Round duration, thoughts?

[cyberzomby]

Hey guys,

For a while now I feel that PR rounds can really last a long time. Maybe even to long in some (dare I say most?) cases. I'm looking at you Insurgency!

For me the downsides of this are:

• You can play a few evenings a month, you'll only see 4 of the beautiful maps in PR. Partly at fault here are server admins who come-up with the same maps over and over.
• You cant hop in for a game of PR. You really need to clear your schedule and make time for it. The target audience are not the 14 year old COD kiddie's but the mature gamers. And these people have more on there hands than a game
• A "match" can turn stale, make people leave, make them put no more effort in it and let the match become stale.

Possible upsides of the long rounds:

• You can take your time for attacks, sneaking around and finding out where the enemy is.

Maybe we can keep the number of tickets but set-up a max time per map of 45 minutes. Or decrease the maximum number of tickets to make the round last a bit shorter.

I think this community is mature enough to not fall back to COD gameplay when the rounds last shorter. There have been plenty of times when I'm fending of wave #9 and looking at the tickets and go like: We'll be here for another hour...

It might also bring some players back. In my other topic there have been plenty of people who said that these days they are to busy to play. So shorter rounds might give people the time to hop in for a round or two.

It might also promote the more boring roles like CO, mortars and the likes. The idea of being in the CO chair for 1,5 hours can be daunting. Defending a flag for the same amount of time isn't something to look forward to as well. And after 10 runs with the ammo techie to your mortars you can almost drive with your eyes closed

I also think that it wont cost tactics or strategies. Most rounds start of with some good plans, communication and teamwork. The teams hit each other, the fighting starts and after a few attempts a lot of rounds just sink in. Both teams are dug in and theres a few squads trying to dislodge them for the remainder of the round.

Just wondering what the rest of the community thinks of this Don't get me wrong. I love PR and the rounds I had this weekend while being SL. But this is just something that bugs me about PR.

[AnimalMother.]

I'd say an hour should be the average game length aimed for, but it shouldn't be limited to that. Some games can run over that time and still be highly (if not more) enjoyable.

I think another thing that contributes to how you feel is now the amount of 4km maps. Now I love them but when they are played say 3 or 4 in a row, you find that it becomes very tedious with the current 64player cap. Especially for the infantry squad that's been one of two inf squads for the past x hours to be left fighting the hard fight alone.


From an asset point of view it would be interesting with delayed spawn and 20min respawn times as you lose that Gunship or fast air and you're hurting for a large percentage of the game time without the support.

My quick thoughts on the matter.

[cyberzomby]

Yea thats true! Some of the long games can be really cool for the entire duration. But its not like those rounds come by a lot.

Being an infantryman myself I know what you're saying I'm trying to switch more to assets since my return to spice things up. Thats why I havent thought about 20 minute respawn timers of those things. That could be something that needs balancing as well, if the round duration is decreased.

I guess you're also right on the 4km maps played in succession.

[nAyo]

Insurgency without dbmod : WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too long and boring eventually.

[illidur]

Insurgency without dbmod : WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too long and boring eventually.

Dbmod rounds seem longer. No unknown = no chance to win the game in 20 minutes.

OT, I think the round times are great.

[AnimalMother.]

Dbmod rounds seem longer. No unknown = no chance to win the game in 20 minutes.

Never got to play under those settings. But whilst you can just scurry around looking for unknowns which in effect is boring because there's little to no combat involved. Surely having the focus on one cache brings the combat together so even if the round is longer it doesn't "feel" as long because of fighting rather than sitting in a cave whilst blufor fly around the map.

[CopyCat]

How do you get bored in PR? There is such a variety of stuff to do, doesn't have to be all about driving or flying or running right?!

Oh this brings me back to memory of PRT C8/C9, some battles took for 2 or 3 hours

/CC

[cyberzomby]

How do you get bored in PR? There is such a variety of stuff to do, doesn't have to be all about driving or flying or running right?!

Oh this brings me back to memory of PRT C8/C9, some battles took for 2 or 3 hours

/CC

Getting bored is just part of my small annoyance. I'd also like to play more maps in one evening worth or PR for instance. And when you're SL you dont really switch in a round. You cant tell your 5 squadmembers: Sorry chaps! I'm going to drive this truck and do logistics now! Usually I dont even switch roles when I'm just a SM. I'm changing that since I started playing again because of what you said Theres more to do then just watch the stairs of a T-shape for 1,5 hours.

Yes I've played the tourney as well. Those rounds where different. Even tho they lasted a long time, they where a lot more exciting then most public games. Thats why we played in the tournament

[Sgt. Mahi]

I think another thing that contributes to how you feel is now the amount of 4km maps. Now I love them but when they are played say 3 or 4 in a row, you find that it becomes very tedious with the current 64player cap. Especially for the infantry squad that's been one of two inf squads for the past x hours to be left fighting the hard fight alone.

