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The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.
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Myrdraal Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 4:05 pm Posts: 871	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. It's been said for months how T:A is too offense biased. They even changed and killed the old Bella Omega, the only map that had a semi-inside~ish flag because cowboys found it hard to cap, even though they had a good in and out route. But it would require a minimal team effort to get the flag out, so it got trashed. Defense in this game is an exercise in frustration. It's not enough that the flag is opened on 300+ sky routes on every d* map or that base assets have no shielding and are all dependent on the gen to run, they also had to make the half-a-map-away spammable HoF swattable as a pesky fly by cappers themselves and give grabbers Reach on top of it. Defense teamwork? Right. Defense teamwork is what you need to actually have hope to stop a good solo capper. This is totally messed up. Put 2 of them and a single harrasser, and no amount of defense will keep the flag home. If you're lucky, you might have a great sentinel or shriker on your team to stop the occasional grab, else it's just another landslide or standoff fest. The only times you notice a good defense stacking is when no one on your pub team has the brains to harrass a minimum and stop to shoot a few discs or mortars and undo it all. The only long games I have seen are those were I stand on my stand with no cappers incoming, but see a steam of enemies going for the gen room, because it's the only place you can find the action of old reliably. In this game, a single player can undo half a team's work in seconds. But they often don't even bother, because it usually can be ignored anyway. I love the game, I'll always be a Tribes junky, but d* has it missed the teamwork mark by a frigging mile. On a side note, FF ON no strikes servers are a blast to play on. If the game had been developed with FF in mind, we might have had maps that require a minimum of strategy. _________________ Tribes:Welfare. Where every map is designed to give away grabs to poor cappers so they can feel special.
Wed Apr 25, 2012 1:37 pm

ctrl-k Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:48 am Posts: 89	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. I find that most of the time it isn't one player undoing the efforts of half the enemy team, but rather 90 % of people on the server doing absolutely nothing that is of any use for their team. It then comes down to the few individuals that actually know how the game works. It isn't 16 vs. 16. It's 1 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 2. If there are enough people that know how to play, pubs can be pretty fun. Without Shrikes or good Sents there is an offensive bias, but it isn't necessarily all that bad.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:25 am

irimi Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:37 am Posts: 478	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. ctrl-k wrote: I find that most of the time it isn't one player undoing the efforts of half the enemy team, but rather 90 % of people on the server doing absolutely nothing that is of any use for their team. It then comes down to the few individuals that actually know how the game works. It isn't 16 vs. 16. It's 1 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 2. So much this.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:47 pm

TeaL3af Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 7:30 pm Posts: 767	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. ThyMushroom wrote: Thread originator prefers the company of gentlemen. Somehow that manages to sound more homophobic than the fad you are parodying.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:49 pm

Sir0t Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:46 pm Posts: 15	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. The game does a bad job of communicating what actions actually contribute to the victory of the team. The role divisions are not that great either. Pathfinders being able to cap and chase is not good. Too crucial roles in the game are being handled by one class and worse yet, nearly exclusively by the one class.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:42 pm

croyolacrowns Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2011 12:07 am Posts: 175	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. Sir0t wrote: The game does a bad job of communicating what actions actually contribute to the victory of the team. The role divisions are not that great either. Pathfinders being able to cap and chase is not good. Too crucial roles in the game are being handled by one class and worse yet, nearly exclusively by the one class. This is why CaH is supplanting CTF as everyone's favorite game mode. _________________ Disco Bru should have stayed inside. Oh yeah!
Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:50 pm

