SmedBlog (last year): NPC Enemies and Armies - Page 12

Heaven · 2012-08-12, 02:57 AM

Aliens attacking... yes, but not very often!

and the other two ideas for me is a big NO!

Like its been said before, the day I get killed by a bot is the day that planetside2will die to me.

this game has been raved how its strictly PvP thousands of players vs each other, and thats how it should stay!

Just keep this game PvP dont go and destroy a prefectly good formula with a couple of ideas that could destroy this game, BFRs killes planetside because you thought it was a good idea... well you were wrong, a lot of people left planetside because of this, so please listen to the planetside community!

**Malorn** · 2012-08-12, 03:23 AM

Give us more PvP content instead. It'll last longer and be a much better investment to the game. People don't play planetside to go shoot stupid bots. They want to conquer the world and crush the other empires. Make that happen. Make that experience richer and more involved. Make more places where we can do that. Don't dilute the game with PvE crap that nobody wants and isn't what the game is about.

Exano · 2012-08-12, 03:30 AM

Yeah agreed. I remember when the bases auto turrets were a no-go because they involved AI, and AI is bad. Spitfires too for a while.

I like the player vs. player aspect of planetside. If something happens somewhere on the map, a player did that. When I shoot at something thats moving, its something made by or is a person somewhere on there computer, not a 300 lines of code making a bot come at me. PvP is fun because every single time its different, every time its against a person who can think and figure things out that no AI could ever do. In my opinion, these systems would get predictable and boring for the veterans, and annoying for new players, whereas a strict emphasis on PvP brings new ideas and playstyles constantly.

We're the heroes because we're constantly coming up with plays and tactics to crush our enemies. When a base gets captured, and we're overwhelmed by a strategic gal drop or a strategic play by the enemy empire, we know it was by them. The true players will get recognized as they always do. Those are your heroes

Its fun when you shoot a player and he reacts differently then another player. They all do, and THAT is what makes Planetside feel like the most epic war game made so far. A huge map, a war between empires. You can dogfight between 5 bases, while the front lines are fighting at a primary location and special ops are working to take out tech plants, generators and various resources for the enemy. All of this is being driven by minds of people, players, and not AI. That's what makes it awesome

MaxDamage · 2012-08-12, 03:56 AM

Let's get one thing clear.
If all games were operated on popular consensus they would end up like World of *cough*craft.

Why lessen something as brilliant and bold as Planetside by dumbing it down with PVE?

In Warhammer Online, PVP is crucial and feasible in the game from rank 1 to rank 100. Yet it is at higher levels that PVE raids on cities become necessary after the PVP campaign (assuming players are not present to defend) - due to instancing. Players routinely leave PVP city defence to let the dominant/greater side fight AI instances.

They would rather beat the more predictable PVE for 'rewards' than face the superior human forces, given a choice.

There must be no such choice.

exLupo · 2012-08-12, 04:04 AM

Originally Posted by MaxDamage

Let's get one thing clear.
If all games were operated on popular consensus they would end up like World of *cough*craft.

You have no idea how much power the PS official forums had over the game's development, do you? From adding BFRs to blocking dev attempts to get 3pv removed to gear added later in the game's life. The HSR was, with the exception of the Bolt Driver scope-settle, almost a perfect duplication of a player suggestion.

Listening to your player base doesn't magically make the game WoW. Sometimes it kills it instead.

edit: I can see why they may want to add PvE. Maybe it's landscape filler. Maybe it's like a MOBA and supplements actual player efforts. Maybe it's a reward and reason to get command rank. I honestly wouldn't have a problem with a game designed with that in mind but it would have to be an integral part from day one. PS2 is not that game.

**Malorn** · 2012-08-12, 04:06 AM

http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/13/bl...ere-a-mistake/

Here's what Blizzard's VP of game design had to say about Arenas

We didn't engineer the game and classes and balance around it, we just added it on, so it continues to be very difficult to balance. Is WoW a PvE cooperative game, or a competitive PvP game? There's constant pressure on the class balance team, there's pressure on the game itself, and a lot of times players who don't PvP don't understand why their classes are changing. I don't think we ever foresaw how much tuning and tweaking we'd have to do to balance it in that direction.

This goes for ESports as well - having PS2 the massive epic game and PS2 the small squad esport will be just as straining as trying to do class balancing for PvE and PvP.

These two things will make for a lot of stress and the PvE & ESport aspect WILL affect the part of PlanetSide that people really care about. That's what we don't want. That's time and team energy not spent making the PlanetSide parts better and you're just sinking resources into making something it's not - that's a mistake Warhammer did and the result was that they half-assed their staple PvP story and put out an even more half-assed PvE story.

I am begging you Smed, do not repeat this mistake and instead learn from it. Build on the major themes that draw people to PlanetSide. Steer clear of PvE and ESports.

Azarga · 2012-08-12, 04:20 AM

I'd like to see _rare_ (once a week\month) invasions, just make those 'shifters' giant coe-staff controlled 'vehicles' with like 10-20 gunners or something like that, my idea is to avoid making those invasions ai-driven, as ai will be exploited eventually. It would also be nice if devs could come up with something other than 'one million hp' to allow the alien to withstand damage.

As it was already suggested make no warning when the invasion will occur, let it be unpredictable local event. Though I can still see some players will hate anything like pve, so perhaps they should have 'pure' servers without invasions.

Creep spawns, npc armies and customisable ai are great, just NOT FOR PLANETSIDE. So NO to player controlled npc armies, NO to creep spawns.

