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The basic overview of this is a system of reinforcement where you would only get reinforcements every 5 minutes or so. Upon death players would be removed from the game. Upon revival or medivac the player would be reassigned to the waiting list in a premade copy of the real squad where upon spawning he/she would automatically rejoin the squad they left.


Stage 1: Recruitment
This stage would be broken up into deployment timeslots of maybe 5, 10, or 20 minutes depending on whatever the DEVs feel would be appropriate and each timeslot would run into stage 2 time wise. Each timeslot would have a set max number of players that would be assigned to deploy in it and players would have the ability to join and older timeslot in order to join friends or clans at the expense of waiting longer. The purpose of this stage would be getting squads and very early plans together. there would be a squad list for each timeslot that would deploy together in the same place at the same time. The only intel given at this stage would be a basic overview of the map with no flag or current battle info only a terrain map for familiarization and maybe the reinforcement count.

Stage 2: Pre-Deployment
In this stage squads would get briefed about the current state of the battle and current objectives (flags) as well as choosing your squads kits and such. Each squad would now get detailed info about the battle like troop movements and the overall battle much of which would possible be taken away in stage 3. At this stage something like a supply officer would probably have to be chosen to act as a go between for the deploying troops and the commands to avoid work overload and this sub-commander would take the plans that need to be used from the commander and assign them to individual squads as well as supplies such as heavy weapons and vehicles. At the very beginning of the battle this would also be the time where the commander could potentially choose custom drop zones in an airborne operation or something along those lines.

Stage 3: Deployed
This would be standard gameplay. You would spawn in with your squad in whatever method appropriate and go out to hitch a ride on an APC/helicopter or just walk and join the battle as normal. Intel at this point would be much more limited than in stage 2 with direct information only being about your specific objective instead of about the entire battle. Your squad wouldn't know the remaining tickets or how your friendlies are doing at other flags you would only get some info about other squads sharing your objective and even then preferably only minimal intel like a general location not individual troop locations or specifics. Any info other than that would need to be given to you either by your commander or returning wounded squad members.

Stage 4: Casualty
Casualties in your squad would either die or be medivaced. Deaths would be removed from the battle for the rest of the fight while anyone medivaced would be returned to stage 1 in a premade placeholder squad where anyone else medivaced in a short period would join you. You would go through stage 2 and regain your kit from before you died unless you squad lead reassigns you and try to get and remember as much info about the state of the battle as possible which you would then give to the rest of your squad when you deploy and regain comms. Permanently being taken out of the battle after death might be replaced by a longer respawn time and having all your stats or whatever appropriate being reset as you are a "new person".

Flow of information
This system tries to control the flow on info in what I feel is a realistic manner. Stage one is like the flight in while stage 2 is like an offmap command center. On the flight in you have minimal intel whereas at the command center you have a great deal of general info but don't have many specifics and in the field you know more bout your squads situation and the state of your objectives than anyone else but know very little about the general state of things. The idea behind the squad members passing on intel to the rest of the squad in the field is that while a commander could do it better and in fact probably should be providing periodic updates about how things are going he just doesn't have the time to focus on each individual squad whereas a squad member can get intel specific to his squads objectives like the positions of nearby friendlies and what might be next in the commanders plans for the squad and then pass it on. Thus giving the squad some situational awareness without making it too powerful or real-time.

Now then unless my feel for the way the BF2 engine works and what would work on it is totally off the majority of tings on this are either impossible or at the best would be extremely difficult to implement so this is more of a suggestion for the hopefully inevitable PR2 as something to hopefully keep in mind as a possibility than any sort of a realistic short or medium term possibility. I thought I might as well throw it out there.
Thoughts?

I believe these ideas might be hardcoded

But I like PR the way it is. Getting people off the fight for longer than 5 minutes would just be boring (insurgency-wise), considering a lot of people don't play PR for its slow gameplay. Now, I am used to and AGREE with the current pace the game has. Having all of that would be realistic, BUT a game is a game, and people play games to have fun and not to stare at a map for 5 minutes. It is different to plan a battle in-game, whilst having set timers will just be annoying. Talk about possible spawn-killing (yes, it still happens), this overhaul could render the game just to annoying to play.

I appreciate you took time to write all of that, but having all these stages would just make the gameplay so slow that it wouldn't be cool.

As I said, people want games to have fun and not to plan battles for a long long time, specially because yeah, we ALL know, no plan resists to enemy contact. I am a SL and I can totally reasure that. Enemy contact is not necessarily the end of your plan, but maybe just a break (insurgency) or a whole new battle (AAS).

