My Opinon; Kit Limits/Forced Squads

[F.N.G.]

IRT Artnez.com: This is no attack at you, just my take on your post.

Flashback:

Written by NikovK:

"Medic:
Remove dropped medic packs. This forces a medic to hold the healing pack close to wounded troops instead of running up and down a defensive position, dumping aid packs into foxholes. Healing will now be a slow process, and self-healing far less useful.
Replace Hand Grenades with Smoke Grenades. This drastically reduces the medic's combat potential, particularly in close quarters.

DEFIB/REZ CHANGES:

1. Defibulator charges and batteries. The solution lies in limited rez attempts. A defibulator battery will operate like an ordinary magazine, each battery being good for a small number charges and thus revive ATTEMPTS. At between four to eight zaps per battery and only two batteries on a medic, the medic has to reload his defibulator for five to ten seconds, creating a serious pause in spam-rezzing and creating a dependancy on the ammunition resupply class. A medic can no longer zap, zap, zap entire squads back from the dead over and over. He must now practice triage; reviving his squad leader and ammo bearers first, reloading, and then attempting to heal the rest of a downed squad. Squad mates who do not respond to the first or second zap, or who cannot be easily reached, may well be passed over. A real level of skill in reviving in the best order will make good medics stand out from the crowd.

2. Rez Effects. When you get zapped by a defibulator, you do not pop up and start seeing straight, much less moving and shooting at full health. Rezzing should restore the player to life at the very limit of "bleed" health (above or below, depending on play testing. I'd start at "below"). This forces the player to cover, since only one bullet could kill him. But jumping up and running away will be difficult for a recently zapped man. The "Shellshock" effect should be applied at the highest possible setting, causing the recently rezzed to be at a serious disadvantage if he attempts to fight or run. A good low crawl back to cover should be the only action a shell-shocked, still-bleeding soldier would consider, and exactly what the Project Peality mod should strive for.

3. After rezzing, the squad will not be truely combat effective until the medic breaks out the pack and starts wrapping people up to non-bleeding health at least ("Stabilizing" right after a rez would only take a half second to put the player back above bleed level but longer if the medic left for more rezzes). This increases the down-time of a critically wounded soldier."

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How is a squad full of these guys going to be combat effective. They have no frags. They have no LMGs. They have no M203s. They have no LAWs or AT4s. They have no way to resupply Defib batteries or M16 ammo.(which is the only weapon they really have.) 1 frag could take out half your squad and when the other half comes to revive them, they would get smoked by the second frag. A bunch of armorless guys with M16s is not a combat effective unit. They would get smoked. Especially if once they are revived they only have little health to start with. While all this reviving is going on, my squad is moving up to your "shellshocked", half dead squad, while being supported by covering fire from my LMGs and frags, to finish you off.

One of two things would happen to a squad like this: They would run out of M16 ammo and die. Or they would run out of Defribs batteries and die. They need support from outside classes to be effective. Actually they need to support other classes for their squad to be effective. The medic is a support role, not an assaulting role. The M16 is just So they don't go to combat with their D**K in their hand. (Side note: Our Corpmen carried M16s or pistols. It was their choice, at the company level.)

On the medic note, I think that they should have to use their madic bag like the engineers wrench. Instead of the "healing radius" that the madic has with his bag, he should have to "wrench" on his patient.(point at him and click mouse button) Like hes actually working on patching him up instead of just standing there with a medicine bag while his team mates behind him are somehow being magically healed.

[beta]

Perhaps instead of enforcing a "hard" limit via forced slots, a more subtle version could be used?

Different Point System
The idea would be changing the amount of "points" it takes to use a certain kit.

For example, the basic Rifleman (or whatever) kit, if you die (essentially, "losing" the kit in the battlefield, thus needing it to be replaced) it takes 1 ticket away from total. However, if you die with the much more expensive AT kit, it takes away, let's say, 3 tickets etc., etc.

This could also be applied to vehicles to lessen various types of vehicle-whoring.
I know I sure wouldn't ditch that shiny new blackhawk in the ocean to get to the nearest flag if I knew it would cost my team a whopping 20 tickets!

