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

[sneeek]

Originally Posted by Figment

Are you just being incredibly dense on purpose by not comprehending that, or what?


Why are you assuming there's enough people to cover every door? THAT is dumb. Yes it's a team game, no, they're not always going to be in the same room or have the appropriate angle.


And yes, I do look at it from both small, big team and solo perspective. If you only look at this from a big team perspective, you ensure the game will have a horrible retention rate. Players come in as solo players, if you discourage them from staying after their "trial" period, they're never going to get in that small or bigger team situation.

If you only design for one situation or scenario, you're just a bad designer.

We're talking a bit more linearity and a slight bit more longer ttk here. Nothing ridiculously undoable for balancing.

First of all, starting a thread about "Ethics and Netiquette" and then implying that somebody is a dumbo hardly seems consistent, particularly when said person makes a valid point.

If you don't have enough people to cover all doors, that's tough, really - find a more defensible position. If there isn't one, that's also tough, and maybe you're going to die shortly. Or maybe not. As another guy said, a bit of unpredictability is not a bad thing. Please justify why people shouldn't have to continually evaluate the defensibility of their position.

There's almost never such a thing as "solo" in PS2. You nearly always have other teammates around, even if they're strangers. It doesn't take a great deal of common sense even for a bunch of randoms to realise that covering different approaches and each other is a smart idea. I'm not in an outfit right now, and I'm never in a squad or a platoon, but I have enough sense to realise when I'm not in a good position and there aren't enough friendlies around to adequately cover all approaches.

The fact is that this whole TTK argument hinges on a bunch of subjective preferences about what constitutes good gameplay. The low TTK camp values one set of things, and the high TTK camp values a different set of things. Without actually polling the entire playerbase we'll never have a consensus.

[Ruffdog]

Originally Posted by Mietz

15%-20% HP buff will give you resistance to 1 bullet more to kill for body shots 0 for headshots.

My bad. Not accounting for personal shields.
What I want is it for it to take 15-20% longer to kill someone. Make of that what you will with pure HP points.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Figment

Only when spotted by others.

Originally Posted by Figment

Are you just being incredibly dense on purpose by not comprehending that, or what?


Why are you assuming there's enough people to cover every door? THAT is dumb. Yes it's a team game, no, they're not always going to be in the same room or have the appropriate angle.


And yes, I do look at it from both small, big team and solo perspective. If you only look at this from a big team perspective, you ensure the game will have a horrible retention rate. Players come in as solo players, if you discourage them from staying after their "trial" period, they're never going to get in that small or bigger team situation.

If you only design for one situation or scenario, you're just a bad designer.

We're talking a bit more linearity and a slight bit more longer ttk here. Nothing ridiculously undoable for balancing.

Wow, anger management, dude...

I haven't seen a room in this game that can't be visually covered by 2 people. If you're out in the open... well crap, I don't know what to tell you other than changing TTK won't make a difference.

Speaking of which, you use an example where you get killed by being shot in the back. You say it's impossible to see everywhere, so being shot in the back will happen. Therefore TTK should be made longer. (so you have a chance to do something?). Well guess what? Lets say TTK gets doubled and TWO guys shoot you in the back. You'll still die in the same amount of time and you'll be right back here on the forums saying, TTK needs to increase more because I didn't have time to react! You are mixing up two different factors. TTK has NOTHING to do with getting flanked. If you were advocating getting more and better tools for battlefield awareness, so you're less likely to get flanked, then I wouldn't be poking my nose in your discussions because your solution would actually solve your problem. But you're mixing up two things that aren't related to each other.

And as for being the spokesman for solo players, you better think things trough a bit. With low TTK, a solo player has a chance to take out a priority target, like a medic, an engineer or something tactically significant when facing larger groups, before being overwhelmed by said large group. By increasing TTK, the solo player that tries to do such a thing will fail BECAUSE of higher TTK and the large group having the TIME to react and focus their fire. TTK benefits overwhelming numbers (zergs) more than the solo player. That gives them even less of a role on the battlefield. So I'm sorry, but your argument doesn't compute.

[sneeek]

Originally Posted by Ruffdog

My bad. Not accounting for personal shields.
What I want is it for it to take 15-20% longer to kill someone. Make of that what you will with pure HP points.

