Beatnik

After BigGayAl and I seeded the server for a few minutes and people got their hands on the massive download, we had some pretty insane games tonight with the new update. Here are my first impressions.

This version is a whole new game as far as gameplay and game dynamics are concerned. The removal of the ability to spawn at CPs you possess was a surprise, and took a lot of adjusting on my part. Also having designated drivers for Armor and Air played a significant role in how the games went tonight. There were a ton of PR faithful and only a few TGers on for those games, but the AAS v2.0 focused the action. I'm still not sure what to think about even the new AAS. There were still points in some of those games where 50 people were fighting over one flag (i.e. the assaulting team died a LOT).

Inishail was a beauty in this mod though. Given the ample cover around CPs (under which to place Rally Points) it gave a whole new feel to that map. Phoenix was also cool, but the action was focused at only 2 CPs for the game I played.

Overall, a LOT of coordination will be required for this to be successful. CO's are almost mandatory, if only to drop supply crates so SLs can get their officer kits away from the UCB and provide Rally Points. Designated helo pilots need to be plugged in with the CO to ferry squads around. And even drivers of APCs need to be keenly aware of everything that's going on around them.

I was impressed with my first few games here - it'll be a lot better if we can get more TG team players on the server at once. My first couple squads were all over the place, but just before the server crash I managed to scrape together a solid squad that was working together and getting stuff done.

If you're on the fence, definitely give the mod a try - it's 1.6 gigs of content for free, and with all the modifications it feels like a whole new game.

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Grunt 70

Downloading now...should be up and good to go tomorrow...Sounds like a nice first impression.

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|TG-22nd|Grunt



"When force is necessary, it must be applied boldly, decisively, and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with maneuver" - Leon Trotsky

BigGaayAl

Overall i'm baffled. After Beatnik left we also played the map with destructible buildings! That map is a blast.

I also played a round with just sam in the apc as crewman. again a lot of fun as you are a spawn and supply for your team.

There is just so much to new in this game it is incredible. Some maps just dont seem to work though and probably will get blacklisted soon. Again I fear for the map with motorbikes which I so much want to play. Ghost train and the airfield also are suspect. Basra is fixed.

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Support your right to arm bears. ~Cleveland Amory

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy. ~J.D. Salinger

aculle01

I could only jump on for an hour last night as I had still had a lot of studying to do for API. Unfortunately, Kubra Dam 2 took up most of the time and then I froze out on Airport. I didn't see much of the map or fighting as I we were stationed at the West Beach and for some reason only one USMC squad decided to attack and that was in the last 5 minutes of the round. I should be on tonight to get a better look.

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

tHa_KhAn

Yes the Dam part 2 is a terrible map. There is not enough movement. The problem was not tactics, but just the innability to move effectively even with vehicles. By the time a squad loaded up and moved out the flag could have flipped twice by the time they got there. It caused the entire team to be fragmented over the front line flags and spread the action so thin most of the round we were reduced to using the beach as a resort to do swimming and target practice and we were the flag they had to take to get on to the next at west beach. That map wore on and on with no real joy. Only those who were very familiar seemed to be able to accomplish some movement, but even then it was very limited and not fun at all in my opinion.

Overall I like the new version. I still think with AAS2 the 64 man full server will result in huge stalemates of fighting over one flag, especially on maps where movement is limited to a few chokepoints. The other maps I played all faired well except for the Kubra Dam2 one. The biggest thing to remember as an SL is to get your officer kit and get a rally point down. I think once the "noobs" clear out in a bout a week this version's potential will be realized. I saw chat spammed with tons of simple idiotic questions that could be answered in vanilla let alone PR. Everyone rushed to try out the new thing and you could tell.

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TG_JBRanger

Well, I was on TG for a bit and I don't remember the map but the fighting was over only one flag. That was intense but just got old quick.

I will reiterate what has been said already. This is a WHOLE NEW GAME! The dynamics have been completely changed.

With that said, as the MEC/Insurgent side, you have to be on your toes! A lot of thinking on ambushes and the like will most likely win the day. In a straight up gun battle it's no contest. The US just have so much going for them. But, that's how they intended this to be.

I played around on some other servers later (sorry) and got to try out the dirtbikes. LOL! They're pretty fun actually. Oh and having the cars for the MEC side be the spawn points can factor HUGE if used correctly. If you drive it straight into a battle, you will lose a spawn point. However, park down the street and walk to the fight and you've just established a FOB.

On the other side of things, I have one thing to say.....that freaking A-10 is BA! Holy cow. From the sound of it as it passes overhead, to the shrapnel when the depleted uranium rounds hit something.......WOW!!!

The Cobra takes skill to use correctly. BTW, DO NOT get in the pilot or gunner positions as a non-pilot. Not being a pilot won't allow you to take off. Getting in the gunner position as a non-pilot causes something weird as soon as you look through the gun site. It starts firing even when you aren't firing. It also won't let you get out for some reason. Just be aware.

Dedicated armor and air personnel should be utilized in this mod. It's definitely not for everyone and needs to be coordinated. I'm thinking you could possible mark targets with smoke. The A10 can pass so fast overhead that you may very well miss a target.

Anyway, it is fun but I need to completely rethink the way I play this game. It is definitely not BF2 of old.

