Higgles on certs and progression

[ThGlump]

Im going with example 2. They have classes and want us to use those classes. So they will encourage it. Rather than wait a month to get 1000certs to make your best class a little better, you could try other class and progress in it next day. In that month youll have 2 decent working classes, instead of one slightly better. Thats their target.
If i have choose to spend month worth "grind" on 1 cert i would never use it for new class if i didnt maxed one before. Example1 discourages use of classes.

There is no reason for alts. Classes and ability to learn everything make them pointless.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Raymac

Fun.

Now there's a well defined reason.

Good job on attempting to monopolise "fun" though (which has nothing to do with challenge, or satisfaction of pulling off something under slightly harder conditions, apparently? Nor with incentives to try new things, thinking of new strategies as you have to make due with what you got instead of the straightforward gear switcharoo).

Note, our team hardly used advanced medics, we didn't use MAXes, I didn't use HA or AV. We made due with what we had and came out on top without taking the easy route and it felt good. Not just because we didn't want to, but also because we wern't in a position to - which we actually liked, because it meant we could find out and exploit someone else's weaknesses as well and turn our disadvantage to our advantage. This is part of 'skilled gameplay'. What you describe is pretty much 'zerg' attitude, where you don't need or want to take the time to plan far ahead.

Why do you think recert timers used to be 24 hours?

[Raymac]

Originally Posted by Figment

Now there's a well defined reason.

Good job on attempting to monopolise "fun" though (which has nothing to do with challenge, or satisfaction of pulling off something under slightly harder conditions, apparently?).

You'll excuse me if I don't rely on you as an expert for what is fun. I tend to find people that relish in being condescending aren't generally fun people.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Raymac

You'll excuse me if I don't rely on you as an expert for what is fun. I tend to find people that relish in being condescending aren't generally fun people.

No, I was hated throughout the empires for my gentleman rules, sportsmanship, fair gameplay and (sensible) targeting, imaginative plans, coordinating multiple outfits, ballsy execution and risks and general lack of abusing tools like MAX units or farming bases. Not to mention jokes, everyone hated my jokes and therefore my friendslist didn't get far over a couple hundred, nobody ever invited me to outfits more than a couple times before giving up and certainly did I never lead or run platoons of outfits other than my own on a regular basis as it was never fun to work with me.


I dunno, you seem to be an excellent judge of character. Ask Werner folks.

[Raymac]

Hey, I never said you were a bad person. Just not the first person I would invite on a crazy Vegas trip. For example, you're not a fan of maxes, but many people find them fun. But I think we've gotten way off topic.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Figment

No, I was hated throughout the empires for my gentleman rules, sportsmanship, fair gameplay and (sensible) targeting, imaginative plans, coordinating multiple outfits, ballsy execution and risks and general lack of abusing tools like MAX units or farming bases.

Excuse me, Fig, but look what you're doing now... You managed to start holywars in 2 threads now. STOP.

[Hamma]

Yes Figment, please tone it down. There is a point when you must just agree to disagree on a topic and stop tearing at people as a response.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by NewSith

Excuse me, Fig, but look what you're doing now... You managed to start holywars in 2 threads now. STOP.

Meh, if people ask for it, they can have one.


Raymac, MAXes (akin to those in PS1) are fine and can be fun to fight with or against, in small, controlled numbers. In larger numbers they become far too overwhelming to be fun to play against.

Not controlling the numbers is a recipe for disaster. You can tell that post-BR40 change, a lot of people starting to hate on MAXes much, much more than before. Just because there were so many around: not only could more people afford them, thus using them for the occasional use more often than before. More people also used them as default and last resort indoor class, en mass, at the beginning of the battle.

Being able to switch to match whatever the other is throwing at you will always result in an arms race to the heaviest thing available and a lot of people will skip the intermediate steps and go nuclear immediately. Why? Because people will start to expect other people to use the heaviest available and thus them having to bring it as well. This annoyed people who did not use heavy stuff and forced more uniformity in cert selection in order to just be able to compete. The result? With more certs available to all, far less variety.

Is that fun? The same type of enemies over and over again? Being outnumbered and overwhelmed constantly in small holds by a horde of MAXes, people who always had Reavers to find and kill your AMS, engineering to rep terms, always had Expert hack to open both friendly and enemy terms, place CE everywhere and once you lose CC once, it's over before you can respawn, let alone get back to CC. Things that never happened on this frequency before BR40, because you could hold of a horde of enemies with skill as not all used these heaviest of weapons and because you could single out the most important enemies to stall them, keep your respawn point alive and make it back into the CC on time. Now you need a much larger crew, where often the opposite becomes applicable: can't get them out with a smaller resec crew, because they have too much firepower and revive too often. Target prioritisation again becomes pointless.

