Red Orchestra 2

[buzzmong]

I managed to level up a rifle last night and it got experience bonuses applied to its stats, which was something that surprised me.

The bonus system tied into levels for weapons seem to be an idiotic choice for a competitive game and I'm not sure why Tripwire have gone down that route. Yes, it makes sense that as you use your weapons you're better with them, but really, having it so your weapons are better the more you use them simply penalises new players while buffing old ones.

They'd have been better served with just having more tactical unlocks for reaching weapon levels, ie unlocks which let you do something better while penalising something else, rather than just buffing weapons accross the board.

The buff system is also linked into the classes, very much like Keith does with it's "perk" classes.

[Dog Pants]

Holy crap this game is hard. Either I'm sucking really hard or there are hax afoot. Nine times out of ten I have no idea who shot me, and the other I'm outdrawn almost without exception. I did find the tank battles to be rather good though once you get the hang of the controls.

[buzzmong]

I think it's both as I too find myself getting swatted around. Looking on the RO2 forums, PBBans is just starting to stream bans to server admins for haxing as well as adding checksums/hashchecks etc for files.

Some of the maps are a bit gash. I know they're representations of real places, but some just aren't any fun.

Oh, and if you haven't. Try turning off auto bolting. Manual is faster, plus allows you to stay in iron sights so lets you see if your shots are hitting with the rifles. Obviously it requires a bit more thought, but manual bolting was the only way in the original RO.

As a side, the MKB42 (aka, the earlier MP44/STG44), really shifts the power balance to the Germans. While it obviously is going to be overpowered, it's too common as it's an assault class unlock.

I think I'll be leaving this game for a while. I might give it a go in a few weeks once more patches have landed.

[Mr. Johnson]

I have to disagree with a few points there. I really don't have as many problems as you seem to be having Buzz (and Pants). Sure I get shot a lot, but that's probably because I'm careless sometimes and rush on; if I take it slow and carefully peer around corners before advancing I find that I'm less of a target practice dummy than in say COD4. You have to keep in mind that riflemen (who make out the majority of both sides) have the same range as any sniper or machinegunner does, not the firepower or optics, but they can still take you out from a good while away. I haven't tried manual bolting yet, but I'll be sure to give it a go next time.
The maps, I haven't really paid much attention to those, since I never do. I'm always too busy looking what's in front of me and I can't shift my focus to the map layout, in fact I still don't know everything about the maps in CSS. A weak point indeed, but I don't care much about maps as I'm not much of a strategist.
The Mkb42, I haven't been at the business end of it that many times so I can't say if it gives the Germans a good advantage or not. A really good sniper can be just as annoying. In the end I guess you're often only as good as your team is (applies to a few games)

It really helps to know your role in this game, as an assault dude you do not have the range of the other classes so it's better to wait a bit for your squad leader to throw smoke, then rush in a building. I've seen a few assault men (this was before the assault rifle patch) take out a holed up riflemen team simply by going from door to door and strategic grenades. I'm pretty sure they weren't using teh hax.

[buzzmong]

Oh, I concur, some of it is tactics, some of it's me just not being used to the game, but I had another go last night after writing that last post, and I do have another theory.

Question for Doggers and Mr J, what are your graphics settings?

Mine are on medium-low, and I think after seeing loads of snap-in for graphics and general detail, it might be putting me at a disadvantage at range. Possibly. Not sure yet and need to experiment. It would be odd if low graphics is putting me at a disadvantge though, as normally the higher frame rate is more important.

[Mr. Johnson]

That's not an odd thing to say, I've heard people mention it before. I play everything on max as I just upgraded my PC and it seems to handle it fine, I'll put it on low to see if it makes a difference.

[Mr. Johnson]

I played it on the lowest settings, but it seemed to simply not load certain textures which was very annoying. Gameplay-wise it didn't seem to make an awful lot of difference. Medium settings is another story though, it seemed to load certain textures only when you are close to the object they're on, as I noticed when I peered around a corner to take aim only to find out there was suddenly a tree were there wasn't one before. I could still make out the difference between the heads with pilotkas and the ones with stahlhelmets, but a texture suddenly loading to your left can give the false impression there is someone there. I guess you'd get used to them in the long run, but everyone is supposed to get better with time so maybe playing more rather then less is a better idea.

[buzzmong]

Oh really? I'll ramp mine up (or drop them) and have another try later then to see what happens.