It's not actually correct to say that +15% health will always require 0 more headshots, or 1 more non-headshot. It depends on how much damage has already been taken (which can be "a fraction of a bullet"), distance to target due to damage dropoff etc.) and no doubt other factors. Therefore 15-20% more health would probably require, on average, somewhere between 0 and 1 extra bullet, and in most cases, leaning towards 1 more bullet.

The point is that small tweaks can be worthwhile in achieving a reasonable balance that is acceptable to as many people as possible.

In any case, I took your original post to mean 15-20% to overall health (shields + health).

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

Wow, anger management, dude...

I haven't seen a room in this game that can't be visually covered by 2 people.

Have you pressed that big green PLAY-button yet?



The rest of your post is utter bullshit. Really havn't seen such low quality scenario building in a good amount of time.

"TTK doubles, but now we somehow magically change the scenario to make it not matter anymore".

So you really are dense.

A solo player facing a large group with 10 LOW TTK players means the TTK on him is even lower and one of those 10 WILL kill him instantly, guaranteed. And that's what is happening here. With a higher TTK, that player if he's a good shot may be able to find cover, recuperate and take on the next one between engagements.

PS1 actually showed that, but then, you didn't play PS1, so as usual, you're full of pretentious theoretical bullcrap since you haven't actually tested your hypothesis, while we have.


And that whole one extra bullet is a random assumption based on taking equal amounts of damage over time. You can simply slow rate of fire marginally and reach the same effect with the same amount of bullets, in which case alpha damage becomes more important. Meaning it would probably benefit NC slightly.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Figment

Have you pressed that big green PLAY-button yet?



The rest of your post is utter bullshit. Really havn't seen such low quality scenario building in a good amount of time.

"TTK doubles, but now we somehow magically change the scenario to make it not matter anymore".

So you really are dense.

A solo player facing a large group with 10 LOW TTK players means the TTK on him is even lower and one of those 10 WILL kill him instantly, guaranteed. And that's what is happening here. With a higher TTK, that player if he's a good shot may be able to find cover, recuperate and take on the next one between engagements.

PS1 actually showed that, but then, you didn't play PS1, so as usual, you're full of pretentious theoretical bullcrap since you haven't actually tested your hypothesis, while we have.


And that whole one extra bullet is a random assumption based on taking equal amounts of damage over time. You can simply slow rate of fire marginally and reach the same effect with the same amount of bullets, in which case alpha damage becomes more important. Meaning it would probably benefit NC slightly.

I have over 3 days of played time. My stats are linked in my profile, go look yourself. Your comebacks are entertaining, in that they're clever. But they don't contribute one iota to your arguments. I restate: 2 guys can visually cover entrances/exits in the large majority of the rooms in PS2.

A large group that gets the jump on 10 guys with low TTK, has a chance to drop a guy before those 10 guys can react. In that way, the solo guy can have an impact, especially if he chooses priority targets. With high TTK, that solo guy that gets the drop will no longer have an advantage because TTK is longer, giving those 10 guys time to react.

My example of getting ganked by 2 guys instead of one was to point out that getting flanked and TTK are 2 separate issues. A perfectly valid point to argue, which you chose to ignore.

Your prior experience as a PS1 player does not make false arguments true. Battlefield awareness, flanking, gunplay mechanics, teamwork are not "owned" by PS1. Many people can accrue alot of experience in any or all of those facets without ever having played PS1.

You seem to have the attitude that anyone without a PS1 background should not be participating in these forums. If that is really the case, then get a forum admin to ban me with the message "You do not have prior Planetside experience and are not welcome here." and I'll respect the wishes of the people that run these forums. I'll just spend all my forum time on the SOE forums instead.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Kerrec

I have over 3 days of played time. My stats are linked in my profile, go look yourself. Your comebacks are entertaining, in that they're clever. But they don't contribute one iota to your arguments. I restate: 2 guys can visually cover entrances/exits in the large majority of the rooms in PS2.

2 guys can't cover them all and often sight is obscured by random placement of objects. Even if they would see them, they can't actually cover them because THEY will have to turn and respond, rather than be the first to fire. The enemy will always have the drop on them (unless they walk into the sights immediately) since they will always have to compensate for the enemy, sit in a predictable, confined space with a likely sight aimed at the most likely (multi-unit type) entry points, while the enemy can systematically go over the corners of the room they enter from arbitrary directions. Especially true for Light Assaults.

Plus, if you cover a room with two and face two enemies coming from the same side, then you will lose at least one before the second player can react. If you compare with a CC hold of say an Interlink in PS1, all attacks would come from a mutual front, even if the exact direction could vary (three options). This would make it a lot more likely for the two players to cover and assist each other fast.

