Project Reality v0.874B Open Gameplay Beta

[Jaymz]

During the month of November, the Project Reality Team will be hosting a public beta test on a select number of community servers to test gameplay changes to the spawning mechanics of the mod. These changes will be made server side, so joining these servers will be the same as any other (all you need is PR v0.874).

There will be a few alterations made, however, they will all revolve around one primary change: the removal of Rally Point spawning. We are well aware that the mere thought of this change may scare a lot of you, but we must insist that everyone understands nothing here is written in stone. We want to find out the exact effect this will have on gameplay, and a public test is the best approach.

There are multiple reasons as to why we would like to experience PR without Rally Points:

• RPs enable squads with little or no cohesion to continue to have a presence in battle, even when their presence near their RP is hampering the rest of the teams objectives. This means that you often see squads doing their own thing, instead of working as a team, towards the same objectives.
• For many arcade orientated players, RPs provide a quick and easy way to play PR with almost no thought towards tactics. Spawn in, point straight at where the bad guys will be, sprint towards bad guys, shoot, die, rinse and repeat. With this, squad members often just "trickle" off the RP one by one, instead of working with their squad as one unit.
• As opposed to the original intention of being a metaphor to their real life counterparts (a squad regroup point), RPs are frequently used as a "siege weapon" that "launches" troops at an objective in 30 second intervals. In many cases, this overwhelms even the most formidable defenders and makes the role of "defence" itself, unappealing.
• RPs greatly diminish the role of both squad and squad reinforcement transportation. There are countless PR players who thrive on ferrying troops to and from objectives. Whether it's a "TRANS APC" or "TRANS HELO" squad, these types of players deserve a more important role in PR.

Below is a list of the server-side adjustments that will be made for this test:

1. Removed Rally Point spawning.
2. Lowered the spawn penalty for death by 25% (maximum of 45 seconds instead of 60 seconds).
3. Raised the maximum number of Forward Outposts available from 4 to 5.
4. Forward Outposts can now be built with one supply crate instead of two (all other deployables still need two).

As mentioned in the beginning of this announcement, the primary change is RP spawn removal. However, the primary goal is to see the average player's focus shift from Rally Point placement to Forward Outpost placement, something that the entire team will benefit from. We feel that RPs greatly diminish a team's need for the Forward Outpost deployable system. As you can clearly see, these changes include adding another available Forward Outpost to deploy as well as making their initial placement easier.

We really encourage everyone to give it a thoughtful try, and think about the overall team benefits listed above. Also think of ways your gameplay will need to change for this to work, and how you can help others, especially with land transport. Always have a medic in your squad, and keep him alive, as he can keep your squad alive.

You can try out these changes by joining the following participating servers:

• Tactical Gamer - North America
• Tactics & Teamwork - UK
• GSA - BigD - Australia

These servers will have the version "0.874B" in their server name during the test. The test will begin within the next few days.

We would like to encourage all our players to try and join these servers during the month of November, and report their feedback in the appropriate forum.

Edit: And please when giving feedback in the aforementioned thread, make it factual while describing the good and bad points you've experienced with this change. All other posts will be deleted to keep this up to point. Thank you.

- The Project Reality Team

[gazzthompson]

brilliant work testing out new game play mechanics, cant wait to see how it pans out in gameplay.

[Silly_Savage]

How will these changes affect the minimum distance required to place a FOB from another one on particular maps?

Will two opposing enemies still be able to "overrun" the FOB and prevent anyone from spawning, or has the players needed to "overrun" the base been increased?

[ChiefRyza]

Good on you guys! I can't wait to try these changes out. I completely agree with the points made and I hope they are proved right by the testing.

[WeeGeez]

Interesting.

Although surely if you made it harder for squads to create RPs in the first place (not just 1 player with SL but 3, like how it was before).. then It would somewhat prevent rambo missions and promote team work.. no?

I'll give this a try though

[Lord.Helmet]

Sounds good to me for AAS but I only have one question: How about skirmish mode without rally? Are you planning to leave the rally in skirmish??

[VMP]

My only question is will we have more assets at a Forward outpost? Meaning 1 more machine gun nest or anti air. Cause now a defending team can push back, meaning the attacking team must defend a forward out post.

I will say I really like the idea and ready for more teamwork!

[RUMSMURMEL]

good one !!
but i would say that it should a minimum of a whole squad (6 Soldiers) to overun a firebase and the range should be less than 70 meters !

