IRONHIDE COMMUNITY FORUM

My good friend Andrew and I were talking about competitive games and how PVP can effect the tone of the game.

Iron Marines is meant to be a casual RTS, but if there were to be multiplayer modes (or even just one mode for PVP) in the game, it would automatically become a hardcore game.

Take Plants vs Zombies for example. It's one of the easiest TD games I've ever played, but doing versus mode makes it a lot more serious. Instead of simply making a nice, symmetrical layout of plants, you furiously rush to destroy all zombies by making what you can as soon as possible. As zombies, I've seen a couple of videos where the zombie players just pick whatever they think is funny. "Ooh, the Gargantuar! I'll get him 'cuz he's big!" But you can take the game more seriously and pick certain cheap zombies for spam tactics or other combinations for deep strategies. My favourite was always regular Zombie, Zomboni, Disco Zombie, Gargantuar, and Flat Zombie.

Super Smash Bros. is a cartoony, silly fighting game with lots of mini games. To me, the point of that game was to let players have fun using their favourite Nintendo character, but instead, everyone picks Rosalina, Sheik, Bayonetta, and other top-towe characters because they think those characters are the most powerful. The game became hardcore as people wanted to win more than anything else.

I personally am not very competitive, but wouldn't mind having PVP in Iron Marines, especially if it was diverse with multiple modes and lots of options to change for different kinds of matches. However, putting PVP into the game would almost certainly make it a hardcore RTS rather than the causal one that Ironhide wants. I'm writing all of this so that we know the outcome of making multiplayer options in Iron Marines, and can better form our opinion about whether we want it or not. I still do, but I realise that it won't be the game that the developers want so much as what the community wants.

Multiplayer would be a most intriguing addition, however we have to acknowledge the difficulty in creating it: not only must you set up a reliable hosting server capable of transmitting data quickly and efficiently between hundreds (if not thousands) of players -- something which becomes all the more problematic if Ironhide were to host the server in Uruguay -- but likewise do you have to hire people specifically to manage the network and data being transmitted. There is, of course, the possibility of self-hosting for local play, but such is difficult to manage on mobiles; it is likely that there would be a number of limitations in being able to process the amount of data being sent through when treating the device as both a server and a player. Nonetheless, if somehow it could be managed, the prospects of its existence are extensive.

Technical issues such as those, balancing, creating new factions and then balancing them, making multiplayer maps, and so on are all big parts of multiplayer as well, but I was mostly focusing on the design aspect of integrating multiplayer more than anything else.

Super Smash Bros. is a cartoony, silly fighting game with lots of mini games. To me, the point of that game was to let players have fun using their favourite Nintendo character, but instead, everyone picks Rosalina, Sheik, Bayonetta, and other top-tier characters because they think those characters are the most powerful. The game became hardcore as people wanted to win more than anything else.

I don't that way about Smash Bros. And, I don't have much trouble beating those top-tier characters, because, while they are good characters, they're also hard to learn more often than not. I guess I should take this to the SSB thread, though.

Ninja wrote:

Super Smash Bros. is a cartoony, silly fighting game with lots of mini games. To me, the point of that game was to let players have fun using their favourite Nintendo character, but instead, everyone picks Rosalina, Sheik, Bayonetta, and other top-tier characters because they think those characters are the most powerful. The game became hardcore as people wanted to win more than anything else.

I don't that way about Smash Bros. And, I don't have much trouble beating those top-tier characters, because, while they are good characters, they're also hard to learn more often than not. I guess I should take this to the SSB thread, though.

I'm not saying that the characters are OP or anything. The community makes tier-lists to decide which characters do the best against other characters when used, which is taking things seriously and competitively. I don't know if Ironhide is OK with players being serious and competitive about Iron Marines.

Big Bad Bug wrote:

Ninja wrote:

Super Smash Bros. is a cartoony, silly fighting game with lots of mini games. To me, the point of that game was to let players have fun using their favourite Nintendo character, but instead, everyone picks Rosalina, Sheik, Bayonetta, and other top-tier characters because they think those characters are the most powerful. The game became hardcore as people wanted to win more than anything else.

I don't that way about Smash Bros. And, I don't have much trouble beating those top-tier characters, because, while they are good characters, they're also hard to learn more often than not. I guess I should take this to the SSB thread, though.

