How Long Until...

[Zetsumei]

Berlin and Moscow highway were big open maps so naming them is a bit weird.
Most of those maps you named didn't came with ostfront they came from the mapping competition, you cannot blame twi for what maps were made there so the addition of those maps wasn't in favour of any other maps :\. And when talking about popularity zhitomir is a highly popular map you placed in that list, the same with Leningrad.

Only bondarevo, rakowice and koningsplatz are original roost maps in your list. Bondarevo was a tank map ported from the mod. It was in the same tank mod mappack which entailed arad and ogledow.

Koningsplatz i've never been a real fan of because of the linearity but effectively you can take cover behind something ever 5 meters. Its a big pit where you fight in but there are less bits of completely undisturbed open flat space like mod streets were. Rakowice is truly a big map i'll give you that.

But it seems your issue is mostly with big maps or big sections not broken up by walls etc. Whereas my gripe is that there is a flipped over truck or sandbag barricade every 5 meters. So you have pretty much no section of a street where at one side of the street you can see the entire other side of the street. So my primary gripe is the addition of loads and loads of cover in the maps that were converted from the mod removing most open sections of street so you cannot utilize crossfire.

 

[Fedorov]

Rather than big open spaces.

You finally got it...

Yes, those big open spaces gives this game a different feeling, and is not a good one

 

[Zetsumei]

So the things I miss are basically, open streets like in these screenshots:

Notice that there aren't 2 destroyed trucks, and 6 sandbag emplacements and some random boxes in these streets. You can clearly see from one end of the street to the other. And if you were an mg could fire over the entire width of the street.

So even if there were small maps, they were ideal for rifles to fight at. First screenshot is a spawnstreet in berlin (but other streets were longer and were equally empty), and the second is a street in koningsberg i believe.

Now if you look at say roost, every 8 meters or so you see that there is an object placed on a road to use as cover.
In the screen shot you see the exact repetition of the distance in cover, and to me it feels really artificial. As there is hardly any patch of street that is just a street. Where you could basically set-up your rifle at one end and fire and see uninterrupted to the other end. Sure for balance you want people to have cover, but that could be placed on the side of the roads as well like pieces of broken buildings.

http://pics.roladder.net/1db25363bd3b9519028551b1a3aba1a9.jpg
http://pics.roladder.net/53f6cc59390b3ba35ac9579919392f8a.jpg
http://pics.roladder.net/693f363ffce7b16619294ed9ef72ebf4.jpg

Look at this modification of berlin from the mod, they added vehicles in a non vehicle map, but its actually possible to drive that thing without having to remove all the barricades. This is the kind of openness I would like to see again, being able to think that a street is actually a street. As you see in that map there is rubble and cover a plenty, but its a lot more natural. And from one end of the street near the allied spawn you can pretty much look down the entire northern apartments street which is right next to the axis spawn.
YouTube - Red Orchestra FunClip - Burning Berlin

Disclaimer: I'm not saying the mod is better than roost or that I prefer the mod over roost. I just think that next to the many things where roost is better than the mod, the mod still does some other things better.

The biggest things being notifications that came with roost (telling how many enemies are in the cap), and increased linearity and repetitiveness in the game play by taking away freedom to deliver a more focussed battle.

 

[Erich]

I agree that too much cover in the streets seems too fake, but some cover is needed on maps. Perhaps more cover on the sides of the streets, this would allow there to be some cover while letting the streets be Linear Danger Areas like in real life. Crossing a road is considered dangerous because it is in the open, it would be nice if HoS mimicked this. Just my 2 cents.

PS. Berlin was/still is my favorite RO map, it just had this amazing feeling to it despite being very difficult.

 

[Fedorov]

I see what you mean Zets, I agree about the covers, but what I mean about open spaces still stands, in OST most of the time you are looking at the horizon and trying to kill clipping enemies that only shows 1 pixel of themselves in every cover. (but now thats a combination of two different problems, maps and weapon resting)

More confined maps like those I mentioned gave the game a more "personal" feeling, I really don't know how to explain it, but I hope you know what I mean.

 

[Oldih]

in OST most of the time you are looking at the horizon and trying to kill clipping enemies that only shows 1 pixel of themselves in every cover. (but now thats a combination of two different problems, maps and weapon resting)

To some degree it's pretty realistic. A person who is well concealed in urban enviroment can be almost a ***** to spot unless you're already fired upon and same would apply even in open areas to some degree.

But considering somewhat artificial amount of cover avaible and how much it makes every direction potential half-deadzone because you know there are some guys peeking behind them, it's bit odd compared to some open streets of the mod. I recall quite a few cases in Jucha and Berlin where just crossing the street without looking around first meant you became the global target for half of the enemy team while in Ost you become global target while knowing where they are pixelhunting while taking cover on every 20ft behind some odd object.

 

[Drecks]

pretty much all those maps disappeared, those city close quarters maps, and the ones that appeared are those huge open field maps

RO(Mod):

Warsaw
Berlin
Kopalnia
Konigsberg
Moscow Highway
Jucha
Donets
Koitos


RO:OST:

Berezina
Bontarevo
Fallen Heroes
Konigsplatz
Kryukovo
KurlandKessel
Leningrad
Mannikkala
Rakowice
Smolenks
Zhitomir


Most small/urban maps disappeared in favor of those open field maps, its a fact. Don't tell me you don't see the pattern there.

If you guys consider Zhitomir as a open field map you desperatly need to buy
Call of Duty. Guess you will love the maze style maps. I could be wrong of course as i'm with stupid.

 

[Fedorov]

the squares in Zhitomir are much bigger than anything found in the maps I stated above.

And no, I hate CoD and its unrealistic mechanics, I don't know why should I conform myself with that crap just to play more confined maps, when I already had everything in RO.

