Round duration, thoughts?

[cyberzomby]

Keep it as it is, nowadays we want to change everything in PR because you don't like it and therefore it should be changed. I rarely see people whining in-game about this "issue". It is good as it is. The players can decide if they want a short or long round with their playstyle. I have seen rounds that went on for hours and also a lot of rounds that were done within one hour. Making a time cap of two or one hour will turn PR in a mixture of CoD and Battlefield. If you want that, play those games and don't mess with PR.

Now I am waiting for the next topic to be opened that asks to remove bullets from the game since they kill people.

Thats not even what I'm saying or asking for. I didnt put this in the suggestion category remember? I just listed the downsides and the upsides of the long rounds as I see them (one of them can help PR bring some players back) and wondered if other people felt the same. Trying to get a discussion about it. See what other people's thoughts where and what not.

I'm still playing PR and enjoying it! As I said, its not a bad thing, its something that bugs me from time to time. Mainly when I'm to busy so I cant play a proper round

As it turns out, theres more people than I thought who like the long rounds. Thankfully, theres also a handful of people who have my problem

Mockingbird: Yea I agree. Server owners are partially at fault as well. Last sunday I played PR on NWA and they ran Al Basrah twice, in a matter of 4 hours. So in PR rounds, thats only 2!

[Pronck]

Thats not even what I'm saying or asking for. I didnt put this in the suggestion category remember? I just listed the downsides and the upsides of the long rounds as I see them (one of them can help PR bring some players back) and wondered if other people felt the same. Trying to get a discussion about it. See what other people's thoughts where and what not.

I'm still playing PR and enjoying it! As I said, its not a bad thing, its something that bugs me from time to time. Mainly when I'm to busy so I cant play a proper round

As it turns out, theres more people than I thought who like the long rounds. Thankfully, theres also a handful of people who have my problem

Mockingbird: Yea I agree. Server owners are partially at fault as well. Last sunday I played PR on NWA and they ran Al Basrah twice, in a matter of 4 hours. So in PR rounds, thats only 2!

That's due to their server policy, NwA stepped away from doing mapvotes and runs a maplist now. Which results in playing the same maps over and over again because of the many server crashes.

[cyberzomby]

Good to know! Although I think I've seen a mapvote come along. Might have been to spice it up a bit.

[mat552]

Don't think PR as a game that you can just sit down and play instantly on a random evening.

PR's fun, but it isn't fun enough to keep 13GB of data on my drives for a game I can only enjoy once a week or less. There has to be a middle ground between the mewling "the longer the better!" and the strawman "you just want this to be a ten minute CoD game!"

Longer isn't better if it's longer every time for the sake of being longer. Long games are good when they're the result of two evenly matched teams in pitched combat with skilled players who are always somehow in the right place at the right time to counter the moves the other makes. Long games that are the result of deliberately slow mechanics in which one team is prevented from steamrolling the other for the sake of drawing out the clock are frustrating and not engaging.

[PlaynCool]

^ Absolutley agree with you, just had a terrible 3 hour round on Kokan, which i couldn't finish because of how frustrated i became, we were reppeling theyr attacks and they just seemed to have endless tickets, so i just left because i was frustrated by the general slowness of the gameplay, 1 minute fun then 15 wait for the next wave of 6 men, and sure if we tried to rush to theyr fob's we got owned by the sniper AR, also i saw a whole sqwad get blasted away by ins mortar only when they stopped firing the medic revived them all and i imagined IRL he would have to pick them up piece by piece and glue them .

[K_Rivers]

AAS was far better back when it could drag on for 4-5 hours easily back in the day that's what made Muttrah so fun.

Playing a match for less than 2 hours these days has become a joke & sometimes ruins the feel of having to struggle to make a come back.

Couldn't agree more, and somehow shorter games has become excepted now, and considered better?!? Baffles me

[mat552]

Couldn't agree more, and somehow it's become excepted now, and considered better?!? Baffles me

Help me understand, where is the enjoyment in a four hour game in which one team is hopelessly outclassed and manages to hang on by a fingernail?

[Spec]

Depends on which way you look at things. Personally, I care less about how the team is doing overall, and more about how much enjoy working with my squad members. Rather lose a round but have some epic firefights than win without any interesting fights. Even one-sided fights can be interesting in PR.

[Truism]

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

I mean that full caps are rare and all the other win conditions are very slow. It's a concept in game design; there's a lag between a team gaining an unassailable position, and the other team losing. Most games have it, but better design is to have a shorter lag, since the game actually ends when the positional victory is achieved, and the subsequent phase of the game is meaningless and frustrating for both teams. The alternatives with no lag period or no ability to create an unassailable lead create frustration, since the former feels arbitrary except in very simple games, and the latter simply moves the meaningless phase to a different period of the game (earlier).

At the moment, even severely mismatched teams can have very long round with largely forgone conclusions because the game mechanics make it incredibly difficult to achieve a decisive victory.

