[T:V] Leave Some Variety

R

ricefrog

Veteran X
The main reason that I've stuck with T2 for a long time is that whenever I feel bored, I can just switch positions. HO, HoF, MF, Medium/shield baserape, LD, capper -- they're all sufficiently different (and useful) that boredom with one doesn't carry over into the others. When I get bored with a game that has a lack of variety, I just stop playing, and often I never go back.

Tribes kicks ass because it has a variety of goals and a variety of means to achieve any one of those goals. You have tactics, then countertactics, and counters to the counters, teams adjusting to adjustments, and fighting not just with skiing/shooting skill but with intelligence, creativity and experience as well.

I worry that this variety will be lost when people push the following demands in the name of speed, excitement, and fast-paced play:

- No turrets, AI doing your defense is lame
- HoF shouldn't stop cappers, that's boring, clearing hard to coord
- Vehicles should play a secondary role
- The only obstacle to cappers should be LD with good aim

I agree with some of the ideas behind these demands. But as T2 Base currently plays, whether it be comp or pub, your cappers can face a number of problems, each with several counters to decide between. Cappers can be stopped by HoFs, turrets, LD; and more cappers, more tries is not an answer that's going to work... You have to adjust and solve the problem with support roles like HO, LO, disc/mortar spam, conc nades/lance, turret killers, whatever. Then the other team has to adjust to your adjustment. I like that part of the game.

When there's no turrets to worry about, HoF is a joke, and vehicles are not worth anything, what variety is left?? It seems like you've reduced a spectrum of possible problems and solutions down to one problem -- "the enemy has our flag".

And one solution -- take your light armor, w/ epack if possible, and go scramble for one of the two flags out in the field.

What else is left?

Obviously HoF, farmer, and shrike D pilot are knocked right off the list immediately. But now what's even the point of raping the enemy base? And why HO? Currently, knocking the gens out takes out the enemy VPAD, prevents them from farming anything out, shuts down their base turrets; HOing takes out their HoF and deployables, and most of all prevents them from doing the same thing to you.

But if all you want is light anyway, you can toss out a few deployable invens and then who even cares if they're HOing you?

Okay maybe HO will still be useful sometimes to kill their light defenders, but it still seems that the variety of roles would be severely reduced, and the game would become more boring in the long term, despite the faster "more exciting" gameplay. The second you feel bored of playing what seems to boil down to rabbit with teams, what are you going to do? Go play another game, that's all I can think to do.

I don't object to speeding up the gameplay that was T2 base, it IS a little slow, but I'm hoping the DEVs have an equal respect for the variety of USEFUL roles. It's a poor game that has many choices but only one that's effective.
 
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well, i've only pubbed classic, and that's where i noticed the normal base support positions were ineffective. so maybe you guys can clue me in on what the new variety is, i honestly don't know.

to see if i could find out myself, i went through the entire first page of recent demos on TWL, and wrote down each one that said what position it was of.

here's the list for classic:
ho,lof,ld,ld,ld,ld,ld/mf,cap,ld, (notice - all epack)
and then finally, 4 from the bottom, i found a new one:
shrike d.

here's the very first base demo's position description:

MO, switch to capper (when one of ours dropped), switch to HOF (when ours decided to play midfield instead), switch to turtle buster, then back to HOF.

the only other two base that say were:
farmer,
elfer (groan, that should bring it)

mostly what worried me though is the way people all clamor for eliminating aspects of the game, like HoF and turrets, and anything that gets in the way of a light grabbing the flag.
 
ricefrog said:
well, i've only pubbed classic, and that's where i noticed the normal base support positions were ineffective. so maybe you guys can clue me in on what the new variety is, i honestly don't know.
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There is a differencee between "inneffective" and "more difficult".

Support positions (turreters etc) were way too easy in Tribes the Second base. Its still very possible and very helpful, but you cant single handedly shut down an offense. This is the way it should be.
 
