Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Strongly depends on the server. One thing I appreciate about WOLF is the frequently (not always, meh, it _is_ pub) high level of game- and teamplay.

More complicated maps requiring teamwork (new Midway, e.g.) are rarely won by the disadvantaged side, but I've seen it happen (although the stupid bleed bug when Axis kills all their objectives prevented us from getting the real ticket win. Lame.) A few days ago, I won my first round ever of Coral Sea as Axis, when I decided to form up with Torque doing formation torpedo bombing; a third guy joined us, and Allies had no chance--their carriers were down within minutes.

Same with Pegasus and many other really difficult maps; you'll always find enough situations with good team players to make them worthwhile.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Solo, I really can't understand your perpetual concern, that's our plan, but it's tricky to find that kit or vehicle wich transform an umbalanced map in balanced, this can be done perfectly just releasing to public the maps and getting feedback from players. I am sure you will agree with me we have always tried to solve balance problems in each FH1 version, and 0.7 has almost all the maps balanced, with some sad mistakes because we are just humans, not almighty HAL9000's.

So we want challenging, historic and tough maps, but balanced, if one map is not balanced is a mistake, not an evil plan to ruin your gaming experience.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Right, but I think the assumption ought to be that teamwork will be minimal at best when designing maps that you intend to have played on public servers. Otherwise, expect the servers to eventually drop them because they end up inevitably being a pain in the ass for one side.

One other thing I'd like to suggest to mappers: try not to design maps that can end in utter baserape. Nothing is more frustrating than playing a round and eventually being locked into your main (or one final spot) unable to leave and not really able to fight back either.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Solo, I don't think that's a good basis for map design. There are maps that are very frustrating, but tremendously cool when you _do_ get a good enough team together that can pull it off. It's the difference between a drunken one-night stand in a cheesy motel, and splitting a bottle of Dom in the roof suite of the Bauer-Grunewald with a $5000 call girl. I am glad that the lowest common denominator is not pandered to.

To keep flogging my favorite dead horse, the key word here is "reasonable". Usually, pubbie players run around doing their own thing, but pretty often recently I've seen enough people get their sh** together to bring away a great win on a difficult map. I'd hate to see that sacrificed so the short bus crowd can get their jollies every time.

Absolutely. See point #4 of my "balance" rant. :-)

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Hmm, im with solo on this one, devs shouldnt design maps with the idea that one team needs to field extreme teamwork if they want to win (that, or the other team needs to be very crappy). And then go on about how balanced it is.

"Balanced" doesnt mean that "one team has a chance of winning if they really try hard", if it were balanced, one team wouldnt need to try any harder than the other. Now that is not the case on some maps, i dont mind, but dont say its balanced when its not, just admit the odds are skewed towards one team and be done with it.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Oh I know, Lobo. I've never really thought that you guys are ACTUALLY out to make bad maps (despite my occasional frustrated outbursts on a map -- my apologies by the way). The thing is a lot of the maps I see that end up being really frustrating for people are maps that some of you guys seem to think are just fine. "They just need some teamwork is all."

I mean, you guys play on pub servers. You know how people there play. All I'm saying is your mappers have got to take into account the mindset of the pub player in designing maps.

Most of the time, from my experience, pub players have the following traits:

- A pub player will always run to wherever the action is.

- Unless they have a major advantage or nowhere else to go, they will not sit still and defend.

- Pub players do not move in formations, units, or anything of the sort (at least in FH1. In BF2 they may be a BIT better, given the squad system, but even then they may just use the SL as a moving spawn).

- Pub players are more likely to attack individually as they spawn, rather than with massed firepower (IE: on a map like, say, Nuenen, the pub Allied players are more likely to push forward one by one, only to be chewed up by Axis defenses, instead of charging en masse).

- When faced with a path of less resistance, the pub player will take it, regardless of map design, intent, etc. (IE: precapping).

