The Truth

(V1cK_dB) #1

Brink was promising. I heard about class based multiplayer. Medics, revives, objectives, etc. I thought…great! SD is making the game? Awesome! Sounds like my favorite shooter of ALL time RTCW!! Heard about no 1-hit kills, skill based movement, etc. It all sounded fantastic! Then I played Brink. It had all of that. Except the shooting was not good (spread, rate) and the movement didn’t differentiate between good and bad players (press 1 button…seriously?).

Therefore Brink failed. SD thought that their games were popular just because of the gametypes and class based system. They were only half right. They missed the other half of the formula. The “MAGIC”. Shooting and movement. THAT is what made previous SD games legendary. More than the class based objective gametype formula. The result was that Brink tried to be different than COD but it didn’t offer the gunplay necessary to attract competitive gamers away from COD. It was generic. Nothing special.

Now I hear about Dirty Bomb. I’m reading through all of the threads, comments, etc. It all feels so familiar. I’ve been here before. Feels like when Brink was about to be released. You can sense the hope in the posts from oldschool RTCW/W:ET and even QW players just HOPING that this game will have that “MAGIC” that I spoke of earlier. People getting excited about quicker revives, healthpacks, etc that they saw in the video. It all feels like SD listened to some of the complaints about Brink. Maybe they did. Some of it DOES look better. My concern? I don’t see that the 2 major flaws with Brink have been addressed and if I’m correct this game won’t be any better.

I’m also worried that SD doesn’t even know what made their games great. They think that it’s just the objective and class based gameplay and they have no clue that it was that AND their unique gunplay and movement! The gameplay vids don’t really have me convinced that they have addressed those 2 fundamental aspects of what made their previous games great…AND different. I saw sprinting, red player names above enemies with their healthbars (flying helmets or missing helmets anyone?) are all indicators that SD still doesn’t know. I hope I’m wrong. I really do. I don’t think I am. I guess I’ll find out soon.

Prove me wrong.

(acutepuppy) #2

What broke Brink was being unfinished, with bad marketing, and too strong a focus on character and weapon customization, and not simple things like a friendly UI, a functional HUD, smooth gameplay, quality netcode, and they seemed to have tried to develop one game for PS3, 360, and PC. It was simply unfinished and never recovered.

Not to mention the movement scheme was all weirded out with the leaping, sliding, etc… Quake Wars handled very well, but in my opinion was hurt by long, slow, and ultimately useless quality assurance from Activision, along with core issues in the idTech 4 engine.

(jazevec) #3

There’s a lot of truth in this post. Do you know a computer game which was played primarily for teamplay ? I don’t. Brink made player numbers matter more than skill, and had almost MMO-like mechanics. Tons of buffs, status effects. It was a trainwreck. ET:QW had many mechanics and maps designed to shine when there’s teamplay. The game was only moderately succesful.

Speaking of magic in shooting and movement: let’s give credit where it’s due, to id Software and Nerve(who designed multiplayer). They made RTCW, and W:ET was heavily based on RTCW multiplayer. Which was the game of the year. Check out this video:


If it looks extremely similar to W:ET, it’s because it is. Splash Damage added Covert Op, which is of little use except hill humping, mortar (spawncamping 95% of the time) rifle grenades, made panzerfaust explosion smaller, changed mp40 rate of fire slightly. W:ET was a RTCW mod/map pack.
(BioSnark) #4

Natural Selection 2, most traditional class based (tank, dps, healer) MMO RPGs and a truck load of co-op games or game modes with punishing difficulty have gameplay that is completely overshadowed by coordination of multiple players.

Probably because it was supposed to be the multiplayer for an RTCW expansion. Hmm.

Now, if we want to talk about magic in shooting and movement, how about we talk about the old arena shooter series or Tribes. I still don’t see the “magic” of shooting in games dominated by automatic, recoilless hitscan weapons but each to their own definitions of “magic”.

