General first impression on 1.3.5!

[piratepengu]

I have been playing Project Reality for about 4 years now. One key feature of Project Reality that I, and many others enjoy in the frequent updates in which a good number of maps, vehicles, factions, or even new game concepts are added to the game. Every update, the game got better and better and the new content made the game refreshing and new every time. However, as many know, there has been a large backlash during the 1.3.5 update.

There are several additions to the game in 1.3.5 which are apparent that were tested very little if at all, which is evident in the quality of the additions in the update. While the maps are nice, some layers are broken in that neither team can cap any of the flags. I ask, how did this end up getting released to the public? Worse, is the ROE regarding civilian cars. Everything is wrong with this. First of all, unlike human civilians, civilian vehicles do not have a cooldown time, so even if there was an armed insurgent in a car 5 seconds earlier, destroying the car will still result in a penalty. This is often exploited by players who know about the civilian car update, as players will often drive up to an APC, and then when the APC starts hitting it jump out. Of course, the player will die as soon as he does so since it only take 1 second for heavy weapons to destroy a car, but even though the player was not in the car when it was destroyed, it counts as against ROE. Also, often insurgents will drive their cars into DoD and create a roadblock made of cars. The insurgents are killed by the DoD timer, but the cars they left behind cannot be destroyed with harsh penalty. From this it is obvious that the idea of having cars count as civilians under ROE was not thought about in depth.

One of the largest complaints from 1.3.5 is the new armor turret traverse system, which is not realistic, practical, or a good change in any way. It is most likely that this system was implemented either A: as a failed attempt to add a stabilizer to the game, or B: to nerf armor even further to make the game more infantry friendly. Either way, it does not work at all. It is not realistic, as almost every modern vehicle has electronic turret traverse which does not slowly decelerate to a stop when the turret is turned. Even vehicles that don't use this system, such as the BTR series, act nothing like the ingame versions in their turret traverse. Also, this nerf to armor encourages less team oriented play for armor users. Because the gunner cannot control the gun while a sharp turn is being conducted, in urban environments where turning is common, the gunner is nearly useless for spotting targets. On top of this, many vehicles have lost their driver thermals and zoom. Of course, the driver is focused more on driving. Therefore, the biggest area of armor to take a hit by the massive nerf is urban combat, which is also where infantry need armor support most. If the devs are that worried about realistic turret traverse speeds, then why not just lower the maximum traverse speed, instead of making an extremely unrealistic system that hurts every aspect of vehicle gameplay, but does not actually slow down the turret traverse speed.

It's late in the day for the first launch of 1.3.5, and I've gotten quite a few hours of the new update already, and I can say from the first day (playing infantry, armor, CAS, trans), I feel remorse where in other updates I would feel excitement, and I lost the urge to play Project Reality, where in other updates the new content would beckon me to launch the game and give it a try. I am quite sad to say, that vastly unlike any update to ever hit PR, I strongly feel that Project Reality 1.3 was a MUCH better game than Project Reality 1.3.5, and I am saddened to see such a sloppy and untested update to the best game I have ever played, and the game which I have played the longest. However hope is not lost, and many of the failed additions can be easily taken out with a hotfix in only a few hours of work, while the good features stay. This is my vision for 1.3.6, or 1.3.5.1, and I believe that it should be released sooner rather than later in order to get the sour taste of the 1.3.5 update out of the PR players. Please, let these dark times for the PR community end swiftly so that it does not have to be something to remember years in the future.

[Katyusha]

I can agree with the annoying armor stuff.


Literally the edgiest post I've seen Pirate make ever,

[potatochan]

Just FYI this update came just 4 months after 1.3 where you useally wait for a year atleast. A hotfix will come soon to fix the broken layer I imagine aswell.

[Chefmoto1]

Worse, is the ROE regarding civilian cars. Everything is wrong with this. First of all, unlike human civilians, civilian vehicles do not have a cooldown time, so even if there was an armed insurgent in a car 5 seconds earlier, destroying the car will still result in a penalty. This is often exploited by players who know about the civilian car update, as players will often drive up to an APC, and then when the APC starts hitting it jump out. Of course, the player will die as soon as he does so since it only take 1 second for heavy weapons to destroy a car, but even though the player was not in the car when it was destroyed, it counts as against ROE. Also, often insurgents will drive their cars into DoD and create a roadblock made of cars. The insurgents are killed by the DoD timer, but the cars they left behind cannot be destroyed with harsh penalty. From this it is obvious that the idea of having cars count as civilians under ROE was not thought about in depth.

