Poll about changes in gameplay

[Spekkio]

Hi, my name is Spekkio, aka Honeycomb.Ck. I was pointed here by my friend SaS-Valserp. Some of you may not know me, so allow me to point you to my credentials:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/3651075192/m/2871068164/p/1

Hopefully the fact that Lochang aka Raisinbran.Ck and I finished 2nd in the tourney is enough to convince those of you who don't know me that I am a "good player." If it's not enough, feel free to add me on xfire (spekkio9) and I will gladly play own you.

Having said that, reading this thread and its replies is a huge mindfuck (*exceptions to: Valserp, goodkebab, frvge). The very nature of the poll is flat-out wrong. Why? Well, let's look at the teams that went deep into the tourney and how they played most of the time:

Team Retribution: about half and half, depended on the map.
Team Ethereal: Almost 100% stealthy
SaS: Majority stealthy
Cereal Killers: Mostly stealthy

The notion that "stealth can't win against good players" is absurd. That is, of course, unless your definition of "stealth" is taking 3 minutes to get to an objective and complaining that a merc happens to be guarding it. If that's the case, then you need to learn to play the game. What the OP and the others in this thread (exception to the above names again) really want is for goodkebab and the other makers of project stealth to cater game to their n00bishness, since getting better at the game is clearly out of the question. As Kebab and some other pointed out, certain maps force more aggro play than others. If you don't like it, then don't play those maps.

It seems like the thread has shifted to people n00bs whining about mines and spy traps. Allow me to divulge our spy equipment on most maps:

Lochang: Flash, snares, cams, HB sensor
Me: Smoke, snares, cams, bullets
(and just if you're wondering, our merc equipment on most maps):
Lo: Backpack, mines, spy traps, gasmask
Me: Frags, mines, camnet or spy traps, gasmask

Do you see chaff anywhere in there? I thought not. Yet we still won. How could that be? Because it's not that hard to get past mines and traps. Most people take double-backpack, so you have a whopping 6 mines to worry about that are spread about the map, and the most commonly used mine makes a loud fucking beeping sound for you to hear it. Besides, all the "good" spots to hide them are exhausted by now (which of course makes it fun to place mines in "noob" spots to catch people by surprise, but that's for another discussion). Laser mines are useless unless the spy is sleeping, mostly thanks to the explosion collision not going around walls, and your partner can heal you if you run into a poison (alternatively, 95% of the time you can run to a healthpack in time if you're not being shot at). Spy traps can be removed by your partner. If figuring out how to get around mines and traps is too difficult for you, you could always bring chaff and disable them. There is not one trap or mine that is impossible to get around given that you have multiple passages, a gadget to disable them, and your partner can nullify the effects of some of them. Not a single one.

Mines and traps are a big part of what make the game fun. It's a way for the mercs to customize their defense, which keeps the game more fresh than always having the same static defenses everywhere. It also keeps the game balanced because without them, the spies could just run around the map freely with no worries at all like in SCDA.

[Overstatement]

Valserp: The common argument you're using is that mines are too weak so let's put them in places that make them stronger (the ones spies can't shoot at from a certain direction). But your buddy Spekkio seems to feel differently, even praising the effect that mines slow down the spy a whole lot and that without them, bad things will happen to the gameplay. Sure, he says mines are ineffective at killing but their other effects alone are apparently worth bringing mines, spytraps and backpacks as merc.

Duh! If the spy didn't bring chaff, they should expect that they wouldn't be able to freeroam about the map. Yes, they should deserve the oppurtunity to remove a mine then and no, spotting the trap is not even barely enough. Pfffff, if all a spy needed to do is spot the damn things, they would be extremely useless. (good)Spies constantly check around with Thermal and no, it doesn't take time at all.

In what way? The spy without chaff deserves the opportunity?


Spekkio: Let's summerize your post into a few sentences. "My partner is my replacement to chaff. Poison, laser mines or spy traps unreachable? I don't have to disable it, my partner will heal/unspy me." Respecfully, I don't play with a partner and neither do 90% (tweak this value to whatever you'd like) of the people I see online. As a game designer, is it so wrong to cater to 90% of your playing audience while keeping the direction of gameplay alive?