I'm not saying that the characters are OP or anything. The community makes tier-lists to decide which characters do the best against other characters when used, which is taking things seriously and competitively. I don't know if Ironhide is OK with players being serious and competitive about Iron Marines.

Well, they are still pretty good characters, hence why they are used by the best players, because those players recognize their potential, hence why they are at the top of the tier list.

Isn't Dedede at a really low tier despite being OP? Most of the tiers are subjective because there just happen to be better players using certain characters more often. Why do you think Zero Suit Samus is so high? People just want to use her because they think she's hot, so you have lots of people using certain characters and getting good with them to bolster their rankings.

Big Bad Bug wrote:Isn't Dedede at a really low tier despite being OP? Most of the tiers are subjective because there just happen to be better players using certain characters more often. Why do you think Zero Suit Samus is so high? People just want to use her because they think she's hot, so you have lots of people using certain characters and getting good with them to bolster their rankings.

I think, but I could be wrong, that people use ZSS because of her grab combos and excellent abilities paired with an extremely fast attack speed in almost all of her attacks. And her Up Special is OP. Dedede is at a relatively low tier because he has less potential than a high tier character does, though he is easy to learn and has attacks that must not be underestimated. Most of the high tier characters are at such a high tier because they are good, and the best players realized that and used it to their advantage. There are some that suffer from the problems you mentioned, and I guess ZSS could be a candidate for such things. But overall, I think it's like I said, high tier characters are high tier because they're good, and the best players discovered as much.

And now this should go to the SSB thread, before this gets driven too far off-topic.

We could split and move (parts of) the thread to the Smash topic if you'd like.

@Aeris: Yeah, I think that would be the appropriate action.

Like others have said, I think game balance and server costs are the main things preventing this from happening. Nobody cares about faction parity in SC2's campaign, but since it has leaderboards and stuff, perfection in balance is everything. Blizzard's inability to properly balance SC2 is what's killing it, from what I've heard.

Also, I'm sure the server costs for conveying multiplayer info in real-time (think DotA/LoL/CSGO/SC2) are super high. Considering their budget, the servers for DotA/LoL break down pretty frequently.

It would be a great mode if it was implemented,but for a unstable company in Uraguay,let's just wait until they are ready for a great,polished game with multiplayer.

I think it's bad design to have characters counter each other and expect that to work as balance. It just make non-mirror matches end up determined from the character select screen. We want to reward players for overcoming matchups where momentum issues inevitably arise. Think a matchup like Ganondorf VS Mega Man in SSB. Heck, Kid Icarus Uprising has less extreme matchups being auto-wins from brain-dead keepaway or brain-dead melee rushes being too damn strong.

Speaking of SSB, you listed Bayonetta as a top tier. I'm guessing it's because of the 0-Deaths, although I do think they should be nerfed to be easily equivalent to Fool's Mate in Chess, despite how they do in fact fit Bayonetta. Even then, you may want to watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVmCW3cQInE
Most of them are from 1.1.4, before Witch Time was even nerfed in an effort to prevent its spam. I certainly have a much easier time against Bayonetta than against Cheappin or Pay2Win Disjointsman.

Here's a key secret to SSB's general balance efforts: Affinity Play. The concept of Affinity Play is that the character rewards the opposing player for being that same character, not just the opposing player's own character. The very first match in the video I linked to showcases Bayonetta's Affinity Play, seeing as I intentionally face back against Bayonetta, actually due to my reasons to dislike her, but the effect is the same: I'm intending to tell Bayonetta that she's target practice like she would tell the chauvinists that they are such. Both KOs on Bayonetta shows that this worked well enough. The effect of Affinity Play is that the player behind a character has to be ready to be subjected to the same things their character is about, or else they are asking to be Beaten At Their Own Game no matter which character the opponent uses.

Affinity Play can be subtle too. Case in point: Grid Reading in Kid Icarus Uprising, which allows ANYBODY to do fighting at long range, even if it wouldn't necessarily show because the person in a disadvantaged matchup wouldn't be dealing damage until they manage to fix the underlying problem, most notably closing the distance with freaking Skyscraper Club against most things. Of course, subtle Affinity Play has to be done right, which goes for anything, but I do need to emphasize the point here because it can be done wrong VERY easily.

A Close substitute should be an AI Skirmish mode where you can adjust the rules, settings, etherium, map, difficulty, etc