Does the shallow TTK shortchange the Depth this game could have?

[VGCS]

This topic was a bit too highbrow for the official forums so I figured it belonged here instead....

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode...vs.-complexity

Pay particular attention to the point about "Modern Shooters" while considering PS2's ingredients: Situational Awareness, tactical decision making, reaction time, Map & Terrain awareness, your opponent's class, your opponents weapon, where the nearest corners/cover is in multiple directions, ally locations, objective & spawn flow, recoil control, compensating aim for the impacts of flinching, ...and everything else I'm missing here that comes from hybridizing an FPS together with the macro-elements of RTS size armies & strategies .... and then compress it all into 0.80 seconds which is effectively your entire lifespan when being shot at.


Is it "Depth", or "Complexity" that best describes 90% of the ways you find yourself dying in this game? And do First-Order-Optimal strategies tend to work just as well if not better/faster when facing these deep and highly time compressed situations? Is this also part of the reason we have no Tutorial yet, or worse still, mean the game is also guilty of "Irreducible" Complexity for the average player?

[Zulthus]

I personally hate the TTK in the game, it's nothing more than who sees who first. Of course, SOE didn't really have a choice. If what you're shooting doesn't die in 1 second, the ADHD crowd quits the game and whines about kills taking FOREVER.

I liked longer TTKs and the armor bar; it made fights interesting and required skill. Maybe I'm the only one, but strafe fights were fun.

So, yes; I believe the game could have a lot more depth when it comes to TTK.

[Tatwi]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

I personally hate the TTK in the game, it's nothing more than who sees who first. Of course, SOE didn't really have a choice. If what you're shooting doesn't die in 1 second, the ADHD crowd quits the game and whines about kills taking FOREVER.

I liked longer TTKs and the armor bar; it made fights interesting and required skill. Maybe I'm the only one, but strafe fights were fun.

So, yes; I believe the game could have a lot more depth when it comes to TTK.

I agree. When I am shooting at someone the *only* thing I actively think about is repeating the words, "aim for the head, aim for the head, aim for the..." over and over, because my instinct is to aim for the body. Who cares what class they are or what weapon they might have? It completely does not matter at all.

Now if you stretch out the distance to 300m and add in the fact that I am hidden somewhere watching the enemy and they don't know I am there, then yes indeed I have/can take the time to shoot the Medic first, where possible.

When it comes to fighting vehicles as infantry, it's totally different though. I will find the time to determine which target is the right combination of "most threatening" and "easiest to eliminate", provided there is cover to assess the situation from. Generally speaking, this sort "tactical thinking" isn't required or even possible against infantry, because by the time you've come up with a plan someone else has already killed them.

Infantry on infantry, where both sides have spawns nearby and neither are being camped, I don't really have an issue with the TTK. But when it 10 seconds to clear a location and the fight is over, that kind of makes for a boring time.

As an aside, it would be *neat* if there wasn't any healing/regeneration at all, respawns were at the warpgate only, and TTK was a minute of sustained fire or 10 head shots. Then a fight would be all about positions, flanking, covering, scouting, suppressing, and general situational awareness, because death would be a real pain in the ass and your life would have a large margin for error. It would make for long, tactical fights, but I am sure people would hate the shit out this concept for PS2. Still, it was fun to think about for a moment...

[maradine]

I think what you're describing is what Hawken/MWO/SB:HA all should have been.

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by Tatwi

As an aside, it would be *neat* if there wasn't any healing/regeneration at all, respawns were at the warpgate only, and TTK was a minute of sustained fire or 10 head shots. Then a fight would be all about positions, flanking, covering, scouting, suppressing, and general situational awareness, because death would be a real pain in the ass and your life would have a large margin for error. It would make for long, tactical fights, but I am sure people would hate the shit out this concept for PS2. Still, it was fun to think about for a moment...

What you've described is exactly EVE:Online. Except it doesn't become "tactical" (that word again, just stop).

And what it amounts to in action, when assaulting anything of importance, is huge groups of people that one person directs to shoot at a single enemy so it blows up instantly. That maximizes the reduction in enemy threat.
Any and all tactics essentially disappear to "next target" "try to warp before you explode" and "everyone run away" and it becomes a case of min/maxing your group's ability to instantly pop things that come within range. And also maximizing the size of your group...perhaps if the group is large enough you can insta-kill multiple things at once!

It's great for a game with economics where each thing you blow up is a representation of time invested. Not when you just pop up again all nice and no worse for wear.

[Strategy]

Originally Posted by Zulthus

I personally hate the TTK in the game, it's nothing more than who sees who first. Of course, SOE didn't really have a choice. If what you're shooting doesn't die in 1 second, the ADHD crowd quits the game and whines about kills taking FOREVER.

I liked longer TTKs and the armor bar; it made fights interesting and required skill. Maybe I'm the only one, but strafe fights were fun.

So, yes; I believe the game could have a lot more depth when it comes to TTK.

Strafe fights could be fun, but this game just wasn't created with that kind of gunplay in mind. Maybe if shooting wasn't built around ADS and the movement was faster there would be exciting gun fights. Honestly, I think this game would be 10x better if infantry movement and gunplay were a slowed version of quake's--but that's just a pipe dream and obviously never going to happen.