This would also, IMO of course, make the game feel more realistic. No longer will you see the side that "Rambo-styles" it's MBTs into your lines only to get them blown-up by a $50 mine, then do it all over again in 1 minute, and EVEN WORSE still totally dominate the map!

Basically, make the "more expensive" gear (this includes infantry as well as vehicles) more valueable. I'm sure the players on the server will learn pretty quick that wasting vehicles and letting them get destroyed will be a bad idea.

There is one drawback that I can immeadiately see, (I'm sure some people will point out more) the vehicle "self-destruction timer" will have to be removed or seriously lengthened, or else the team will lose tickets left and right from idle vehicles.

Overall though, I think, if it could be implemented, it would help out the balance in the game ...

And to anyone who has ever played CTI for OFP, imagine if that could be done for BF2 (at least parts of it ... )


I still very much like the balanced approach to squad managment, trying to make squads even through unbalanced kits that need other kits to balance out a squad, ie the LMG needs Riflemen to carry the ammo for it, and the AT (dedicated ones of course) need the rest of the squad to protect their expensive asses .


Support Truck and Supplies
An idea for stopping the various "spamming" problems (grendades, MG fire, etc.) could be to have whoever carries the ammo to only have a certain amount of only droppable bags that can be refilled only at a specific vehicle type, lets say the newly proposed (forget who mentioned it) "supply truck". The troops can fill up on ammo, grenades, battery packs, AT rounds, beer, ... whatever, BUT once they are in the field, the only source for ammo is from the supply man.

[NikovK]

"On the medic note, I think that they should have to use their madic bag like the engineers wrench. Instead of the "healing radius" that the madic has with his bag, he should have to "wrench" on his patient.(point at him and click mouse button) Like hes actually working on patching him up instead of just standing there with a medicine bag while his team mates behind him are somehow being magically healed."

That is truely a great idea. If we add that mechanic to the supply bag as well we won't run into a problem I thought up but didn't mention; five heavy weapons clumped around one rifleman holding a bag. Although that would just amount to six kills for two grenades.

Thanks F.N.G., I don't think I could have brought up medic weaknesses better myself.

[beta]

use their madic bag like the engineers wrench

Funny enough this is how BF1942 worked, and I thought it was fine that way ...

[DangChang]

Funny enough this is how BF1942 worked, and I thought it was fine that way ...

It was funny though, people would run around pushing their medic bag back and fourth...back...and fourth....and smiling at the same time.

[F.N.G.]

Oh yeah, I hadn't thought of using that for the supply bag too. Cool.

@ Beta:

That's a pretty good idea, if done right. It would make you bug out to repair instead of just bailing all the time. It would take a lot of balancing out.

And supply trucks. You could have your regular Hummers w/ MGs on top then you could have your Logistics hummer without an MG, that has supplies. If the Riflemen only had so much resupply ability, they could stock back up so they could resupply again.(they can only carry so much, after all) This would help stop "self ammo spamming" of the riflemen. Or just make it so they can't resupply themselves. Because I could see the Rifleman kit being "Whored" if they are so self sufficient.

Some really cool ideas comming up here.

[beta]

It would take a lot of balancing out

That is true ... but it IS only a mini-mod, plenty of time for balancing

[F.N.G.]

I have a way to put the "choose your own kit" thing into perspective.

A pretty balanced squad (medic, 2x LMG, 2x riflemen, and SL/grenadier) comes and takes a flag. All of a sudden a tank and an APC roll up and smoke the squad. Well, what does the squad do? They come back with a couple (probrably 2 or 3, hopefully 2) AT guys and smoke the tank and APC.

This Kit changing resembles reinforcments based on inteligence of the situation that was passed to "higher ups" who then send an AT Unit to reinforce the area. Although it would be nice for the CO to choose what reinforcments to send, we cant really do that. So we as the player know from the "intel" (our previous run in with the armor) That some of us need to come back AT. (as reinforcments.) Not all members of the squad will come back AT. Or else they will get wasted, by some riflemen, once the armor threat is eliminated.

