Is this game dead already?

(tokamak) #121

If it’s going to be used as a bribe then it’s preferable to bribe the right moves.

(Kendle) #122

Once upon a time I played a game called RTCW, and when playing Engie I planted explosives on stuff that needed to be blown up because it needed to be blown up, not because I got some points for it. When playing Medic I revived team-mates who were dead because they were dead and I was a Medic, not because I got points for it.

It wasn’t that long ago that no-one gave a **** about points, has the world really changed that much since, or have in-game reward systems actually achieved the opposite of what they were supposed to, made everyone NOT play the objectives UNLESS properly rewarded rather than playing the objectives simple because THAT’S THE WHOLE DAMN POINT OF THE GAME.

(RT1) #123

[QUOTE=Kendle;386180]
It wasn’t that long ago that no-one gave a **** about points, has the world really changed that much since…[/QUOTE]

The universe proceeds in cycles. Once upon a time, points were the reason people played games. Galaxian wouldn’t be the same without 'em!

(SockDog) #124

[QUOTE=tokamak;386160]It’s only the most interesting aspect about game design. Rahdo once told something about him trying to incorporate line of sight and everything in calculating a smoke grenade xp reward. That’s brute-forcing your way to a solution all the while the whole thing could be much more simple and much more elegant. Give the smoke grenade a radius and give bonus xp to the thrower for all the objectives performed within that radius while the smoke grenade is active.

Just an example of striving for an accurate system without letting it become bloated.[/QUOTE]

The XP is a bastard child of the core game, somewhat necessary but highly needy and always acting out. You model one aspect but then again ignore my point, what happens in all the innovative aspects of play, the stuff you said made ETQW great, does SD patch in and balance all that? Or do we accept that every objective needs a smoke grenade because that’s what the XP system is designed to reward?

You’re praising the unpredictably of human players and then stating each and every situation can be modeled and rewarded correctly.

So instead of making a great game, lets spend time making a (IMO always flawed) system to score people playing a mediocre game. Again, for someone so against SD spending a second on anything but their core game mode you seem plenty happy to lay out resources to stroke the e-peen.

One track mindedness. SD needs to do an Introversion and admit that there are elements and paths they’ve taken which just don’t work, throw them the feck out and come up with something that does work instead. This endless iteration of Kill = Point, rule upon rule is laughably pointless when the end goal is to replace something as simple as a end of game “GG”.

(tokamak) #125

This doesn’t require much resources, everything can be worked out on pen and paper if you want to.

(SockDog) #126

If it was so easy to do why hasn’t it been done successfully yet? Why wasn’t the “neat thing” Rahdo explained in the game?

Face it, what you want and what is achievable are two different things and the impasse we’re at is basically your stubborn refusal to admit it or accept that there are alternatives to explore.

(INF3RN0) #127

[QUOTE=ArchdemonXIII;386127]No, acting like you and people like you are the only ones whose opinion matters and that anyone who doesn’t agree obviously doesn’t “get” the game due to lack of intelligence or ability is elitist.

If a casual plays on a consistent basis but isn’t trying to master the game, then he is a part of the player base and contributing to the longevity.
[/QUOTE]

Those who understand the game and are able to play it to its limits can give very valuable feedback on how to improve upon the existing model, without completely changing the game itself. What your asking for is to just accept the game as is and not offer any input? A casual player by your definition would have nothing actually useful to comment on about the game as they could care less about the numbers, so they would just as easily care less if it was improved. If you want to try to show me up because I respond to imagined/false claims by people on these forums your not proving anything there. It’s the equivalent of someone saying 1+2=5, when I know what the actual answer is because I have seen the numbers and done the math hundreds of times… On an internet forum there’s plenty of people with no qualifications that talk a lot for how little (usually none at all) experience they have on the subject.

You wanna talk Brink? I don’t see any casuals playing it, and I don’t see any hardcore vets of the genre playing it either. The people I do see playing are the ones who constantly drone on about how it’s perfectly fine as is, blah blah blah; even though they never actually tell you why it’s perfectly fine. And when you can actually show the factual data and explain how it’s mathematically broken, they just tell you to GTFO and that you just don’t have enough adaptive skill to get on their level… even when the proven best teams say it is… and when these people have a mediocre gaming capacity, most of which reside on console. What would you call those people exactly?

