RO to Incorporate Armor Beasts Mut.

[Oldih]

Also due to the current tanking system- Realistically speaking some tanks were incapable in penetrating other tanks even at close range it does not matter if it was a "late war tank". Also you forget just angle and your indestructable.

Aye, but generally speaking the problem is this: we have way too simple system for something that complicated. Sure some tanks are not able to do X while they might do Y, but generally we have way too simple system; we don't have armor quality (especially some reinforced areas or repaired areas or simply damaged areas), design flaws, material flaws, technical flaws, technical damage, spalling\armour flaking, we don't have that much interior, we don't have morale (which is the biggest problem - you can't model one), we have only damage areas like tracks and engine (and I have seen only twice that I have lost my tank tracks during the entire time I have played RO) and our tanks have only two states: Either blown up or up'n running. Well ok, we have immobilized also but I don't really count that as state since it is way too random and illogical.

And that is the problem. AB improves penetrations and armour and adds few nice features (like shell swap before it reloads), but still does not make anything truly important. Even if they nerfed angling to logical levels there is no real penalty that you expose your tracks 24h\7 = you still use anglewhoring. The fact that the armour does not flake or spall still allows us take gazillious pounding if you just manage to find the correct angle against tank X. The fact armour quality or design flaws are not implemented (E.G. shot traps, technical flaws in hull or even bad structure caused by production) we can't have real random crap or such thing called "luck". And the list goes on way too long.

And the biggest problem to sum all these up is that even if we would implement all that crap to satisfy your fantasies - is there any server that would NOT be overloaded because it just needs to calculate does our T-34 have flawed tracks or does our Panther has flaws in upper hull and possibly a shot trap or does our Tiger has reinforced areas in X or does our IS-2 has weaker armour in turret than hull because the material quality sucked and bla bla bla.

There are always people who prefer rambo-style small fragfest maps Ive heard people complain about my favorite maps like Berezina, Kreigstadt, Orel, Lazur,ect. . but There are alot of people that love big maps and tanking on them perfect example is the popular AB FKR#4 server with Debrecen or the Stock tanking map FKR3 with Orel-

I know, been there and done that. It was enjoyable to some extent. But the point is that such "small" map still does not allow us to have such large scale idea about a tank battle. The way RO battles goes most of the time is pretty much that you just take a tank, drive, shoot, bang, shoot, bang, shoot, got hit, got hit, got hit, argh we art destroyed, well new tank and respawn rally and let's try it again. Having REALLY large maps + improvement tank crpa (even penetrations alone would do justice here) where when you get killed you really need to take your time before you can join the battle again and not just like "hey free tank let's rush it and take head on that tank X oh noes I got killed well let's pick another tank and rush again."

Even bigger maps might not deal with that, but realistically speaking 1. you would not have 24\7 respawn rally with tanks all the time and 2. you could possibly even deploy real tank tactics ingame. And especially the latter one might make some people happy.

Huh? If you don't like AB that's 100% totally fine Oldih but I think you are inflating things to catastrophic proportions

I quite agree. lol, anyone else notice realism threads seems to get similar reaction as the "add the KT" thread-

It is not I am against realistic ideas, but be realistic yourself. It's like uniform discussion. If we really want realistic and authentic stuff we need to take tens of stuff into account, like shade diffrences, and from the german side possible uniform mixes, possible ersatz gear on some people, possibly lack of some gear between some soldiers or random gear (like having lack of A-frame at some soldiers), possibly diffrent helmets, having small chance of havign jackboots intead of lowboots in late war and such. Now as nice as it sounds - just think how much it would eat CPU power just to think "should I give M41 to this fellow or M42 or M44? Wait M41 tunic and M43 trousers now that's fine. And Ersatz Y-straps yay that's nice. Oh wait ersatz bayonet frog also. And darn, he's a rifleman should I give him A-frame or not... Nah let's drop it, but the next guy gets early war A-frame and M44 tunic and also lowboots. Oh and also this guy should get remanufractored M36 which has repair signs everywhere and hmm... oh noes I am overheating."

So, even if we incorporate AB in stock RO as standard I wouldn't mind it. Just the fact that the improvements AB add turns RO into turkey shoot fest due lack of "true" damage system. In other words we would need to either sacrifice realism (oh noes) so the game itself might work or if we make it _that_ realistic our servers would fry down in a matter of seconds.

This is Oldih-teh-realism-destroyarz-speaking. Your call.

 

[Knighter]

For me AB gives enhanced tank combat with a variety of new tactics. I'm not crying for armor quality or anything else. It's just more detailed than stock game. I see no problem with incorporation.

 

[Quietus]

Oldih: Nobody is asking for or expecting tanks to be "sim quality" in RO. Your argument is if you can't model/have every single thing that was IRL then you should just dump everything and just play stock tank combat until you go insane. "All or nothing" is a lofty goal that is not acheivable on the unreal 2.5 engine and nobody (except maybe you) expects or demands an absolute perfect sim from RO. You talk also about uniforms and make those out the same way "if you can't model every variation/whatever ever made you should just dump everything and just accept stock uniforms for the eternity of RO.

I still don't know what AB has to do with a "turkey shoot" you mention. You should DL my tank test range, enable the AB mutator then test what tanks can do what so you can get a better idea of AB. Also you will need to enbale 2 settings in the AB config setting that show the readout of penetration info so you'll know exactly what's going on with it.

 

[C-Unit]

has anyone heard of Steel Beasts, why not try to incorperate their damge system, even thou that games uses modern tanks....

 

[Oldih]

Oldih: Nobody is asking for or expecting tanks to be "sim quality" in RO. Your argument is if you can't model/have every single thing that was IRL then you should just dump everything and just play stock tank combat until you go insane.

I do not remember saying directly that everything should be dumped because you can't achieve it 100%. I guess I exaggerated it abit since no-one (before you) had truly drawn the line of realism vs gameplay in this thread. Or maybe I was just too lazy to spot it.

And as for all-or-nothing, we all know there's a limit but even with AB the tank stuff is still farby. Atleast in stock maps. Take Arad as example: There's either left or right route where you turkey shoot those tanks in the opposite side (or get turkey shot yourself). Now let's add AB mutator. Now it might do (and sure does) some few neat tricks there and there, but it's still plain old turkey shooting range either in the left side or right side. Or plausibly in the middle. Not that it's AB's fault, but generally speaking the maps are still too small. Lack of size in maps is what might bug me and I doubt how something can suddenly turn that pipe turkey shoot into oh-so-realistic tanking - even if we would perfect AB to "RO official standard" levels. Gameplay would improve realism-wise, but it's still pretty much same old-fashion turkey shoot. But I still might play AB, even if it's the same plain-old Arad with same old shooting range.

You talk also about uniforms and make those out the same way "if you can't model every variation/whatever ever made you should just dump everything and just accept stock uniforms for the eternity of RO.

Maybe. But what is farby it is farby. There's been gazillion of uniform discussions so far, mainly related with camouflage. Now that when you really nitpick you find out there's quite a many things that are farby. Stock RO models are nice visually, but talking about authenticity and realism especially in later maps - nay. Does that prevent the game being playable? I guess so. All for nothing, rite?

Same applies with tanking. So far, I have never said AB sucks - early versions might be the only expections. Actually I quite enjoy it to some extent, and even if it would be standardized I would really not mind nor care. But when suddenly someone talks about realism and someone ends up speaking "people do not know about realism" and such and such, it ends up first to some higher-level theoretical discussion what can X does against Y and how Z performs against A and such.

Now after that it turns to the direction that people find more faults when comparing or talking about some realistic crap. And some people take it to the extreme - take me as example. After that usually someone notices that it's gone too far and in this point we end up as confused people after pointing fingers first. And very often this either ends pointing even more fingers around or just creating a loop of discussion. Or into some other extreme (take StuG crewman class as example). Or into some other crap like that.

Bottom line: If AB is standardized then it will be. It might improve gameplay realismwise in simple (while mattering) level, yet somethign still fails to be realistic in it. Now this leads to another loop of discussion that make something realistic. Now jump to the line "But when suddenly..." of this post and read onward. After that bunch of videogame nerds (or realism nerds, or whatever you prefer to call them. Just another extremitety) are talking about realism and it is hard not to avoid laughing in side or another - either because the discussion itself has gone past point-of-no-return or it just ends up being stupid as hell. Does that sound familiar?

I still say that with AB RO is pretty much the same old turkey shooting range with some improvements. Besides, what is farby is farby. The fact I see same old models with same old farbyness and same old stuff does not make it unplayable.

Not to mention showing an extreme edge of one thing makes people think that something is in danger of going out of hand. Or to realize the line has to be drawn.

 

[Quietus]

So a main problem you see with AB is the small maps. I agree with that, but that's not on AB's shoulders that's on the mappers. Also talking about getting into realism debates that's not what I'm trying to do at all because I know RO tanks can never acheive "sim level" so it's useless to ponder and debate 1 million RL attributes when it's obvious there is zero possiblity of actually implementing them in game.

What is good to argue is BASIC things that are implementable like hard facts on penetration, speed of tank, armor etc. Of course if you try and implement 100% reality that's impossible and will never be possible. All you can do is the best you can given the circumstances/ limitations.

 

[Slyk]

I think the base issue is that RO was released "as is" and by doing that, the game should stay "as is". Once the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, you can't go back and I don't think you should. Adding modest changes as has been done? By all means. You just can't chuck a current system for a full upgrade in this industry. With the Steam component everyone is at least on the same page unless they play on mutator servers. Great advantage. But with any change in any game, you risk splitting a community.

I personally don't care for AB. Mainly because the developer acted like an a$$hat and took a "I know all" attitude. So my resistance is mostly political. In fact, the mutator has just as many bugs and issues as stock RO. The other item mentioned before is that on original and most custom maps, you can't get the distances that make the German tanks stand out. On 300-500 meter maps, you have a fairly level playing field, stock or mutator and it is generally about who shoots first and hits point X best.

The biggest consideration, as noted above, is game engine. How much can the engine cope with and how powerful does the server have to be? At some point every game hits a critical mass point and just can't do more. You always have to sacrifice something to get a stable product. The day will come, but it is not Unreal 2.5 and it is not RO:O.

And finally, if TWI was to do anything more "realistic", I think it should be with the next generation game, if indeed it is RO2-ish. For now TWI should stick to minor changes that do not wholly change the experience. Allow the mod community to create the variations and let the players/admins decide what gets run on servers. For now, AB is not by any means a threat to stock configurations in player or server base and stay just what it is...an option.

 

[mat69]

I think some kind of "solution" would be to make another tab in the browser, like in UT eg., that is called modified RO or something like that.
Now every creator of a mutator, thinking that their mutator changes the game a lot could add "modRO = True" to their default proberties.
The standard tab, that is automatically opened should still be "All Games", next would be "Stock RO" and then the modified part.

By that you ensure that the people playing RO know what they play, sometimes mutators can put you off and you adress the features to the game as you don't know that there is a mutator running in the first place and vice versa. RO devs would ensure that people can easily distinguish what is their game and what are modifications of whatever kind.

 

[Rak]

. . . I think the base issue is that RO was released "as is" and by doing that, the game should stay "as is" . . .

. . . And finally, if TWI was to do anything more "realistic", I think it should be with the next generation game, if indeed it is RO2-ish . . .

Well, you're right. TWI avoided to make any major changes after Ost was out. Now all my bet is on their "second" game.

But still I want to mention that it's being a somewhat "painfull" wait

 

[Colt .45 killer]

meh well the voters have gone against, but i would like to know how many of them actually tank alot. secondly as some who voted no suggested, i hope TWI can take the best of AB and of the suggestions and make tanking much more complex and enjoyable in RO2.

 

[murderous_eagle]

I'm used to the current system and I like it. I can iht someone from a km away. I'm good in a t-60. I can sideswipe tanks with a ptrd in the ammo store. I'm a proficient fauster. I've also become accustom to the angling system.


It comes down to this:

For the majority of RO players, tanking is a "not broke, don't fix" issue. It's moderately complex as it is, while you can still be proficient in it with a little bit of practice. Each tank comes with its own play style. You have big tanks that you stay back with and use the phalic thing on top to blast people with, lighter tanks/vehicles that are faster firing and moving, and medium tanks that fill pretty much everything in between. In pubs you get people happily blasting away at each other, while organized you get real strategy with open fields of death watched over by something at least as big as a panther, flanking movements, and AT hotspots where no tank goes through alive.

 

[Solo4114]

Ultimately, I think AB shouldn't be adopted wholesale. Adopting it as an option for servers to run is no different from saying "Let's make AB a really really good mutator."

The "market" will ultimately decide whether AB becomes "standard" or not. Right now, it looks like the market is saying "No thanks." Some of AB's functions are cool, and have been adopted (IE: the "choose your ammo" feature). Personally, I think the separate hull and turret should be added to stock RO.

But that's about it, really. Stock RO works on stock RO maps, and generally works on the larger-scale unofficial maps. Krivoi Rog is the first view of what COULD be good with tanks, although the map layout hinders things somewhat.

Maybe when we get a few more maps like it, folks won't find stock RO to be quite so probelmatic. I've always maintained that stock RO's short-range engagements were the real problem, but that generally speaking, the long-range engagements worked out pretty well.