Burning Sand fixed feedback

[Rudd]

ty chaps, lots of useful stuff here, only problem is that I've had a hard drive failure which will slow any of my PR projects until I can rescue some of the data, yes I back stuff up but the latest files had yet to be

[Su34]

Sad to hear that.
Anyway, I had a realy great game yesterday, one of the best during the last weeks.
Tha maps a such is well designed and with a great variety. On the one hand, there is a big city in the middle for infantry-fighting, but you also have the wide, open terrains for the tanks with some villages and stuff to fight for. So, the overall design is unique in the PR-world and thats what makes it outstanding.
Maybe you could add some further stuff, like a bunker area, of an old, abandoned Outpost or what ever, so that the open terrain does not look that empty.
So, good job on this one.


Anyway, two points i want to mention:
All in all my FPS were good and I had no lags. (everything on high, win7, core i7, 6GB Ram, nvidia gtx275) but in the city there was one awful drop in fraps. In the City, there is this one big construction-site and when i was aiming at the northwest building while I was in the building south of it, my FPS droped and it was almost unplayabley laggy. Sry that I don't have any pics, but we were in some hard firefight there so there was no time to start XFire etc.
If you need any further info on that, I will try to get you some screens of that area.

The second thing is the flag-layout in the city. Yesterday, in the second round, there were two flags right in the city. Since both teams were almost equally balanced, we were fighting only in the city for most of the round, which gets a bit boring soon, when you have a huge area around, where you could be fighting if the flags were not only in the city.
So, if you are planning to use AAS4, maybe do not put two flags in the city, because this only drwas the attention to the city and you will hardly get the oportunity to play on the whole map.

I hope I can help a bit with my feedback, to make this map as great as it should be.

Oh, btw: I really apreciate such a public beta-test. Not just, because I'm always curious on the new maps, but because it really helps to make map a huge succes once its fully released. Especially on the large 4km maps, it's hard for a "normal" betatesting team to test the whole map. So, in my eyes every new PR-map shuld be tested like this, to avoid them needing a second realease until they are balanced and fun to play.
Just my 2 cents, so...

[cyberzomby]

Yea the city is genius. Like web said on most asset heavy maps us infantry boys cant do much. But here we can. Really cool.

I also had a ctd/memory error when i tried screenshotting something. I never have that. So i guess there still some things to clear out. I was in the city btw.

[Kain888]

This map is perfect! Really awesome map with a lot of diversity and good layout of flags.

I agree with most of the feedback posts above. Many good points.

I would need to play it more than 4 times to have a better insight but the only thing that seems not perfect is balance of assets. I really like what you did on STD layout (I'll focus on this layout, as I'm more familiar with it) - asymmetric warfare made in such interesting way seems really fresh in PR. But it needs some adjustments. MEC is really favored when it comes to the power of armor. Challenger 2 is much weaker (mostly because of its numerous bugs - like shaking on flat ground, etc. ) than T-72 and MEC have 4 of them so they easily overrun C2. 3 Warriors and Scimitar stood no chances to the mighty BMP, which can easily take C2 as well. So MEC is favored a bit. So reducing their firepower may be good step, maybe taking out 1 tank and 1 bmp and giving them something that scimitar and warrior can actually kill would be good step.

On the other hand they lose when it comes to the aircraft, only 1 cow and 2 gazelles vs 2 chinooks, lynx and apache. It seems quite fair if GB gets advantage in air, but still it doesn't balance the power of BMPs and put too much emphasis on one asset - apache - if it fails then GB side is screwed. I like idea of 2 gazelles, but they are tricky to use as easily as Apache and needs more coordination, yet they cost same as Apache ticket-wise and spawn 20 min (If I'm not mistaken). IMO to balance this and let gazelle to be more efficient on this map you should get rid of 2 British AAV. They are quite overkill as MEC has only 2 gazelles and one cow, and cow on such open space can be easily shoot down by armor, what happened yesterday a lot. So let GB base their AA power on stationary and handheld AA and it should be much more fun and balanced.

Overall, it's not big imbalance - it still exist though, yesterday we had good measure of that, because both teams were pretty much the same and the round in both cases ended by the MEC outcapping GB. Improving this map by slow step by step procedure can make it the best PR map IMO (although I still prefer Wanda Shan ).

[PLODDITHANLEY]

I too enjoyed it I agree with Kains post completely about air assets. Also bearing in mind the Chinook has two crates against the cows one, that should let the Brits easily build fixed AA. I also think the MEC would benefit from another cow and a slight reduction in BMP and/or tank quantities, although again the terrain makes driving a truck far a less horrible experience than hilly maps.

Last night when I was MEC the Brit apache didn't hurt us - but he even missed all assets and a FOB, so with a top pilot it should be a different story, although the flat terrain does not favour the Apache compared to Kashan and the Cobra hiding behind the hills in Muttrah. As the Gazelle is such a rare asset and few pilots/gunners seem to have mastered it together with the difficulty SL's often have to laze it'll take a bit of time before it can be used to its full potential.

