The formula has already been written.

(RasteRayzeR) #61

[QUOTE=pulley;438666]Because SD just doesn’t learn. They are making the same mistakes over and over again.

We are trying to help, the same way as you do inferno… the only difference is that we have our eyes open XD

For example why do they have to make those maps so extremely big? It doesn’t make any sense for me. White Chapel would be fine if it would end after the EV elevator. No need for the last struggling stage! Or building a second Wall to Waterloo! wtf![/QUOTE]

SD is learning from their mistakes and also from their successes which there are plenty of. Plus the ECHO system and opening the alpha so soon to players are proofs of that.

(Bloodbite) #62

[QUOTE=pulley;438666]Because SD just doesn’t learn. They are making the same mistakes over and over again.

We are trying to help, the same way as you do inferno… the only difference is that we have our eyes open XD[/QUOTE]

That opening statement is extremely negative and that sentiment contradicts everything you say afterwards.

How many other developers have opened themselves up to alpha… nay… pre-alpha levels of input from people that will make up their playerbase? Alpha is where the game is still being designed. Not just built, but designed.

Let’s not let things turn into a self-indulgent pissing contest by arguing someone else isn’t contributing like “we are”.

Bottom line… add your input, make your argument… if your ability to word it is strong enough to sway others, great. If it isn’t, accept that differing opinions are there, don’t keep hammering an idea/concept/argument simply for the sake of “being right” in the face of adversity. THAT is far from having our eyes open, and it does a lot to kill the unity we are supposed to have in this Alpha program.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… let’s leave these emotional escalations to the retard forums of other developers like Bioware and Blizzard, where the trolls roam free and graze fat off the land.

If you really believe SD haven’t learned from their mistakes (and that’s a loaded statement right there considering the powerful and destructive influence publisher preference has on development teams in this industry), then you are lacking in many details regarding what this game is about and our purpose here. I’d recommend doing a search for what Badman has posted to make it easier.

We are here to help, not dictate.

(pulley) #63

But its true Bloodbite. Since W:ET the people always complain about the same things.

  • To many weapons
  • To big maps
  • Unbalanced maps
  • **** movement

why didn’t they start changing these things?

(RasteRayzeR) #64

[QUOTE=pulley;438678]But its true Bloodbite. Since W:ET the people always complain about the same things.

  • To many weapons
  • To big maps
  • Unbalanced maps
  • **** movement

why didn’t they start changing these things?[/QUOTE]

Since W:ET :

Movement : have you played brink ? Big movement changes since the vanilla-quake (which I loved so much)
Too many weapons : I don’t see why this is an issue. Borderland 2 have bazillions of weapons, and it’s in the top 5 selling games this year.
Too big maps : play a bit DB, maps are a narrower, yet still provides opened and clear fighting zones.
Unbalanced maps : one word : ECHO

So I don’t really see your point in this … maybe that’s is just me. I see you are quite new here (welcome btw ^^), and I can only advise you to try playing more the Alpha of DB, then make a well founded point. Again, DB is not a W.ET 2 nor a copy of any previous SD game, and we can help make it great by giving constructive feedback.

(Bloodbite) #65

[QUOTE=pulley;438678]But its true Bloodbite. Since W:ET the people always complain about the same things.

  • To many weapons
  • To big maps
  • Unbalanced maps
  • **** movement

why didn’t they start changing these things?[/QUOTE]

Why don’t SD start changing what’s already in DB thus far? Because we chitty chat about ideas faster than its possible to make changes to the game, and they do have to follow a structured work pattern. They’re focusing on a small amount of things and making sure to get them right before moving on to whatever it is we’ve started talking about, impatient as we are to wait for THAT part of the game to start testing/implementation.

And partly because they have their design document outline… the big maps for example are fairly useless with how few we are, and how stunted class use is right now. I imagine ETQW was horribly unsatisfying just having vehicles and raw objective skills to test with… no turrets/artillery/etc. How we look at the maps now is based on what we’re used to… and there’s room to improve/evolve the objective system on top of all that. Who’s to say we can’t have a few large maps that are in a sense like Grand Theft Auto… 2 or 3 major objectives available at once, do one and it leads you closer to the next, do the second one and it cancels out what could have happened with the 3rd option… or possibly present a whole different 2nd tier of objectives based on which starting objective is completed.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think this game style could evolve that dramatically by the time DB reaches beta.

