Titanfall can have almost 50 combatants in each game, including AI, players, and Titans

There’s been a lot of discussions around Titanfall’s player count being limited to 6v6, but Respawn says that that player count is the most effective and enjoyable to play with. But the 6v6 limitation is for players only; you can have up to 50 combatants in a single match. Polygon sat down the the lead designer at Respawn, Justin Hendry, to talk about the player counts.

“The higher the player count, the more uncomfortable the game gets,” he said. “Unlike in most games where you can sit there and guard the two ways in, in Titanfall the guy can come in through the window right behind you, he can come from the window to your left, he can come from straight ahead, he can come in from the stairway and he can come in from the doorway, or whatever. Essentially there are five directions you can get killed from and the higher that player count, the more likely you are to get killed from behind and the more difficult it is to kind of manage your surroundings.”

The team at Respawn has been testing out many different numbers for players, 8, 12, 5, or even 2, but 6v6 worked the best.

“It’s been this number for months,” he said. “We are pretty avid players in the studio. People speak their minds and we listen and make changes. This is the number that felt best. The game is essentially built to be six on six.”

But the player count won’t affect map sizes. The game has some maps that are huge, some that are medium sized.

“There are at least two maps that are really big, one of those is huge,” Hendry said. “The map size isn’t a technical limitation, it’s what felt best. It’s, ‘How do we make this thing feel good?’ Some maps are smaller, some are medium size and some are bigger. I think the only thing that the player count does is really affect the overall chaotic level of the game.”

Polygon also got information on how the AI will play into the count on games. Polygon described the experience by saying:

On one level, the AI characters are there as fodder for players who simply aren’t good enough to kill other player-controlled characters. They also serve as an easier way to load up on the experience needed to call in a Titan. And they’re meant to provide a sort of backstory and narrative to a game lacking any sort of single-player element.

That’s just one example. There’s another AI, which can control your titan. So, if you want to hop out of your titan, you can put it in a certain AI mode, and as you walk around capturing a hardpoint, the titan will continue to kill enemies.

SOURCE: Polygon