Interpretations on Demo Combat Pace?

Haro · 2012-06-06, 12:40 AM

With all the threads on concerns/praise from the stream, I'm surprised the old topics of combat pace and TTK haven't really showed up a lot. Hoping that's a positive sign.

Anyway, what did everyone think? I'd especially love to hear from anyone who actually got to play, but obviously lots of people must have gotten some kind of impression from the stream video.

I honestly really liked what I saw. Pretty sure I didn't see any real, instant kill on full health, with the exception of liberator cannons and maybe tanks. Most combat seemed to take at least several seconds, if not even longer featuring missing or taking cover. People seemed aware and even actively reacting to attacks, and several times I'm pretty sure I saw people come back from being attacked and actually win combat. Even the AI max weapons seemed to take a couple seconds to kill even lighter classes, though I can't really say much for infiltrators since I really didn't see a whole lot of them (working as intended?)

I'll skip maxes, that's already being discussed. I'll just say I liked it.

Tanks seem pretty good. C4 definitely seems like its more powerful than most other weapons, as I saw several tanks take multiple rockets and not look too horrible, and I saw a prowler take several magrider shots to the rear before it exploded. I do think the new tank HP, if they are final, will force a rethink of tank tactics (not exactly a bad thing) but it definitely seems workable, and not as bad as we first thought.

Air vehicles seems a bit hard to judge. We definitely know that cliffs are super effective, at least. Most AA weapons weren't fully implemented, and good aerial combat was rare. Still, I do think the burster flak looked pretty good. They may need to fix proximity, but it brought stuff down and I don't think it should be the most powerful AA in the game, clearly. The liberator has been a concern, but I saw one get focused pretty quickly, so whether it's truly OP remains to be seen (again, a subject of another thread.)

Overall, I felt that this let a pretty good lower limit to combat. Obviously, it's far from an ideal representation because of inconsistent player skill, lack of concrete equipment stats, and incomplete incorporation of gameplay elements. Still, I feel like the demo settled my concerns of an ultra-fast gameplay, and though I think maybe the speed could be tweaked a bit more, I think I'd be pretty comfortable with what I saw. What do you guys think? Should beta be faster? Slower? About the same?

maradine · 2012-06-06, 12:42 AM

I felt the TTKs were a bit low, even by "modern" standards, but it's different watching it than running and gunning it in person. Withholding formal judgement until I have a client in front of me.

edit: which is to say, I think the pace was a bit faster than I'd otherwise want. I'd still play it.

2coolforu · 2012-06-06, 12:44 AM

TTK's seemed great to me, combat looked nice. It took a serious amount of shots to kill someone if you didn't go for the headshot, at times it took a good 20 or so to get a kill. The scattercannon seemed deadly though, up close it was crushing infantry in 2-3 shots but thats to be expected from a combat shotgun.

Bags · 2012-06-06, 12:45 AM

Too unorganized and crazy to tell. Half the time the players were killing themselves.

KTNApollo · 2012-06-06, 12:46 AM

TTK seemed pretty high compared to BF3/CoD. Quite enjoyable.

Xaine · 2012-06-06, 12:48 AM

I really liked the TTK on Infantry vs Infanty. It was high enough so you couldn't just spray and kill someone (apart from at super close range) and low enough so that your positioning really matters. I think it will benefit more co-ordinated groups.

I thought the MAXs were ok, although i think i saw a MAX going down pretty fast to a Cycler LMG. Not sure how i feel about that, will have to see.

I noticed that aircav and aircraft in general seem to have alot of HP? At oine point you see a dual-AA MAX put a clip of each gun into a Reaver and it doesn't go down. Which was like 5-6 seconds of constant fire.

Anyway, everything i just said will be subject to change when i get into Beta.

Overall, i thought it was really good actually.

Very impressed with the game in general, looks very BETA ready.

kaffis · 2012-06-06, 12:52 AM

My impression was that it might be a little fast. It's often hard to judge when one doesn't have one's hand on the mouse, so I'm assuming that with first-play and unknown skill levels factored in, what we saw is likely somewhat longer TTK than will be the norm live.

Unless that factor is much greater than I'm allowing for, though, the TTK isn't as fast as I'd *feared* it could end up being. So there's that.

Inverness · 2012-06-06, 12:52 AM

Don't forget that TTK is affected by skill to. The combat pace seemed okay to me, and that was with a bunch of people playing that had never been with PlanetSide before. Obviously more experienced players will attempt better tactics and make better use of cover and such to stay alive longer.

Shade Millith · 2012-06-06, 12:53 AM

The flow of combat, from the demonstration, looked like complete and utter flipping shit, to be honest. There was no flow at all, and had the impression of a random server COD Deathmatch. That is not a good thing, in any way, shape, or form.

This is one of the things I'm hesitant about with the bases being so open. They're simply NOT defensible. It's an open air arena(Heck, that's what they were designed as apparently), not a base designed to be defended.

Hopefully, this is because of them being forced into a arena like situation. But, again, this is another thing I'm worried about.

DirtyBird · 2012-06-06, 12:54 AM

Sometimes it was a bit misleading with all of the FF going on.
Generally it looked ok and with beta they'll be able to get some decent feedback and tweak it as needed.

Haro · 2012-06-06, 12:55 AM

Originally Posted by Xaine

I really liked the TTK on Infantry vs Infanty. It was high enough so you couldn't just spray and kill someone (apart from at super close range) and low enough so that your positioning really matters. I think it will benefit more co-ordinated groups.

