A possible new game/deployment mode.

[Jordanb716]

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?

[goguapsy]

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.

[Jordanb716]

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.

[goguapsy]

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...

[Jordanb716]

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.

[Celestial1]

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.

[HellDuke]

Wouldn't it be a big problem of no one playing? 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...

[Ccharge]

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.

[Jordanb716]

Originally Posted by Celestial1

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?

[Bringerof_D]

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!