Hello everybody!
First post here.

Expressing the general feeling of most of the players in SAS Invasion about latest difficulty of the server.
It was and still is the most preferred by many players, but....... becomes irritating and boring to play on it with such difficulty, so please tell DocStone to reverse this shit back to previous difficulty level or otherwise we would not play normally anymore. As an example - I am already an experienced player, but even to me it became hard to play. If I have no vest, I'm dying immediately: 1 hit - 1 kill. Feels like some "super commandos" are against us.
Because of this we losing a lot of rare weapons and almost all of the players running out of RP as well. Also sometimes 3-4 hours per map is a quite long time, isn?
How about if some new player joined in this server - what would he think about the game?! Will play a bit and then will give up..... is this the idea of the server or the game?!
Btw I noticed that a lot of usual players the last few days playing on other servers so I think, you know what should be done to be comfy for us - players...

Sorry, that my English is not good enough.

DIO out.

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"Ad cogitandum et agendum homo natus es"

I work quickly, cheaply and qualitatively. You can choose only two of the three options.

I like the difficulty so far but I can agree that it could get frustrating at some point.
The changes compared to how it was before the tweaks:

1) player compensation factor went from 1.0 to 1.2 which means that for each human player you have 20% more enemy bots added which isn't awefully much actually. Default is 8 for most maps, so that it will now be 8x1.2=9.6 ceiled to 10 -> 2 more enemy bots.
2) player reduction went from 0 to 1. So for each player who joins, there will be 1 less bot in your own team.
3) AI accuracy raised from 0.94 to 0.96.

I will suggest Doc to change the settings for 1) to 1.1 to have 9 instead of 10 and changing back 3) to default value.

Now I understand why it is so difficult - if half of them are just runners with rifles and they died almost immediately after their respawn, that means we're doomed.
Btw one of the maps last night took us more than 5 hours to win. While we were 12-14 people it was impossible to win, but with 3 players finally we reached victory.

Well, hope the settings you propose should do the work. Soon we will find out.

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"Ad cogitandum et agendum homo natus es"

I work quickly, cheaply and qualitatively. You can choose only two of the three options.

Ya, I noticed that even for harder settings it's possible with a few players but gets almost impossible the more players join. It would need a linearly decreasing dynamic compensation factor depending on how many players are on the server.

Jack, Just to clarify: earlier this evening, when I said "a bit easier now" I meant that in my opinion the difficulty is set to the optimal at the moment. So I'm not sure if any other changes would be useful, but the final decision is yours.......

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"Ad cogitandum et agendum homo natus es"

I work quickly, cheaply and qualitatively. You can choose only two of the three options.

I must say that I agree with Dio's statment about difficulty that was on SAS Invasion server. It might be nicely challenging for us - veterans. But it was definietly not newbie friendly. Also, as Dio pointed out - the more players joined in, the more difficult it was. So every new player from certian amount was actually net loss in factor of fun, just because it ment that enemy gained huge upper hand in numbers while not every player is capable to compestate that much.

Are current difficulty settings to easy? For some players propably yes. However now I started to see much more newbies playing with us - not only same persons all over again. I strongly believe that tuning down difficulty was generaly good decision. Surely it will not fit EVERYBODY, but I believe it will fit majority, and mostly important (in my opinion) new players that are joining our RWR community. It is really nice to see again newbies to NOT disconnect afther 5 minutes from start.

I am glad to see that Dio's words managed to convince Jack

I'm actually a newbie(14 hours played so with that i'm the fresh newbie of RWR) and i enjoyed the map's difficult, it gave me a good first impression about the game, thats what i like, challange, the harder the better.

This can also make the newbie to stop for a moment and think another strategy, since rushing didn't work out he could think about going sneaky beaky like.

Even tho this isn't quite related to the topic, it is what i think about the map. Overall i like it.

Let me start by saying: Wow Dio, for all the time you've got I am actually surprised that this is your first post here!?

