167 replies to this topic

[Surefoot]

Leone, on 11 May 2021 - 08:39 PM, said:

Nascaring is just a solution that many quickplay players've found. Teamwork is over powered.

Usually I think people refer to Nascar in this game as "team stretches out and the front line goes and get executed 1 by 1 while the slow rear end gets shot in the back", while not listening to calls of regrouping. It's almost 50% of my QP games now. Got a rotten luck generally, so I guess for most people it's less than that, still I suspect a good amount of games are like that, I did drop in the opposite side of a Nascar team and these are boring stomps either way (as it's basically a shooting gallery).

Opposite to Nascar is the "ball of death" which is indeed teamwork, and while not subtle, is enjoyable for brawlers at least. That was the prime strategy of the unit I was in 4 years ago, and while it did not win every game (as it's countered by proper positioning) it was indeed effective.

justcallme A S H, on 11 May 2021 - 05:27 AM, said:

Next time I am streaming I am happy to explain some basic gameplay tips to get Assaults into position, not out of them.

Aint that:
1 - Communicate
2 - Communicate
3 - Press W for Win
?

Most of the time I see an out of position assault, it's because they have an idea of their own and no one knows what they are doing. Also seen a fair bit of "press S to lose" in QP, a lone assault showing up on the front line will get focused and get deleted in a matter of seconds.

Edited by Surefoot, 11 May 2021 - 10:26 PM.

[rook]

Anjian, on 11 May 2021 - 09:34 PM, said:

...

But for shooters, no one ever does asymmetry. Have you ever seen World of Warships have a game mode that is all Japanese ships in one side and all US ships in another? All German ships in one side and all British ships in another? No. Because the developers understand that with factional asymmetry, there are inherent imbalances among the units that is part of their lore. I have never seen War Thunder either with one side that is all German aircraft and one side US aircraft unless you are setting up a simulation battle. But for the simpler shoot'em up arcade battles, its all mixed and always mixed.

...

Just as a point of reference, Tribes 2 (probably my favorite shooter of all time) had an asymmetric mode that was rather fun. They rectified it by letting both teams have a change at attacking. IE - Team-A would defend, and if Team-B captured the base the map was reset with Team-B defending (and Team-A had to capture the base in less time to "win" the match).

I wish MWO took more ques from Tribes 2 on team play; that game forced you to play as a team, but I never felt railroaded into a roll.

[Alexander of Macedon]

Anjian, on 11 May 2021 - 09:34 PM, said:

Starcraft is actually quite well balanced in craft. You cannot compare RTS for asymmetry as they are deliberately made for that purpose. See Command and Conquer with their pseudo US, China and Soviet factions.

But for shooters, no one ever does asymmetry. Have you ever seen World of Warships have a game mode that is all Japanese ships in one side and all US ships in another? All German ships in one side and all British ships in another? No. Because the developers understand that with factional asymmetry, there are inherent imbalances among the units that is part of their lore. I have never seen War Thunder either with one side that is all German aircraft and one side US aircraft unless you are setting up a simulation battle. But for the simpler shoot'em up arcade battles, its all mixed and always mixed.

Point of order, Planetside and Planetside 2 were very successful and one of the selling points of them was the factional asymmetry, to the point that one of the larger problems was maintaining decent balance when each faction had fairly different performance specs on everything from sidearms up to MBTs, aside from the few shared neutral weapons and vehicles.

There's the whole lineup of Tripwire shooters, stuff like Red Orchestra, Rising Storm, &c. -- Rising Storm 2 is still actively played by a fairly substantial playerbase and that's all about asymmetrical warfare given that it's set in the Vietnam War.

You see similar things from Insurgency, Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, &c.

Team Fortress 2, although it doesn't have team-based asymmetry, is likewise heavily focused on balancing PvP when players have radically different sets of capabilities, and there's a whole host of knockoffs that try to do the same thing. This tends to shake out into asymmetrical teams outside of high-end competitive play, and sometimes even there for specific purposes.

Your own point about War Thunder is unfair, because Realistic Battles (i.e. asymmetrical) is far and away the favored mode for everyone who plays armor. Nobody with half a brain plays Arcade outside of air.

