The BIG maps - thoughts and issues.

[[R-DEV]Rhino]

Originally Posted by bobfish

Is there any plans to address this issue then? On all maps that it happens? Getting tanks to the high ground seems to be a common tactic in PR and is pretty much my main complaint about these larger maps, how the armor sits on a hill and snipes or lays down random artillery fire on a cp. It's why I don't like Kashan.

if you have a 2 crewman tank crew who know what they are doing and stay low you can easily take out guys who try and "take the hills".
Try it

[bobfish]

Tsk.. I'm not getting in a tank, that would be like a fish out of water!

[VipersGhost]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Rhino

if you have a 2 crewman tank crew who know what they are doing and stay low you can easily take out guys who try and "take the hills".
Try it

PR tanks sit on a ridge to the flank of common paths. You usually have a good vantage point and since the tank CO/Gunner view is unstabilized while moving you greatly have the advantage of seeing them first and shooting first due to being stationary. In the situation where you do happen to take a shot then you can quickly retreat behind your ridge to magic wrench.

This is the most commonly used practice by very good tankers and very bad tankers. If you are on the low side there is usually little "retreat-to-wrench" options being that the high guys have a greater angle of attack.

The fish-bowl cp's have really given armor some extra advantages in this respect. They are like great eagles perched atop a pond of few infantry. **/Chinese accent**

[BloodBane611]

I agree Viper. The magic wrench, coupled with the inability of a tank to fire accurately on the move, allows stationary tanks with good LOS to control a lot of area. I think that a new repair system would help this a lot. Something that doesn't allow you to easily just repair your tank in the field, but still allows the recovery of disabled tanks.

[battlepepsi]

well ive been thinking about a map with russains against chechen rebles (miltia) in chechnya on a long road that russains spawns going into grozny (the chechen capitol) miltia spawn point fighting for control of the city

[bobfish]

Played Qinling again last night, as China this time, and I have to say the map is very well balanced, compared to previous thoughts. What upsets the balance is the teamwork of the two teams.

On the ridge to the east of Coalmine the Brits set up a command post, firebase, supply crates, and tank camped the ridge. Whilst their air assets kept our air assets on the ground.

We couldn't get tanks up the ridge to take them out or get a line of sight on them before they saw us, though eventually we got a squad around there and blew up their stuff, but by then the frontline had moved south. What struck me though was the complete lack of support we received from the air the whole time, even once we got out planes and helos in the air, they just weren't even trying to take these guys out, too busy messing around Village, which wasn't being threatened.

I don't know, I think perhaps something still needs to be done, there is a strong realiance on air support to deal with tanks now on the big maps and most of the time it just doesn't exist.

[Outlawz]

Originally Posted by VipersGhost

PR tanks sit on a ridge to the flank of common paths. You usually have a good vantage point and since the tank CO/Gunner view is unstabilized while moving you greatly have the advantage of seeing them first and shooting first due to being stationary. In the situation where you do happen to take a shot then you can quickly retreat behind your ridge to magic wrench.

This is the most commonly used practice by very good tankers and very bad tankers. If you are on the low side there is usually little "retreat-to-wrench" options being that the high guys have a greater angle of attack.

Flank them.

On a round of Kashan as USMC, MEC had an APC, T90 and Tunguska sitting on western hill raping the South Bunker area.
I was in a tank, and went around to the northwest, came behind them and my gunner obliterated them, before they even realized, they're getting shot from behind.

[[R-DEV]Nickbond592]

Or call in Air support, those Attack helicopters and jets armed to the teeth capable of obliterating Armour aren't there just to look pretty and make vapor trails.

combined arms > any single asset

[kilroy0097]

I'm entering this discussion a little late but let me present some examples of maps that I feel are much too large for what is going on in them. I will have to use links to the official Wiki to demonstrate my point. If a map exists that is less than 64 players for a certain map title and it's not referenced on the Wiki or in the Mod level files folder I don't know about it.

Battle for Qinling

Simply put this map is much too big for the limited amount of capture points. Anyone who has ever driven to the North West portion or the South East portion of the map knows this to be true.

