Open Field Battle

[SHinOCk]

+1 To Xol

[Zanthos]

+1 To Xol

This.

I'm not personally a fan of the way the battles have been going at all. These quick 2-5 minute fights are simply not fun for anyone. It is important to keep in mind that they (the devs) are working on it and have made changes. Constructive feedback from fights like this is likely the best way to help them fix things. We all want fair fights with no glitches or spawn related issues in the future version of Strategus.

[downer]

Examine the video. Here is the most unbiased explanation I can offer.

At 1:44 we see the team lists. A total of 7 people have not spawned on LLJK. It looks like only 1 has not spawned on ATS. LLJK has approximately 20-30 more seconds for those last 7 people to spawn before the ATS infantry engages them.

Carefully watching and pausing every second from the time LLJK is more or less visible after 2:00, I am able to count 4 people who are naked. Two of them have weapons, one appears to have nothing, and one appears to have only arrows.

At 2:20, Zanthos attacks two people who look like they were supposed to be cavalry, because they appear to be using lances but do not have a horse. At least one is able to play cavalry, since he attempts to get on a courser.

But I do not see any player who spawned with armor but no weapons at any point in the video. The video is not the best quality, but it's clear enough that had a number of people spawned weaponless that I would expect to be able to spot one.

I was present during the battle and did not see in public chat that there were any spawning issues at all for LLJK. It is important to say immediately in public if something appears to be broken. I only recall seeing very few naked people and I do not recall seeing anyone else running around weaponless.

ATS did have at least one player spawn without a weapon, but that was a mistake on our side, not a problem with cRPG.

Spectators did clog up the server at the very beginning, an issue not visible in the YouTube video of the battle that affected both teams, and this is something that should be addressed by chadz.

This was DFC's fight, there were only a handful of LLJK hired. Nice tunnel vision though.

[Gash]

Xol is correct.

I liked strat battles before (last year) - there's no reason to boast about these victories. Now they last 5 minutes and only 10% of the tickets are actually used.  Though there's no such thing as a fair-fight in Strat. (ex: 2000 vs 1000) it's a shame that these armies can't fight it out until one bleeds out.

The map for open field are small, but that is to avoid people running off in the distance away from battle.

We just got done with the Searaiders battle and while our orders was not to rush the spawn, but to bleed out the opponents' tickets, this time the enemy seemed a bit more prepared. When we got up the hill there was a decent solid line forming up against us.

Perhaps its time to identify what pieces of armour seemed not to spawn, if that is the case.

[Daranai]

Initially we all believed that dfc was simply angry about the loss and we were overjoyed with what seemed like an almost flawless victory. None of us were paying attention to what was said in chat and we were all preparing ourselves for a fight.

if you want to call our tactics cheap that's fine, but we play to win. When we came over that hill we saw large mob of disorganized enemy, took the initiative and attacked before the enemy could co-ordinate. As it has been said multiple times, spawning without gear in strategus is a normal thing (even though it normally doesn't happen so much to one side in matches).

We didn't attack early because we saw a bunch of naked people. Nothing was even said about that in Ventrilo or anything once we formed up on the hill. We simply spotted disorganization and charged for the win.

I apologize for my trolling on IRC after the battle, I honestly thought we just had a great victory and was happy, and thought it was funny because (in my point of view at the time) the enemy team seemed to just be making excuses for a sorry defeat. After watching the video I can see that there were some issues with your spawn.

When we attack tomorrow ATS will be put under the pressure of having to co-ordinate with a lot less time, considering we are attacking rather than defending. I'm confident that we will organize just as well as we did regardless (if you watched the video, it shows that it took us around 10 seconds to organize our shield wall.)

I'm sorry for dfc's bad luck as far as spawning without gear goes, but shit happens and has it has been said, this IS a beta and there are still glitches to smooth out.

No reason to get too angry though, I'm sure that once the new strategus comes out, this one will get wiped. This is just practice for the real thing, right?