GhettoPrince · 2012-08-12, 04:30 AM

I'd like to see it, events are always the best parts of online games, everyone remembers them, and after 3 or 4 years of fighting over the same continents you can bet people will want the game to shake up a little, every now and then.

As I understand it, none of this will even be in development for more than a year, it's planned as part of the life cycle of the game.

**Malorn** · 2012-08-12, 04:39 AM

Here's an interesting case study on this - Alterac Valley battleground in WoW. If you played WoW back in vanilla when they first released it you might understand this. If not, sorry, hope it makes sense.

Remember WoW Alterac Valley? It was supposed to be a DOTA-like battleground experience with PvP and PvE intermingled. It was inspired by DOTA and even had a "Peeling the onion" design to it.

Do you remember how it changed? They scrapped nearly all of the PvE parts of it because what people really wanted there was PvP. It became stunningly planetside-like with capturing objectives king-of-the-hill style (the towers), securing respawns (graveyards), and blowing up benefit generators (Galv, Belinda, Vann, Drek). It's almost creepy if you think about it like that.

Alterac Valley went from having tons of PvE elements where you could "send armies" of enemies at people and ended up being effectively the sort of gameplay that PlanetSide offered.

PlanetSide had the right idea - players are the content. PvE is not engaging, it's more of a tedious hassle and stands in the way of the real engaging parts of the game - going up against real humans.

Going from PlanetSide to what AV was when it started with PvE garbage thrown in just dilutes the gameplay and takes away from the real fun in the game.

exLupo · 2012-08-12, 05:05 AM

I wonder how much of SMNC's staggering failure is the game's shoddy design and how much of it is FPS gamers just not wanting a MOBA.

Having played a ton of LoL and only quitting because the community is a toilet, I do get the appeal of the game type. Mixing f/3pv and RTS is occasionally popular (Savage, War of the Roses, WWIIO if you want to stretch it) so mixing f/3pv and MOBA sounds like it would go over well but between AV and SMNC it's not looking good.

PS2 is not the place for that experiment. Honestly, SOE should try it out in Freerealms, instead. I think it'd go over well.

RoninOni · 2012-08-12, 05:08 AM

War of the Roses has no RTS elements to it O.o

3pv yes... because for melee combat it just makes sense.

Apathy · 2012-08-12, 05:19 AM

Hello everyone.

I've been lurking around here more often now that I should be getting into beta as a veteran soon (hopefully). One thing Smed said struck a cord with me.

Originally Posted by Smed

The idea (and maybe it's a crappy one) is that we want you to feel like you're in a war and we're the heroes of that war.

Back when I was playing the original game, one thing that always stuck with me was the sense that I was just a drop in the ocean. I dont wan't to feel heroic in a game like this. I want to feel expendible and vulnerable! To me, implying that we're all heroes doesn't seem quite right. I always thought the "heroes" (a term I dont like using either) developed and became known over time through their actions. I'm sure we all had a time at some point where we saw a particular name in the kill log and thought "Great! X player or Y outfit has arrived!" Even when I topped my character out I still had those thoughts.

As to the NPC ideas, the invasion idea I can sort of visualise. I'd like to see this as a rare event as others have said. Perhaps a seasonal thing? Halloween maybe? Making it too regular makes it a more core part of gameplay, detracting from what was and hopefully is shaping up to be something pretty awesome anyway.

As for little robot drones to do the fighting, I dont particularly like this idea much. I wouldn't mind NPCs to do dirty work, such as fetching ammo, repairing base systems (assuming the bases have turrets similar to those of PS1) and gathering resources (tying in with the harvesters idea), but actively taking part in combat I think would be too far. One of the biggest ideas I loved about the original was that it was largely down to skill. I'd hate to be killed off because someone had a pet robot and some clever scripting or something. It was bad enough being killed off by some cowardly cloaker and spitfires / mines.

exLupo · 2012-08-12, 05:35 AM

Originally Posted by RoninOni

War of the Roses has no RTS elements to it O.o

3pv yes... because for melee combat it just makes sense.

Oh shit, you're right. What's the game I'm thinking of? There's one out there where you control the map and then dive into dudes. Well, whatever, that's the idea.

edit: Google-Fu failing me. However, I think that concept is known more-or-less formally as Hero Mode.

Lafen · 2012-08-12, 05:36 AM

Its the next bad idea after the BFR's in Planetside 1

Its a sacrilege to the game to implement PvE Content

Why not implement more Battlefields like Seefights or maybe Spacebattles ?

RoninOni · 2012-08-12, 05:43 AM

Originally Posted by exLupo

Oh shit, you're right. What's the game I'm thinking of? There's one out there where you control the map and then dive into dudes. Well, whatever, that's the idea.

edit: Google-Fu failing me. However, I think that concept is known more-or-less formally as Hero Mode.

Published by Paradox?

I think you're thinking of Gettysburg: Armored Warfare.

Great concept but game is too buggy and unfinished apparently.

War of the Roses is a new medieval battlefield type game. Mostly 3pv because it fits the melee combat system so well, but when you raise your cross bow or draw an arrow and even lower your lance it smoothly shifts into FPV for aiming.

Awesome game, I got to get hands on and check it out at a tournament they held in San Francisco and played against Angry Joe and Total Bisquit.

Highly recommend checking it out.
http://www.waroftherosesthegame.com/

Originally Posted by Lafen

Its the next bad idea after the BFR's in Planetside 1

Its a sacrilege to the game to implement PvE Content

Why not implement more Battlefields like Seefights or maybe Spacebattles ?

Sea battles are confirmed. Seamless connection of continents via oceans already built into the engine, but there's still a lot of work for them to do on it so won't be at release but a future update (maybe as soon as 1-3 years?)