Perhaps more importantly though, it's very easy to simply throw a grenade in and get one-three kills when people cover a room with more due to the instant kill thing. So much for covering all exits. And mind, that will get worse with the underslung grenade launcher spreading among the populace because more people can afford them over time.


The less openings, the more likely it is to be able to hold. There simply are too many entries to cover.

A large group that gets the jump on 10 guys with low TTK, has a chance to drop a guy before those 10 guys can react. In that way, the solo guy can have an impact, especially if he chooses priority targets. With high TTK, that solo guy that gets the drop will no longer have an advantage because TTK is longer, giving those 10 guys time to react.

You assume too much.

My example of getting ganked by 2 guys instead of one was to point out that getting flanked and TTK are 2 separate issues. A perfectly valid point to argue, which you chose to ignore.

They're directly linked, since if you get flanked and wish to react in a competitive manner, the TTK has to allow for you to turn and face your attacker. If it's more than one attacker that flanks you (or three, depending on how many are needed to floor you instantly), the point is moot. At that point it doesn't matter if it's three, four or five attacking from that direction. That doesn't mean you "might as well" suffice with one. As you said, it's a team game. Why shouldn't you be required to bring someone else to instantly drop someone else?

And no, unlike you falsely presumed, I'd not complain about that, at all. I'll complain when ONE guy can do the same thing.

One primarily balances on a one vs one situation, then moves to equal groups of small, but slightly larger size, before one goes to large vs small groups.

In the last case, the most important thing for a small group is to mitigate numbers by being able to concentrate fire. That requires fewer options for enemies than the amount of players available already having trained their weapon on the likely route. The more you concentrate firepower on a single point, the easier it is for a small group to hold. For a bigger group, if you can hold with two people, having three is redundant and doesn't increase the effectiveness, it just makes the effect last longer.

In which case you as a small group train multiple weapons on the same entry point, thereby making it possible to quickly take out enemies approaching through a narrow passage one by one, quickly thinning their numbers.

Short TTKs ensure that fluke shots from the bigger team - especially with regards to AoE - are more likely to get random kills and therefore increase their leverage. ie. Volume of fire is a natural benefit of the bigger team, if you make it qualitative at the same time it just becomes OP spam. Hence why AoE should be a group weakening tool, not an instant kill tool. Even though it was in PS1, it had to be reduced further (to 1/6th damage per player) because it was still too good at crowd control.

Quantitative and qualitative fire benefits both to a certain degree, but smaller teams can be more efficient with a lower TTK as they don't obstruct one another's view or path in tight spaces in particular (CQC is beneficial to smaller groups) and can consistently deliver their focused fire and soak a bit of damage: their opposition's fire would be more dispersed even if they'd have some soaking power and the smaller team would win on that lack of focus and therefore the bigger group's lack of instant dropping power. If each individual in the bigger group could instantly drop an enemy, then focused fire has less impact.

Your prior experience as a PS1 player does not make false arguments true. Battlefield awareness, flanking, gunplay mechanics, teamwork are not "owned" by PS1. Many people can accrue alot of experience in any or all of those facets without ever having played PS1.

You miss the point utterly. I'm not suggesting those are "owned" by PS1, I'm suggesting you utterly lack experience with the effects of longer TTKs which is exactly the experience one could get from PS1. That's all I'm saying. Again, you assume too much. Just like you utterly lack the experience to judge and then compare any sort of lattice (including the hex system).

You seem to have the attitude that anyone without a PS1 background should not be participating in these forums. If that is really the case, then get a forum admin to ban me with the message "You do not have prior Planetside experience and are not welcome here." and I'll respect the wishes of the people that run these forums. I'll just spend all my forum time on the SOE forums instead.

Not at all, what I expect you to do is appreciate that others can have more experience than you when participating in a discussion. You are simply uninformed and pretend to be informed. THAT's the problem. You don't have that position of authority because you have a giant gap in your experience: exactly the bit you're trying to argue about.





Please, remember that groups in PS1 were capable of holding 5 times their numbers at times, despite a double TTK length. Your whole argument is based around proving that longer TTKs would ultimately benefit the larger groups more than small groups. That's simply not true up to the point where you can provide sufficient firepower to take down the influx of hitpoints coming through a chokepoint from cover and by timing your engagements.



