I see we're running CNQ today. It's important that folks read up on how CNQ works (Druid also posted these links in the General forum):

http://www.after-hourz.com/cod/cnqplayer.php

http://www.mobclan.com/vent/smolensk_cnq.jpg

http://www.mobclan.com/forums/upload/index...showtopic=10251




CNQ - AHz calls it "objective-based TDM". I'd call it a linear version of DOM.

On the Smolensk map, there are 9 control points. They're spread along the map between the german spawn and the russian depot. German HQ is in the eastern building in the spawn (look for the haybale), the Russian HQ is at the western depot building. Some of the intermediate points are:

German HQ (end-point)
G2 bunker
Stone Bridge
Pillbox
West end of village
Church
R2 45mm gun
East Trench
Old House
Depot
Depot HQ (end-point)

When the map starts, the Russians will have control over most of the points. So they'll be immediately attacking at the Stone Bridge / G2 bunker. The germans need to immediately drive the russians east by capturing the various points.

In general, your team needs to leapfrog forward, attacking the next control point while a few defenders make sure the enemy doesn't retake the spot that you just captured. Defenders get bonus points for killing any enemies who are actively attempting to capture a control point.

The middle points are captured similar to Domination-style play. But the more allies that you have at a control point (within the "capture zone"), the faster you can capture it. If there are more enemies then allies in the capture zone, the progress bar will actually go backwards. So you can stop or slow down a capture just by entering the zone of control, even before you kill the enemies who are trying to capture the location. Some zones of control are very large, others are very small.

The end points require you to press the "USE" key (usually "F") in order to capture them. When you capture an end point (HQ), you get bonus points for yourself and for your team's overall score. Once the end point is captured, the offense team needs to keep it from being re-captured. The side that has run out of control points will need to push the enemy back, one spot at a time and keep them from re-capturing the HQ. (End points are worth 50 points for the team, regular captures are only worth 10 points. So losing your HQ results in a big score disadvantage.)




General comments:

- We may want to change tank respawn to 90 or 120 seconds (more?) to limit the use of tanks. (Rather then taking them out entirely.)

- Camping is only a semi-valid strategy, but you won't get many points. The higher score players are all moving forward and back, staying with the "front lines" and working on capturing the next point or defending the last-taken point.

It seemed that the general consensus in-game was that it was fun, but there was an awful lot of confusion.

I enjoyed the rapidly changing complexion of the game. At one moment you need to defend, the very next moment you have to be launching an all-out frenzied attack. I didn't find the tanks to be an issue one way or the other. At some points, the tanks dominated, but then a few moments later, they were dispatched and it was back to a house to house battle.

I think you'll need to run the test at least until the majority of players know what they are supposed to do. At that point, it could turn into a very, very challenging game.

-HammaTime

Yeah, I tried to answer questions while I was spectating the 13v13 gameplay. There were a few spots which were confusing to new players.

- Knowing that you need to keep moving forward to the next objective after taking the current objective. And understanding that the enemy will try to retake the objective that was just captured.

- Understanding the capture system when multiple players are in the capture zone. If it's multiple teammates, it goes faster, but if it's multiple enemies it goes slower or even goes backwards.

- Capturing the HQ (end-points) requires use of the "use" key rather then just standing by it. Even though there's a blatant message on the screen whenever you look at the HQ item (some sort of bag).

- After the HQ is captured, the team who mounted the offense loses the compass icon for a while (there's nothing left to capture) until the defenders drive them off.

It was odd that the Russian HQ is in the same building as the last capture point in the Depot. But I think that's a game balance issue. After all, in order to get there, the germans had to advance through 7 objectives just to get a chance to capture. Russians, OTOH, only have to take 2 objectives to reach the german HQ at the start.

So it makes sense that there's a gap between the german's last objective (G2 bunker) and the HQ point in the german spawn. It gives germans a chance to react at the start and prevent russians from scoring 50 points right off the bat.

Scores were interesting. Some players had 100+ points, while others only had 20-30 points. Wasn't much in-between and a lot of players had under 10 points.

Captures only seemed to be worth 2 points (I expected a few more points, like 3-5 for a capture). Making them worth more gives more reasons to assault the objective, but it also means you get arty faster. (shrugs) If arty is too much of an issue, you can do things like change the points for each rank (making it 10/20/40/80/120) or change the time between arty recharging.

Not entirely sure what settings were used in the CFG file.

Respawn could probably stand to be quicker (10 sec?). OTOH, longer respawn gives you more time to watch the action... (eh).

