Online Multiplayer Deathmatch/Team-based Strategy Discussion

[PlasmaFrog]

Recently, I finally gave into the grueling amounts boredom and decided to pick up Modern Warfare 2(Again). It was a rainy afternoon, so I really didn't mind wrapping myself up alongside a couch to enjoy some mindless shooting. It was kind of a bad itch, one that most certainly had to be scratched.

The very first game that I joined was a Hardcore Search and Destroy via Mosh Pit to make things tense and interesting. I have been a fanatic in the past for team-based objectives and whatnot. The thing is, I've seen some amazing videos of teams pulling things off in groups that were as graceful as anything I've ever seen. Absolutely astonishing. However, once I get into an online room like this, I find myself pulling off most of the objectives alone while most of my teammates strayed away to kill the useless enemy that was camping in an obscured hallway, doing absolutely nothing, both of them. Screw planting the bomb, K/Dr is obviously more important right? Who gives a crap about fun! Why should they even have the word Team in these damn scenarios anyways.

But hey, I should clearly know better. Online games such as this only promote kill streaks. Actually, everything is evolved around killing, not even necessarily defense in most cases. That is the flaw of most online games, it promotes mindless killing as opposed to teamwork.

Depressed and disappointed(Again), I immediately sought the remedy by returning that flaming pile of garbage and picking up something more praiseworthy in terms of teamwork. Sadly, nothing. The only thing that really stuck out from the crowd was Battlefield 3, and that isn't even out yet. More likely, it's even being built to compete with Modern Warfare 3 as well. Naturally, I'm ready for every ounce of disappoint that game brings in the near future.

But we're wondering off-topic...

Afterward, I booted up my outdated PC and decided to play some Team Fortress 2. I'm sure that everyone with a reasonably functioning computer at least owns this now, so most folks could probably follow along with me.

What they did with this game was ingenious, not for now at least, but for then. Everything was produced to a fine grain, terrifying to be exact due to it's lack of imperfections regarding design. Everything is team-based, you could even count arena as being objective based since teammates still had to produce tactics in order to properly overcome the enemy. Games such as Team Fortress 2 actually provide reasoning and structure when attempting to place players into a team-structured environment. Most shooters now days can't even hold a candle to this winning concept.

Back to Modern Warfare for now.

I may have a minimal amount of fun with this franchise, but only for so long. Sure, the perks, unlocks, and stats tracking seems attractive, but people really only do it for the purpose of socialization and their e-peen size. If you're actually wanting to have fun yourself and with others, to ability to feasibly grasp the concept is near impossible. I feel that games such as Modern Warfare are the cancer that is killing multiplayer. Developers are living in the past with this once golden idea, but now it's just a rehashed version that's released every couple of months apart. The point is that I'm sick of it. These generic, dumbed-down shooters have been taking the market for most of the genuine ideas that could potentially be better.

The point is that your average shooter just isn't good enough to me anymore. Not everyone at least, a lot of people still like this sort of thing, so I won't count my opinion for everyone else. I just simply want something different. I've been starving ever since Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 4.

If you're going to create something based purely around a deathmatch mode, make it fun and interesting, not riddled with pointless social interactions and hideously flawed concepts. If you're going to make a team-based shooter, make sure that it's actually team-based.

That's all I ask for, developers.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Join a clan. You can't expect coherent organization from a group of strangers on the internet. You'd have an easier time training chimps to rob banks.

 

[PlasmaFrog]

Join a clan. You can't expect coherent organization from a group of strangers on the internet. You'd have an easier time training chimps to rob banks.

I wish I could, but I really don't have the time for that sort of thing. As attractive as it may seem, I'd rather just pick up something that I could knowingly enjoy that involved cooperation.

Edit: I want to go back on this actually. I decided to join in on the Highlander tournament back last year in Team Fortress 2 for funsies. The clan I join was full of positive and mostly polite people that actually took their time with everyone else and provided some helpful insight. The only thing is, come match time, all of the fun suddenly disappeared as clanmates were being called undeserving things. All of the fun quickly shot back under the bed like a cat at the mere sight of losing.

Competitive just really isn't for me. I just enjoy to stay in public games where there's no tension and everyone's playing their class properly and helping their team out.

 

[Mark Flanagan]

Have you considered the Battlefield series? We, myself and my friends used to play MW2 but switched to Bad Company 2 and haven't looked back.

