Insurgency Breakdown and Alteration

[badmojo420]

I made a post about this somewhere, I believe it was in another thread, but I'm starting to think that more caches would make for better insurgency. Currently, with the usual 1 cache known, the whole server is focused on one cache, so it turns into a stalemate where the superiority of defending drives the weaker attackers to give up and search for unknowns, or just run into the meat grinder around the known cache over and over again, until the round ends.

There have been so many times where only a few insurgents manage hold off a full squad or even multiple blufor squads. That is the fun that keeps me coming back to insurgency, time and time again. Sitting at a cache with 25 other insurgents, killing anyone that even gets within 200m isn't that much fun.

So, why don't we add more caches on the map? It would force the insurgents to split up and play a more defensive game. It wouldn't be 64 people attacking/defending one cache, it would be 32 blufor sticking together and working towards one cache which is being defended by as little as one squad.

More tickets for the insurgents might be needed, but forgetting the overall balance, less insurgents defending the caches seems like it could improve the game mode. And spreading out the insurgents across a larger area will mean a more unforgiving environment for the blufor. Rather than a deserted city, with 32 insurgents on one block, you would take fire from all over the place.

TLDR? More caches! not less.

[illidur]

LOL so i can find them easier? that would literally be regression as it was like this before.

[Redamare]

<3 the cache timer idea :P

[Commando_Jenkins]

Originally Posted by spiked_rye

Removal of the second cache would remove alot of the tactical element from both sides. BLUFOR would have one objective to focus all of thier powerful assets on, and no reason to go anywhere else. INS would have no real reason to be anywhere else on the map as there is no unknown to defend, and no reason for BLUFOR to go off mission to attack INS away from the cache, and thus it's harder to lure BLUFOR into a trap.

It'd rappidly devolve into a stalemate, with 32 ins players in a cluster of buildings, and BLUFOR making massed charges and either winning, or getting wiped out, loosing all thier assets, and sitting around main for 20 min waiting for the assets to spawn.

Your logic is flawed.

1. Having 1 objective to attack as Blufor is a good thing, having Armor, CAS, and Infantry focusing on 1 target is what is encouraged.

2. Insurgents would have a reason to Defend, the whole objective of the Insurgent team is to defend their weapon caches anyway, depleting the blufor's tickets is a secondary objective.

3. It would be easier to lure Blufor into a trap because Blufor is forced to attack 1 objective, they cant aimlessly scour the desert looking for something that isn't there, they will have to engage enemies, and put themselves in danger, giving Insurgents plenty of opportunity to lay traps.

4. Giving both teams a challenge each time they play Insurgency only makes them stronger, and smarter with tactics, and strategy. Playing cheap by hunting for unknowns, is too easy, and you don't learn anything new from doing it over, and over.

[mat552]

No, he's right. There's no room for tactical finesse with 64 people fighting over a one meter long object in the middle of an indestructable city. There's no room to manuver, and no possibility of sucess without bringing overwhelming firepower and numbers to the fight.

In open areas, bluefor will win moderately easily with an abundance of long ranged weapons. In built up areas, their ability to win depends on their ability to form a big enough blob to over run the insurgents before they can respawn.

Also, insurgents already have 'incentive to defend'. Some won't ever defend a static position, and trying to force them to will only make the rest of us miserable.

[badmojo420]

Originally Posted by illidur

LOL so i can find them easier? that would literally be regression as it was like this before.

Who cares if it was like this before? The game didn't suck in the past(not saying it does now), iirc it was changed to reduce the number of networked objects, not because it made for bad game play.

Weather or not you could find them easier would largely depend on how the insurgents played. If it was like the current system where most people ignore unknowns and swam 1 known, sure it'd be easier for blufor to find unknowns. But with a larger number of unknowns I'm betting people would see the need to spread out and defend the whole area.

Also, adding more caches could mean more action takes place in each round. Let's say we up the number from 2 to 5 caches on the map at once. We could simply change the 10 INS ticket loss to 4 tickets per cache, and the overall tickets could remain the same, only the number of caches increase. If your team finds that blufor are running around blowing up the unknowns, you have more time to respond to that and start defending them.

