Making Maps Larger Won’t Fix the Real Problems in Multiplayer. | Forums

[theliberalleft]

Bigger maps won’t do it and I’ll do my best to explain why:

When GR2 was first released, people did play tactically. Most used stealth, they called out contacts and kills and many people communicated their positions effectively, by using the grid numbers provided on the map. Teamwork was prevalent.

That’s how Ghost Recon should be played. Unfortunately, it’s not how GR2 is played by most people today. I believe this is due, simply, to players knowing the maps too well.

You have to exercise caution when entering an area you’re unfamiliar with. However, if you know that you can B-line it from your spawn point, to that one big rock near the middle of the level and you’ll arrive at precisely the same time an opponent reaches the truck parked directly across road from your new position, then why wouldn’t you?

You have to. You’ve started on his side a million times in past games. You know how long it takes him to get to that truck if he runs and you know that if you don’t take off from the start too, you’ll be letting him advance even further, effectively giving his guys the advantage, by putting your team in a bad position.

So what happens? The same thing, over and over. People run to the same **** spots, over and over. These levels are already huge, but we hardly ever see most of them, because we're stuck racing for the choke points.

<span class="ev_code_red">Random level boarders and spawn points</span> might fix this problem.

By putting people in unfamiliar territory, w/o knowledge of where the other team might be starting from, you could bring back that “new game smellâ€Â� and keep things fresh. People would be encouraged to play tactically and talk to one another again â€" if only to say, â€Â�Oh ****! They’re coming from the hill this time!â€Â�

This would also enable us to concentrate play in some of the cooler areas of the maps that we hardly see. I’m telling you guys… this is one way to fix multiplayer. Ubi has already hinted at it, but they need to take it further. Make it really random.

[Agent Green]

I'm with you on this one. I stopped playing online for the very reason you pointed out. I don't want to fight over the choke points and if I don't, the team gets mauled.

Random everything might do it. I love being in the "unknown" situations. My dad and I play together and call out targets, cover one another while moving, and so on. We even set up fall-back positions if things get messy. That makes for great multiplayer where some skill is involved.

[theliberalleft]

I just think that... when your team spawns together, to start the round in a Ghost Recon game, your first instincts should be for everyone to grab the best/closest cover available and set up a make-shift perimeter. Then you come up with some kind of plan for going after/completing your objective.

Not run to the chokepoints lol.

[Agent Green]

Those "Where the hell are we?" situations are great when you're just starting a new game with some friends. Having that every time would probably make me stop playing anything else. So...listen up dev team! ;pokes;

[theliberalleft]

Exactly, man. Exactly.

It'd be rather humorous if every once in a while, they'd spawn the two team pretty close to each other. You might have a contact in the first 30 seconds or so... **** would hit the fan and it'd take some quick thinking to escape or overcome that situation.

From then on, that close encounter or the potential for those kinds of round starts, will always be in the back of your mind when spawning for a new round.

That guy who usually runs off on his own might think twice about it from then on.

I don't know. I’m sure it's not an easy thing to implement and that it'd take a lot of time and effort to properly balance it and work out any kinks.

But I can't help thinking it's a great idea. One that aims to steer GR multiplayer gameplay back in the right direction. i.e... towards teamwork and tactics.

[XyZspineZyX]

Originally posted by theliberalleft:
we're stuck racing for the choke points.

Thats the key, its not the map size or even knowing it too well (although that will always have some bearing on things) Its linear maps forcing teams into 1 or 2 specific routes to the base. As you say as everyone scrambles for the choke points your missing out on the rest of these great maps, and this happens because no matter how much of the map you use you can still only get through on certain points.

I played some Island Thunder last night and even on small maps like City Blocks theres more routes of attack than huge maps like Fuel Depot in GR2. Now that says something

[theliberalleft]

That's an excellent point ms-kleaneasy.

Do you like the idea of randomizing everything, or do you think the issue could be solved solely through level design?

Personally, I think it's a little of both. I think your suggestion makes the most sense, but I've really been won over by the idea or possibility of a different gamplay experience every few rounds or so.

[XyZspineZyX]

I would personally say the change in level design would be a major breakthrough but bringing the random element is always a good thing

[StrikerD]

A great example of this is in all of this guys's server's (his name has TOTO in it). He never puts any invulnerabilty time, and just gets his team over there (he has no lag, he's the host) and start camping. It's so annoying, only 3 spawns and he's got all of them!

So, take my idea, creat all of mexico city as a map, enable 100+ players. Use random spawn points. When you do the random spawn points, make sure you write software for the game that creates spawns rather than randomly select preset ones. Be sure to enable a property that ensures enemies are X amount of meters away from the spawn, so that nobody spawns w/ their enemies.

[Jam_Dammer]

Wow, a post that everybody agrees on...meaning this might possibly make it into GR3??

I'll "second" the call for total random spawning of enemy characters and/or random spawn points for team on team.

And, as long as were getting into randomized functions...let's even randomize the total number of enemy spawns, where the total would fall somewhere between 80 and 120 enemies, and DON'T give us the text boxes that tell us there are 20, 10, 5, 3 enemies left. Don't tell us at all, because without the text boxes, and without knowing how many enemies there really are, the tension level will be left on HIGH all the way until the end, when the last enemy is down.

Then, we could relax and story-tell in the Lobby about how cool that last randomized map we just ran was!!!