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jawa, i believe you, and more difficult support roles is fine, as is faster speeds for more exciting play. i also agree speed and variety are not mutually exclusive.

what make me afraid is the fact that people want to remove turrets/HoF completely in T:V, whereas i feel they are critical to the variety of objectives and strats, and the necessity for coordination.
 
ricefrog said:
what make me afraid is the fact that people want to remove turrets/HoF completely in T:V, whereas i feel they are critical to the variety of objectives and strats, and the necessity for coordination.
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No one wants to remove HoF or turrets from the game. In fact, I think in T1 HoF is one of the most challenging and rewarding positions of all. If you watched some old T1 demo's youd see some pretty awesome HoF play. That said, you dont make a position more fun by making it easier. The more challenging a position is, the more fun it becomes and thats why people want to make the support positions more difficult. In T2 base HoF, Turret deploying, and base defense are all mindlessly easy.
 
Void|deadjawa said:
No one wants to remove HoF or turrets from the game. In fact, I think in T1 HoF is one of the most challenging and rewarding positions of all.
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I can vouch for this, big-time. HOFing in T1 is damn hard... but the feeling you get watching a capper splat himself against your heavily armored chest when you bodyblock him is just too good for words. And the MA's are easier to get since they're usually coming right at you...

I HOF in T2 as well, and I also agree it's easier. Not easy in general, just easier than T1. Exception: the other team actually makes use of all the equipment available to them as opposed to just hurling cappers and HO at the T2 HOF. Then things can get hellishly difficult. On some maps I have a policy of shooting any light armor that gets within 20 meteres of the flag, friendly or not, just to make sure I'm not being snuck up on by some bastard with the skill to use a jammer pack properly. Long experience in Siege makes me a damn paranoid heavy. :D
 
ricefrog said:
I worry that this variety will be lost when people push the following demands in the name of speed, excitement, and fast-paced play:

- No turrets, AI doing your defense is lame
- HoF shouldn't stop cappers, that's boring, clearing hard to coord
- Vehicles should play a secondary role
- The only obstacle to cappers should be LD with good aim
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Let me address just these four items in order:

  1. There will be turrets, they will not be (exactly) like T1 or T2 turrets.
  2. There will be heavy armor, and we're not planing on a heavy ejection system for the flag stand, so HoF will be possible. It's up to the the players to decide if it's the way to go.
  3. Vehicles will not play the primary role. That's a subtile difference, but key. Great vehicle players should be seen as being great. That said, if we err it will be to favor armors, and not vehicles. Also note that Vehicle capabilities will not grow as much over time as player skills can. For instance, the top speed of the fighter in T1 never went up, but player speeds certainly did.
  4. It will be up to the community to decide how to best stop cappers. I fully expect to see some wacky new stuff, and that's what we all love about Tribes. Who knows what the next big thing will be.
 
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ricefrog said:
well, i've only pubbed classic, and that's where i noticed the normal base support positions were ineffective. so maybe you guys can clue me in on what the new variety is, i honestly don't know.
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Aside from farming, what do you call a 'support position'? Farmers are still very useful in classic, they are just very busy because their shit doesn't stay up as long as it used to (in base).

Using released demos to decide what roles exist in classic isn't a good way to judge. Deployers don't usually release demos for a number of reasons, where as LD release them all the time because they like to show off their excellent usage of f2.
 
jsut -

my favorite support role is offensive harassment, which from my admittedly limited experience i feel suffered under the modifications of classic.

generally offensive harrasment means staying alive in the enemy territory so that they never get a moment's rest. your main task - besides extended survival - is usually to deny them remote inventories, and to plug the holes between waves of HO by preventing them from repairing turrets and other outdoor assets. in a competitive game, you also act as an intelligence officer.

