No Love for Execution?

[Szakalot]

I would like to argue that the only reason that is the case right now is because people are playing it wrong.

you’re gonna need to argue that a bit more,as with 2 min on the clock there is no reason to split your push as attack, better focus firepower and pick defense one by one. To which the only counter is doing the exact same thing on defense.

[jazevec]

I think this is due to the fact players in Splash Damage games are more bullet spongy. It’s harder for an exceptional (or lucky) player to wipe out a whole team on his own. The recent change with no team bullet collision will make it harder still.

[PixelTwitch]

you’re gonna need to argue that a bit more,as with 2 min on the clock there is no reason to split your push as attack, better focus firepower and pick defense one by one. To which the only counter is doing the exact same thing on defense.

Sure you make a solid point but in future we will see defense team either playing for retake or doing set positions with rotations. Having played a lot of games that have a search and destroy mode I can say confidently this is how it almost always starts out until teams start working in strats. I mean if you put 10 people in a match of counter strike that have never played the game before the same exact thing would happen.

I mean I could be wrong…
I just feel its unlikely since its a trend we see in many games.

[Demolama]

Pretty sad when the game play that was not their focus is actually better than SW/OBJ that was supposed to be the game’s core play style.

[Szakalot]

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;539278]Sure you make a solid point but in future we will see defense team either playing for retake or doing set positions with rotations. Having played a lot of games that have a search and destroy mode I can say confidently this is how it almost always starts out until teams start working in strats. I mean if you put 10 people in a match of counter strike that have never played the game before the same exact thing would happen.

I mean I could be wrong…
I just feel its unlikely since its a trend we see in many games.[/QUOTE]

thats where revive comes in. CSGO style S&D promotes camping and getting picks, once a person is dead, they stay dead. Thus a 5 player push is vulnerable to spray downs, losing 3+ members in the process and making retakes easy. No such thing in DB, except a few instagib mechanics a swarmy push will deny you gibs, and at worst case trade equally

[Kendle]

… with 2 min on the clock there is no reason to split your push as attack, better focus firepower and pick defense one by one. To which the only counter is doing the exact same thing on defense.

Which is where the feeling of greater team-work comes from, all of the attacking team fighting all of the defending team at the same time, rather than un-coordinated 1-v-1’s going on all over the place as is the case in Obj (especially after the 2nd and subsequent spawns as teams become more and more disjointed).

Although this weekend it was 7-v-7 and they were pub servers, so there was often a 4/3, 5/2 split due to lack of play-calling / proper organisation. In a 5-v-5 competitive match I’d expect it to be very different. But even on pubs just the basic game-mode on it’s own, with its single “objective guy”, and Medics being hugely more important due to one-life, focuses the game-play in a way that rarely happens on public Obj servers.

I think this is due to the fact players in Splash Damage games are more bullet spongy. It’s harder for an exceptional (or lucky) player to wipe out a whole team on his own.

And with Medics making it yet harder to ace the opposition this is one of the key differences to other games that have a bomb / defuse game mode.

… in future we will see defense team either playing for retake or doing set positions with rotations. Having played a lot of games that have a search and destroy mode I can say confidently this is how it almost always starts out until teams start working in strats. I mean if you put 10 people in a match of counter strike that have never played the game before the same exact thing would happen.

edit: what Szakalot said above ^

I honestly think Medics + spammy classes like F/Ops + high HP / damage classes like Rhino etc. give DB style S&D a very different dynamic to “traditional” CS style S&D.

[PixelTwitch]

[QUOTE=Kendle;539295]edit: what Szakalot said above ^

I honestly think Medics + spammy classes like F/Ops + high HP / damage classes like Rhino etc. give DB style S&D a very different dynamic to “traditional” CS style S&D.[/QUOTE]

I will say that it may give it a very different feel to CS style S&D but the dynamic will end up something similar.
Right now we have barely scratched the surface of what Dirty Bomb has to offer in terms of strats and playstyles.
Really it depends on how “competitive” it becomes. Eventually teams will start creating meta in order to progress, that meta will then start leaking down to the lower tiers and we will see more planned out strats. While individual fights will remain very different, I am sure the game mode will actually start slowing down a bit as time progresses.