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BigGaayAl

I disagree somewhat on that map. At the start there were some nice battles. You also get the chance to ambush the road etc. The main problem was that clueless players were using up all our transport, and that is why our whole team was stuck at bridge when west beach fell to the mec.

There is plenty of transport around to make a GG, but you really need them in pilot squads. Then you also need the apc to spawn on.


What I still dislike a lot on AASv2 is that sometimes you can be at the wrong flag suddenly (because of cap elsewhere) and there goes the round down the drain. Oh well I'll hop on in an hour our so for more testing.
On kit requesting:
"To request limited kits from the Quartermaster you must be:

* less than 25m from a friendly controlled CP; or
* less than 2m from the back of a friendly APC; or
* less than 3m from a supply crate; and
* not in a vehicle"
This is from the wiki and it is wrong. If you capture a cp you will not be able to request; only from
-apc
-home base cp
-supply crate
-rally point


Now that is impressive; only got half the para's in the screenie.


When Beatnik says "body's on the flag", people listen!

I think that flag moved so slow, because it was our "ucb-ish" flag.

Edit: cleared cache and set geometry to medium. Don't know if that did something but:

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Support your right to arm bears. ~Cleveland Amory

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy. ~J.D. Salinger

Beatnik

LOL. I forgot about that slow flag. That second pic was taken about a full minute after 30 people parachuted onto that flag. The flag crept up as if only 1 person were on it. Not sure if that was by design or a flaw in the cap logic, but it was entertaining.

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aculle01

I'm actually enjoying AAS2 right now. I do think it takes the right squadleaders/commander for it to be successful however. If you have squads continuously running forward towards the next objective you are going to have problems. Get a couple of squads to stay back and defend, a squad to patrol between CPs and a handful of assaulting squads you can have a very good game. The map with the Government Office last night is a perfect example. The USMC kept over extending or leaving areas before sweeping the area so the Chinese were able to slip through the gaps and take government office again and again. This prevented the USMC from ever being able to get that far past fishing village.

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

Root

I think the problem wasn that many players didn't understand that AAS2 was running. I kept telling squad 8 to leave the estate alone, but it took most of the map for them to realise I was talking to them. We also had an awful lot of people just hanging around at the pig farm and processing plant.

On the plus side, I had a fantastic squad that understood tactics and fire discipline (1 guy even asked permission to AT a tank!). We spent most of the map hopping between fishing village and govt office, trying to re-cap the flags.

We also had some guy flying a black hawk, who spent the whole round ferrying troops from the pig farm to whatever flag was currently our objective.

Your squad formed up late in the game, and by that point I was too busy to keep track of what everyone was doing. Once we start getting quality CO's each map, and we educate the new players, we'll see some excellent team performances I think.

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Santa

I really like it now, and the new spawn system is very smart and adds a whole new dynamic to the game. If you dont know, its similiar to 2142 in how you have to plop down a spawn beacon. This beacon acts as a second spawn point for the squad, and a place where the squad can request new kits. An interesting change is that the only flags that you can actually spawn on are the ones you start with, so its important to always have a spawn beacon down or the SL.

Root

These rally points are going to be a huge asset, particularly on maps where some of the flags were never spawn points in conquest. The north and south bridge flags on one of the jungle PR maps springs to mind. These spawn points also mean the SL can afford to get their hands dirty more often, as the squad isn't dependent entirely on them as a respawn point.

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ednos

Operation Ghost Train

thebleakaffinity

Eh... AAS is still too much of a deathmatch-y mess, even with the changes. It just feels like I'm dying over and over since there's 31 rifles in one small place. I really think the POE configuration of 5 contestable flags is the best for tactical gameplay and infantry on infantry fighting. The rally point's a pretty good idea, but unless you have a squad leader who really knows how to use it spawning can be a pain. Unless I have a full squad of TGers to play with and talk to it's just a frustrating experience for me so far. I really can't understand how this mod ever got to be so popular, but I guess I'm just not part of the target audience.

PolarisFOX

I really had some fun with the TGers jumping from Fishing village and getting the goverment office back XD (thanks for the game Root).
Though it can be frustrating if you have a squad that disperses itself and is uther chaos (really, at some points I just wanted to swear on the team channel and tell them to freaking put up together and get some tactics done.
The mod by itself is awesome.
Well yesterday was a real PITA cause the server mostly crashed, and then I had to load two maps, then get Dced again and had to load up two maps again. It really was frustrating, but at the evening I came into a good TG squad and we had some great team coordination.

there are still some problems with this version, for example the kit window disapears when selecting, yet that is a rare occasion, and there are surely other bugs that have to be found yet. But overall I love this mod more then Vanilla (why the heck am I still even mentioning Vanilla)

and thanks yesterday at the end of those server restarts and with multiple loadings of maps that I came into a TG squad, and we had some intense jungle combat, thanks guys for the game.

Just the concerns I have now are that there is actually no fixed team coordination. Maybe someone should be forced to be CO, otherwise the squads will cap flags slower.
Yes, that would be a good idea, squads and people will cap flags slower if they don't have a CO coordinating the attack. And the CO should have better communication abbilities and there should seriously be made a way to set multiple waypoints for squads to follow.