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Player

Reputation: +680

Registered: 2015-07-29

Posts: 1,868

Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

Short:

After having spent much time in Simple Fra, I’m rather sure that increasing the spawntime for the APC Mobile Spawnpoint in most maps, in order to reduce its impact and influence, will improve the overall gaming quality.

Long:

The APCMS isn’t a part of the original BF1942 game, it’s an added mod effect. In Simple Fra, it’s present in 12 of 21 maps.

In a top 50 list of things to improve/fix/change for Simple Fra, I’d put this apcms reduction near the top. It’s one of the biggest nuisances in my opinion. It’s a matter of taste of course, many will strongly disagree and prefer to keep it as it is.

It would be great to be able to play in some of the 12 apcms maps without it being available almost constantly. If something is present virtually all the time, it tends to be percieved as flat, stale and monotonous.

Creating an off-on/shift effect (long apcms spawn times) might make things even more diverse and appealing, since it then will be possible to play the maps for brief moments (minutes when the apcms is destroyed) as they originally were created and intended.

Alternatively, two versions of the apcms maps could be made, one with and one without it, and they could then be switched from day to day. Don’t know if it’s technically possible to auto-switch this way, or too much trouble to carry out.

The effect of the apcms as I see it:

Good:

- Breaks up and varies usual infantry spawn/flow patterns, creating randomness, unpredictability, diversity. This may make maps and the BF1942 game more interesting in the long run.
- Balances maps in some cases.
- New players who don’t have the courage and skill to advance on foot or in Jeep seem to like it (at least in the short term).

Bad:

- In some maps and situations, this single apcms unit is the top defining factor for ticket score and flag captures, it should not be this way. It could be called “overpowered”, it requires almost no skill to use and drive around, yet has big influence. Some maps often turn into apcms-wars, rather than tanks-planes-infantry wars, and are often defined and decided by the apcms placement.
- Sometimes balances maps too much, creating a back-and-forth carousel effect (is balance always good? Imbalance might be interesting, appealing at times).
- Less central action/density, due to it often being in the map periphery.
- Even when the apcms is in central parts of maps, it seems to induce less action, since it creates a spawncluster with only 1 spawn, whereas a flag typically has 3-5 spawns. This cluster can be hard to find, and even when found, leads to less overall intensity and kills.

The apcms has a spawntime of around 60 seconds in the maps where it’s present in Simple Fra. Here are my suggested approximate new spawntimes (they’re’s meant for both Axis and Allies; two apcms with same spawntime), plus re-adding it back into Bulge, Tobruk:

Tobruk          10 minutes     

Tobruk had apcms with a five minute spawntime up until a year ago when it was removed. It could be put back but at 10 minutes, that way it will have minimal influence. The five minute versions were dominated too much by it.

Battle of the Bulge           7 minutes     

Bulge had apcms with a 45 second spawntime until half a year ago, where it was removed. 45 seconds were way too low, resulting in Allies losing their main too often. Around seven minutes will reduce its impact, yet leave room for surprises. Current Bulge with moderate to high player count without apcms has become very static and predictable. Most rounds, Allies get routinely pushed back step-by-step, until they only have their main base.

Kursk       6 minutes

Kursk is one of the maps that’s influenced by the apcms the most, true carousel effect, due to it regularly being near or driving towards flags. Tanks and normal infantry have a reduced role in this map due to at least one of the apcms being close to the mid flags almost all the time. All Jeep spawners could get +1 Jeeps to compensate for longer apcms spawntime. Maybe also add one extra tank to each main.

Liberation of Caen          5 minutes       

In Caen, the new noobs (around half of players in Simple Fra), and even seasoned regulars often place the apcms in random, illogical and just plain stupid places like on the borders of the Caen map, creating less central infantry action. Since the apcms is a true noobmagnet, they will manically spawn at it, no matter how dumb the location is, often leading to infantry clusters far away from flags and ending the map early due to Axis losing all flags. It would be pleasant to experience classic straight vanilla Caen just for some minutes at a time, without that darn apcms messing things up and ruining everything.

Aberdeen      5 minutes
Bocage          4 minutes     

Stalingrad         4 minutes

Stalingrad cq is a small map with high randomness already. One of the maps where flags change sides most frequently. Without exaggeration I’d say that the two main building flags each change sides 20 times per round/once every two minutes. That’s too often and a complete joke. It’s way too easy to capture flags in Stalingrad cq, and the main culprit is too many transport vehicles. It’s just a parody of noobs running/driving around in waves and circles from flag to flag, scorewhoring flagpoints. No large need for intensive apcms support.

