Monkey, I hate to say it but you have a few times said "people play wrong when they X,"
I don't think I've ever said this... or at least I haven't meant it directly. This is a video game, there is no "wrong".
There is behavior that frustrates me or confuses me, like acting like kills matter in a BR game, or like death doesn't matter, but it's not "wrong" if they are having fun. I'll just requeue.
I'm about where I expect I will remain, skill wise. I've learned the guns, I've got a sense of the odd movement mechanics, I've learn to expect people to run off without me, to keep constant tabs of where my team is and where they are going. I'm fine. I've even won a few games. (edit: I'm taking back some of this on further thought. There's an element to these kind of games that is almost like chess or go. Growth in that part of the game, or games in general, should never become completely stagnant).
But I still would like a casual mode. More than anything, I'd like to see that they can add modes. Any new modes at all. That would confirm that they didn't ex. code themselves into a corner they can't escape because they are so focused on team dynamics that made too many assumptions like "players=3" everywhere.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
https://youtu.be/jTEbNIvW3hA
I need to experiment more with yanking people with the grapple. It's hilarious when someone tries to run away and you yank them back.
I don't understand what a casual mode in this game would even be. Competitive deathmatch games aren't casual by nature, there's no way to leisurely stroll through a field of people trying to shoot you.
I don't understand what a casual mode in this game would even be. Competitive deathmatch games aren't casual by nature, there's no way to leisurely stroll through a field of people trying to shoot you.
We all just meet in the final circle and talk about what a nice walk we had. The person who had the nicest walk wins.
In all seriousness, I have been giving thought to alternative BR models for a bit.
I had an interesting idea just this afternoon. Instead of just having one circle, you could give each team a specific objective to reach; a particular building or room. As in the standard BR model, if they don't reach it in time they begin to take zone-like damage until they do. The area in which these objectives are generated might or might not gradually shrink.
The key difference here is that you don't necessarily need to provide these objectives on a random basis. You can employ a matchmaking system to try to push players towards similarly skilled opponents.
Handled correctly, this could represent a straight mechanical upgrade to the circle.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
I don't understand what a casual mode in this game would even be. Competitive deathmatch games aren't casual by nature, there's no way to leisurely stroll through a field of people trying to shoot you.
Sorry, I made up this term without defining it... I basically mean anything that's less darwinian than the standard BR style game where death is permanent, you have more than 2 teams, etc. So ex. in Fortnite this would include 50v50, Team Rumble, Disco Domination, etc. I'm not sure PubG ever bothered to make one, I haven't played it in ages. IIRC most of your choices came down to if you wanted First person or third person and squad size (solo, duos, 4 man).
As an aside, I like how all the BR games are playing off each other ideas now. This can only make things even better over time.
I had a frustrating night last night, couldn't get a kill, but I occasionally had some randos that seemed to mean well and helped put up a decent fight before we went down. I eventually got the hint and switched games, but even when you do nothing but lose this game can still be fun.
Maybe tonight will go better. We shall see.
Octane is absolutely my second favorite legend now, after Lifeline. The extra mobility and the auto trickle heal just feels like an enormous advantage relative to most of the others.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
Yeah but... Death already isn't permanent in Apex. There's respawn beacons, an innovation even the "godly" Fortnite seemed keen to ape really quickly. Aside from Fortnite, other battle Royale games tend to only offer the standard BR game type; one life, with revives in squad but no respawns, random loot, last team standing wins. PUBG has a handful of events but they're just flavors of the same thing. There was a mode with infinite respawns one time.. it was trash.
The only casual mode you can find in most BR is either custom games or a training mode. PUBG for instance took well over 2 years to implement a shooting range, and to my knowledge still hasn't for the console versions. BR games don't need a 'casual' mode since the game is pretty casual already; death isn't really a punishment since you can just requeue and move on.
I don't understand what a casual mode in this game would even be. Competitive deathmatch games aren't casual by nature, there's no way to leisurely stroll through a field of people trying to shoot you.
Sorry, I made up this term without defining it... I basically mean anything that's less darwinian than the standard BR style game where death is permanent, you have more than 2 teams, etc. So ex. in Fortnite this would include 50v50, Team Rumble, Disco Domination, etc. I'm not sure PubG ever bothered to make one, I haven't played it in ages. IIRC most of your choices came down to if you wanted First person or third person and squad size (solo, duos, 4 man).
