Huge maps.
Huge maps so that every Tom [TOS Violation] and Harry will not be able to memorize all the sniper positions, every corners and every camping spots. Huge maps ensure that no round is similar. And the timer for these maps should be something like 20 min.
Having said that, I understand its not very simple to make. Been messing around the editor recently and using the editor made me realize its not easy to make maps.My respect for map-makers.
Wow that sounds like so much fun looking for a noob who is corner camping while they are on attack. HUGE maps were present in AA2 and looking at the hours played, they are the least liked maps. The majority of the community enjoys the current 12v12 maps while others, and mostly comp players play on the smaller 6v6 maps.
Huge maps.
Huge maps so that every Tom [TOS Violation] and Harry will not be able to memorize all the sniper positions, every corners and every camping spots. Huge maps ensure that no round is similar. And the timer for these maps should be something like 20 min.
Having said that, I understand its not very simple to make. Been messing around the editor recently and using the editor made me realize its not easy to make maps.My respect for map-makers.
Wow that sounds like so much fun looking for a noob who is corner camping while they are on attack. HUGE maps were present in AA2 and looking at the hours played, they are the least liked maps. The majority of the community enjoys the current 12v12 maps while others, and mostly comp players play on the smaller 6v6 maps.
It is pretty true. Although I'd say that most of the AA2 maps were bigger than the majority of PG maps, or at least they felt bigger. Maps like CSAR and Sandstorm were actually decently big maps or at least bigger than the current maps and were extremely popular. I do think that there's room for more maps that are overload, slums, cold front sized (which is probably closer to AA2 size). These maps can also be played for comp, they just need to be designed well enough.
Also, hospital was the biggest AA2 non-outdoor map and it was extremely popular.
On the other hand, terrain dominated maps had their following, but I would probably say that they were the least popular maps. I still stand behind the idea that a few of them wouldn't be a bad thing. Just not more than that.
You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!
It amazes me how people here have no concept of what is realistic to build for any given patch. You also have no idea about what is wrong with the core issues we are facing. You people argue over features which is actually detrimental. Less important than features is the game's goals / objectives.
Decide where you actually want the game to go. And I don't mean the community -- I mean the developers / producers / US. Army. What is the goal of America's Army: Proving Grounds? Is it just a small squad tactical shooter that we play and that's it? Is there no specific agenda or objective? If so, then the answer is we get random features thrown in unstrategically by popular demand with no rhyme or reason. Since this community has no idea or agreement of what they want, the result is that every single patch results in complaints. This is not how you grow a game or community. Ironically, by listening to the community, you probably get a worse game.
Part of the reason why AA2 was successful is that there was a long term vision, or perceptibly so. The idea was that it was largely based on 'education'. The fact that you had to pass training and learn about each gun before you could use it is typically seen as a hinderence to new players. But it is part of what made AA2 so popular and challenging. It was a unique experience.
In order to play online you needed to complete Basic Training.
In order to play airborne you needed to complete airborne parachute training.
In order to use the sniper rifle you needed to qualify 36/40 on rifle range and then pass sniper school.
In order to play as an SF soldier you needed to get 15 honor and then pass SF training.
In order to play as a medic you needed to pass medic training.
In order to use the javelin missile, you needed to pass that training, etc, etc.
Now every gun is available all the time. There's nothing interesting or challenging about that. There's no 'education' in this game other than some commercials between map loads.
The AA2 community never asked for required trainings, or for indigenous forces feature when AA:SF was released. They didn't ask for these things because they didn't know to ask for them. Had the developers built an AA2 based on what the players asked for, it probably would have turned out terrible. Yes, I am actually telling the developers to not listen to the junk posted in this thread.
What I'm saying is that AA2 had a 'point' -- It had a 'story' -- you were essentially following through the career of a US Army Soldier. It was an educational tool even at the expense of some 12 year olds giving up because they can't get instant gratification. And the game was better for it and had a substantially more active community than what we have here. Now we have weapon skins that we need to go play a shoothouse to get which feels more like a chore than anything else. This whole czervenian thing -- no one really cares about it because it's not like you're following a story or anything. It exists because they need a reason to be fighting someone in real world scenario and that's it. What's funny is that this is not necessary.
Look, I'm not saying putting in required Trainings like AA2 is the answer to AAPG -- what I am saying is that there needs to be some clear 'point' to the game. And if the US Army believe there is one, I'm just not seeing it. It appears they originally had one with the whole 'proving grounds' / 'fake training centers' but that idea was scrapped along the way for better or worse.
If, internally, there is no theme / point to the game and there are no plans to make one -- and instead there exists a list of features on some whiteboard in an office in Atlanta, then fine, so be it. The priorities should just be focused on giving the community the tools to do their own things, like doubling down on UMM.