Original RO was great as it was, surely Ostfront added lots of nice features, but it sacrificed too much.

 

[Oldih]

I wouldn't say Zhitomir is open field map, but as noted the main issue of the whole thing is partly that the streets and such rather artificial amount of cover. Kinda like when you exit the russian spawn in Odessa and you look left, there's **** all over the place without any rhyme or reason. Even the theoretical argument that fighting too previously place in there doesn't make sense considering locations of some objectives unless they intended to leave some truckwrecks there for over a year.

Sure it's bit more of gameplay decision, but it's not about wanting shoebox mazemaps, it's more about the logical question who left this **** all over the place such as trucks, Elephants, more trucks, more wooden logs in middle of a road without any sign of proper roadblock, some random objects here and there etc. Shell holes are understandable, but it's mildly inconsistent when you think it as overall.

Hilariously some maps where there are some notable lack of cover (Leningrad on few areas, Basovka, KurlandKessel's last objective to some degree etc) people often start complaining it's WW1 map.

 

[Fedorov]

Im not compleining about the size of the maps, but about their "Feel"

for example a map like Kriegstadt (Which I love) is huge, but it feels more confined and more like an urban map than Zhitomir will ever feel

 

[Zetsumei]

the squares in Zhitomir are much bigger than anything found in the maps I stated above.

In moscow highway the space between the farm and the trenches is huge, and at least bigger than the zhit square :X And the area in front of the reichstag in berlin is easily of the same size.

 

[Fedorov]

Did you ever play moscow highway the space between the farm and the trenches is huge? And the area in front of the reichstag in berlin is easily of the same size.

maybe, but they don't feel the same at all, if you read above:

Im not complaining about the size of the maps, but about their "Feel"

 

[Zetsumei]

Well the thing is your original notion was that danzig 24 player servers existed and were so popular because there were no other close quarters battles. While some of the maps you tout as being too big are nearly as popular (at least in europe).

if i take a look at the most played maps on a random popular server (the 44 player russian corbina server ).

Then i see this ranking of maps and times played

1. Danzig -- 831
2. Zhitomir -- 659
3. Basovka -- 654
4. Odessa -- 599
5. Kaukasus -537
6. Arad -- 471
7. Krasnyi -- 442
8. Stalingradkessel -- 413
9. Ogledow -- 376
10. Leningrad -- 295

And on the most popular french server I see this ranking of maps

1. Zhitomir -- 1423
2. Odessa -- 1253
3. Stalingradkessel -- 1108
4. Krasnyioktyabr -- 870
5. Danzig -- 827
6. Basovka -- 709
7. Kaukasus -- 708
8. Koningsplatz -- 687
9. Smolensktalemate -- 625
10. Tcherkassy -- 591

Both servers feature more rounds played than all of the info together that is showcased in the rostats web page. Zhitomir is nearly as popular as danzig at least. And I wouldn't be surprised if a 24/7 zhitomir server would actually have success. Now 2 servers statistically do not mean that much but maps like zhitomir are clearly popular.

 

[Fedorov]

Still, the 24/7s are Danzig and not Zhitomir, and Danzig is the last remnant of the old style of maps, there were many different routes of attack instead of just one big field full of stuff.

I can't understand why anyone would like Zhitomir though, Zhitomir comes down to getting sniped in a square, or getting bottlenecked in a door.

 

[Zetsumei]

I think zhitomir got quite some routes though. But in general in most map I hate the repetitiveness and that you must cap all zones in a prespecified order. Aka the so called push maps.

I like maps the most where you have some freedom to decide where to attack, battles must still be focussed of course. But like odessa and danzig you could at least have 2 options in your attack. I'm a big fan of tracktorworks myself its a huge map it got huge open spaces but good indoor fighting and loads of options in the actual attack and defence.

 

[Drecks]

Original RO was great as it was, surely Ostfront added lots of nice features, but it sacrificed too much.

Your RO game life must have been sjite the past 5 years.

Games and gameplay change. I never played the RO MOD so i don

 

[Fedorov]

But in general in most map I hate the repetitiveness and that you must cap all zones in a prespecified order. Aka the so called push maps.

I like maps the most where you have some freedom to decide where to attack, battles must still be focussed of course. But like odessa and danzig you could at least have 2 options in your attack. I'm a big fan of tracktorworks myself its a huge map it got huge open spaces but good indoor fighting and loads of options in the actual attack and defence.

I don't disagree with you there, there were much more room for maneuvering and tactics in those multiple objective maps

You could have stayed with original RO but most people went on.

I did, until nobody played it anymore, I was one of those who were populating the last server during its last 3 months (first 3 months of Ostfront) So it wasn't really my choice to quit.

BTW I took the CoD comment as a personal insult.

I still think RO is the best FPS out there, but IMO, its Mod version was even better.

 

[Drecks]

Fedorov, don

 

[PUTZ]

I'm hoping ToiletDuckie and/or Deeival port their flying-car stuff over

YouTube - King of the BA109

 

[Fedorov]

I know what CoD is, and you won't see me in one of those.

About getting repetitive... when in all your games have to go through the same stages and chokepoints with 50 players hiding behind every possible cover, leaving no chance to maneuver and no other option than to keep heading towards the same place, hoping to get a cover that actually fits your size so you can rest your rifle, then stay there killing as many enemies as you can, get killed and repeat, until you eventually cap the objective... It just looses its old dynamism.

In the old one you could choose different objectives to take, and from there move to flank the other ones, attacking the enemy from the rear, etc...

It was more about tactics, this one is more "big battles" kind of game... it was fun at first, but it gets tiresome, cause in the end, all rounds feel the same way. Its just as Zets said.