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

[ShadetheDruid]

Originally Posted by Rockit

Why buy anything if I can kill you in 0.5 seconds? Shave it to 0.25?

Because there's a lot more to weapons than how fast they kill.

[VGCS]

Originally Posted by psijaka

In answer to the OP - No. Quite the opposite, in fact; short TTK adds to the depth of the game as players must be more situationally aware to survive.

Hmm, I keep seeing this turn of phrase injected but nothing alongside it to differentiate how that "situation" came to be. Nothing to rule out dumb luck. In which case my original questions remain: HOW are you supposed to TEACH this??? If it's easy to teach then where's the Tutorials? That's a key point in the Video, if it's too difficult to make a Tutorial around it, then Developers will typically not even try, citing "time constraints". Could YOU GUYS who are proponents of the current TTK make one you think? That's pretty much the entire point of this Thread afterall. Separating teachable Depth from the much less teachable Complexity...

Case in point, it's really quite easy to design missions that train people to be more proficient at trading shots with eachother in less complicated TTK timeframes. Yet compressing that huge list of things I had in the original post, into the time it takes to go from your spawn to being dead? --- with the almost useless minimap this game provides as your only assistant? Where do the consistent results come in? Or do you prefer it BECAUSE of the gambling nature behind it? We need to get to the root of this argument better and not just settle for subjective placeholders that could also apply to situations where you run full speed around a random corner and catch someone with their back turned.... "on a hunch".

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Lol sarcasm doesnt become you. But yeah dude I regualrly watch sujieun on twitch tv and he is a relentless beast. His skill level is way beyond where I could ever hope to get. And he does it all almost entirely with a medic. So you can laugh like a schoolgirl or recognise that this is a skill based shooter.

Yeah... I used to play APB with him. I've also seen you play b/c we're both on Connery as it's kind of hard to go anywhere without working alongside the 666th. ...but I still find your definitions of skill to be too subjective or at least; not very constructive

[Dougnifico]

Ok. So stamina prevents jumping. I still don't think that I should come up behind someone or on their flank and now I have to engage in a circle running competition. I'll be one of the few Planetside 1 vets to admit it, but PS1 sucked purely as an FPS. What made it great was meta-game but the gunplay was just atrocious. Too many times I had the jump on someone and lost because they could press their A and D buttons more erratically. Lower TTK breeds higher skill on a tactical level rather than a "I can point my mouse while strafing better" level.

That and the satisfaction of dropping a guy with a good burst is just so much better.

Plus gun variance can be achieved regardless. BF and COD (oh god!) had great weapons that felt different even on hardcore modes. You just need good designers.

[Palerion]

Reiterating what I have said previously, this game is combining battlefield-like recoil with anywhere from eight (point blank) to something like fifteen bullets to kill. I honestly find the system unfriendly enough in terms of the ease at which kills can be made.

[Rbstr]

Originally Posted by Strategy

Just out maneuvering another shouldn't get you anything but good position.

A good position from which to kill you with quickly because you're not paying attention and facing the wrong way...

[Archonzero]

PS1's TTKS was atrocious. Yes it made for some fun, good show johnny ole boy dancing firefights between two players, but it was simply too much.

PS2's TTK isn't bad, it promotes having higher wits an being more tactically aware/faster the the other guy (no need to do SWAT formations, but having others cover blind spots is paramount). I do feel the TTK is a bit too fast though imo, an I would agree with a 30-50% health buff for all infantry to allow a bit more processing time to the average player.

[BlaxicanX]

Some of the posts in this thread, man... these posts..

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

A good position from which to kill you with quickly because you're not paying attention and facing the wrong way...

"Not paying attention", "facing the wrong way".



Anyone else have issues with this wording? Considering you can only face one direction and if you round a corner or pass through a door, you have no options to look at all angles first. Particularly up and behind you. Getting into ganking positions is not skill, not in PS2 anyway where you have so much freedom of movement you do this by accident, since the opposition (particularly defense) has no idea what direction you're coming from. Attackers tend to know where the defender is coming from and therefore what crossfires to set up. But again, that's not a very big skill because it's simply too easy: pretty much anywhere with a perpendicular angle to the defender's path will do.


See, PlanetSide 1, I could get behind those statements, because you had third person view to actually be careful and check for threats. In PS1, if you approached or rounded a corner and didn't check first, or even if you didn't just throw EMP grenades, then yeah, it's indeed your fault.

In PS2, you don't. The only way to "pay attention" is by rounding the corner yourself to see - at which point you expose yourself to High Explosives, headshots and generally low TTKs, especially if there's more than one person there. Getting the drop on people who are "situational unaware" is extremely easy and basically it means whoever sees the other first.

Basically what I'm saying is, PS2 forces you to be situationally unaware, especially since at any second there's 8 or more directions you have to stay alert to, each with instant death. People are so unaware, that you can often just strawl up to enemy Sunderers from any near-rear vector, slap two C4 on the back or drop two mines and ??? profit.

There are MORE enemies in PS2 and each enemy is MORE dangerous when they get the drop. Saying this adds depth is like saying playing Minesweeper blindfolded adds more depth. It just adds more random deaths and creates more situations where a player has no control over the situation at all. Skill has nothing to do with it aside from being able to land more headshots, which almost means you have to play VS or TR anyway due to NC recoil.


