Project Reality Forums

Mats391 wrote:As others have pointed out this change was meant to remove some artificial information that you gained from the cap bar. Not for realism sakes (spoiler there are no flags in r/l ), but to change gameplay. Hiding the cap bar completely would be no option at all.
One common tactic that others already mentioned was to just peek into cap radius, check if you are capping and play passive if you are. We do not think that this is peek gameplay and wanted to force attackers to be more aggressive and seek out enemies. So the intend was never to make game slower or more passive.

UncleSmek wrote:Yes and it wont change with this update, now its just not that apparent and you actually do wait to see movement in the cap so yes you have slowed down gameplay and made it even more passive.

Mats391 wrote:As others have pointed out this change was meant to remove some artificial information that you gained from the cap bar. Not for realism sakes (spoiler there are no flags in r/l ), but to change gameplay. Hiding the cap bar completely would be no option at all.
One common tactic that others already mentioned was to just peek into cap radius, check if you are capping and play passive if you are. We do not think that this is peek gameplay and wanted to force attackers to be more aggressive and seek out enemies. So the intend was never to make game slower or more passive.

Mats391 wrote:If you want to sit idle for 1 minute, it is your decision.

Mats391 wrote:I stopped doing it and just assume you are not capping until it moves. In the mean time I try to reach positions I want to hold or try to get picture of capzone without relying on cap progress to update. As Chuva pointed out, there is lots to do other than stare at UI and wait for it to tell you what to do.

Brotherscompany wrote:If you tried stopping being a Big Brain Edge Lord in your commentary, yes there is a lost in tactical depth of being able to plan and adapt in the moment. Now its slightly translates a bit more into Kill enemy, the other options were already there before

Brotherscompany wrote: "From my experience once you got the communication going from shy call outs to these in depth tactics thats how the real communication started, it was one of the few ways to get the team speaking/working"

Brotherscompany wrote: Insane idea, cant believe I ever thought of that we usually walk on foot from main once we die. So basically this translates to Human waving and a higher incentive to randoms keep human waving since they lost real time information and the sense their presence is having a impact

Brotherscompany wrote: So to keep it short this falls a bit under what is discussed above where if you have good and experienced SQ members this isnt much of a issue, it becomes even a bigger issue than before with the lost of control from the SL. Nothing to do with Clans not being welcoming, it translates into wanting to keep higher skilled people in my SQ like Smek does (Sry Smek but you are the best example, nothing agaisnt you, you enjoy a more serious experience) nothing but experienced players, everyone else gets immediately kicked especially someone that messes up (new players/randoms)

Brotherscompany wrote: For me yes

Brotherscompany wrote: Thank you for your respect, please enjoy the game inside FreeKit SQs or inside the Asset SQs with the hypothesis that you have less willing SL since you made the SL role more exhausting/stressful than it was while playing a Video Game which the goal is to have fun

Mats391 wrote:this change was meant to remove some artificial information that you gained from the cap bar.

Coalz101 wrote:I honestly preferred the old way of capping where defenders won't know they are losing the flag till its lost. Makes you think harder on whether or not you should fall back or move out because you don't know how much people are in the capzone.

Mats391 wrote:
Regarding knowing when you outnumber tunnel rats: Getting a team to stop throwing themselves into the meat grinder was already nearly impossible with live updating cap bar as well. Tunnels or other hard to breach places are an issue on all game modes and will continue to be one. These are mostly map issues and fixing those through game mechanics is always difficult. We are looking into other ways to deal with this, but I think the cap bar plays little to no role in this.

Mats391 wrote:As others have pointed out this change was meant to remove some artificial information that you gained from the cap bar. Not for realism sakes (spoiler there are no flags in r/l ), but to change gameplay. Hiding the cap bar completely would be no option at all.
One common tactic that others already mentioned was to just peek into cap radius, check if you are capping and play passive if you are. We do not think that this is peek gameplay and wanted to force attackers to be more aggressive and seek out enemies. So the intend was never to make game slower or more passive.
From the games I played so far (on different servers with different amount of "veterancy" in team), the communications did not change with the reduced accuracy of capping status. Squads still report that they are capping, that they need help to push a flag or that they need help defending. Feeling when the enemy has advantage was something you already had to do before when defending as you would never see the bar move.

