=Sarc=

This was my first time trying out the mod. I read over the changes from vanilla BF2 and got it installed smoothly. Overall, I think the mod is pretty slick at this point and I'm anxious to see how it scales to the larger maps.

I don't know how the support weapons' accuracies in 0.4 was and I didn't really try out the current version's changes. I felt a little wary of using them and I guess it's a bit of an imprint from vanilla BF2. For now, I'd say it'll work nicely as suppressive fire.

I tried out sniping for practically the first time. It's never appealed to me before since players are always running. With the new slower pace, snipers are vital not only for taking down defenders but also spotting them. I did notice that the X when you hit somebody doesn't seem to show up. Maybe I'm just not noticing it.

The capture radius was shockingly small. It's neat to be able to neutralize it quickly and sticking close to turn it. However, I'm wondering if frags could be an issue. I know squads should try and clear the area before turning the flag but one frag could wipe out anybody in the capture radius. It didn't seem to be a problem tonight though.

Inter squad communication might be a problem without a commander. I'm not sure how much it really affects regular games since I don't play the SL role often. I just noticed a couple times tonight that there was some text chat to decide which squad would defend and which would attack. Or, we'd wait to see what the other squad did before deciding on an objective.

I did notice that the medic class only carries one extra mag. It's pretty limiting and I guess it's forcing the player to mainly be a medic. It seems a little tough though when the squad is spread over an area while defending. It makes for a lot of running around to resupply.

The pace of the game has changed dramatically. I didn't think such a small scale game would be so enjoyable. It would be really cool to see how it works out with 50+ players.

__________________
JO Guides & Tutorials
Team Element - It's who you game with.

TG_Bubba

Great times. I am not a big fan of the spawn times. I tried all the weapons and I have to say I think they are real good. The saw is better then the original and not as bad as the last mod. Map layouts are good and make for some good play. The lack of choppers is a good deal.

__________________

TG_Mateo: "Forget freedom, democracy, the blues, New York Pizza: our lasting contribution to human society is Bourbon."
Sloppy Joe: "Don't play this game like you are on your own, because if you do... it might become a reality."
kin3: "I'll try but I have the grandchildren all day today and if I'm not wiped out I'll play."

Santa

I think its scrim worthy enough now, unfortunatly i wont be able to play in it due to exams and family coming from outta state.

DrunkenSoul

didnt play in the .4 playtest, but I think that it is very hard for attackers to get a flag because of medic's. In my opinion it seems like a long time to heal a person, but I am a fan of no med packs. Anyone else feel this way?

__________________
|TG-1stMIP|DrunknSoul
1st Mechanized Infantry Platoon (C-Team)


[medic][conduct][combat][defense]
[tog-c1][ma-c1][tpf-c1][ma-c2]

SgtDuke

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the scrim on Tuesday where we have around 55 people signed up right now and we'll be playing on the larger 32 player maps with more terrain, aircraft, etc.

I think the gameplay went pretty well tonight. I saw and was involved in several good armor and rifle firefights. And while defending the factory on Zatar I was in a great position to watch the armor and AT standoff happening near the Southwest bridge. It seemed neither side could keep the other down for several minutes with engineers repairing the armor and medics reviving the AT soldiers (I assume). There was a flurry of smoke from the armor and missiles flying by them and hitting the silos and pipelines around me.

I think we're moving in the right direction in adapting to this different style of play and as we get better at it the battles should become more and more interesting.

shawn

i was on for a few maps tonight and i think it went quite well. It's tough to go from playing vanilla for 2 weeks and then go into this mod for one night but i think there was a definite change in gameplay tonight. The biggest change i saw was the excellent use of smoke grenades. For the first half of the first map i played i forgot entirely about the smoke but once they really can help you advance/retreat. Vehicles and choppers are still a part of the game, they just dont play exactly the same role as in vanilla.
On zatar (16 player) i dont think the bleed is right. If US has their main base and the centre island, mec is on bleed, which is fine. But if MEC turn the centre island neutral so the map looks 1 for US, 1 for MEC, 1 neutral, MEC is still on bleed.
I played AT and it was very nice. 1 AT can effectively engage a tank or APC with a chance of destroying it. I think tanks will need infantry cover/a really good .50 gunner. A tank cant run around the whole map with impunity. I think it was taking 3 hits to destroy a tank and 2 to destroy an APC. I was in the chopper a couple time on Zatar and it can be brought down really easily. I think it will have to be used more as a calculated attack against a small target rather than dominating the whole map. If you try to go after a whole squad that has an AT and a guy on a .50 cal you will die very fast.

