Project Reality Forums

Hi there, First off, if you don't have anything productive to say, please don't post here. Secondly, Only post if you bothered to read the whole thread, or you have something to say about what i said. Don't be disrespectful and don't get my thread locked. thanks.

OK, here goes, wall of text: I came back to PR in September after a year off, downloaded, updated, and settled in to my new home. Now every weekend i play copious hours of PR. I did testing for nearly two years, i was a server admin for longer, put my hand to modding and give fresh ideas directly to the DEVs which made their way into the mod and i did squad leading for a stint in the tournament. So i'm not one of the new kids on the block.

Now, I've thought very clearly about this for a few weeks and i have been meaning to make a good long discussion about it as its not a content problem but more of a community problem.

The Insurgents and the Taliban descend into anarchic madness on most public servers. I generalize heavily on this because i tried to prove myself wrong about it. But more than 90% of the time, conventional leadership rolls simply don't apply to Insurgents. The Taliban can EASILY be run well, and squad leaders DO organize squads well in more than half of Taliban maps, but its far too easy for players to justify breaking off on their own even when the squad leader is giving orders. this can easily frustrate the squad leader and the other players in the squad and eventually the squad leader quietens into an ignorable cadence, lacking moral or functionality. this results in a SL rage quit and the other 5 poor schmucks have to deal with the consequences. Now because i'm okay at squad leading i usually take the reins, but in most situations only 2 or three guys will follow my lead and actually do what i say. the others deliberately, or incoherently disobey orders, and i am forced to kick them from the squad. some might think that, this solves the problem... well it doesn't. these two or three retards end up going to another squad and doing the same thing, whether they join another competent squad leader or they make a one-man squad of their own and hope for the other jerk-offs to join them so they can get special kits. either way they are still lingering on the server not really participating.

Now i'm not a monster, i totally understand that some people just don't want to deal with the consistent rage of death with increasing spawn time, or a squad leader with an annoying mike, or whatever. i'm aware that some players come in casually to play and would rather listen to what other people are talking about, than to talk themselves. But that doesn't mean its cool to jump into a squad and rob a special kit and run off into the woods like John J. Rambo.

Sadly, theres a limited amount of commitment every player in the genre will have to give.
And that means it's almost totally illogical to tackle this problem from that approach. (the approach of trying to convince lazy players to begin the game enthusiastically and energetically i mean) And so, heartlessly i can only think of a way that is similar to corralling cattle though a slaughterhouse.

I said this three years ago, and i'm saying it again. Players can be stupid, gullable, nieve, deaf dumb and blind and theres little in the way we can stop it...

unless...

it is apparent that the worst consentration of players is amplified on the Insurgent team, second to that is the Taliban team. (as players make an assumtion the "rag-heads" are backwards idiots who run screaming into the sides of strikers throwing fist-fulls of their own dung, and this very same assumtion carries over to the taliban somhow, most likeely because they are similar in nature and appearance) So its an equipment problem?
No, its not the fault of the equipment that people play on the insurgent and taliban team and are over come with nonsense, its years of third party information that skews their idea of these entities. but therefor, while in-game, its important that the medium forces their persepctive away from that direction. And helps them discover special tactics that arnt freely available with other forces.

I think its time to encorperate a game element that adheres insurgent squads or rabbles together and then galvinises them with extra combat dimentions, that will force them to utalise their knowedge and intelect as teams. so, a couple of suggestions...

(1) Insurgents have a class that carries a mortar deployable in it. (it still has to be built just like a normal one) This mortars range would be exactly the same but each grenade would have less of a kill radius than the current mortars. The reason for this is to have groups of insurgents that carry ammo on them but dont build them next to the ammo cache. smart ones would build far away so as not to expose the cache, and dumb ones would be scrutinised for breaking this code. the mortar deployable would have to be able to be picked up by the owner of that very same kit. there are prose and cons to this, but it adds an intersting tactical dimention to insurgents. (im not so sure if the taliban need this.)


