Should "relaxed realism" mode be limited to single player only?

[MtnMan01]

I vote those who vote yes obviously don't want the community to grow. There is absolutely no reason to not allow them online in that mode (besides the before mentioned "they need to have it as hard as we did"). That is the whole freaking point of the mode. To introduce more people into the game we love at an easier pace. One of the major problems that has always stood out to this day about Ostfront is their first day of play. Those purchasers tended to fall into 2 categories: Those who got past the first day and learned to loved it and stuck around, and those that hit the learning curve and and quit the first day.

The two modes of play style as seen in other games such as OFP (where I first saw it) is a great way to introduce players to the game without scaring them off. That game is what got me into realism gaming!

agree 100%,,well said,,,,,

 

[Flogger23m]

just look at the death messages in RO, it's an unrealistic feature that helps players. still most players want to play on server that have it on, what does that say about what can happen in HOS? if you give players the possibility to have features that help them ingame, only verry few will refuse them for the sake of realism

This is what will most likely happen.

Especially if "Relaxed mode" is the default.

I say limit it to SP.
Playing mp in RO means getting your *** handed to you on a silver plate more times then you wish to count before you earn your first kill, that's how it is and that's how it should stay.

I agree.

I vote those who vote yes obviously don't want the community to grow.

This is a nice thought, but you are forgetting one thing:

There will be a divide in the community. Those that play relaxed, and those that play the normal mode.

Yes, HoS as a whole will have a larger community, but it won't mean anything if the new players aren't playing the realism mode.

What will happen is the people who play the realism mode will get annoyed when they find that servers are empty with only one map (like 24/7 Danzig now), and just give in and play on relaxed mode so they can actually play some games.


I've seen it happen in many other games. People will switch over to the more popular game mode. In HoS, this will be relaxed.

No, that's not what it should be about. Besides, relaxed realism doesn't change the gunplay a bit, so what are you complaining about? It just gives newcomers some more tactical and strategic info.

There is a lot more required than proper gunplay to make an immersive realistic shooter.

 

[LogisticEarth]

I really don't care as long as it doesn't end up that the only public servers that are left after a year or two are "DANIZG REMIX 24/7!" and "50 player's crammed into a bunch of maps designed for half that may players", both set on relaxed realism.

 

[Lucan946]

This is what will most likely happen.

Especially if "Relaxed mode" is the default.




I agree.





This is a nice thought, but you are forgetting one thing:

There will be a divide in the community. Those that play relaxed, and those that play the normal mode.

Yes, HoS as a whole will have a larger community, but it won't mean anything if the new players aren't playing the realism mode.

What will happen is the people who play the realism mode will get annoyed when they find that servers are empty with only one map (like 24/7 Danzig now), and just give in and play on relaxed mode so they can actually play some games.


I've seen it happen in many other games. People will switch over to the more popular game mode. In HoS, this will be relaxed.





There is a lot more required than proper gunplay to make an immersive realistic shooter.

My point is, you will still get your *** kicked, you'll just know where to go to get your *** kicked. If you know you are at least doing something useful, you have more fun than just dying over and over again.

 

[Flogger23m]

I really don't care as long as it doesn't end up that the only public servers that are left after a year or two are "DANIZG REMIX 24/7!" and "50 player's crammed into a bunch of maps designed for half that may players", both set on relaxed realism.

Well, all games eventually end up like that.

 

[Fedorov]

1 - "relaxed realism" will be 10x more realistic than CoD's hardcore

2 - it wont divide the community, I'd rather play normal realism, but i wont filter out the "relaxed realism" either, and the noobs will not even know how to filter the normal realism ones. I base my server choice on 3 things with this order of priority: 1. players 2. ping 3. map. Its alrady hard to find a good server using this method so i'm not gonna be picky about is level of realism, I'm sure it wont change much anyway from one to another

3 - what makes you think that "relaxed realism" will be th most played?

 

[[-project.rattus-]]

If we go by Yoshis example of OFP, or both ArmAs for that matter, I do forsee a problem:

If you want to play as realisticly as possible, you'll have to either wait for a very long time for a server to fill up, or only play in organized games, as most of the servers, and especially most of the populated servers will be running the "Cadet"/"relaxed realism" mode.

IMHO, this doesn't make the community grow, it rather causes a rift and will create a second, presumably much larger "relaxed" community. Which, in the long run, will mean a decline and possibly extinction for us few "hardcore" people, as TW will focus on the larger audience rather than us few bitter, moaning and complaining realism loving players.

