Project Reality Forums

This is an idea that would take Dynamic Battlefields to what I believe, the ultimate level. Current maps can be repetitive because we're stuck with fighting over the same flags, in the same order, with usually the same tactics every game. This idea aims to change all of that.

To put it simply, the goal here would be have a pure defensive team, and a pure offensive team. The twist being that there are no mapper placed control points on the battlefield, only both team's uncappable main base. So what to fight over? Well this is where the true color of this idea comes in.

It starts like this. The "Pure Defensive Team" spawns in. The "Pure Offensive Team" does not spawn in however. Instead, they spawn in anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes later. Are you catching on yet?

Defensive Team Rules

During this period where the "Offensive Team" cannot spawn, the "Defensive Team" will construct several "Hardpoints". These "Hardpoints" are essentially deployable control points. They can be built anywhere on the map by the Squad Leaders, but the Squad Leaders can only deploy one Hardpoint, which may or may not have to be approved by the Commander.

The number of Hardpoints is only limited by the amount of SLs, and the strategy they wish to undertake. Having too many Hardpoints may be difficult to defend, so the team may wish to only construct 3 or 4 points and defend each one with two or three squads. Do note the SLs should only be capable of deploying a Hardpoint only if they have a certain amount of people in the squad (Same rules for deploying a rally should apply here).

Once these Hardpoints are established, the team can construct bunkers (up to two per hardpoint) and thus build a multitude of defenses (Such as AA guns, razorwire, sandbags etc.) around that (Deployable TOW launchers would be nice here). There are no firebases here, only the "Offensive Team" can construct those which I'll talk about later.

The Defensive Team will also have an indestructible spawn which they can use during this "Fortify Phase" and "Battle Phase" that could not be approached by the Offensive Team without entering a sort of "Dome of Doom". The same works for the Offensive Team in that the Defensive Team cannot approach the their main base without being cited for desertion.

The Defensive Team cannot deploy Hardpoints after the Offensive Team spawns in. They can however continue to built extra assets such as bunkers and such.

Offensive Team Rules

To start off, the Offensive Team cannot spawn in on the map for a good 5 to 10 minutes (To do this, I imagine you could have some indestructible rallies spawn in on a wave timer) . To allow the defensive team to fortify the map. During this time these guys can plan out, organize and grab a few drinks.

Once they do spawn in, their goal to first find the defensive team's Hardpoints. A little bit of recon may go in before the team makes an all out assault. The Offensive Team must capture these Hardpoints like an ordinary Control Point, in that they must "cap the flag". Unlike control points however, there will be no "neutral phase". The Defensive Team cannot retake lost Hardpoints either.

The Offensive Team can build firebases as opposed to bunkers. There would be a global limit to how many can be built (Say 4 max?). They can also build extras like AA guns, razorwire etc. around them.

The Offensive Team wins by capturing all of the Defensive Team's Hardpoints (At that point, the Defensive Team can no longer spawn at their indestructible base). The Defensive Team wins by simply holding out at this point. Because of this, the Defensive Team should be granted a huge supply of tickets, while the Offensive Team would be limited in that regard.

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This concept could be applied to virtually every map. It plays almost like an Insurgency mode with the Offensive Team searching and attacking enemy Hardpoints, but this would work for conventional armies and would allow the defensive team to plan and construct solid defenses. The only real con I can see here is that the Offensive Team will have to do some extra waiting, so there's not really a lot of action going on in the first 5 to 10 minutes or so. Though I believe most PR players have the patience for this.

wow

oh, i like.

sounds great but I think you would need some incentive for the defensive team to put lots of hardpoints. that way you would need some organization to balance between the bonus they provide (like extra tickets every few minutes) and the ability to properly defend them.

wow nice idea! i had something like this i just never could put it in words, probably like most of us here Way to go man, good description and well presented. Can't wait to do this

Ghost716 wrote:sounds great but I think you would need some incentive for the defensive team to put lots of hardpoints. that way you would need some organization to balance between the bonus they provide (like extra tickets every few minutes) and the ability to properly defend them.

There's no need. The incentive to put down a hardpoint in the first place would be the need to establish a point from which to fight from. Failure to place any hardpoints within the allotted time simply results in the defending team's immediate defeat. So the question would be, would more hardpoints take the offensive team longer to find? Or would a few, heavily defended hardpoints make it difficult for the offensive team to capture them in the first place?

Balance comes in with the fact that the defending team could potentially put down lots of hardpoints, with the idea being that more would take longer for the Offensive Team to find, but be difficult to defend. While on the other hand, having a small number of hardpoints could be easier to defend, but would give the offensive team less hardpoints to seek and capture.

When I say I like this idea, I mean I really really really really like this idea!

This is a very innovative and fresh game mode, I would love to see this ingame. I think if this could work, it would be much more fun than AAS or any of the current game modes. The only concern I have is that I am not sure if you can place 'hardpoints' in the middle of a game. sounds hardcoded, which sucks. But I am not sure and I hope it isn't hardcoded.

This wouldn't work unfortunately, although I do think it's a great idea.

Reasons are below:

1) Smacktards can ruin a server by starting a bunch of squads and not placing any hard points. Even without smacktards, stupid people placing hard points in stupid places will ruin the game for others. With this game mode you're giving the power of the entire team's defense into the hands of individual squad leaders, which would be very bad in most cases.

2) Mappers would need to take exploiting into account, which is very hard with such large maps. Additionally, people would find ways to make ridiculous tactics such as putting hard points at opposite ends of maps. With the size of PR's maps, this wouldn't make a lot of sense. Exploits would be a big problem though, since there could be bugs where you could place hard points in rocks, or in a mountain... just weird things that happen in the engine that we may not even know about because we don't comb every inch of every map -- we usually stick to the control points. With this game mode, people would investigate every part of the map and either find exploits or locations where it's next to impossible to attack the strong point.

