Reducing the meat grind feel by increasing spacing

(shaftz0r) #21

i have yet to even bothered using that tunnel at all. its almost completely worthless until its time to plant

(tokamak) #22

The Siwa Oasis tunnel at the start was useful because it delivered you in a discrete position quite away from enemy lines.

The forward spawn was also a huge thing at the start. In this game it’s missing entirely. Yeah the fw spawn in the courtyard but that one is supposed to represent the caputurable flag. The actual command posts needs to be on top of the big stairs which would give the defenders an incentive to crawl out of their hiding holes and take risks to keep it out of the attacker’s hands. That would create a better back and forth than it does now. The maps becomes way more dynamic.

The one in the square should be a capturable spawn and it should be easier to capture. To compensate the defenders should have a better top positions to defend the actual wall from.

The bottom line is, SD has one of the most important and influential games in history to draw from, their very own game. Don’t tell me that all the brilliant stuff in W:ET got there by chance. Please show me that SD actually knew what they were doing back then.

(Hundopercent) #23

W:ET was far from there own game. It is literally a copy/paste from RtCW which was an already extremely successful game. You are correct though, it didn’t get there by chance. It got there by a superior development company. They’ve already had great success in copy/pasting RtCW perhaps they should do it again?

(shaftz0r) #24

perhaps? they’ve been trying to piggyback on that success in every game they’ve failed at developing. stop trying so hard to be something “different”. the mainstream has made being different very easy. RtCW/ET was/is considered one of the greatest comp games of all time. that should be a huge compliment and built upon. not tossed to the sidelines. building on a foundation is what keeps all of these ****ty games afloat. dont be afraid to build upon something that has almost no followup in our current gamescape.

(Protekt1) #25

I’m talking about past the wall where the 2 canisters are. The balcony and potentially the 3rd entryway into the area (by fixing the pump) is worth preventing the attackers from getting a steady hold on.

(tokamak) #26

[QUOTE=strychzilla;486301]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Castle_Wolfenstein

W:ET was far from there own game. It is literally a copy/paste from RtCW which was an already extremely successful game. You are correct though, it didn’t get there by chance. It got there by a superior development company. They’ve already had great success in copy/pasting RtCW perhaps they should do it again?[/QUOTE]

Sure but their maps were still a cut above the official ones. SD knows how to make maps that tick.

(BomBaKlaK) #27

Not since a long time …

(tokamak) #28

ETQW is still the most epic game I’ve ever played. Period.

It’s strange how easily you can forget even the best games, yet ETQW experiences keep lingering as cherished memories.

Brink was constrained by console requirements. I have no idea what it takes to make a console game work. All I know is that I enjoyed Brink on the xbox and I didn’t like it on the pc. Maps were linear and segmented. It helps to keep battles organised and easy to follow because stuff is a lot more hectic behind a controller, far away from a screen.

What I fear is going on with Extraction is that SD continued down this line. They’re once again free from console requirements but the maps are designed as if these limts are still in place. That’s a scary idea.

If that’s true then SD is behaving like a mighty elephant bound by a puny piece of rope simply because that was the same piece of rope it couldn’t break as a young cub.

(BomBaKlaK) #29

Since ETQW SD didn’t make any good map. (or game)

(attack) #30

sadly true

(warbie) #31

You mean the maps in RTCW? They were leagues ahead of the ones we had in ET. A mistake I think SD make with their maps is to add size and complexity at the detriment of gameplay. Extraction has made things worse by giving us tiny areas to fight in. The best RTCW/ET maps were relatively compact, had a focus on choke points and nice open, almost arena like areas to fight in. They encouraged teams to stay together and clash head on - which is where the great class synergy came from. Need ammo, an LT was nearly always near by. This isn’t the case in Extraction - we have these cod-like rabbit warren maps without clear front lines. Often when you need a medic or ammo you find yourself alone as everyone is involved in a tdm benny hill chase. The same with engineers - for the majority of the beta it wasn’t uncommon to be waiting endlessly for an engie to turn up. But rather than fix this by addressing the problem of poor maps, SD used a work around and let every class complete objectives. It’s so frustrating and doesn’t address the problem at all. There is no class synergy (something that it has been increasingly diluted in every game since RTCW) and as a result what I value most in games of this type - attacking waves clashing into a defending teams/choke points - is missing. How many times can anyone recall pushing forward with team mates all around them in Extraction? - medics picking up fallen people, protecting engies, rolling forward as the defenders desperately cling together to try and hold the attacking back. That’s what was most obvious the first time I played the Beach demo back in the day - it was amazing and unlike anything else before hand. CS, TFC, DoD - none had anything on this level of gameplay, and nothing else has since. //end rant

