Your Opinion on Reinforcements & Their Future

[MaceMadunusus]

Hey guys,

Reinforcements have been a part of Movie Battles for over a decade now with only minor changes to how they work over the years. This week several people, including myself, will be having a meeting on the future of Reinforcements within Eridan Crisis. This meeting will also be discussing Rally/Assemble. Before that, I want to get a general feeling of how the community feels about the ability available to ET, Commander, Clones, and Soldier so that we may take it into account in our discussion. Any changes to this ability in particular heavily impacts how other abilities, levels, point structures, and classes themselves are built.

I also want to tell you about some of my untested plans and ideas that will have an impact on the value of Reinforcements in their current state within EC.

• I am working to adjust how all levels are laid out, making them flow better which will result in less travel time across levels and more direct access to fights. Most of the current flow issues are due to engine limitations in JKA which are no longer a problem in UE4.
• I am working on decreasing the size of levels as much as I can reducing the time after initial spawn that fights happen.
• I would like to slightly increase average forward movement speed of characters which will also further reduce travel time across levels.
• Ideally, depending on level, I would like to see many maps fit within a 3-4 minute time instead of a 4-5 minute time to reduce the amount of time sitting in spectator after death as a result of some of the changes above.

If you have the time I would really appreciate it if you filled out this form.
Movie Battles II Reinforcements <--- Google Forms Link!

If you would like to hear some of my feelings on Reinforcements I will put them below in a spoiler. Please fill out the form before reading it though as I do not want to impact your feelings with my own.

Spoiler

I like reinforcements for several reasons:

• They give new players and less skilled players an opportunity to make mistakes.
• They open up a wider variety of options for more experienced players.
• They give developers more balancing options
• They can have a greater teamplay component when tied with other abilities.
• More time playing, less time in spectator

I dislike Reinforcements for several other reasons:

• They can be a pain to balance properly
• You can get placed far away from a fight and have to walk for 30+ seconds to find anything again depending on the level
• There is an extreme lack of choice when using reinforcements
• I don't find them a particularly interesting/exciting ability
• Many classes are too reliant on purchasing them.
• Building levels around having reinforcements adds additional complexity to the process.

This is by all means not my full list, but I wanted to give you an idea.

This form is intended to be anonymous so feel free to voice your full opinions. If you wish to discuss anything in this thread feel free to do so but keep it civil.

Thank you to all who fill this out. Any information gained by this form will also be available to the current MB team if they would like to make any adjustments to reinforcements based off of this information.

 

[Mr_Oujamaflip]

Hello.
Reinforcements....

The biggest problem is how effective massing Soldiers is. Massing Jedi/Sith is brutal a lot of the time but massing Soldiers is ridiculous. Best way to balance this would be to slow down spawns for reinforced spawns, maybe a 15 second timer and limit the number of soldiers who are affected by the commander so you need a ratio of commanders to soldiers, this will prevent the zerging.

Another problem is the spawn locations. You either get instant defense through suicide if the defending team has pushed too far and got flanked or the defending team gets picked apart if the spawn location change doesn't trigger. Both are pretty damn frustrating. I feel like this can be resolved by being able to choose your spawn location during the 15 second timer. I'm also on the fence about making level 3 reinforcements preventing frag grenades from being available, not sure about that one.

That's it from me.

 

[Mr Adaxer]

IMHO the time delay between death and fight is a valid punishment for dying (conversely, being able to kill off the other players with reinforcements and regenerate your fp before the player you just killed comes back with a vengeance is a valid reward for the kill). And personally, I don't mind sitting in spectator - as more and more people get killed off, there's more bantz to be had.

 

[BigBossBigTeef]

I am the fan of the 3 spawn system for soldiers. Default spawn, a spawn near objective A, a spawn near objective B. As the game progresses, spawn points shut down or open up. This will make it easier for soldiers who don't have a rally to spawn on, and have some leeway from getting spawn killed.

 

[Noob]

I just want an easier way to have the option for Soldiers to take off assemble. It's good imo otherwise

 

[Lessen]

Isn't there something like.. you can hold one of the Class Special buttons while spawning to ignore a Rally point? Or something like that?

