os][ris said:
At no point should a player have to guess where his opponent is, unless he's behind an object i.e. wall. On grendel, if i'm looking at the lg from lift near the amp i will NOT be able to see the player, thast a BAD sign. Actually i can hardly see him WITH brightskins, thats how jacked up scale and lighting is in this game. I'm not going to get all technical and breakdown the difference between ut99 and ut2k4. All i know is that in ut i had no problem seeing my opponents however in 2k4 i have to guess where they are(pre-brightskins), esp on big maps. I shouldn't have to have my gamma settings at a ridiculous level either just to be able to see, come on.
I know some games have a setup feature where it helps you adjust the gamma or brightness settings so that you wont have a hard time. It displays an image or object with a black background and tells you to adjust your monitor until you can see correctly. If a gamma setting is what Epic suggests, they should add it during setup or in game menu somewhere.
Sijik said:
Am I the only one left who thinks that seeing your opponents, having a good eye and sharp preception is just as much a skill as moving or aiming well? Bright-skins take one essential skill in the game and do it for you, I consider it not too much different from using an aimbot or binding shock combos. It's a skill to be developed, like any other, and bright-skins does it for you...
I agree with both you and osiris at the same time. I feel UT is all about the "Come out and fight..." mentality Osiris is talking about and I realize that locating and identifying your opponent is certainly a skill to have. However, I feel that that kind of "picking out the bad guy among the brush" combat should be left for more realistic games like CS or the Battlefield games.
UT has always had the mentality that this is a spectator sport with lots of glitz, pyrotechnics and action (things to keep the audience entertained). This is why I am glad Epic is getting back to the root idea of "in your face" combat. Already they have addressed many of the issues in the different gametypes (hoverboards in ONS, etc).
If you take a look at some of the super fun console games in our past you will notice that characters normally had rather bright skins so it was easy to differentiate between different opponents and between different teams. The focus was mostly on cutting to the chase and battling it out. In Mortal Kombat, there was no "hide and seek"....it was simply beat the tar out of the other guy. Another example could be Super Smash Brothers... beat the crackers out of each other and then knock em off the level. It was pure fun because anyone could pick up those games and just have at it. They were pretty simple and you didn't have to be super leet to play.
I have felt UT is kind of the same way. Make it so everyone can play pretty easily to just jump in have some fragging good fun. None of this "snipefestcentralfrom500yardsin7feetofgrasswherethefarkisthebastard?!?!"
Im not really for artificially bright skins per se...but I dont see why they shouldn't be as visible as they were in UT99, at least. The tournament encourages in your face combat and they would want their fans to be able to keep track of the action. So I think it would make sense that the armor and jumpsuits, etc would be somewhat bright....kind of like seeing the uniforms a sports team wears or the jumpsuit NASCAR drivers wear.
Sir_Brizz said:
I don't know why you shouldn't have to guess where people are sometimes. That's just people thinking that every scenario in the game should be identical to every other scenario. Why can't we have some diversity, and dare I say STRATEGY, in UT? Why can't I take one route to the flag room that is high but well lit and easy to pick people off from, or a deep canyon that is dark and shadowy, but easy for people to rain down rockets and other miserable things in? Different routes in CTF with brightskins on makes little difference as far as strategy goes, and more to do with getting that "lucky pass" through the enemies to your allies. I think that adding more possibilities for strategy is a good thing, but that's obviously not a "pro" enough opinion.
And to address Sir Brizz's concerns, I think part of the problem is that most of the newer levels were too large without many small passageways. In a lot of the UT99 CTF maps you could lose a guy because the corridors were short and plentiful making it hard for someone to know exactly which one you took. In 2k3 and 2k4 the levels got MUCH larger and didn't have many tight quarter areas (if any). So I would fault level design more than bright skins on that one.
So far from the videos I think this has been mostly addressed. I think it is still somewhat dark but that could easily be attributed to the low quality of the videos/recordings.
One final note. I can tell that my vision (or perhaps reflexes) isn't what it used to be and I am only 25! It is nice to go back to UT and know I still have a fair chance of taking a guy out because I rarely have to guess if that is a static mesh or a character. When 2k4 came out I felt like the worst player ever because the graphics went up so much and the complexity of all the levels/characters went up so much that it made it difficult to sort out the goods from the fuzz. I felt like I had to squint a lot (especially when they were far away) just to see them. Perhaps that has more to do with the larger levels....whatever it is, it has made the game more difficult for those of us who aren't super leet or at the top of our "game".
I just want to jump into a game and have a decent chance of fraging. It's as simple as that. I get tired of people always having to be the absolute best. Cut out the competitive crap and just have freakin fun playing the game already.
I wish people would just stop treating it like some be-all, end-all status symbol.
Just frag already.