I have asked this question before but I do not think I was persuasive enough which is why I am giving it another attempt. I also was told that such questions should go to the dropbox, my intention is for everyone to see and get their suggestions, which is why I do not put it into the dropbox.
Anyway, I have noticed from playing on 24/7 servers the following outcome. You have a full server. It stays full for a long time. Suddenly one team wins the rounds after one or two hours. What happens next is that a lot of players leave immediately. I seen it happen on donner a lot. Donner is known for long rounds. There is a 32 full server when I am playing, round it over, and the server is down to 20 players. I also seen this happen on 24/7 colmar servers. Colmar is probably the longest lasting map, games can go for several hours, when they are over people start leaving.
Anzio is notorious for being too quick. Rounds can be over in less than one minute, the quickest I ever seen in all the time playing DOD is 28 seconds. Sometimes this win streak happens over and over again, with rounds being over within a minute or two. This is the single biggest reason why players start leaving anzio servers. They do not like to lose. Especially not this quickly. On Donner one team can win ten times in a row, but over a course of hours and retain its population of players.
My suggestion is to improve anzio in such a way that it lasts for much longer. It will also require a lot more teamwork to win. I strongly believe this will attract and maintain players that are in the server.
What I was thinking is to replace the two main flags, church and bridge, by triple caps, meaning it will take three people to cap a flag as opposed to two. Replace mid-flag with a double-cap. Replace the spawn flags with plant charges.
Let me counter the immediate criticism that I anticipate from giving the above proposal. A lot of people would tell me that "this map will never be over, it will simply go on forever, or for way too long". This is not true.
First of all. I noticed that in many instances double caps use three people anyway. Especially at the initial start of the round when allies rush church and axis rush bridge. When allies cap it often has three or four players on it, and when axis cap it often has three or four players on it. So capping with three people is a restriction on the cap but the way anzio plays out, it is not unreal to make such a cap. It is more than doable. Just a restriction to extend map time.
Second of all. The spawn flags can be destroyed at any time with a plant charge. If axis happens to destroy allies spawn flag near the start of the round it means they do not have to worry about it. For illustrative purposes, say that axis capped everything now they have to destroy the spawn flag. If as they are destroying the spawn flag allies cap mid it does not mean axis have to re-destroy the spawn flag, it is already destroyed. So now axis only have to focus on mid-flag. The entire point of the planted-spawn flag is to prevent quick rounds from one guy rushing into it and quickly ending the round, but at the same time it is not unreal to do that.
Therefore the triple caps are not big additions to anzio. The spawn-flag is not a big restriction. The only big change is the mid-flag cap. I do not know how the mid-flag having two people will play out but I do not see it being some stalemate flaw design in the map from how the map plays out.
Anzio is a fantastic map because it is very complex. Most maps are very linear, like donner, or kalt, or avalanche. Anzio is very complex with many different passages and different battles one can engage in, with both sides of the map sometimes being completely different from each other. Its only drawback for most players in DOD has always been that it is way too fast compared to other maps. These simple changes can resolve this problem easily.
These changes all introduce a lot more teamwork. Now you need to rely on your team for any flag capture or any charge planted. So it becomes more enjoyable to rely on that much teamwork.
I am sure eGO wants to have an anzio server that is close to popularity at least like its Strand server. Why not try some map changes? It will not hurt the server. It is always possible to go back to the original settings. Try it out and see if these suggestions, or other similar suggestions, improve server traffic. You can even call it "Anzio 2.0" as a marketing device.
Anyway, I have noticed from playing on 24/7 servers the following outcome. You have a full server. It stays full for a long time. Suddenly one team wins the rounds after one or two hours. What happens next is that a lot of players leave immediately. I seen it happen on donner a lot. Donner is known for long rounds. There is a 32 full server when I am playing, round it over, and the server is down to 20 players. I also seen this happen on 24/7 colmar servers. Colmar is probably the longest lasting map, games can go for several hours, when they are over people start leaving.
Anzio is notorious for being too quick. Rounds can be over in less than one minute, the quickest I ever seen in all the time playing DOD is 28 seconds. Sometimes this win streak happens over and over again, with rounds being over within a minute or two. This is the single biggest reason why players start leaving anzio servers. They do not like to lose. Especially not this quickly. On Donner one team can win ten times in a row, but over a course of hours and retain its population of players.
My suggestion is to improve anzio in such a way that it lasts for much longer. It will also require a lot more teamwork to win. I strongly believe this will attract and maintain players that are in the server.
What I was thinking is to replace the two main flags, church and bridge, by triple caps, meaning it will take three people to cap a flag as opposed to two. Replace mid-flag with a double-cap. Replace the spawn flags with plant charges.
Let me counter the immediate criticism that I anticipate from giving the above proposal. A lot of people would tell me that "this map will never be over, it will simply go on forever, or for way too long". This is not true.
First of all. I noticed that in many instances double caps use three people anyway. Especially at the initial start of the round when allies rush church and axis rush bridge. When allies cap it often has three or four players on it, and when axis cap it often has three or four players on it. So capping with three people is a restriction on the cap but the way anzio plays out, it is not unreal to make such a cap. It is more than doable. Just a restriction to extend map time.
Second of all. The spawn flags can be destroyed at any time with a plant charge. If axis happens to destroy allies spawn flag near the start of the round it means they do not have to worry about it. For illustrative purposes, say that axis capped everything now they have to destroy the spawn flag. If as they are destroying the spawn flag allies cap mid it does not mean axis have to re-destroy the spawn flag, it is already destroyed. So now axis only have to focus on mid-flag. The entire point of the planted-spawn flag is to prevent quick rounds from one guy rushing into it and quickly ending the round, but at the same time it is not unreal to do that.
Therefore the triple caps are not big additions to anzio. The spawn-flag is not a big restriction. The only big change is the mid-flag cap. I do not know how the mid-flag having two people will play out but I do not see it being some stalemate flaw design in the map from how the map plays out.
Anzio is a fantastic map because it is very complex. Most maps are very linear, like donner, or kalt, or avalanche. Anzio is very complex with many different passages and different battles one can engage in, with both sides of the map sometimes being completely different from each other. Its only drawback for most players in DOD has always been that it is way too fast compared to other maps. These simple changes can resolve this problem easily.
These changes all introduce a lot more teamwork. Now you need to rely on your team for any flag capture or any charge planted. So it becomes more enjoyable to rely on that much teamwork.
I am sure eGO wants to have an anzio server that is close to popularity at least like its Strand server. Why not try some map changes? It will not hurt the server. It is always possible to go back to the original settings. Try it out and see if these suggestions, or other similar suggestions, improve server traffic. You can even call it "Anzio 2.0" as a marketing device.