Mokona Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 10:05 am Posts: 15	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. ctrl-k wrote: I find that most of the time it isn't one player undoing the efforts of half the enemy team, but rather 90 % of people on the server doing absolutely nothing that is of any use for their team. It then comes down to the few individuals that actually know how the game works. It isn't 16 vs. 16. It's 1 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 2. If there are enough people that know how to play, pubs can be pretty fun. Without Shrikes or good Sents there is an offensive bias, but it isn't necessarily all that bad. New players learn pretty fast that capping the flag isnt their job, if they're not PTH. Neither is chasing, Im afraid. Personally, if the flag carrier isnt coming my way, I dont bother. Most people do try to make themselfs useful by attacking the enemy base, as defending can be pretty f***'d up annoying sometimes, whats with the constant bombardment. Taking the generator out is the next most logical choise. Once its down, you can start helping the PTHs to clear out the flag stand if they for some reason are unable to do it on their own, I mean..this is no TF2. You dont have to clear the flag room for cappers nor escort them. Once you get alot of people to defend the flag stand the games can be pretty neat. Small bormbardments gets less bothering and with more people theres a less chance for PTH to find that lucky timing when defenders dont have enough time to react to him.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:26 pm

irimi Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:37 am Posts: 478	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. Sir0t wrote: The game does a bad job of communicating what actions actually contribute to the victory of the team. The role divisions are not that great either. Pathfinders being able to cap and chase is not good. Too crucial roles in the game are being handled by one class and worse yet, nearly exclusively by the one class. Chalk one more thing up to the broken class system in the first place. Tribes was never designed with class systems in mind. The mentality that there should be 9 classes and that all of them should be equally useful is fundamentally broken.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:42 pm

SexualHarasmentPanda Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:15 pm Posts: 22	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. 5/0 games are a result of people not wanting to play defense, not simply pathfinders. You really need to work on your critical thinking skills.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:47 pm

irimi Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:37 am Posts: 478	Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game. SexualHarasmentPanda wrote: 5/0 games are a result of people not wanting to play defense, not simply pathfinders. You really need to work on your critical thinking skills. But it's much easier to pick on one thing to blame for everything, funnel every single example through that narrow focus, dismiss or ignore every counterexample and counterargument, and call it a day. I can agree with the notion that the game favors offense over defense (and honestly I'd rather have games end in 10 minute landslides rather than 40 minute turtles), but to then go from that and say, "therefore Pathfinders are ruining the game" is absolutely ridiculous. Frostiken wrote: With a massive bias towards offense on both sides, this means that the deciding factor is whether or not there's good flag grabbers, and all it takes is one cheesedick who loves to end rounds in less than 10 minutes to ruin the game at that point. If one team has more than one, you can forget it. "AIDS completely breaks down your immune system, and all it takes is some jackass flu virus to kill you in less than 10 minutes. Nerf the flu virus." Hate to break it to you, but in the scenario you describe, the game was already ruined before the "cheesedick" decided to cap the flag 5 times in a row.
Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:50 pm

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The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

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Myrdraal

Joined: Mon Nov 01, 2010 4:05 pm
Posts: 871

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

It's been said for months how T:A is too offense biased. They even changed and killed the old Bella Omega, the only map that had a semi-inside~ish flag because cowboys found it hard to cap, even though they had a good in and out route. But it would require a minimal team effort to get the flag out, so it got trashed.

Defense in this game is an exercise in frustration. It's not enough that the flag is opened on 300+ sky routes on every d*** map or that base assets have no shielding and are all dependent on the gen to run, they also had to make the half-a-map-away spammable HoF swattable as a pesky fly by cappers themselves and give grabbers Reach on top of it. Defense teamwork? Right. Defense teamwork is what you need to actually have hope to stop a good solo capper. This is totally messed up. Put 2 of them and a single harrasser, and no amount of defense will keep the flag home. If you're lucky, you might have a great sentinel or shriker on your team to stop the occasional grab, else it's just another landslide or standoff fest. The only times you notice a good defense stacking is when no one on your pub team has the brains to harrass a minimum and stop to shoot a few discs or mortars and undo it all. The only long games I have seen are those were I stand on my stand with no cappers incoming, but see a steam of enemies going for the gen room, because it's the only place you can find the action of old reliably.

In this game, a single player can undo half a team's work in seconds. But they often don't even bother, because it usually can be ignored anyway.

I love the game, I'll always be a Tribes junky, but d*** has it missed the teamwork mark by a frigging mile.

On a side note, FF ON no strikes servers are a blast to play on. If the game had been developed with FF in mind, we might have had maps that require a minimum of strategy.

_________________
Tribes:Welfare. Where every map is designed to give away grabs to poor cappers so they can feel special.

