sizes, but that same balanced variety can definitely be achieved in DB- especially with such a low max player count.

It’s simply a matter of making classes bring situational and equally helpful tools to the playing field that allow for some element of strategy to actually play a role. If you consider teamwork to be nothing more than everyone shooting well and sticking together, then class based objective games are not the right place to be, that’s called SnD. The shooting should be the primary focus, however the actual class aspect of the game should be very important and require players to actually think and make decisions. This doesn’t just mean run an obj class and then the best killing classes, because all classes should be equally effective in some manner. This also doesn’t mean that classes should be made important by forced necessity either. So what I’d like to see be the next step in class development is expanding their roles to give all classes potential to be important in all given situations because that would be perfection. Play styles would then become the deciding influence over what classes a team might run and maybe some setups would be very common, but they would never be the best/only means of winning.

(Kendle) #96

Lot’s of nice words Inferno, though for someone who doesn’t want to copy / paste ET:QW you sure as hell don’t waste an opportunity to mention it. :slight_smile:

But at the end of the day it’s the “how” in all of this I’m interested in. Several pages and 1000’s of words later and we’re still no nearer the how.

(warbie) #97

And passive buffs still don’t add anything interesting :wink:

I’m not going to behave any differently because I have a tiny bit more health or a tiny bit more ammo.

(tokamak) #98

Your loss.

Big fan of talent trees yes. But with the fixed character classes those won´t be needed.

(rand0m) #99

Now we want talent trees in a game supposed to be a classic shooter? Okay just checking.

(warbie) #100

So you have 5-10% (or whatever the figure is) more health - how will that really change things? Especially considering the other team will likely also have 5-10% more health. I can’t imagine players thinking ‘bring it on, I might have 5% more health than them’!. It made pretty much no difference in ET and I’ve yet to read an explanation why it will here. Unless of course the buffs make a massive difference, but would that be good?