What is really needed to improve INF

First I will list the problems then a solution that will fix them all. ; )

Ok the main problem I have and so do new players to the mod
is getting killed then having to sit out and watch which is VERY BORING
for newbies since they get killed so quick. It is boring for me as well
cause I live only slightly longer. On BIG maps forget it. yawn city
waiting 15 minutes. (the sub map) tonight I was able to get three
new players to try it out and ALL three of them said exactly what I just
said above. (This is stand off on SOB btw)

Next is the team balance thing. Everyone likes to be on the winning team and after a few rounds one team has many more players and thus we have to bitch and moan to get players to switch to even it up.

Next is the getting killed while respawning crap. This down
right SUCKS and what is worse you are now forced to SIT AND WATCH.
Again this makes the game boring and frustrating.

Ok now for a fix that covers all the above problems.

I would LOVE to see a REINFORCEMENTS pool that a team shares.
An example is say each team has 8 players. the round starts
with each team getting 16 lives. this means the round starts
and each team subtracts 8 from their starting 16 REINFORCEMENTS pool
This leaves 8 lives. Now the newbie gets killed respawns WITH OUT WEAPONS etc.. and uses one of the lives from the pool. Maybe I make a
stupid mistake half way through the sub map. If their are any lives
left in the pool I would respawn weaponless of course. This would make
the game very much more enjoyable for a lot of players. Not to mention
I would like to get back in there and GET REVENGE on the player that
took me out : )

As for one team, as an exampl , having 8 players and the other having 4 players this would mean our team with just 4 players gets MORE respawns from the REINFORCEMENTS pool. In fact I would rather be on the 4 players team knowing I could get at least 1 or 2 lives from the reinforcement pool where as the 8 player team does NOT have as many
lives to go around.

as for getting killed while respawning that still would suck but at least
you will be right back in the fray and not have to watch for 10 minutes.

comments????


thanks

Russ

I think the general idea is good. I'm also curious as to what Warren will think. It is very annoying to get killed right off, and re-spawn kills are the worst.

Ok, guess I should respond! Of course it sucks having to sit through a match after getting killed right away. This can easily subtract from the whole experience. The idea of having a 'life' pool is good- however this mod is for realism. I know it's sometimes hard to make real life fun, but at this time our team is shooting for the realistic side of things. So when you make a mistake, get killed, and don't come back, then that's a part of the 'real life' experience. Newbies would probably enjoy playing botmatch more until they get better at dealing with our weapons and tactics. Or they can play online, get whacked early, and observe the other players to see how they move around a map. You'll notice how they creep in and out of shadows, without making a noise, work as a team, share weapons they find with their team, don't always run out in the open and expect 3 rounds from an M16 to only slightly damage them. The Infiltration Standoff experience is a lot different then the standard Unreal deathmatch- Classic will follow this suit too with version 3.0- as will any other game mode we have. Catalyst and I are pushing Infiltration to be as realistic as we can because frankly, we like that style. As much as the sci-fi genre is cool, from movies to games, I would rather watch/play a realistic combat situation no matter what time period. We design Infiltration around what our team wants to see- and we take input from the community in case they think of stuff we didn't- but in the case of having more lives, I'm going to have to go with a no.

Now, getting telefragged REALLY sucks. That's something we're trying to do away with from a code standpoint because it shouldn't be happening! Having been through it a few times myself online, I know exactly how frustrating it is.

Sitting for 15 or even 30 minutes through a large map while it's a 1 on 1 situation can be increadibly frustrating too. But it's the downside of realism. I usually sit back and watch the two players try and hunt each other down- see what I can learn from them, if anything. I know this may not be what you want to hear or see for our mod, but at the moment, this won't change. It would of course be great if there were 4 or 5 good servers running Infiltration so impatient people could go join somewhere else instead. Hopefully this will be possible after UT comes out.

As far as team balance goes, were working on possible solutions for this. What would be nice is having a server-controlled option as to whether or not the players are automatically placed on a team.. this way good players could still go up against a large crowd if they wanted too or there won't be more than a 1 person unbalance.

We take all good comments/criticism seriously, so don't feel like your comment wasn't taken that way. If you've got more, we'd love to hear 'em! Especially when you provide your own solutions..

Ok there is one thing you seem to have over looked.
realism is great but FUN is better because this is a game
after all and is NOT real life. I'm all for realism when it
comes to the the combat itself, weapons etc.. but
reinforcements are real. Being an ARMY vet myself I know what
supply is all about. (be it troops or fuel or ammo) In fact re supply
is ALWAYS more important than any one battle. So I would have to
to disagree with you say reinforcements is NOT realism. In fact
it is more real than how you have now where players die but are brought
back to life for another round and another then another. At least
reinforcements explains where all the lives come from.

