exaltedvanguard
True Bro
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Post by exaltedvanguard on Mar 7, 2020 21:04:01 GMT -5
I've kind of just given up on there ever being a fun, casual mainstream online game again. Every online game going forward is going to push some sort of competitive angle with a ranking system, aggressive skill based matchmaking in its unranked/"casual" modes, instant bans for "toxic" behavior, incorporate some sort of egregious pay2win in-game shop, and of course no server lists or custom servers. SBMM isn't necessarily bad for all games, it's just bad for CoD. Halo always had SBMM and it was totally fine. That's because when you load up into TDM on Halo 3, there's only one way to play TDM on Halo 3. You play to win and that's it. There's no loadouts. There's no goofy builds to try or word challenges to do, so you're not punished for trying to play other parts of the game. Killstreaks don't exist as rewards you're (generally) not allowed to achieve against equal opponents. SBMM it's totally fine in Halo 3. It sucks in CoD. And yeah, microtransactions suck but are here to stay. We just have to hope they're not egregious. I do miss the wild west culture of yesteryear though. That was doomed from the day gaming started to transition from nerdy to mainstream.
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Post by Broadband on Mar 8, 2020 17:39:46 GMT -5
I've kind of just given up on there ever being a fun, casual mainstream online game again. Every online game going forward is going to push some sort of competitive angle with a ranking system, aggressive skill based matchmaking in its unranked/"casual" modes, instant bans for "toxic" behavior, incorporate some sort of egregious pay2win in-game shop, and of course no server lists or custom servers. SBMM isn't necessarily bad for all games, it's just bad for CoD. Halo always had SBMM and it was totally fine. That's because when you load up into TDM on Halo 3, there's only one way to play TDM on Halo 3. You play to win and that's it. There's no loadouts. There's no goofy builds to try or word challenges to do, so you're not punished for trying to play other parts of the game. Killstreaks don't exist as rewards you're (generally) not allowed to achieve against equal opponents. SBMM it's totally fine in Halo 3. It sucks in CoD. And yeah, microtransactions suck but are here to stay. We just have to hope they're not egregious. I do miss the wild west culture of yesteryear though. That was doomed from the day gaming started to transition from nerdy to mainstream. I think SBMM has a place in games with high skill ceilings. It's just CoD is not one of those games. Halo might have had a form of SBMM since Halo 2, but the way it was implemented in the social (unranked) playlists leads me to believe it was extremely loose as you'd face players of widely varying skill levels. Not at all like in MW2019 where your performance in your past few games weighs heavily in the kind of players you'll face next match, not to mention how aggressive it is. I don't want to beat a dead horse so I won't get into a rant on why SBMM doesn't belong in a casual shooter like CoD. Only one way to play Team Slayer? Eh, I get what you're saying but I have to disagree. While there aren't custom loadouts in classic Halo, there were medals for how many kills you got without dying, what weapon you used to kill someone, etc. It's not the same thing per se, but they are challenges in a sense. But generally every game of Team Slayer boiled down to map control & knowing the key weapon/item spawns.
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eLantern
True Bro
"Oh, cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones, it bones for thee!" - Bender
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Post by eLantern on Mar 9, 2020 13:49:47 GMT -5
It's really felt like shooters have been struggling for 5-6 years now. I don't mean to detract from your opinion; in fact, in several ways I fully sympathize and agree with it, but in many other ways I don't. As someone who's primary FPS franchise of choice has been Halo since its release in 2001 I understand where this perspective comes from; especially, within the Halo community, but other than one particular title within the franchise (Halo 4) that clearly borrowed some concepts from the CoD franchise it's really just an overblown sentiment within the community. It's basically led by the segment that simply prefers Halo's game-play without the sprint mechanic. In my opinion, the Titanfall series is pretty damn great. And yes, EA certainly didn't provide either title with an ideal situation to find commercial success. But, at the same time I don't know if either of the titles would've sustained the interest of the general gaming masses because of the complexities and skill-ceiling of the highly praised and impressive movement system. Yeah, neither of these were able to capture the general interests of the mass public from a multiplayer standpoint. For me personally, I just never got comfortable with the feel of FarCry's controls within its PvP multiplayer environments. When presented with other FPS franchise options I just preferred to invest my time in those other games instead. While I found Crysis' multiplayer to be quite interesting and fun I wouldn't say it really surpassed my enjoyment with the Halo franchise, nor CoD or the Battlefield franchises, but I certainly appreciated what it offered. Unfortunately, it was regulated to being my fourth FPS option in most cases when trying to pick what I wanted to invest some of my limited time into. I'm sure this is the case for many people within the competitive marketplace of quality FPS titles nowadays. CoD gets away with chasing trends precisely because they have a pretty solid foundation. But, by chasing the trends they've also managed to subsequently deteriorate aspects of that foundation which is why many were hyped over MW (2019). In the end, personal preferences are going to differ, but I'm glad we got the more tactical arcade-y mil-sim wannabe-title that we got instead of a more traditional arcade-y mil-sim CoD title. In ways, it has helped emphasized a game-play feel that was more apparent in the earliest CoD titles (prior to Modern Warfare 2) which I can appreciate. From a CoD perspective, I just go back to WWII for that more traditional boots-on-the-ground run & gun CoD experience. By that I mean, the less tactical game-play of MW (2019) and to a slightly lesser degree MWR. I disagree. While several shooter franchises certainly attempt to reach photo-realistic graphics as part of their method to make a "better" game there's been many shooters that have opted to go with an artistic style instead. That basically describes the Borderlands series; plus, there's all these too: Prodeus, Wrath: Aeon of Ruin, Ion Fury, Amid Evil, Void Bastards, Blood: Fresh Supply, RICO, Apex Legends, Consortium: The Tower, Underworld Ascendant, We Happy Few, Mothergunship, Deep Rock Galactic, Strafe, Overwatch, etc. I also wouldn't agree that attempting to reach more photo-realistic graphics automatically comes at the sacrifice of all else. I fully agree with this. And it annoys the hell out of me. I get the sentiment and the frustration, but I don't fully agree.