(2) If i was to take Al Basrah for example, i would say that there would be dozens of painted markers around the city, in alcoves, on street corners, on stairwells, in fountains, in trenches. these would serve as "pre-sited" markers for IEDs. I wouldnt suggest putting them blatently out in the middle of the road or somwhere obvious, but they would help in the placing and enterpritation of IEDs. Why would this be nessesary? it wouldnt be, is the simple answer, it would just be easier for dumb people who cant get creative or lack the strategic knowledge to place them in smart areas. the more experianced players would know after at least a week that you wouldnt dare put ieds in those markers because it would be too obvious. but that wouldnt stop the BLUFOR looking in those spots would it?
this would create a game dynamic that would allow hidden insurgents to ambush BLUFOR as they searched the painte "X"s or whatever they would look like. I would prefare it if insurgents had a network function where they would communicate to each other, or detonate bombs without being able to actually see if there are bad guys at them, like a proximity tone or something where you had to take 5-10 seconds to take your phone out and press the button to blow up the charge, (while BLUFOR would have a 5-10 second chance to look around and see if theres a bomb next to them, obviously they wouldn't be able to hear the tone.)

(3) Insurgents simply arnt well equiped enough, and people have stated many times that the old al basrah was better than the new one, for many reasons, but i dont care about all their reasons, i only care about one. Insurgents dont get enough RPGs. every time you spawn as a rifleman you spawn with one of the millions and billions of AK47s that have been used for killing or replacing a broken table leg around the globe. how come, there arnt as many RPGs now? I remember i suggested to one of the DEVs last year, "you know, RPGs wouldnt be that accurate, and esspecially the way i have seen them being fired by amature marksmen on live leak and stuff, maybe they should have bad deviation while scoped in, and good deviation while firing from the hip? (or shoulder) and they said... "yea thats a good idea." "then i said, arnt people able to fire tubes while lieing down?" and they said... "Oh yea!" they put the lieing down bit in, the put the bad deviation while scoped in, in. but the bit where you just walk out and theres no 4 second penalty when you fire from the hip, they left out. now every time you try to fire at an APC, your dead before you scope in. And this type of Bias with the weapons cant go on! Its causing too much rage!, nobody wants to play as insurgents anymore, theres no teamwork, the weapons are sub-par and the enemy is too well equipped to call it a fair fight. I'm all for asymmetry in PR, but if your going to have a team with poor small arms, then they need to be veracious with their indirect fire and their suicide vehicles.

(4) Its only my opinion, and i don't want to unlock the 8th circle of hell here, but i don't believe the increase spawn time penalties should apply to normal insurgent riflemen. If anything, you want those riflemen to be happy that they can run into your bullets, they are simulating a violent indigenous population that are difficult to eradicate.

there has to be compromises if your going to give the BLUFOR optics and thermals, and only give the insurgents and Taliban mortars. (btw, as a hint for the loadup screens. "mortars are inneffective against MBTs, IFVs and APCs, so dont bother."

I hope i dont sound too aggressive, im trying to put a humorous undertone onto an ingame subject thats bugged me for a while. im hoping that you guys will thow out some ideas and help this idea expand and evolve, and give birth to even better ideas. thats how this mod has been able to flurish for years. Insurgency can be so much more, but it needs to get its wings, and i really dont believe it has it yet. Cheers all.

I kinda disagree on all three.
Depending where you play you can get really amazing rounds as insurgents, it's sometimes even harder to get into INS side at Pelitutka as it's on the Bluefor side.

It all debends on the map.
Karbala and Bashrah are bluefor easy because the cache spawns and Tank in the most played layout.
Korengal is easy for Taliban because of the terrain.
Ramiel is easy for INS because the caches usually spawn inside the city where they are hard to get.
Lashkar can be balanced, but needs good cache spots (any tunnel is a disaster) and chopper pilots for Germany to win.
Fallujah is fairly balanced, but cache spots are predictable with the new cache spawn rules.
Kokan is fairly balanced, maybe little easier to opfor if they can use their 50cals.
Gaza beach is really easy for opfor.

1. Mortars can be almost anywhere if you use the ammo car, and you obviously should.

2. People are dump in both sides, people just don't magically get smarter if they are playing the Bluefor. If they never play or wanna play the INS side, then they will never learn. X marks the spot would just be underestimating the players.

