Jason Good, Sr. Game Designer, answered some questions

[Phyrefli]

Hi All,

Hope this hasn't already been posted - couldn't get the search function to work for some reason. If it has been posted, or if this is the wrong place, could a mod please move/delete?

A while ago I asked Matt if he could answer some questions about PS2 from a Battlefield players perspective. To my surprise he said yes. Needless to say he's busy at the moment, so Jason Good answered the questions on his behalf.

As mentioned, these are from a Battlefield players perspective as there are a lot of old-style players from the earlier BF's who are very interested in this game. They were also asked about a month ago (just got the answers) so one or two of the questions have been answered in the intervening time.

The link to the Q&A is here:

http://www.mordorhq.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2644

Hope it is of some interest.

[Scotsh]

Very interesting interview, thanks for bringing it up :)

[camycamera]

good q&a

[Sunrock]

1. Will there be any training simulation and/or tutorials, for vehicle training and a gun range?
• Not at the moment, but it’s not something we’ve ruled out developing down the road.


Way would anyone want to have tutorials later? By then you most likely already know what you need to know anyway.

If they don't add it at the launch they might as well forget about it all to gather I say.

[Firearms]

If they don't add it at the launch they might as well forget about it all to gather I say.

It's good that you're thinking about the new players..... :rolleyes:

[Liwen Diamond]

Usually as an MMO get older, they start to include more and more elaborate tutorial levels. This is because they keep adding new features and levels of complexity to the game, and while veterans of PS1 and people like me who will pick PS2 on day one don't need the help to adapt, a new player, especially young players who barely ever touched the MMO or FPS genre before, might have a hard time climbing the steep learning curve. Not to mention older players will trample them because of their long experience with the game. A proper tutorials might help them avoid some of the most elementary mistakes.

In short it's never a waste to add in a tutorial because their will always be new players to train.

The limit to one character per server is a curious one. This limitation is obviously trying to deter the players from doing... something bad, I just don't see what it could be. Spying on other Empires? It's not like it's hard to create a Spy dedicated F2P account if I want to.

Maybe I'm thinking to far. Probably just a measure to encourage server population control and stability, even server "Loyalty". Looks like I'm gonna need 3 servers total if I want to test out all the Empires.

[Notsononymous]

Usually as an MMO get older, they start to include more and more elaborate tutorial levels. This is because they keep adding new features and levels of complexity to the game, and while veterans of PS1 and people like me who will pick PS2 on day one don't need the help to adapt, a new player, especially young players who barely ever touched the MMO or FPS genre before, might have a hard time climbing the steep learning curve. Not to mention older players will trample them because of their long experience with the game. A proper tutorials might help them avoid some of the most elementary mistakes.

In short it's never a waste to add in a tutorial because their will always be new players to train.

But tutorials never cover "elementary mistakes". Things that new players do (like run around corners instead of peek around them) are not covered in tutorials, and instead new players have to rely on the community to improve if they do not want to fixate their life on improving on their own (which takes time).

What tutorials usually cover is "Press [R] to reload your weapon when you low on ammunition". Which doesn't need a tutorial, it just needs to pop up the first few times you need to reload.

What would be awesome is a firing range where you can see your bullet spread so you can work on controlling your recoil, give you the TTK you had on your theoretical enemy etc.

[Liwen Diamond]

But tutorials never cover "elementary mistakes". Things that new players do (like run around corners instead of peek around them) are not covered in tutorials, and instead new players have to rely on the community to improve if they do not want to fixate their life on improving on their own (which takes time).

What tutorials usually cover is "Press [R] to reload your weapon when you low on ammunition". Which doesn't need a tutorial, it just needs to pop up the first few times you need to reload.

What would be awesome is a firing range where you can see your bullet spread so you can work on controlling your recoil, give you the TTK you had on your theoretical enemy etc.

I guess you could spent time trying the gunplay within the safety of the foothold each faction has on the contients. Also you'd be surprise how useful a basic tutorial on how to handle a plane could be, especially with the sycthe :rofl:

[Hamma]

Updated as news, great Q&A! Be sure to let us know about stuff like this we will always post it up as news.

[Phyrefli]

Cheers Hamma :) Will do.

[Boone]

Tutorials can be very helpful. Nobody wants to try and learn how to fly while getting blanketed by enemies. I'm not sure why it's so hard to implement. Why couldn't we just load up a small portion of the map on our own seperate from the game and just play around and slap "Training" on it?

[JFlask]

I love the note on # of characters. Im actually very glad to see its only one char per server. that will help avoid "spy" characters. well other than people having multiple accounts being as they are free :p

[Boone]

I love the note on # of characters. Im actually very glad to see its only one char per server. that will help avoid "spy" characters. well other than people having multiple accounts being as they are free :p

Spying along with cheaters (not hackers) seems really like a waste of time to me. That's me though, and I'd think you'd have to have fairly beefy PC to be running multiple accounts. Maybe it was useful in PS1, never played.