- Pub players are more concerned with winning. Some rank personal score higher than this.

- Pub players as INFANTRY will charge forward incessantly. In a tank -- especially a decent one that is uncommon (IE: Panther, Tiger, KT) -- a pub player will often hold back on attacking. In other words, their survival instinct only kicks in when they have something precious (IE: a KT) to protect. An individual life/ticket/spawn round as an infantryman means nothing to them. This also relates to why pub players bail from powerful tanks -- they figure they'll shoot the enemy on foot and then repair the tank, rather than die in it.

- Although I personally love the concept, pub players don't get push maps. Or to the extent they do, they don't WANT to play maps that way. They don't like being forced to win one way and one way only. And if one piece of equipment is THE balancing factor for the team, that's generally going to be a problem because what if some idiot who doesn't know the "right" way to play the map gets it? IE: a map where the artillery or a particular tank are the crucial factors and some clueless player grabs it and dies. What then?

With all that in mind, you've got to figure how pub players will approach your map. With a lot of the maps where one team's on offense and the other on defense, pub players will trickle in one by one and get cut to ribbons, rather than charge as a group. They'll often not support each other, or will run off on their own so you can't support them.

I'm hoping some of this will change with FH2, given the squad system. I'm also hoping map designs will take this kind of stuff into account and figure, for example, locations where you have to push across a bridge are going to be skewed to lose for the attacking team MOSTLY due to the behavior of pub players. If they're in a tank, they'll stop on the bridge and die (IE: see Arnhem or Hell of Bocage). If they're on foot, they'll just charge forward one by one and get shot (again, see Arnhem or Hell of Bocage).

But situations like this CAN be alleviated. For example, removing the river in Hell of Bocage and simply creating a flat field removes the ability for the Axis to camp one or two choke points. Likewise, giving Allies expacks or satchels instead of the Bazooka kit makes it possible to actually hold the town or other spawn locations. On Arnhem, maybe something like creating a special PIAT kit for that map that only has one or 2 rounds and can't reload would allow Axis tanks to cross more easily. Or just make that one more of an infantry map with limited tank support.

Stuff like that is what I mean by minor tweaks. I recognize a lot of this can't be known until maps are actually released to public servers, but I'd suggest actively updating maps over time instead of waiting until the next release to redo all the maps. Like, if you know there's a small fix you can do, just officially release THAT map rather than a huge map pack plus new features. This will help do two things: (1) keep maps feeling fresh, and (2) keep more maps in rotation when problems are identified, rather than have them pulled until whenever the next release comes out.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Never, this is not FH

Few problems are unbeatable in FH, one anecdote from our most loved/hated map (Pegasus) 2 weeks ago: British get the coffee flag, sadly we loose the flag with the panzer 3 alive ready to camp and kill all our soldiers trying to cross the bridge again (a perfect example of a "damn it, we are screwed" situation), I take the officer kit and spot the tank, one competent guy with a mortar coordinate with me to get a good spot, I finally get it, he destroys the tank, now I spot the area of the german mortars pounding us, he destroys them, no more mortars during 1 1/2 minute...all this done in 30 seconds, we cross the bridge, retake the flag and win with 200 tickets advantage.

I am gonna tell you what don't win maps...start to whine "oh, this map sucks, buaaa", just relax and think about the right strategy, most of times we deliver tools to evade troubles.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Most of you people seem to be confusing "balanced" with "even", or "symmetrical".

It can be thoroughly balanced, even if it is not symmetrical. The important parts of the definition of balance:

A harmonious or satisfying arrangement or proportion of parts or elements, as in a design. (Merriam-Webster.) This is what is relevant for game design. "Even" = a world of El Alameins, Breakthroughs and Prokhorovkas. HOW UTTERLY DULL.