For example the Assault class can hand out ammo to his squad mates (a group of 4 teammates) and gain bonus points, all of the class's have ways like this to help out their squad and team mates. A kill is worth 50pts but if a squad mate reloads a clip from your ammo box you gain 20pts.

Games are objective driven with the two most played modes being Conquest (3 capture points on the map, the more you have the quicker the enemy teams re-spawns tick down) and Rush where the attacker have to take out a series of objectives and force the defenders back up the map (new parts of the map open up if the attackers succed) while the defenders have to stop them (Kill them over and over so they use up their re-spawns).

Anyway, BF games are won by teams that work together to take objectives. Lone wolves and campers tend not to do so well.

 

[PlasmaFrog]

Have you considered the Battlefield series? We, myself and my friends used to play MW2 but switched to Bad Company 2 and haven't looked back.

For example the Assault class can hand out ammo to his squad mates (a group of 4 teammates) and gain bonus points, all of the class's have ways like this to help out their squad and team mates. A kill is worth 50pts but if a squad mate reloads a clip from your ammo box you gain 20pts.

Games are objective driven with the two most played modes being Conquest (3 capture points on the map, the more you have the quicker the enemy teams re-spawns tick down) and Rush where the attacker have to take out a series of objectives and force the defenders back up the map (new parts of the map open up if the attackers succed) while the defenders have to stop them (Kill them over and over so they use up their re-spawns).

Anyway, BF games are won by teams that work together to take objectives. Lone wolves and campers tend not to do so well.

I mentioned Battlefield.

I own Battlefield 2, but I really couldn't get into it since it only nicked at the knees of the troublesome giant. Sure, you're rewarded for helping out your teammates with minor things. But most public servers consisted of teammates arguing over why he/she isn't good enough to fly a jet. Even then, competitive matches still fell flat on their face since everyone kept straying. I'm positive that it was just a bad clan, yet this was the experience most of the time.

 

[StBishop]

-snip-

I'll be honest. I'm a little tired and didn't read all of that, I'll re-read in the morning but the TL;DR I got from it was.

"Online team games should encourage teamwork through mechanics and scoring system, not death match style gameplay. Especially so when there is also a death match mode."

I may be projecting my own feelings right up in there but hey.

I suggest trying HoN. It's actually really good for team based play because although you have certain heroes that can pretty much solo the game toward the end, if you don't play well as a team, you will lose. (With the exception being if there is a huge skill discrepancy in the teams.)

 

[Mark Flanagan]

Spoiler: Snip!

Have you considered the Battlefield series? We, myself and my friends used to play MW2 but switched to Bad Company 2 and haven't looked back.

For example the Assault class can hand out ammo to his squad mates (a group of 4 teammates) and gain bonus points, all of the class's have ways like this to help out their squad and team mates. A kill is worth 50pts but if a squad mate reloads a clip from your ammo box you gain 20pts.

Games are objective driven with the two most played modes being Conquest (3 capture points on the map, the more you have the quicker the enemy teams re-spawns tick down) and Rush where the attacker have to take out a series of objectives and force the defenders back up the map (new parts of the map open up if the attackers succed) while the defenders have to stop them (Kill them over and over so they use up their re-spawns).

Anyway, BF games are won by teams that work together to take objectives. Lone wolves and campers tend not to do so well.

I mentioned Battlefield.

I own Battlefield 2, but I really couldn't get into it since it only nicked at the knees of the troublesome giant. Sure, you're rewarded for helping out your teammates with minor things. But most public servers consisted of teammates arguing over why he/she isn't good enough to fly a jet. Even then, competitive matches still fell flat on their face since everyone kept straying. I'm positive that it was just a bad clan, yet this was the experience most of the time.

Ah my bad, I have a nasty habit of speed reading.

Best advice is keep plugging away at MW2 and Friend people whose play style you liked/Hitting the Prefer player button if you're on XboxLive and building a group of like minded players.

Mark

 

[razelas]

Team-based games generally take time to learn and limits the user base. CoD is simple enough so that, quite literally, even a baby can kill someone. Ergo, more people buy the game.

And there's really nothing you can do about this trend until the FPS genre is milked dry in a decade or two.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

The main problem of the multiplayer in games like Modern Warfare is their origin. They come from game mechanics designed to work in a single player campaign, against bots. In the single player campaigns you had to be an independent one-man-army, to make the player feel like they were achieving something and making a difference. So you always had a tonne more health than the soldiers you are shooting against, and a barn full of weapons to fry them in various ways. This does not translate properly to a multiplayer game, where everyone has the same amount of health, engagements are often fought by who has the best ping and framerate, and teamwork is not necessary because there are no incentives to work as a team.

