Eldron on 27/2/2012 at 10:22
Killing myself wasn't anywhere near as effective as flying through the level actually causing some damage at 200km/h. ¨
There's most often enough ammo to last you through some combat and then getting killed the regular way.
Even using it as a means to quickly get to base to defend against a flag-grab is just plain retarded, by the time you actually respawn the guy will be halfway across the map and you could've instead intercepted him.
Koki on 27/2/2012 at 10:28
Try watching some "pro" footage then
DDL on 27/2/2012 at 11:20
The problem with that sort of comparison is the skill range between "pro" players and "noobiest player that will still contribute money" is HUGE. Vast.
Design all your mechanics to work perfectly at the highest possible skill level, and you simply alienate 99% of your playerbase. Likewise, make it perfectly possible for a level 1 HOW I SHOT SUPNDFUSOR?? player to kill experts, and you also alienate 99% of your playerbase. The best strategy is to aim for pleasing as many peeps in the midrange as possible (with a possible drift toward better play, as people get better).
Expert players finding and exploiting exploits that nobody else is good enough to properly take advantage of? O GOD THROW THE ENTIRE GAME MECHANICS OUT
Koki on 27/2/2012 at 11:32
Pressing "suicide" button hardly requires pro skill levels. It's just pressing a button.
You're a chaser, caught the enemy capper and got the flag back?
KAny class, running low on ammo?
KNot where you needed to be?
KQuote:
Design all your mechanics to work perfectly at the highest possible skill level, and you simply alienate 99% of your playerbase.
But isn't this exactly what happened here? Who found out the skiing glitch and wrote auto-ski scripts in first Tribes? Who created the whole idea of propelling yourself with explosives and capping the flag at several hundred km/h? Who came up with pysically blocking the incoming cappers? Who, from the pool of about 40 maps, deemed only four big, open ones with exposed flags "worthy" and played nothing else?
Tribes 2, Vengeance, and Ascend were all more or less created based on pros exploiting the first game. Shouldn't that be alienating to 99% of audience according to your logic?
DDL on 27/2/2012 at 11:44
Er..I'm not sure you actually get what I'm saying here at all.
Designing mechanics to work perfectly (i.e. non-exploitable, exactly as designers intended) for pro players results in all of those things you described NOT EVER HAPPENING. Also, it becomes a bewildering game for less pro players ("why can't I do X?" "because if you were good enough, X could be exploited").
Designing a game that plays as designers intended for midrange players often results in stupidly dedicated pro players finding all sorts of exploits, exactly as you describe. This is not necessarily a problem (and indeed it appears to be the way the game itself is evolving, here).
However it does mean that saying OMG OMG THIS AM BORKED COZ LOOKIT TEH PRO GAEM is not in any way useful for non-pro players. Pro players will find exploits, and will exploit them. This doesn't mean the game is utterly broken, for all players, ever.
Koki on 27/2/2012 at 12:06
Quote Posted by DDL
Designing mechanics to work perfectly (i.e. non-exploitable, exactly as designers intended) for pro players results in all of those things you described NOT EVER HAPPENING.
And that's bad how?
DDL on 27/2/2012 at 12:55
So..wait, I'm confused here.
"Tribes 2, Vengeance, and Ascend were all more or less created based on pros exploiting the first game"
I'm interpreting this to mean that the behaviour and exploits of the higher-end players influenced the direction of the subsequent games in a fashion that pandered more to those exploits rather than less (i.e. "rocket boosting is popular, so keep that in" rather than "omg nerf rocket jumpz plx").
If this is wrong, then please correct me.
The thing I'm also not getting is how you seem to be angrily ranting about "pros ruining your game" when you also hold up pros as examples of exactly how to play?
Ultimately, I think the problem here is fundamentally not that the game is alienating 99% of its playerbase, but that it's alienating 100% of its kokibase, which I suspect it can probably cope with. Why not actually play games you like, instead?
Koki on 27/2/2012 at 13:41
Quote Posted by DDL
The thing I'm also not getting is how you seem to be angrily ranting about "pros ruining your game" when you also hold up pros as examples of exactly how to play?
There is a difference between a normal game being "exploited" by pros and a game made specifically for said pros. Like that exposed flag again; usually in CTF you stick the flag in the middle of your base, because it makes perfect sense as it's something to be protected; but because T:A caters to the capper mechanic(which dates back to pros exploiting the very first Tribes) the flag is the most exposed element of your entire base.
DDL on 27/2/2012 at 14:15
Quote:
There is a difference between a normal game being "exploited" by pros and a game made specifically for said pros
So..which is T:A, then (for you)? And if it's the latter, why are you even bothering to care, if it's clearly not your thing?
As for CTF maps, surely you're aware that the entire concept of capture the flag is inherently ludicrous?
Sensibly in a CTF situation you'd bury the flag under several tonnes of rock, then cap the lot with smooth reinforced concrete, not have it
grabbable in any shape or form. ANY map that has a flag that people can just wander in and pick up, then wander out, is ridiculous from a realism standpoint: the whole genre is silly. All you're arguing about is exactly
where on the silliness curve your preferred map design would be.
Koki on 27/2/2012 at 14:34
You're forgetting the fact that you need to bring the enemy flag to your flag to score. So launching it out into the Sun is probably not the best idea.
How about it's not a flag, but a super advanced source of energy in the form of a ball the size of your fist. Hovewer the one you have in your base already is used to power up the base, and only by taking the enemy SASoE you can use it to charge the battery on your spaceship. Unfortunately the SASoE has a defensive mechanism which makes it teleport back to the enemy base if it's used too long without authorization, so you can charge only 20% of your battery in one grab. The mechanism also can be activated manually by members of opposite team. And you need the battery charged because your base is also a spaceship and the planet is about to explode.
So here you go, excuse for CTF I came up with this instant. Makes sense? Yeah. Does leaving the SASoE on the roof of your spaceshipbase make sense? Fuck no.
