Where is everybody?

(Violator) #201

To me the current small playerbase seems like what you get at the end of game’s lifecycle - very small with a few really good die-hard players left. Played stopwatch yesterday a fair bit (which seemed to be the random server and gamemode of choice, usually its obj mode) and it really suffers from not having any kind of auto-balance - it was one steamroll after another. In obj mode this isn’t happening so much now as there is an autoshuffle to prevent stacking (its also hard to swap round as the server is always full, a few players notably Winnie did the good thing and swapped when possible though.

(prophett) #202

I played over the past few days for the first time in well over a month and for me the biggest turn off is STILL the linear design of most maps.

Doc runs, side objectives, team doors, covert disguises, and proper forward spawns/command posts so the map doesn’t play out the exact same way 90% of the time. It’s boring.

Strive toward the possibilities that Radar from ET gave us.

(shaftz0r) #203

if only… oh if only…

they havent updated the maps since last time you played. i can only assume the next update will give us one of the blockout maps, and update WC and camden.

(prophett) #204

[QUOTE=shaftz0r;481580]if only… oh if only…

they havent updated the maps since last time you played. i can only assume the next update will give us one of the blockout maps, and update WC and camden.[/QUOTE]

Some of them need some major reworking, something I believe they said wasn’t something they were willing to explore at that time because the map was too far along in development to make major changes…

(Seiniyta) #205

Sometimes you need to kill your darlings.

(acutepuppy) #206

Or burn some bridges…

(.Chris.) #207

[QUOTE=prophett;481578]I played over the past few days for the first time in well over a month and for me the biggest turn off is STILL the linear design of most maps.

Doc runs, side objectives, team doors, covert disguises, and proper forward spawns/command posts so the map doesn’t play out the exact same way 90% of the time. It’s boring.

Strive toward the possibilities that Radar from ET gave us.[/QUOTE]

I still don’t get why they’ve decided to move away from these kind of maps. They did the same with Brink, really dull maps, looked nice, yeah but play wise? Big yawn…

(attack) #208

well atleast they posted : that spawnchoice maybe be patched in ,after the game came out

(BomBaKlaK) #209

mater black-point spotted !

(.Chris.) #210

When did they say this? Not really been following actively lately.

What?

(BomBaKlaK) #211

Maps …

(Kendle) #212

I’ve pretty much given up playing at the moment, partly because not a lot has changed recently to require “testing”, partly because I think the closed beta / Nexon link-up has been very badly handled (doesn’t feel like we’re even in a closed beta yet), but mostly I think because I’m just bored and frustrated at playing an objective mode game where the classes / characters / maps make it such an unrewarding and unfulfilling experience.

Objective worked in RTCW and ET because there were distinct layers to the game. The Engineer did the objectives: now, because anyone can, often no-one does (or you don’t know who’s going to, so you can’t support them). The Medic kept the team alive: now, thanks to auto-regen, he’s not needed, and even if he were he/she’s been nerfed to the point of mediocraty. The Lt / F/Ops kept the team in ammo: now, due to the quick respawns, you get more ammo as a natural consequence of the flow of the game. Once upon a time there were clear lines of contention and clear attack / defend waves: now with the muddled maps and the lack of a proper wave spawn system, it’s headless chicken mode most of the time.

I’d probably play TDM / Execution mode, if anyone else was playing them, but for me 8-v-8 “pub mode” objective is not particularly appealing in this game.

(INF3RN0) #213

The game wasn’t any better or worse when obj classes had a hard limit or when traditional abilities functions were there. The game just has no feeling of depth to it. The movement isn’t interesting. The weapons lack variety. The characters don’t feel different enough and don’t offer enough unique play experiences. The maps aren’t very memorable. If those things existed, it wouldn’t matter how you went about doing them. They just need to happen.

