Thoughts of an Old, Slow but Very Sneaky ET Player


(mnfesq) #1

I’ve been playing ET since 2003 and continue to play it several times a week. I also tested ET:Quakewars and played Brink for several months. My initial thoughts about this game are all positive: The graphics, the movement and the shooting are all great and have some of that old ET feel. However, that is where the comparison ends.

This game, on these maps, is too fast, and too overwhelming for strategy, team play or anything other than run fast, shoot fast, die fast. I suspect that this game will appeal to a fairly small group of methed-up teenage boys but will not replicate the success of ET, not unless fundamental changes are made to this game. The game needs to be slowed down (not too much but enough to allow for thought and not just reflexive action.) The average life span for a player seems to be less than 30 seconds. It should be closer to 2-3 minutes to allow players to really get involved in the drama of the battle.

The maps need to be made much larger with more open spaces. There are too many hiding places and not a wide enough field of view. I found it very difficult in a close encounter with another player to determine who is on my side and who is the enemy, and with only a split-second to decide, I died because I am used to playing ET on servers with friendly fire on. I don’t just shoot at everything that crosses my path.

In ET, I have a fairly consistent accuracy rate that nears 50%, which I think is one of the reasons I was asked to test this game. My accuracy in DB seems to be less than 20% and my K/D ratio seems to be about 1:10. Getting my ass kicked like that is no fun and really turns me off almost immediately. This game NEEDs to be popular and that means that all sorts of people can play it and, in their own way, excel at it. This game, in its current iteration, will only appeal to the fastest of fraggers - the rambo medics.

I hope someone reads this - I really want this game to be as good for me as ET has been.


(mortis) #2

I was getting my ass handed to me on a regular basis when I first started DB, but I can dole out the hurt more often now. The maps do feel a tad smaller to me, but partly this is due to fast sprint speed. Most of my gripes are silly ones like the c4 explosive being very tiny and hard to sport. Accuracy I haven’t found to be too much of an issue. The similarity of the uniforms I also find confusing. Overall gameplay, though, mostly reminds of W:ET played at near ET:QW speeds. I miss having a hp counter though, I’d prefer that to the mess on the HUD to be honest. Friendly fire definitely leads to more shooting caution, I tend to shoot first, ask questions later with FF on…


(Loffy) #3

I think I understand what you are saying, and I agree with it.

About sneaking: Nothing beats the feeling of being able to sneak into the enemy base, steal/plant, and run/defend, and win the game. Will this be possible in Dirty Bomb? Well, yes, in a way, because there are a lot of routes and flanking opportunities. But still, the maps are more “tight”, and will perhaps be impossible to sneak around like before. Here, much depends on the maps ofc. Will Splash Damage produce and release larger maps? Will they allow modders and mappers to create and publish maps?

About the friendly fire: I validate your claim. In RtCW and W:ET it is much easier to see who’s who. Maybe one solution for Dirty Bomb would be to make the two teams more different. (If possible, given the budget limitations.) I.e., to help us players distinguish between friend and enemy to a much greater extent. Well, this is a hard nut to crack, I guess, for the developers. Making one team darker and the other team brighter would potentially create in game advantages for one team relative the other team (easier to spot the enemy in certain areas of the maps).


(DarkangelUK) #4

I would like to see how the pace changes if FF was enabled, but also would like to see unique models for the opposing side to fit this. They way things are just now, I could see a lot of bleeding/TK’s purely because it’s difficult to distinguish friend from foe.


(stealth6) #5

Isn’t FF on, on the stopwatch server? I’ve killed DAUK with arty quite a few times.


(iwound) #6

i expect a big change from playing evolution.
as more learn maps/weapons and sneakier ways to defend/attack the pace will slow
ie the bush turret i saw last night, very sneaky.

atm it can only be described as chickens with no heads.
at several points i saw enemies hanging around together then the realisation ooh hes the enemy
and a fight broke out. much will change. so many variables.


(DarkangelUK) #7

It’s the shiny lights, they mesmerise me! I believe FF is on for all explosives including arty, it’s only guns and the likes that are FF off.


(mortis) #8

Speaking of which, I got docked 200xp because one of my teammates got blown up by my c4 at the objective. :frowning:

Do we really need to dock xp from friendly landmine and c4 kills?