Also it would eliminate the need for so many rounds and the fact
that the winning team of that round gets all the weapons and kills
the respawners. You talked about telefrags with I never mentioned.
I was talking about being killed by the OTHER TEAM on your FIRST
spawn in the round. That is not the same thing as being telefragged
by your own team mate in the same spawn location.


Of course you could make it a server/admin option
and see what the PLAYERS do. I was able to get three
normal unreal players to try out INF the other night and
ALL THREE said what I just told you above and in the other
post. Which is WHY I decided to even post since we lost three
players in one night. I love INF in general but I feel something
has to be done to keep the player involvement at a MAX BUT make the
combat itself the most real as you can.

Then you get the best of both worlds.


Later


Russ

Russ,

I can see where you're coming from, but the concept has some flaws I'd like to address.

What is this reinforcements idea but just an excuse to respawn? All this would really do is drag out rounds longer because you have to kill the other team twice. And why not 3 times? or 4? You can see what I'm getting at...if you are going to have this at all, you might as well have no rounds at all and tons of respawning (reinforcing) to make it one constant battle...maybe this is what you want, I don't know. You simply can't have more player involvement and still have our elimination gameplay style, unless you come up with a whole new concept. Perhaps we will include this idea as the standard deathmatch mode in 3.0...

Thanks for the suggestion.

yes you are correct but the idea would be to
eliminate the rounds. There would be no rounds
which is totally unrealistic.

There would be only 1 battle with reinforcements
which is more true to real life.

No intermissions. No winning the round team STEALING
all the weapons and making any further rounds pointless.

If you are killed your kills/points would be wiped clean.
So yeah you respawn and keep fighting (YEAH!!) but you have no weapons
(just pistol) and all your kills are deleted just as if you were fresh
reinforcements. It is NOT just a respawn to keep playing thing I'm trying
to get across. The incentive to STAY alive is the LOSS of kills
and you get to keep your weapons else like you said it would be an
endless respawn thing.

Note if you did this you could also have MUCH more intense
goals and involved campaigns. As is well know the ATTACKERS
in real war need about 3 to 1 advantage to win the battle.

Well with reinforcement you could have dug in defender
and in the open attacker maps since the attackers
could send waves of troops. (defenders would get no
reinforcements) think of all the things you
good do you can't now because the mod is more like a GANG WAR
mod than a true MILITARY mod.

Here is an e-mail of 1 of the now 4 players I have gotten
to try INF (note all 4 players said the same thing give or take
below and what I have said in o these post up to now and all 4
have gone back to real_ctf and normal unreal etc...)

********************************************
Tried it this afternoon, honestly don't see the attraction. If you are
telefragged when you originally spawned, then you are killed by the
opposite team before you can get anything other than a pistol. Once a
side has won, their having weapons from the get go makes it an impossible
situation they just travel as a pack and kill everyone.
**********************************************

I'm posting this because it shows the flaw in the intermission round
after round concept. It should be 1 battle lasting 20 minutes with
reinforcements not this intermission round after round stuff.
(yes this is just my opinion) : )

This would also solve the yawn factor which even the hard core INFers
last night were complaining about. Last night in 20 minutes
I played all of 2. why ? because the other team killed me before
I even finished spawning for that round and other rounds before I even
took 10 steps I was blasted because they had all the weapons and took
our weapons during intermission leaving me with a pistol only.

something needs to be done. IMHO of course : )

thanks

Russ

I gotta say that I like Standoff as it is right now. Okay, it's annoying to wait after you're killed but the trick is to survive and kill the others
And if the map is too big, just leave it and go to a game with CQB.
Easy.

1) All the trouble with missing weapons will be solved with the loadout (se the roadmap).

2) Infiltration's scope is skirmishes not full blown battle. The gangs could also be referred to as squats. I've heard it's quiet common in the military these dayes /infopop/emoticons\icon_wink.gif.

3) The Infiltration team can't bee responsible for all of the layout in custom maps. Inspire the mappers with ideas of the map you would like.

4) It sucks to wait. I have a plan /infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif If the purpose in standoff changed from annihilation to do-better: When the first player is killed, there are 5 minutes left of the round. Based upon survivors, health-of-survivers and critical-ammo-level points are calculated. This means that annihilation may not be the best way, you also have to get the boy/girls home. It's rare that whole units are obliterated.

