128 player tests: Feedback and Observations

[Oskar]

Platoons are 26 - 55 in size, squads 8-13, and fire team sizes vary (often times 4).

[CoLdFiRe88]

Yes, you can see it's passworded on PRSPY:



PRSPY - Server and player browser and tracker


Why would it need to be reset?

that link is brilliant, i dont even have to open pr to check for servers any more.

[Minion508]

Just played in that 512 player server. We had it up to 200. Honestly I think its a lot better then 64. I mean it might be harder to manage squads, but it really gives PR the increase in action it needed. More firefights. Its great. I had a great time with it. Please keep expanding on this concept.

[Soppa]

Well I dont think that 200 players will work for many maps.
128 will work for most of maps, has double amount of players and still have PR gameplay in there. If you go past of that, its totally different game imo.

[Snazz]

What exactly makes 128 the 'right' number?

Arguably PR is different as soon as the 65th player or 7th squad member joins.

Lets avoid such judgments until further experimentation.

[Wicca]

I think i usually have said this alot.

It is never about the game, the number or what your doing. Playing PR, or any game in general really boils down to just WHO ARE YOU GAMING WITH?

If its a bunch of retards? Expect a retarded game.

If they take the game seriously? Then boom serious game.

On the 200 player test on karez, everyone was on mumble. There was to some point dedicated Commanders on both sides, cept Agemman kept failing.

I think i want to say that mumble doesnt mean = Communication. It just gives everyone a tool to communicate, which arguably makes it easier to coordinate. IF THEY WANT TO.

So attitudes and structrues and hiearcies is what is necessary for any game to be good. The Mumble is obviously helpfull, but doesnt necessarily enforce, or enable teamwork, it just makes it easier.

So please, everyone have a mind of organization and good spirits. And make sure you follow orders. And work for the team. Cause when the team grows, you the individual get smaller. And your oppinions and fun means less for the rest of the team. The entire teams enjoyment is more important.

// Wicca out

[SGT.MARCO]

WHY CANT WE INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF SQUADS SO WE ARE NOT MANAGING PLATOONS!!!!??

[Qadis]

Cause when the team grows, you the individual get smaller. And your oppinions and fun means less for the rest of the team. The entire teams enjoyment is more important.

Man that's real demotivating. The reason you should do teamwork is cuz it's more enjoyable for you, and you, as an individual, become BIGGER, aka contribute more to the victory of your team.

WHY CANT WE INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF SQUADS SO WE ARE NOT MANAGING PLATOONS!!!!??

I believe it's due to ingame VOIP not working when you have more than 9 squads.

QADIS OUT

[BroCop]

Just played in that 512 player server. We had it up to 200. Honestly I think its a lot better then 64. I mean it might be harder to manage squads, but it really gives PR the increase in action it needed. More firefights. Its great. I had a great time with it. Please keep expanding on this concept.

Actually there were allot of changes to reduce firefights and to make them very slow. In other words PR is not a hollywood action movie and it never should be (which is kinda what 200 players server is trying to mimic and which Wicca is trying to rename as "enjoyment of the team" despite the retarded gameplay)

[Eco__pRv]

[quote=""'[R-CON"]Soppa;1586374']
I will give a look what happens if we remove 9 max squad limit. Let see where we end up to
One thing is sure, ingame voip will not work but if we are gonna move to mumble and disable ingame voip in huge servers, then it might be possible to make more squads.[/quote]

[quote="KingKong.CCCP""]I say we should definitely try it.
so.. is it possible to make this on our mumble server:
1st Platoon SL radio channel
2nd Platoon SL radio channel
3rd Platoon SL radio channel
...

And over all
PL radio channel
[/quote]

I like the idea. Would it be possible to create that kind of mumble setup? Screw ingame VOIP then.

...in the meantime I think it could work out to have 2 SLs per 12-16 man squad, creating 2 fireteams. Worked quite well in a round yesterday, but I had the feeling the 2nd fireteam leader who was not SL and therfore lacked the officer kit was pretty limited in actions (markers, GTLD, asset construction). Could this work concerning vBF2 code / engine limitations?