[Kendle]

Don’t doubt it, I started playing ET at the very beginning, 2003, and there were a wide variety of strats employed, even by the RTCW teams moving over, because ET had more “stuff”, but even 2 short years later when I stopped playing the best teams had worked out the best strats and everyone else had copied them. It then became all about how well the accepted best strats were executed. I’m sure that’s true of any game.

[Domipheus]

You can add a 3rd person to the Execution love club, btw. I’d love to get some execution MM/pugs

[Szakalot]

Some execution feedback;

Imo there are two main problems with Execution:

• The snowball effect/no comeback mechanic
• TDMy nature (rounds are rarely won due to plant&hold, or time running out)

The snowball effect is here to stay, there is no simple way to address it, once you are left alone, you will not clutch a win against 3+ equally skilled players. Once half your team is down, the opponent can group up, revive anyone down and pick you off one by one. However, there might be ways to affect how often does this come into play. Fortunately, it also addresses the TDMy nature of execution.

Make the rounds faster! The timer could easily be dropped to 1:30 or even 60 seconds on a smaller map like Canal. This is 1:30/60 seconds to plant, not for the entire round; putting the pressure on the attackers to actually attack! Similarly the C4 timer could easily be dropped to 30-35 seconds. putting the pressure on defense to actually go and defuse, rather than just roam the map some more and get another pick

• at the moment there is no reason to actually try and protect the bombsites on defense.There is so much time on the clock that trying to hold people off/stall is silly, better just focus on getting the picks. In the unlikely event a bomb does get planted, there is SOO much time to run through the entire map, engage enemy at your terms and still defuse
• similarly for attack, there is no reason to bother planting. There is so much time, you can just roam the map hoping to get picks. Why bother planting a 50sec fuse if the fight will be over before the bomb ever blows up? e.g. In a 1v2 situation putting the bomb down will just give your position away, you are much better off trying to sneak around and take one of the players down
• Execution has those great moments when both teams are fighting over a choke, people hop in/out of fights to do damage and go back for heal, abilities are used to push people off position, catch a person off guard. Reducing round time will make these fights more meaningful. ‘Can we push past this team in the next 30 seconds?’ ‘Can we hold them off for another 20 seconds? - fall back and make a last ditch stand before the timer runs out’
• This is a fast-paced game, with the slow-paced timer it just feels like a TDM; the objectives are largely secondary to getting picks. If the round time is dropped the focus is brought back onto objectives. Just imagine a 60-75 seconds overground: attack tries to push one angle, gets stalled by an epic defense; now has to rotate and push the other bombsites with only 20-30 seconds on the clock.

This fight with a ticking clock always brings the best moments out of W:ET/ETQW/DB, time running out creates an unforgettable tension of ‘this is it’, and gives everyone on the server something to focus around.

Decreasing timer also:

• reduces the significance of the snowball effect, once you have a ~5v1 advantage the round is almost always over anyways (rather than another minute of the solo player trying to sneak around, with absolutely no hope of winning, and dead teammates getting bored to death)
• people that are dead have to wait less before playing again. This is a fast-paced game, people should be able to play more than they have to wait.

[Kendle]

Agree with all of that, especially reducing the fuse on the bomb, it’s way too long at the moment, and a shorter fuse would make it much more beneficial for defence to run an Engie. Neither team has to have an Engie as things stand (although they probably would if they have any sense), but a reduced timer would make the Engie even more useful, and make it all the more important for the team to protect their Engie thereby further promoting team-work.

[Fluffy_gIMp]

Some interesting and well thought out discussion, I have enjoyed reading them.