Silent wind of Doom

My only real problem with the mod so far are the sniper rifles, with the cap radious so small, capping a flag can be a nightmare, having to move up ontop of the next flag to neutralize the sniper is unacceptable. It seems the USMC sniper rifle is now very accurate, while the PLA and MEC sniper rifles seem to be worth as much as they are in BF2 vanilla, it seemed that way, im not sertain, but a limit on the amount of sniper would be really sweet.

__________________

Santa

I think the choppers are going to have to start attacking with infantry and armor support, rather than freely roaming around to search out and destroy targets. If it goes alone, its screwed. With support, i think it could be very helpful.

The new AA is absolutly hillarious. The rockets are so powerful that the ground freaking shacks like an earthquake if your close enough to the explosion. I was curious if you could take out an armor with the AA station but never got the chance to.

Something i noticed is that bleed is EVERYTHING. You cant effectivly take tickets off the enemy by killing them, because generally people are staying alive, or if they get killed they immediatly get revived. In zatar the USMC were ahead substantially, but when they lost the central island they couldnt get it back. MEC came back from a huge deficit while hardly suffering any tickets of their own. This supports the idea that you can take an attack very slowly and carefully, because once you get bleed youll take many tickets off the enemy without losing many yourself.

perry

Haha, yea, those AA missles caused more shock than I get when a tank fires right next to me. I was out in the courtyard when you were shooting them at the silos, Santa, and wondered what the hell was going on until I looked over. Wish I had gotten a chance to try em out, especially since you get 8!!! missles now.

Bleed tonight was really a killer, as were the increased ticket counts. I guess that's the point? USMC won Karkand only because of that giant lead (actually, we may still have won at default levels, but it would have been alot closer). But, on Sharqi, we were able to keep the MEC bleeding and pulled off a win. Zatar was pretty cool.. One minute we're just hanging out at the main USMC base, next minute, we have a squad of invaders knocking on the door. Unfortunately for them, after walking all the way over our tank took em out. We couldn't get that bleed stopped quickly enough there at the very end

Dalian was kinda strange because of the bugged reactor tower flag. Then we lost the main base, and after asking to let us take that flag 2 or 3 times, someone decided to shoot me off it with an AT missle. At least the reactor tower flag decided to cooperate so the game could continue. Cymba lasted about 30 seconds in the chopper and mentioned that a direct TV missle hit on a mobile AA tank did not kill it. That will really make those mobile AA's powerful against the choppers - not sure if that will be good or bad, will need to play more to find out. My tank was able to take down a chopper in one shot - that won't be very common during normal games I don't think, but it's a nice reward for tankers that are able to regularlly hit choppers.

Heard some comments that the support guns are still pretty powerful. I liked how we slowed down our play, instead of rushing around and constantly dieing. Maybe the smaller teams / maps helped with that?

Delta_Swift

Do you guys think that with the removal of most of the CO assets that the CO could be allowed to move up to, or at least near, the frontlines? Maybe even play as a medic or a support slightly behind the frontline? With so much less for him/her to do, do you think this would be reasonable?

__________________

Coridon

I think the tactical mod is about tweaked to perfection at this point. It's just going to take a lot of getting used to. My main observations at this point:

It's still difficult to take down a "column" of vehicles...especially if there are engineers repairing. I just now realize...do engineers have to exit vehicles to repair in the tactical mod? It would make sense...but it still seemed like I saw a couple of vodniks and armor on a flag and no matter how many AT rocket I put into 'em they wouldn't blow up. But they could have had engineers behind them that I couldn't see.

If you're squadleader, MAKE SURE YOU TELL EVERYONE WHAT KIT TO SPAWN IN AS!!! On Zatar I was squadleader and noticed we were "heavy" on assault class, but not a single support. I asked someone "next time you die, go support" but apparently this person never died, as they never came back support. I actually ran out of ammo on the center island and ended up only having my pistol and my knife at the end...

So either have everyone assigned kits before spawning, or make sure your guys know how to pick up the enemy kits after they're dead if adjustments need to be made.

As a side note, Bravo Zulu to you, Duke, for developing such an enjoyable mod!!

CymBa

Yeah I Like the ground portion of the mod as it is. Looking good so far. AA is my main concern at this point. Xeil and I tried to fly at least twice. On Dalian and we got as far as past the towers when AA started tracking us. Within 2-3 secs it seemed it was locked on and we got proximity hits from two missiles in rapid succession which brought our health down to about to about 2/3's. I dropped flares and started to turn when the 3rd missile must have hit us directly and took us out. We tried to fly 2 other times that map with the same swift result.

