Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Player density in competitive modes and individual player impact

an image for a blog post about too many players in an online game mode
The zerg approaches!

 I've jumped back into Battlefield 2042 recently and it has me thinking about player density and the impact that I, as a single player, can have on a competitive match.  Battlefield games are known for their large match sizes (up to 128 players!) and big maps, but with that scale comes a loss of any single player's ability to impact the outcome.

 Before we get into the larger match sizes of Battlefield games let's look at some common team sizes across games.  The most common team size I can think of is 3.  New World's arenas are 3v3.  Apex Legends and The Finals are both 3-person squads.  After 3 is 5 (and 6).  Many games feature grouping sizes of 5 or 6, but not always in competitive modes (for example; New World groups are a size of 5 but there is no 5v5 mode). I think 3 hits a sweet spot where each player's contributions are maximized.

 While 3 may be the sweet spot it doesn't evoke any sort of feeling of being in a battle and many games are targeting giving players that sense of battle.  As the player count increases per team/side the player's ability to impact goes down.  

 Think about a Battlefield match with 128 players.  It is chaotic and tons of fun, but of those 100+ players how many are actually having a meaningful impact to the outcome?  Not many outside of maybe the elite helicopter pilot farming kills. Even with multiple points of conflict to fight over there is still likely a large number of players in any one area.

 Now look at a Battlefield match of 32 players with multiple points to defend/attack.  Spread out evenly that may be 4-8 players fighting over each point.  Losing one or two players is going to have an impact and it's more realistic to think that a single player could go Rambo and wipe out an entire team.  It also means the "elite helicopter pilot" is going to be that much more of a factor.

 In a game I am much more familiar with (3,000+ hours played and climbing) is New World.  There are a few modes we can zero in on: 3v3 arena, 20v20 outpost rush, and 50v50 war.

 I've spoke about team sizes of 3 earlier, but a common request I see in New World is for a 5v5 mode since the group size in New World is 5.  Personally 3v3 is the sweet spot.  While 3v3 can get bogged down due to healing/heavy tank builds that is not that common.  It is also possible for groups of 3 without a healer to compete.  If the arena was 5v5 there would be no way to go other than healer + clump strategies and the matches would boil down to which healer dies first.

 Jumping to the top end is war at 50v50.  Having played a fair number of wars and seen a fair number more via streamers I would argue there is a limited few individual players that have a major impact and almost always the "elite helicopter pilot" is the healer.  So I'd agree individual healers can have a massive impact on wars and thus anyone landing a kill shot on a healer has an impact, but otherwise war doesn't offer a lot for individuals to sway.

 This takes us back to 20v20 outpost rush (OPR) and where I feel the ceiling is for individual contribution. In OPR there are multiple objectives which change over the course of a match.  There are also activities that individual players can partake in that, when done well, can contribute to a team winning.

 As a quick aside here, as I am noting with OPR, a lot of what a player's contribution comes down to is the design of the game mode.  As we'll see breaking players up into various objectives decreases the population in any specific spot.  However, this has an eventual breaking point where if player numbers are higher it doesn't matter how many objectives there is because humans tend to always favor wanting unbalanced conflict and so you end up with "zergs" of players rolling over each objective.

 In OPR the 20 players per team + three main outposts to fight over with side events such as the baron fight results in a good mix of players across the match.  No part of the match is really 20 v 20; it is a of 3-5 player fights.  Within those smaller fights individual players can sway the match.  A single player can hold off a team trying to sneak behind and take a backline outpost.  A single player can gather supplies and show up in time to build doors on an outpost.

 In summary: too many players is too many players no matter the design.  Limiting player and providing divided objectives breaks up the action into a size where individuals have impact and when combined those impacts have an effect on the over all game mode.  It feels like the 16-20 player-per-side range is where that sweet spot is hit in my experience.

Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Spike in blog traffic!

 Big spike in blog traffic this morning!  Not sure why these 3 posts or why analytics says the biggest spike in visitors is from Poland but I'm open to be entertained to see where this goes (or get some sort of explanation it's not real like Google has done in the past).

A screenshot showing an increase in blog traffic on heartlessgamer blog.


Monday, March 04, 2024

New World New Drip

 To go with my Frigid Inferno (heavy fire staff / sword and shield) build I updated my transmog in New World.  I wanted to lean into the Frigid Dawn armor set and ice theme.

A screenshot from the MMORPG New World showing my transmog armor and weapon skins focused on Frigid Dawn armor set.
Stone cold.

  All of the armor pieces are the Frigid Dawn base skin except for the chest which I kept as the Arisen Commander skin with a silver blue dye to blend in the colors.  The firestaff skin is Sizzling Snow (which you can get via crafting one of the event patterns (1, 2, 3) if the patterns are available on your server's trading post).

 Not shown, but similiar to the firestaff the shield skin is Frigid Bulwark from the winter event patterns. The only other change I've thought about is making the sword have the Iceburst skin.  Enjoy!

