Increased respawn time

(torsoreaper) #1

Update states:

In Objective Mode, the base spawn wave timers are now more greatly impacted by the player count on each team. This is to help counteract imbalanced teams and maintain the intensity of the game between different match sizes.
For example, teams with 8 players now have a 30s spawn wave, 4 players have a 15s spawn wave and 2 players have a 7.5s spawn wave

I think it makes plenty of sense to nerf the respawn timer if the teams are uneven to give the undermanned team a chance but if the teams are even and it’s 8v8, why slow down the game? It seems like SD is pushing execution and if people won’t play it then they’ll just bring execution into objective? Is that what is going on?

(watsyurdeal) #2

Um, no, this is a fix that’s been a long time coming, 8v8 needs to be slowed down because the maps are overfilled with players. The game is meant for 5v5, that’s why Dome feels large, CAUSE IT IS when you compare it to the other maps, which were all made around 5v5.

Those extra seconds leave a lot more room for people to push or regain control on defense, on 8v8 that’s crucial due to the immense amount of chaos on those servers.

(MarsRover) #3

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;114281”]Um, no, this is a fix that’s been a long time coming, 8v8 needs to be slowed down because the maps are overfilled with players. The game is meant for 5v5, that’s why Dome feels large, CAUSE IT IS when you compare it to the other maps, which were all made around 5v5.

Those extra seconds leave a lot more room for people to push or regain control on defense, on 8v8 that’s crucial due to the immense amount of chaos on those servers.[/quote]

For me the chaos was a feature, not a thing to control. 8v8 on first stage of Underground is one of my favorite moments in the game. 6v6 servers are there when I want to play a less chaotic match.

Please note that I’m not arguing because this hurts me. This change is beneficial to my winrate because I actually know how spawn waves work in contrast to most pub players. It’s just that 8v8 servers lost a bit of their character.

(Armuh) #4

I played an 8v8 match once.

Once.

Never going back to it again.

(zNes) #5

[quote=“Armuhsin;114391”]I played an 8v8 match once.

Once.

Never going back to it again.[/quote]

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/fusionfall/images/2/22/I_know_that_feel_bro_by_rober_raik-d4cxn5a.png/revision/latest?cb=20130801121356

(torsoreaper) #6

Interesting. I agree with MarsRover. I like the variety between slower 5v5 matches and more intense 8v8 matches. I have played underground matches on 8v8 where we’ve lost at the first checkpoint but it was still fun because we got the C4 armed like 10 times and it’s very intense coming down to the last second.

I guess there is a larger contingent of people than I thought who prefer a slower pace of gameplay and I can respect that.

I think it will be interesting to see if SD has to do some spawn point balance changes now that the spawn waves are farther apart. Obviously a wipe with a 30 second spawn timer is very very different than a wipe with a shorter timer. For example, I was playing with a team who was pretty much losing on Chapel but it seemed like we were going to rally at the end and hold them off for an exciting underdog victory. Instead most of the team got wiped by a couple of well timed back to back air strikes and because it was at the beginning of the timer they had plenty of time to casually walk up the EMP and deposit. I see both sides as we should be punished for wiping, however, these last minute underdog victories is what I think makes DB fun so I have pretty mixed feelings.

(rigorousChicken) #7

@Watsyurdeal:There is no such thing as the „the game is meant to be played like." If its inside the game then it is the right way to play it.
Competitive players will always say there way of playing is the right way and superior to the others, but the truth is this game wouldn’t exist without casual gamers.

Back to respawn time: the respawn time was good as it was(25 secs).
30 secs are just way too long. When getting full wiped there is absolutely no chance to disarm the C4. With 25 secs it was possible, but would be really close. the same for other objectives.

Was there any demand by the community to increase the respawn time? Because the reason to change the time for better balancing seems silly to me, because this doesn’t make matches better balanced.
The other day the server decided to put me (lvl29) with three other lvl 20+ against a bunch of lvl15ths and lower. Guess who won? So, yea… balancing, but that’s another topic.

my advice just keep the old spawn times for 8vs8 and 7vs7 (25secs) and if the size of teams drop below 7 players the new spawn times will kick in.

(watsyurdeal) #8

Actually there is, it’s called design intent, as in, the devs intended this game to be played a certain way, but of course players never play things the way you expect them to. Hence why you have game testing and betas. Common sense my friend.

This game is clearly aimed at being competitive but has a lot of work to be done.

[quote=“rigorousChicken;114527”]
Competitive players will always say there way of playing is the right way and superior to the others, but the truth is this game wouldn’t exist without casual gamers.[/quote]

And the truth is casual players walk a very fine line between taking the game seriously, or not so. The newer players will try a game out and get a feel for it, the people who keep playing, and demand matchmaking balancing, nerfs, buffs, etc, they are so close to being competitive players they don’t realize it. The problem is they are playing with the wrong people and in the wrong environment.

Seriously, it’s that close.

