2.86 + RD + DTAS + Rav2, an inf player lament

3pple on all the servers wow

It's monday and most of the community works/has school.

When reading threads like this it always brings me back to the past releases, I suppose for a point of reference. It's always interesting to see that some variation of the problems faced then, have their equivalents even now.

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=55013

The quote above about this release being made with enough customizing features to "be configured to anyones perfict game" is an 'accurate' one. Personally, I don't like respawn at all, seeing the ultimate realism is having only one life per round (at times I even limit the round to one) which makes you value that single life all the more in addition to greatly affecting the match towards more realistic actions in-game. Of course the matches are quicker yet it does make for a more tense game overall.

Respawns are essential to any game lasting more than 30 seconds.

If you want long, complex games, you must have respawns, and you must let people play. If that does not happen, then no one will join, no one will learn, and no one will ever give Infiltration a second chance. When matches can last for 20 minutes, people must be allowed to spawn back in.

I know exactly the feeling that ros is talking about regarding teamwork and lives. When you had one life, it was tense...you would not get a chance to play again if you died! Horror! However, the simplicity of the matches in the past made it possible. It was extremely simple. Get two people to a spot, and dat's dat. Now, you have to cross the map, do one or more actions, and escape. That cannot be accomplished when you have equal sides and equal lives, unless the defenders are immensely stupid.

With DTAS, you *did* have respawns, in a manner of speaking; you had 5-11 three minute matches. Every three to five minutes, you started another round, got another life. The only difference in EAS from DTAS was not everything was reset. I *like* having the claymore I placed 15 minutes ago to still be there when I walk by. I like being able have a friend drop smoke, and have it still be spewing when I come by later. I like persistancy. However, the only way to keep that persistancy is through respawns, multiple waves. It won't work any other way.

DTAS +RandomTeamSpawn (remember, the spawns were not DTAS controlled.) provided one thing that EAS has, and one it doesn't. First, it offers simple objective based gameplay. EAS/Spec has that and more...so much more that simple single spawning is not possible. Second, it offered random gameplay. While random gameplay is not often seen in EAS missions, It can be done if the mapper decides to. Some maps do, most don't.

If you want tense gameplay, where everyone values their life, a single spawn will do it, but will ruin any chance of EAS working. Imagine a hypothetical EAS-Normandy with one spawn, one chance. No so much fun, eh? That's how I feel about every map like that. Infiltration is as real as it gets...apparently. No army, even one with limited resources, will decide it can only send one squad of four people to capature some special documents or blow up important installations. Single respawns begone, forever. Any server with a complete lack of respawns will never again draw my attention...I got plenty of that crap from the last two and a half years.

However, if you want people to be cautious with their life, the only way that will happen is by making them wait. Make them wait long enough that they won't know what's out there, and don't let them have a near zero chance to spawn instantly. Even better, have variable spawn times for each side, like could be set up in DropInINF. It'd have to be a new mutie, but if you could set it up so that each team spawns a minimum of some number, and maximum of some number, and randomly choose that number every time a spawn is signaled, you could not only have long times, but random times, making how long you spawn and your enemies spawn a question.

But that's just me.

regarding the 3 minute respawns...
sure, I like that you guys want to test it out but I have my concerns that it will result in the things you all like to archive with this. If all that test take care more (cause they want to test it this way) then it will be ok. But one damn rambo like player can ruin this or a group of people that want to show you how easy it then is to win the round as attacker if they take out one def after the other. 3 minutes of respawn is a very very long time and not many are willing to wait that long. Sure if I join this server then I know this but what if you play as careful as possible and you then get nade spammed or whatever... again it highly depends on the people that will show up if this specific setting will be a 'success' or not. Normally the 3 minutes is way more than enough to accomplish the whole mission once you have noone left on the other side or only a few that cannot protect the objectives alone then. Just think about Tuscany that has several objectives... if one defender is missing for 3 minutes then it all depends on how many defenders are there at all. A full server with this high wave timer can be ok but even then you will run short of soldiers pretty fast.
I don't try to 'convince' anyone here that this is a bad way or that you should not test it out... I just want to make sure that you cannot force a specific style of play just by using some special settings. I'm sure most of you already know this actually.

IMO, the 'stricter' the settings, the easier it is for a single 'non-conformant' to ruin the gameplay for all others on the server. Sure, if all agree on a specific style then it can be the best match ever of course. But the more restrictions or 'forcing' settings you use the easier it is to ruin the good ideas behind them.

I hope that only the 'willing' people will join the match to make it a good one but I would not bet on it.

Best of luck and I hope it will be as fun as you want it to be.

Beppo

A bit instaposted by Keg. Can only agree. Some very good points actually. And to raise the waves is ok too... but only to a certain degree (and I guess Keg can agree on this too). Too long waves can ruin a match too as stated above...

