Commander Changes in v0.6

Post by **eggman** » 2007-03-30 05:04

Commanders can't join a squad BUT the asset deployment is effectively useless without a supporting squad.

That squad should prolly be 2 Engineers, 1 Medic, 1 Rifleman + whatever else.

There are 2 states of entities that are relevant:
wrecked / wreckable
destroyed / destroyable

wrecked means they can be repaired
destroyed means they can be wrecked AND destroyed (blown completely off the map)

Command Posts and AAA can only be wrecked, so where you place it is where it stays.

Bunkers, Firebases and Walls can be destroyed, so when those are destroyed, they dissapear from the map and no longer count against your allowable CMDR assets.

The support vehicle behaves just like any other vehicle, meaning it can be wrecked and destroyed.

We're having some issues with Razor wire atm, tho it is something we'll look to add to the CMDR assets in the future.

There's a bunch of game play dynamics we're trying to affect change to here:
- making defending more interesting
- making cmdr more interesting
.. as a result:
- making squad to squad co-ordination easier
- increasing the replay value of maps
- mitigating predictability

And all of this stuff fits into some ideas we have for v0.7 (which are far more radical lol).

Some form of target designation for Squad Leaders with the Officer kit will be a part of a future release.

Lothrian · Post by **Lothrian** » 2007-03-30 05:18

Fighting is all good fun ... but for a nice relaxed round, the engineer sounds amazing!

mattcrwi · Post by **mattcrwi** » 2007-03-30 05:53

what kind of ticket penalties will there be for making commander placements and aren't you worried about that affecting the balance of the game? are the commander assets going to be well worth the cost of tickets??

Expendable Grunt · Post by **Expendable Grunt** » 2007-03-30 05:57

Nice ideas...but looks like a horrid ticket bleed. I hope the rounds do not go like this:

----

Round starts

Player A gets Sniper
Player B gets Sniper
Player C tries for Sniper, fails
Player C gets Marksman
Player D tries for Sniper, fails
Player D gets Marksman
Player E tries for Sniper, fails
Player E gets Marksman
Player F gets Support
Player G gets Support
Player H gets Support
Player I gets Crewman (and solo's a tank)
Player J tries for Sniper, fails.
Player J tries for Marksman, fails.
Player K tries for Sniper, fails.
Player K tries for Marksman, fails.
Player K leaves the Game.
Player L tries for Sniper, fails.
Player L tries for Marksman, fails.
Player M tries for Sniper, fails.
Player M tries for Marksman, fails.
Player M gets Heavy AT. (And is quickly killed.)

Other players are a mix of SF and Grenader, with the occasional rifleman who mis-selected his kit. He will not drop ammo often, but will throw grenades and reload them for himself. If this map has aircraft, 1/2 of these grenaders/sf will go for pilot kits and camp the one or two aircraft for most of the match.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Now that we've wasted 4x tickets, the fighting is thick and the squads stretched thin.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. An Engineer finally builds.

Fight goes on. Team loses because it wasted 6x tickets on a com center that didn't get built.

Deadmonkiefart · Post by **Deadmonkiefart** » 2007-03-30 06:05

The commander will hopefully be smart enough to make sure to have an engineer nearby before he tries to place down an asset.

Post by **Ghostrider** » 2007-03-30 06:51

Ticket costs are not as high as to warrant balance changes or raising tickets.

An example of how ticket costs are not working:
-A command post, 60 tickets
-A bunker, 180 tickets
-A firebase, priceless..

There're some things tickets can't buy. For everything else, there're engis.

-Ghost

Post by **AfterDune** » 2007-03-30 06:59

Oh man.. this would be soooo awesome! Hopefully these bunkers will hold a while. I'm sure they will, since there are way less AT's in the game, but how will the bunker hold against grenades? Because a few grenades shouldn't be able to destroy the bunker just like that of course..

Another thing, let's say you're playing Ghost Train and you place a bunker somewhere. Will it be green? Or just white/gray? Don't really mind, but green might have some advantage in the jungle. Same goes for brown in desert maps.
(low priority if you ask me)

Oh and those sandbags. Is that a big sandbag-wall or little ones of like... 2 meters (talking about width here)? And how can those be destroyed, AT-only or will grenades do fine too?

Great, great job guys! Man, I was already looking forward to .6 but now that I know this.. oh man, I can't wait!!

Piiiiiiics, we need piiiiiiiiiics!

