Is anyone else concerned about the proposed “faster pace” of combat?

[FIREk]

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Individual skill requirement – sustained accuracy is needed making faster reflexes less important.

"Sustained accuracy"? While in BFBC2 your target would start sprinting to cover after the first hit, making sustained fire difficult, in PS1 they would keep moving at a snail's pace, or quickly get bumped out of Surge due to per-hit Stamina degradation.
There's as much skill involved in "sustained accuracy" in PS1 as there is in resizing a window, or dragging a file.

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Team play requirement – combined fire needed, individual players make less of an impact.

Which mostly means "individuals are useless" and "whoever is under fire doesn't need to think unless he's up against ridiculous odds".
If my target is a moron who can't use cover, and I have a good shot, why would I need to coordinate with two buddies to drop him?

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Tactics requirement – cover is useful, but suppressing fire is not generally effective making flanking and group tactics less useful.

I don't understand this point. Is it for or against high-TTK games?

Originally Posted by DviddLeff

Weapon choice – vital to succeed in any given area.

Which is different from faster-paced games how?

[FIREk]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

I for one want to reward skill, but not just "how fast can I put my cursor to the player's head".

I just can't understand the paranoia about headshots. Aside from PS2's pacing not being so fast, there aren't that many players that can pop instant, consecutive headshots all the time. Most of them are professional gamers and won't bother playing an MMO. :P

Originally Posted by Sirisian

You have a lot of choices like "which weapon should I use for X situation".

I also can't understand the point of pretending that something as trivial as this is an important choice, and something that can only happen in a slow game. Especially a game that only gave you obvious "choices" like PlanetSide.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

I'd argue that cover isn't as important. You're better off just charging and shooting them since it only takes a few bullets.

Accuracy degradation while moving. Whoever you're charging will likely be stationary, and therefore more accurate. Also, I'm assuming that you're wide-open while running at them guns-blazing, intentionally disregarding nearby cover (since the TTK is so fast you think you wouldn't need it anyway).

Have you ever played any game other than PlanetSide? I'm not trying to insult you in any way, it's just that I don't feel like your observations are based on any first-hand experience, just conjecture and concern/fear of what you're not used to.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by FIREk

"Sustained accuracy"? While in BFBC2 your target would start sprinting to cover after the first hit, making sustained fire difficult, in PS1 they would keep moving at a snail's pace, or quickly get bumped out of Surge due to per-hit Stamina degradation.
There's as much skill involved in "sustained accuracy" in PS1 as there is in resizing a window, or dragging a file.

PS1 you needed to hit a player multiple times meaning you needed sustained accuracy to make a kill because it took a few bullets. In faster paced games that isn't the case. You simply burst a few rounds at the enemy and they drop.

Originally Posted by FIREk

Which mostly means "individuals are useless" and "whoever is under fire doesn't need to think unless he's up against ridiculous odds".
If my target is a moron who can't use cover, and I have a good shot, why would I need to coordinate with two buddies to drop him?

What you're describing is a 1v1 fight. You would still probably win and wouldn't need to coordinate with another player.

If you are 1 player against 2 you can't simply bust in hoping for an easy fight unless you have the proper weapon or tactics. For instance throwing a grenade at them and then shooting them with a shotgun are valid. SA weaponry comes into play here.

Originally Posted by FIREk

Which is different from faster-paced games how?

They tend to all handle generally the same. The differences are usually minor between the rifles.

Originally Posted by FIREk

I just can't understand the paranoia about headshots. Aside from PS2's pacing not being so fast, there aren't that many players that can pop instant, consecutive headshots all the time. Most of them are professional gamers and won't bother playing an MMO. :P

Not talking about headshots. I'm talking about the weight toward twitch gameplay. The amount of advantage a player gets for aiming at the player faster. So pretend I said put the cursor on their body.

Originally Posted by FIREk

I also can't understand the point of pretending that something as trivial as this is an important choice, and something that can only happen in a slow game. Especially a game that only gave you obvious "choices" like PlanetSide.

Obvious choices? You could throw a grenade fall back and work with others or charge forward among many other choices given to you by weapons and items.

[FIREk]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

PS1 you needed to hit a player multiple times meaning you needed sustained accuracy to make a kill because it took a few bullets. In faster paced games that isn't the case. You simply burst a few rounds at the enemy and they drop.

You forget that, unlike obsolete slow games, modern fast games have plenty of recoil, making sustained fire on a moving target all that more difficult, especially at range when you're using iron sights.
In PS1 you had slow targets and only had to tap the mouse to control your CoF bloom. Aiming itself was laughably easy.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

What you're describing is a 1v1 fight. You would still probably win and wouldn't need to coordinate with another player.