(warbie) #5

Many of us still do, though. I think you’ll find this is the primary reason die hard ET/RTCW fans still frequent these forums, and the primary reason that Splash Damage is a name people know. It’s certainly the only reason I’m here. You can downplay the gunplay all you like, but it’s the best I’ve seen in a multiplayer fps. The same goes for teamplay and movement. You mention recoilless hitscan weapons like this is a bad thing - these are good things. We could go on all day about which mechanic is better than whatever, but the reason I love the gunplay in ET and RTCW is because it feels like I’ve earned each kill and deserved each death. This is pretty much unique in fps, especially today, and is as important a unique selling point as class and objective based play (I’d argue more important after playing various shooters that have borrowed elements from RTCW/ET bar the gunplay and movement). None of the randomness and luck of Battlefield or CoD - it’s about reactions, situational awareness, positioning, being able to twitch aim and track. It’s so much more involved than anything else I’ve played and I’ve been playing since FPS started. So yeah, each to their own, but in this case V1cK_dB has indeed spoken the truth.

(wolfnemesis75) #6

Dirty Bomb looks like it has potential to be good. And one of my fellow gamer friends is helping test the game and offering feedback. Its still in the Alpha Stage, so things can get improved and problems ironed out. Looks like its going to be more of an organic development. I’ll be keeping an eye out to see what comes of it.

(BioSnark) #7

[QUOTE=warbie;418158]This is pretty much unique in fps, especially today, and is as important a unique selling point as class and objective based play. None of the randomness and luck of Battlefield or CoD - it’s about reactions, situational awareness, positioning, being able to twitch aim and track.[/QUOTE]The line prior to the one you quoted made mention of games that require the same elements with the addition of leading. As I said, each to their own, however.

(Falcon.PL) #8

Don’t get your hopes up! I remember case of a game that had a perfect marketing before release, so I bought it after just two patches and it basically was a piece of crap… compared to the masterpiece of the marketing, although the game was not so bad, I’d say above average… And btw - previous game from that very same developer was amazing(does not implicate next games will be, as you noticed)… I would not expect anything better than Brink, just to be capable of detecting whether or not it really will be…

It will have matchmaking based on facebook, no matter how hard we want it skill-based. It will have ironsights no matter how many ppl don’t see a point in putting that in. There will be some infantile system of “must stay close to get more XP and dove on the same grenade” instead of “real” benefits of cooperation, that rises upon the space of tactical solutions. There will be no VOIP turned on, because we protect ppl against teamplay, and they’re so fragile they would not withstand some mate who would find his role as critic of everyone around(weak nerves or quitting from responsibility?)… Funny that while it’s obvious when you rise your children slowly, you may not finish before it’s adult, and when you load first “bullet” into the chamber protectively you may get jammed at best(improvement)… ppl still tend to make the same mistakes over and over again… We shall expect a “popular” “cool” “facebook integrated” piece of ****, then we will be able to find the game quite good.

No hopes here, let’s just wait for the actual game… throughout the very good year 2013! Actually I should say different ;-).

(warbie) #9

I play NS2. I played mmos (that was a dark time!). Love co-op and play pretty much everything going that lets you play with friends. These aren’t the same elements - it’s a bit much of a stretch to compare an mmo to the teamplay in RTCW - but there are similarities, albeit basic in comparison. Nothing that gets close to, say, being a medic as you’re pushing through a bottleneck and the speed in which you have to make the right call and react, all while having to move well and fight fast moving targets. As V1cK_dB pointed out, it’s the movement and gunplay coupled with the gameplay elements that classes and objectives add that makes these games great.

Here’s one example, escaping with the docs. Something that in many games would be basic turned into something beautiful :slight_smile:

//youtu.be/VFqM9UGkuwE

And some hitscan recoiless shooting …

//youtu.be/eDKI_I_Lc4k

(Kendle) #10

100% agree with this, coming from RTCW -> ET -> more evolved games.

See for me the opposite applies, I don’t feel like I’ve earned anything, I’ve just put a red dot on a bad guy and pressed mouse1, woopey doo!

I haven’t had to worry about position / trajectory / movement, I can press mouse1 anytime without cost, I haven’t had to compensate for recoil, I haven’t had to think about exposing myself cos 3 headshots / 5 bodyshots means I can survive being hit long enough to jump back into cover and Med myself back to full health, I haven’t had to time my runs cos I can shoot while sprinting / running / walking, I haven’t had to worry about anything really other than point and click.

I find that very 2 dimensional and is probably the main reason I stopped playing that sort of game 7 years ago and moved on. I sincerely hope DB has more to it than that. Yes, if you’re a diehard ET fan you might have to learn some new skills, but so what, that’s all part of the fun, isn’t it?

