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Tactical Gamer had the opportunity to participate in the closed beta testing of the upcoming Point of Existence 2 mod for Battlefield 2 release. Lucky Shot has put together another great article about our part in this process and explains a bit about what that process was. Below is an excerpt...

Tactical Gamer and POE Testing

Since January, the testing team has put in 600+ man hours into planned sessions and then several hundred hours of individual testing outside of the planned session. TG has been an integral part of the testing process at POE with almost half of the testers being from this community. So what do we do in these sessions beyond just play with the new toys? A big part of these sessions include map walkthroughs, balance, and completing the bug feedback loop.

Map Walkthroughs can include new maps or old maps. In one discussion between testers and mappers discussed Rivne and why it doesn't get as much play as some other maps. Tactical Gamers plays the map as part of it's regular rotation however players were saying that there were a couple of issues with the map. The Ukranians roll into the South City first regularly and if they claim the Graveyard as they should and if they are able to take the West Farm they have a simple task of locking the Germans into the west two flags, especially as their only ways over to the west is using the known bridges. Based on those conversations, the map was dramatically altered. The UCB's were flipped so that the Germans had the ability to secure the South City early and the Ukranians could counter the bridge lockdown by using their floating APC's to cross the river. The west farm was dropped in favor for a battle over the Middle bridge now called the Marina. The Grain farm was dropped for a flag south of the South City called the Plantation. The Ukranians can break through this early German lead with keeping the Marina bridge open and floaing APC's around bottlenecks. The end result from this was to bring flags closer together as well as create a scenario where the Ukraine can use their abilities to break through to the west side in search of that third flag. Rivne is greatly improved and with these alterations should be placed into more rotations.


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