[Spekkio]

Most of the time Lochang and I aren't together. We usually go around the traps. Like I said, if that's too much for you, you always have the option to bring chaff.

As a matter of fact, LoChang doesn't play the game anymore, and when I join random servers I still rarely take chaff. With people in "pubs" taking 2x Backpack, there aren't enough mines about the map to have to worry about needing chaff. Even when playing with randoms, typing in "heal me" usually gets a "ok" out of people.

Valserp: The common argument you're using is that mines are too weak so let's put them in places that make them stronger (the ones spies can't shoot at from a certain direction).

If you think that I'm for restricting the placement of mines in certain places, you are mistaken. I'm actually in favor of loosening the placement abilities back to PT style in which you were able to place them higher. I'm also in favor of giving mercs back 5 spy traps and vertical spy traps (at a cost of a nerf to the range of the laser).

As a game designer, is it so wrong to cater to 90% of your playing audience while keeping the direction of gameplay alive?

You could argue that this is a big reason that SvM never took off in the first place. When you have a small team size, ie 2 or 3 people, then the gameplay is going to rely much more heavily on teamwork than 6v6 or 8v8 or whatever. Most people don't want to bother...they just want to get online, relax, and that's it.

If you are going to simplify the game so that people don't need to work together as much, then you ruin what gives SvM its depth. That's going to turn everyone on these forums off. Quite frankly, "mindless monkey games" are a dime a dozen, so I'd prefer to have the depth at a cost to popularity.

[goodkebab]

we obviously cannot make a game that caters to the Half Life, Unreal, Battlefield, or CS style of gameplay.

Those games focus on fast paced but anonymous gameplay with a large number of players on one server.  Its really has a lot of chaos and is impersonal....and not nearly as emotional and intense in the end.  You can join-quit the server at anytime as well and there is no real feeling of commitment.  For a mass audience, this is an advantage...but CT style of game cannot be like that, and still be what it is now.

[Gawain]

affirmative. i don't care about the size of the community, if there are enough great people around to have ggs. in fact, i prefer a smaller, more personal community to a mass event. nevertheless, it would be great if european and american people would play more together.

@spekkio: why don't you use camo? maybe because it sux? i think it's kinda exotic that both of you have snares, will try this out :D
btw, i never said that mines and traps (lol) are op and that you need chaff to get around them. don't be so arrogant ::)

[Gui Brazil]

As a game designer, is it so wrong to cater to 90% of your playing audience while keeping the direction of gameplay alive?

You could argue that this is a big reason that SvM never took off in the first place. When you have a small team size, ie 2 or 3 people, then the gameplay is going to rely much more heavily on teamwork than 6v6 or 8v8 or whatever. Most people don't want to bother...they just want to get online, relax, and that's it.

If you are going to simplify the game so that people don't need to work together as much, then you ruin what gives SvM its depth. That's going to turn everyone on these forums off. Quite frankly, "mindless monkey games" are a dime a dozen, so I'd prefer to have the depth at a cost to popularity.

I agree with Spekkio. If we turn the game into a BF2, CS, or any other game like those, we'll be doing exactly what Ubisoft did with DA.

[Overstatement]

affirmative. i don't care about the size of the community, if there are enough great people around to have ggs. in fact, i prefer a smaller, more personal community to a mass event. nevertheless, it would be great if european and american people would play more together.

So this would be more, less or the same as the CT community at it's prime? You contradict yourself a lot so I wasn't sure.


goodkebeb: you are completely overacting on what I said. It was quite surprising.

Most of the time Lochang and I aren't together. We usually go around the traps. Like I said, if that's too much for you, you always have the option to bring chaff.

As a matter of fact, LoChang doesn't play the game anymore, and when I join random servers I still rarely take chaff. With people in "pubs" taking 2x Backpack, there aren't enough mines about the map to have to worry about needing chaff. Even when playing with randoms, typing in "heal me" usually gets a "ok" out of people.

