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Ronyn

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So casual style is for successfull ppl IRL while seeking challenging games with good gameplay depth is for losers, you say? I hope I understood your post wrong.
Whoa. You misunderstood entirely. The point is that there is no simple equation like that.
The level of difficulty/depth a person likes in their game does not indicate their overall level of maturity/success in real life.
 
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Ronyn

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At the risk of sounding like I'm hounding you (Which I am not. lol) I have more to say on this.
the difference between finding the game you like and trying to avoid the challenges are two different issues, one with real merit and one just a show of immaturity--.
Looking to avoid challenge from the entertainment medium of video games isn't necessarily a sign of immaturity. In some cases it certainly is, in other cases it is simply a person who has had enough challenge in their real life so they want something easy for their recreational time. Likewise there are those who look to overcome challenges in the digital space so they can feel a sense of accomplishment while shying away from hard things in real life. Easy games, hard games, nothing is wrong with either preference as long as one is honest with themselves about why they play.

As for Bl4ckhunter, you're not wrong; distilling the true essence of the game is important and removing unnecessary components can often make a better game. Having said that, riddle me this: isn't the goal of a shooter game to be the one who survives the battle?

In a larger context, the need to maintain things is a part of life and a motivator for many. While it may seem silly to include it in a game where shooting things is the 'core gameplay,' I still posit that we do ourselves a disservice by not trying to tie two kinds of gameplay together into a more rewarding whole while also creating a world that is more alive and memorable for having such things. We already have a plethora of games where we 'just shoot things;' frankly, guns and jetpacks simply aren't new and exciting anymore. Ember, and indeed any game in the works, can stand to be more than that. The core gameplay of a shooter doesn't HAVE to be JUST shooting; it really can be more. There's no need to keep using such limited vision when we have so many possibilities available for something grander.
Finding the right sentence to describe what the fundamental goal of a shooter is a remains a tricky thing. So I won't butcher it here. lol
I do want to say, if we are being real, this threads discussion hasn't really been about whether Ember's shooter-first-experience should include maintenance. There is going to be maintenance of a sort. The debate has been about the HOW that maintenance should be expressed.
In essence: the need for repairs verses the need to remake. Which one fits where, how, and why.
 

Ronyn

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#10
Hopefully XP isn't such a central feature to our progression in Ember; the proposed horizontal nature suggests that XP should not be the primary contributor to our unlocks, if it exists at all. In such a case, the rewards system will practically write itself: you're rewarded for the mission you're on or the problems you solve, preferably with more material gains and less abstract "experience points."
There won't even be XP if we don't have vertical.
So there's no worry.
We know there is progression, a way to earn new weapons and abilities. Xp is a progression mechanic. It can just as easily be used to unlock new side grades in a horizontal progression system as it could be used to unlock upgrades in a vertical progression system. Though I know Grummz was considering using resources to unlock things instead of xp. Either way the concern of someone gaining something from other peoples work or being afk is something worth thinking about.
 
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Ronyn

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#9
Personally I am open to a fully classless system as well as a set of classes as long as each class has a lot of customization within it.
Moreover roles get created ether way. Not necessarily roles that fall into mmo standards, but there are concepts that exist in battlefields of all kinds. More like the difference between a guy loaded out to be a great sniper and a guy who is loaded out to be a close range shock trooper. They are taking different roles regardless of whether they spawned from a class system or a classless one.

Last official word on class and roles. "
  • Omniframe: To keep initial costs down, we will use one frame that can be advanced into several class variants. We still have classes, this is just to save on art resources in the first few milestones.
"
Though I know Grummz is still examining the various expressions of that. What "Class" and "Role" ends up meaning can be a lot of different things.
 

Ronyn

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Keep in mind, it's very unlikely we'll change his mind, because as posted earlier in the same description, uncertain leadership was part of the problem with FF. Sounds to me like he's ready to put his foot down and deliver.

That said, I can see a few ways we'd find a happy medium which asks responsibility and preparation of its players without ever leaving them unable to enjoy the game on a basic level. Repairing parts that wear out and underperform, limited and specific ammo types, structure upkeeps...there are ways to get the BENEFITS that permabreak brought to the game without actually shutting people out of the core gameplay; I think that's the real design goal here and would be happy to see it achieved in a copacetic manner.
Yes, you understand. We can talk about the positives and negatives of a perma-break gear in a vacuum for academic purposes, but the full truth is how everything works in concert together. In the case of Ember, the benefits of a perma-break system exist in the combination of having both things that do break and things that need repair.

Perma-break discussion aside:
@Daynen "People don't want to have to X; they just want to Y, because this is a Y game." and "I don't wanna play; I just wanna win." are very separate issues.

That is the difference between the reasonable basis in which people choose a game to play (a game that has the feature sets/mechanics/gameplay style they enjoy) which is largely a matter of genre..... and how when some gamers avoid challenging games (which can be found just as easily in games that have the feature sets/mechanics/gameplay style they enjoy) that can be done with any genre.