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Now we know Flags are inherrently unrealistic as they force you in to behaviours that might not necessarily be advantageous, since you need to stand in a specific place for a specific amount of time.

But they do center combat around certain areas, thus making the gameplay fun.


BUT! there are variations in the flags that vastly change it all.

In my post, I'll discuss my preferred flag arrangement, and I hope people chip in with their opinions/verisons.

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1) Placement of flags

2) Order of Capping

3) Uses of bleed

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1) Placement

This is pretty much teh AASv2 vs v3 debate

I prefer Very large cap radii in fixed locations. This allows you to have a guarenteed place to engage the enemy (i.e. fun) while the large radii give you strategic freedom, i.e. you can defend and attack wherever you want, the options are limited only by each team's imagination. In this configuration the unrealisitc nature of the flag is decreased, and the benefits of a mode like CnC are filtered in to AAS.

I'd rather be forced to secure a 500m area encompassing all the hills/buildings etc than have to stand in a compound which can very easily become a magnet for stuff that wants to kill you. Also, on maps with Air assets this means they aren't as sure where you are. If the Flag goes neutral on Qinling for example, teh jets pretty know where to bomb without help (I don't mind if jets know where I am, but when its because the divine flag went white, it feels gamey.)

2) Order

Again, a AASv2 vs 3 aspect

in alot of PR maps its take X, head to Y, head to Z, win.

This decreases the strategy, and does not take advantage of larger maps.

I'd prefer

X then take both A and B, now you can attack C and D, now you can take Z, win.

or a mixture like Muttrah.

Muttrah has an acceptable arrangement because of how the buildings are arranged, but East and West City Center make for a great fight. 2 Defensive targets makes strategy and team tactics very important.

This makes the game more fluid.

For example, Kozelsk. If the chech get the tunnels to defend...you might as well switch maps since the ONLY way the russians will get kills is if the Chech get bored and come out to fight. (i.e. they play fair...then the Russians run in to the tunnels and defend them lol)

Think about it from the Russian's perspective : The enemy have put all their effort in to defending a particular flag, why not lock them in and head to the next flag? i.e. there should be options such as these avaliable.

From the Chech perspective, it gives them a new gameplay choice. They can defend one flag to the end, and sacrifice the other, or defend both, or if they get bored defending, or they see an oppotunity, they can attack the lost flag.

Also, these multiple flags feed in to my next point

3) Bleed

Alot of maps no longer bleed when your attack the main flag, since the main flag isn't actually in main anymore. Which is good imo, it means that a last ditch defence can still be an option, especially on maps like Fools Road and Muttrah.

But attackers should be encouraged to engage aggressively imo. And the only way for this to happen is with bleed. This also avoids the situation where the defending team is far superior and gets bored stupid after 2.5 hours of not being beaten back.

E.g. Mestia's bleed was fine in the old days, if teh Brits didn't get one of the flags, they got a slow bleed which was fine. This concept should be given to alot of other flags. if this is deemed overpowering, the trick of making the defender's flags neutral at hte start, to delay the bleed a minute or two was effective.

ty for bleeding, I believe the above points create flag arrangements that are more effective for gamplay, fun and to an extent, realism.

I do think that Jabal is becoming too easy, Last 4 rounds (twice MEC, Twice USMC), all on the RT server we outcapped the other team probably due to 1 squad holding off the enemy at either South Bridge or at Dam..

I personally feel Something is missing in the NW corner of that map but that is besides the point

I do not fully agree on the Kozelsk thing, In my experience the Chechens loose Tunnel easier when they are all staying inside it then when they roam around the cap radius, e.g. Yesterday (when you, Rudd, Were there too, With Wiccas awesome sound effects).

Btw I like how you think about this all

well, one thing i would like to see is that maybe more flags give tactical advantages other than just having it.
for example, jabal east beach and muttrah docks each spawn a repair station.
maybe having captured a certain set flag will allow certain commander assets to be used (maybe capturing a mortar pit from the enemy) or will activate a repair pad somewhere (for example if you capture damn and south bridge on jabal, your helicopters can get a rearm/repair at dam.
something along these lines

I'd like a delayed bleed on the middle flags:

For example on Kashan, when one team holds both bunkers for 30 minutes the other team starts a slow bleed to encourage fighting. If MEC was to hold the flags for 20 minutes and then cap North Village then they would get a bleed from the bunkers after 10 mins plus a bleed from north village 20 minutes after they take north village.