Sorry, I only know what you type and you typed like you depend on your partner a lot.

If you think that I'm for restricting the placement of mines in certain places, you are mistaken. I'm actually in favor of loosening the placement abilities back to PT style in which you were able to place them higher. I'm also in favor of giving mercs back 5 spy traps and vertical spy traps (at a cost of a nerf to the range of the laser).

Yeah, I know and that's what I said. I stated that Valserp wants to reduce the places you could put mines because a few positions have a priority which leads less mines to be used elsewhere and makes mine placement predictable to spies. And then, on the very next sentence,  I said you disagree with that.

As a game designer, is it so wrong to cater to 90% of your playing audience while keeping the direction of gameplay alive?

You could argue that this is a big reason that SvM never took off in the first place. When you have a small team size, ie 2 or 3 people, then the gameplay is going to rely much more heavily on teamwork than 6v6 or 8v8 or whatever. Most people don't want to bother...they just want to get online, relax, and that's it.

If you are going to simplify the game so that people don't need to work together as much, then you ruin what gives SvM its depth. That's going to turn everyone on these forums off. Quite frankly, "mindless monkey games" are a dime a dozen, so I'd prefer to have the depth at a cost to popularity.

I might have said this wrong but when I said "90% of your playing audience", I meant 90% of the people who like CT, play CT and are average at CT or higher, not 90% of everyone who plays all video games. You join any server and 9 out of 10 times, it won't be two partners. These are the people I'm paying attention too (this applies to most of you reading this) and they would hate if we changed the basic premise of gameplay as much as you.

Spekkio, let me restate my arguments.
* I want to reduce the requirement of smoke and chaff (because I see those gadgets more than anything else) so that spies would bring stuff they want, not need.
* I noted that I use chaff mostly to get to those mines that are unreachable otherwise.
* If we got rid of those, chaff would be of less importance and more on par with the other equipment.
* And we'll see more of the other equipment types like HB sensor (if people say it's good, why aren't lots people using it? Lack of slots maybe?).

This is me designing a new game. I love CT just the way it is, I have never gotten annoyed that I bring smoke and chaff to almost every game. I'm sure you understand that and the list you made also wouldn't have a place in CT but good for a new game.

[Valserp]

Valserp: The common argument you're using is that mines are too weak so let's put them in places that make them stronger (the ones spies can't shoot at from a certain direction).

I said nothing of the such. As you yourself said - your equipment only works if you use it right. Remember, all those analogies with grenades tazer and whatnot? You seem to quickly forget what you've said just a few posts ago.
If you put a poison mine next to a med-kit, it would be useless. If you put a laser mine in the middle of a huge room, where it can't kill a spy who trips the laser from the other side of the room - it's useless. Now for the punchline - if you put a lasermine on a doorway and a spy can still get through it without chaff - it would be useless.

affirmative. i don't care about the size of the community, if there are enough great people around to have ggs. in fact, i prefer a smaller, more personal community to a mass event. nevertheless, it would be great if european and american people would play more together.

So this would be more, less or the same as the CT community at it's prime? You contradict yourself a lot so I wasn't sure.

Actually, I understood him perfectly. There is no contradiction in that post.

If you think that I'm for restricting the placement of mines in certain places, you are mistaken. I'm actually in favor of loosening the placement abilities back to PT style in which you were able to place them higher. I'm also in favor of giving mercs back 5 spy traps and vertical spy traps (at a cost of a nerf to the range of the laser).

Yeah, I know and that's what I said. I stated that Valserp wants to reduce the places you could put mines because a few positions have a priority which leads less mines to be used elsewhere and makes mine placement predictable to spies.

Now now, there is no need to put words in my mouth, we can all see that you are out of arguments anyway.
I didn't start this whole debate with you, nor have I ever stated anywhere in it, that mines should be restricted to specific spots. That is stupid to even think about and has next to nothing to do with what we were debating.
Let me remind you - you were saying that spies should be able to neuter any sort of smart mine placement without using any sort of gadget for themselves. They "deserve" that oppurtunity because they have already "seen the mine". Yes, those are your words.

