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This is strange to say but...
Bladin
Member UncommonPosts: 1,089
This game would be better without cars. I know this game is totally designed around vehicles and whatnot. But to me it just doesn't.... come together. I went through a few days of playing again after not playing for a long time(just wasn't... fun i guess). And was playing it and thinking about how the game would handle normal characters, say just cars for transport, and i honestly think it would be a better game. With just guys running around, finding materials etc in buildings with actual people, with rocket launchers to destroy the environment or blasting away parts of buildings etc etc(ie a mmofps, or even a mmotps). And honestly i think it'd be a more enjoyable experience. It feels almost as if I'm playing coh/cov running at full speed only its harder to control and fights are slower.
I enjoy crafting normally, but its just too tedious and complicated in this game. Which is truthfully the only thing to do besides drive around and blast things. Which after the first few times playing it... loses its luster. After i got over the "wow cool im driving around blasting things" phase it really just wasn't fun. Questing in this game is oversimplified. Having a car doesn't make it any cooler, it feels and plays just like wow for the quest system, go gather X, go kill X. Blowing up buildings to get enemies to spawn is no different then just clicking a item and it being destroyed and mobs spawn.
Ionno what i was expecting when i first started playing, or what i thought it could become. But frankly this game at the end of the day, is just the same thing we've all been playing since we started playing mmos. I know alot of people will tell me its just beta and things will change. Some will tell me i just don't like car games. Some people will tell me I'm stupid. But meh. This game is in beta not alpha, betas change, add more content, but unlikely any gameplay changes. This game isn't really a car game, it comes close but it doesn't deliver(like a pizza guy that drives to your house, but doesnt bring the pizza to to your door). And I've never been one to argue my stupidity.
What would really make this game a success imho, is to take people out of their cars, and put a gun in their hand. With a name change it'd be a real great game. But currently the people it'd hope to attract imho won't really fall into this games actual gameplay. And the ones that would like the gameplay probable won't be attracted to the style.... ionno... just my opinion.
and to note, its not that im against a car mmo, i think itd be great. And im not saying this just because i don't like the idea of a car mmo. But in this specific case the idea and the execution are completely different
Comments
Think I know what you mean, and agree completely. I was looking forward to a car game, but AA just isn't. As another poster put it, a car game where the driving doesn't matter.. They'd have been better off going all out on the vehicular combat angle, or ditching it entirely. It'd make an interesting post-apocalyptic RPG, without (player-driven) vehicles. It'd certainly be better for attracting the sci-fi RPG crowd it seems geared for. It's just being in-between which just doesn't work for me, either.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Lol, I see what you guys are saying, but I don't know. The cars work pretty well for me. It was probably a monumental task trying to get all the physics to work properly, and for what it's worth, I think they've done pretty well.
I do agree that aside from the physics engine, this game doesn't really "feel" different from other standard MMO's. The driving doesn't seem to have a huge inpact on gameplay like you would think, and in that sense I'm a little disappointed. Others seem to like that very fact though, so whatever.
If I had one big suggestion for this game at this point it would be "give me more". I want bigger numbers, higher hitpoints, louder sounds, more infantry, more explosions, more enemy vehicles, and faster spawns (like old times). I want to feel so exhausted when I'm done in the wastes that I CAN'T WAIT to hit a city, just to relax for a minute. I want my car to be able to soak up, and deal out damage that no human avatar would ever survive. Maybe this would make driving an auto feel more necessary, I dunno.
In several ways, it does.
Most MMOGs are designed around even numbered combat vs mobs. Fighting multiple mobs usually turns into a bad situation very fast on most other MMOGs unless, of course, they "con" a lower level.
Regarding the topic:
Removing all vehicles from the game completely would bring it closer to yet another EQ-clone... just slap pointy ears on the Mutants and yer done.
You'd also be stripping out a lot of the meta aspects of the game that make gameplay fun:
- ramp jumps
- plowing down a fence or through buoldings
- rolling over rubble and through debris vs... walking around stuff
- weapons placement/use (of course you could always slap a Ziploc of oil on the butt of your human, I guess)
- customized character looks - If a human avatar, your character would look like his gear, so if the red gear is the best, everyone will be dressed inthe same red gear. "So you can let people dye it!" Really? See: EQ, DAoC, WOW, etc regarding "unique look". It's not that it can't be done, it's that it currently doesn't seem to have a good enough return to warrant the work required to do it righ in a 3D environment.
The cars add a lot more to the options and dynamics of gameplay above and beyond the core MMOG design.
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It doesn't feel like it to me. I think my car has a couple hundred hitpoints (not sure right off hand as I can't login), but that's the exact same amount as a regular avatar would have at my level. There are more mobs to fight, but they gernerally hit for less hp...it's just a different design.
