C6 - The Little Changes

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StarfisherEcho
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by StarfisherEcho »

Matsif, a timed campaign is something we're looking at. Fyi, C4 was the third longest campaign in GC history, not much shorter than c8 in bf2. So people do have an idea of what they're asking for here :)

The round start time is now limited to 30s max, thanks to some random bug introduced midway through c4. We do a restart 60 to make up for it and give everyone a clear indication that live is soon to follow. Not ideal at all, but there you go.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by InsanityRocks »

I like the idea of 'dummy armies' and agree that deception is part of war. I'd love to see that idea come to life. It could be used to setup some nice feints. :)

I also like the 'fog-of-war' idea. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but having a fog-of-war component raises the strategy level up a notch. Please understand I was just a lowly grunt in C5 but, to me, it appeared movement was based more on BF3 map selection than actual board game territory (I could be completely off base and, if so, I apologize).

My biggest complaint about TS is that, as a non-vehicle guy put in a TD, I felt lost most of the time. But, because of low attendance, I did what was asked of me for the greater good of the army.

And while C5 is (currently) my only GC experience, I'd gladly wait until June/July to ensure a smoother C6.

As for the rest: I'm hoping as I gain more experience with GC I'll be able to contribute ideas and opinions regarding some of the game play details. Until then, I gladly defer...
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Ghoul »

Necromancer wrote:
  • +1 for demavand, horrible. glad i didn't get to play it this campaign.
  • number of divisions per territory lowered, but not enough territories were added to balance it.
    less division --> more maps per battle day --> more territories can be caught every battle day. C4 was 3-4 territories a day, C5 was 4-5 territories a day. statistically the campaigns shortens.
I disagree with lowering the army count. It was difficult enough to keep territories at strength with 3 armies with a majority of our territories having only 1 or 2 armies left to defend them. Fewer max armies on a territory further exasperates one team quickly taking even more territories if they are playing undefeated. As it stands the most an army can hope to capture in a battle day is 3 to 5 territories. If you reduce the number of divisions on a territory that number would go up as the average number of rounds played on a Saturday is around 12 rounds. Also, reducing the max defend able / attack numbers kills Blitzkrieg maneuvering. As it is now if you go undefeated and still have 3 armies after a successful attack only 2 can move forward to blitzkrieg with.

[*]BO shouldn't directly impact the RISK map. The changes purposed to the BO were made to get more participants, but as seen this campaign the attendance of BOs didn't increase at all. people don't show up because they can't, not because they don't want to or because they think BOs are meaningless. I think its unfair one side looses just because their players are unable to get to BO due to work/RL. statistically it also decreases the time of the campaign as the side that wins more battle days would probably win more BOs, which only helps the strong side win faster.
I disagree, Black Ops should directly impact the campaign map. Its been pointed out in the past that when Tuesday battles do not matter people do not show up to play. Some people can only show up on Tuesday battles and it is our duty to make their time contribution important to the campaign. Other wise why not just go pubbing.
[*]I'd like to see the fog of war back. not as intensely as before, but would be nice to have fully revealed territories if its next to you, and partially blackened territories on the back territories. with surveillance perks that reveal those territories at the cost of RISK cards /missions / market credits / whatever system is used.
for those thinking about earlier campaigns and fog of war, note with next-territory line of sight after draft about 90% of the map will be fully revealed. its not as restricting as before.
Fog of war is a nightmare to administer for those updating the campaign map since you now have to maintain 3 separate versions of the map (one for each army and one for the TA's). It is cool from the standpoint that we will get to play random maps, but it kind of detracts from actual strategy when you are attacking blindly.
[*]to further increase the number of strategies available on the RISK map, it would be nice to be able to put dummy divisions to confuse the opponent. it would look like a real unit until its attacked, in which case it cease to exist (for example 2 dummy divisions to each side, as they blow-up, they are refunded to their army and start from the HQ).
additional perks, that at some cost, would hide a territory during an attack or defend turn. hiding the amount of units on the territory prior to attack or defense add complexity to the map, which right now is pretty straight forward and movements/attacks are easily predictable. deception and uncertainty are integral parts of any war.
[*]WCP balance - as territories worth 3, capitals 2 and theaters 3, with so many territories and capitals and the low reward for theaters i think theaters do not play any part in planning the next attack. the reward is negligible.[/list]
wouldn't work well with fog of war and again a real pain in the a$$ to keep track of for the TA's

I think the current system worked very well for C5. I would like the cost of sabotaging a FOB to be re-thought, currently it costs a week worth of time to build one and no time component to destroy one. So its too easy to kill.