[Gawain]

affirmative. i don't care about the size of the community, if there are enough great people around to have ggs. in fact, i prefer a smaller, more personal community to a mass event. nevertheless, it would be great if european and american people would play more together.

So this would be more, less or the same as the CT community at it's prime? You contradict yourself a lot so I wasn't sure.

If all the old players come back, I'll be satisfied with it. Right now, there are too many wannabe pros, rank kiddies and flamers out there, but imo a bug-free sc with no rank system could stop them ;)

[InvisibleMan999]

If you want a fix for mines in impenetrable locations, it's pretty easy:

Spy crawl. Spies gets down and crawls on the floor, moving very slowly and under the laser. Crawling has the disadvantage of being very slow and makes the spy quite vulnerable since he can't pull out his gun or run away without first standing up.

Remember that mines aren't supposed to kill spies necessarily (not good spies anyway) mines and static defenses are there to slow spies down. Forcing them to crawl under them would certainly achieve that goal.

[frvge]

If crawling would take 3 secs to get down, and then x secs to craw under the mine, and then 3 secs to get up, I am fine with it. Should it be able to be done with camo activated?

[Overstatement]

I said nothing of the such. As you yourself said - your equipment only works if you use it right. Remember, all those analogies with grenades tazer and whatnot? You seem to quickly forget what you've said just a few posts ago.
If you put a poison mine next to a med-kit, it would be useless. If you put a laser mine in the middle of a huge room, where it can't kill a spy who trips the laser from the other side of the room - it's useless. Now for the punchline - if you put a lasermine on a doorway and a spy can still get through it without chaff - it would be useless.

How many times have you said that mines are useless unless placed in certain positions? What part of that am I misunderstanding?

affirmative. i don't care about the size of the community, if there are enough great people around to have ggs. in fact, i prefer a smaller, more personal community to a mass event. nevertheless, it would be great if european and american people would play more together.

So this would be more, less or the same as the CT community at it's prime? You contradict yourself a lot so I wasn't sure.

Actually, I understood him perfectly. There is no contradiction in that post.

His first sentence said he wouldn't care, his second sentence said he would perfer to be small, his third sentence started with "nevertheless" which opposes the second.

Now now, there is no need to put words in my mouth, we can all see that you are out of arguments anyway.
I didn't start this whole debate with you, nor have I ever stated anywhere in it, that mines should be restricted to specific spots. That is stupid to even think about and has next to nothing to do with what we were debating.
Let me remind you - you were saying that spies should be able to neuter any sort of smart mine placement without using any sort of gadget for themselves. They "deserve" that oppurtunity because they have already "seen the mine". Yes, those are your words.

I know you didn't directly say it but predictable mine positioning is a byproduct of certain positions being stronger than the rest.

If you want a fix for mines in impenetrable locations, it's pretty easy:

Spy crawl. Spies gets down and crawls on the floor, moving very slowly and under the laser. Crawling has the disadvantage of being very slow and makes the spy quite vulnerable since he can't pull out his gun or run away without first standing up.

Remember that mines aren't supposed to kill spies necessarily (not good spies anyway) mines and static defenses are there to slow spies down. Forcing them to crawl under them would certainly achieve that goal.

Exactly, I didn't say to add a new move (it is kind of weird that they can't step over lasers at ankle height) but I said you should be able to roll over most of them (which you can't do to laser mines to the exits of hall).

[Spekkio]

if you put a lasermine on a doorway and a spy can still get through it without chaff - it would be useless.

Which is why they ARE useless in doorways. Run into laser, run back around corner as the mine blows. I actually do this even when I have chaff so I don't waste the grenade.

Spy crawl. Spies gets down and crawls on the floor, moving very slowly and under the laser. Crawling has the disadvantage of being very slow and makes the spy quite vulnerable since he can't pull out his gun or run away without first standing up.

Bad idea. The mercs need some way to make the spies trip a defense, or else they'd rarely find the spies.