… but point here being that the maps will play differently when there’s more of the game IN the game. If we still don’t like them (and some of us will), we can at that point do what we can to impress upon SD the need to add a different, smaller (or whatever) style of maps in their next content update.

Gotta remember they’re starting from scratch with this game too… scratch meaning the Unreal engine. And we all know that the Unreal engine has few examples where development teams took the time to really REALLY tweak their movement variables properly.

All of that and… no matter how perfect this game could be, there will be people whining about the game not giving them the repeat experience of those golden memories. I have mine when it comes to W:ET, ETQW to a lesser degree… but people need to accept they devoted how many hundreds of hours to a game? Time to move on with their lives… otherwise there are 2 options… keep playing the old games or make it yourself. UDK, CryEngine, Unity… three great engines that are easily learned and free to use AND publish these days.

(pulley) #66

[QUOTE=RasteRayzeR;438688]
So I don’t really see your point in this … maybe that’s is just me. [/QUOTE]

thats it! No questions anymore

(INF3RN0) #67

[QUOTE=pulley;438666]

We are trying to help, the same way as you do inferno… the only difference is that we have our eyes open XD[/QUOTE]

http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/35345-Back-to-the-Basics

That was about as far as I would go in terms of “what needs to happen” vs “what I’d like to happen”.

-fast paced fluid movement
-reliable shooting mechanics
-multiple choke point map layouts with spawn waves
-class specific map interactions

Class balance is too obscure without those things happening first really.

I still don’t see how feedback like “make it simple” or “just copy this game to the detail” is giving anything new a chance to develop. Not to mention saying that every game that wasn’t RTCW wasn’t as good. There’s diehards from every game that can argue how their game was better to the bitter end. You don’t need to follow one formula to have a good or balanced game… with that kind of thinking we would just get the same thing over and over.

(Kendle) #68

Oh well, might as well post some more, can’t get a game, 1 server full, all others empty …

Inferno, your back to basics thread was on the right lines, I just think we (or at least many people of this forum) disagree on what the basics are that we should be getting back to.

For example, my pet peeves, health regen and ammo racks. How do you balance the class that dispenses health when everyone gets health anyway, it’s like playing with a sound system trying to adjust specific levels for the right mix but having background noise scupper any attempt. Health regen is background noise preventing us from properly tweaking the Medic class.

That’s not to say removing regen would be a backwards step, or that we should do it just because RTCW did, or that disagreeing with something SD have added means we’re being closed-minded and are anti innovation.

Removing health regen is simply back to basics, and allows us to then properly evaluate the Medic’s role. From there we can then innovate.

For instance, DB has introduced a new mechanic to the game, characters within classes with their own loadouts. This gives us scope to develop outwards from the (more) solid foundation of class distinction free of background noise. We could, for example, have different sorts of Medics, one that dispenses old style fixed health packs, one that dispense new style regen packs, and another that dispenses an “area of effect” single pack (per charge) that heals many team-mates at once, perhaps based on their distance from the pack, to encourage players to stick together, or promote the use of squads / fire-teams etc.

We could have a F/Ops that constructs an ammo rack, as opposed to a F/Ops that dispenses ammo packs. This could be a choice the F/Ops makes dependent on map. A smaller map, or one that has more defined front lines, might suit a rack rather than packs for example.

You can innovate how the classes perform their roles, but only once you’ve established what those roles are, and not while you’re blurring them or undermining them with other mechanics. In the examples given above any new Medic abilities have to be balanced against the competing mechanic of global regen, as well as everything else they would need to be balanced against, making innovation even harder.

As far as mention of RTCW is concerned I’m simply advocating it as the “first known good configuration”, a solid foundation from which to start, not an end in itself.

(tokamak) #69

This is just spot on!

Currently it does feel like SD is shoving the class abilities on the carpet. There’s a quote for your board meetings :wink:

We’re currently in an environment of game mechanics that make it unable to clearly assess the classes in their function.

The medic seems to be the biggest culprit because this is the most polar class in the game. Change one thing and he becomes worthless, change another and he becomes a titan of the gods. And it really doesn’t help that this class is already wrapped in all kinds of mechanics that are now tied to other things (like health regen) that were initially only in place to compensate for either his power or the limited way in which players fulfilled his actual function.

Only once this guy has gone back to the drawing board you can start re-evaluating all the other guys and gals as well. But currently too much in this game stands or falls with the performance of the medic and it simply suffocates an other development that could be tested.

