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New objective capture idea

The_Emperor

Grizzled Veteran
May 9, 2009
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Milkyway
hi lads,

I believe it was Zetsumei who wanted the problem solved that your team is physically under the control of the objective and still the enemy can capture the objective. When I was going for a walk yesterday this idea came to my mind.

Let's say we got 13 Germans in defense of an objective. So the Axis team is under (complete) control of the objective. Now let's imagine an assault of the Russian team, we got 25 players in this assault squad. Now they enter the building and gather themselves in one room after they killed 3 Germans who became aware of their presence and tried to remove the threat. The defenders killed 5 Russians in return. Now we got 10 Germans at the objective site left, 20 Russians left who try to capture the objective. The capture bar will fill up with the red bar but it will stop at 66%, as the other 34% are still under control of the Germans. So the capture bar stops if there are still enemy players in the objective radius/area. So even if just one German survives the eviction of the building the bar will never reach 100%.
The other way round is the same, the defending team will never reach 100% of defense again if there's just one Russian left in the objective radius/area.

I hope it's described in an understandable way. ;)
 
Smart i like it but some people are quite good at hiding, new players may use 5 min to find him. so if there is minor resistance against a much stronger force, after 3 min the capture bar will be forced to be active. for the Russians.

This should not apply when there is like 5 vs 5 and 10 vs 7 so on. at least 300% more Russians in the cap than Germans, before this comes in.
Example: 3 Russians vs 1 German, if not get German is killed the capture bar will start again, and yes if he’s killed too it will start.

What you peeps think.

Cool new profile picture emperor.
 
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The issue is that your suggestion primarily shifts the focus from the attackers hiding to the defenders hiding and stopping the cap. what if 3 germans hide somewhere in a single room where you simply connot enter safely the capzone will never be captured then.

The easiest system that atleast helps already. Is cutting the capzones up in smaller sections. Like having 6 seperate capzones. And if you "capture" 4 or 5 of those for a certain time limit then you get the capzone.

The issue with this becomes, you ideally do not want to show what exact capzones are capped and where. As then you immediately know the exact location of the enemy forces. But if you do not show the exact locations of the minicapzones the game can become overly complex.

Thats why ideally in my opinion you have a system that is able to find out what ground is controlled by whom even if you dont stand on it. Frontline systems and influence systems work well for this.

But im not a coder and don't know how cpu intensive such systems would be. Although it could be another revolution in gameplay modes.

Or you can solve the issue by simplification like keeping the capzones low (similar to now) and making the sizes small. Although i see that myself more as avoiding the issue than solving it, it thoroughly limits options for mappers as well.
 
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I think part of the fix should also just be a rethinking of where the mappers place the cap zone triggers themselves. Far too often do the cap areas spill over into other areas. Like, for example, you have to cap a house. Often you're able to just go right up to the outside wall of the house and pile on soliders without actually ever entering the structure.
 
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good overall idea, emperor.

I think 1 or 2 defenders should not count anymore, if there are already overwhelming odds in the cappzone.
Like 7 soviets in the cappzone and 1 german defender, the soviets shoud win anyway.

Otherwise the game would be just hide and seek. ;)

The thing is where would you draw the line. If you base a system on purely numbers you will remain keeping the issue. Say if you need less than 3 enemies in the capzone, what if 3 start barricading a single room. That room should be insignificant to the entire whole of the capzone.

The entire issue is that the system is purely based on having X people located in a capzone, but not looking at where they are located within a capzone. Especially if the enemy precense in the capzone bar will be removed (of which i dearly hope it will) the issue will be much bigger as nobody will know there are enemies in the capzone till they start capping from nowhere.

What i think would work the best is dividing every capzone in multiple minicapzones which all carry a certain value.
Then the closest soldier (in terms of minicapzones away with making a corner increasing the distance) to a minicapzone becomes the owner of the capzone. Then if one side owns say 80% of the total values of the minicapzones that side will have capped the building.

