Post things here
Blood on the Sands Feedback / Media Thread
- Thread starter FungletheBungle
- Start date
Dej
Radio Bob Approved
Feedback
Positives:
+ VORTIGAUNT GANG
+ good feeling to have real effects on the main server, especially to compensate for no character transfers. It made it feel like we were actually doing something, and that the outcome actually mattered.
+ The shooting aspects were generally fun. The section where we were defending the outside of the bunker was very enjoyable especially, and many people's highlight of the event.
+ Vehicle/heavy weapons elements were fun. Manning the big guns and shooting down tanks, striders, or just the poor infantry unit that decided to move out of cover at the wrong time
+ "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- ah coughs."
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- ah coughs."
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- ah coughs."
Negatives:
- Vortibolt didn't work, which is like having egg and chips when someone's taken the yolk out of all the eggs. Still better than just chips, but still a bit disappointing. (Side benefit was that the Vortigaunts used guns instead which was funny)
- felt extremely MAA sided. First day felt balanced. The gas artillery after a neutral battle felt a bit unfair but it was fine. Then at the bunker we took out several striders, helicopters, tanks, APCs and a ton of infantry, and yet still pushed back into bunker with no real reward or advantage for our efforts. Then inside the bunker we set up a relatively impenetrable defense, and a crab synth is thrown our way. Once we beat the synth, a hunter arrives (i don't remember how many hunters there were, might've been 2, but definitely not both at once). Fungle also forgets to turn PKs on, so all the MAA we killed came back even when it was supposed to be one life. To be fair, I'm pretty sure that applied to us too, but it felt like we were getting more kills (though it was hard to tell without PKs on) Then after all that Moses wins the machete duel but we get shafted anyway. Just to be clear, none of these things individually made the event MAA sided - they are a group with much more resources and support after all - but the combination of all this made the event feel like it was on rails. Also, the fact that the MAA didn't even feel dented by the end was unfortunate too. Seeing like, 20 MAA board the ships at the end compared to the tattered survivors holding out in the hq of the bunker made it feel like we didn't really achieve anything.
- the spawncamping and general respawn issues wasn't good
- the passive RP at the end between the MAA and the NRAU allying temporarily was super fun and it was upsetting that it ended so abruptly. Not really anyone's fault, but it was a shame for it to be cut short in such a jarring way.
Overall, still a very fun event. Loads of cool screenshots and a video on the way. If anyone has any footage they want me to our in the video send it to me on discord and I'll make sure to try and include it.
8/10
Positives:
+ VORTIGAUNT GANG
+ good feeling to have real effects on the main server, especially to compensate for no character transfers. It made it feel like we were actually doing something, and that the outcome actually mattered.
+ The shooting aspects were generally fun. The section where we were defending the outside of the bunker was very enjoyable especially, and many people's highlight of the event.
+ Vehicle/heavy weapons elements were fun. Manning the big guns and shooting down tanks, striders, or just the poor infantry unit that decided to move out of cover at the wrong time
+ "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- ah coughs."
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- ah coughs."
"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee- ah coughs."
Negatives:
- Vortibolt didn't work, which is like having egg and chips when someone's taken the yolk out of all the eggs. Still better than just chips, but still a bit disappointing. (Side benefit was that the Vortigaunts used guns instead which was funny)
- felt extremely MAA sided. First day felt balanced. The gas artillery after a neutral battle felt a bit unfair but it was fine. Then at the bunker we took out several striders, helicopters, tanks, APCs and a ton of infantry, and yet still pushed back into bunker with no real reward or advantage for our efforts. Then inside the bunker we set up a relatively impenetrable defense, and a crab synth is thrown our way. Once we beat the synth, a hunter arrives (i don't remember how many hunters there were, might've been 2, but definitely not both at once). Fungle also forgets to turn PKs on, so all the MAA we killed came back even when it was supposed to be one life. To be fair, I'm pretty sure that applied to us too, but it felt like we were getting more kills (though it was hard to tell without PKs on) Then after all that Moses wins the machete duel but we get shafted anyway. Just to be clear, none of these things individually made the event MAA sided - they are a group with much more resources and support after all - but the combination of all this made the event feel like it was on rails. Also, the fact that the MAA didn't even feel dented by the end was unfortunate too. Seeing like, 20 MAA board the ships at the end compared to the tattered survivors holding out in the hq of the bunker made it feel like we didn't really achieve anything.
- the spawncamping and general respawn issues wasn't good
- the passive RP at the end between the MAA and the NRAU allying temporarily was super fun and it was upsetting that it ended so abruptly. Not really anyone's fault, but it was a shame for it to be cut short in such a jarring way.
Overall, still a very fun event. Loads of cool screenshots and a video on the way. If anyone has any footage they want me to our in the video send it to me on discord and I'll make sure to try and include it.
8/10
D
Donavin Jones
Guest
I wasent around for the first day due to a concert.
