News: Jimmy Whisenhunt Joins PlanetSide 2 Team

[Seagoon]

Originally Posted by Bags

I see nothing wrong with keeping a game skillful so only the skilled are good at it. Though, that won't happen because all games are being made so everyone wins now a days.

Though I do not want the PS1 netcode to return, and it isn't.

And it is indeed vital to ensure PS2 has a very high skill ceiling.
However, which skilled players should it be designed for ?

Should it be designed for the players who promote twitch gameplay and movement based skills over any others? Or should it be designed with the skilled players who can lead squads with the presicion of IRL SWAT teams ?

Now, my personal thoughts on this matter are that since planetside is a rather special FPS which combines almost every FPS related skill under one roof, that planetside 2 should have an equal focus on all the major ones.

For example: A squad of average twitch skilled players who work together perfectly with advanced tactics and strategy should be equal in a fight to a squad of players with elite twitch skills but only average tactical skill and coordination.

A FPS with a good combination of all skills is 'greater than the sum of its parts' and has a skill ceiling far higher than any that combine these skills but fail to promote them equally.

I get the feeling that many of the more skilled and influential players here might be missing that point. The best thing for PS2 is to produce a game that alows as many different skills to shine as possible. Even if it means potentially sacrificing their chances at personal heroism.

And if they are not skilled in all of these, instead of campaigning to change the game to suit them, maybe they should try branching out and improving the skills outside their personal comfort zone to not only improve themselves as gamers, but also to help PS2 become a better game itself because of it.

[Fek]

Originally Posted by zomg

I'm just going to leave this here.

Quake little tactics? CS little tactics? What a stupid graph.


Whoever made that graph probably thinks the people in this video are just running about randomly. In reality they know the map inside out, they know every single spawn, every single line of sight and every single movement they make is a carefully calculated piece of strategy to get the advantage on their opponent. Don't expect to understand what exactly that advantage is though if you have never played the game.

[zomg]

It's obviously not accurate (it's more about the relation of the three, not absolute) but can you really say Quake involves more tactics than CS? Or that CS involves more tactical gameplay than ArmA? I could have made Quake require 0 tactics, but as you can see, I didn't.

I'm sure if you actually spent a moment thinking about it you would understand it instead of just spouting angrily at whatever. Feel absolutely free to improve it - At least I'm trying to make a useful contribution instead of just raging randomly.

[AzK]

Originally Posted by Fek

Quake little tactics? CS little tactics? What a stupid graph.

Quake3 Classics HD - WCG 2002 Zero4 vs Cooller 1/4 - YouTube

Whoever made that graph probably thinks the people in this video are just running about randomly. In reality they know the map inside out, they know every single spawn, every single line of sight and every single movement they make is a carefully calculated piece of strategy to get the advantage on their opponent. Don't expect to understand what exactly that advantage is though if you have never played the game.

People claiming games like ut or quake have little or no tactics involved are simply ignorant on the subject. Holding the map, the power ups, and picking your fight when yours and your opponent's placement favor you was a big if not bigger part of the skill required to be not good but great at those games.

A complete ut/quake player can hold a map and pick his fight in order to get stats like 40/0 in a dm with like 16 people on the map. A player who only has aim and twitch reflexes maybe will still win but with a score of 40/40 or the likes, and when i played ut professionaly i considered those people bad players, as did everyone else who was playing competitively.

That was a solo dm / duel example, but make no mistake it's just as important in tdm games where you also add the "coordinating with your team" factor of who holds what areas/weapons etc.

Saying games like ut or quake required no coordination, situational awareness or tactical thinking is an ignorant claim and it really infuriates me. If anything, they required them just the same, while at the same time being much harder on the aim/twitch/movement level.

Edit: something i just noticed watching that vid and is just a tiny example, after the encounter at 2.13 the decision by the guy to damage himself (cause he was on 100hp) in order to be able to steal the 50hp up and deny it to the opponent. But yeah, games like q3 are just about flying around mashing spacebar amirite? And btw, if you move around mashing the spacebar you won't move like they are doing, it's actually a very precise thing to do and it requires moving your mouse too left and right at a certain rythm or it doesn't work.

[BillyBob]

Originally Posted by Fek

Claiming BF3 has a higher skill ceiling than UT? Seems like a troll, but I'll bite.

In reality if you were to plot a chart with realism on the x-axis and skill on the y-axis for games that exist today, it would probably be a V-shape. Unlike you I have actually played a wide selection of fps games, including mil sims like FH2 and PR, which require high amounts of skill. Most of it is in the vast amounts of team communication and coordination required. Personally I find the extremely diminished importance of aim, reactions and the slow pace in the implementation of strategies less enjoyable than arcade games, but as you say, that's personal difference.

