I know that this is a Crysis 3 topic. I am putting this topic here for it to get exposure and to hear the feedback of the community that has driven C2 to its’ glory today. Through horrible support, lack of communication, and a buggy game, we are still here, loving this game.
In this installment of one of my massively long posts, I am going to objectively argue why separating the energy bars for Stealth and Armor in addition to infinite energy for sprinting and jumping is a very horrible idea.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lduMXJambhU

Index
I. Why do I care? Is it that important?
II. Why it’s a Horrible Idea
III. Counter Arguments

Why Do I Care?
I care for the issue dearly. The reason I do is because for the last 1.5 years I’ve played Crysis 2 through thick and thin, arduously learning its’ details. A lot of us have. The best part about it, is that with this knowledge we worked so hard to get, we are able to see tangible benefit in game in the ways of doing well in PUGs or tournaments. The reward is well worth the cost of time, and that is literally what has kept me playing this game; its’ deep intricacies. I care so much, because the change being implemented is going to destroy a massive part of that reward: the tremendous skill it takes to manage the nanosuit V2’s energy. Does it really matter? It’s a video game; in the grand scheme of things it really doesn't matter. It dictates a lot of my fun though, and I dislike it greatly when someone ruins the best game I've every played.

Why It’s a Horrible Idea
Let’s start by describing our current energy situation. We have one pool of energy that dictates our sprinting, our stealth, and our armor usage. The associate producer of Crysis 2 said that the system was bad because people were sprinting around and as soon as they got into a fight they were getting shredded.

1. If everyone in the game was doing that, each dog fight would be fair.
2. If that person kept on dying over and over again, they would of understood that something was wrong, and sought to fix it.

As it stands, energy management dictates a lot of how Crysis 2 players traverse the map and at what speed. In Crysis 2, you need to know areas of the map that are generally hostile, meaning you need to anticipate needing energy, meaning you need to conserve it for those moments. This is a skill that takes time to learn. In my “Crysis 3 Wishlist” I wanted this game to embody the 80/20 theory. “You have 1 energy bar that is used for everything, don’t waste it.” It’s an idea that’s EASY to understand, but hard to master. Another interesting thing about the current energy system is the way that it has created 3 schools of play in Crysis 2. You have the left wing, the Stealth users, the moderates who mix Stealth and Armor, and you have the right wing who are purely Armor users. All strategies work in PUGs and competition. Stealth users have to worry especially about energy conservation because not only are they sprinting from fight to fight, but they are also using energy. They sacrifice survivability for stealth: balancing mechanism. Armor users have to worry about sacrificing stealth for extra energy in fights: balancing mechanism, Moderates have to worry about taking it slowly through the map because they have to take a lot of breaks to gain their energy back meaning they need to know safe places to stop: balancing mechanism. The single bar was a balancing item in and of itself. Finally, creating a separate energy system takes this wonderful intricacy and turns it into a simple to learn muscle memory. It means when I’m in a fight, I’m in armor mode, everywhere else I am in stealth sprinting around because why on earth would I not be. This difference pigeon holes what strategies I might use. It almost entirely eliminates the energy conservation game. Crytek as a company has delivered the worst customer service to me that a game developer has ever, and has given me the best game. Imagine how amazing it would be if they actually listened and responded to us and told us what they were doing in their ivory tower of awful ideas that come from developers who do not play this game as much as us. This simplification makes this game a mirror image of what MW3 was and what all the professional MW3 players said about it. It caters to the casual gamer and damns the professional one. Why would they do this? Sales. You cannot have a triple A developer, with triple A support. Thanks for being the 98%, Crytek.

Am I overeacting?

YES. Why? Because I want to get it through the developers head the danger of what they’re doing. The community that drives Crysis 2 to it’s existence today HATES this idea. I need to overeact to get a reaction. You have no idea how hard it is as community veteran to get the slightest response from the forum developers. Does this jeperdize my position? Heck yes. I will send a message for the sake of that “Internet Fame.”

Counter Arguments

You haven’t played the game yet, how can you judge so strictly?
You are right, I haven’t. The purpose of this post is to nip this feature in the bud before it’s too late. Sure they can keep it, but for the love of God implement it in a way that retains the games’ complexity. Add another feature to the suit! Make the usage of stealth have a 6 second debuff that makes armor reduce damage by less! Something! Make this game 80/20!

We don’t know how fast the suit energy will drain and the map size will balance out the energy drain.
That is irrelevant. The point is, is that when a user gets in combat he will have 100% energy to use armor and would not of had to of thought about conserving it. I sure to hope that the map size does not increase. Smaller maps are conducive to fast paced matches, better pathing, and zone/spawn control. That is a different topic, suffice to say objectively they are better.

When you think about it from a scientific point of view, the Nanosuit has been improved. Now it is not just for hit&run, but a more more advanced bio-weapon.
Fluff should never get in the way of gameplay. Gameplay is always first in a developer’s mind and fluff is second.