(INF3RN0) #70

[QUOTE=Kendle;438823]Oh well, might as well post some more, can’t get a game, 1 server full, all others empty …

Inferno, your back to basics thread was on the right lines, I just think we (or at least many people of this forum) disagree on what the basics are that we should be getting back to.
[/QUOTE]

Yea I agree with pretty much everything your saying here, however I was just trying to narrow down the list to the root of it all. Some things have been deemed necessary simply because of the way the game currently functions, so I really would like SD to be able to tell us officially that the base game elements are final first of all, and if not just to focus their patch updates on getting them to that stage.

(montheponies) #71

Playing devils advocate, BUT health regen and ammo racks are crowd pleasers. take that away and add in spawnwaves with long respawn times (like 30s) and arguably you’ll have alienated a lot of folk who wont stick around long enough to realise the benefits of the alternative teamwork orientated setup.

In an ideal world I’d do away with them, but pragmatically I think the approach to be taken would be to have them settable on the server. Same as team damage/killing etc. Think OSP v Shrub for the RTCW inclined…

(nailzor) #72

Yeah it’s tough to please everyone as we see on these forums day in and day out :wink:

I am not a fan of ammo bins or the amount of ammo you have on first spawn because it makes people not require to have a field ops in their mix of things and the primary use of the field ops is for the long range damage of the gun + airstrike or arty for EV damage.

By removing ammo bins and reducing the amount of ammo that all classes spawn with it would be essential for a field ops to be in the mix of things at all times - it would promote team play and field ops would be ammo dropping machines! You would have to have a field ops if you wanted to push at all.

(warbie) #73

Agreed. Ammo racks and health regen aren’t doing class balance any favours.

(Maca) #74

[QUOTE=Kendle;438823]For instance, DB has introduced a new mechanic to the game, characters within classes with their own loadouts. This gives us scope to develop outwards from the (more) solid foundation of class distinction free of background noise. We could, for example, have different sorts of Medics, one that dispenses old style fixed health packs, one that dispense new style regen packs, and another that dispenses an “area of effect” single pack (per charge) that heals many team-mates at once, perhaps based on their distance from the pack, to encourage players to stick together, or promote the use of squads / fire-teams etc.

We could have a F/Ops that constructs an ammo rack, as opposed to a F/Ops that dispenses ammo packs. This could be a choice the F/Ops makes dependent on map. A smaller map, or one that has more defined front lines, might suit a rack rather than packs for example.

You can innovate how the classes perform their roles, but only once you’ve established what those roles are, and not while you’re blurring them or undermining them with other mechanics. In the examples given above any new Medic abilities have to be balanced against the competing mechanic of global regen, as well as everything else they would need to be balanced against, making innovation even harder.[/QUOTE]

This
It should be a class based team game. I don’t care if it’s geared towards pro or pub or trying to acchieve both, or if it’s hard or easy to pickup, but it should be geared for class based team game. I personally find it hard to justify these things that marginalize the abilities of classes by making the game more easy for first timers.
The classes in this game should be powerful in what they do, they should be needed for what they do. In the future, people who try this game might say things like “why is my ammo running out?” “why can’t I survive without getting health”, these people are saying this because they were expecting that the classes didn’t matter. They were expecting it, because the game doesn’t tell you that hey, you need these other classes, it just sort of hints it, that it would kind of be better if you had these classes but you know you don’t need to, do whatever you want pleasedontleave.
If the game and the side-material doesn’t clearly tell the new players that hey, this game is different compared to all those other shooters because here it actually MATTERS what class you pick, you get these GREAT things only you can do. It would be much more SIMPLER for new players, if it was very clear. Like currently everyone always goes through this assessment in their head when they get hit, should I just wait or try find a medic. If the answer was clear cut people would actually know what they need to do at every point. But if the classes roles are muddled by exterior things, you can never give unique things to them.
I don’t know, maybe class oriented thinking is just so natural to me, but I don’t think it’s something that would be impossible to teach, at least if the game said very clearly what you need to do, instead of giving these side routes which confuse things.

And like I said, I don’t care if it’s easy or not for first timers. If your data shows that lack of health is a REAL gamestopper for so many players, give everyone regen health, but for god’s sake take away the medics healing, make the medic a powerful reviver or something else. That way the mechanic doesn’t interfere with the classes mechanics, as they are currently. This way the thing that should be the most important aspect of the game, class-based team objective, isn’t undermined.

(pulley) #75

[QUOTE=INF3RN0;438809]http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/35345-Back-to-the-Basics

That was about as far as I would go in terms of “what needs to happen” vs “what I’d like to happen”.

