cRPG and Emergent Gaming (And Fun): Where It Went Wrong

[KaMiKaZe_JoE]

I agree with your gameplay philosophy Smooth, though I must say old cRPG was a fucking unbalanced grindfest of proportions significant enough to prompt daily bouts of anal bleeding.

Regarding Thine Philosophy
The things that one might associate with Strategus now are those that, I think, should be brought back to battle and siege. Creativity, player-driven, cooperation, sandbox, fun, competitive, high risk-reward (for a video game...related to competitive), epic.

When the ebb and flow of a game is dependent on the players, rather than map design and gameplay limitations, I think that that game (if it is a multiplayer one) becomes something wondrous!

I think that part of Battle's kinda boring repetitiveness comes from the lack of shit that you can do. Your goal is simple: kill all of the other team's players. That's fine--lots of room for Creative Solutions (TM). However the tools you're given for that task get boring fast. The number of weapons and classes are pretty much limited. The maps don't change. The rounds are short. You can't build shit.

The two biggest issues, I think, are:
a) You can't build shit. The bestest player-driven games I've played have often included the ability to build shit during the game. Star Wars Combine is a simulation that's all about building shit on planets or asteroids (and trade, and interactions); Natural Selection allowed the commander to build where, when, and what he or she wanted--the players had to build the shit up, and defend it, and attack the other team's shit; Empires was like Natural Selection: a commander built shit for his team. I played Empire Earth because the "Diplomacy" mode allowed players to war with whom they wanted, build where/what they wanted, and--if they wanted to--just sit back and build a pretty, gay city. My point is that built entities allow the players to alter the map in fun and unique ways, making the game much more dynamic. Let players build shit, while keeping balance in mind (maybe switch "attackers" and "defending" teams up, to prevent camping.
b) Rounds vs Deathmatch. The current system of Rounds means that everything has to happen within maybe five minutes. Otherwise, players sitting in their chairs start to get fucking bored. Make the Battle a deathmatch mode, with timed rounds that are long enough. Give players enough time to fucking get some creative, fun shit done.
Deathmatch and object-based gameplay usually go hand in hand, however it might be worth it to just try regular Deathmatch for a while, and simply give the players the ability to build and do fun shit at first. You can add objectives later.


TL;DR: READ THE BOLD AND ITALICS. chadz, let us build shit, and give us the time to build shit. Add other things, liek classes or weapons, after this necessary step.

[Tibe]

This is basically what I said, but Tiberius did not understand.

....ohhh really? What Yach said acctually made sense and was wise, what you posted was different........example:

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I read most of what you had to say Smooth, and I agree AND disagree with you.

I do agree that some things from old cRPG (or just older versions of cRPG) should be added again:
1. Unblock all roofs, and stop blocking every roof--it's just so annoying.
2. Bring back ladders. The usually ladderwhine
3. Sure, bring back some old cRPG weapons like Boulder on a Stick. Usual add more stuff suggestion....
4. Buff Horse ARCHERY.  Buff something suggestion
5. When ATS controlled the servers they made an AWESOME site that had kills and rankings, etc. This disappeared when official told them to take it off.
6. Give some more weapons crushthrough like they had before (ex: Bar Mace). Buff something
7. Fun city maps, Native maps, less cav maps...  reguesting adding maps
8. ETC.

I like how fast I can get items compared to the grind of getting items in old cRPG, but in old cRPG it felt so rewarding to finally get that thing you were saving up for. SO KINDA TWO SIDED THERE...

Another thing, I think what was fun about old cRPG was the stuff you don't expect and was kind of random if you know what I mean, mostly caused by different level people and builds. (Ex: high level throwing build, Beatrix, crymoar, horse archers, etc.) It was fun, there were so many builds and stuff and varied. This all caused This cRPG is kind of like uniform and not as exciting. Missing the buffed builds. Speaking of randomness in builds, not really clarifying it.

Looking back at that post there were quite many who didnt understand what you mean. I posted the exact reply to it. Next time make your point more clear and dont call others fools when you have issues speaking your mind in words too big for you.

[Chestaclese]

Proximity xp was brilliant. I have no idea why they ever got rid of that. It was the simplest way to force people to fight in groups and it fucked over any ranged players that took up perches miles away. Proximity xp made playing as a peasant a lot of fun too. There use to be tactics to being a peasant like wearing clothing that made you look like anything but a peasant and then there were also slick players that would purposely dress like a peasant to lure it retards looking for an easy kill haha.

I think the most fun I had was when we created a ninja turtle clan. We dumped everything into shield skill, held up inside small buildings, and inconvenienced people by hugging them with our shields so they couldn't swing. Sometimes we would get put on separate teams and the game would be to some how get to the safety of the turtles on the other team without their team killing you.

Before they took out ladders another fun game to play was lemmings on Siege. The point of the game was to create a great ladder bridge to the flag that all your teammates want to use.

Eh, forgot to mention throwing. I understand the first nerf, I mean everyone was carrying throwing weapons but I thought the second nerf was excessive. There is just no way to have a pure throwing build in the current game, especially if you play stratagus.