Here a crude illustration of what i mean. There are more axis (blue ovals) than allies (red ovals) yet the allies got a bigger territorium as they are closer to more minicapzones than the axis. However the issue is that a proximity check for a capzone especially as it should use botpaths to not go through walls etc, requires too many cpu cycles probably. But there are probably some code tricks to avoid that.

Although i dont know how heavy something like this would be on a processor to calculate, however the coders at twi could probably find something similar thats less resource heavy.

9910948ad6ab07dd3d046e5c67036773.jpg
 
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Not a bad idea Zetsumei. It could be done similar to how Company of Heroes does territory capture. It would have to work a little differently of course since COH is rts and ROHOS will be fps, but the principles could still be the same for within' a capzone.
And people, you have to give more credit to CPUs, they can do a lot more than you think. Something like this would be a piece of cake for it.

But it could get way too complicated. I think an objective capture system like this might create more problems than it would solve.
 
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The thing is where would you draw the line. If you base a system on purely numbers you will remain keeping the issue.

Say if you need less than 3 enemies in the capzone, what if 3 start barricading a single room. That room should be insignificant to the entire whole of the capzone.

I am no gamedesigner to know where to draw the line, but I think a 5:1 supremacy is more than enough.

For your argument about the 3 defenders barricading a single room: OF COURSE these guys have to be killed first (at least 2 of the 3) to complete capping - especially if the room is part of the cappzone!

...they wont survive for long anyway if the enemy uses nades! ;)

Here a crude illustration of what i mean. There are more axis (blue ovals) than allies (red ovals) yet the allies got a bigger territorium as they are closer to more minicapzones than the axis.
If I go you right you say that 2 attackers count more than 5 defenders just because they are in more cappzones? :rolleyes:
No way! This is against all logic, and unrealistic too. Why should less soldiers count more than a higher number of enemy soldiers? This is just too arcade...
 
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I am no gamedesigner to know where to draw the line, but I think a 5:1 supremacy is more than enough.

For your argument about the 3 defenders barricading a single room: OF COURSE these guys have to be killed first (at least 2 of the 3) to complete capping - especially if the room is part of the cappzone!
They wont survice for long anyway if the enemy uses nades! ;)

The entire issue is that you need to know in what room they are. What if there are 3 soldiers hiding somewhere, in many capture zones that is possible. They can then hold the other team from capping for infinity. There are often enough rooms and places where you have nadesafe spots where you pretty much cannot enter if an enemy is there.

In a building with a 400m
 
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Company of Heroes is a good example to use--of course it's system is functionally almost the opposite of Red Orchestra's. In Company of Heroes the capture points are the reward for successful fighting. Take this example. There is a capture point which is located in the middle of a field with no cover nearby. There is a house overlooking the field and in that house is a German MG. Obviously, to capture the point the MG must be dislodged. Once it is destroyed, the point can be captured. What is important is not the number of soldiers on or nearby the capture point--the MG would destroy any number of squads out in the open. The destruction of the MG is obviously the objective, not the "capture" of an arbitrary point. Because the MG must be destroyed any terrain which allows that becomes important, which leads to more interesting gameplay.

For the converse in RO take an extreme example, such as Konigplatz. I believe the demolished building is third point. The cap zone is the whole building plus a small perimeter around it. The capture of this point involves very little fighting and a lot of rushing players into the cap zone. For experienced players, the most important thing to do is "get in the capzone." To me this just seems stupid. The building has the smallest field of fire of any terrain on that map. It is possible and indeed likely for both flanks to be totally locked down and yet somehow the huddled mass of Soviet infantry on one side of this building has meaning about the state of the map.

Capture points should be placed in areas where their control can reflect a side's map control, which is a combination of every player's field of fire as well as it's ability to respond to enemy movements. If theses points are captured it is because the defenders have been driven from their positions, not because enough attackers were cowering in the dead zones of those positions. Similarly, defenders will likely not be standing near the capture points--they must defend by killing attackers, not hiding from them.
 