[Daniel]

Initially we all believed that dfc was simply angry about the loss and we were overjoyed with what seemed like an almost flawless victory. None of us were paying attention to what was said in chat and we were all preparing ourselves for a fight.

if you want to call our tactics cheap that's fine, but we play to win. When we came over that hill we saw large mob of disorganized enemy, took the initiative and attacked before the enemy could co-ordinate. As it has been said multiple times, spawning without gear in strategus is a normal thing (even though it normally doesn't happen so much to one side in matches).

We didn't attack early because we saw a bunch of naked people. Nothing was even said about that in Ventrilo or anything once we formed up on the hill. We simply spotted disorganization and charged for the win.

I apologize for my trolling on IRC after the battle, I honestly thought we just had a great victory and was happy, and thought it was funny because (in my point of view at the time) the enemy team seemed to just be making excuses for a sorry defeat. After watching the video I can see that there were some issues with your spawn.

When we attack tomorrow ATS will be put under the pressure of having to co-ordinate with a lot less time, considering we are attacking rather than defending. I'm confident that we will organize just as well as we did regardless (if you watched the video, it shows that it took us around 10 seconds to organize our shield wall.)

I'm sorry for dfc's bad luck as far as spawning without gear goes, but shit happens and has it has been said, this IS a beta and there are still glitches to smooth out.

No reason to get too angry though, I'm sure that once the new strategus comes out, this one will get wiped. This is just practice for the real thing, right?

Mature and humble post. If all were like this, then "trolling" would be obsolete.

[SPQR]

Note: My comment about hacking wasn't in regards to this battle, but about how clans were hacked, no one was caught, and none of the damage was reversed.

Watching the video, it looks ATS is able to engage the DFC spawn 15 seconds after they've finished spawning, even after being teleported back to spawn once, and with barely any cav.

Forgetting all the dick swinging we've had in this thread can we agree that 15 seconds is not enough time for the attackers to properly prepare themselves and the system needs to be fixed? Especially considering:
-There are serious equipment bugs, as we can see here
-Villages have many flags so they can afford to rush the attackers even more safely
-Attackers already have enough penalties (defenders choose server, village defense has multiple flags)

[Digglez]

this just showcases the amount of work the mod needs, redo game mechanics and fix gamebreaking bugs.  armies of this size being within 30 seconds walk of each other spawns is pretty stupid. unless there was some weather function like fog where your armies would blunder into each other

spawn mechanic needs to be addressed

[Lockt]

I think dfc losing all of their gear, while only losing 50 or so tickets out of 2000+ is a bullshit mechanic.  Obviously any clan would press the attack if they came across that disorganized mass of troops, it's not the fault of ATS.  The battle lasting 2 minutes and dfc losing all their gear is simply idiotic though.  Gear should be lost in proportion to how many tickets were taken.  It's not like the 2300 troops remaining sat around in their underwear around a giant pile of armor and weapons.  There probably isn't a way for gear to be lost in this manner, so the spawn timers and flag capture system really need to be overhauled.

[chadz]

From watching the vid, I really can't say I spotted a problem.

The spawning without gear happened because several people spawned with a piece of equipment that only exists a few times. There has never been a bug where people spawn with half their equipment.

And from the rest: All I've seen is a peasant mob trying to attack a well-trained and coordinated army - and getting repelled instantly. You can clearly see how one side is perfectly coordinated, while the other side was a bunch of farmers.

If you attack, it's up to you to be better than the defenders. Attacking is no longer a troop-comparison - you need tactics and commitment to pull off a successful attack.

[Daniel]

From watching the vid, I really can't say I spotted a problem.

The spawning without gear happened because several people spawned with a piece of equipment that only exists a few times. There has never been a bug where people spawn with half their equipment.

Lord have mercy...

..for this is just not true.