I do not think rounds are too long, but rather that tactics are too limited by mechanics and underpotent capabilities, which means that mismatched rounds are too long and achieving decisive outcomes is very uncommon. Broadly, this is both realistic and not realistic. Most engagements are indecisive, but this is because most real life engagements are poorly structured due to the fog of war. Most operations on the other hand, which are closer to the scale simulated by PR, are decisive one way or another.

I love epic rounds, and four hours is great. But anything over an hour in a clearly mismatched contest? Bad.

[cyberzomby]

Longer isn't better if it's longer every time for the sake of being longer. Long games are good when they're the result of two evenly matched teams in pitched combat with skilled players who are always somehow in the right place at the right time to counter the moves the other makes. Long games that are the result of deliberately slow mechanics in which one team is prevented from steamrolling the other for the sake of drawing out the clock are frustrating and not engaging.

Yes! I think youve described my pet peeve a lot better then I have. Thats what I was trying to get at haha.

Also agree with truism. Rushing flags and winning within minutes isnt cool as well, but both teams being equally bad is not fun.

And that makes for boring squad play to top it off Spec. Most of the times. There are exceptions of course ^_^

[Psyrus]

Personally, I care less about how the team is doing overall, and more about how much enjoy working with my squad members. Rather lose a round but have some epic firefights than win without any interesting fights. Even one-sided fights can be interesting in PR.

I miss those games. The standard of player skill and mentality at the moment is seriously sub par
And the ironic thing is, most don't even know it, and are of the belief that they are good players.
The majority of folk don't co ordinate and work together to the high degree that they used to do, it's all rush shoot bang bang
these days, people need to up their game and stop defining there games by KD and arbitrary numbers on the score board.

It's not hard to see where things are going wrong in the player mentality. Don't mean to single you out Spec, but it's just a good example at this moment. It's why I believe long rounds have become more tedium than enjoyment.

[Spec]

I was not trying to imply that I'd prefer less teamwide cooperation. The best rounds are those with a dedicated commander (as if that'd happen anymore...). But if the enemy team happens to just be better and more coordinated, then that's no reason for me to find the game no fun. A well coordinated attack is nice to watch, whether you are the one attacking or the one being pushed to retreat.

[Mikemonster]

Heh, we played about a 3 hour round on Karbala yesterday and it was one of the best PR games I've ever had. Horses for courses I suppose, it was a Sunday afternoon and I had plenty of time to play.

[HunterMed]

Sometimes it becomes too much of a stalemate with the SLs not even realising it I think. Mostly the attacking SLs just keep trying the same maneuver over and over again. Without checking for other squads it seems. There doesnt even have to be comms but just looking at the map and joining with other squads. I dont know why each squad wants to do its "own" mission all the time.

Also there is the flag-swap with too greedy attacking SLs or even rushing squads. In that situation both teams sit on the attacking flag and hope that the one guy or squad can cap the flag back so they can rush on.
Thankfully some servers made rules against rushing.

I think a bit less tickets would be good overall.
When both teams have balanced attacks and defense it can take quite a while before something happens.

[DDS]

If servers led the way by requiring people to play as a team you wouldn't have these "boring" "stalemate" games. This is what happens when you allow lololo COD attitudes in Project Reality. Neglecting responsible behavior for "oh it's just a game stfu". Go ahead and make your server games 30 minutes. Yes dumb down PR to your level.

So glad that TG server is coming back and I wont' have to play on these ridiculous servers anymore.

[cyberzomby]

If servers led the way by requiring people to play as a team you wouldn't have these "boring" "stalemate" games. This is what happens when you allow lololo COD attitudes in Project Reality. Neglecting responsible behavior for "oh it's just a game stfu". Go ahead and make your server games 30 minutes. Yes dumb down PR to your level.

So glad that TG server is coming back and I wont' have to play on these ridiculous servers anymore.

Wauw you're right! PR isnt elitist at all! I'm so glad to be a part of this wonderfull and friendly community where people can place themselves in lives of others when talking about certain topics.

I cant believe people have so much faith in TG. What do you think will happen when the COD gamers you talked about see a server that has 40/64? Most servers that are filled daily have teamwork enforcing rules in place. I want to see TG get back at the level they where before I start praising them again. Yes, it was one of my favourite servers as well btw, before it got to filled up with supporting members so it was impossible to finish a round there

[DDS]

Wauw you're right! PR isnt elitist at all! I'm so glad to be a part of this wonderfull and friendly community where people can place themselves in lives of others when talking about certain topics.

I cant believe people have so much faith in TG. What do you think will happen when the COD gamers you talked about see a server that has 40/64? Most servers that are filled daily have teamwork enforcing rules in place. I want to see TG get back at the level they where before I start praising them again. Yes, it was one of my favourite servers as well btw, before it got to filled up with supporting members so it was impossible to finish a round there

I don't have faith as much as I will have a CHOICE in where to play.
All these ridiculous threads about shortening rounds, eliminating AA and Hats.
I'm sure the DEV's will allow you to dumb PR down w/ password to where it doesn't hurt as much (lolololol).

I'll stick with normal PR and if that is over then I'm done. Gone