I want to see how it plays out in the scrim on tuesday but my initial impressions are that AA combined with the other nerfs might make the choppers useless. When we played on Zatar MEC didn't even use their chopper when they got it because it made no sense to even get in the air.

Currently here are the nerfs against choppers:
- Forced to stay in cockpit which reduces visibility greatly
( good, I like the immersive feel and it reduces the choppers effectiveness against infantry up close.)

- Greatly increased spawn time
( good but a lil reduction in this would be nice )

- Increased Time for repair and reload
( good, makes me a lot more careful about avoiding damage)

- Proximity damage from Missiles
( good, AA locks are now a definate detterrant and drives away the chopper to spend time repairing)

- Reduced damage from TV Missile
(good as well since it gives vehicles a chance to escape and forces the chopper to hang around longer taking fire )

- One hit kills from AT and Tank Rounds
(Good, puts more power in the hands of infantry to defend themselves )

- Made MEC cannon do same damage as other choppers
(BAD, Since the 1.12 patch the MEC chopper has been badly flawed, the TV Missiles can't fly up and have been made a LOT less maneouvrable, Its also heavier and a bigger target to shoot at. The only thing it had going for it was its infantry killing cannon. I'm not saying it should be putback to where it was before because it WAS a killing machine but it should at least be little better than the other choppers because right now that's all its good for. As it is right now I don't think it makes any sense to fly the MEC chopper if US choppers are in the air, pointless.)

- Increased number of missiles and increased missile damage
( I'm neutral on this, with their increased damage plus proximity damage, what this means is once an AA sees you the chopper is dead )

Individually I like most of these changes but taken together, specifically the last two, they threaten to make the choppers useless.

Before this last round of changes in 0.5 I would literally be in a cold sweat when flying because its a LOT harder and I enjoyed it. Granted I thought the spawn times were really too long but that was my only gripe, everything else I loved because it upped the challenge greatly. However now I think we've basically killed choppers. If this is to be a completely infantry mod then I'd suggest just taking out choppers altogether. Which is a pity because its the combined arms aspect that I love so much about the game.

I want to see what happens in the Scrim tho and I'd like to get some other pilot's opinions on the changes too.

I wholeheartedly agree tho, Choppers are too easy to dominate with in Vanilla BF2 and I think this mod makes steps in the right direction but at the same time if u don't want choppers in the game then take them out but don't nerf them to uselessness.

__________________


| Click my flag... |

aculle01

I really enjoyed myself last night. I think it was set at the right pace.

SAW - I liked the adjustments, people say its too powerful but its supposed to be so I dont know what else can be done. I won a fare amount of CQB even when suprised and lost all of the long range fights I attempted. medium range seemed to be in my favor but again it should be, Im spitting out more bullets then my opponent.

Medic - Also recieves my approval though I think I could use one extra magazine. On Oman I worked on staying back from the rest of the squad when we had a defensive position at the train tracks. It does get frustrating having to tail a guy to heal him instead of just throwing a pack down. I have a suggestion: what about having packs to drop that only heal a fraction to half of a guys health to simulate personal medkits. That way if a guy is only slightly wounded he can patch himself up if the medic drops a kit and continues down the line.

I dont think anyone has mentioned it on other AARs of the past mods but I like the blood splatter.

Tactics - Flanking is key. 4 examples in what I remember as a very short span. We were defending the traintracks to the north of the village CP. A MEC squad started to roll up our left flank and pushed us back to the village. Azreal took the humvee around their flank and began to take them down from behind. As we were regrouping back onto the train I guess the oppsoing squadleader snuck behind our right flank and began spawning his squad as they attacked our rear again. well, Azreal brought up the humvee on their flank again and we were able to pinch them.

I liked the mod. Would have been nice to have more people testing it out but I feel those of us who did liked it and had a good time playing

__________________
"I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored."

AzrealDarkmoon

I would remove air entirely, or maybe just put transport helos in with no guns if possible.

Remove the ability for engineers to repair from inside the vehicle.

Overall a much better experience than an earlier playtest I played. I still love the smoke grenades, great having 3. Might need to look at some maps and how bleed occurs, we had the central island nuetral for a while and still bleeding for a good 5 minutes. We lost the game by 2 tickets, if bleed had stopped we would have won.

Other than that fun times!

__________________

perry

I'm wondering about the neutral flag thing.. Was the flag neutral because someone had run in to the radius and done a quick change?

The MEC flag was still up, but going down, but the USMC flag had not yet started raising. So, in vanilla BF2, the MEC would have still owned the flag and could spawn and it wouldn't have been neutral yet so that no one could spawn. I'm betting that's why bleed continued.