LO (or the infamous o sniper) can do this to a limited extent, and also be a useful flag player, but he's snipebait in the long run. in T2 base, there's a better way to really be a persistent pain in the enemy's ass, and that's the annoying bastard.

in short the "annoying bastard" is assault armor, with repair pack, standing on a hill at max blaster range, and blowing up every deployable, ensuring they don't repair hard turrets, pinging the HoF nonstop right thru his shield, blastering snipers looking the other way, and generally making life unpleasant for the enemy defense. all of this is usually done under enemy fire, because the annoying bastard is unkillable at long range, and annoyingly resilient in a duel.

this, to my view, is a totally cool and unorthodox strategy. i bring it up because i feel that it was accidentally nerfed in classic by the clamour for speed, and that it's indicative of what happened to other non-mobile strategies.

when classic was designed, obviously the annoying bastard was not in mind. they weren't looking to nerf this position. but take a look at the accidental effects on that position which came about by classic's increased speed modifications:

- increased gravity means that the tiny bits of jet i get to use now move me less, and i basically can't even do the tiny dodges i used to barely evade discs with.

- increased disc impact knocks me around, and off my hill (which is my life support system, trust me, AB on flat ground = dead)

- minedisc completely fucks me

notice that #1 and #3 will apply equally to ANY ground-bound nonmobile strategy. by increasing the speed, you accidentally had to make other changes which nerfed anyone who wants to spend their energy on other advantages besides speed.

this would include any outdoor shield strat as well.

T2 base already favored spending your energy on mobility as the strongest outdoor strategy, but it was a close call -- you COULD survive and make a living in other ways. but when i play classic, you are completely screwed by the fact that the airborne opponent can just drop minediscs on you easily, AND the increased gravity makes tiny hops and jumps more expensive, so you either can't dodge or you can't use your energy-dependent strat ie repair or shield, and often both after the second or third dodge... and all the while you're taking minediscs to the head instead of just discs.

all of this does not even consider the fact that with increased speed, the necessity for plugging the holes between HO - the very purpose of offensive harassment - is diminished.

people generally seem not to respect these ideas as competitive support roles, but in T2 base they were borderline feasible. by increasing the speed for classic, a series of changes became necessary which not only made them obsolete, but also made them far more difficult when they were barely possible to begin with.
 
umm...we have a player that does just what you described on a number of maps to great effect...except he does it in light and doesn't need a reppack...he scavenges what he needs from the ld that try to stop him

perhaps you need to adjust your role to fit the game and not adjust the game to fit your role?

btw, he does it right up in their faces, not from midfield, because that takes little to no skill...
 
Classic, eh? Try a jammer pack. They have a passive mode now, much to the annoyance of farmers.

Dan's Annoying Bastard guide is a good resource, and it's effective, but not quite as much in classic. So change up your equipment.

I will, however, agree that shield-wearing ground-pounders got stiffed a bit in classic due the gravity. So either get good at missile snapshots, the ELF, chaining them down super fast, or MA'ing... or switch your loadouts to fit your style and skill level.
 
xpdnc said:
umm...we have a player that does just what you described on a number of maps to great effect...except he does it in light and doesn't need a reppack...he scavenges what he needs from the ld that try to stop him

perhaps you need to adjust your role to fit the game and not adjust the game to fit your role?

btw, he does it right up in their faces, not from midfield, because that takes little to no skill...
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unless i misunderstand, you're talking about LO... i know about LO, i play it, yes it's fun, yes it's effective, yes it's the normal method of harassment offense.

no it's NOT a "ground-bound nonmobile strategy" which was the point of my post. when your friend gets in a fight, he goes up in the sky, yes? so of course my "groundbound got accidentally nerfed" doesn't apply to him as he is in the least groundbound setup possible.

btw, i play the game straight out of the box, how can you accuse me of adjusting the game to fit my role??
 
ricefrog said:
btw, i play the game straight out of the box, how can you accuse me of adjusting the game to fit my role??
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He means you were advocating a situation in which you were adjusting the game to meet a role you enjoyed, instead of adjusting the role (harassment which once ground pounded) to meet the game (which is now harassment with a SJ or energy pack).
 
ricefrog said:
my favorite support role is offensive harassment, which from my admittedly limited experience i feel suffered under the modifications of classic.
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No offense, but the role you just described there sounds incredibly boring. It exists in T1 too...its called the clusterfuck station spammer :\.
 
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