To the mutator... should be easy... but how would you like to let this work? Random wave lengths for each team within a specific intervall maybe with ie 40-60 secs for defenders and 30-50 secs for attackers? Or depending on how many lives are left so that the lesser are there the faster or the slower they respawn? Something like this maybe? Any ideas are welcome cause I should be able to pump this out then pretty fast to let you guys test it out a bit. If many of you reply then this should then maybe be moved to an own thread to not 'hijack' this one here then...

i played it and realy hated it.

it is no more an army attack but a little skirmish , and i like big wars!

no realy , EAS without respawns is more boring that watching M6 sunday afternoon.

i think the without respawns system should only be for specific Small EAS missions/maps
( A city block , Platoon, Mdmassacre (as i imagine) , Ruin (Ruin was actualy a nice time, Stalingrad would do this, DS valley, DS rockbase)

but having played RTK with 0 respawn is the most boring thing that ever happened to my HK69A1 .

I'd say a minimum respawn wait time of half of the total wave time, keg.

@Rasalom ... 150.000 km? Where do you live? [edit] Brazil... ahhh great... was in Caraguatatuba some years ago actually (at the ocean, directly east of Sao Paulo) really cool ... still not getting someone out of my head if you get what I mean. [/edit]
And the part you did not get fully. I stated that I hope that only players that agree on the more cautious style of play will actually play on this server to make it a good experience. But I would not bet on this and can see some 'other' guys joining too that will mess up everything with 'their tactics'.
And I really didn't try to convince anyone. And these two weeks will show how it goes automatically I guess.

yurch said:

I'd say a minimum respawn wait time of half of the total wave time, keg.

Click to expand...

This sounds pretty interesting actually but would need a per player wave timer. Doable of course but then you do not get 'waves' of players spawning anymore. Maybe another or an additional idea to compensate this?
What about 'dynamic' wave lengths that get shorter or longer the more or lesser players you have left (mix it up in any of the possible combinations)?

Beppo said:

This sounds pretty interesting actually but would need a per player wave timer. Doable of course but then you do not get 'waves' of players spawning anymore. Maybe another or an additional idea to compensate this?
What about 'dynamic' wave lengths that get shorter or longer the more or lesser players you have left (mix it up in any of the possible combinations)?

Click to expand...

You wouldn't really need a per player timer. Add players to a 'waiting list' if the time left for the next wave is smaller than the minumum.
IE with a 1:00 wave timer, a player will spawn with the next wave if he died before the last 30 seconds of the timer. If he died with say 29 seconds left, he will 'wait' out a wave and spawn with the next.
Fastest respawn will then be :31 of death, longest would be 1:30. Shortening this value from half will make it occur less and with less penalty, of course.

Sounds good actually and would remove those 5 sec respawns. So anyone already working on this or should I 'volunteer'?

[edit] ok after eating a bit, sleeping a bit and waking up early ... file attached... use the ini file to setup the specific percentage "MinWavePercFactor" (0.5 = 50%, 0.2 = 20% aso)...
tested only offline, but it shouldn't be a difference online.
Players be aware that the wave counter does NOT display your 'personal' next wave time delay. It always counts the actual seconds to the next wave even if this will not be yours actually.
[/edit]

Some comments based on yesterdays experiences on vega server with no respawns.
Very mixed feelings about it really. As much as I love realism in games and sims it didn't feel great or fun to play with no respawns. But then again, momentarily it was satisfactory.
On small maps, with enough people and "simple" EAS, no respawns is playable. Still I see it tends to become a quest of eliminating the opposing force before actually pursue to finish the objectives. Nothing much wrong with that than the lack of excitement to actually do the extraction. Also, even if the defending team is completely wiped out, round doesn't end before the objectives are done. This means a lot of waiting time. And waiting to play is rather boring in my books.

One would think no respawns would generate faster rounds but it actually doesn't differ that much from a respawned game. With no respawns, people naturally get a lot more careful, to the extent that it kills the "flow" of the gaming experience.

As Don said, the feeling of a larger battle is gone and instead it is like a small skirmish. Don't know how much the feeling would change if it was a full server.

On the other hand, a map like RtK did reveal something that surprised me. Sniping was a lot different from what I am used to from respawning games. As a sniper you'd be much more careful to get into a good position and stay out of sights. If you managed to kill someone, the reward is much much bigger as you know he/she is gone of from the round. And nomore is there a running line of rushers to shoot at, you actually need to do some active scanning of the ground before you find a target to shoot at. Naturally, communications as well is of more value, as you can act as a spotter and let someone else take the shot, something that I haven't seen happening in a normal game on RtK. But once you are dead on that map it is very boring to wait for the round to end...