I like the fact this map is almost two maps with the infantry areas and the ability for the armour to have lots of space for long range battles.

[ninja]

Overall, it's not big imbalance - it still exist though, yesterday we had good measure of that, because both teams were pretty much the same and the round in both cases ended by the MEC outcapping GB. Improving this map by slow step by step procedure can make it the best PR map IMO (although I still prefer Wanda Shan ).

Tbh we lost yesterday both rounds because first we assaulted (with 3 inf squads) way to much and left to few back to defend our important flag (32 player version was that one i think) and the second time we lost it was just fail. the enemys capped city back from us but we had the next flag oil exploration alrdy so the city flag was neutral and there were only 1 inf squad of us brits in the city and later a 2nd inf squad but nothing else.
I would say it was just a tactical fail here aswell and the mec just outplayed us.
And having an apache squad with 1 kill in this map might have aswell added to this (cause it only would attack if there would be a laze and not attacking on its own with thermals at all. I mean even the gazeel hovered in the city and tried to shoot us.......)

In my oppinion the assets are quite fair (since most brit apc got thermals anyway) and i like how it is right now. Not just like on kashan were both sides get the same amount of assets(and dont come with me that the tanks are different etc blablabla ).

[Kain888]

^ I was talking about std layout, you are talking about alt.

And I don't want symmetric vehicles, just as I said in my post it has to be just balanced - other than that - I love that Rudd aimed for diversity in assets.

[Rudd]

btw, changed thread title a little, this isn't Burning Sands v2, its burning sands fixed. v1.5 if you prefer

re detail in the city, I wanted to add more, but I don't want to impair performance. I'm loath to add more performance load if 128 players is a possibility.

[Jigsaw]

Imho, the only major point of feedback I have is that you should try to always have at least one flag in the city. It simply seems such a waste to have all the flags spread throughout the desert and for infantry it makes if feel like Kashan, despite all the awesomeness contained in the urban environment just a short distance away.

The city itself is incredible, without question one of the best urban areas in PR if not the best.

[Rudd]

re flag placement, AASv4 will fix that, the way its gonna work is MEC main - N/E/S/W, stuff, stuff, city, stuff stuff inverted N/E/S/W - Brit main

so for example

MEC main - abandoned oil exploration, Village, North City, industrial complex - Brit main

all depending if I can get my computer back on its feet, it might be the motherboard not the hard drive so I'm out of commission for longer, but the files might be intact.

Worst case scenario is that a few bugs might have to find their way in to the main release if I get another party to take the burning sands files and fix a few things

[Pirate]

Some of the helipads seem a bit off. The crate reloading area seems smaller than the actual (H), would be nice if the reload area was made a bit bigger, it's a pain aiming the chinook to the exact spot.

[Mats391]

i found 2bugs on the map:
1) in skirmish mode only 1 out of the 3 flags are capable.

2) At the weapon research facility a big static is missing (or was removed?) leading to players glitching through the floor of the bunker.
Location:


if you go on the bunker on the left side of the screen you will fall through the ground


ending up here


performance and gameplay were great and i had no problems with CTDs. i hope we can test the fixed fixed version with 128player soon

[Rudd]

ah damnit, thats caused by the hangar_bunker_part2 not being there, must have accidentally removed it.

Good find, danke.

[Shovel]

While I was in one of the bunkers, I noticed that a ladder was misplaced and unusable. I then proceeded to walk to the other end to the bunker, and use the functioning ladder. The two photos show the ladder and the location.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

Necro:

Why when travelling in a heli in BS do I see so many black flickering areas in the sands, whereas on Kashan I don't see any?

NVidia in MEC skycow.

[Rudd]

those black flickering bits happen quite randomly afaik, specially in terrain sectors next to surrounding terrain, I get them on all 4k maps

[Rhino]

Necro:

Why when travelling in a heli in BS do I see so many black flickering areas in the sands, whereas on Kashan I don't see any?

NVidia in MEC skycow.

those black flickering bits happen quite randomly afaik, specially in terrain sectors next to surrounding terrain, I get them on all 4k maps

Its a dynamic shadow bug with 4km maps, but the lower the sun the more it happens, get the sun low enough and even tanks shadows will cause this. You don't see it often on Kashan due to its high sun.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

Thanks. Nice to know.

[Stealthgato]

I think MEC should get at least one transport Gazelle in addition the 2 Mi-8s.

Also liked it much more when it was 2 Gazelle tank hunters instead of 1 Havoc, asymmetric balance is much more awesome. If it's too overpowered then maybe 1 Gazelle and 1 EC635.

Is the EC635 a DICE model? Can't remeber, if it isn't it'd be awesome if one of the gunpods could be replaced by a rocket pod.

[Curry]

Is the EC635 a DICE model?

i'm sure it is a DICE model.

Curry.