The snowball point is an important one, it does feel that there needs to be more factors to help turn the tide for the losing team, and the suggestion to reduce the timer is a good one, certainly something we can look into.

One little known feature that we had in the original WET was a limited lives mode, it made for very different gameplay in OBJ/SW, although I have spoken to very few people that knew of its existence

[montheponies]

There’s still an RTCW server running shrub limited lives … where ‘skulling’ seems to have become the objective.

As for Execution I should probably give it more of a chance, but just on principle want SW to be the main game mode so I can try and relive some of those classic RTCW moments …

[DarkangelUK]

[QUOTE=Fluffy_gIMp;539396]Some interesting and well thought out discussion, I have enjoyed reading them.

The snowball point is an important one, it does feel that there needs to be more factors to help turn the tide for the losing team, and the suggestion to reduce the timer is a good one, certainly something we can look into.

One little known feature that we had in the original WET was a limited lives mode, it made for very different gameplay in OBJ/SW, although I have spoken to very few people that knew of its existence :)[/QUOTE]

Much like the Mario Kart bomb boost when you’re in last place, I’m not a fan of artificial aids when you’re doing poorly. The problem should be fixed via a proper way to have even teams to begin with, not a handicap during gameplay to even it out. You’ve got a good thing going on here so keep it going, fix it in the back end, not in the gameplay itself.

[Szakalot]

Much like the Mario Kart bomb boost when you’re in last place, I’m not a fan of artificial aids when you’re doing poorly. The problem should be fixed via a proper way to have even teams to begin with, not a handicap during gameplay to even it out. You’ve got a good thing going on here so keep it going, fix it in the back end, not in the gameplay itself.

I also don’t think the snowballing has to be somehow fixed. In Csgo if a player gets a double/triple kill the round is often lost as well. In DB if one player gets a double making 5v3 or 7v5 you are definitely at a disadvantage too. There is less clutching scenario than CS, but thats okay, really.

Unlike CS, Execution is all about those big&extended teamfights. That is generally when the round is decided, and it really is fine that way. Now the problem is to bring this team fight closer to the winning/losing condition for each team, so the aftermath is quickly determined. Shorter round time indeed sounds like the simplest way to go about it.

You can come up with secondary objectives that allow dead players to respawn, etc. but imo that is a lot of extra work that dilutes the one-life experience. Better just focus on making sure that:

• the rounds are focused and intense
• there is as little downtime for dead players as possible

[Mustang]

One little known feature that we had in the original WET was a limited lives mode, it made for very different gameplay in OBJ/SW, although I have spoken to very few people that knew of its existence

Because it’s a horrible idea…

[ZGToRRent]

I would prefer Demolition like in MW2 with spawn waves and 2 bombsites to destroy before time will run out (Like terminal 2 obj.)

It will be hard to build balanced Execution without snowballing.

[Szakalot]

[QUOTE=ZGToRRent;539437]I would prefer Demolition like in MW2 with spawn waves and 2 bombsites to destroy before time will run out (Like terminal 2 obj.)

It will be hard to build balanced Execution without snowballing.[/QUOTE]

demolition mode def. would work great in this game as well. as a separate mode obviously. execution will always have a bit snowballing, but its fine; its part of the game mode really.

[jazevec]

Health Regeneration (and resource regeneration in general)
Don’t you think many problems come from health regeneration ? It’s not a big deal in the wave-based Objective mode, because waiting too long makes you fight another wave. But in Execution, health regeneration removes attrition. Cooldowns also reward taking your time. Why hurry as a fragger ? If your grenade misses, why not just wait for another opportunity ?

How about REMOVING health regeneration ?
How about STOPPING all cooldowns ? You spawn with 3 medpacks, that’s it!

If that sounds too radical, reducing round time would have similar effect. 2:00 is a lot in fast-paced Dirty Bomb. Movement speed is much slower in CS.

[ZGToRRent]

Damn, the concept of removing health regen is fantastic