This from both directions results in far more blunt, straightforward combat where all that matters is firepower and that's frankly utterly boring. It even makes people want to kill gens, even tower spawns and equip terms more frequently as well.



This is a PvP game. Don't forget that everyone must have fun, not just the side that is winning, not just the side with or without equip term. Not just big groups, not just small groups. The other side must feel they had a (fair) chance and a fun (fair) fight as well.

This is for instance why I arranged a gentleman's agreement against cave spawncamping within spawns on Werner. At first with ROx and some NC outfits, later with a lot more groups. It made cave fights a lot more enjoyable, until new groups of TR started using Mosquitos and Reavers en mass and some started spawncamping again against minor enemy pops. What happened next? People stopped going to cave fights altogether and that wasn't 'fun' for anyone. Restrictions and rules, even if subjectively imposed by and on yourself, can have very beneficial effects on gameplay experience. Even more so if they are sensibly imposed from above.

Having it easy reduces satisfaction and reduces the enemy's incentive to give you a good fight, as they'll be forced to go to the extreme with sheer brute force as there is no other way to combat a suiss army knife.

Outwitting, outmaneuvring and outplaying an enemy on the other hand - especially as an underdog, but not too big an underdog where you feel powerless - is greatly satisfying and creates more mutual respect between players.

That is my point of view anyway.

[Raymac]

Meh. I always thought Max Crash Teams, or massive armor columns, or huge air squadrons were fun to fight with and against. But to each their own.

[Figment]

Once in a while and only when you have the numbers to try to fight it can a MAX crash be fun. You don't want a MAX crash on say the gen every three minutes though, now would you? It'd become boring and predictable. Scale is fine and fun 'in zerg', as you have the friendly numbers to fight and match it, 'out of zerg' it can be very frustrating and annoying. Sure it can be excillerating, but I've seen many MAX crashes (with pshield) on single or small groups of players where one to five guys could have sufficed in a battle of five, six minutes. Which would have likely been fun and challenging for all, rather than a walkover that's over in 10 seconds and feeling like a waste of time on both accounts. Consider that a lot of outfits are smallish spec ops teams. We're not all multi-squad zergfits that can deal with large crowds with heavy endurance.

Also, as a fight is over before you could say "hi", it means it also reduces social interaction between enemies. Met a lot of people in these smallish fights, some sporty rivalries, but also a lot of later outfit mates.

You can't balance this game on the assumption everyone will have crews of fifty or more people at their disposal at all times. Thirty is about the maximum you can coordinate and communicate with fast as a group, beyond that it becomes more coordination between groupleaders and those may have different ideas for their group. You often saw that platoons of one outfit split up their teamspeak per squad of ten, to make it easier to manage. Small crews are easier to manage and more intimate. Hence why a lot of people prefer this and it is likely people will attempt holds in groups of five to ten. It is possible that PS2 requires you to bring more, could be that the mission system suffices. Not sure yet about that though.

Requiring a large crew also makes it far less likely you can muster the troops for some objective you've established, let alone get there undetected. Takes longer to setup and you have a larger profile, more people increases the chance of mistakes that give you away (hot spots, early hacks, spawns or gen down in PS1). Drawing people out of a zerg fight to aid you on the far side of the continent is also quite difficult, especially when they may not see the direct benefit.

[Raymac]

Well yeah, nobody likes getting their ass kicked. However, I looked at those situations and saw it as the smaller force did their job by acting as a diversion and a resource drain against the other empire. Because if they had to take you out with vastly superior numbers then those same troops were not on the front lines where they should be which opens the road for your own empire to make progress. Many times that would make the difference in those huge stalemate battles. So the smaller group may have lost their particular battle, but their action helped their empire win the war so to speak.

[Baron]

are we comparing epeens? mine is only this big 8=D

[super pretendo]

I agree with figment, players being forced to make grand-strategic decisions with a tradeoff makes gameplay fun and meaningful and makes encounters unique. I really hope they look at this again. Maybe make the cooldown 10 or 6 hours.

[Madlaps]

Wow, hated throughout the empires...really Figment?

How bout no one really gave a shit, love your posts.. Prime display of asshattery at it's finest. Get over yourself son.

[Figment]

Originally Posted by Madlaps

Wow, hated throughout the empires...really Figment?

Yeah, that's why I was able to get a few hundred people from multiple empires together in Sunderers for a Desolation race event. So much hate. I'm really evil, you know that, right? I also eat babies after mocking them and stealing their candy.




...You do recognise sarcasm when you see it, don't you?