Why rally points are a bad idea

Guerra norte · Post by **Guerra norte** » 2007-02-22 21:37

Hey, I was playing ArmA today driving around for 30 min. to get to a combat zone, I didn't find it boring at all.
Maybe my attention span is too long

??:

wooly-back-jack · Post by **wooly-back-jack** » 2007-02-22 21:41

I refuse to answer in yet another rally point thread

....oh wait, doh!

NavalLord · Post by **NavalLord** » 2007-02-22 21:44

World War II Online will spawn you at an outpost that is about a mile away from the action. There's no mobile spawns there or rally points or anything. Maybe this would be your sort of game. However though, you are still spawning in France, perhaps it would be better if you spawned in England or America, then you could make the week long boat trip over to France. WWIIO is a MMORPG, meaning it has an on going never ending battle. So it can do huge battles that take 30 minutes to get there. However, BF2 is not an MMORPG. The rounds end in 30-60 minutes, so you need to get to the front line quickly. The rally points are an effective way of doing this. All you have to do to destroy them is be a little more than conscious, then you will be able to find them and blow them up.

If you want to see what it's like doing your idea of only spawning at the main base; then go play a couple rounds of only doing that. I guarantee that after a few spawns you will be pissed off and bored as hell.

vanity · Post by **vanity** » 2007-02-22 21:53

WWII Online is still around? I remember when it was first nearing release...like back in '01-02

BigPipe · Post by **BigPipe** » 2007-02-22 22:24

'[R-DEV wrote:eggman']And this is why Guerra is not a game designer

Cuz frankly this is the wrong mod for hardcore, all out, 1 life, no respawn, uninstall the game realism.

I think the game Guerra and some other folks want doesn't exist because if it did nobody would play it. And PR will never be that game.

Rally Points are not going away, so some folks might not like them and not play the mod as a result. Once we get the v0.6 elements into play the Rally Points will make a lot more sense in how we intend them to fit into a bigger picture of spawning dynamics.

As soon as we get the server patch done we are going to be moving on to v0.6. Once we get a test build and sort out the major kinks with the new v0.6 elements and systems, we'll post some info about it to the forums and community.

i have been aching to comment on this. i know its off topic but i strongly feel devs should be the ones who control the direction of this mod.

please dont let people tell you " i want teh choppa hardened cuz the cobra can shoot from 5 miles away", then they finish off by saying -this is a reality mod, so you should do it.

i posted a while back that, total realism is not the way forward and that it will result in less fun. people said im playing the wrong mod etc. etc

glad to see eggman agrees. leave this mod fun to play and also bit difficult so its rewarding when u achieve something, i.e a kill

jedermann · Post by **jedermann** » 2007-02-22 22:27

Fact is, rally points is the best cure for spawn camping we can get. But I also don't like enemy RPs placed behind the lines. Sometimes you loose all the flags without a fight, previously capped by nice combat action, and I feel like in the old vanilla days.

{GD}siredmond · Post by **{GD}siredmond** » 2007-02-22 22:27

NavalLord wrote:World War II Online will spawn you at an outpost that is about a mile away from the action. There's no mobile spawns there or rally points or anything. Maybe this would be your sort of game. However though, you are still spawning in France, perhaps it would be better if you spawned in England or America, then you could make the week long boat trip over to France.

Actually there are mobile spawn points. you spawn from the back of 5t trucks and the like. But there were a few requirements. But this is only for infantry.

However armour comes from some outposts, but its still a long drive for support.

Aircraft on the other hand comes from airfields or airports. I often spawn back in england and fly to the middle of France so I can get a plane i can use.

SiN|ScarFace · Post by **SiN|ScarFace** » 2007-02-22 22:42

Destroy the rally point, if you don't or can't find it (as long as its not in a rock) complaining about the rally points is stupid, because you could have done something about the 6 measly guys spawning.

As insurgent you have the spawn car, which can and does do the same thing only it's more difficult to hide, but is no more realistic when you magically appear in the car.

Last but not least, being able to spawn on the SL is the same shit you are complaining about. If a SL hid well he could continually send 5 guys to attack you until you kill him. It's the same concept as destroying the rally point, only the rally point does not shoot back when you find it.

I think the real problem is a lack of effort on your part.

Gecko1969 · Post by **Gecko1969** » 2007-02-23 00:07

Humm, I think the rally points are a fine game addition and since they are able to move your SL can take care of it when it is being camped. I think camping (while lame in general) makes sense in the way the game plays out. It's not my score that I care about (I often use the current SA-7 on AL Basrah just to annoy the air units while only giving me a few kills in every game) I do care about our team winning. If your squad can't communicate enough to tell each other that your RP is compromised you deserve the death and I will take one ticket for each of your un-revived deaths, thank you very much.