Cheers mate.

As stated at the end I know that its probably 99% hardcoded beyond belief so this is more for a long term future idea. also this is meant to be a separate mode like insurgency not a replacement and would have a specific purpose. 20 minutes would probably be FAR too long but I don't want to limit the idea to 5 as I haven't thought up specifics its just meant to be an idea.

yes, i just re-enforced the idea. maybe you can suggest it to the PR devs that are making the stand-alone game (if im not mistaken, they are using the C4 engine). maybe they think that up, and implement it in a way that is entertaining as the rest of the game.

but you are suggesting this as a type of game different than AAS or Insurgency? hmm... maybe...

Well I wasn't thinking of it as a completely different mode but more off an off shoot. like you could have AAS and then AAS+this, the same with insurgency. Sorry I didn't make that clear earlier I was kinda tired of thinking about it after writing that whole thing I also came up with some other ideas like random objectives that the commander could assign to a squad that would give the team extra reinforcements or assets of some sort but I'm pretty sure that's been suggested before and it didn't really go with the rest of it.

In a way, I agree with the 'flow of information' where the stages present different levels of info before the battle is begun, and then after the briefing you are very much on your own with figuring out where to go what to do and etc, and a commander can help direct you a little more in his line of thought rather than yours (IE. instead of you just going to the flag, he can choose to tell you to go to one side of the flag and since you are no longer 'bound' to want to go towards the center of the flag, he can utilize you and another squad in a different position without either squad's preconcieved notions that 'center of flag = good', which most players tend to possess).

From what I understand, part of your suggestion is to change the spawning system to 'redeploy' any players that are removed from the battle (killed, critically wounded)... Correct me if I'm wrong, but the system you are implying would remove a player, that had been removed from the battle, from his squad, and then would 'reassign' him as a new soldier to a different squad.

That's interesting, and I've never really thought of it that way. This way, dieing will have a greater impact since the player would have to be reassigned to a new squad and would have to, in essence, start all over again in that new squad. A squad that loses players will be much more likely to retreat, because of the impact death has an the fact that those players lost will not be able to immediately 'join up' with the action, so it may be likely that squads retreat from the combat zone entirely and begin 'recruiting' new soldiers for the fight.

Great out of the box thinking, I really like it. Of course, it's more than likely impossible with the current engine, but for PR2, this could be a promising alternative to a standard 'die-respawn-rinse-repeat' system, that would give death a bit of it's impact back to the game, for both the victim and his teammates.


I've always been tossed about medivac systems, though. Perhaps with this new 'squad reallocation system' the player that was medivaced out alive could either have a quicker 'reallocation' period, or could rejoin his previous squad instead of being forcefully removed and reallocated from it. It would very much encourage getting medivac established, so that you keep familiar faces in your squad, and the squad members would thank you for doing so.

I'm also tossed about a time between redeployment. Perhaps after a certain amount of time, you would be stationed to 'base duty' so that players that have been killed and are now ready for reassignment can wait until their squad returns by doing some things inside the base (defending it from attacking insurgents? running supply errands? etc). Basically, it would allow them to be useful for the team until they were reassigned to a squad. The players in this generic squad would be restricted from leaving base, or whatever to ensure that they don't go lonewolfing off with a vehicle. Squads that incur casualties will be encouraged to eventually make the trip back to base and pick up some new squadmembers due to their losses in the battle, instead of having a magical rally point bring the squad members to the fight for them.


All in all, a great idea; hopefully it has hope for use in PR2.

Theres a balance between realism and gameplay. This would defently tip the balance. This would result in the game dragging on and alot of people leaving from peer boardem and the fact that they loose out on a great squad if they die.

Celestial1 wrote:From what I understand, part of your suggestion is to change the spawning system to 'redeploy' any players that are removed from the battle (killed, critically wounded)... Correct me if I'm wrong, but the system you are implying would remove a player, that had been removed from the battle, from his squad, and then would 'reassign' him as a new soldier to a different squad.

