New player here

Hi, I'm Arrow, and I just got the game a few days ago. It's a really interesting game and I really like the premise. I find it really similar to an older game I played called Allegiance, though not a lot of comparisons can be made since Allegiance was made by Microsoft and abandoned, not by "a team of fifteen people" as described to me on IRC.

Anyway, I talked a bit on IRC with a couple guys and I've talked about my experience with the game as a new player with a couple other guys on the channel. Here's what we've come up with.

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The spawn points aren't that clear. I tried this game for the first time with my girlfriend. It took us about 5 minutes to figure out just what the heck a spawn point looked like. My first guess was that spawn points were the yellow dots. I figured it out eventually, obviously, but spawning as a new player shouldn't really take that long.

The idea for a solution then is to make the spawn points more visible on the map. I understand that the game started out as a mod for BF1942. BF1942's spawn points are white: easy to see against the mostly brown and green background. Empires' spawn points are blue or red - they blended right in with the mass of red or blue that was my base, and thus were next to impossible to spot on the map.

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Lack of cover: One of my first matches played was on a map called Coast (the first match ever was on a large desert map). When the opposition got a lot of heavy armour, there was next to no place to hide as a grenadier to shoot rockets.

A possible solution would be to implement some sort of a temporary wall that absorbs plenty damage, but does nothing to actually stop an enemy advance. I suggested sandbags, but apparently no one's come up with a model that works. Alternatively, design maps that have more cover, especially on the sides of paths.


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Mines in barracks are really annoying and discouraging to me. Mines at the entrances (where you can actually see them) is nowhere near as annoying as getting mined the moment I spawn.

Easy solution - make barracks (and other production facilities) unmineable, especially at the exits.


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A couple more dialog boxes for when you try to put down a building. One of the first things my girlfriend tried to do upon discovering the command vehicle (she likes RTSes) was try to build a base. Neither of us could figure out why the outlines for structure placement was yellow, until I made a complete breakthrough by actually moving the command truck.


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Along similar lines, additional guidance from something similar to Left 4 Dead's instructor would make things far clearer to newer players like me. The instructor can easily be turned off either in the menu or via a console command, so it won't get in the way of more skilled players either.


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To try to encourage people to listen to their commanders, I'd suggest something similar to the above implemented - have small icons appear in the first person view that tell you to go to a given position. The minimap does the same, true, but I didn't even notice commands were being issued to me until the commander said via the voice chat "Go to this position" or "Build this structure".

A good example of this working effectively is in Left 4 Dead 2.



The director here tells a player two things in a single bubble: to press this button and then run like hell to the safe room before the zombies come and kill you. Once you fall into the massive dark room, though, you have to find a ladder to get out of that area. It's dark and you ordinarily wouldn't have a clue where to go.



Fortunately, a simple "!" appears at the ladder, outlining exactly where to go in order to proceed. If not for that, players likely would have wandered around the area for a couple hours before getting killed.

Something similar could easily be implemented with Empires, except the outlines could be relative as to where the commander wants you to go or what to do. It's also easy enough to turn these hints off via a console command. I learned people are more inclined to listen to the game telling them what to do versus another player telling them.


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One thing that was brought up by steve_rox on IRC was the use of the radar. He mentioned that he'd like to have the radar perform more than just spotting enemies and enabling research. I had earlier mentioned that the radar was more like a comm array (the question was how a radar array can research things; my answer was that it received schematics on how to construct things like a communications array) and less like a radar.

So branching off from that, I suggested that the radar building work as a relay station between the commander and the engineer's surveillance buildings. In summary, the radar would allow the commander to see what the engineer's surveillance can (and most likely in the process, change the name of the radar to the comm array).


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Well, that's pretty much it for now.

Hopefully these'll at the very least provide the basis of other ideas if they won't get implemented themselves.

 

I agree with most things you say here.
EXCEPT.
There are already walls (built by the engineer or the Commander),
if your engineers in the team DOESN'T build them all up like the point-hungry-whores they are, they're pretty good at covering people and letting them shoot over them

 

That's true, but as you said, most engineers are point-hungry whores. Hence why I think there should be two types of walls. If this game is going to come out of beta and be released to the masses, the game should account for the dumbest person on the team, and then have help options disabled as the player moves up in skill.

We all understand things at different levels, and I'd hate for the game to become inaccessible as a result of it.

 

Arrow , I just want to say people like you is what the steamrelease was made for.

 

Btw that's a compliment

 

Thanks

Oh, one more thing I should add to the list is an option that defaults to "on" - when you join a squad, the game should prioritize you to NOT be the squad leader unless it's checked off (or you join an empty squad).

The reason for this came from a time when my team was out of tickets and team revives were the way to get people back in the fight. Although I knew that engineers could revive people (took me a while to find the "class specific" menu though!) I had no idea how to execute the squad revive or how to effectively use it (affects everyone in the squad? Affects everyone in the squad in a radius around you?).

