Author Topic: Incentives to Move  (Read 25958 times)

Offline QKO

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #30 on: July 17, 2013, 08:17:43 am »
Well, if you decide to be a brawler, then you have to understand that you will be manning attacks on snipers a LOT. That is part of being a close combat fighter. And quite frankly, you will get used to it after a while.

Offline Echoez

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #31 on: July 17, 2013, 08:26:14 am »
As a personal opinion after having played more, what we need is not an incecitive to move, but maps that have a lot of movement options.

Think of Paritan Rumble, Fjords, Canyons (aside from red spawn), Duel at Dawn and Labyrinth, these maps have both open areas but are littered with cover in many, many places giving a brawling team many more choices to approach the enemy snipers, the only map that puts brawlers at a severe disadvantage is Battle on the Dunes, which is probably the worst map in the game by far, absolutely open, clouds do not provide sufficient cover and you can't hide in then cause sandstorms and there is no hard cover other then 2 giant structures that have quite the space between them.

Offline RearAdmiralZill

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #32 on: July 17, 2013, 09:51:55 am »
Having more time doesn't make a game more tactical. Quite frankly, strategies evolve from quick thinking and improve with experience. Fightinggames usually have a 99 second time limit on their rounds and that is a HUGE amount of time in those games as the game itself is designed to finish a round in under 40 seconds. The same way Virtua Fighter has a 45 second time limit while the game mechanics are build around finishing the round in 15 seconds. So for this game you have to consider what the game is designed for and how much time you intend to give it. From my small personal experience, rounds tend to take 15 minutes, so having a timelimit of 2 hours is just too long.

Secondly, the incentive to move comes from the playing style you wish to execute. Back to fightinggames because I got more experienced there, some characters have less incentive to move than others. Most notably characters that have longer range tools are less likely to try to rush at the opponent to fight him in close combat. With the airships it's the same deal. If your ship is loaded with 4 mercury field guns, you're not putting yourself in an advantage by charging at your enemy, instead, you prefer distance and you intend to stay at that distance. Once this game evolves, some players will develop more close combat oriented styles and have loadouts to accompany them; those players will have an incentive to move and will happily do so.

You're comparing apples to oranges with fighting games to GOIO. A very small percentage of games last anywhere near that 2 hour limit. Most of these are casual games that have no real "must win" vibe about them.

Toss in the competitive scene though, and now you have that incentive to win. Teams stick closer, move slower, and make tactical decisions on the maps chosen. Toss some arbitrary time limit in there with some silly rule like "if you are tied then you all just lose," you take all of that out and replace it with people going for one kill, then running away till the limit is up.

My point is, in casual games, this isn't a problem. Snipe teams shouldn't have to move. There are incentives to do so as the battle evolves, but they can choose not to, and could pay the price for it if the location is compromised. This is coming from someone who would love to have more brawling fights. I'm not a big fan of sitting around and waiting. I never did like chess, lol. But in the matches where that is a thing, that brawly team does need the time to coordinate attacks, bluff, distract, ect. If not, you get charges into gun lines that never end well.

Offline QKO

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #33 on: July 17, 2013, 11:29:32 am »
I'm not, ANY game maps to ANY game just like any N(on-Deterministic)P(olynomal) problem maps to any other NP problem. You have your area control, execution, forced choice situations, etc. This applies to fighting games where the elements refer to zoning, execution(comboing, moving around), setups and mixups, ...; also applies to FPSes where the elements refer to item/area control, aim+movement and angle of approach and even applies to RTSes where the elements refer to map control/resource control, valid apm+strategy and trading. It even applies to Chess. By that, this game is no exception and therefore my comparison is valid.

Now that you've stated that games last nowhere near that 2 hour limit, can we agree that 2 hours is just too long? We don't need to make it 15 minutes because that's the average game time; but having a time restriction of 45 minutes to 1 hour is much more reasonable.

Now your competitive scene, lets grab our fighting game comparison again because that is the best way to show the sillyness of your assumption: you're essentially saying that the round starts, one of the guys does an attack, hits it and proceeds to run away for the remaining 98 seconds and 47 frames of the game(60 frames per second). You understand that even the best players rarely manage this right? When there's 20 or 10 seconds on the clock, sure, but it's still really difficult because there's limits to the game field. And at that point I'd say that this behavior can be considered valid.

