THE GRAND GENERAL FEEDBACK THREAD!

Feedback and debriefings from Berget 9
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motorhead
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Post by motorhead » 05 Jul 2011, 22:19

Time for my debrief. Had to get some time/distance to the whole spectacle first :D

1. Info tables outside HQ to keep folks updated about game progression, vital intel, tips & advice and field movements.

- I had my admin kit with me, with laptop, printer, plastic lamination card gadget and a mobile projector. This year the unit commanders were bogged down in running their respective batallions and were too busy to include me in their loop. Hence I had no real updates to print out, laminate and hang out on the missing poster wall.

In retrospect I realize this could have been better, but I was mostly alone at the radio - which this year proved to be an insufficient information source for everybody due to lack of range and unreliable repeater quality. Hence little info to make public to our units.

2. 320th field artillery - new game element this time. A concept in need of further improvement.

As usual we had some creative ideas with use of the MGRS map coordinate system. Again, the failing COM network prevented the units from reaching us when out of range in the demanding Härnösand terrain - effectively reducing the HQ to a passive listening post - not an active fire mission coordinator. Major infrastructure failure on our side on that part.

If this artillery element is planned in the future - COM repeaters must be able to relay good audio quailty for the whole 4-day game period. That includes functional repeater availability from Game Start, First Minute - not Day 2.

3. The ingame HQ concept. An ingame asset or just a lazy bunch?

I was very disappointed over HQ functionality this year. Personally I had my most utterly boring and unsatisfying Berget ever. I'm glad others in the field had some more fun and challenges going. Basically a failing radio network and lack of info flow had me sitting at an almost idle radio that few bothered to use due to bad audio on the unreliable repeater channel and insufficient range of the 13 Poldavian channels served by Puxing-888's. Our field people therefore had to rely on cell phones for long-range COM. Most mission data and gamemaster info was directed towards the 4 batallion CO's - effectively leaving the HQ blind.

After a while we got some intel from returning patrols, but information flow was hampered by failing COM range from field units. Their success ingame was largely based on good field unit leadership and good initiative.

A functional HQ can enhance and improve player satisfaction if used properly. This was far better at B8.

4. How COM can influence the players' game satisfaction and improve the whole Berget experience.

Well, needless to say a functional long-range COM network with good repeaters must be in place so the players can get on the horn and transmit their intel, vital info and receive ditto from us at HQ. I can live with the delayed Tx action of a repeater ( you must hold the button longer before and after you speak ), but there must be a minimum of sound quality for it to work.

Conclusion: I'm glad others had a good gaming experience, but I feel my time was largely wasted here this year due to a failing COM network. Also preciously little improvements or experience-based retainment of information flow towards a functional HQ.

Basically this Berget was a game for the field units, while having an ingame Poldavian HQ was more or less wasted. This boils down to many factors being "the cause", but for some reason Berget-Events seem to produce new errors each year, despite being run by a professional company. There should be a "Black Book" and "White Book" with "No Can Do's" and "Yes We Do's" enhancing the Berget experience.

I'll most definitely be back next year anyhow. Despite its many flaws and logistical nightmares Berget is a unique experience where one largely shapes the whole game experience by carefully choosing and designing one's own role and satisfaction. I'll bring a more powerful radio next year, and a better repeater, but as mentioned in another thread that COM network responsibility actually resides with the game arranger.

It should be noted, however, that many experienced leaders from recent past now consider taking non-leader roles next time around to retain their own game experience. The basically repeating BE planning flaws takes its toll on such roleplayers, so expect a grande turnover in that respect.
Last edited by motorhead on 07 Jul 2011, 18:52, edited 6 times in total.
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Post by A_Muller » 05 Jul 2011, 22:21

Yes, but again, there was no info being shared between the Zansian and the NAF. NONE, the two times in the field I ran into them they wouldn't even communicate with us when we asked for what unit they were with (at the time they wore NAF colors and camo).
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Post by JKangas » 05 Jul 2011, 22:21

ZBO fireteams were very independent; we were typically given a task and free hands on how to perform it which made for very interesting gameplay. We (K team) did not have any specific orders to link up with NAF forces at any time...actually we were a bit careful also with NAF forces even with blue bands on. Not too much chatting with NAF, treating folks in the Firm outfit as if they were neutral civilians at the best etc.

I do not know if the command group co-planned anything with NAF but we grunts did not have any co-operation beyond shooting at the reds together.
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Post by Armalite5.56 » 05 Jul 2011, 22:25

A friend of mine told me he had spoken to a sniper who said his rifle chronoed at 620 fps with a .3... another guy told me his rifle was firing 2 joules... so that that at the point of impact he had 1 joule of power.. I'm not exactly sure what that equates to but in the UK you can forget about any AEG going over 1 joule.. and being allowed onto a gaming site.