SCP: Secret Laboratory, although it's not really a traditional arena shooter, is an asymmetrical FPS with no less than six factions, and there's always the sharp divide in how you play as a human as opposed to a skip. Left 4 Dead in the PvP mode functions very similarly.

Pirates, Vikings, and Knights II is a bit of a cult favorite rather than mainstream, but it is a wholly asymmetrical FPS, even if the S stands for "slashing" as often as "shooting".

The premise behind a lot of ArmA ops throughout the lifespan of the series has been asymmetrical PvP, from stuff like checkpoint RP to counterinsurgency missions to outright "the Soviets just rolled through the Fulda Gap, WWIII is on" scenarios.

The point of all this is that these examples are just from the top of my head. The assertion that shooters don't, or can't, do asymmetrical teams is absurd. The market is full of shooters that leverage asymmetry. Maybe you'd think that way if you hadn't played a single FPS since Quake but I can't imagine how else you'd reach that conclusion.

[Gas Guzzler]

When assaults are more agile than 747s, NASCAR will reduce significantly.

[Leone]

Look, you come in with attitude, you get treated with attitude. This is society 101. Read the posts. Anjian and I have been goin' back an forth at each other from opposite ends for at least a page. But neither've us've called each other names. I think they're wrong and disagree with them, they disagree with me back, we keep it polite and everyone joins in. We might get a bit heated, cuz we both care about the game, but there is a distinct difference in the tone of the posts. If you feel like you're being singled out, maybe look at the difference in how you two post. I disagree with both of you, and yet, I respond completely different to both of you. Sure, could just be me, but maaybe it's not?

When you make snide comments and attack others we all assume you can handle snide comments and attacks back. Or we don't care that you can't.

Because yeah, you're kinda just being rude, so I've set you on my ignore list.

~Leone.

Edited by Leone, 12 May 2021 - 06:19 PM.

[Scout Derek]

SCRAPMETAL99, on 12 May 2021 - 03:38 PM, said:

pfft yh and i ended up purtting them down as bugs which has been happening more often and no you lot didnt do what you say you attacked me for no other reason than you have nothing better to do than ******** your way and bullie others you show me hahaha yh thats a joke and a half my point is you can make your maimn look as good as you want fact is you have your alts to play on so your main doesnt look like crap when your conditioons arnt perfect ie no team mates bad match making then come onto your main and ******** to everyone because you have tyhis perfect record with your perfect accountr but ill garanty you mix your accounts stats up and your pewrfect record wioll be as good as mine so stuff you
and another facvt you have no right whatso evere to tell me how io feal and ill say now i feal as though all you have done is belittle me and attack me in every and any post i comment on there you are so f2ck off allready

Why don't you 1v1 him? Settle arguments as all have been done in video games, one on one. You say you squashed his alts, surely it should be no trouble facing his main.

Edited by Scout Derek, 12 May 2021 - 07:00 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

1v1 sounds good to me. It will never happen though.

SCRAPMETAL99, on 12 May 2021 - 03:38 PM, said:

pfft yh and i ended up purtting them down as bugs which has been happening more often and no you lot didnt do what you say you attacked me for no other reason than you have nothing better to do than ******** your way and bullie others you show me hahaha yh thats a joke and a half my point is you can make your maimn look as good as you want fact is you have your alts to play on so your main doesnt look like crap when your conditioons arnt perfect ie no team mates bad match making then come onto your main and ******** to everyone because you have tyhis perfect record with your perfect accountr but ill garanty you mix your accounts stats up and your pewrfect record wioll be as good as mine so stuff you
and another facvt you have no right whatso evere to tell me how io feal and ill say now i feal as though all you have done is belittle me and attack me in every and any post i comment on there you are so f2ck off allready

You clearly don't take being told you're wrong very well. That kinda isn't my problem.

What you were showing was not a bug, you didn't actually show anything. Guys went and tested your 'bug' and it isn't possible to replicate it at all.

How about you take some video and prove it for us. I'm sure everyone here would be interested to see it.