[quote=“rigorousChicken;114527”]

Back to respawn time: the respawn time was good as it was(25 secs).
30 secs are just way too long. When getting full wiped there is absolutely no chance to disarm the C4. With 25 secs it was possible, but would be really close. the same for other objectives.

Was there any demand by the community to increase the respawn time? Because the reason to change the time for better balancing seems silly to me, because this doesn’t make matches better balanced.
The other day the server decided to put me (lvl29) with three other lvl 20+ against a bunch of lvl15ths and lower. Guess who won? So, yea… balancing, but that’s another topic.

my advice just keep the old spawn times for 8vs8 and 7vs7 (25secs) and if the size of teams drop below 7 players the new spawn times will kick in. [/quote]

Actually yes because the respawn times work for 5v5 just fine, but in 8v8, you still have 3-4 capable players up at any given time, so in truth it’s literally IMPOSSIBLE to get a full wipe before on 8v8 servers, not unless you timed things so perfectly that everyone was killed by an airstrike or something else.

With the increased time, there is additional room for people to reasonably down and gib people, and get a full wipe. This is vital because it allows you to push or regain a hold. Why do you think people bitch and moan so much about 7v7 and 8v8? Because they stalemate hard, and defense tends to win because of that. Very rarely does the offensive team stomp so hard that the defenders can’t do anything. At least now, the offense has plenty of time to wipe your team out and get the objective taken care of to a degree, and defense is punished more harshly for not covering the objective, angles, and over extending into the enemy spawn.

THAT is a good thing, you want people to have a reasonable amount of time to gain an upper hand after they’ve done work. You do not want it to feel like there’s a endless supply of bad guys from every corner. You need some breathing room to reload and patch yourself up.

[quote=“MarsRover;114318”][quote=“Watsyurdeal;114281”]Um, no, this is a fix that’s been a long time coming, 8v8 needs to be slowed down because the maps are overfilled with players. The game is meant for 5v5, that’s why Dome feels large, CAUSE IT IS when you compare it to the other maps, which were all made around 5v5.

Those extra seconds leave a lot more room for people to push or regain control on defense, on 8v8 that’s crucial due to the immense amount of chaos on those servers.[/quote]

For me the chaos was a feature, not a thing to control. 8v8 on first stage of Underground is one of my favorite moments in the game. 6v6 servers are there when I want to play a less chaotic match.

Please note that I’m not arguing because this hurts me. This change is beneficial to my winrate because I actually know how spawn waves work in contrast to most pub players. It’s just that 8v8 servers lost a bit of their character.[/quote]

Considering that environment causes a lot of frustration and misinformed ideas of what the game’s state of balance is I’d say it’s a good thing.

This game is small squad one, this isn’t Battlefield, and yet sometimes the games feel freaking crazy. The maps simply are not big enough to support 14 players or more, Underground is such an example. Tell me, how often as an Attacker are you shot the moment you descend from that escalator? The enemy has sightlines from the roof, the back second floor where you can only reach with the elevator, the second floor near the ammo crate on the right, and of course the lower path to the left. They have all the angles covered, and you have basically two directions, left or right, and maybe a third if you are lucky to get to the elevator before being overwhelmed.

This change helps with that a bit, at least when you kill someone you get them off of that angle, and can push forward a bit.

(LifeupOmega) #9

Implying 8v8 wasn’t already a clusterfuck where any pick you made had little to no difference in the outcome of a game. Still waiting for those 5v5 servers, SD.

(Diosito) #10

8vs8 is a mess in Objective mode, less than a little in Stopwatch, maybe only suits in Execution mode.
Dome is only playable and enjoyable with 8vs8… if you are high enough.

Abbadon
Abaddon

(rigorousChicken) #11

its true, there is something that defines the way a game is meant ot be played, its called genre. so if somone would try to convince the enemy team to give up just talking to them, the person would play the game “wrong”. so yea…
as long as SD dont remove the, in your opinion, “unintented things” like 8vs8 servers etc. the game still is meant to be played also this way. common sense my friend.

i cant seem to find much related to people complaining about 8vs8. but i have to admit i havent searched too thoroughly.

what you described is more depended of player skill than game mode. if your team gets walled, its probably due to lacking communication and/or lack of experience, bad anticipation of what teammates will do etc. just bad team balancing, the old topic…

besides that when you describe it like this it sounds like it would be super hard to attack in 8vs8. imo it is not. its the same as in other game modes dependent on the skill of your team and the enemy team. sometimes you win sometimes you lose.

sorry but i cant see any improvement here, by increasing the respawn time. to me this seems like a fix for someething that wasnt even broken.

the other possibility is that SD tries to push people towrads 7vs7 and below. but the better solution would be to say 8vs8 was unintended, go and play some other game mode. (i know this is somewhat too dramatic and over the top.)

(torsoreaper) #12

[quote=“Watsyurdeal;114538”]

[quote=“rigorousChicken;114527”]
Competitive players will always say there way of playing is the right way and superior to the others, but the truth is this game wouldn’t exist without casual gamers.[/quote]

And the truth is casual players walk a very fine line between taking the game seriously, or not so. The newer players will try a game out and get a feel for it, the people who keep playing, and demand matchmaking balancing, nerfs, buffs, etc, they are so close to being competitive players they don’t realize it. The problem is they are playing with the wrong people and in the wrong environment.