You also raised some valid concerns, that we are thinking about.

Regarding knowing when you outnumber tunnel rats: Getting a team to stop throwing themselves into the meat grinder was already nearly impossible with live updating cap bar as well. Tunnels or other hard to breach places are an issue on all game modes and will continue to be one. These are mostly map issues and fixing those through game mechanics is always difficult. We are looking into other ways to deal with this, but I think the cap bar plays little to no role in this.

Regarding getting feedback on your actions: The psychology is sound and players love to get instant rewards, but we break it already a lot in PR for sake of creating fog of war. For example only getting credited a kill after the victim respawned is in the same category. Additionally the defenders of a flag never had this instant reward mechanic either.

Deviro wrote:Just increase it to 8 blips instead of 4. Or at least something between the old system and new, if you, the devs really think this is a good change.

New or old system, the problem of staring at the map remains a problem, in order to determine whether progress is being made or not.

You could also bring back the flags from underground and have a physical way to tell where the cap status is. I think PR has a lot of neat mechanics that insetivise teamwork and realism, but removing the physical flags was always a decision that made me scratch my head.

Capturing an arbitrary area on the map is an abstraction in itself, having a flag on it is arcadey but also makes more sense and makes people pay attention the 3D world around them instead of staring at UI.

With this comes more cans of worms unfortunately. Whoever has the better eye on the flag can better tell whether it's being capped. It's not always the best idea to be in the center of a flag. Though being closer and that increasing the speed of cap has always been on my mind as a mechanic as well. It wouldn't work with all current maps and flags unfortunately.

Bringing back physical flags would change the game fundamentally, namely in terms of level design and who gets an advantage on the info gained by staring at a flag pole. Should it positioned for the defenders' sake? Do the common attack vectors give the aggressors a fair deal in terms of flag pole intel?

There're so many ways to think about it.

I personally like the new 4 blips system, though I'm not an SL. I think it makes the flag capping proccess more ambiguous, which insetivises clearing of areas and having a more complete picture of the physical space and not staring at UI.

If I was a dev I would take these complaints seriously though, SLs ARE the backbone of this game - a role that is difficult enough and many new players' first real break or make moment where they might like their SL or hate them and delete the game forever.

The old system was too transparent though, I think most people can agree with that, especially non-SLs like me.


TLDR - Why read anyway?

8 blips.

BigBigMonkeyMan wrote:I for one am happy with the change and it has not changed my experience that much. We will all just have to play the game a little bit slower. Before, there was this constant need to check progress, if cap moved even a little bit people would send their squads off of defense to speed up the progress. Then if the squads in cap lose some firefights, over half the team is out of position.


I think this change increases the necessity of good intel, assessing enemy strength, and consideration of the allocation of troops to the attack. This might make the commander position more useful and important as well. But that is just my style.


I like longer matches, slower pace of play, less arcade like gamey mechanics, which it seems the Devs are content with removing. Fire control systems slowed the flow of asset combat down a little bit, needing ammo after emplacements are built ends exploitation of mechanic for mortars and TOWs, and this will lessen our reliance on watching the upper right corner of the screen as our metric for progress in battle. The amount of ground we gain and strategic positions in a flag radius we hold should be our main metric, with the cap progress bar there to eliminate excessive ambiguity about team progress.

Chuva_RD wrote:

And then you cap 25% eventually and turns out you doing your job. Also killing enemies and fobs might help to judge if you will capture the flag. But its lost tactical depth, nothing to see here

consider acting conservatively when lacking intel. Doing things like supporting teammates, massing numbers, building fobs for sustained inf flows. And not doing solo yolo when you not sure it will work. You say that the game loses in teamwork from the change, but if squads would prefer to play safe after flag capture and reinforce new defense there will be more teamwork.