What's happening to the community?

[elerik]

@killonsight:

I've had the same experience. Sometimes you CAN'T squad up UNTIL you spawn in.

it happend if you had game crash, or you was switch to other team by autobalancing.

[=LK= A.H.]

There have been many griefers & asset wasters lately, don't know why. 2/3 of the rounds I have played lately have had someone intentionally teamkilling or irritating people/learning to fly/firing ATGMs or the like at nothing without bothering to refill the ammo.

I admit to being unable to use mortars myself. I'm not particularly new, but I'm just not interested in using them at all. I wish others were less interested in playing with ATGMs (no problem with people actually destroying things with them) and the SPG-9 .

[Wicca]

The !r function is quite nice

!r [NAME] [REASON]

Example:

!r Ploddit Teamkilling me intentionaly

That will show up for all admins as= "Wicca has Reported Ploddit Teamkilling me intentionaly"

Then an admin can !warn or !kick. Its quite easy. Everyone should learn how to.

[MacGyver_]

Well, the unfortunate thing about PR's expansion and improvement is that it attracts a newer playerbase; I've noticed it ever since .95 was released. It's bringing in hundreds more players than we had back in the .5 days, which is good for the game, but usually bad for the community. Most of these new players just don't care for taking the game seriously, or playing as a team. They usually just want to be score whores, or troll people. Its essentially a merging of the BF2 community with the PR one.

Thats not to say i'm against newcomers to the game, nor am i a ridiculously hardcore gamer that takes it very....VERY seriously (*cough* dtacs *cough*). But it just annoys me that despite people making the effort to download the game and read the reviews, their just not willing to embrace the playing style that we've all adopted in PR. It's not exactly ruining the game, but it's making it difficult for a lot of people to enjoy it. I'll stick wth PR no matter where it goes, even though it's probably going to get worse with newer releases, but i completely agree with shots.
Tits up.

[Wicca]

We should work on improving the community then?

[CallousDisregard]

We should work on improving the community then?

Nah
We just need to keep doing the same thing we have been doing for years.
Weed out the losers and mentor those who want to learn.
The tough part is doing it in such a way that those who want to learn are not turned off by either the losers or the efforts to get rid of them.
Ask, don't tell and remember to say please and thank you, it seems like so little but IMHO it makes a huge difference.

[mat552]

Ask, don't tell and remember to say please and thank you, it seems like so little but IMHO it makes a huge difference.

A massive part of the current problem really is a lack of respect in both directions between veterans and newbies. Yes they're new, yes you have the experience to beat them blindfolded on low settings, but I fail to see where that entitles you to abuse them. (You, again, as a generalization, myself included >_>)

[doop-de-doo]

I agree. The influx of new players is taking a bit of adjusting to. It's no longer a case of regular players being asshats, but of a new "generation" of players who have little idea of what to do. The amount of "How to fly?"-ish questions has almost skyrocketed. I've rage quited several times over hopeless prospects of winning.

I strongly suggest that experienced players do their best to guide them, or even better, if you are experienced, try your hand at being SL to counterweigh the chances of entire squads being sucked down the noob drain. Teach the interested ones how to play, and get rid of the ones who refuse to listen and insist on noob behavior.

[Wicca]

Or you guys could join the Training Group? Help train some new people and veterans too. In different aspects of PR?

I think our ability to organize ourselfs and become a more tighter entity will do us more good, than being a bunch of spread out clans and communities. And were steadily moving into the more tight approach imo.

[Shots1721]

Good stuff lads, wasn't expecting to keep this going but as we can see were all seeing the large group of new guys joining PR...what i will do with this post is link it to a suggestion thread and hopefully get the attention of the DEV's too see what they think. This sounds like something that can't just be done by the common member, it needs someone to redo the training system in order to make it fun and interesting to the 'new' player.

My suggestion will be this:

When a 'new' member decides to download and install all packages not only should their be at the end 'Read the Manual' but a seperate tablet to say 'Welcome to PR, New to this army? Get to training!' after the load up it will come to the Login Screen, after logging in (I'm not sure is this is possible) a Login check is performed in the background to see if you have played PR for the first few times, if it is a screen should pop up saying 'You Should be In Training' and send you over to the training server list.

Now the training server's should play out similar to BF2 Vanilla, you know where's theres that man talking giving instructions on what you should do. Now the training should involve that and something along the lines of america's army. This means a seperate map built only for training which involves all the parts on PR into one training session. When they complete this you are given a checklist to tick off what you have accomplished (if this is possible too) then the PR main menu will stop sending messages about being new to training and let you continue with your deployment.

These training server's should be dedicated (only 1 or 2 servers) and should ban anyone that has passed training so it prevents them returning to mess about.

Edit: The Checklist comes up after training when you've come to the end of training - game over

This is only an idea and is open to suggestions and comments before i post it up to the suggestions forum....I NEED AS MUCH HELP ON THIS AS POSSIBLE!

[SGT.Ice]

Shouldn't ban people that pass. Everyone needs to brush up or keep sharp. But it would be nice if there was a group of admins who took shifts on said servers.