-fast paced fluid movement
-reliable shooting mechanics
-multiple choke point map layouts with spawn waves
-class specific map interactions

Class balance is too obscure without those things happening first really.

I still don’t see how feedback like “make it simple” or “just copy this game to the detail” is giving anything new a chance to develop. Not to mention saying that every game that wasn’t RTCW wasn’t as good. There’s diehards from every game that can argue how their game was better to the bitter end. You don’t need to follow one formula to have a good or balanced game… with that kind of thinking we would just get the same thing over and over.[/QUOTE]

It all comes down to RtCW because SD uses the RtCW Gaming mechanics. If they really don’t wonna compete to RtCW they should have made up ther own game…

(Kendle) #76

I’m sure that’s SD’s thinking as well, but I wonder why previous games haven’t suffered from this? Are today’s gamers really that stupid, or impatient? I managed to get into RTCW as my first ever online game without a training video, without a shed-load of ammo, without health regen and having to wait up to 40 seconds to re-spawn on some maps. Has gaming really changed that much in 12 years?

At the end of the day you can’t have in-game mechanics that allow players NOT to play as a team, and then expect them to play as a team.

(pulley) #77

[QUOTE=montheponies;438835]Playing devils advocate, BUT health regen and ammo racks are crowd pleasers. take that away and add in spawnwaves with long respawn times (like 30s) and arguably you’ll have alienated a lot of folk who wont stick around long enough to realise the benefits of the alternative teamwork orientated setup.

In an ideal world I’d do away with them, but pragmatically I think the approach to be taken would be to have them settable on the server. Same as team damage/killing etc. Think OSP v Shrub for the RTCW inclined…[/QUOTE]

thats right! It all comes down to release 2 game types. Public and Competitive! Don’t see any way pass this option…

(nailzor) #78

I agree… but somewhat I see what Anti is saying when he states that the gameplay needs to be “relatable” to the public.

So if a pub player plays the game, then goes to TwitchTV to watch a game, they should have an understanding of what is going on - but also realizing that they are watching higher level players that stream or are in tournaments etc (if that is who they are watching).

But I also believe that in the grand scheme of things, if this game is done right - and I believe SD will do it right with our feedback - there will be the ability to turn on and off EVERY feature that is a part of the game for server admins.

This game NEEDS to have the ability to be hosted on LAN, it needs that customization, it does NOT need the “Always On DRM” of SimCity(holy crap what a flop).

My 2 cents.

(montheponies) #79

Unfortunately I think it has to some extent, and not for the better. Lot more choice of games and platforms - it’s a crowded place and I dont necessarily see folk being attracted to this as we were with RTCW. Dont want to console bash, but a lot of issues stem from that, so perhaps this being PC release only may mittigate that to some degree.

RTCW was also my first online game, originally playing on 56k, so engineer suited as I had no chance of killing anyone. 40s spawntimes on beach certainly taught you to appreciate timing your /kill.

Shrub pretty much had a lot of the features - more ammo, weapon and pack pickup etc didnt break the game. No matter what mechanics are used you can be certain some will do their own selfish thing anyway.

(Hundopercent) #80

[QUOTE=Bloodbite;438676]That opening statement is extremely negative and that sentiment contradicts everything you say afterwards.

How many other developers have opened themselves up to alpha… nay… pre-alpha levels of input from people that will make up their playerbase? Alpha is where the game is still being designed. Not just built, but designed.

Let’s not let things turn into a self-indulgent pissing contest by arguing someone else isn’t contributing like “we are”.

Bottom line… add your input, make your argument… if your ability to word it is strong enough to sway others, great. If it isn’t, accept that differing opinions are there, don’t keep hammering an idea/concept/argument simply for the sake of “being right” in the face of adversity. THAT is far from having our eyes open, and it does a lot to kill the unity we are supposed to have in this Alpha program.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… let’s leave these emotional escalations to the retard forums of other developers like Bioware and Blizzard, where the trolls roam free and graze fat off the land.

If you really believe SD haven’t learned from their mistakes (and that’s a loaded statement right there considering the powerful and destructive influence publisher preference has on development teams in this industry), then you are lacking in many details regarding what this game is about and our purpose here. I’d recommend doing a search for what Badman has posted to make it easier.

We are here to help, not dictate.[/QUOTE]

Blizzard did for SC2 and the game is phenomenal. They had pro players guiding them from conception to the final stages.