Having played the game for hundreds of hours, it's clear I'm a fan of a great game. I thought I'd share my thoughts and suggestions. They vary from game-fixes, sensible suggestions to crazy jibber-jabber, and are in no particular order:

- Problems with stash

Maybe this has been mentioned elsewhere, but there is a problem with the stash when it reaches its holding capacity. If you try to put things in the stash when it's full, it will be dropped on the ground. Frequently, it cannot then be picked up. You can see it on the ground but if you press F then you open the stash inventory rather than pick it up. The item then eventually disappears and is lost. I know players have lost rare weapons because of this.

Firstly, I think there there should be a capacity indicator for the stash (e.g. Stash capacity: 99/100) so a player knows how much free space there is left. This feature would be extremely useful in any case.

Secondly, when one tries to put an item into a stash that is full it should remain in a player's backpack/hands. It should not be dropped on the floor. Perhaps there could be a "Stash Full" indicator when it gets to 100 items.

Related to this issue, is what happens to items on the floor near a stash (and potentially an Armory). This situation could also occur if someone was killed for some reason while in front of the stash. Would they be able to pick up the items? Generally, I have found that if an item's on the floor too near the stash then there's no way of picking it up.

- The comms truck

The main strategy with the friendly comms truck in games is to drive it out and dump it on the edge of the map, somehere where the enemy, and more important friendly soldier bots, won't stumble across it. It can feel a little superfluous at the moment.

What if the comms truck could only function when in friendly territory? Or what if, just like a spawn truck needs to be within 30 metres of the enemy in order to function, the comms truck needs to be within 30 metres of a functioning friendly spawn point in order to function (which would include a functioning spawn truck)?

Then it would have a bit more of a role in the game.

It would need to be solely human-controlled rather than bot-enabled, so like the spawn truck and armory.

- Troop transport

The troop transport truck currently carries nine passengers. Could this not be increased to ten (the squad maximum)? Sometimes I pick up a full squad and get in a transport and then have one guy running along behind. The troop transport is rather under-used by players as it is, so it could do with a boost. That soldier that sometimes gets left behind could have been the hero that made the difference and won the battle!

- Noob-protecting of strategic vehicles

I feel that in MP co-op, the spawn truck, armory truck and comms truck should be noob-locked, just like the weapons - or at least have this as an option at the server's discretion.

Noobs and trucks can be a real nuisance in many games.

Typical case: you're in the middle of a massive firefight with grenades going off everywhere when suddenly a truck will drive into view and continue rolling along straight towards the enemy in the midst of this maelstrom of bullets and grenades. Everyone'll be like "WTF?!" and inevitably the truck will be rocketed in seconds. Then you press F1 and see that the driver has only been playing the game for an hour or two.

I believe it may one day discovered there's some kind of a Noob Truck Lemming Syndrome given the frequency with which this happens - noobs are attracted to getting in trucks and driving them at the enemy like moths are attracted to lightbulbs.

The worst level for this is Vigil Island. The other game which uses a timer, Power Station, has no Trucks to get destroyed and so doesn't suffer from this problem. The combination of timer and trucks on Vigil Island can mean that someone getting the spawn and armory trucks blown up can mean losing all progress and having the timer countdown reset. Recriminations ensue.

So I would set it so that Privates, or up to some other rank, couldn't use these vehicles. It could maybe be a server option which rank is allowed to use the vehicles. Players should have played at least two or three hours of the game first, in my opinion, before they can use strategic vehicles, probably more.

Ideally, it would only be the driver's seat they are blocked from getting into. Or alternatively, they'd be able to get in the driver's seat but the vehicle would be locked from moving and notice came up informing the player.

I think a system such as this is good both for all the other players, as the gameplay can be frequently spoiled by such incidents, and for the noobs who can make asses out of themselves and incur the ire of the other players. So I see everyone benefiting from such a rule. It can be seen as a rule that protects noobs from themselves rather than punishes them for their noobiness.

Such a system would, however, need a safeguarding rule so that if there was a circumstance where the only players in the game were private-ranked noobs they wouldn't all be locked out of the strategic vehicles. Perhaps it could be that the three players with the highest score playing in a game are always able to use these vehicles, even if they don't technically have the rank.

