Berget Forum

+1 on that

But it is very hard to break that. Berget is a social event that many players attend just to play with old friends. It would be unreasonable to ask them to split up for the sake of balance.

What would be an option is (I think I've said something of the sorts a bit earlier in the topic) to switch camo patterns next year. Blues would be in woodlands, Reds in OD, digitals, and multispams. Then you'd get a nice mix of players conforming to the rules just to be able to play with each other and the individual groups that go to Berget to pose for pictures in a large base.

I can't really see the difference: if the problem is the camo (let's say everybody choose his side by its camo) you'll have all the reds that become the blue, and all the blue will be reds.

To me, it won't fix the game balance.

That's the thing, people that want to play together won't choose by camo, they choose the group their mates play in. And since a LOT of players in Ikaros followed their previous commanders, it's up to them to take the big groups to blue or red (but given the fact they're all a bunch of rascals, they'll pretty much always choose red )

But if you give the 'bad guys' ODs, digitals and MP, you'll mix up that group with people who DO choose by camo, causing a balancing effect of experienced veteran groups teaming up with posing kindergarteners.
(which is easy enough to explain storywise, just have them go up against an oldschool government still using US woodland cammies or something)

munkki wrote:Pros
Berget shop was really crappy and prices were approx double from normal prices. You should really stay with weapon repair service and renting weapons/BAVs for players. Let those guys deal with gear and weapon sales who know what to do like Varusteleka, etc.

I think the on-site shop worked perfectly good. Of course the prices are going to be upped since they put down a lot of time and money getting all the stuff there, and also being the only shop there they had no competition and players who had not been able to get their gear on time would have to pay a little extra to get the camo they wanted. It's only fair, and my teammate whose order did not arrive on time utilized this to its' full extent.

Personally I think the balance should be driving by numbers.

If there is a force multiplier on the red due to bigger teams that have experience with each other and thus more effective, then this could be countered by lowering the numbers.

Based on the numbers I was told, I think the reds had a 1.5:1 ratio over the blues. So instead, turn this ratio around. For example, if the blues have 600 players then limit the reds to 400 players.

Red had a working HQ,
All fractions were working together.

Blue had no working HQ (as from what i've been reading on the debriefing)
So there was nog overall structure.

I think that was a great keyfactor in this game.
We (Cerberus 1platoon) just did what we were told by HQ.
If they said wait, we wait, If they say Baserape, we Baserape

That would leave a lot of variables though. Size of the group, (Berget) experience of the group, amount of BE virgins, ... and with teams on both sides, it would get very hard to find the correct balance.

And it wouldn't seem fair to limit the size of a unit just because a larger group joined. If people would really like to play Ikaros (by example) mechanized and continue their own story, why should they be barred from joining the Ikaros mech just because 1 or 2 larger teams have already signed up and pushed the amount of available places down?

Besides, how would you check those numbers? Team names when registering? Small variations in team names or accidental similar ones would --- SPAM !!! --- up that algorithm immediately.

Edit: like Verage said, a competent command group that can work together would be better. Even if a group of single commanders would outmatch every commander in the team-work group individually.

I think we can split the differences up in 3 categories:
- Command
- Numbers
- Player skills (gearwhore posers vs experienced players)

This is what we need to shake up and even out.
- Command: Set up a proper joint command. No 'every batco for themselves' bullshit.
- Numbers: Find a way to limit numerical advantages in the large picture. Be it incentives to join one side, be it capping the the other side on a maximum number.
- Player skills: Shake up the camos and the 'bad guys'. Rookie players usually want to be the good guys, gearwhores want to play in the team that has their sense of fashion. Separate the two.

What would make it easier to run an effective HQ is to limit the amount of smaller factions. All you need is a main inf unit, mechanized and a milsim team. This means you only need to choose 3 overall commanders and maybe 1 guy to rule over all of them. 1 HQ to reduce workload, which also means you dont need as many people sitting in a tent for the duration of the game.

This year the situation escalated in to what it was, smalling building up from previous years. Nothing happens on time or even close to it, commanders selected last minute, going with a bad choice because thats the only choice. A lot of things promised never happened. None of these come as a surprise to anyone who has been in some kind of a higher up leadership position at Berget, but this year was rediculous. If nothing is done by the Crew to learn from mistakes and try to improve even some of these, I cant imagine next year will be much better.

I've attended 7 years in a row now, and I gotta say this year did not exactly make me want to attend the 8th one. Hopefully things change...

You don't even need a dedicated mechanized unit. My best mechanized Berget-experience was at B11, where the Ravens had no dedicated mechanized unit, but we formed two (or three?) mechanized platoons directly under the main infantry unit.

That would indeed require even less work from Berget, which would indeed be better. Usually the vehicle groups have their own leaders already preassigned, which is less work for everyone!

Problem is that players that want to play together will do it. My group is approx 70 guys from different nations. And we come to Berget to play thogheter.

vinni wrote:
I think we can split the differences up in 3 categories:
- Command
- Numbers
- Player skills (gearwhore posers vs experienced players)

This is what we need to shake up and even out.
- Command: Set up a proper joint command. No 'every batco for themselves' bullshit.
- Numbers: Find a way to limit numerical advantages in the large picture. Be it incentives to join one side, be it capping the the other side on a maximum number.
- Player skills: Shake up the camos and the 'bad guys'. Rookie players usually want to be the good guys, gearwhores want to play in the team that has their sense of fashion. Separate the two.

I agree with you, and your second point was the point I was trying to make.

Bottomline, either way you cut it, the reds are a superior force, and I am not talking about numbers. Now whether this is experience, command, large groups that have played together.....who knows. What I do know was that superiority was compounded by having more Ikaros than GCT.

Therefore one simple solution for now is to cap the number of players that can join Ikaros, so that it is a lower number than GCT.

Well maybe lousy players should train more.

Just sayin'

Maybe they should mate. But it it something we have little control over.

It's not about individual player skill. Whenever we ran into blue forces (at this game or previous) they always gave us a good fight, but they were almost always isolated and even when they managed to win a local victory, it never ammounted to anything more.
It's not about numbers either. The finns, when they had their own faction (Zanzia, at B9 and B10) were fewer than their NAF allies, but played as a cohesive unit and were hard to dig out even with Poldavia's superior numbers.

The finns were very good because they were used to playing together in large units. Running into a Zanzian company actually felt like running into a company, not a bunch of seperate squads and fireteams.
We're not quite at that level on the red side (Ikaros, Ravens, Poldavia), but at least we bring some semi-cohesive platoons to the table.

I don't know why I so rarely see the blue side work in larger units than squad size. Maybe it's because they're from so many different countries and have no experience playing together?

One thing BE could do that might actually help is to open the team forums earlier.
Because so many on the red side know eachother from before, we didn't really need the forums, and we started organizing the moment the tickets were released using closed facebook groups.

I don't know if that was the case on the blue side.