Post by tarbomb on Apr 19, 2013 17:03:05 GMT -5
Judging by the huge number of towns leveled, and the relatively small number of regions cleared, it seems that people are finding scouting more interesting than clearing to towns, which is in turn more interesting that clearing regions.
Here's my take on why that's happening.
A typical scene when scouting.
In that scene, there are a lot of factors going through my mind. I'm on a speedboost (but nearing the end of it) and there's a GCT (one of the two enemies that I can confidently orbit to regenerate shields). Do I keep going on the speedboost, or do I stop to regenerate?
I'm also losing shields. Can I avoid taking fire on my left for long enough that regen will work, or should I wait until my HP drops to 30% and cloak?
There are flying enemies (low damage but consistent) and a supertank (higher damage, but sporadic, which means certain maneuvers should allow me to avoid fire long enough to regen). Which way do I go?
How far can I go before I boost again?
Is the situation dangerous enough to warrant escaping?
There are a lot of decisions to make in a short time when you scout. Making the wrong one means a scouting run cut short, or death. This gives scouting a strong risk/reward curve, and therefore both encourages skill in the long term and makes the act of scouting fun in the short term.
There's also a reward (50k gold), and an announcement that everyone else adding to the fun factor. And when you're done, you can see how far you went (via the red markers indicating scouted territory), and set cool targets to beat for yourself and your friends - I dare you to beat my record of three region widths and four towns.
Now look at clearing to a town.
There are decisions, but less of them. Mainly it's limited to deciding which way to go (watchtower to the south, kill the drill, or take the long route around?). There is some danger (if you run the wrong way, you might back into a delta) but much less: no matter what, you can escape and come back with a bit of driving. Success is inevitable.
There's no art to timing your triggers. It doesn't matter when you use them because you can kill enemies perfectly fine without them, albeit slower.
Still, at least there's an endpoint and a way to see the fruits of your labor (a leveled up town).
Clearing a region is even worse.
There's no decision making. You have to kill every single enemy in the region, so what's the point in deciding which enemy to kill? All of them will have to go anyway.
There's no danger. At least half of the battlefield (the area behind you) is clear most of the time (in contrast to just a narrow corridor for town clearing or nowhere for scouting), and you can always escape.
Worse yet, since you often get huge amounts of shards, you and your allies are engaged in a zero-sum game: VP rewards are decided based on percentages, so even if you dump half a million shards into a town, it won't make any difference to you VP award when your friend dumps his half million too. Aside from the VP reward, though, there's nothing satisfying about it. Who cares if you used all the tricks and skills you to knock down a region, when a large enough group of complete newbies can do it faster? Risk? 0. It's a time-vs-reward thing, not a risk-vs-reward one.
Oh - and it happens to be the endgame condition too. Region clearing feels like a job, not a game.
So how combat this be improved?
Take cues from the scouting metagame, since it's so fun.
1) The battle should be more than just you and your friends vs. the enemy in front of you. That and the grid structure make the game boring. Have more aggressive enemies, longer-ranged ones that can hit you from two squares away with (dodgable!) missiles, etc.
2) Let players make some decisions. Forget about the region clearing mechanic. Change it to reaching one or multiple distant cities, clearing a certain total area, bosses defeated, or something that can be done multiple ways.
3) Make risk/skill-vs-reward a big part of the game. A skilled player willing to take risks should get some reward - not necessarily one that separates newbies and pros (e.g. powerups, loot) but fame-based one (server announcements for killing bosses? cosmetic items?).
4) Reintroduce danger. The mechanic of a get-out-of-jail free card worked in Realm because it was permadeath. It just doesn't make sense for this kind of game, except for scouts. Teleporting should be nerfed - do it in safe areas only, or put a cooldown on it. Universal nexus functionality should be made a trigger for the trailblazer and other scouting tanks (and maybe newbie tanks).
5) Make teamwork more rewarding. This is the area in which fighting is unquestionably superior to scouting, and I would love to see allies being more than just extra dps and ways to draw enemy fire. Support tanks, enemies with mechanics that encourage multiple players in different tanks (imagine a powerful enemy that could chase a fast tank while a slower, more powerful tank killed it), more aggressive minions to promote balance between crowd control and sniping tanks, etc. would all make teamwork more rewarding. And please, don't make VP rewards be a zero-sum-game.