[Pluizert]

I really enjoyed the improved amount of players. I agree on making Voip impossible and make Mumble No.1. My only problem while playing is that the more players there is, the more lag i get. When i get to the front and there are 200 players within the viewing distance i get aroud 18 FPS. Which is not playable. I already put my graphs to low and installed gamebooster. Overclocked my Video and Processor. Honestly i think 200+ is too many and 128 or 160 is okay in my opinion...

[Robert-The-Bruce]

I really don't get why so many people insist on focusing on forming platoons already!

There are a few things to get right about handling the bigger squads first:


Fact 1: In the current playstyle although squads very big(12-16 Players) they still work like most 6 man squads functioned.(I'm assuming here that the SL keeps his Squad together)

If players are unfamiliar with each other -> everyone just follows the SL in a rough blob.

If players are familiar with each other -> you often get SOME manuever, with part of the squad suppressing and another assaulting and similar events of teamwork.


Fact 2: By continueing on the "way of the 6-man squad" you attempt and usually achieve similar things that you did with a 6 man squad!!!!

This can not be understated! If you just all run in one big blob towards the enemy you will get cut down quickly, there will be a LOT of confusion for both SL and SM's about what to do and where to go and where the enemy is exactly.

Sure you can achieve better suppression cause you have a lot of guns and there are a lot of people to cut down for the enemy. You are however using a lot of people to make a little gain.(Basically you are playing WW1, just with more modern weapons).




Now if having Squads be that huge is impractical, what are you to do with all these players?

Well, do what the military did. We are after all trying to fight with the same weapons and in the same environments as our militaries do...

Instead of having squads be huge with a single leader, have squads devided up between several lower tier leaders and have a single leader in charge of the lower leaders who does (almost)no micromanaging of individuals.

The problem here is of course that you need lots and lots of competent lower tier leaders. But really to me that seems like a non problem. After all there are a lot of people that could take care of a 6-man squad and probably even more if you you bring it down to a 5- or 4-man squad.

So I propose the following:

A squad leader should delegate his responsibilies about micromanaging his individual soldiers to several fireteam leaders. He therefor frees up capacities to coordinate his fireteams in a way that resembles several traditional squads coordinated and commanded by the Commander as he used to be.

I hope everyone can see what this leads to. On Muttrah for example I believe I could pretty securely hold the line between North and South City Flags with A SINGLE SQUAD OF 12-16 PEOPLE!!! Potentially FREEING UP up to around 80(!!!!!!!) Players!


I could write loads more about this, but I expended my emotions enough for now.


Thx for (hopefully)listening.

[Wicca]

Stop raping the "!" mark

Platoons make less communication to other SLs. Which frees up your ears and mouth to your own squad.

Thats why we want Platoons.

[Robert-The-Bruce]

I'm not against Platoons per se. I merely stating that before you tackle Platoons you need to have Squads that utilize all the manpower they have.

(I know I used the excamation mark a lot. That's simply because I didn't want to start cursing at people:razz

edit: I might have overstated my estimate about Muttrah... by one or two players...

However my point still stands, you couldn't use a squad of 16 players to cover a single street, because you would be wasting manpower that could be utilized elsewhere.

[spawncaptain]

I'm in favor of platoons on mumble. Instead of 1 CO having to manage 100+ players, he can simply tell 1st Plt. to defend and 2nd Plt. to attack. IFVs and APCs should be organic to their infantry platoons, further reducing the chatter, while tanks belong to their own platoon. Hell, even scout platoons can make sense with so many players on maps like Karez, finally utilizing the BRDM like it should be.

Of course everybody would need to be on mumble for this to work.

[Wicca]

Should i organize an event with SLs and shit?

[Robert-The-Bruce]

All in favour?

Yay!

[killonsight95]

Should i organize an event with SLs and shit?

You know my opinion on this.

and for those who don't know it's yes.

[Vicious302]

yes yes yes... and maybe a commander who can plan out a decent plan ahead of time... and have everyone show up 1 hour early so you can weed out the impatiences and explain how it's going to need to work... slowly.

[killonsight95]

yes yes yes... and maybe a commander who can plan out a decent plan ahead of time... and have everyone show up 1 hour early so you can weed out the impatiences and explain how it's going to need to work... slowly.

that's what the PRT is for...... there is enough time for them to explain and shizz over the days before the event.