Why do you think MAX crashes existed in PS1? To over-saturate the mitigation power of hold groups and swamp them with a sudden burst in overdose of hitpoints hitting at the same time in a single effort. However, since there were only few directions to pass through, small skilled groups stood a much bigger chance against bigger groups when holding. In fact, the bigger groups were at a disadvantage in the smaller areas of PS1 and would often be obstructed by themselves, or dispersed over the larger base area of PS1, making it easier for a good, small team to make a concerted, concentrated effort. High pressure on small points of the defense - leaving most of the defense in tact but carving a path to the objective to resecure: CC, gen or spawnroom. For that, they must be able to pass through open spaces without dieing instantly to single randoms and a longer TTK allows them to catch their breath and try something else if there was more opposition than expected - without having died yet.

Note also that in PS1, you didn't have endless medic power: you'd run out of med juice. You'd run out of medkits. You'd run out of repairs. You don't in PS2. Completely different context and one I don't understand from a design decision making point of view, because it's utterly horrendous for balance and game play to provide unlimited ammo for anything (that includes ammo packs, btw).

[Sledgecrushr]

Originally Posted by Figment

Have you pressed that big green PLAY-button yet?



The rest of your post is utter bullshit. Really havn't seen such low quality scenario building in a good amount of time.

"TTK doubles, but now we somehow magically change the scenario to make it not matter anymore".

So you really are dense.

A solo player facing a large group with 10 LOW TTK players means the TTK on him is even lower and one of those 10 WILL kill him instantly, guaranteed. And that's what is happening here. With a higher TTK, that player if he's a good shot may be able to find cover, recuperate and take on the next one between engagements.

PS1 actually showed that, but then, you didn't play PS1, so as usual, you're full of pretentious theoretical bullcrap since you haven't actually tested your hypothesis, while we have.


And that whole one extra bullet is a random assumption based on taking equal amounts of damage over time. You can simply slow rate of fire marginally and reach the same effect with the same amount of bullets, in which case alpha damage becomes more important. Meaning it would probably benefit NC slightly.

Ive seen one guy move through a group of enemies just murdering people because you are missing a critical element here. You have to figure enemy reaction time. With a low ttk it makes soloing easy because you dont have to stay on one target 15-20% longer. Lower ttk is a solo players friend.

[Figment]

Had to rephrase a few things.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Ive seen one guy move through a group of enemies just murdering people because you are missing a critical element here. You have to figure enemy reaction time. With a low ttk it makes soloing easy because you dont have to stay on one target 15-20% longer. Lower ttk is a solo players friend.

In an isolated run-and-gun situation, yes.


I'm talking about holds.

[Baneblade]

I have noticed that my HA has no more chance of surviving any given scenario than any of the other classes.

So far, my experience is that LA is the best of them for getting out of a shitstorm.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by sneeek

First of all, starting a thread about "Ethics and Netiquette" and then implying that somebody is a dumbo hardly seems consistent, particularly when said person makes a valid point.

You're right, I shouldn't have said that. Kerrec, my apologies.

However, the point that "there's no room you cannot cover with two people" is absolutely invalid, then going on that you might as well have one person insta-kill because two person would otherwise instakill is completely irrelevant to the discussion of competition between two players. That isn't a valid point either.

If you don't have enough people to cover all doors, that's tough, really - find a more defensible position.

"Hold the CC somewhere else"/block incoming HE spam from the outside. Good suggestion. I'll just walk outside then and surrender to the HE spam there? The base design is far too attacker oriented by being as poreus as swiss cheese. That's true for one, six, even 20 people. There's just too many doors to cover and too little room to create suppression fire as wherever you sit, you're always in a crossfire and can always be flanked from multiple directions.

Many options are fine in a deathmatch run-and-gun game, it's retarded in a conquest game where you have to hold a position and are basically a sitting duck (the six-guys on point thing makes that even worse as it removes players from contributing elsewhere, which again, hit smaller teams much harder as say 4/6 or 6/6 is much more impacting than 6 out of 24 - in that case the small team would want their 6 in as good positions as possible and not in an utter crossfire - and why shouldn't the team of 24 with manpower benefit have to work for it?).

You have to understand the perspective here. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that simply having more numbers means you're a better team and deserve to win. That's retarded.

Why should numbers give you bragging rights? We might as well just decide which faction wins then by lining up everyone for a group shot, take a picture and base the outcome of all competitive fighting on that.

