Armor is redundant. The only argument in favor of armor is the dependency argument. "If I have armor, that keeps me alive longer than someone who does not have armor." So? If you have full health, then you'll last longer than someone who has half health. The same effect scales in a different context. It's just less of a redundant confusion in the latter context. If you have 130 health, you pretty much instantly know that you can survive a 125 damage rocket. If you have less than 130 points of health but some 100 points of armor, well, now it's complicated figuring out whether you'll survive or not. These are mechanics FF thrives on: redundant, vague, complicated. These are the mechanics people delude themselves into thinking they've become experienced with when they grow tolerant of how counter-intuitive and retarded they are.
Oh, there's that "depth" thing. Yeah, a lot of things can add depth, but it isn't necessarilly always a good thing. For example, I could implement a system that made every player immune to all types of damage for 5 seconds, followed by 5 seconds of vulnerability, repeated over and over. It might add some "depth" or "challenge" timing your shots to hit your opponent when he's vulnerable, but we would all presumably argue that it's pretty fucking bad/irritating/stupid/retarded/etc. That's pretty much my argument against armor. Sure, it adds depth or a challenge trying to figure out if your armor provides you one more "go" at the objective, but it's fucking bad/irritating/stupid/retarded/etc in how you have to go about it.
Besides, you don't need every god damn mechanic in Fortress Forever to be "skill-based". You shouldn't have to gain experience to know when you're going to die or when you're going to survive. What if we implemented the necessity for winning a game of chess (which takes skill) before you could fucking spawn? What if some dick decided on adding a huge gap between the spawn and actual map in every official map so only those skilled enough to conc over it could actually play? What if you had to crack an elaborate combination system just to toss a fragmentation grenade? Shit, that'd be terrible. But, that's essentially what armor is. We have to apply "skill" to every little mechanic. You have to be experienced in absolutely every aspect of a game to enjoy it.
That's pretty much FF in a nutshell. It thrives on making things mega complicated. That's why no one gives a shit about it, and while it will inevitably die out. People play games to have fun. They play games for entertainment purposes. This is 2010 not 1996. People no longer pride themselves on growing tolerant of redundant/poor mechanics. Enjoy living in your own little world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ricey
Oh, Bridget, when was the last time you played FF anyway?
|
I last played two or three days ago. Good try, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dexter
Sure, fair enough. Luckily for you, I don't make gameplay decisions 
My feeling with armor is, dont fix what's not broken at this point. Seems extremely minor when we have other huge gameplay issues to fix anyway |
This is a classic development excuse. Everything gets ignored as 'not a top priority'. Meanwhile, the beta is chalk full of stupid additions that are not a top priority.