Proposing a few changes

[Guest Stip]

Hi All,

 

After speaking to a lot of members about Gauntlet, the missions/tasks and the way they are completed i would, again, make a case

for a possible change to the mission file. 

 

Dynamic Vehicle Pool

All vehicles (from the correct Alliances) are put into a pool array giving a specific vehicle a chance to spawn. Every task spawns its own

new set of vehicles from the pool. (And cleans them up after completion/failure). The argument given for the current situation (all available vehicles are

at base) giving the ASL maximum choice, hence giving the players a more dynamic experience, doesn't fly for me.

Yes there are certain ASL's who dont always run straight for the Blackhawks, Littlebird CAS, and Armed Humvees. But most of the time these are the used vehicles, and mostly always used in the same manor.

 

If every task has a chance to spawn certain vehicles this automaticaly makes the availability a proper factor in mission planning. (Especially if destroyed vehicles do not respawn, during the same task).

 

Lets say the following:

1. There are 5 types of Transport Helis
2. There are 8 types of "Car" types
3. There are 3 type of "Troop transport"  Types
4. etc.

 

1. The task grants 2 Transport Helis (Each heli has a 1/5th chance to be selected for that slot)
2. The task grants 3 Car types (each Car type has 1/8th chance to be selected for that slot)
3. The task grants 1 " Troop Transport" type (each "Troop Transport" type has 1/3rd chance to be selected for that slot)
4. etc.

 

In this situation, ASL/mission planner has to take in account the vehicles available and adjust insert, mission strategy, extraction, reinserts etc. Making mission planning and exectution a much more dynamic experience for both ASL and players. IRL you dont always have a blackhawk to slingload a weaponscrate to its destination, or keep going backwards and forwards to reinsert single people. You play the cards you are dealt with and make the best out of it.

 

 

Cheques and balances

 

Military actions costs money, a lot of money.

 

Quote

The former military workhorse, the Humvee, carried a $70,000 price tag. As that was modified, or "up-armored," the cost rose to from $160,000 to $220,000.

..

"The cost to provide this capability is high -- it is estimated that each JLTV will cost in excess of $300,000 before equipping with essential combat systems -- but not as high as the cost of the MRAP family of vehicles, which cost $430,000 - $900,000 apiece to procure," the report says.

From Charley Keyes, CNN Senior National Security Producer

 

Cost per hour:

 

Quote

A-10C Warthog Attack Plane — $17,716

MQ-9A Reaper Drone — $4,762

UH-1N Huey Helicopter — $13,634

HH-60G Pave Hawk Helicopter — $24,475

 

from:http://nation.time.com/2013/04/02/costly-flight-hours/

 

Currently All missions are planned and executed without any regards for cost and benefits.

 

I would like to propose the following changes:

 

1. Introduce a " currency " to Gauntlet
2. Create a table of costs for all vehicles
3. ASL / mission planner can "buy" vehicles to use during tasks
4. Air vehicles have a costs per/hour
5. Succesfull missions give a monetary reward to the balance
6. ASL balance spills over to the next task.

 

This will result in:

 

1. More dynamic allocations of vehicles to users, granting them a more dynamic gameplay experience.
2. No more F18's loitering above the AO
3. More effective use of Helicopters
4. Increase in effective strategic planning as there is now a monetary reward to be gained (and thus access to new vehicles)
5. An increased team effort feeling

 

Task Recap

 

At the end of the mission, please show a message on how effective the team has operated.

1. Nr of deaths
2. Nr of kills
3. Vehicles used
4. Total Costs
5. Total Cost per squad.
6. etc.

 

This will help improve mission planners as they have an easily accesible data point to relate to. The feeling that

you did well, might not be supported by data. or Vice Versa. For those in sales IRL , the feeling you are on target might not be true if you don't look at the data.

 

 

All of the above

 

Personally i'd like to see a combination of all of the above to be implemented in the next version of Gauntlet.

 

1. A Vehicle pool is made available per mission
2. ASL buys vehicles to use from that randomly generated pool
3. Destroyed Vehicles remain destroyed
4. Air vehicles costs money to operate (and buy)
5. Every tasks gives a recap

 

An ASL can choose to go all in and buy , at that moment, the best possible vehicles to do the job.

OR he can plan a few economical missions and save up credits. Saved credits combined with the mission rewards

gives him, possible, access to higher tiered vehicles.

 

 

Looking forward to seeing your replies.

 

Stip

Ego quoque nescio quid hic scriptum est.