If there isn't one, that's also tough, and maybe you're going to die shortly. Or maybe not. As another guy said, a bit of unpredictability is not a bad thing. Please justify why people shouldn't have to continually evaluate the defensibility of their position.

There's no re-evaluation needed as long as your information doesn't change. Your information comes from your situational awareness, so once in position, you should be good till something changes, otherwise you never were in the appropriate position. The point is not that you shouldn't acquire as much information as possible, the point is that the game is designed for zerg size groups, while the groups playing the game are not zerg size.

This is an error on behalf of the design team, as you should design the game for all potential groups, not just for a small portion of your players (that comes in a big package). The problem here is that they don't understand the expectations and likely group formation in the game.


I mean you can point at the 666th and Enclave and say "see, that's how you should do it". Great, then me and pretty much everyone else who's not that type of player is out of the game immediately.

Most outfits like the comfort, flexibility and social aspects of smaller groups and the direct control that provides, rather than individuals in a herd. The game should be designed for them too. If not, it's the game's fault.


This is human-product interaction design. I don't expect every designer to have had this in their study, because for most engineers, particular those in exact or academic sciences, it is not commonly part of the curriculum.

There's almost never such a thing as "solo" in PS2. You nearly always have other teammates around, even if they're strangers. It doesn't take a great deal of common sense even for a bunch of randoms to realise that covering different approaches and each other is a smart idea. I'm not in an outfit right now, and I'm never in a squad or a platoon, but I have enough sense to realise when I'm not in a good position and there aren't enough friendlies around to adequately cover all approaches.

The matter is "when is enough enough", should the game dictate that, or naturalgroup size and formation?

Considering new players are solo players (even when forced into a squad by the game upon game entry), yes, solo design is important. More so for infantry than for vehicles.

The fact is that this whole TTK argument hinges on a bunch of subjective preferences about what constitutes good gameplay. The low TTK camp values one set of things, and the high TTK camp values a different set of things. Without actually polling the entire playerbase we'll never have a consensus.

It's not subjective preference, it's design vision differences based on argumentation.

Low TTK people constantly speak of run and gun gameplay.

This is a conquest game, not a deathmatch. Run and gun doesn't work in this game and you see it, because nobody puts up a defense as nobody is capable of it. You see the only places where a defense is put up is the situation with very very few chokepoints.

And despite of the LESS CHOKE POINTS THAN IN PS1 SITUATION and higher number of defenders than PS1, they still fall much sooner than any PS1 fight.

That has everything to do with the run and gun and defenders being easily cleared out of a room situation. And that's down to base design, capture mechanics forcing defenders out in the crossfire, low TTK and too great demands on player situational awareness.

[VGCS]

Originally Posted by Mietz

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.

This absolutely nails it. Thank you.

It also reminds us of the larger effort that's consumed this Forum (for good reason) the past month: the MetaGame or lack there of. Which right now we're only getting band-aids for. But once we start getting real Map changes, we'll still have this issue where 3 spray & pray bullets around the head area of your target who's only about a half a second late on turning and firing at you ... results in that "Execution Style" TTK.

What I see people keep skating around in this thread, is that point about situational awareness --> Talking in absolutes as if their target is never in the process of turning and firing back at them. WRONG, please stop citing those examples as "situational awareness"... that scenario already has a term, it's called being "Blindsided". Granted, that one guy in this thread did say he had trouble executing people when he blindsided them, but I think most of us can agree we rarely fail that task ourselves b/c most of us here have been playing shooters on the PC (which have no aim assistance or larger "collision hulls" like Consoles have) for quite a bit longer. It doesn't matter how long the TTK is in most games when you completely blindside someone because most people who can shoot straight will always win that scenario. I win 90% of those fights already just using the Infiltrator pistol (against Shielded HA's running high rank Nano).

At Ranges over 35ft in purely infantry VS infantry, this matter of the "execution style" against targets who ARE looking around and only spot their attackers half a second late....definitely does not seem to be as much of a problem or something that requires a Tutorial to make it less frustrating to newer players. So chalk it up to bad base design or bad modifiers in CQC I guess? ....and that's a good thing by the way because it means it's a LOT easier to fix (after they're done tweaking vehicle AOE's) than trying to scale the TTK at EVERY range in EVERY environment.

[Kerrec]

I'm glad you're bothering to actually argue your point of view. I have to break up my response, because you touch some subjects I never tried to involve myself in.

