Updated: Titanfall Will Have a 6v6 Player Cap

[StewShearerOld]

Updated: Titanfall Will Have a 6v6 Player Cap

Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella has confirmed that multiplayer matches will have a "max player count" of 12 players.

As evidenced by <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/7705-Pacific-Rim>Pacific Rim, giant robots are all kinds of awesome. That being the case, when it comes to videogames there are sometimes other things to consider. For instance, it's recently been revealed that Titanfall, Respawn Entertainment's hybrid of online shooters and mech combat, will only be able to include 12 players in any given match.

[tweet t=https://twitter.com/VinceZampella/status/420731507842351104]

This information came to light via <a href=https://twitter.com/VinceZampella/status/420731507842351104>a Tweet from Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella. Responding to an inquiry from a Twitter follower he stated that "6v6 is max player count. Turned out to be the best balance with AI for us." Zampella is likely referring, of course, to the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128722-Titanfall-Wont-Be-As-Frustrating-As-Call-of-Duty-Multiplayer>computer controlled troops that will populate multiplayer maps in addition to the players themselves.

While cutting back on actual players may make sense in technical terms however, some might still question the wisdom of the move. Just personally, while I don't mind when multiplayer utilizes bots, shooting other players is much more satisfying in my opinion. The fact that I also tend to gravitate toward larger scale battles with more people makes this news a bit of a downer for me. That said, I'll withhold judgment until the game actually releases in March. You never know, maybe the aforementioned mechs will make up for the lower player cap.

Update: An apparent Respawn employee has been quoted on on <a href=http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=747662>NeoGaf elaborating on the game's player count. "For [the] amount of stuff happening at once in a map you'll be hard pressed to find a game that keeps the action higher," they said. "Remember, you can get out of your Titan and let it roam on AI mode - meaning there can be 12 Pilots wallrunning around, 12 Titans stomping below, and dozens of AI doing their thing."

The employee also disputed the use of the term "bots" in describing Titanfall's AI soldiers. "That's not how they are. The AI in Titanfall are not replacements for human players. Our playercount is not 6v6 because of AI - AI play their own role in the game and are a different class of character in the game."

Update: According <a href=http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/9/5292474/titanfall-maps-can-be-packed-with-nearly-50-combatants-including-ai>to Respawn, when you include players, Titans and the game's AI units, multiplayer matches actually max out at around 48 combatants. Lead designer Justin Hendry has also further insisted that "the higher the player count, the more uncomfortable the game gets," referring in part to Titanfall's focus on mobility and how it affects the way players play.

Source: <a href=https://twitter.com/VinceZampella/status/420731507842351104>Twitter


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[Bix96]

This Honestly hurts the game for me as I also enjoy large scale battles and 6 players per team seems way too small.

 

[Longstreet]

A damn, well so far for that game working out.

I aint a fan of having bots in multiplayer games, primarily because they are bloody stupid.

How about this, don't bother with optimizing AI vs actual people, but fill the server up with actual people.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Guess they have to considering they are launching this for Xbox 360.

I just don't know why the fuck they can't make version with more players for PC and XboxOne. I guess it'd be "too much effort"

 

[Kaimax]

Lol, in the end they can't make the player cap even more than "Gundam Battle Operation" which is also 6v6 at Max, and this game is ancient compared to Titanfall.

 

[Itsthefuzz]

After trying out CS:GO competitive, I feel that less players rather than more might not be such a bad thing... The lower player count is quite enjoyable and I feel more like part of a tactical team. I could see this feeling being a bit similar for Titanfall.

But knowing how Bots usually work (ESPECIALLY in CS:GO) I'm not sure more bots is the right answer.

 

[Angelowl]

Meanwhile: MechWarrior Online got 12 vs 12 player matches.

There is most certainly nothing wrong with having bots available, as an option. Having them mandantory and balancing the game around them seems a bit off... Replace them with actual players and we get what? 20-24 man matches? That is quite adequate and no one would really be surprised.

We need a better explanation of this. More info would be helpful, and not in the Xbone or EA standard, but an actual motivation and an argument to convince the customers why this is a good idea.

 

[RicoADF]

If that's the best the XBO can do then that's quite a joke....

Seriously EA, did you make an inferior game just so it can run on the 360 or the XBO? The PC would easily have run more than 12 players, so it's either the 360 (most likely) or XBO (not unlikely as I suspect they put the power into pretty graphics rather than actual gameplay).

Meanwhile: MechWarrior Online got 12 vs 12 player matches.

There is most certainly nothing wrong with having bots available, as an option. Having them mandantory and balancing the game around them seems a bit off... Replace them with actual players and we get what? 20-24 man matches? That is quite adequate and no one would really be surprised.

We need a better explanation of this. More info would be helpful, and not in the Xbone or EA standard, but an actual motivation and an argument to convince the customers why this is a good idea.

Meanwhile ArmA series can do 32 player with bots without issues, MWO was probably capped at 12 to keep it easier for them to manage the bandwidth/desync, not so much due to it not being possible.