In short, it would be harder for the insurgents to lay down a perfect defense of the objectives, while at the same time making it less punishing to lose one or two objectives. And on the flip side the blufor would have more opportunities to use their superior numbers and firepower to overrun the insurgents defenses.(because the whole team isn't stacked on one cache)

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Edit: Something else that could help is not telling the insurgent team the status of their caches. How would they know which locations the enemy knows about? The blue/purple markers influence player behavior too much in my opinion, a cache is a cache.

[illidur]

more caches = less defense period. its not hard to herd blufor into a 1 cache assault frenzy.

more caches = higher chance i'll randomly find one.

your suggestion of making caches more meaningless will result in less defense and more roaming
it would go from this - YouTube
to this - YouTube

[badmojo420]

Originally Posted by illidur

more caches = less defense period. its not hard to herd blufor into a 1 cache assault frenzy.

more caches = higher chance i'll randomly find one.

your suggestion of making caches more meaningless will result in less defense and more roaming
it would go from this - YouTube
to this - YouTube

More defense on 1 cache = more dead bodies = more intel lost
More defense on known cache = less defense on unknowns

The insurgents can lay down some really good defenses with very few people. If the blufor work together they should gain some advantage.

I don't see how those videos apply to this.

Also, you act like a blufor finding an unknown cache is a game ruining thing. Unknown caches being present makes it so blufor can partrol/search an area and not waste their time. And fake caches are a great way for insurgents to distract & bleed blufors tickets. With more caches, the blufor won't know weather or not there actually is a cache there. Where as now, if there are two caches on their map, they have this magical ability to know.

[Web_cole]

Originally Posted by badmojo420

Weather or not you could find them easier would largely depend on how the insurgents played. If it was like the current system where most people ignore unknowns and swam 1 known, sure it'd be easier for blufor to find unknowns. But with a larger number of unknowns I'm betting people would see the need to spread out and defend the whole area.

As it stands currently, a badly defended cache is a dead cache. An undefended cache is a dead cache. Its so easy for Blufor to roll over a badly defended cache, ie a cache with minimal defenders. Its also so easy for Blufor to hunt and destroy undefended unknowns, especially if you do it a lot and have a good idea of where the regular cache spawns are (the cache spawn algorithm/whatever is very predictable on a number of maps, hence the supposed "ghosting" problem).

Your suggestion would leave the Ins team with the choice of spreading themselves so thin as to make defending anything an extremely difficult task, or to leave the caches to be hunted and destroyed without a fight. Which is no choice at all.

I would also like to say that I think people have latched onto the "One Cache" part of my suggestion and ignored the rest of it. The other parts were there for a reason.

However, these days I feel like a far simpler, more actionable solution to the Ins problem would be what DiscoJedi suggested (2nd page of this thread); caches spawn when enough intel has been collected. It solves the problem of Blufor exclusively hunting unknowns, which solves the problem of Ins not defending their knowns. It might mean Ins can't set up "fake caches" (although actually I don't see why that would be the case). But if its a choice between a game mode that has teamwork, squad work and objectives that matter and make sense, Vs "tactical finesse", then I know which one I would choose.

[badmojo420]

I understand your concerns about the insurgents getting rolled over. But, I think we might see the insurgent team adapting and overcoming the situation. In the past we had lots of caches on the map, and the game was still fun & competitive.

I think it was a dev that made a comment years ago that has really stuck with me. He said something along the lines of "insurgent caches are meant to be destroyed". The insurgents aren't meant to keep their caches alive the whole round. The game is about reducing enough of the blufor tickets, while they destroy your caches. In my opinion, if we have a system where the insurgents can regularly hold off the blufor, the gamemode needs tweaking.

The part about people using the cache spawning system to their advantage shouldn't really come up in discussions like this, if people want to simply win at any cost, that's their problem. If we start changing the game to prevent exploits, we're going to end up playing a very dull game. Not to mention, the devs are always making improvements, for all we know it could be a non-existent problem next patch.