Crom's T:V Impressions from GDC

I notice at one point (page 13) KP said that Health Kits(repair kits) are virtually invisible. So why not make them not so?

I am just throwing this idea out, so don't shoot me too bad for it- What of making a small HUD for the possession of a Repair Kit, which can aptly be renamed to a Health Kit. It can be an H with a little red plus (for health) in the background. The H signifies the key to press, the red plus signifies it gives you health. It's in your face, it's not invisible, it hits your subconcious and is intuitive (if you ask me). When you use it, the little H is gone. When you get another Health Kit, it's back.

Players can go "Hmm, i wonder what the H is for" they press H, bam, their health goes up. Or, they will be curious and ask, so someone informs them.

That's all hypathetically speaking, however. I would like to keep the repair kit in, but i understand the dev team probably has a good reason to leave it out.

As i have seen mentioned before, the nice part of the repair kit is when you're tearing through someones base (in a shield pack, in some cases) and your ripping people apart. You take some shots, your shields go down, you take some damage, kill off some enemies, nab their ammo and repair kits, and you're up to speed again doing a load of damage.

IMO, it's part of what helps make the game faced paced. Learn to kill fast and stay alive long.
 
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I think something more controversial would be worth this level of debate.

Try making the blaster use NO energy and have unlimited ammo. Now THAT would make for a good debate. This....not so much.

The way the blaster would start to be used would be very interesting I think.
 
RegisteredFruit said:
I've tried to trust the dev team, but all these issues have worn away at me. I can honestly say I have little hope for T:V right now.

The skiing system does sound like it could be good, though. Hopefully a mod will fix the gameplay so we can enjoy it.
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You've already discounted ANY change from how you currently play Tribes. You people that are ALREADY gonna make a mod so you feel "comfortable" annoy the hell out of me.

Debate, make your claim about why you think changes are bad, fine. But to go so far as to say, I am NOT playing T:V, I'm making a mod without even playing the game is just plain rediculous.

:mad:
 
PyroGuNx* said:
I notice at one point (page 13) KP said that Health Kits(repair kits) are virtually invisible. So why not make them not so?

I am just throwing this idea out, so don't shoot me too bad for it- What of making a small HUD for the possession of a Repair Kit, which can aptly be renamed to a Health Kit. It can be an H with a little red plus (for health) in the background. The H signifies the key to press, the red plus signifies it gives you health. It's in your face, it's not invisible, it hits your subconcious and is intuitive (if you ask me). When you use it, the little H is gone. When you get another Health Kit, it's back.

Players can go "Hmm, i wonder what the H is for" they press H, bam, their health goes up. Or, they will be curious and ask, so someone informs them.

That's all hypathetically speaking, however. I would like to keep the repair kit in, but i understand the dev team probably has a good reason to leave it out.

As i have seen mentioned before, the nice part of the repair kit is when you're tearing through someones base (in a shield pack, in some cases) and your ripping people apart. You take some shots, your shields go down, you take some damage, kill off some enemies, nab their ammo and repair kits, and you're up to speed again doing a load of damage.

IMO, it's part of what helps make the game faced paced. Learn to kill fast and stay alive long.
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First things first: Good Member! Very good Member! See the biscuit? See the biscuit! That's right! You get the biscuit for being a smart Member who posted like the intelligent being you are, yes you do! Good boy!

Second things second: You make a good point, but I especially agree with your sentiment about what helps make the game fast-paced.

People may argue that your lot in life in Tribes is to live the life of a mayfly. You spawn, you jump into the fray, you die or kill yourself quickly with little individual glory (unless you're a very good capper) because that's the most effective way to go about things. I disagree with that world view to a decent extent. I believe, like you, that a man who proves himself capable of staying alive a long time to wreak havoc on the enemy deserves to live as long as he possibly can.

If the D sucks at dislodging you when you go HO, camp their repair pack, even set up turrets inside their base, you deserve to stay in there and whup ass for the entire map. If you make a cap after being rabidly chased across the entire length of the map and you're still alive afterwards, why kill yourself? Heal up at the inv and go at it again, you deserve it because you're the f*cking man.
 
