Al Basrah as of v0.509

[Burning Mustache]

While the 64 player version of Al Basrah was clearly balanced in favour of the Insurgents before the server side patch, I believe that the balancing issues of the recent patch have kinda fired backwards.
The reason for this is that the Insurgents, despite defending the majority of the map for most of the time, will still lose on the 64 player version pretty much every round now (if the tickets actually bleed down to 0, rather than the server changing maps before either side has reached 0 tickets).

As an Insurgent, you can only defend the Village checkpoint for so long, but the US will eventually capture it (unless they don't use their A10s / Cobras at all). Same goes for the North and South VCP.

They just need to capture each of these checkpoints once, which will happen eventually. And while I think it's OK that the Insurgents can't cap them back now (more battle going on in the center of the city and better vantage points for US ground forces to move into the city), the ticket bleed for the Insurgents is just ridiculous, because after these 3 checkpoints have been capped by the US, the US forces basically just have to sit back and do nothing at all to win -- have the A10s bomb the **** out of insurgents defending the Facility and leave the ground forces at the base -- you're still gonna win, and the Insurgents basically have no way, game-mechanics wise, to win the game from this point onwards, unless the US troops act totally retarded and get killed like crazy.

I noticed this after a round today where our team, the Insurgents, clearly dominated the US forces (after Village, North and South VCP were taken, the US managed to neutralize the Facility for a whooping 30 seconds or something like that, other than that they didn't manage to capture a single flag inside the actual city (Facility, Mosque, etc.)) and we shot down tons of Blackhawks and Cobras. Eventually, they tried to raid us with a couple of Humvees and APCs, which didn't even come close to the actual Facilty flag.

Despite this signficant dominance, we barely won the round 1-0 in the end, allthough the US forces didn't even manage to capture one of the flags inside the city.

I believe that this is kind of imbalanced right now as the ticket system, with the way the checkpoints are designed right now, does not even closely resemble one team's dominance, which makes the 64 player version of the map very, very tough to win for the Insurgents, even if the US forces are completely retarded (which they were, in the game I played this afternoon).


As I mentioned in the beginning, I like the fact that North and South VCP aswell as the Village checkpoints are not re-cappable by the Insurgents because more action will emerge in the center of the city, rather than the boring outskirts, but please, for the sake of having a fair representation of the winning team, adjust or remove the ticket bleed from the Insurgents.

A good idea would be to have the Facility re-cappable, but have the Insurgents lose tickets once the Facility is lost.
But having the Insurgents lose tickets after losing checkpoints which they can't even cap back seems totally unfair to me.

[SethLive!]

yeah, remove the ticket bleed on facility for the insurgents

[CodeRedFox]

I've never played a round yet where the US won...?

[eggman]

Yeah .. agreed there are some issues here. At least we have somewhat consistently moved the fighting closer to the city now lol.

Balancing the asymmetrical Insurgency faction AND the map is a great challenge .. it's taking us a few tweaks to get it right. Part of the problem here is that we have made faction changes AND map changes. What we need is to have the map remain somewhat static or the factions to remain somewhat static so we can get a feel for balancing issues.

IMO if the US can't win on the current map layout and ticket setup it's because the majority of the US team are just a bunch of dickheads solo'ing off in cool hardware.

Will look into it and probably .. because this is such a popular map and because we really like taking some learnings from tweaking it .. we'll make an updated AlBasrah available before v0.6.

[Animalmother]

IMO leave the city fighting for the 32 and 16 player versions.

[Burning Mustache]

IMO leave the city fighting for the 32 and 16 player versions.

32 player version is pretty damn fine, from what I've seen so far, and I haven't played the 16 player version but I assume it's the same.

The isse really is the 64 player version with air support and the 3 uncappable flags (from the viewpoint of the Insurgents).

eggman']
Balancing the asymmetrical Insurgency faction AND the map is a great challenge .. it's taking us a few tweaks to get it right. Part of the problem here is that we have made faction changes AND map changes. What we need is to have the map remain somewhat static or the factions to remain somewhat static so we can get a feel for balancing issues.

Don't get me wrong, I love the map and I realize that you're still tinkering around with the balance, I just wanted to provide some constructive critizism to improve it

As mentioned before, the problem is that the US can basically capture the (non-recappable) Village and N + S VCP checkpoints and, in theory, leave the server and still win the round

I suggest (I don't know whether this is possible like that though) that the Facility (maybe even the Mosque, you'd need to test this out extensively, I guess) should be the central point of interest for the Insurgents and the US troops.
The Insurgents will suffer a ticket bleed once the Facility is lost and the US troops will be able to clearly win the game once the Facility is under control, yet at the same time the Insurgents can secure the map (and win the game, eventually) if they manage to secure and hold the Facility -- which proves that, with the assymetrical weapon and equipment distribution, that the Insurgents are clearly the stronger team.

eggman']
Will look into it and probably .. because this is such a popular map and because we really like taking some learnings from tweaking it .. we'll make an updated AlBasrah available before v0.6.