The bleed delay allows the two teams to fight over the central flags but still rewards the team that can hold them. It also keeps one team from just giving up flags so that they don't lose too many tickets, they should still be fighting after all. You don't win a war by running the enemy out of tickets while you sit at main or hold one small area.

But make the bleed slow enough that the team that is behind doesn't have to zerg rush, hence the example's 30 minute bleed delay.

Here is a link to the discussion we had/are having on BigD that is roughly in the same league as this topic:

AAS is pointless IMHO, how do we fix it? - BigD Gaming Community

Check out the last page for some DEV opinion/answers. Of course, this is a very important topic that I personally think should be visited as most of the games maps are tied to this game-mode.

Damned Aussies always on the ball before the rest of us these days

ty for the link.

i agree with quite a few things in that thread.

the bleeding system has always seemed a bit silly to me (except when for example ALL the flags are capped)

like i said, i would love to see more than just capping a flag for the sake of having it.
for example, in that thread one of the devs stated that we want more "area control" flags. now i agree that this is important, but i figure some flags should be less area control and more building control.
if you have flags like a village, then yes, area control is important, but if you have a bunker with the enemy inside or an artillery position on a hill, then yes you need to actually go THERE, not 200 meters to the right.
it would be nice to see a nice mix of area control flags and the smaller kind.
but i would rather have just area control than just the smaller kind, since i appreciate it on mestia stopping the russians from actually capping it by being in the woods nearby.

i also see the drawback of smaller flags and why people like them. its what i call the camp gibraltar effect. if you've played bf2142 you know what im talking about here. this was an extremely popular map since it channeled all 64 players into small areas. (you know the one i mean, on the EU side just behind the gates) this caused for massive firefights in tight quarters. this is of course fun, but seems somewhat unrealistic, and as the area of fighting here is rather small, it can get repetitive quick and one always fights in the exact same area. for example, a veteran player of 2142 would know exactly where to regularly fire rockets from the assault class to get huge amounts of kills.

Ye Rudd, some good points there many of witch have been talked about many in the past but that's a pretty good sum up of the current way things stand.

snooggums wrote:I'd like a delayed bleed on the middle flags:

For example on Kashan, when one team holds both bunkers for 30 minutes the other team starts a slow bleed to encourage fighting. If MEC was to hold the flags for 20 minutes and then cap North Village then they would get a bleed from the bunkers after 10 mins plus a bleed from north village 20 minutes after they take north village.

The bleed delay allows the two teams to fight over the central flags but still rewards the team that can hold them. It also keeps one team from just giving up flags so that they don't lose too many tickets, they should still be fighting after all. You don't win a war by running the enemy out of tickets while you sit at main or hold one small area.

But make the bleed slow enough that the team that is behind doesn't have to zerg rush, hence the example's 30 minute bleed delay.

Delayed bleed, why has no one thought of that before? That is a really good idea in fact, will have a bit more of a think on it later for sure

ChiefRyza wrote:Here is a link to the discussion we had/are having on BigD that is roughly in the same league as this topic:

AAS is pointless IMHO, how do we fix it? - BigD Gaming Community

Check out the last page for some DEV opinion/answers. Of course, this is a very important topic that I personally think should be visited as most of the games maps are tied to this game-mode.

Will have to read that later when I have some more time.

Delayed bleed; if possible; would really help out breaking the stalemates and fix zerg rushing at the same time, ie. if there was a delayed bleed on Docks at Muttrah, USMC could still counter-attack without losing all the tickets due the bleed like it's now, but if MEC held the Docks long enough, USMC would starting bleeding out eventually and lose.

I love that delayed bleed idea. Reminds me of Muttrah in the PRT C7B2 NATO held the docks for the entire round except for one 5 minute period where CATA broke through and capped the docks flag. We capped it back very quickly, but as there was an instant bleed we lost a whole load of tickets, the same number of tickets we lost by...

[R-DEV]Rhino wrote:Delayed bleed, why has no one thought of that before? That is a really good idea in fact, will have a bit more of a think on it later for sure

Will have to read that later when I have some more time.

I got the idea from a combination of the suggested delay at round start in my C&C suggestion in my signature and how a recent in house scrim went at TG last weekend where the team that won was not too aggressive and the game got stale. In our discussion we hit on the fact that PR has become so defense advantaged and each flag doesn't really give a reward that something needs to get the teams fighting, but there needs to be time to organize and initiate the attack.

Sometimes it's just the right circumstances that start ideas rolling. If you haven't read them already I hope you check out my suggestions for other areas below, as each also explains the reason for the proposed changes and how they address common concerns with the current system.