- Carjacking of enemy armoured vehicles

I would have it that armoured vehicles - tanks, APCs, Humvees - cannot be "carjacked" by the opposing side (unless they're empty of crew). Firstly, because it's ludicrously unrealistic.

Secondly, it creates practical problems, particularly for PvP. While the AI only occasionally attempts to carjack, so one doesn't experience it so often in co-op, in PvP it is common practice.

So it regularly will happen that a player will bring up a tank or APC and then an experienced enemy player will waltz up and steal it off him. The first player will quite rightly go something along the lines of: "WTF! How is THAT possible?!" because the notion is so implausible that they hadn't even contemplated the possibility. So I think it is something that pretty much every player will experience at some point and has the potential to spoil many games, albeit in a small way.

I think it would be good for co-op too. There are already plenty of chances to steal enemy tanks and APCs when they are empty after spawning. A tank should be a fearsome challenge, to be blown up with explosives and rocket launchers, not an opportunity for the tank equivalent of rodeo or horse-whispering.

- Friendly carjacking

A couple of times I've been carjacked out of the driving seat of a cargo truck by a lower-ranked player. Surely this shouldn't be possible?

- Prison Transport notification

It would be helpful if there was a message notifier for when a prison transport gets blown up. There are notifiers for similar things like destructions of comms towers and trucks, cargo vehicles and briefcases delivered, but not currently for the Prison Transport. Something along the lines of: "Prison transport destroyed! Twenty soldiers liberated", would be useful.

An additional feature could also be added, although I'm not sure how simple it would be to code. At the moment, once the prison transport truck is destroyed, its red prisoner icon disappears from the map. Maybe instead, it could turn to white or green (or to a different graphic altogether) for the length of time it takes the twenty soldiers to exit the transport. So a player would see the message stating the prison transport truck had been destroyed, could look at the map and if they were nearby, could go and pick up some squad members from the new infantry pool.

It would also help prevent one of the saddest sights in the game. Okay, the second saddest sight. The first saddest sight is that bug that occasionally happens when a new map starts and players drop from the sky and fall into a big heap on the ground! The second saddest sight I saw was when I tried to liberate a prison transport alone when there were still enemy in the area. I thought the twenty liberated soldiers would easily fight off the remaining enemy, but instead they got murdered one by one as they came out of the vehicle. I'm still haunted by this...

So a representative marker while the soldiers exit would help nearby friendly players know what's happening - and where - and could help secure the area if necessary.

(On a small similar note, I would like it to say "Briefcase delivered!" when the briefcase gets delivered - at the moment it says something like "awesome, let's see what we can come up with" but doesn't mention the briefcase).

- Black Gold Estuary

I feel this level could do with a difficulty boost. It always seems to pass quickly compared to the other maps so I would like to see an increase in the number of enemy troops.

This is how I rate the difficulty of the game maps (from playing them in multiplayer). The collective experience of the players playing will have an effect on the length of time taken to complete them.

Hard: Keepsake Bay, Fridge Valley. It is not unknown for these two maps to last a couple of hours each.

Medium: Old Fort Creek, Bootleg Islands, Rattlesnake Crescent, Moorland Trenches. Moorland Trenches can vary - it has three teams and can go on for a long time if they are not both kept in check. I wouldn't disagree if the first three of these maps were, say, 1% harder.

Easy: Black Gold Estuary

Not rated: Vigil Island, Power Junction: the two levels with timers can go relatively smoothly or can last a while if the players are inexperienced or inefficient.

- Indication of capture area

Obviously, it's crucial to be in the capture zone to get the RP. This necessitates frequent checking of the map when near the capture zone, often in firefights, to make sure one's exactly over the line. One possibility could be to have some sort of an indication on the main screen when one is in a capture zone. It could be something subtle like maybe the capture bar gets backlit/illuminated at the edges. The translucent edge of the capture bar could turn from black to gold. Or maybe a rectangular box appears around the name of the base. Or use some symbol or something.

- Player marker on map

I would like to see the own player/self marker on the map made much more obvious. Sometimes it can take me several seconds to find my marker on the map to see where I am, especially spawning for the first time. It could pulsate like the red target symbol does. Or it could have something like a slow white flash.

The "Where am I?" marker should be the most obvious to the eye one on the map as it's the most important one.

