Tuchola Forest Beta #3 Feedback, Wed May 3rd Options

[ScrapyardBob]

Beta #3 has been released.

Major changes:

1. Increased the maximum density allowed for the raindrop effect. Server admins can now set the CVar "syb_rain_nodes" to values as high as 25. I do not recommend values above 15 except for very low population servers with very few additional mods. The default density in Beta #3 is slightly higher in Beta #2 which should result in a better looking effect.

Note: The raindrop effect has a slight impact on gamestate size. But no more then it did in Beta #2 for a particular CVar value.

2. Added a special effect that randomly rustles foliage and makes other random noise in the tall pine trees (the sound of snow falling through the branches). This represents the effect of small wildlife making noise or wind causing snow/ice to fall from the upper branches of trees. The effect has minimal effect on CPU load or gamestate. The effect on gameplay is that players will not be 100% sure whether a sound that they just heard was natural or manmade.

Admins can disable the effect using the CVar "syb_rustlenoise". Setting this CVAR to anything other then "1" will disable the sounds (and save a few bytes of gamestate).

3. Finished the Russian spawn area. Russians now have their final buildings, bunkers, trenches, foliage and vehicle locations.

4. Trimmed various entities across the map (ammo spawns, removed 2 BAS spawn poins in each spawn area, etc). With all options enabled, gamestate in Beta #3 is about 250 bytes heavier then in Beta #2 during Base Assault games.

5. There is now a trench on the hill east of G2. In addition, there are a pair of tunnels that connect through to the West Farm Bunker. This gives infantry another way to get from the Farm to G2.

6. Fixing the broken flags in DOM, adding descriptions to the flag locations in DOM.

7. Added CTF support to the map. Since I don't play a lot of CTF, I will be very interested in feedback from clans who do play CTF. Admins will probably want to disable the pak guns for CTF play.

8. Vehicle balance for Beta #3

Vehicle Balance, 64 total entities, max 48 active:

Static weapons (12):
(7) Pak40/Pak45
(5) Mortars

German - Base Assault (9 tanks)
(2) Jagd
(1) StugIII
(3) Panzer IV
(3) Panzer III
(3) Halftracks (3 spawn)
(6) Horches (2 spawn, S Forest, SW Farm, G1, G3)

Russian - Base Assault (9 tanks)
(2) KV1
(2) T34 stock
(2) T34_76
(3) BT7
(2) milk trucks (spawn, R2)
(7) Jeeps (3 spawn, R1, R3, SE Pak45, NE Farm)

Non-BAS gametypes:
- Adds (6) Jeeps/Horches across map
- Removes 10 tanks from spawns, (1) StugIII, (2) Jagd, (2) PanzerIV (2) KV1, (1) T34 stock, (2) T34_76
- Adds (4) light tanks
- Each team has (5) light tanks and one medium tank

9. I desire information on any clans that are running Tuchola or Barbarossa in conjunction with AWE. Please post your AWE config settings or e-mail them to me. Especially important is knowledge about what AWE settings conflict with the After-Hourz vehicle pack.

10. Identified and fixed pak guns that could hit enemy bases.

11. Finished converting about half of the roads from patch mesh to terrain mesh. This will lower the chance of exiting a vehicle and falling to your death (or simply falling through a section of road and getting stuck).

12. Lowered the upper limit of visibility from 9500 to 8500, this will help with frame rates. (There are 3 problem spots that there's nothing I can do with, other then redesigning large sections of the map.)

13. Weapon spawns in the main spawn points are on 5 sec timers instead of 10 sec. Weapons farther away from the main spawn are on slower timers (15/20/30/60 sec).

14. Added more VCLOG data (about 25%), mostly filling in gaps not yet VCLOG'd as well as adding VCLOG data to newly added areas since Beta #1. This should help reduce/eliminate lag when entering a new section of the map.

15. Added victory images. It was very difficult to find good images for this as the German flag used in CoD:UO seems to be a "fake" flag. If someone wants to make a better pair of images, please feel free to email them to me in time for Beta #4.

