I want to talk about the maps, right now we got lots of "corridors" maps like canyon, crossroad or sloughterd, meaning you can only go forward or backward sence there is hills to the side of you that you can't move on. This creates chokepoints where the sides meets, and offers none flanking possibility and making the game lame stalemate clusterfucks on 40(+-8) players servers and fun on around 20 (+-8) player server, fun becouse the number of enemies on one front, most chokepoint maps have two fronts, is around 6 which can be killed and overrunned and your team can still use tactics and individual skill matters more. But on big player servers that number grows too 12 player on each front on the chokepoint map, making breakthrough all but impossible, and extremely lame game play. But on the other hand we got maps like duststorm, cyclopean and isle where we got another problem because of there exist no chokepoints, we get a few people running around randomly capping refinerys on small (20 (+- 8)) player servers. This could be called lame like on cyclopean if you got ninja engineers going around capping the mid undefended refs. BUT this don't happen if we got 40 player server on these maps, 20 people on each team, then instead we get workable squads divided over the map going around together properly assaulting objectives, making these open maps fun. And we remove the lonly engineer nade spamming unwatched refinerys, sence their would be squads all over the map fighting this can't happen. And individual skill matters again at a reasonable level sence people are spread across the maps meaning the whole enemy team of 20 players is never at one point like on chokepoint maps. Also when i say individual skill i really mean the difference you feel that you do to the battle. If i am on chokpoint map on a 40 player server i feel that my actions really don't matter that much, but on open maps 40+ player server then the fights are between squad that meets, and thus you again can make a difference becouse on your little fight on the map there is only like 5vs5 sence the rest of the players on the map are somewhere else fighting and not clusterfucked. My solution is that we divide the maps in too two camps, 20 (14-28) players maps and 40 (32-48) player maps. Thus we could have more open maps on bigger servers, and chokepoint maps on smaller server. Sence chokepoints on 40 player server is extremely gay, and on smaller servers having a few rambo engineer going around nade spamming unwatched refinerys on a big open map is also lame. It would ultimately make the game more fun for the average player, sence he would play on a server that only uses maps that is scaled for that server size. And the changes i want is that server hosters recognise this, and adapt their server list to the size of their server, making it more fun for the players, and that mappers try to have in mind which number of player they design their maps for. Chokepoint maps, smaller player numbers, open maps bigger player numbers. BUT mainly i just want to make developers, server admins, mappers more aware of this issue. This would also make the game balancing much easier, sence their would be like always a fixed percentage of players fighting, i mean balancing a game which have 20 players on a chokepoint map is different from balancing a game which got 40 players on a chokepoint map. But with less players on choke point map, and more players on open maps the number of people involved in one fight would roughly be always be equal. Thus making balancing easier. Almost like Aquillions thread about armour in that aspect.
You posted your personal opinion and speak of it in way as it would have scientific or normative justification. Its not even that you speak for the majority because you dont know (as everyone else) what the majority wants. But well your thread reads like you have enough sense of mission to completly ignore that. People tend to clusterfuck no matter what maptype you play. I remember having a discussion with bumgravy and simon over IRC for more than a week about how to make a empires map that plays well for the majority of players. (It was around the time simon made emp_forest) We came to the conclusion that its impossible to spread out your team over more than 2 chokepoints in empires. Empires only plays well with 2 chokes and maybee a third small infantry sneak way. People dont seem to coordinate well if there are more decissions. From a gameplay aspect and the learning curve new players feel helpless with to many ways to where they can go. You can test that on public servers no matter how many players play. You will always see them clusterfucking at one or two chokepoints and ignoring the rest. It doesnt matter what you do only some people will spawn back or somewhere else if really needed. But you cant adjust and make a game for the minority. Squads are almost useless in empires. A single skilled engineer player can archive alot more than a whole squad. Empires doesnt support players to stay together on the same spot and move slowly forward as a team. You are better off with 10 rambo engineers spreading all over the map as with two fully operating squads.
I completely disagree. Just last night i played canyons on Empires 4 all server 48 player server. I joined bravo i was BE. We built the rez on the first hill, then moved south on the hill and build second barrack and then pushed to NF east main hill with commander getting us forward barrack, and we were just one squad all the time. Using engineers for turrest, me riflemen, squad leader used Charge. Point being people do not clusterfuck on big maps, people spreads out in squad, they look on the minimap and sees where the rest of the squad is and follows, also dual order system would support this. They will not cluster fucks, also its the squad leaders and the commander job to guide their squad to take other parts of the maps. The only reason a single engineer can make a difference on big maps is because of so few player on that map, but with 40 players you can have squads all over the map. NO you are not better off whit rambo engineers on maps that got the right amount of player number! Which has been my point all along. Please think a while before posting again, try to think outside your box.
What you are saying is just not true. On big server with open maps, people clusterfucks less. But ofcourse this assumes that the commander can guide their team, and that the squad leader take responsibility. Then we can use the maps. I refuse to just say like you, "Empires needs chokepoint maps because i think people are to dumb to actually fight over the other places on the map". Then we need to encourage that they use the whole open map areas. And we have done that semi with refiernys.