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exaltedvanguard
True Bro
Hey look... uh... Over... uh... THERE!
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Post by exaltedvanguard on Mar 9, 2020 17:00:13 GMT -5
Only one way to play Team Slayer? Eh, I get what you're saying but I have to disagree. While there aren't custom loadouts in classic Halo, there were medals for how many kills you got without dying, what weapon you used to kill someone, etc. It's not the same thing per se, but they are challenges in a sense. But generally every game of Team Slayer boiled down to map control & knowing the key weapon/item spawns. I guess what I'm getting at is that there's only one extrinsic way to play Halo TDM. There are in-game medals, but they don't direct gameplay. They're just a small reward for natural in-game actions rather than some goal you enter the game aiming to get. You can of course set intrinsic goals for yourself (I'm only gonna use the Needler!), but that could be applied to any game. Aside from arbitrary things you tell yourself, every action you take in a given Halo match is dictated solely by what's happening in that given Halo match. This is in contrast to CoD which has challenges, calling cards, camos, etc, which all influence your gameplay experience/expectations. CoD also has killstreaks as a core feature which are going to influence gameplay enjoyment. Because of their existence, I (the player) might not feel like I'm doing well because I'm not earning my streaks. I'm missing out on that juicy reward, even if I'm still winning. Meanwhile in Halo, I feel like I'm doing great as long as I'm killing more than dying. The fact I get a kill or two and die on repeat all game, as will usually happen against opponents of similar skill, is totally fine as long as I'm still working toward that W. I'll take 2 kills for 1 death all game long. In CoD that means I'm not even throwing up a UAV. As someone who's primary FPS franchise of choice has been Halo since its release in 2001 I understand where this perspective comes from; especially, within the Halo community, but other than one particular title within the franchise (Halo 4) that clearly borrowed some concepts from the CoD franchise it's really just an overblown sentiment within the community. It's basically led by the segment that simply prefers Halo's game-play without the sprint mechanic. The biggest change is how ADS functions. In Halo 2 and 3 (and I think Reach, but my memory's hazy) titles, guns were equally accurate* regardless of whether you were zoomed in or hip firing. Zooming in would affect your auto-aim and ease of hitting the target, but your functional accuracy was identical and could cross-map from the hip if you had to. Halo 4 and 5 changed this. This subtracted from the jumpy, off the walls Halo gameplay. *I should specify that due to the way bullet magnetism functions this isn't 100% true in all circumstances, but close enough. Sprint is another issue as well. It's addition just meant that all the map sizes and explosion radiuses were increased. It takes the same amount of time to walk around midship in Halo 2/3 as it does to sprint around it in Halo 5. So if you're not sprinting, then you've slowed down gameplay. And you're always "farther" from cover because you can't sprint-strafe. Then add in the fact that explosions were all scaled up in radius to compensate for the increased speed available. The end result is that we have to use more "tactical" movement and less arcadey movement. And that's just not what the series was built on. I feel that it's a mix of the two. A high skill ceiling isn't a problem with a large player base. League or DOTA are great examples. Extremely high skill ceilings and vastly complex systems. But with a large player base you can match the trash with the trash and the sky-gods with the sky-gods. With a smaller player base, you end up with a bunch of killers floating around annihilating people. Fighting games often have this problem. Speaking of high skillgaps, I believe this is part of what killed Crysis (although there were issues with Crytek in general which were more direct causes). Crysis 2 and 3 (I didn't play multiplayer for the first title, so I can't comment on it) were EXTREMELY high-skill-ceiling games, especially for the time. But yeah they also were facing strong competition, so it's not surprising the title died out. Crysis 2 was competing with Halo: Reach, BF:BC2, and CoD:BO. That's a hell of a lineup. But if you released Crysis 2 today, as-is, graphics and all (CryEngine still looks great), it would probably be a smash hit. But that's exactly what I mean. Halo: Reach, BF:BC2, and CoD:BO all came out in 2010. And there were several other Foxtroting stellar titles immediately before and after those, even without looking outside those franchises. What do we have today? Nothing close to that line-up, that's for sure. Fair enough, but there's something to be said for playing a currently-supported title. I was mainly talking about competitive shooters when I made that statement, rather than solo/cooperative focused ones. Solo/coop games of all genres can by their nature get away with a lot more than competitive games. There are certainly exceptions (overwatch) for sure. But it's bothersome that it happens at all, when it seems like every other genre has this figured out. I can't think of any big-name fighters that have visibility issues. Sports games don't have these issues. MOBAs and RTS games don't. Nor even the photorealistic-iest of racing games. I can't think of any big-name, non-shooter, competitive games that have frank visibility issues negatively impacting gameplay. It's only shooters that haven't seemed to get the memo, that, hey, gameplay matters more than graphics. And just for clarity, I should specify that these problems are not necessarily tied to photorealism, just more common in those titles.
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