Whenever I respawn, (reinforce) I look to see what my squad has and needs, to choose what kit I will come in as. Some people, on the other hand, will only want to play one kit, maybe they are a SAW gunner in real life, and that's what they like playing. Who am I to tell them "sorry, I got your kit, you can't have it." That's when people get pissed and Tk, ala' vanilla BF2 for choppers/planes.

If the Squad continued to be unbalanced, they will not have enough ammo or medics to supply or revive, and learn to adapt to the balance in kits that is needed.

The trick is to get them to want to balance the squad out, by putting inherent and realistic dependencies and weekness into the kits. Then everyone is happy. The "realism or die" people, and the "pro choice" advocates, as well. I believe it will work.

[beta]

Sounds like a good plan ... just that nasty bit of getting it balanced right , but thats what alphas and betas are for

[Artnez]

How is a squad full of these guys going to be combat effective. They have no frags. They have no LMGs. They have no M203s. They have no LAWs or AT4s. They have no way to resupply Defib batteries or M16 ammo.(which is the only weapon they really have.) 1 frag could take out half your squad and when the other half comes to revive them, they would get smoked by the second frag. A bunch of armorless guys with M16s is not a combat effective unit. They would get smoked. Especially if once they are revived they only have little health to start with. While all this reviving is going on, my squad is moving up to your "shellshocked", half dead squad, while being supported by covering fire from my LMGs and frags, to finish you off.

If your argument is that a squad full of medics will not defeat a well balanced squad then it will be hard to discuss this. We must be playing a different game because a few shots of the M16 will take down any enemy in PRMM. All this "cover fire" mumbo jumbo simply doesn't work. I don't know how else to prove it than to tell you that I've ripped up entire squads on my own with a pistol because they were trying to practice good teamwork.

The type of teamwork that you and Nivo are invisioning do not happen on public servers because everyone wants to do their own thing.

Like I said in my last post, that type of teamwork is seen in tournaments where people actually listen to their COs.

One of two things would happen to a squad like this: They would run out of M16 ammo and die. Or they would run out of Defribs batteries and die. They need support from outside classes to be effective. Actually they need to support other classes for their squad to be effective. The medic is a support role, not an assaulting role. The M16 is just So they don't go to combat with their D**K in their hand. (Side note: Our Corpmen carried M16s or pistols. It was their choice, at the company level.)

That is, in real life, right? Not here. Your mixing a squad's effectiveness in the real world with the classes in BF2... wrong thing to do.

I have successfully assaulted flags as a sniper in BF2.. even thought it's a support role. I've been religously playing sniper in vanilla since the game was released, so my shot is pretty good even at close range.

One burst of an M16 from a medic and your medic goes down. If your M203 guys blasts one of my medics, my other medic will shoot him and revive the medic that just died.

It also doesn't matter if they run out of ammunition or defrib batteries, because they will have enough to take the flag. After the flag is taken, they can do one of two things:
a) Just rush the next flag in hopes of getting a few kills and slowing the counter attack.
b) Just suicide and get the new kit that they'll need to take the next flag.

Assuming that medic will only have enough ammunition for 1 flag assault is pretty wrong.. seeing as a couple well placed shots will put someone down. Even 3 clips is enough to take 3 flags if you use single fire.

On the medic note, I think that they should have to use their madic bag like the engineers wrench. Instead of the "healing radius" that the madic has with his bag, he should have to "wrench" on his patient.(point at him and click mouse button) Like hes actually working on patching him up instead of just standing there with a medicine bag while his team mates behind him are somehow being magically healed.

Great idea. I liked how it was done in BF1942 as well.

[Artnez]

I would also like to add another point...

The primary concern when dealing with forced classes is that people will end up playing classes that they dont like.

That, in itself, is bad teamwork from the start. If everyone picks the class they like, there could be an entire team full of M203 people or engineeers .. or anythign really -- which means you're back to square one.

Assuming that people will play a certain class because it is needed in their squad is a bad assumption, as there is no garauntee that it will happen. Especially considering that this mod is based on realism, and many pub players that join are interested in recreating all the cool movies they've seen ingame. To do that, they will need to play the class that they like.

There will always be a class that is more effective than all others. Once you balance one thing out, people will find something else that makes a class the most effective.

