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MAG |OT| 256-Player Battles, Lots of Teamwork, Not So Much Auto-Aim

Vinci

Danish
Malvolio said:
If that's what it takes to balance the game, sure.

What do you think the effect will be after some people have deleted characters and re-rolled SVER? And what about the skilled SVER players? How do you think they'll feel given they don't perceive of any weapon imbalance and are suddenly sitting with gimped equipment?
 

KaYotiX

Banned
Hey Click, if you guys do roll other sides let me know!! Was very fun playing with you guys lastnight and IMO teamwork in MAG > any map advantage.
 

Malvolio

Member
Vinci said:
What do you think the effect will be after some people have deleted characters and re-rolled SVER? And what about the skilled SVER players? How do you think they'll feel given they don't perceive of any weapon imbalance and are suddenly sitting with gimped equipment?

I honestly don't care about who feels nerfed or gimped or tricked. The goal is balancing the game right? I doubt you would lose enough people to matter anyway. If the game is fun and balanced people will play and find something new to bitch about anyway.
 

Vinci

Danish
Malvolio said:
I honestly don't care about who feels nerfed or gimped or tricked. The goal is balancing the game right? I doubt you would lose enough people to matter anyway. If the game is fun and balanced people will play and find something new to bitch about anyway.

Hmm. I think rotating the maps would achieve a similar balance without unceremoniously pissing off a good portion of the game's current playerbase. The difference is this: If you gimp or nerf a particular group's equipment, they'll get pissed; if you rotate the maps, no one is being targeted directly. This is ordinarily a much better thing to do in the short and long run.
 
Malvolio said:
Attackers don't usually fall over dead on their own.
Well at least for me I don't have a problem with infantry face-offs, provided I don't get the short end of the lag stick. I either get my ass kicked or do the kicking myself.

Its those damn bunkers, with those damn turrets, and the damn overlapping fields of fire, and their perfect coverage of just about every avenue of approach. I'd rather Raven and Valor maps get the same defensive philosophy applied rather than nerfing anybody.

Your mileage may vary of course. But I do want to see this game succeed as there really isn't anything out there on the consoles that is this ambitious. Without real data to go by, all of this can just be written off as anecdotal.

I'd love to know whats going through the minds of the folks at Zipper.
 
Sver had their weapons nerfed before, I doubt it would matter much and just could make things worse if suddenly their guns became useless from constant nerfs when its not the guns that were the problem.
 

depward

Member
depward said:
Checking my stats in the barracks menu shows I've played 11 hours and change... yet when you access my card via the clan menu, I'm up to 14. Will the three hours of "lost time" there just never count? If so, that would be unfortunate, because I received some sweet ribbons playing last night that aren't showing at the moment..

Anyone know?
 
I like the idea about making/adjusting SVER asset so it have less hp and easier to destroy.
or maybe play around with respawn time. SVER had slightly longer respawn because they're less organized.

it fits well with the story that SVER are not too strict in their organization and have less advanced tech, so it make sense if their asset are less durable. don't know if they already do this or not.
 

Vinci

Danish
Callibretto said:
I like the idea about making/adjusting SVER asset so it have less hp and easier to destroy.
or maybe play around with respawn time. SVER had slightly longer respawn because they're less organized.

it fits well with the story that SVER are not too strict in their organization and have less advanced tech, so it make sense if their asset are less durable. don't know if they already do this or not.

What Inanna said was that during a prior beta, SVER's weapons were weaker than the other two PMCs. SVER complained. Their weapons were upgraded. Again, I can't confirm this, as I wasn't involved in the earlier betas, but that is what Inanna said.
 

Malvolio

Member
Vinci said:
Hmm. I think rotating the maps would achieve a similar balance without unceremoniously pissing off a good portion of the game's current playerbase. The difference is this: If you gimp or nerf a particular group's equipment, they'll get pissed; if you rotate the maps, no one is being targeted directly. This is ordinarily a much better thing to do in the short and long run.

I think you might overestimate the amount of people who would get pissed off. Sure the ones who will complain will be loud, but its always the loudest ones who complain the most. If they were to nerf SVER's equipment I doubt there would be much of an uproar once people get back to playing.