Originally Posted by Figment

2 guys can't cover them all and often sight is obscured by random placement of objects. Even if they would see them, they can't actually cover them because THEY will have to turn and respond, rather than be the first to fire. The enemy will always have the drop on them (unless they walk into the sights immediately) since they will always have to compensate for the enemy, sit in a predictable, confined space with a likely sight aimed at the most likely (multi-unit type) entry points, while the enemy can systematically go over the corners of the room they enter from arbitrary directions. Especially true for Light Assaults.

Plus, if you cover a room with two and face two enemies coming from the same side, then you will lose at least one before the second player can react. If you compare with a CC hold of say an Interlink in PS1, all attacks would come from a mutual front, even if the exact direction could vary (three options). This would make it a lot more likely for the two players to cover and assist each other fast.

Perhaps more importantly though, it's very easy to simply throw a grenade in and get one-three kills when people cover a room with more due to the instant kill thing. So much for covering all exits. And mind, that will get worse with the underslung grenade launcher spreading among the populace because more people can afford them over time.


The less openings, the more likely it is to be able to hold. There simply are too many entries to cover.

Go back and read my replies. I explicitly stated that two guys can VISUALLY cover just about most rooms in PS2. I never ever stated that those two guys could HOLD that room. You ASSUME that when I say 2 guys can cover each other's flanks, I am talking about being able to HOLD an objective. Not so.

I entered this discussion with you because you link TTK with Flanking, which I still find wrong. Never did I say 2 guys should hold a room that has several entry points versus larger numbers. I just pointed out, that if you play with ONE more person instead of solo in a game that is defined as teamwork centric, you can cover the large majority of your mutual flanks, to avoid being UNKNOWINGLY flanked. In that respect, I will continue to hold to the belief that if you get flanked and ganked, your teammates failed you, you placed yourself in a bad situation, or your opponent truly outplayed you.

You seem to have an issue with the defensibility in PS2. That is again an entirely different issue than TTK. And to set the record straight, I do not think that the defensibility of structures/bases in PS2 is OK. The way I see it, the majority of the facilities in PS2 are designed to NOT be defensible.

Originally Posted by Figment

You assume too much.

What are you talking about? That is so completely general that it looks more like an attempt at an insult than an argument. You ASSUME a lot too, although I define where it is I think you're making assumptions.

Originally Posted by Figment

They're directly linked, since if you get flanked and wish to react in a competitive manner, the TTK has to allow for you to turn and face your attacker. If it's more than one attacker that flanks you (or three, depending on how many are needed to floor you instantly), the point is moot. At that point it doesn't matter if it's three, four or five attacking from that direction. That doesn't mean you "might as well" suffice with one. As you said, it's a team game. Why shouldn't you be required to bring someone else to instantly drop someone else?

And no, unlike you falsely presumed, I'd not complain about that, at all. I'll complain when ONE guy can do the same thing.

Keep saying it, I still don't believe it. So we're back to the one on one situation, because you keep insisting THIS is the metric to define what is "OK". Fine... say you get flanked by a HA and since he knows his gun takes too long to kill, he uses his rocket instead. Boom, insta-gibbed. You STILL don't have enough time to react. Or any class usess a grenade. Or drops a AI mine. Or drops C4, Or a sniper gets right behind you and shoots you in the head with a bolt action. Or whatever... you STILL didn't have a chance to react, because you got FLANKED. Do you propose that a bolt action sniper that is right behind you and shoots you in the head, then has to go thru a gun battle in close quarters because YOU want a "fair" chance to react? And what's "fair"? Some people have way better reaction times, way better hearing, way better situation awareness. How much do you have to increase TTK, so everyone gets their "fair" chance to react? The link you make between getting flanked and TTK is preposterous.

Originally Posted by Figment

One primarily balances on a one vs one situation, then moves to equal groups of small, but slightly larger size, before one goes to large vs small groups.

I'm sorry, but in this case I'm the one that has to pull the "gaming experience" trump card. In a multi-class multiplayer game, you CANNOT achieve game balance by starting with one on one scenarios. There's a staggering amount of combinations because of the different classes, and the distances that each class can choose to engage at.

Originally Posted by Figment

In the last case, the most important thing for a small group is to mitigate numbers by being able to concentrate fire. That requires fewer options for enemies than the amount of players available already having trained their weapon on the likely route. The more you concentrate firepower on a single point, the easier it is for a small group to hold. For a bigger group, if you can hold with two people, having three is redundant and doesn't increase the effectiveness, it just makes the effect last longer.

