View Full Version : Reason for removing game modes? (Combat, VF, etc)
So I come back from a New Year's visit to the family and find a new patch. I install, look at the change notes, talk to a fellow tester, and I find that some of the modes (e.g. victory flag) we were using for sandbox play (essentially, using a mode but creating our own house rules) were cut.
I have a big beef with removing options in general, but removing them without any warning or discussion, particularly when we are paying to play?
What the heck? Why?
yeah i dont like that i dea either, i wish they kept some of em
haploanddogs
06-01-2010, 23:28
It also seems strange to me that Combat and Combat Free For All were taken out. Now FFA I can understand as it is one long Spawn camp fest, but Combat? Isn't that the most popular mode online at the moment?
well FFA is great for messing with friends and if you have uneven amount of people and nobody else will join.
Hartmann
06-01-2010, 23:48
Victory flag became pointless because of the much greater amount of units. It was only barely playable in 1v1 anymore. The new artillery barrages also made a single cap zone ridiculous.
If you want combat back you can turn the required points to win all the way up on Assault Zones, then you basically have combat.
Hartmann, being unable to think of a good way for others to play those modes does not mean others found them pointless or only barely playable. I noticed you making a similar error in your posts in the 'right' way to play thread. Not everyone plays the same way, for the same reasons, nor with an eye toward the highly competitive play that comes to mind with 1v1 or 2v2.
Men of War's engine makes such a good sandbox, it opens a lot of possibilities for fun and creative play between friends. That's not even conceivable for something like Company of Heroes. For example, we have played VF without artillery, sometimes infantry only, sometimes making house rules on what we would use. Sometimes it was 1v1, sometimes 1v1v1, sometimes 1v2.
While I'd be the first to point out that defaults are very important, and can even be a guiding force in what players tend to play, having a default in mind for highly competitive play (1v1 and 2v2 games against strangers) is no reason to eliminate options. Devs can't be expected to foresee what players might come up with for variations in game modes, and certainly no one is expecting them to. However, limiting options limits players' possibilities, so unless it's necessary for some reason (really buggy or easy to exploit, etc), it's really a disservice to players.
In Assault Squad's case, there are supposed to be direct lines of communication, so I'm particularly bothered by this unhappy surprise. Still, I try to make good faith assumptions, so at this point I'd just like to know "why?"
Instinct
07-01-2010, 02:43
The short explanation would be that we are extremely unhappy with the current set up of gamemodes, the most played gamemode as for now is not really a gamemode at all but a sandbox mode that lacks any real objective or teamplay and for most of the part it's a camping slugfest with huge amount of resources.
If players want to create such a game and have fun with it, it's a good thing, but in vanilla a new player can't differ between an unbalanced gamemode/resource setting or a proper one and thus may have a horrible game experience the first couple of times he plays the game and won't touch it again. Not to speak of that even experienced players have no clue in what way the game is meant to be played.
The first part of the transfer was to enable a standard resource setting that is perfectly obvious for all players whether they are new or not. This standard resources ensure that a match up is balanced and people can enjoy it. By adding a custom mode we give players even more opportunities to vary their settings and adjust it to their needs than before, but it will be visible to anyone joining a game and he will be warned beforehand.
Now regarding the gamemodes, each gamemode needs to be set up for all maps, needs to be balanced and designed in total, needs to be balanced and tested on every map and adjusted to player needs and especially bugtested, each gamemode is an additional pool of bugs for any map used. This takes time and resources we rather would spend in improving the gamemodes with the highest potential to be good gamemodes. I.e. frontlines, a mode whith huge potential but because of lack of time for MoW and the need to balance 3 money settings (with it's very own, so actually 4) and several gamemodes it ended up to be a horrible one.
We don't need a zillions of money settings and we don't need a zillion of gamemodes, what we need is an overall money setting working perfectly and a handful of well designed gamemodes that are enjoyable for the vast majority of players. When those gamemodes are sufficient and well polished we can continue expanding.
Besides we try to let experienced players to customize their games as much as possible as you should already see in the custom resource setting. Assault Zones will also have better customization regarding the scores, so you can set up a Victory Flag similar setting or a Combat like Assault Zones where flags barely matter.
Instinct, thank you for the response. Let me reframe the two halves of the issue, as I see them, so you can see where I'm coming from. I speak for myself only, but I wouldn't be surprised if others share my sentiments.
The first half of the issue is lack of communication. After-the-fact, after-the-decision communication is neither useful nor inclusive to test players. At best, they will feel ignored. At worst, they will feel like suckers and chumps. Right now I feel somewhere between the two. Multiple people that are invested in this test were badly surprised by the removal of modes this patch. Nothing was said about it. While you respond promptly to posts--which is appreciated--there seems to be little to no transparency on what's being thrown around on your side.