Post by **eggman** » 2007-03-30 07:01

Expendable Grunt wrote:Nice ideas...but looks like a horrid ticket bleed. I hope the rounds do not go like this:

----

Round starts

Player A gets Sniper
Player B gets Sniper
Player C tries for Sniper, fails
Player C gets Marksman
Player D tries for Sniper, fails
Player D gets Marksman
Player E tries for Sniper, fails
Player E gets Marksman
Player F gets Support
Player G gets Support
Player H gets Support
Player I gets Crewman (and solo's a tank)
Player J tries for Sniper, fails.
Player J tries for Marksman, fails.
Player K tries for Sniper, fails.
Player K tries for Marksman, fails.
Player K leaves the Game.
Player L tries for Sniper, fails.
Player L tries for Marksman, fails.
Player M tries for Sniper, fails.
Player M tries for Marksman, fails.
Player M gets Heavy AT. (And is quickly killed.)

Other players are a mix of SF and Grenader, with the occasional rifleman who mis-selected his kit. He will not drop ammo often, but will throw grenades and reload them for himself. If this map has aircraft, 1/2 of these grenaders/sf will go for pilot kits and camp the one or two aircraft for most of the match.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Now that we've wasted 4x tickets, the fighting is thick and the squads stretched thin.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. Does not get built because nobody is Engineer.

Commander tries to place down a Com Center, losing X tickets. An Engineer finally builds.

Fight goes on. Team loses because it wasted 6x tickets on a com center that didn't get built.

That sounds more like teh Special Olympics version of PR.

Copy_of_Blah · Post by **Copy_of_Blah** » 2007-03-30 07:16

This sounds so nice! I'm blown away that engineers now will be used for repairing and ,more interestingly, building things. It sounds like each class is become unique and important. Some of the classes are a bit boring at the moment in 0.5, but it sounds like some things are changing. I never saw any of this coming. Good work!

I'm stoked for 0.6 now more than ever.

Deadmonkiefart · Post by **Deadmonkiefart** » 2007-03-30 07:29

So how often are you(Devs) planning to start threads describing the next patch?

bigbossmatt · Post by **bigbossmatt** » 2007-03-30 07:54

I'm beginning to really not like the way this mod is going with over complicity.

I'm going to get flamed, I don't mind.

I am not saying realism isn't great, as I love that to no end, but the implementations of :
You can place 1 bunker for every 3 CPs you control. You can place ONE and ONLY one firebase. Defensive bunkers must be placed within 100m of a controlled CP. Firebases must be placed more than 100m from ANY CP.
is ridiculous.

...to me, anyway.

I am sick of learning the hard way (by dieing) for mundane things like sitting in a turrent without a crewkit, etc...or being required to be an officer to be a squad leader. But then again, I no longer play SL...

I want realistic gravity, etc etc, and wicked model sounds/guns etc, not complicated rules regarding how to use equiptment. All the request kits atm should be pick ups, because it is too difficult.

I've never given negative opinions about pr before, but after 0.4 server side fixes, I was becoming jaded, sad to say, this is becoming not for me. Hey, you guys should be happy, if its not for me and I move on, then the community becomes populated with more of the people you want

Don't get me wrong, I love the work you are doing, it pwns over vbf2 any day, and I can't make a mod of my own, so I can't complain, I will voice my opinion, because I care for this mod and if my opinion is shared by a number of people, then it should be heard.

Perhaps the mod team who spend countless hours weekly making this game for us, don't realize that many of us cannot take the time to learn all the rules, due to rl commitments... Perhaps the new rules seem easy or obvious to them because they come up with them, discuss them and implement them, when we only have to learn them, given that we don't spend hours devising them, just have to deal with them ingame, making it harder to learn.

Hey, if I could simply know all the rules, that would be great. Yes, I am aware of the wiki.

Hugs all round.

00SoldierofFortune00 · Post by **00SoldierofFortune00** » 2007-03-30 07:55

'[R-DEV wrote:eggman']Commanders can't join a squad BUT the asset deployment is effectively useless without a supporting squad.

That squad should prolly be 2 Engineers, 1 Medic, 1 Rifleman + whatever else.

There are 2 states of entities that are relevant:
wrecked / wreckable
destroyed / destroyable

wrecked means they can be repaired
destroyed means they can be wrecked AND destroyed (blown completely off the map)

Command Posts and AAA can only be wrecked, so where you place it is where it stays.

Bunkers, Firebases and Walls can be destroyed, so when those are destroyed, they dissapear from the map and no longer count against your allowable CMDR assets.

The support vehicle behaves just like any other vehicle, meaning it can be wrecked and destroyed.