Increasing TTK in PS2 would just make infantry fighting terribly poor and even more boring.

[Figment]

Long answer: oh yes.

Short answer: yes.

[Methonius]

It's too late for them to change this now, even though I did like the TTK in the old planetside they would have to redo almost every aspect of the game to coincide with a higher TTK for infantry. So I see them never changing this plus all the COD kiddies would scream out with a million voices as if the universe was hit by a supernova.

[Ghoest9]

I like the short time to kill it places more emphasis on tactics and less dancing tricks like circle straff and bunny hopping.

I think one of the silliest aspects of most shooters is that when someone shoots you in the back you have a fair chance of killing them by dancing around.

Its much better that game actually reward you for sneaking up behind someone.

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

I like the short time to kill it places more emphasis on tactics and less dancing tricks like circle straff and bunny hopping.

I think one of the silliest aspects of most shooters is that when someone shoots you in the back you have a fair chance of killing them by dancing around.

Its much better that game actually reward you for sneaking up behind someone.

I agree. It rewards pre-conflict thought and planning more. You have to pick battles more carefully. It means you need to think quickly and pay much more attention to getting blindsided.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

I like the short time to kill it places more emphasis on tactics and less dancing tricks like circle straff and bunny hopping.

I think one of the silliest aspects of most shooters is that when someone shoots you in the back you have a fair chance of killing them by dancing around.

Its much better that game actually reward you for sneaking up behind someone.

I agree completely. If I outflank, outwit and outmanoeuvre the enemy, I deserve teabagging rights. Edit: I've had a think about it over the last 15 minutes and I think that I might actually prefer a 75% chance of winning instead of an "execution" like my post originally reads. A higher TTK would be good but it's a fine balance to maintain between rewarding those who are tactically better and the twitchers who can 360 no-scope me.

If they get to turn and headshot me with their [insert faction specific OP weapon] after I've spent 5 minutes getting into position, I feel that it's unfair.

If the enemy is going to blindly walk forward and take no precautions, I deserve to farm them from my entrenched position.

(This is not the same as spawn camping though. I hate spawncamping from both sides of the equation.)


Back to OP, I think PS2 is unique in that the potential depth *is* there, but it's not utilised because low TTK and zerg tactics (low complexity) are more effective. Low complexity => lowER depth. But if you hunt for it, you can have it.

[psijaka]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

I like the short time to kill it places more emphasis on tactics and less dancing tricks like circle straff and bunny hopping.

I think one of the silliest aspects of most shooters is that when someone shoots you in the back you have a fair chance of killing them by dancing around.

Its much better that game actually reward you for sneaking up behind someone.

Totally agree with this.

I've played a fair bit of Firefall PvP, where the TTK is pretty high, and it generally boils down to a jet pack twitch spamfest, not my cup of tea at all.

I prefer a game like Planetside 2 where you have to think about cover, flanking, risking a run across open ground, where your enemy might be - situational awareness, in other words. These things matter a lot less with a high TTK when you can just twitch react your way out of trouble. High TTK takes a lot of the thinking out of a game.

[PredatorFour]

Originally Posted by psijaka

I prefer a game like Planetside 2 where you have to think about cover, flanking, risking a run across open ground, where your enemy might be - situational awareness, in other words.

You mean like in ANY FPS game, regardless of high/low TTK.

Low TTK is a restriction in gameplay. Gunplay skill loses with low TTK.

Think of the one shot instances already in game, with infantry running to there deaths like rabbits looking at head lights at night. Alot of people have raged about these one shot situations putting people off the game.

[TheRageTrain]

Originally Posted by Ghoest9

I like the short time to kill it places more emphasis on tactics and less dancing tricks like circle straff and bunny hopping.

I think one of the silliest aspects of most shooters is that when someone shoots you in the back you have a fair chance of killing them by dancing around.

Its much better that game actually reward you for sneaking up behind someone.

This. I usually die because I over extend myself from a door frame or a from corner to get a bit closer to enemy then another one shows up.. if I would have stayed at the door frame I would have gotten my killer aswell.

You choose yourself whatkind of risks you take, I\m a rusher HA and I still get 6 to 12 kd per hour, with 100 to 130 kills as infantry because I keep optimising my positioning, wish my aim would get bit better too but I try to compensate it by positioning and tactical withdraws to kill 1 by 1 my 5 chasers in buildings 1 to 2 per corner etc.. All good and fun, low TTK is good, means I die too if someone gets a real jump on me when I\m not moving.

The movie what makes me love low TKK, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0238380/

[sneeek]

Regarding avenues of attack and TTK, if you're playing the game "correctly" in a squad / platoon that is working as a team, then presumably most avenues of attack are covered by teammates. At worst, you only need to listen out for gunfire / death screams coming from directions you don't expect. So you shouldn't actually be taken by surprise very often.

On the other hand, if you're attempting to flank enemies, you risk being flanked yourself in return. You get to take advantage of low TTK on unsuspecting enemies in return for risking somebody else doing the same to you. Seems OK to me.

Consequently I don't see any problem caused by the TTKs being lower than in original Planetside.