#My advice on fixing Overpop

4 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

verbal anvil
#

In my opinion when we're talking low pop on both sides as well as one side being ratioed. This condition ought to be treated more so as a "seeding phase". With the objective of trying to help "kindle the flame" by making it less painful for people on the receiving end.

What ends up happening is players are trickling in on one side and getting ran over repeatedly. Spawn camped and whatnot. Then people just end up leaving. While the next person joins gets thrashed and then leaves.

  1. Introduce a dynamic grace period that protects the kits/supply after spawning. That extends beyond just protecting spawn camping. Allowing for more reckless-play from the lower pop side. Allowing them to throw themselves into a fight/CP without having to worry as much about losing their supply and tippytoeing trying to fight against often 3 to 1 odds.

In a overall low population server on top of one team being ratioed. The team that is getting ratioed shouldn't be running out of supply and they often do ever time because you're getting camped often.

  1. Maybe more controversial but I'd just make it so F2P has full access in extreme low server pop conditions and ratioed. At least for infantry kits. Something that is dynamically enabled to help seed the lower pop side. (Let me be clear, this would be for extreme conditions)

I seed for other games like game-Squad and servers often will give you some kind of perk like giving you some VIP-queue if you've spent enough hours helping to seed. So you don't have to wait in queue to join during prime hours. While normally you'd have to pay the server owners for VIP.

Imo, during extreme conditions that same attitude could to be applied here. You're basically rewarding people for sticking around in abnormal server conditions that doesn't reflect peak hour gameplay.

#
  1. Add sentry bots that spawn outside of CP doorway on whatever side is lowpop. This would be less about the bots 'killing' and more so about forcing the higher pop side to make noise and reveal their positions. As well as adding the "white skull" upon a bots death.

Just forcing a any kind of noise around CP gameplay would be a decent handicap for the overpopulated side because CP gameplay revolves mainly around intel. If you know what CP is being attacked or is about to be changes what the defenders are going to go after.

#
  1. Add a extra step to CP gameplay by adding doors outside of each CP forcing the higher populated side to use combined arms to break the "shell" of the CP to gain access to the interior of the CP building. This would be more a more ambitious change for sure though.

Personally, I think having a "CP shell" and using this games destruction system as part of the capturing process would be fun. But that is a big change.

Generally, I don't like CP gameplay here coming from games like Project Reality/Squad/HLL. I think it becomes archaic gameplay with cheesy tactics you have to repeat and it goes on for hours. Moving to UE4-5 the CP gameplay is one thing I think could be reworked somehow. My suggestion would be the CP-shell, so you force combined arms as part of the process.

#

Either way, some changes on the road map like "side lock" I don't think will really do much unless it's extreme. I think the objective ought to be more so about kindling the lower populated side so they feel like they actually can do something in those conditions so they stay in the fight and don't leave.

While I feel that conditions have to shift in terms of the actual combat part of the gameplay. Like I've mentioned and less about simply slowing down one side or the other. The higher pop side needs to feel some kind of handicap pressure in those conditions.

So I would say you have two problems. You have a "seeding phase" of overall low server population. Then you have peak hour over population on either side that can occur. While mainly my suggestions fall under helping the "seeding phase".