I’ve always thought the biggest tragedy on iEra is the horrible basing system.
When I came here from PC Era, I found that their new approach to basing produced more “Why the hell did they do that?” moments for me than any other sphere of the game.
It’s so bad that it has actually divided the community into “Basers” and “Sparrers”—that kind of division didn’t exist prior to iEra, and I’m pretty sure the division is still nonexistent on PC Era.
Mainly because sparring and basing exercised the same skillsets on PC Era prior to iEra’s release—mainly emphasis on dodging bullets. Somebody who was effective in a basing scenario was equally effective in a sparring scenario.
On iEra, though, dodging bullets has very little relation to success in basing, and sparrers abhor the cheap tactics that do lead to success in basing. Hence, the community has been divided.
I remember when I first came to iEra, taking note of all the things that just stuck out as “The hell were they thinking?” when it came to basing. Here is a rough compiled list of those items, along with explanations/theory.
Warning: The explanations are pretty extensive.
If you’re one of those tl;dr people, the main points I highlight are:
- Poor Base Layouts
- Front-Door respawns
- Buidling blowing up upon capture
Base Layouts- I remember I used to blame the chests, because they were the first thing that seemed different. Everybody seemed to be more interested in the damn chests than the fight. However, after some thinking, I figured out that the real issue was the poor base layouts.
Albeit, I think that meleeing the chest takes too much focus from fighting, but at least there is a vulnerability when the melee is equipped; in a room that wasn’t so cramped, they would easily be handled and would be forced to prioritize fighting ahead of grabbing the chest.
(I’m just thankful that melees aren’t as obnoxiously effective on iEra as they are on Ol West.)
The chests themselves aren’t as big as an issue as their horrible placement in the bases. They are socked away in the back of the base; often times in the smallest room, and usually preceded by one or two hallways that makes defending nothing more than a spam fest.
The guns that they later introduced to the game made this process even more watered down and less skill-inducive; as others have already pointed out the gun issue—but the guns wouldn’t be as big of an issue if the bases allowed enough room that one can overcome it with dodging ability.
Respawns - Players who die in a base hardly experience a feeling of “loss”, because they’re respawned right at the entrance of the base, at full health. With door-breaking time included, they’re back in the action of the fight within 15 seconds of dying.
The “winners” of the fight have to then kill them again, along with the other enemies that they were already in the midst of fighting. Because of this, when you do have the rare occasion of a “good gang battle” going on, the victors never have time to savor victory; and the losers never experience a real feeling of defeat.
If they were anticipating a large playercount, I think this is the worst thing that they could have done. Each added player into this equation exponentially emphasizes the issue.
This also takes some responsibility away from gang leaders, because they never have to worry about “regrouping”—they’re already there. In addition to watering down the basing experience, they’ve also watered down the gang ownership experience.
I think a better solution would have been to have “respawn locations” throughout the map, where each player can elect to respawn when they die. This way, if you knew you were going to a base in the top right of the map, you would select the closest respawn point to that base before raiding it.
The entire base explodes when somebody takes it over. This was the main one that made me say, “What the hell were they thinking?” It’s not logical at all, and it completely encourages flag rushing, rather than skill-based fighting.
I theorize that they realized that the respawn issue highlighted above was inevitable, and figured that instantly clearing the base would give the “victors” time to breathe. So they created an issue, and patched it with another issue.
The fact that players know the base will blow up and their fight will be put to an immediate halt(regardless where they are), puts pressure on them to stay within sight of the chest. Regardless of how “dodge-friendly” and open the rest of the levels in the base are, this pressure essentially makes them irrelevant.
The basing experience is reduced to the one or two levels leading to the flag. When those preceding levels are designed with the hallway fetish highlighted above, basing is milled down to idling behind locked doors and spamming hallways. Add in penalty-free healing, and basing is a no-brainer. These cheap tactics aren’t even worthy of reward.
There is no incentive for a “basing gang” to recruit quality members, given that a newbie with a BAR can spam a hallway just as effectively as anybody else; and even if he dies, he’ll be back in the action within 15 seconds.
This harbors some portion of the “cancerous community” that some people have mentioned—gang leaders know that their members are dime-a-dozen, and as a result, treat them as disposable. Not only do players hardly have an objective when they “base”, but they’re being harassed on a daily basis by their “superiors”; reminding them of how invaluable they are.
"Get the $#@$ to BBz or KICK!"
I could understand how this would have a negative effect on people's attitudes.
Yeah, regardless of how many times people are told not to share their personal information, they still seem to do it.
Then they expect us to bail them out.
I can't figure out why they would give in, but they continue to.
Some have told me that they become intimidated when trick-or-treaters such as John Raven show up dressed as a boxing ring or helicopter, and thus buy into their demands.
Alas, you can't fix stupid.
I agree.
That's what happens when they try to replicate "real life" into Graal, without consideration of its impact on gameplay.
With the introduction of stacked damage, shotguns became a viable primary weapon.Really, they should only be used as support-- there should be no replacement for regular gunplay.
We shot the idea of stacked damage down several times on PC Era,
back when.
On that note, another issue is that they only employed half of the "hit recovery" system from Older PC Era, and royally screwed that half up.
The original was a two-part system that benefitted both the player shooting, AND the player being hit.
When a bullet hit the player, they took damage, and were invulnerable to other bullets for the next 1 second. This benefited the player being hit, because it protected them from being instantly killed by a barrage of spammed bullets.
Also upon taking damage, the player received a slight freezeplayer (0.25 seconds or so in which they couldn't move). This benefited the shooter- especially in the case of being outnumbered; it allowed them to capitalize on the success of landing a hit.
iEra only took the first half of this system-- the one that benefits the player being hit. The shooter now receives no benefit from the system whatsoever.
What's more, they made the hit recovery timer different for each and every gun. This creates an inconsistency in gameplay; and I can't imagine why somebody would want this.
Gun variation, I suppose; but I think variation should stop once the bullet leaves the chamber.
I think DarkKnight is heavily misunderstood.
I see him as somebody who has passion for the game, and knows the potential it has with the playercount iEra yields.
I think he's just infuriated that it isn't meeting that potential, that's all.
It's the "showboats" that have always bothered me.
Fortunately, they're weeded out pretty quickly.
I just wonder how they keep sneaking past customs.
They’re a pretty nice group of people; Graalians is just a different environment; that’s all. It intimidates some of them because here, you are given free reign to say as you please without fear of your posts being deleted for “misconduct”.
I’ll admit, there are certain people I’ve noted on this board that come across as “bluntly rude”, but those situations have ways of policing themselves in a community such as this; moderators are overrated.
Anybody who can type effectively, and has something of value to contribute, need not worry about these individuals. The others on the board will see the value in your posts, and discredit those individuals speaking out of turn.
This is a reality that some of those on Era-Go have not been exposed to, because the moderation team jumps on anybody who says something out of line. It’s culture shock to go from there to here, I suppose.