A shot of mine, trying to save Infiltration from bankruptcy and heathenism. /infopop/emoticons\icon_wink.gif

[This message has been edited by Billdog (edited 09-12-1999).]

I'd like to reiterate one of targ's points. I am new to infiltration (have played lots of RealCTF) and found many of the games on SOB (standoff) to be really frustrating. It doesn't bother me so much that you only have a single life. It is respawning after a round only to get killed in 15 secs because you only have a pistol and the other team has been loading up on weps during the intermission. This is an extreme disincentive to playing the game. You shouldn't just get served up like fresh meat at the beginning of a round. Perhaps this is just poor level design, but a modification of the rules could help-- for instance targ's idea about reinforcements which would make the effect of such early kills less catastrophic.

4) It sucks to wait. I have a plan If the purpose in standoff changed from annihilation to do-better: When the first player is killed, there are 5 minutes left of the round. Based upon survivors, health-of-survivers and critical-ammo-level points are calculated. This means that annihilation may not be the best way, you also have to get the boy/girls home. It's rare that whole units are obliterated.
***************************************************


Indeed. I wish each round was 5 minutes NO MATTER what.
Then it would rock! The team would win like you said based
on points.

I also wish there was no 5 second intermission.
Just start the next round. No need to give the winning
team time to grab all the weapons. 5 seconds
isn't long enough to take a leak so might as well get rid
of it. : )

later

Russ

This is an extreme disincentive to playing the game. You shouldn't just get served up like fresh meat at the beginning of a round. Perhaps this is just poor level design, but a modification of the rules could help-- for instance targ's idea about reinforcements which would make the effect of such early kills less catastrophic.

************************************************

yeah that is my biggest complaint. On the prison map the winning
team KNOWS the other team is hurting for weapons so they
BLITZ and wipe everyone out.

Arcturas likes to do that so much he runs up the scond floor
of our cell jumps over the railing and kills everyone standing there
waiting for a real weapon. LOL


later

Russ

OK now for my $.02

Warren is right the realism is what INF is about.

The telefrags when starting the round/game is a major problem. One thing to check is are the map makers putting enough playerstarts in the maps? It should be a minimum of 8 per team. You can add more and it would probably be better. More spots=less chance of the engine dropping you and another player in the same spot at the same time.

The other thing that I notice is that the weapons/ammo loadout is pretty slim in some maps. One map even has PISTOL powerups placed in it!! Why?? In INF we are all born with pistols in our hands. In most others you spawn for a new round and the weapon powerups are taken already usually by a teammate who already has other powerups also. I know that it is possible and even preferable to carry and assortment of hardware to use depending on the situation. But that will leave you sitting there with only the pistol which is for the most part worthless.

While it possible in realife to carry more than one weapon and even preferable I would like to see the code modified to drop the current weapon (if not a pistol) and pick up the powerup which you just ran over. At least this way new spawns would get the benefit of a better weapon. If the player only had a pistol then nothing would be dropped.

The only other thing is the walking speed. I know for a fact if you're getting your butt shot at you move somewhat faster than a dull plodding walk! How about a run speed? Or if there is one I sure have missed it.

IndiQa

Version 2.5 already sports a quick intermission- it basically lasts just as long as it takes to respawn everyone. For the weapon problem, if map makers are creating levels for StandOff in mind, put the majority of weapons at each side's spawning point. Then when everyone respawns, the losing team has a chance to change the balance of play. And since the name of the game is teamwork, make sure you spread the wealth! Don't grab all the weapons when 2 others on your team need a good weapon. This is an easy way to solve the problem, although with version 3.0 it shouldn't be a problem at all since weapons won't appear in the levels unless they come from a dead guy or your buddy tosses you one.

3.0 will also sport a weapon/ammo limit based on the amount of weight you can carry.

The running speed is set to be slower and more strategic so you can't get away with running out in the open without someone covering you. 3.0 will allow for bursts of short speeds that will decrease your stamina and after a certain amount of time you won't be able to run anymore until your stamina increases.