But from the second day I attended felt very MAA biased, I did see a lot more then 6 MAA fall and 100% confirmed to be dead for what I and others saw
But still fun 7/10
But from the second day I attended felt very MAA biased, I did see a lot more then 6 MAA fall and 100% confirmed to be dead for what I and others saw
But still fun 7/10
Dej
Radio Bob Approved
I had plenty of fun as Moses, the wall defense was super fun especially. The ending was a bit shafted so to speak, me and furious agreed on a melee S2K, but we weren't aware that melee weapons did 0 damage, so it was just awkward swinging with no music for a while. To top it off, both sides after seemingly abiding by the ceasefire, seemed to turn and massacre each other at respective locations. NRAU turned their guns on the MAA at the control room and killed them, while the MAA massacred all the NRAU at the entrance. I apologize for any sort of sub-par RP on my part towards the end, it was nearing 6am and I was losing my mind.
RealGamer
Radio Bob Approved
I had fun playing as the field commander. Drawing up mission files and giving everyone little morale speeches was a good time. It was incredibly tense, possibly more than when I played as a regular MAA grunt, considering I had to take responsibility for an entire platoon of characters and the reputation of the MAA instead of just my single character's life.
Getting to think about and command a whole combined force of infantry, ground and (little, but still) air assets was a really engaging bit of the event and really required me to put my strategy gaming 'tism to the test. Plus just seeing tanks and aircraft in action with what's usually just infantry on infantry meatgrinders was pretty cool.
And I'm very proud of all the MAA players who stuck through it all to the end. I'm glad to have been a part of their character development. And also committing the warcrime was funny
The initial assault on the dam was very fun too. The infinite lives gave it a nice bit of scale, letting waves of MAA try to overwhelm NRAU defences which were constantly being reinforced instead of just a very slow event where 15~ people had to sneak across a valley and inch towards their objective for fear of losing the fight in a single minute to all the defensive guns.
Couple issues there were was for one, a lack of testing. Ended up realizing last minute that vorts couldn't use energy beams which was frustrating for both sides. One being unable to attack, and the other being forced to not stop them from spying on the frontlines for a time.
A kind of minor issue was the event characters taking superiority over City 24's forces in command. Which I get fully was proper IC and made sense, however it was somewhat frustrating having to make clearly bad tactical moves (sending soldiers in person to deliver a message to a radical resistance group. Assaulting a fortress with less offensive abilities and 0 intel, etc.) because the event characters ordered it. Not just for the fact that they took the character's lives for granted, but on a strategic level they were somewhat wasteful with the very limited military assets they had.
My main gripe was how admins handled balance and both day's endings. Felt like there was a major lack of trust with the assets that the players got, and staff tried to artificially balance both sides. And both times ended up with them having to resort to a railroading of the events to keep the campaign on track for the 2 days it was meant to run for. The first day being that there were roughly equal numbers of soldiers on both sides, yet the MAA was expected to lay siege to a fortress with little intel on what the NRAU had for anti armor. Then refusing to allow for any aerial reconaissance ICly despite them being explicitly granted air support. The attacking side had absolutely no intel, and good reason to suspect that the rebel forces are better armed and equipped than the MAA. Even if you have total disregard for their individual lives, any commander would have been stupid to just order a full on assault and risk losing the entire army in the first engagement, because the enemy may very well outnumber, outgun them and be in a fortified position. So my commander character was sort of forced to keep the frontlines they pushed up to due to their lack of intel and support guns/armor. Which just ended in the admins having to make a chlorine gas event to remove the NRAU from their base.
The second day's events had a similar feel at the end. When the staff tried to "balance" the MAA's push into the NRAU's bunker by giving them no body armor, and just 4 lethal grenades to deal with a force that equally numbered them, but had multiple rocket launchers, and several entrenched lines of machine guns. It just ended up in the staff having to suddenly spawn in synths to help the push, which felt pretty forced and ad-hoc. Then the end event where the event characters decided to stop the whole battle for a duel, then detonated the dam after deciding that it would all come down to a single /roll . It was unique, but made all the MAA PK's pointless (impactful still, but pointless).
I was about as unsatisfied as the NRAU were with how the battles ended and admins needing to force an outcome. It would of been a lot smoother and more interesting if we had a sufficient, but set amount of assets to use in an offensive against a very defensible and numerous enemy. Meaning that if we managed to lose the momentum and supplies so bad, we'd be forced to either finish the fight ourselves or keep it as a stalemate. The issue was not people wanting to preserve their characters so much that they refused to take risks. Considering how we all kept pushing despite seeing alot of chars get killed. But the fact that from the whole command point of view, it was a very unlikely chance to actually win any engagement with the little initial support we had.
There's a reason that some balanced FPS usually give the attacking team more tickets and artillery when they need to attack a fortified defending team.
Getting to think about and command a whole combined force of infantry, ground and (little, but still) air assets was a really engaging bit of the event and really required me to put my strategy gaming 'tism to the test. Plus just seeing tanks and aircraft in action with what's usually just infantry on infantry meatgrinders was pretty cool.