The only alternative is to force a limit on all class types like I've been saying.

All other things that Nivo said was great, since it limits the "spamming" aspect of the game and makes things more realistic. Just realize that when the medic loses certain abilities.. or certain abilities get harder... many players will just switch to a class that's easy.

By forcing each class to support the next one, you are essentially doing the same thing that I'm talking about.. but with no order. If the medic runs out of ammo in 1 minute because there is no support class, my game is totally dependant upon someone using the support class. Think about that.

[JavaMoose]

Different Point System
The idea would be changing the amount of "points" it takes to use a certain kit. <edited for brevity>

I love this idea. You can bet that the guy dumping jets left and right is going to get chewed out by his team (IRL, probably canned...).

[NikovK]

An entire team of any one class would not only get butchered by their weaknesses, but also be almost impossible beyond freak chance or actual co-ordination. An entire team of Engineers would get picked off by one of several rifle-wielding classes, an entire team of AT would be killed by efficient use of knives, M203 gunners could be picked off by well-aimed shots while they hold still ranging and lining up a good shot, ect. I do not think these nightmare scenarios will materialize. Already we have SAWs and Medics as the two overpowered kits, but the last few games I've played had a good population of Assault, specops, snipers, engineers and ATs. If the current system already has teamwork and mixes of kits, a system improved specifically for realism and kit interdependancy to mirror real-world loadouts will certainly improve what we have. "Could be's" are not "Will be's", in a squad full of Grenadiers I know that I'd switch out to medic or rifleman for the resupply, healing or rez points that I'd monopolize while furthering teamwork.

Class interdependancy doesn't "force" people into kits, it merely encourages players into different roles for the good of the team. If a SAW gunner only had two 200-round magazines and was dependant on a rifleman, he isn't forced out of the class, and neither is another player forced to be a rifleman. Rather, team-minded players will say, "Sure, I'll be a rifleman for my squad" because they're good shots with an M16 and want their squad to perform well. That's not force, its encouragement. And concerns that teamwork is a prerequisite for teamplay-oriented kits looks at the problem backwards. We will not foster teamwork with individually self-sustaining weapon and skill loadouts. We will foster teamplay with our existing teamwork-minded community and kits that compliment and support other kits in the squad. New players who come here and find their kits dependant on others will be more likely to join squads and stick with the group than if they carried infinite ammunition, a machine-gun and a crate of hand grenades like they currently do, and won't be turned off by a mod that forces them into a kit as a "lowly" M16 grunt or stuffs them into a squad so the next man can use a heavy machine gun.

[Artnez]

An entire team of any one class would not only get butchered by their weaknesses, but also be almost impossible beyond freak chance or actual co-ordination. An entire team of Engineers would get picked off by one of several rifle-wielding classes, an entire team of AT would be killed by efficient use of knives, M203 gunners could be picked off by well-aimed shots while they hold still ranging and lining up a good shot, ect. I do not think these nightmare scenarios will materialize. Already we have SAWs and Medics as the two overpowered kits, but the last few games I've played had a good population of Assault, specops, snipers, engineers and ATs. If the current system already has teamwork and mixes of kits, a system improved specifically for realism and kit interdependancy to mirror real-world loadouts will certainly improve what we have. "Could be's" are not "Will be's", in a squad full of Grenadiers I know that I'd switch out to medic or rifleman for the resupply, healing or rez points that I'd monopolize while furthering teamwork.

Class interdependancy doesn't "force" people into kits, it merely encourages players into different roles for the good of the team. If a SAW gunner only had two 200-round magazines and was dependant on a rifleman, he isn't forced out of the class, and neither is another player forced to be a rifleman. Rather, team-minded players will say, "Sure, I'll be a rifleman for my squad" because they're good shots with an M16 and want their squad to perform well. That's not force, its encouragement. And concerns that teamwork is a prerequisite for teamplay-oriented kits looks at the problem backwards. We will not foster teamwork with individually self-sustaining weapon and skill loadouts. We will foster teamplay with our existing teamwork-minded community and kits that compliment and support other kits in the squad. New players who come here and find their kits dependant on others will be more likely to join squads and stick with the group than if they carried infinite ammunition, a machine-gun and a crate of hand grenades like they currently do, and won't be turned off by a mod that forces them into a kit as a "lowly" M16 grunt or stuffs them into a squad so the next man can use a heavy machine gun.