Should probably setup server messages to rotate information about the gametype. Some ideas:

- The primary objective is to capture the next point on your compass, but don't forget to defend the last point that you captured!
- Captures are worth 2 points for you and 10 points for the team score.
- Capturing the end-point HQ is worth 5 points for you and 50 points for the team score.
- Defending the previous capture location earns you a bonus point every time you stop an enemy from retaking it.
- Your next objective is also shown at the top of the scores window (your [Tab] key).
- Use the USE key (usually [F]) to capture the enemy headquarters and earn bonus points!
- The more teammates at a capture, the faster it will move the progress bar.
- If you're outnumbered during a capture, the progress bar will move backwards!
- You cannot capture objectives while in tanks, jeeps or half-tracks. You must exit the vehicle and put boots in the mud.
- The best tactic is to move in squads of 2-5 players rather then being a "lone wolf" player.
- Check your compass when you hear a tank. It is best to assume that it is hostile.
- You've been issued frag and smoke grenades. Be sure to use them before you die.

If we're keeping the 2 of 3 rounds (which I'd prefer), I'd suggest shifting to a 30 or 40 minute round setup. The 60 minute rounds are definitely overkill. Shorter rounds also give teams a chance to recover from being pushed back into one end of the map without it dragging out for 50+ minutes because you got off to a bad start.

Probably 40 minutes with a 70 minute overall time limit. That stops play after only 2 rounds if you had two grueling rounds that lasted nearly the full length. But if one of the rounds was less then 30 minutes, you play a full set of 3. (Assuming that one team didn't dominate win both of the first rounds.) The longest match length is then 80-110 minutes before the scores reset and everyone starts over from scratch.

I'd bet third round is extremely crazy since probably half the players will have arty by the 3rd round. Because you only get points for personal actions, players can't get a cheap and easy 12-20 points per round just for being on a side that opens the 3 bases (and blows up two of them). Only active players will manage to get arty by the end of the first round with the second tier players getting arty somewhere in the 2nd round.

Massive arty could lead to some bogged down fights. But once the objective is captured, there's no value in staying camped there for the rest of the round.

...

(I'm not a big CTF fan... 4 players race back and forth from flag to flag in jeeps while the rest of the players run around in circles or camp. It's not my most-hated gametype, but I prefer the chaos of CNQ/BAS.)

I quite enjoyed playing CNQ yesterday! The battles were constant and exciting.

I was getting a little tired and frustrated with BA (teamwork is essential in BA Smolensk; unfortunately it's near impossible to employ a game plan due to inexperienced or selfish payers). With CNQ a single player can take the game into their own hands if necessary...

I agree with Bob, there was some confusion yesterday about how to play - but I think most people really enjoyed it once they understood the objective. Perhaps use the console command to give friendly reminders to players the purpose of the game?

40 Minutes would probably be better than the 60 minute time limit as well.

Hopefully you guys keep CNQ for a couple more days of testing and then see how players like it.

I was on Tuesday ,and it was exciting ,like Cpt.Cunack said 1 player can make all the differance.The battles were fast and furious...........we want more...........and i agree 60mins is abit long.

Decided to keep this up for another day of testing with a few changes.
Rounds are now 40 minutes.
Respawn time is 10 seconds

That should do it ...............Thanks Druid

Sounds like a great alternative. Now, if I could just get away from work to play a round or two.

I agree that 60 min. is to long. Had alot of fun playing it though. It would be neat to have 2 games of barb 2 then one game of conquest. Working in a continuous order.

The servers have been really busy lately. People waiting to get in....

Good job to admin for bringing in some new and exciting games!!!!

Alternating might work. Four rounds of BAS with 3 rounds of CNQ in-between.

One thing that folks are probably not used to... you'll die a lot more in CNQ play. While a good BAS player might only die 10-30 times during a hour-long BAS match, in CNQ that could easily be 60-100 deaths. Especially when the fighting goes house-to-house in the village.

The big reason for this (I think) is that you spawn a lot closer to the action in CNQ.