In which case you as a small group train multiple weapons on the same entry point, thereby making it possible to quickly take out enemies approaching through a narrow passage one by one, quickly thinning their numbers.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. At some points, it sounds like you're making my argument for me. Low TTK gives smaller numbers a chance, since they can use the advantage of surprise vs. reaction time to make an impact. I've already brought this point up, and others have also tried to point this out to you.

But the above seems like you're confusing defensibility of a choke point with TTK. A choke point allows you to funnel enemy forces in such a way that they can't bring their full force against you because either,

a) the choke point simply won't allow superior numbers (space restriction, think of a tank column km's long winding down a narrow ravine), or
b) by focusing your firepower, you can decimate the enemy forces faster than they can spread out to bear against you (think of a long rank of tanks that have to pivot around a corner to be able to fire on you without hitting their own tanks).

Either way, TTK has nothing to do with defensible positions. Keep in mind that whatever a small unit can do, a big unit can do too. If it takes the small group 1 second of focused fire to kill one unit, then it will take a group twice the size half a second to kill one unit. AND they have half as many units to kill. So I'm sorry, but TTK has nothing to do with defensible positions, or HOLDING anything.

Originally Posted by Figment

Short TTKs ensure that fluke shots from the bigger team - especially with regards to AoE - are more likely to get random kills and therefore increase their leverage. ie. Volume of fire is a natural benefit of the bigger team, if you make it qualitative at the same time it just becomes OP spam. Hence why AoE should be a group weakening tool, not an instant kill tool. Even though it was in PS1, it had to be reduced further (to 1/6th damage per player) because it was still too good at crowd control.

So far, I agree with you. But that's the inherent advantage of having superior numbers. This is not a game breaking mechanic that needs to be fixed, it's just plain how it is. Defensible positions and chokepoints, will limit this by reducing how many of the bigger team can fire at the smaller team. The bit below is a bit confusing though.

Originally Posted by Figment

Quantitative and qualitative fire benefits both to a certain degree, but smaller teams can be more efficient with a lower TTK as they don't obstruct one another's view or path in tight spaces in particular (CQC is beneficial to smaller groups) and can consistently deliver their focused fire and soak a bit of damage: their opposition's fire would be more dispersed even if they'd have some soaking power and the smaller team would win on that lack of focus and therefore the bigger group's lack of instant dropping power. If each individual in the bigger group could instantly drop an enemy, then focused fire has less impact.

Sorry, I don't follow with regards to that last sentence. If individuals in the bigger group could instantly drop an enemy due to TTK, then the smaller group could instantly drop individuals in the larger group too. In that respect, all is equal. It becomes a contest of skill. That's perfectly OK. If the skill is equal and the smaller team gets 1 kill for 1 death, then they lose, because the other group has superior numbers. That's just life! That's not a game mechanic that is broken and needs fixing.

Originally Posted by Figment

You miss the point utterly. I'm not suggesting those are "owned" by PS1, I'm suggesting you utterly lack experience with the effects of longer TTKs which is exactly the experience one could get from PS1. That's all I'm saying. Again, you assume too much. Just like you utterly lack the experience to judge and then compare any sort of lattice (including the hex system).

I think YOU missed the point utterly. I'm near 40 years old. I've been playing video games since my parents bought a Commodore 64 in the 80's. I have played A LOT OF GAMES. Just not PS1. Are you REALLY going to say that I have NEVER played a game that has high TTK? Implying that PS1 "owns" high TTK? And anyone that has never played PS1 can't possibly know anything about high TTK? Are you really going to ASSUME that?

Originally Posted by Figment

Not at all, what I expect you to do is appreciate that others can have more experience than you when participating in a discussion. You are simply uninformed and pretend to be informed. THAT's the problem. You don't have that position of authority because you have a giant gap in your experience: exactly the bit you're trying to argue about.

In my field of work, it is easy to get bogged down in tons of minor details that makes things look like there are no options left. In my line of work, a critical "fresh" view at the situation often reveals new options, or produces new workable ideas. So I value the "outsider" opinion, because they can often see flaws, opportunites or whatnot. So I am not closed to outsiders as a career choice. If I design something and someone finds a way to improve it, that makes me look good too. I don't have this high horse view that you have, sorry.