* I want to reduce the requirement of smoke and chaff (because I see those gadgets more than anything else) so that spies would bring stuff they want, not need.
* I noted that I use chaff mostly to get to those mines that are unreachable otherwise.
* If we got rid of those, chaff would be of less importance and more on par with the other equipment.
* And we'll see more of the other equipment types like HB sensor (if people say it's good, why aren't lots people using it? Lack of slots maybe?).

1. Smoke and chaff are in no way required.
2. You're always going to have some equipment that is better than others so long as the equipment varies in function. That's why everyone takes gasmask.
3. Plenty of people take the HB sensor. This is just an unfounded statement based upon your prejudices.

@spekkio: why don't you use camo? maybe because it sux? i think it's kinda exotic that both of you have snares, will try this out

I don't use camo because I don't keep track of who has EAX and who doesn't. But I do use camo on the following maps where the sound does not penetrate the ambient noise:
-Station
-Zioplex
-Oilrig

I can also tell you that DucusSumus, Seefoo, and Cataclysm use/have used camo with great success, and all three are top players.

As for both of us taking snares, it is a bit overkill. Sometimes I'd take chaff just to have something different. I find that it's good to coordinate your equipment (as both spy and merc), rather than both people taking the same stuff.

btw, i never said that mines and traps (lol) are op and that you need chaff to get around them. don't be so arrogant

Sorry for the arrogance, but from what some of you guys are saying it's obvious that you're not any good at the game. The question in your poll implies that stealth cannot work when in actuality, it works quite nicely. When tweaking any game, the top players should have more input than noobs. The best example of this working is in Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. They pooled a bunch of experts together to test the beta of the 1.2 patch and give their input, and the result is a mostly balanced version of the game. There are still some things that need tweaking, but it's very hard to achieve perfection in anything.

[Overstatement]

* I want to reduce the requirement of smoke and chaff (because I see those gadgets more than anything else) so that spies would bring stuff they want, not need.
* I noted that I use chaff mostly to get to those mines that are unreachable otherwise.
* If we got rid of those, chaff would be of less importance and more on par with the other equipment.
* And we'll see more of the other equipment types like HB sensor (if people say it's good, why aren't lots people using it? Lack of slots maybe?).

1. Smoke and chaff are in no way required.
2. You're always going to have some equipment that is better than others so long as the equipment varies in function. That's why everyone takes gasmask.
3. Plenty of people take the HB sensor. This is just an unfounded statement based upon your prejudices.

1. Sorry, replace "requirement" with "incentives". In my experince, smoke and chaff are the most common things I see.
2. I know, all the equipments won't ever have equal usefulness. But the closer the equipment's usefulness are, the more variety you'll see from the spy's choices.
3. Whatever, replace it with something that you don't see spy's use often. It was just an example.

[Spekkio]

* I want to reduce the requirement of smoke and chaff (because I see those gadgets more than anything else) so that spies would bring stuff they want, not need.
* I noted that I use chaff mostly to get to those mines that are unreachable otherwise.
* If we got rid of those, chaff would be of less importance and more on par with the other equipment.
* And we'll see more of the other equipment types like HB sensor (if people say it's good, why aren't lots people using it? Lack of slots maybe?).

1. Smoke and chaff are in no way required.
2. You're always going to have some equipment that is better than others so long as the equipment varies in function. That's why everyone takes gasmask.
3. Plenty of people take the HB sensor. This is just an unfounded statement based upon your prejudices.

1. Sorry, replace "requirement" with "incentives". In my experince, smoke and chaff are the most common things I see.
2. I know, all the equipments won't ever have equal usefulness. But the closer the equipment's usefulness are, the more variety you'll see from the spy's choices.
3. Whatever, replace it with something that you don't see spy's use often. It was just an example.

With the exception of camo suit, I think all the spy equipment is equally viable depending on how you want to play it. The only reason I put an exception for camo is that some people can hear the activation very clearly, so it gives you away.

The most common thing I see is cams because they give the spies an extra way to KO the merc. Everything else tends to vary considerably.