Rotating maps though goes against one of the very things that this game is trying to use to set itself apart. These are three distinct factions with three different locales that they call home. When I'm defending, I'm defending SVER territory. When I'm attacking, I'm trying to kickdown your front door and break your stuff and steal your shit. It personalizes the game and adds an element that not many FPS games are willing to strive for.

As I said though, I want balance, so if map rotations are done and work then goody, but I hope they try some other options first.
 

Vinci

Danish
Malvolio said:
Rotating maps though goes against one of the very things that this game is trying to use to set itself apart. These are three distinct factions with three different locales that they call home. When I'm defending, I'm defending SVER territory. When I'm attacking, I'm trying to kickdown your front door and break your stuff and steal your shit. It personalizes the game and adds an element that not many FPS games are willing to strive for.

So if you're SVER and you're attacking what you see as your home turf and ugly RAVEN is controlling it, you aren't going to take that personally? Of course you would. The point is, the in-game fiction can work both ways equally well.
 
Malvolio said:
Rotating maps though goes against one of the very things that this game is trying to use to set itself apart. These are three distinct factions with three different locales that they call home. When I'm defending, I'm defending SVER territory. When I'm attacking, I'm trying to kickdown your front door and break your stuff and steal your shit. It personalizes the game and adds an element that not many FPS games are willing to strive for.
Thats where my idea of "capitals" comes in. Add more free maps (contested territories not aligned with any faction), up the defense of the existing maps, and make these super defensible maps into faction "capitals", so everybody gets their maps that are just a joke to attack ;P

If you want to see a massive persistent war done right you should see what From did with Chromehounds imo.
 

Malvolio

Member
Vinci said:
So if you're SVER and you're attacking what you see as your home turf and ugly RAVEN is controlling it, you aren't going to take that personally? Of course you would. The point is, the in-game fiction can work both ways equally well.


The PMCs controlling other territory does not make sense to me. These are three factions competing for military contracts and they engage in sabotage and theft in order to help their cause, they aren't invading forces set on claiming enemy territory.
 

Vinci

Danish
NullPointer said:
Thats where my idea of "capitals" comes in. Add more free maps (contested territories not aligned with any faction), up the defense of the existing maps, and make these super defensible maps into faction "capitals", so everybody gets their maps that are just a joke to attack ;P

If you want to see a massive persistent war done right you should see what From did with Chromehounds imo.

Never played Chromehounds. Explain this 'capitals' idea to me in gameplay terms. I'm curious how it would fit in.
 
Vinci said:
Never played Chromehounds. Explain this 'capitals' idea to me in gameplay terms. I'm curious how it would fit in.
Its too late now as the servers have been shut down, but here is how the Wiki describes it:

Wiki said:
The Neroimus War is an online campaign mode which involves the three countries fighting for the continent of Neroimus. Players can join or make a squad, the equivalent of a clan or guild in other online games, to participate in the War. The map of Neroimus is divided into several areas connected by paths. Each area is divided into several maps. Players may launch a mission within any enemy area adjacent to a friendly area, or in any friendly area which is under attack. Victory yields merit points, which raise your rank, captured parts for the lottery, and capture points. When a country has gained a certain amount capture points on a map, 25,000 to 32,000 for normal battlegrounds and 50,000 for capital cities, that map is turned over to the country. An area belongs to the country which has the most capture points in its maps. When a capital city falls, all areas under that country become part of the conquering country, and players may only fight to reclaim their capital, or seek asylum in another country. The War ends when one country controls the entire map or after two months have passed. After a war ends, squads may choose to change alliance to a different country, and then the next War begins. It should be noted that all of the experimental parts have become available, now only captured parts are available.
Source
 

Vinci

Danish
That sounds pretty neat. Any unintended negative effects? For example: Was there a group of clans that always stayed on the same side of the conflict and continuously overran the others after each reset?
 

Lince

Banned
FFObsessed said:
we probably won it thanx to Lince joining the game as OIC and repairing the anti air battery.

Fucking amazing.