I like the fact though only one char per server. I'm sure it's going to take a few weeks before server kind of balance out as people will be making multiple characters to test out different factions.

[JADO]

Hey Phyrefli, I've missed your weekly digests since mordor closed down.

[SpottyGekko]

<snip>

The limit to one character per server is a curious one. This limitation is obviously trying to deter the players from doing... something bad, I just don't see what it could be. Spying on other Empires? It's not like it's hard to create a Spy dedicated F2P account if I want to.

Maybe I'm thinking to far. Probably just a measure to encourage server population control and stability, even server "Loyalty". Looks like I'm gonna need 3 servers total if I want to test out all the Empires.

One simple reason for the "1 char per server" limit could be purchased Cash Shop items. If you want to play in multiple factions on the same server, you'll have to create multiple accounts. And store bought customizations, etc. will have to be bought separately for each account.

Other than Cash Shop related reasons, I can't really see any point in the character limit, given that it's F2P and you can create as many accounts as you like (in theory).

[ringring]

good q&a

Because you don't write them until the features are set ... ie through beta

[RoninOni]

Way would anyone want to have tutorials later? By then you most likely already know what you need to know anyway.

If they don't add it at the launch they might as well forget about it all to gather I say.

Seriously?

For new players who didn't get into the beta maybe?

[Phyrefli]

Hey Phyrefli, I've missed your weekly digests since mordor closed down.

Thanks :) Still doing them BTW: http://www.youtube.com/user/phyrefli2/videos?query=video+digest

[Graywolves]

24 person platoons? 6 person squads?

That's disapointing. Not difficult to work with but for a game with the intent of thousands of players I was expecting more command/management tools.

I'm sure it will evolve as the game progresses though.

[SFJake]

One simple reason for the "1 char per server" limit could be purchased Cash Shop items. If you want to play in multiple factions on the same server, you'll have to create multiple accounts. And store bought customizations, etc. will have to be bought separately for each account.

Other than Cash Shop related reasons, I can't really see any point in the character limit, given that it's F2P and you can create as many accounts as you like (in theory).

Which is why I find the limit to be a bit dumb. You really just are telling people to switch account instead of characters. Which I'll do by the way, until I decide which side I want to be in. I mean, how the hell should I know which side is the most fun if I can't try them all? That is so silly.

[Boone]

Which is why I find the limit to be a bit dumb. You really just are telling people to switch account instead of characters. Which I'll do by the way, until I decide which side I want to be in. I mean, how the hell should I know which side is the most fun if I can't try them all? That is so silly.

Start a faction on 3 different servers and go from there? That was going to be my plan anyway. Shouldn't take long to get the feel for each faction.

[adddemon]

Post launch we plan on adding the ability to do a paid faction switch, similar to the concept of paying for a server swap on other MMOs, but there is no in game mechanic allowing you to defect.

well, that answers the question I had the other day concerning the issue of keeping friends together on the same faction if they accidentally chose one different from you at launch.

[RoninOni]

Which is why I find the limit to be a bit dumb. You really just are telling people to switch account instead of characters. Which I'll do by the way, until I decide which side I want to be in. I mean, how the hell should I know which side is the most fun if I can't try them all? That is so silly.

Because otherwise people will log into the server as another faction to "spy" on the enemy factions before loading their real game....

[maddoggg]

Hey Phyrefli, I've missed your weekly digests since mordor closed down.

Yea me too.

[RoninOni]

....since mordor closed down.
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/21211827.jpg

Mordor lives:

http://mordorhq.com/index.php

[Envenom]

Super stoked to hear one faction per server. Badass. No more hopping ya nubs.

[Electrofreak]

So much, except so little...

[MaxDamage]

Thanks for link, great read.

" Will we be allowed to pick up fallen kits from friendly or enemy players & will there be squad spawning?
• The current design does not allow you to pick up the kits of fallen friends or foes. To this point, it just doesn’t really fit with the rest of the game."

Fail.

Definitely support 1 char per server.

No training range.
No sancs.
No looting/using enemy empire equipment.
Almost half the vehicles of Planetside 1.
The flexibility of classes takes a backward step to cookie-cutter premade forms (medic).
Infiltrators completely bastardised.

Yet there's a guy on that page saying how this game has greater 'depth'?
A lot of the cool stuff that made Planetside 1 special/different is being dropped.

Perks are not 'depth'.
Bigger is not 'deeper', bigger is slower.

I trust the team long term, there's a huge amount to be positive and optimistic about; but the people saying 'it will come later' are kidding themselves. In that situation Devs and representatives of MMOs talk like politicians: "We're not ruling it out", "It's on the list of things we're looking at".