Is this actually how it works?

[STompa]

I agree on all your points completely piratepengu. And you didn't even mention the deviation brackets. Since people where mad at me for having an opinion before trying I guess I'll give a little tl;dr update here. Yes, it's almost as bad as I thought. All long range kits are 10x more easy to play and much more powerful. It's completely gamechanging. When I was playing AR and marksman earlier on Gronzy I was just staring on the indicator 24/7 since it was too useful of a tool to ignore, and just completely destroyed (some devs was playing that gronzy round on the opposite team if I recall correctly). At least the brackets where as you said not annoying for regular rifles, so that was alright. Oh well I hope a hotfix will reverse or figure out some of the changes as you said pengu, because I kind of lost my will to play PR just like you.

[Ason]

I agree on all your points completely piratepengu. And you didn't even mention the deviation brackets. Since people where mad at me for having an opinion before trying I guess I'll give a little tl;dr update here. Yes, it's almost as bad as I thought. All long range kits are 10x more easy to play and much more powerful. It's completely gamechanging. When I was playing AR and marksman earlier on Gronzy I was just staring on the indicator 24/7 since it was too useful of a tool to ignore, and just completely destroyed (some devs was playing that gronzy round on the opposite team if I recall correctly). At least the brackets where as you said not annoying for regular rifles, so that was alright. Oh well I hope a hotfix will reverse or figure out some of the changes as you said pengu, because I kind of lost my will to play PR just like you.

I don't remember anyone being mad at you, I just saw people saying we should'nt judge until we tried it. Anyway I don't see how it's "completely gamechanging", veteran players already know how deviation works and how long to wait, I didn't look at it once because I already know how it works. Especially with marksman and AR you usually sit still for longer periods so not sure how it could have helped that much..

[STompa]

I don't remember anyone being mad at you, I just saw people saying we should'nt judge until we tried it. Anyway I don't see how it's "completely gamechanging", veteran players already know how deviation works and how long to wait, I didn't look at it once because I already know how it works. Especially with marksman and AR you usually sit still for longer periods so not sure how it could have helped that much..

Well I have some footage if it maybe I can upload it. The thing is before you never knew if your deviation was 100% settled or not depending on how you moved your aim and for how long you had previously stood still etc. When playing these kits now the uncertainty is gone and there was no need to be extra careful and wait for the targets to possibly stop etc. We were assaulting this L-Shape and it was extremely easy for me to move around in the trench outside and deploy and pop up just as my deviation was settled with the RPK and kill like 7 people in the balconies. Without the indicator I would never have been able to pull off what I did there.

It helped a lot, i got like 28-3 or something at the end and it felt easy. It's not like I actually counted in my head before and of course I had a good idea on how deviation would work pre patch. But before I would often over-wait. And with marksman or AR I never sit in longer periods. What makes them effective is imo constantly changing position when needed (even if just a small bit) so the deviation indicator was an extremely powerful tool imo, and in the end I was just staring at the indicator the whole game and was destroying so.

[Mats391]

Civilian cars are meat to count as "used" for 1 minute after last person leaves the vehicle. If that is not the case, please make a bug report. So far everything works as intended while testing.
I can also assure you that we spend lots of time testing. All the bugs you mention did not occur during testing. You also have to remember that no matter how much we test, within the first hours of making the patch live all players combined will have spend thousands of hours "testing". If you feel like our testers are doing a bad job, you can always apply to help out.

[Jacksonez__]

Seems like PR gets "fucked up" after every update.


E: I just tried the new APC turret and it feels damn stiff and awkward. Not sure if good at all. Feels horrible

[MT]

Well I have some footage if it maybe I can upload it. The thing is before you never knew if your deviation was 100% settled or not depending on how you moved your aim and for how long you had previously stood still etc. When playing these kits now the uncertainty is gone and there was no need to be extra careful and wait for the targets to possibly stop etc. We were assaulting this L-Shape and it was extremely easy for me to move around in the trench outside and deploy and pop up just as my deviation was settled with the RPK and kill like 7 people in the balconies. Without the indicator I would never have been able to pull off what I did there.