I wasn't, actually. Since I think the original post was about forcing teamwork, so that I really need a buddy or two firing with me to reliably kill any enemy at range, I argued that I shouldn't need their help if the target was at a disadvantage. In PS1, even if the target was at a disadvantage, he could eat up enough rubber bullets from one gun to drop behind cover and heal up, even if he deserved to get killed for not using cover.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

They tend to all handle generally the same. The differences are usually minor between the rifles.

The differences are big enough for certain weapons to emerge as the favorites, or just plain OP cookie-cutter guns. If the differences were so trivial, weapon usage would be spread evenly, and that isn't the case.
In PS1, however, in my opinion you only really had two weapons indoors (HA and Thumper) and two weapons outdoors (MA and Bolt-Driver). The Thumper and Bolt-Driver don't so much represent different weapons, as different play styles.
For typical, direct engagements, if you're not into spamming or sniping, you can only "choose" between one weapon per area (indoors or outdoors), which isn't much of a choice at all.

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Not talking about headshots. I'm talking about the weight toward twitch gameplay. The amount of advantage a player gets for aiming at the player faster. So pretend I said put the cursor on their body.

Understood. I still think that it's a valuable skill, and not something that can't be learned by someone who finds it difficult. Practice makes perfect - not giving up helps, too.

CoD and BFBC2 aside, the recent quote on Reddit suggests that TTK won't be that much faster in PS2 than in PS1.
Notice that they typically used the word "pacing" instead of just TTK. So, the "pacing" will be slightly slower than BFBC2, but that includes the downtime between engagements, getting from respawn to a fight etc.

I may be opposed to rallying against fast TTK, but, to be completely honest the ideal TTK for a massive game like PS2 would be:
- per-hit TTK slightly slower than in PS1 (something between APB: Reloaded and PS2),
- with assault rifles that punish at long range (almost no damage degradation over distance),
- with bonus damage to headshots (not insta-kill for most weapons) to promote good aim,
- with one-shot headshots from sniper rifles, assuming that bullet ballistics will make those headshots really difficult.

[Geist]

Only read the first couple pages...

I have a feeling that the increased TTK is so we need more teamwork for attacking/defending. Those MAX spearheads aren't just a luxury now, they are a necessity for getting into a crowded room, Rexo will live up to their role as shock troopers, and everyone who can't survive has to come in after.

At least, that's what I think, and I agree with everyone else, wait until beta and they'll fix anything that's wrong with it.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

Not talking about headshots. I'm talking about the weight toward twitch gameplay. The amount of advantage a player gets for aiming at the player faster. So pretend I said put the cursor on their body.

Explain to me how that is not a skill exactly like anything else? You perceive it as too brainless?


Have you ever actually played quake or CS or anything like it? Aiming is a big deal, yeah. But if you're not smart and use cover and the terrain to your advantage die fast. These games require just as much strategy and teamwork to win as any other.

Why even bother with an FPS engine if the skill of a players aim is to be rendered moot? You could do everything just as well with a diceroll system and have a lot of extra bandwidth to play around with.

[Sifer2]

Yes I am worried. Because not an interview seems to go by where they don't say the pacing is like Bad Company 2 or Call of Duty. And I know for a fact that kind of pacing is not going to work for an MMO.

All of these games they seem to be shamelessly basing their new design off of having something in common. An that is they were designed for short 20 minute long at the most matches with fast respawns an maybe 64 players on the field max. Planetside is a whole other ball game an so obviously the same game mechanics are not going to work.

If they make the TTK too short then its going to be like others are already saying. Indoor combat is going to be extremely sloppy. Out door combat will be Sniper/Tank only. An both will be heavily dominated by campers. Of course they already know that which is why there is now Kill Cam. The ability to push forward an actually be aggressive in any way will be severely hampered.

That's how I suspect PS2 will be except the walls will be indestructible so you have to send troops into the indoor meatgrinder an probably nothing but a max will be able to get in the door. Especially since I doubt they will include Smoke Grenades due to performance issues. So long as there are ammo kits indoors you could probably hold chokes forever.

[Elude]

No I'm not worried, TTK means nothing so long as the weapons, vehicles, and classes are properly balanced. Map design also plays a huge role, even if the TTK were greater then that of PS1, players could still potentially be afraid to push forward if there is absolutely no cover, and no Z axis fighting.

BF3 is a horrible comparison considering the TTK in BF3 is FAR LESS then that of even BFBC2. To hear that PS2's TTK is greater then BFBC2 is wonderful and quite a shocker to see people still thinking it's not enough.