Chronos should take place when heading out into the field so that anyone who has changed springs could be caught, especially if every chronoed gun gets a colored cable tie so that anyone can see what bracket it was chronoed in at check-in so that the ones that have been changed can be identified and the players banned..

I was afraid to go out without my helmet especially after the first time i got shot which happened to be in the head.. but eventually i had to as i was having to reduce the amount of weight i was carrying around as I was just not fit enough to lug it around day after day. Also with the hi powered weapons out there I was not wanting to remove my face mask as I have heard too many horror stories about lost teeth..

Also it would be nice to have signposts to the various places as not everyone can read a map.. we got lost so many times due to people not being able to read where they were accurately and the compasses not working properly.. I could tell where south was by the ant hills and the sun and time but still my compass was not pointing to north as far as I could tell.. luckily a couple of guys had garmin gps's with logged points. Without them I think we would have walked all the way around the island..

Also I never knew the importance of points like the graveyard and coffee plantation, we held them at certain points but we managed to waste half a day on just looking at the grave yard and then going a round about route to the coffee plantation through a swamp and so on and that was soo not necessary in my opinion.
Last edited by Armalite5.56 on 05 Jul 2011, 22:30, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by A_Muller » 05 Jul 2011, 22:27

JKangas wrote:I do not know if the command group co-planned anything with NAF but we grunts did not have any co-operation beyond shooting at the reds together.
Heck, the two times we were with zansians for 5 minutes they all just dissapeared as soon as the shooting began, they even failed to mention that we no longer had a left flank so we didn't even get to shoot at the reds alongside you sneaky basterds :P
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Post by Touko » 05 Jul 2011, 22:37

Armalite5.56 wrote:...we got lost so many times due to people not being able to read where they were accurately and the compasses not working properly.. I could tell where south was by the ant hills and the sun and time but still my compass was not pointing to north as far as I could tell.. luckily a couple of guys had garmin gps's with logged points. Without them I think we would have walked all the way around the island..
Just a thought... I once took a kilometers detour in hard terrain because I checked my compass too near to my AEG:s strong motor (Systema Magnum). Some of the stronger motors seriously interfere with compasses. Not making that mistake again, thats for sure ;)
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Post by Robin-Hood » 05 Jul 2011, 22:45

Touko wrote:
Armalite5.56 wrote:...we got lost so many times due to people not being able to read where they were accurately and the compasses not working properly.. I could tell where south was by the ant hills and the sun and time but still my compass was not pointing to north as far as I could tell.. luckily a couple of guys had garmin gps's with logged points. Without them I think we would have walked all the way around the island..
Just a thought... I once took a kilometers detour in hard terrain because I checked my compass too near to my AEG:s strong motor (Systema Magnum). Some of the stronger motors seriously interfere with compasses. Not making that mistake again, thats for sure ;)
We (Me & Armalite) Definitely noticed that problem, it wasn't us in the lead though. Honestly we should have been double checking. No one is to blame it was an accident, a slow and tedious accident :p

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Post by Armalite5.56 » 05 Jul 2011, 22:51

Also another thing, for us in the Poldovian 5th Tango company, it always felt like we were the last guys to be anywhere so we saw very little action even though we were promised to be the lead element.. several times for various things.

On saturday we were told "you will be attacking Janco and there will be plenty of NAF there" when we got there the 3rd Mountineers and possibly the 1st Mech but not sure were all over it and were already attacking the UN base.. which was just about to fall by the time we got there..

I came to Berget to play a more organised game where we were part of a bigger picture but it felt like our company were the rear echelon which didn't exactly fill me with joy, and when we were assigned a combat mission it seemed by the time we got there someone else had beaten us to the punch making our contribution pretty much worthless...

Also we were given the responsibility to guard the UN commander when our side captured him, which at first was exciting but then got boring and then I heard it was actually another company or battalion who had captured him and handed him over to us so they could go and fight.. that then seemed wrong and cheated us out of a good fight. Again it seemed to enforce the image that were were rear echelon and not up for much else than being guards..

I was not impressed with the communication and the level of organisation which I had hoped would be much better than it actually was.. I hope I will make it to next years event but then I will be prepared for a game that is more of a "go and see what you can find to destroy" rather than "being told what is currently happening and what you can go and do to help your side.." but then if we can get COMS that work then that might improve the situation..