I was suggesting a change that would be just purely cosmetic to the player. Internally it could run the same, but instead of us seeing the single digit damage rolls, I'd rather assign these small rolls on output a different display; beef them up into the hundreds and thousands so that's what the end users see. All this does is give us players the illusion that we're REALLY ripping some stuff apart.
The joystick input should have much finer increments, with an adjustable neutral zone in the center so high quality joysticks can actually bring their accuracy to the game. As it is now, it feels like a real car with lots of play in the steering: Difficult to control and not as much fun as it could be.
I think this should not be too hard to fix. Never mind the keyboard, that is an "all or nothing" input device which probably cannot be turned into an accurate steering at all.
As a second step, aiming the guns should take a bit more skill. If not through direct, manual aiming, maybe with a combat model where keeping your car steadily pointed at the enemy increases your chances to hit.
The rest of the game seems more or less standard for a MMORPG. There is not much of a community feeling on the servers yet, but that may be due to the low player numbers.
I have to say that I'm loving the AA beta so far.
Sure it has many of the usual MMO features and needs quite a bit more tweaks to make it finished, but it is fun and not at all hardcore. It probably won't appeal to the powergamer or hardcore crowd, as it doesn't seem to have enough depth for that (so far from what little I have seen), but it is great fun splatting soldiers on foot & explosions & destructible scenery everywhere.
I expect more car customisation options for retail as that will be very important, but unlike alot of betas I've tried the dev's on the AA boards respond well to critics and suggestions to improve their game.
I would prefer twitch based combat, as mentioned above aim your own guns for best position, but it's still working great as it is now for me.
Are you saying that it would be more enjoyable/satisfying if they added an extra set of zeroes across the board on everything? In that light, you could just shut off your floating damage numbers and you would achieve the same effect by just watching the health bars. A hit for 25% damage is 25% damage, no matter whether that number is 5 or 500.
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Lol, yeah as silly as it sounds Lynx that is what I am saying. If you go look at the RFOnline videos, one of the things I think makes that game "feel" cool, are the huge weapons, and even bigger numbers. Seeing multiple hits for 10,000 and 8,500 just has a wow factor appeal. Hitting for 5 and 10 gets the job done just the same, but is missing that intangible.
I would also suggest redoing some of the resist and deflection calculations to make things easier to hit. i'd be interested in seeing less miss..miss...miss..miss, but at this point, it's way to late. All of the PvP is balanced around this design, and all of the loot is too.
Personnally I prefer small numbers, however...
I think he has a point. Even if me I prefer smaller numbers, I can deal with bigger with a shrug, reading 5, 500 or 5 000 won't change much for me. Younger players can't help but find a low number less appealing.
A 10 year old playing would rather see 500 or 5 000 than 5. Adults gamers may prefer 5, but I doubt it could mean a difference in gameplay enjoyment for an adult, while for a kid, I am pretty sure big numbers can be better.
Anyway, don't mind me, like I said, I prefer small numbers myself.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well I tend to prefer BIG fat numbers and I can sympathise with size12. 5, no matter how old you are does not sound as exciting as 500!
I remember the old days in AO, it was always pure joy to see a beam wielding tank crit for over 1200dmg or an agent pull of a crit aimed shot, it just wouldnt have been the same had it been scaled down.
1's 5's 15's?! pah gimme 100's 300's gimme 1,000,000's!!!!
The number thing doesn'r brother me much so if it would help you guys I vote for it. As for getting rid of the cars.. Walker Assault just sounds wrong
Someone was talking about trying up stuff in a big way? attack stuff one or more lvls below you.. loads of fun wiping out whole Corp bases on I80 solo at lvl 20..
Does anyone remember Earth & Beyond? I liked that game but had a similar feel that there should have been something for the humaniod avatars to do aside from walk, shop and pose.
Sectorbob
currently
Reorai (WoW- Kargath)
Reorai Quickshaft (GuildWars)
Reorai (AutoAssault- Breakdown server)
I can understand that view, as it happened with arcade games in the 80s. 5000 was a decent score, 10,000 meant you were good, and 50,000 or so was some great gaming! Then a lot of games started shifting, once the ideas were growing stale -- 2 shoot-em-ups next to each other. One gives you 5 points for each foo and the other gives you 300! One you end with a score of 3,000, but the other lands you 180,000!
Which game attracts more people initially? The second
Which game do people keep coming back to over time? The one with better gameplay.
What level are the RFO characters in the video you watched? Were they doing that out the gate, as mid-ranged characters, or capped characters?
The problem with huge numbers is this:
- If you do 5000 damage at level 1, most people would be unhappy to be doing the same amount at level 40.
- If you do 10 damage at level 1 and 5000 at level 40, then you've just made a game where he who levels first wins - a game where a lower level player's tactics and ability mean nothing because he can neither sustain the exponentially high damage, nor deal enough damage to compete.
Once involved in the game, people would easily see through arbitrarily inflated numbers, also.
Is seeing 5000 pop on your screen a lot cooler than, say... 8? Oh hell yeah
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