That's awesome to hear. Keep up the good work you guys have done so far, I'll try my best to make suggestions for further improvement.

[DirtyHarry88]

There's now basically no fighting at the VCP's any more.

[Desertfox]

There's now basically no fighting at the VCP's any more.

Only fighting I have gotten at North VCP is strafing it and getting 5 kills then going..... : : : : : : : : : : : I mean they cant even cap it but they are still there lol.

[Shafty]

I have to agree. Had a game on Saturday where the US only had the facility for a couple of minutes.

We pounded the shit out of the yanks and yet we still lost. We couldn't figure it out. I guess I know now.

[danthemanbuddy]

My performance takes a huge hit now, used to be able to run bigger settings before server patch.

It restricts me to the armor as my ironsights jump with the lag as my ping is normal. Village should be uncappable once in USMC hands, nvcp and svcp should be cappable.

[CodeRedFox]

Tactics for US
One big tip that really works for the US is send in a squad to do nothing but destroying the spawn cars. A team and I did this along with destroying the bridges. After about 10 min someone says "have anyone seen the enemy?", "Yeah" I said "They are all at main base running around waiting for cars and trucks". Finally after say 10 min the Insurgent team started to walk to the city.

Tactics for Insurgetents
Also for insurgents send a squad to North VCP, and keep taking out the APC that spawns there. Its also a main road for US tanks. Kepp a small squad of 2-3 guys. Only thing is dont spawn camp the guys comming out of the APC, thats just bad tastes. I normally will just C4 the APC wait until 1-2 guys spawn then blow it up. Then reload at the dead APC.

Its a great tactic, and it works really well. Remember its not about point. Its about your team winning.

[MadDogUW]

Only fighting I have gotten at North VCP is strafing it and getting 5 kills then going..... : : : : : : : : : : : I mean they cant even cap it but they are still there lol.

I know when I was playing on the Insurgent side my squad and I would go to the North VCP to take out the two APCs so that the US couldn't spawn there.

I do think that the village should be capturable by the Insurgents after they lose it, which always happens.

[MadDogUW]

One big tip that really works for the US is send in a squad to do nothing but destroying the spawn cars. A team and I did this along with destroying the bridges. After about 10 min someone says "have anyone seen the enemy?", "Yeah" I said "They are all at main base running around waiting for cars and trucks". Finally after say 10 min the Insurgent team started to walk to the city.

Its a great tactic, and it works really well. Remember its not about point. Its about your team winning.

I'm glad most people DON'T go after the spawn cars because you are right, it would pretty much spell the end for the Insurgents ops:

[CodeRedFox]

I'm glad most people DON'T go after the spawn cars because you are right, it would pretty much spell the end for the Insurgents ops:

Its the only time I've seen the US almost win!

[EvilCookie]

This map is just completely unplayable for me right now. Its just too laggy. Too many times you would be playing just fine and as soon as you see an enemy, the lag starts hitting. The map has great potential if the lag issues could be sorted.

[Raniak]

This map is just completely unplayable for me right now. Its just too laggy. Too many times you would be playing just fine and as soon as you see an enemy, the lag starts hitting. The map has great potential if the lag issues could be sorted.

Lower your distance view range to 70%, it should remove a lot of lag... I alway do it when I know I'll play for a while in the 24/7 server...

[Rick_the_new_guy]

eggman']Yeah .. agreed there are some issues here. At least we have somewhat consistently moved the fighting closer to the city now lol.

Indeed, things are much better than in .4.

The Corp looked like J.R.O.T.C cadets in .4. The tangos owned them at the Airport.

__

From what I am seeing, both sides have had good battles and bad ones.

I think the progress is going well.

__

The concept is so wicked awsome.

It is errer to be a jarhead, check a round a corner, and see a long dirty street diserted. Just when your ready to give the clear sign, two masked insurgents sprint across the street. One with an RPG, the other carrying a GL!

Really great stuff.

Well done PRM.

__

BTW, what are the requirments for the tangos to start bleeding?

One tactic that could give them an advantage is to hide in the super huge/awsome city and nickel and dime the Corp and keep their own deaths down, and wait until the timer ends. Sort of how they are doing IRL

[Matt23]

agreed that the 32 and 16 player versions should be left for city fighting. I want to be able to fight for north, and south vcp's again.

[Krawkfaagel]

The only way the us have a chance of winning is if the spawncars are hit hard and US squadleaders places rallypoints all the time. For a map with that much possibilites for cover there are usually ridicuosly few RPs...
That should be all A-10 pilots primary objective.
Then secondarily area-denial strafing/bombing.
The kills will be free anyway so no need to worry about that. Play tactical instead!

[gerardnm]

I'm glad most people DON'T go after the spawn cars because you are right, it would pretty much spell the end for the Insurgents ops:

I played on the tactical gamer server 2 nites ago and the US were really looking hard for those cars, after 20 mins there was almost nowhere to spawn in the city lol