I believe one of Empires biggest problems up to now has been targeting and cameras. These wall hacks detract from traditional FPS game-play by providing complete information about player movements. My suggestion is to remove automatic updates from cameras and replace it with a manual update when you press E on a camera. Only the player who presses E on the camera sees the diamond positions. All targets would still be shown on the minimap as normal. An alternative suggestion is to keep the automatic updates for the owner of the camera and manual updates for other players. Would it diminish camera usage, certainly, would it make it useless, I don't think so.
404, I strongly oppose this suggestion. You need to understand that empiresmod is not a 'traditional' fps. Furthermore, cameras do not provide complete information. Neither do squad or commander targets. They only provide parts of a whole. At the highest level of empiresmod infantry combat, both skilled opponents have targets on each other. The nuance, cunning and skill required to win head to head in such a situation make empiresmod combat uniquely challenging and rewarding. I believe that putting the ability to time your enemy's recharges, count targets and predict movement patterns over traditional camping and sneak attack techniques is the right direction to take, and I respect the developers thus far for keeping the course.
That's an interesting perspective. When you have knowledge of enemy locations, you have more confidence to get up and move around rather than sneaking around like some milsim
I strongly agree with FN in this case, surprisingly enough. Empires is, after all, by no means your traditional FPS. It puts a lot of emphasis on having an enormous amount of information, communicating that information and then planning accordingly, and you can see that in some of the better players in that they know the layout of maps to very good detail and they set up a different plan of attack for every situation. It also helps to keep the pace of the game up, which is a major benefit of things like Revive and APCs. I find that Empires finds a good niche between the pace of a twitch shooter because of how the actual combat itself works, and the planning in more tactical shooters from the wealth of information the game provides.
Yes I agree with both Candles and FN, Empires is supposed to be played like your team has a satellite or a dispatcher always giving you information, much like in real life contemporary warfare where trying to stay "under the radar" is actually a difficult task and not the norm, due to the advancements in military reconnaissance technology. Something that would be cool though would be if cameras pinged players locations instead of giving real time updates on them.
This would make cameras next to useless and very annoying to drop, you would not drop them remotely close to the enemy or try to hide them in some corner, because you wouldn't be able to get there safely, you would have to rebuild them constantly if you want the orange diamonds.. 404, if this was implemented, would you yourself run up to cameras and press E on them or this suggestion a way of that you don't like cameras and don't want anyone to use them anymore? Yes, cameras are a bit op but this "fixes" a problem by adding a new one.
It's interesting how people's heads go without the mass targets. Personally I like cameras and they're implemented very well right now. I did strongly support the removal of mass targets and while comms have a lot less to do now (and I've probably increased my pantsness at the game), I still feel it was the right decision. I wouldn't mind a 3-5 target system, but I'd prefer a completely different system when it gets properly reinstated... Of course that's the opposite of what's being discussed, still funny though :p