(INF3RN0) #128

Isn’t just being on the winning team enough? Or do you really need everyone to see your award for “most helpful in non-violent actions player”…

The whole reward system is pretty childish imo, and just get’s in the way of the game.Why can’t we just throw out XP and awards all together? “Good job your team won!” seems like it would suffice.

(tangoliber) #129

I would love to throw out XP, just like we threw out KDR. I don’t mind it though, and I don’t think it took a lot of time to implement.

Its true that both competitive and casual players don’t play the game. I think that the people who do play the game are somewhere in between. People who enjoy it for the teamwork and the close matches and are willing to put some time into it without instant gratification, but who don’t necessarily need a game with high individual skill ceiling.

Also, I see hardcore and competitive players as two different labels that may overlap.

(ArchdemonXIII) #130

They can give valuable feedback. They can also give feedback that makes it into a game only they want to play. Improvement is subjective unless you’re speaking strictly in terms of technical optimisation. What you think is an improvement might ruin the game for someone else. If the majority of people playing it think it’s fantastic as is, guess what? It is.

I’m not trying to show you up on anything. I’m merely stating that your opinion doesn’t hold any more weight than anyone else’s. You can keep throwing your simple arithmetic analogies about as you wish, but so far it seems more that it’s X+Y=4 and your assuming that X and Y both equal 2.

You wanna talk Brink? I don’t see any casuals playing it, and I don’t see any hardcore vets of the genre playing it either. The people I do see playing are the ones who constantly drone on about how it’s perfectly fine as is, blah blah blah; even though they never actually tell you why it’s perfectly fine. And when you can actually show the factual data and explain how it’s mathematically broken, they just tell you to GTFO and that you just don’t have enough adaptive skill to get on their level… even when the proven best teams say it is… and when these people have a mediocre gaming capacity, most of which reside on console. What would you call those people exactly?

Kinda hard to see anyone playing it when by your own admission you don’t have it installed, genius.:tongue:

I’ve seen people that like the game for what it is that still have ideas for what they think might be better. It’s just you discount the input of people who enjoy the game and don’t share your view that the game should be made to your standards and screw the people that are actually, y’know, playing it.

I like Brink. There’s a lot of things I think are bad design issues with it, though: excessive handholding, useless mounted weapons, poor AI, gameplay that promotes fluid changing of classes coupled with a leveling system better suited to specialization of classes, classes being a little too same-y, unbalanced weight classes,and while we’re at it: level grinding and unlocks. The thing is, though, when I simultaneously vault over a ledge while tossing a buff to my team mate and land while smashing the enemy in the face with my custom assault rifle, I’m having a blast.

(INF3RN0) #131

[QUOTE=ArchdemonXIII;386216]They can give valuable feedback. They can also give feedback that makes it into a game only they want to play. Improvement is subjective unless you’re speaking strictly in terms of technical optimisation. What you think is an improvement might ruin the game for someone else. If the majority of people playing it think it’s fantastic as is, guess what? It is.

I’m not trying to show you up on anything. I’m merely stating that your opinion doesn’t hold any more weight than anyone else’s. You can keep throwing your simple arithmetic analogies about as you wish, but so far it seems more that it’s X+Y=4 and your assuming that X and Y both equal 2.
[/QUOTE]

The funny part here is that all of the people I consider casuals only ask for more items, more maps, more awards, more unlocks, etc. The majority of my input on Brink in the past involved weapon balance, improvement of SMART, class buff modifications, balance of spawn timers, a sensible weapon spread system, etc. All things that hold a direct relation to the game itself… I really don’t favor the design of Brink at all, but all of the post-release fix suggestions I contributed did not involve changing the game in the least; the goal was to try to conform things to a logical system rather than a random mess. They were very common issues that lots of people had with the game, and they made perfect logical sense as the data from debug tests and the Brink test group revealed…

[QUOTE=ArchdemonXIII;386216]
Kinda hard to see anyone playing it when by your own admission you don’t have it installed, genius.:tongue:

I’ve seen people that like the game for what it is that still have ideas for what they think might be better. It’s just you discount the input of people who enjoy the game and don’t share your view that the game should be made to your standards and screw the people that are actually, y’know, playing it.