You keep waffling on some random tangent about Alt accounts which just simply makes no sense. I've played on a couple (one in Apr/May, one back in 2019). The stats are just as good? Actually better while climbing through lower tiers as expected.

[Anjian]

Alexander of Macedon, on 12 May 2021 - 01:54 PM, said:

Point of order, Planetside and Planetside 2 were very successful and one of the selling points of them was the factional asymmetry, to the point that one of the larger problems was maintaining decent balance when each faction had fairly different performance specs on everything from sidearms up to MBTs, aside from the few shared neutral weapons and vehicles.

There's the whole lineup of Tripwire shooters, stuff like Red Orchestra, Rising Storm, &c. -- Rising Storm 2 is still actively played by a fairly substantial playerbase and that's all about asymmetrical warfare given that it's set in the Vietnam War.

You see similar things from Insurgency, Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, &c.

Team Fortress 2, although it doesn't have team-based asymmetry, is likewise heavily focused on balancing PvP when players have radically different sets of capabilities, and there's a whole host of knockoffs that try to do the same thing. This tends to shake out into asymmetrical teams outside of high-end competitive play, and sometimes even there for specific purposes.

Your own point about War Thunder is unfair, because Realistic Battles (i.e. asymmetrical) is far and away the favored mode for everyone who plays armor. Nobody with half a brain plays Arcade outside of air.

Except that Realistic Battles went symmetrical some years ago. And no I can tell from the wait times, that Arcade Battles is just more popular than Realistic Battles anytime. There is an obvious problem when you have 14 Tigers tanks go against 14 Sherman tanks because from the get go, that scenario is never realistic.

I am not sure how asymmetrical Planetside and Planetside 2 actually is, other than the skins. Its also questionable to call it successful in the long run, considering the player erosion and downward trajectory the franchise has taken.

Having different factions isn't considered asymmetry when each faction is fairly well balanced against each other and has symmetrical equivalents (AK-47 vs. M-16), with the differences being highly nuanced. A gun is a gun right? Not unless you have the Type 95 like there was at one point in COD:MW. Lets go to another game, this time Star Trek Online. There are ships there that are actually direct equivalents of each other, e.g. Kelvin Einstein class destroyer vs. Kelvin Klingon D7 battlecruiser, so much so they are the same ship with a different skin plus nuances. Same with RTS. Each item have direct equivalents between one another, so much they are different skins of the same time plus some unique traits.

But when the faction and item characteristics become stronger, because based on lore, that's how this thing is, then you have a problem. Take a tank match where you pit Panzer Mk III and IVs against an equal herd of T-34s anytime and the T-34s will **** them. There is absolutely no freaking way a Panzer Mk. IVG or H can go up against a T-34/85 when you got players of excellent skill, statistically speaking and over time, the ratio of kills the T-34/85 will accumulate over the Panzer IVH will be much greater.

If FP during Phase 1 and Phase 2 has a greater equivalence among the mechs, weapons and teams (organized groups), there maybe more people playing it than the last time I left. Phase 1 and Phase 2 had more people playing FP than they were in QP and so I had that strong impression. But when the Clan win rate was something like 80 to 90% of every match, then something is very wrong.

You can manage asymmetry in PvP is you got developers that actually care about the game to study the details and stats and work things out in minutae. But in this case we didn't have it here. If you don't have the staff, the mind and the willpower to thoroughly balance factions and items, its not going to work. War Thunder isn't interested in balance because they have accepted that some things are what they are if you are going to replicate them in faith. Instead they have a BR system based on statistics to assign the item on a tier. World of Tanks isn't interested in pure balance either; they need to sell items like premium tanks and hence power creep. I remember one all German vs. Soviet tank battle during their extremely short period of national battles, and both sides were filled with high tier paper tanks that never existed in the war, and in the end, German self propelled guns which I forgot the name simply wiped the Soviets out. Didn't take long for Wargaming to pull that mode out.

The way to hide these imbalances is to distribute them across the teams. You have two of the overpowered German SPGs there in one side but you also have two in the other, and on and on, even the weaker lower tier ones are distributed equally. That's basically how World of Tanks and World of Warships works.