What would happen if CRS removed Spawn delay...

Perhaps their server will explode ?

Perhaps that would be the end of the game ?

Perhaps it would bring a lot of players back ?

What do you think ?

Removing SD would ruin the game imho. We saw what happened without SD and its not pretty. Is 200 sec SD good? No way,maybe drop it to 60 sec max. But,without it the game would be a disaster.

Remove SD= Horrible idea

Originally posted by CeTheGreat

We saw what happened without SD and its not pretty.

Did we ?

I think SD is needed, but not to the extreme I've seen recently.

60 seconds max, anything after that is just angering people.

DOC said yesterday that SD is maxed out at 300 seconds.

Thats 5 friggin minutes.

That amount is just assinine.

---

Originally posted by Stug
Yes - it's called one side un subs/stops playing before the other.

---

That's the stated intent of spawn delay, to get the overpop side to stop playing and log off.

There's little point in switching sides because spawn delay fluctuates so quickly, and a large squad would just bring spawn delay to the "underpop" side if they all moved over.

Originally posted by david06

That's the stated intent of spawn delay, to get the overpop side to stop playing and log off.

 

Do you believe that?

It's a crude blunt tool trying to deal with a complex, difficult problem. However it's not an easy one to fix

I would not mind seeing it capped at 30 seconds.  I put up with the longer spawn delays that are in game now because my game enjoyment and the squad I'm in (101st Airborne) outweigh the frustration that can arise when you are in a good fight and are sitting at the deployment screen while that timer counts down.  

However, I understand why it was originally instituted.  I don't think anyone enjoys logging in to play a game like this and becoming a punching bag for the opposing side due to numbers differences.  That said, I have no clue how to go about fixing the broader issues.  It is just my opinion but it would be wise for the developers to tread carefully on this as they could easily over engineer a "fix" and make a frustrating situation a true nightmare.  

Still no real explanation for why spawn delay is so necessary.

Originally posted by hoober

Still no real explanation for why spawn delay is so necessary.

To provide a sense of tactical play and stop things turning in to a massive lemming meatgrinder....?

To promote a playstyle where death have a meaning.

To promote teamwork and looking out for each other.

To peewee herman Hoober off? =P

Pick your poison. =P

Originally posted by tawess

Originally posted by hoober

Still no real explanation for why spawn delay is so necessary.

To provide a sense of tactical play and stop things turning in to a massive lemming meatgrinder....?

To promote a playstyle where death have a meaning.

To promote teamwork and looking out for each other.

To peewee herman Hoober off? =P

 

Pick your poison. =P

 There is nothing tactical about Spawn Delay.

Death would have a meaning if features like magic spawn boxes and teleported infantry were removed.

Spawn delay does not promote teamwork.

It pisses me off to sit and wait 5 minutes while opponents can cap a town. Thats true. I guess you prefer spawn delay over lots of returning players ?

Originally posted by hoober

Originally posted by tawess

Originally posted by hoober

Still no real explanation for why spawn delay is so necessary.

To provide a sense of tactical play and stop things turning in to a massive lemming meatgrinder....?

To promote a playstyle where death have a meaning.

To promote teamwork and looking out for each other.

To peewee herman Hoober off? =P

 

Pick your poison. =P

 There is nothing tactical about Spawn Delay.

Death would have a meaning if features like magic spawn boxes and teleported infantry were removed.

Spawn delay does not promote teamwork.

It pisses me off to sit and wait 5 minutes while opponents can cap a town. Thats true. I guess you prefer spawn delay over lots of returning players ?

If there were side balancing that would not be necessary, but people want to play for their side and with their squads. Nothing like 90 people invading a town with 10 defenders and then claiming it was tactics and organization and superior skills that won the day for them. I play other games that have no respawns for up to 10 minutes. Noone thinks it is rediculous there. The only way to avoid it is to not die in the first place. As for initial spawning, using that superior organization to coordinate spawning would go a long way.