I agree, theaters should be bumped in value. From 3 to 5 points seems reasonable. Paradrop rules need to be clarified to read that it can take place from any territory not just capital cities.
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Calloutman
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Calloutman »

To reiterate what Ghoul said, the fog of war was a real nightmare. There is a confidentiality problem as any new recruit could share your map with the enemy. Keeping the map private excludes large portions of the army from getting involved in the risk discussions. Also if anyone switches sides (rare but it does happen) you immediately have compromised your map.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Necromancer »

Ghoul wrote: I disagree with lowering the army count.
I meant the # of armies was lowered from C4 -> C5, and that allowed more maps to be captured and a shorter campaign.
Ghoul wrote: Its been pointed out in the past that when Tuesday battles do not matter people do not show up to play.
at the end of C4 we crossed the 28vs28 line on EUBOs, this time we hardly ever made it to 20vs20.
so the importance of BOs is not what influences the attendance.
on the other hand, a handful of people gets to directly impact the RISK map with the army/HC/General has little to no control over it.
Ghoul wrote: Fog of war is a nightmare to administer for those updating the campaign map since you now have to maintain 3 separate versions of the map (one for each army and one for the TA's). It is cool from the standpoint that we will get to play random maps, but it kind of detracts from actual strategy when you are attacking blindly.
first of all you don't need 3 maps. you have 1 fully revealed "TA" map, and after the moves are done just delete/restrict areas out of it and give it to one army, go back to the "TA" map, restrict other areas and give it to the 2nd army. it adds a bit of work, but deleting stuff in photoshop is much faster.

again, 'fog of war' doesn't have to blacken everything out. it could just omit the number of divisions stationed on that territory, leaving the map, version and size revealed.

with 1 tile line of sight, the starting map would look like this:
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there are only 2 territories that get fog of war: Chile and Argentina.
the map, its size and mode can remain on the map (or tweaked - only the name and size, but mode hidden or any other combo...)
so its not attacking blindly, you can easily guess how many divisions are stationed there right now, and you could always purchase a perk that would reveal that territory.
haven't we predicted correctly ~80% of KART attacks? where's the strategy in that? its like playing poker with all the cards revealed on the table.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Digz »

-epicenter and damvand: keep them on rush
-keep rush and ctf, kick TS far far away, maybe add more mode.
-feck playing for flags all the time.
-turn all GC servers -NOW- to ranked for all.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by matsif »

StarfisherEcho wrote:Matsif, a timed campaign is something we're looking at. Fyi, C4 was the third longest campaign in GC history, not much shorter than c8 in bf2. So people do have an idea of what they're asking for here :).
there is a possibility that I have a bad taste left in my mouth because of what happened in bf2c8, so my opinion might be skewed. also bf3c4 was easily 2 months shorter than bf2c8 even if it was the 3rd longest campaign we've done here (oct 2012-feb 2013 vs. feb-aug 2007...which is much shorter imo), and although I didn't play I didn't see any major complaints popping up in public forums. bf2c8 was marred with its problems on top of IIRC the attacking team winning every week, so it was basically just stagnant and army morale was a constant roller coaster. The tides never turned, complaints kept popping up, etc.

what I'm saying is I'd rather not experience what happened in bf2c8 again, and a time limit on the campaign is something that can be done to prevent that.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Ishimel »

- make theaters count for more points
- make capital cities count for fewer points
- I liked the card system but when both armies draw 3 cards at a time doing things to draw more was mostly pointless. This needs to be tweeked

Many people are saying that we need to add more territories or lower # of armies per territory so that we don't end up playing the same maps over and over again. We added more territories and lowered the army count from 4 to 3 this campaign to fix those exact problems and it is clear that playing the same maps over and over again is unavoidable. What we did makes it possible for armies to maneuver around maps they don't want to play or don't like playing but in the end some maps will be played several times and others will barely get played. We never played seine crossing last campaign but that was simply because the strategies of both armies didn't concern the territory that map was on. Much of the fighting was throughout asia and north America during C5 so no one ever bothered attacking Great Briton. Thats not a fault of the system but neither side bothered attacking that place.

Also it seems we often need to balance what we think would be super cool and what is just not feasible to do. While i think that fake divisions would be awesome it runs into the same problem as Fog of war in that they are hard to keep track of and it only takes one loose lipped noob to slip up and tell the other army and just ruin it all.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Necromancer »

Ishimel wrote:and it only takes one loose lipped noob to slip up and tell the other army and just ruin it all.
1) the fog of war i suggested, and dummy divisions are not something to relay on anyway (the opponent should be able to reveal covered territories as well as dummy divisions). they add uncertainty to both sides. one side plays with the dummy divisions trying to fool the other side, while the other might already figured out where is the dummy division and just acts like it doesn't know.
2) their impact is small.
3) information, strategies, attacks, openings can all be leaked now as well.
and cheats can be used too.
I think this community is responsible and respectful enough to not leak anything. After all, we are not playing for money...

