Map times too long / defence-sided games

(Rex) #1

After watching all the shoutcasted matches, I’m afraid of the fastest time you can set in stopwatch, being just too long. I’m even more afraid of double fullholds with equal skilled teams, especially on the maps Camden, London Bridge and Whitechapel. If the overall fastest maptime is around 16mins for example, where the whole map is 20mins than there is not much room left for improvement.

In stopwatch you never want fullholds, you always want the attacker to win.
In Brink it was the other way round where the defending team was always winning and fullholds were common. I hope DB won’t suffer the same fate.

What do you think?

(INF3RN0) #2

Once spawn times reach the point that kills really matter, I don’t think it will be as much of an issue. A lot of it has to do with how some objs work and the map design as well.

(BomBaKlaK) #3

I’m agree with that point of view, objective design need some tweaks

(Humate) #4

The average set time should be about half of the total map time… and yes spawn times, map design, objective types (eg EV), ttk, player speed all contribute to this. Hopefully we start seeing some nice adjustments soon to rectify this.

(Kendle) #5

Part of the problem is objectives that need to be fought over for too long, especially the PDA objectives where the timer resets to zero if you don’t get it done pretty much in one go. Longer spawn times might help, but in general for competition you want the teams to fight like mad over an area, but once the attacking team have it they get done whatever it is that needs to be done. SD seem intent on preventing that by giving defence as much opportunity as possible to get the area back. This has changed with the longer spawn times in the last patch, but could do with a bit more tweaking maybe.

The bigger issue though is the number of objectives. Most maps could do with less. Camden for example would be an excellent map if it finished at the data-core delivery stage. LB would be cool if the EV stopped on the Bridge to blow out the doors and the final objective was to carry the data-cores all the way up the street to the where the EV finally stops currently (and the data-cores were instantly returnable just by touching them).

Considering SD made 6 maps for ET and only 1 was considered good for comp, they don’t have a good record in this department. :frowning:

(Anti) #6

Please don’t mistake ‘how things are now’ for intent, in many cases what we have right now is still first pass or unbalanced and needs work.

I know you folks don’t always see it but there is a lot of work that goes on with the ‘guts’ of the game that takes huge amounts of time meaning that at this stage of development we often don’t have the time for polish and balance that you expect.

As a good example the Level Designers have been spending a huge chunk of time fixing ‘step up’ and clipping issues over the last month that leaves little time for other stuff right now. This isn’t glamorous or fun work, and it’s not a ‘sexy’ feature that you folks will be excited about, but it’s another one of those things that will make a massive impact to the quality of the game even though most folks won’t really notice that that work was done (you only notice bad clipping when it’s not been fixed).

As we get closer and closer to release more of these core systems and elements will be locked down, giving us chance to polish more. Games improve their most in the last three months before release than at any other time.

As it stands we’re well aware that maps run for too long, we’d like to get the max length down closer to 16 mins and to ensure it’s easier to set times. We also want to focus test 5v5 more as, to be honest, we’ve not had enough games of this type yet or with varied enough levels of teams. Re-spawn times in SW are still fixed across the map’s duration rather than per objective, this also needs addressing, as does standardizing and balancing the rules around objective progress and decay etc.

So yes, lots to do :slight_smile:

(Samurai.) #7

Well the issue is that we get mixed messages between this and then saying most of the map development is set in stone and there is no changes that can be done due to the graphics level pass we are already at.

This is probably the most worrying issue for me for DB right now is that you are content (or appear content) with the map layout and design of Waterloo Terminus / White Chapel / London Bridge… to the point where it feels like you won’t touch the layout again. I believe there are massive fundamental flaws/improvements to be made in these 3 map designs which you guys at SD just seem to pass off onto every other characteristic in the game rather than directly address the issues at hand head on.

(Ashog) #8

Oh I thought it was already implemented, guess I didn’t take care to really check them out. A problem here is absense of spawn timer in hud, so in order to check spawntimes one needs to skip a spawn I guess, which noone does voluntarily :slight_smile:

(Anti) #9

[QUOTE=Samurai.;451816]Well the issue is that we get mixed messages between this and then saying most of the map development is set in stone and there is no changes that can be done due to the graphics level pass we are already at.

This is probably the most worrying issue for me for DB right now is that you are content (or appear content) with the map layout and design of Waterloo Terminus / White Chapel / London Bridge… to the point where it feels like you won’t touch the layout again. I believe there are massive fundamental flaws/improvements to be made in these 3 map designs which you guys at SD just seem to pass off onto every other characteristic in the game rather than directly address the issues at hand head on.[/QUOTE]

On the older more ‘arted’ maps the thing we can’t change at this stage is the larger structural elements of the map. This means the footprint can’t really change, buildings can’t be moved or realigned in a big way etc. We can still close some routes, we can still punch some holes in places, we can still close up windows etc. For those maps that’s the sort of limits we’re under and is why in some cases mechanics have been adjusted rather than the layout.

Map flow and map balance, whilst going hand in hand, can also be quite different things. As I said above objective times, spawn times etc are all still free to be changed. If you want an example of the kind of flow changes we might still be able to make I think Inferno’s post about secondary objectives, and some of the locations he picked, is probably a good example. He was picking places where he was making use of exist architecture but applying simple changes.