We had something really fun available a week ago, and that has been taken from us without warning or apology. This is a big deal not just because it takes away from my playing experience, but also because it sets the tone for the relationship between the testing group and devs. This relationship is the second half of the issue. I've read your post 5 times and I don't see a single acknowledgment that you + devs actually care at all what the testers in this thread think, nor that you care that you disappointed some of them.
You did indeed answer my question regarding "why?" Thank you. While I think your response has points worth discussing, I don't see any reason to discuss them if our responses of are no importance to you and the other devs. You now have to show us otherwise, and I hope you will.
I have worked with devs in a number of roles, and in a number of projects, during my years in various corporations, so I'm capable of empathy for their situation.
Choice over focus, I've always found that in gaming, even if you try to focus a game to make it the most fun possible, just because its your fun it isnt necessarily everyone elses fun. Leaving people options, as unperfect they are, tends to be the tried and tested way of doing things right over focusing solely on one option, which you believe to be the best.
Personally i was quite fond of VC and Combat, and saw battlezones (assault zones) as the bland recreation of your average strategy game meaningless objective fest.
Hartmann
07-01-2010, 13:28
Leaving people options, as unperfect they are, tends to be the tried and tested way of doing things right over focusing solely on one option
Tried and tested by who? In what games do you see this?
warcraft 3, with all its mods? still one of the most successful rts's around?
Also not forgetting unreal tournament with its huge set of game modes and modifiers.
The original goldeneye on the n64, anyone else remember big head mode or the space lasers only game type? all just improved the overall fun and longevity of the game.
Hi Runjoy, just want to answer to your trhead and give my opinion.
I dont think the devs, doesnt care about what the testers says, and i think they'll give the best for their baby, they removed some gamemodes cause they are thinking those modes arent really good for the game, i think you'll understand it, and i understand it, for me and my friends, its not that bad that combat, victory flag, and FFA, are not in the game yet.
Everybody got his own opinion about game modes....
Now i know that you gave some money to test, and i think your opinion, and all the tester's opinions are important for the devs, be sure about that...
Remember its a test, then, give your opinion, its really important, and just wait and see.
Zeke Wolff
07-01-2010, 14:09
In my opinion it isn´t a good decision to remove one of the more popular game modes. Combat is after all, one of the more popular modes online, and to remove it, in hope that people will play other modes instead, is a hope that I personally feel will fail. After all, if you do buy MoW:Assault Squad and finds that your personal favorite mode is taken out, what do you do? Well I know what I would have done, I have gone back to MoW and played Combat instead.
And saying that Combat is a big spawn fest where new players to the game can find it hard to play etc due to unbalanced resources and such, which will make them hesitate to play another game online, is in my opinion a big joke since this can happen in any other mode as well.
My own first experience of MP in MoW were Battle Zones. This was my first time I ever tried to play MP at all in any game (I´m after all, mainly a SP gamer). I didnt find it particulary fun, since not only were I assaulted by a much better player, but I also got a lot of flak from my team mates since I wasnt able to capture my zones etc and were called a lot of bad names from one of my team members. To be honest, I werent a very good player at all, but I do think that most of us who has played MP, werent that good either when they first played.
The next time I played Combat with a couple of other players. We had a great game and everyone enjoyed it and after that I´ve stucked to play Combat, since when you do get a nice bunch of players, you can get some wonderful combat games but just as with any other mode, Combat can get out of hand when played with the wrong players.
Personally I think that Combat provides me with a bigger challenge than any of the other modes, since Combat allows me to do flanking manouvers, retreat when necessary, and slowly eat my way thru the enemy defences etc. Battle Zones is more of a "click-feast" to me and I don´t find neither that mode, nor Victory flag etc, very enjoyable at all. I like battles which are slowmoving back and forth over a map, and if this mean that one side usually turns out to be the defending side, and the other the attacking side, so let it be. However in my experience, the battles usually turns out that both sides attacks and defends.
Does the fact that I like Combat better than any of the other modes, make me into a "newbie" or a "poor" player? Not in my view, but if that´s the case, so let it be. I will still prefer Combat over any other mode since Combat gives me a lot of more fun than the other modes.
Frontlines can be OK to play, but the others. Nope, that´s nothing for me.
Just because some of you prefer Assault Zones, Battle Zones etc, doesnt mean that the other modes are inferior, it´s just a matter of personal opinions.