Friday, March 01, 2024

Ashes of Creation Commissions

ashes of creation

 Ashes of Creation released its monthly development update featuring it's version of quests called commissions.  Watch the video and hit the jump for my thoughts.

 I have to admit the game looks visually better with each developer update and that stands out the moment the demo starts.  I am really digging the look of the town (called nodes) and it is still crazy to think most of these towns will be player placed and upgraded.

 The demo shows commissions which immediately brought "quest boards" to mind of every MMO in recent memory.  However, the difference that eventually pays off in the demo is that the commissions feed into more and more of what Ashes is advertising as it's main attraction: a living and dynamic world.

 Think of the commission as a kick start to get players out of town and into the opportunity to unlock a chain of events that contributes to a dynamic change in the world.  Players can of course just skip the opportunity as Steven does in the demo and get a train of enemies rolling around, but more exciting was to see the world change as different actions are taken.  

 In the video we get to see a sudden thunderstorm form as new enemies appear in an open world event.  The event intertwines with other quests in the area before hinting at unlocking a larger transformational world event at the end of the video.  

 Plenty of MMOs have dynamic open world events, but the "revolution" Ashes hints at is that all actions are leading to changes in the world that are stickier than other games.  A real "fear of missing out" model where server 1 will be different than server 2.  Add in the nodes mentioned earlier and the game is starting to show the real possibility to be that revolution we've all wanted in the MMORPG genre.

 This isn't to say all of it was revolutionary.  There was still the same old static -- I will never move from this spot - quest givers.  Enemy AI wasn't all that impressive; easily defeated by the age old tactic of running away.  Combat looks noisy (too many effects) and for a few updates has shown a favor towards kiting enemies.

 While I could nitpick more I won't.  I am cautiously continuing to grow excited about the possibilities of this game.  With only Alpha 2 planned for this year there is still along road to go here for betas and a launch, but its going to be a fun one to check out each month in the developer updates.


 

Thursday, February 29, 2024

The hypocrisy of posting on a blog in 2024

 Create a post on X (or whatever social media of choice) and share it on a site like a video game's forums and it's cool.  But create content on your own blog you've run for 19+ years to share and you are just a bottom sucker of the Internet.  Just blogging things.



Tuesday, February 27, 2024

New World: Season 5 Artifact Changes

 New World has an update on the public test realm (PTR) for the new artifacts coming in Season 5 (March 2024).  The biggest change is to Phoenix (the new amulet artifact).  The changes are covered in the following YouTube video from TrickTrick.

 As noted the big change is to Phoenix.  The initial version had a perk that was a copy of the original Defy Death ability for Hatchet.... which was long ago nerfed out of existence in the game. As expected there was an uproar in the community that it would be coming back on an amulet that anyone could use.  Fortunately the developers changed how it will work with Phoenix.  The new PTR wording is below:

Phoenix Vengeance: When you receive lethal damage, avoid death and become invulnerable for 4s, after which you die. (180s cooldown).

 The last part is the key: the player will die no after the four seconds expires giving them a last hurrah before taking their dirt nap! However, as noted in the video there is a way on PTR using Ice Gauntlet's Entombed ability for a player to avoid the "die" portion.  That has to be fixed or this is going to be abused.  Even with that oversight fixed this is still going to be strong; especially for those players that love diving into piles knowing they are going to die anyways and just want to take a few folks down with them.

 The spear artifact Venom was changed to only trigger on heavy melee attacks from the other equipped weapon.  Previously it included ranged attacks so, as an example, bow heavy attacks triggered Venom.  Ranged weapons are already very strong in the game and this would of made them even stronger.  This is a good change.

 The third artifact changed was the Tempest Fury Great Axe where Keen Speed was replaced with Refreshing Move.  This was a sensible change since the weapon already has a ton of speed boost built into it and didn't need anything extra.  Refreshing Move is a sought after perk on Great Axes for bruiser builds in war and as called out in the video by TrickTrick this will likely see some action in wars.  Personally I am going to try a "spin to win" build with the Fortifying Whirlwind aspect.

Monday, February 26, 2024

No Man's Sky Screenshots

 Just a few screenshots from trying out No Man's Sky this weekend as part of it's free weekend.  The game seems very complex but I was digging it after about an hour of play. I got blown up in space though so ended up on a planet repairing my ship which requires me to build a base first to craft all the repair parts. The systems seem to go very deep so a bit of a learning curve that I didn't get to explore further as the free weekend expired.

no mans sky screenshot
Scanning...

no mans sky screenshot
Refining

no mans sky screenshot
Floating space junk I never got around to exploring

no mans sky screenshot
Look ma! I'm a space man!

 

Monday, February 19, 2024

Blue Sky

bluesky

 Just a quick note today; you can find me enjoying myself over at Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/heartlessgamer.com

 No; this doesn't replace Mastodon (via gamepad.club's instance) for me. As I posted on Mastodon here is how I look at the two:

Mastodon via gamepad.club is my comfy local coffee shop where I can stop in and have a long sit and a comfy chat.