And I'm very proud of all the MAA players who stuck through it all to the end. I'm glad to have been a part of their character development. And also committing the warcrime was funny
The initial assault on the dam was very fun too. The infinite lives gave it a nice bit of scale, letting waves of MAA try to overwhelm NRAU defences which were constantly being reinforced instead of just a very slow event where 15~ people had to sneak across a valley and inch towards their objective for fear of losing the fight in a single minute to all the defensive guns.
Couple issues there were was for one, a lack of testing. Ended up realizing last minute that vorts couldn't use energy beams which was frustrating for both sides. One being unable to attack, and the other being forced to not stop them from spying on the frontlines for a time.
A kind of minor issue was the event characters taking superiority over City 24's forces in command. Which I get fully was proper IC and made sense, however it was somewhat frustrating having to make clearly bad tactical moves (sending soldiers in person to deliver a message to a radical resistance group. Assaulting a fortress with less offensive abilities and 0 intel, etc.) because the event characters ordered it. Not just for the fact that they took the character's lives for granted, but on a strategic level they were somewhat wasteful with the very limited military assets they had.
My main gripe was how admins handled balance and both day's endings. Felt like there was a major lack of trust with the assets that the players got, and staff tried to artificially balance both sides. And both times ended up with them having to resort to a railroading of the events to keep the campaign on track for the 2 days it was meant to run for. The first day being that there were roughly equal numbers of soldiers on both sides, yet the MAA was expected to lay siege to a fortress with little intel on what the NRAU had for anti armor. Then refusing to allow for any aerial reconaissance ICly despite them being explicitly granted air support. The attacking side had absolutely no intel, and good reason to suspect that the rebel forces are better armed and equipped than the MAA. Even if you have total disregard for their individual lives, any commander would have been stupid to just order a full on assault and risk losing the entire army in the first engagement, because the enemy may very well outnumber, outgun them and be in a fortified position. So my commander character was sort of forced to keep the frontlines they pushed up to due to their lack of intel and support guns/armor. Which just ended in the admins having to make a chlorine gas event to remove the NRAU from their base.
The second day's events had a similar feel at the end. When the staff tried to "balance" the MAA's push into the NRAU's bunker by giving them no body armor, and just 4 lethal grenades to deal with a force that equally numbered them, but had multiple rocket launchers, and several entrenched lines of machine guns. It just ended up in the staff having to suddenly spawn in synths to help the push, which felt pretty forced and ad-hoc. Then the end event where the event characters decided to stop the whole battle for a duel, then detonated the dam after deciding that it would all come down to a single /roll . It was unique, but made all the MAA PK's pointless (impactful still, but pointless).
I was about as unsatisfied as the NRAU were with how the battles ended and admins needing to force an outcome. It would of been a lot smoother and more interesting if we had a sufficient, but set amount of assets to use in an offensive against a very defensible and numerous enemy. Meaning that if we managed to lose the momentum and supplies so bad, we'd be forced to either finish the fight ourselves or keep it as a stalemate. The issue was not people wanting to preserve their characters so much that they refused to take risks. Considering how we all kept pushing despite seeing alot of chars get killed. But the fact that from the whole command point of view, it was a very unlikely chance to actually win any engagement with the little initial support we had.
There's a reason that some balanced FPS usually give the attacking team more tickets and artillery when they need to attack a fortified defending team.
Dej
Radio Bob Approved
So concerning this, NRAU was about as clueless as you were, admittedly I was pretty scared that ya'll were gonna Blitzkrieg us considering the vehicles included in the content pack, but we about just as surprised that only a singular T-55 was encountered.
So for this, only NRAU Directors and Moses had body armour, the rest of NRAU had zero armour. The rocket launcher was actually an item carried over from Day 1 and there was only one in existence, its just that he had multiple rockets. The machine guns actually broke, and even then there were only two, the first Pulse MG at the front actually glitched and broke which rendered it unusable, which left one last Pulse MG at the "Rotunda" line of defense.
I admit this one is kind of on me. Moses was practically delving into insanity due to how cornered he was and paranoid of Ramesses. The person repairing the dam failed one roll which caused a cascade of destruction, but Moses, without knowing that it already failed, try to get everyone out of the Dam, and then proceed to Martyr himself by sabotaging the repair efforts. However, I forgot that we were playing Gmod, and once I started shooting, people started rushing back in, subsequently after, queue the MAA massacring NRAU at the entrance when they heard gunfire, and NRAU doing the same to the MAA at the Control Room when they saw Moses dead.
As far as I know, its a shared sentiment that the ending wasn't very satisfying. NRAU was given even less firepower than the MAA and we had to resort to literal Vietcong and Iraqi Insurgent tactics to stave off the MAA. The duel at the end was meant to be a dramatic end but we kinda delved back into chaos. There were options for victory for both sides from what I was told, but it is what it is.