I know difficulty has been discussed before when it comes to server settings and the effects of some game tweaks in AI behavior and numbers. From what I remember this balance between players, AI ability, and AI numbers has been an ongoing adjustment.

In these type of large dynamic systems the balance is hard to find. And there seems to be many small little adjustments that are most noticeable when it comes to crossing the line from a "few" players to "many" players.
In simplistic terms is works out that often with small player numbers the games can obviously be tough at a certain setting but easily overcome once the player number hits a certain "tipping-point" in which the whole gameplay system changes as we steam-roll the field.

So a lot of the work seems to be trying to find the proper levels of AI numbers and ability to accommodate a few players at low server times yet still provide a challenge for high numbers of players while remaining as a persistent online server at all times. And I guess that is my point is that this is something that appears to be constantly adjusted and worked with to find an optimal balance. Yet because these are high dynamic emergent systems small adjustments in the initial variables (ie: AI spawn numbers, accuracy, and behavior) can have far reaching and massive effects in the over-all gameplay on the field. As one small shift in a river bank can work to completely divert a streambed as the river cuts itself a new path, so to can a minor change in initial variables in game mechanics have far reaching effects in overall gameplay and outcome on the field.

This is the essence of Emergent Properties or "Chaos Theory", and this game is a glowing example of this form of science. With such huge AI numbers on the field you get a rare opportunity to see it easily in action. And so it is hard to gauge the over arching effects of minor adjustments until they have been made and observed for some time. It's all about the accumulation of data and information.

Let me summarize:
Glad you're providing information. In my experience they are listening and paying attention.

I too agree that proper and timely map rotation is very important for allowing the community to grow.
It is easily discouraging to be a new player and enter a game only to get stuck for hours with little progress.
The long battles are fun, but there is a certain point after a few hours when it become tedious and you do run the risk of losing players. It is worth some consideration for this effect on first impressions for new players. I myself have bought a number of games only to play with a huge learning curve, limited maps, or repetitive gameplay to find myself quickly moving on to something else.

I don't think RWR suffers too much from any of these other than, on occasion, a bit of map rotation stall when new adjustments have been made.

My most recent vocal point being the online effect of coming down to the Far East tower as the final point on the New "Final Battle" special mission map. But again, this map itself is new and being worked on. And also discussed.

What I am saying is, I agree that it is important to find the balance and insure that maps don't get stalled too long in the Co-op Online. Many new players go there to learn and often seem to get half their opinion from that experience. So when they get bored or frustrated for really long period it runs the risk of losing them permanently. Those of us with more time and love for the game understand how it works and try to help new players understand that they are bigger longer battles than normal games. But that doesn't always work to keep them. And of course I am not suggesting that it all be made way to easy, that really isn't fun either. Just try to avoid letting it bog-down too much.

And my other main point being I know it's a matter of finding the right settings to accommodate lower and high player numbers seamlessly and that that isn't entirely easy but you guys have always made it clear you are working on it and paying attention. Yet input from players is what helps and so I am glad to see people involved. Yeah we're community! See you on the field guys!

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Footage

Opt_0, I will not delve into the science of these things as you did because I don't think I can put it any better, but I'd very much appreciate it if the AI was challenging but not artifically difficult. I like tough battles but I am not exactly stoked when the AI goes Skynet on my ass.

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no one's left, everything is gone. kharak is burning.

A month ago, when I made this thread we had a similar problems. After a short discussion the needed changes has been made and everything was fine until a few days before.
A second night we are stuck to some map, so please, just tell me whether it is normal to play at some map more than 5(five) hours?! I doubt it is........ I didn't understand why should be changed something that works fine?!
Now the difficulty is OK, but the number of the spawned enemies is huge. Also a lot of new players do not really help us I assume due the player compensation.

DocStone, could you, please return the previous settings?!

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"Ad cogitandum et agendum homo natus es"

I work quickly, cheaply and qualitatively. You can choose only two of the three options.