Concerning the StandOff model of play, it may not be perfect, but it's a lot more fun than many gamestyles I've played- simply because Catalyst and I have formed it around what we want to see. If other people enjoy that, then that's great! The game is always undergoing some form of improvement. We'll try to make it better because I understand the frustration, but at some level you have to draw the line otherwise it's just a game of team deathmatch with modern day weapons. In regards to calling it 'reinforcements,' that just proves my point even if it's a limited number of respawns. It's not that there's no realism in it, because you're right- you wouldn't send soldiers into combat with no backup.. but on the other hand, we're looking at it more as a couple of spec ops teams duking it out with no support.. and this will continue with version 3 when we have different classes of characters- then we're talking Spec Ops, terrorists, militias, bodygaurds, etc- all of which have limited to no support during combat. (besides maybe air support) Don't get me wrong, I can't begin to tell you how awesome it would be to have a full out war with 50-100 players on one team battling it out with tanks, soldiers, heavy guns, snipers, etc. Something to that scale is too impossible right now with the level of detail Unreal has. But to help alleviate some of the headache of StandOff that lasts 30 minutes because of the size of the level, we'll look into a server option to have a time limit- IF we do that, there are plenty of options as to how it's done- for instance, it could be a standard thing that once there is only 1 player left on a team, a 5 to 10 minute counter could start- but again, we need to draw a line somewhere.

How about this...

When you die you're put into a 'pool of re-enforcements. But you don't re-spawn right away. There would be a time limit on the pool. For instance, the pool would have a 5 minute time limit, (maybee 3 minutes) and everyone that died during the game would go into the pool and when that 5 minutes was up the pool would be emptied and the re-enforcements would all re-spawn. The way to win would be kill the opposing team before their pool is emptied, thus letting the re-enforcements on the field. Although there would have to be a limit to the # of re-spawns.

This would make it fun for everyone and it's still very realistic. (Well, kind of.) Personally, I don't have much of a problem with INF and I like it the way it is, but this does sound like a cool idea. (Unfortunately the only way to tell if it's as good as it sounds is to acually play it) Maybee just make another class of game, "re-enforcements" or something. But really, if Warren and Catlyst don't like the idea or don't want to do it, they don't have to. Their the ones doing all the work.

I love INF and any road you choose to go is cool with me. Keep up the good work guys!

Quite frankly, I love the concept pretty much as it is. I thought that the point was that these two squads group together, and use real-life squad tactics to try to obliterate the enemy; and I think it gets very exciting when there's one player who slowly takes down three opponents.

I have always despised time limits, as I am the kind that would sneak around in the foliage and pick off enemies at opportunites, then disappear again. I've always wanted a game like this where patience and cunning are the tools; otherwise you might well play quake and go empty automatic rocket firing minigun clips into each others faces, with only one standing (but with 10% of my physical well being left! Whoohoo!)

I was excited to see Infilitration; to see that there were others who are trying to approach this. And if there are only a few people willing to sneak around for 20 mins or risk having to watch OTHERS do so, well, I'll do everything I can to be there.

I want to see the realism continue such as it is. I want people to play cautiously as you would in real life; not barelling around corners spraying since if you die you will just appear in a cloud of fairy dust again anyway. I want to get beyond just caring about that rifle that was so hard to get.

Maybe this could be helped by having you spawn with weapons depending on a class you choose in your player prefs. Then the only weapons would be those on dead bodies. ("Dude, I found one of those m16 clip trees man!").

Also maybe appropriately up the damage of a pistol. Hell, I'd think you should be equally afraid of a 9mm and a 5.56mm slug. I think that the main advantage of the rifles should be range and bullet capacity/rate, not damage percentile per se.

If you DID *shudder* make the big time limit bell in the sky, or an any case where team victory would be based on points, you could make it so that a wounded player would be incapacited, so they wouldnt necessarily count towards the goal but couldn't do anything. (Hey, you try to run with a gutshot).

Anyway, heres to realism. On another note Some friends and I have actually almost fully conceptualized at least an online ultra-realistic shooter game based on mercenaries, also with some role-playing elements. I've heard it sorta sounds similar to a cross between Ultima Online (never played it myself tho), and a post-modern FPS. But none of us are talented programmers, so if anyone is interested in pursuing this possibly (maybe a pipe dream) you can contact me at spunky@ipeg.com or ICQ#4655666

Leave Standoff alone! I love deathmatch, especially the insanity of Q3test, but standoff is its polar opposite. *No time limits*, stealth and strategy, and only one life...it's near perfect apart from the respawn deaths and weapon plundering.

I still like the idea of reinforcements tho, it'd make a unique infiltration team deathmatch mode.

I, as a senior, don't like the idea of reinforcements.
In 2.5 you'll still have to find weapons (what is no problem in my optinion), btw. 2.5 WILL rock, I've played a beta version. Fantastic work, in V3 you'll have a loadout screen for your equipment (read the roadmap) so this discussion is useless.
After 2.5 there won't be a version before V3 (it's for UT)