I like Brink. There’s a lot of things I think are bad design issues with it, though: excessive handholding, useless mounted weapons, poor AI, gameplay that promotes fluid changing of classes coupled with a leveling system better suited to specialization of classes, classes being a little too same-y, unbalanced weight classes,and while we’re at it: level grinding and unlocks. The thing is, though, when I simultaneously vault over a ledge while tossing a buff to my team mate and land while smashing the enemy in the face with my custom assault rifle, I’m having a blast.[/QUOTE]

Don’t argue that there’s lot’s of people that still play Brink… your smart ass remarks are worse than WolfNem. I played 200hrs of Brink… how does the fact I don’t play anymore change anything? Brink prioritized SMART and the artificial flashy stuff over well thought out game mechanics. No doubt that’s fun for some people, but I bought a game for meaningful and balanced game play that I was accustomed to from SD, and not so I could slide off a ledge and shoot someone with my custom rifle while admiring the artwork…

(ArchdemonXIII) #132

I don’t disagree with any of that. My sole issue of contention is the open disdain you show for the people that do like Brink. I just don’t think it helps anything.

Don’t argue that there’s lot’s of people that still play Brink… your smart ass remarks are worse than WolfNem. I played 200hrs of Brink… how does the fact I don’t play anymore change anything?

I never said there were a lot of people that play it. I said the people who are playing it are just as entitled to their opinion. Especially considering that you only played the version that, according to your own figures, only 10% of the customers bought. That hardly qualifies you as the voice of the majority.

As for me being a smart ass, well, I’m a smart ass. That’s just how I roll. Plus, you totally walked into it.

Brink prioritized SMART and the artificial flashy stuff over well thought out game mechanics. No doubt that’s fun for some people, but I bought a game for meaningful and balanced game play that I was accustomed to from SD, and not so I could slide off a ledge and shoot someone with my custom rifle while admiring the artwork…

Here’s the thing, though… just because SD has made 2 similar games does not restrict them to only making games of that type. Maybe they wanted to make a more intimate style team game that a lot of people could enjoy. Maybe it’s the game Bethesda paid them to make.

Arc System Works deliberately made BlazBlue newbie friendly so when they finally drop the next Guilty Gear, some of those newbies might be drawn to the more hardcore game. Blizzard made Star Craft and the Diablo series, then made the ultra newbie friendly WoW, and still came out with SC2.

Maybe Brink doesn’t appeal to you because it wasn’t meant to. It’s not like when they released it, it stopped W:ET and ETQW from working any more.

(INF3RN0) #133

Not gonna quote, but some things…

  1. I don’t like the people who pretend Brink doesn’t need improvement and major fixes…
  2. Brink is the same on all platforms, so uh yea…
  3. Brink was publicized as ET3, so obviously a lot of the changes were meant for the ET base, or they just straight up lied…

If Brink wasn’t supposed to be ET3, I wouldn’t have bought it along with many others… if SD thinks it’s a testament to the ET series, well then that’s why we make sure they understand that it is clearly not. If we had simply been told Brink would be a huge disappointment to original fans, then it would have saved all the trouble. Somehow though, I am pretty sure that the developments in Brink were expected to have a much different outcome than they actually did. That’s just a mistake of understanding what makes and breaks the genre. Why else are we getting these polls about what we liked best in the past games all of a sudden? I think there’s some sort of re-evaluation going on…

(deems) #134

The best feedback I think any game has ever provided is the audio-sound of a successful headshot. I could feel the dopamine dripping into my brain when I’d hear a few ‘clacks’ in ETQW. Mmm dopamine… It made me want MOAR. The team play / cooperation rewards are just there and don’t need explicit XP style rewards — it’s just inherently satisfying to play as a team (except for an admittedly larger than desirable number of a-holes).

The seratonin (general happyness and satisfaction) drips came from feeling like I was improving over the longer time scale. Seeing that I’d gone from 60XP in a game to 300XP in a game was rewarding. Once I feel like I’ve stopped improving in a game, I start to get bored quite quickly. I guess this is perhaps one of the main conflicts in game design – they want to make it easy so more people play it initially, but the fun (at least for me) is in learning the game and improving at it, so the longer the learning curve the better, but making it easy initially seems to radically shorten the learning curve.