I can tell from your post that you were horrible at SC and missed the depth of my post. The only time a newbie would "do well" doing nothing but trying to get bcs/carriers would be if he was playing against players equally as shazbotty who have literally *zero* concept of the game.

Saying WC3 is easier for new players is ridiculous. Seeing as WC3 has no complicated macro element to learn, lots of high health units that lend themselves to being more forgiving of errors, no real drop element, no real cloak threat, etc etc. WC3 is by *far* the more newbie friendly game. It has way less things to learn and know about than SC.

The reason why WC3 sucked at higher competitive levels is because of the incredibily bad combo of heros, an ultra restrictive supply cap, and mines being mined to the max with only 5 workers. That alone removed the following from most games: Non-stop harassing drops, splitting up units to harass, going specifically after gold workers, and many more. It also reduced the importance of expanding in the game. Expanding is certainly still important, but not nearly to the degree that it held in SC. Combine all those facts together (not to mention a lack of very hard counters), and you've taken out most of the pressure and back and forth play between players. Add in the very *very* neutered macro game, and creeps to the mix, and the game plays even worse. (But its very easy for new players to learn).


At any rate, getting back to the main point, it is *much* much easier for new players to learn, play and do well in war3 as compared to SC. Seeing as the only things they have to worry about is ultra simple macro, simple micro, building heros, simple teching and simple creeping. In SC, a newbie vs even a *somewhat* decent player cannot tech or dream of getting *close* to bcs or carriers. He'd be dead long before.

GIMPbeowulf said:
I don't really think a lack of rep kits will make that much of a difference other than peeps that get fast kills on new players being able to regen health. Any health difference it would have can just be ballanced into the player's full health.

I agree in one aspect--SC has a much higher skill ceiling.
However, I don't agree with that new player argument. I don't know how many times I've seen a newbie do well by doing nothing but building battlecruisers, carriers, or zerglings. These are things that won't work against an experienced player but the fact stands that such things allow new players to quickly attain a measure of success. WC3 on the other hand I think is harder for new players, there's at least twice as many things you need to know to have a complete understanding of the game and it's much more of a numbers game--whoever has the bigger horde and better use of heroes/magic wins, it doesn't matter as much what the horde is made of either as it does in other games.

Personally the thing I really see as holding WC3 back is the very limited gameplay. Every time you go to play you quickly build a hero and go kill creeps to make your hero better. Then you fight a simmilar sized horde of enemy troops, concentrating on their hero(es) if the opportunity arises. If the fight goes poorly you run and try to save whatever heroes and units you can. If it goes well you try to prevent their hero's escape and press your advantage their base/expansions. That's a few sentences, but it's what happens in every game--the battles are even kept relatively the same size by the taxes... its the same thing over and over, rinse and repeat until one person wins. In SC there's a lot more variance in strategy, people tech rush, expansion rush, cover a teching ally, turtle (though not usually smart), etc. There's much more room for people to get trumped and have wacky things happen. In WC3 it's build your horde and go fight a simmilar horde over and over--little variance. That's what holds it back.
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KillerONE said:
You've already discounted ANY change from how you currently play Tribes. You people that are ALREADY gonna make a mod so you feel "comfortable" annoy the hell out of me.

Debate, make your claim about why you think changes are bad, fine. But to go so far as to say, I am NOT playing T:V, I'm making a mod without even playing the game is just plain rediculous.

:mad:
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I'd also like to know who this WE is, the he keeps refering to.
 
Where the hell is MY biscuit Ben?

biscuit.jpg
 
Fraggy Poo said:
Where the hell is MY biscuit Ben?
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You're extra golden in my book, FP, so I'm gonna treat you to a naughty icture of Julia instead. I hope you won't feel too bad about such a substitution. ;o
 
Crom said:
thrax man, i hope i didn't cause you too much of a headache...

i never expected a 15 pg. thread out of this...

you shoulda made me sign an NDA :rofl:
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Now you feel my pain. All the incorrect assumptions, all the paranoid assertions, conclusions that no one in their right mind could make without a blind launch into the abyss first. It happens every time we release any quantity of information.
 