Wed Apr 25, 2012 1:37 pm

ctrl-k

Joined: Thu Sep 15, 2011 9:48 am
Posts: 89

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

I find that most of the time it isn't one player undoing the efforts of half the enemy team, but rather 90 % of people on the server doing absolutely nothing that is of any use for their team. It then comes down to the few individuals that actually know how the game works. It isn't 16 vs. 16. It's 1 vs. 3 or 4 vs. 2.

If there are enough people that know how to play, pubs can be pretty fun. Without Shrikes or good Sents there is an offensive bias, but it isn't necessarily all that bad.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 9:25 am

irimi

Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:37 am
Posts: 478

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

ctrl-k wrote:

So much this.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:47 pm

TeaL3af

Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2011 7:30 pm
Posts: 767

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

ThyMushroom wrote:

Thread originator prefers the company of gentlemen.

Somehow that manages to sound more homophobic than the fad you are parodying.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 3:49 pm

Sir0t

Joined: Sun Apr 15, 2012 4:46 pm
Posts: 15

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

The game does a bad job of communicating what actions actually contribute to the victory of the team. The role divisions are not that great either. Pathfinders being able to cap and chase is not good. Too crucial roles in the game are being handled by one class and worse yet, nearly exclusively by the one class.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:42 pm

croyolacrowns

Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2011 12:07 am
Posts: 175

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

Sir0t wrote:

This is why CaH is supplanting CTF as everyone's favorite game mode.

_________________
Disco Bru should have stayed inside. Oh yeah!

Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:50 pm

Mokona

Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 10:05 am
Posts: 15

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

ctrl-k wrote:

New players learn pretty fast that capping the flag isnt their job, if they're not PTH. Neither is chasing, Im afraid. Personally, if the flag carrier isnt coming my way, I dont bother. Most people do try to make themselfs useful by attacking the enemy base, as defending can be pretty f***'d up annoying sometimes, whats with the constant bombardment. Taking the generator out is the next most logical choise. Once its down, you can start helping the PTHs to clear out the flag stand if they for some reason are unable to do it on their own, I mean..this is no TF2. You dont have to clear the flag room for cappers nor escort them.

Once you get alot of people to defend the flag stand the games can be pretty neat. Small bormbardments gets less bothering and with more people theres a less chance for PTH to find that lucky timing when defenders dont have enough time to react to him.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:26 pm

irimi

Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:37 am
Posts: 478

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

Sir0t wrote:

Chalk one more thing up to the broken class system in the first place. Tribes was never designed with class systems in mind. The mentality that there should be 9 classes and that all of them should be equally useful is fundamentally broken.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:42 pm

SexualHarasmentPanda

Joined: Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:15 pm
Posts: 22

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

5/0 games are a result of people not wanting to play defense, not simply pathfinders.

You really need to work on your critical thinking skills.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:47 pm

irimi

Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:37 am
Posts: 478

Re: The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.

SexualHarasmentPanda wrote:

5/0 games are a result of people not wanting to play defense, not simply pathfinders.

You really need to work on your critical thinking skills.

But it's much easier to pick on one thing to blame for everything, funnel every single example through that narrow focus, dismiss or ignore every counterexample and counterargument, and call it a day.

I can agree with the notion that the game favors offense over defense (and honestly I'd rather have games end in 10 minute landslides rather than 40 minute turtles), but to then go from that and say, "therefore Pathfinders are ruining the game" is absolutely ridiculous.

Frostiken wrote:

With a massive bias towards offense on both sides, this means that the deciding factor is whether or not there's good flag grabbers, and all it takes is one cheesedick who loves to end rounds in less than 10 minutes to ruin the game at that point. If one team has more than one, you can forget it.

"AIDS completely breaks down your immune system, and all it takes is some jackass flu virus to kill you in less than 10 minutes. Nerf the flu virus."

Hate to break it to you, but in the scenario you describe, the game was already ruined before the "cheesedick" decided to cap the flag 5 times in a row.

Thu Apr 26, 2012 5:50 pm

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The elephant in the room: Pathfinders are ruining this game.