So it seems, that in the future, I´ll be playing Combat in MoW instead of playing it in MoW:Assault Squad.
~Zeke.
Hi Zeke, you are not wrong, but its just a problem of opinion, i dont speak a real good english, so its hard for me to explain my real feeling, but i'll try.
I dont think combat, battle zone, or other game modes, says something about the skills of players, i play multi since a long time, on soldiers, faces of war, men of war, and i dont think i'm a expert to the game, but btw i prefer battle zone, for me combat againts "lone wolfs" is just a camping mode with arty, and some soldiers to light the map, now when i play with some friends i enjoy this game mode, i remember some games with you in combat, it was good battles, with a lot of fun, for sure.
In battlezone you must attack to take the flag, and with some settings, believe me you must take care of your units cause they are expensive, and you also need to flank ennemy, and make some "infiltration" to destroy an ennemy tank, arty, or else.
As i said, its just a problem of opinion.
Instinct
07-01-2010, 15:45
And saying that Combat is a big spawn fest where new players to the game can find it hard to play etc due to unbalanced resources and such, which will make them hesitate to play another game online, is in my opinion a big joke since this can happen in any other mode as well.
This was pointed in the direction of the resource settings, not the gamemode. If you get asked 3-5 months after the game was released by some of the most dedicated fans of the game what resource setting should actually be used for a tournament because they don't understand which one is meant to be the correct one, than you get a better picture of how awful the vanilla system is. There was even a huge dispute about what resource setting will be used for ranked games, however this shouldn't be up for dispute ever, this must be totally clear the first time you launch a game.
Additionally combat is the most supportive gamemode that allows players to set up huge resources than sit back with their kingtigers and do nothing but camp, no other gamemode allows that to happen in such blatant way. The point was, a new player doesn't even see or know in any way that not the whole game is like this if he didn't join a game with standard resource settings by luck. And to be honest, it's not a rare thing to join up a game with 4-6 players stacking on German side with maximum resources.
Just because some of you prefer Assault Zones, Battle Zones etc, doesnt mean that the other modes are inferior, it´s just a matter of personal opinions.
And this is not the point at all, the point is there is no mode in there that is good at all. The question is what mode can deliver the most enjoyable game experience of all that may serve most players if enough time is invested in it. For us, it's not combat, it's also not VF and certainly not VC.
Now you say, that Battle Zones is a pure clickfest and people may agree with you, so your voice would be better invested in giving ideas of how to make Assault Zones way more tactical. I didn't rename the mode because I was bored, but because it will be a new gamemode fundamentally based on Battle Zones.
The new Assault Zones will make it less important to have the majority of the flags during the gametime, however if you loose all flags the game will be over quickly. It will value long term playing much more than Battle Zones did.
Regarding we don't listen to our testers, Frozen and I show up very often in a TS3 server that is set up and everyone was invited to join, we often create games and invite all people on xfire. However not exactly a huge amount of people have taken such opportunities, so it's also a question of seeking discussion with developers. Sometimes there is also simply very little time to write big posts in the forums because we want to get the project coming forward and it takes already a good amount of time to give feedback on most player opinions. So, I'd ask you also to join the regular testing community and dispute further updates with us there as well if you have the feeling we show too little in the forums.
[OoO]No.Mam
07-01-2010, 16:01
Regarding we don't listen to our testers, Frozen and I show up very often in a TS3 server that is set up and everyone was invited to join, we often create games and invite all people on xfire.
where can i found access data for your TS server (exclusive testers)? server adress & password?
onkelfleisch
07-01-2010, 16:11
I was about to post the same thing, what TS3 server? All I see is the MOW vent listed at the top of forum. I will join the TS3 server ASAP so I can yell "DON'T REMOVE COMBAT/VP MODE!!!! WHYYY?!?!"
What I saw here is a suggestion by Hartmann to remove the modes in the thread "Forcing the 'right' way to play" with about 20 replies, almost all of them saying what a bad idea this would be. So then we go ahead and do it? Doesn't make sense.
Instinct
07-01-2010, 16:31
We don't force the right way to play, we make the right way to play obvious to everyone.
TS3 data was sent via email a few weeks ago to all testers, we will put up the data here soon.
i agree with Zeke Wolff, battle zones was not very fun for me at the beginning, felt more like rape zones, since it's fast paced and requires more teamwork than combat mode. combat as a "sandbox" mode is a great way to get to know units, how to handle certain situations. in short, not a cool move to remove it.
As for TS, i understand english perfectly, but hand no practice speaking it for a long time, so i rather would not flood ts-channel with a weird, not understandable accent and prefer forum for whining.