Failing to recognise that there is skill in arcade games such as CS, UT, Quake, BF2 etc. i.e. thinking that good aim and reactions are not real skill or that these games somehow require no teamwork or strategy, simply makes you look dumb and ignorant.

What most of the "pro-arcade" people in this thread are arguing is that they want "skill" in PS2 to encompass as many different elements as possible, ranging from second to second handling of gun all the way to the grand strategy of the entire faction and everything in between.

I'm no more of a troll than you are, I clearly pointed out this was my personal opinion.

You seem to have completely missed my whole point, which is that what skill is and what requires skill is simply a matter of opinion.

Post all you want and bring up a million examples and diagrams, it still won't change the fact that my viewpoint is EXACTLY as valid as yours.

Yes, I consider CS to be dumbed-down and games like ArmA to require more skill according to how I measure and appreciated it, and you can never prove me wrong.

Equally, you're fully entitled to your opinion and you are of course free to express it openly, but when calling people noobs you need to realize, that in the eyes of a hardcore ArmA player, you would be considered just as much of a "noob" yourself.

What I object to, is when you and others like you pretend like your opinion is the "right" one or the "pro" one and anyone who differs in opinion is a "noob"...or even worse, a "troll".

Now, I made the "CS-kiddie" comment to make an example of this exact fact, that being a "noob" is a relative term.

So, please...don't pretend like you or your opinion is any better, more "professional" or more "skillful" because that's not the case.

There is no such thing, and neither you nor I can decide which is "best" for SOE. All we can do is hope that PS2 will turn out to be a game that we'll enjoy to play.

I'm guessing you obviously wish for a more twitch-based CS-like gameplay, perhaps with constant accurate hip-firing and bunny hopping.

To me, any such mechanics would make the game pretty much unplayable, as it's far too alien to what I consider a good combat experience in a game and I would personally consider it to be overly-simplified and yes, dumbed-down.

We simply have completely different opinions of what we feel PS2 should be, but the reality is, it's completely out of our hands and arguing about what proper "skill" is or isn't doesn't help anyone.

So, let's just wait and see and if it turns out like I wish for, in which case I'll enjoy it...or if it turns out like you wish for, in which case I'll just not play it. Simple as that.

Good luck!

/BB

[Seagoon]

Originally Posted by AzK

Saying games like ut or quake required no coordination, situational awareness or tactical thinking is an ignorant claim and it really infuriates me. If anything, they required them just the same, while at the same time being much harder on the aim/twitch/movement level.

So tactical thinking, situational awareness and coordination are a constant while aim/twitch/movement are a variable when considering the differences between games ?

Is that not in and of itself rather an ignorant claim?

[AzK]

Originally Posted by Seagoon

So tactical thinking, situational awareness and coordination are a constant while aim/twitch/movement are a variable when considering the differences between games ?

Is that not in and of itself rather an ignorant claim?

You can't possibly think to compare the aim/twich/movement skill required to play a game like ut or quake to the aim/twich/movement skill required to play a game where people are 1) much slower 2) are basically ALWAYS still or turretting prone or in ads mode when shooting each others, and 3)weapons have random factors not controlled by players.

It is quite obvious that the former type of games have a much higher skillcap when it comes to the aim/twich/movement personal level of the player. It's just the way it is, i'm sorry.

So to answer your question yes, tactical thinking and situational awareness are a constant, the actual gameplay mechanics aren't. And games like ut or quake have a much higher skillcap in that regard as opposed to "camper" games.

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by AzK

...and when i played ut professionaly i considered those people bad players...

...it's actually a very precise thing to do and it requires moving your mouse too left and right at a certain rythm or it doesn't work.

EDIT: Although, I would like to thank you for proving the point that e-sports/professional gaming and boring nonsense have some overlap.

[Seagoon]

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

snip

No offence but I would stop digging if I were you :P

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by Seagoon

No offence but I would stop digging if I were you :P

C'mon. This whole discussion has gotten WAY out of hand. I brought up CS and cheap mechanics because they were relevant to the man that SOE hired. I think all this comparing games from 10+ years ago has no bearing on PS2, especially considering we aren't even talking about PS2 anymore, which wasn't even the topic to begin with....

EDIT: I should say, cheap tactics aren't relevant to Mr Wisenhunt, but they're relevant to CS.

EDIT2: As for the whole argument, I've got nothing against professional gamers. I've got a problem when they try to bring the professional gamer mindset into every other non-professional game. The vast majority of players aren't "pro" and they aren't going to want to go through all the same conditioning some e-sports person does. Don't ruin it for everyone, man. We're here to have fun.

[AzK]

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

EDIT: Although, I would like to thank you for proving the point that e-sports/professional gaming and boring nonsense have some overlap.