We're having some issues with Razor wire atm, tho it is something we'll look to add to the CMDR assets in the future.

There's a bunch of game play dynamics we're trying to affect change to here:
- making defending more interesting
- making cmdr more interesting
.. as a result:
- making squad to squad co-ordination easier
- increasing the replay value of maps
- mitigating predictability

And all of this stuff fits into some ideas we have for v0.7 (which are far more radical lol).

Some form of target designation for Squad Leaders with the Officer kit will be a part of a future release.

How are we suppose to add another squad to the already large amount required to win?

We need pilot squads(4+the airport campers)
We need at least 2-3 infantry squads(12-18 people)
We need people to man the apcs(2)
We need armor crews(4)
Don't forget about the misc. lone wolfs or other idiots

Now we need a dedicated commander squad? Where are these people going to come from exactly? Why not just have commander as one of the engineers so that he can help set the firebases up?

Deadmonkiefart · Post by **Deadmonkiefart** » 2007-03-30 07:57

Hopefully this will put some of the lone wolfers/n00bs back on track?

Deadmonkiefart · Post by **Deadmonkiefart** » 2007-03-30 08:07

bigbossmatt wrote:I'm beginning to really not like the way this mod is going with over complicity.

I'm going to get flamed, I don't mind.

I am not saying realism isn't great, as I love that to no end, but the implementations of :
You can place 1 bunker for every 3 CPs you control. You can place ONE and ONLY one firebase. Defensive bunkers must be placed within 100m of a controlled CP. Firebases must be placed more than 100m from ANY CP.
is ridiculous.

...to me, anyway.

I am sick of learning the hard way (by dieing) for mundane things like sitting in a turrent without a crewkit, etc...or being required to be an officer to be a squad leader. But then again, I no longer play SL...

I want realistic gravity, etc etc, and wicked model sounds/guns etc, not complicated rules regarding how to use equiptment. All the request kits atm should be pick ups, because it is too difficult.

I've never given negative opinions about pr before, but after 0.4 server side fixes, I was becoming jaded, sad to say, this is becoming not for me. Hey, you guys should be happy, if its not for me and I move on, then the community becomes populated with more of the people you want

Don't get me wrong, I love the work you are doing, it pwns over vbf2 any day, and I can't make a mod of my own, so I can't complain, I will voice my opinion, because I care for this mod and if my opinion is shared by a number of people, then it should be heard.

Perhaps the mod team who spend countless hours weekly making this game for us, don't realize that many of us cannot take the time to learn all the rules, due to rl commitments... Perhaps the new rules seem easy or obvious to them because they come up with them, discuss them and implement them, when we only have to learn them, given that we don't spend hours devising them, just have to deal with them ingame, making it harder to learn.

Hey, if I could simply know all the rules, that would be great. Yes, I am aware of the wiki.

Hugs all round.

I thought the same thing when .5 came out. I got used to it within a couple of weeks, and no longer even noticed, and I don't ever spend more that 2-4 hours a week on the computer. So if I can get used to it in a few hours, you can to. Just give it a chance.

Post by **AfterDune** » 2007-03-30 08:10

@ 00SoldierofFortune00
Not every map requires both a tank AND a pilot crew, so all should be good. I'm sure the devs have thought about this one

.

@ bigbossmatt
Don't see why you should get flamed. I think you did good posting the way you did. Anyhow, I think if you can't or don't want to or ...<whatever>... the rules, stick with your squad and play the way you've always played. Playing "normal" PR is always a right thing to do, so I think that'll suit you just fine. Others can take the Engineer class and use the new rules 'n stuff.
And well, like Deadmonkiefart, you'll probably get used to it very soon.. Good luck!

gazzthompson · Post by **gazzthompson** » 2007-03-30 08:11

@ SoldierofFortune: true in ways , but even in PR ive hardly if any times seen 9 squads on a team so i think a engi squad to help commander wont damage anything.

@ bigbossmatt : simple, dont be commander.

Deadmonkiefart · Post by **Deadmonkiefart** » 2007-03-30 08:12

Yea, the few maps(Basrah; Greasy Mullet) that require a large number of both are usually full(64) of players anyway.

ArmedDrunk&Angry · Post by **ArmedDrunk&Angry** » 2007-03-30 09:18

I would like to invite everyone to a " Sapper/Engineer" squad tonight.
I like this idea even w/o the req. for .6 but now I have a valid reason for it.
Join me and we will show everyone that a squad based on the eng class can be comabat effective and yet still povide the support the new commander position will need.