Thoughts?
Here's my take on why that's happening.
A typical scene when scouting.
In that scene, there are a lot of factors going through my mind. I'm on a speedboost (but nearing the end of it) and there's a GCT (one of the two enemies that I can confidently orbit to regenerate shields). Do I keep going on the speedboost, or do I stop to regenerate?
I'm also losing shields. Can I avoid taking fire on my left for long enough that regen will work, or should I wait until my HP drops to 30% and cloak?
There are flying enemies (low damage but consistent) and a supertank (higher damage, but sporadic, which means certain maneuvers should allow me to avoid fire long enough to regen). Which way do I go?
How far can I go before I boost again?
Is the situation dangerous enough to warrant escaping?
There are a lot of decisions to make in a short time when you scout. Making the wrong one means a scouting run cut short, or death. This gives scouting a strong risk/reward curve, and therefore both encourages skill in the long term and makes the act of scouting fun in the short term.
There's also a reward (50k gold), and an announcement that everyone else adding to the fun factor. And when you're done, you can see how far you went (via the red markers indicating scouted territory), and set cool targets to beat for yourself and your friends - I dare you to beat my record of three region widths and four towns.
Now look at clearing to a town.
There are decisions, but less of them. Mainly it's limited to deciding which way to go (watchtower to the south, kill the drill, or take the long route around?). There is some danger (if you run the wrong way, you might back into a delta) but much less: no matter what, you can escape and come back with a bit of driving. Success is inevitable.
There's no art to timing your triggers. It doesn't matter when you use them because you can kill enemies perfectly fine without them, albeit slower.
Still, at least there's an endpoint and a way to see the fruits of your labor (a leveled up town).
Clearing a region is even worse.
There's no decision making. You have to kill every single enemy in the region, so what's the point in deciding which enemy to kill? All of them will have to go anyway.
There's no danger. At least half of the battlefield (the area behind you) is clear most of the time (in contrast to just a narrow corridor for town clearing or nowhere for scouting), and you can always escape.
Worse yet, since you often get huge amounts of shards, you and your allies are engaged in a zero-sum game: VP rewards are decided based on percentages, so even if you dump half a million shards into a town, it won't make any difference to you VP award when your friend dumps his half million too. Aside from the VP reward, though, there's nothing satisfying about it. Who cares if you used all the tricks and skills you to knock down a region, when a large enough group of complete newbies can do it faster? Risk? 0. It's a time-vs-reward thing, not a risk-vs-reward one.
Oh - and it happens to be the endgame condition too. Region clearing feels like a job, not a game.
So how combat this be improved?
Take cues from the scouting metagame, since it's so fun.
1) The battle should be more than just you and your friends vs. the enemy in front of you. That and the grid structure make the game boring. Have more aggressive enemies, longer-ranged ones that can hit you from two squares away with (dodgable!) missiles, etc.
2) Let players make some decisions. Forget about the region clearing mechanic. Change it to reaching one or multiple distant cities, clearing a certain total area, bosses defeated, or something that can be done multiple ways.
3) Make risk/skill-vs-reward a big part of the game. A skilled player willing to take risks should get some reward - not necessarily one that separates newbies and pros (e.g. powerups, loot) but fame-based one (server announcements for killing bosses? cosmetic items?).
4) Reintroduce danger. The mechanic of a get-out-of-jail free card worked in Realm because it was permadeath. It just doesn't make sense for this kind of game, except for scouts. Teleporting should be nerfed - do it in safe areas only, or put a cooldown on it. Universal nexus functionality should be made a trigger for the trailblazer and other scouting tanks (and maybe newbie tanks).
5) Make teamwork more rewarding. This is the area in which fighting is unquestionably superior to scouting, and I would love to see allies being more than just extra dps and ways to draw enemy fire. Support tanks, enemies with mechanics that encourage multiple players in different tanks (imagine a powerful enemy that could chase a fast tank while a slower, more powerful tank killed it), more aggressive minions to promote balance between crowd control and sniping tanks, etc. would all make teamwork more rewarding. And please, don't make VP rewards be a zero-sum-game.
Thoughts?