3. If people don't care about their RPG:s after they are dead they are just dump, they have 5 minutes to get it back. Ideally if people would get their RPG:s back it would result in around 16 RPG defending the last cache. That never happens, but it's again the people that are playing, not the lack of RPG kits.

Try to build 3 hideouts per cache and you will notice that it gets really hard for the bluefor.

I feel it's also issue of patriotism. You never seem to get a good INS round in server located in English speaking country.

i'm not saying its hard for insurgents. i'm saying Insurgents have bad teamwork.

I too have seen the same problem of a lack of teamwork for insurgency. There are many reasons for the lack of teamwork.

I think you described a very big one in the way many players perceive the Taliban or Insurgents to operate, to paraphrase, as stryker charging dung flingers. As much as that statement makes me laugh, it really doesn't fit reality.

I have my own ideas of what could make insurgency a completely different game mode that could create more teamwork but in differing ways. My ideas did not gain too much support at the time, though I still think many of the ideas could still apply and would certainly redirect insurgency. As I don't like hijacking threads I'll link it here, but be advised the information is a bit dated now as it is an old post.

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f18-pr ... ation.html (Bottom of the first post)

Some things I like about your ideas are the inclusion of a portable mortar kit. These are big users of teamwork when operated properly, but are hard to use well when operated improperly, which is good news for creating squads. I think it also makes the insurgency different, which to me encourages people to play differently with it.

I also support lowering the spawn time a bit for insurgents in general, rather than simply warriors to simulate some higher numbers, though it is less necessary for Taliban in my opinion.

I also feel there are too few RPGs, but that RPGs that are currently ingame are a bit too effective, then again, this is only me.

Right now, to me, insurgents operate independently or do not follow orders well because it is still effective to do so. Single people are stealthier, there is no ticket loss due to death, each kill against bluefor even if there is a revive is still doing damage to bluefor.

Right now working together means being detected easier, and then outgunned, and then dead. Bluefor has a great incentive to work together in insurgency, as there are medics readily available if one goes down, whereas few people play collaborator, though this has changed in this last release somewhat. I suppose the best incentive to work together for bluefor is that one dies less, but as an insurgent that doesn't matter too much, especially if they already know where the cache is as no new IP are granted.

What could work well, in my opinion, is another reason to work together as an insurgent, other than not dying as much, but something like being able to create false intelligence, create a fake cache, setting a lasting squad based spawnpoint, having something to do while waiting to spring an ambush, more unorthodox equipment, or something similar would be a way to increase the teamwork of insurgency on an insurgency side. Or, quite simply, remove a few of the current ways to counter bluefor assets, so people need to use more teamwork to remove them, or offer alternative ways. This would be suicide for many other games, but for PR, I've seen it work over and over again, and has always made for a challenge and at least for me, makes it feel much more worthwhile to succeed.

awesome suggestions above. for insurgents i think more is more, rather than less is more. maybe the code adjusting devs don't want to add more stuff in for fear of creating more problems and destabilizations. every release so far has had its share of balance changes which are followed with months of horrible flaming. so i totally understand if they don't want to stick their necks out too far. But the insurgents could do with a very very big adjustment for the next release imo. and remember the insurgents have to fight all the other NATO factions so they need to be diverse enough to combat all their weapons and vehicles and also be just as interesting as, russian, american, british, german, french, and MEC forces combined. (i know some of them dont fight insurgents, but they might eventually)

'Limeni[BiH wrote:;1561579']Wow. Looong posts.
Anyway, I agree that insurgency have little or no teamwork on most servers but not on all, for example on PRTA playing as insurgency can be very fun, even if there is no strict squad teamwork there is cooperation between soldiers from different squads, this is all made easy cause of mumble of course, but still, there is teamwork.
And second thing is that you don't have to stick all the time with your team mates in order to accomplish something. You can go lone wolf with an RPG and stumble on a Stryker or a Humvee full of soldiers. Cause in ins all that matters is defense of the cache and killing as many enemy soldiers as you can, you don't have to worry about dying cause you don't lose tickets.
So I would say that teamwork on insurgency depends on the current situation in the game.
If for example I get info on enemy squad nearing cache position I'll just call on guys that are near me and we'll head into fight. They dont have to be my squad mates.

yea but if im squad leader, which i frequently am, and i think up a great tactical way to overcome an enemy squad or vehicle, and my squaddies wont listen to me and think im talking nonsense due to their own misconseption of how the insurgents should operate, it will cause me to rage from the frsutration of having assets available, but utalised in a reeeeeally retarded way.

