Red Orchestra 2 Beta [Gameplay discussogenesisation]

[Pocktio]

So this is finally up for preorder customers on Steam. Download is about 4-6Gb.

From what I can tell you have 3 things to try:

Countdown
Firefight
Territory

Across three maps, apartments, a big snowy one and the other I've not tried.

The classic RO gameplay is there and most satisfying. The graphical upgrade is rather gorgeous and the animations suitably impressive to boot. The way your mans rush around and deploy behind cover is very cool to watch. Territory is as before, secure objective locations over the map. Countdown I think is new, I never played the first one bar territory mode. I am reminded of Counter strike or Sabotage from CoD. You have one defending and one attacking team. Lives are finite, the attackers get three waves but need a commander to authorise them. So getting a shit commander really fucks you. Anyways, you have to defend a technical workshop something. Very good, if your team isn't clueless. Firefight is standard TDM. Not got much interest in that.

I've played around with the lmg mostly. Oh boy, so much fun. It is much improved, easier to use and with greater utility. Finding spots is difficult but when you finally get a good spray going it is most satisfying. Plus the thing is pretty good for rambo gameplay. I ran into a house and cleaned shop pretty well. The recoil seems a bit too low really.

Oh and there is a specific kill icon for when you get a groin shot. A cracked acorn, nutcracker kill

Anyways, moar impressions later. Feel free to add your own. Bolshevik lovers will be shot on sight.

Anyways, I imagine a few dolts are getting in one the beta action so why not better organise ourselves

Standard magickry
Forum name/Steam name

Pocktio/Pocktio

[Downside]

I got in a couple hours last night, and its quite fun. You feel a bit less restrained than in the first game, mainly due to better stamina/sprinting as well as the weapons seem to be much more accurate. The bandaging mechanic is an interesting addition and I found out the hard way that not taking care of a wound very quickly can lead to a blood loss death. It also explained why I would see people seemingly die, but the upper right notification of my kill wouldn't register right away all the time. The cover mechanic is also interesting, but still feels like you give away your position too easily sometimes, and I still have a preference for manual leaning and such. The hardest thing to get used to is being up against a wall and being restricted on your movement if you are prone. I thought the game was lagging at first, but then I realized its part of the mechanic where soldiers, weapons, etc. in the world now has some actual weight and can get stuck or deterred by the environment.

As far as the tanks go, its pure awesome. The combat is quicker with faster reloads, and you actually get sound notifications when the reload is finished, as well as when enemies are spotted, where you took damage, etc. There's even a red line that pops up on the tank icon to indicate where you took damage and where to look for the source of it. Also, friendlies dying in the tank make the fight seem all the more desperate, as moving from driving to gunning and such start playing animations that make the entire process of switching positions take so much longer. Its also possible for turrets to get damaged as well as the engine, so communication with your driver becomes an even bigger issue, as they may have to aim for you. Overall, this beta is a lot of fun and, despite some bugs here and there, the core mechanics and gameplay are extremely well done. I feel like I'm going to be enjoying this game for quite some time, hopefully as long as the first Red Orchestra.

[Pocktio]

The kill confirmation isn't lagging. It appears when they die. So if you clip soneone and they crawl away to die the confirmation will be delayed. It is delicious.

And yes, tanks rule. They are just draw dropping. Popping a hatch and being to look and move around is just so very amazing.

[Goblix]

Oh man.. saying I'm amazed doesn't quite cover it. Coming from the original Red Orchestra and being a massive fan this is just.. incredible. The game is improved in every single way, from the player collision with the world as mentioned, to just the way the weapons handle.

I haven't had a chance to try out tank combat but the fighting on ro_Danzig, er.. apartments has got to be the most fun I've had in ages. This coming from someone who didn't like Danzig in the original game.

C'mon ye Dolts with a taste for realism, buy the game!

[Ammon Ra]

Can i buy it to stop you nagging and then get a refund? no? ;-)

[Koozer]

I cannot play this game. I can't hit anyone, and I can't stop being hit. Even driving a tank I get shot. I get a really low framerate to for some reason. Must try harder. (me, not them)

[DoomKnights]

Got the game, great fun. Some oddities. Like pressing fire and nothing happening. Having to repress fire to get anything. Very odd and frustrating sometimes. I love how each weapon is deadly, pistol might look weak but if it connects your still feeling it!

