News: Jimmy Whisenhunt AMA

[RNFB]

Originally Posted by lawnmower

i didnt say anything abotu that, i explained how having mechanics that makes the game harder increases the skillceiling of a game.
but why do you think that its a terrible mechanic and poor design?

If your bullets are going way outside of your crosshair (CS1.6), it's not intuitive, and confusing to new players. PlanetSide did it properly by having your crosshair determine where your bullets could potentially go, and never outside that.

i just said that a game can have high skill ceiling, ways to always (for a really long time) be able to make meaningful improvements on how good you are, and have bad players be able to do a reasonable amount of good for their team

High skill ceilings and newbs being able to compete are two very contradictory things. If someone is at the bottom of the skill barrel and never gets any higher, they aren't going to be able compete if a bunch of people are at the top of it, and they aren't going to have any fun and quit.

Fortress Forever tried to be "high skill ceiling, newb friendly" but look at how that turned out: the pros completely annihilated the newbs because it took too much effort to reach that ceiling, and now the game is DEAD while TF2, one of the most casual friendly games out there that doesn't require any skill whatsoever to be good, continues to succeed.

Originally Posted by GuyFawkes

Take Zelda as an example.

Zelda is a singleplayer game with a static difficulty level. It can't be compared to a constantly changing environment with far more complicated and variable enemies and shooting mechanics more complicated than "stand near enemy and push A".

[GuyFawkes]

Originally Posted by RNFB

Zelda is a singleplayer game with a static difficulty level.

I used zelda as a layman example of progression for the player. Nothing more. Playing against better players raises your game, makes you think and adapt outside the box. If the game allows for it. In a nutshell.

If you disagree, thats fine. I dont want to de-rail the thread any more. Back to AMA with JW for me.

[lawnmower]

Originally Posted by RNFB

If your bullets are going way outside of your crosshair (CS1.6), it's not intuitive, and confusing to new players. PlanetSide did it properly by having your crosshair determine where your bullets could potentially go, and never outside that.

that does sounds like a badish design to me. i thought we may have been talking about such things as strafejumping in quake for example which probably no quake pro has ever wanted removed pretty much. just a fantastic thing that isnt intuitive or making sense in any way.

Originally Posted by RNFB

High skill ceilings and newbs being able to compete are two very contradictory things. If someone is at the bottom of the skill barrel and never gets any higher, they aren't going to be able compete if a bunch of people are at the top of it, and they aren't going to have any fun and quit.

if they arent going to be able to compete very well then thats because of differential in skill having a big effect on how big of an edge one person has over the other.
chess for example has a high skillceiling and a low luckfactor making a small edge skillwise between two players end up with the better player still being able to win quite often.
poker for example has a high skillceiling and a big luckfactor making a small edge skillwise between two players end up with the slightly worse player able to compete with the better very well.
without thinking about it too much, it does seem rare for electronic games to be like poker

[TheBraddigan]

Originally Posted by Anderz

Hi Jimmy, two questions:
What are your thoughts on the gun-play and player handling of the Battlefield series? Specifically, the difference between BF2/2142 and BC2/BF3.

I've never been able to really put into words why I find the former generation of Battlefield games more satisfying than the second. Maybe you could help me out there, or maybe you think differently!

Also, what are your thoughts on the recent FPS trend of offering weapon unlocks and upgrades? (i.e. New scopes, rails, foregrips, ammo types etc.) Do you feel they can be successfully balanced in a game like PS2?

Personally, I miss the simplicity of older FPS games where you knew exactly what it was your enemy had equipped, and you were therefore evenly matched.

Thanks for doing this AMA!

I'd really like these answered too; good questions.

[wOOtbEEr]

It looks like some classes have access to both rifles and carbines. What are the advantages of using a carbine over a rifle in PS2?

[William]

Do any of the devs take a look at the Idea Vault in the PSU forums, and consider any of the ideas given there? If so, what kind of ideas have you been considering?

[Ghryphen]

http://www.planetside-universe.com/n...enhut-2818.htm

[Bags]

Coolio, that was fast.

[Bags]

As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I take a look at PS2's page and wonder why beta isn't here yet~
Cause I been cappin' and laggin' so long
that even PSU thinks mah mind is gone
But I ain't never fragged a vanu who didn't deserve it...

~

[ChipMHazard]

A true asset to the republic!
I'm glad they hired someone like him to look at game balancing, at least when it comes to weapons.

[OutlawDr]

I wonder if he has gotten a chance to play planetside 1 and about his opinions on the weapon handling there

[GreatMazinkaise]

Nice use of imagery...

[Graywolves]

Some of the best times is when Planetside turns into a survival horror game on you.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by OutlawDr

I wonder if he has gotten a chance to play planetside 1 and about his opinions on the weapon handling there

when he does the next announcement will be that he's left SOE.

[DarkChiron]

I look forward to moments like he mentioned as being his favorite. Back hacking behind enemy lines should be rather fun.