Ninepaces wrote:Azarael wrote:
Now, please tell me again how any of the qualities you listed apply to sardine-mode fortresses. If there were any strategy, tactics or interest I would not even bother to complain, but there's just nothing to justify here. It seems almost as if you're talking about how the game in terms of what RvR should be rather than what Fortresses actually were.
I'm not going to spend the time to teach you how to play the game you're developing. I've spent too much time here already. Stand in the right place and press the right buttons at the right time.
Then you concede by default. The "I'm not going to take the time to defend my position" gambit is one of the oldest tricks in the book. I wish I'd recorded a video of what was going on back then.
bwdaWAR wrote:What kind of "skill" are you people talking about exactly? Because organisation and communication is certainly a skill. I don't think that's so much a case of lack of skill involved as much as another layer of differently focused skillset involved.
Organisation and communication is required even in small scale combat: you're not going to be able to cooperate with your teammates without being aware of their strengths and weaknesses, discussing tactics, situations and how to respond to them. Even on that level you are not completely independent of others, you do not make every decision yourself but some are dictated by your teammates' needs.
Organisation and teamwork on a larger scale isn't different. Coordinating the various groups does not remove the need for individual combat skill, the opportunities for decision-making/initiative, and you do not actually have those completely in small-scale combat either. But it doesn't mean there is no skill of any kind or deserving any respect involved in large-scale cooperation or command, from all participants.
Of course, that is the ideal situation where people actually do any of that instead of running around following the mass of other players, the dreaded zerg. But the same thing could be said about small scale combat, there are certainly lots and lots of people who either have no clue what to do or just can't be bothered to cooperate with their allies. Scenarios are infamous of being full of players like that.
Some people prefer small scale with a focus on personal combat and tactics, some prefer large scale combat with a focus on tactics and strategy. Just as there are players who prefer objective-oriented gameplay while others prefer combat-oriented. But saying that in the other type of gameplay "there is no real skill involved"... I don't know. Somehow that reminded me of this.
This whole thread seems to be following the same theme. Two groups with different preferences regarding to gameplay busy insulting the other's preferences by focusing on their worst aspects/manifestations and implying all of it is like that and thus without merit.
As a rule of thumb, any time I use a mitigator like "probably", "really" or "real", it's a cover for the possibility that I might be wrong. You can ignore these entirely when I post to get my opinion. I don't use "real" in the sense of No True Scotsman here.
Organization and communication are skills, but they are not necessarily global skills. What I mean by this is if, as in my earlier example, one person is leading a warband of 23 other people and assuming total command, that person may be employing some skill in organizing and communicating, but that's his skill alone. What are the other people doing? Following orders and performing mechanical execution in a game with a very low mechanical skill cap? How much combat skill exists under mass conditions, in which movement and viable attacks are restricted (see: composition of Porn Factory and former Kings Own on RoR)? How much initiative is necessary in a mass situation?
I think I've been a little unclear in general, so I'll try to be more so:
Do I recognise potential in this game for extensive organization, strategy and tactics? Yes.
Do I think the current system of RvR encourages that all that much? No.
Do I think fortresses at the time I played encouraged that in any way whatsoever? Definitely no.
I do not deny that, given the right RvR design, these elements could be vastly improved. That might be beyond my own capabilities as well - we will see. What I deny is that the current system does much of anything to encourage tactics or strategy in RvR. Blob systems in general do not. I also have a problem with the lack of low-level tactics and place for ST classes in RvR confrontations aside from basic manoeuvres where terrain gives the opportunity (Praag being the classic example of this).
My viewpoint is also forward-looking. We have maybe 150v150 at max in RvR at the moment. The current blob-focused system would collapse entirely under the weight of something like 500v500 and so the incentive to blob has to be broken up. If we assume that four BOs are being challenged plus small scale attacks on towed siege weapons, there are still going to be very large confrontations as well as smaller ones.
I'm not here to kill RvR. Doing so kills the server. On my other project I've been in the position where I've had to support a gametype which I did not like to support the one that I did, so I'm not unfamiliar with the concept here - and while I might dislike what RvR currently is, I do not believe that issues with it cannot be resolved, and if whatever solutions we try fail after a reasonable number of iterations, then, just as I have before, I will back off and just leave you all to it. Bloodi has pointed out before that the quality of a given design doesn't matter a single bit if it's not what the playerbase wants. I'm well aware of this.