PFF: LIMITING FRU DEPLOYMENT?
(4 votes, average 5.00 out of 5)
Written by GOPHUR   
Friday, 27 May 2011 13:34

From the Barracks: "FRUs rock. Love em, awesome.  BUT.. They tend to spread the field out too much, in a manner that breaks "realism" and immersion and that dilutes player density and therefore player combat fun. To fix both problems I suggest adding this limitation to FRU placement limitations.

  • No FRU may be placed closer to an enemy FB than the most distant active (non AFK) enemy unit spawned from that FB that is closer to the FRU origin than the FB OR the average distance of all enemy units from the FB that are closer to the origin than the FB
  • No FRU may be placed farther from its origin than the Distance to the Target

This limits your attack from a FB, using FRUs, to the front arc between the FB and the Target. If you want to move out on the flanks, you will have to move there on foot."

GOPHUR: The premise is correct here. FRUs can spread the combat out and can lead to unpredictable fronts. I don't like the suggested fix largely because it is complex and difficult to explain in a user context. It also gives away fog-of-war.

If you wan to "limit your attack from a FB, using FRUs, to the front arc between the FB and the Target" there are easier ways to do that such as making them daisy chain and remember previous locations for fallback. Even then, we don't want to remove the ability to flank. We would look to change some of the more extreme flanking that can happen with one man, five hours of crawling through the bush.

All in all I think more permanence and more team work requirements are the answer to making mobile spawns not army teleporters.

Time to battle and more importantly return time to battle is remains one of the major issues with large open world sandbox combat.

 

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Comments (5)
1 Thursday, 02 June 2011 06:31
Hans Ludwig
I play WWIIONLINE off and on, but what the hell is an "FRU"?
2 Thursday, 02 June 2011 17:56
mdundee
If you have two people, you can setup an FRU with some PPOs around it to protect it from direct fire. Not sure how to prevent the insta-teleport armies, perhaps an FRU should have a depot-style numbers limitation?
3 Tuesday, 07 June 2011 08:47
Alvin
Simple. No more MSP's FRU's and go back to trucking in inf as we did in the old days!No more Magic!
4 Wednesday, 15 June 2011 15:02
vondiddy
I like Alvin's idea. Being a 2003 player, I was around during the days before MSP's and FRU's. The Rats should omit FRU's during the next intermission or map to see if it would be welcomed by the newer players.
5 Sunday, 19 June 2011 12:56
blacksmith
Im a 2011 player and I also like the idea of simply trucking in infantry! It builds a sense of unity under the players. I like vondiddy's idea of giving it ONE campaign chance and seeing how new players react to it.