Zeke Wolff
07-01-2010, 17:11
No.Mam]where can i found access data for your TS server (exclusive testers)? server adress & password?
I would like to add one more questions to [SOE]No.Mam´s original question... what is a TS server? Not everyone might know this (I don´t).
~Zeke.
[OoO]No.Mam
07-01-2010, 17:26
I would like to add one more questions to [SOE]No.Mam´s original question... what is a TS server? Not everyone might know this (I don´t).
-> TS = TeamSpeak
TeamSpeak is flexible, powerful, scalable software which enables people to speak with one another over the Internet. TeamSpeak consists of both client and server software. The server acts as a host to multiple client connections, capable of handling literally thousands of simultaneous users. This results in an Internet based conferencing solution that works in a variety of applications such as team mates speaking with one another while playing their favorite online game, facilitating inter-office communication among co-workers, or simply for personal communication with friends and family.
more infos & DL link: DMS-Forum: Vent - TS3 (http://www.digitalmindsoft.eu/forums/viewtopic.php?f=140&t=5355)
Zeke Wolff
07-01-2010, 17:29
No.Mam]as team mates speaking with one another while playing their favorite online game, facilitating inter-office communication among co-workers, or simply for personal communication with friends and family.
And the above means that you must have a microphone etc hooked up to your PC I guess (which is something that not, believe it or not, everyone have)?
[OoO]No.Mam
07-01-2010, 17:37
thats true y need at least a microphone - better headset.
Hartmann
07-01-2010, 18:45
As for TS, i understand english perfectly, but hand no practice speaking it for a long time, so i rather would not flood ts-channel with a weird, not understandable accent and prefer forum for whining.
Nonsense, nobody cares how good or bad you are at English. And if you want to improve your English, there is nothing then hearing and speaking it often.
And Zeke, you can always join and listen. Or even use the chat function to reply, which some people do. But you do indeed need a mic to talk back at us. I understood you are mostly playing single player games, where you don't need a mic. But if you play online regularly a mic is as indispensable as your left mouse button. About 80% of people have mics according to Steam surveys.
Hartmann
07-01-2010, 18:46
-Snip-
Edit is awfully close to quote isn't it.
Zeke Wolff
07-01-2010, 19:36
We don't force the right way to play, we make the right way to play obvious to everyone.
Isn´t this just a polite way of saying "Play the game as we want it to be played"? :P
The way you think is the obvious way to play the game, might not be the same way as mr. John Doe, who thinks the right way to play the game is combat with maximum resources and whilst playing the game, have a really fun time doing it? Just because the mode doesnt appeal to everyone (or as someone wrote "to get rid of this nonsense that is named combat") is that a reason to remove it and force these players to play modes that they aren´t interested in?
You are the game designer and it is your choice to remove or add stuff accordingly (and as you very well know, I don´t agree with some of them :realbig: ) to your own wishes, but I do hope that you will re-think this decision, or at least make it possible to add the combat mode by modding the game, otherwise I do think that many MoW players who prefer to play Combat, will simply stay with MoW instead of moving on to MoW:Assault Squad, but perhaps I´m alone in believing that...
And for joining the TS3 server, that´s a nope from my side, I´ve far too many MoW-related things going on already and to join a lot of game tests, would only make my work be even more delayed.
~Zeke.
We don't force the right way to play, we make the right way to play obvious to everyone.
I have too agree that this statements just a nice way of saying they are forcing us too play their way.
Now if the options where still available that's fine, they don't have too be default or anything you can make it clear too other players that there playing under non default settings but too out right remove Payback, combat, FFA is plain stupid. I love Payback and combat because its the perfect sandbox setting that the game just continues with the same amount of action.
Me and my friends play on Bazerville with Payback on combat. Its great fun because we make combat lines and attack and defend. We hardly ever use arty nor super tanks. It makes for great practice and great fun. Hell we even help the other team most the time by giving them tips if they are new players because losing something doesn't have bit repercussions. At this point I cant suggest getting this expansion too anyone if its just going too force people too play the right what with a polite voice. For the unbalancing point, Payback was the most balance mode I've ever played, you could only get one heavy tank, some support infantry or other tanks, Its the players choice and knowledge of tactics that make their load out of tanks worth while or not.
My first MP experience was BZ and I hated it because I love too assault and defend how I see fit not too be forced too watch a small box AND EVERYTHING ROUND IT! Then be yelled at for failing too assault the next point because I'm too busy defending against someone with a super tank already 5 minutes in too the game. Where as on Combat, Payback, It would by by mid-late game we'd finally see enemy's with super tank.