[Pocktio]

Pistol is superiorsauce. Seriously, the german whateveritis is lethal. I'd whip it out in close quarters areas if you are a rifleman.

I however, am in love with the squad leader class. Smoke grenades and assault weapons are just drool inducingly wicked. Seeing as very few people seem to go for the class, let alone use the smokes to get it to maximum awesome mode, it's great. I'm having too much fun with it to try tanks just yet. I prefer combined arms maps anyway, pure tanks is a bit yawn. Oh and I tried the sniper. Acquired taste something fierce that.

[Coey]

First impressions are really good, but the Mp-40 is overpowered. Very accurate with not much recoil, I managed to get quite a few easy kills at medium range, but that may be new people not moving out of the way fast enough. SVT feels slightly weak, but that was my favourite gun from RO so maybe I'm being biased.

[Pocktio]

MP40 excels at close-medium range combat

[Sparki]

Looking forward to buying it .
Can somebody tell me more about the "bullet physics"? Is it still like in RO1?

[Goblix]

Eh, really not liking how many SMGs there can be per team.

Let's see, 6 assault troops, 4 elite riflemen (which for reasons beyond my understanding have access to the MP40. Why?), 4 squad leaders who will almost always take the MP40. And the officer, who is in the same situation as the SL. That's 15 SMGs, and assuming that every other role is taken such as the MG, that leaves about 11 bolt action riflemen. That just strikes me as wrong somehow.

'Course it could just be how the current maps are setup.

[RexOmniaLupus]

I finally solved the issue that was causing the game to crash on startup and got a few minutes of playtime in. Things don't seem to have changed overmuch as far as core gameplay, though I do like that there's an option to kick a player out of a role since that should help solve the problem where one guy grabs the sniper slot at the start of the map and won't give it up. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bit more time in over the next few days.

@Pocktio: Seems underutilization of smoke is common across most FPS games to feature them, so I'm not surprised to see it here. I guess a lot of people just can't be bothered to figure out how to use something that doesn't directly kill someone.

[DoomKnights]

This game has possibly ruined me for World of Tanks. My god the ability to see crew members in action, to look inside the tanks and see them talking and feel alive. THIS is how world of tanks should have been. God I hope they make a game JUST like this with tanks only.

[RexOmniaLupus]

The first game had tank-only maps, so I assume this one will as well.

[Rincewind]

I watched TotalBiscuit's hilarious GameCon coverage of the game and pre-purchased it. No Beta for me, but hey only one week to go. Loved RO 1 but I kinda got annoyed with alot of things in it, like grenade spam and the machine gunner movement and most importantly not being able to work a tank alone but most of the stuff I disliked seems to have been fixed.

[Goblix]

I've heard rumors that the beta is going public next week, with 25k keys being distributed.

IF this is true, and if you haven't played the game yet, I totally recommend grabbing a key, it's a blast.

[Rincewind]

The game is out next week, Goblix. :P

[Goblix]

My mistake, I meant this week.

Good catch. :P

[Rincewind]

Oooh, when exactly?

[Goblix]

I wish I could say, but like I said it's a rumor.. it may not even happen.

Sorry if I get your hopes up

Edit: After doing a little bit of searching (not much) it seems this was the plan BEFORE they gave beta to DDE buyers, well that sucks. But apparently there will be a free weekend shortly after release is there's anyone on the fence about buying. Saying I'm confused won't do it justice, so have a video of me being blown up by a grenade.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W4F8Scn3q0

[Busby]

A free weekend, huh? That might just be what it takes for me to buy RO2. It looks pretty good and fun, but I'm already giving up on Skyrim and Space Marine for SotS II and Ace Combat, so I'm having trouble justifying spending so much money in such a short time span.

[Pocktio]

Tripwire just make me feel all gooey and melty inside. They just love the PC so much. It's delightful to be pampered so.

Also new maps woop. Barracks is superb. I think I shall enjoy dropping mortars on it.

[Rincewind]

Those of us who did not pre-order are not shit-out-of-luck, kinda. You can still upgrade to the "digital deluxe" edition to get some new weapons a bit early and also access the beta. I just bought the very first "deluxe/extra/special" edition of any game for the first time in my life. Downloading now.