You're basing way too much on presumption.

I have seen the things I speak of. Assuming that 2 squads playing one another are on an equal skill level, you still think that a squad of all assault classes will not annihilate a well balanced squad? Are you serious?

What is this "lining up" of the shot that you speak of? It's easier to pop off an M203 round at a wall than to aim a headshot (if you consider that both players are of equal skill).

I guess the argument simply boils down to one thing.

You are trying to say that a well balanced squad can perform better than a squad full of troops that are effective for one specific task (IE: AT to take out armor or Assault to take out infantry).

I am trying to say that a squad full of AT troops will first be able to eliminate all of your armor and then, when killed, can respawn as Assault troops and wipe out your infantry.

The point is, everyone can make well placed shots.. that's the point. The difference is, if my entire squad is capable of making well placed shots with their rifle, they have no need for having other classes. Just give them all the medic class and they can put their well placed shots to use. One dies, he gets revived and they move on.

If your the medic in your well balanced squad dies, no one is around to revive, right? If your support trooper dies, no one is around to refill the ammo right? Once that happens, your entire squad structure breaks down because each player depends on the other.

Which is a good thing! That's the way it should be. Only problem is, it won't be that way because people will spawn in as classes that they feel like!

I really don't understand what's difficult here. The primary issue right now in-game is that people are spawning in as classes that they feel like playing. Yes, some of it has to do with wanting to "own" the other team by picking the best class.. but most of it has to do with people thinking that classes like the "sniper" or "medic" are cool.

What if, on a public server, there is a 10 v 10.

Team 1 is playing as a team, moving together.. etc. They all picked the right classes for the right jobs and are workign together.

Team 2 is also playing as a team. The only problem is, 2 people on Team 2 are being asses and playing on their own.

The 8 players on team 2 will now suffer because of the 2 players screwing up their game. You see?

There should be a dependancy on your squad, but if you let people choose any class that they want ... this won't happen! It's that simple. 1 team will always have a tactical advantage over another team... simply because their own team refuses to work together.

The only thing that your idea is doing is creating a more realistic dependancy on the squad to work together. The gameplay will still be the same though and nothing will change.

But anyway, it's useless to argue about this. I just wanted to make my concerns made from the get-go, in the case that anything that you said is implemented... I can give you a big "I toldya so".

I've been gaming as a hobby for years.. nothing but FPS war shooters. My personal life and my job revolves around this in one way or another.. so I deal with FPS pretty much every day. I've seen alot of people try very similar systems that you have (the suggestive & motivational way of making players play as a team).

All I can tell you is that the only games that ever succeeded in this regard were games that limited the class types. If it's a free for all, either:

a) The game will be frustrating because you are trying to work as a team and everyone else is not... or your strategy does not agree with your teammate's strategy.

b) People will find weaknesses in the game and exploit them until the next release. That's about 1 month to a 1 month and a half of explotation until the next release. Once the next release comes, they'll find something new.

This is the same thing that happened with the first release of PRMM. Everyone played nothing but sniper. The next release, everyone is playing nothing but Support class on the infantry maps. The release after that, it will be something else -- and so on.

[F.N.G.]

I think with these types of changes, it will bring more team work. It will be a necessity. I already see it ten times more in PRMM than in BF2.

Say what you want about how dominating medics would be, but I have to completely disagree. If balanced correctly, the medic will have his hands full with revives and not be very combat effective with the loadout they will have.

To say that cover fire never happens, is false. I have pinned down entire squads many times, for quite some time, while my team mates flank them. And the ones that do get ballsy, die. The ones that don't, get flanked.


"b) Just suicide and get the new kit that they'll need to take the next flag."

That goes against your whole theory of "noone ever gets the kit that is needed. And also, who wants to suicide and wait for 30 seconds. 30 seconds is an eternity during a firefight and it wastes tickets. Why would you do all this when you could just have riflemen in your squad to resupply you?