4) dummy divisions should be move-able just like any other division. deployed from the HQ with a bunch of others so its impossible to tell who is the dummy one, and then slowly moved to its position. And as i said, it should be possible to uncover the dummy division using a perk. but the perk only reveals there is a dummy division on the territory. if divisions are later moved in/out, it might no longer be true. so moving the dummy division every now and then is a good idea.
so even if someone leaks the information, it would only be good for one week. after that it might be completely outdated and unreliable.. not to mention those leaks should be easily noticeable by the opponents HC and general, which should inform the TAs. just that should be a sufficient deterrent to anyone knowing something to keep his mouth shut.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by V_ »

Agree with
  • 1/3/4 = City/Territory/Theater
  • Timed Campaign, though it needs to be debated more thoroughly.
  • Reducing automatic "Draw 3" to 2, maybe even 1
  • Increasing cost of Sabotage
  • Adding more Vanilla and B2K to the map pool while retaining the DLC we liked.
  • Removal of Damavand Peak
  • Taking our time to ensure a smoother campaign
  • Keeping TS, CTF, and Rush, perhaps blending all three currencies into one. Need to look at the map pool to make sure that they're all fun though. Some of the maps currently in there aren't. Maybe the HC's could have a hand in choosing them?
  • Adding more of a sense of intrigue to the Risk System (though it can wait a campaign, I think)
Don't Agree with
  • Fog of war - it's just too difficult to try and keep up with. I suppose it's really up to the TA's who would have to implement it though.
  • Dummy Armies - Good in theory, but it becomes a headache when you can move them. You would have to, as well, or they'd be stuck on your HQ and there's no way to actually utilize them. I'm not saying that HC's would actually cheat in this regard, but it's too easy for mistakes to happen.
Also, I'd like to add that the expanded campaign map did help KART quite a bit, in that we could avoid Ukraine (the terrible Karkand 32v) pretty nicely. I see nothing wrong with the map or the army count, so let's keep them!
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by StarfisherEcho »

mastif: Arcturus dug through the archives to find the start/end dates of all campaigns. BF2C8 was 148 days (2 March -> 28 July), longest campaign ever. BF3C4 was 112 days (20 Oct 12 -> 9 Feb 13). So about a month less, and apparently without some of the issues from C8, but still quite a long time. If the BO imbalance in C4 hadn't been around, or if STAR had failed in their Omsk attack, that campaign could have easily drawn on for quite some time.

The problem I have with time limits is that while they can serve to end a stalemate campaign (and make it easier for people to commit), they can also be major morale killers. An army that might fight on in an unbounded campaign under the theory that they can get better and win eventually will give up in a timed campaign once it becomes clear there's not enough time to stage a comeback. That can happen quite quickly, morale being the fickle thing that it is.

It's all tradeoffs. Do we want to risk a drawn out affair which pisses people off because it won't end? Or do we want to risk ending a good campaign early due to the math of timed victory conditions? I think the system as it stands works better for no-limit campaigns, but could work for limited campaigns with some tweaks and changes to ensure there's incentive to stay in the fight. It's something to discuss, definitely.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Necromancer »

@star
well, how about system roughly based on assembling a coalition in a parliamentary democracy?
after the set time, a request by one of the generals can be made to the TAs to continue the campaign.
if the TAs agree, additional month is given (the 2nd general is not part of the decision).
after that month, a general can make one more request to extended the campaign by one more month.
after that, every week both generals and the TAs have to vote to continue or end it. 2/3 votes needed to pass a decision with the TAs retaining veto rights.
after additional month of weekly votes an anonymous referendum can be posted, leaving the decision in the members hands.
Last edited by Necromancer on Mon May 13, 2013 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by thallus »

I agree with Digz.

When no one is using the GC servers they should be Ranked, and open for everyone to play on. Maybe even a specialized mode that is unique and can draw in gamers. Something to help the GC name get out there.

If it's possible to keep 80% health on a Ranked Server. Same Server settings as our battleday but Ranked, I think that would be awesome and have it like vote map or some sort.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by Calloutman »

If people are getting burnt out, Instead calling it a draw, the generals could figure out a truce for a few weeks. We could have some nice chilled out fun days etc.
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Re: C6 - The Little Changes

Post by thallus »

StarfisherEcho wrote:The problem I have with time limits is that while they can serve to end a stalemate campaign (and make it easier for people to commit), they can also be major morale killers. An army that might fight on in an unbounded campaign under the theory that they can get better and win eventually will give up in a timed campaign once it becomes clear there's not enough time to stage a comeback. That can happen quite quickly, morale being the fickle thing that it is.
Please do not put on a time limit we will probably not need a time limit anyway. I have done the math and here is what the rest of the year will look like with the Release of BF4.

Battlefield 4 is released in exactly 171 Days.

The beta will be relesed about 2 weeks prior just like BF3. so we're now at 155 days.

We typically take 3-4 weeks between campaigns to get everything going. I do not know the exact schedule but there is always 2-3 fun weeks. The Draft with a New Army Scrim. an optional second scrimage week or go right into the BFI.

I'm going to conservativly put that at 35 days which takes us down to 120 days for the campaign 6 Before the Release of BF4.

Now that puts us RIght at the release of BF4 beta so anything shorter than 120 will fit in perfectly with our normal schedule and get us prepped for a new BF4 campaign that will also bring in A lot of more Recruits and new gamers.

I am a numbers guy and am always hoping we can get a full 32 vs 32 and not have lopsided armies. This campaign we will really need to pay attention to the balance of the Saturdays and the Black Ops.

I really do Enjoy the Tuesday Black Ops. I knew in STAR that I may have to sit out for time on saturday, but could always play on Tuesday.
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