Thrax Panda said:
Now you feel my pain. All the incorrect assumptions, all the paranoid assertions, conclusions that no one in their right mind could make without a blind launch into the abyss first. It happens every time we release any quantity of information.
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You might not enjoy it, maybe, my boy, but the thng is, a lot of us DO. It's no fun to simply sit nicely until the beta to formulate opinions. Any dirty laundry you may have needs to be aired directly at the soonest available time, because otherwise any problems that one may not have anticipated prior to the beta will make for a much nastier surprise when one actually experiences them.

I for one believe that this was one of the principal blunders of the T2 beta. People jerked and whined for a while about the possible balance ramifications and bloat that a lot of new features would bring, but once beta came along, far too many people acted like all the new stuff was water under the bridge. In a way, this is atoning for some of our sins that led to the T2 debacle.

No offense meant (and yeah, I really do mean that), but this is better for all of us, including you, in the long run. People tend to get caught up in the moment during beta and forget that they're supposed to be probing every nook and cranny for possible exploits that could turn their present heaven into hell when the game hits shelves. By jerking and whining at this stage, I think, we are better preparing ourselves to be objective, rather than downright giddy, when the beta comes to pass.
 
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Ben Reed said:
this is better for all of us, including you, in the long run.
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It's better to have people guess wildly and mostly incorrectly about things that may or may not have been changed? How is that better? Is it better because people get pissed? Is it better because people who just stop by for a quick read may get the wrong idea about something? How is a bunch of people being wrong a help to anybody?
 
Wether to use or hand off your repair kit was a very important decision on many of the original tribes maps. Deciding which was more important, sustaining yourself or the Heavy D was an important choice that could have big implications. I will be sorry to see it go.

I dont give a crap about targeting lasers :p
 
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RegisteredFruit said:
Or maybe you could address the questions and give us reason to get over it.
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I have. Repeatedly. You just can't/don't/won't listen. Don't blame me for your shortcomings.

R. Fruit said:
I'm sick of them cutting things just because they're too difficult for new players.
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One more time, just for you. At the end of the road, we make games to make money. If there was no money involved and I could just make any game I wanted I'd be making the most kick ass Formula 1 simulation ever. That doesn't interest a lot of people so I'm making Tribes instead, and it needs to make buckets of money, because that's what my employers tell me they want (odd how that works). So we're main streaming the game as much as we can without making it something other than Tribes. You'll just have to learn to live with that.

What is amazing to me at this moment is that the guy who played the game is saying "wow, it was great" and all you guys can do is focus on a few things you're paranoid about. How many people have you seen play it and say "that sucked"? How many have said "It's tribes, it's good"? Yet you remain paranoid and you focus on how the repair pack and the targeting laser were the key points that made Tribes what it was, and without those items the game will suck. OK then, go play Planetside, because I've obviously ripped the soul out of Tribes.

-- Thrax Panda, Tribal Satan
 
booty said:
I dont give a crap about targeting lasers :p
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A valid assertion for now, perhaps. Once the beta comes, however, you may well be singing a different tune.

This could happen for anything, mind you -- ANY aspect of Tribes, from the targeting laser to the disc launcher to the very jetpack that makes Tribes what it is. This is why it's important that if you have a concern about anything in T:V, you shouldn't sit quietly and wait for the beta. Express it now. Don't keep it inside, because what may seem trivial at first glance may change the entire face of the game (skiing, blowing up freshly thrown mines with discs, etc.).

Even if your side of the issue is not implemented in base T:V, there may be talented modmakers willing to address your concerns. This stuff always STARTS trivial, folks -- but as we all know, in a free-form game like Tribes, little things sometimes have a tendency to blossom into BIG, BIG changes of dynamic.
 
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