In TF2 the gameplay mechanics were based around teamwork, the medic giving health buffs, each class has a clear role, strength and weakness, etc. etc. And this rewards teamwork and punishes rambos, the objectives are also a lot more prominent (as you said, the most important stat in MW is K/D ratio, a stat that actually disregards teamwork and promotes 'kill-whoring' tactics.) This will not change as long as MW2 and its similars still work off the old singleplayer FPS campaign mechanics, which do not promote people to work together, as it goes against the 'lone-wolf' grain inherent in the system.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Join a clan. You can't expect coherent organization from a group of strangers on the internet. You'd have an easier time training chimps to rob banks.

I take it you've never played TF2, or any other team based game with dedicated servers?

Have you considered the Battlefield series? We, myself and my friends used to play MW2 but switched to Bad Company 2 and haven't looked back.

For example the Assault class can hand out ammo to his squad mates (a group of 4 teammates) and gain bonus points, all of the class's have ways like this to help out their squad and team mates. A kill is worth 50pts but if a squad mate reloads a clip from your ammo box you gain 20pts.

Games are objective driven with the two most played modes being Conquest (3 capture points on the map, the more you have the quicker the enemy teams re-spawns tick down) and Rush where the attacker have to take out a series of objectives and force the defenders back up the map (new parts of the map open up if the attackers succed) while the defenders have to stop them (Kill them over and over so they use up their re-spawns).

Anyway, BF games are won by teams that work together to take objectives. Lone wolves and campers tend not to do so well.

I mentioned Battlefield.

I own Battlefield 2, but I really couldn't get into it since it only nicked at the knees of the troublesome giant. Sure, you're rewarded for helping out your teammates with minor things. But most public servers consisted of teammates arguing over why he/she isn't good enough to fly a jet. Even then, competitive matches still fell flat on their face since everyone kept straying. I'm positive that it was just a bad clan, yet this was the experience most of the time.

Try the server run by <link=http://www.teamplayergaming.com>teamplayergaming.com. The main kickable offense on there is not being a team player -- although, granted, it's technically against the rules to fly jets if you have no idea what you're doing. They also have a TF2 server, which is where I go if I want a serious game.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Join a clan. You can't expect coherent organization from a group of strangers on the internet. You'd have an easier time training chimps to rob banks.

I take it you've never played TF2, or any other team based game with dedicated servers?

You are wrong there, sir. The servers I played on TF2 were dedicated clan servers.

That said I haven't played TF2 in several years.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Join a clan. You can't expect coherent organization from a group of strangers on the internet. You'd have an easier time training chimps to rob banks.

I take it you've never played TF2, or any other team based game with dedicated servers?

You are wrong there, sir. The servers I played on TF2 were dedicated clan servers.

That said I haven't played TF2 in several years.

Well, let's just say that team play on public servers is not like herding cats in TF2. The game rewards teamplay too heavily for it to turn into a CoD style free for all, even outside of the clans.

 

[TheKramers]

Join a clan. You can't expect coherent organization from a group of strangers on the internet. You'd have an easier time training chimps to rob banks.

I wish I could, but I really don't have the time for that sort of thing. As attractive as it may seem, I'd rather just pick up something that I could knowingly enjoy that involved cooperation.

Edit: I want to go back on this actually. I decided to join in on the Highlander tournament back last year in Team Fortress 2 for funsies. The clan I join was full of positive and mostly polite people that actually took their time with everyone else and provided some helpful insight. The only thing is, come match time, all of the fun suddenly disappeared as clanmates were being called undeserving things. All of the fun quickly shot back under the bed like a cat at the mere sight of losing.

Competitive just really isn't for me. I just enjoy to stay in public games where there's no tension and everyone's playing their class properly and helping their team out.

Don't have the time? I played Halo Reach for two hours and got invited to a clan. Ov course thats because I was really good, despite my total lack ov knowledge about the game because I've only been playing for two hours.

But the point is that I was able to find a group of people to play with who understood that objectives are priority almost immediatey online. Granted that sort of thing is much more difficult on CoD or BF (I was part of one really amazing clan on CoD 4, but I've never been a part of one since then and I've never found one on BF) But if you look hard enough you can find them, just do a google search for MW2 clans and I'm sure you'll find something