- Team colours on the map

I think that on the map display, the Brownpant and Greycollar control areas could have their colours enhanced/saturated on the map (is this a new feature?). The green is clear but the grey and brown could do with being a bit stronger/bolder so it's clear they represent areas of control rather than the neutral map colour. The brown, particularly, looks close to the grey colour, and the grey, you could say, looks close to a neutral white map.

- Weapon name tags

When a player drops a rare weapon because they've been killed, the weapon could show on the ground with their name in brackets e.g. Stoner (Shatner). The weapon would disappear in the normal time frame. It would save on a lot of "Whose [weapon] is this?" messages in the message log.

- Mk III vest

A slightly different graphic for the Mk III vest would be good, just so one can easily tell it apart from a Mk II vest.

- Sandbags/cover deploys

They are quite fiddly and hard to get them facing the way one wants. Sometimes they come out 90 degrees from the indended angle.

- Allocation of players to teams in PvP

For PvP, players should be allocated on sides according to their overall game ranking. So if there are four players in PvP - for example, Dio, Street Veteran and two average players (one of whom is myself) - then it shouldn't be Dio and Street on the same team against me and the other guy. As this has happened.

The obvious way to sort it would be:

1st ranked player - Team A

2nd ranked player - Team B
3rd ranked player - Team B

4th ranked player - Team A
5th ranked player - Team A

6th ranked player - Team B
7th ranked player - Team B

8th ranked player - Team A
and so on...

The top ranked player should be set to rotate which side he's on each time the map came up in the map cycle. So if he's always the top ranked player in every game, he'd, for example, be a Greenbelt on Keepsake Bay one time and the next time the map came up in the cycle he'd be a Brownpanter.

- Vehicle imbalance in PvP

In some maps, some teams have vehicles and the others don't, which doesn't seem fair for PvP.

- A new game notifier

Some kind of new game notifier would be cool. This might take the form of a tool similar to RWR server tool-tray. Like how the server notifier tells you when a certain number of players are in a room, this notifier could pop up when the victory message appears in a game and so one knows a new game is about to start. This would be especially useful for PvP as one would generally like to be there at the start of the match.

- Code for restarting map

This may be impractical and unworkable but maybe a command to finish a map and go to the next one. So maybe if every player typed /rs it would skip the rest of the battle and go to the next map in a cycle. This could be good if a bunch of people arrived at the same time, say for PvP, and everyone wanted to start a new game together.

- AI blowing up empty human vehicles

The AI don't seem to try and deliberately blow up human player vehicles, including strategic ones like spawn trucks and armories, if there is no-one in them. Should the AI enemy target player vehicles? Given the frequency with which human players get them destroyed through their own actions, perhaps not.

- P90

Is it too good?

- M79

A question: what is the blast radius? I love the M79, but it's price could go up. Does it need a rank to use it? It shouldn't be available to noobs.

Well, I'll try to go through this entire thread , so here's my small contribution in respect of the bulk of your suggestions:

- Problems with stash

There are a two simple decisions(about the first one Jack already said how to do):
- just hold "Squad command modifier" button, and then press "Pick up" button over each item you want to take separately
- eg: if you want to take a primary wep either you want to take a secondary item(as ashield/pistol/MG/etc), just move your current one at the right side on your backpack(to be empty handed), then stand over the item you want to grab and press "Pick up" button(the same applies if you want to take something of the water) LOL... hope I am clear enough

Completely agree with the need of the capacity indicator.


- The comms truck

Did you notice that at the last version comms just stays in one place and not as before - to circling through all friendly bases. It started to move only if gunfire is nearby(jjust like the cargo truck does).


- Troop transport

Agree.


- Noob-protecting of strategic vehicles

Agree.


- Carjacking of enemy armoured vehicles

Disagree. The same is valid for both sides, so let's the smarter/experienced wins.


- Friendly carjacking

This is something that actually I didn't understand.....


- Prison Transport notification

As useful as it is pointless....... don't you think?!

Note that the Prisoner bus icon also disappears after awhile, no matter if has been destroyed or not. So, you must go there to check what's its status(or to rediscover it).

I perfectly know what you mean, but that's the situation.

meh......


- Black Gold Estuary

Hmm... not sure if such thing happen. Map is very huge, a open one, with no many buildings, covers, etc(I personally, dying more often on it compared to other maps). Most likely it would become a pain in the ass.


- Indication of capture area

Agree.


