"Endboss vs competitive combat"

Figment · 2012-05-28, 06:35 AM

In PS1, eventually the devs added BFRs and Galaxy Gunships and argued these were fine additions (at the time) amongst other reasons that players liked to play against major challenges.

I've often found that PS1 was eventually ran by people with more experience developing and managing RPGs than multiplayer shooters. Why?

We had two expansion sets and then some updates.

The first one, Core Combat, provided new maps. New maps are always a good thing as it brings really fresh content to a game, especially a shooter where you eventually work out how things "work" on a given map: where to go, where to sit, etc.

However, to play there you had to pay. That reduced the pop in the caves from the start. In a RPG or PvE game that's okay, because you don't need other players as much. In a pure PvP game, that's a huge oversight however.

Secondly, Core Combat brought new units to the game that had superior firepower in certain gameplay situations. So basically, people bought power. That's another no-no in competitive gameplay.

Another competitive no-no was the Flail, because you could not directly engage it and return fire. Making competing with it take a lot of effort and sadly, because they were so easy to defend and obtain again, trying to take them out, though possible, typically a waste of your time. This lesson it seems has been learned: no more long distance indirect fire units in PS2 and (new) content is free and in principle the goal is to keep everything competitive. That's good.

With the second expansion, Aftershock, which brought us BFRs and a few more maps, the first "Endboss"-units were introduced. The problem here is that players controlled the Endboss and were not very restricted in getting them, on top of being unbalanced towards other units, of course.

Again, in a PvE game the AI would have restricted the power of such a unit and in a single player game you'd be limited numerically. In a PvP, sandbox game however, rules are different: they are smarter and fastly more numerous.

This really upset players, because shooter players (both roles in infantry and ground vehicle combat in particular) was completely changed in favour of these new things. Competitive gameplay was upset to the extend that a lot of players left because their prefered units were now rendered non-competitive. Again, power was purchased and this time the argument was that "players love a challenge and endbosses". Sure, in a PvE RPG they do. But in a competitive PvP shooter, power balance and power distance must be far more subtle.

So then the new deployables and Phantasm and Galaxy Gunship were introduced. This time, no expansion was required to be bought. So power was not purchased. One lesson was learned.

Competition however often means a trade-off of advantages and disadvantages. The Galaxy Gunship (especially upon introduction) didn't really have that. Based on initial use, some people wanted more armour without realising the consequences, nor wanting to accept longer repair times. For some reason, downtime was severely reduced, which should have been a lesson learned from the Flail, BFR and even MAX units: downtime is needed if it's a very competitive unit. Vehicle timers in general were short, but even 20 minutes is very low in a continuous game like PS for "endboss"-units, especially if you can have multiple players who each have their own separate timers. Two to three hours would have made the whole "endboss"-units more acceptable, but the problem is that in that case, some people will want high endurance or other extra strengths to "compensate" for restrictions, rather than a strategic, short term impact (like calling in an OS).

Similarly, a lot of players thought that restrictions in getting aircraft simply to reduce the numbers, were actually there to reflect power and thus if they spend more certs on it, they should get "more" power. This is incompatible logic as it argues from two completely different design point of views. If your goal as a designer is to have more units of a certain kind, then you restrict access. This is likely because they're more powerful in some way or provides certain abilities that need to be restricted. It may even be done to make the roles and functions of other "lesser" units more prominent. Speed of relocation for instance: with less aircav, Galaxies and Sunderers would be more interesting for that. If you only focus on firepower and endurance like a lot of shortsighted players focused on direct competition will, then you won't be able to balance niche role issues as well.

However, the Galaxy Gunship again provided an unit that only specific types of gameplay could compete with. The Galaxy Gunship too, was added using the "endboss"-challenge argument, but now in combination with "outfit/group teamwork units".

The problem is that again, the endboss interfered significantly with competitive play on the ground and there wasn't a real counter provided. The already in-game units were not designed around taking these out and the power distance did not really fit with the fast majority of units as it wasn't exactly subtle. The teamwork element was relatively low and under-demanding for the amount of firepower you gained and again, multiple would be brought to the table. The main difference was that it took a little bit more effort to obtain one than BFRs (stricter acquisition rules: DSC + Tech or Sanc), but once obtained it had a lot of different advantages that in combination with things like Capital Base Shields could have an enormous impact on gameplay. Ceryshen for instance became impossible to capture from the north, simply because the developers threw in separate concepts without actually considering ALL the ramifications of the combination of these concepts.