That's not exactly what I was thinking but that is a good idea.

yes I know it would slow down gameplay a lot but some people prefer it that way and thats why it would need to be separate from the main game modes. Another thing I thought of that I forgot to mention is my hope that a reinforcement system like this would make pushes and potentially costly tactics more important. If you make a large push and get wiped out you might have to wait a while to get reinforcements back on the field and when you do get them you might have a lot less people then when you started unlike the current system where everyone would be back in under a minute no cost for what should be costly tactics. It could also create some interesting map mechanics. For instance one side could have faster reinforcements or slower but larger reinforcements depending on the faction and battle. Perhaps reinforcements could be delay either temporarily or slowed for the rest of the game by capturing side objectives or destroying equipment. Please remember that these are all just ideas. I'm rather hoping to get more responses like Celestials. Any other ideas?

i'm loving this idea, although i have a feeling this will have to wait untill PR makes the switch into that new engine they're experimenting with.

this would throw in at some level a "death" for the player atleast making taking cover more important so MAYBE then the supression effect can be lessened or outright removed and all weapons can be as accurate as they really are!

HellDuke wrote:I mean at first you have to wait for a long time. Of course that would make people more carefull, but the awareness in-game cannot be compared to real awareness and therefore you can't always avoid dying.

That takes me to the second point. If you are a casualty and are medivaced that's all great. But if you get killed and are removed... Well I'd give it 85% that the player will leave the game. And how about those who join in later? The game-play would become extremly slow since combat would become scarce due to the time it takes for everyone to get back into the fight.

I kinda like the idea, but too much is too much. It seems realistic, but let's not make the game into reality... If you go this far I think it would be easyer to just join the army...

In regards to how much time a player would spend in limbo before spawning in and joining a squad, that could always be adjusted so that there is a decent level of enjoyment while discouraging smacktardery and slowing down the game just a bit.

It's all about balance in that case, really.

I think that if this kind of system were implemented, then it would encourage fighting more intelligently to ensure that your team keeps the upperhand, and could also cause more long-range firefights and also make those fights last longer; the impact of death would be a bit greater than it is now, meaning that players would be more likely to keep heads down rather than jumping out and taking a few shots 'just because'. The game wouldn't necessarily be slower in this case, it would just extend the action since a firefight could really last for a decent amount of time.

As far as joining the army, the army doesn't accept underage persons, psychopaths that just really enjoy killing people, and worst of all they don't give respawns.

Ccharge wrote:Theres a balance between realism and gameplay. This would defently tip the balance. This would result in the game dragging on and alot of people leaving from peer boardem and the fact that they loose out on a great squad if they die.

They could always be 'reassigned' to that squad, if the system implemented a request-accept/deny system. A squad would 'request' new members, and the player could choose to join a squad, or can wait if he knows his squad will be returning. More squads would be able to change up players and keep a freshness to the fight, since there will now be a chances that a newbie comes in, or an experienced player, and will dictate how the squad acts. This means that newbies also have a greater chance to be taught lessons in the game since they aren't restricted to a single squad, and will have the opportunity to learn from many different squad leaders.

Jordanb716 wrote:That's not exactly what I was thinking but that is a good idea.

yes I know it would slow down gameplay a lot but some people prefer it that way and thats why it would need to be separate from the main game modes. Another thing I thought of that I forgot to mention is my hope that a reinforcement system like this would make pushes and potentially costly tactics more important. If you make a large push and get wiped out you might have to wait a while to get reinforcements back on the field and when you do get them you might have a lot less people then when you started unlike the current system where everyone would be back in under a minute no cost for what should be costly tactics. It could also create some interesting map mechanics. For instance one side could have faster reinforcements or slower but larger reinforcements depending on the faction and battle. Perhaps reinforcements could be delay either temporarily or slowed for the rest of the game by capturing side objectives or destroying equipment. Please remember that these are all just ideas. I'm rather hoping to get more responses like Celestials. Any other ideas?

Glad to know you enjoyed my post.

Reinforcements have always been a bit of a mish-mash with me; I think that instead of enforcing a reinforcement mechanic where players must stay dead for a long time, instead players could only join a squad and therefore have 'permission' to leave base, making a more flexible system of reinforcements (a squad that stays in the field for a long time will often have to worry about running their numbers thin, as one member that dies could add up to cause the squad to be more and more under-manned to take on objectives), as well as adding a new aspect to squad-command; a squad that has been on the brunt of a push for an objective could have taken heavy losses and must now return to base, even though they would be the optimal choice for the next objective; a defending squad would have to move up to secure and hold the current objective so that the 'reinforcements' (the squad's new members) are brought up, and then the attack can continue. Vice versa goes for defense; if a squad loses 3 members in a heavy assault, but still holds their ground at the end of the battle, they will need to arrange a swap with a new defending squad, so that they can be assigned new members to take with them to the fight.

