Initial Gut Feedback

(.FROST.) #161

There are three levels on wich you have to fight a conflict.

1st, the overall strategy(determination of the overall playstyle and goals;ofensive/defensive play, emphasis on upfront batteling, or more flanking style, etc…), wich may in some cases span over several maps and includes every player of one team. But you can only have that when you are playing in a clan, or if a significant amount of players have headsets. If that’s not the case, than you’d probably rely mostly on tactics and skill. Even tactics are diffiult to apply without voice communication. Especially, because tactics could change mid-game. So tactics may require even more voice comm, than discussing the strategy.

2nd, the tactics. Used on the battlefield to achive the goals of the overall strategy. Whereas the strategy is more an off-screen thing in FPS games. Tactics are directly applied through(example) 2 four-men teams, or 4 two-men teams (in the case of DB, since you have 8 players on each side). A tactic would be; storm this high ground to get a clear view on the target. Tactics are more specific and dynamic, than a strategy.

And 3rd, the skill level(dancing, quick-scoping, aiming in general, etc…). Wich depends on the skill level(what else) of each single player and should make the tactic a reality and in this regard, the strategy as well. And when people suck on this one, everything above goes down the drain. Skill=operating highly dynamic, but allways with a focus on the given tactic.

(INF3RN0) #162

FPS=First Person Shooter. If people can’t shoot even semi-well they miss out on enjoying everything else :wink:.

(.FROST.) #163

I wasn’t complaining. Actually, I wanted to emphasis that, imho, skills(reflex skills and stuff like quick scoping as well) are and should stay an integral part of this genre. But it’s hard to apply them, when your legs are bound and your hands are stuck in a canned animation.

(zenstar) #164

To a point. Players with better tactics and better team play should always beat a less organised team.
A team game should not be won because there’s some ultra-godly aimbot-skilled pcp-pumped lone wolf on their team. He should be able to carry a couple of slackers maybe, but if he lone wolfs into a 2 man kill-team who are working together they should put him down even if their skills are average.

I like to think of myself as an average player. My k/d is usually about 0.5. Add in assists and my ka/d is about 1. My win/loss is usually around 50/50 (for a well populated game that has been balanced ofc). The one thing that turns me off MP is if a single player in a team game takes and holds the entire other team. Even if he’s getting me another win - the game sucks. The best games are the ones where you win in the last 10 seconds of the match. The games where the teams flip-flop pole position back and forth throughout the game.

If you need to be an elite, godly no-scope sniper to play then say goodbye to a massive chunk of your audience.

(DarkangelUK) #165

[QUOTE=zenstar;412570]
If you need to be an elite, godly no-scope sniper to play then say goodbye to a massive chunk of your audience.[/QUOTE]

There’s a difference between having to be and the game allowing you to be. Sure the skill requirements should suit new players just as much as the rest, but the game shouldn’t be handicapped to stop anyone reaching the dizzy heights of godly player status. Seems that some people think you need to cap the skill ceiling to allow new players to thrive when this just isn’t the case.

(.FROST.) #166

FPS should concentrate on FPS skills and Strategy games on strategy skills and so on and so forth. No one is complaining, that SC has not much emphasis on fast scoping and dodging bullets, etc… Those are the things wich are defining the FPS genre. If you change that too much you either create a sub genre or switch the genre entirelly. I mean you can go the way NS2 went(awesome game btw.), but that would keep the majority of pure FPS players away.

(zenstar) #167

I completely agree with this. Capping skill is not the answer to the problem.
But capping skill is not the only answer to preventing skilled players from solo facerolling average-skilled team-players.

Don’t ask me what the answer is. I’m not a game designer. I could come up with wild ideas like teammates buff each other by sticking close together (max buff = team of 3, buff = do more damage), or getting shot by more than one person means you take more damage… but I don’t think those particular ideas fit DB (even though they’re awesome).

Of course given equal tactics it comes down to who shoots the best. But aim shouldn’t undo teamwork.

(zenstar) #168

Hate to break it to you but ET is a sub-genre.

(DarkangelUK) #169

Well I can only apologise, but it seemed you were heavily suggesting putting measures in place that would cap the skill level and stop these players from existing. This all falls into a skill matching issue, but we have to be reserved to the fact that players can excel at a game and they shouldn’t be punished for it, just better placed. As for aim not out-doing team work… as long as the context of equal (or close to at least) skill level is in place then I agree.

(warbie) #170

Agreed.

10 char

(zenstar) #171

Maybe i didn’t make myself as clear as I should have (and there’s a certain shadow that noone is bringing up that colours our perceptions). But I didn’t mean capping at all.

Yeah. You’re never going to be able to completely stop people “brute forcing” a conflict with sheer skill if they seriously outskill their opponents. And maybe the answer is some sort of skill tracking on our accounts and matching that way as you suggest.

MNC had an interesting idea where they did some stats crunching and awarded you stars based on what they perceived as skill. Then they had servers with maximum star limits. As a 1 star you could play with the big boys on the open servers if you wanted, but as a 5 star you couldn’t go and rumble a 2 star server for lols.

If you get the star calculations right then that makes a nice way to start the game with noob friendly servers. That would mitigate the brute forcing issue a fair amount.

(DarkangelUK) #172

I’d also say this is decently (but not perfectly) implemented in Quake Live as well where players are assigned to tiers. Again like MNC there are open servers where everyone can mix, but there are skill matched servers that won’t allow high players to jump on and rage, but equally it won’t let lower skilled players join and cause rage by upsetting the teams. I’m all for that.