(murka) #9

The average life span is short because of the short spawntimes and maybe spawning that much closer to the objective. The time between interaction is shortened to a minimum and the game does indeed feel like a spam fest.

Another thing that i can’t seem to like about this game is a the huge amount of flanking routes. Somehow i did get used to it in etqw, but in Brink and DB it just feels weird. Maybe etqw was just more open and thus you saw a flanking enemy. This increases the chance of someone coming from behind and given the current shooting mechanism, this is death in 99.9% certainty. The game just needs more distinguishable frontlines to be fun. Killing someone from behind certainly begs for ragequits.

So in short, increase spawntimes, remove the “first to see, first to kill” mechanism and make frontlines more distinguishable(possibly requires map layout change). For the last point, it might be that longer spawntimes force players to be more conservative and thus don’t lone wolf that much so it’s possible that no changes are required.


(iwound) #10

these maps feel like they would be better 4v4. at 8v8 chaos ensues, no bad thing. but there needs to be a few maps with bigger space, wider roads, gaps between buildings.or just give me an sdk and il get crackin.


(DarkangelUK) #11

I liked the RtCW sweet spot of 5v5/6v6. I think Whitechapel makes it feel the worst with larger teams since it’s the most cramped map.


(warbie) #12

[QUOTE=murka;412620]The time between interaction is shortened to a minimum and the game does indeed feel like a spam fest.

Another thing that i can’t seem to like about this game is a the huge amount of flanking routes. Somehow i did get used to it in etqw, but in Brink and DB it just feels weird. Maybe etqw was just more open and thus you saw a flanking enemy. This increases the chance of someone coming from behind and given the current shooting mechanism, this is death in 99.9% certainty. The game just needs more distinguishable frontlines to be fun. Killing someone from behind certainly begs for ragequits.

So in short, increase spawntimes, remove the “first to see, first to kill” mechanism and make frontlines more distinguishable(possibly requires map layout change). [/QUOTE]

Well put mate. I couldn’t agree more. The maps are also little bit cluttered and cramped. I don’t expect arenas, but some more room would certainly be a plus. This along with what you mentioned has been the cause for a fair bit of frustration - being killed or crippled from by a foe I haven’t had a chance to react to just isn’t fun. At the moment hanging back and picking people off from a distance, or flanking and finding a good place to camp, seems to grant more success than getting stuck in at the frontline RTCW/ET stylee. I don’t enjoy playing this way, otherwise I’d be all over BF and CoD.


(tokamak) #13

It definitely changed a lot.


(acQu) #14

[QUOTE=mnfesq;412491]I’ve been playing ET since 2003 and continue to play it several times a week. I also tested ET:Quakewars and played Brink for several months. My initial thoughts about this game are all positive: The graphics, the movement and the shooting are all great and have some of that old ET feel. However, that is where the comparison ends.

This game, on these maps, is too fast, and too overwhelming for strategy, team play or anything other than run fast, shoot fast, die fast. I suspect that this game will appeal to a fairly small group of methed-up teenage boys but will not replicate the success of ET, not unless fundamental changes are made to this game. The game needs to be slowed down (not too much but enough to allow for thought and not just reflexive action.) The average life span for a player seems to be less than 30 seconds. It should be closer to 2-3 minutes to allow players to really get involved in the drama of the battle.

The maps need to be made much larger with more open spaces. There are too many hiding places and not a wide enough field of view. I found it very difficult in a close encounter with another player to determine who is on my side and who is the enemy, and with only a split-second to decide, I died because I am used to playing ET on servers with friendly fire on. I don’t just shoot at everything that crosses my path.

In ET, I have a fairly consistent accuracy rate that nears 50%, which I think is one of the reasons I was asked to test this game. My accuracy in DB seems to be less than 20% and my K/D ratio seems to be about 1:10. Getting my ass kicked like that is no fun and really turns me off almost immediately. This game NEEDs to be popular and that means that all sorts of people can play it and, in their own way, excel at it. This game, in its current iteration, will only appeal to the fastest of fraggers - the rambo medics.

I hope someone reads this - I really want this game to be as good for me as ET has been.[/QUOTE]

Same here.

W:ET could be played slow and thoughtful, e.g. butchji style. And you could be very effective with it. Also in W:ET you always had the feeling that you are able to express yourself and your personal playstyle in the game. DB on the other hand is very fast paced and it indoctrinates a fast playstyle on you, which is mainly due to the current map layout.