'Limeni[BiH wrote:;1561594']Well then before you start the mission tell your squad members that you demand team work and that you want them to obey orders or they'll be kicked. Most of the people out there when play Ins join squads just to be in the squad and not get kicked from the server.

like i said in the beginning. i have been through all that. the problem is less a problem with me and my squad as it is with people who are playing on the insurgent side. even if all the squads rallied together to conform as a single entity, the insurgents would still feel lost.

Well, about the "lack of teamwork in a squad", it really boils down to squad name ("Potatoes" or "Ragheads" or "McDonalds" or "Taco Bells" normally do not attract teamwork-oriented people. Teamwork INF would definitively be helpful in this situation). Also, kick people who do not cooperate.

Now, I will be honest, I sometimes get a squad of insurgents and go running around in a techie, or head off with someone to hunt an APC (it isn't that hard to hit an APC with a RPG without getting shot). But hey, I sometimes don't want to go with a lot of people somewhere, organizing things. In insurgency, I sometimes like getting a sniper or marksman kit and bother the BLUFOR's team, for example. It is that kind of thing that you don't need much organization to have fun. IMO, you have a lot of fun as BLUFOR in a good squad... And you also have fun as insurgent, lonewolf or not.

I mean, I feel that insurgent defenses like "Every man for himself, 'Allah' for all" kinda thing actually works as insurgents. I mean, insurgents have an intersting habit to be attracted by gunfire...

I don't see the problem with "lack of teamwork" on the ins teams. It is part of the game, I believe. You see, I've noticed something really funny. It is easier to kill BLUFOR infantry than the other way around (killing insurgents infantry), because they are so spread thin (the insurgents) that you can't tell where people are. And if they get killed, they just come back (I support a little shorter spawn time, I'd say 20 seconds and a cap of 30 seconds, safe for TK) quickly, rather than the BLUFOR who has to organize something to get a lost member back in the game.

arnt people able to fire tubes while lieing down?" and they said... "Oh yea!"

erm...I'm pretty sure that the backblast would burn your legs...and I think that was the advice the MAs gave

(4) Its only my opinion, and i don't want to unlock the 8th circle of hell here, but i don't believe the increase spawn time penalties should apply to normal insurgent riflemen. If anything, you want those riflemen to be happy that they can run into your bullets, they are simulating a violent indigenous population that are difficult to eradicate.

I kinda agree, I don't think players really pay that much attention to the increasing spawn time anyway.

(3) Insurgents simply arnt well equiped enough, and people have stated many times that the old al basrah was better than the new one,

what 'new' basrah?...

2RPGs per cache, sappers spawning, arty IEDs and several more RPGs at main base, along with suicide cars and the dumpster is plenty of boom boom, especially since the RPGs have multiple rounds.

I agree with Rudd that the amount of toys the Insurgents/Taliban have right now is more than suitable for their needs. The problem is in the attitude of the players like Psykogundam said, and indeed the lack of enjoyment to be found in playing Insurgent/Tali.

I'm sure there is about 20 people willing to jump down my throat after saying that, probably with something along the lines of if you are not "enjoying" playing Insurgent you are not "playing the game properly".

To which I would reply, actually I am and actually I do not find it enjoyable, or satisfying, or fun.

Imo a good or smart Ins/Tali team looks like this: as many hideouts as you can feasibly surround the known cache with (4 is great). Mine the fork out of the area. Have 1 squad on danger close cache duty; they never leave LOS of the cache, or they never leave the cache building. The rest of the squads surround the known on all sides and go aggressive defense; chase down Blufor near the known, but stay within 200/300m of the cache. Have a couple of guys sit on the unknown but literally that; sit on the cache, don't go anywhere, don't do anything.