[Smoothrich]

I partially agree, partially disagree:

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I disagree on the ladder issue. Lifting up teammates with ladders and causing them to fall to death is not a "witty" way to play the game. It's the same as teamkilling at spawn and patting yourself on the back for figuring out this creative way of playing.

Lifting up enemies to kill them is indeed fun, but has no place in a "serious" gamemode like battle. It could be put into a separate one, though.

I agree on the need for a more sandboxy gamemode. I think that sandbox games are the holy grail of gaming. I don't believe mixing battle with sandbox stuff works though, because some like it fair and serious, some like it goofy. The problem for those that like to "grief" is usually that they dont want to do that to other griefers. They want to do it to the serious players for maximum impact (excuse the pun). Players don't need griefers, but griefers need players. This is why creating a grief only gamemode would not work, because the griefers would be sad that no players would be there to be griefed.

That doesnt mean it's not possible to create a gamemode that allows for a combination of sandbox+competition, though.



The reason for topics like this, though, is that the cRPG playerbase is not very homogenous. I am happy about that, knowing that the game is diverse enough to attract different kinds of players, but ofc it also makes stuff more complicated. Regarding ladders: iirc 70% wanted them gone, I bowed to the majority.

Regarding streamlining balance: no one plays a game for long where the gameplay balance is totally broken. Thats fun for some time, but eventually people start figuring out the "best" builds and the entire diversity is gone, probably with the majority of players. Claiming that OP weapons or chars would have in any way helped the mod to stay fun is simply very naive.

Thanks for reading.

Ladderpaulting in battle as it was is basically teamkilling and griefing sure, but if you saw it go off perfectly placed (against the enemy team) at the start of a completely packed XP bridge map you would die in laugher just thinking about it.  It was so funny in its own wacky way I miss it terribly and if it could be re-enabled in a new gametype more conductive to building it would be great.  Ladders would have their place in modes that didn't come down to being last alive every 4 minutes though for sure.

Completely agree about battle.  Truthfully you guys did a fantastic job balancing battle for what it is, but in the process a lot of gold got thrown out with the trash.  Why I suggested a few times in the thread that an ideal way to bring back some of these trends and address these urges players get would be for a new game mode that had longer-lasting rounds and the full toolbox of construction sites and ladders enabled.  Possibly new additions as they are thought up.  I think Conquest type is a great fit for having a focus on battle and killing along with being able to build defenses, explore the map with buddies, not get raged at or banned for not being hellbent on killing with 15+ minute long maps.

I actually quite enjoy Battle when I play, but it simply doesn't hold a candle to Strategus battles in my experience.   The nature of a long map with lots of little victories or huge defeats, a focus on building and teamwork, respawns, some of the best maps in cRPG (some of the towns are brilliant and never get played), its all good stuff.  Too bad there's the rest of Strategus to deal with

With the creativity and talent some of the devs have though (see fucking Rageball, holy shit) I bet something even more unique could be coded if there was effort and time for it, but I'm at a loss of what.  Never got to play Stronghold, what I heard seemed rather complicated and obtuse though, but it seemed like an awesome idea at least.

With balance, I'm fine with the stats and have certainly lobbied to nerf plenty myself (compile items so poleaxe is nerfed already!).  More the issue here was nerfing gameplay in general with the mechanics changes.  Turn-rate was the most egregious.  Could be lame but more understandable if it was applied to certain weapons like pikes and mauls or whatever, but the way it was implemented is just really disappointing.  Most of us play cRPG cuz of the outstanding Warband engine, in a game maintained and balanced by active people who know what they're doing.  This basically gutted half the attack directions of EVERY weapon in the game, new thrust abuse mechanics cropped up, tons of popular weapons are almost unused, and its just sluggish and unfun to play.

I also kind of wish the leveling cap was softened.  Possibly XP gain just increased overall.  I like the game being balanced but level 30 for most players makes builds underpowered hybrids (unless cav or xbow) or cookie cutter templates of optimal power.  High levels and more skill points can fix these things but leveling is so outrageously slow past 31 and respecs so costly.  If people had more points to play with things would be more interesting.  Then again, OP builds would become optimal builds, and underpowered hybrids would remain relatively underpowered I suppose : \  But its worth mentioning that 30 soft cap is kind of dulling.

Compile items!

[Casimir]

this thread is far to logical and thought out, what have you done with smoothrich, locked him up only to let loose on the diplomacy forums?

[LordBerenger]

this thread is far to logical and thought out, what have you done with smoothrich, locked him up only to let loose on the diplomacy forums?

As long as Canary is on vacation too/tired to check Diplomacy section. Diplomacy is the best sub-forums.


Oh and re-implement ladders now into Battle and/or Siege.

Most ones who voted yes to remove it are gone now or are busy spergin out in Guild Wars 2, Planetside 2 or some other game.

Just make a new poll and make it the final decision.

[Lepintoi]

yes bring back ladders!

PS Norules u werent there man, so shut up

[partyboy]

The timer at the top is the countdown to ladders being brought back.

[Lordark]

bring conquest mooode