A Path Beyond Respawn time and vehicle build time

[des1206]

I just want to ask if this is doable (coding-wise) and worth trying?

I feel C&C mode favors defenders, especially on larger maps with easy to access gem. Since even if attackers skillfully take down the defenders half way to base, the defenders will just respawn right away and buy the best units they can to defend the now half-health attacking force. This type of game play reward skills less. Only surprise and concentrated attacks can succeed since buildings are not easy to take down. While there is nothing wrong with that, this makes larger maps and maps without cover not fun to play.

Would implementing a reasonable respawn time and/or vehicle build time hep solve this problem?

[OrangeP47]

I can't comment on if it's actually possible coding wise, but I think if any changes on this front were to be made, it should be no more drastic than *15 seconds* respawn only.  Any longer and people would get bored with the wait, and it adds up over the course of a map cycle to people missing significant fractions of the game.  Overall I still feel like any such changes would just make people rage quit more.

[Threve]

6 hours ago, des1206 said:

Would implementing a reasonable respawn time and/or vehicle build time help solve this problem?

No. 

Putting a build time for vehicles (such as 15 seconds) would also disable vehicle rushes or make them painfully slow. Imagine building a mammoth tank, a spy steals it and you can’t even get anouther to defend your base. Also it would give more time to said defenders to learn about a sneak attack. The time limit in game also constitutes a problem with this making last minute rushes to win a near impossiblilty. 

[KevinLancaster]

Maybe the build time could be dynamic based on vehicle cost, like in the original games?

[Threve]

19 hours ago, KevinLancaster said:

Maybe the build time could be dynamic based on vehicle cost, like in the original games?

In general not a fan of extended wait times for vehicles as I don’t see it as that much of a problem. I’d probably just buy a Kov than wait at that point. Though if it had to be implement I would say this would be the best way. 

[des1206]

What if we just had a 10 second respawn delay?

I realize vehicle build times may not be needed, since Soviets with their slower speed is supposed to benefit the most from slower Allied reinforcements, but defending Allies typically rely on cheaper tanks (lights/meds) anyway, so implementing a vehicle delay will hardly make a difference. People will hardly buy a Phase Tank or Chronotank when Soviets are in front of your door steps.

Edited December 20, 2018 by des1206

[Raap]

Spawn delays are risky and they can quickly become frustrating.

But that said, the current spawn system is broken. Half the time you can force-respawn by left-clicking during your death animation, and occasionally you have a slow-motion death animation you cannot cancel early. Regardless of design changes here, fixing respawning to take a consistent amount of time without differing per player, should be seen as a bug fix request rather than a feature request.

Beyond that, I think the main gameplay design error dating back to Westwood is the fact that the re-spawn system has no intelligence to it. It feels incredibly bad to attack a base building interior, get it to low health, kill a defender and then have that same defender instantly respawn on top of you with full health.

Ideally, the re-spawning logic would check for hostiles in the area and if so, change to a different spawner in a different building.

I do not know how likely it is for APB to be gaining any respawn changes. I know AR is considering changing how spawning works but I imagine it isn't exactly on top of their to-do list right now.

In short, plenty of room for improvement here, but increasing spawn delay is not one of those improvement.

Edited December 23, 2018 by Raap

[Raptor29aa]

So trying to understand the issue... I am assuming as a soviet (mammoth tank) you kill a medium tank in the field to find a second medium tank attacking you (same person) before you reach the enemy base. Or I assume the issue was being an Allied attacker and being greeted with a mammoth tank (same person) at the enemy base.

After giving it thought you are upset about not being able to hold ground, even though you say the respawn time is the issue. What I do understand is that without adequate cover holding an open position sucks. Even Sun Tzu would agree about not stoping or fighting on facile/open ground.

Allies have the MGG to make cover and mechanics to refresh tank damages. While soviets need to rely on mammoth tanks as cover and Tesla or V2 tanks for stopping power (since they have no mechanics to refresh). The issue seems more frustrating for soviets since only mammoth tanks can self heal. 

It seems to me that if either side could hold ground and press an attack it would feel more rewarding. Since quick stealth or steamroll operations lose success as the game progresses. And it gets old rather quick to call a match in the first 5 min. 

As for infantry incursions the same principles apply, yet a medic can offer some holding power and also a flame soldier can as well. Inversely it would be bad if a building fell every time a shotgun soldier got inside. 

A path beyond was designed around diversity of units and teamwork, but I do understand the frustration of not being able to hold an attack ground based on campers. Even V2 bombardments are hard to use because they turn into cannon fodder for phase/Chrono tanks.

One Last note, in the future maybe paratrooper drops could work to call in for extra holding power.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Raptor29aa

[danpaul88]

I think a key difference from Renegade is the lack of the Hotwire / Technician type character (the mechanic isn't quite the same repair rate IIRC) and, of course, the additional players on the team to field them.

In the days when Renegade had a lot of players a group of vehicles could hold position outside an enemy base and continually gain ground because they had dedicated repair crews following them round / riding shotgun, allowing the vehicles to continue attacking whilst being continually repaired. This meant that the defence advantage was slightly reduced since those new vehicles would be coming up against freshly repaired attackers all the time and the attackers could wage a war of attrition until the defenders ran out of cash for useful vehicles, allowing them to move in for the kill.

Of course it also led to stalemate at the base entrances quite often of course and long games sat in front of an MCT keeping a building alive until your team got their act together and repelled the attackers.

So whilst not directly comparable to APB, you can see how the dynamics of fewer players and less flexibility in on-the-go repairs has an impact on the gameplay vs how Renegade works. What we do about that I couldn't say - things like auto-repair when out of combat might help somewhat, I believe APB infantry have this and AR has it with veterancy.