256 player servers.. or not

[Soppa]

Some news for you all. Tonight I finally managed to remove 128 player limit

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Battlefield 2 Dedicated Server v1.5.3153-802.0(x86_64)
"128 Player TEST Sisu [MUMBLE] PR 0.957e Average FPS:  19 [d:0, o:1554]
IP: 85.23.203.31 Port: 16567             Map: fallujah_west
Game mode: gpm_insurgency/64             Mod: pr             TimeLeft: 03:38:11
Players: 130/250 (0 r) (6 connecting)    Round: 1/1          Status: [playing]

Poor server... 103% cpu load

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  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
19025 xxx       25   0  648m 430m 9956 R 103.4 10.9  26:32.29 bf2.256

We did end up to 205 player on fallujah until cpu was so overloaded that server gave connection timeouts.
But it did NOT crash which is most important

So lets talk about server sizes. Many of you think that on going 116 player server has bad games. I agree it sure does sometimes.. But half of time there is really good games too.

Basically I believe this is mostly because new people in scene are probably joining to biggest server and they have no clue how things work.

But what you think? What is best server size as now we know 128 isnt limit anymore?
(not that it has nothing to do with upcoming PR, but just as thought )


Its over 9000!!! ?

[wuschel]

But what you think? What is best server size as now we know 128 isnt limit anymore

I have not played on a 128 player server yet. But having read many comments and seen many videos, the filling of the battlefield - with grunts - is a very positive step forward. But for sure it makes sense to introduce some sort of control of the number of totally clueless player on such a server, for with more users, moderation is likely to be much more difficult. Also, unless there will be six man squads, the amount of time a SL can dedicate per squad member is reduced, making training of new players more difficult.

The training of new players to some PR standard was and is still one of the most important points in PR. Perhaps new servers should be limited to more experienced players? But what concept would be there to enforce such a rule?

My 2 cents.

[Conman51]

I honestly think around 100 is good, just not to overload servers. But of course that depends on the server. In my opinion anything above the 64 vanilla BF2 limit is good, so even if you just brought it up to 80 with high stability i would be very happy.

[Shovel]

256 would be awesome, but it would ONLY work well with 4km maps. But anything over 100 is pretty great too. Separate map layers would have to be created for 128 or 256.

[Jigsaw]

Less than 100, any more is overkill. We need to get that sorted before we even start to think about pushing it further, and even then it would be virtually pointless imo.


Lets not walk before you can crawl.

[KingKong.CCCP]

I think PR is definitely out of the box.
There is a big crossroad ahead.

1. road - 64p is the best, nothing should be changed, no servers/players should be allowed to play on anything more than 64, and that's it!

This doesn't make any sense at all.


2. road - break all limits, let servers and players to decide the number of players they will have.

This sounds reasonable.
If you think 64 players is "tactical", 128 players is "vanilla", and 250 is "just stupid" - fine, host 64, 32 or 16p server. There is no reason to be against the possibility for some guys out there in the world to play on some server with 500 people on it. Why not - if they find that interesting, let them have it.


Gameplay on big servers
It's new. It's unorthodox. Everything needs to be redesigned from the scratch, but good things from PR history need to be preserved, and implemented.
Like, if we have 250p per server, should we have squads talking to CO, or maybe better to have PLATOONS as basic unit? After all, these groups are led by officers. How about increasing max players per "squad" (group) to 30... 40 even? What will gameplay look like?
Will it be possible for a guy to do something with 20-40 players in his command?

The biggest problem (I see):
What if dbzao makes an insanely awesome video of 250 players battle and put it on youtube?
Or, what if we get 10,000 totally new players tomorrow? What will our precious PR teamwork look like?
What's next?

Let me end with this:
"The future always so clear to me had become like a black highway at night.
We were in uncharted territory now, making up history as we went along".
(Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 Judgment Day, James Cameron 1991)

[Rico]

There problem seems to be the bigger squad sizes I find. When you get 12 people in a squad its just too much to coordinate. 8 is a good number as allows you to create a couple of useful fireteams and still maintain control. That said, you need to be able to have atleast 2 medics, 2 saws per squad.

If we can't increase the number of squads, then realistically I don't think each team should exceed 70 players (140 total)

[Agemman]

Anything more than 128 will be too much. It will be hard to coordinate as a team, and as squads. The fact that you have so many people will also increase the number of ways things can go wrong since you have to rely on more people overall.

[Kain888]

If you think 64 players is "tactical", 128 players is "vanilla", and 250 is "just stupid" - fine, host 64, 32 or 16p server. There is no reason to be against the possibility for some guys out there in the world to play on some server with 500 people on it. Why not - if they find that interesting, let them have it.