I think in a clan match, no respawns could work out nicely but it would affect the way EAS maps are played as most sertainly the defending team would be wiped out before objectives are met and extraction point is reached.

I'm looking forward to try out other options such as the longer spawn times as well as the muty you made Beppo. Who knows we stumble on some golden middleway rule that will further enhance this great game.

//Kee

Beppo, awesome Ya beat me to the punch, you coding machine

Since you have a good grasp on it, is there any chance you could add my suggestion of allowing a random respawn time between each interval? What I mean by that, is that every wave, the "countdown" time changes between two numbers that are specified. For example, if I say "AttackerMin=30" and "AttackerMax=90", I mean that the next wave should take a random number between 30 and 90 seconds. One thing many INFers crave is random newness; that would add one more randomness to the fray.

Keganator said:

Beppo, awesome Ya beat me to the punch, you coding machine

Since you have a good grasp on it, is there any chance you could add my suggestion of allowing a random respawn time between each interval? What I mean by that, is that every wave, the "countdown" time changes between two numbers that are specified. For example, if I say "AttackerMin=30" and "AttackerMax=90", I mean that the next wave should take a random number between 30 and 90 seconds. One thing many INFers crave is random newness; that would add one more randomness to the fray.

Click to expand...

should be doable... will check it out after getting home tonight (will get a bit later cause I'm playing Badminton this evening).

I agree that no-respawns doesn't work quite well with multi-objectives maps, although it adds to the intensity of the gameplay in smaller maps. However, i don't know why you guys are complaining about the "small skirmish" feeling it gives. I've always felt Inf was designed to involve more tactics than actual shootings, otherwise i would be playing battlefield. Large battles always give me a feeling of "melee randomness", as if there were so many variables you cannot control that you'd be better off just minding your own business and doing your own thing. That what's happening a little too many times on most servers IMHO.

Yeah, i agree on that. Usually when the server becomes fuller, the teamplay goes down the drain. But with respawns and a smaller number of players (4-6 on each side is perfect) you still get a lot of soldiers, but with teamplay.

I too have played the no respawn thing on VeGa yesterday. Though i have to say i enjoyed the gameplay, i disliked the no respawn. Everyone was playing real carefull and with good teamplay, but completing maps like Iraq with multiple objectives is near impossible, and i shudder when i think of maps like reacorsector46 *brrrrr*. And when you're an unlucky sod with bad eyes (me) you die pretty quickly and you end up waiting 15 minutes, no fun. I liked to watch my teammates the first 3 or 4 times i died early, then i got fed up with the constant waiting and left.

Da_Blade said:

Yeah, i agree on that. Usually when the server becomes fuller, the teamplay goes down the drain. But with respawns and a smaller number of players (4-6 on each side is perfect) you still get a lot of soldiers, but with teamplay..

Click to expand...

Exactly, and I should have mentioned that a 'no respawn' rule only works with the smaller to medium sized maps, yet with a large number of players. I feel that you will find that happy medium once you include the number of players (perhaps in the future even their skill level somehow [INFstats?]) into your formula of variables, with time left, kill percentages, and randomness also weighed in the mix - in the future, maybe even where attackers or defenders appear on the map in proximity to their multiple goals, or goals accomplished would affect other aspects, all map dependant of course.

I feel completly the same as you have posted in your first post Rasalom, 2.9 thrills me not that much as 2.86 did. It was just thrilling on Vietnam to crawl foward, everthing has become dark, searching for enemies only being 50 metres or less away from the objective, knowing there must be some left and then *peng*, a robar shot, very close to you, you crawl backwards inform your teammates and lie there a bit to cover this route or take another one.
It was just like in a thriller, as Jaymian has posted respawning on different areas is just funny. There was not a Sicly, there were many Sicly. After some time you knew, where the flag is but it was still thrilling. Will they counter attack, what way shall we take, should we set an ambush ...?
Simply great.

But I do not think it would be a good idea to transform 2.86 to 2.9. Time and game have changed. One live with so less recoil could be a bit bad if an enemy is "auto-sniping" some of your guys. Also most maps would not work with one life, Iraq was named before, also Mostar would be too hard not to mention RTK and Tuscany.
I think, not having played on Vega acutally, one live only works with one objective and with different spawns, otherwise you know too much about the enemy, about his position ...

I also have to tell you that I like 2.9 a bit more than I did first, I played Chasm on INF-Ger yesterday and it was funny, really.
Also Vladivostok was funny, ok I died often but that reminded me how careless I am now and that is not good.

So my idea would be to continue playing EAS but also to play sometimes TDM, I think only time will show us, if there should be a RandomTeam and a DTAS mutator.