Campaign system proposal (no RISK)

[Gwynzer]

So Aggro <3


I like the system quite a lot, the only problem I really kind of have is the map pool being so split. I think perhaps instead it should be split into two pools and the TA's either pick from the existing armies pools (taking turn about each week as to who's pull is the "hidden" one), that map can either be counted as played from the pool, or stay in the armies pool until it's picked.

This gives armies and TAs more choice as to what they want to do. I know that this way armies will specifically pick the maps they think they can do "better" at, and it will allow the TAs to pick the maps the campaign needs the most. Such as choosing a vehicle heavy map after lots of light vehicles or inf only kind of deal. Basically the same way TAs pick maps for the Scrims and BFI.

[Necromancer]

it depends what kind of map list you use and what is more important.
This setup insures rotating through all maps without playing the same map twice before playing all others.

give both sides a complete map list and you run into playing the same map on the same battle or battle after battle.
TAs picking maps from the armies pools - do the maps gray out? if they are, then its a bit unfair for the TAs to pick which maps are grayed out for the armies. if they arent - again army might select the same map because they saw they are good at it.

but before entering this discussion lets check how many maps we have.
currently BF4 has 30 maps. -locker - metro = 28 maps (im unaware of other maps that shouldn't be played).
10 maps in each pool before cycling, 2 maps per battle ==> 5 battles to run through the pool, and thats under the assumption each map is played once regardless of mode type.
If every mode is considered unique map its ~40 maps per pool and campaign is more likely to end before cycling.

Edit:
Right now the system is designed to play through as many maps as possible.
But it depends on what you want to achieve.
Play more maps or allow to repeat a map?
Cus logic dictates an army will play again a map it performed well on.
Which contradicts veriarty. That is not necessarily bad. So first find what exactly you want. If you want both then well need to find a way to balance it, maybe with a set of rules. A better idea of what direction you prefer, maybe even with a basic example of how
It can be achieved will help in developing it further.

Also, aggression is based on who reads it and how they have interacted with that person in the past.

Maybe you should join TS to re-confirm your assumptions every now and then.
i don't remember when was the last time i interacted with you anymore or being aggressive/offensive for that matter.
if you prefer i can just tell you what you want to hear.

Spoiler: show

phpBB [video]

[StarfisherEcho]

Since this seems to be the campaign discussion thread I wanted to ask people a question. Do you:

1) Want to play each BF4 map once a campaign?
or
2) Want to play the best ~10-20 BF4 maps several times a campaign?

I could never play Flood Zone ever again and I would be a happy man. If I could only play Caspian for a campaign, I'd be ok with that. I'm thinking we could do a vote like we've done in the past for maps people like/don't like and then pick the top X maps, where X is some number that guarantees we could only play the same map once every 2-3 weeks.

I've often wondered if the "we play the same map too much" complaint was a side effect of "hard" maps (ie shitty imbalanced maps) being placed on important territories, which get fought over constantly, while balanced/good maps tend to be placed in corners or generally out of the way.

Thoughts?

Edit: Oh also let's drop the whole aggro discussion guys, it doesn't really help anything. This is a good thread and I don't want to see it go off the rails. Necro's involvement in the campaign isn't the topic at hand, the campaign system is

[Jokerle]

2) Want to play the best ~10-20 BF4 maps several times a campaign?

this for me. Forcing all maps feels somehow wrong, but I won't strongly oppose the idea.

If I could only play Caspian for a campaign, I'd be ok with that.

You are a sick man, good sir!

[Necromancer]

Desclaimer: I only have vanilla+CR.

We don't know what are the good maps. We don't know because we don't have enough experiance. Maps good for pub aren't necessarily good for GC and vice versa.
We haven't played ~half of the maps in GC, and a good portion of the maps we did play suffered from enormous imbalance, potentially making a good map remembered as bad one.
Not to mention the way the maps are played may change as the level of the armies gets higher (see BF3 campaigns).

So I'm leaning towards playing all the maps, simply because I don't have enough experiance to say what are the good maps and which are the bad ones.
From a strategy and planing perspective repetition allows to learn and refine the strategy, which is not really viable if the map is played once in a blue moon.
Ideally I'd like to play through all the maps with some repetition, but if its too difficult to balance I'd choose force playing all the maps once.
I don't think there is another map as bad as floodzone, and I wouldn't mind playing it once a month.

[dan1mall]

If I could only play Caspian for a campaign, I'd be ok with that.

I would legit play a campaign with only caspian and firestorm

[elchino7]

There are maps which i would gladly have less variations of them than others. For example: i wouldn't want Floodzone 64v, 32v, 64i and 32i. Having only 64v would be fine for me (maybe 1 more option).
This also applies to (personal opinion):
-Golmud on 64i
-Hainan 32i
-Altai Range i
-Pearl Market

[Gonzo]

Here's what TheOne and I have come up with. It picks up a couple of ideas from Necro's system and some ideas that we added ourselves.

We've made some cosmetic changes along with some subtantial ones, the main ones being giving out one point per round instead of one point per map and the changes to the map pool. Tell us what you think of it!

[ZebraPeps]

At first glance - looks really interesting

Questions:
What's the size of map pools (how many maps are there)?
What's the mathematics behind the CP (Campaign Points) and the worst/best case scenario in terms of campaign longevity?

