The following are how I think the PvP world of this game should develop into:

1. Not every soldier would be a player. The beauty of this game is how incredibly the AI interacts with the player. Players would just be given a squad that they control, and they can modify things about it, like weapons, utilities, etc. Gaining points (killing enemies, capturing bases, etc.) will earn points that can be used to upgrade the squad. Sort of like how squad improvements work in Company of Heroes (Ask someone if you are unsure). Improvements could be: Squad size, weapons, accuracy, move speed, camo, etc. Main point: More squad customization will allow for more tactics/strategies and make every player unique.

2. Now that every player has a customized squad, it is time they put their skills to the test! The first step of that would be better squad control. From my LoL experience I can say this works amazingly (Look for "Smart pings"): http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/sho ... ?t=3275295. You just hold your "Move squad/gunner here button" somewhere, and different options come up. These could be: find cover, blow up, rush here, prone here, etc. This will allow the player to more easily control his squad. The mechanics of "Do what I do!" could still stay, of course. Main point: Better squad control and usage will make the difference of
skill levels between players.

3. So now that players can face each other, here is how I think they should interact: when a soldier kills an enemy, his squad get a certain amount of points (xp, rp, doesn't matter). When a soldier dies, his squad loses an amount of points. If a squad's leader dies, the killer's squad gets a few bonus points and the squad whose leader died goes into surrender mode (Same as normal surrender mode). After a certain timer, all squad members die, and nobody gets the points. Thus the winning squad should do his best to clear out any surrendered soldiers. The squad cannot respawn until all of its members are dead. That way the player is not left to wait very long if they die, but they can keep playing even if their squad lost a few men. Paratroopers could be used by squad leaders to replace dead men (They will have the same equipment as their dead comrades). Main point: Interaction between players will maintain the game's nature and leave the
player always busy.

So: Player customization, differentiating skill levels, and the same fast-paced nature.

Just for the shit of it, here is a little scenario: (A few more little hints in there)

Anderson, Bobby, Charlie, and Dobby wanted to play some 2v2 RwR PvP 1337 style. No problem! Even though A never played before, he's with B whose really good, much better than C and D. They host a server because they don't want other people to join their game. They suggested to pasik to make lobbies in server for this very thing, but he most likely said no. Anyways:

Everyone starts with squads of 3. A total of 8 soldiers per team. When every squad has 10 total the map will need to fit 40 soldiers! So they choose one of the smallest map which was obviously created by the cmmunity, very soon after ComJak posted a video on how to do that. They go to the armory and spend what little points they have to arm their soldiers. They pay attention to the squad stash to see if there might be any surprises there. The game goes on and C&D are winning. They keep demolishing A who doesn't know how to use his squad properly. B tells him to instead of spending points on squad members, to spend them on M240's, to provide B with cover fire. That will help him flank and he will then be able to tell his squad to fire more accurately but less often. Using this strategy A&B pushed C&D all the way in to their last base. But C&D had some point stored up, and they armed their men with sniper rifles who easily outranged A's machine guns. B took out the snipers but the points have already been earned. As A apologized C&D pushed in to A&B's last base and captured it.


If there remains any uncertainty:
- There are no "persistent profiles". Steam could track scores and stuff, but not like invasion.
- The games are "match" like. Everyone starts off the same, and the better player wins (if a pro plays on a newbie account, he will still be a pro) <-- This I think is very important
- All customization is in-game. Squad customization, improvements, etc.
- You are still playing the same game! You still run and shoot and blow up.

Ah ok, I was always under impression competitive PvP in RWR would mean without bots, like I don't know, Soldat?, but this could work too, it's a good suggestion.

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Realistically, point 1 isn't going to be doable in-game, but basically it could be handled in a web browser accessing the server, and have facilities set up there for squad equipment handling. The feature that's clearly missing in the game to support this is spawning specific bots by request; the spawned bots (through calls, or items in 0.90) just have random configuration.

We are thinking about having this squad refill call item, which would match the caller's selected squad config vs the squad members you already have, and as result it would spawn you the missing guys. Maybe this could be "exploited" for the PvP system in order to have a more direct effect in your squads equipment.

Anyway, once the script side gains more access to items, it should also be possible to just have the script create the bots with the chosen specs e.g. when the player spawns. Should be possible before 1.0.

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Point 2 won't happen, not in RWR 1.0, sorry. The communication markers can happen in some way, probably accessible by hotkeys, but you can't communicate with bots through that, it's for player-to-player communication.

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Point 3 is largely already configurable, or the events can be caught in the script, or if they can't be yet, they will be.

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One part that's missing is player spawn lock/unlock, it'll be added for sure eventually. It's possible to turn off base capturing, so games go on indefinitely until the script declares the game over.