As an aside, I like how all the BR games are playing off each other ideas now. This can only make things even better over time.
I had a frustrating night last night, couldn't get a kill, but I occasionally had some randos that seemed to mean well and helped put up a decent fight before we went down. I eventually got the hint and switched games, but even when you do nothing but lose this game can still be fun.
Maybe tonight will go better. We shall see.
Octane is absolutely my second favorite legend now, after Lifeline. The extra mobility and the auto trickle heal just feels like an enormous advantage relative to most of the others.
I can understand your frustration. When I first started playing Apex it had been a really long time since I had played a fast-paced FPS at a proficient level. Many years, at least.
It took me a long time to identify the software, hardware, and wetware issues that were holding me back from the relatively modest level of success that I now enjoy. Like you, I kept playing because Apex can be a lot of fun even when you are getting run over.
So without any implied criticism of any kind, I'd like to unpack what it is that you are really asking for, why it is incredibly difficult or maybe impossible from a game design standpoint, and why it is conceptually confusing to some.
When you ask for a less-Darwinian "casual" mode of some sort, it seems as though what you are really asking for is a mode wherein you can feel and be successful without addressing whatever issues are preventing your success in the normal game.
At first glance this might seem reasonable (I'm sure we've all become frustrated with a game at some point or another) but if we look a bit deeper it starts to become a problematic idea.
What is a game? A game is a series of decisions. If a game offers decisions that are interesting or challenging, we say that game is good. If a game offers decisions that are boring or obvious, we say that game is bad.
What makes a decision interesting, or challenging? Maybe there are a lot of variables in play, and so the correct decision is not obvious. Maybe the decision needs to be made very quickly, so you don't have much time to weigh those variables. Maybe the outcome of the decision feels important to you; you have something at stake. There are other ways to build an interesting game, but these are the core elements of the Battle Royale.
The FPS sub-genre of games has always excelled at challenging the speed and quality of a player's decisions, which is why it flourished early and has stuck around for the long haul...
but for a long time, the genre never made the average player feel like they had anything at stake. Unless you were a tournament player you might die and respawn a thousand times and not care much.
Counterstrike was among the first big breakthroughs in the genre - rounds started to feel important. CS was so well-tuned that the genre kind've stalled out for a long time. Console games like Call of Duty managed to keep the fire burning without really improving on the formula - there were plenty of gameplay innovations taking place over the years, but none of them made a round feel substantially more important to the player beyond whatever minor character or achievement progression they might earn from it.
Enter the Battle Royale. Suddenly, a round might last half an hour or more. The stuff you pick up along the way is stuff that might be hard to find again and is lost upon death.
You are suddenly invested in each little decision you make in a way that you haven't been before, and that investment escalates as you close in on ultimate victory.
Each decision you make feels more interesting than the one preceding it, and having that decision turn out to be correct feels more cathartic.
In a world where the Slot Machine is an accepted feature of the social landscape, this is powerful stuff.
It is also the most Darwinian game-type imaginable. You drop 100 players in to a black box and one gets to come out. Pretty understandable that this might not be entirely fun for the other 99!
Why would anyone want to play a game like this, if they are not among that 1%?
Because we don't play games to win. We play games to improve the speed and quality of our decisions within a novel context, and thereby improve our lives overall. The skills we learn - discipline, imagination, sublimating stress into focus - can transfer to other areas of our life. The point of playing games is to improve at them.
When does a game become frustrating? It becomes frustrating when we feel like we are not improving, or when we feel like that improvement is meaningless.
This is commonly referred to as a plateau, and it happens to everybody. Everybody, in any discipline.
From a game-design standpoint, how could we make a plateau feel less frustrating to a Battle Royale player? That is a difficult design problem, and I don't claim to have all of the answers.
One way to do it would be to segregate that player from players who are more skilled than they are; to introduce a skill ceiling just above them. Then they would only be matched against players of equal or lesser skill!
But would that really be satisfying to them? They would enjoy success at the game - they would win a lot. But they would not necessarily improve, ever.
Furthermore, the players just below their skill level might also want to be the big fish in their little pond.
If you follow this path, you very quickly arrive at the now-normal tiered-MMR system - bronze, silver, gold, plat, diamond, etc and you bring along all of the associated problems; ELO hell, smurfs, etc
The ultimate ideal of such a system is to match players against opponents of exactly equal skill...
but a game wherein all of the players are equally skilled is just a random-number generator. You've devised the most roundabout possible way of playing rock-paper-scissors. You're back to a slot machine.
You're back to having a game wherein the decisions you make are meaningless, therefor boring.
It seems like a bit of a paradox.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited April 2019
I can't disagree with any of that.
I might note that winning or losing Fortnite 50v50 is almost exactly random. You have almost no control over the outcome (If skill didn't exist it would be exactly 2%). As far as I'm concerned they could just remove the concept of winning or losing from the mode, and I'd still play it. They could also individualize it and base it on some combination of personal, squad, and team performance. Whatever. It's just an absurd hoot, and I like it.
When they bother to actually have it up...
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
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Inquisitor772 x Penny Arcade Fight Club ChampionA fixed point in space and timeRegistered Userregular
Being an avid Heroes of the Storm player, let me tell you that there are a ton of risks with creating a causal game mode and splitting your playerbase.
So, I just wanted a kill with Wraith, so when the hot zone was Skulltown, I asked the team of randos to go there. We land in some slightly different places, and I struggle at first to find a weapon an armor. I get the drop on a Caustic, down him, but then the clusterfuck starts. I beat a hasty retreat, but my team advances into hell. They are immediately gunned down and full dropped. By then I got to higher ground, peeked their boxes. Gunfights continued to ensue on the ground, and there was no chance for instant recovery. My randos quit in impatience. I waited out the immediate violence, then moved to Thunderdome, to try and loot more.
I spent the rest of the match trying to move near the outside of the circle and slowly loot up. I didn't get very lucky, ending with just an Alternator and a Peacekeeper, despite picking up good attachments for other guns that I never found. But slowly the list of players ticked down as I played a stealth game, avoiding conflict. I followed the circles, positioning well, and got a lucky carepackage drop which turned my blue armor into Gold armor, with other drops improving my white helmet to blue, and a digital threat for my Peacekeeper.
The circle continued to narrow, with me in Top 10, then Top 5, then Top 3. It was round 4 becoming round 5, with us in the forest outside of Wetlands, and there was no way I could stay hidden from two other full squads. There were only trees and a single building in the circle. So I ninja'ed behind a tree. Then I heard the sound of gunfire. I looked to see where the teams were, only to discover that the other 2 teams were just scared individuals like myself - solo players who somehow made it this far, in a tiny circle. One of them died, and the other threw a grenade at my position. I wasn't 100% sure it was just one opponent, so I repositioned avoiding the grenade. They gave chase, took the building but wanted a sightline.
I carefully waited for them to peak, and started blasting with a Choked Peacekeeper. They hit in some trees, but my digital threat helped me see. Their purple shield lost to my gold shield, and I was a solo champion.
It wasn't the most balls out aggro game, but a solo win (even against another solo) felt pretty good as an end result for a game where my team was gone before two minutes and I played sneaking simulator for most of the rest of the game.
Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
edited April 2019
Leavers are such a plague on so many games. It's just unsportsmanlike. Don't drop any game until you have completely lost. When people disconnect the moment they are downed, they remove any possibility that I could sweep in with a clutch rez and grasp victory from the jaws of defeat.
What would happen if a real life sports team just walked away 3/4 of the way through a game because they happened to be losing? You'd have rioting.
Monkey Ball Warrior on
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
I feel like the quality of random games has dropped significantly. I'm on PS4, and barely see people with mics anymore. I also don't get the occassional grouping with Godtier players.
I'm guessing the middle is falling away and the top players built friendslists to only play with each other.
That variation was part of the fun for me.
The way a BR is fun is that you don't have the expectation to win, but the hope that you could. And if the game is moving towards the same smaller group of players sweeping uncoordinated masses over and over, I think it will drop fast.
It's still annoying and I don't personally do it, but I can understand people leaving if they get killed right after the drop because that's just a bad start and they want to get in another game for a try at a good start. But if you leave just because you got downed and you're not even dead yet? Well that's just silly.
Yeah I have found people solo dropping and insta quitting on knock to be way worse lately
I don't get it, why are you playing the game if you don't want to play the game
They want to play the game solo and that's not an option. Though people did this shit in pubg squads too and there was totally a solo option. There was even a solo into squads option!
Oh my God I just had the craziest (semi) solo game as Pathfinder. I didn't win but got really far, and racked up 8 kills. One teammate dropped right away and the other didn't do much to help me, aside from pinging enemies before they tore him apart. https://youtu.be/ktmcdIcvYA8
Finished 3rd because I got stuck between the remainder of the two enemy teams. Was a frustrating end to an otherwise hilarious match.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
"“The executives keep reacting and changing things,” said the source. “Everything has to be done immediately. We’re not allowed to spend time on anything. If something breaks — a weapon, say — then we can’t just turn it off and fix it with the next patch. It has to be fixed immediately, and all the while, we’re still working on next week’s patch. It’s brutal."
"“As Fortnite Battle Royale became popular, it changed to having to get a feature done, with hardly any notice, and then having people stay until that feature was ready. So we went from having a month to prepare, to sometimes having as little as a day. A lot of it was mandatory staying at work with no notice until the job was done. Marketing had made a promise, and so we were told that it had to be done."
Plenty more, but for me, I prefer Apex's approach because it's less evil. At least assuming their slowness is intentional rather than them also falling into the Fortnite trap.
Based on what they're saying there, King's Canyon is evolving over time like the Fortnite map does, rather than them working on a second map.
They're probably doing both, but we won't see the next map for a while. Changing the existing map is a relatively easy thing to do season-to-season.
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Monkey Ball WarriorA collection of mediocre hatsSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Despite what I may have said earlier, I'm actually fine with the game's update pace. Wanting new modes doesn't mean I think the dev team is bad or slacking or should follow Fortnite's example and drive their devs into a ditch of burnout.
It just means I want new modes.
I also want a giant pile of money and a machine that prints sandwiches. Doesn't mean I'm entitled to everything I want.
If they sometimes update their cool game to make it cooler, I'm happy.
"I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
I find that the more I play this game, the more I realize I'm pretty terrible at basic combat without high-burst weapons. R99s and Shotguns seem to be my only success. Anything more than point-blank range basically becomes a case where I can't stay on target, and definitely don't try or land headshots. And like snipe range? Get outta here, I can't do nothing.
So it's weird to be playing a game where I feel like I'm not really getting any better,
I find that the more I play this game, the more I realize I'm pretty terrible at basic combat without high-burst weapons. R99s and Shotguns seem to be my only success. Anything more than point-blank range basically becomes a case where I can't stay on target, and definitely don't try or land headshots. And like snipe range? Get outta here, I can't do nothing.
So it's weird to be playing a game where I feel like I'm not really getting any better,
I find that the more I play this game, the more I realize I'm pretty terrible at basic combat without high-burst weapons. R99s and Shotguns seem to be my only success. Anything more than point-blank range basically becomes a case where I can't stay on target, and definitely don't try or land headshots. And like snipe range? Get outta here, I can't do nothing.
So it's weird to be playing a game where I feel like I'm not really getting any better,
I felt that way, but I've been slowly getting more comfortable with long range weapons (Tripletake, Longbow). I actually just got my 300 meter down achievement earlier this week using a Tripletake!
Accuracy at mid/long ranges is largely about target choice. You are ideally looking for targets that are stuck in an animation/ADSing or otherwise unable to instantly evade fire.
If you're not confident that you are going to down them and they are not already shooting at you, you should be trying to find a better position; higher ground, more cover, perpendicular to their direction of travel/engagement.
If they are just running straight towards you or your squad, toss a few staggered grenades their way.
I still haven't gotten a handle on compensating for very long shooting yet, either. I suppose part of the problem is a lot of times I don't have powerful enough optics for those kinds of engagements.
I still haven't gotten a handle on compensating for very long shooting yet, either. I suppose part of the problem is a lot of times I don't have powerful enough optics for those kinds of engagements.
The longer range optics have helpful pips marking range by the hundred mark. So you can check range and plan.
I still haven't gotten a handle on compensating for very long shooting yet, either. I suppose part of the problem is a lot of times I don't have powerful enough optics for those kinds of engagements.
The longer range optics have helpful pips marking range by the hundred mark. So you can check range and plan.
Please explain how to use those pips. I feel like someone told me how to do it once but I haven't played shooters in a while, certainly not the kind that actually require the use of range finder aids.
