**These thoughts are regards PvP with bots, carnage, chaos and that we all know Jack’s a Haxxor**I love Running with rifles PvP. Maybe even more than I love Lamp. There, I said it. If you turned around and said right now that you would never change anything in PvP I wouldn't rage like a 10 year old COD player who had just been quick scoped at spawn for the 38th time, I would just smile, and think “Well worth the 6 quid” and open a beer.
However, that’s not to say I don’t think there could be a few “improvements” made to the game to make me love it even more than I do my son. I was going to say beer, but that would be stupid. I shall endeavour to put these ideas across in this post and make it coherent at the same time. I may fail.
I shall start with the “easy” ones first:
- Human Player Indicators (Enemy) – please get rid of the black ones and the other colours that are hard to discern. When in combat the main thing I search for on screen is any indicator that an enemy Human Player is nearby as they are (usually) the biggest threat to me. If I am bright blue, and they are black then 9 times out of 10 they will see me before I even realise they are Human controlled.
- Human Player Indicators (Friendly) – again, black ones and other annoying colours, no need.
- Human Player Indicators (Friendly) – make your player have a more opaque indicator. On the more increasing occasion that there are more players than available colours per team, duplication occurs, and if I am beside a fellow team mate of the same colour then chances are I will think I am safe behind cover and laugh at my team mate just standing there in the open, inviting death. Then I will die and realise it was me.
- Human Player Indicators (Friendly) – Allow players to select their own colour. This will also allow the easy creation of “Squads”, which is essential if there are a few of you communicating via the internets. Five of you in TS? All on the same side? Stick your colours to red and instantly know when your squad is near.
- Respawn – instead of current system where you have to optionally bring up the map if you want to see where you are spawning make it always bring up the map and make it easier to see where you will spawn, and where you died. So many times the game’s version of “nearest position” and yours are way, way apart.
OK, now for the more in depth ones.
- Human Player Indicators (Off Screen) – Reduce the opacity or remove the soldier icon. If removing the soldier icon then replace with the player name, or a “Quick Nick”. A “Quick Nick” would be requested pre-game which would then be shown instead. This “Quick Nick” would be limited to say 5 or 6 characters, and would require a prompt to confirm before joining game and would not allow special characters. So, for example my in-game name is “{SAS}DocStone”. On the join screen this would automatically generate a “Quick Nick” of “{SAS}Do” which would fall foul of the “no special characters rule” so I would be prompted to change it to something different. If I chose just “Doc” then this would be fine, and on other players games I would show up as a coloured triangle with the “Quick Nick” of “Doc” underneath. This would enhance teamwork, and stop the “Where are you Penn? Which Red one?” etc...
- Inventory/Class System – I covered this a wee bit on another thread, but giving it a bit of an expansion here. Currently we have a new inventory system which allows us to store weapons in our backpack and to change our equipment slots on the fly in game. I suggest that this be changed as follows.
The backpack becomes a second set of inventory slots. It allows you to hold one of each item per main inventory slot in storage. So you can hold one main weapon, one secondary weapon and one grenade type (this will obviously expand to include support items and vests etc, but will still be limited to one item per main inventory slot) in your backpack, and while alive these items can only be picked up from the battlefield or discarded onto the battlefield - they cannot be swapped with on hand items.
Once on the respawn screen however you can switch items to your heart’s content which will allow the creation of custom “classes”, to generalise. Players may find themselves holding a sniper rifle, shield and flash bangs in their backpacks whilst having an AR, LAW and Frag grenades on hand , allowing then to switch between them on death, or create a mix to suit the situation.
This will also create a dilemma if rare weapons are introduced - do you use your space to store it until you can use it, or do you keep your sniper rifle in there and hope that you drop one later? Do you keep a silenced weapon in there for a sneak attack, or an LMG tyo lay down some serious lead?
To prevent misuse of this mechanic (using a third item on the ground to switch between the two) then you cannot pick up an item to hand an item that has been discarded from the backpack, and vice-versa. If you find a weapon, it either goes into you backpack or you use it there or then.
This could also be tied into the ranking system, unlocking a backpack slot per rank, or something along those lines, even allowing for two items per slot to be unlocked at the higher ranks.
So, that’s it, my thoughts. Well, the ones that can be published online anyways.
You guys have something special here, you have captured a magic that has been missing for too long in online games – pure fun. Thank you for letting me share in it.