The closest game I can think of that could fit between the TTK of BFBC2 and PS1 would be Quake 3 right off a fresh respawn.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by FIREk

I wasn't, actually. Since I think the original post was about forcing teamwork, so that I really need a buddy or two firing with me to reliably kill any enemy at range, I argued that I shouldn't need their help if the target was at a disadvantage. In PS1, even if the target was at a disadvantage, he could eat up enough rubber bullets from one gun to drop behind cover and heal up, even if he deserved to get killed for not using cover.

Fair enough. I actually like that ability to take damage from guns and find cover. Depends how far away they are from cover. Using my punisher it only took 9 shots to take down an agile user (13 for rexo) which was basically just bursts of 3 rounds and they'd go down. Gave them enough time to jump behind a tree by which time I'd launch a grenade and kill them usually. Those kinds of choices I enjoy since it gives us both a lot of choices. They can sprint away to heal or try to heal behind the tree among other things.

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

Explain to me how that is not a skill exactly like anything else? You perceive it as too brainless?

I never said that. I said the "weight" given toward that skill. Should it be all that matters in an FPS or should other variable come into play. In CS:S it can be argued it's the only thing that matters. (This is true if you've ever watched a professional CS:S player. Their situational awareness and ability to place the sights on a target is what defines the win). I just feel the game shouldn't weight that as much. For instance, the type of weapon should matter. If you have MA it should ideally be in your best interest to sit back and fire from over 10 meters. While a person with a shotgun might get shot a few times but they can use their more close range weapon to win at less than 10 meters.

[CutterJohn]

Originally Posted by Sirisian

For instance, the type of weapon should matter. If you have MA it should ideally be in your best interest to sit back and fire from over 10 meters. While a person with a shotgun might get shot a few times but they can use their more close range weapon to win at less than 10 meters.

So you're saying quake doesn't have a wide array of weapons with different functions that alters the strategies the player uses?

[Rbstr]

There's nothing I hate more in a game than getting the drop on someone, putting down the first hit and having them get away or turn around and use a heavier gun's lower TTK to get me. PS1 is a prime example of that nonsense. I can tap a guy in the head a half dozen times with an assault rifle and he can still turn around and jackhammer my face off.

Situational awareness should be damn near everything. If you're not paying attention to your flanks, not realizing that you're totally exposed to snipers, not watching radar...you deserve that headshot/stabbing/deathwithoutshootingback.

Originally Posted by Elude

BF3 is a horrible comparison considering the TTK in BF3 is FAR LESS then that of even BFBC2. To hear that PS2's TTK is greater then BFBC2 is wonderful and quite a shocker to see people still thinking it's not enough.

BC2 Hardcore is ~BF3. I can only imagine what BF3's hardcore works like.

I do have a vested interest in lower TTK...I tend to do much better that way because it magnifies my skills: It seems like people are really shitty at paying attention to what happens around them in most games. I nearly always get the drop on someone or the first shots lined up in a snap. In long TTK the averaging that takes place dulls that advantage significantly.

To think that's somehow less skill full than getting in the dudes face with an HA weapon and occasional letting off the trigger to let COF boom clear up is just silly. It's different skills, and certainly not less or more brainless.

On shotguns/MA
Shotguns are a perfectly viable BC3/BF3 weapon even though a rife can take out down in only a couple hits. You just have to play to the gun's style...more sprinting, more pistol-using, more flanking.

Man, deadly pistols would be so nice to have. That way you can really up the situational restrictions on snipers/shottys and other things but still have some semblance of versatility, as long as you remember the pistol exists.

[Sirisian]

Originally Posted by CutterJohn

So you're saying quake doesn't have a wide array of weapons with different functions that alters the strategies the player uses?

I wouldn't say that no. Quake's weapons were varied enough so that if someone had a rocket launcher you'd react to them differently than a rail gun.

Originally Posted by Rbstr

There's nothing I hate more in a game than getting the drop on someone, putting down the first hit and having them get away or turn around and use a heavier gun's lower TTK to get me. PS1 is a prime example of that nonsense. I can tap a guy in the head a half dozen times with an assault rifle and he can still turn around and jackhammer my face off.

I've said this before that I hated the HA weapons. However, that concept of getting killed by someone using a shotgun at close range even though you got a small "jump" as in you hit them once or twice isn't a big enough advantage to overwhelm your poor choice of weapons in that situation which is excellent in my opinion.

It's kind of like killing a sniper at 100m with an assault rifle. You really shouldn't be able to without sneaking up since they have the obvious weapon advantage.