You are correct, there shouldn't be an incentive to move. I however clearly stated why this lack of incentive exists in the first place and that this is a normal part of game evolution. If people haven't already, they will find ways to work around the issue of being outranged(or zoned) by snipers and then snipers will start to have a go on how unfair and how easy it is to get rushed, then they develop and then rushers are moaning about it until it finally balances out and the choices are laid out. This behavior is completely normal.

Offline Serenum

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #34 on: July 17, 2013, 11:37:18 am »
Let me ask this again...
Why don't you play another game mode? Like Crazy King, where moving is the whole point?
Why is TDM, arguably the least interesting kind of game mode to spectate, the one played competitively?

Offline Captain Smollett

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #35 on: July 17, 2013, 11:58:24 am »
Because it's the most fun to compete in.

Offline Echoez

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #36 on: July 17, 2013, 12:02:15 pm »
Let me ask this again...
Why don't you play another game mode? Like Crazy King, where moving is the whole point?
Why is TDM, arguably the least interesting kind of game mode to spectate, the one played competitively?

Most KotH maps only support 3v3+, the only 2v2 KotH map is Labyrinth so far.. and since most competative play is 2v2.. you get the point.

Because it's the most fun to compete in.

Opinions Smollett, opinions :P

I think KotH is a very interesting game mode to watch and compete in when competent people are playing and I wish to see many more 2v2 KotH maps that will eventually be added in the competative map rotation. If dunes is in there, which is virtually the worst map in the game, why not something more interesting Labyrinth or newer 2v2 KotH maps?
« Last Edit: July 17, 2013, 12:04:35 pm by Echoez »

Offline RearAdmiralZill

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #37 on: July 17, 2013, 12:37:36 pm »
Quote
Now that you've stated that games last nowhere near that 2 hour limit, can we agree that 2 hours is just too long? We don't need to make it 15 minutes because that's the average game time; but having a time restriction of 45 minutes to 1 hour is much more reasonable.

Now your competitive scene, lets grab our fighting game comparison again because that is the best way to show the sillyness of your assumption: you're essentially saying that the round starts, one of the guys does an attack, hits it and proceeds to run away for the remaining 98 seconds and 47 frames of the game(60 frames per second). You understand that even the best players rarely manage this right? When there's 20 or 10 seconds on the clock, sure, but it's still really difficult because there's limits to the game field. And at that point I'd say that this behavior can be considered valid.

No I see no reason to change it because the only games that do last that long seem to naturally resolve themselves before that time as opposed to hanging that hour limit over their heads. My concern is purely that the time limit begins effecting the outcome of a match, with which it shouldn't be a factor in GOIO.

Now, call me thick, but I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'll just give my perspective through example. Time limit is 45 minutes. You have a 2v2 dm on canyons. Through regular gameplay, the score is now 4-3 in favor of blue. Say we get to the 35 minute mark at that point, and a decision is made by blue to simply sit on their lead and avoid contact with the other team. Yes, it's not overly easy to simply avoid the other team, and it may backfire, but its not something that should be a part of the equation to begin with. Now if a game cant sort itself in 2 hours, then im sorry but those teams are way too careful and deserve to get frantic at that point. I'm just seeking the most natural gameplay without artificial barriers.

I'm not against other incentives to move like game modes and the like (I even wish there was more options for the 2v2 map set), but time limits other than the game's natural one never sat well with me. All opinion of course.

Offline naufrago

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #38 on: July 17, 2013, 03:28:10 pm »
Seems to me that the problem isn't necessarily the weapons or the time limit, it's the maps.

It's too easy on many maps to find a nice open area near the edges to camp with limited angles of approach. This heavily favor snipers. If open areas were more in the center of some maps, and the narrower paths that encourage brawling were surrounding it, it might be more interesting. Sniping would still be potent, but it would give brawlers more of a chance to catch the enemy on their weak side. Situational awareness and tactics would be extremely important on a map like that.

Additional ways to make a map more interesting would be to have a high, open area with limited cover and a low, crowded area with lots of cover (Paritan Rumble sort of has this, but it has lots of high cover as well). A sniper will be able to punish anyone who pokes their head above the cover, but the cover will allow ships to approach from unexpected angles, or even below if the snipers aren't careful.

I'm fine with certain maps favoring particular strategies, but right now the majority of maps heavily favor sniping. That leads to a lot of same-y builds and drawn out sniper duels. Some changes to the maps, like additional cover to allow more angles of approach, would help a lot.

Offline Crafeksterty

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Re: Incentives to Move
« Reply #39 on: July 25, 2013, 09:30:10 pm »