Glad to see you guys giving CNQ a go. Less tanks is usually better, makes you work harder and better play with fewer players. The scoring can all be set via the server config file. ALL the information the admin needs is in there. You can even make the *bonus* switch at the end of the line worth 500 or whatever points to end the match immediately if you want to do a sudden-death sort of thing. Cap zones can be edited as well to change their timers or zone sizes. LOTS of options built in. IB was sure to do that. Keep at it, hope you enjoy it. Gun Assualt, Town Assault, Barb, Red Oktober and Lazur all feature CNQ. I would also recommend Lazur, by Drecks. Smaller, closer spacing of objectives and balanced roles for SMG, sniper and rifleman alike.

sweet map!

i flat out hated CNQ there

Yeah I'm missing BAS. The long cnq round wear me down....its intense for the whole 60 mins and BAS is way more relaxed if your team knows how to play. I just say play like 2 BAS and than 2 CNQ, make the BAS a bit longer (clock-wise).. So you have some time to relax from a intense cnq round. But to be honest, I expected more of cnq....now I know that BAS is great on that map and that the server used to be great. (maybe could have used some minor tweaks... Like longer bomb timer maybe)



Yeah I'm missing BAS. The long cnq round wear me down....its intense for the whole 60 mins and BAS is way more relaxed if your team knows how to play. I just say play like 2 BAS and than 2 CNQ, make the BAS a bit longer (clock-wise).. So you have some time to relax from a intense cnq round. But to be honest, I expected more of cnq....now I know that BAS is great on that map and that the server used to be great. (maybe could have used some minor tweaks... Like longer bomb timer maybe)

Personaly we should turn down the round timer more... or change ranks and stuff...people start to drop arty everywhere and mainly at spawns and the objective. sometimes more arty deaths than normal ones.

and if your on the losing team pushed back into your own spawn, your pretty much fucked. arty is everywhere, they steal all your vehicles and you just die and spawn, die and spawn. thats why i didn't like it.

Slyk suggested that that reaching the final objective could end the match if some settings are changed - perhaps this would be an appropriate change to eliminate the spawn raping that occurs once a team reaches the final objective? It would also make the rounds go faster.

I played CNQ again yesterday, and must say I still like it better than BA. The battles were pretty boring on Smolensk BA that I played. The majority of the time games ended in 7 or 8 mins, without even having to engage the enemy.

The solution to that is to probably make it - you get the end point, you win the round. Easily done by making the end points worth more, but the downside is that you don't get the reward for pushing the enemy back out of your spawn. The other downside is that it leaves no margin of error. Middle ground would be end points bumped up to 100 points and drop the round target score to 300 points. So losing the end point really really hurts, but if you can drive them off and still win the map if you get a good offensive going where you take control of spot after spot and get into the enemy's HQ.

I'm thinking 30 min rounds, best of 3, with an overall time limit of 50 minutes. That'll give a max time limit of 50-80 minutes before switching back to BAS. For BAS, you could then run 4 rounds in a row with the 40 minute limits before doing a short burst of CNQ play. The server needs to spend probably 2/3 to 3/4 of the time in BAS mode in order to keep interest up. (Big guess)

Might be good to flip the campaign switch on. That way when one team wins the first round, they get put on defense for the 2nd round. (Which means they control less of the map at the start... if I read things correctly.)

One thing about CNQ, if your teamplay sucks, you will pay a heavy price. You really need guys to understand the concept and to work together. Running at the enemy in ones and twos means one thing: you die in ones and twos. Smo requires a lot more coordination and teamwork, especially of those willing to defend a recent capture zone. Barb is more narrow, but hard in it's own way. Playing Gun Assault might be a better introduction map to CNQ. Hard as hell on the Allied team to start, but the objectives are close together and the fighting is outrageously vicious most of the time. Still, teamwork is needed. Those that like to work together will succeed.

I was thinking the same thing.... I love intense action [hehe-if you know my play style] but even for me Smolensk CNQ overdoes it. 3 long rounds going at a furious pace is not an easy task. Best out of 3 and shorter rounds as Bob suggests is definately the way to go for CNQ.

Well now that the gun's gone in the Germ spawn area, I can't say it helps the ruskiz[by assuming Grms can't cover themselves without the gun]. Playing 2 days ago, ruskiz overran the German base at the beginning and it should've been game over- as is the case 99% of the time when the Germans get to the Rusky spawn and hold the area or near it til game's end. The Germans -an average team- beat their way out of the hole in 5 minutes. The rest of the game was fantastic and even going back n forth right until the end.... ruskiz winning by 8 points being pushed back to their ridge trenches. I think CNQ is gonna get popular again [plug plug]
Newly evolving strategy for Rusky success is a massive wide left flank attack to work around the stream behind/into the German spawn and also behind the Germans advancing out of their spawn.

If you want to play a purely specialist supporting role, be a Rusky sniper in the hill tunnel exit overlooking the German right flank spawn/cornfield area - talk about being pesky!