This has in fact been brought up before, but I’ll inform you of the general issues brought up in the prior conversation:
What stops someone from just digging one extra bit around your trench and them now getting the points instead of you, despite you doing 90% of the work?
What makes up for the vast majority of trenches being “good” is location. By adding points to it, people would literally dig them everywhere. They only protect you if the damage isn’t also coming from INSIDE the hole, so large trenches everywhere makes it more likely that you will be in a hole that gets hit with artillery.
There is no mandatory tutorial to explain why or how trenches should be dug, so if the points are added, they will only be dug for that reason, without the tactical advantage even being thought of.
This is comparable to the players that surround an objective on ALL sides with barbwire. (Just because it has the potential to get points, even though it may hurt their team.)
Trenches don’t DIRECTLY damage people like barbwire, but a trench dug STRAIGHT at the objective makes it that much easier for an enemy to spray down the trench from the end, killing everyone in it.
ULTIMATELY, I get the sentiment, but if ANY points are given for it, I think it should work like sandbag walls.
If the edge of a trench gets hit by a bullet or explosion fragment that would have otherwise hit/killed a soldier within the trench, it would give 6 points, same as the sandbag walls.
This encourages players to dig trenches in a smarter manner, to be used more effectively as cover to actually protect them. It doesn’t solve all the issues, but it’s the best solution I can come up with in regards to still rewarding players for the action.
There is far more use for them than just rally points.
Foxholes can often save you from explosions, as well as give you some cover in which to regain stamina.
Full trenches can give you safer passage between areas especially when its getting hammered with artillery.
Trenched barbwire is pretty much the ONLY effective form of wire as far as external use is concerned, as artillery will immediately wipe out anything on normal ground. Putting it in the trench can help hold off enemies from wide areas, or funnel them into effective killzones.
Similar to rallies, it works well for ammo boxes as they have low hp and resistance.
AA guns actually greatly benefit from entrenched positions. As it often protects them from artillery as well tanks and aircraft. It would require a pretty much direct hit to take out at that point.
If game can detect who dug, it can detect how much he dug.
That’s why diging itself would give you only small ammount of points.
Main income would be from ppl using your trentch. And if ppl use it, apparently it’s good enough.
So maybe add one? No, that’s too crazy.
Jist ike pp building rally points and sandbags in the middle of nowhere because they give points.
While I do like this idea as it can promote team cooperation when done right. However I think it is currently not possible to implement this.
For starters, I (and quite a few others) think trench digging needs more buffs to get it to a decent state. Most of the time it ain’t worth it. Even on a lot of open maps in Tunisia it is simply better to flank wide as possible and build a Rally on the flank than to zigzag a trench to the enemy point.
And there are MANY questions that need to be asked and answer first. Like how far deep does a Trench need to go to give you points? How about how wide does it need to be? What about players using that trench as a “safer approach” to the objective? Does that you give you points? What about killing enemies in your trench? How would that work out?
One thing that would greatly help, especially with the rework to perk point coming, is to separate out the skill for combat melee (swing speed + damage) from “utility” swing speed.
I mention “utility” swing speed as I really think giving axes the ability to chop down trees would be VERY helpful too. “Utility” swing speed in the perks would work for both the axe and the shovel, and would be 25% speed/ point of the perk to a maximum of 4 (100% total speed increase) ultimately allowing you to dig faster.
That alone would GREATLY help the issue.
Honestly, as far as trench depth is concerned, each shovel hit should remove half total depth, with total depth being that which it is on Normandy. This way it can account for both movement trenches as well as combat trenches.
For troops to be able to move through even single file through a trench, it needs to be 2x wide. For decent troop movement it needs to be 3x wide. So to determine that it is a DEDICATED trench, I would suggest in needs to be at LEAST a 3x3. Additional trenching can then be dug as well, as long as there is essentially a 3x3 (foxhole) attached SOMEWHERE on it.
Again I would suggest just treating the edge of the trench like sandbag walls at that point, but bigger returns according to what it protected from.
Perhaps 3 points for bullets landing near the edge of it
6 points for grenades, mortars, and tank shells
12 points for aircraft bombs and artillery shells
That could get potentially tricky, but I think the best solution would be that you only get points for the defensive aspect. How it protects those inside of it.
Technically you could, and both options independently would still be better than the current.
However, both together could make a significant impact for the better.
At least there is a lot of thought put into it. I have to give respect and notice on that.
The new issue to this now is to get a large amount of support for this topic in a short time frame. If that happened it’s going to grab some attention.
I want to see more trenches both be made and used more often however; the devs can only focus on a few things at a time. Especially with the Merge Update is coming soon!
My hope is that this and the engineer rework get put into the same update, and that update isn’t terribly far down the road (within 6 months optimistically).
This one for example got forwarded on as well, and I could see it plus the digging rework/ incentive working VERY well together.
