Sniper teams and MG teams.

[Oldih]

Forcing players to work as a team rarely - if ever - works in shooters. Sure I wouldn't personally mind that I would be carrying some MG tripod or so, but what would the MG gunner do about it? Start constantly yelling get over here, demand ridicuously stupid requests to get tripod to some location where you can't do it and eventually there's no HMG in your team at all, just some guys going "no u" with the whole clownfest of arguments.

Sure it would reward if you gather some people you know together and actually coordinate and work together (which is obvious), but then there's no guarantee can you get the gunner as there's some guys fighting about putting the tripod on some stupid location or the MG gunner is wondering how do I use this thing.

I like this idea, if a mate of my has an mg, i can stay with him and load it for him.

What's the benefit? MG gunner might be able to keep track of its targets\surroundings slightly beter, but it's still sitting ducks and when some eager helper would start to reload (presuming it would be rewarded with points) if you want to displace before you get raped by hail of bullets and there's 2-3 guys wanting to reload and you're stuck, go figure. It's same in RO:Ost already occasionally that you go into good position with MG, start shooting, displace and suddenly half of your team wants to give ammunition and they usually get killed, or simply prevent you from getting to another 'good' position.

It's amusing once in a while, but after seeing it going on for couple of years even the last lulz that it can produce has been squeezed out.

 

[Zetsumei]

if the bots are good it could perhaps work well to have a slave ammo carrier that carries the tripod with the mg class

 

[sampsa]

if the bots are good it could perhaps work well to have a slave ammo carrier that carries the tripod with the mg class

Or helps to haul Maxim Sokolov or DsHK. Some one popped the idea of the bot assuming passenger / helpper position while player is the driver while moving MG's and guns. Sound plausible.

Maybe every player should get a group of bots so everyone could be a squad leader and one could be leading a whole comppany

 

[FlyXwire]

Maybe every player should get a group of bots so everyone could be a squad leader and one could be leading a whole comppany

Indeed, in the meantime where is my damn batman, I seem to have gotten mud on my boots.

 

[Dsquad]

What's the benefit? MG gunner might be able to keep track of its targets\surroundings slightly beter, but it's still sitting ducks and when some eager helper would start to reload (presuming it would be rewarded with points) if you want to displace before you get raped by hail of bullets and there's 2-3 guys wanting to reload and you're stuck, go figure. It's same in RO:Ost already occasionally that you go into good position with MG, start shooting, displace and suddenly half of your team wants to give ammunition and they usually get killed, or simply prevent you from getting to another 'good' position.

It's amusing once in a while, but after seeing it going on for couple of years even the last lulz that it can produce has been squeezed out.

Read my second post, my thought was that you should 'apply' to an mg gunner. So an mg gunner can 'hirer' an assistant to get him ammo and stuff, essentially forming an mg team.

 

[Mormegil]

Forcing players to work as a team rarely - if ever - works in shooters.

While I'd vote for an AI MG support, I have to disagree that teams don't work. At least in the context of RO. ROOST team tanking is great, and most of the time I find myself driving (as the driver is the one who keeps the tank alive, it's often the most important role). Sure driving isn't as fun as MGer or gunner, but it's a very important role.

I'd imagine the squad system in ROHOS will make teamwork even more important. I could imagine if you had a fire team equipped with an LMG and rifles, you could have the riflemen carrying some extra ammo, and happily pointing out enemies to the MGer (maybe using an adapted pointing system like the one for SL).

 

[cooperr]

Great.. can't wait to join a 64 player server where actually every player has an ai.. thats 128 total.. thats going to be alot of fun?? having another 64 headless ai running around on a map..

I did rather see no AI at all.. except for the tank shell reloading..

 

[Oldih]

While I'd vote for an AI MG support, I have to disagree that teams don't work.

Only problem with typical "team" in online shooters is that you really need to get either very lucky with your co-players or you would need to play with people you know. In the past three years I've gone solo on RO:Ost public servers I've only met two tankers who were willing to cooprate rather than just go CHAERG the moment they hopped in after switching position or just said "gtfo" and refused to move\started to basically grief in diffrent ways until I did so, even when I expressed that I can drive and be his ***** (so to speak). That's pretty piss poor ratio. I am not expecting them to be some supar awshum tactical ninjas, but even some of the most basic actions are often more resembling a group of zombies walking to a hail of bullets with surprisingly liveful appearance.

Read my second post, my thought was that you should 'apply' to an mg gunner. So an mg gunner can 'hirer' an assistant to get him ammo and stuff, essentially forming an mg team.

That could work out quite well, but even that would be voluntary action from both parties rather than something they presume to be the "right" (as ambigiuous as the term is) course of action right from the start.

 

[Dsquad]

That could work out quite well, but even that would be voluntary action from both parties rather than something they presume to be the "right" (as ambigiuous as the term is) course of action right from the start.

I don't really understand your objection to it, care to explain further? I think that it won't work 100% all the time, but it can force cohesion to an mg team. For instance, if an 'assistant' doesn't get him ammo but just does it for the extra points, he can fire him. So he doesn't have to wait for the round to end to give it another try.