Originally Posted by Figment

Please, remember that groups in PS1 were capable of holding 5 times their numbers at times, despite a double TTK length. Your whole argument is based around proving that longer TTKs would ultimately benefit the larger groups more than small groups. That's simply not true up to the point where you can provide sufficient firepower to take down the influx of hitpoints coming through a chokepoint from cover and by timing your engagements.

To make this comparison, you have to be sure that the ONLY variable left in the equation is TTK. So are you saying that PS2 defenses are exactly the same as PS2 defenses? I already know the answer to that, and it is the ENTIRE POINT I wish to make. TTK is equal for both sides. It takes them the same amount of time to kill you, as you take to kill them. It is inherently balanced that way. Being flanked is another issue entirely. The defensibility of a facility is an entire issue entirely.

Originally Posted by Figment

Why do you think MAX crashes existed in PS1? To over-saturate the mitigation power of hold groups and swamp them with a sudden burst in overdose of hitpoints hitting at the same time in a single effort. However, since there were only few directions to pass through, small skilled groups stood a much bigger chance against bigger groups when holding. In fact, the bigger groups were at a disadvantage in the smaller areas of PS1 and would often be obstructed by themselves, or dispersed over the larger base area of PS1, making it easier for a good, small team to make a concerted, concentrated effort. High pressure on small points of the defense - leaving most of the defense in tact but carving a path to the objective to resecure: CC, gen or spawnroom. For that, they must be able to pass through open spaces without dieing instantly to single randoms and a longer TTK allows them to catch their breath and try something else if there was more opposition than expected - without having died yet.

TTK: Medics, Engineers, Light Assault are equal and for the sake of argument, I choose them as a baseline. Infiltrators have less TTK, HA have more (relative to the baseline). MAX's have alot more than the baseline and more than the HA's.

So a MAX crash is a tactic to pit a high TTK unit like the MAX against a varied bunch of lower TTK units that probably either won't have time to adjust (swap their own forces to MAX's), or simply won't be able to adjust at all. So the tactic is to thow UNEQUAL forces against each other, betting on the fact that the force with the higher TTK (and probably the more deadly weaponry too) will prevail.

Assuming you could find a good defensible place in PS2 (again, a completely different issue than TTK), you could use the exact same strategy, because PS2 MAX's have superior TTK and superiour firepower.

The relative balance of TTK between a MAX and other classes would probably not change even if TTK was increased as you wished. So the whole scenario you paint is pointless with respect to your arguments regarding TTK. The tactic would work NOW with the current TTK, or later with your proposed increased TTK.

You wrote that TTK needs to increase so defenders can cross courtyards and not get insta-gibbed. IE: Give them a chance to retreat and reassess when caught off guard by superior numbers. I am sorry, but I do not buy that. You seem to be touching on the issue of undefendable bases, HE spam, Lib spam, etc... but again, what does that have to do with TTK. It takes ten or so hits to kill. At long range, this is very hard to accomplish without you having a chance to retaliate or take cover. At short range, you should have been aware enough to know there was an enemy there. If you got killed by a sniper, then gratz on him for headshotting you as you were running. If you died to a AI mine, again, gratz on your enemy for planning well. If you died to a grenade, gratz on your enemy for a well placed, well led lob against a moving target. If you got insta-gibbed by HE from tanks or air, then you were flatly out gunned. What does this have to do with TTK.

Originally Posted by Figment

Note also that in PS1, you didn't have endless medic power: you'd run out of med juice. You'd run out of medkits. You'd run out of repairs. You don't in PS2. Completely different context and one I don't understand from a design decision making point of view, because it's utterly horrendous for balance and game play to provide unlimited ammo for anything (that includes ammo packs, btw).

That is not an issue that I have an opinion about either way. I did not bring it up, you did.

[Kerrec]

Originally Posted by Figment

However, the point that "there's no room you cannot cover with two people" is absolutely invalid, then going on that you might as well have one person insta-kill because two person would otherwise instakill is completely irrelevant to the discussion of competition between two players. That isn't a valid point either.

If you are going to quote me, then quote me properly. I wrote:

-2 guys can visually cover entrances/exits in the large majority of the rooms in PS2.

and,

- I haven't seen a room in this game that can't be visually covered by 2 people.

In both, I said VISUALLY COVER, and in the second I relented and stated that the MAJORITY of the rooms can be visually covered.

NEVER have I made the claim that 2 guys can HOLD a room. YOU made that ASSUMPTION.