(Fendah) #10

May have a look on my ideas of LB. I also just suggested opening some new ways and move some spawnpoints. Perhaps some points are intresting for you guys later on.
http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/36465-Changes-London-Bridge-1

(pulley) #11

you guys really have to cancel that london bridge. This map will scare many many people who by accident play this map first. Its really the worst think of map layout i have seen in my 14 years of gaming…

(j4b) #12

i thought we played brink together?:smiley:
for me ist like the old goldrush map. just to Long :wink:

(pulley) #13

Brink whats that? New Energy Drink?

(Seanza) #14

No need to “cancel” London bridge. Just shorten the route and speed up the EV. Other than that, the map is actually ok.

(pulley) #15

Ya but as you can read they cant shorten the route… They dont have enough time for that. So best and quickest think let it out of the game

(ImageOmega) #16

This has been something that has been mentioned for a long time, but I feel as if it has fell on deaf ears or there was a surge of extremely casual players that chimed in for the longer map times. Maybe, the secret was to post this in the competitive forums all along since the response has been in overwhelming agreeance here. (FYI: I say casuals, not as if I’m some super competitive world champion player; at least not that competitive anymore. I just mean the people who are really…less skilled and don’t play at the same level or have the same mindset – hard to say without coming off as pretentious).

Back to the topic! I am a big fan of being able to set a time under 5 minutes. That means that your team executed everything PERFECTLY and your strategy went off without a hitch as well as demonstrating superior firepower (read: deathmatch skills) over the other team. When this is used in stopwatch the average length time including both sides would mean most maps would play out anywhere from 15-20 minutes. And, I think that is ideally what SD wants or at least that’s a number I got from Anti a few times, but maybe he only meant in objective.

If a team is able to set a time in under 5 minutes because they were perfect in their execution, then you should expect most average games and teams to set a time around 10 minutes. Having the window of opportunity there is huge! Part of the delay with certain maps is poor map design (I know I can elaborate on this here, but it’s all been said before) and/or EV speed. Need a way to speed up that EV and the idea of # of team members near the EV equals a percentage boost does help. The base speed should be significantly faster though in my opinion.

I think the spawn times are just about right and kills do matter right now. The game still does heavily favor defense in certain areas. Things like alternate routes that give the attackers a significant advantage or a slightly increased defensive spawn time or spawns slightly moved would help.

I assume a concern is not to piss people off because they have to wait to respawn. Well, my counterpoint would be all the games that feature a last man standing mode such as Counter-Strike or Clan Arena. You can die really early and wait a few minutes to play again, but those modes are the overwhelmingly most popular. Also, there are parts of Dirty Bomb that emulate MOBA’s and in those you can face some severely long respawn times making deaths extremely more meaningful. Not to mention for every death your opponent gets ahead in their skill trees or gold in MOBA’s. Maybe we’ll see that in Dirty Bomb when those tiers are introduced? Long respawn times should not be feared. While on paper they don’t sound fun, in game people don’t mind.

(rookie1) #17

Can you Mention 3 of your most dislike(or what people will be scare of) of this map commencing by the most important …(just curious)

(rand0m) #18

[QUOTE=ImageOmega;452033]This has been something that has been mentioned for a long time, but I feel as if it has fell on deaf ears or there was a surge of extremely casual players that chimed in for the longer map times. Maybe, the secret was to post this in the competitive forums all along since the response has been in overwhelming agreeance here. (FYI: I say casuals, not as if I’m some super competitive world champion player; at least not that competitive anymore. I just mean the people who are really…less skilled and don’t play at the same level or have the same mindset – hard to say without coming off as pretentious).

Back to the topic! I am a big fan of being able to set a time under 5 minutes. That means that your team executed everything PERFECTLY and your strategy went off without a hitch as well as demonstrating superior firepower (read: deathmatch skills) over the other team. When this is used in stopwatch the average length time including both sides would mean most maps would play out anywhere from 15-20 minutes. And, I think that is ideally what SD wants or at least that’s a number I got from Anti a few times, but maybe he only meant in objective.

If a team is able to set a time in under 5 minutes because they were perfect in their execution, then you should expect most average games and teams to set a time around 10 minutes. Having the window of opportunity there is huge! Part of the delay with certain maps is poor map design (I know I can elaborate on this here, but it’s all been said before) and/or EV speed. Need a way to speed up that EV and the idea of # of team members near the EV equals a percentage boost does help. The base speed should be significantly faster though in my opinion.

I think the spawn times are just about right and kills do matter right now. The game still does heavily favor defense in certain areas. Things like alternate routes that give the attackers a significant advantage or a slightly increased defensive spawn time or spawns slightly moved would help.

I assume a concern is not to piss people off because they have to wait to respawn. Well, my counterpoint would be all the games that feature a last man standing mode such as Counter-Strike or Clan Arena. You can die really early and wait a few minutes to play again, but those modes are the overwhelmingly most popular. Also, there are parts of Dirty Bomb that emulate MOBA’s and in those you can face some severely long respawn times making deaths extremely more meaningful. Not to mention for every death your opponent gets ahead in their skill trees or gold in MOBA’s. Maybe we’ll see that in Dirty Bomb when those tiers are introduced? Long respawn times should not be feared. While on paper they don’t sound fun, in game people don’t mind.[/QUOTE]

Game set and match.

golfclap
100% agree with this post.
Obviously waiting 40 seconds to respawn isn’t a big deal if cs between its 3 versions can manage 100K players daily, and clan arena on qlive is the most played and not to mention FINALLY being played for money at quakecon.

Nice post image. My thoughts exactly but you take the time to make it sound better and more polite then I can :).