Making this respawn on this system quick (as in, instead of waiting 10 minutes before being brought back in to the battle, they would spend a short amount of time where they can be revived/incapacitated waiting for revival), but having newly spawned players spawn into the base and do some minor base duty to keep them occupied and perhaps even entertained until a squad comes back, would make the system just as effective but also allowing players who die to enjoy a bit of time leisurely doing things around base to 'benefit the team', like manning base defense MGs, or base defense AA, or even transporting ammunition to vehicles in base, anything to keep them occupied and entertained while they wait.




Please, do take the time to explain your post, I would love to know what your idea was.

therefore here I say again: PR is well balanced: A good SL can make a strategy in less than 2 minutes, and the simple BF2 engine can provide some much fun while this. Teamwork is great how it is. And CO's aren't that frequent in public servers, even though the game gets MUCH better when there is one.
Hopefully more ppl will play commander with the UAV...

But I don't know. Dev's might wanna shed some light here? I just want to make my opinion clear: Do not make gameplay much slower. That is one of the worst turn offs about PR. I like the gameplay, but don't make it much slower.

Thanks.

goguapsy wrote:therefore here I say again: PR is well balanced: A good SL can make a strategy in less than 2 minutes, and the simple BF2 engine can provide some much fun while this. Teamwork is great how it is. And CO's aren't that frequent in public servers, even though the game gets MUCH better when there is one.
Hopefully more ppl will play commander with the UAV...

But I don't know. Dev's might wanna shed some light here? I just want to make my opinion clear: Do not make gameplay much slower. That is one of the worst turn offs about PR. I like the gameplay, but don't make it much slower.

Thanks.

Do realize that most of the suggestions mentioned aren't even possible to be put into PR as of now. For PR2, which will be developed on an entirely new engine that the PR team owns licensing to use and modify as they like, these things can be implemented and adjusted and tested or even removed if it is deemed unfit for what they want.

In my opinion, if the critical wound time (5 minutes max) and kill time (30 seconds) remained the same, but players that spawn in spawn at main out of their squad, they could still be doing things and enjoy themselves while at main (perhaps missions could be made for players that don't have a squad, like driving the logistic trucks to spots deemed by the commander, etc) so that they can still play, but they won't be able to get directly back into the action until they can get hooked up with another squad. They might even get into the action faster if another squad is returning to base and picks them up.

It could be made that a squadmember could also join a squad that is still out in the field; for example, let's say a squad is defending a flag, and takes a casualty or two. The players spawn at main, but they can rejoin that squad or a different squad as a 'new soldier', and then be flown in by helicopter or transported out by APC, or can be picked up directly from base by the squad.

IMO, I think that the player should be able to put up a request to join a squad when they spawn in base, or can choose to run missions for the commander (like driving a logistics truck out to the front). If they put up a request to join a squad, they could be accepted by squads in main, or can be assigned by command to a particular squad. With large squad sizes, this kind of thing will have less of an impact than we all might think, as you may just as likely return to your old squad, but being picked up by a new squad shouldn't be frowned upon-you should do your best no matter what squad.

Celestial1 wrote:Do realize that most of the suggestions mentioned aren't even possible to be put into PR as of now. For PR2, which will be developed on an entirely new engine that the PR team owns licensing to use and modify as they like, these things can be implemented and adjusted and tested or even removed if it is deemed unfit for what they want.

In my opinion, if the critical wound time (5 minutes max) and kill time (30 seconds) remained the same, but players that spawn in spawn at main out of their squad, they could still be doing things and enjoy themselves while at main (perhaps missions could be made for players that don't have a squad, like driving the logistic trucks to spots deemed by the commander, etc) so that they can still play, but they won't be able to get directly back into the action until they can get hooked up with another squad. They might even get into the action faster if another squad is returning to base and picks them up.

It could be made that a squadmember could also join a squad that is still out in the field; for example, let's say a squad is defending a flag, and takes a casualty or two. The players spawn at main, but they can rejoin that squad or a different squad as a 'new soldier', and then be flown in by helicopter or transported out by APC, or can be picked up directly from base by the squad.

IMO, I think that the player should be able to put up a request to join a squad when they spawn in base, or can choose to run missions for the commander (like driving a logistics truck out to the front). If they put up a request to join a squad, they could be accepted by squads in main, or can be assigned by command to a particular squad. With large squad sizes, this kind of thing will have less of an impact than we all might think, as you may just as likely return to your old squad, but being picked up by a new squad shouldn't be frowned upon-you should do your best no matter what squad.

