TTK is too short, make it longer SOE

Discussion in 'PlanetSide 2 Gameplay Discussion' started by Blackweb, May 3, 2013.

  1. KodanBlack

    I wholeheartedly agree. A lower TTK builds better, more skilled and tactical players. Not the other way around.

    Strategy and tactics are needed less the longer it takes you to die. You begin to rely on being able to live longer during a firefight, rather than using strategic positioning, maneuvering and the weapons and tactics necessary to keep your guys/gals alive and accomplishing the objective. When people remark that, "It's all about positioning, it takes no skill to kill in this game," they are under a severe lack of understanding tactics. Maneuvering and positioning is at the very heart of tactics. Once you're in position, you strike. You don't allow the enemy an opportunity to fight back. 1v1 fights should be one shooting the other from above, or from the rear or flanks. THAT is tactical superiority. A longer TTK will harm tactics, as you'll never need positioning. Just the opportunity to shoot a bigger weapon first.

    The TTK is fine where it is.
    • Up x 1
  2. Armchair

    Go play games with realistic TTK's and you'll see that PS2's TTK is actually quite long.
    • Up x 2
  3. SolLeks

    the reason no one wants to get out of their tanks is because they only have 5 mins before the tank goes away... If my reaver would stay up for 20 mins, or indef until there is no owner (i log or pull a new one) then I would land the thing and continue on the ground all the time.
    • Up x 1
  4. Armchair

    The argument that raising ttk raise the skill ceilng is a joke.

    Even in game with realistic ttk's (I'm talking 1-2 rifle rounds to center of mass = dead. Anything to head = dead), you will consistently see the same players excelling.

    Short ttk games are just as skill intensive as high ttk games. They just weight different skill sets differently.
    • Up x 2
  5. FlameGankin

    Personally i think TTK should be around 1 second in CQC for the standard automatic weapons (carbines AR LMG) and a bigger emphasis on the importance of health as well as more dynamic respawn timers starting relatively low then getting fairly high as you die in quicker succession and greater amounts. This would allow weapons like PA to have a shorter TTK in CQC but still be a punishing weapon if you miss with it. It would promote positioning and thought-out movement because getting the jump on someone would leave them very disadvantaged but if they are extremely good in combat they have the chance to win, just not a chance in their favor. The increased importance of health would increase the importance of medics healing capabilities such as the Aoe heal grenade and ability providing tangible benefits while in combat. Increased and dynamic respawn timers would reward better skilled and smarter players for staying alive longer by letting them keep shorter spawns for longer and dispatching opposition is more rewarding for them and their team.

    The way i see it though, i don't see longer TTKs changing much other then direct combat and tactical movement. The team-play aspect of this game is hardly there outside guarding doorways and rooms and focus firing larger threats.
  6. Pie Chasm

    Yes, it's a generational thing for the most part.

    Or maybe an age thing.. I don't know.. you're around 5-10 years younger than the average PS1 vet.
    • Up x 1
  7. Eyeklops

    BF3 & COD, where low latency clan servers rule, can support very fast ttk's and still feel "tight". PS2 uses a regional server system with a much higher latency and it doesn't feel "tight" with the current TTK's. I am not in favor of doubling the TTK, but they need to get rid of OSK infantry weapons and increase the TTK on SMG's a little. Haven't you guys noticed how often a "tie" happens in this game compared to BF2, or even PS1? TTK needs to properly scale with the systems average latency. PS1 devs figured this out, hopefully PS2 guys do as well.
  8. Xhaleon

    PS2 IS realistic. Most other modern-military-shooters on the market appear to assume all players aren't wearing any rifle-resistant armor at all, and then work out how fast it takes to instantly kill someone from there. Sure, you wouldn't normally be happily walking around after eating a few bullets in the noggin, but PS2 has found just about the right average amount of time and firepower necessary to instantly drop a man, give or take some level of sci-fi armor toughness and nanite magic.
    • Up x 2
  9. Iksniljiksul

    It's much to late for this idea to hold water anymore. The game is too twisted, too fouled up. It is what it is; a limited team death match game fought on tiny 3km maps with a horribly unrealistic simulation of firearms and vehicles.
    • Up x 1
  10. Armchair

    No, PS2 has far from realistic TTK's. It takes a good half dozen rounds from a rifle to kill a man for crying out loud. Soldiers can shrug off mulitple headshots.

    PS2 has unrealistically long TTK's. That's fine. That's OK. This game isn't trying to be realistic, so it is 100% fine and dandy that it has bullet sponge soldiers.

    Just don't say that it is realistic, because it isn't.
  11. Posse

    I don't know what you mean exactly by "tight" but I'm sure I play with more latency than most of the people in USEast (I'm from Argentina, 150-200ms is the average to the East Coast) and that doesn't make me feel that I get killed too fast, not at all, I felt I was killed WAY faster back when I played CoD 4 in local dedicated servers with 30ms.
  12. Xhaleon

    Headshots are the only thing that are wonky for PS2, because the multiplier isn't high enough. I can assume that they just have really good helmets in the future (aside from having a whole range of funky looking ones).

    And please, a single good level IV plate should absorb several 5.56 before it is too broken up to continue. I assume that PS2 soldiers have plates that are at least good enough to take the same amount of the Auraxian-equivalent calibers and plasma. After that, its one or two shots to mortally wound a man (assuming chest hit), then a few more to reliably kill him instantly. That's entirely after shields.