The old system you had no options but to spawn at the next flag and lose the flag you held. Now if an APC is near by you can pop in there, have the SL put the RP in a new spot and get on with taking flags. I hope they up the value for killing APCs in the future so that people will stop driving them up and in to the city with no ground support where they will be killed by any half decent team in no time. If losing the APCs meant losing tickets that much faster it might get that point across. Or maybe a message saying who the last Driver was in the APC before it was blown up so everyone will know who the buttmunch was that lost the game for them.

NavalLord · Post by **NavalLord** » 2007-02-23 00:15

{GD}siredmond wrote:Actually there are mobile spawn points. you spawn from the back of 5t trucks and the like. But there were a few requirements. But this is only for infantry.

However armour comes from some outposts, but its still a long drive for support.

Aircraft on the other hand comes from airfields or airports. I often spawn back in england and fly to the middle of France so I can get a plane i can use.

You know what I mean. You have to travel a long way to get to the fight.

jedermann: It doesn't matter where the RPs are placed. You have to cap the flags in a certain order. So they can't play an RP in the back and capture all the flags behind you like in vanilla. If they can maneuver behind you, place a rally point, and attack the flag next in line to attack, then you just have to cover your rear. Battles are no longer fought head on like they were in the glory days. It's all about out maneuvering you opponent now. Now more marches across the field where you would stand 50 ft apart and shoot at each other. No more walking across no mans land under heavy machine gun fire. I miss the days of old .

[-=IDSF=-]SykloAG · Post by **[-=IDSF=-]SykloAG** » 2007-02-23 02:13

There is something to be said about damn insurgents or whatever spawning behind an area that you thought you had cleared. It does not feel right. In fact the whole "spawning" concept is somewhat silly.

If all forces spawned at their main base, life would be taken much more seriously and planning would actually become a part of the game. Right now people seem to pop out of a RP near a fight and run gung-ho/rambo style into the action.

But as Eggman pointed out, "this is the wrong mod for hardcore, all out, 1 life, no respawn, uninstall the game realism." So with that in mind (the PR way of things)...

The concept of RPs is a good one, and spawn points are necessary when you have a 64-player limit in order to simulate a much larger force. Problem is that *most* of the servers I have played in have 80% of players that have never heard of a mic, do not follow orders or are just in for a quick bit of action.

The implementation is not bad at all, besides the glitching and indestructibility. Unfortunately, what has not been implemented is a way to filter out small children/stupid people that ruin the whole experience. That is where the real issues lie.

If there was some way to limit officer kits to someone older than 12, who had passed an official PR course or something. Better yet, would it be possible to limit officers kits to players with a rank of at least Lance Corporal etc, on ABR?

Lastly, is it even possible to implement proper collision-detection for the spawn points? Would that not require some serious server-side code? As it stands, servers are laggy because they are not PR dedicated...
I would think that implementing accurate 3d collision detection in Python would be a *****, and slow.

And this is a shoutout to all the youngin's who play PR: Go start your own <18 server and leave me alone!

But seriously - shape up or ship out!

coolhand · Post by **coolhand** » 2007-02-23 02:26

'[R-DEV wrote:eggman']I think the only major problems with Rally Points are:
- indestructibility by small arms
- glitching to hide them

Those are my only 2 annoyances with RPs. Personally, I love them - they add a whole dimension to the mechanics of the game (especially for AAS2 mode) and keep the action going without having to walk 30 mi. when your SL dies.

TheCaptn · Post by **TheCaptn** » 2007-02-23 07:20

I don't know if the original poster and the people who feel the same way have played earlier versions of the mod, but I'd be interested to find out... In my opinion the Rally Point system, in combination with the new kit requisitioning system is one of the best things to happen for -teamplay- since the mod first came out. The difference between 0.4 and 0.5 in that regard is phenomenal and both of those elements are required in concert for it to work the way it is.

I love the current system and in regards to various proposed or in-testing tweaks so far I'm...

In favour of:
- Removing the officer kit timer for SL's.
- Preventing spawning at a Rally Point while hostiles are nearby (within 5m or so).
- Allowing kit selection from APC's anywhere (it's not like they could only carry the extra equipment within 100m of a friendly base).

Not in favour of:
- Reducing the reset timer for RP's to 1 minute (not yet, I'd like to see it scaled back slowly, to say 2 minutes first).
- Making RP's destroyable by small-arms fire (it should be a challenge to uproot a rallypoint, being able to sneeze at them to blow them up will make it far less rewarding and will only encourage medic-heavy squads).
- Making RP's squad-centric (it's fine that you can't spawn on another squad's rally point, but you should definitely be able to re-arm and re-equip at them).

jedermann · Post by **jedermann** » 2007-02-23 08:09

NavalLord wrote:jedermann: It doesn't matter where the RPs are placed. You have to cap the flags in a certain order. So they can't play an RP in the back and capture all the flags behind you like in vanilla. If they can maneuver behind you, place a rally point, and attack the flag next in line to attack, then you just have to cover your rear. Battles are no longer fought head on like they were in the glory days. It's all about out maneuvering you opponent now. Now more marches across the field where you would stand 50 ft apart and shoot at each other. No more walking across no mans land under heavy machine gun fire. I miss the days of old .

