To whom it may concern,

Thanks for the Wrenches!
That's it.

Sincerely Opt_0







PS:
But seriously though the dynamic change this has brought about to the game is fantastic! I have obviously been out of the RWR loop for some time. Although happy to still be in touch with many of you from time to time. Always nice to have an old RWR BattleBuddy and fellow "vets" stop in to say Hi on Steam. And since my time away a lot has been added! But back to the Wrenches.

The effect they have is more than just "something else" to do. They have greatly effected the way in which Vehicles are now used: They are No Longer Disposable! In the past when using any vehicle you HAD to treat it as paper, because the second you took severe damage it was out of the game or about to be. I believe this lead to it being used to just crash around in more often. NOW, you have others coming up to repair you and as a driver you can stay more invested in supporting the troops and moving with them. Before: once you took damage you had to start playing more and more cautiously since any shot would kill your tank. Then we'd have to wait for it to respawn. I myself have spent A LOT of time waiting near Tank Spawn points so I could race back to the front asap. So much so that if I survived a Tank loss, I would grenade myself and spawn near the Tank Spawn Point.

Also, surprisingly, the option to repair has brought a lot of newer people into viewing vehicles differently. I've frequently had others quickly grab a few wrenches to help repair when I back in to an Armory and then the tank is NOT immediately stolen from me. Before newer-players who were prone to hop in a gunners spot would leave the second you took damage (leaving you possibly gunnerless in the middle of battle). Now players stick it out with you, and when you fall back to repair they hop out and help. And with the XP to be gained it is a GREAT way to earn some without having to immediately become a master of "Stealth Ops" or "XP Farming Skills" right away in the game.

Most importantly, as touched on above, is the fact that we can now invest MUCH more heavily in our role as a "Tank Commander" when on the field and stick with the troops as much as possible. As someone who has spent almost ALL of their time DRIVING vehicles, not shooting, the effect is amazing! It's no longer a momentary toy that you become less and less inclined to use as it gets damaged. Now it is truly a Tool Of Warfare!

Thank you. I know it took a lot of time to finally get them in the Co-op Mode, and as far as I can tell it is well balanced and effective. Even with a swarm of repairing troops it still seems difficult to behave as invulnerable as a few quick rockets when sitting still in combat can kill your vehicle; even while being repaired. I assume that since I only drive and control the tank (I feel it's considerably more effective in combat that trying to gun and direct an awkward AI Driver) that it has been what's lead me to level-up so slowly at this point. I've never been sure how much "Driver Assist XP" you get from kills- if any [I turned off all those HUD Numbers long ago] but driving has become MUCH more satisfying now that we can finally repair. I may not earn much XP as a Tank Commander, but it is A LOT more personally rewarding now!

And Thanks to whom ever ended up crafting this bit of the game. I know some community members have gotten really involved with some of the added equipment to the game and it shows! (So I'm not sure who finally crafted this piece.) And Thanks to the Devs again for letting the community being so involved. And still after all this time: Thank you for working on the game, continuing to communicate with the community, and for creating a wonderful game. It's still one of my favorite, standard, go-to games for truly open ended highly dynamic, large scale group co-op warfare! In my gaming library it's up there with Atari 2600 Asteroids, Combat, Pitfall, Missile Command, Original NES Zelda, Mario Brothers, Skyrim, MAG, GTA Series, Battlefield 1, All the Battlefronts!, Shadow of the Colossus, Journey (one of my all time favs!), Star Craft, WoW, WarThunder, KSP, Terraria .... seriously. RWR is forever in my personal library of Games spanning from my Atari 2600 I grew up on to NES, all the way to Modern games and beyond. EVERYONE should play.

I've played a lot of Warfare games, with and without people, and RWR still provides some of the best personal reward for awesome tactical and strategic action. Battlefield 1 and others in this genre look nice (and I play them, especially BF1 lately) but NONE have yet to compete with the scale, co-op-ness, and AI in RWR.

And the Wrenches are a perfect addition!

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Haha, nice!

At least the thanks wouldn't go to me that much, I just made it possible that the use type weapons work with vehicles somewhat similar they work with characters and that it affects the vehicle health. It's all JackMayol and warbrand2 who studied the idea and made it work as balanced as it does!

Personally I was against the idea for a long time in fear of having to rebalance too much or making the game too vehicle-focused or by adding player confusion with another side role item, and also that it's a player-only mechanic with AI not using it (again in fear of having to rebalance etc). I'm relieved to hear feedback and praise about it that it's working well, thanks!

I understand your concerns pasik. I know repairing was brought up many times before ( I'm pretty sure I have pushed for it. ) and the sense was always a discussion of player-repair-swarms and making Vehicle's too powerful plus Im sure, like you said, a lot of other balancing issues.

I have seen some moments recently of players attempting to repair in battle during a firefight, and although it is helpful I have yet to ever feel invulnerable or totally safe. And we still lose Vehicles all the time. So far the best approach is to stagger our repairs and attacks, or roll as a solid mass and repair all at once. 3-4 Vehicles loaded with crew all carrying 12-20+ wrenches a piece we can go for a long time. And (what's that? 8- maybe 12 players?) having all those crew working together to repair is a WONDERFUL sight. The best example of large scale co-op in RWR so far for me.