Another thing to take into account in the context of the current TTKs, is that there's no TTK extension aside from certs. In PS1 we had medkits, where proper use could just be enough to make the other require an extra shot. We also had PShield, which was frustrating because it recharged too quick and gave too much absorbtion (only true for PS2 HA's to some degree beyond the recharge of all players where the shield is lesss noticable than PS1 armour). In PS2, I'm not even bothering with certing into medkits or regeneration kits, you won't get a chance to use them anyway until after an engagement, at which point you're normally either full health or dead and when shields have recharged, there's a barely noticable difference in TTK - a most you might stop being able to take fall damage. Medics otoh, get free health recharge and the most accurate basic gun - and one wonders why these are used so often by the killstreak users?

[ShadetheDruid]

It's really not that hard to be situationally aware in PS2, it's really not. People often just don't bother.

I've lost count of the number of times i've seen people get killed because they don't watch/check the high spots (in a game with drop pods and jetpacks, come on people ). But at the same time, those people making use of that lack of awareness don't have any of their own - i've also lost count of how many times i've been able to keep roofs clear because people who jetpack or pod up there don't pay attention either. You have people not being aware, and people relying on people not being aware to not be aware themselves.

That doesn't mean it's impossible, and you don't need a cheaty third person view to do it. If you need a third person view to see things you shouldn't logically be able to see in order to be situationally aware, then FPSs might not be for you. I also don't see why people's tactical positioning should be negated by your ability to go into third person just because you don't want to be ambushed.

I don't often (well, "don't often" in such a large game is relative, but you get what I mean) get snuck up on or ambushed because I actually pay attention to what i'm doing. Mostly because I use those tactics myself so I know I need to be aware to (and how to) counter them.

I really don't see how "PS2 forces you to be situationally unaware" because there's so many more points of attack, that doesn't make any sense. That's actually the opposite of making sense. If there's more threats, that forces you to be more situationally aware, not less.

The problem isn't the game, the problem is people. Very few people even pay attention to most things in every day life, let alone in games. Multiply that by the size of the game and you have people not paying attention on a grand scale. That's just how a lot of people are. But just because things are hard for some people (or even you), doesn't mean it's impossible. I'm not that great a player, and even I can manage it.

Edit: As for the medikit thing, that hasn't been my experience at all. I have restoration kits for when i'm playing HA and I get a lot of use out of them (when there's no medics around). I definitely don't find that the only options are "full health" or "dead" after a fight.

[Sunrock]

Originally Posted by VGCS

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?

90% of the time I die I would say it's because I "dropped the ball", IE lost concentration, underestimated the opponent or where just plain stupid.

But no this game is not too complex for the average player. PS2 is easy to learn hard to master.

[Baneblade]

Most of my deaths are due to my mistakes, but all too many of them seem to be luck on the side of who killed me... such as headshot OSOKs from Liberators.

[Mietz]

Originally Posted by ShadetheDruid

I really don't see how "PS2 forces you to be situationally unaware" because there's so many more points of attack, that doesn't make any sense. That's actually the opposite of making sense. If there's more threats, that forces you to be more situationally aware, not less.

Because there is a threshold in human capability, map design and TTK.

Giving a player the tools to reliably control his surroundings is key. Once you give the attacker too many avenues of attack and the player no reasonable and consistent way to actually counteract that, the threshold is crossed and you move from skill to luck.

PS2 swung the pendulum way past that threshold.

In a game that has 8 directional attack avenues and mobility with jetpacks, terrain, cloaks, aircraft, vehicles, etc. the tools for the player to consistently perform are not there.
Especially since you are so reliant on the performance of others in this game (you will not win the war by yourself), the ability to compensate is just not available, at all.

Situational awareness is good, I welcome it, but it needs to be controlled, like any other game design element.

Its not a panacea to everything.

[Sledgecrushr]

Ps2 has a tremendous skill component. But I dont think you can put it in with the spray-n-pray games lile cod, it takes too many bullets landed to get a kill for that. The kd in this game is long enough that being able to use your pistol and knife effectively are a big part of the game. How many people here have run out of rifle bullets and had to switch to the pistol to finish off an opponent. And shit Ive been in half a dozen good knife fights, not just sneaking up on someone but where both of us combatants were out of rifle and pistol ammo and had moved to the dirty work of the knife. Yeah this game from my perspective is hard. Yeah it would be easier for me to run away or get a heal mid combat heal if the ttk was was higher. To me this game is exciting with its imminent danger. When I can finally get a kill streak together I feel that it was completely deserved, not just luck. I hear Hawken has a very long ttk. Anyone try that game out?

[Mietz]

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

I hear Hawken has a very long ttk. Anyone try that game out?

I play the beta, what do you want to know?

[Dkamanus]

The thing of lower TTK is that you KNOW you'll die quickly, so to avoid that, you need to try to think in order to stay long enough to kill people. An example are Amp Stations. There are very much infantry oriented, but have their vehicle places inside the station. Since TTK is low, you can't run across the yard from where vehicles come out without any cover and expect to survive, even more if infantry and/or vehicle are shooting.

So you make a decision, even if unconsciously. You either move through the clutter of buildings in order to protect yourself against damage, or jump from tower to tower, OR go through the yard and see what happens. Unconsciously you go through the building, mitigating damage, being able to reach a generator and kill an engineer repairing it, mostly because you though it would be best to flank him.

Even though we don't make those decision actively, the lower TTK does try to bring the player more and more towards protecting himself and helping other so he won't die so often. There is nothing more frustrating then dieing over and over again, due to a lack of common sense. I think the low TTK incentivizes players to look for alternatives to staying alive.