In my opinion out of bounds area (aka grey zone) is one of the worst mechanics in the game.
Mostly because it gives you unfair advantage. Prime example of this are both mortars and Jumbo. If they are in playable area, they don’t live more than 3min. But if they camp out of bounds on their spawn, they are nearly impossible to destroy.
Prime example of bad grey zone is 1st point on airfield in my opnion.
Here I marked about where out of bounds area starts fot the axis. It’s basically 50m behind the objective.
I haven’t played US enough, to mark their grey zone but judgung by how it works for axis, it probably starts just behind the objective. (Please send proper picture in the comments if you have one.)
This is so tiny playable area that with a perk I could try to lob a grenade to the grey zone from my spawn.
Main problems it creates:
If for example german tank camps near point 2a, US has no way of destroying it with infantry. The same goes for US tanks.
With mortars it’s ever worse because they don’t need direct line of sight (cpt. odvious) so they can hide behind buildings and be uncontested at all.
Solutions: @5507994 had good idea how to solve this problem:
So basically you respawn in a grey zone and you have x ammount of time (larger than normal?) to move to the playable area that for both sides is the same. (I would make it work not only for tanks but also for infantry, mostly because of mortars.)
Problem is that this common area would be so tiny that tanks would basically ram eachother. So playable area would have to be larger for this idea to work properly.
The other way of solving this problem, would be to make both spawn areas also avalable to the enemy. This can end up with spawnkilling so posible countermeasure would be to make out of bounds area on the spawn itself. Spawn protection should be enough to deal with explosives being thrown into the spawn.
I like the idea of reducing/removing the ability to fire after a while in grey zone. But can’t say whether it would really be good in-game, or just sounds good on forum.
There was an even more extreme case, I don’t know whether it has changed since:
That first window is/was already cap zone, ~10 meters away from me. With center of zone 18 meters away, I was still considered being in gray zone. (On the map below I’m looking in the opposite direction.)
Yes. Maps need to be way bigger for tanks too si they can flank each other. Having tanks with mad frontal armour and small maps where you can’t flank them is piss poor game design. Let tanks go wild with the full run of the map, give CAS guns AP ammo so they can fit a niche and hunt tanks that aren’t near infantry. Make CAS be more easily shot down by fighters. Boom, all 3 classes have now been improved dramatically.
In this regard, absolutely not intuitive but perhaps gameplay-wise correct mechanism would be if tanks could use only AP from infantry’s gray zone, but not HE or machine gun.
It looks too heavy hacking though, from tank driver’s point of view it would be hard to understand why is it possible to use all weapons here but not from 5 meters behind.
It works for both sides - you’ve pointed that out - and it is a legitimate tactic to sit back out of range and/or out of sight if you have the equipment to do it.
I have no issue with it exactly the way it is.
If you think of the grey zone as thge large area behind the enemy lines that you can’t see or attack, and vice versa for them, then it is not an issue.
the problem is that in invasion the playable area is about 10m for both and most of the playable area per faction is the gray area for the other, in my opinion the problem lies in the maps small and totally devoted to the cqc, below I have linked a random map of RS2 together with the map of airfield of enlisted and as you can see the map of RS2 is 5 times big that of airfield
and for thaths it is highly difficult camping from the spawn if not impossible (in rs2 the spawn are always 100m or more from the objective and the cap area is very large)
TLDR: it is the fault of the map that favors certain actions such as camping with tanks
RS2
Well the no mans land(contact area) is about longer from the 10m-50m is small (incomparison to other games) returning on the topic there would be ways to prevent camping with tanks for example disable them at the start of the game on some maps such as d-day for both factions until the first control point is conquered / lost
nothing but then we remove them? no, it is not that there is a solution that satisfies everyone if there is spawn campin it is because the contact area between the two factions is too close if you take monastery for example the attacker can safely spawn with a tank and snipe throughout the game until you have to enter the monastery, and why does this happen? because the maps are small, the developers had to avoid the spawn camping of the opponent’s spawn using the infantry(with the grey zone), and they encouraged the one with tanks, plus the normal one because it can still be done (if you move 1 meter from the spawn you lose 10 seconds of protection) in conclusion larger maps, areas of engagement extended to 100m and more and the problem solves itself
my general view about it, it’s kinda similar and simple.
if you enter the gray area, you don’t take damage. ( unless you are clearly going above of 50 meters from the border. kinda like war thunder. i think it’s fair and it make sense ) but, you cannot use your weapon if you are in the area more than 3 seconds. like, it will not fire. in order to avoid gray area campers. similar to insurgency sandstorm. so it allows you to travel for a bit in the grey area for reposition your self and your squad without dying for no reason plus, you cannot return fire as technically you are not supposed to go there ).
weather for tanks, it’s really tricky.
in moscow ( which it’s a perfect example for what i’m about to say ) spawns more often are not that far between each other. especially in conquest.
like, if you wouldn’t be able to fire with your tank, you will just take hits from the enemy tank that is sitting in your spawn. and once people figured this out, many others will attempt to do the same thing.
so the tanks that spawned should be able to return fire in order to avoid getting destroyed.
so about this one, i’m not too sure.
on the other hand, it gets brutal as you mentioned, those campers stay in the gray area and shoot outside ( mortars, and tankers ).
i wish to have more answers and solutions…
but the one you mentioned, doesn’t convice me too much.
making tanks unable to shoot while in “gray” area? please dont, it just adds possibility of exploits (imagine pushing enemy tank, so he cant shoot at you) and destroys realism, there are other ways of solving the issue
Maybe adjust end game score/XP: gray zone camping should decrease resulting score/XP faster and faster, whereas capturing objectives increase it faster and faster (to a limit). With certain cooldown, so entering play area does not immediately reset such punishment/reward counters, just stop applying them.
This way both gray zones are easily trespassable for other team as well temporarily, but spending long time there would be very bad (result in negative score) regardless of whose zone it is.
Most of the times I have to risk my soldiers life to throw exp. on Jumbo and other camping vehicles and take them out while they camping in the grey zone.
And also I have to spare time to reach back to the safety “bright” zone…
(Of course I love when brainless teammates dont give a sh#t about enemy vehicles, when these slaughter whole squads, sitting behind grey zone…)
Imo, that grey zone would has a predictive warning, that warn you to retreat, cause enemy captured the point. Just a simple red text i nthe middle or above the screen: "Soldier, get back to battle zone now, the frontline is moveing backward"
I´m sorry, but the idea you posted in the main post is way too extreme.
Soldiers: We need tank support!
Tank commander: Understood… (proceeds to drive out of grey and immediately die from lack of proper cover/positioning)
Soldiers: Why did you do that?!
Tank commander: We can´t shoot if we are on the position we were literally built to act on, so we need to charge ahead out of grey.
You know how weird that would be, right?
Instead, let me propose absolutely revolutionary, field pioneering, “never explored,” idea.
Just move the grey zone and spawns the way that would deny enemy clear view on the ongoing battle.
As for mortars, deny their usage in grey zone but AFTER grey zone gets tweaked the way described above. Nobody wants to be a mortarmen who is forced to use his weapon on literal point blank range from the enemy.