On big open maps most games are won because one or some guys decided to rush the enemy commander and almost no one helped him. Thats how empires plays.
No you have a negative view on the average player, big maps are won by the team that dominates more grounds and more rez. That means the team that is smart enough to spread out.
I like that maps play differently with different amount of players. You both seem to have very narrowminded vision about how Empires plays (not supposed as anykind of an insult here). It plays very differently every time, because the number of players change, the players change, the squads change, the commander changes, the maps differ from each other, the equality of teams change, strategies change, and so on... I, for one, like the fact that there's a lot of changing going on when I play. If I want to play something that goes always the same way, I choose not to play Empires and play something else instead. I have seen chokepoints forming, I have seen them not to, and I will see every game ending up differently every time I play unless the teams are insanely skill stacked every new round.
There needs to be easier ways to organize people for the commander, plus a bigger incentive for players to follow commander orders. Like, if the comm points engineers at an unbuilt building he should automatically say "Construct this Building!" and engineers would be able to build it slightly faster while still getting the same ammount of points, or they get more points or whatever... As for other classes, killing enemies while being in the vicinity of a building you have to protect should give you +1 points. Or maybe the defend marker gives you a slight buff... etc etc
Yeah sure change good, but you got to understand my view point. 40 players creates clusterfucks on a small chokepoint map, and the things you mentioned don't change that. And that is what i am talking about, game will play in a general way on some different maps with different player amounts. That is facts. Yeah you are right that it will be difference depending on players and strategy and freak things, but in general individual players won't change if maps get clusterfucks or not, or if open map turns in to rez engineer cap spam or not. But i also can't understand how you could fail to see that i also mentioned that maps will play differently with different player amounts, sence that is basicly what this thread is about. Yes i totally agree, if you have seen my other posts and threads you will see that i am a big fan of implementing new game mechanics that will improve following orders and making commander order system better, and the squad leader order better. I think wallhack is the mayor threat to making squads follow move orders to different places on the map now, sence the commadner must waste orders on wallhack instead of pointing out where he wants the squad to go. Think Crossroad, instead of giving wallhack i could have told my squad to go to different roofs to cover mid, but i can't do that because then my team dies of enemy wallhack. See last post in suggestion forum sticky. I also think that many feuters that those this is implemented, but the game lacks tutorials and help texts in game that points this out. Like sticking in a squad allows the squad leader to activate his squad power so it makes a change sence if the squad is at one place everyone can use the squad power and make a change quick, that would not have been possible if the squad was spread out on the map. Like charge, when attacking across a bridge. These things need to be pointed out more.
So, what's so bad about it? That's what I don't understand. And what's so bad about clusterfucks? If there's only 2 ways to enemy base, then they are defended heavily, for a reason. It's like a trench war more than a "clusterfuck". Some maps do have this feature, but I don't see how it's bad. There are always passages and places that you have to defend and push the enemy back, that's not dependant on player amount, it's a map feature. I understood. But I don't understand, why would it need to be changed so that the amount of people playing should be limited in maps. What's so bad about the gameplay being bound to amount of players? You can't change amount of players in a server, only limit it, so it would only have an effect on full servers. I can't see anything wrong with gameplay changing when the amount of players change. If you limit the maximum amount of players on certain maps, then you're also preventing changes due to the amount of players. One more thing: Server owners can decide which maps they want to be played on their servers. So why not let them decide what maps and what is the maximum amount of players? The maps should not be forced to be played with limited amount of players.
Chokepoints on big servers always end up in lame clusterfuck stalemates. Crossroads, Slaughtered, Blah, Urbanchaos and Streets of Fire are great examples of maps were chokepoints turn into lame clusterfuck stalemates. I have even seen stalemates on Isle and Mvalley. I've even seen Slaughtered ending in a ticket fight a few times. No matter what you do, no matter how many players play on the servers. Chokepoints with always be lame clusterfuck stalemates. The only way to end those are HE Tanks, Arty Parades, Rambo's or an APC rush. Stalemate isn't hard to end, but people are just retarted, once they see an arty, a roffleman or lvl3 turret they intend to all hide behind a wall and wait for someone else to clean that mess up. However they do not know that everyone thinks that way so the game get's 1 big stalemate because people behave like idiots and are afraid of dying. If the game is a stalemate just rush in with a few vehicles, the problem is not the way maps are constructed, the problem is the the behaviour of the players. Just stop hiding behind that wall and start rushing them.
I clearly play with different players, because this doesn't happen very often when I am playing. I remember both teams rushing and pushing each other more than staying behind cover. For example, in emp_slaughtered (with +40 players), I haven't seen chokepoints happen very often. There's always intense fight over bridge and the other way. I've seen more in urbanchaos and district, those are the maps that end up hiding behind cover and spamming nades. Haven't seen it happen too many times in classic maps, only with the server full of new players.