I thought the MAXs were ok, although i think i saw a MAX going down pretty fast to a Cycler LMG. Not sure how i feel about that, will have to see.

I noticed that aircav and aircraft in general seem to have alot of HP? At oine point you see a dual-AA MAX put a clip of each gun into a Reaver and it doesn't go down. Which was like 5-6 seconds of constant fire.

Anyway, everything i just said will be subject to change when i get into Beta.

Overall, i thought it was really good actually.

Very impressed with the game in general, looks very BETA ready.

Yeah, can't be said enough that this is not only very difficult to judge, but also totally subject to change. Still, it's our best indication so far, and this has been one of THE major concerns for the community, so I think it's worth looking into.

Flak may need additional bugs ironing out, but I think I'd be alright with a bit of delayed kill time for that. It certainly seemed like the Max could stomach everything the air fighters were throwing at it. One thing I really liked was how AV and AA max weapons didn't really seem to work at all outside their regular fields, other than getting peoples attention. One guy tried to take a Prowler on with bursters and I swear I could feel the tank itself getting annoyed by it.

Also, it remains to be seen what other AA can bring to the equation: turrets, tanks, missiles (really didn't see a whole lot of those.) May be that maxes are ment to be on the lower end, or have a high skill curve. Remains to be seen.

Death2All · 2012-06-06, 12:59 AM

In general, I felt pretty good about the game's combat pace. There were a few instances where some people got instapwned by some weapons (I noticed the Cycler, or one of it's variants was just destroying people) but all in all it looked pretty well balanced.

I had a few other quarrels though:

Where's the fall damage? There were a lot of times where I saw some guy jump off the top of some 8 story building only to lose two little notches off of his shield indicator. Sort of mitigates the point of the gravity lifts going down when you could just jump off the building and save some time with practically no consequences. I'd like to see much harsher fall damage implemented in the future just to combat people sky diving off buildings with no worries.

Vehicles were really squishy. I posted this in another thread but I'll put it here. I noticed quite a few times that when a Tank bumped into a rock or a tree it would knock off 1/5 of it's armor. I was under the impression that tanks were a lot more resilient than that, but apparently not. I'm sure that's subject to change as the game enters beta and is tweaked throughout the months, but god damn was that silly.

Also, rest in peace to all of the poor souls whose lives were taken by the cliffs surrounding the areas. Are cliffs the new trees? I think I saw more people dieing by suicide rather than from the gunshot of another player.

I really liked the little splash screen for the suicide too: "Stop killing yourself" as a skull laughs at you. That was a nice touch.

Air combat looked awesome. I would've liked to see more Scythe gameplay but you apparently need to go through years of rigorous training at the VS flight academy in order to just barely keep yourself from smashing into a mountain 10 seconds after pulling one.

Overall, I can't wait to get my hands on the beta and see exactly how all of this stuff place. You can only infer so much about how game plays when you're watching some awful member of the press fumble his way through the game.

Haro · 2012-06-06, 01:02 AM

Originally Posted by Shade Millith

The flow of combat, from the demonstration, looked like complete and utter flipping shit, to be honest. There was no flow at all, and had the impression of a random server COD Deathmatch. That is not a good thing, in any way, shape, or form.

This is one of the things I'm hesitant about with the bases being so open. They're simply NOT defensible. It's an open air arena(Heck, that's what they were designed as apparently), not a base designed to be defended.

Hopefully, this is because of them being forced into a arena like situation. But, again, this is another thing I'm worried about.

I think this really reflects the strategic flow of the game rather than the actual pace of combat, and I agree, it was screwed up. Largely because it was intended to be pick up and play just for the sake of floor demonstration. Things like the forward bases, vehicle spawns, maxes, etc. were all altered specifically for this, and it was all contained into one area. Therefore, you had a constant stream of reinforcements all in the same area, with full access to fighters and tanks piloted by maxes. Not a fair reflection of the larger game.

I think once we see more distance in between spawns and empires, and the rules put to their more conventional and reasonable settings, I think it'll be less chaotic.

People have brought up the wall defense thing before though. I am intrigued by it, because on one hand, yeah, there were tons of people inside the base (though part of that I think was selective stream-switching. More could have been going on outside than we thought.) One thing I noticed, though, was that some infantry really took a long time to get back in if they fell off the battlements. I think that's something that will really need to come out in beta, no way we can truly, accurately discuss it from the demo footage.

GreatMazinkaise · 2012-06-06, 01:07 AM

Speaking of demo-specific combat flow... I assume everyone noticed that the only equipment terminals were at the forward staging areas?

That poor out of ammo MAX should've been able to resupply at one of the terminals in the base (they owned all 3 points), but there wasn't a terminal to be found.

NapalmEnima · 2012-06-06, 01:09 AM

Originally Posted by Haro

Also, it remains to be seen what other AA can bring to the equation: turrets, tanks, missiles (really didn't see a whole lot of those.) May be that maxes are meant to be on the lower end, or have a high skill curve. Remains to be seen.

Ah yes... the Lightning's "Sky guard" turret. I'd expect a dedicated turret weapon to be larger/more effective than one scaled down to fit on an arm (powered exo-suit or no). At the very least, I'd expect a much larger magazine.

I don't recall anyone using the base's turrets, Evar. I'd like to see that too. Something else to attribute to player inexperience.