[elchino7]

At first glance - looks really interesting

Questions:
What's the size of map pools (how many maps are there)?
What's the mathematics behind the CP (Campaign Points) and the worst/best case scenario in terms of campaign longevity?

+10 (Vanilla)
+16 (DLC)
-2 (Lockers + Metro)
I'm not sure how Lumphini or Pearl Market played so maybe any of these maps could be removed or not.

If the campaign is one sided, 9-3 to 12-0, it should end on 3/4 weeks. Best case scenario, it would take quite some time to end the campaign if it's balance around a 7/5 result.

[Gonzo]

At first glance - looks really interesting

Questions:
What's the size of map pools (how many maps are there)?
What's the mathematics behind the CP (Campaign Points) and the worst/best case scenario in terms of campaign longevity?

We're hashing out the map pool in a few days, we're likely gonna have around 25 maps in the pool. I'm personally unsure of inculding the Final Stand stuff, but that's tbd.

Chuko hit the timing on the head. A bad campaign should be over in about three weeks, and if we are balanced enough for this campaign to drag on without anything decisive happening, TheOne and I can agree to increase the CP won per round.

We mainly made the change from Necro's system towards our CP system to make it easier to follow, but it's purely optical. It's still about winning via a point divide, which gives us the option of making the campaign as long as it is fun to play, provided the armies are balanced. I mocked up a visualisation, putting my incrdible ms paint skillz to use:

Spoiler: show

[Necromancer]

few questions:
1) why does 2 rounds win worth more then 3 rounds win?
2)

Each army picks 3 maps and the side they wish to start from. All three picks are public.

when are the maps supposed to be announced to the other side?

3) followup question

No map can be played twice in one battleday by either army

what happens if both sides pick the same map?

4) what happens if both teams are left with the same maps in their map pools?
5) sides alternate or not every round?
6)

If a battleday runs longer than the previously chosen 6 maps, TAs will pick additional maps from the attacking army’s pool

who is the attacking side exactly?
7) an army can try to stall the battle to not play the opponents last map. this can lead to bad blood.

8. i think draining each other points isn't that good idea. Technically its exactly the same, but it looks and feels a bit better to loose 100-150 then surrender 5-45 IMO.

9) server settings: bleed, tickets, map time, man down time, weapons? what about army recruiting?

[Gonzo]

1) Winning after 3 rounds means one army won both rounds from the same side, so it is most likely down to map bias. Winning in two rounds means a win from both sides, which is very hard to do on many of the maps.

2) I forgot to include that. My mistake. The armies are gonna alternate who has to pick maps first. The first army to pick maps will be the one that lost the BFI. The army that won the BFI will announce their pick later and attack first on the first battleday. Map picks have to be announced on Wednesday SBT for the army that picks first and Thursday SBT for the army that picks second. That way the two armies can't ever pick the same maps.

4) If an army isn't able to pick a map because of that, their pool gets reset and they can choose other maps for that day, but they must pick the leftover maps the following week.

6) The army that chose the map and starting side is considered the attacking army. That means if army A chose the 6th map, the 7th map comes from army B's pool and the 8th from army A. The attacking army still get's to choose their starting side.

7) In Risk, the whole objective of the defenders is to stall and it never lead to bad blood then. I don't see why it should now. On top of that, TheOne and I are likely to eliminate all modes that have an even number of flags on the map, but as I said, that's tbd.

'8) I'd like to hear from other people if that's a concern. I personally like the "tug of war" aspect that this system has. Also, since we're not having a race to a certain amount of points, just counting up seems unintuitive and requires everyone to calculate the delta after every BD if they want to know how many rounds they still need to win.

9) Server settings: same as last campaign, basically. A good round should last about 20 to 30 minutes, a blowout about 15.
Weapon bans are tbd. We're likely to change back to the normal reload system as opposed to the full mag drop we had last campaign.

[Bock]

Regarding 4), just to simplify things and avoid the necessity of premature map pool replenishment or requiring an army to have a contingency plan, I think it would make more sense to give each army half the map pool and once they've exhausted the whole map pool, swap halves.

[Necromancer]

1) if you conclude that winning a map by winning it in two rounds is very hard, then you must expect to play most maps with 3 rounds, if so, you shouldn't expect to get an average of 6 maps per battle with every map lasting ~25 minutes.

And from a different angle, if winning in two rounds is very hard, then it means the side that did it is better then the other side that couldn't hold it from either side. Why would you give a bonus to the strong side? it will end the campaign faster.

EDIT:
Contrary to BF3, i think most BF4 maps aren't significantly biased, I assume winner will be determined in first two rounds most of the time, and giving double points for it is will lead to a shorter campaign. But this is subjective assumption, it is as good as yours.

7) in RISK the battleday was asymmetric, now both sides are attacking equally, even though one side has to post his maps first.
this means one side may get to play 3 maps starting from its favorable side, while the other only play 2 starting from their favorable side.

8. On the contrary, it shows both sides accomplishment throughout the campaign. The higher the score the better and longer the campaign was. ABS(points_A - points_B) is not more difficult then calculating the WCP score of the RISK system we used.

9)

If a battleday runs longer than the previously chosen 6 maps, TAs will pick additional maps from the attacking army’s pool

If i had to pick a map i didn't prepare for it might not be the one the TAs would pick.
But thats just because its natural for the army to pick themselves which maps they'd like to play and when, especially if it is grayed out of their pool.