(Kendle) #32

I guess you mean SD’s RTCW maps were a cut above the official ones? To an extent I’d agree, they made Tram and Market Garden, 2 maps that had their own followings with dedicated servers playing just the one map for years (Pappa’s Tram and Jolt’s MG servers in particular). SD also had a couple of their maps included in the GOTY map pack, Dam and Rocket, which I’ve always considered to be seriously under-rated.

But these are maps that display the artistic talents of the map maker rather than gameplay awareness. None of them were played competitively, and of the 6 maps SD produced for ET only 1 survived as a competitive map (Radar) with others like Goldrush only returning to competition once it had been drastically changed by a community mapper.

I’ve never doubted SD’s raw talent, as artists they can hold their own with any game studio, but I’ve never ever really felt they “get” what objective gameplay is all about, not really, not at it’s very core. They’ve never produced a Beach, or a Base, or a Village (RTCW) or a Supply Depot (ET), and I think that’s because they don’t really know how.

(warbie) #33

Or an Ice. I agree.

I enjoyed Market Garden and Tram too btw. They were waaaay too big and throw away fun, but max the servers with players and there was good times to be had.

(montheponies) #34

Or Frostbite :slight_smile:

(Erkin31) #35

[QUOTE=BomBaKlaK;485674]i’d like to see the maps scale around the scale (maybe just a bit smaller) of Salvage, Volcano, Island or Sewer, and in this 4 maps there is so many ways to defend or attack, this is never the same fight over and over like it was in BRINK and like it is in Extraction. Waterloo is suppose to be an Oasis remake but look at the objectives and all the possibilities we have on Oasis, and now do the same with Waterloo. It’s like a playschool remake for dummies, and that the same for Cluster city vs goldrush. The maps from your previous game got something we all love over here, Freedom ! We are not lab rats !

All this maps I talk about (Sewer, Salvage, Volcano, Island, Oasis and some others) are good for 5v5 and that’s still fun with 12v12 !
In Extraction it’s better with 5v5, but when you play 8v8 pub it’s just a massive meat-grind, with only frontal fight, no real side way or secondary objective who can drastically change the fight issue, etc … so pub play is just boring and ppl left the game after few hours of testing.
Like said before No pub = No money = Dead game. And I’m pretty sure that bigger maps with more space, and more access, with better objectives design and real side obj can help a lot ! Even maybe save the game cause the gameplay is not so bad.[/QUOTE]

I totally agree with that.
I up this post because for me, this is the major problem of the game.

(Glottis-3D) #36

agreed on more scale.
and more fight-places.

sewer last objetc had 5 (five!!!) lines of defence.

  1. big fence+spawn
  2. entrance to the building after spawn taken
  3. sewer tunnels+balcony
  4. inside the sewers
  5. inside/ near the object

those 5 were totally different fight scenes. and they fluently went from one-another, depending on the battle situation.

(titan) #37

agreeeeeeeeeeeed, more maps like greenwhich please and less trainyards

(Violator) #38

I’ve had this on Whitechapel but not really anywhere else, spawnwave issues being the main culprit - its just really hard to regroup and a lot of players go off on a tdm rampage. However on defence there can be a good sense of cohesion at chokepoints (defence usually have a lot less distance to travel to regroup and the really low spawntime to get back into it). Victoria is a good example of this, at least on the first objective.

(Glottis-3D) #39

time to resurrect this thread.

played several days on WC and Bridge. and got extremely annoyed by the meatgrinding on those maps in several locations all throgh the EV-path. this is very dull and rage-bringing issue.

  • move away left building from the EV-path on Whitechapel 1st. 2-3 meters away, and put some boxes/cars/box-ladders there, so that EV-builders can have a chance to defend themselfs.
    -on Bridge, meatgrind is also strong, but mostly due to layout, not spacing. a lot of broken places there.
(tokamak) #40

Escort objectives are by far the hardest objective to balance. ETQW struggled with the MCP as well. Never really got it quite right in my opinion.