    We have to work out averages here, because PS2 doesn't track locational damage for the sake of not ****** your poor CPU. Assume that the breastplate most characters wear absorb most of the shots, but maybe some might hit the legs or arms, maybe the most vital organs only get hit during those lag spikes where TTK appears instant, just abstract that all off.

    Actually, that makes me think that the killing time IS a little too short, but if you really wanted to simulate that you'd have an extra "dying" state after a certain amount of damage, but still capable of pulling the trigger on something. Can't have everything, but if there's one thing SOE did right was find the perfect ideal / practical TTK for a large scale shooter. Congrats.
    • Up x 1
  13. PliskinAJ

    I do get "tied" 1-2 times a night but TTK won't make that any better. If both of us kill each other with in the .30ms (just an number for a sake of a number) window we still kill each other. The only way to improve that is to have better latency. I think getting "tied" on occasion is a fine compromise for the size of the game we are playing. If anything I would think a shorter* TTK would make "Ties" even less because if they get the drop on you, you won't be able to react. But the rest of the unit your with should be able to.

    I think individuals should not be able to react via returning fire to having someone having the a bead on you. I dive to cover as soon as I take a tick of damage and then I peek out to see where its coming from. I think the squad should be able to react and that is accomplishable in the game's current state.

    *Note I am not saying we need to shorten the TTK. I like it where its at.
  14. BadLlama

    The TTK is perfectly fine where it is now. Please get better at the game.
  15. Xhaleon

    The only way to improve it is to give everyone god-tier fiber optic cable. Or something else. Maybe quantum entanglement shenanigans.

    Just be patient, man. It'll come in time.
    • Up x 1
  16. seamus2008

    Absolutely not! TTK is already way too long in this game. You should be able to one-hit-disable with a bodyshot made by an assault rifle.
    Longer TTK doesn't mean that an infantry squad survives longer. Infantry squad survives longer by smart positioning, tactical movement, cover, concealment, not by having a **** ton of hitpoints, that's dumb. This isn't WoW
  17. Littleman

    PS2's TTKs are fine where standard fare automatics are concerned. Typically 6-8 rounds per kill, with a 20-30% hit rate, means people are regularly spending anywhere from 18-40 rounds to kill someone, depending on the weapon's damage. Chances are, they aren't blowing an entire mag before one of them drops in CQC, so closer to the 30% mark in that situation. That translates to seconds of life, easy. Over range, inaccuracies in recoil and CoF also translate into more life for the victim.

    What's really hurting PS2's "tactical" gameplay however are the one shot wonders, specifically of the active kind. Active being sniper rifles and shotguns. Mines and grenades suck too, but there are sensible ways for one to avoid those. Sniper rifles make properly and professionally setting up a stable firing platform while behind cover before engaging an enemy not only moot but suicidal. This is why gameplay tends to play out like Quake III or Unreal Tournament despite having weapons that operate like they're meant for a Battlefield game, because people have to constantly move to survive else being magically one shot out of no where by an invisible guy some dozens of meters away at least (aka, outside of their effective rifle/carbine/LMG's range.) Cover is nigh meaningless right now unless enemy snipers are in really short supply, and that is rarely ever the case.

    Another factor playing against cover and sitting still is latency between players, the old "shot around the corner" problem making taking actual cover potentially meaningless against even an SMG from 40m away, and this problem is the only reason TTKs could stand to be raised, but raising TTKs essentially forces ranged combat in closer to be effective and starts nullifying positional advantages ever so slightly.

    Shotguns are... well... a royal pain the ***. They're basically a form of escalation in CQC where you either have an insta-gib cannon or you don't. TTKs don't get any shorter than the time it takes for the ammo to exit the barrel to the time said ammo embeds itself into your flesh and bones. Though in all honesty, the people that see the most success with shotguns are LA's. Everyone else kind of has to approach from predictable avenues, making preventing them from ever getting close an actually realistic action plan. In terms of the shotgun, there could be one of two effective nerfs: reduce their total damage potential to just under 1000 while tightening their spread (better range than autos/semis,) or remove them from the LA equipment selection and see how that goes for the player base. Yes, LA will cry. **** them. SMGs are damn good CQC tools, and far more fair. The jetpack was a cute experiment for an MMOFPS, but one that is too late to take back.
    • Up x 1
  18. Crashsplash

    Sometimes I simply have to shake my head. I mean at the posts that are made sometimes that seem to suggest that 'tactics, 'strategy' and quote 'getting the drop' unquote are something magical that only exists in a low fps game.

    I have sad news, those (tactics) are always present and are just as important in higher ttk games. Of course what happens in an engagement is that fights last longer and that is especially noticeable in a meeting engagement. But of course as a player you always go for whatever advantage you can and the ideal is to shoot someone in the back, when they're looking at the map or even better while they're afk making a cup of coffee.

    In this game, reactions are far more important than they would otherwise be. Tactics are a great help of course, which is fine, but tactics always help anywhere anytime.

    Even taking tank kills out of the equation I find killing in this game easier than in PS1. Rather, I'll rephrase. In ps1 the difference when coming across a good player to a noob (or a not so good player) was marked.
    • Up x 1
  19. Eyeklops

    A higher TTK narrows the "tie" window when two players of unequal skill engage each other.
    • Up x 1
  20. Xhaleon

    The marked difference was that the experienced player knew exactly how the game worked, what was the broken thing of the moneth, and what to exploit to gain the maximum advantage, cheesy or no.
    That does not say anything about how much extra brainpower was required to reach that level.

    Besides, if more people posed a challenge to you, that's an even better and more satisfying bar to jump over, ja?