[Truism]

Fewer military and ex military types than there were a few years ago, that's for sure. The few that I knew, and myself, left because the design direction of the game went too far away from reality and because obsessed with fuzzy teamwork.

When the game is so unrealistic that almost no realistic tactics at all work, it's not hard to see why people who have had a taste of reality would leave it alone.

[falcon153649]

Well not all of us are in the military, some of us are just teenagers trying to get a sense of realistic warfare.....

[Shovel]

Well not all of us are in the military, some of us are just teenagers trying to get a sense of realistic warfare.....

Agreed. I'm just tired of Black Ops multiplayer.

[CelticSon]

people who are looking for a military background should better look what is happening around ARMA. this game comes with an engine that was designed for military and attracts a lot of people with this background. i am a normal computer player who hates military and loves teamplay. comparing PR with tons of other multiplayers i can say, the difference is still awesome.
an advice for the pr team: just remove everything that has something to do with score. scores and achievements are the best way to ruin teamplay, this is a fact i got from my professional work - its not just a theory.

[Truism]

Well not all of us are in the military, some of us are just teenagers trying to get a sense of realistic warfare.....

Agreed. I'm just tired of Black Ops multiplayer.

people who are looking for a military background should better look what is happening around ARMA. this game comes with an engine that was designed for military and attracts a lot of people with this background. i am a normal computer player who hates military and loves teamplay. comparing PR with tons of other multiplayers i can say, the difference is still awesome.
an advice for the pr team: just remove everything that has something to do with score. scores and achievements are the best way to ruin teamplay, this is a fact i got from my professional work - its not just a theory.

You aren't getting a sense of realistic warfare from this game at all.

When you can't double tap a man sized target at 10 meters while walking, you're starting to look at some pretty serious issues with realism. When you have a platoon sized group fighing over a battalion sized objective, and every battle a meeting engagement, you're starting to struggle with the realism aspect. When there is an ominous fog that restricts observation all around the world, you're starting to see some realism issues. When the closest thing devs can come up with to a medivac is a magical pen that brings people back to combat effectiveness after having their face caved in by a 7.62 purely to encourage squad cohesion, you're starting to see design preference impinging on realism to a huge degree. When for six months the best choice in a firefight is to spam grenades while being shot at, followed by six months where the weapon of choice is anti-armour weapons, followed by an indefinite period where the best bet for killing someone is to go full auto at point blank, you have to start to question the realism of the game. When a serious balance issue for a whole version is that infantry can't do anything to stop people in humvees doing doughnuts on top of them, a "realism" game has to take a cold, hard look at itself.

I could go on about this for a long time. I thrashed around on the forums about it enough, god knows. You live and learn. I've moved on to other things, vaguely glance back here now and again to see if the direction has improved, but invariably it hasn't. PR is still all style, only enough substance to convince people who desperately want to suspend their sense of disbelief or don't know any better.

[XM_ru]

May be my message will be off-top, but what about Battlefield 3?

Couldn't PR dev team cooperate somehow with Dice and EA to make PR for one of the most famos projects?

[dtacs]

When you can't double tap a man sized target at 10 meters while walking, you're starting to look at some pretty serious issues with realism. When you have a platoon sized group fighing over a battalion sized objective, and every battle a meeting engagement, you're starting to struggle with the realism aspect. When there is an ominous fog that restricts observation all around the world, you're starting to see some realism issues. When the closest thing devs can come up with to a medivac is a magical pen that brings people back to combat effectiveness after having their face caved in by a 7.62 purely to encourage squad cohesion, you're starting to see design preference impinging on realism to a huge degree. When for six months the best choice in a firefight is to spam grenades while being shot at, followed by six months where the weapon of choice is anti-armour weapons, followed by an indefinite period where the best bet for killing someone is to go full auto at point blank, you have to start to question the realism of the game. When a serious balance issue for a whole version is that infantry can't do anything to stop people in humvees doing doughnuts on top of them, a "realism" game has to take a cold, hard look at itself.

Whilst I agree with you on all points, there is no viable alternative. Nobody wants to medivac a soldier that took a single hit which would take upwards of half an hour.

Do you propose any legit changes to the problems you listed above?

[Truism]

Whilst I agree with you on all points, there is no viable alternative. Nobody wants to medivac a soldier that took a single hit which would take upwards of half an hour.

Do you propose any legit changes to the problems you listed above?

Deviation from shifting point of aim removed.
Max deviation drastically reduced on all ARs, pistols, SMGs etc (greater variation between weapons here too - weapons with foregrips should have less for example).
Some kind of code implemented to stop jack-in-the-boxing with LMGs (which is a bigger problem than dolphin diving has been for a long time).
Support weapons retain large deviation penalties when not deployed correctly.
Point of aim penalties reduced on support weapons.
Mouse slowing increased on deployed LMGs, sniper rifles and deployed DMRs.
Recoil deviation reduced on LMGs proportionate to their weight and caliber.

Coax weapons deviation removed.
Ground vehicles now accelerate more slowly. Max speeds increased to compensate.
All fighting vehicles no longer respawn when destroyed. Transport and logistics vehicles do.