I just started playing again regularly a few weeks ago and I am sure I'll be for some time to come. (Like I say often: I always come back to RWR) So to me this "mechanic-mechanic" is new, and it makes it hard to judge the implementation rate of the Wrenches and Repairing by the community. But I feel that in the month I have been playing steadily again I have seen increasing use of the Wrench and Repair functionality just in this little time.

I almost immediately set a HotKey for "Repairs Needed!!! Falling Back!" and it has gone to great use! With this simple command it has already started a reflex response by fellow teammates, often newer lower level players and vets alike. Once they see the pattern of the command I am startled by the number of players running up (after I have pulled back) to help repair. ---And only once and a while does one brand new player try to steal the Vehicle; Ai is as much a threat of theft too. ---

I have heard rumors of an update so I know you guys already have stuff on the table to work on like always. And I don't know what's in the upcoming update which means some of these aspects may have already been addressed but there are a few points I'd like to add for consideration. So as always with my input I'll try to provide some "playtest" details and minor suggestions.



1)
Again I don't know how long the wrenches has been out so hard for me to judge, but eventually once the community refines it's skills it is likely you guys will have to Adjust the Difficulty a tiny bit on the Official Servers. We ("vets") are already steamrolling some maps and attentive FNG's are learning fast! SOME is the key word here. As the habit of community repair settle in and Drivers get better and pass on those habits the maps will get much faster and too easy. Although just turning up aim on AI may not be the best. The foot game is solid, but the Steamroll in AV's will become a regular thing.
[This specific subject might be worth is own thread on possible adjustments to tweak the AV aspect of the game to avoid easy Overkill. ... my minds already racing with ideas.]

2)
We REALLY could use more clear Player Name and Vehicle Damage% pop-up on the Vehicles. (It's difficult to explain) When you mouse over to see when the vehicle is at certain angles, rotated or on a slope, it gets jumbled. I personally have my HUD turned down to minimum settings for "mouse-over info" and even I have a hard time seeing Player names in all the seats and most importantly getting an easy read on Vehicle Damage%. It is not impossible. Just at certain angles the Vehicle Info gets buried under player names. Some of us who have been driving a lot have been talkin a bit and we're hoping maybe for a small Health Bar or HUD Vehicle DMG% to pop up down near weapons and armor on HUD so we can see it constantly while driving. I would say only for the driver, but with a good crew they are watching the DMG% too.

3)
It's hard to tell how many Players you have in your vehicle or which seats are filled. Sometimes it's like an idiots circus, lol. Mostly I think it's Vehicles with internal Gunner Seats. In the midst of battle lower new players will randomly jump out and when everything is going off it is REALLY hard to tell. And even as a higher ranked guy I don't get AI replacements immediately. Or when we rally at Armory to resupply and whatnot you'll find yourself wondering if everyone is back in the Humvee or APC or whatever. A little line of dots on the bottom of HUD when in a vehicle would suffice; small, tucked down in a corner. Just a little line of dots or something simple: green for player, yellow for ai, grey empty.

4)
Can we have a LOW GEAR? We have Walk/Run Option on Foot. Is it possible when driving to turn that same function into a slower speed for Vehicles? WASD keys aren't pressure sensitive, well mine aren't and I assume most aren't, so now that we can survive in AV's for longer and in a more dedicated fashion with player-troops the issue arises that we constantly outpace them. It leads to some jerky stop'n'go movement and awkward misleading shifts in a crowd. I never really use the walk key on foot, but I have it set in proper finger range. Yet I am certain I would use it constantly as a Low Gear key. The Tank is the most notable of this. APC can also be a major issue when trying to support a moving crowd due to it's high top speed. Whatever the vehicle is, the approach is to tap you key constantly if you want to try for a Steady Foot Run Pace. A Low Gear would fix this and help avoid the goofy, jerky stop and go of Supporting Vehicles when moving with or in large crowds of players.


Sorry it so long again. I just come here for the more direct discussion details and get it all out at once. Steam is... different. Anyway, I've been really watching the effects this new repair mechanic has had, and will have, on the game/community. Although the constant player count still doesn't seem huge, there's always a flow of new people and a slow steadily growing number of "vets". So basically I spend too much time analyzing and discussing little subtle details of the whole dynamic system of gameplay that is RWR.

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Walk key can be hold for speed limiter in the next version.

We haven't considered the other suggestions at this point, too much is going on and none of the suggestions are simple changes.

NP pasik. I'm glad to hear you guys are still adding and tweaking the game. I never expect most things I bring up to be changed, I just know this forum is a more serious discussion with you guys.

It seems to avoid spinning out of control here unlike some threads do on Steam sometimes.

In reference to the other issues I listed:
The Vehicle Damage HUD display, mentioned earlier, could really be helpful for drivers since we repair ourselves.
And the Steamroll issue is a potential, but will probably still take some time to become a regular thing. So no immediate need on major tweaks---but it is worth talking about over time.
And knowing which seats are occupied isn't absolutely needed, just that sometimes it's real difficult to tell.

The Low Gear, that would be Great! Although I personally don't know if Low Gear should be the same as Soldier Running or Crouch/Walk Speed. I think just finding which low soldier speed to move at is the key.

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the speed limiter is basically there to avoid that you roadkill teammates, the speed is so that it's just below the "crush" speed.

Is it crush speed + average walking speed? Or just crush speed of standing soldier? Or is there even difference?