If it were entirely up to me, I would bring back the 'educational' objective to the game and the 'story' of the US Army Solider and require trainings. To accomplish this without requiring a full rework of what the devs have already built, would be the following:
1. Re-introduce the concept of indigenous forces. We don't need Special Forces in the game in order to have indigenous forces as I'm sure the US Army regular infantry still had to deal with indigenous forces at some level.
2. Re-purpose the two training missions that currently exist but serve no agenda as required to fight as a US Soldier. If you do not complete these two missions, then you can join any server and just play as an indigenous force which is an AK-105 with iron sights only. IF has no nades or smokes either.
3. Indigenous force is an added 'role' to the game so you can choose to play as one if you want to even after you passed training.
The above points solves the issue of re-introducing the training aspect as well as letting 12 year olds play without passing training of any kind. Yet at the same time we bring back the "go through a career as a US soldier" theme that the America's Army brand is so famous for.
4. We can keep shoothouses and the badges/achievements/weapon skins thing as they are. It's probably too late to introduce required trainings on the sniper rifle.
5. Introduce medic class with required training.
Points 1 through 5 above is plenty of work for a single patch. Not 1.1 since the devs have already locked down what 1.1 will be.
From there maybe we can bring back airborne and M203 grenade launchers.
(Beer_Me)Dodge_this, amen to that.
I thought the same thing, the design process seemed to just stutter from beta version to beta version with no clear intent. I get the feeling a massive amount of time and energy was lost because of this.
A clear direction will certainly be the answer from here on forth. The community will adapt and grow if stick your plan, as there's always a niche to be served, especially with the amount of fps players around the world.
Not only was there training based on specific divisions/functions in the Army (basic, airborne, SF), but the missions were also catered to the type of force that they were trying to emulate. It at least gives a template or direction in how to build maps.
For example, the 10th Mountain Division was going to have maps with mountainous terrain
172nd Separate Infantry Brigade was for winter/snow type engagements.
Stuff like that really made people connect with the game. It'd be great if the Devs went back to something like that.
You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!
Can we just get optimization, I am over crying and stomping over the poor game audio and registration. Can we just for the love of god get a real optimization, meaning 120+ frames on a 12v12 map fully loaded server. That should have been a priority, but whatever.
I think quite a few of the Devs served in the Army. Not sure exactly what their roles were. I only know that Doc (whom we haven't heard from in a long time, does he still work there?) was a medic.
You joined the world's greatest army to become a graphic artist? Outstanding!
It good to see online servers full of players all playing one unified version of the game. For the opt-in players, not much has changed besides the fixing of some stray bugs. As for the old BETA players, it was entertaining hearing their first impressions on the final product.
With that said, Tots has stated work has began towards AAPG 1.1 (as he put it). Here are some features that the community has mostly agreed would be a good idea, in addition to new maps of course. It just makes sense.
- VIP mode
- A proper medic role
- Fireteams
- Detailed damage-inflicted information on enemies at the end of a round, including headshot info.
* Wild idea: Remove automatic reloads on comp/classic mode.
What are your thoughts?
Medic! A medic class that actually has to do something. Carry bodies, heal specific wounds, not the BF4 revive model.
Bigger maps!
Comments
Wow that sounds like so much fun looking for a noob who is corner camping while they are on attack. HUGE maps were present in AA2 and looking at the hours played, they are the least liked maps. The majority of the community enjoys the current 12v12 maps while others, and mostly comp players play on the smaller 6v6 maps.
It is pretty true. Although I'd say that most of the AA2 maps were bigger than the majority of PG maps, or at least they felt bigger. Maps like CSAR and Sandstorm were actually decently big maps or at least bigger than the current maps and were extremely popular. I do think that there's room for more maps that are overload, slums, cold front sized (which is probably closer to AA2 size). These maps can also be played for comp, they just need to be designed well enough.
Also, hospital was the biggest AA2 non-outdoor map and it was extremely popular.
On the other hand, terrain dominated maps had their following, but I would probably say that they were the least popular maps. I still stand behind the idea that a few of them wouldn't be a bad thing. Just not more than that.
Decide where you actually want the game to go. And I don't mean the community -- I mean the developers / producers / US. Army. What is the goal of America's Army: Proving Grounds? Is it just a small squad tactical shooter that we play and that's it? Is there no specific agenda or objective? If so, then the answer is we get random features thrown in unstrategically by popular demand with no rhyme or reason. Since this community has no idea or agreement of what they want, the result is that every single patch results in complaints. This is not how you grow a game or community. Ironically, by listening to the community, you probably get a worse game.