NEARLY HAD A HEART-ATTACK !

well I joined the game with 7 minutes to go and instead of being put with your squad I was assigned to a random one where everyone was doing terrible, the best guy was 6/18 and with incredible low XP numbers... next thing I know I'm the OIC of the match and thought holy shit how is this possible? with 6:30 minutes to go we're getting completely owned and now the OIC jumps ship? I used the jamming perk, went straight to repair one mortar battery, refreshed the squad/platoon leaders mortar and air strikes and told them to use everything they got, used the quicker spawning perk and the block on the enemy's and then proceeded to repair the anti-air, planted some claymores and camped there with a random Japanese dude to keep it until the end of the match, it was so stressful in the sense that I never lost the faith knowing that the GAF squad was somewhere trying their best, fucking amazing indeed. MAG is such an awesome game, if only Domination was as good as Sabo/Acquisition framerate and lag wise...
 
SVER weapons don't need any nerfs, seriously SVER can be defeated without issue in the other modes, it's in Domination where they dominate. If it was a weapons balance issue SVER would be owning on everyone across the board.

Gimping SVER simply because they rule over one mode of the game just screws them heavily in the other modes which appeared to be perfectly balanced.
 
Vinci said:
That sounds pretty neat. Any unintended negative effects? For example: Was there a group of clans that always stayed on the same side of the conflict and continuously overran the others after each reset?
I honestly couldn't tell you because I never played the game hardcore or kept up with all the war drama - it was still pretty early into the 360 generation and I didn't have the time to spend.

But what I do remember loving was the choice you had in the battles you sought. You saw the world map, which maps were held tight, which ones were under threat, and which maps comprised the front line. So you could choose to defend or attack, and choose whether to take on a heavily contested map (worth more) or take it a little easier on a side map. You could even play the world war against bots if you wanted, but you wouldn't accrue many merit points for your faction that way.

The way MAG is currently organized the world map doesn't really mean anything, and you're only choice consists of game mode. You can easily get stuck playing defense on the same damn map all day long.

If map rotation wouldn't solve the balance issue, it would at least help alleviate the repetition issue for a while.
 

Little_Luke

Neo Member
Callibretto said:
I like the idea about making/adjusting SVER asset so it have less hp and easier to destroy.
or maybe play around with respawn time. SVER had slightly longer respawn because they're less organized.

it fits well with the story that SVER are not too strict in their organization and have less advanced tech, so it make sense if their asset are less durable. don't know if they already do this or not.


This ... Zipper got cute making their maps better for defense ... well lets carry through with PMC theme characteristics.
 

TheFallen

Member
That last second win Domination we had earlier on SVER GAF was kinda annoying. Our entire platoon crumbled on one end and I was scrambling to cover their asses. Glad Lince came in with the OIC abilities. We did good in the end, the few of us from GAF I mean. I had a ridiculous xp and k/d ratio from that one. Ended up with 7 ribbons.
 

Lince

Banned
Violater said:
Valor Raven, went down like flies tonight.
Good games SVER gaf, we rolled over them using sheer teamwork and numbers.

yes we dominated, playing with you guys is such an honor, everyone is doing a terrific job. Lately I'm noticing a lot of Valor and Raven soldiers just camping objectives from a distance and thus those that remain by the objectives are getting destroyed, they may have a couple of cheap kills but they're not helping their team, there's this occasional bunker that we struggle to blow up due to a good squad (a clan) defending it but 95% of our Domination games are wrapped up in 10 minutes :lol
 

sturmdogg

Member
Vinci said:
Hmm. I think rotating the maps would achieve a similar balance without unceremoniously pissing off a good portion of the game's current playerbase. The difference is this: If you gimp or nerf a particular group's equipment, they'll get pissed; if you rotate the maps, no one is being targeted directly. This is ordinarily a much better thing to do in the short and long run.

I would have to agree with this. Not to mention this would probably help give the game more replayability.
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
Lince said:
yes we dominated, playing with you guys is such an honor, everyone is doing a terrific job. Lately I'm noticing a lot of Valor and Raven soldiers just camping objectives from a distance and thus those that remain by the objectives are getting destroyed, they may have a couple of cheap kills but they're not helping their team, there's this occasional bunker that we struggle to blow up due to a good squad (a clan) defending it but 95% of our Domination games are wrapped up in 10 minutes :lol

Literally, by the 25 minute mark, we almost always had their bunkers blown and we're marching toward the final objective, destroying various targets on the way in. For the first time ever, I topped 1k points a few times. At this rate, I'll be max level by the end of the weekend.
 