I just though of this analogy. "Its like being told at the cake shop they are going too be selling new cakes and then all but finding out yes they are better cakes but all your favorite flavors are gone left with only what the baker thinks are the favorite flavors." Its probably terrible but I tried.
Hartmann
07-01-2010, 20:12
*In reply to Zeke*
But if they want to go for these gamemodes, why would they buy AS in the first place? The whole expansion is 90% aimed at gameplay refinement. There is absolutely no reason to buy AS if you want to play max resources tank only games, you might as well play MoW vanilla. I understand why you would want to retain the sizeable quantity of people who love this gamemode, but to be honest I think they will hate AS in general.
The aim to nearly completely eliminate supertanks and heavy tanks, while placing massive emphasis on infantry, will not appeal one bit to any of them. What is there for them in AS that vanilla does not already offer?
Zeke Wolff
07-01-2010, 20:31
Who said that all of us who play Combat likes to play with ridiculous high settings and with super tanks? Me and my friends do like to play combat but with normal settings and about 95% of all our games, doesnt see a King Tiger, Centurion etc at all. We use medium tanks, infantry and yes, even artillery sometimes (those of us who want to do so).
Why people should want to move over to MoW:AS? Isn´t that quite obvious? After all, it is a new game which come with new units, a fully new game mode (Skirmish) which is quite obvious made to draw players who prefers to play Coop, SP, etc over to the new game.
I know very well what kind of game play the expansion is aiming at but that doesnt mean that I´ve to agree with everything. I know that you don´t like Combat, just as I don´t like Battle zones etc but because some of us might not like a certain game mode, is that a reason to remove it for those who actually DO like that kind of game mode?
And I do hope, that Instinct´s main reason for making the expansion, is to make the MoW community to move over to the new expansion, instead of splitting the community into two parts, ie MoW Vanilla and MoW:Assault Squad, since such a move would only hurt both games in my opinion. Or do you mean that MoW:Assault Squad is only made for the hard-core players and not for the regular players?
~Zeke.
Instinct
07-01-2010, 20:55
Isn´t this just a polite way of saying "Play the game as we want it to be played"?
Can we leave such statements out of the discussion?
Every tester, who takes 2min of his time and launches the game can see a Custom gamemode setup with way more options than he had in vanilla MoW, so I'm not going to further reply to this anymore, as it requires nothing but a little bit of time and common sense, rather than discussing for the sake of discussing.
Same thing with I don't like BZ for this and that reason... sorry guys but BZ is gone too, so is the previous arcadish part of the gameplay and balance... so look around the edge please.
Hartmann
07-01-2010, 22:01
Who said that all of us who play Combat likes to play with ridiculous high settings and with super tanks? Me and my friends do like to play combat but with normal settings and about 95% of all our games, doesnt see a King Tiger, Centurion etc at all. We use medium tanks, infantry and yes, even artillery sometimes (those of us who want to do so).
I was just talking about the majority of the community that likes that, I mistakenly thought that you were referring to this group as well.
By lack of new content for this group I was talking about the multiplayer part of the game. the new units (Not many) are mostly medium and light tanks, and new infantry squads.
And I don't know if everybody is blinded with rage or something, but this is not the end of it. Assault Zones is going to be refined, and the option will be there to morph the gamemode into a form where it is effectively combat. The outlines for this are already in the work in progress thread. So it will be back, in a slightly different form I guess, but it will return. Just give it some time and have a bit more faith in the progression of the game.
Come on TS, have some games, cry about British being weak (no seriously), and take it easy :toast:
alex0809
08-01-2010, 00:01
I think taking away those gamemodes is very good, even though it may seem like "less":
I would like to just go into multiplayer, click on any game and have a good experience... however, about 90 % of the current vanilla Men of War games are "Combat - highest resources - Soviet vs Germany", half of them being tank only "no dynamite"...
and since the default setting will always be most played, I think it is very important to make this setting as enjoyable for every player as possible
Zebah (szebus)
08-01-2010, 06:10
Thank You, glad to see combat and ffa removed from the game modes. For Victory Flag I was a little disappointed until Instinct explained the reason and how Assault Zones works. :yes:
Uh, oh, and to bad people almost never played Valuable Cargo.
Instinct, I am really not sure of the connection between you and developers, so please keep that in mind. I hope you understand that these posts are attempts to be constructive on my part, but I'm increasingly discouraged by the responses I'm seeing. I'm not trying to create controversy--it quite obviously already exists--but have it acknowledged and worked from in a constructive way by the liaison(s) between DMS and the subscription members.