It helped a lot, i got like 28-3 or something at the end and it felt easy. It's not like I actually counted in my head before and of course I had a good idea on how deviation would work pre patch. But before I would often over-wait. And with marksman or AR I never sit in longer periods. What makes them effective is imo constantly changing position when needed (even if just a small bit) so the deviation indicator was an extremely powerful tool imo, and in the end I was just staring at the indicator the whole game and was destroying so.

I agree with some bug and glitches that came out with the patch. Something like turret and some glitch on stairs and the new deploy sistem. But stompa and as you a lot of people, i think the New Hud its a great thing.
First of all, im a veteran too and i love count in my head when im playing long range kit, makes me feel more in realistic situation, but its not a SKILL. If evry noob learn or just have an idea of the deploying time like (4.5 sec for AR and MRKS; 9.10 sec SNIP) theres no difference between a VET and a NOOB.
Also im glad for other two reason, the game need to be more noob frienly because after the 1.3 playing was too easy, im here because i want to play an HARDCORE game, and if even a noob guy can shoot me easily well i need to be more focused. And in conclusion, its not a deviation or a hud making veteran a skill or a pro player, those qualities came from : CORDINATION, COMMUNICATION, AWARENESS, TACTICS, MAP KNOWLEGE and many otheres. Probably you did 28-3 because you have those qualities, and they tried to pop out of a balcony under havy fire, insted of flanking you from other direction, or smoke your visual, or do tons of things to change the firefight dinamics.
So all of you guys VET players stop complaining about that and start to keep eyes open, now the field it's going to be a dangerous place to be.

[STompa]

I agree with some bug and glitches that came out with the patch. Something like turret and some glitch on stairs and the new deploy sistem. But stompa and as you a lot of people, i think the New Hud its a great thing.
First of all, im a veteran too and i love count in my head when im playing long range kit, makes me feel more in realistic situation, but its not a SKILL. If evry noob learn or just have an idea of the deploying time like (4.5 sec for AR and MRKS; 9.10 sec SNIP) theres no difference between a VET and a NOOB.
Also im glad for other two reason, the game need to be more noob frienly because after the 1.3 playing was too easy, im here because i want to play an HARDCORE game, and if even a noob guy can shoot me easily well i need to be more focused. And in conclusion, its not a deviation or a hud making veteran a skill or a pro player, those qualities came from : CORDINATION, COMMUNICATION, AWARENESS, TACTICS, MAP KNOWLEGE and many otheres. Probably you did 28-3 because you have those qualities, and they tried to pop out of a balcony under havy fire, insted of flanking you from other direction, or smoke your visual, or do tons of things to change the firefight dinamics.
So all of you guys VET players stop complaining about that and start to keep eyes open, now the field it's going to be a dangerous place to be.

The thing you don't realize is that the "counting in your head" never worked. Because deviation depends a lot on for how long you have previously stood still, how much you have been looking around and so on. Before you could never be sure. Even if it didn't require a lot of skill to figure out how to use it properly it's a huge difference now since you know for sure. Before I would sometimes count in my head thinking I had to wait but I didn't. Like if it wasn't included in the patch a deviation indicator could be considered a hack. It's an extremely powerful tool for long range since you can push the limit of the weapons so easily now. I actually think that sums up my experience quite well: It felt like I was hacking playing with the indicator.

[gwa1hir]

I'm disappointed as well and agree to everything written here by pirate or stompa.
and i'm disappointed the most about the broken map layers.
how does such thing happen? didn't you test all layers or it broke magically after release?
i mean sure we are all human and shit happens, but this can be prevented easily.

on a side note, have you ever thought about making a beta client and set up maybe 1 or 2 beta servers.
you simply announce a week of open beta and let people test. you can start gathering feedback and start hotfixing timely and no damage is done. if its fine you release it....

[MT]

The thing you don't realize is that the "counting in your head" never worked. Because deviation depends a lot on for how long you have previously stood still, how much you have been looking around and so on. Before you could never be sure. Even if it didn't require a lot of skill to figure out how to use it properly it's a huge difference now since you know for sure. Before I would sometimes count in my head thinking I had to wait but I didn't. Like if it wasn't included in the patch a deviation indicator could be considered a hack. It's an extremely powerful tool for long range since you can push the limit of the weapons so easily now. I actually think that sums up my experience quite well: It felt like I was hacking playing with the indicator.