Massing Jedi/Sith is brutal a lot of the time but massing Soldiers is ridiculous.

tbh as far as MB2's current design vs its "metagame," as it is, I feel like massed soldiers are MEANT to be the core of the team (aside from the essential support sith/jedi), they're MEANT to be super effective in big groups, and the rest of the gunner classes are meant to be support specialist hipsters.

But people don't usually spam sold cuz it requires decent team coordination, and gives up individual power and freedom. It's not an exciting idea to people, although in practice I feel like it's super super fun and effective.

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@OP, have a Battlefield-style "pick your spawn point" screen just for reinforcement classes

On that note, what if... what if in the 10 seconds (or whatever) before a round starts, everyone is faced with a Pick Your Spawn Point screen, and all the spawn points are a bit further forward than the current single spawn points we have now. As in: in general, each team would have two possible spawn points, one right up near "Main," and the other right up near "Side." This would mean that fights would start a bit faster without needing to fundamentally reshape the maps, and, if you made it so you could see who's picked what spawnpoint before the round starts, it makes it easier to tacitly coordinate who's going where.

Plus, if you DID make a "pick your spawn point" screen just for reinforcement classes, this would allow it to be put to broader use.

Also: let commanders/ETs place down (optional) spawn points, a la Planetside 2. But also let them pick them back up, or freely update their location. Bonus points if you let them chuck them like grenades so they could put spawn points in places they themselves can't actually reach. Just cuz that'd be funny.

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As far as just my feelings about reinforcements:

I love em for letting you play as a legitimately expendable mook. I think they make for a fantastic counterbalance to the whole "instagib sword" thing. They let you survive dying! That's great. I like it a lot.

It's tedious using them on Offense (without a Rallymander), because you have to do all that trekking to catch up. A funky solution would be to let you place your OWN rally beacon, just for yourself.

 

[MaceMadunusus]

Isn't there something like.. you can hold one of the Class Special buttons while spawning to ignore a Rally point? Or something like that?

Yes but it isn't very obvious that is even an option and even I forget about it just about every time. It is pretty much a bandaid for that issue.

 

[Lessen]

Yes but it isn't very obvious that is even an option and even I forget about it just about every time. It is pretty much a bandaid for that issue.

Well, that's more a matter of bad, uh, UI. Like, all it takes to solve that is to add a red flashing "respawning at Rally Point... hold x to ignore rally point", and when you hold x it changes to saying "respawning at spawn point..."

 

[Noob]

Or just include the option to take it off the points chooser... Is it that hard I wonder??

 

[Lessen]

Sure but that is necessarily a loss of function (as in: there may be cases where you may or may not want to respawn at the Rally, and if you remove Assemble from yourself then you lose your ability to make that choice), and it does nothing to solve the basic problem that people don't know that you can choose to not respawn at Rally.

But sure, it's another bandaid fix you could put on top of the first, insufficient bandaid fix.

 

[Sonichu]

My suggestions for soldier specifically;

- Allow the soldier to select between any unlocked spawn point as the map progresses. For example, if the Rebels have reached T Junc on DOTF, you could respawn on either an ET with Rally, the Hangar spawn or the TJunc. That way, you don't need to respawn on a battle if you don't want to. I just read that you can use a class ability already to opt out of respawns. I have over 500 hours in Mb2 and didn't know that, so it's pretty obscure.

- Limit soldiers grenades to round total instead of life total. You could buy a single frag grenade, but it persists until you either use it or run out of lives. That way, they can use it when they needed it and not feel the need to spam it before they die. Reduces nade spam but doesn't totally punish soldiers who opt for nades.

- Offer something worthwhile for a soldier to spend his points on instead of reinforcements. I'd argue among the respawn classes, Soldier is the only one who has no viable alternative to multiple lives. A single respawn soldier with an extra weapon would be some welcome variety.

I think in terms of respawn/power balance Clone does it well. You can have a decent CR2 rifle and a respawn or a CR3 murderstick and only have one life. ET is in the middle and soldier is only a spam machine. Maybe ET's could place a physical rally beacon on the ground?