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Zetsumei said:

Zets, your idea is well explained and understandable. But there are still some issues I want to show:
If top red player will move to a corner of a room, but axis will move to the center of first floor, when axis will start to capture.
We will have 'capture dancing' issue, when defenders will try to get into artificial point, where is 'better to defend'.
Means, by objective design we will have some points, which is better to defend to have control on objective, and these points will not match to actual defensive locations, which is better to defend to stay alive.
Not sure if I described it clearly. Do you got it?
 
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Very good point Lion. However that could be solved by restricting one soldier to cap only one objective at a time. The communist on the top floor would only be capturing one slice at a time and not all slices of the room simultaneously.

Another thing I want to say is that Zetsumei's idea has an inherent weakness. As the objective is now subdivided into smaller capture zones each of which can be recaptured, to gain the 80% of the capture area will be near impossible. In order to do that you would need a very good organisation which is absent in public play. The net result is a stalemate and many many drawn matches.

I would suggest: what if the cap zones can only be captured once? That means both sides will scramble to capture them as soon as possible. Once all zones have been capped, we will have a ratio (i.e. 40-60%). The side which has an ordinary a majority wins the objective. This type of map would have to be perfectly designed for a 20 minute balanced match.
 
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I would suggest: what if the cap zones can only be captured once? That means both sides will scramble to capture them as soon as possible. Once all zones have been capped, we will have a ratio (i.e. 40-60%). The side which has an ordinary a majority wins the objective. This type of map would have to be perfectly designed for a 20 minute balanced match.

Whats with defense objective then?
Means, some objectives belongs to a side initially.

Actually, I already suggested the system, when all mentioned issues will be fixed:
Make all objectives as small as possible. Objective may be usable object, like door or radio or any other trigger.
If it is a building, then make objective on last floor of that building, last single room.
If it is large field, then put objective inside small bunker in the middle of it.

Now, if you defend the building, you will select a position, which best suits for protecting last floor: building entrances, stairways, key corridors, objective room.
If you attacking - you will need to find safest way to enter the building, and fight your way through the building to reach objective room.
You could have multiple objectives inside one building, recapturable or not. Capping time could be tweaked to suit to objective design.
But this will never turn into Seek&Destroy type of objective. (Which is actually team deathmatch type of game).
This will never turn into "Come and Hide" for assault team.
 
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Zets, your idea is well explained and understandable. But there are still some issues I want to show:
If top red player will move to a corner of a room, but axis will move to the center of first floor, when axis will start to capture.
We will have 'capture dancing' issue, when defenders will try to get into artificial point, where is 'better to defend'.
Means, by objective design we will have some points, which is better to defend to have control on objective, and these points will not match to actual defensive locations, which is better to defend to stay alive.
Not sure if I described it clearly. Do you got it?

The axis won't start to capture unless they cover say 70% of all the ground, which means they will actually have to get upstairs. Aka numbers completely don't matter anymore, and people need to position themself in a way to hold the most ground and keep holding it which is quite realistic.

The sliced pie was a bad example of what i meant because it got a clear center point that touches all the neighbouring capzones it should be more checkerboard like. (With every piece being the size of a room or something)
http://pics.roladder.net/8e733e6f6834417bc1985508356e0fc4.jpg
http://pics.roladder.net/88ba6f6236d47bc2e7ae934adf9d072d.jpg
http://pics.roladder.net/75fff52c9899a7fa1c2aa6561e146a82.jpg

But basically what the system does is draw a frontline between the soldiers as depicted in the picture below. Everything behind the axis soldiers is definite axis territory, everything behind allied soldiers is definite allied territory. If then one team moves closer than the other team the grey area between the axis an allied team will get smaller resulting in covering more ground. So people need to play dynamically but decide for themselves how safe they will play it.

fda5f027b0ce5b62906e24deb3bfe8b9.jpg


So the most optimal position territory wise is standing directly against an enemy soldier, but everybody knows in their right mind that its the most risky one as well as if you die you loose your territory. So you need to optimize safety while blocking off a large piece of ground of the enemy.

The positions you will end up using to defend this way are actually pretty realistic. As the key positions will be entrancepoints. Like the outside doors, the entrances to hallways and staircases in multistory buildings. Exactly the spots that are most important to cover in reallife as well.

