Which body type is your favourite? (part 1)

[tokamak]

Did you read this page?

[shirosae]

I definitely get your point, but I think this is where the fundamental disagreement stems from. To me, there is no one best bodytype for any situation. All three of them are valuable, all bring something different, and all are useful in any tactical situation. A team of all heavies is well set to take on any situation, as is a team of all lights; the two teams would just handle the situations differently. And that’s what I really like about the system right now, that the combinations that come about because of the unpredictable mix of body types really helps keep every situation fresh and unique.

Just for the sake of discussion, I’m going to assume that the differences between the body types are significant enough to alter the way players need to play and the options they have. As such, the bodytype composition is a valid tactical consideration for the purposes of this argument.

A quick disclaimer: None of the following questions are rhetorical sarcastic jabs. I genuinely want to know what your opinion is.

As an example of what I don’t want to see happen, I believe that if players could change body type at any time in a match, the majority of players would always go all heavy every time while on defense, because they’d believe (incorrectly) that it was the ‘best possible’ thing to do. “stay put, hunker down, outlast the enemy”. And that owuld make situations less interesting because you’d always run into the same wall of tanks defending core objectives. But because player have to make that choice and stick to it for the whole match (or both matches in stopwatch), you get more interesting and dynamic situations because of the unexpected mixes of classes and body types available.

If it becomes common ‘knowledge’ among the scrubs that defence=heavy, what’s to stop them from also learning that map xyz = defence = heavy, and then all choosing heavy every time they connect to that map? What’s to stop them vote-kicking anyone who doesn’t join as heavy because they’re ‘not playing properly’? (See: People in ETQW who votekick others for planting on the North grate on Sewer regardless of the circumstances.)

What’s to stop them vote-kicking anyone who doesn’t happen to randomly choose the body type they want for the master build they read on PvX wiki? Doesn’t the inability to change body type during a match make it even more likely that players will choose uniform body types, since it’s easier to co-ordinate that than some build with finesse?

I don’t understand how removing the ability of any player to change mid-match stops the scrubs from making dumb decisions.

Also, what happens if players learn that grenade launcher = defence? Why don’t we force players to pick a weapon before the match starts so the players see a fresh and unique armoury every time instead of the same boring old grenade launchers? What if they learn that Engineers = defence? Why doesn’t the same argument apply here?

Anyway, if I come across a team of heavies, hopefully my team (if they were any good at all) would swap in a squad of mixed light/medium body types who’d climb to higher ground that the heavies can’t reach from a few different angles with grenade launchers to shoot the heavies in their stupid predictable faces until they learned that it isn’t working. If it turns out that that tactic doesn’t work against a team full of heavies, we’d try something else.

Except we can’t do that, because we have no way of knowing what the other team is doing until it’s too late. The other team has no way of knowing that choosing all heavies isn’t a master strategy, and so what could have been a metagame which evolves faster than anything else in any other game ever is instead the dull scrubfest that you described, because the one counter for gimmick builds isn’t present.

Most of us opt for medium, surprisingly.

Out of interest, have you asked why these people tend to choose those body types? I’d be interested in knowing whether there’s something they like about the medium body type, or whether they choose it because they have no information to make a decision on and pick the middle ground because they consider the extremes risky.

I’m perhaps wrong with this, but it sounds like you’re worried about what the lowest common denominator will do with informed decisions over their team organisation, and so are willing to sacrifice the potential for an absolutely awesome multi-levelled strategy-fest thing for the sake of that lowest common denominator.

If that’s really your only reason for doing it and there’s no technical reason that you’re not telling us about, I have a request:

Give the ‘hardcore’ servers the option to turn on body type swapping at command posts. Use resource points or something to regulate it so players have to make choices carefully and can’t just hot-swap at will, but let it happen, because the extra layer of strategy will be great fun.

[tokamak]

Shiro, it’s important not to see body-types as ‘sub classes’, where the class in the game fulfils specific goals, the body types are only saying decisive in how these goals are achieved. I understand the concern as many games in QW got ruined by poor class balance, but that’s not how bodytypes roll.

In QW when everyone plays, say, a soldier to complete an objective, then it would make sense for you, being the experienced veteran to go medic and support them. The ‘elite’ players in the game are always filling the huge gaps the unexperienced players leave out.