Basic line clusterfucks = trenchwar = lame. And i have already explained everything to you, but it seems i have too do it again, because you have not grasped it. Clusterfucks is something we want to avoid. That i think most people will agree on. Now a way of reducing the chance of clusterfucks happening is to not have small chokepoint maps on big player servers. Thus discussing the issue whit server admins. Servers like Empires 4 All and nachos and Juicebox are often going to be full, so a server that allows a big number of players usually will contain that amount, don't argue on this. You seriously can't see any problem whit 40+ players on a small checkpoint map? Or 20 people on cyclopean fighting all over the map, resoulting in like 2 man engineer ramobo team going after ref all the time because there aren't enough players to play on the whole map? Main problem here is that you think that bad game play is good gameplay. Clusterfucks are not desirable, rambo practical engineer nade spammers on big maps with low player amounts is not desirable. Yeah but it is a difference, lame clusterfucks on big servers are hard and lame. Stalemate on open maps is a game state, which can be defeated by shifting forces to a flank or make a breakthrough at an area the enemy doesn't defend that well. Clusterfucks on chokemaps with lots of players can't be won by flanking or shifting forces or any tactical move. Stalemates can happen on chokepoint maps also if it gots around 20 player only playing, then you can use tactics and organised play to press on. But clusterfucks stalemates can't be solved easily. [PRKL] Werihukka;191040: The thing i wrote above this paragraph you must realise. Satanchild666 i agree with you, but the stalemate problem is not really what we are discussing. Stalemates on open maps can be won with tactics and not having noobs. Chokepoints is the terrain not something that happens. Hmm you seem to have problems whit the terms we use. Chokepoint = Small terrain "features" in maps where people must go to attack wich you cna't flank or by anyway go around, just small canalising terrain. Clusterfucks = When there gets to much people on a chokepoint so that no team can push through, because no one can kill the entire enemy team that is on the chokepoint in one swipe. Clusterfucks is something that happens locally. Stalemate = Both teams can't push at the moment, but can happen on open maps too, but this can still be changed by changing tactic. Stalemate is something that happens map wide. Clusterfucks Stalemate = Clusterfucks on every chokepoint on a chokepoint map. "There's always intense fight over bridge and the other way." This is a cluster fuck, no team breaks through everybody just spawns, go to chokepoint, kill one guy, die, repeat. No progress being done. But chokepoint on smaller maps allows team to push forward sence the enemy is always a reasonable amounts of players, which can be killed in one swipe allowing you to gain some ground, this don't happen with large amounts of players on a chokepoint, because there are a too high level of player concentration.
I understand you perfectly, but I haven't seen this as a problem, like you do. And yes, I'm confused with these word monsters, like clusterfuck. So, I just clearly haven't seen clusterfuck stalemates as problem, because that's what happens, and you really can't do shit about it. Progressing in Empires for me means victory. If you progress more than the other team is able to handle, you win. I haven't seen a game without end. As the fight goes on, somebody is always able to push more than the other team. So I basically don't understand the problem, because I see no problem. I don't know what kind of a gameplay should it be, if it's not like it supposed to be now. If maps are open, you can avoid fights easier, if they aren't open, you can't avoid the fight in certain points. And I don't see it as a problem. But I understand, that if every game would end up clusterfucking each other, it would be a problem, but always the better team has won, so where's the problem? If the player amount was limited in smaller maps, it would make the map progress faster and end up faster, but then again... Some people are always after longer and longer games, and when they realize that it can get boring, people start asking games to end quicker. Once I played urbanchaos for 2 hours and I left before the game ended. That was boring and worst game I ever played, but I don't remember seeing slaughtered (for example) played for over an hour in a long time.
Thats your personal point of view thats not a law. On 2 chokepoint clusterfuck maps you often see teams fall back at one side so they can attack with more people on the other side. 2 chokepoint maps play more like chess. Both teams know the simple set of rules. You will never have enough people to push both chokepoints if teams are equal so you have outsmart the enemy. Its not lame its a different game style.
Progressing in Empires should mean that one team is temporarily winning, meaning that they have managed to take a new area of the map. Like on duststorm if one team take the northwest or the ruins or the middle, but then the other team has the ability to take it back, so one team that makes progress don't automaticly win. The problem is that on chokepoint maps you as you say can't avoid fights, thus when more players are added the only thing that happens on that map is that more people starts to clusterfuck on the chokepoint, and that is not fun. But if it would stay a small number of players, 10 man on each team, then one team can make pushes and there can by dynamic gameplay. Better team hardly (talking about clusterfucks on chokepoints on large servers), just the team which managed by luck kill all the enemy in one swipe at one point in the game to push through at the chokepoint. Yeah if we had small chokepoint maps keept on low player servers (20(+-8)) there would be more fun and dynamic gameplay. It's when we get like 40(+-8) players on small chokepoint maps that we get clusterfucks that take for ever to win. Yeah and that happens becouse to many player on a small map, thus clusterfuck, no body can make any progress and nobody wins = lame.
It's not very strategic at all, because everybody will try to push on both fronts, any breakthrough on chokepoint clusterfucks stalemate is based on luck. One team accidencly gets pushed back and people go OMG and then kill spawn at the other side and by accident creates a local superiority. No flanking, no gamebreaking team work, just accidental good kill spawns.
