FPS+RTS Genre Problems
Jiriki
retired ns1 player Join Date: 2003-01-04 Member: 11780Members, NS1 Playtester, Squad Five Silver
retired ns1 player Join Date: 2003-01-04 Member: 11780Members, NS1 Playtester, Squad Five Silver
<div class="IPBDescription">About commander especially</div>Major issue in the whole FPS + RTS is the commander. Unlike in TF2, Cod, CS(:S) etc. anyone can play the game without having to worry about the others - well too much atleast. In NS, a bad commander can ruin the game for everyone else in the team. Surely one can be ejected but usually by then the damage has already been done - next time it would be someone else. This problem combined with the many servers' rule to prevent marines surrendering is a recipe for wasted free time. I think for the sake of NS2 future, this issue would have to be dealth with. One solution could be to limit to prevent a person from entering the commander chair before one has played enough games, but its problematic. Another solution would be to implement some kind of "Commander Campaign" in single player which everyone would have to pass before entering the chair on game servers. Making it hard enough could have dramatic effect in public games.
Surely you can limit the commander's ability to affect the game, like removing him from the decision making loop and giving the players more influence (like weapon purchasing) but that itself is making the commander job even more boring (its rather unfavored even now) and also hampering the high-end games where commander needs to have full control (although modifications can be made to fix it for competitive games).
What I also is emphasize is the default server settings. Surely server admins can mod the game but some default variables in server.cfg can have a big impact on the future of the game in long run as many people have it the same. Like if server configurations have some limitations for commander mode by default, many servers will have them and it will probably affect positively the quality of games overall.
Additionally, the commander job is rather unfavored in NS because a) FPS is more fun b) high learning curve c) lack of ability to affect the game directly unlike field players. Obviously this affects the games when the chair is not wanted. I think it would be NS' best interest to make the job more enjoyable for NS2. One solution would be adding some kind of weapon like the good old C&C Ion Cannon which cannot be used too often but it would surely be fan around to blast around the map. Or maybe commander detonable mines. All this would have to be balanced of course. As a competitive player im rather suspicous to such features but lack of good commanders is an issue both for public and competitive and sometimes compromises have to be made.
What are your thoughts about FPS+RTS genre problems and do you have some ingenious solutions to them?
Surely you can limit the commander's ability to affect the game, like removing him from the decision making loop and giving the players more influence (like weapon purchasing) but that itself is making the commander job even more boring (its rather unfavored even now) and also hampering the high-end games where commander needs to have full control (although modifications can be made to fix it for competitive games).
What I also is emphasize is the default server settings. Surely server admins can mod the game but some default variables in server.cfg can have a big impact on the future of the game in long run as many people have it the same. Like if server configurations have some limitations for commander mode by default, many servers will have them and it will probably affect positively the quality of games overall.
Additionally, the commander job is rather unfavored in NS because a) FPS is more fun b) high learning curve c) lack of ability to affect the game directly unlike field players. Obviously this affects the games when the chair is not wanted. I think it would be NS' best interest to make the job more enjoyable for NS2. One solution would be adding some kind of weapon like the good old C&C Ion Cannon which cannot be used too often but it would surely be fan around to blast around the map. Or maybe commander detonable mines. All this would have to be balanced of course. As a competitive player im rather suspicous to such features but lack of good commanders is an issue both for public and competitive and sometimes compromises have to be made.
What are your thoughts about FPS+RTS genre problems and do you have some ingenious solutions to them?
Comments
<!--quoteo(post=1690982:date=Oct 21 2008, 01:15 PM:name=Flayra)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Flayra @ Oct 21 2008, 01:15 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1690982"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->- The Commander and non-Comms are more decoupled so they can each be more effective on their own. Of course the best teams will have everyone working together, but Commanders will be able to be effective with braindead non-Comms (through the use of AI builder bots/nymphs and spell-like abilities) and the ability for marines to buy their own weapons/equipment from armories.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I thought your topic was going to be a little different as I think there are other complexities just as important as the comm in RTS/FPS hybrids.<ul><li> Game time: FPS games(and players expectations) are generally for 5 min games while RTS games are expected to last closer to half an hour.</li><li> The higher teamwork required of non-comms(alleviated somewhat by the above quote)</li><li> FPS skill importance vs RTS strategy importance.</li></ul>I think NS has a good balance of the first currently. The last bullet has no quick fix IMO and just requires careful attention to the "feel" as features are added.
Sadly these were chosen not to be implemented. There's not really any point in me going into any details on what exactly they were since I don't think UWE would ever adopt them, and there's still a small chance they may be adopted in ND. But I do think these would be very easily achievable as a LUA mod if there is an audience for added depth to the Commander mode, especially for an MvM mode.
I disagree. I enjoy comming because it's a different aspect of the game. Sometimes more fun than FPS'n
I'll add a few problems:
- As commander is unable to directly affect the outcome, the game becomes a lot more for him to lose than to win. It's easy to lose a round to a bad decision or two, but getting them right isn't going to guarantee you any advantage. Of course a good commander still wins rounds for his team, but especially the learning process is harder than it is for marine player.