I have seen it on EJOD and Qwai loosing a chain of three or four flags in row without fighting because my whole team assaults the next flag, placing their RPs too far away from the last capped flag, and nobody defending. The enemy takes flags faster then defenders are able to get there. Sometimes the whole team even keeps assaulting no matter of it being impossible to take the flag anymore. I can't do anything about because I am no squad leader all the time, or if, we are six men maximum.

I have also seen it on my team, keeping the RPs far back in enemies territory. Taking one flag back results in taking the whole chain, because the enemy has moved his RPs at least to the last assaulted flag. IMO it only occurs on big maps, but for me it is very annoying. On small maps the game is often just stalled by going back and forth in taking flags.

The chance of unbalanced teams is much higher in .5 than in .4, and often it is no satisfying game experience for me. I am logging off way more frequently I did in .4.

[BiM]Black7 · Post by **[BiM]Black7** » 2007-02-23 08:32

BigPipe wrote:hmm, you don't get the point

Its OUR captured area. Why are they spawning in the middle of our secure area. Im trying to make people see the logic here.....

They should be the ones spawning back at base because they lost the flag.

they cant spawn in the middle of your capping area RP's needs to be 75m from flag so they spawn 75m from flag if they dont spawn on squad leader ofc

Post by **IronTaxi** » 2007-02-23 08:34

it always comes back to having a defence squad i think...through each release the same thing comes up and its always attributed to one of the new features..honestly i think its purely what the people who are playing at that particular instance are getting out of it.... a quick blast or a concentrated tactical round.. its a craps shoot to be sure and we need more loud mouthed commanders to be honest...

jedermann · Post by **jedermann** » 2007-02-23 08:36

'[BiM wrote:Black7']they cant spawn in the middle of your capping area RP's needs to be 75m from flag so they spawn 75m from flag if they dont spawn on squad leader ofc

75m is a stone's throw on big maps. What BigPipe meant was the enemy spawing behind your frontline sucks at all. Same opinion here.

Hauler · Post by **Hauler** » 2007-02-23 08:47

El_Vikingo wrote:I'm not writing about that, I'm writing about the fact that people spawn to be raped.

And u didnt answer my question why not just blow up the spawn point or APc that people are spawning from instead of being a Vanilla player and camping. I could understand if you just came opon the vechile but to sit there and camp is not the way this game was meant to be played sorry. I have noticed that this is becoming the norm of late and people are trying to justify APC raping and other sorts of spawn killing. Hopefully the faithful community will take up against this behavior. I never sit and spawn camp. I secure areas which means if im taking a flag then yes I set up a perimeter and make sure nobody comes through it. But i never sit by a vehicle or rally point and rape. Just blow it up end of story your not getting points so what is the point.

jedermann · Post by **jedermann** » 2007-02-23 08:58

Maybe you should just be able to set up a RP within a certain distance to either a friendly flag or your squads last RP, lets say 100m. Getting a RP behind the enemy frontline would be tough work. You can not drive in and place it. And getting it destroyed would be a real loss, because the SL cannot just place a new one.

By thinking about it, I can see realistic troop movements and great fights coming up this way. A boost for defense because of starting their RP placement from the frontline flags and a more coordinated assault because getting the flag means you can start your next RP placement chain from there. RPs wouldn't be as spread out as they are now. On top of that flag taking would have a meaning again beside bleeding tickets.

Even something weird like increasing the possible distance for RP placement from a friendly flag by 1 meter per second could eventually do the job. You wouldn't be forced to place it in a bad spot within the fixed 100m radius, you could just wait a few more seconds and place it in a good spot. Chances are big that most of the people not complaining about or defending the current system, are the ones keep assaulting(afterall 90 percent of the players) and not careing about enemy RPs behind our frontline. So they just don't see what a ungrateful job it is to clear'em out over and over again.

A change in the current system should avoid the streams of enemy soldiers popping up everywhere even in areas you cleared out a minute ago. That was what i liked about .4 and AASv1. This hilarious non-stop seek and destroy of enemy RPs in the weirdest locations is starting to piss me off. The lack of predictable battle fields is most unreal and plays like a special operations shooter where you constantly sneak and get in from behind.

But there is still the chance of me being off the track and most players like playing PR the way it is now.

Maxfragg · Post by **Maxfragg** » 2007-02-23 09:21

I agree that you should still be able to rearm at a RP off an other squad. on some city maps i think the RP radius is even to large. I also would like to ask you, if not APCs, Squadleaders and RPs should be the only Spawnpoints? Please make also the mainbases having destroyable RPs and let spawn non squad specific RPs at some important flags, so that you have good spawns, but all are destroyable. the idea off having by the commander placed RPs would also be cool.

Why rally points are a bad idea

My 2¢