Thoughts on forward spawning Vics

[brazen prairie]

Kind of a double edged sword of a topic but I'm curious to see what the public has to say (because I'm sure someone has something).
Pros:
-Fatser paced gameplay allowing Frontline players to keep moving
-Give more than a victory incentive for players to cap flags
-More vic opportunities and strategy changes

Cons:
-Reduces rear line team play. If you're looking for a Mil Sim and not Battlefield flag spawned Vics does not help. People will always go for fast, easy, and disposable
-Irrelevant on small maps. Vics will get stuck or just act as rpg cannon fodder.
-1 light vic, more than 4 people on point. An unrelated issue with vic claiming.

Personally I am against flag spawned vics because the map selections are too small for them to be functional. On a 10km² or larger map like khafji, sure because walking from point a to point b is half of the match. On maps like Risala though, walking or flag spawns feels better.

Other thoughts?

[fierce compass]

Khafji might be the only one with light vehicle spawns at every flag since they're very far apart. The 2k or 1k maps might only be at every other flag. And none for 500m maps

[still knoll]

my proposal to implement forward vehicle spawn is:

1. forward spawn vehicles will work on specific/special flags. I don't recommend to make vehicle spawns on flags that are in the center of a map, but if it's on the flags near to the center, it's ok. I also don't recommend more than two special flags (one per team) specially on tiny maps, in that case there should be none. In these special flags must NEVER spawn logistic vehicles or any vehicle that has an offensive capability
2. To enable the vehicle spawn, the team needs to capture the special flag. If enemy team captures this flag, the vehicles spawned there are replaced with the enemy's ones (If one of these vehicles were used before the capture, it will not disappear)
3. Modders must be able to set the vehicle spawn where they want. This in order to place these vehicles in plausible places like a garage and to prevent the enemy from destroying them easily from a far distance.

[brazen prairie]

For 1, maybe have it limited to the 2nd and/or 3rd capture flag for each side? Most maps don't have more than 5 capture points so a forward light vehicle spawn point doesn't sound too bad

[little axle]

The real problem is that kills mean almost nothing, and destroying vehicles is also of little use. The strategy is throw some worthless meat at point until there are more teammates than enemy on point. Tickets and gamemodes should be rebalanced for positional gameplay where killing vehicles/players means something

[brazen prairie]

Yoshi used to have this with his vehicle mod (I think it's disabled now) but considering most people don't read the documentation they never realized things like helis and IFVs were worth more tickets. The idea of certain objectives providing certain vehicles (like capturing the embassy on khafji might give some light transports, the oil refinery area would give logistics trucks) is definitely a good one

[still knoll]

nowadays if you manage to capture all flags, the enemy team's tickets start to bleed, so there is an incentive to cap flags. Not to mention that capturing flags gives your team more tickets and takes tickets from the enemy team. The only thing that makes a difference if your team wins or not is which team has the nearest spawn to the contested flag (FOB, rally, flag spawn). So i think the game flow gives you an incentive to destroy/neutralize enemy spawns near the objective. However, the flag spawn makes this worthless sometimes since there is no way to disable them. FOBs and rallies have vulnerabilities that ask for active team protection of them that doesn't apply to the flag spawns like enemies dissabling them by being near to one, or destroying them.
One recommendation for flag spawn is that it should work similar like a FOB: it's enabled once you capture the flag, you can't construct with them and it can be digged down but not totally destroyed. That way it will need the team active support of the team to maintain them operable.

[wanton atlas]

Its never been disabled. They have always costed tickets.

[little axle]

Too cheap. Launching reckless assaults on points is way more profitable.

[brazen prairie]

I would say limiting the number of vehicle spawns would force more tactical gameplay. Rather than just causing the match to end quickly, force people to adapt to their mistakes

[brazen prairie]

Interesting. Thanks for confirming.

[little axle]

Only a little. All spawn points should be limited to add stakes to dying, and ticket costs increased. Rally and HAB spam are still a thing in vanilla. Building generator and blocks (HAB) just by laying on the ground under direct fire is way too advantageous

There’s also time to build, it’s faster compared to enemy sending retaliatory measures

And without frontline structure logi can ride along edge of map, then flawlessly flank and build behind enemy lines comfortably. Tactically it should have been taken out by mines/drones/barbwire

[brazen prairie]

I think some of this falls to team composition as well. There's always this sense of disconnect between players. If coordination got better for each team I think there'd be some really interesting matches where mechanics get used for their intended purposes (like fobs being used as resupply bases and not just spawn points)

[little axle]

When used properly, it becomes spam of spawn points and rush. Meta is stupid.

[brazen prairie]

Yeah, definitely a different point of discussion. I've been thinking about how to shift gameplay from meta spam to milsim strategy but come up with nothing due to game limitations and community demands

[small wigeon]

Since time itself is a resource, I think forward spawning should be based on individual consecutive spawn duration where if you die too soon then you have a longer delay on forward spawns compared to rear spawns meaning that players who get kills on the front don't immediately face the same player again unless they were specifically transported from the rear (phrasing?) to the same path again. Focusing on the original topic though a delay on forward spawn vics could allow for a defensive focus during the wait time.

I thought this was already in the game, but maybe it isn't severe enough of a penalty or, too limited where it isn't based on objective distance, meaning the spawn formula is modulated by proximity to the current objective for players with a forward spawn penalty where all of this should be based on map size/objective spacing.

[little axle]

That is really advanced system, doubt it would be easy to get timings proportionally right

[little axle]

Great point. I remember some Arma video about problem of tactical exposure after death, players prelearn position in other lives. But in OHD sitting on position rarely happens, running around and taking cover is op like in Battlefield

[small wigeon]

It would just be based on travel time vectors where you calculate how long it takes someone to get to a flag as the crow flies. If you mean in terms of gameplay balance, I suppose it's just based on downtime. Personally I would make the downtime less than Squad, maybe similar to Hell Let Loose.

[small wigeon]

I think problems aside OHD exists as a happy medium between Battlefield and ARMA/Squad, with the potential to be modded to be closer to those games or it's own thing entirely of course.

[little axle]

Sounds like lots of math and unforeseen consequences

[small wigeon]

Just picture map metadata with backup defaults. You don't need active vector calculations unless you have a dynamic capture point system of some sort, then, yes it would have to be carefully tested to ensure the distances are calculated properly and you don't end up with null values, but backup defaults are a goto for that.

As a quick example we are talking adjusting a spawn timer from something like 30 seconds to 90 seconds max if they died within 60 seconds of their last spawn on the front line with backline spawns being only 20 seconds with a variance of say 20% around median values, it should be barely noticeable to players overall aside from learning they can't easily spawn on the Frontline if they die too soon. It's just algebra which is common if you peruse the SDK at all. I'd say the major unforeseen consequences come out of gang spawning on one area, getting blasted, no one is able to spawn on the front and the backline spawns are so far back they result in losing 2 or more cap points from having only one HAB/spawn area.

Also I'm not sure if this has been suggested, but forward spawning vics on flags could be modulated by having to build a base structure like a "Depot" or something similar with a given startup spawn and respawn timer for light vehicles to encourage fortifying and objective. I'm not sure if the building system distinguishes building a HAB from just building fortifications/special conditional structures though so it may be more involved than the current system.

[little axle]

The whole point of forward vehicle spawn mechanic is for casuals to get into action more conveniently, sometimes logistics are stalled significantly which creates nearly unwinnable scenario

[little axle]

Now add main base helicopter pilot crashing every time on landing, spawn campers, long range rpg spammers. Something can become OP again