Between a completely new interface, a skill I was unfamiliar with, the enemy coming to kill me, AND my squad screaming at me "USE THE SQUAD REVIVE!!", it wasn't that great of an experience for a new player being squad leader.

 

I'm surprised someone bothered signing up on the forum to give feedback. Props to you for doing so.
A lot of those points you mentioned can be avoided by firstly learning the game.
As the "mines in barracks" issue can simply be sovled by changing to grenadier and pick "Defusal" as a skill. Aim at the mine (The mine will not explode if you step on it with the Defusal skill active) and hold E for about 5-7 seconds. It will now disappear and is no longer a threat. (Unless a teammate steps on it while you're defusing. THAT, is annoying.)

I think there's some sandbag models around, but I highly doubt it'll be avaliable for any other classes than the engineer. Adding static cover to maps is entirely up to the mapper.
If you want more cover, go check the "Mapping section" for active maps (that are being worked on) and post / ask the mapper to simply add more cover, such as big rocks, maybe a few boxes here and there, etc.

When the commander orders you to, lets say, "guard this unit" or "attack this and that unit", a (green for move / guard order, red for enemy attack order) box will appear at your assigned destination. I think it works pretty good as it is.

When you're the first to join a squad, you're always the leader. When other people join your squad, you can just re-join the squad, and you're no longer the squad leader. Or you can click on a squad member and click "Promote to lead".

As for the F menu, simply, the communication menu, which looks like a flower, kind of. There you can choose different acknowledgements like "Roger that!" or "Area is secure!". The squad "powers", such as revive and more can be found there. However, I think it is a pain in the ass to use it, so I have the particular squad "powers" bound to keys, so if I have to rush a squad revive, I simply press a button instead of spending 5 seconds clicking my way though the god awful menu. Something should be done with it.
I have a nice set up with the binds somewhere in a text document. (Stole it from someone's post)

 

Ignoring muffin, one thing I would like to comment on about cover.

There are a couple reasons for this. First, there is a technical reason for not having cover. nearly 100% of the map is always rendered on most empires maps, as well as most of them being the entire hammer grid space. This severely limits what can be placed in a map, because the amount of detail that a small room could have is now spread out over the entire hammer gridspace.

The next issue is that the more map placed cover that you put down, the less space the commander has to place buildings and the less space that you can drive vehicles around. Those are 2 fairly important points to most people when they play empires. When I tried making a map, the #1 complaint I got about it was that there was not enough room to make bases.



Now, my question for you: Did you play the tutorial level? (not sarcasm). If you didn't run through it and give some feedback about it. In particular, comments on our spawn explanation and how well you were able to use the "sandbox" section of the map, as well as any additional sections of the game that you would like to see introduced in the tutorial section.

 

I tend to get shot to pieces while defusing the mine.

I never saw a box appear at the assigned destination. There's also no explanation as to what the box means.

People yelled at me for constantly joining and leaving the squad, because when I quit the squad (I didn't know how to transfer squad lead, nor was I quick enough to do so before getting killed) the squad lead was passed down to someone else who also doesn't know how to use the squad revive.

Using Coast as an example, I noticed a lot of people build bases at places like intersections. There only really needs to be space to build a base in positions where a base would actually make sense. Not having enough space to build a large base can encourage players to choose what to build and where more carefully. I'm referring mostly to the large pathways that lead between the bases, not really the base itself.

The tutorial was the first thing my girlfriend and I ran through. As I said beforehand, it took the two of us about five whole minutes to figure out how to spawn. All that was mentioned in my first post.

The sandbox mode was alright, though additional guidance would be nice. As I mentioned before, I had no idea why I couldn't place a building when it was yellow. A message box saying "Needs to be placed near a friendly unit" would be nice.

Yes, but my ideas are to make the game more accessible, not just to teach one little nooblet how to defuse a mine. It's good to know that people like you are more than willing to give tips, but as a person you're only able to do so much. If the game teaches you, then it automatically is applied to everyone who plays the game, whether they know you directly or not. People are also more inclined to listen to the game talking rather than someone they don't know.

I'm different, I actually took the time to play the tutorial, to experiment, and to listen to the guy with the mic tell me to build a base. I know a lot of people who want to figure things out on their own and won't listen to me, a person who they know, let alone a person with a mic.

Besides, not a lot of people even listen to voice chat. I've seen people in Team Fortress 2 cry out "[Name], there's a spy behind you!" and three seconds later, they'll realize that someone was talking to them and turn around, but they're dead in one.

 

There's a difference between a base of operations and a firebase.

 

Also, a tip:
Don't spend too much time on these forums, it will make you a grumpy old man.

 

That was the general idea behind this map. There are a couple threads for it in the mapping section if you really wanted to search for them, but the discussion generally seemed to end up being either my brushworked sucked, it was too dark, or there was not enough flat space to place buildings that the commander wanted to place. Having flat space also defeated the purpose of making the map intentionally NOT flat. It's more fun to drive on hills ^_^.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/10061381/1/VGUI?h=148812

Would having the spawn points be green like the above help out?