(Kl3ppy) #214

Currently I dont play xt because it does make enough fun to “waste” my time with it. The performance is not great, for me the mouse input is strange, the maps are too linear, some objectives are too hard and some are too easy for attackers (last objectives waterloo), trainyard 2nd objective can be a pure lucky spawntimer map.
I know, the first 2 points can and will be fixed, but all concerns regarding the maps are huge. LB is a waste of time, everytime LB is the next in the rotation, I quit because I really dont like the map.
I’ve watched some RTCW action lately and I have to say, go down to 2-objectives-per-map maps. The action I saw was real nice. And I never had the feeling that spawntimes gave attacker or defender an huge advantage. The maps look pretty balanced and so there were nice fights for areas. SD tries this with trainyard but fails. Attackers can be faster at 2nd objective then defenders.

(RasteRayzeR) #215

I strongly doubt it : if they don’t do it when it’s cheaper to do it (aka now in during the development), they won’t implement it later …

(Kendle) #216

I’m not claiming the game was “good”, then they introduced classless objectives and it became “bad”, it’s just one of the contributory factors as to why I’m not personally particularly interested in the game anymore. However …

I can’t agree with this. Not having an objective class means also not having support classes.

As a Medic, who do you support? Once upon a time I knew the Engineer was going to “go there and do that”, so I could follow him, keep him alive, watch his back. Now, I’ve no idea who’s going to go where or do what, so I just amble along to wherever the objective is and hope an opportunity to be of use presents itself, or rather I don’t, because there are lots of other things I find more interesting to do with my time than play XT these days.

(Smooth) #217

It’s not a case of cost (which would be roughly the same at any point during development) it’s a question of priorities.

Being able to choose a different spawn point further away from the action on the rare occasion that you’d choose to do so is much lower on the list than say, being able to change character selection in between maps.

(Kl3ppy) #218

[QUOTE=Smooth;481782]It’s not a case of cost (which would be roughly the same at any point during development) it’s a question of priorities.

Being able to choose a different spawn point further away from the action on the rare occasion that you’d choose to do so is much lower on the list than say, being able to change character selection in between maps.[/QUOTE]

Well, I do change my spawn more often than I change my class in ETQW. When I see we cant get the objective back as defender, I’ll switch to the next spawnpoint to get my defence up again. Right now you cant change and you fully depend on the spawn timer or you can run there.

(Smooth) #219

This is an issue that we need to fix on a case-by-case without forcing defenders to manually change spawns to be able to compete.

Being able to get to the second objective of Trainyard before the first is complete makes no sense as it is. Why can’t attackers just plant the bomb at any point during the match? This type of inconsistency will be addressed as we move forward, just you know… time.

(INF3RN0) #220

[QUOTE=Kendle;481781]
I can’t agree with this. Not having an objective class means also not having support classes.

As a Medic, who do you support? Once upon a time I knew the Engineer was going to “go there and do that”, so I could follow him, keep him alive, watch his back. Now, I’ve no idea who’s going to go where or do what, so I just amble along to wherever the objective is and hope an opportunity to be of use presents itself, or rather I don’t, because there are lots of other things I find more interesting to do with my time than play XT these days.[/QUOTE]

That’s a purely a preferential thing. Kill one vs kill all or support one vs support all… I mean 100% vs 15% is huge. If you wipe an obj and someone kills the single obj class it creates some kind of illusion of strategy or something? Most of the time it’s blind luck and your obj player is encouraged to play overly defensive making it feel incredibly unattractive to be the obj player. The idea of proficiencies is much better to me because if someone does kill the primary obj class then they buy some time, but that’s all. If your whole team can sit on an obj long enough and plant a bomb without being the obj class, then they earned it nuff said. The game is more enjoyable to me when it’s more about overall strategy and performance and not a game of “sneak the kill and gib on the obj player”. You still have your priority targets, but the game does not revolve around them. As a medic you support everyone quite simply. Is the experience less enjoyable? Not really. A med pack or revive can make the difference no matter what your role is.

The reason I say it doesn’t matter how it’s done, but it has to be there is because to me there’s always more than one option. The details of another game I find good don’t make it great, but the fact that it has well rounded game play and every aspect of it offers interesting opportunities to me as a player is what makes it good. Xt feels incredibly limiting on what I can do or how far I can go, which is why I get bored. When there’s an opportunity for more creativity and more unique experiences to be had, then I’ll enjoy it. I’d rather those experiences be new ones though, because I care less about how good I am at previous systems and would much rather start from the bottom and work my way up.