In my view, the disappointed subscription members in this thread have had their opinions dismissed, and have now shushed and gone off into the corner.
I was going to post some questions about the informal (rather than formal and legal) role of subscription members and their relationship with DMS, but I think I'll message you privately first. I'm posting this so that the others know I'm not shushing, but trying to see what we can do about it.
well, i somewhat understand why combat mode is so undesirable in it's current form to include it to assault squad. but why not change some rules and try to make it better?
make arty, heavy and prototype tanks cost a lot more CP points. if you choose to artyspam, then you would'nt be able build a adequate force to take ground at the same time and would have to rely on teammates, same goes for prototypes.
make so that post 1943 units would be unlocked in the second half of the gametime.
or something like that.
or is the decision already made and there will definitely be no combat mode?
Victory flag is a superior mode for infantry only and no artillery settings, IMO.
I dislike indirect artillery over 75/88mm in this game anyway, aside from the ISU 152.
there are more important things to do then remove VF [combat I think is a ridiculous mode 99% of the time though] such as adding canister rounds [anti-infantry].
I think all large [over 88mm] indirect artillery should be off-map and called in with points just like air strikes are in skirmish.
bring back VF IMO, or change the zone setup to allow a selection of the number of zones in the game from 1 to the maps max limit.
I do not want to be fighting over 3 or more zones in a 1v1 or 2v2.
Instinct
11-01-2010, 14:59
well, i somewhat understand why combat mode is so undesirable in it's current form to include it to assault squad. but why not change some rules and try to make it better?
You see, you write the explanation yourself in the rest of your post.
We could improve this and that and we could improve a lot in the end and maybe it will be a decent gamemode sooner or later. Firstly however we are already talking about having different money spending rules for combat than for any other mode, it will confuse and it will make it much harder for players to get into the game, not to speak of that every additional resource mode we balance will reduce the overall balance and quality of all the others.
Ironically though, such resource setting is already integrated in vanilla and is called "no reinforcements", barely anyone touches it. Why? Because many players want to have games with kingtiger spam, otherwise they could just use lower resource points or choose "no reinforcements".
I try to give you a hopefully visual explanation how we come to our decision as it is now.
Workpower:
[][][][][] [][][][][]
Quality improvement: (keeping all modes)
Battlezones: [][]
Frontlines: [][]
Combat: []
Combat FFA: []
Victory flag: []
Valuable Cargo: []
Workpower lost due to spreading workforce over several projects: []
Workpower lost due to maintaining gamemodes for all maps: []
Final quality:
Battlezones: [][][][]
Frontlines: [][][][]
Combat: [][][]
Combat FFA: [][][]
Victory flag: [][][]
Valuable Cargo: [][][]
Quality improvement: (our variant)
Assault Zones: [][][][][] [][]
Frontlines: [][][]
Final quality:
Assault Zones: [][][][][] [][][][]
Frontlines: [][][][][]
Priority listing: (according to possible quality)
Battlezones: 7
Frontlines: 5
Combat: 4
Victory Flag: 3
Combat FFA: 2
Valuable Cargo: 1
Workpower to spend:
[][][][][] [][][][][]
Distributed:
Battlezones: 7
Fronlines: 3
Combat: -
Victory Flag: -
Combat FFA: -
Valuable Cargo: -
that clears it up and good riddance for combat ffa, that mode was horrible. but i still secretly hope that combat mode will not completely sacked and will be added later with a "christmas patch" few months after the release of mow:as.
pedro0930
15-01-2010, 07:23
It depends on what you consider to be spam, does buying one 40-tons 'medium' (I guess only the German would consider 40 tons to be medium, but anyways ) considered "spam"? I don't think that's spam at all, I think that's just another normal unit tier progression. Just like you would upgrade your T34/76 to a T34/57 when you can afford it. Pay a little, the cost-effectiveness of your unit increases a lot.
This type of mechanism is very common in any RTS with teching. The reason for this mechanic is simple. It rewards players who can forfeit some early strength in exchange for more cost efficient units later. It's a trade off. But it doesn't really matter that much now, since heavy tank is nigh impossible to afford while being much much more vulnerable.
Another point, back then (first release? or maybe this was still in the beta?), "no reinforcement" was the default, and only resource setting beside "with payback". It was used much more often than "with payback". Now with "no refund" as default, we similarly see most people playing with "no refund"
I think the same can be applied to the faction choices ("the eternal struggle of Soviet vs Germany"). People are playing these factions the most because they are the default factions. Perhaps if we replace the default selection with something like a line of text that says "Please select a faction", and the host always has to choose which two factions he or she wants, then we would see more diverse choices made by the host and players.
