Will ESF ever be noob friendly again?

[sub]

It was interesting reading all of the replies here. I do agree that 1.2.3 is extremely hard to learn, the numbers kind of prove this. 1.2.3 has been downloaded well over a million times, yet we only have a player base of 50 or so people who have stuck with the game. And oddly enough, almost all of these people who have stuck with the game started playing at the same time, right when 1.2.3 was released. I think that, at the time, no one was quite good so new players had room to breathe and learn the game at their own pace. Then as time progressed, the pros got better and better and better until we reach our current point when a new player has almost no chance of learning the game. The problem isn't so much that ESF is hard, all you really need to do is fly into other people holding right click. The problem lies in how good people have become at this system, it's gotten to the point where if you want to get good at ESF, you're going to need 5 months of dying over and over with no chance of even getting a hit, let alone a kill. And after those 5 months, you'll probably only be a decent player compared to the guys at the top.

That's 1.2.3. As DT said, 1.3 is a very different beast. Honestly, 1.3 doesn't even feel like the same game to me. The same basic mechanics are still there, it just feels different, but that's not to say that it's a bad thing. But yes, I'm sure people will still master the game and become godlike at it, but there are some big differences that will hopefully make the game easier to learn. The one button swoop should fix a lot of the complaints about swooping, the ingame tutorial will hopefully provide a safe place for newbs to learn the mechanics of the game, and popup hints should hopefully provide the player with further instruction in actual servers. Plus, the graphics are nicer and we'll have more characters and all of the transformations, that might encourage more people to stick around. Other than this, I'm not sure how you can go about making ESF more newb friendly without drastically changing the mechanics of the game. I guess you can give players a larger ki pool, but that's a delicate balancing act, you have to make the ki pool low enough that ki management still actually matters.

Just my two cents.

 

[vegetaspride]

%100 agreed. If you are the "sub" I see in the servers then I can say the times I hit you before getting killed was smaller or equal to 1 . As you said even a pro player in one server will totally prevent any newb's from learning the game and make them nothing more then a punch bag.

You all said 1.3 has different mechanics. BUT how do you know that after a few people mastered the game it will still be noob friendly? Unfortunately I strongly believe this version will also become a nightmare for new players after about 6 months or a year as long as it depends only on dogfighting and kick throws.

The problem is NOT getting killed or not making frags, the problem is, not being able to even move let alone making a hit.

It was interesting reading all of the replies here. I do agree that 1.2.3 is extremely hard to learn, the numbers kind of prove this. 1.2.3 has been downloaded well over a million times, yet we only have a player base of 50 or so people who have stuck with the game. And oddly enough, almost all of these people who have stuck with the game started playing at the same time, right when 1.2.3 was released. I think that, at the time, no one was quite good so new players had room to breathe and learn the game at their own pace. Then as time progressed, the pros got better and better and better until we reach our current point when a new player has almost no chance of learning the game. The problem isn't so much that ESF is hard, all you really need to do is fly into other people holding right click. The problem lies in how good people have become at this system, it's gotten to the point where if you want to get good at ESF, you're going to need 5 months of dying over and over with no chance of even getting a hit, let alone a kill. And after those 5 months, you'll probably only be a decent player compared to the guys at the top.

...

 

[sub]

%100 agreed. If you are the "sub" I see in the servers

Yeah, I started playing ESF a lot recently.

Anyway, I'm not sure what you can actually do to prevent players from becoming godlike without drastically changing the way the game is played. Maybe the team can implement a cvar that, when turned on, kicks anyone with a ratio over whatever %. Of course, the pro players would hate this, but that's the point I guess.

 

[Grega]

Well if you ask me. The major problem with ESF pros becoming untoutchable is that we got rid of HOWing.

Yes HOWing was cheap, but it did allow new players to damage the pros. The moment headons were created that chance went away. And because the speeds were decreased and swooping became all-direction, chainable and extendable compared to 1.1 pros suddenly got a bigger advantage, since in 1.1 you could only swoop forward and you could not chain. Which made it preety hard to evade and attack. And the increased speed made it harder to anglehit.

 

[sub]

It's hilarious that something so hated was probably a good thing.

 

[Grega]

Dont get me wrong. It was a damn exploit. But as it was, it allowed new people to stand a chance.

Though the 1.0 version of HOWing was totally unfair. I mean it actually looked at the ping and the guy with les ping won the headon >.<

 

[sub]

I always had like 9 ping in 1.0. Good times.

edit: I forgot to mention, 1.3 will also have a lock on. Should also help out new players since beams will home in

 

[DarktoothDKD]

ah yeah, lock-on will help a lot. ATM you can find every player in the server with ease, but thats only for right now. Gotta do some tweaks and what not.