(BioSnark) #11

I play NS2. I played mmos (that was a dark time!). Love co-op and play pretty much everything going that lets you play with friends. These aren’t the same elements - it’s a bit much of a stretch to compare an mmo to the teamplay in RTCW - but there are similarities, albeit basic in comparison.[/QUOTE]
By line I meant the sentence immediately prior to the one you extracted, not the previous miniparagraph. The games you are now discussing were specifically in response to Jazevec’s question, “Do you know a computer game which was played primarily for teamplay ?” Sorry for the ambiguity.

(warbie) #12

heh, I guess this is what it comes down to. What we want from a shooter. I strongly disagree about position and movement not being important, especially movement, but can see the attraction of trajectory and recoil (although I don’t find them that interesting as gameplay elements). You are downplaying the game a whole bunch, though, which I think you know. You could say the same things about Quake 3 and that takes insane amounts of skill. It sounds like what you value in a fps is what frustrates the hell out of me. You mention not having to worry about exposing yourself as deaths are slower (which isn’t true btw. Not as much as in current shooters, sure, but far from the way it is) which is something I see as a positive. Games with quick deaths reward pure luck as much as careful positioning. Decide to look right rather than left, whoops, dead. Headshots - not much need, a few bullets spammed in the right direction will do (which is nice and easy seeing how much iron sights slow down and retard gunplay. At least in their most common implementation). Seeing someone first shouldn’t be the most powerful deciding factor. As for sprinting and firing - learning to use sprint well in movement and in combat is in a different league of complexity than simply timing runs. Point and click, really?

Shooters haven’t moved on - they’ve become easier to play and more random and luck based. I get that people like nods at realism and like to lead their shots while hiding in cover and shooting at someone who hasn’t seen them yet, remembering to account for recoil of course, but this doesn’t do anything for me at all and there’s already a million and one games that do just that. The worst possible outcome would be to take this gameplay and add classes and objectives from ET/RTCW. We’d end up with some weird hybrid that doesn’t know what it wants to be.

(warbie) #13

Whoops - that’s one overly long reply I didn’t need to make then :confused: I agree. Isn’t that what’s great about RTCW/ET/ET:QW, though? That they take the ‘magic’ in shooting and movement from arena shooters and use it to make teamplay more interesting.

(Ruben0s) #14

10char oops

(Ruben0s) #15

I hope that this game will still have people playing the game after 2 weeks.

I still get hyped when I hear that Splashdamage is going to release a new game, but tbh I think that I will never enjoy a game again like I did with Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (Demo) and W:ET. Playing online was something special at that time and for me completely new. No matter how good this game will be, I will never get the same feeling like I had with those games.

(Kendle) #16

That’s the most relevant consideration, not whether it should have ET’s guns, or COD’s guns, or some other game’s guns. The game should know what it wants to be and everything should be geared around that. Brink, and I’d suggest ET:QW, both failed in that respect.

Assuming what it wants to be is an objective class based game, what gun model best promotes that? To be fair I’d suggest a low damage model, because high damage rewards camping, and it’d make attacking un-necessarily difficult unless they really get the map balance right (and SD have never demonstrated they’re capable of doing that), so low damage is probably a good starting point (tho I’d suggest ET is at the extreme end of low damage).

Also, add true classes (whereby ONLY “class A” can do “thing A”) and you have less need to distinguish classes by weapon, you could in fact give everyone the same gun and only distinguish by what else each class can do (which again is where ET’s at for the most part).

For me though it would then become a rather flat game. Yes, I might get a tear in my eye remembering the “good old days” of ET (tho on reflection were they really that good compared to what I’ve done since?), but I’d soon remember why I stopped playing it. No variety in gun play, everyone forced to play the same way, only one definition of “skill”. Medics, if they can self-heal, would instantly become the de-facto soldier etc.

However I see no reason why an objective based game shouldn’t have a mix of guns, fast firing weak SMGs for the ET crowd, slower more powerful Assault Rifles for those who prefer a more “tactical” approach, and high damage (Sniper) Rifles for the lone wolf sneaky bastards. :slight_smile: I’ve certainly played games that achieve this (BF3 Rush / MOH Combat Mission).

I’d like to see DB at least attempt it. Brink failed, IMO, because of bad maps and bugs (and no SDK), not because it didn’t copy / paste ET’s gun play. ET:QW failed, IMO, because it tried to add vehicles and large maps to the objective game mode, I certainly don’t remember playing either and thinking, “hmm, these guns are a bit pants” (well, I might have done, but there were other things more majorly wrong with them to worry about than the guns).