Okay i got your point. And well i guess we had both right. I mean seems hack because you are too powerfull knowing when you can shoot exactly in the aim point, but doestn seems "easy" have an aim mode without swing. All the story about not being sure about your aim, after looking around or after a long run or even a short movement. well in arma or RO2 such as, you can see the weapon sway and its difficult hit target staying stady and almost impossible with havy sway, but in pr the weapon are steady and you have to mind about how many deviation your weapon have. And what about deploying in mid air ? so if they took out HUD and i agree because i dont need it, they probably need to add weapon sway because for me have no sway make me think im hacking.

[Ason]

Stompa I'm just curious, if it would be possible, would you be against real weapon sway aswell? If no, what is the difference between indicator and real sway in your opinion? If we had real weapon sway players would also see when the aim settles, no?

[STompa]

Stompa I'm just curious, if it would be possible, would you be against real weapon sway aswell? If no, what is the difference between indicator and real sway in your opinion? If we had real weapon sway players would also see when the aim settles, no?

Well I don't know to be honest it would depend on how it would affect the gameplay. I honestly didn't even consider deviation as a replacement of weapon sway, if anything I thought of it as a gameplay feature which changes the dynamics of the game. PR is far from real life and will never be. Taking kits through walls, jumping down mountains etc (do I even need to go on?). Imo it's a waste of time trying to emulate real life - it's a goal impossible to reach. Therefore I'd prefer a focus on gameplay, and that's what I base my opinion on in this case. The new deviation change made a huge difference on gameplay, in my opinion in a bad way. So yes I probably would be against weapon sway in PR. In a milsim game like ARMA I probably would not. I actually really liked the way it was in 1.3. It fit PR simply.

(Even so I don't think deviation with brackets is even comparable to weapon sway. It would function differently im sure. And neither deviation nor indicators are realistic anyways, so it's ridiculous imo to consider them as such or even try to make them realistic, as a side note.)

[Navo]

Still don't see what the big deal is. As you pointed out the only that changed for experienced players is that those who have a poor grasp on Battlefield 2's deviation system don't need needlessly wait anymore, and newbies will be able to understand the shitty deviation system much faster.

Edit:

Maybe only having it for deployed weapons (DMRs and ARs) and AT would be best.

[3ti65]

I agree with STompa.

Also this:

Every new guy has now the possibility to have perfect timing, a thing that was never constantly achieved before, not even by pros / veterans. So now you will have deployed RPKs with no recoil whatsoever camping on rooftops and it will generally feel more arcade style. Of course that was possible before, but required alot of experience and 'training'.

The unknown deviation was part of this game. With 1.0 the deviation got improved towards a more inf-friendly style, and i liked it because sometimes it used to be silly. But now the brackets make it even easier and it falls out of balance imo.

You should be able to have the brackets on coop servers and local / activated via rcon etc. Not by default.

TL;DR:
It's killing my immersion when every bluedrake fanboy can now perfectly handle handweapons on a level that required me to waste 8 years of my life mastering the art of deviation.

[STompa]

Still don't see what the big deal is. As you pointed out the only that changed for experienced players is that those who have a poor grasp on Battlefield 2's deviation system don't need needlessly wait anymore, and newbies will be able to understand the shitty deviation system much faster.

That's not the argument I was trying to make. I think I always had a good grasp on the deviation system and could use long range kits effectivly without indicators. The difference is how easy it is now to push the long range weapons to their limits. Now there is no longer uncertainty, no longer any mistakes. No matter how skilled you where nor how good your understanding of the deviation system is the indicators are a big gamechanger. Knowing exactly when you can peak and when you can't is huge. As I said if you where the only one with brackets it would be considered a hack.

Edit: responding to your edit. If anything I think the opposite, remove it from all deployed kits and then it's fine. For regular weapons it doesn't matter at all. It's literally only gamebreaking for the deployed long range kits.

[Navo]

I guess it could be so that it only gives you a rough idea of your accuracy.

Or it could simply be removed, this wasn't a needed change.

[rPoXoTauJIo]

\I think I always had a good grasp on the deviation system and could use long range kits effectivly without indicators. The difference is how easy it is now to push the long range weapons to their limits. Now there is no longer uncertainty, no longer any mistakes. No matter how skilled you where nor how good your understanding of the deviation system is the indicators are a big gamechanger. Knowing exactly when you can peak and when you can't is huge. As I said if you where the only one with brackets it would be considered a hack.

Then it's working exactly as supposed. Game should flow regardless of player shooting skills but rather depend on their tactical thinking which is not being achieved in one day.