Letting 90 players roll back a map that hundreds of other players fought hard over is just plain stupid. I would agree though that completely negating the efforts of those 90 players is also stupid but I didn't see anyone complain when the DamBusters efforts were completely negated either. There we had the significant difference of noone to fight back and noone bothering to fight back.

Spawn delay is just side balancing without forcing you to play for the other team.

300?  Man that's crazy.  I think the most I ever saw was 30 seconds, and there was much complaining on the forums just for that.   But with the lower pop I guess it's easier to get even more scewed player rations (ie 10 people leave and it goes from 2-1 to 3-1) creating those long timers.

Does make you wonder if CRS has any basic concept they are trying to stick to.  They did a whole slew of changes for the more 'instant action' crowd with MSP and such.   Make for shorted distance to combat and removed the truck ride, but also made gamey gameplay with armies spawning in all directions.  But ok, at least I can see a rational for it even if I don't agree with the choice.  But after doing that, then slapping a 300 second respawn timer?  What players you don't lose in the first case, you're trying to get them to leave with the second.  If you pick an 'instant action' route for your game design, you don't then go against it to solve another issue.

---

Originally posted by Tontoman
Does make you wonder if CRS has any basic concept they are trying to stick to.  They did a whole slew of changes for the more 'instant action' crowd with MSP and such.   Make for shorted distance to combat and removed the truck ride, but also made gamey gameplay with armies spawning in all directions.  But ok, at least I can see a rational for it even if I don't agree with the choice.  But after doing that, then slapping a 300 second respawn timer?  What players you don't lose in the first case, you're trying to get them to leave with the second.  If you pick an 'instant action' route for your game design, you don't then go against it to solve another issue.

---

They don't appear to have had any coherent vision for the game over the last several years, which is crazy seeing how many producers they have(or had) for such a small company. They create the high commands, but can't keep them staffed. They create a complicated brigade system to ensure more strategic and varied play, yet restrict their movements so much that we get World War 1 most of the time. They mold the game from "sandbox" to "arena" ostensibly to increase action yet throw in all kinds of prohibitive timers. One moment Rapid Assault is the future of the company and essential for the game's survival, the next it's just a technology demonstrator...

The funniest thing is that in plenty of other "arena" style capture games it's the defender who has the spawn penalty. This is done because it's assumed that since the defender spawns right on top of the objective that they need a handicap to balance out the time/effort for the attacker to get there. In WW2online the defender spawns on top of the objective in most cases, yet it's the complete opposite.

In fact it being so hard to attack a town, to simply start and keep some kind of battle going is the main reason why there's so little action and why the server is so boring most of the time.

---

Originally posted by Silky303
One of the fundamental flaws with WWIIOL is that it's up to players to self correct numbers balance. But players, being people whose will to win overpowers the obvious signs of imbalance, don't self correctHence a series of ultimately restrictive mechanisms - SD, AOs etc - that cause a significant amount of unhappiness

---

Oh yeah, it's the player's fault. How are players supposed to correct the "imbalance" of one team's high command being better than the other? How do you propose a squad of 90-100 people logging on for their weekly operation self-correct? And how are AOs, the funneling of both side's population in to as few areas as possible ever going to help the underpopulated side? It just pins them in position for the massacre.

Once we were underpopulated, getting rolled and some people on axis said "fuck it" and started setting up attacks on random(and strategically pointless) towns. I think it was bblackfire and matamor, not sure but everyone was tired of spawning in to a lopsided camp so we just hopped in trucks and in planes and went capturing. It started out small but snowballed in to a grand little mob. We had a lot of fun joking on teamspeak and helped out some newer players gain rank.

What was the CRS response to that? New restrictions on capturing unoccupied towns and finally a "surrender" mechanic so that towns automatically revert when they're encircled for a period. So now the underpopulated side can't even go and harmlessly goof off somewhere; they must either spawn in to the crappy arena battle where they're losing or log off.