[Dog Pants]

Tactics are tactics, same as in BEEF and BACON. I admit I fared slightly better as assault as it lends better to my aggressive (and admittedly reckless) style. That also explains my consistently poor kill/death ratio. However, it doesn't explain why a rifleman can sprint round a corner and headshot me before I even click my mouse. I'll persevere though. I use high settings and seem to lose people in the detail. Sometimes I see a German helmet (more on that later) poking up from a window after I die, more often I have no idea where the shot came from even when the camera directs me right at the shooter. I think most of it is probably down to needing to be more in the mindset for ARMA than COD. I have noticed, though, that I've never seen the Allies win a game.

[buzzmong]

Well, the stats system is completely borked.

Apparently I'm now honour 69 (up from just 9), have reached Level 2 or 3 in all classes, and have guns in the high teens.
I've also just been awarded via steam the Platium medal for 1000 kills amongst other stuff I certainly haven't done yet.

Whooops

[Mr. Johnson]

Yeah, I got a few of those things. Game seems to be worse then before, I'm not sure how it could have such a fucked up stats system.

[buzzmong]

Yeah, I got a few of those things. Game seems to be worse then before, I'm not sure how it could have such a fucked up stats system.

I think the entire system is a bit silly. Not just in how they've coded it, but the ideas. It rewards experienced players by buffing them. But enough of my general moaning. Tripwire don't know what's gone wrong either

I've been tweak hunting while trying move the console from ' (the ' and @ key) to the grave key ' like it is in other games (grave is the one under esc, with the ¬ and ¦ symbols on.), and I came accross this one.

In ROEngine.ini

Look for TextureStreaming

Change PoolSize to half your video card's memory

Or if you don't know, 256 is probably safe for most people.

He's right. Pool size on mine is set to 140.

I have 1gb on the card so it should be 512. I'm going to try 256 first as I suspect it might hit the framerate a little.

[Dog Pants]

The stats don't really matter though, do they. It's the gameplay I'm more interested in. The game seems more stable than release, but I still think there are balance issues. I was part of a winning Allied team last night, the first I've ever seen. Even then I saw a comment that it's virtually impossible to lose as Axis.

[buzzmong]

Well, stats kinda do matter as they're tied into the ranking system which buffs you and your guns as you get a higher ranking. Kinda. It's not as big of a difference as I first feared it would be though.

When I was tweak hunting last night (I did manage to rebind the console in the end, it's now numpad divide, and the texturestreaming pool works as well), I found quite a few people moaning about rifle accuracy on the official forums and I find myself agreeing. It's pretty much a point and click game currently, and it's vastly different from RO1 where it was difficult to to hit stuff at 75-100m unless prone with a non scoped rifle, let alone be shooting out to 150m+.

[HereComesPete]

A shootan game where buzz complains about the guns? Whatever next!

[buzzmong]

A shootan game where buzz complains about the guns? Whatever next!

Pfft, I know I know. RO has laser rifles though, it's a bit silly

[buzzmong]

So, depsite trying to hold off until more fixes have come out, I caved and had another go last night. 48 player servers are brilliant for the current map rotation. Stats are still broken beyond belief.

I also decided to step up and take the commander role, ala Beef, for the first time and it's quite good.

Not as refined as Beef but ok. While using binoculars to set arty positions can occasionally be painful (it really needs to just be set via clicking on the map), actually using them via the radio is difficult. Even worse than ARMA's system as it's quite hard to select between targets or know which one is currently selected. Having to sit on the radio to relay spotted troops from the spotter plane is also boring.

However, the satisfaction of setting a motar barrage down on enemy lines and wiping out most of the enemy team is rather awesome and makes it all worthwhile

[buzzmong]

Updates!

Tripwire is working on a new mode, called "RO Classic".

Initial information makes it look exactly what I wanted RO2 to be in the first place. Colour me excited.

Now if they're just introduce lag compensation to fix the terrible issue of having to predict both player movement and lag, then I'll be firing RO2 up again.

[buzzmong]

Right, all that stuff I mentioned in my previous posts in Feb has gone live.

It's a much better game judging from the 45 minutes I've just had on classic mode. Certainly plays a lot smoother performance wise and is a bit slicker generally. Think I'm going to drop a few hours on it this week to see what it's really like.

Also, they did indeed introduce client side hit detection + lag compensation. Which is nice of them* and works a treat.

*I say nice, they were bullied into it when every single server used Mekhazzio's Clientside Hit mutator the moment it was whitelisted as it made the game decently playable.

[buzzmong]

Right, I've three guest passes if people want to download and have a go on it.

It's also been knocked down to half price by Tripwire.