1.3 like all the testers and masters above said, you can learn the game VERY easily. There will be tips and hints to help guide and teach you how to play unlike any other multiplayer only game. There are a lot of tricks and maneuvers which you can perform that will let other people become more creative and possible master those tactics over others.

1.2 only had 3 melee attacks
a - simple melee
b - adv melee
c - throw

1.3 will have much much much much much much..... more BUT the basic melee attacks are
a - simple melee
b - combo melee
c - grab and smash
d - throw
using all of the 1.3 attacks are so rediculously easy. Just change the button your holding and thats it.. lol. At max you'll hold 3 buttons ( forward + m1 + m2 ) thats it. wow, damn easy right?
anyway my purpose here is to say that I think anyone can become good at this game, even new comers. There will be a lot of beginner servers as well as advanced servers. So just keep playing and Im sure you'll become much better quicker than 1.2. And much more amazed.

 

[underline]

holy **** im freack excited!!!!!!
Darktooth made my day

 

[Eacos]

Wow DT, sure youre not leaking info? :O

Make sure to update the 1.3 melee thread with the new stuff, sounds exciting, wonder how it'll play out.

 

[sub]

That thread needs to be updated anyways

 

[Skiwan]

Isn't that all in there? just not in list format?

 

[Disguise]

If it's a great game who cares if it's noob friendly? People will take the time to become better at it and enjoy it more in the long run imo.

I personally like playing games where I suck in the beginning and have no clue what I'm doing. After I figure it out I feel like I have a lot vested in the game, and I can make better use of all the options it has to offer. Too simple, too boring imo. But that's just what I think, being bored of Counterstrike and all. I like games that offer hidden elements of surprise and strategy.

Like throwing a flashbang and rushing the back door of the warehouse? ... No. Well, if I had to play CS, yes, but otherwise no. And only if I had dual pistols. haha

But I'll contradict this and say it could possibly be both noob friendly and have these elements too, and leave it at that. I've added nothing lol.

 

[underline]

If it's a great game who cares if it's noob friendly? People will take the time to become better at it and enjoy it more in the long run imo.

I personally like playing games where I suck in the beginning and have no clue what I'm doing. After I figure it out I feel like I have a lot vested in the game, and I can make better use of all the options it has to offer. Too simple, too boring imo. But that's just what I think, being bored of Counterstrike and all. I like games that offer hidden elements of surprise and strategy.

Like throwing a flashbang and rushing the back door of the warehouse? ... No. Well, if I had to play CS, yes, but otherwise no. And only if I had dual pistols. haha

But I'll contradict this and say it could possibly be both noob friendly and have these elements too, and leave it at that. I've added nothing lol.

Agreed.
Well, just dont sacrifice the gameplay to create a noob friendly game.

success

 

[Damaera]

Let's just say instead of sacrificing, we're balancing.

 

[DarktoothDKD]

everything I typed should be in the melee gameplay documents. You guys should probably start taking a look at that and actually read it.. Theres a lot of info in there for you guys to read. And even if Im leaking info which I doubt I am, there is a lot of other stuff you guys dont know about. so meh, Im confident in myself

 

[Mastasurf]

DT, I think you're safe :0)

To elaborate on what has already been said, the team has spent a great deal of time trying to make ESF simply complex. Meaning, we want players to be able to participate in somewhat complex combat using simple controls. This was achieved through a few different initiatives, one of which was standardizing the controls.

Synth, thanks for making this thread. You asked a good question.

 

[hleV]

I hope that ESF will keep the idea that a pro can own noob by 50-0 or so.

 

[Renyori]

A big misconception is that the choice of melee is what distinguishes a good player from a bad player. It has little to do with that. Having more melee options won't make the game more "beginner friendly" at all.

What defines a skilled player or "pro" is how he can maneuver around his character, and counter what comes at him. The name of the game is to touch and not be touched. A skilled player will beat a low skilled player even if all he was using is pre-punches. Simply because he won't be touched. The "pros" spend years practicing and figuring out tactics to evade attacks and hit without taking any damage. That's one of the reasons why people don't use advanced melee. Even if you succeed in gaining the hit, you don't necessarily get a damage reward. You simply just start taking turns matching arrows while hoping you induce more randoms than you receive.

I don't think the learning curve is as huge as people make it out to be, sure it's big, but I don't think it's much bigger than Street Fighter or Starcraft. The moves are basic and pretty easy to do. It's basically just swoop and teleport. But the depth of what players can do with these basic moves are vast just like the pros with Street Fighter and Starcraft, and the community is just too small that you're stuck playing with the SlayerS_BoxeR's and Daigo's.

Basically the learning curve will still be there, but making players able to maneuver their characters around more easy will lower it so they don't feel like immobile punching bags, and can dodge and defend themselves better.

 

[imkongkong]

a skilled player will beat a low skilled player even if all he was using is pre-punches.

. .