I still haven't gotten a handle on compensating for very long shooting yet, either. I suppose part of the problem is a lot of times I don't have powerful enough optics for those kinds of engagements.
The longer range optics have helpful pips marking range by the hundred mark. So you can check range and plan.
Please explain how to use those pips. I feel like someone told me how to do it once but I haven't played shooters in a while, certainly not the kind that actually require the use of range finder aids.
Long scopes have a range indicator.
If it says 200m, that means you use the 200 pip on the range marks as your center of aim.
Basically as those marks go down, you're aiming higher to compensate for drop at the measured range.
The people who have no-lifed this game on PS4 are starting to become much more common, at least from my experience
Like, my two legends are around 65 kills. Few wins here and there. And I'm consistently losing to the people with 1400-3000+ kills and triple digit season 1 wins.
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I don't think I've ever said this... or at least I haven't meant it directly. This is a video game, there is no "wrong".
There is behavior that frustrates me or confuses me, like acting like kills matter in a BR game, or like death doesn't matter, but it's not "wrong" if they are having fun. I'll just requeue.
I'm about where I expect I will remain, skill wise. I've learned the guns, I've got a sense of the odd movement mechanics, I've learn to expect people to run off without me, to keep constant tabs of where my team is and where they are going. I'm fine. I've even won a few games. (edit: I'm taking back some of this on further thought. There's an element to these kind of games that is almost like chess or go. Growth in that part of the game, or games in general, should never become completely stagnant).
But I still would like a casual mode. More than anything, I'd like to see that they can add modes. Any new modes at all. That would confirm that they didn't ex. code themselves into a corner they can't escape because they are so focused on team dynamics that made too many assumptions like "players=3" everywhere.
I need to experiment more with yanking people with the grapple. It's hilarious when someone tries to run away and you yank them back.
We all just meet in the final circle and talk about what a nice walk we had. The person who had the nicest walk wins.
I had an interesting idea just this afternoon. Instead of just having one circle, you could give each team a specific objective to reach; a particular building or room. As in the standard BR model, if they don't reach it in time they begin to take zone-like damage until they do. The area in which these objectives are generated might or might not gradually shrink.
The key difference here is that you don't necessarily need to provide these objectives on a random basis. You can employ a matchmaking system to try to push players towards similarly skilled opponents.
Handled correctly, this could represent a straight mechanical upgrade to the circle.
Sorry, I made up this term without defining it... I basically mean anything that's less darwinian than the standard BR style game where death is permanent, you have more than 2 teams, etc. So ex. in Fortnite this would include 50v50, Team Rumble, Disco Domination, etc. I'm not sure PubG ever bothered to make one, I haven't played it in ages. IIRC most of your choices came down to if you wanted First person or third person and squad size (solo, duos, 4 man).
As an aside, I like how all the BR games are playing off each other ideas now. This can only make things even better over time.
I had a frustrating night last night, couldn't get a kill, but I occasionally had some randos that seemed to mean well and helped put up a decent fight before we went down. I eventually got the hint and switched games, but even when you do nothing but lose this game can still be fun.
Maybe tonight will go better. We shall see.
Octane is absolutely my second favorite legend now, after Lifeline. The extra mobility and the auto trickle heal just feels like an enormous advantage relative to most of the others.
The only casual mode you can find in most BR is either custom games or a training mode. PUBG for instance took well over 2 years to implement a shooting range, and to my knowledge still hasn't for the console versions. BR games don't need a 'casual' mode since the game is pretty casual already; death isn't really a punishment since you can just requeue and move on.
I can understand your frustration. When I first started playing Apex it had been a really long time since I had played a fast-paced FPS at a proficient level. Many years, at least.
It took me a long time to identify the software, hardware, and wetware issues that were holding me back from the relatively modest level of success that I now enjoy. Like you, I kept playing because Apex can be a lot of fun even when you are getting run over.
So without any implied criticism of any kind, I'd like to unpack what it is that you are really asking for, why it is incredibly difficult or maybe impossible from a game design standpoint, and why it is conceptually confusing to some.
When you ask for a less-Darwinian "casual" mode of some sort, it seems as though what you are really asking for is a mode wherein you can feel and be successful without addressing whatever issues are preventing your success in the normal game.
At first glance this might seem reasonable (I'm sure we've all become frustrated with a game at some point or another) but if we look a bit deeper it starts to become a problematic idea.