And Solo, sorry, you're wrong. Many pub players _do_ get push maps. In fact, far more than enough "get it" to ignore the clamoring from the unwashed hordes for entirely symmetrical "omfgz0rz, they have teh KT, I want more teh big Allied IS-2 pantz0rz" maps. Or "omfgz0rz, they have teh t00 many bazooksaz, make my pantz0rz invincible!".

Look at all the whingeing that went on when EA removed squad-hopping from BF2 with 1.3. It was a good decision, but the arcade w**kers whined whined and whined some more. Do you want FH to pander to that sort of mediocrity? I've always considered it a bit more highbrow, in the sense that it presents people with a challenge, i.e. a problem to be solved.

I have NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER for people who whine instead of approaching it as a nut to be cracked logically (waves "#1 Lobo Fan Club banner" here.) To be fair, I agree 100% (sigh, see my manifesto again) that a good player in a team should be able to gain _some_ advantage in every map, even when his team is filled with dribbling morons. This means that even if you're surrounded by baboon-level IQ twits, getting pounded to rubble by campers, you should at least be able to have a go at killing some bad guys, even if your team is too blitheringly incompetent to win a map. It does not mean that the map should be designed around your blitheringly incompetent team.

Great example: Nuenen. I _loathe_ that map with a passion, as I find it way too easy for Axis to just camp the approaches to the city; there are also too few rewards for Allies for capping the first flag. This is my opinion, it does not reflect on the quality of the map per se. There's a player on WOLF who's mastered conservatively camping in the jagdpanzer; that's all I ever see him do. He usually ends the game with about 40 kills and 2-3 deaths; for some reason, I almost inevitably seem to be the only guy who bothers grabbing a zook and sneaking around to nail his ass to a telephone pole, while our Shermans are being turned into popcorn left and right. What's with that?

Many FH players _are_ intelligent and adaptive and can handle problematic maps which can't be won by the obvious "solution" of throwing more tanks and dudes at the problem until it goes away.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

[QUOTE=FuzzyBunny]Solo, I don't think that's a good basis for map design. There are maps that are very frustrating, but tremendously cool when you _do_ get a good enough team together that can pull it off. It's the difference between a drunken one-night stand in a cheesy motel, and splitting a bottle of Dom in the roof suite of the Bauer-Grunewald with a $5000 call girl. I am glad that the lowest common denominator is not pandered to.

To keep flogging my favorite dead horse, the key word here is "reasonable". Usually, pubbie players run around doing their own thing, but pretty often recently I've seen enough people get their sh** together to bring away a great win on a difficult map. I'd hate to see that sacrificed so the short bus crowd can get their jollies every time.[QUOTE]

Oh, I'm not saying "Assume every pub player is a complete moron who will run as far away from his other teammates as possible". I'm saying "Assume that pub players won't generally work together, and will move independently rather than in groups." Most of the time that's the truth. That's how it works on pub servers. The team will all move in the same GENERAL direction (assuming they have a limited number of directions to move), but for the most part they won't be doing things like covering each other, backing each other up, moving in any kind of formation, etc. They won't specifically coordinate attacks that often either.

That's not to say they'll run in circles banging into things, though. It just means that if the way to win is "Charge with a group of at least 5 tanks moving in a diamond formation", that's pretty unrealistic. Likewise, if the way to win the map is "The key here is to make sure that the artillery battery and spotter are really really good. Otherwise, the team is going to lose", or "The key to this map is the M36. If the Allies lose that, the map's all over for them," that's going to be a problem. In a clan match, that'll be a major plus, because the clan will orient its tactics around that crucial object or tactic. But for public servers, you can't assume or expect that stuff like this is going to go well.


Finally, although I personally advise against making unbalanced maps (Specifically because they lead to these problems), understand that for me a balanced map does not mean two teams with equal equipment, but rather two teams with equal advantages and disadvantages. Those advantages can come from any number of factors, though, which aren't always the obvious "We have a KT on this map" style factors.

Re: The Question of Challenge
 

Fuzzy please explian, or point me to that post you made somewhere.