- It's really difficult to get proper feedback on your performance. You can variate strategies and see which ones work, but it's always heavily dependant on individual performances of your marines and the oppositing team. You'll need to have at least a HLTV demo to analyze your decisions properly and even then you have to see every situation from many viewpoints to get even a faint idea of the deciding factors.
-It's quite difficult to innovate, because a failed test plan is going to waste 15 min for 11+ other players too. Bots might help you to nail some build orders and such on NS2 though.
<!--quoteo(post=1703339:date=Mar 24 2009, 12:07 AM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Mar 24 2009, 12:07 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1703339"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->You might be interested in this quote from <b>Flayra</b> as it seems to address partially your concerns.
I thought your topic was going to be a little different as I think there are other complexities just as important as the comm in RTS/FPS hybrids.<ul><li> Game time: FPS games(and players expectations) are generally for 5 min games while RTS games are expected to last closer to half an hour.</li><li> The higher teamwork required of non-comms(alleviated somewhat by the above quote)</li><li> FPS skill importance vs RTS strategy importance.</li></ul>I think NS has a good balance of the first currently. The last bullet has no quick fix IMO and just requires careful attention to the "feel" as features are added.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think I've seen both RTS and FPS games lasting for the 15 minutes. NS has got the quite good lenght in rounds. A totally imbalanced round doesn't drag for 10 minutes, but even teams have a chance of going 30+ minutes. More even mid/late game and shorter unnecessary endgame are still needed though.
I hope the commander/marine symbiosis is still there. Adding features that allow both roles to have fun without the other are great of course, but the synergy of comm and marines has always been one of the features that makes commanding stand out from the average RTS games. Without unique features like that commanding would be just a relatively simple RTS with uninuitive UI.
<!--quoteo(post=1703353:date=Mar 24 2009, 09:03 AM:name=Bacillus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Bacillus @ Mar 24 2009, 09:03 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1703353"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'll add a few problems:
- As commander is unable to directly affect the outcome, the game becomes a lot more for him to lose than to win. It's easy to lose a round to a bad decision or two, but getting them right isn't going to guarantee you any advantage. Of course a good commander still wins rounds for his team, but especially the learning process is harder than it is for marine player.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I would have to kinda disagree. I've actually found that while the comm doesn't have a lot of direct control, they have perhaps the strongest influence on the game. As you note, it's much easier to fail than to get it right, but that's true of all games, especially RTS games. But, getting it right isn't just about calling the strat, it's also about motivation and vision and clever solutions. These perhaps more subtle roles shape and pace the Marine game quite extensively in the hands of a competent comm. Also, since the first portion of the usual game is Marine offensive, setting the pace of the Marines game controls the flow of the rest of the match.
Granted, these are subtle effects of a good comm, and so many constantly are passive and don't shape the team and instead rely heavily on their marines to execute their pistol snipes with impunity.
As for the commanding, from what I can tell from the posts, they are trying to move the commander away from the menial tasks and more to the upgrades and strategy role. Before, a commander was too busy flipping back to the base to hand out weapons and or spamming medpacks to certain marines, he had little time to actually command.
Hmm, I guess I was speaking mostly from a competetive point of view, but some of the reasoning goes for public commanders too.
To some extend I agree that a good commander can affect the game in many subtle ways. However, against a competent alien teams there are a plenty of ways to screw up the round easily.
-You will miss the hive timing and slip aliens to 2 hives many times.
-You will try to to push/siege the hive with too few secure nodes quite a few times.
-You will slip aliens to your base, hop out and die often enough.
-You will lose crucial aa/obs/arms to baserushes unnecessarily.
-You will fail to adapt to some alien strats (massive amount of node, DC, even SC sometimes) quite a few times.
All those are basically comm responsibility and you'll need to avoid most of them to win a round against decent alien team. Meanwhile you can't consistently pull off any miracle strategies to get your team into big advantage, no matter how good you are. Meds will turn close calls to your advanatage, but they get expensive if you're forced to drop 2 packs for every frag you get.
Big responsibility roles are fine of course, but forcing every team to have such role isn't optimal if you ask me.
Surely thats not a problem now, only a complete ###### would do that.
Someone at my university claims that they've been hired to work on it as a professional title. I laughed. They're still dead serious about it. I'd say it already is vapourware if we're being honest here.
welcome to public ns servers
On the hypothesis that a commander have much more to lose than to win... If his job gets too easy(and irrelevant for the game), then the game is more a FPS than a rts-fps hybrid and nobody cares about him. If the job gets too hard(the commander is 90-95% responsible for success) It's more likely to be a RTS with FPS elements, where the soldiers in the field are merely pawns with no ability to use their skills to change the flow of the game. The best game is where player skill can make up for commander incompetence, and vice versa.