If we consider this as being PR2 I agree. But ATM (PR) have you been on a base in a round with a lack of transports? That is... dance parties and smoke fests. I believe this idea can't be implemented in this engine.

NOW, have you played ARMA 2? They do exactly like this: You are in a fireteam, which belongs to a squad, which forms a platoon. ARMA 2's problem is the fact that it doesn't focus on teamwork AT ALL (which is something PR shines on). Now, if PR DEVs have an idea about making large scale battles (for this ideas to be implemented), they should make some kind of way that encourages teamwork. I believe that ARMA 2's main problem is the spawn distance. BUT I CAN BE WRONG! I haven't played multiplayer that much in ARMA 2, I'm just giving a quick observation!



In my point of view, DEVs should make PR2 just like ARMA 2 (effects, deviation, animations, vehicles, huge maps, lots and lots of players, all that stuff!) but STILL focusing on teamwork, which is what makes PR such a great game over ARMA 2. And I would love if they kept the simple interface and high-performance at good resolutions (100%) for low and mid-end machines. The C4 engine (which is the one I think they are gonna use) doesn't look that demanding, which is a great thing actually. I don't mind about the graphics in BF2. I actually like them (maybe some post-process effects would be nice, such as motion blur or tiredness (unfocus)), i think it gives a "light" feeling for the game, which is also something I like to play over ARMA 2... The cheesy Bf2 graphics make me happy it makes me un-stressed (not really, u know what I mean right?)... but some improvements wouldn't hurt.

THEREFORE I believe they should make a new forum section only about PR2. This is where this idea actually belongs.

Cheers mate.

goguapsy wrote:If we consider this as being PR2 I agree. But ATM (PR) have you been on a base in a round with a lack of transports? That is... dance parties and smoke fests. I believe this idea can't be implemented in this engine.

I don't believe so either. That's why I said that it's left to PR2.

NOW, have you played ARMA 2? They do exactly like this: You are in a fireteam, which belongs to a squad, which forms a platoon. ARMA 2's problem is the fact that it doesn't focus on teamwork AT ALL (which is something PR shines on). Now, if PR DEVs have an idea about making large scale battles (for this ideas to be implemented), they should make some kind of way that encourages teamwork. I believe that ARMA 2's main problem is the spawn distance. BUT I CAN BE WRONG! I haven't played multiplayer that much in ARMA 2, I'm just giving a quick observation!

No, unfortunately I have not played Arma2, however, I know that TacticalGamer plays it frequently on CoOp, and they also have a Team vs. Team server. Looking at some of their games, it seems that Arma2 does have quite a bit of teamwork 'available'. Like you said, though, I definitely think that it does need a touch of the PR team to make it really teamwork oriented.

Also, from what I have heard, the VON (voip services) in Arma2 are currently broken, and I believe that is the biggest issue, and why there is a lack of teamwork involved on most public servers. TG enforces a teamspeak-required environment, IIRC.

If there were fireteam, squad, platoon-level coordination, I think that things could be far superior teamwork wise if done right than the small squads that PR is currently stuck with.

(Using the US army's numbers for example)
Imagine your fireteam of 4-5 players, in a squad of 8-10 players, in a platoon of 30-50.

Your Fireteam has VOIP just like squads do now. The Fireteam Leader has a 'commander' VOIP to his Squad Leader, who has 'commander' VOIP to his Platoon Leader. And for good measure, a positional audio system like mumble so that everyone can speak amongst themselves even if from different fireteams.

There would be one Platoon (let's say 50 players) per team, the Leader of which would act as a commander. In those platoons could be 5-6 (each with 8 players) squads. In those squads would be 2 fireteams. This means that as a team, you would have 10-12 full fireteams (4 players each), with 2 players leftover (the two of which could then become logistics/sniper/whatever)

This would enable a very tight knit of players per fireteam (4 people with comms between eachother, instead of 6 people), while having a very intricate command system that will allow a Squad Leader to communicate not only with his fireteam but with the second fireteam, making 8 player squads that would work together (8 players overall in a squad, instead of 6, which enables more players to be utilized in a very coherent and flowing manner, just like squads of 6 can now, but with the larger numbers).

THEREFORE I believe they should make a new forum section only about PR2. This is where this idea actually belongs.

Since it's far too early to speculate, I think that leaving it as it is might be the best solution; you give some of these people a way to suggest things for PR2, where we don't have any idea what is yet impossible to do or what is not wanted in the game, and you'll have hundreds of suggestions that will go down the drain because there will really be no reason to read them since no real development is yet being done on the new engine.