(jazevec) #17

This bothers me about Splash Damage games. They design classes in semi-realistic way. For example, they give sniper rifle to Covert Op. The problem ? Covert Op has numerous other abilities that are better used up close. So when you need to open battery door, blow up assault ramp or command post with satchel, or deploy radar - you can’t count on your 4 other Covert Ops doing it, because they’re socializing at the hill. Sniper rifle encourages playing lone wolf, so it is a good fit for Soldier. If you want covert ops playing as lone wolf, give him health regeneration, ammo regeneration, or something else that makes them more independent. Also, weapons that require very sneaky play are shotgun, flamethrower, and handgrenade. In Q3, that would be Plasma Gun(no, really) because it’s most efficient up close. If you want to make a class that must be played sneaky to be effective, give him these things, realism be damned. Flamethrower in a semi-realistic setting would be slightly odd, but on a Strogg Infiltrator ? Perfect. At least they had the sense remove scoped AR from medics.

However I see no reason why an objective based game shouldn’t have a mix of guns, fast firing weak SMGs for the ET crowd, slower more powerful Assault Rifles for those who prefer a more “tactical” approach, and high damage (Sniper) Rifles for the lone wolf sneaky bastards. :slight_smile: I’ve certainly played games that achieve this (BF3 Rush / MOH Combat Mission).

ET:QW had all of these. The “tactical” gun was GPMG, stance matters hugely when using it. But the gun wasn’t very popular. At long distance, it was a less effective sniper rifle, that took longer to set up. At short distance, you were less mobile when using it properly and took more damage. At medium range it was reasonable, but I never found myself thinking: “Gee, I’d love to have GPMG now !”. One thing it was surprisingly good at was damaging deployables and vehicles, but Sniper Rifle was the #1 weapon against flyers (unless you can reliably pull off dumb fire hits against targets moving in 3D, far away)

(BioSnark) #18

[QUOTE=warbie;418188]Whoops - that’s one overly long reply I didn’t need to make then :confused: [/QUOTE]Again, sorry about that.

I agree. Isn’t that what’s great about RTCW/ET/ET:QW, though? That they take the ‘magic’ in shooting and movement from arena shooters and use it to make teamplay more interesting.

Well, that’s my issue right there, the arena shooting and movement.

The shooting is out of arena shooters but all the most interesting weapons, the projectile weapons, are sacrificed to the game’s setting and replaced with semi-realistic variants (high damage/splash damage, fast projectile and slow RoF). As such, there are no arcade projectile duels, only arcade hitscan ones. In that context, while the movement is still important, the only thing you are dodging away from is someone’s hitscan crosshair, not a barrage of incoming rockets. To me, that’s taking the weaker aspect of arena shooting and marrying it with the weaker aspect of semi realistic hitscan shooters. The gameplay is still good but it’s not using the most interesting weapon mechanics of the two styles. I found it bland enough to put me off continuing to play W:ET for a prolonged period.

That’s my perspective coming out of, most recently, arena shooters like Unreal Tournament 2004 as well as arcadish hitscan shooters with lots of weapon character/feedback like The Specialists (if you know what that is, cool :D), realistic shooters like Day of Defeat, Red Orchestra and actual mil sims. Different people obviously have different perspectives and preferences.

To me, the magic that Splash Damage has sometimes been able to achieve in their previous games is getting the right mix of cooperative versus competitive elements (classes are central but a medic can’t sit near another player and mitigate the effects of incoming fire) and, as importantly, the balance between the importance of the team and individual player empowerment as factored into the outcome of a game.

(Joe999) #19

How long do people intend to give credit? Every id game that came after Wolf:ET failed to create a strong community, or a community at all. The world has evolved, id hasn’t.

(montheponies) #20

so? it’s already been recognised that a class that can revive and heal is central to a team, christ in BF3 it’s even called the ‘Assualt’ class for this reason. I really dont get the hang up with the med class, unless you want to neuter it to the point that it becomes the chore of something like TF2?

on the whole subject of movement and shooting, each to their own - physics games with projectiles bores me to tears, I’ll play angry birds if i want that ‘fix’. I’d like to see the same kind of movement and shooting as per RTCW with the same damage model (not the same as WET). The idea that this is skill’less is disengenous.

Keep things simple, balanced and fun otherwise SD risk creating the homer simpson car… http://onscreencars.com/tv/the-homer-the-car-built-for-homer/