 

[Oldih]

I don't really understand your objection to it, care to explain further?

I don't object it, but even you mentioned the potential scenario someone doing it for points and firing him from the job, imagine if it was free-for-all. For MG gunner to request someone to assist him is entirely voluntary and vice versa. That's the reason why the solution could work quite well.

 

[Mormegil]

Only problem with typical "team" in online shooters is that you really need to get either very lucky with your co-players or you would need to play with people you know. In the past three years I've gone solo on RO:Ost public servers I've only met two tankers who were willing to cooprate rather than just go CHAERG the moment they hopped in after switching position or just said "gtfo" and refused to move\started to basically grief in diffrent ways until I did so, even when I expressed that I can drive and be his ***** (so to speak). That's pretty piss poor ratio. I am not expecting them to be some supar awshum tactical ninjas, but even some of the most basic actions are often more resembling a group of zombies walking to a hail of bullets with surprisingly liveful appearance.

Going a bit off topic here, but that's not my experience. It might be the server, or the map that makes the difference. I only really team tank on combined arms maps. I usually get about a 60/40 ratio of willing team tankers / unwilling*. I could imagine if you try to team tank on a tank map, it would go much further down. Maybe on combined arms maps, you tend to play infantry, while I play tank. That could account for our different experiences.

*of that 60% willing, less than half are actually effective.


That said anybody who willingly chooses the MG support role would be willing to support the MG. It's not like the tank role, where you can both gun and drive, so people want to do both. It still seems like a lot of work for a role few people would actually want to play.

 

[Reise]

Are they even called snipers in RO2 anymore?

Anyway, I wouldn't want to deal with an AI loader, that'd be a new level of annoying. It would also be a pain to make for the devs.

You would often end up waiting for the fool if your ping wasn't perfect, and if it was, he could end up being an easy target anyway.

 

[Oldih]

Going a bit off topic here, but that's not my experience.

It's a funny thing with personal experience that depending on diffrent factors they can have quite interesting results. I probably have just had astronomically bad luck.

But ultimately the whole point is this: encouraging people for teamwork is a good thing, but forcing players for teamwork - especially with artificial system - rarely works, only two games which are somewhat artificial yet works are L4D and L4D2. If it's voluntary action the players who are E.G. requesting to work as MG asst. gunner are more likely to do it as intended rather than just dick around. Same would apply for some other potential infantry related squad orders\actions.

 

[Taisenki]

Rather than have a specific "Class-team-loadout" for doing this....you should be able to do this through game mechanics. Beneficial? Up to the player. Heres an example....

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Machine gunner
Random Ally Friend
Bunch of Axis trying to storm over some no mans land to get to the building.

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setting set! Machine gunner is firing to suppress and hes running low on ammo. The Random Ally Friend should be allowed to run to some sort of ammo crate or any corpse and pick up some additional MG boxes for the machine gunner. And ATLEAST, drop it on the floor so he can pick it up. Even better if they had like a "Trading item" animation =) He just gets it out his back pocket and holds it out in his hand for someone to take.

-

Now you don't need a class for it...

 

[cooperr]

what is wrong with the old resupply gunner function? that everyone is possible to resupply the machine gunner?

The only thing that would make sense is that you can edit your class layout.. so you can choose weither or not you want to carry an extra belt of mg ammo as for example rifleman.. but the belt effects the weight.. so as penalty you walk slower.. etc..

 

[Zetsumei]

nobody would carry mg ammo if it would make you lighter. I rather have everyone have some ammo but only obtain points for giving a mger ammo when he requests it.

 

[FlyXwire]

I like the approach Taisenki & Zets are promoting, for the reason it encourages team members to maintain supply because it's beneficial, and maybe even personally rewarded.

There's always going to be military tasks (like resupply & bringing up chow for instance) that are essential to combat efficiency, but don't make for great gaming roles. These things can be assumed to have happened in short-span fights, or can be performed by the AI in longer operations, or can be rewarded if players take on the task. But players have to be able to recognize the benefit, and just because it's a legitimate military task doesn't mean players will automatically care to do it.

 

[Nicholas]

I rather have everyone have some ammo but only obtain points for giving a mger ammo when he requests it.

Awesomeness.

 

[Mormegil]

It always bugged me that everybody carried MG ammo (gasp - gamey?!*). I don't know how it will play out in the game, but I think a good compromise would be to have members of the MG's squad carry some extra MG ammo.

We have to remember, ROHOS has a squad system, with squad leaders, and an ultimate platoon leader. Presumably, you'll have a fire team as a squad, and an assault team. The fire team, would have the MG, and those members would have extra ammo. This isn't even covering loader, which I don't think enough people want to play to make it worth modeling.


*this gamey feature was required in ROOST to promote team play, but probably won't be in ROHOS due to the squad system / squad spawning, which should encourage team work pretty well.

 

[Oldih]

It always bugged me that everybody carried MG ammo (gasp - gamey?!*)

I am not sure about the russians, but for germans it was standard for (almost) everyone to carry some extra ammunition for the squad's LMG especially later in the war, so it's not as gamey as one would expect