Outlawz wrote:Delayed bleed; if possible; would really help out breaking the stalemates and fix zerg rushing at the same time, ie. if there was a delayed bleed on Docks at Muttrah, USMC could still counter-attack without losing all the tickets due the bleed like it's now, but if MEC held the Docks long enough, USMC would starting bleeding out eventually and lose.

jigsaw-uk wrote:I love that delayed bleed idea. Reminds me of Muttrah in the PRT C7B2 NATO held the docks for the entire round except for one 5 minute period where CATA broke through and capped the docks flag. We capped it back very quickly, but as there was an instant bleed we lost a whole load of tickets, the same number of tickets we lost by...

yep, that is just one good example there but I can think of many, many more

snooggums wrote:I got the idea from a combination of the suggested delay at round start in my C&C suggestion in my signature and how a recent in house scrim went at TG last weekend where the team that won was not too aggressive and the game got stale. In our discussion we hit on the fact that PR has become so defense advantaged and each flag doesn't really give a reward that something needs to get the teams fighting, but there needs to be time to organize and initiate the attack.

Sometimes it's just the right circumstances that start ideas rolling. If you haven't read them already I hope you check out my suggestions for other areas below, as each also explains the reason for the proposed changes and how they address common concerns with the current system.

Nice, will have to read your other topics some other time. Your idea might be the best PR suggestion of the month

[R-DEV]Rhino wrote:Nice, will have to read your other topics some other time. Your idea might be the best PR suggestion of the month

But...but...but....what about my fastropez suggestion? ops:

¨-I posted a thread ages ago, with a recent update here.

Thing is Tartan, teh order of how you cap flags is determined by their assigned supply group ID,

so, flag 1, then 2, then 3

or Flag 1, then multiple flags all numbered 2, then 3

I'm not sure how ur grid system could use that?

And also, Flag radii should not constrain teams too much, but they should stil contain tactically important locations, bunkers etc. Some of ur grid in ur suggestion is basically...Sand.

What if, in a compromise between AAS and CnC, commanders selected from a few potential flag locations during pre round, 1-3 a side depending on the map. If no CO selected they'd be randomly chosen. Would signify commanders being able to decide where to estbalish their "forward" bases and principal objectives as in real life.

Dr2B Rudd wrote:Thing is Tartan, teh order of how you cap flags is determined by their assigned supply group ID,

so, flag 1, then 2, then 3

or Flag 1, then multiple flags all numbered 2, then 3

I'm not sure how ur grid system could use that?

And also, Flag radii should not constrain teams too much, but they should stil contain tactically important locations, bunkers etc. Some of ur grid in ur suggestion is basically...Sand.

-I talked to CRF about flags long ago on IRC and he said that the flag system was modifiable enough for this kind of thing. As for flag positioning, what is and isn't a tactically important position should be determined by the terrain and situation, not by arbitrarily placed flags. Additionally, the value of an area is not dictated simply due to the presence of anything of inherent value; if a large area of "basically...Sand" is between you and your supplies then it suddenly becomes pretty important to both sides.

-The main issue for people, it seems, is how they perceive things. Thinking of flags as specific points or physical entity instead of as a metaphor for territory control, as individual objectives instead of seeing the map in its entirety as the objective, applying AAS logic to the proposed game mode, etc.

-Let me not derail this thread too much though as, despite it being relevant, there is already a thread on it and discussions on it can be had there.

The current use of flags is to determine where the small number of players will focus their battle on our large PR maps, AAS is what makes the large maps playable. If you account for the whole map at once you will end up with the equivalent of BF2 vanilla flag hopping because forces will be spread so thin.

Making several linked flags to one flag makes the front lines a bit too spread out for defense in my opinion. I like the current large flag for area control, small flag for objectives style we have now although they could definitely be mixed up a bit more on the current maps.

Capping radius is not fine right now, most of the flags should have capping radius of around 200 meters, but the ones in specific buildings should have very small radius, like 50 to 100 meters. (Warehouse on Assault on Mestia for example)

I think it would be great to get more possibilities, where to attack. Especially on assault maps (Muttrah, Barracuda, Jabal).

After years of playing 1942, Vietnam, and 2 itself - I love the wide radius of defense in comparison to an actual flag. Just spent 45 minutes holding North Bunker with one squad by holing up inside the northern most bunker and fending off multiple infantry attacks, a few Apache strafes, and an APC that decided to drive in and attack while inside.

If we had to stay on top of a flag, there's no way we could have accomplished that. I'd still be fighting and holding that point if the power hadn't gone out on me! ops: