A way to encourage conserving reinforcements

[reeves]

As this is my first post on these forums, I would like to start off by saying how appreciative I am of all the effort Tripwire has put into this game. It is refreshing to play a title like Red Orchestra, which seems untouched by the influences of corporate business models and marketing hype. It's just an extremely artistic and well developed game that sells itself on quality alone.

Now for the topic of my post.... One of the things that always frustrates me about the gameplay of Red Orchestra is the widespread disregard for conserving reinforcements. On maps such as Konigsplatz, Odessa, and StalingradKessel, it seems that unless the defending team is completely whipping the opposing force, they will usually lose the battle by running out their reinforcements. Even on servers with experienced players, despite admonitions to "watch reinforcements", the common impulse of most defenders is to run themselves into the meat grinder in an attempt to kill the enemy. Obviously that's one way to win, but when the number of reinforcements are stacked against you, a better strategy is to hang on and hold objectives.

Why do people always do this? It's because there's no real penalty for dying. You'd think players would be more careful in a game where a single bullet can kill you, but when it feels like you can keep on spawning an infinite number of times (and it usually happens within 5-10 seconds), why use caution? After all, points are awarded for kills and captures. Deaths do not affect one's score at all. RO gamers love to make fun of the arcade style of Counterstrike, but in that game, if you died, that was it. No respawn, you had to sit out until the next round. And that made people careful. I suppose the incentive to not dying in RO is the short wait and walk before you make it back to the battle. Some maps, like Berezina are so big that you definitely don't want to die, cause it takes like 5 minutes to travel back to the front, and longer if there are no halftracks around. However most maps are so small that dying is never a big deal, and you'll be back in the fight almost instantly. If someone killed you from a hiding spot, chances are you can just run back and nade him 20 seconds later.

I think a possible solution to this would be to factor deaths into the score. I'm not saying we should have an outright kill-death column like most FPS games, but deaths should definitely have an impact, maybe something like -1 points or something. Then teamkilling would be -3 (i think it's currently -2). With this change, people will be motivated to be a bit more careful. On assault/defend maps, the attacking team has more reinforcements so they are supposed to charge. Thus the -1 penalty should be only for the defending team.

I guess this was kind of a long post, so thanks for reading

 

[Rich_Zap]

Hmmm, in my opinion a players score should reflect what 'they' do and not what is done to them.

I think this problem doesnt come just from game design but from the people who play it as well. More inexperienced players simply do not realise how badly they are costing the team, i understand where your coming from as i have seen this myself but i dont think decrementing a players score is the solution.

I think what could help this is the re-introduction of hints n' tips on the loading screens, this was a leftover from UT2004 in the mod days and i think that some tips on team strategy would help the less experienced players.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

I remember being deeply disappointed that this game had respawns when it came out.

I still am not that keen on it but I accept that the integration of the game-style into the maps makes any form of conversion to another gamestyle unlikely in the extreme.

I generally support the idea you put forward, reeves, nice first post.

In my experience most veteran players could not really give a toss what their score is if their team wins. As for newer players, I suppose you have a point - if they are point ho's then losing a point for dying would encourage realistic behaviour.

As this game is about realism, encouraging players to behave realistically (i.e. Rambo runs are rarer than hen's teeth) and advance cautiously and retreat rather than defend lost positions is obviously something that should be looked at.

I just doubt that 'death = lose a point' coding will ever be more than a mutator that appears on some servers rather than a universal change.

 

[SchutzeSepp]

myself i play tactically, and try staying alive as long as possible.

but i rarely look at my score, so taking points for dying is not the sollution.
and taking -3 points for TK is questionable, because TK's(in my case) are always accidental, and having to apoligise and feeling like an idiot is a hard enough punishment.

maybe a visual ranking system would keep players alive, for every 5 minutes you stay alive you get a rank up, or something like that

maybe

 

[spraduke]

The only way to get people to value lives is to limit them directly. Each player is only allowed for example 10 respawns and once its gone its gone.

However this would require a new gametype however most of the maps should still work. Most maps you play have reinforcements between 120-200 which is roughly 10 spawns each on a 16 player server.

Theres nothing more annoying than staying alive for 5 mins towards the end to die just as reinforcements run out and the players who have been ramboing get to spawn and you dont.

 

[Quenaelin]

I don't agree to this idea, to giving more points to good players and even punishing more bad players who don't know how to play or don't want or bother to play realistically, it is their choise. Bad players are depleting reinforcements? So what? There wasn't allways good soldiers in WWII, many were killed just like that, without even shooting any bullets or doing anything good but only tried to do what ordered.

Conserving reinforcements isn't realistic or atleast it isn't historically accurate. Too many times Russian army used "meat grinder " tactics in WWII. They only had one rifle for two soldiers, one man was for backup if other one was killed.

Only good solution for not going to meat grinder is to give more points if you don't get killed. If you stay long enough defending capzone you should score more points and not loose them if you get killed, but then lot of players would gather too close in to capzone to score more points.

 

[spraduke]

They only had one rifle for two soldiers, one man was for backup if other one was killed.

Sorry but thats a popular misconception that should be cleared up. The russians had plenty of weapons and ammo as i understand it.

 

[DukNCover]

I don't agree to this idea, to giving more points to good players and even punishing more bad players who don't know how to play or don't want or bother to play realistically, it is their choise. Bad players are depleting reinforcements? So what? There wasn't allways good soldiers in WWII, many were killed just like that, without even shooting any bullets or doing anything good but only tried to do what ordered.

So what? What about when we lose because he keeps running into enemy fire, depleting our reinforcements?

Conserving reinforcements isn't realistic or atleast it isn't historically accurate. Too many times Russian army used "meat grinder " tactics in WWII. They only had one rifle for two soldiers, one man was for backup if other one was killed.

NOT TRUE. Gawd. The movie "Enemy at the Gates" was a nice movie. It is not very accurate. The Russians had no real supply shortages, that charge was in there to be dramatic.


(Why does everyone seem to base their knowledge on that movie?)



EDIT: Spraduke beat me to it.

 

[Quenaelin]

Sorry but thats a popular misconception that should be cleared up. The russians had plenty of weapons and ammo as i understand it.

Maybe this is misconception in history, maybe only few soldiers had to use this kind of tactics to start this legend. But still it is fact that Russians used meat grinder tactics a lot.

 

[DukNCover]

So did Germans. So did Americans.

 

[MILK]

I will just quote my older post regarding same topic

...

I have never felt any fear of death just because of long respan time (like on mod Warsaw)... it only annoyed me... this is not IMO the way how to make players to be more careful.

If you want to make somebody to be scared from dying than you have to punish him for it. You cannot punish whole team for one player dying to often (like it is now with reinforcements limit) because it has no impact. Somebody died 3 times in rond somebody died 20 times in round... but once reinforcements are depleted than nobody can respawn... so there is no need to be careful...

I would rather prefer something like respawn limits for specific classes... example:
Sniper - 10 respawns
Automatchik - 20 respanws
Komandir - 15 respawns
MG - 10 respawns
Strelok - unlimited
Once you will deplete reinforcements for your class than you can only switch to Strelok. What is the outcome? You are not limited in game - you can play like idiot and die 50 times but than you will only be able to play as strelok (or you will not respawn untill class change) OR you will have to play careuly so you will make it with limited respawns untill end of round...

 

[Ullis]

So what? There wasn't allways good soldiers in WWII, many were killed just like that, without even shooting any bullets or doing anything good but only tried to do what ordered.

I think Quenaelin makes a valid point. Sometimes the people you play with are green soldiers, which makes your role all the more demanding.

In the movie Der Untergang (about the last days of Hitler) there is an excellent scene where the Wehrmacht asks whether the [some SS command or other] could stop sending hastily drafted citizens to a particular place as they were being mown down like flies.

I really like the last minutes of Konigsplatz playing Germans, as it becomes a race against time as well as not dying as there are usually no reinforcements left. On Russians the real satisfaction comes from winning the map with the Germans still having lots of reinforcements (I think we managed 49% a few nights back).

 

[KrazyKraut]

I'm generally all for limiting player lives or having a game mode where everyone gets but one life, but there's more work to limiting player lives than you may think...

... what about those that join mid-game? How many lives do they get? Afterall noone joins a server with less than 10 players (okay some do, but many more don't). Kinda unfair to the players that set up the game by playing for maybe an hour on an almost empty map if once the server fills they're the first to run out of lives. There needs to be a well balanced system for that.

... what keeps "dead" players from quitting and then re-joining the server and start with fresh lives? Some fix needed here, too.

... idle players that stay in spawn might ruin the game if they are the last men on their team. There needed to be some "kick idle players" thing.

... to know they just forced a teammate to watch the whole round as a spectator cause they took his last life makes the team killers jack off even more. -> very harsh teamkilling penalties needed

... maps need to be redone and a lot of testing is involved as to which side has how many reinforcements for which class

Don't get me wrong, I deeply hope for the devs or ANYONE to make such a limited lives gamemode, because I want to see if it affects gameplay as much as I think / hope it does, but there's alot more work involved than just giving each class a limited amount of lives.

 

[Solo4114]

While it'd be nice to see people have the patience necessary to defend properly, there are some problems with this notion.

1.) It works great on defense, but what about on offense? I'm sure, even as a newcomer to the forums, that you've seen maps where the attacking team seems more content to hang back and plink away at defenders than to actually get their butts into the cap zone. Implementing a penalty for dying -- even a largely meaningless score penalty -- for both teams would only further encourage people to sit back instead of pressing forward. Maps would probably just degenerate into "Kill all the other guys and then take the objectives" or simply "Kill all the other guys."

A big part of RO and what makes it tick is cap zones. That's why we have the reinforcements we do and why we respawn -- because the game is about capturing and holding territory, not about "Making the other bastard die for HIS country."

Unfortunately, implementing this for only one team would only generate complaints from those very same scorewhores you're trying to encourage to stay alive. "WTF??? Why should I get penalized for defending? Screw this. I'm switching to attacking where I can actually score."


2.) You can't change people's behavior. "Fear of death" will never exist in a video game. Even with only one life, people still will not fear death. Why? because they're not actually going to die. And yet, even so, they will STILL hang back on offense and plink away.

And therein lies the real problem. Incentivizing, either via carrot or stick (IE: you could code a mutator where people who stay alive longer get a score bonus) will have unintended consequences. The unfortunate fact is that RO depends on and demands a particular balanced outlook about your virtual life.

On the one hand, you need to keep an eye on reinforcements and try to stay alive a good long while, especially on certain maps (IE: Defenders on Stalingrad Kessel, Koenigsplatz, Berezina -- but this also applies to offense). On the flipside, you need to keep moving on offense, or at least get your butt in the cap zone for defense. You're always running against the clock, even on longer maps like Berezina and Black Day in July.

Finally, some people cannot be made to be patient on defense. This is an unfortunate truth about online gaming. Some people, even in a slower-paced game like RO, simply CANNOT sit still long enough to dig in on defense. If they're not constantly shooting something, they get bored and run to the front where they kill one or two guys and then die. They care not for the meatgrinder. They only want their shoot-em-up fix. That's just the way things go and if you're on a team with folks like that, just figure that you need to be defending even more dilligently from within the cap zone.


On the plus side, though, RO at least seems to have MORE people with our attitudes towards defense and reinforcements. It's a damnsight better than, say, any of the Battlefield game series.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

stuff

[hijack]Why's your name KrazyKraut if you live in Pilsen? [/hijack]

 

[Zetsumei]

I'm generally all for limiting player lives or having a game mode where everyone gets but one life, but there's more work to limiting player lives than you may think...

... what about those that join mid-game? How many lives do they get? Afterall noone joins a server with less than 10 players (okay some do, but many more don't). Kinda unfair to the players that set up the game by playing for maybe an hour on an almost empty map if once the server fills they're the first to run out of lives. There needs to be a well balanced system for that.

... what keeps "dead" players from quitting and then re-joining the server and start with fresh lives? Some fix needed here, too.

... idle players that stay in spawn might ruin the game if they are the last men on their team. There needed to be some "kick idle players" thing.

... to know they just forced a teammate to watch the whole round as a spectator cause they took his last life makes the team killers jack off even more. -> very harsh teamkilling penalties needed

... maps need to be redone and a lot of testing is involved as to which side has how many reinforcements for which class

Don't get me wrong, I deeply hope for the devs or ANYONE to make such a limited lives gamemode, because I want to see if it affects gameplay as much as I think / hope it does, but there's alot more work involved than just giving each class a limited amount of lives.

A server is able to hold a record of the old players heck the old teamkill forgiving mutator did it so even if you left and rejoined the amount of tk's would stay. So i'm sure the devs could put this in a official setting. And if new ppl join they could get the average of all players combined as reinforcement.

I'm personally for individual reinforcement. Like everybody gets 8 points on the start of the game. But i think it should ideed be based on classes some classes are supposed to die more like smg users they are supposed to attack while rifles stay back so its normal that they would die more this should be reflected upon how many points you loose upon dying.

The Sniper on the other hand should hardly die.

So example you got 8 points at the start. as a sniper everytime you die 2 points get reducted meaning you can hardly respawn. While if you are an automatic or rifleman only 1 point gets reducted. Commander and MG get 2 points reducted.

Afcourse these numbers are just something quick but using a good number system gives more balance aswell. Because if certain people die too much with their class while they shouldn't they'll run out of their personal reinforcements faster. So new people will refrain from using those classes the entire round and pass them on quicker to other new players that want to try it out. So the "1337" classes get switched to other players faster. While people that are good with the classes themselfs won't die alot with it anyway so they'll handle everything just fine.

