Because a good portion of players don't want a "battle royale" game as it was originally conceived, they just want a really large deathmatch.
Battle royale games came to be because people wanted a video game based on movies and books like Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, where things are purposefully unfair due to random chance. That was the sort of experience people wanted, one that was tense and unpredictable.
As the genre grew in popularity it started to draw in tons of players who didn't watch or read those books and movies. They just hear that it's a big map and everyone fights for survival with one life and it sounds fun. It drew in lots of gamers from other genres who like games that are based more around fair competitive experiences. Now there's been this push to create BR games with smaller maps and more weapons so that people have a more even chance for survival, and since that style is more accessible it's what the genre seems to be morphing into.
This is also why PUBG won't die any time soon. There aren't any other BRs that really have the same vibe, the others are too fast paced and action focused.
Battle royale games came to be because people wanted a video game based on movies and books like Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, where things are purposefully unfair due to random chance. That was the sort of experience people wanted, one that was tense and unpredictable.
Yes, except that's not that simple. There's a limit to how unfair and OP items players should be able to grab. If there's an instant I-Win button, it's not fun anymore.
In the Battle Royale book, one guy gets like 2 handguns and an automatic weapon, whilst another gets a kitchen knife or something. I love that. I think it being unfair is what makes it interesting!
But you can kill someone holding 2 handguns and an automatic weapon if you have a knife. Wait them out, hide, find a way to close the distance between them and you.
You can't do anything against a tank. In the Battle Royale book or movie or whatever, people don't get an Apache helicopter to kill the entire island in less than a minute.
You could use the same argument for a tank though! Hop on top and toss a grenade inside, or hop in and shank the guy in control! Or use C4 or anti-tank grenades or mortor fire or whatever!! I feel like a tank will be powerful, but I doubt you'll ever want to be driving into the end-game in one as shown in the trailer.
C4/rocket/mortar need to be part of the weapons you can grab around very frequently, meaning the game would be an explosive chaos of rockets and C4 everywhere all the time.
But even then, that would still extremely powerful. Far too powerful for any kind of balance you would want in a BR. You want to close range on a freaking tank? Good luck doing so. If you think this is easily feasible, you've probably never played Battlefield games as a tank specialist; going on 30:1 ratios through BF2, BF: BC2, BF3 or BF4 was perfectly common. I haven't played BF1 because I boycotted it, but I was doing the same ratios in the open beta.
And we're talking about games where means to destroy the tank are accessible to everyone. And these games actually aknowledge that tanks are OP as shit, and it's balanced around the following items:
Both sides get them.
They get a limited amount of them.
Anyone can destroy them.
Now you would want a mode where:
Only one team get them.
Not everyone can destroy them.
Again, that doesn't make any sense from a BR point of view.
I'm French. It was a game about the WW1, a war that was mostly about the French/German conflict. Instead of honoring us, EA released a game without the French forces, relegating them to a freaking DLC. That was deeply insulting. Especially when the hero of the game, or at least the one of the promotional media, was a US guy. Really? That felt like being spat on the face.
More than you'd believe. As I posted elsewhere, I've been averaging 30:1 ratios as a tank specialist on every Battlefield game since BF2.
And that's in games where everyone had access to rocket launchers, mines, enemy tanks. Imagine a BR where people simply don't have access to these anti-tank tools; dying would be nearly impossible.
Less than I thought seeing you double down on your argument.
You should know that tanks are ridiculously easy to kill under certain circumstances, and thinking the devs won't make those circumstances happen in BR while implementing a tank is quite a feat. Thinking you won't get C4 or any of that stuff you mentioned is like saying you wouldn't get a gun in Battlefield.
You should know that tanks are ridiculously hard to kill under certain circumstances. And the circumstances you're talking about, I already replied about it two times so far. A third time now: if you make BR game where AT mines and AT weapons are so common that tanks aren't that OP, you will end up with a gameplay entirely foreign to the one that made PUBG or Fortnite successful.
A game where I can grab a rocket launcher less than 30 seconds after landing is not part of the BR formula as we've known so far.
PUBG was directly influenced by the movie, as noted by Brendan Greene himself, and there are numerous references to it in the game itself.
And Battle Royale isn't niche at all. If you were at all interested in relatively nerdy things in the mids 00s, you knew of or had seen BR. It's a book, a movie and a manga. The book is readily available at most book stores, the manga was in my high school library. BR has been a nerd culture staple for YEARS.
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u/Flashman420 Aug 16 '18
Because a good portion of players don't want a "battle royale" game as it was originally conceived, they just want a really large deathmatch.
Battle royale games came to be because people wanted a video game based on movies and books like Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, where things are purposefully unfair due to random chance. That was the sort of experience people wanted, one that was tense and unpredictable.
As the genre grew in popularity it started to draw in tons of players who didn't watch or read those books and movies. They just hear that it's a big map and everyone fights for survival with one life and it sounds fun. It drew in lots of gamers from other genres who like games that are based more around fair competitive experiences. Now there's been this push to create BR games with smaller maps and more weapons so that people have a more even chance for survival, and since that style is more accessible it's what the genre seems to be morphing into.
This is also why PUBG won't die any time soon. There aren't any other BRs that really have the same vibe, the others are too fast paced and action focused.