Kharkov                   4 minutes
Omaha Beach            3 minutes

Omaha is another map where the apcms plays a big role, too big in my view. It’s probably mostly positive that it’s present because it helps Allied infantry, since the majority of them are incapable of pressing the forward key and moving ahead in this map. But in sub-50 players rounds it’s too easy for Allies to get it near mid and upper flags and end the round too quickly. Ideally, it should have a dynamic spawn time depending on player count, but since that’s technically very hard or impossible, around three minutes feels as an ok compromise. Maybe also change some of the Allies beach spawnpoints and move a couple of them closer the mid flag to counter the effect of an reduced apcms.

Market Garden                2 minutes
Battleaxe                         2 minutes

Guadalcanal                    45 seconds   

Short apcms spawntimes are ok in Guadalcanal since it’s a large map.

Gazala                             45 seconds

Short apcms spawntimes are ok in Gazala since it’s a large map.

El Alamein                     45 seconds     

Short apcms spawntimes are ok in El Alamein since it’s a large map.

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Thanks Tuia for your extensive work into creating, fixing and managing in the BF1942 scene.

A little sample of small and large things you’ve done, which I and many others have appreciated and found valuable:

- Building a technically good forum from scratch with many neat details
- Making an almost free speech forum, no locked threads
- Digging deep into the BF1942 code, correcting, improving many things
- Preventing various server crashes
- Preventing misc. hacks and exploits
- Modifying the BF1942 software to enable 65+ slots
- The new 10-minute AFK auto kick mechanism
- Keeping a full 21 map rotation
- Including TDM and CTF versions
- Varying day-to-day map rotation
- Adding more vehicles to most maps
- Inserting Wake, Midway, Iwo sea border fences to prevent out of bounds ships
- Adding more Philippines transportation; PT boats, LCVPs, Jeeps
- Fast spawning Midway carriers
- Stukas and new spawnpoints in Britain
- Allowing main uncap attack in Britain
- Spreading out Stalingrad cq flag-buildings infantry spawns
- Reducing Berlin southeast flag radius and Tobruk Allies main radius
- Removing the top southeast Berlin infantry spawn

- A principle and effort at keeping up justice and fairness
- Helping hundreds of people with BF1942, including helping at setting many new servers up
- Being good at managing and dealing with people in the BF1942 community
- Generally maintaining a very high level of quality considering that the back-end is run by one person
- Being active and responsive even after seven years

Hydra{SRB}

$hbp

Reputation: +851

Registered: 2016-03-10

Posts: 1,583

Website

Re: Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

Shit I was hoping rumors are true and you died...

Black Mamba

Member

Reputation: +1496

Registered: 2012-12-01

Posts: 4,362

Re: Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

Shit I was hoping rumors are true and you died...

Wow dude really?

@BFsoldier: How about a poll where people can pick their favourite option? I’m all for disabling the mobile spawns entirely, I think new players rely on them too much as opposed to trying to learn the game properly.

Last edited by Black Mamba (2019-01-27 23:42:41)

Hydra{SRB}

$hbp

Reputation: +851

Registered: 2016-03-10

Posts: 1,583

Website

Re: Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

Shit I was hoping rumors are true and you died...

Wow dude really?

@BFsoldier: How about a poll where people can pick their favourite option? I’m all for disabling the mobile spawns entirely, I think new players rely on them too much as opposed to trying to learn the game properly.

Yea
I need to write to Santa he didn't do his job. And I was good boy

ABAS

disciple of Jeff

Reputation: +1981

Registered: 2015-12-10

Posts: 2,346

Website

Re: Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

tldr

tuia

BFSoldier

Reputation: +1152

Location: Lisbon

Registered: 2012-02-20

Posts: 6,412

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Re: Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

Thank you for the detailed feedback, BFSoldier1. Those changes will be done this weekend, it should be fairly easy and quick to do.

Arkos

Sedmin

Reputation: +2783

Registered: 2014-06-06

Posts: 7,048

Re: Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

...

Just look, that you don't mod Bf1942 to death.

The APC were fine as they were.  If a team plays as a team, they hunt down those APC's.

...

Last edited by Arkos (2019-01-31 21:07:16)

Bad Actor

What Have The Romans Ever Done For Us?

Reputation: +321

Registered: 2015-12-29

Posts: 386

Re: Tone down the APC Mobile Spawnpoint?

Sheesh!

There's me posting on the Ax forum about introducing spawn apcs as it really adds to the strategy on certain maps.
Literally posted it a couple of days before this post.

Oh well.
Not sure it would happen on Ax in any case given the owner is awol.