Let's look at Tom Glancy's Phantoms

(tokamak) #1

So Phantoms just got released. And well, because it’s also a highly competitive F2P tactical shooter by a publisher famous for tactical shooter it’s worth looking closely at the direction they’re taking.

Now, I haven’t played the game itself more than a few matches. First impression is ‘cheap, messy but with potential’. The fighting is boring, the graphics are last-gen and the controls are shaky.

But that’s just a first impression.

MORE interesting is the meta-game. The matchmaking, game-finding and everything is amazing here. This is exactly what I want out of a competitive F2P shooter. It has clear rankings and the game is vigorously serious about the leaderboards.

Dirty Bomb could definitely adopt a lot of these features because it completely draws the player into the online race to the top.

The game goes even as far as giving a strict warning to anyone wishing to leave the game prematurely. They tell you exactly what the consequences will be and they go even a step further and DISABLE disconnecting for 10 seconds before you can leave.

Wow.

It sounds harsh and completely user-unfriendly. But yet, at the same time it’s telling every player ‘look, you’re playing with a team of gamers who want to get higher, we don’t appreciate it if you defect right now’.

So yeah. I love the intensity of the Ghosts ladders even though I don’t really fancy the gameplay. It even made me play longer than I intended to.

(fubar) #2

Sorry, offtopic. Haven’t played the game, probably wont play it, never even heard of it up until now. But a publisher claiming “highly competitive” has never proven accurate before, ever. Just to put it into perspective; the folks over at SD claim the same for dirtybomb.

Also matchmaking systems, leaderboards/ranks, things based on public queues do NOT make a competitive game.

(tokamak) #3

A game without a proper matchmaking system and ladder will rely on the effort that a small fraction of the playerbase is willing to put into organising matches. This leaves out 99.9% of the entire playerbase.

So beside all the obvious gameplay requirements, the ease of use for competitive play will be just as important. They rely on each other.

And that’s what Ghosts is doing right. From the start, from the very first match you play you have the feeling you’re competing against everyone you play with. You feel as if your matches matter. I’m not thrilled about the gameplay but the outcome has a lot of gravity to it. And that’s what adds an enormous amount of fun to public matches.

Which is why you really want to compare both of them.

(Protekt1) #4

Hasn’t the game been in open beta,aka release for f2p titles, for like over a year now? Seems silly to say the game has finally released, unless I am thinking about a different clancy shooter f2p.

(Mustang) #5

Nope, same game, just got renamed from “Online” to “Phantoms”.

(Protekt1) #6

Has it improved at all? I found it bad when I initially tried it and uninstalled pretty fast. It was also quite a long time to get into a match at the time.

(Nail) #7

falk, every second Tok post in here is about some other game, keep all this crap in OFF TOPIC, you’re cluttering up the forums

(Protekt1) #8

I think talking about other games in relation to DB is very relevant to gen discussion. Ignoring what other people are doing is a very poor approach to anything, especially in game development.

(shaftz0r) #9

i ignore terrible games all the time…

(tokamak) #10

Clans are fully integrated for example. Apparently they also count heavier towards the ladder? I don’t know about that last one the user guides are really simplistic.
http://ghost-recon.ubi.com/ghost-recon-phantoms/en-US/guide/guide.aspx#tcm19127221-Maintab-4

(Nail) #11

thanks for the downreps children, but to prove my point, there has been no discussion about DB, most has been “is it still ****ty”
like I said, it’s a feature from a game that Tok likes, it’s irrelevant to closed beta testing discussions, but certainly worth discussing elsewhere with a larger audience. it will still turn into BF and GTA analogies so have at it

btw, I did read the entire post, I read the whole thread, did you ?

(Protekt1) #12

I think I’ll check out the game to see what improvements they made, and if there is anything done well.

[QUOTE=Nail;501413]thanks for the downreps children, but to prove my point, there has been no discussion about DB, most has been “is it still ****ty”
like I said, it’s a feature from a game that Tok likes, it’s irrelevant to closed beta testing discussions, but certainly worth discussing elsewhere with a larger audience. it will still turn into BF and GTA analogies so have at it

btw, I did read the entire post, I read the whole thread, did you ?[/QUOTE]

He is trying to discuss features he likes in other games to be potentially applied to DB. Stop trying to derail the thread just cause you don’t personally like it.