That and dying to a special assault weapon indoors. (Big fan of limited ammo on those).

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Situational awareness should be damn near everything. If you're not paying attention to your flanks, not realizing that you're totally exposed to snipers, not watching radar...you deserve that headshot/stabbing/deathwithoutshootingback.

I'm with you on some of that. Take PS1 for instance. You could flank a target that's sitting behind a tree and use your rifle or sniper and hit them. Sometimes they wouldn't know what's happening and you'd get the kill. Other times they'd move to block your clear shot. You have choices and they have choices and time to react. This is really a difference of opinions. I totally understand wanting to get that kill. You flanked them and landed some shots. However, I'm a big fan of being able to react when getting shot especially in an MMO with a lot of players shooting.

A good example of this comes from watching a PS sniper video or remembering back and doing that. You have choices because you need to keep moving around and the enemy has choices. It's not always such a obvious outcome.

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Man, deadly pistols would be so nice to have. That way you can really up the situational restrictions on snipers/shottys and other things but still have some semblance of versatility, as long as you remember the pistol exists.

Yeah always wanted a quick-draw pistol in PS1. There's a thread about that in the PS2 Idea threads.


On another tangent I mentioned this a very long time ago, but I also like controlling the bloom of my gun. When you need to line up and land 9-13 rounds like in PS1 it really changes how you play the game since you have to control the CoF bloom and so does your enemy. With a lower TTK it becomes a lot less important. Spraying with a high CoF and hoping for a random hit will be a lot more advantageous.

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Rbstr

Man, deadly pistols would be so nice to have. That way you can really up the situational restrictions on snipers/shottys and other things but still have some semblance of versatility, as long as you remember the pistol exists.

I'm excited to see how the balance plays out in PS2. Faster TTK's but not much faster. Head shots that do anywhere from a lot of extra damage to none at all. Knives that give extra damage for back stabs.

We already know that engineer and infiltrator will be two separate classes. We haven't gotten any clear indication on ACEs/remote explosive packs, but while I hope infiltrators still get this option (hopefully we can stick them to anything now), I'm going to assume for the time being that the class restrictions will prevent this.

Considering that ACEs were one of the only very effective ways to consistently kill people as in infiltrator in PS1, I am excited to see how pistols and knives fair in PS2s new dynamics.

My guess for head shot multiplier would be:

Sniper Rifle > Pistol > Rifle > with HA, explosives, vehicles and everything else receiving no bonus at all. Maybe non HA shotguns could receive a small bonus if they connect more than %66 of their pellets with the enemies head.

Spy can be fun to play in TF2, but it's a totally different game and the spy would be way too overpowered in Planetside, especially given the firendly fire, but I don't think Infiltrators would need a one hit kill for backstabs to become a lethal tool. It would be nice if Infiltrators in PS2 were one of the biggest deterrents for running around solo as a foot soldier.

Edits: Holy shit, that was a lot of typos. I should probably consider sleeping sometime this week.

[ThGlump]

Fast ttk encourage camping as is too dangerous move out of cover. Even if you play as a team and moving from cover to cover, half the squad dont make it due random hits.
Similar is indoors where it encourage rambo style. Even when your team is covering every entrances, it takes 1 guy to rush inside and land few lucky shots at the one covering that door and then he can freely kill rest of team from behind before they can turn around.

It really takes away team play from battle as only time you benefit from team is outside of battle (ressing, squad spawn).

It also mitigate differences from different weapon as you can kill fast enough with anything - if PS1 had fast ttk nobody would waste 4 cert for HA if you can kill as fast with MA - one reason that you wont have to sacrifice anything for better weapon in PS2 as they open to you eventually like in bf/cod.

[Kalbuth]

Originally Posted by ThGlump

It also mitigate differences from different weapon as you can kill fast enough with anything - if PS1 had fast ttk nobody would waste 4 cert for HA if you can kill as fast with MA - one reason that you wont have to sacrifice anything for better weapon in PS2 as they open to you eventually like in bf/cod.

Or maybe we can try to see HA as something else than just "the best infantry weapon", and give it a true role, like supressive fire.
You don't expect SA to kill faster than MA, do you? Why HA should absolutely be better? Can't it have a dedicated role apart from "better at CQB" (which is ridiculous if it is its current role and you see the current HAs)?
I'd really like to have a game where simple rifle combat is only determined by skill and wit, not the weapon you're wielding. Having HA rexoshield absorb half the shots needed to die (which is still a lot in PS1) just to turn around and kill you even so you had the perfect situation for you and barely missed (on top of you being forced to immobility to control your CoF while he zips around shooting at you) is really something I don't want to see again in PS2.