Edit: The beta client is insanely buggy but sweet zombie Jesus am I having fun. Assault and MG are my favorites, I had such a lovely game where I was just brutally machine-gunning people through the walls and with assault I'm quite good at shooting from the hip now... old RO skills coming back. I really do hope the release client is more up to date.

[Methuselath]

Just curious here, what does the digital deluxe give, aside from the slightly early weapons (which I reckon is achievable as a later unlock?) and the beta access?

[Koozer]

HATS.

[Sinogrim]

So, I've been meaning to pick this up for a while, but haven't yet since I can't quite figure out if you can get the "special" weapons you get as a "day 1 unlock" if you do not purchase the deluxe edition. I'm guessing you can, but I don't want to take any risks .

[Goblix]

You can still unlock them if you don't have the DDE, Sinogrim.

New patch is out! Adds four new maps, fixes a load of bugs, and makes some unlocks available. I already loved Tripwire, but their determination to get this fixed as quickly as possible and listen to feedback (and who could forget all the promised free content post release?) just.. this is beyond love.

Aaaand news on the elusive beta keys. As soon as I find out who's giving out the keys, I'll be sure to post a link here for those of you still on the fence about buying.

[Rincewind]

Tried out the new patch for 20 minutes, much, MUCH smoother FPS and gameplay!

[dd14]

As someone who enjoys Battlefield quite a bit, would I enjoy RO2? I hear great things about it although I've never played the first, and I would really like to try it out.

- How many players can be on a server at the same time (32, 64, 128)?

- Is the game fast/slow/medium paced?

- How important is team work, and how does the game promote it (Squads, Platoons, mobile spawn points, ect.)?

- Is there a steep learning curve?

- How open is the community to players who have never tried it before? Is the community in general friendly?

- Are there maps with a few tanks littered about in a city environment that you can battle against as an infantrymen? Or are there "tank only" maps?

- How balanced is the game?

- How well is the game optimized?

[Coey]

64

Depends on the map and where you are in it, but generally medium paced

Team work is the only way your team will get anywhere

Yes, very steep but rewarding

The community is pretty open, just don't spawn as an officer or squad leader till you know where to put smoke and artillery strikes

Both

Pretty well balanced, but that may change in a few months as players get unlocks

Surpirsingly well optimised, and it looks pretty too

[Downside]

- 64 player servers are the max I believe.

- I think it's slightly faster than the first one, but this is a mostly "one hit means death" game, so assaults need to be done in a very coordinated manner, or else you will just die for no reason. For this reason, the game is slower than a shooter that is typical nowadays.

- Team work is important, but maybe not quite as much as it was in the first game. For example, you can effectively use a tank by yourself now because AI units in the tank can help you out. It is still a very big deal though. Squad Leaders who don't use smoke grenades to help save their squads from cover fire during an assault are a burden to the whole team.

- Depends on the class in my opinion. There's plenty of run and shoot classes, but there's also classes that require a bit more tactical thinking, like the Squad Leaders or Commanders that call in artillery, reinforcements, etc. Realizing how much you make yourself a vulnerable target goes a long way in increasing your survivability in this game, so tactical thinking is still a much better approach than just non-thinking run and gunning.

- Better than most in my opinion. RO1 was a small community that actually appreciated it when servers could fill up. RO2 will probably attract a newer crowd though, so its hard to say what the effect will be.

- Normally mixed maps have mainly infantry with one or two tanks on each side. These have been a bit rare in the beta so far. And yes, there are tank only maps as well.

- In my opinion, it is very well balanced. Each weapon has distinct advantages and disadvantages that are heavily effected by what map you are on. Snipers will be an important factor in maps with big wide open areas, while Assaults will have a large advantage on maps with small, narrow areas with large buildings.

- It's in beta, so they are still working out the kinks. Lately, the patches have been pretty good about addressing these issues though.

[DoomKnights]

I hope to hell that any Tank battle only maps they fix it so that those poor people who want to play in a tank together don't get stuck with the MG position. That should be disabled or AI only in Tank Battles only maps.