The new energy system will reduce camping, because when people run out of energy, they camp.
You could not be more incorrect. If someone is a camper, that's what they will do regardless of their suits energy. In fact, people running out of energy on the hostile field of battle will take AS LITTLE time as they can to regain their energy so they can get out of a hot spot. Do you know how long it takes to get 100% energy back after draining it to 0%? It's a three second delay, and then another 3.3 seconds to get it all back. If you have Nano recharge that time is cut in half. Who the heck camps for literally 5 seconds or less?

Separate bars means no more losing all energy because you were shot in cloak. Less camping because you wasted all your energy sprinting while cloaked.
So, there shouldn't be a way to balance near invisibility? Increased damage + loss of energy made stealth users cautious effectively balancing its' usage.

And it's not that sprinting doesn't take energy, its that it's now unlimited, which is fair because the map sizes will be bigger, you wouldn't want to run out of energy half way through the map.
God forbid you need to stop to regain energy. Larger maps are clunkier and harder to balance and make the game slower paced. You can't simultaneously give us infinite sprint and make the map larger, that aims to do two of opposite things while making map balance infinitely more hard.

Crytek needs to cater to the noobs. That was one of the bad parts of Crysis 2. It was overwhelming.
There is a fine line that developers need to dance in order to make their game accessible to everyone. The problem I have is that they aren't making it accessible to everyone, but rather where the money is coming from. I believe that with a better system to help and train our noobs (more tips and tricks by the developers, more low level servers, etc.) we can retain the complexities of the game and cater to the casuals. We should not jeopardize a group for the sake of the other. We are deontologists, not utilitarian! Crytek took the easy way out.


The reason I post this is that I want us to discuss this topic. I want you guys to show your support for this issue and show Crytek that they made a mistake and need to fix it. Or, disagree with me. Post a reason why I’m wrong. Also, go vote on this poll that user “Kabs195” made: http://secure.gamesas.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=58&t=50714

Sorry for the super long post. I am very passionate about this issue. Go in peace, guys.

Love,

Sdub

P.S. There are a few other issues with the sourced video that I will not mention here due to length. Also, if you guys have anything to add to this post, tell me.

Agreed,
I'm not exactly sure where Crytek brought these new ideas from, but they have seemingly managed to ruin what was once a great competitive experience, I would have believed Crytek would have gone out of its way to stand out in this cliche ridden "military shooter" market as the unique and "other" shooter, yet sadly, Crytek has tipped its hand to a CoD playstyle.

I stand behind SDub and reject this new style of gameplay, essentially removing all aspects of energy management and tactical planning. I'm not exactly sure what "community" Crytek was listening to, but it sure as heck wasn't the PC community, if anything most of us wanted the scale to tip as FAR, FAR away from a CoD clone as possible.

Crytek, i seriously think you should reconsider your new direction.

I would discuss, but you've basically said everything. I fully agree with your post.

I'm afraid our objections might be pointless as the game developers recently said that they made this decision (separate energy bars) early in the development (so it is possible that many other things have got tied to this idea). And I seriously doubt Crytek cares about the leftovers of the nowadays community and its opinions.

What they care about are the 4 million people going to buy Crysis 3 and the potential to create new community (no matter what it costs). It's very sad that EA/Crytek don't realize what really went wrong in Crysis 2 and that they are trying to "fix" the working mechanics of this game.

Seriously, am I the only one who thinks that if the game was permanently cared about, it could have been an e-sport?

I completely agree with you. Shoot for the Valve model. Create another Counter Strike 1.9 (or Source!). Through continual support that game became a behemoth in terms of sales and support.

While I agree with your statements, SDub, I think we can easily understand why Crytek has made such design changes. You mentioned the reasons yourself, let me quote some key points from an interview with Adam Duckett, Lead Multiplayer Designer:

...the big thing for us is accessibility was a big part of Crysis 2 multiplayer. So a lot of feedback we were seeing was people coming into the environment and it was quite an overwhelming experience to go into first of all. So we took a look at what we could do to have entry level players come in and actually enjoy the experience right from the first game.

So one thing we noticed with Crysis 2 was anyone who sprinted to a firefight would die, because they were essentially eating into their armour so we’ve decoupled that to prevent that and create a cleaner, crisper and more user friendly experience.

So there it is. DDD|Geronimo had said something like "Noobs are the lifeblood of your MP game": the imposed Nanosuit changes don't cater to the hardcoe elite competitive players (majority on this forum, but minority otherwise), they are for the masses.

That's the bitter truth, a design decision based on simple business logic - a streamlined, more accessible experience targeted at a broader undemanding audience.

You are so undeniably correct, BeardedMosquito. There is a fine line that developers need to dance in order to make their game accessible to everyone. The problem I have is that they aren't making it accessible to everyone, but rather where the money is coming from. I believe that with a better system to help and train our noobs (more tips and tricks by the developers, more low level servers, etc.) we can retain the complexities of the game and cater to the casuals. We should not jeopardize a group for the sake of the other. We are deontologists, not utilitarian! Crytek took the easy way out.

Some awesome points, Dubsy.

Without actually playing the "new and improved" MP, it sure seems broken for everyone but the cloakies. I always though the power modes were well balanced in C2, so this just seems like...

Well, it may be easier to get into, but i feel like there's going to be a serious skill plateau.