"I've ripped up entire squads on my own with a pistol because they were trying to practice good teamwork."

Try doing this in PRMM without bunny hopping and prone spamming all over like a lunatic, and see what happens. If you sneak up on a stupid squad all bunched up, I could see this sort of thing happening, but that's because they weren't watching their 6, not because kits aren't mandated.

"Just realize that when the medic loses certain abilities.. or certain abilities get harder... many players will just switch to a class that's easy."

This is the whole idea behind balancing the kits with inherent weakness and dependencies. If balanced properly, no class will be the over powerful class. They will all need the other classes to survive. They will switch to the class that is needed, not necessarily to the easy one.

[F.N.G.]

"There should be a dependancy on your squad, but if you let people choose any class that they want ... this won't happen! It's that simple. 1 team will always have a tactical advantage over another team... simply because their own team refuses to work together."

So, mandating kits will force people to work together? It would probrably go something like this:

"Oh, I am forced into this kit that I don't want, so now I feel compelled to follow my squad leader and do whatever he says. I don't know why, but this, forcing me to do something I don't want to do, is somehow wanting me to work as a team."

I don't think so. It will just make people mad. They will be more concentrated on when the guy with their favorite kit is going to die, so they can grab the kit, than what they should be doing.

[NikovK]

Following #76, players who are only playing for kills and do not care about winning the map are a given for any team game. In a forced-squad system, they'll wind up inside a squad with a valuable kit and then proceed to completely squander it, all while keeping a better, teamwork-minded player from the squad. If players do not want to squad because they don't care about teamwork, the last thing we want to do is stick them in a teamwork-minded squad to be a dumbass and get their unit killed. The same goes to kit limits, people who can't and don't want to use a weapon or kit effectively and would rather self-heal or try to bunnyhop while sniping sure as hell aren't overpowering the other team as a whole, but rather, dragging their own team down.

I think the next revision of PRMM should feature Rifleman replacing Special Forces, C4 given to Engineers, ammo packs removed from Support and the total number of droppable packs reduced to one for the Rifleman and Medic. This does not strike me as a very large effort (although I may be wrong) and could let us test the waters before going further in the squad balance arguement.

Just for the hell of it, I'll make the Rifleman class in a new mod.

(Never mind that bit, it can't be changed without a re-skin of the "heavysoldier" model. Although I'd rather like to be able to pick my own face out, even import it like in OpF.)

[Artnez]

Well I think this is about enough of this discussion.

I say one thing will happen, while you guys say a completely different thing will happen... so there is little point in really discussing it anymore.

All that I will say to close this discussion is that... if PR decides to leave the classes as is, we will see what the dominating class will be. I can promise you that there will always be a majority class that everyone chooses and teamwork will be very rare on servers because of this.

An interesting experiment would be to setup 2 servers with forced squads and non-forced squads and see which server has better teamwork going on.

[F.N.G.]

If the classes are left as is, then Yes, I agree. Did you read the second post on this thread? Those are the classes that we are talking about, not the current PRMM classes. I know that medics and support own everything, right now.

"I can promise you that there will always be a majority class that everyone chooses..."


Agreed. This will always happen. It is the nature of these types of games. But, if we balance all the kits properly, the rifleman will be the backbone, and the one most played. That is my entire point. I never said to leave the classes "as is".

I really doubt that restrictions like that will ever make it into PR, anyway. Noone will play. Look at the way it is right now. The US weapons are far superior to MEC weapons, and every day there are fewer and fewer people playing. Just yesterday I got on at 8:00 PM and not a single person was on. My point is, that just because it may be realistic,(which I can argue that one too) doesn't mean it will translate properly into the game. I just don't think you can mandate classes and squads without too many problems arising.

[visaya]

Following #76, players who are only playing for kills and do not care about winning the map are a given for any team game. In a forced-squad system, they'll wind up inside a squad with a valuable kit and then proceed to completely squander it, all while keeping a better, teamwork-minded player from the squad.

Squad leaders have the ability to manage squads. They can kick non teamplayers.
Forced kits within squad is possible. It won't scare away everyone that plays the mod.
The end.