 

 

[Miczils]

I think we would need a totally different game style for those changes, i really like the idea. But honestly, it doesn't fit in with 4 main missions. 
Gauntlet would need around 4 - 5 main AO missions and like 10 - 20 side missions to allow for a persistent "currency" functioning. Instead of a 4 mission > restart > 4 missions > restart, way that we play now.  -  I don't think that is what Ahoy is aiming at, what your ideas propose is changing Gauntlet to a mission that comes close to Arma 3 Antistasi mission. 
Where on AWE we have fun in "miltary like" environment - aiming at it being realistic, and you can trust me on that, a Platoon Commander sitting in an FOB in Afghanistan, really does not care about the hourly cost of the black-hawk that he sends QRF in. In real life situations, any available assets are used when a need arises, because that ensures the safety of the soldiers and the outcome of an operation. 

I like what the changes would force us to do, care about the vehicles, equipment and increased team-effort. But i think that instead of the "currency and cost" system, a better way to improve the gameplay in those particular ways, would be a longer vehicle re-spawn time, and maybe a wreck system - where a destroyed vehicle doesn't re-spawn but is a wreck that can be air-lifted or towed back to the base and repaired [Like in Xeno's Arma 2 Domination! 2 if anyone remembers that beauty.]

I would love to see the after-mission briefing recap thingy, just to know how successful it actually was.
And i agree with you that people need to start caring about the vehicles more, instead of leaving a humvee without a tire or a busted engine, get an engineer to repair it or get it air-lifted back to the base.

 

24 minutes ago, Stip said:

• No more F18's loitering above the AO

Why not tho? In real life, most of high-intensity military operations have air assets available and constantly used. A CAS asset is a must have for longer and riskier targets, at least in real life.

[Blue-958-]

What if a squad lead blows all of the money, fails the mission and then leaves? Some poor sod has to pick up the pieces and everyone on the server has a crap time cos they've gotta walk 10km. They're nice ideas overall but just unsuitable for AWE. 

[Guest Stip]

13 minutes ago, Blue-958- said:

What if a squad lead blows all of the money, fails the mission and then leaves? Some poor sod has to pick up the pieces and everyone on the server has a crap time cos they've gotta walk 10km. They're nice ideas overall but just unsuitable for AWE. 

 

Sure this could happen, but you can add in fail saves if nescesary. But id rather see a community that can handle the responsibilty of the economical system.

 

But how about the other 2 points?

[Noah_Hero]

As @Blue-958- said: too much potential to fuck things up really bad.

Also this is not Milsim but more teamoriented short fun. Because of this I think that adding an economy-system would be too much for maybe having short fun at completing a few AOs. This kind of playstyle where you really have to be carefull about your resources is running on EU6 at the MSOs and there it works well because you are playing quite a lot of hours on the same mission and it is a bit more "hardcore" oriented.

And I agree with the point of the staff-team that now you have all the variety. If YOU want to do anything special just hop into ASL-slot and do it. You can do this whenever you want and create your dynamic playstyle without any scripting at all. And if you want to make people care even more on recourses than they are at the moment just don't let them take another vehicle after they wasted theirs when you are ASL.

And why another thread about this if it already has been discussed?

 

*EDIT*:

@Miczils: for the point about CAS: yes in RL CAS is super important because you don't risk the life of soldiers on the ground and exactly that could CAS do in Arma...but then it is just super boring for the ground-forces because they stay safe while CAS is killing the whole AO.

 

and for briefings: just look at the stats before and after the AO and compare them and do a briefing on your own as ASL but normally you should have a feeling about how it went and don't need numbers.

[Miczils]

10 minutes ago, Noah_Hero said:

*EDIT*:

@Miczils: for the point about CAS: yes in RL CAS is super important because you don't risk the life of soldiers on the ground and exactly that could CAS do in Arma...but then it is just super boring for the ground-forces because they stay safe while CAS is killing the whole AO.

Well, that's why you have a good commanding element that can keep the CAS from ruining the fun, but able to come in when needed.

[D34TH]

.. how much would a zeus lightning bolt be priced at ?

[Noah_Hero]

5 minutes ago, Miczils said:

Well, that's why you have a good commanding element that can keep the CAS from ruining the fun, but able to come in when needed.

Exactly. My post was just meant as explanation for why it isn't used like in RL in Gauntlet.

[Guest Stip]

Thanks for all the replies! i appreciate the discussion.

However, most of the replies target the financial idea and the possible problems.

 

@Noah_Hero @D34TH @Blue-958- What are your opinions about the vehicle pool?

[Noah_Hero]

4 minutes ago, Stip said:

Thanks for all the replies! i appreciate the discussion.

However, most of the replies target the financial idea and the possible problems.

 

@Noah_Hero @D34TH @Blue-958- What are your opinions about the vehicle pool?