Loudninja

Member
Dont know if this been posted


Server Restart, Patch Alert: MAG v1.01a
Graphics

* Resolved issue that caused banding and/or artifacts in the sky.

Server

* Server performance enhancements with a focus on reducing lag issues.
* Lowered chances of encountering 5:5 errors
* Added additional statistics-focused servers
* Added additional servers for Japan.

http://blog.mag.com/blog/2010/02/server-restart-patch-alert-mag-v1-01a-2/



Going to get this next week cant wait to join you guys :D
 

Click

Banned
commish said:
Nice games tonight, svergaf (i am tigerheli). Every domination, we blow through those bunkers like they aren't even there. I must have blew up 15 turrets with my rockets tonight.

Them lock-on rockets with fast RPG reload sure is awesome.

I wonder how fast / easily we can demolish a turret if 4 or 5 of us set up, counted down from 3, and blew the turret up with 1 simultaneous shot.

But yeah, Domination most of time for us, are really just that.... us dominating the opposing platoon. Attack or defense, it doesn't matter. Most of SVER GAF know what they're doing, how to follow directions, and how to react in situations well. However, we really do need at least 6 of us in a squad to be very effective.
 

Corran Horn

May the Schwartz be with you
Nice I fixed my YLOD ps3 after working on it for 3-4 hours. Deactivated all my accounts except main
Now backing up. Scared to put mag in there again :lol
 

Click

Banned
I just wanted to ask, do any of the other GAF factions know about the "Sweep" technique?

Most of the time I see it used against us, our chance to win or dominate go drastically down. But because most players don't know about this strategy, we end up using it on opposing platoons and they can do little about it.


BTW I can't wait until most of the active SVER GAF players are at 60. I want to switch to Valor and destroy Raven and SVER.
 

Click

Banned
soundscream said:
You have to unlock it? Strange they give you the option for quick reload before the actual gun.

They do that with all gun categories.

But with the "Close Combat" tree, they actually let you purchase the SMG in Tier 1, so technically, you can get the SMG before Reload Speed.
 

jred2k

Member
I really want to get this, but I suck at FPS on the PS3 so bad. Killzone 2 was the worst I've ever done in the single-player of an FPS.
 
Anyone plan on platinuming this game? It seems like a really tough platinum to get. I feel like I should be rewarded if I put that much time into it. Like a t-shirt or something.
 

theBishop

Banned
jred2k said:
I really want to get this, but I suck at FPS on the PS3 so bad. Killzone 2 was the worst I've ever done in the single-player of an FPS.

The good news is you can make a big impact in MAG without constantly working your kill count.

The bad news is if you don't get with a good group of team players, this path can be very frustrating.
 
God damn I missed all the fun. Lesson learned, never turn off MAG.

Im only lvl 16 but I am going to play the absolute SHIT out of this game so I can make the switch with you guys. Im going to bed now and setting my alarm clock to 9am (thats early for me) and I am doing a MAGathon. Make sure you guys invite me if you see me on, or send a msg on PSN (Assassin47).
 

JWong

Banned
templeusox said:
There is a person trying to get to level 60 without killing one enemy.
I can believe that. I'm getting more xp ressing people in those unfair SVER maps than I am killing.
 

Corran Horn

May the Schwartz be with you
templeusox said:
There is a person trying to get to level 60 without killing one enemy.
That was be in beta :lol
I would basically just sit in sabotage base with medic gun out all the time
 
jred2k said:
I really want to get this, but I suck at FPS on the PS3 so bad. Killzone 2 was the worst I've ever done in the single-player of an FPS.

I play a lot of FPS's and I was horrible on KZ2, like others said theres more to do than just kill, hell you can be a OIC and call orders.
 

Billen

Banned
Corran Horn said:
so PS3 YLOD'ed :/
Trying to temp fix it here soon so i can backup/deactivate. Hope it works, otherwise no mag for me for awhile, MAG in drive too :(

Sucks to hear. Hope it works out for the best.
 
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