An endboss that is very limited and restricted is relatively acceptable, but in a competitive sandbox game where people can obtain any units they like, simply cannot have a huge power distance. Not even if it costs a lot of resources, while at the same time you give everyone access to it and giving everyone locations where they can obtain them on continent and when there are far more players. This simply means there will be more available. This means they're not endbosses, but regular units.

I'm afraid this lesson might again be forgotten by the devs when units like a Galaxy Gunship are suggested and when there's significant jack-of-all-trades design implemented. You cannot have endbosses in a competitive PvP game and a jack-of-all-trades may be a bit too competitive as well if it has inherent other advantages too (like the capacity of flight, afterburners or for instance simply has a lot of armour).

Every unit should feel they have sufficient power to fulfill their job and their role should be relatively clear (hence why I don't mind infantry classes too much as I try to see them as different suits, I may well mind the ease of accessing each class however). You cannot treat infantry, tanks or aircraft as fodder, but neither can you treat them as pwnage machines. If you make something strong, give it huge exploitable weaknesses and require dependency on other (types of) units.

Duddy · 2012-05-28, 06:44 AM

That is a somewhat confusing title, you should consider calling it "Competitive Considerations" or something to that effect. I understand the narrative from a "designed like an RPG", but still an odd title choice.

Am I right in understanding your post as to be saying is that things need to be balanced?

I don't think anyone would have disagreed.

Stardouser · 2012-05-28, 06:49 AM

I don't agree that all units in the game have to be soloable by one player. Edit: Especially if they are large, slow, and multicrewed. Primarily this is an anticipatory defense of outfit airships and capital warships in the event we ever have space or naval combat.

Also, indirect fire is fine, this is a strategic game, not a duel simulator where you should expect to be able to return fire in a gun duel. The only problem with Flail was a 30 meter splash radius.

Since when is Planetside e-sports?

Xyntech · 2012-05-28, 06:50 AM

I generally agree with you, however I wouldn't agree that the potential inclusion of some sort of "Galaxy Gunship" in PS2 is necessarily a sign of them returning to some of those flawed design mentalities.

Similar discussions have been had about BFR's, that mechs could be well balanced if handled significantly differently than in PS1, although BFR's are an even sorer sticking point than GG's for most fans.

My point being that the concept of a Galaxy that is more designed as a mobile weapons platform isn't necessarily inherently broken.

I absolutely agree that all units should be based around competitive play though, not just being a "challenge" for other players to take down, or balanced against some difficulty in attaining them.

I believe that BFR's, GG's, and Orbital Strikes are all examples of extremely failed foresight of design and implementation. Hopefully the community can keep this in mind for Planetside 2 and react swiftly if the devs ever indicate they are going down this road for any unit or feature.

SKYeXile · 2012-05-28, 06:50 AM

Well SOE's faults have always been in their management. That was defiantly one of the problem with core combat, adding more zones in a game with decreasing populations, it doesn't work.

I'm glad that they have got rid of the flail, one of the faults many games make is been able to be killed by somebody you're not engaged with, or can even see., while i might be playing as a light assault I cant kill a tank, but i can see him and i can take measure's to avoid him. It is a problem i forsee with stealth snipers, not been able to see your enemy and he can shoot you, perhaps 1 shot you? i leads to problems, if people feel they could not avoid a death, they feel cheated by it and will certainly be a cause to rage quit the game.

The noob · 2012-05-28, 06:53 AM

Originally Posted by SKYeXile

Well SOE's faults have always been in their management. That was defiantly one of the problem with core combat, adding more zones in a game with decreasing populations, it doesn't work.

I'm glad that they have got rid of the flail, one of the faults many games make is been able to be killed by somebody you're not engaged with, or can even see., while i might be playing as a light assault I cant kill a tank, but i can see him and i can take measure's to avoid him. It is a problem i forsee with stealth snipers, not been able to see your enemy and he can shoot you, perhaps 1 shot you? i leads to problems, if people feel they could not avoid a death, they feel cheated by it and will certainly be a cause to rage quit the game.

Snipers need a minimum of 2 shots to kill you if you have shields up, and they lose the cloak when they attack. It should also bear mentioning, that in TB's night ops video, if you look at the scene where he is cloaked as a sniper, there is a bar that counts down as soon as he cloaks, so infiltrators may no longer be permeneatly cloaked like they were in the original. This may only apply to snipers, or it may even apply to close quaters infils.