My idea for capping as well is say if you have over 80% of the area then the capzone is for example instantanious. Or it could be like if you have 70+% a cap bar goes up. Below 70% it stays still and below 50% the cap bar goes down. This way the capbar shouldnt fluctuate that much either. By simply stepping 1 meter forward or backwards or whatever.

The 70% number or 80% number is just a number which can be changed by the mapper if said number is too hard to obtain. However with a different cap system maps will need to be playtested with that system in mind and then balanced with that system in mind, of course a direct change from the current system on current maps wont work. (from a realistical standpoint you probably wouldnt have capped a building untill you had everything like 95%-100% secure although that is indeed impossible.).

The key to winning will be to cut off the enemies entrance to a building and clearing the remaining people out, which in itself is quite realistic. As you don't need to stand exactly on a minicapzone to capture it. If you kill the one guy thats on the top floor, the entire top floor is immediately your territory. And when defending the key is holding important accesspoints to more parts of the building, like staircases doors, or things like crossroads in a town.

The key of this suggestion is that people always try to find the easiest ways to win, and out of their nature somewhat try to exploit that. If an area based capsystem is inplace, this will automatically result in people trying to take positions that would be quite realistic to take.
 
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There are more efficient ways to get the same results. For example worluk's cap system which was already running as a UE3 mod. I just don't know what options there are in implementation and what could be used, as i never coded for UE3 myself. Thats why i describe mostly how i would want to see a system in effect basically rather than how it could be implemented as i don't know.

The thing is that making it simpler would either mean keeping the current system and its flaws, or making the capzone really small. And the latter is definitely something i don't want to go to. As having objectives of actually entire buildings is exactly what makes me like RO more than most games. Its just that the large capzones bring some issues with itself that i would like to see resolved.

The NR.1 improvement that i want to see in ROHOS is an overall improvement in the capture system.
And an area based capzone system got as advantage there that you could even make an entire map 1 big capzone. So you could have a map where you win if you obtain 75% of the entire ground of the entire map, giving yourself the choice in how you want to do it.

Every capsystem in existance can and will be exploited, and with every capsystem people will play in the way its the most effective and easiest to defend. The thing is, if that way to optimise your defence corresponds with how people would realistically defend a building, then you're in a win win situation.
 
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Zet i like the idea very good ,but i think the zones should be divided into rooms, in bigger objectives as a entire house.

but i dont think this should be standrad to the relaxed realism setting. it should be the realistic realism.

so normal capture settings for relaxed realism.

and Zets idea for realistic realism.

and depending on the size of the zones which are different some times. They should count as different % in the cap bar.

Example: there are three zones, main hall, basement and entrance.
Germans got the entrance and basement. the entrance is quite small, i should count as about 20%. main hall is big it counts as 50%. Basement 30%. so to complete the objective they have to control main hall, entrance and a bit basement.
Kind of tired , so tell my what you think.
 
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Room sized capzones should be perfect. As that allows you to move around slightly taking cover at a good position rather than being forced to stand directly against the door (aka you can cover the door from where you want). Although big open areas perhaps divided in some smaller sized ones. to make the regular distance travelled per section more equal.

Ill make a picture example of how i would divide the top floor of zhitomir appartments.
http://pics.roladder.net/d055a763d3d672c29f50904891bceb3d.jpg

With the staircases being half bottom floor and half top floor capzone.
 
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look at picture as it was a RO map, lets say the 3 objectives shown are

1- a house
2- a farm house
3- a small church

when objective 2 is taken from the defender they will lose a bit of the battlefield. and where the line is back and forth representates( the more the line is moved forth the more you control.) how much % you control of the battlefield. ( at the picture i would say the blue got about 60%)

this may be used for big objectives with many small rooms. which each room is a frontline and more moved forth the more you control of the objective.


http://www.product-reviews.net/wp-content/userimages/2008/01/frontlines-fuel-of-war-2.jpg

was it understand bole?

video about it YouTube - Frontlines: Fuel of War- Frontline Mechanic
 
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