Urban Terror Forums: Urban Terror and popularity - Urban Terror Forums

This used to be really bad in 2.3, to the point where aiming at the groin area was almost always the right choice over headshots. There is some "fun" value in having crazy hitzones like liver and whatnot... but in terms of gameplay and skill, it's just bad.

Frankly speaking, I think this is one symptom of Urban Terror's historically split personality. The motto is "fun over realism", yet we have had features like deadly heart and groin hits which not even the most realistic shooters on the market would include because it puts realism squarely ahead of gameplay considerations.

HD isn't just a fresh start in terms of graphics or engine features, it is also a fresh start in terms of game design. We can pick the best parts and learn from our past mistakes. Also the FPS market is very different now, as people are not so crazy about realism anymore it will be easier to focus everyone on simply creating the best possible gameplay.

Also while I am not working on 4.3 and thus have no real say on it, it's probably obvious from the above that I am in full support of changing groin/butt areas to be identical to lower waist / kevlar areas. :)

dynomite33, on 08 July 2016 - 05:27 PM, said:

Which is why we spend a ridiculous amount of time painstakingly recreating physics and gameplay that is identical to Urban Terror 4. That doesn't mean we can't (try to) make it a better designed and more well-rounded game. We have to anyway, otherwise we'll be wasting our time on this.

That is not the correct use of the term "skill ceiling" hydr0. The ceiling is where further improvement of your skills stops having any effect on your results. What you are talking about would be better called skill distribution (or skill curve). The wider the skill distribution, the harder it is for a lesser skilled player to be successful against a stronger player. This is not something that is always desirable, as it reduces accessibility and balance (especially with a limited playerbase).

Getting the jump on players is part of the skill involved, and what makes the game more tactical. This is why 2.3 had a more tactical feeling, although it still felt fast paced compared to "real" tactical shooters like Counter-Strike.

The core problem with this as you (hydr0) pointed out is that TS turned into a campfest in competition (and often boring hide and seek games on publics). The game played like a tactical shooter but wasn't designed as a tactical shooter, which caused all kinds of problems. For this reason I was very hopeful about bomb mode back in the days, but it was too little too late and the community did not embrace it (partly because it was too different, and partly because I believe it takes away a lot of the appeal of TS, which is the free roaming aspect).

So going the other way and turning the game into a more skillful arcade shooter with increased survivability made sense. This certainly improved the game in terms of everalll balance and competitiveness, but on the other hand a lot of the accessibility and tactical playstyles became lost.

Going back to what you said about the 180s, the more surviability you have, the more likely you can outplay a player who gets the jump on it. The opposite of UrT in that regard is a game like Quake Live, where getting the jump on an opponent will give you an edge but only rarely the kill if you are not at least evenly matched in terms of skill with the target. You can't say that one is superior to the other, otherwise we'd all be playing Quake Live. It comes down to preference, and we need to remember why people chose to play Urban Terror over other arena shooters to begin with.

I believe that for Urban Terror to be successful again, we need to go back to our roots and make the game as accessible as possible. This does NOT mean reducing the skill ceiling. Quite the opposite, I very much want to reward better play as much as possible. But at the same time the game should still be fun to play no matter what your skill level is. You should be able to get the satisfaction of the occasional kill, whether through a lucky spray or clever positioning to get the jump on a target. What matters to a new player is not whether they win competitive matches or end up at the top of the scoreboard (which is where true skill ceiling comes in), but whether they can at least have some fun rather than feel like impotent idiots running around for the sole purpose of getting slaughtered by the better players.

Of course the flipside is that skilled players enjoy the feeling of complete dominance over weaker players, essentially becoming untouchable. But satisfying a small number of elite players at the expense of the majority of average players is generally not a recipe for success... Unfortunately the elite players tend to be the most vocal in community forums, which can skew perceptions quite dramatically. Striking the right balance in this regard is always one of the hardest parts of multiplayer game design, and it's something we need to tackle properly.