 

[List]

I have noticed that the less players there are the more toxic the matches/community becomes, look at most 5v5 MOBA's. So this seems to me that this game could very well be less noob and casual friendly and more LEET oriented.

 

[Mahorfeus]

Aren't there a bunch of NPC combatants populating the battlefield anyway? If the point is for the players to be the ones making the decisive pushes during matches, then it makes sense that a smaller number of them would be more optimal. Especially given how chaotic things are bound to get with the mechs going around.

I remember back when I played Halo 3, my favorite map was Avalanche Heavy because of all the vehicles it provided, but even then, they tended to get blown up left and right almost immediately. Seeing as the mechs are the focus of the game, I'd like to pilot one during a match for longer than a few seconds.

 

[omega 616]

Sure it will be 6V6 player wise but what will it be bots and players wise? 6V6 might seem small when you're only thinking of COD or other FPS games but it could be 6V6 players with 10 bots on each side and a 32 man game sounds pretty good.

Of course the bots could make the numbers up to 10 a side, which is still pretty good!

 

[fix-the-spade]

I just don't know why the fuck they can't make version with more players for PC and XboxOne. I guess it'd be "too much effort"

Probably money, wishing to avoid a Battlefield like situation of the 'bigger' market spending bugger all on the game compared to the PC players and the Source Engine's well known struggles with giant sized maps and massed AI.

There's seventy million 360 players out there, by the time this comes out probably five or six million Xbone players and the unknowable PC Gaming horde are notoriously difficult to hype up for multi platform games, it makes sense that EA would cater to the 360 market (even at the risk of sinking the series with it's first installment apparently).

It does seem silly to even admit to this though, they just torpedoed there own hype, Come play the amazing Titanfall! Equivalent to half a Call of Duty game!
We'll have to see though, Left 4 Dead never suffered from being 8 players and a bunch of AI's kicking about, but then L4D never needed the AI to be anything but completely stupid and constantly attacking.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Of course the bots could make the numbers up to 10 a side, which is still pretty good!

The way Respawn are selling it I would expect dozens of AI troopers running about at the bare minimum. They're supposed to be like the cannon fodder of a Call of Duty game rather than the main participants in the round, they don't get access to the jet pack jumping or mechs either. If it's anything less than thirty or fourty per team matches are going to feel very empty indeed.

 

[Louzerman102]

6v6 multiplayer! Next gen has arrived! The power of the cloud!

 

[Tactical Pause]

I don't personally mind the idea of smaller-scale matches (it works for Counter-Strike), but this whole 'mandatory bots' thing is really turning me off. I don't know if anyone else feels this way, but whenever I kill a bot in a multiplayer game, any game, I just feel... empty. I can't explain it very well, it's just this awful sense that I get every time I kill a non-player enemy in a PvP game; like I just set my mind to something (killing that person) and accomplished the task, only to then discover that I've actually achieved nothing at all.

Bottom line, I really hate bots.

 

[omega 616]

Of course the bots could make the numbers up to 10 a side, which is still pretty good!

The way Respawn are selling it I would expect dozens of AI troopers running about at the bare minimum. They're supposed to be like the cannon fodder of a Call of Duty game rather than the main participants in the round, they don't get access to the jet pack jumping or mechs either. If it's anything less than thirty or fourty per team matches are going to feel very empty indeed.

You want 36 a side matches? What if the maps are only the size of COD? That would be like the population of India having a paintball tournament in football field!

Then you have the addition of the mechs, they might not be able to call there own or jet pack but they can still fire at mechs ... if you called one down, it would get blown up before you could get in it!

If the maps are the size of battlefields, then it would be ok to have 36vs36 (inc bots).

 

[Vivi22]

After trying out CS:GO competitive, I feel that less players rather than more might not be such a bad thing... The lower player count is quite enjoyable and I feel more like part of a tactical team. I could see this feeling being a bit similar for Titanfall.

But knowing how Bots usually work (ESPECIALLY in CS:GO) I'm not sure more bots is the right answer.

Small teams can be great like in competitive in CS:GO, but for those that don't want to play competitive games with so few people, there's always casual. And you're not forced to play the game with bots.

This doesn't sound good to me. Why not just have the option for people who don't care?

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

While people poke and whine about the numbers and next gen being to blame, I for one don't mind 6v6 combat, in fact it gives someone like me a nice little team to go tactical without having to deal with massive the massive static of players.

LoL does 5v5 and that has boded well, the same for CS:GO and the likes of regular PvP in some MMO's.

I could only imagine though if it were the typical Consoles get 24 while PC gets 64 usual lineup and even then people would still complain and then look down on said console with disdain and the consumers and then a pointless flame war would ensue because a few just didn't know when to stop making such a fuss.

If you don't like it being 6v6 then I'd implore you to go back to the likes of Battlefield and whatever else game you like to play with 64 people, Titanfall is 6v6 as stated, it's going to be a take it or leave it.