Part of the reason why AA2 was successful is that there was a long term vision, or perceptibly so. The idea was that it was largely based on 'education'. The fact that you had to pass training and learn about each gun before you could use it is typically seen as a hinderence to new players. But it is part of what made AA2 so popular and challenging. It was a unique experience.
In order to play online you needed to complete Basic Training.
In order to play airborne you needed to complete airborne parachute training.
In order to use the sniper rifle you needed to qualify 36/40 on rifle range and then pass sniper school.
In order to play as an SF soldier you needed to get 15 honor and then pass SF training.
In order to play as a medic you needed to pass medic training.
In order to use the javelin missile, you needed to pass that training, etc, etc.
Now every gun is available all the time. There's nothing interesting or challenging about that. There's no 'education' in this game other than some commercials between map loads.
The AA2 community never asked for required trainings, or for indigenous forces feature when AA:SF was released. They didn't ask for these things because they didn't know to ask for them. Had the developers built an AA2 based on what the players asked for, it probably would have turned out terrible. Yes, I am actually telling the developers to not listen to the junk posted in this thread.
What I'm saying is that AA2 had a 'point' -- It had a 'story' -- you were essentially following through the career of a US Army Soldier. It was an educational tool even at the expense of some 12 year olds giving up because they can't get instant gratification. And the game was better for it and had a substantially more active community than what we have here. Now we have weapon skins that we need to go play a shoothouse to get which feels more like a chore than anything else. This whole czervenian thing -- no one really cares about it because it's not like you're following a story or anything. It exists because they need a reason to be fighting someone in real world scenario and that's it. What's funny is that this is not necessary.
Look, I'm not saying putting in required Trainings like AA2 is the answer to AAPG -- what I am saying is that there needs to be some clear 'point' to the game. And if the US Army believe there is one, I'm just not seeing it. It appears they originally had one with the whole 'proving grounds' / 'fake training centers' but that idea was scrapped along the way for better or worse.
If, internally, there is no theme / point to the game and there are no plans to make one -- and instead there exists a list of features on some whiteboard in an office in Atlanta, then fine, so be it. The priorities should just be focused on giving the community the tools to do their own things, like doubling down on UMM.
If it were entirely up to me, I would bring back the 'educational' objective to the game and the 'story' of the US Army Solider and require trainings. To accomplish this without requiring a full rework of what the devs have already built, would be the following:
1. Re-introduce the concept of indigenous forces. We don't need Special Forces in the game in order to have indigenous forces as I'm sure the US Army regular infantry still had to deal with indigenous forces at some level.
2. Re-purpose the two training missions that currently exist but serve no agenda as required to fight as a US Soldier. If you do not complete these two missions, then you can join any server and just play as an indigenous force which is an AK-105 with iron sights only. IF has no nades or smokes either.
3. Indigenous force is an added 'role' to the game so you can choose to play as one if you want to even after you passed training.
The above points solves the issue of re-introducing the training aspect as well as letting 12 year olds play without passing training of any kind. Yet at the same time we bring back the "go through a career as a US soldier" theme that the America's Army brand is so famous for.
4. We can keep shoothouses and the badges/achievements/weapon skins thing as they are. It's probably too late to introduce required trainings on the sniper rifle.
5. Introduce medic class with required training.
Points 1 through 5 above is plenty of work for a single patch. Not 1.1 since the devs have already locked down what 1.1 will be.
From there maybe we can bring back airborne and M203 grenade launchers.
After that, AA:SF again? Who knows.
I thought the same thing, the design process seemed to just stutter from beta version to beta version with no clear intent. I get the feeling a massive amount of time and energy was lost because of this.
A clear direction will certainly be the answer from here on forth. The community will adapt and grow if stick your plan, as there's always a niche to be served, especially with the amount of fps players around the world.
http://manual.americasarmy.com/index.php/Infantry_Missions
http://manual.americasarmy.com/index.php/Airborne_Missions
http://manual.americasarmy.com/index.php/Ranger_Missions
http://manual.americasarmy.com/index.php/Special_Forces
Not only was there training based on specific divisions/functions in the Army (basic, airborne, SF), but the missions were also catered to the type of force that they were trying to emulate. It at least gives a template or direction in how to build maps.
For example, the 10th Mountain Division was going to have maps with mountainous terrain
172nd Separate Infantry Brigade was for winter/snow type engagements.
Stuff like that really made people connect with the game. It'd be great if the Devs went back to something like that.
AA2 wasn't per sé realistic but it did feel like it was heavily influenced by input received from real soldiers, AAPG doesn't.
Both are subject matter experts, then there are others I probably don't even know about.
Tots seems to be able to do everything.. he's probably one too!
Make AA Great Again!
[with medic]
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Medic! A medic class that actually has to do something. Carry bodies, heal specific wounds, not the BF4 revive model.
Bigger maps!