 

[Lessen]

Offer something worthwhile for a soldier to spend his points on instead of reinforcements

I feel like this is a goofy idea since Soldiers are fundamentally the expendable, unspecialized class, so it's contradictory to their design to allow them to focus towards being more individually significant per-life. They're the generic baddie who's main job is firing their gun, second job is occasionally throwing a nade, and third job is dying unceremoniously. Make them more than that and I feel like they would blur objectionably with ET/Commander, (and on that note if you make ET/Commander more than that, they blur objectionably with Hero/BH. The degrees of expendability are.. defining.)

Soldier (and ET/Commander) can already be alt-specced as a grenadier build. You could... let Soldier buy a second frag. Right now they can already do 2 lives + frag + 2 concs, which is a lot of easy knockdowns, making for a good support role.

 

[Goliath-A.I.]

As it stands, units with multiple lives are fairly balanced.
There hasn't been much of a problem with their implementation in the past century.

However, when someone kills one, they may feel as though they have not gained anything, thus discouraging them.
There is a certain feeling of disappointment in their minds when they understand that the target has simply been warped back to its spawn with full health / armor.

Make these multiple life units lose something when they are sent back to their spawns with full health and armor, even if it is small.
This will make killing them at-least feel worthwhile.

 

[BigBossBigTeef]

As it stands, units with multiple lives are fairly balanced.

However, when someone kills one, they may feel as though they have not gained anything, thus discouraging them.
There is a certain feeling of disappointment in their minds when they understand that the target has simply been warped back to its spawn with full health / armor.

Make these multiple life units lose something when they are sent back to their spawns with full health and armor, even if it is small.
This will make killing them at-least feel worthwhile.

I support this, if you kill a soldier 3 times, you should have 3 kills to stroke your ego point score.
But I would only count it as one death towards the soldier who lost all 3 lives.
They get their 3 kills, you get your one death.

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

I feel like this is a goofy idea since Soldiers are fundamentally the expendable, unspecialized class, so it's contradictory to their design to allow them to focus towards being more individually significant per-life. They're the generic baddie who's main job is firing their gun, second job is occasionally throwing a nade, and third job is dying unceremoniously. Make them more than that and I feel like they would blur objectionably with ET/Commander, (and on that note if you make ET/Commander more than that, they blur objectionably with Hero/BH. The degrees of expendability are.. defining.)

Soldier (and ET/Commander) can already be alt-specced as a grenadier build. You could... let Soldier buy a second frag. Right now they can already do 2 lives + frag + 2 concs, which is a lot of easy knockdowns, making for a good support role.

They should atleast have the tools to potentially be dangerous in the right hands, and not just be a walking garbage grenade platform that dies to virtually every class, unless they land a gimmick grenade. Too many grenades, too many dumb knockdowns, not enough combative ability. Commander/ET as well, aren't even as strong as Clone (Disregarding T-21's overpoweredness) despite being two lifers.

 

[Goliath-A.I.]

I support this, if you kill a soldier 3 times, you should have 3 kills to stroke your ego point score.
But I would only count it as one death towards the soldier who lost all 3 lives.
They get their 3 kills, you get your one death.

I couldn't put my finger on exactly what should be lost or gained, but you nailed it on the spot.
This is a change everyone should be happy with.

 

[Lessen]

They should atleast have the tools to potentially be dangerous in the right hands, and not just be a walking garbage grenade platform that dies to virtually every class, unless they land a gimmick grenade. Too many grenades, too many dumb knockdowns, not enough combative ability. Commander/ET as well, aren't even as strong as Clone (Disregarding T-21's overpoweredness) despite being two lifers.

Strongly disagree that soldiers are just a nade platform. Strongly disagree that a 3 life class should have the tools to be individually as dangerous as one life classes, but I will say that another reason why they're so good when spammed is because they can be totally routed twice (by nades and saber rushes and flanks and whatnot) and still have another chance.

And since they respawn, they're good for going for Melee knockdowns on saberists. I've gotten a ton of spinkicks on Jedi as Sold recently, once I started deliberately trying.

Disagree about ET being discarded offhand compared to comparable classes. Here's the main thing ET has that Clone lacks: a reliable long range option. A280 primary projectile speed is very high, allowing for long range precision on a two life class. This is valuable!