(Senethro) #173

The technology, stats and permanent accounts are available. There should be a good skill ranked matchmaking system. Gives new players room to learn and pros can be skilful without hurting anyone’s feelings.

(zenstar) #174

Yes! Make it so number one! (I agree completely).

EDIT: it never lets me give DAUK more rep.

(ailmanki) #175

After having slept over my first hours playing DB…

The game is good, most thing which had been in ET are also there. Even its name is can be shortened the same way.
Unfortunately all the bad things from ET are also there, unbalanced teams, tdm on a obj server, poor server browser (ok havent seen any game getting this right… ), no integration of TS/Mumble.

Games come out like books and movies, everyday a few of em. And most repeat same stuff again. DB can be modified or not, at the point where it is now, it can already been played and I enjoyed playing it (more then playing BF3). Yet I was able to play with the testers, in other words some kind of creme de la creme. Very nice people. Ever joined a random public server in ET?
You get random settings, random people, and propbably tons of random pk3’s which in worst case crash your ET.
Now its not like you can first check that “random” server, and see what it has - nope - you have to connect to it. And same for the skill of the players tehre, connect to it. While there is a service like Splatterladder, which shows how fast a player gains XP’s, it is still no measurement of the skill of a player. Sure the top guy on Splatterladder will not be bad, thats probably sure, but those guys in rank 1000-infinity who knows how good they really are.

Would be nice, if Teamspeak is integrated with fireteams/squads. So that maybe Squadleaders can chat together and the squad themself. Dunno how real military manages multiple squads in same area.
Then create statistics over each player, which should reflect the players skill.

Have a serverbrowser which allows to browse for friends, filter for settings. I am aware that original ET had all necessary filters, as it is now with DB. But if its possible to modify more, then a player needs to be able to filter these things. Imagine, you can set a notification flag, and you will get an sms when a certain server has reached a specified amount of players. People would pay for such services I believe.

(.FROST.) #176

Never played ET, but I don’t exactly understand what you want to say. I haven’t meant, that there can’t be such a thing like a sub-genre. The question is, IF the devs and/or the community wants their game to be such a thing. And I’m sure there are many good examples of games from a variety of different subgenres wich are doing good, but especially skill wise I think most people would like DB to be more of a conventional FPS game with no unnatural skill cap or artificial restrictions of any sort(shooting, dodging wise). SD should go crazy(please) with the gameplay and the different game modes, no problem, but not with the basic movement system. SMART was very creative, but if you happen to not like it you could just as well use WASD and the mouse exclusively and it would have felt just natural. But in DB you have no choice but to move in quicksand(as one guy here put it).

(amazinglarry) #177

Agreed (mostly). Definitely need to know who’s playing on the servers at the very least.

(raccoon) #178

First thoughts from a few hours:

-If you’re going to have laser-beam hipfiring, taking a bullet shouldn’t bloom the spread so much. It’s already a big enough advantage to get the drop on someone.

-Everything is blue/grey and the models are hard to distinguish.

-Placing turrets shouldn’t be a point and click.

-Sniper scope has too much zoom for the current maps. A toggle zoom would be nice.

-Medkits and Ammo should be easier to spot and/or pick up.

-The assault rifles/smgs feel the same all going for a very high rate of fire. It would be nice to see some variety with guns that do more damage but fire slower or have recoil that needs to be managed.

-No one likes feeling as if they’re stuck in mud whenever they decide to reload.

I’m all for gunplay that requires you to aim on a target rather than having a spread covering half their body when you are more than five meters away, but with such narrow maps and chokes it feels like it takes away from some of that.

The biggest problem for me is that it feels like most of the game I’m battling with reloading, ammo, and sprint usage. You can get into the fight really quick but you’ll find yourself having to hobble around reloading after only a couple bursts. Players shouldn’t feel like they’re gambling staying in the fight because their magazine is just over half-full with 16 bullets left after a single engagement.

Too many free kills happen from sprinting up on someone who is reloading or getting the first shot off and making their spread bloom. Evasive movement with a tight spread that encourages tracking aim and gunfighting should be more prominent than cover hopping and turret wack-a-mole imo.

My opinions could change the more I play.

(DarkangelUK) #179

The only one I need to question is the one about ammo/med packs should be easier to pick up… I don’t think you can get any easier than walking over them :stuck_out_tongue:

(zenstar) #180

You were going on about how FPSs should focus on FPS skills and focusing on anything else makes it a sub-genre. ET (and Brink which you have played) are both sub-genres. Simply having the ET style objectives in there makes it a sub-genre and is already not focusing the game on FPS skills. If all we wanted was pure FPS then we’d be playing Quake Live or another arena FPS. DB is already a sub-genre.

Now working FPS skills into the game and not capping them is still important, but DB is already more ambitious than a simple FPS and as such has to take more things into consideration than simply “FPS skills”. Strategy and tactics are a part of ET style games already and part of the focus of the game is team-play to complete objectives.

I don’t really object to anything else you say in your post here (you can see what I think about skill caps earlier in this chain: they’re bad.), but the whole “This is an FPS and so should concentrate on FPS skills” is wrong. This is a team based, objective-oriented FPS (at it’s core) and as such needs to concentrate on Teamwork and balance and Objectives and FPS skills.