Hartmann
15-01-2010, 09:38
I think the same can be applied to the faction choices ("the eternal struggle of Soviet vs Germany"). People are playing these factions the most because they are the default factions. Perhaps if we replace the default selection with something like a line of text that says "Please select a faction", and the host always has to choose which two factions he or she wants, then we would see more diverse choices made by the host and players.
That's a very good idea, with the factions probably going to end up equally powerful in AS, that would eliminate the last reason for Sov/Ger being the most common matchup.
Options are a good thing. My friends and I play in combat mode almost exclusively. We are not looking for pickup, battle zone games. We use combat mode to play Squad Leader scenarios. It works very well, is balanced, is a lot of fun and is more realistic as I'm not capturing green circles (each scenario has very specific victory conditions). The problem with limiting game modes is that you will limit your audience. It looks to me like you may improve the game play in certain ways but you will narrow your focus. I guess it depends where you want to spend your resources. If I could make a suggestion or request, I'd ask for a combat mode.
INFInitesadness
20-02-2010, 22:46
Team Deathmatch is a blight upon any game that wants to be perceived as a tactical game. People who use random nonofficial victory conditions are a distinct minority, most of the people who play combat play it so they don't have to move far away from their spawn, as long as they killed an enemy unit.
If you want to play like that, set the victory points to 1000+ and you can still have your very specific in house victory conditions. You can safely ignore the points and play however you want since they tick up so slowly now.
DemonicSpoon
21-02-2010, 18:46
Combat had some very severe balance issues.
For one, offensive play was heavily penalized because you naturally lose more units. It encouraged people to sit back with heavy tanks and artillery and do nothing else; it also doesn't really require any teamplay.
As Instinct said...if you have people who have been exposed to everything and honestly thing Combat offers a better experience, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that a new player will hop into MP and think "hmm...Combat. That looks cool", and then be thrust into a very poor MP experience compared to the other options available. Options are a good thing WHEN they don't confuse people.
MoW is relatively moddable. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to make a "Combat Mod" if you REALLY think that game mode was more fun, interesting, and tactical.
SS-Kommando
25-02-2010, 01:13
If you want to play like that, set the victory points to 1000+ and you can still have your very specific in house victory conditions. You can safely ignore the points and play however you want since they tick up so slowly now.
I assume that he dislikes the visual aspect of it, as minor as it may sound. Personally, I almost only play Battle Zones. Now, I'm not very competitive when playing games, but I do appreciate when the flag zones provide every player --including myself-- with some direction on where to move, which assures that there's fluid gameplay where you can expect to have the flag zones as meeting points between your own units and those of the enemy. By contrast, I find that in Combat games, there's often a lack of direction; either neither side wants to take the initiative and just sits back, or they fumble in the darkness most of the time, resulting in a relatively uneventful game.
But since he (Bob) roleplays, I think that he and his friend can might aswell use a mod that enables Combat once the Assault Squad mods comes out. If you are roleplaying, you are most likely just a few players anyhow due to the difficulty of cooperating with complete strangers, making the use of a mod a viable option.
As for my opinion on the removal of the Combat gamemode, I think that it was unnecessary, especially given that it is fairly popular. In my opinion more options is generally better. But all in all I don't care all that much since I'm primarily a Battle Zones player.
MoW is relatively moddable. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to make a "Combat Mod" if you REALLY think that game mode was more fun, interesting, and tactical.
You are right in that Men of War is very modding-friendly, but making a mod is hardly a magical solution for just any issue that one might be dissatisfied with. A mod has to hold relatively high standards and be unique enough in the first place for players to get it and stick to it, and I doubt that a mod only re-adding the Combat would cut it (though there's only one way to know, of course). A casual player with zero insight in modding would hardly want to work for nothing. He's much better off trying to argue --in this case-- for the Combat gamemode to stay.
DemonicSpoon
28-02-2010, 00:44
You are right in that Men of War is very modding-friendly, but making a mod is hardly a magical solution for just any issue that one might be dissatisfied with. A mod has to hold relatively high standards and be unique enough in the first place for players to get it and stick to it, and I doubt that a mod only re-adding the Combat would cut it (though there's only one way to know, of course). A casual player with zero insight in modding would hardly want to work for nothing. He's much better off trying to argue --in this case-- for the Combat gamemode to stay.
Sounds like Combat isn't that important, then.
Mods have to have decent standards to get people, but the base game has to have even higher standards. If a gametype doesn't measure up to those standards, it shouldn't be there. As Instinct pointed out, people get a false impression as to what MOW is.