But there’s no such thing as gaps in body type. No body type should ever be required or essential in a game. At least that’s what I trust SD to do.

[Ragoo]

[QUOTE=shirosae;203024]
Give the ‘hardcore’ servers the option to turn on body type swapping at command posts. Use resource points or something to regulate it so players have to make choices carefully and can’t just hot-swap at will, but let it happen, because the extra layer of strategy will be great fun.[/QUOTE]
+1

Let the ‘hardcore’ community decide whether they like it or not. Best solution! Makes everyone happy! Will be helpful for e-sports (:

Because what the community hates the most is something like this:

From the Dev Chat with Infinity Ward regarding CoD:MW2

Is there a console in the PC version of the game, so we can change our field of view from the xbox’s default 65 FOV to 80 also can we tweaks the weapon damage for each gun, removes perks, graphical debris, breathing sway, also thru console like we where able to before or is this all gone?

Vince-IW: We would like you to play the game the way we designed and balanced it.

:mad:

[tokamak]

Yes, we know IW doesn’t give a crap about comp players. But it’s quite odd that you’re now asking SD to regulate something they don’t want to do in the first place. This sounds more like a task for the mod community.

“Yo SD imma let you finish but please put the option for a flamethrower for comp players and make sure it’s balanced. Just sayin.”

[DarkangelUK]

Sorry but SD have to have atleast some control of the type of game they want you to play, it’s their game and their vision. From what I can tell they want some type of RPG element to it where you work on a char, level him up and mould him the way you want… having model changes on the fly completely detracts from that view and defeats the point.

[tokamak]

It’s understandable competition players are interested in changing it on the fly (I personally think comp is better served without, but still), however, if they want it, then the burden of balancing is upon them.

[Ragoo]

It’s understandable competition players are interested in changing it on the fly (I personally think comp is better served without, but still), however, if they want it, then the burden of balancing is upon them.

I seriously don’t know if they would want it but giving them the option is the best thing you could do imo (if it’s not a waste of resources for SD to implant it in the game of course)

[DarkangelUK]

I don’t think they’re caring about resource, I think they’re more caring if it goes against their vision of how the game should be played.

[tokamak]

I seriously don’t know if they would want it but giving them the option is the best thing you could do imo (if it’s not a waste of resources for SD to implant it in the game of course)

Yeah but not only do they want the option, they also want it balanced.

The best solution would just to chuck players a devkit and let them figure it out themselves. That way different leagues can also adopt different policies for their games.

[shirosae]

Sorry but SD have to have atleast some control of the type of game they want you to play, it’s their game and their vision. From what I can tell they want some type of RPG element to it where you work on a char, level him up and mould him the way you want… having model changes on the fly completely detracts from that view and defeats the point.

Rahdo has already stated that he accepts:

1. some people will hack their local files to cheat the xp system to avoid the grind, and that’s okay although he thinks it’s stupid
2. some people won’t want to play the maps in the order of the story, so you don’t need to
3. some people don’t want bots to fill empty slots, so you don’t need to have them
4. some people don’t want to grind multiple characters up, so subsequent characters will gain xp faster
5. some people just want to play a normal multiplayer game with two sides populated by human players instead of all the extra ‘mingleplayer’ stuff, so you can turn most of it off.

He’s also explicitly stated that he wants to give as many options and controls to the players to set up a server how they like, that he understands that the ‘hardcore’ players want a different experience and that he wants to try to accommodate that where he can, so he’s mentioned an explicit ‘hardcore’ server mode where those kinds of things can be turned on/off.

Given that he’s willing to go that far to do things for players which go against ‘SD’s vision for the game’, I see no problem asking them to do one extra.

It hardly shatters the game to add an option to allow people who aren’t interested in playing an RPG to have servers where you can swap body type at command posts.

[tokamak]

Nothing wrong with asking them to included the option. But asking them to balance it is something else, that’s something for the comp community to do at their own leisure.

[Chris2]

Nothing wrong with asking them to included the option. But asking them to balance it is something else, that’s something for the comp community to do at their own leisure.

Yeah they are quite good at fixing bad decisions.

[tokamak]

Yeah like the… ehh… hm. ehhh.