If I were the target audience, I’d say make it hard, make the learning curve steep. Only then is improvement rewarding! Unfortunately (for me) capitalism drives the production of games for the masses, and I feel like I’m in the (not all that small, but still a) minority.

Deems

(INF3RN0) #135

Original ET hitsound “dink” was bauss. I love the sound modding for ETQWPro :).

(Humate) #136

The best feedback I think any game has ever provided is the audio-sound of a successful headshot. I could feel the dopamine dripping into my brain when I’d hear a few ‘clacks’ in ETQW. Mmm dopamine… It made me want MOAR. The team play / cooperation rewards are just there and don’t need explicit XP style rewards — it’s just inherently satisfying to play as a team (except for an admittedly larger than desirable number of a-holes).

If memory serves me correctly, the headshot sounds were patched in 1.2
edit: From the changelog - Added unique hit sound for headshots.

You would think something as enjoyable and simple as that, would be there from the start.

(tokamak) #137

Increasing the accuracy of the xp score doesn’t change it’s prevalence. Besides, it’s quite rich to see people all up in arms about K/D ratios suddenly declare scores to be stupid and childish.

I don’t like what Brink did. I think scoring and levelling up during a match is way more satisfying than building a persistent character and I think few people did. That’s what you get for listening to a bunch of newcomers wondering out loud where their ETQW xp remained

The moment upgrades become short therm and tied to the match it becomes a resource-based system. You can’t have everything so you need to decide which specialisation you pursue. This opportunity cost is addictive as you want to keep on trying new approaches every time you play. I believe an accurate system to assess your worth and thus your reward and thus your in-game power is vitally important for this.

(Humate) #138

[QUOTE=tokamak;386257]Increasing the accuracy of the xp score doesn’t change it’s prevalence. Besides, it’s quite rich to see people all up in arms about K/D ratios suddenly declare scores to be stupid and childish.

I don’t like what Brink did. I think scoring and levelling up during a match is way more satisfying than building a persistent character and I think few people did. That’s what you get for listening to a bunch of newcomers wondering out loud where their ETQW xp remained

The moment upgrades become short therm and tied to the match it becomes a resource-based system. You can’t have everything so you need to decide which specialisation you pursue. This opportunity cost is addictive as you want to keep on trying new approaches every time you play. I believe an accurate system to assess your worth and thus your reward and thus your in-game power is vitally important for this.[/QUOTE]

Time for a new community question imo.

(ArchdemonXIII) #139

in reply:

  1. I don’t like when someone consistently misrepresents what I’m saying.
  2. yes, but the player base is different. You are listening to a minority opinion and claiming to know the complete picture.
    3.Publicity is handled by marketing, not the guys who actually made it. Bethesda paid for the advertising and decided to call out ET for name recognition. Don’t blame SD for your lack of media savvy.

Hard to learn, harder to master is better suited to a cult game, which is fine for an indie developer. I think what should be the goal is easy to learn, hard to master.

Look at the Street Fighter series for an example, SF3 was highly unforgiving. The pros loved it, but it nearly killed the franchise. Enter SF4 which had a lower bar of entry, but with plenty of nuance geared towards high level play and it’s a huge success.

As for capitalism driving the process, well of course. You don’t make a game that costs millions of dollars that’s targeted at thousands of customers. If you make a game for $30 million (which is not a lot for a high end game these days.), at $60 a copy you need to sell half a million copies to break even. That’s assuming you’re living in a fairy tale world where the the sales price goes back to the company at a 1:1 ratio. The truth is the retailer gets a cut, shipping the game out costs money, the licensing fees need to be paid, and the advertisements aren’t free.

When the majority of people take jobs that just cover their transportation, rent, and food expenses out of a love for the job, it will make sense to expect the devs to do the same. Of course then there would be no point in making games, because most people couldn’t afford them.

@tokamak: obviously this is just my personal opinion, but I hate leveling up of any kind, but especially when it only accumulates per session. It penalizes people that didn’t start the match right at the start of the map. I personally miss the old school aesthetic that the incentive to play was that the game is fun.

(Kendle) #140

At least you only have to wait a map before you’re on equal terms, with persistent progression you’re playing against guys with hours, days, weeks, or months more game play than you and perhaps vastly superior weapons / load-outs as a result.