Assuming a reasonable cache position that should be a rock solid defence. Now here is what you get for playing Insurgency "right":

GenMarth4 wrote:What a match - I was defending the first revealed cashe that was rarely attacked. I've seen only one american in the whole round!

Besides, the room I was hiding in was equipped like this:
The bottom was tiled with stone-optics, 188 tiles.
The walls to north and south are walls of solid stones, 168 stones each means 336 stones in the whole room.
The west wall is a concrete wall with two closed garage doors, the left one closed with 95 stones, the right one with 89 stones.
The east wall is tiled with small tiles, a total of 649 tiles.
The door is in the east wall, a cooling in the west wall.
Also the room has four lamps and two switches, one east, one west.

Psyko is %100 percent right except the idea of the insurgents not having enough weapons.

I guess taliban has no difference than a walking arsenal with those aks and huge amount of grenades.

However, just lurk around kokan servers for example, and see whats going on. Its a really good map, but its too exploitable for lone-wolfs or Call of Duty heros. Its not only about insurgents but also about the maps maybe.

Again, no offence to Kokan's mapmaker, but thats why we aren't seeing so many archers or korengals for example. Noobs want smaller maps with more spamming possibilites.

[R-DEV]Rudd wrote:erm...I'm pretty sure that the backblast would burn your legs...and I think that was the advice the MAs gave

M136 AT4 Anti-armor Weapon

Well, it's not an RPG but the M136 manual. About halfway down it shows the proper firing position for prone. Even though firing any type of AT rockets or missles is highly recommended against in the US forces, it's still possible and the option is there if needed (such as shooting at a technical from the top of a hill or the likes).

Now I realize I just talked about the US forces, but what stops an insurgent or Taliban from using the tactic? They don't have some huge manual that's handed out at basic training saying "This is how you properly fire a PKM and here's the proper shooting positions." "This is the proper firing procedures for an RPG and here's the positions." No, their dads and granddads probably teach them how to. Also, what's saying they don't get onto Youtube or Google and find videos and watch how to utilize their weapons by seeing how the US utilizes theirs?

Also, there's a trick that the Somalis learned in the early 90s to make the able to point their RPGs skyward to fire at the US helos that were "terrorizing" the city. Supposedly Al Qaeda supplied the RPG that were modified with a steel plate that would direct the backblast 'upward' from the tube when fired parallel to the ground, so that when the RPG was fired skyward, the backblast was actually going back and wouldn't cause the shooter injury or death. So one thinking, that could be used to preven the backblast from injuring the shooter while in prone.

On topic with psyko, he's pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one. I see people taking the specialized kits on insurgency maps and running off and doing their own thing constantly. Some of the kits, it's whatever (I understand, snipers would like and should operate as a small force to try and maintain secrecy). Now, with the Iraqi Insurgents I can somewhat understand why. You're at a massive disadvanted cause you're mainly armed with AK-47s, AK-74s, and AKS-74Us along with the few RPKs, PKMs, SVDs and RPGs. But I see no reason on why everyone thinks that the same tactics have to be used with Taliban. They're actually a somewhat well organized force for not having proper training and formal schools for the art of war. They have proper kits like the BLUFOR do. The only disadvantage I see with them is the lack of helicopters and APCs. Both of which can be and have been disposed of, even by the newest players (I saw a guy that had been playing PR for about 2 hours take out the US Abrams on Karbala with Gary). psyko is right about having the players in your squad that don't want to operate as a part of the squad. But I still wonder, what can we do to help and fix them? Like he said, if you kick them, they just join another squad and grab the specalized kits and cause havoc for another squad.

lol Web! Is that a PRT report? Pretty funny that he counted it all

I usually enjoy ins/tali. I suppose it has to do with taste as well. Some people loved Search and Destroy on COD while I was a TDM only guy.

But yea, like people say, the mindset of players goes to waste. Even on servers that enforce teamwork. Tried CO'ing an insurgent team there but could only get 2 squads listening. Web's tactic for cache defence is pretty good btw. But its most fun if the blufor team attacks a lot. If not than you get that boring waiting game.