(Files are here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10061381/GreenSpawnDotsEmpires.rar)

Putting this in to the current version of empires doesn't seem to work btw. It also makes your spawn selection thing green for both teams when it does work. Tested in 2.31 folder.

I think the best we could do there is to have a hud hint, like when you are next to a building how it pops up with a brief description of what it does. Tie it to whether or not a com is trying to place a building and give him a message as to why he cannot place it to supplement the existing system of Red no, Yellow no one there and green is a go.

 

What he said.

All pre steam players have played this game for so long, that we can't spot certain flaws anymore, only the big gameplay ones.
New players on the other hand will spot them, but they don't register on this forum to give this feedback.

You, my friend, did; with short and clear explanations!

Muffin is right as well about several points though, it's a balance that somehow must be reached.

For example the cover in maps. You hear comms complain constantly if flat build areas aren't large enough, or drivers if they get their tank stuck between some rocks/walls/trees. Unlike regular infantry combat, these two factors (rts building and vehicles) shape empires' gameplay.
To have areas that both have lots of cover, and flat areas to build, either that area needs to become larger (reducing the total amount of areas that the map can offer) or it has to be carefully planned (the vf must be placed there in that direction to fit, the rax has just enough place to the right, ...etc).
In the end when i made a map, i decided to go for relative flat areas, with only some cover at the edges, and have the players control where and how much cover they want by placing walls. That way the map has enough flat build space, vehicles can drive around at full speed, and at the infantry fronts there'll be loads of player placed walls as cover.

That said, i do get what you mean. Especially new players will be on foot most of the time, while it's the veterans that will grab a tank and use their experience to annihilate the new players, or simply run them over. I agree that most maps should have at least some areas that give infantry an advantage over vehicles. Difficult to balance though.

 

The idea of a quick deployable barrier is a good one.

I'm thinking something like the eldar energy shields in dawn of war 2, they put this little generator down and it generates a big transparent shield in front of it. It gets destroyed if you shoot it enough but recharges health over time.

It'd be a good addition for the rifleman, or the grenadier. Not as tough as regular walls because it would drain due to small arms fire, but fast and easy to place.

You could also, if it was some sort of energy shield, have it be non-solid to vehicles, which would prevent vehicles from being messed up by too much cover, which is the main reason empires maps don't have much cover anyway.

Nice post by the way, new players opinions on the game are helpful as it lets us see what needs changing.

 

In before more "Lern h0w 2 play noob teh gaem aint broke u are". I may be a new player but I know how to explain stuff, and I know what's intuitive to a new player better than you do. I've also written guides to games that are featured and received recognition in the game's credits for having done so. So a little respect, please?

Moving on,

What I see in most maps that have vehicles is to centralize vehicle fighting to the middle, and have infantry combat off to the sides. This encourages a combined arms assault, with some people in tanks and others on foot to protect the tanks from flanking assaults.

I'm calling this map emp_stupid because I spent a whopping 5 seconds thinking of the map's design, and thus should not be taken into proper consideration (i.e lack of resource nodes)



This theoretical map is easy enough to understand; each team starts on the left and right and fights over three different fronts.

The bases should be the largest sections of the map and take approximately 25% of the total map space each.

The two expansion points would serve two main purposes:
1. To provide a forward rallying point for infantry
2. A few additional resources.

The routes leading to the expansion points have moderate cover since infantry are doing most of the fighting there, but have sufficient space to allow a tank or two (at max three) to drive abreast and support the infantry fighting at the expansions.

The central corridor is wide to allow for tanks. There is very sparse cover here, and it's mostly confined to the sides to allow for infantry to flank an armoured assault and potentially weaken it enough to the point where it's either forced to turn home or will be taken out by the turrets stationed at the base. The central corridor has an extremely long sightline, allowing a tank commander with skillful aim to start to pick off turrets from outside their range, or a sniper to fire down. Counter-snipers, however, have the advantage of cover, unless they're protected by infantry.

Even if the enemy controls the central corridor, however, given enough time a losing team can move the command vehicle to one of the expansion points and stage there for a come-from-behind victory, if they're lucky and sufficiently distracted.

Note that pretty much nothing on this map I just devised in 5 minutes is to scale.

 

I made a map that has an infantry area and a vehicle area, it doesn't work very well. Players have difficulty coordinating between the two areas.

 

Also, maps without chokepoints are often the most fun, emp_duststorm, emp_mvalley etc as they allow teams to retake bases instead of the long-fighting-trench wars.

 

find a vet, and attach yourself to him, especially if he leads squads, that will make your life way easier, and allow you to focus on observing how empires works.

welcome, ill look for you in game

 

Screw this, I don't have to put up with this kind of shit from experienced users and from FN198. This game isn't worth it. I'm out of this crap for good to find a better community.

 

Theleetmuffin is not an experienced user. He's a fucking idiot. I mean his name pretty much covers that.

FN198 was born in 1998.

FROM THE FUTURE