You are constantly missing the point, no one is saying (or almost no one) about "too stupid", it's about real problems and real issues that have to be overcame to apply PR pace and PR quality of gameplay. The tweaks have to be made by developers first to assure experience that PR is known for. It's cool, yeah. But it has to works not only on tech side...

Also there is so many factors that should be taken into consideration, that you should be a little more open minded before you start to criticize people opinion next time. :/

Edit: Also what Jigsaw said about progress is true.

[L4gi]

41 players per team, 6 or 8 man squads, dont really care. Anything over that is starting to be too much. 50 per side is starting to really push it.

[Col.Sanders34]

It's really hard to judge since PR wasn't designed around a player cap higher than 64. As it stands, i think squad size is the main issue. The 13 man squads on the 200+ test was a mess to coordinate. I think 116 is a good number on the larger maps, even though the 8 man squads becomes a transport issue with the vehicle capacity limit. If PR was designed to handle over 64 players - ticket, assets, mapsize, vehicle player cap, and limited kits wise -im sure the players would adjust (gameplaywise) to the new curve with ease.

pic from the test

[KingKong.CCCP]

My point is, is limit really needed? From what I've heard, Arma2 has no limits when it comes to player count per server.
What is the argument behind not letting people choose what THEY want to play?
It's not about what I want, or you guys want, it's about what some guys (in China, for example) wants from PR.

All I'm saying is, if you think PR should be limited to, let say 100 people, does that mean some guys in China can not have their fun with 150, cos we think it's too much for them?


Anyway, I like having one test server with big numbers. I hope we'll have 150p server to play with, and see how that works out.

[Cassius]

I really do not mind the large number of people. However either a way is implemented to subdivide the squad, having one platoon leader and 1-3 sargeatns with men under him, or the max. number of squads is increased and the number of squadmembers set at 6-8. Squadleaders will just have to get used to thinking as other squadleaders as squadmembers who bring 7 more guns to the fight.

IMO there should be 1 CO, a platoon leader with 12- 18 people under him devided in 2-3 squads. The CO can give out the general plan and the platoon leaders can get something like a frontline going.

If games with a large number of people are a disorganized mess, then the same will be true for games on smaller scales. If you get some C&C going in large games its gonna be epic.

[FullMetalMonkey]

There problem seems to be the bigger squad sizes I find. When you get 12 people in a squad its just too much to coordinate. 8 is a good number as allows you to create a couple of useful fireteams and still maintain control. That said, you need to be able to have atleast 2 medics, 2 saws per squad.

If we can't increase the number of squads, then realistically I don't think each team should exceed 70 players (140 total)

Although i haven't played PR for very long i do have to agree with Rico.

If there are 12 man squads it would be awesome if there was an ability for the Squad Leader to create proper fire teams (Alpha and Bravo, Red and Blue etc). If you there are Fire Teams then each Fire Team should have seperate voice comms with the Fire Team Leaders communicating with the Squad Leader. I'm not too sure how possible/difficult it would be to implement but it would increase the immersion and also create a chain of command.

EDIT: Didn't read all of the replies and noticed others have suggested similar ideas.

[Mora]

There problem seems to be the bigger squad sizes I find. When you get 12 people in a squad its just too much to coordinate. 8 is a good number as allows you to create a couple of useful fireteams and still maintain control. That said, you need to be able to have atleast 2 medics, 2 saws per squad.

If we can't increase the number of squads, then realistically I don't think each team should exceed 70 players (140 total)

This seems like the best option. 140 players is enough to fill up a 4km map. But i also think we shouldn't force it. It should be unlimited if you ask me. The server admins can always lock it to a number.

[Maverick]

Less than 100, any more is overkill. We need to get that sorted before we even start to think about pushing it further, and even then it would be virtually pointless imo.


Lets not walk before you can crawl.

We must RUN before we can even crawl! lol no but seriously, maybe over 100 will be overkill, but we must have it to be able to be organized, and mumble is ESSENTIAL for this to be even possible But hell, if PS3 did it(M.A.G) then why not the PC?

[goguapsy]

So, let's celebrate Easter together, no?

[ZAP44]

Can you make it as crazy as this ArmA 2 1700 AI battle http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6TnEyrN55II ? ArmA doesn't play like this youtube vid because numbers in missions are controlled and not open to 1700 slots. Frankly I haven't done PR 128 much and wasn't very impressed when I did. Getting 128 players acting mature and speaking the same language is a chore. I'd keep it for special well admined PR sponsored events only and not give this capability to anyone with a server. Having more than one or two large servers running at once will hurt PR's reputation more than help it IMHO.

[FullMetalMonkey]

Maverick, MAG, although it did support huge numbers of players, they were technically 64 player maps as the maps were divided into four areas which were inaccessible.