''Picket Patrol'' Community discussion.

[Poorlaggedman]

If you wanted to get rid of the PLMinater just spread the formation restrictions to Skirmishes ja.gif and that would eventually do it.

I've played some Picket Patrol, it's not bad. New content is always good and true randomness in scenarios is way often over-looked in video games especially shooters. However arbitrary gamey-restrictions I find loathsome and are just sidestepping the issues at-hand. Furthermore it negates some aspects. Why use a solid formation when you can just skirmish? What's the root reason to in Picket? Very little. You'll get yelled at for bringing a color bearer. You'll be hated. People will kill you. Officers going up and down the line "Don't pick the colors up, they give us away."

I contend that you should look to real life and the real reasons people didn't do certain things we consider undesired in-games. I spent a few hours in discord with some Resistance and Liberation folks talking about the doom of the game. It was the half-measures on realism. Why tip-toe around the tulips when your game will mathematically be a shadow of itself in ten years? Every game dies, but not every game lives (maybe that's a lie). So many people were opposed to things like autosurrender and then two years later, poof, they were gone off playing Arma or some crap while the game went on. And the issues of rambos never went away. If there were mechanisms to shatter them, it'd be a remedy. I don't think that looks like hard formation restrictions and I hate that timer, even for the officers. It ruins the aura even if only for a moment. Players are gonna play the game they're given.

[Lord Drax]

The purpose behind no colors in pickets patrol is there is no spawning hence that role is useless. By taking colors you are removing a gun from your unit with no advantage... Just looking neat will not help u win. Very often it comes down to the last 5 guys, why would you want 1 of them to carry a flag and not a gun. Come on man.....

[Oleander]

I mean M&B has had a no respawn mode for years and it still manages to bring the players. I honestly don't get this community anymore.

[Cairnsy44]

From Hardee's Drill Manual regarding skirmishers (AKA what this game is currently based upon):

1. The movements of skirmishers should be subjected to such rules as will give to the commander the means of moving them in any direction with the greatest promptitude.

2. It is not expected that these movements should be executed with the same precision as in closed ranks, nor is it desirable, as such exactness would materially interfere with their prompt execution.

3. When skirmishers are thrown out to clear the way for, and to protect the advance of, the main corps, their movements should be so regulated by this corps, as to keep it constantly covered.

19. A chain of skirmishers ought generally to preserve their alignment, but no advantages which the ground may present should be sacrificed to attain this regularity.

20. The interval between skirmishers depends on the extent of ground to be covered; but in general, it is not proper that the groups of four men should be removed more than forty paces from each other. The habitual distance between men of the same group in open grounds will be five paces; in no case will they lose sight of each other.

So based on the manual, there is a middle ground that probably should be reached. Losing tickets for kneeling is wrong, as the manual clearly states that cover should be used while skirmishing. It also says one should keep in viewing distance of comrades. So Rambos should be punished as they are not following orders. But a standard battle line isn't right either....
Probably should be tweaked to find the balance.