[Rincewind]

A few observations:

-Always spawn with a submachine gun if you can. Rifles are easy to get from dead comrades and enemies and you should get one ASAP - you will need both.
-Melee battles where both parties have time to fire end up with both soldiers dead more often than not. Aim for the head to put them down instantly.
-Blowing people's limbs off with the Anti-tank rifle is hilarious, but using them for their real purpose is more difficult as the rifles are light and the tank armour by this stage of the war is heavy. You should learn/print the tank hitzone pics from Red Orchestra 1 as they are still valid. The driver's huge hatch on the T34 and the ammo storage just below the turret ring on the right side of the Pz are good targets, so is the engine if you can hit it from behind or above. If you can't, pop the tracks off when the tank is in an awkward position and then finish it off with an AT grenade or satchel charge to the engine. Just before posting this I got 4 tank kills with one life in Pavlov's House as a German - two killshots with the rifle, two tanks had to be finished off with AT grenades.
-The pistol has an insane zoom. As a MG or Antitank you will rely on your pistol until you can get a gun off a dead comrade/enemy so you should learn how to use it. It fires really quickly, is reasonably accurate and just like any other weapon it will kill with one or two shots.
-When playing the sniper, pressing 6 will switch to iron sights which makes life much easier when you are trying to aim and move.
-Learn to use the lean keys so that only a bit of your head will show, and only for an instant. If you see anyone or get shot at or even suspect that someone is watching that corner, go another way - they will now concentrate on the corner and you can flank them. Even better if you are a squad leader or commander and pop smoke at the corner then go the long way around.
-Blindfire with submachine guns is great in CQB.
-The bayonet is awesome when you need to kill someone as a rifleman in melee.
-That said, learn to shoot the rifle from the hip and you have two weapons instead of just the bayo.
-Squad leaders marking artillery is one of the most important and least used features. If you don't do it, the commander has to zero-in all the strikes himself.

That is all for now. I'm having a great time with the game, much more than I ever had with RO1. I can see it being a great success but I really hope they delay it by a week or two - if the latest beta client is any kind of measure then the game is totally unready for a tuesday release.

[Downside]

Yeah, its a shame that the latest patch pretty much killed ATI card performance. Especially on Pavlov's House, which is being played by way too many servers at the moment. I have Space Marine multiplayer to keep me busy for now, but I'm really hoping to get back into RO2 once they've worked the kinks out of it.

[Goblix]

The final beta patch was released a few hours ago, and the full game is now available for preloading!

Tomorrow is going to be a very unproductive day

[RexOmniaLupus]

The latest beta patch is kind of awkward in that Achievements are finally registering, but supposedly Ranked servers aren't reporting experience gains. Mostly the patch seems an improvement, as some minor issues I had noticed have cleared up.

I think I'm finally getting past the worst of the game's learning curve and my kill/death ratio has slowly been trending upwards, though sometimes the sheer complexity of the control scheme fouls me up. One thing I have been having problems with still is the Scoped M91/30. I was playing with it on Spartanovka, and multiple shots I thought were lined up on (stationary) German Riflemen would not register, then they would proceed to hit me dead on through iron sights of their unscoped K98s, and this was at considerable range. After I got auto-balanced to Germans, I picked up a K98 of my own and proceeded to easily rack up several long-ranged kills of my own. Anyone know if the M91/30 has worse accuracy than the K98? Or is the Russian scope design slightly obtuse? My preference for Axis weaponry means I don't play Allies very often, so I don't have much reference for the scopeless M91/30's accuracy over iron sights.

[Pocktio]

I majorly suck at big open maps like Spatanovka. Just seems like everytime I try and smoke, duck run and jump from cover to cover I do it right into the scopes of a random guy hanging as far back with his bolt action. The kind of guys who get 3 kills in a whole round in a 64 man server. Just bad luck I guess.

[Rincewind]

Rex, did you adjust the sights for the distance? You can do that with the mousewheel. I was getting headshots one after another with the scoped Mosin-Nagant, had no problems with it.

I've been preloading for 3 hours now, the servers in the Netherlands are too busy so had to connect to a Finnish server. Gonna finish that before I start playing the newest beta patch as I don't want to miss the easy-to-kill nublets who will swarm the game this evening.

[Pocktio]

Hehe Rince, those nublets will be the sweetest of delicacies

My clan is having a server event tomorrow, to celebrate the release as it were. We are hosting a trio of servers: Oceanic, US and Euro. Something for everyone. Euro is up. It's ranked, territory only and will be 64 players, feel free to join us Would be good to have a dolt presence.

Euro - 81.19.213.40:7777
Oceanic - 203.98.81.90:7793
US - 68.232.177.77:7777

Oh and it's already up, I forgot to post the ip for the beta.