What is a game? A game is a series of decisions. If a game offers decisions that are interesting or challenging, we say that game is good. If a game offers decisions that are boring or obvious, we say that game is bad.
What makes a decision interesting, or challenging? Maybe there are a lot of variables in play, and so the correct decision is not obvious. Maybe the decision needs to be made very quickly, so you don't have much time to weigh those variables. Maybe the outcome of the decision feels important to you; you have something at stake. There are other ways to build an interesting game, but these are the core elements of the Battle Royale.
The FPS sub-genre of games has always excelled at challenging the speed and quality of a player's decisions, which is why it flourished early and has stuck around for the long haul...
but for a long time, the genre never made the average player feel like they had anything at stake. Unless you were a tournament player you might die and respawn a thousand times and not care much.
Counterstrike was among the first big breakthroughs in the genre - rounds started to feel important. CS was so well-tuned that the genre kind've stalled out for a long time. Console games like Call of Duty managed to keep the fire burning without really improving on the formula - there were plenty of gameplay innovations taking place over the years, but none of them made a round feel substantially more important to the player beyond whatever minor character or achievement progression they might earn from it.
Enter the Battle Royale. Suddenly, a round might last half an hour or more. The stuff you pick up along the way is stuff that might be hard to find again and is lost upon death.
You are suddenly invested in each little decision you make in a way that you haven't been before, and that investment escalates as you close in on ultimate victory.
Each decision you make feels more interesting than the one preceding it, and having that decision turn out to be correct feels more cathartic.
In a world where the Slot Machine is an accepted feature of the social landscape, this is powerful stuff.
It is also the most Darwinian game-type imaginable. You drop 100 players in to a black box and one gets to come out. Pretty understandable that this might not be entirely fun for the other 99!
Why would anyone want to play a game like this, if they are not among that 1%?
Because we don't play games to win. We play games to improve the speed and quality of our decisions within a novel context, and thereby improve our lives overall. The skills we learn - discipline, imagination, sublimating stress into focus - can transfer to other areas of our life. The point of playing games is to improve at them.
When does a game become frustrating? It becomes frustrating when we feel like we are not improving, or when we feel like that improvement is meaningless.
This is commonly referred to as a plateau, and it happens to everybody. Everybody, in any discipline.
From a game-design standpoint, how could we make a plateau feel less frustrating to a Battle Royale player? That is a difficult design problem, and I don't claim to have all of the answers.
One way to do it would be to segregate that player from players who are more skilled than they are; to introduce a skill ceiling just above them. Then they would only be matched against players of equal or lesser skill!
But would that really be satisfying to them? They would enjoy success at the game - they would win a lot. But they would not necessarily improve, ever.
Furthermore, the players just below their skill level might also want to be the big fish in their little pond.
If you follow this path, you very quickly arrive at the now-normal tiered-MMR system - bronze, silver, gold, plat, diamond, etc and you bring along all of the associated problems; ELO hell, smurfs, etc
The ultimate ideal of such a system is to match players against opponents of exactly equal skill...
but a game wherein all of the players are equally skilled is just a random-number generator. You've devised the most roundabout possible way of playing rock-paper-scissors. You're back to a slot machine.
You're back to having a game wherein the decisions you make are meaningless, therefor boring.
It seems like a bit of a paradox.
I might note that winning or losing Fortnite 50v50 is almost exactly random. You have almost no control over the outcome (If skill didn't exist it would be exactly 2%). As far as I'm concerned they could just remove the concept of winning or losing from the mode, and I'd still play it. They could also individualize it and base it on some combination of personal, squad, and team performance. Whatever. It's just an absurd hoot, and I like it.
When they bother to actually have it up...
I spent the rest of the match trying to move near the outside of the circle and slowly loot up. I didn't get very lucky, ending with just an Alternator and a Peacekeeper, despite picking up good attachments for other guns that I never found. But slowly the list of players ticked down as I played a stealth game, avoiding conflict. I followed the circles, positioning well, and got a lucky carepackage drop which turned my blue armor into Gold armor, with other drops improving my white helmet to blue, and a digital threat for my Peacekeeper.