[Nick_Gunar]

Very good idea, I am looking forward how it will be. Without RP's, It will force squads to act as a whole, in a total cohesion (and no solo squads doing their thing across the map far from a flag).

[bricenott]

It's the best that you are thinking about new ways to make the game even funnier (it's the best already), and I'd like to add a few things on my own to make it ever better if possible,

1.- I agree with you thinking about the RP's, though, I also agree with the previous fellaw that said, "make 3 squad members to plant one so you'll make them play as a "SQUAD""...

2.- They ONLY way (its my opinion) to make "SQUADS" play as a "TEAM" is to have a COMMANDER, (not a warranty) which in this game is one of the 2 things NOT fun... You have to make being a commander fun, 'cos right now nobody almost nobody wants to sacrify themselfs to help the team, I've tried myself to be a commander a few times, and its very boring because there is nothing to do for many many minutes, after the 20 minutes of waiting for an area attack, the fun is gone in secs, also very few SQ Leaders mark enemies, maybe if you would make the commander post mobile and he could see enemies in a radius from the commad post? That would make it fun to look for the command post and destroying it, and defending it too, trying to hide it from the enemy, and moving it when spoted, and wait several minutes for it to respawn or something like that !!!

3.- The other thing I consider PR lacks for is the SQ Leaders planting Fixed TOW's, if they can plant AA's, and MG's, why they can't plant TOW's ? If you eliminate RP's TOW would be essential for defending FB's against all mighty tanks, and APC's, cause HAT's are VERY, I mean VERY scarce in this game !!! Remember, anyway that somebody has to be manning the TOW and hitting the target to make it valuable, also ammo in the weapon is limited.

I think those are the main things I wanted to say, I hope somebody at the Developing Team see this !!!

WARDOG[Vnzla]

[UKrealplayER666]

Sure, its a good idea but are we gonna get more transport vehicles on maps such at Kashan, or transport vehicles that spawn more often, if not then i for one am not gonna walk the 1000m to the villages after all the FOBs have been mashed and were trying to defend our last two flags, ive done it before its not fun

[decoy]

As I see it maps like Kashan will be a map many players don't want to play on.

Turnament could benefit from the new changes but not public servers where teamplay not is the same.

On public servers we are going to walk for miles and that will kill the fun on maps like Kashan.

Maybe this need to be balanced with more acces to transport for infantry...maybe

[arty_bomber]

/vote

Incredibly awesome idea! This will completly change everyones fighting styles.

A lot of you guys are concerned about qinling and kashan gameplay. Well I am more worried about playing as chinese on barracuda. Think of all the heli rushes! The americans can build 4 FOB in the first 3 mins!

[NyteMyre]

Can we get a humvee respawning back on the FoB's then? :s

[Snazz]

Maybe this need to be balanced with more access to transport for infantry...maybe

Should at least be tested.

More vehicle spawns and/or reduced vehicle spawn times.

[sylent/shooter]

Only problem I see with this is what if my squad is really far away from a FOB? Am I going to need to run halfway across the map b/c no-one else has put down a FOB? Also everytime I am on a server there are APC squads when allowed, but they never complete the role of transport. They just use them as attack vehicles, and If a squad gets in they could care less about where they want to go.

[mat552]

Only problem I see with this is what if my squad is really far away from a FOB? Am I going to need to run halfway across the map b/c no-one else has put down a FOB? Also everytime I am on a server there are APC squads when allowed, but they never complete the role of transport. They just use them as attack vehicles, and If a squad gets in they could care less about where they want to go.

Until now, we never NEEDED to help transport you. Perhaps once at the start of the round you'd bang down the hatch to get transport, but after that, APCs rarely get requests for transport. You'd just set your rally and off you went.

Helicopters got asked a little more frequently, but tbh they functioned more like supply crate dropping coffins. It's all well and good to ask for supplies from one, but no one ever seemed to care to use them for transport, barring that start of the round rush.

[d1sp0sabl3H3r0]

TG server is updated with the changes. We have a feedback thread on our forums but obviously feedback should be posted on these forums as well.

At the very least everyone should give these changes a fair shake over a period of a week or so before making up your minds on it.

Enjoy everyone!

[cocobutter333]

Great, except with only needing 1 crate to build a FOB players will build in poor positions, more for the points and without team mates, maybe if you could only build when you have 2 or more sqaud members around you?