[Rincewind]

Cool, I'll have a look at the Euro server. Kinda wanna gravitate towards the official servers as that might be where the easiest rifle-fodder can be found.

[Goblix]

I'll be sure to hop on the Euro server after release, about two hours to go gents!

[RexOmniaLupus]

Didn't know you could adjust the scope for distance. If there's one thing I hate, it's that for how complex this game is they really give you no information on the mechanics up front. Maybe the training missions in the full version will help that out somewhat, but for the beta the game doesn't really help you out much. It's especially hard to get practice on sniper rifles since they're usually limited to one Marksman per team, and the position frequently fills fast. RO2 is slightly better than RO: Ostfront at least in that you can get field promotions if you're lucky/good, and you may also be able to find a dead sniper's rifle sometimes. I guess you could always murder your Marksman for his rifle, but that will earn you a lot of ire and loss of honor.

It would really be great if there was some kind of practice range where you could test the weapons' capabilities in a no-pressure environment. With targets set up a different ranges you could get a feel for bullet drop at different ranges and see if you were aiming correctly. With human-sized targets you could also get a feel for how big a human looks at different ranges.

[Infidelicious]

I cancelled my preorder. I played it for a few hours and find that it suffers from all the problems of RO:Ost (If you don't load first and thus have a g41 or a stv40 you might as well not play) and introduces new features that I don't want (cheevos and unlocks).

I might pick it up if it goes on sale for under $20

[Goblix]

Well that's your loss I suppose. Personally I find the bolt actions to be the most satisfying weapons in the game they're far easier to use than in ROOST, and stack up better to the semi autos. As for unlocks they just provide a bit of incentive to keep the game alive longer and nothing truly ridiculous or game breaking (prototype and uncommon weapons, as well as extended magazines for something like the PPSH)

Achievements man? Really?

[Rincewind]

I also prefer the bolt-action rifles if I'm playing a trooper or the PPSH/MP40 if going for squad leader. The sniper rifles are, in my opinion, not very interesting.

The newest beta patch is quite nice, actually. Seems quite stable and not-quite-as-terrible in the ping and FPS departments. Still needs a ton of tweaks but it is playable.

[Caesar]

Achievements suck. They're stupid and useless--especially in a game like RO. This game has done a few things right but TWI also added a bunch of gimmicky nonsense that almost had me cancel my pre-order. There are stats that top off at 20% and give you things like +20% melee damage, +20% faster iron sights etc. and then there are the extremely rare and prototype weapons that are going to be straight upgrades for classes e.g. the MP-40II is going to be a straight upgrade for the assault class with no restrictions on who gets it.

[Infidelicious]

The 1-20% bonus to draw, aim and reload speed from leveling up guns is stupid, having to level up a weapon to unlock basic functionality like putting a KNIFE on it, is stupid.

I didn't say Bolt Action rifles weren't satisfying, they're simply outclassed and vastly outnumbered at normal server sizes.

I really don't like the current industry wide idea that Multiplayer should be a Skinner Box, where people aren't playing the game to play the game; they're playing the game to unlock something or gain levels. I mentioned achievements somewhat jokingly, but really they're symptomatic of the problem... If you need to "give people something to do" then you're failing at game design. Having achievements and unlocks even be a selling point is fucking pathetic.

Personally, when I buy something I like having the option to play the game as I see fit; without going through hours of bullshit therefor "Earning" the right to use X or Y.


Negativity aside; the game runs okay. I like the maps that aren't FUCKING DANZIG; and they fixed at least one of RO:O's major failings and that is the removal of tactical nuclear grenades.

[Rincewind]

The achievements in RO2 are not gimmiky, just regular stuff you get as you play the game, like "make 50 enemies bleed to death" or "win 10 territory games". I do agree that the unlocking thing is worrysome but I'm 100% sure there will be the option to restrict unlocks by the server in a patch or a mod.

I actually prefer the bolt-actions to the semi-autos, and honestly think they are better.

[Coey]

It's an upgraded and better version of RO, achievements and unlocks aren't exactly what I would of wanted but I can live with them. The not being able to shoot bug is very fucking annoying, but otherwise it's an improvement on what came before, which is what I wanted.

The SVT was deadly and the G-41 sucked in RO, but now it's the other way round, with the g-41 being probably the best rifle in the game, speaking from my limited experience with HoS.