And fedorov: It's human nature that makes me predict this. The people in general will always use the easiest way. Just like most people start games on "easy".
The breed of gamers like me, who play games exclusively on the highest available difficulty (and only backing down if I can't possibly beat it that way), isn't dying, but as it's only a tiny niche, is getting less and less games catered to their tastes.

Of course, we don't know how much of a difference "relaxed realism" means in the end, but still, the option is a step in the wrong direction IMHO.

Unless relaxed realism means it's like RO today and hardcore mode would incorporate many loved "features" (even though Ramm certainly disagrees on those to be features...) like a simple sketch without GPS for an overview map, so you have to figure out where you are by yourself. Or capping indicators. Or announcement scrolls...
I do doubt it will be that way though.

 

[Das Bose]

if we go by yoshis example of ofp, or both armas for that matter, i do forsee a problem:

If you want to play as realisticly as possible, you'll have to either wait for a very long time for a server to fill up, or only play in organized games, as most of the servers, and especially most of the populated servers will be running the "cadet"/"relaxed realism" mode.

Imho, this doesn't make the community grow, it rather causes a rift and will create a second, presumably much larger "relaxed" community. Which, in the long run, will mean a decline and possibly extinction for us few "hardcore" people, as tw will focus on the larger audience rather than us few bitter, moaning and complaining realism loving players.
.

qft!

 

[Fedorov]

do you think there'll be any clan tournament or any form of organized teamplay server that are going to run on the relaxed realism version?

and, as i said probably the diference between realism and rlaxed realism wont be much more that those directional indicators and the likes. and while im not against the idea of those indicators, i think that the opinion is unanimous that the effect of those indicators should be far more subtle and should not look like an indicator at all, more like a blurr in the edge of the screen.

You believe that everyon will play on "easy" which isnt more easy (is the same game, just more accesible) and we all timers will disappear. Well, I don't think I'll leave RO for that reason and, IMO once those new guys start to apreciate the realism they'll move on to the next step and play in the more hardcore mode, so we'll always have servers in both modes

they'll apreciate it, because realism is what RO is all about its is core and soul, once they reach it (once they passed the smoother learning curve) they'll be free to judge if they like its realism and stay and move on to the more hardcore mode, or they dont like it, and go back to play CoD

Edit: but well I guess it wouldnt hurt if they learn in SP mode and then have only the normal realism in MP, as the SP campaign would have already let them past that first day

 

[[-project.rattus-]]

do you think there'll be any clan tournament or any form of organized teamplay server that are going to run on the relaxed realism version?

Yes, there will be. If the majority of players will stick with relaxed mode, most of the tournaments and leagues will use it. RO:Ladder will most likely stay on maximum realism, but if ROHoS is successful enough this time to spawn long term interest to play it on Clanbase and the ESL, I do think that the main leagues there will be in relaxed mode.

And the relaxed mode faces a similar problem likt the hero status: Either it DOES make a pronounced difference, or it doesn't. If it in fact doesn't, why bother implementing it? I for one do think that those indicators alone, be they as subtle as they can be, would alter how the game is played tremendously.

And for the switching over: I have some experience in racing sims, and I can tell you that people who use aids at the beginning are very reluctant to turn them off, as they teach you bad habits you have to unlearn in addition to master the inherent difficulty. Thus I don't really see a large group of people migrating from relaxed to hardcore. In fact, i doubt the number of people doing that will be worth mentioning.

See, realism isn't what RO is about these days anymore. Of course it will be more realistic than CoD (which I actually don't think to be a good benchmark. I'd rather see the original Ghost Recon, the original R6 series, or even RO mentioned here), but the goal isn't to make the most realistic and immersive game out there anymore, but to make a compromise between being realistic and being accessible to Joe Average. And the past has shown us that this compromise isn't easy to achieve. I personally don't know a single title that managed to pull it off. But hats of to TW if they manage to do so.

If they were targeting solely an audience than mainly goes for realism, features like the relaxed mode or hero status wouldn't be in the game. Sadly, I too know that TW can't survive financially if they only cater to this market, thus compromises have to be made.
Still, I am not happy with it.