Seriously, it’s that close.[/quote]

I would have to agree with Chicken… There’s a lot of shooter games out so DB has to compete with them for time and money. Time because even a casual player who doesn’t spend money still contributes to DB because we need higher pop to keep the game alive and growing. Look at titanfall, it has like 700 players WORLD WIDE. Once games fall below a critical mass on population, the game is dead and dead games don’t make money.

So while there are professional players who are the top 1% or less of a game, elite players who are maybe the top 9% of the game, and veteran/high exp players who are the last 10%, the other 80%-90% are really where a game company is going to make their real money.

Why do I say the top 10% aren’t helping the company make money? If someone is top 10%, how much do they probably play? I know people who are diamond level streamers on LOL, they play 60+ hours a week. These guys don’t need to buy RP in order to buy characters, they have IP coming out their ears. If the time spent to be a top DB player is similar, they don’t need to cash buy anything.

So basically what I’m trying to establish is that on a time basis you need that huge casual pool to fill up servers and on a cash basis the casuals are the most likely to buy things.

(watsyurdeal) #13

[quote=“rigorousChicken;114580”]
its true, there is something that defines the way a game is meant ot be played, its called genre. so if somone would try to convince the enemy team to give up just talking to them, the person would play the game “wrong”. so yea…
as long as SD dont remove the, in your opinion, “unintented things” like 8vs8 servers etc. the game still is meant to be played also this way. common sense my friend.[/quote]

The only reason they exist is for fun, nothing more.

With that in mind pubs shouldn’t exist at all, but people need a place to play without having to dedicate too much time or effort.

Actually, it has jack to do with player skill, because one player can’t kill every person on the enemy team, and plant the bomb, and revive people. This game has a clear focus on teamwork, and because of that, every kill matters. Kill the Engineer, they can’t defuse or plant as fast, kill the Medics and they can’t be revived as easily, kill their Assault and lose a lot of their damage output, etc. The reason why they increased the spawn wave timer is because in a typical 8v8 servers, these picks didn’t mean very much when you can have multiple engineers, medics, and so on.

The spawn waves were 25 seconds, and now they scale up to 30, as well as scale down to 15 seconds in the event of uneven teams, so even though you have less players, you can still evenly keep up on the pressure. This basically just gives people more time to focus on the objectives and less time spent having to kill wave after wave of enemies. Meaning your picks have a more drastic impact on the game, so yea, you may be able to get aces regularly, but it doesn’t mean much when they’re back on the point before you can even deliver a sample or plant a bomb.

And for the record, I’ve asked for this change before, and it’s about time they implemented it.

Except here’s the problem, once people start getting invested in a game, they start caring more and more about game balance, maps, match ups, they start slowly wanting to play in a more fair and serious environment instead of playing with people who are brand new to the game.

And those top % of players, myself included, likely pay for mercs with cash as soon as they come out, why? Because it’s easier than to grind, and people like Sniff who buy elite cases on near consistent basis bring in more than enough revenue. So if you’re trying to argue cash flow, the people who are invested in this game time wise are the ones more likely to cough up the cash. And as I explained before, they do so out of the hope that the game will be better tailored to give them that fair and challenging experience.

And as for balancing for competitive, look at this thread, the amount of people who agree speaks for itself. We want a more serious game, want to be able to play a good team focused shooter, and that in itself is why you balance for competitive. If you want to balance the game for the casual player, you make the game exciting as possible but with little depth, so you play it for about a month and leave. Competitive games are an investment, for both devs and player.s

(torsoreaper) #14

Unfortunately, the success of COD has proven that companies make more money by balancing for casuals. I think the recent COD game made over $500m in sales in 3 days.

(watsyurdeal) #15

Actually it has a lot to do with it being on consoles as well as marketing.

And if Splash tries to compete with COD they will lose. They need to find their niche and go at it full force, execution, was not a good example.

(darlingClaymore) #16

I like 8v8, the more the merrier.

(Backuplight) #17

It’s a fair change, 8v8 is better for it. My first game post-change, I died at 29 seconds. I then spent the next 20 seconds 2 feet away from an Aura before someone finally shot and gibbed me. Good times.

(Litego) #18

Makes sense for public because 8vs8 is so shit, I probably still won’t play it, so I guess what they really only did was piss of the people who actually enjoyed the shitty 8vs8 we had. So maybe it didn’t make much sense after all.

Regardless, what we really need is custom servers where we can tweak stuff like spawn timers ourselves. Then people who love the constant chaos and pure TDM nature of it all can play on instant respawn 8vs8 servers, where the objective is impossible to do unless the enemy team just completely ignores it. Then others can play on 5vs5 servers with reasonable spawn timers where your actions actually have an affect on the game.

(Grave_Knight) #19

8 v 8 isn’t really fun anymore. 30 seconds is just to long.