If I sound bitter, I'm not in the beta. :D

[Figment]

I'm mostly surprised that a game with what, casually 8x times the players of PS1, HAS SMALLER SQUADS AND PLATOONS. 6 persons per squad, four squads per platoon, really? :/


Why not just make it five squads then!? Because they expect just two full gals per plat? Sorry, but I was expecting 30 at least as a max, though up to 42-60 men plats. :/ We casually ran with 10 - 15 people on a single TS channel... Maybe this is due to squad spawning and other such squad leader mechanics, but really. 6? 24? :(

[Boone]

Thanks for link, great read.

" Will we be allowed to pick up fallen kits from friendly or enemy players & will there be squad spawning?
• The current design does not allow you to pick up the kits of fallen friends or foes. To this point, it just doesn’t really fit with the rest of the game."

Fail.

Definitely support 1 char per server.

No training range.
No sancs.
No looting/using enemy empire equipment.
Almost half the vehicles of Planetside 1.
The flexibility of classes takes a backward step to cookie-cutter premade forms (medic).
Infiltrators completely bastardised.

Yet there's a guy on that page saying how this game has greater 'depth'?
A lot of the cool stuff that made Planetside 1 special/different is being dropped.

Perks are not 'depth'.
Bigger is not 'deeper', bigger is slower.

I trust the team long term, there's a huge amount to be positive and optimistic about; but the people saying 'it will come later' are kidding themselves. In that situation Devs and representatives of MMOs talk like politicians: "We're not ruling it out", "It's on the list of things we're looking at".

If I sound bitter, I'm not in the beta. :D

More vehicles don't exactly equate to more depth by any means. I can live without a training range, Sancs sound cool from what PS1 players described. I can see how you would be pissed about having classes, but with everyone being a super soldier isn't that just as bad of a cookie-cutter? People always find the best combos and at least this way you can hopefully have different specced out Medics and not everyone rolling with all the same certs because it's "the best". We'll see...

I don't see an issue with Infiltrators, then again I haven't played the game. The fact you can't pick up weapons is kind of odd, but not a huge deal to me. I do kind of get it though on why they would go that route (prob has more to do with clipping/art). Would prob look weird seeing an NC rocking out with a VS gun or something.

A lot of that is opinion, but I do understand the nostalgia. I'm just suprised you didn't mention vehicle animations, which people would of course complain about the second they can't bail from their vehicle before dying. You know it..I know it.

[Sifer2]

Some of this is already out dated. I'm pretty sure they had said somewhere they already planned to change squads to 10 man limit. I really didn't like the part about what happens on one continent not effecting others though. I want a persistent war not a bunch of separate instanced maps. I'm sure the community will feel the same an convince them to change it.

[Typherian]

What about the goal of a 1 second TTK with a 1 on 1 engagement... That's half a second to react if 2 people are firing at you which with so many people playing will happen a lot. I think a higher TTK raises the skill cap as you have more time to eaither miss or hit your target and also makes team work mean more. If I come up behind 2 people and I can kill them both in 2 seconds why would I wait for a friend or try to work as a team. In CoD I would never run near my team mates because we would just both die almost instantaneously when an engagement started . In PS1 I felt like keeping with my team mates was actually worth it as it would take time for our enemy to swap from 1 target to the next.

TL/DR: 1 sec TTK is too low. Higher TTK encourages team work.


Thoughts?

[adddemon]

he did say optimal firing ranges, which probably means scoped standing directly in front of an infiltrator shooting him in the face.

[Sunrock]

What about the goal of a 1 second TTK with a 1 on 1 engagement... That's half a second to react if 2 people are firing at you which with so many people playing will happen a lot. I think a higher TTK raises the skill cap as you have more time to eaither miss or hit your target and also makes team work mean more. If I come up behind 2 people and I can kill them both in 2 seconds why would I wait for a friend or try to work as a team. In CoD I would never run near my team mates because we would just both die almost instantaneously when an engagement started . In PS1 I felt like keeping with my team mates was actually worth it as it would take time for our enemy to swap from 1 target to the next.

TL/DR: 1 sec TTK is too low. Higher TTK encourages team work.


Thoughts?

Well yea... 1 sec TTK sound a bit low. But he sad 1 sec TTK on an average range. What ever that means. So this can mean that this 1 sec TTK will promote more long range combat and less close quarter combat.

Our goal for the TTK is around 1 second at the average engagement range, though that will scale as the range changes. Recoil and deviation will vary based on weapon, but I’d say we’re a moderate recoil, low deviation model.

But I would not say that a low TTK does not promote team play. Sure if you run close to gather like you where fighting with swords in a roman turtle formation you're a bit screwed but if you use modern infantry formations team play is still a valid.

[Typherian]

But I would not say that a low TTK does not promote team play. Sure if you run close to gather like you where fighting with swords in a roman turtle formation you're a bit screwed but if you use modern infantry formations team play is still a valid.

Ahaha just pictured some roman soldiers running at some TR chain guns.

I guess what I mean is the higher the TTK the more likely a 2v1 engagement will end up with the 2 people wining...

Also stops camping from being as effective.