Having seen plans to introduce what FF had in terms of the multiple on-screen timer bars for every currently active/primed conc, I think development is approaching a level of feature creep for ways to assist with conc gameplay that is making what I originally jokingly called the ‘fighter pilot’ hud a reality.
I don’t think any single proposed addition that MM would bring to the table would necessarily ruin the game mode in isolation, but when put together it’s slowly warping into an experience of watching numbers and bars rather than actually playing the game. Thus we approach the ultimate question for where conc is heading: is this fun?
Crabs in a bucket
I should make very clear at the outset that this has nothing to do with the “we suffered and so must everyone else” argument that was posited recently. MM is already easier at baseline than TFC due to differences in priming/timers and air acceleration settings. I don’t think anyone from the TFC camp is too cut up about this and until rio’s recent post, I don’t think anyone thought 1:1 was realistic. Now it’s on the table, there’s probably a separate discussion to be had about it because honestly, the current implementation is quite fun in its own way.
In addition to this, MM is introducing many features at baseline we didn’t have in TFC that will make the learning process and accessibility to/improvement in conc easier even beyond the intent to create a dedicated ‘learn’ section for each mode in MM. Being able to pause your playthrough, spectate someone to hear the beeps and see a demonstration of a jump before returning to your playthrough is incredibly useful for progression. Replays will amplify this resource to let people learn a map before even setting foot in it. Savelocs allow players to resume halfway through a jump with their practised setup and grind out a tricky part of a jump to their heart’s content.
None of those features existed in TFC (savelocs did but no saved grenades) unless you had a friend willing to send you a demo, and none of those features in MM have been complained about. If ‘we’ really wanted MM players to suffer, the argument on the table would be 1:1 TFC physics with no beeps in spec and hidden replays, while arguing against the learn mode to keep ‘the magician’s secrets’ hidden for longer. This is not the case. All of the boomer crowd agree on one thing – we collectively want people to enjoy conc which until recently, we all assumed was dead and buried.
New technology: speedometer
As I said, I don’t think any one thing on its own ‘ruins’ the game mode. My argument is that when collectively implemented, new players will learn the game by numbers and/or bars, and to be competitive at the top tier you either relent and use all tools on the table, or suffer as a result of your missing data.
The speedometer is the most stock aspect of the new additions as it is shared between all(?) modes, and the one most likely to never be cut due to this parity, which is a reasonable argument in of itself. Setting up a vertical speedometer with the existing ‘turn colours when in a useful speed range’ config as seen in other modes can be applied to juggle concs and overhead throws alike. Juggle concs would have less (but not no) reliance on this due to their flexible nature, but it basically nullifies any innate player ability to use overhead concs, which has a massive implication on speedrun times when juggling.
Why juggle normally when you can overhead every conc and prime the next one quicker, saving upwards of one second per conc? Now that you’ve discovered this tech, why practise overheads at all when the HUD can tell you when to throw them every time for free?
New tech: timer bars on concs/multi-bar HUD element
Timer bars/countdowns on concs has been discussed a bit in discord and I think I mostly agree with Zike regarding his comments, which I’ll paraphrase as “very useful to start certain precision jumps, but who is actually going to watch timers halfway through a jump?”.
This is a fair point, but still acknowledges the underlying benefit of using the bars/countdown even at a reduced impact from being useful everywhere. This for me is where the ‘you’re not playing conc anymore, you’re looking at data’ aspect starts to creep in.
By combining this with the multi-bar element, you can in theory slap the multi-bars in the middle of your screen and play DDR to complete a jump without really acknowledging your surroundings outside of avoiding certain obstacles instead of using the actual indicator – beeps – and their associated timings or environmental objects as cues for when to prime concs as the game mode once was.
At this point, we’re back to “are you actually playing the game anymore?”.
Skill cap and enjoyment
I don’t think there’s one person saying the game will be absolutely free and the skill cap destroyed by implementing all current and future HUD elements as people still have to actually do something to complete maps. Zike doing ninja in MM was not ‘free’ by any stretch of the term given the amount of time spent practising and playing to do what he did. The ultimate skill cap and the ability of players to repeat actions will be elevated by inclusion of these elements, and barrier to entry for starters/improvers made easier, that much is patent.
Thus, the argument presented is twofold: i) for starters/improvers are these HUD elements necessary when you have the previously mentioned additions to MM to make learning easier; ii) once you get to a competitive level does this make the game more or less fun?
If the learn section is good, people will be able to comfortably progress through conc and with support from other players and replays, people are going to get very good very quickly if they want to. This has already been seen even before ‘learn’ goes live by the quick progression to being quite good of people from the TF2 jump communities, and steady progression of people completely new to the idea of weapon/boost based game modes.
Once you hit a level of wanting to compete for top times, from my current perspective you either use all of these HUD elements available to you or become massively hamstrung compared to someone painting key timings on the wall to use with the numerical countdown and setting up timings with the multi-bar HUD.
Parity across MM
I don’t have an intimate knowledge of all other game modes, but I am not aware of another mode in MM which would have this much game defining data present for the player to use. I’m happy to be corrected on this because maybe I’m oversimplifying things or don’t appreciate what certain numbers in HUDs mean to other modes, but something like knowing when to reset your surf/bhop run because you’re -10ups or RJ/SJ having light up speedos for rocket syncs and airpogo doesn’t come close to the potential impact of what we’re discussing for conc.
From conversations in the boomer-cord, it’s quite a universal sentiment that none of us would find this appealing for high level gameplay in the slightest. Kanin had already suggested something I have mentioned in passing in discord more than once, which would be a happy compromise – enable all of the HUD features in practise mode and limit their use in runs. This would help people learn and develop technique even further, but retain what we revered in gameplay and ultimately execution when it counts. On a more specific level, the speedometer could be limited to horizontal movement to help with bunnyhopping and fulfil the same role as it does in other modes (as a ‘tracking device’ rather than defining movement or techniques) while not interfering with gameplay itself.
Again, I am happy to be corrected if other modes have heavier reliance on available numbers and data, I am only speaking from limited experience. This is not a ‘gotcha’ moment if the comparison is off as a result.
Boomers
‘We’ were brought in to give opinions/feedback and help refine the development of conc. ‘We’ know what made the game fun and challenging enough for us to keep playing for more than a decade, and what made the game a miserable grind-fest at times.
Now that physics and gameplay seem to be in a stable place (we’ll keep ignoring rio’s post for now, it’s a separate discussion), a lot of the feature creep of additions to the mode is being driven and supported by people who have either never played the game until it was added to MM, or in some cases barely if at all.
There is nothing inherently wrong with getting feedback from new players/users in developing an end product. However, when it comes to the HUD discussions it feels like there is more weight in volume of new players saying “yeah sounds good mate” which completely circumvents experience of what made the game fun, challenging and ultimately addictive from older players.
I am not saying that all of US are always right and all of YOU are always wrong, but there’s a distinct sentiment among the boomers that now that physics and gameplay are getting finished up, everything else in the mode is fair game and off the table for discussion.
Jerry’s final thoughts
Lumia has mentioned previously in the thread about not wanting to include elements that make the game ‘too easy’. I think the discussion should extend to including elements that take the mode further away from the fun and challenge it once was into a data simulator with grenades.