“Dirty Bomb could definitely adopt a lot of these features because it completely draws the player into the online race to the top.” Featured in the OP. There has been discussion about DB. You may have read it, which I doubt, but you certainly didn’t comprehend what he was trying to accomplish.

“You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Nail again.”

(Christophicus) #13

The majority of the features you’re referring to Tomak, are features designed to help prevent people from leaving a game mid match. Moba titles generally heavily penalize those who leave matches early. I might be crazy, but I could have sworn that I’ve seen dev posts previously that mention in “ranked” play, they would be similarly tough as well. Please correct me if I’m wrong folks?

And to clarify; I do believe that it makes sense for the devs to at least evaluate such systems, and hopefully implement a few.
With that said, GRP’s matchmaking actually has a number of issues that become more apparent as you scale the leaderboard. I’m sure that there have to be better examples out there :p.

(Protekt1) #14

I like how it shows the last 10 or so shots you hit and damage, and the last shots hit against you and their damage and even where you were hit.

At first I thought this was one of the worst shooters I’ve ever played. After my second match the main thing I dislike is having your spread start high before zeroing in. Playing against other noobs I think I went like 40-10 cause once you understand the mechanics it is fairly simple. Crouch on cover, aim for head, and spray with a little bit of recoil control. Flank and hipfire people to death.

I liked the gamemode, which was control points and push further into the map after each point controlled with 2 rounds. The timer extending after first cap of a point made it a bit fairer because if the losing team during round 1 could stop them from capping too many, they could play defensively and just try to end round 1 with minimal loss to make a comeback during round 2. I think this mode could actually work for DB.

Most people here won’t like the gameplay mechanics (I barely do). They promote corner camping as basically the main way to play the game. In fact, it isn’t promoting, it is downright you must corner camp unless you’re flanking. Very tactical team oriented. People would probably like the pretty much lack of regen (probably takes like a minute to regen to full hp while sitting in cover and you don’t regen while out of cover).

(Mustang) #15

Nope, you are correct, leaving said matches will be heavily discouraged/penalised eventually.

(tokamak) #16

[QUOTE=Christophicus;501427]The majority of the features you’re referring to Tomak, are features designed to help prevent people from leaving a game mid match. Moba titles generally heavily penalize those who leave matches early. I might be crazy, but I could have sworn that I’ve seen dev posts previously that mention in “ranked” play, they would be similarly tough as well. Please correct me if I’m wrong folks?
[/QUOTE]

ETQW and W:ET tied players to the game through the campaign rewards. But DB has no such thing. So I’m really glad to hear there are rumours about other incentives, positive or negative to get players to play full round.

DB just isn’t the type of game that should allow easy dropping in and out of matches. It’s better to make pub play feel like organised scrims than some ongoing meatgrinder. It could still be a thing, but it would be akin to ‘training’ just separate from the ‘official’ mode of play.

And F2P players ARE prepared to wait for a couple of minutes if that makes their games more meaningful. That’s something that applies across every F2P genre out there.

(Protekt1) #17

The main thing I see phantoms doing well in terms of stopping people from rage quitting is match completion streaks which increases your ingame currency rewards for the next completed game and I guess continues to rise in value the more games you complete in a row.

(tokamak) #18

Yes! It increases the stakes and consequently makes the generic gameplay addictive.

(Protekt1) #19

It is really tempting to leave though when you get thrown into a match where your team is already being demolished. Maybe some leniency should be allowed for people who join late.

(Runeforce) #20

First, I agree with Nail’s first post. Second, your “crazy talk” gets tiring!
You have not really played the game (ok, fair warning,) and then want to discuss the ‘meta-game?’ Then you go on rambling about ‘match-making’ and ‘game-finding?’
Get a concept of the ideas (and words) you are using, plz! History is more then PR!
And then you continue to ramble on about authoritarian methods and how they incentivise the player.
Thank god you are not in charge of DB! Gz on one of your best bull**** posts, so far. You have really outdone yourself this time!

I expect to see another (loooong) bull**** post, were you will defend your bull**** speech and ideas.