It's not really surprising at all that among all the valid, unattackable points i've made in that reply you decided to bolden out a minor detail in the attempt to look smart or something, and put some meme face in there just to be cool.

You "boldened" it out, not me, it was simply a short part of my life i was 12 till 14 or so and i enjoyed it, getting paid to play ut duels and tdm was fun, unfortunately the game didn't have a very long lifespan on the gaming scene and basically my whole clan moved to q3 which i didn't like as much and couldn't be arsed to learn at high levels, moreso because the game had been out for 2-3 years while i had been playing ut only, and there were people who had instead been playing q3 since release, obviously, whereas i would have been starting from scratch.

That 12 years old kid had more sense and understanding of gaming mechanics into him than you do now.
And he still does, even if he's older.

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by AzK

It's not really surprising at all that among all the valid, unattackable points i've made in that reply you decided to bolden out a minor detail in the attempt to look smart or something, and put some meme face in there just to be cool.

You "boldened" it out, not me, it was simply a short part of my life i was 12 till 14 or so and i enjoyed it, getting paid to play ut duels and tdm was fun, unfortunately the game didn't have a very long lifespan on the gaming scene and basically my whole clan moved to q3 which i didn't like as much and couldn't be arsed to learn at high levels, moreso because the game had been out for a couple years while i had been playing ut only, and there were people who had instead been playing q3 since release, obviously, whereas i would have been starting from scratch.

That 12 years old kid had more understanding of gaming mechanics than you do now.
And he still does to this day, even if he's older.

that kid had more understanding of gaming mechanics relating to that game than I do now. And that's fine. PS2 isn't that game. The fact that you didn't want to move to another game specifically because you would have to start from scratch to learn to be effective shows the very point I was trying to make. Not everyone has the same aspirations for gaming that you do. some of us don't have the time or patience for those kinds of games. Don't try to make PS2 one of those games, please.

I may have been out of line with the attitude, but I'm tired of arguing a moot point in a thread that isn't designed for it.

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

EDIT2: As for the whole argument, I've got nothing against professional gamers. I've got a problem when they try to bring the professional gamer mindset into every other non-professional game. The vast majority of players aren't "pro" and they aren't going to want to go through all the same conditioning some e-sports person does just to have fun. Don't ruin it for everyone, man. We're here to have fun.

[AzK]

Personally, i don't think ps2 will ever be e-sport material, it's just not the type of game suited for it. It will have some outfit wars type events (maybe even at some live event) but nobody will really care about them aside from the hardcore community or maybe even just aside the very people involved (as it happened in ps1)

Why? It's just not that type of game, it's a game made to play as an mmo, with loads of players, unbalanced teams, and a ridiculous amount of variable odds that simply do not fit competitive play.

That however doesn't mean the game needs to be a "lobotomized friendly" title as cod or bf3 where the skillcap doesn't even reach my ankle, and good players have no real way to actually show how good they are compared to the average joe who just wants to have fun.

[Ratstomper]

Originally Posted by AzK

Personally, i don't think ps2 will ever be e-sport material, it's just not the type of game suited for it. It will have some outfit wars type events (maybe even at some live event) but nobody will really care about them aside from the hardcore community or maybe even just aside the very people involved (as it happened in ps1)

Why? It's just not that type of game, it's a game made to play as an mmo, with loads of players, unbalanced teams, and a ridiculous amount of variable odds that simply do not fit competitive play.

That however doesn't mean the game needs to be a "lobotomized friendly" title as cod or bf3 where the skillcap doesn't even reach my ankle, and good players have no real way to actually show how good they are compared to the average joe who just wants to have fun.

We've all described ways PS2 will take skill besides what you personally think skill is, because you come from a different gaming background. I'm done. This is a pointless discussion.

I'm just hoping adding Wisenhunt to the team won't make a game series that isn't a twitchy shooter into a twitchy shooter. I don't think it will, but it might. If it does, I'll get used to it or I just won't run around in firefights.

[AzK]

Originally Posted by Ratstomper

that kid had more understanding of gaming mechanics relating to that game than I do now. And that's fine. PS2 isn't that game. The fact that you didn't want to move to another game specifically because you would have to start from scratch to learn to be effective shows the very point I was trying to make.

You didn't make any point, i didn't say i didn't play q3, i just said i didn't play it professionaly as i knew it was not a realistic option for me at the time, that didn't stop me from playing the game normally though, and being far better than average. If i were you, i probably wouldn't have played at all because the thought about facing people more "trained" than me and that i couldn't have beaten no matter what, would have been unacceptable. I'll tell you an amazing secret, even when/if you do play professionally, there's always going someone better than you sooner or later.

So, with that in mind, having the fact that "there's gonna be pro people in a game that are going to be better than you" sap your will to play/enjoy something is a bit laughable.