Gameplay: real time ttk adjustment

[moosepoop]

time to kill is fast for small populations; as the server population rises everyones receives bonuses in player and vehicle hitpoints that increase in proportion to the rise in player population.

this way the game can remain fast paced, yet allow huge battles be still playable.

[Gonefshn]

Only problem. Changing the TTK during the game would make a HUGE difference in the feel of gameplay. This would make it too confusing for players to get into a rhythm with the gameplay. How would you even know how long the TTK is at any given moment?? It might look like there are lots of people around just cause lots happen to be on your screen. You need to understand the TTK to play effectively and get into a gaming rhythm, it would suck to open fire on someone without really knowing what to expect.

[Xyntech]

It's a decent idea in concept, but it would just lead to huge amounts of frustration as players either a) died too quickly all of a sudden in low population areas, or b) felt like suddenly the enemy was unkillable and had way too many hit points in high population areas.

While I do want to wait and see how the current TTK plays out in huge battles, it is also a good idea to try to come up with ideas like this as preemptive solutions in case change does end up being needed.

I just don't think that changing the entire feel of the gunplay will be a viable option.

Better to just find a decent balance of TTK where low and high population battles both feel decent. There are more ways to make gunplay feel satisfying than just lowering TTK, so if they end up needing to bring it back up slightly (across the board), I think that would be a more acceptable solution than it being variable.

I do suspect that the lower TTK won't be as big of an issue as some people suspect though. I think it may just end up changing some tactics a little. We shall see.

[moosepoop]

if there is only a minute 10 to 20% increase in hitpoints, the difference is neglegible. but that could be the difference from impossible to play insta death to being able to survive and fight conherently in a mass battle.

all im saying is this could be a great way to reduce frustrations in mass battles. it should be given a try in beta testing, or some similar idea.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by moosepoop

if there is only a minute 10 to 20% increase in hitpoints, the difference is neglegible. but that could be the difference from impossible to play insta death to being able to survive and fight conherently in a mass battle.

all im saying is this could be a great way to reduce frustrations in mass battles. it should be given a try in beta testing, or some similar idea.

I'm all for that. Just because I think it may throw things off too much doesn't make it so. I'd love to test it in real world gameplay.

[Zekeen]

I'm against having lower HP in lower population settings. I don't want to die from being nicked by a lower powered weapon. The kill speed is already remarkably high, there is no reason to speed it up any more. Headshots exist so I doubt a lowered health would be very beneficial in PS2.

[DaPope]

I'm not a fan of game settings changing on the fly. I think there is an expectation of what your weapon should be able to do, how much damage you can take, how long it takes to kill something. Changing those on the fly will frustrate a lot of people. It affects your over all strategy, for example you expect in a tank vs tank battle you know your tank can get hit 4 times and survive now it changes to 3?!?!

The best thing (and this might already exist) is to have a way for player to find where the action is and if you want to be in a fight where bullets are flying everywhere you can get there. If you want a slower paced fight you can avoid those locations.

[Zekeen]

Originally Posted by DaPope

I'm not a fan of game settings changing on the fly. I think there is an expectation of what your weapon should be able to do, how much damage you can take, how long it takes to kill something. Changing those on the fly will frustrate a lot of people. It affects your over all strategy, for example you expect in a tank vs tank battle you know your tank can get hit 4 times and survive now it changes to 3?!?!

The best thing (and this might already exist) is to have a way for player to find where the action is and if you want to be in a fight where bullets are flying everywhere you can get there. If you want a slower paced fight you can avoid those locations.

It does exist. It was one of thew best features of PS1. You saw animated flashes on the map where "hot spots" were, and could even hit a button, for "instant action", taking you to one of the spawn points in a hot spot area.