Xyntech · 2012-05-28, 07:08 AM

Originally Posted by The noob

Snipers need a minimum of 2 shots to kill you if you have shields up, and they lose the cloak when they attack.

I think this is more important than the issue of partially cloaked snipers. If snipers could OSK you from range, they could still kill you without you having any (realistic) chance of knowing where they were, or even that a threat of any kind was around.

Partially cloaked snipers who lose their cloak after the first shot should be a lot more manageable, since they will need at least 2 shots to kill you. It could be a bitch for other cloakers though, if they end up being able to be one shotted.

kadrin · 2012-05-28, 07:17 AM

I have never understood why people hated the flail so much. It's artillery, killing you over long distances without fear of retaliation is kind of what it's supposed to do. It helps break stalemates by allowing someone to do damage without the risk of being taken out in the process.

And it was very easily countered by air, hell I had fun popping Flails in my Liberator, either grabbing a friend and carpet bombing them or just going on my little A-10 wannabe runs. Most of the time when I saw Flail rounds coming in, it turned into a free kill for me a few minutes later.

EDIT: Not to mention the thing is a grief machine unless you have a second player spotting for it, so already it's requiring two players to use effectively in its main role. And even then you'll still wrack up grief because of friendlies moving into an area while your round you fired 10 seconds ago is still coming in.

Stardouser · 2012-05-28, 07:22 AM

Originally Posted by kadrin

I have never understood why people hated the flail so much. It's artillery, killing you over long distances without fear of retaliation is kind of what it's supposed to do. It helps break stalemates by allowing someone to do damage without the risk of being taken out in the process.

And it was very easily countered by air, hell I had fun popping Flails in my Liberator, either grabbing a friend and carpet bombing them or just going on my little A-10 wannabe runs. Most of the time when I saw Flail rounds coming in, it turned into a free kill for me a few minutes later.

This. And artillery can't see you and take measures to actively hit you without laser designation(I say this because proper game design should require lasing to be accurate for artillery). If you're staying in one spot where random fire can hit you that's not really the artillery's problem, and if he's using laser designation, then you can reach out and touch the person doing that.

My dream is for MMOFPS games to try to be more of strategic wargames than twitch skill gun duels. We've got a long way to go though, if indirect fire isn't accepted by players simply because they want to be able to instantly return fire like a duel. It's a strategic asset, strategically deployed and a faction should strategically deploy bombers to hunt them down.

Granted, of course, that the PS1 Flail had unacceptably long range(allowing it to fire from next to a base shield) and an unacceptably wide splash radius.

Reduce the splash, and reduce the range so that artillery can't deploy more than say, 1000 meters away, that it would be fine. And if they still fired that slow shot that can be seen and followed back to it? It can't get any easier than that.

Figment · 2012-05-28, 07:27 AM

The problem was not artillery, the problem was the spam frequency itself and that countering it had little effect. By the time you got to them their timer ran out.

A challenge to take out artillery would be fine, but the challenge would then also be to keep it running and both those challenges should be tuned to one another. That wasn't the case at all in PS1 for it was far easier to put up a new Flail after you killed one compared to the effort it took to take one out.

Killing a Flail is easy once you arrive there. Suppressing one has never been.

Mechzz · 2012-05-28, 07:30 AM

Originally Posted by kadrin

I have never understood why people hated the flail so much. It's artillery, killing you over long distances without fear of retaliation is kind of what it's supposed to do. It helps break stalemates by allowing someone to do damage without the risk of being taken out in the process.

And it was very easily countered by air, hell I had fun popping Flails in my Liberator, either grabbing a friend and carpet bombing them or just going on my little A-10 wannabe runs. Most of the time when I saw Flail rounds coming in, it turned into a free kill for me a few minutes later.

This "can-do" approach was not shown by the majority of the player base of this game, and we can't change human nature by force of will. If people think they have signed up to an infantry-centric game then having the crap shelled out of them by something they can't see and can't personally contemplate countering then they will go play a different game. Especially if they are not outfit players and don't know that peeps like you are willing to go bomb the crap out of the flail.

I agree with the vast majority of Figgy's points. A case well made, and something we should be wary of when we start agitating for our favourite mega weapon system. Most people won't argue with you when you propose something (I think even most visitors to this site don't actually post?) - if a unit goes in the game and breaks the game then the population will desert. And if that happens, the game will be dead as SOE won't get a second chance - there are too many other good games around.