The Battle for Qinling - 64 player



In the 64 player map version you see that you have two staging areas and then in addition to this the Chinese and British FOB/Outpost points. Then there are only two additional capture points. Coal Mine and Village. For a total of 4 possible cap points.

The Battle for Qinling - 32 player



Now look at the 32 player map version. You will see that the two non-cap staging areas are removed and only the capture points remain for a total of still only 4 capture points. The size of the map does not look to be decreased at all for this.

My proposed additions to this map are as follows. Add two to four more capture points on the 64 player map and add two capture points to the 32 player map. I demonstrate possible additions in the following pictures.

Modified Qinling - 64 player



As you can see here I have added four additional capture points determined and placed by strategic value.

The two Hilltop Capture points (North and South) are ideal strategic locations as they overlook large open areas or travel points. They are elevated and so would serve the purpose of artillery fire bases if needed or observation points. High ground as you know is very important and neither the Chinese nor British have a base on high ground in a mountainous region which I found very odd.

The two Pass capture points (North and South) show the importance of solid supply lines and travel through mountainous areas. Without secure passes through mountain areas transportation of men and vehicles would be almost impossible outside helicopter airlift which is not feasible for tanks or APCs. The reason the south pass is so close to the Chinese FOB is obvious as it's their main large vehicle transportation route to the lake. It's right on the path that already exists on the map. A checkpoint I guess it could be called. The North Pass controls access to the lake and village form the north west. There is a lot of map terrain on the west side of the mountain range north of the Chinese FOB. All this map terrain is unused at the moment. I have used this area to bring vehicles up and around to attack Village from the north and always thought it was a shame that there was nothing there. Give that pass a name and a capture point makes it important to both teams to hold to secure or attack Village. A dirt road of some sort should be added to the west of those mountains to show a clear travel path heading north to that pass.

Each capture point also serves a secondary role. The map is disadvantaged towards the British, i.e. the British starting point and capture points are much closer to Village and Coal Mine than the Chinese. I thought this very unfair given the size of the map. So I placed the Hilltop South there to bridge the huge gap from Chinese FOB to Coal Mine giving the Chinese a possible forward base of operations to attack or reinforce Coal Mine. The British already have Farm Outpost which is still closer to Coal Mine to do the same. To be fair, even though they are already closer to both Village and Coal Mine, I gave the British Hilltop North to provide as a forward observation base and also as primarily an infantry staging post for reinforcement or attack of Village.

The North Pass is more important to the immediate attack or defense of Village but also serves as a forward base for the Chinese to attack from the North West to Village but also serves as an excellent defensive base for the British to secure and hold Village and block entry from that pass. The South Pass is obviously a check point for the Chinese FOB but also serves as a forward base for the Chinese to attack Village which is just around the lake.

As you can see I attempted to give each new capture a very good reason to exist in a strategic sense and I feel their addition would make this map much more interesting and more action packed given it's size.

Modified Qinling - 32 player



In the 32 players map as it's supposed to be a smaller map due to player size I have removed the North and South Pass leaving both Hilltops as strategically they would be more important and also allowing both the British and the Chinese forward bases of operations to attack Village or Coal Mines respectively. As distance to cover to Village and Coal Mine are the biggest negative points of this map I thought this would go a long way to solve this issue.

I feel that the 16 player map version of Quiling is fine and does not require any modifications.

I put a lot of thought into this for this map and tried hard to make certain it was more fun and yet still balanced. I wish I had much more skill in map editing but unfortunately I don't any experience in BF2 map modification. However if this consideration is taken with earnest and the PR Dev team does in fact want to make these changes I would be happy to come up with a 2D overview of each additional capture point clearly placing and marking static objects and the such as a pre-plan map of each capture point. That way someone with the knowledge of 3D map implementation could simply follow the diagram and only worry about elevation, grounding and terrain texture.

Cheers.

P.S. If there is another location in which to put a specific map proposal or modification request of this nature, please move this post to that location. Thank you.

[kilroy0097]

Any Dev commentary on my post? ^^^