- Player marker on map

NC, since I have no such issues.


- Team colours on the map

I am completely agree with this exact part. The map colors for Brownpants and Greycollars must be reworked.


- Weapon name tags

This is the problem when you play with so many people at once - - anyone could(and usually do) take that fallen wep. Do not count, that all would ask "who lost ........ somewhere there?"
Well, the truth is that it is not as bad idea.


- Mk III vest

Hmm... what would be that for?


- Sandbags/cover deploys

I'm sure that this has been discussed already in other threads. And not only that - the cover deploys bug still persist(for reference: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1840


- Allocation of players to teams in PvP

Well, shatner, this is a controversial idea. Sometimes the teams are unbalanced, but how about if I want to be a Gray?
I wouldn't like to be defined what will I be.


- Vehicle imbalance in PvP

Completely agree. Btw I already mentioned something about that.


- A new game notifier

meh......


- Code for restarting map

NC


- AI blowing up empty human vehicles

Better they don't


- P90

One man - army


- M79

I would say only that it requires at least 2500 XP iirc



OK, I'm off..... gotta get some beer .... and sorry for my poor English.....

_________________
"Ad cogitandum et agendum homo natus es"

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

The main idea is that the stash would be so large that you wouldn't have to care about capacity. The less indicative visual clutter that serves no real purpose, the better. Why would anyone have 100 items there? Dropping to world is a fallback mechanism of the item transfer transaction, and given the current implementation it can't be easily returned back to the owner equipment/backpack.

I can just increase the stash capacity again, but I don't see this affects a whole lot of players.

Squad mod key + pickup key tap insta-stores items from ground to backpack.


Regarding PvP (Minimodes or Classic), I'm pretty sure there's no comms truck in use in any map, as it's not really an interesting PvP element unless the whole mode is about the comms truck.


I think this could be added as an option at some point, I perfectly understand where you're coming from. I may have personally lost my best fighting morale by now having developed and tested the game for four years, but I laugh my ass off each time I'm in Invasion and I see the spawn truck being used to charge straight into an enemy chokepoint only to get it destroyed The whole scene with the after-comments is such a joy


Unrealistic sure. The point of allowing the carjack with tanks is that the tank squad has an objective to ensure that no enemy gets too close, it makes it more interesting for the driver. Players without any explosives left can be harmful to the tank by attempting to get close for a carjack. This was previously much more strongly present when the tanks weren't nearly as fast as they are now.

In regards to not expecting it to happen, you'll just learn it once you see it, same happens with number of things in the game.


Sounds like a bug.


This could be a content bug. The script is made to say the text with key "prison break completed", but seems there's no text defined for the key.


It would be possible for the prison break script to leave a marker at the spot for some time, yeah. I'll add this in the post-1.0 pool, we only have 400 lines of text there at this point


True.


This is in 0.99.5.


Have you noticed the map view wide black cross that stands on your position? That's made for this purpose. The only case when you don't see it is when you've zoomed in and panned somewhere off your location, so just zooming out will help you get oriented on the black cross.


It's connected to the way squad clouds are rendered. If there's lots of squads at one position on their own territory, it will completely hide the map details behind it when the color intensity gets too strong, hence the base intensity is very low. I raised the base intensity a bit for 0.99.5.


Not feeling this.


Never seen them spawn 90 degrees off. They face the way you point to with mouse.


Scripting can be used to make players switch teams, and it can access stats before they are reset at each map change on match-profile servers. It does need a fair bit of work to make it happen, so I'm willing to assume it won't be made by me or the modders.


The RWR Watcher is currently used by less than 20 players so I'm not sure if that's the right place to put more efforts, I don't think people generally like having random software running on background in the system tray, so some different approach would be needed. Steam for instance can be used to do some form of notifications, would need some investigation how it works. Also many web browsers provide desktop notification support.

The whole topic of how to reach existing RWR players and let them know about an interesting upcoming/ongoing event is a big question mark, has always been.


Admins can do it, at least. In single player campaign you can do /restart or /warp X. I guess you're suggesting some form of map change vote.

Classic is expected to be remade with utilizing Minimodes as the backbone, so at least there will be timers in place to end a map so that the next one will start soon anyway.


I think the more appropriate question is: is it rare enough?


Rank restriction in Invasion is 2500 XP.