Damage radius on grenades increased again.

Suppression reworked so that larger caliber weapons suppress a wider area.
Suppression time increased.
Suppression is now cumulative. Shots falling in the range will add time to the effect. (hardcoded, could possibly be coded around).
Suppression triggers a camerabone animation to simulate flinching (hardcoded afaik, this is spitballing).
Suppression now drains sprint bar (final wishlist one that's hardcoded).

Medics now spawn with substantially more epipens.
Epipen animation much longer before firing.
Revives no longer revive the person, instead they stop you losing a ticket for the death and having your spawn time increase.
Spawn time increase for unrevived deaths from 2 second penalty to 5 second penalty.
Base spawn time 30 seconds for defending factions, 20 for attacking factions.

Most maps generally much smaller.
Fewer assets per map.
Fog all but removed.

Concept of map changed to a command map.
Symbols are replaced by NATO task graphics in accordance with publically accessible US FMs.
Enemy spotted symbols removed except for FoBs and a single generic enemy symbol.
No unit positions including your own are shown on map.
Maps replaced with topo maps in accordance with the ones someone made a while ago for a suggestion thread.

AAS scrapped as the staple game mode.
New game modes: Attack and Defence, Counter-Attack, Meeting Engagement.
AAD pits a defending team that can't recap points but has strong situational advantages.
CA is like the old CA, differs from AAD in that defenders get less of an advantage until the counterattack ticker drops and can start recapping.
ME is like current AAS.
Randomised spawns default ofc.

Intelligence system completely removed from INS.
Objective is now only 2 caches that are present all map, spawn parameters tightened for them.
Insurgents get spawns all over the city that can be destroyed (hopefully the Al Basrah bug won't rear it's head).
Huge nerf to the Sapper class.
ROE buff to the Civilian class.
Collaborator kept as a seperate class to civilians, gets a pistol.


***

If I wracked my brain really hard I'm sure I could think of more, these are just the ones that came to me. But yes, I put a lot of thought into where PR could stand to improve and how to do it over the years.

If any of the points don't make sense I'd be happy to explain the intended gameplay effect.

[CallousDisregard]

Deviation from shifting point of aim removed.
Max deviation drastically reduced on all ARs, pistols, SMGs etc (greater variation between weapons here too - weapons with foregrips should have less for example).
Some kind of code implemented to stop jack-in-the-boxing with LMGs (which is a bigger problem than dolphin diving has been for a long time).
Support weapons retain large deviation penalties when not deployed correctly.
Point of aim penalties reduced on support weapons.
Mouse slowing increased on deployed LMGs, sniper rifles and deployed DMRs.
Recoil deviation reduced on LMGs proportionate to their weight and caliber.

Coax weapons deviation removed.
Ground vehicles now accelerate more slowly. Max speeds increased to compensate.
All fighting vehicles no longer respawn when destroyed. Transport and logistics vehicles do.

Damage radius on grenades increased again.

Suppression reworked so that larger caliber weapons suppress a wider area.
Suppression time increased.
Suppression is now cumulative. Shots falling in the range will add time to the effect. (hardcoded, could possibly be coded around).
Suppression triggers a camerabone animation to simulate flinching (hardcoded afaik, this is spitballing).
Suppression now drains sprint bar (final wishlist one that's hardcoded).

Medics now spawn with substantially more epipens.
Epipen animation much longer before firing.
Revives no longer revive the person, instead they stop you losing a ticket for the death and having your spawn time increase.
Spawn time increase for unrevived deaths from 2 second penalty to 5 second penalty.
Base spawn time 30 seconds for defending factions, 20 for attacking factions.

Most maps generally much smaller.
Fewer assets per map.
Fog all but removed.

Concept of map changed to a command map.
Symbols are replaced by NATO task graphics in accordance with publically accessible US FMs.
Enemy spotted symbols removed except for FoBs and a single generic enemy symbol.
No unit positions including your own are shown on map.
Maps replaced with topo maps in accordance with the ones someone made a while ago for a suggestion thread.

AAS scrapped as the staple game mode.
New game modes: Attack and Defence, Counter-Attack, Meeting Engagement.
AAD pits a defending team that can't recap points but has strong situational advantages.
CA is like the old CA, differs from AAD in that defenders get less of an advantage until the counterattack ticker drops and can start recapping.
ME is like current AAS.
Randomised spawns default ofc.

Intelligence system completely removed from INS.
Objective is now only 2 caches that are present all map, spawn parameters tightened for them.
Insurgents get spawns all over the city that can be destroyed (hopefully the Al Basrah bug won't rear it's head).
Huge nerf to the Sapper class.
ROE buff to the Civilian class.
Collaborator kept as a seperate class to civilians, gets a pistol.


***

If I wracked my brain really hard I'm sure I could think of more, these are just the ones that came to me. But yes, I put a lot of thought into where PR could stand to improve and how to do it over the years.

If any of the points don't make sense I'd be happy to explain the intended gameplay effect.

Have you made any real effort to make those things happen ?
Or is it just that we are supposed to be impressed with a laundry list ?
If I were you I would demand a full refund.