Just because players want it doesn't make it good, or good for the game.
Combat is more a free play sandbox. The only real gamemode that makes sense is battle zones. Because players have to take control of flags early on instead of camping out on the start and waiting for better tanks to get.
And victory flag is not cool either because it is all about having a few men constantly crawling into the tiny flag area while both sides keep shelling the place.
Playing BZ with the default 350 res on 40minutes was a perfectly balanced experience, and I keep playing this setting on stock mow all the time.
:beer2: :beer: WE WANT COMBAT BACK!
Strifeblade
06-08-2010, 22:53
It seems to me that what the guys developing the game are trying to say is that, most of the time, when playing combat, you get a ton of ridiculous game variants where the players are free to sit in their base and spam KT's... while this is fine in order to cut down on the stress to newbies, it is making the players who like to use the mode just to mess around, or more advanced players suffer for it.
I played combat all the time in vanilla, and I did it on the default resource limits with payback on. This resulted in by dynamic games that only ever included 1 super heavy, maybe a couple of heavies, and a few medium tanks, but the game was primarily infantry supported by tanks, rather than tanks supported by infantry <- I think this is the creed that the developers are trying to make with assault squad, and with the new shiny standard resource button, it wouldn't be that hard for newcomers to start a game, see the resources on the green standard value, and play a game that would be similar to a vanilla MoW game with about 400 resources with payback on.
If this is still somehow confusing to newcomers, than this highly tactical and advanced realism RTS probably isn't the best game for them.
If all else fails, a simple "Sandbox" game variant with a similar scoring system to combat, or possibly no scoring at all, would satisfy the people, who like me, like to, on occasion, casually mess around in a sandbox like environment with high resources on.
I think instead of trying to figure out what modes to keep in and what to take out, there should be an effort the try and figure out how people play the game, and develop customization options to satisfy the broad range of players, who might want to exploit the game engine to all spectrum of it's capabilities, and simply don't have the programming/modding skills to be able to do this.
I have a blast playing combat due to it's dynamic and adaptable nature, and I get pissed off at battle zones, because I feel as though the game is telling me how exactly I should play, where I should put my units, and leaves no room for adaptation other than what unit's I should sent to their deaths. The main gripe I have with battle zones, is it just seems to be a rush to take the middle of the map, and once it is taken, it just seems to become a giant camp fest with the person who controls the center camping, and the attackers desperately trying to retake a small section of the map, or lose the game. This mode is much more stressful, and mostly ends up with me causally mowing down attacks, in a rather boring fashion (I get to the center first), or yelling at my teammates and shouting the F word (I get camped out by players that might not have better micro or strategy than me, but are merely winning because they are defending and have a much easier time).
EDIT: Also I just wanted to point out that heavy armor spam can't really be an argument against the return of combat, because 30 so minutes into the game, you can have an entire team spawn vet tigers/super pershings regardless of the settings.
Commissar_Shermie
08-08-2010, 01:08
I have played Men of War vanilla for a year, and for probably 8 to 10 months of that I have done battle zones or victory flag almost exclusively. This is due to the combat heavy tank camps I have seen for the most part in the early times when I played the game. When I got the game, luckily I had 2 friends at first who had it as well, we would of course just join any game we could, and for our trouble got our asses handed to us. We were fine with this though, we knew this was going to happen in our first experience in a game which we were just learning about. I can remember vividly that within the first month of playing this I got thrown back into my spawn zone at least twice, once with about 5 tanks surrounding it. Sure this was combat, but we kept playing. I found that joining the massive combat battles with these two friends was the best way to learn-being a smaller part of the battle allowed for us to be compensated for, and allowed us to see what our betters did and learn from it. This I think was the most important part of the new player experience-just getting the chance to see what others did. It never discouraged me that I had no clue what I was doing when I first started, I liked how the game handled too much to get worried about how bad I was. Worrying about learning the money systems isn't that problematic in my opinion, and it was just something to remember when I was fighting.
And as to massive tank spams, I know my friends and I (we've added a few to our numbers) do like battle zones, but we also like the high resources. We find the massive tank spams coming at us in those games too, but we just laugh because we know they have no infantry do to anything with. Anyways, people who tank spam usually are stupid with their infantry too. I've found the easiest way to do humble them is just swarm the tank with a ranger/paratrooper squad. It's fun when they finally see their error.
But I guess after all this rambling, what I'd like to say is tank spamming happens in all arenas, Assault Squad is the combination of Battlezones and VC, and I think that Combat should have been left more as a training ground for everyone to get their battle scars.
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