[Dormamu]

Form my point of view (this is a noob speaking):
The SD vision is to make a good game that will bring a good income and be user friendlly to the SP people, MP people: PC, Xbox360, PS3, RTCW, RTCW:ET, Killzone, COD, HALO, FPS/RPG, etc. communities/people, who will be played for many years to come, and who will make way for the next Brink(2-x).
Allowing this:

[QUOTE=shirosae;203024]…
Give the ‘hardcore’ servers the option to turn on body type swapping at command posts. Use resource points or something to regulate it so players have to make choices carefully and can’t just hot-swap at will, but let it happen, because the extra layer of strategy will be great fun.[/QUOTE]
will make some/all people happy, we will not have the:“You chose light…mon this is the worst body for this map…you can be our human shield… rolf…jk man”, will erase the feeling i will have sometimes:“jeeee… i wish i rolled heavy on this map when i try all by myself (against 2 players from the opposing team) to plant this bomb, because my team is here only for the frags and not the objective, and i have this skinny body… ohhhh FK!!!..i died again…Tab…20D/0K???..fk this MP S***t, i switch to SP”
on the other hand blocking the body type to be chosen inside the game will raise the replay value of the game because surely you’l want all your body types and your classes to be ready for the MP part, just to be sure you have all you need for any map/tactic/etc. i’m pretty sure it will be a achievement for let’s say “finish the game with the heavy body type” and for the achievement hunter is a must, to have all the achievements unlocked.

[tokamak]

i’m pretty sure it will be a achievement for let’s say “finish the game with the heavy body type”.

That would be the same as ‘finish the game’. You can’t use multiple bodies to finish one campaign line.

[shirosae]

Nothing wrong with asking them to included the option. But asking them to balance it is something else, that’s something for the comp community to do at their own leisure.

Two things:

1. I am not a comp player. I am also not a vanilla player. If I absolutely must be pigeonholed, I’m a propub player.

Why is it that casual vanilla players should get their requests honoured by SD, why is it that comp players should do it all themselves, and why is it that my kind of gamer shouldn’t get any attention from SD?

2. What is there that needs balancing? Apparently the body types are already balanced:

To me, there is no one best bodytype for any situation. All three of them are valuable, all bring something different, and all are useful in any tactical situation. A team of all heavies is well set to take on any situation, as is a team of all lights; the two teams would just handle the situations differently.

If the body types aren’t balanced, there’s a problem whether we can change them mid-map or not. If the body types are balanced, then they’re balanced.

But if you absolutely positively must have the regulation of body type changing set by the community, here you go:

si_allow_commandpost_changebody 1
si_commandpost_changebody_timer [0, 300 seconds]

[tokamak]

If the body types aren’t balanced, there’s a problem whether we can change them mid-map or not. If the body types are balanced, then they’re balanced.

In the case the teams aren’t ideal, then what’s wrong with biting the bullet and playing on anyway?

And if the teams are balanced, which they apparently are, then why do you want the option to change anyway? This is just detrimental to the game. It defeats the point of having a body type and it becomes just another perk or weapon load out. Boring.

[QUOTE=shirosae;203081]Two things:

1. I am not a comp player. I am also not a vanilla player. If I absolutely must be pigeonholed, I’m a propub player.

Why is it that casual vanilla players should get their requests honoured by SD, why is it that comp players should do it all themselves, and why is it that my kind of gamer shouldn’t get any attention from SD?[/QUOTE]

It’s really easy. The vanilla players want to play the same game, propub players want a game tailored to their needs.

[Ragoo]

[QUOTE=tokamak;203086]It defeats the point of having a body type and it becomes just another perk or weapon load out. Boring.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t get this part. Body type is just something like another perk or weapon load out, why should it not? And what is boring about it? It adds a lot of tactical depth to the game whether you can change it in game or not. But I would like SD to give the ‘hardcore’ community the option

[Chris2]

What shirosae is saying ------------------>

2.87m gap

Tokomat’s head ---------------------------->

I think what shirosae means by propub player refers to a player who enjoys a game to a certain degree but would rather it be a more enjoyable and rewarding affair in which skill trumps luck, I cant see why any game should begrudge someone for wanting this, it’s hardly a big ask.