Totally agree with this. Playing infantry on 4km maps three times in a row gets boring. It wouldn't necessary be that way if the vehicles would support the infantry. I personally would like to see punishments to APCs that doesn't stick with an inf sq.

[40mmrain]

making rounds too short makes more and more tactics irrelevant. FOr example with 20 minute rounds, making a ten minute flanking maneuver with tanks, or spending 15 minutes demolishing bridges pointless.

Insurgency isn't too long, but just has too many lulls, where especially for the insurgents there's no action. I kind of dig cache hunting, or setting up RPG ambushes or, some shit like that in INS, but when youre sitting in some run down apartment in fallujah with a known and you dont see a marine for like 10 minutes it's lame as shit. If there was constant 2 hours of action that was not repetitive, then there I would like that, but that's not how INS is

100 player servers make the game more exciting, by the way

[English_infidel]

I loved the long game. It's about keeping your first life to me..the longer the better

[cyberzomby]

making rounds too short makes more and more tactics irrelevant. FOr example with 20 minute rounds, making a ten minute flanking maneuver with tanks, or spending 15 minutes demolishing bridges pointless.

Insurgency isn't too long, but just has too many lulls, where especially for the insurgents there's no action. I kind of dig cache hunting, or setting up RPG ambushes or, some shit like that in INS, but when youre sitting in some run down apartment in fallujah with a known and you dont see a marine for like 10 minutes it's lame as shit. If there was constant 2 hours of action that was not repetitive, then there I would like that, but that's not how INS is

100 player servers make the game more exciting, by the way

Thats true! I loved the 128 server and didnt play anything else when they where still up. Made the game a lot more exciting and less like special forces teams hunting each other. So I guess that will be a very nice addition in 1.0. Although I'm curious how often it will fill up to a 100.

I'm also not suggesting 20 minutes rounds, more like 45 to an hour. You could also wonder if flanking around, not contributing to the team for 15 minutes, is a good thing to do anyway

[40mmrain]

You could also wonder if flanking around, not contributing to the team for 15 minutes, is a good thing to do anyway

All actions have a net effect on the battle, if not contributing for 15 minutes, means a final result of eliminating an enemy tank column, and FOB along with capturing a flag, it's much more useful than going straight down the middle and dying, so the flanking maneuver is relevant, and useful. This assumes that the flags dont turn for over 15 minutes on average. In a 1:30 match that's pretty often. In a 20 minute, the enemy's already advanced by the time your maneuver has been made, so the flanking maneuver is irrelevant. Same deal with jets, sitting on the pad waiting for bombs, or flying at 2.5k alt doing nothing isnt "contributing", but eventually you deliver a precise 500 pounder, which is incredibly useful.

I dont know why someone would want shorter matches.

Half of the things that are practiced in the game would be completely pointless. Like how long does it take for an apache to spin up, take off, gain altitude, attack a laze, return to base to repair and rearm, and do the same? You'd do that once or twice and the game would be done with significantly shorter rounds. The only solution would be to make everything faster and simpler, like not landing to rearm, or faster spawns, which would be regressing to vanilla BF2.

Longer games that dont have boring bits are better for PR. They have better gameplay, and realism.

[cyberzomby]

I know I know. I was making a friendly jab. As in most maps the armor can also be used to fend of the initial push and help out the infantry. I've been pinned by armor to many times as an infantry player because our armor thought it would be a good thing to camp out in some random grid square.

[DDS]

...Just wondering what the rest of the community thinks of this Don't get me wrong. I love PR and the rounds I had this weekend while being SL. But this is just something that bugs me about PR.

Seems to me that shorter length games work to the advantage of insurgency and longer would be to the advantage of the other team. Its just the nature of insurgency as defending a cache is often boring. Spawning on knowns usually makes for a shorter game.

[Tit4Tat]

all i will say is, after playing a round of Korengal valley, that's my PR done for that day. That map and the average game time just suuuuuucks all the life out of me.

[Truism]

People are mischaracterising the problem. Rounds aren't inherently too long there just aren't enough ways for a better team to end a round. Everything in the game is indecisive at the moment.

[SANGUE-RUIM]

insurgency should last 2 hours (max.) or less

[40mmrain]

there just aren't enough ways for a better team to end a round.

capturing and bleeding out the enemy wins the game almost instantly though. Do you mean for INS?

[PlaynCool]

Yea i too think the rounds are waaay too long, one hour should be the average time, right now it's around 2 hours plus. Back in 0.75(my favorite PR version ) i managed to play on a lot more maps than now, the rounds used to be a lot shorter and action packed. 500 tickets is too much