As said: I think it could be done just by ASL choosing what he wants to use and if he allows resupplies if assets are destroyed. Like I said: if you want this gameplay: pick ASL or convince ASL to play like this.

But I like it more like it is now because now ASL can and actually also is (if ASL is somewhat experienced) using not just helis and instead can use paradrops, boats or like yesterday fast roping which is also super cool. Because of this I would not restrict the posibilities because now it is only limited by imagination (but yes some people are just thinking of Helis)

And I like that you try to keep the discussion in this thread alive.

[D34TH]

@Stip i like the base setup as it is @ new map start.  i would like zero re-spawns of destroyed vehicles during  all the missions in each map ... one base loadout  per map would make taking care of assets more important / increase immersion / increase the logistics' role imo

[Copey]

43 minutes ago, D34TH said:

.. how much would a zeus lightning bolt be priced at ?

 

Here have one, free of charge too! 

[Shadow Knight]

I don't mean to sound like a dick here but..
 

2 hours ago, Stip said:

Introduce a " currency " to Gauntlet

Wouldn't be such a bad idea. But could get abused very easily.

 

2 hours ago, Stip said:

Create a table of costs for all vehicles

So what make a table out side of the game and input that into it? (When we get stuff for free anyways)

 

2 hours ago, Stip said:

ASL / mission planner can "buy" vehicles to use during tasks

Why "buy" them when you can just walk up to an MRAP and get in it. (For free.)

2 hours ago, Stip said:

Air vehicles have a costs per/hour

2 hours ago, Stip said:

Succesfull missions give a monetary reward to the balance

So like EU1 side mission rewards. 

 

2 hours ago, Stip said:

ASL balance spills over to the next task.

Smart, but if ASL should leave after one AO would that reset the amount?

 

2 hours ago, Stip said:

More dynamic allocations of vehicles to users, granting them a more dynamic gameplay experience.

Would be a very different experience. But I would not like to see people having to walk 15km to an AO because we have no money.

 

2 hours ago, Stip said:

No more F18's loitering above the AO

I agree that usually jets are chilling around the AO. If we do use this cost thing and a jet is needed. Then I guess (If you don't want them in the air a lot) You'll need to keep landing them again and again and again just to keep the "Price" low for them. Might be a pain in the ass.

 

2 hours ago, Stip said:

More effective use of Helicopters

A good pilot can be very effective in a helicopter.  

 

Yet again I'm not trying to kill your fire. Just I cant see this working on AWE. (Don't hate me )

[Blue-958-]

The dynamic vehicle pool isn't necessary, if a SL wants to make the AO more interesting they are free to do so, I think its also unfair to force someone who is new to squadleading to cope with a potentially difficult vehicle situation, the role is hard enough for new players as it is. There's also the feasibility side of it, the pool would have to depend on the number of players online, the type of mission, it will require a 'standard loadout' of vehicles, which will also depend on these factors. What if you get a convoy mission where you have no armed vehicles?

[BenjaminHL]

To put it ever so simply not only do I not like these proposed changes, but I think they are unessary. And above all they seem hard to implement, and trust me @Ryko does enough.

[S0zi0p4th]

So i gonna be blunt and give you a straight Answer and thats NO to all of it 

 

We or in this case @Ryko is not gonna spend time on this at all 

 

However you are free to fork the current Gauntlet and add all these changes yourself and then submit it towards us and we can look at hosting it 

 

 

This is mainly because everything what your suggesting is alot off work which is better spend on other items 

[BlastaMasta]

The thing that bugs me about this thread is not @Stips suggestion, but the way people are reacting to it. Or to be more precise how people are giving him negative rep for merely making a suggestion. I honestly don't think the reputation system is meant as an "upvote/downvote" functionality like reddit for example and in my eyes it should only be used to mark spammers/people that post shit and the like. Of course you can give rep for things you like but don't shoot down things you dislike. Rather write a post and discuss! This is a forum after all.

 

Making constructive suggestions should not be discouraged like this. Anyone who has good ideas might get scared and think "oh, well.... what if they screw my rep.. nobody will take me seriously if they look at my profile". This is a bad thing as I'm sure there are a few good ideas floating around in peoples heads that might actually improve the experience for us all. Anyone should be encouraged to voice their opinions on all aspects of gameplay and to suggest improvements.

 

As for the actual suggestions, yes, I agree with the others that it would be a whole lot of work to implement these changes and I don't see them working out all too well to be honest..

[Copey]

I can see this is about to go off topic, so I'm locking the topic before it happens.

 

I believe that the original suggestion has had sufficient responses to it for a general understanding of how the community feels about it.