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Post by Armalite5.56 » 05 Jul 2011, 22:55

Touko wrote:
Armalite5.56 wrote:...we got lost so many times due to people not being able to read where they were accurately and the compasses not working properly.. I could tell where south was by the ant hills and the sun and time but still my compass was not pointing to north as far as I could tell.. luckily a couple of guys had garmin gps's with logged points. Without them I think we would have walked all the way around the island..
Just a thought... I once took a kilometers detour in hard terrain because I checked my compass too near to my AEG:s strong motor (Systema Magnum). Some of the stronger motors seriously interfere with compasses. Not making that mistake again, thats for sure ;)
I put my compass flat on the ground and walked away from it.. (I have a systema PTW) and it still was not right. Then on Friday evening when me and one guy from my squad were walking back and took the direct route from the cross roads and climbed over the mountain to get home we met a group of in game civilians walking about with what looked like pick axes who told us that the compasses don't work due to the iron content of the mountain.. I can't really comment on that except to say it sort of sounds plausible..

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Post by Buffel » 05 Jul 2011, 23:00

Armalite5.56 wrote:Also another thing, for us in the Poldovian 5th Tango company, it always felt like we were the last guys to be anywhere so we saw very little action even though we were promised to be the lead element.. several times for various things.
Know what you mean. On Thursday (I think) we, Poldavian 3rd Mountain, 4th platoon, set off with a list of 4 or 5 objectives. Each and every one of which was achieved by other units that had hurried to them. Seemed like a large part of it mechanised, but that could just be m impression.

Until our lunch break we had not seen any hostiles, and had just wandered left and right to divert as each objective was reported as already achieved.

Being continuously 3rd section in the column of march made it worse as we were basically following the boots in front of us.

After a 60 minutes break close to the gypsy camp (I think) we went and assaulted the western roadblock. Whether that was just to avoid boredom or for a larger goal I don't know, but at least we saw some pretty good action there.

It felt to me as a grunt as if the various HQ's were busy running their thing, and possibly even competed for objectives. This may in actuality have been created by the comms situation more than anything, though.

Don't get me wrong, there were enough really cool moments to send me home with a big smile on my face, but all the missions getting nicked away were quite a frustration.
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Post by Robin-Hood » 05 Jul 2011, 23:12

I agree, though I wasn't privy to most of the HQ stuff it didn't feel like there was any coordination between the 3 poldavian forces. I certainly think an overall commander is a requirement, especially when you consider how bad airsoft comms are.

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Post by Waldo » 05 Jul 2011, 23:53

Robin-Hood wrote:I agree, though I wasn't privy to most of the HQ stuff it didn't feel like there was any coordination between the 3 poldavian forces. I certainly think an overall commander is a requirement, especially when you consider how bad airsoft comms are.
Amen!
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Post by DutchWolf » 06 Jul 2011, 02:03

Panzergraf wrote:The Zansian Black Ops were NAF too, so you were more than just 350.
Like Kangas and Muller already said...that's hardly an argument.
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Post by Rectunator » 06 Jul 2011, 02:06

Vandalen wrote:
Panzergraf wrote:The Zansian Black Ops were NAF too, so you were more than just 350.
Yeah sure we had ZBO and later on UN on our side but not in our team, thus we had no collaboration in planning battles with them. we just had a common enemy. And that makes it UN vs POL ZBO vs POL NAF vs POL. Since all three teams were outnumbered we couldn't stand a chance against the uneven odds...
ZBO was friendly towards everyone else except Poldavia, but we were not exactly on the same side when it came to our main objective. If NAF had taken the satellites black box, we would have stolen it from them or in an extreme case assaulted their base as the Firm to retrieve it. It was more of a "we can use these guys to further our own goals" -situation than genuine alliance and help out of good will.
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Post by Panzergraf » 06 Jul 2011, 02:16

Yes it is.

If it's not, I'll just counter-argue that the Poldavian 1st Mech was really out numbered, as the 3rd Mt. and 5th Inf. were separate units.


Why didn't you share info? Ask your commanders about that.
I know we had, at times, shitty communications with our allied units due to problems with the repeaters or something, and too few radios.

I wasn't on the NAF side, so I don't know how you guys did things, but according to the Berget website, whose word is law, ZBO and NAF were part of the same side. That's why you both had blue armbands. That's why the NAF were also allowed to wear OD uniforms.
This wasn't like with the UN, where you worked together against a common foe out of convenience; NAF and ZBO were already pre-scripted by BE to be part of the same side.

So the NAF were more than just 350, and that is an argument.
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