I know you've heard this a lot, but I do still feel like your notions of gunners are significantly weighted by the lack of good gunners, and lack of good gunner coordination. The general lack of an evolved gunner meta, partly due to people being shamed out of using strong options (T-21 OP, rawr D:<), and partly due to gunner just requiring more attention towards and trust in your teammates.

Also due to it requiring good aim, or as much of "good aim" as can be achieved with slow projectiles on fast targets. (Which is more than you'd think, I swear.)

 

[{Δ} Achilles]

Strongly disagree that soldiers are just a nade platform. Strongly disagree that a 3 life class should have the tools to be individually as dangerous as one life classes, but I will say that another reason why they're so good when spammed is because they can be totally routed twice (by nades and saber rushes and flanks and whatnot) and still have another chance.

And since they respawn, they're good for going for Melee knockdowns on saberists. I've gotten a ton of spinkicks on Jedi as Sold recently, once I started deliberately trying.

Disagree about ET being discarded offhand compared to comparable classes. Here's the main thing ET has that Clone lacks: a reliable long range option. A280 primary projectile speed is very high, allowing for long range precision on a two life class. This is valuable!

I know you've heard this a lot, but I do still feel like your notions of gunners are significantly weighted by the lack of good gunners, and lack of good gunner coordination. The general lack of an evolved gunner meta, partly due to people being shamed out of using strong options (T-21 OP, rawr D:<), and partly due to gunner just requiring more attention towards and trust in your teammates.

Also due to it requiring good aim, or as much of "good aim" as can be achieved with slow projectiles on fast targets. (Which is more than you'd think, I swear.)

I know how strong gunners can be when played properly. I know how weak they can be when counter picked, or alone with a bad class. Simply because a class is dangerous in large numbers, doesn't mean it is good design. Soldier shouldn't be knock-down focus, no class should. If you remove Conc/Secondary nade, you don't have much left to soldier. CQ 2 changed that, made them viable even without nades or numbers.

And A280 is not a viable long-ranged solution. Projectile Rifle is the only viable long ranged solution in this game.

 

[Lessen]

I know how strong gunners can be when played properly. I know how weak they can be when counter picked, or alone with a bad class. Simply because a class is dangerous in large numbers, doesn't mean it is good design. Soldier shouldn't be knock-down focus, no class should. If you remove Conc/Secondary nade, you don't have much left to soldier. CQ 2 changed that, made them viable even without nades or numbers.

And A280 is not a viable long-ranged solution. Projectile Rifle is the only viable long ranged solution in this game.

Disagree that it's bad design for the "generic mook" class to be strongst in numbers. Although I'm not sure if you were necessarily arguing to the contrary.

Soldier isn't knock-down focused, it's an expendable bit of firepower, and by virtue of being expendable, it can also afford to do risky things like go for kicks. I don't see this as a problem. It seems fitting for a 1-life heroic badass class to die because he got physically tackled in the chaos by a desperate random no-name trooper. I like it like that. edit: See cuz, dying to knockdowns is itself less of a problem if you're a Soldier. You have more lives. Result being that massed soldiers are best met with massed soldiers, supported by the "heroic" (1-life) classes, which is how it should be IMO. It just doesn't happen that way because people are ninnies and don't spam sold.

and besides, three lives and an E-11 can STILL go a long way, even now, especially against saberists, and especially in numbers. CC2 made soldiers too individually strong in a straight fight. Generic baddies by definition should not be very individually strong in a straight fight. As they are now with CC1, you can still get good mileage off of good strategy and aim.

A280 is, by my judgment, a very useful support gun. It lacks a high RoF or running accuracy, meaning that it's bad for self-defense, but in exchange it lets you fire constant shots with with nearly sniper-level precision, making for a particular kind of strong cover/support fire not found in a sniper rifle. And the burst fire, while also not that great for self-defense, lets you act as a close range support mallet against beefy targets.

And when contrasting it with sniper weapons, you have to also factor in that the A280 is on a two-life class. It's expendable, reliable, low-mobility cover fire. It's basically the inverse of the clone rifle, which is a close range, high-mobility, self-reliant kind of deal.

 

[jango40]

I have no problem with them as they are now, and to be honest I'm not a big supporter of changing core mechanics when they have existed for so long.