Afcourse people won't fear death, but they will be more cautious of running into battle and suicide nading, if you look at games like counterstrike ppl still play rambo but they care about their death alot more than in this game. And thats the nice thing.

Afcourse all of this SHOULD be a SERVER OPTION instead of forced for the entire game, whats wrong with additional options. I've been asking for an option like this since the mod. with as reply that this only leeds to elitism. Because bad players that rush in and get themselfs shot get killed and need to wait the rest of the match, same is there in counterstrike. Atleast people will then soon get they need to beware of how they play and be cautious.

For tankers you don't join as a specific tanker class, so i don't know how that would work out there are sure some ppl with ideas.

I'd personally love a server that would have 5 respawns max or something for all classes either by long respawns (sure people will hate it and in publics still don't care to die) but in clanmatches the reinforcements made it a good map. Heck although core wasn't a strong clan in the mod when we first started playing warsaw, we won against alot of stronger clans simply because we used the respawns to our advantage.

But the good thing about a long respawn time is that people Spawn together, and you won't be able to run out of reinforcements that fast (individual) so if you got like 8 max lives, and there are 8 respawns you will atleast be able to play over the entire map time.

 

[KrazyKraut]

Pils isn't really a beer in my books And even that was brewed first time by a German.

Anyways, Solo, "fear of death" has just become an exaggregated term. It's not really needed that players sh** their pants whenever a bullet flys by them. But there are games with limited lives that do encourage a less "suicidal" way of playing. I name Operation Flashpoint and Rainbow 6 Raven Shield as examples. There's of course the notorious counter-example Counterstrike, but I think the reason play less cautious here is because of the short round times, the routinized gameplay and a simplistic map layout.

The problems with the map layout I agree on. I have always tried to convince people of a less "defenders vs. attackers" map layout and more of a "advance and secure" style, which would make every team both defenders and attackers. Other ways to counter this problem are for example wider maps with more flanking routes. The maps in RO are still way to CS-ish with their map borders on every corner for my taste, but that's an engine limitation.

There's been debates about this over and over again and they are all rather theoretical, only playing such a gamemode would really help to see if it works or not.

 

[Solo4114]

Well, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work with the maps we've got. Like you said, they're laid out along pretty predictable lines. Plus, without destructible more terrain, doors, walls, etc., you make it even more limited. If we had more maps like, say, Stalingrad Kessel, where you blow open doors (or walls) to get from one building to another, you could start having more routes of advance.

I still think, however, that people on the attacking team would pretty much play as if they were defenders. Plus, any limited life scenario seems to usually amount to "Kill 'em all and we win the map" without any regard towards objectives and territory.


There's also the behavioral factor to consider which is that, no matter what kind of game mode you're playing, at least some players will simply rambo ahead. You even see this in CS where people only have one life to begin with. That's simply because some folks just lack the patience to sit still and wait for the enemy. They feel compelled to go out and engage them.

 

[Zetsumei]

Well, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work with the maps we've got. Like you said, they're laid out along pretty predictable lines. Plus, without destructible more terrain, doors, walls, etc., you make it even more limited. If we had more maps like, say, Stalingrad Kessel, where you blow open doors (or walls) to get from one building to another, you could start having more routes of advance.

I still think, however, that people on the attacking team would pretty much play as if they were defenders. Plus, any limited life scenario seems to usually amount to "Kill 'em all and we win the map" without any regard towards objectives and territory.


There's also the behavioral factor to consider which is that, no matter what kind of game mode you're playing, at least some players will simply rambo ahead. You even see this in CS where people only have one life to begin with. That's simply because some folks just lack the patience to sit still and wait for the enemy. They feel compelled to go out and engage them.

One life wouldn't work but if servers can change the amount of lives on a per map basis for all sides you can always find the perfect balance (for a certain amount of players).

 

[reeves]

I like Milk and Zetsumei's ideas of respawn based on class. Obviously snipers and machine gunners should not die as often, as their function is to hang back and support the team with covering fire. The same thing could be said about squad leaders, however I think on an attacking team, they should be leading the charge, whereas on a defending team, they should hang back to observe and call in artillery.

Making a set number of respawns based on class is something people might not like, but I think it is a good idea. You could derive the number of respawns for each class based on the number of slots for each role. Since the sniper is 1 out of 16, then 6% of total reinforcements would be snipers. Maybe that is a bit harsh .

But you get the idea, if there is some sort of limit on respawns, then the snipers and machine gunners will play more toward their function, and riflemen and assault troopers will play comparatively more aggressive.