[QUOTE=Stoffifee;425474]TDM … wtf! -.-
Isn’t dirtybomb - in the first place - a classbased fps? If i want to play tdm i go for clan arena in quakelive. Seriously, as if there were not enough other things which would urgently have to be improved. Now we have tdm with 8v8 medics.
Sorry for this “flame”, it was meant constructiv. But tdm in dirtybomb is completely superfluous and imo wasted work. There are games which are able to do tdm a lot better, because they put their focus on it. Nvm, i guess i will concentrate myself on the objective based part then.
Cheers :)[/QUOTE]
I’d like to address this based on a few points and why this is a great addition for the alpha. First, let me talk about just the fun factor of the game. Regardless of another game doing TDM better (which is not the same as clan arena in Quake Live), sometimes you want to switch things up from the normal objective maps. If you’re play testing the maps a lot, you may get burnt out on the modes and TDM offers a great way to mix that up. Also, sometimes there aren’t quite enough people populating a server to create an exciting game on, let’s say, Waterloo, so TDM becomes an alternative there as well. I played quite a bit of Quake (2, 3, Live) in my day, but sometimes I’d rather play Dirty Bomb instead.
Second, let’s talk about actually testing the game and why TDM isn’t “superfluous” or “wasted work”. Splash Damage is not neglecting anything by having TDM in there. As I was informed, TDM was a mode that was already in the alpha, but they just took down the servers so people could concentrate on the objective based maps. I doubt creating a TDM gamemode was a task in itself when it is based on mechanics and maps already used. In fact, I would go as far to say that TDM was the very first mode they created for the game in order to test just jumping into a server and killing each other. Might as well make sure combat works before you go any further with creating the objectives for the game, right? So, TDM has not been something they have been secretly working on in lieu of “urgent” issues.
This leads me to the opportunity to test out the combat mechanics in Dirty Bomb. When I am playing Dirty Bomb I am often chatting it up with someone talking about the game mechanics and what I like and/or don’t like. Beyond that we’re learning how the game operates on the very fundamental combat level. With that we can see how some things do not seem to be behaving correctly. For example, last night while doing some 1vs1 dm (instead of objectives) I noticed that when moving your crosshair spread gets significantly bigger, but the bullet spread does not seem to significantly increase. Also, I noticed an issue where I felt as if I was tracking a player with the crosshair right on them, but the bullets were not quite registering as I thought they would. Could be due to unlucky spread or it could be due to bullets actually not registering in the game. There was also a few times where I downed the enemy, but didn’t hear any hit sounds to go with it or at least as many as I thought I should. Finally, I noticed some peculiarities when aiming down the sights (which may be a product of my fov).
All of those things above are going to require further testing and some more thought before I do a write up since those were all initial reactions and conclusions, but I hope you can see the value of pure combat testing in a TDM mode. Is combat not the heart of the game? Sure, there are objectives, but along the way, when you encounter an enemy, don’t you think it is ok to test out that fighting is working properly? I think having a different gamemode will promote different types of fights and thus different scenarios so we can really get a better, bigger picture of how combat in Dirty Bomb works.
Anyways, the point of this is not to make you a fan of TDM and in fact I hope you do concentrate on objective based gameplay. Just know that there is a point in everything that is done during development (sometimes it is simply trial and error) and should not be dismissed as “wasted work” or time.