Web_cole wrote:I'm sure there is about 20 people willing to jump down my throat after saying that, probably with something along the lines of if you are not "enjoying" playing Insurgent you are not "playing the game properly".

I'm not going to jump down your throat. I'm actually going to agree. I always have and probably always will enjoy playing as OPFOR on Insurgency. You get to use some unorthodox tactics (in lines with the server rules) and it's always a great feeling when you're at a huge disadvantage and you pull off the win.

cyberzomby wrote:lol Web! Is that a PRT report? Pretty funny that he counted it all

It is yes

darkside12 wrote:I'm not going to jump down your throat. I'm actually going to agree. I always have and probably always will enjoy playing as OPFOR on Insurgency. You get to use some unorthodox tactics (in lines with the server rules) and it's always a great feeling when you're at a huge disadvantage and you pull off the win.

My point is that the sort of tactics its necessary to employ to be a successful Insurgent team are just intrinsically uninteresting to play out.

I don't want to have to sit - literally sit - on the cache for an hour on the off chance that some sneaky Blufor makes it through the defenses, I don't even want to have to do that for 30 or 20 minutes tbh. I doubt anyone else does either. But its almost always very necessary to have that last line of defense.

And a lot of the time what you have to do to be a winning Insurgent team is just not interesting to play out. And so you get this attitude that Psykogundam is talking about. The bizarre thing is that Insurgency in public play is pretty heavily biased towards Blufor. Anecdotal evidence time: although its heavily map dependent I still rarely see Ins win in public games. But in competitive play even a middling Insurgent team or a good Ins team on a crappy map (Karbala, Basrah) is a fearsome opponent. When people are willing to do all those things (sit within 200m of the cache for 3 hours etc) suddenly it becomes a completely different game.

In short, I just don't think the Insurgency game mode knows what it wants to be right now.

@ Rudd

I dont want to go into it, but you wernt a DEV when i suggested that stuff to the two DEVs who will go unnamed. Also, if RPGs burn your legs why is there a bipod on the russian one? trolololol (you know i love you)

And @ the other guys, my suggestions might kinda suck, but im just throwing ideas out there. I think the key to making the insurgents work together is to reinforce their communication, by making the commander WAY more useful and having squad members rely on the squad leader a lot more. like giving the SL epipens or somthing. i dont know.
edit:
feel free to object with these suggestions,
not to go back to vinilla but what if commanders could place caches on the map one every hour?
either a cache or just a box of ammo. in fact it might be useful if the commander had some quick and easy functions that make an insurgent commander extremely useful.
(1) When theres a commander on the ins team, every time sombody says "spotten" with mobile phone to their ear they call in an enemy marker on enemy positions like vanilla.
(2) The commander being able to place an ammo box, ammo truck, or an extra area attack function that places a very large mine on a location anywhere within 1000m of a cache. (yes even on a road coming from BLUFOR base.
(3)commander being able to manually "cycle" caches? like skipping the unknown one (which dissapears and reappears somwhere else) Well it is unknown! the only reason BLUFOR would know where it is is by accidentally stumbling upon it or spying for it. if the unknown cache was discovered by a spy it would be neat if the ins commander had a get out of jail free card and once every hour or more hed be able to rotate caches. (excluding the known cache) any thoughts on those?
(4) maybe ins get AOE buffs for being clustered together? like more than 6 ins means 10%+ rate of fire?

and i know this thread seems like my own personal suggestion thread, but what im trying to do is expand the very idea of insurgents to a new evolutionary jump for them, not just throw out random suggestions.

In my opinion any possible fix would have to address the core problems with the game mode; ie the stuff I outlined above. But ,well, if we're just spitballing here are a few smaller changes that might help:

a) Reduce the number of Hideouts and/or link them to known caches. So only when the cache becomes known could you put down say 2/3 hideouts. This would make people spawn on caches more which should hopefully encourage them to stay and defend them.

b) Give Ins SLs a kind of "CO Rally" so if they have the SL kit and there are 12 Ins around them they can put down a team rally point (it would have to have a long *** cool down). This would encourage Ins players to i) Take and use SL kits, and ii) to stick together in the same areas, which in turn would hopefully make them defend caches more.