[chadz]

There are two ways to spawn without equipment:
- You join in the middle of a fight (=spawning has started already) and due to a bug in strategus you spawn before you get to the equipment selection screen,
- You just press OK without selecting equipment

There are two way to spawn partly equipped:
 - You just select parts of your equipment,
 - You select an item that another person has selected too. The first spawner gets it, the 2nd spawns without the item.

There are no other bugs than this. At least not in any other battle so far.

[Gumdrawp]

From watching the vid, I really can't say I spotted a problem.

The spawning without gear happened because several people spawned with a piece of equipment that only exists a few times. There has never been a bug where people spawn with half their equipment.

And from the rest: All I've seen is a peasant mob trying to attack a well-trained and coordinated army - and getting repelled instantly. You can clearly see how one side is perfectly coordinated, while the other side was a bunch of farmers.

If you attack, it's up to you to be better than the defenders. Attacking is no longer a troop-comparison - you need tactics and commitment to pull off a successful attack.

NONE of the gear was in short supply except for churburgs and becs, and i dont even count 20+ churburgs on the field. the only other thing that we possible could have run out of in a single spawn were becs for tydeus, and he got his bec. i assure you that was NOT the problem. we didnt even have enough cav to use all of our horses the first time around yet im pretty sure almost none of our cav spawned on them.

You really dont see an issue with attackers being at a disadvantage in an open field battle? im fine with the delayed spawning system on Siege and city battles, i think that it probably could be tweaked to a shorter timespan for villaged, but in open field battles i think its utterly terrible. In an open field it should be equal terms, if not attacker advantage due to ambush.

regardless of that i still just dislike the flag mechanics as a whole, id rather fight 3-4 hours till someone bleeds out all their tickets than fight for 5 minutes every battle.

EDIT:since you posted apparently before i did, I highly doubt we had that many people that are so retarded they forgot to select equipment. even some of ATS had the same issue admittedly on their side as well (although it was mostly spawning without weapons/boots from what i was told). I'm fairly certain considering the widespread occurence of this in this battle that its more or less a bug and not just a few people being incredibly stupid. and as its been said, its not the equipment running out, the only thing that we have that could have run out were becs and our plate sets, the bec was only spawned with tydeus and the plate sets were still there at the end of the battle according to someone who died earlier in the battle than myself. And im pretty sure tydeus spawning with the bec didnt stop me from spawning with bolts for my crossbow.

[SPQR]

You can't be serious. There is clearly a mechanic to stop the defenders from getting too close to the attackers spawn in place. So obviously its not intended for the defenders to be swarming the attackers right as they spawn. Yet, the defenders get a 60 second headstart, and then the attackers spawn in one at a time every second. That means the defenders have one minute to get as close as they dare without teleporting, and then another minute (assuming a full attackers team of 60) to hit the attackers spawn before they're all spawned and in position.

The problem with this is in 60 seconds you can completely cross almost any map on even the lamest of horse. chadz, you can easily test this yourself. Load up a map. ANY MAP. Get on a horse, now ride from one side to the other. Time yourself. Now, consider that in most cases the spawns are not going to be on total opposite sides of the map.

I timed myself on a rouncey with minimal riding skill and I can get from most defenders spawn to attackers spawn and dismount in 40 seconds flat. Which means if I can get about halfway to their spawn in the beginning 60 second defender set-up time, I can be in their spawn killing them when only 20 of their team have spawned.

And on foot it only took me 75 seconds.

Just make it so that everyone spawns in at the same time in the first round of spawning then switch to one-at-a-time spawning. What is the point of making people come in one at a time at the beginning anyway? Everyone has already waited a couple minutes for the battle to start already.

[chadz]

Which means if I can get about halfway to their spawn in the beginning 60 second defender set-up time, I can be in their spawn killing them when only 20 of their team have spawned.

I want to see this. I want to see a real example of this happening, not some theory. Because so far it was always the same: both teams spawned fully when reaching each other. Like in this battle.

Show me how you successfully exploit it and I'll change it.