Minor changes:

a. Fixed the bazooka box at the mortar position in the NE (Glacier Pass, Trail A) so that players no longer get stuck.

b. Replaced a few trenches across the map.

c. Hill 13 now has a few more trees and rocks.

d. There's a new trench and trees north of G2.

e. Changed terrain slightly to affect how easy/hard it is to shell long-range across the map. R3 is now lower, G3 is now slightly higher.

f. Ambient noise during snowy / rainy rounds will be increased slightly.

g. Added a few more buildings. Added a few models and decorations inside of buildings.

h. Final addition of foliage across the map.

i. Added flags by the bases.

j. Fixed up the G1 pak gun position to be similar to the G2 pak gun.

k. The SE Farm Mortar now has a greater side-to-side coverage angle

l. SE Bridge pak-45 has greater protection from its sandbags.

m. Removed the wall behind the R1 pak gunner (reduces chance of dying due to splash damage off a wall right behind the gunner).

n. A few more trees in the farm area to obscure sight lines.

Things that didn't make the cut or weren't fixed in time:

- A small terrain glitch by Russian #2. This cropped up yesterday and only shows up in-game (not in the editor). Since it's about 1 pixel wide it doesn't affect gameplay so I won't hold the release because of it.

- The map boundary terrain behind the German spawn is not finished.

- The map boundary terrain south of R1 is not finished.

- The map boundary terrain at the SW Bridge is not finished.

- There are still broken alpha blends and other textures that need adjusting.

- Some fences in the farm area are not finished (because I plan on reworking the terrain).

- I did not have time to rework the overhead map images for Beta #3.

- The inside of treelines still need to be fixed and re-textured to look correct from the "air" (and also to block a difficult-to-abuse exploit that is theoretically possible).

[ScrapyardBob]

Beta #1 vs Beta #2 game balance:

Beta #1: 6 days, 117 matches, 19.5/day, 74 min/match
Beta #2: 16 days, 391 matches, 24.4/day, 59 min/match

- Beta #1 has a higher average time per match due to the server settings. The initial settings were 35 min rounds, 60 min overall limit which resulted in a lot of bonus 3rd rounds.

- Beta #2 has been running with 35 min rounds and a 45 min overall limit which typically limits the game to 2 rounds.

- Rounds with fewer players tend to be short rounds, rounds with more players tend towards longer rounds. (Based on anecdotal observations.)

Bases breached:

Beta #1: 1304 (11.1/match), 653 by axis, 651 by allies
Beta #2: 3358 (8.6/match), 1702 by axis, 1656 by allies

- The disparity between 11.1/match and 8.6/match can be explained mostly by the changes in the server settings. There are far fewer 3-round matches during the Beta #2 time period due to config changes. A better metric may be the number of bases breached per hour of play.

Beta #1: 1304 over 6 days = 217/day
Beta #2: 3358 over 16 days = 210/day

- But that makes assumptions that the server was full 24/7, which it isn't. So that's not a good metric either.

- Unfortunately, there's no good way to pull out the number of played rounds. The Base Assault logic reports the intermission and warm-up time periods as "rounds" even though they aren't rounds that get played.

- So, the axis vs allies breach quantity is the only useful metric.

Number of plant attempts:

Beta #1: 1588 (13.6/match), 798 by axis, 790 by allies
Beta #2: 4082 (10.4/match), 2074 by axis, 2008 by allies

- Approximately even plant attempts. Russians seem to have a slightly more difficult time keeping Germans out of their bases.

Bases Destroyed:

Beta #1: 975 (8.3/match), 497 by axis, 478 by allies
Beta #2: 2362 (6.0/match), 1166 by axis, 1196 by allies

- Allies turned the tables in Beta #2, destroying slightly more bases then the axis. Unsure whether this was due to more {MOB} members playing on the Allies team then the Axis team.

- It's still a very close thing. A single squad (2-4 players), working together, can have a very large effect on the outcome of the game.

Percentage of plants which succeed:

Beta #1: 61.4% overall, 62.3% for axis plants, 60.5% for allied plants
Beta #2: 57.9% overall, 56.2% for axis plants, 59.6% for allied plants

- One thing that can affect this metric is lone-wolf plants (which usually fail). Some bases are more inviting for attempts by lone-wolf players then others.

- I'm not sure whether the Axis are at a disadvantage. A lot of {MOB} members tend to play as allies which could account for the lower success rate of German plant efforts.