Every unit with a guncrew of more than 2 presents a risk of this type.

SKYeXile · 2012-05-28, 07:32 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

The problem was not artillery, the problem was the spam frequency itself and that countering it had little effect. By the time you got to them their timer ran out.

A challenge to take out artillery would be fine, but the challenge would then also be to keep it running and both those challenges should be tuned to one another. That wasn't the case at all in PS1 for it was far easier to put up a new Flail after you killed one compared to the effort it took to take one out.

Killing a Flail is easy once you arrive there. Suppressing one has never been.

not to mention, your probably cant pull aircraft because their is a fail pointed at your vehicle pad or every base door you have.

It does not matter what the point of artillery is meant to be in a game or in a real life war, the point is it should not have been added in the first place, because its a video game and it did not work in its implementation and likely wont work in any implementation.

kadrin · 2012-05-28, 07:33 AM

Originally Posted by Stardouser

Granted, of course, that the PS1 Flail had unacceptably long range(allowing it to fire from next to a base shield) and an unacceptably wide splash radius.

Reduce the splash, and reduce the range so that artillery can't deploy more than say, 1000 meters away, that it would be fine. And if they still fired that slow shot that can be seen and followed back to it? It can't get any easier than that.

The range and splash weren't so bad imo. It needed both to really be effective, and I mean, it's pretty easy to hear those rounds coming in, look up for less than a second and get a good general idea of the impact area, then make sure you're no where near said area.

The only time I've ever died to a Flail round was when there were a few guys all using Flails (they had at least 5 or 6) and running from one impact zone generally had you running into 2 or 3 other impact zones. A brutal barrage that I give them credit for, they took the time to pull those, set them up, and coordinate, and no one on the opposing faction decided they wanted to go hunt them down. So they all reaped the benefits.

But yeah, firing next to a base shield, then retreating inside is pretty lame, though you could (and I did) do the same with warp gates.

kadrin · 2012-05-28, 07:37 AM

Originally Posted by Mechzz

If people think they have signed up to an infantry-centric game then having the crap shelled out of them by something they can't see and can't personally contemplate countering then they will go play a different game.

I think it should be rather clear that neither Planetsides are infantry-centric, if they came in with that idea then they're already playing the wrong game, catering to them isn't what we should be doing.

Stardouser · 2012-05-28, 07:40 AM

Originally Posted by Figment

The problem was not artillery, the problem was the spam frequency itself and that countering it had little effect. By the time you got to them their timer ran out.

A challenge to take out artillery would be fine, but the challenge would then also be to keep it running and both those challenges should be tuned to one another. That wasn't the case at all in PS1 for it was far easier to put up a new Flail after you killed one compared to the effort it took to take one out.

Killing a Flail is easy once you arrive there. Suppressing one has never been.

Ohhh that reminds me. If their unlimited range was part of the problem, then another thing that giving them say, a 750m, 1000m range would do, is encourage more fighting between bases. Flails would set up right nearby since they could no longer set up all the way across the continent, and this would lead to all manner of vehicles going after them, not just fast aircraft only. Even C4 infantry might run 1km to sneak up on them.

And this short range would lead to flails running with tank and infantry support to guard them (which again, they did not need support in PS1 since their range was so long that they could just sit next to a base with a shield). These tanks and infantry supporting them would then be juicy targets for roaming aircraft as well.

Originally Posted by Mechzz

This "can-do" approach was not shown by the majority of the player base of this game, and we can't change human nature by force of will. If people think they have signed up to an infantry-centric game then having the crap shelled out of them by something they can't see and can't personally contemplate countering then they will go play a different game. Especially if they are not outfit players and don't know that peeps like you are willing to go bomb the crap out of the flail.

And this is the problem. We need the financial support that would come from gaining at least some CoD and BF converts, but, CoD especially, well...actually, it's not a question of they think they are signing up for an infantry-centric game, but they will expect it to be CHANGED to an infantry-centric game regardless of whether it is, and regardless of whether they knew it was or wasn't to begin with.

But we have dozens of infantry centric shooter games. Why can't we have 1 strategic war game that's not crippled by people wanting it to be reduced in scale to an infantry game?

But here is where another factor comes into play : When Planetside 2 proves the MMOFPS model, maybe someone else will make a game that does this. Only, I dread that it would be ArmA, simply because even if they did, and we had all the unit variety, ArmA would be realistic milsim gameplay. I guess that goes to show that the battle is never completely won.