I think the game may be too mentally challenging for it's playerbase.

challenging is an under statement, but theres not much you can do about it
although i like mootants idea

 

How can you start comparing a game that has been tweaked and perfected for the past 8~ years to a game that is still working on it's beta and not even finished with all of the game content?

in NS, there is no incentive to do things as a team. There is a ton of incentive to be a lame asshat and go camp the enemy hive and spawn kill, as aliens only get 1 respawn per hive they have. the potential for bad teams in NS is much higher, as is the need for teamwork.

as far as res points not being important or on the way to important parts of the map, what are the important parts of the map then? Res points are the most important points on the map, and if they aren't, it is a problem with the map itself.

Canyon has top right res point and bottom left res point that are both excellent secondary base locations, as well as both bases being res points.

In dust storm, there are 2 res points surounded by cliffs that make excellent bases, as well as one double res point in the opposite corner. These areas always end up being the most important areas on the map. All the action starts at those points. I rush those areas just to get kills and destroy vehicles when they rush.

Anyways, the lack of enemies around res points just means that the enemy has no skill whatsoever.

 

Yes, those damn new players, always asking questions! If only there was some way to limit it to veterans-only until the community dwindled down to nothing due to the lack of new blood!

Team stacking can be annoying. Personally, I look for team stacks and always play on the opposing side. Not that I'm John Rambo but I can lend a lot more support to Team Noob than I can to Team Cluestack. And it's always more satisfying to kill cluestackers than it is to fight beside them.

As for jeeps, they *are* good if you use them for what they're intended. A basic no-armor jeep with an engine is something like 65 resources. When an engineer or, better yet, a team of 2, gets a jeep and uses it to go around claiming edge refineries, that's always awesome. It only sucks when people use them as retarded APCs: they use it to get to one destination, then ditch it and that's it (and probably had 4 plates of composite on it, too).

It's not the jeep's fault that so many people misuse it.



At any rate, this mod's main fault, I think, is the lack of protection from griefers/idiots.

If anything, I've been continually amazed at how Empires (either through design or through faults in the Valve engine) was NOT constructed specifically with griefers/idiots in mind -- something all online games should consider from the start.

For example, if I buy an APC-equivalent in World War 2 Online, it's *mine*. You can spawn at it, but you can't get it in and drive it into the ocean or suicide it into enemies. You can't plant "friendly" mines near it and flip it over. You can't ram it off of a cliff with a jeep. Planetside had a feature where you could adjust who was able to use which position in your vehicle. Usually the pilot seat was "self only", but you could open it up to your squad or (if you don't want it anymore), to everyone. You can get out of your tank to drop some mines and not worry about someone driving off with it.


IMO, basic Empires doesn't take much smarts. You go out there with your pew-pew gun and shoot people and all you really need there is basic FPS skills to do a good job and help the team whether you meant to or not. The problem is just the amazing ability for someone to wreck the team by doing something highly damaging and woefully stupid, either on purpose or just because they're idiots.

 

Newbs are at least new. Cocky vets harass new players, limiting the growth of the mod. NS had its fair share of cocky vets, often with admin powers. A stupid combination, like alcohol and driving.

 

No, newbs don't listen to vets so vets get annoyed. When I stop going 20-1 on a regular basis I'll stop being cocky until then stfu and research some armor and engines instead of plasma cannon. IMO newbs are cockier than vets if anything.

 

there IS a quickstart manual


www.empiresmod.com/help

it's really well made, most likely dizzyone did it, and every noob should read it. it's so well made that whenever i type that in to see if it still works i sometimes end up reading the whole thing. it's got pictures and all!

THERE SHOULD BE A LINK TO THIS ON THE FRONT PAGE.

just like i suggested in this thread here.

 

There is some more idiot proofing that could be done, though.

Like it would be nice if mousing over an armor could bring up a little bar graph chart with various values for "health", "damage resistance", "heat resistance", etc.

As it is, we have things like the description for Reactive Armor:
"Gain access to reactive armor that uses electrically charged capacitors to vaporize a projectile upon contact."

...yeah. Whatever the hell THAT means. You'd think it would have a 50% chance per hit of taking 0 damage or something. Instead it's just an armor with some mixed properties and it's not clear from the description what the point of it is.

 

This is the part that drives me crazy because. I've been in countless games where someone will ream someone for choosing one research trail over another, but won't explain to them why that was not the path to choose in there opinion. So no one really learned anything in that exchange.

 

I'm not going to sit in games spending the entire time typing out the basics of the game. After playing 3-4 games it is pretty evident that researching mediums, all the missiles in the game and rail guns is a pretty shitty idea(actually what was researched and nothing else in the last game I was in).

 

Chris, you are absolutely right. You are the only sane player in Empires. Everyone else is either a noob, idiot, clan stacker or all 3. Congratulations, you win the internet.

 

It's too long and has too many informations that aren't needed for a complete noob. For example NS had something like"don't waste armor/jetpack it's expensive" so we can have the same with tanks. It has to be like 2-3pages at most. No screenshots if not needed.

 

i thought it was really good

 

I still think it's good. I read it and learned a few things i didn't really know how to get to initially. Except that it has the word countermeasure in it! But that's a whole other thread.

 

if seen more games lost cause of to many vets jelling at each other whos got the only real strategy than games lost because of to many new players.

 

I think that a vet-only server would only isolate the good element of the community from the bad. We need the good players to mingle with the bad ones so their influence has the chance to rub off.

The vets should just pick a server that we all play on more often than not. The CW server seems to usually have good people in it.

 

Aren't you fortunate that I'm here?

Will you two please read what I posted, I explained the comparison between NS and empires, and I used a different one to explain the need for teamwork incentives. I also explained that it's people who don't read the manual who annoy me, not new players in general.

I'm not going to repeat myself again.

 

how about when you reach rank e-4, it gives you the pass for a veteran server or something

gimmickyness x1 (list)

edit:
or you could have an ingame tutorial, and you had to pass it before you could play online

 

You know I was thinking the exact same thing. America's Army does exactly that and when I played it (long long time ago, hey it's free) I do not ever recall anybody saying stuff like "How do I zoom?". Although new players usually want some quick action satisfaction so they resist the required training. I did at first.

What I would think would be a better recommendation is to have two tutorial levels. One being comm and the other for basic infranty (including vehicles and skill and such).

The idea behind this is when a new player joins a server get hooked and realize they have no idea what they are doing they hopefully will have the will to learn and go through the tutorial level with hands on training.

 

I either suggested that idea once before, or someone else did and I supported it, probably the latter.

The problem with that is that you will get people who still refuse to do the tutorials. All the information is available in the quickstart manual, but many people do not read that either.

 

I usualy just help out those new players, instead of screaming "OMFG NUB STFU RTFM WTFBBQ !!!11!11!!1one!111eleven!"