 

[SchutzeSepp]

You believe that everyon will play on "easy" which isnt more easy (is the same game, just more accesible) and we all timers will disappear. Well, I don't think I'll leave RO for that reason and, IMO once those new guys start to apreciate the realism they'll move on to the next step and play in the more hardcore mode, so we'll always have servers in both modes

i think the opposite is true, relaxed realism will have more aids, and icons etc... more things to use to your advantage. who will use those aids the best? the newcommers or the experienced players? it will just make the whole thing more difficult for newcommers to the fps genre, but possibly less for those who come from other fps game.

take two 15 year olds who have never played fps games, throw one on a COD server, and the other on a RO server. wich one will get owned the most? RO feels complicated for those who come from COD, but it's in fact much more simple and logic. games like COD just spoil people upto losing their sense of logic.

 

[Fedorov]

I don't know, I've discovered RO because I was a UT2k4 player which is quite the opposite of RO and since RO I haven't touched UT2k4 again

I can't talk about CoD because I've never played it multyplayer, I wasn't interested

 

[REZ]

My opinion is that the people will go where the most people are, plain and simple. Thats usually how it works with FPS games and RO has shown to be no different (Danzig 24/7 and 50 player mayhem). People dont want to seed servers, so they will join only populated servers. This explains why there are 200 empty servers and 15 or so with people in them (happens to most games that dont have a huge population). So if this holds true, as I'm sure it will, we will all be able to see at the outset of the game how the server landscape will look for the next 6 months to a year and most likely beyond. Of course, talking about public play here.

If the majority of people play on relaxed mode servers from the get go, then expect those servers to be the ones with the players for a good time to come. The only thing those who like a more challenging game can do is to stack into the non-relaxed mode servers from the start, and dont jump into the relaxed ones - ever. My only concern here is I think it may take time for server admins to fine tune the game to how we like to play it (we may need mutators as well) - time lost to the relaxed servers. Time for them to gain regulars, then it's over.... you'll be playing relaxed style whether you like it or not.

 

[Rak]

I agree with Rattus. Right now most of the ROTr community isn't happy with what they see, and I can't blame them. I fear that we'll be "outlanders" after the game is out and the "new community" rushes in.

At least I hope TW will make the "Realistic" mode as close to Ostfront-Combined Arms standarts as possible. That includes weapon damages, movement speeds and the "feeling" as close as possible to them. So far it feels like the game took a different direction, focusing on relaxed mode rather than pursuing that "authentic" feeling.

"Relaxed Realism" should be nothing but a be a step for the Realistic mode, I fear as with other people here in this thread that it'll become the "main mode" of the game and it's future. Although the true RO authenticity lies in current Ostfront style(hence Realistic mode).

Anyway, Tripwire has one shot and I understand them. But I urge them to shape "Relaxed Realism" and "Realistic" modes after the needs of the both communities.

 

[Mormegil]

When I used to play combat flight sims (CFS3 & IL-2), I found the realism servers to be at least as popular as the relaxed realism servers. Maybe there's a difference between racing sim players and WWII buffs.

 

[=GG= Mr Moe]

I think that there will be enough for both types, especially in the beginning year and maybe beyond. If there are enough players that want to play the realism instead of the 'relaxed' realism, then there won't be a problem at all with the number of servers.

 

[Fedorov]

That includes weapon damages, movement speeds and the "feeling" as close as possible to them. So far it feels like the game took a different direction, focusing on relaxed mode rather than pursuing that "authentic" feeling.

those things wont change in any version i'd say the diferencs between both will be mainly in the HUD

 

[Apos]

There is simply method, allow new players to play in "relaxed realism" due 1st month only. Newcomers will get experience and learn about RO basics, so they will be ready to switch realism and play in normal RO with vets (us ).

For consoles - i don't care, there might be relaxed realism only.

ps. Second version is to force new players to play in RO-realism after earn XX rank.

 

[LemoN]

There is simply method, allow new players to play in "relaxed realism" due 1st month only. Newcomers will get experience and learn about RO basics, so they will be ready to switch realism and play in normal RO with vets (us ).

For consoles - i don't care, there might be relaxed realism only.

ps. Second version is to force new players to play in RO-realism after earn XX rank.

forcing anything on anyone is never a good idea imho

 

[HodlPu]

I'm sure there will be plenty of realistic servers. TW has to think about more than just one audience you know? If they only support a portion of gamers, they won't be making much money... We should be lucky TW isn't selling out and found a good way to incorporate hardcore gamers with casual



BTW, TWI, make sure you make it extremely clear in the game that there are 2 modes. I've ran into people in Killing Floor who did not even know there were other difficulties. Maybe showing a choice right when you click on campaign would help.