Maps are generally based on the control points and by making them dynamic the mappers job becomes very complicated. This game mode would rarely work with current maps.

3) It's tactically illogical.

At the moment, control points exist because they provide a tactical advantage on maps. Not a gameplay related tactical advantage, but a realistic tactical advantage. In real life, it's preferable set a rally point for a platoon inside of a village instead of in the hills. A village provides houses which are excellent cover among other things. In BF2, you can't enter buildings so when you're in a village your just running around the open streets. So, tactically, it's better to be in the hills than in a village or a town - but because the game aims at simulating tactical realism, they create objectives that make sense in the real world.

By letting people put control points anywhere on the map, you lose that sense of realism and things could just get ridiculous and clownish (ie: strong points on different parts of the map that have no relevance to the main objectives).

On all maps, the control points follow a flow between 2 main bases. In real life, you need to secure main roads so that you can bring up reinforcements quickly. In BF2 it doesnt matter because there are no reinforcements. But nevertheless, control points are set for things like crossroads, villages along the road, etc... all of this is to simulate a real world battlefield with real world objectives.

Giving a gamer the ability to create objectives will take the game backward in realism because not all people are as dedicated as you are to creating a strong defense. Some people just won't know any better and will turn the maps into a circus of ridiculously placed strong points.

I agree with jonny, instead of delaying the Offensive Team's Spawn just delay their attack by making impossible for them to leave the spawn area.

I also think Artnez has a point but this can be fixed as the ammo caches currently work. Instead of having the possibility to put hardpoints anywere, you will have multiple standard locations where you can put them (choosen by the mapper) from which you can choose which ones to activate by building the asset on one of those locations. This will be limited to a certain number and has to be placed by the commander.

This way you are limiting the possibilities of exploiting the map and still give the team the possibility to choose which areas it wants to defend according to the mapper's predefined layout.

As in the case of ammo caches there will be alot of possibilities so that it is still hard to know where the hardpoints will be.

This can be set by the commander before game starts in his map. He chooses which hardpoints he wants and which squads will defend each hardpoint. When game starts the squads can spawn on temporary RP's on each point and make the primary defence. Each hardpoint choosen by the commander will spawn a temporary RP and a commander truck. The squads assigned to defend it will build the assets as they think best. Meanwhile the attack squad will spawn on the other side of the map and organize recon squads to find the hardpoints or start their assault immediately if they prefer. The strategy planning can be planned before game start when the hardpoints are choosen, only the assets and defence is set and planned when game starts. This will reduce the delay needed on the assaulting team.

I think this would actually be a great idea.

How would a hardpoint look like ?

Im for a small sandbag bunkie with radios and electronics...

And by the way, magnificent suggestion !

I ment that a hardpoint looks like this



but instead of the vehicle, a table should stand there with a radio and maybe a couple of boxes with camonet over'em...

Sorry but this idea wouldn't work at all for a couple simple reasons. One being that it makes no sense at all that you wouldn't be able to cap it back. Another is it makes no sense that a team would be trying to defend or attack certain areas. That's what flag are already there on a map for, to simulate that that is a certain area that your country would benefit from capturing. If someone puts a 'hardpoint' out in the middle of a desert what the heck would be the benefit of defending or capturing that area?

Not all hope is lost though, my last point is exactly why a part of this idea could be applied to another gametype: Insurgency. How about letting the insurgents get to decide where the weapons caches are? This way it makes perfect sense why they would be placed possibly anywhere on the map and it's also an incentive for the other country to want to destroy them no matter where they are. Also the weapons cache being destroyed solves the problem of not being able to recap.

I like the idea - also I do agree with jonny. Let the offensive team prepare on the attack.

Either way they gonna be bored to death. And guns and boredom dont go together to well at least in virtual life. Dont you agree?




So make them to spawn on an island, or airfield, or a base that have been just captured and its preety far away from the possible HARDPOINTS locations.

Make them prepare the base before they go to assault. Set comunications, maybe some destroyed satelite dishes, broken cables and such. Make in that base few flags to be captured. Like control tower, command center... canteen? When all the flags are captured, repairs done vehicles/transport will spawn allowing for the team to assault already created HARDPOINTS.

And maybe whole map shouldnt be avaible to create HARDPOINTs but only specific area, like on the picture (below red line).

Imagine few dingies, blackhawks, LB landing on beach together. Wouldnt that look great?!

Warmagi wrote:Either way they gonna be bored to death. And guns and boredom dont go together to ...........o create HARDPOINTs but only specific area, like on the picture (below red line).

Imagine few dingies, blackhawks, LB landing on beach together. Wouldnt that look great?!

Why don't you do the following: Let the APC's, Boats & BH's spawn after 5 min? Swiming would be suicide and take TO LONG to get to the other side. Instead having it on a island you can still do it on a carrier too. (just depends who creates the map)

This could create modern warfare in D-Day style!

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About the cammo nets: Why don't we create a new type of bunker with hescos? A lower floor and a second floor to shoot from, with above there a cammonet!

Jonny wrote:
Of course! Why didn't we realise that IRL armies fight over pre-set arbitrary conrol points, NOT areas of real strategic value. Does it just happen to be these CPs of yours are at areas we would normally think of as easy to defend? or is it just coincidence and there are actually some places that are a total waste of time strategically but STILL get fought over? How do armies IRL know when they have taken these invisible all-powerful CPs?

/sarcasm.

Soooo, are you gonna present a real arguement against me or do you not have one?