As Anti said in IRC chat, there are about changes and new maps to come, so i am hoping for the gameplay to slow down.

All the rest is probably engine limitations, as i guess the map format is based around some sort of .bsp file format. Big, terrain based maps are not the goal anyway. So the format will be ok for this i guess.

EDIT: and not to confuse, here is what i mean with the format (quote from wiki) “One of the biggest problems with the .BSP file format is that large open areas do not work well due to the nature of the partitioning algorithm used.” So you always have to create L shaped tunnels and stuff :slight_smile: That is what i mean.


(Ads913) #15

Note moving this to a different thread/

I came into SD land when Quake Wars came around didn’t really get into RTCW probably due to my ever malfunctioning 3dfx card.

Quake Wars is my number 1 game it has everything a FPS game should have. Things like In game VoIP, social networking, messaging, Clan setup, lovely big maps, Tanks planes, hammers tense situations like disarming with seconds to go. The list goes on.

When the DB teaser trailer came out I was hoping to see something with all the ingredients that made Quake wars fantastic. I didn’t see much, so I was still left wondering will I ever get back stabbed or have an epic one to one with a sniper on hill miles away. See like most of the SD community we have been waiting for Quake Wars game since Brink. I wanted Brink to be the next Quake Wars. It didn’t, it didn’t come anywhere close.

Onto DB got the invite to test it and instantly downloaded it.
After reading Dirty Bomb Philosophy & Business Model it sets the theme to what Splashy is trying to do.

For some reason I have to keep on saying to myself this is not a Quake Wars game. This game is something completely new.
I am going to be selfish, I have a big negative and it’s a concept issue. The blueprint of this game appears to be much a kin to Brink and TF2. From the Small maps, 8 vs 8 players and tracking a small armour car. No vehicles, no long scalable areas.

I will think that’s going to be a major problem for the casual public community player once they realise there not getting a Quake gumbo Deal. I know a lot of guys didn’t play Brink for the same reasons. So I am hoping they hang around and give it a chance.

Large note to future game concepts more like Quake Wars please.
I promise not to mention Quake Wars again.

Being positive
It’s a pre alpha so I didn’t expect a lot, but its looks really nice the movement is fast and the guns handle really nice. It’s cool that some things are back like good old vsays and In game VoIP that makes a huge difference to a game.
If the battlefield series of games had in game VoIP they possibly would have come close to the perfect game but they didn’t and had squads of players running in circles with uncoordinated madness.

Slowing things down may be a backward step it would then go into TF2 mode for me. Maybe it could be trialled and see how it plays out.

The game as it sits is a massive improvement on Brink so early in development you can only add cool things to it. I love the idea that is free to play and not pay to gain that’s awesome. I think different game modes must be thought up, it must have some new ideas things that make guys come back for more.

I feel better that I have got that out.


(iwound) #16

quake wars.

dont apologies. t’was a great game and looked gorgeous.
its a high standard that sd will have to at least equal and maybe surpass. long way off yet though.
you can’t create a classic class based fps in a day.


(Pytox) #17

[QUOTE=iwound;412600]i expect a big change from playing evolution.
as more learn maps/weapons and sneakier ways to defend/attack the pace will slow
ie the bush turret i saw last night, very sneaky.

atm it can only be described as chickens with no heads.
at several points i saw enemies hanging around together then the realisation ooh hes the enemy
and a fight broke out. much will change. so many variables.[/QUOTE]
I think that bush turret could’ve been mine :slight_smile:
The average life should probably be a little bit longer but I would say 2-3 mins may be a bit too long, more like 1 -2,5 mins.


(mnfesq) #18

Glad to see I’m not alone here. I found that my accuracy in Brink was way better than with DB. The shooting feel in Brink was very good and, if it could be replicated in DB, I would welcome it.


(DarkangelUK) #19

Your statement confuses me. What reason do you think there is for your accuracy being being higher in a game where the guns have high spread? SD have admitted that DB’s spready is pretty darned right, you just need to stand still and shoot a wall to see most of the bullets hit roughly the same spot… in Brink it was spread out and random.


(mnfesq) #20

You could be right that I am having to shoot on the move much more in DB. I think it also may have to do with the aiming mechanism, iron sight vs. cross-hairs. I don’t really know but I will focus more attention on this in order to be more specific and to try to articulate exactly what it is I have observed.