The circle continued to narrow, with me in Top 10, then Top 5, then Top 3. It was round 4 becoming round 5, with us in the forest outside of Wetlands, and there was no way I could stay hidden from two other full squads. There were only trees and a single building in the circle. So I ninja'ed behind a tree. Then I heard the sound of gunfire. I looked to see where the teams were, only to discover that the other 2 teams were just scared individuals like myself - solo players who somehow made it this far, in a tiny circle. One of them died, and the other threw a grenade at my position. I wasn't 100% sure it was just one opponent, so I repositioned avoiding the grenade. They gave chase, took the building but wanted a sightline.
I carefully waited for them to peak, and started blasting with a Choked Peacekeeper. They hit in some trees, but my digital threat helped me see. Their purple shield lost to my gold shield, and I was a solo champion.
It wasn't the most balls out aggro game, but a solo win (even against another solo) felt pretty good as an end result for a game where my team was gone before two minutes and I played sneaking simulator for most of the rest of the game.
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
What would happen if a real life sports team just walked away 3/4 of the way through a game because they happened to be losing? You'd have rioting.
I'm guessing the middle is falling away and the top players built friendslists to only play with each other.
That variation was part of the fun for me.
The way a BR is fun is that you don't have the expectation to win, but the hope that you could. And if the game is moving towards the same smaller group of players sweeping uncoordinated masses over and over, I think it will drop fast.
Has there been any word on MMR?
I don't get it, why are you playing the game if you don't want to play the game
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
They want to play the game solo and that's not an option. Though people did this shit in pubg squads too and there was totally a solo option. There was even a solo into squads option!
Finished 3rd because I got stuck between the remainder of the two enemy teams. Was a frustrating end to an otherwise hilarious match.
Caustic is pretty good now
(please don't mind my Longbow shooting, I never really bothered with it until trying it now post-buff)
A deep-mag Spitfire and an enemy squad that just finished reviving.
The Division, Warframe (XB1)
GT: Tanith 6227
https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/23/18507750/fortnite-work-crunch-epic-games
"“The executives keep reacting and changing things,” said the source. “Everything has to be done immediately. We’re not allowed to spend time on anything. If something breaks — a weapon, say — then we can’t just turn it off and fix it with the next patch. It has to be fixed immediately, and all the while, we’re still working on next week’s patch. It’s brutal."
"“As Fortnite Battle Royale became popular, it changed to having to get a feature done, with hardly any notice, and then having people stay until that feature was ready. So we went from having a month to prepare, to sometimes having as little as a day. A lot of it was mandatory staying at work with no notice until the job was done. Marketing had made a promise, and so we were told that it had to be done."
Plenty more, but for me, I prefer Apex's approach because it's less evil. At least assuming their slowness is intentional rather than them also falling into the Fortnite trap.
Respawn posted an update to set expectations on how they plan to support the game.
Incidentally, "Don't kill the dev team with an unsustainable update cadence" is one of their goals.
They're probably doing both, but we won't see the next map for a while. Changing the existing map is a relatively easy thing to do season-to-season.
It just means I want new modes.
I also want a giant pile of money and a machine that prints sandwiches. Doesn't mean I'm entitled to everything I want.
If they sometimes update their cool game to make it cooler, I'm happy.
I got two kills total and one match I carried my team hard with a whopping 99 damage.
No wins, a couple of top 2 finishes.
We did engage in some shenanigans though:
So it's weird to be playing a game where I feel like I'm not really getting any better,
Wish I could win a match while playing with my friends though. :razz:
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I felt that way, but I've been slowly getting more comfortable with long range weapons (Tripletake, Longbow). I actually just got my 300 meter down achievement earlier this week using a Tripletake!
If you're not confident that you are going to down them and they are not already shooting at you, you should be trying to find a better position; higher ground, more cover, perpendicular to their direction of travel/engagement.
If they are just running straight towards you or your squad, toss a few staggered grenades their way.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The longer range optics have helpful pips marking range by the hundred mark. So you can check range and plan.
Please explain how to use those pips. I feel like someone told me how to do it once but I haven't played shooters in a while, certainly not the kind that actually require the use of range finder aids.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Long scopes have a range indicator.
If it says 200m, that means you use the 200 pip on the range marks as your center of aim.
Basically as those marks go down, you're aiming higher to compensate for drop at the measured range.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Like, my two legends are around 65 kills. Few wins here and there. And I'm consistently losing to the people with 1400-3000+ kills and triple digit season 1 wins.