Blue Sky is a busy airport where I whizz by and get whizzed by; when something catches my eye I veer off course to check it out.  I'm as likely to chat about a hot new book release as I'm to be caught staring at the sports game on a TV.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Back to Back First Place in Outpost Rush

 Crushed a couple Outpost Rush matches back to back in New World landing first place both times and walking away with wins in very competitive matches (as opposed to getting rolled or doing the rolling).

new world opr
W: 1000 to 741 / 13 kills, 43 assists, 3 deaths

new world opr
W: 1000 to 911 (close!) / 6 kills, 55 assists, 2 deaths


Thursday, February 15, 2024

New World PTR Patch Notes: Season of the Guardian

excited for patch notes
Patch notes!  The best kind of present!
 

 For Valentine's Day we received the patch notes for the upcoming public test realm (PTR) updates for New World's Season of the Guardian update! Lots of exciting changes here so let's read through the finer details.

 First; I had a prior post going over the bigger topics so don't want to rehash them here.  You can read that here: Exciting Changes Coming to New World.  That post covers the new 10 man trial, the new artifacts, controller support, main story redesign, cooking overhaul, and magnify changes.  For this post I'll key into other notes.

 The big one of course relates to fort doors in Outpost Rush (OPR); currently the true invincible end boss of the PvP game mode!  

We are implementing the following changes to address ongoing feedback regarding OPR gate strength, while still being mindful of PvE players who prefer focusing on building up fort structures. We will continue to monitor feedback on this topic and consider further changes as necessary.
  • Added a 50% weakness for Siege damage to fort gate doors, allowing siege weaponry (e.g., powder kegs) to deal bonus damage to these structures.

  • Reduced the Strike/Slash absorption of fort gate doors from 10% Strike/20% Slash to 0% for both, ensuring that Strike and Slash damage types are not reduced when attacking gates. We aim for melee to have a bit of an advantage on the gates, as Thrust/Elemental damage is more prevalent in ranged weapons than melee.
  • Increased build and repair time for fort gate doors by 25% for the T2 gate and 50% for the T3 gate, reducing the strength of each repair tick.

 This change should make doors less invincible and more of a speedbump as they should be.  The change is looking to strike a balance between attacker and defender which is good.

 More changes are coming to equip loads.  The notes:

Equip Load Changes
  • Medium equip load is now the baseline, with damage, crowd control durations, outgoing healing, and block stability values adjusted to 0 across the board.
  •  Heavy equip load: has a 20% decrease to incoming CC status effect durations and +15% block stability. Trade-offs of -15% damage and -30% outgoing healing. Also has increased threat generation from taunting gems and perks to account for the decrease in damage output.
  • Light equip load: has +15% damage and +30% outgoing healing. Trade-offs of -15% block stability and +10% incoming CC status effect durations.

Comments:

Medium: good change.  Medium lacked an identity and while "default" isn't sexy it is at least something.

Heavy: this feels like a damage nerf but I need the experts to break this down for me on what it really means.  The rest seems fine and I am trying to figure out if this means the 55 stamina dodge is gone in favor of 50 stamina dodge again.

Light: similar to heavy; this feels like a damage nerf but need experts to weigh in.  I don't like that the healing boost is so much in light.  Feel sorry for healers being boxed into light so aggressively.

 Another small change I caught in the notes: "Players now have limited rotation while dodging forwards or backwards."  I believe this is related to players being able to pull of some very fancy dodges that are frankly annoying because they defy the logic of the characters current position vs where they can get to with the dodge.  Maybe this will correct that.

 Yay! "Increased the total number of active artifact quests a player can have simultaneously in progress from 5 to 10."

 Boo! My heavy flamethrower build keeps getting beat up! "Ensured mana regen does not occur while Flamethrower is active"

 It's the little things that matter (and now count!): "Killing small prey with a mount now progresses quest objectives and awards XP."

 Also hiding in the notes was an extensive section on changes to PvP ranks and rewards from the track.  Over all the rewards will be better the higher rank you are including higher gearscore of armor/weapon rewards.  Proof will be in the pudding and I feel sorry for lower rank players who will still be getting basically worthless gear rewards since lower ranks will have lower gearscore rewards.  For those of us at Rank 200 this should be a good change.

 The magnify changes are also written out so it is good to read that you can choose between how it works today and the new model where you pick the attribute.  Somewhat confirms we can still use magnify to split stats if you do it correctly (for example  I can get 300/300 with my current build which has 7 magnify pieces).  Exact wording below:

Adjusted how Magnify functions. Magnify now has a drop down on the attribute screen, and players are able to pick between Highest Stat (current functionality) or any of the other core attributes. If picking a core attribute like Strength, all of your magnify points will convert to Strength.
 Next, and maybe I am just hopeful for the future, there is mention of a seal extractor.  I am hoping this lays the ground work for other types of extractors to get valuable resources out of our gear.

Added Seal Extractors to the Faction Shops, allowing adventurers to remove custom attribute seals from their faction armor and revert its attribute back to Constitution.

 And last but not least: "Increased player wallet coin cap from 500,000 to 1,000,000."  Now if I could only get more than 500k gold :(