---

Originally posted by anfiach`
Avoiding combat has always been so much fun....

---

Playing with your friends is fun. I play Eve online and I'm not going to tell you that mining asteroids is exciting, but we get our corp together and do mining ops, just chatting and BS'ing while doing so.

And there's nothing stopping the defending side from dropping paratroopers or driving trucks/tanks to the town on their own initiative, either. Really you need to listen to yourselves, you are complaining that the underpopulated side is not spawning in to your attack to provide you with entertainment, and not attacking where you want to defend. It doesn't matter now though, because CRS listened and there's almost nothing to do outside of the flashing box.

Tontoman was just mentioning CRS being unable to stick to a concept so it's funny that you mention "avoiding the fight". There was a whole lot of fighting when the FRUs first came out, in high population, in low population, in towns, 1km+ from towns, etc. For some reason though CRS added a 10 minute rebuild timer(a bugged one at that) and now there's a lot less fighting.

Originally posted by david06

 

---

Originally posted by anfiach`
Avoiding combat has always been so much fun....

---

 

Playing with your friends is fun. I play Eve online and I'm not going to tell you that mining asteroids is exciting, but we get our corp together and do mining ops, just chatting and BS'ing while doing so.

And there's nothing stopping the defending side from dropping paratroopers or driving trucks/tanks to the town on their own initiative, either. Really you need to listen to yourselves, you are complaining that the underpopulated side is not spawning in to your attack to provide you with entertainment, and not attacking where you want to defend. It doesn't matter now though, because CRS listened and there's almost nothing to do outside of the flashing box.

Tontoman was just mentioning CRS being unable to stick to a concept so it's funny that you mention "avoiding the fight". There was a whole lot of fighting when the FRUs first came out, in high population, in low population, in towns, 1km+ from towns, etc. For some reason though CRS added a 10 minute rebuild timer(a bugged one at that) and now there's a lot less fighting.

Yet you complain about spawn delay.... I used to spawn in and fight despite being underpopped, I don't know why you think you had a special situation. Playing a combat game and avoiding combat at all costs? That's why HC and AOs were born in the first place.

Anyone happen to know what the coding effort would be to drop in an auto-balance program for the game?  That would fix the spawn delay issue, as it is currently applied, but it would probably create a new one with the inability to gaurantee all your squad mates will actually be on the same side during a game.  That might also tick off the stats crowd as well since there is no gaurantee they could play one side all the time and come off as top gun for the map in a category.  

If they dropped in an auto-balance feature you would probably have to get rid of the HCs as well, or dumb it down to a few tools that would allow just about anyone to operate as MOIC.  

If they get rid of the delay and go back to how it was, I don't know how they fix the fundamental problem of new players naturally gravitating to one side due to the iconic nature of the equipment.  I remember when I first came to the game.  Axis was my first choice because I wanted to get my hands on things like the MG34, MP40, the Tiger and the 109.  I had to be sold on playing Allied by other players...and it was not because of the equipment on the Allied side.  

---

Originally posted by anfiach`
Yet you complain about spawn delay.... I used to spawn in and fight despite being underpopped, I don't know why you think you had a special situation. Playing a combat game and avoiding combat at all costs? That's why HC and AOs were born in the first place.

---

Playing a competitive game, expecting the other team to spawn where you want them to and play only in the manner that you prefer, then lobbying the game developers to force them when they refuse doesn't make sense.

If people want to get together and goof off for awhile instead of reenacting Pickett's charge for the 11tybillionth time it's something they should be able to do in a MMO, especially it's not against the rules.

And both the high commands and the flashing boxes have been failures, the only debate is to what extent. Spawn delay kills enthusiasm during large periods of server activity and it did kill off the last large squad/alliance, so there had better be a huge benefit to it somewhere and I don't want to hear some vague invocation like "saved the game".