v1.7.4 Al Basrah INS STD

[SShadowFox]

This map, even after the minor update it got some years ago, is extremely dated and needs a major overhaul if it is to work in a somewhat balanced manner.


BLUFOR gets two APCs and a tank and there's barely any city space for INS to move around unmolested by armor from the edge of the view distance. Not to mention caches placed in single isolated houses around the Delta/Echo 10 area which give the insurgents zero chance to defend them.


This map needs to either be removed, or completely changed to include more urban areas and villages where the insurgents have a better chance at CQB instead of getting raped by vehicles that they can do barely anything against.

[dcm1]

I kinda agree with you, kinda dont. Basrah is fun as shit. Probably one of the few good maps left in PR. It gets kinda repetitive, playing the same layer over and over again though.

But, the biggest problem lies with the Insurgents as a faction themselves. They are just too dang weak. Almost all maps where Insurgents go up against conventional factions, they have a tough time and rely on scumbag tactics like martyrdom, not to defeat, but to delay the enemy(Getting martyred is only fun the first few times around). That's also why Insurgents do so poorly on conventional AAS layers. Unless blufor is nerfed in some way. The only way devs have found to balance the Insurgents somewhat is to give them more assets. Which isn't bad, just goes against the spirit of the faction.

Personally I believe that the Insurgents need a total rework of kits, loadouts and assets. That would solve most of the balance issues. Without needing to fuck with all the maps. If basrah and other insurgent maps were to be redesigned, I'd love for the urban portions to be expanded upon, safe and sheltered corridors between the urban core and the desert outskirts be established, and combat inside the city itself, be more intense. But not like grozny, because that map is hell for blufor. Inf, Armor, Choppers, dont matter. The city sucks for the russians.

[waldov]

While you make some valid points I think you both miss some fundamental aspects of Insurgency that Al Basrah fully embraces and does a damn good job at.

Its NOT an even battle, the BLUFOR very clearly outmatch the Insurgents on paper, but that's by design. The Insurgents have plenty of opportunity to even the odds, but they cant (nor should they have to) limit themselves to a conventional warfare mindset.

Basrah offers great opportunities for the Insurgent Sappers to severely limit and cut off BLUFOR vehicle access via the various bridges that are nearly essential too cross at some point.

Basrah gives the Insurgents plenty of equipment to contest the airspace: between MANPADs, numerous .50 cal techies and .50 cal emplacements Insurgents can again contest BLUFOR movement across the map and are offered a great opportunity to inflict potentially severe losses against BLUFOR shooting down loaded helis.

Further to this Insurgents still have plenty to contest BLUFOR land vehicles: beyond numerous, great choke-points for IED's, SPG emplacements, RPGs, numerous VBIEDs and an SPG techie expand their opportunities posing a serious threat to all BLUFOR vehicles (the vast majority of which are actually lightly armored if at all, bar the single Tank).

Last but not least, the Insurgents aren't limited to direct confrontation, Mortars, rocket techie, snipers and IED's give them better stand off ability then BLUFOR if used right. You make a valid point that some of the caches on Basrah are incredibly vulnerable/exposed but IMO that's simply compensation for some of the great Urban/fortifiable caches the Insurgents get.

Insurgents get a whole 5 caches, they can more then afford to lose some. Exposed caches should be treated less as essential assets that must be defended at any cost and more as great opportunities to delay BLUFOR and inflict heavy loses with stand off weapons, IEDs, opportunistic ambushes/counter-attacks, perhaps even VBIEDs if the opportunity presents itself.

This is without even getting into martyrdom opportunities which can further restrict BLUFOR firepower.


The popularity speaks for itself, Al-Basrah is one of the undeniable "greats" of PR and it hits that sweet spot of Balance, providing a sufficiently strong, un-nerfed BLUFOR against a conventionally outmatched Insurgent faction that has the opportunity to more than even the odds via unconventional tactics. In other words a near perfect Insurgent map.

We've already seen what happens when a conventional logic gets applied to the Insurgency game-mode, Ramiel is all but ruined by the removal of its Kiowas, many of the newer Insurgency maps/layers have dismal popularity/playability due to the focus on "evening the odds" in a conventional sense while ignoring the significant advantages defense and unconventional tactics provide to Insurgent factions.

Al-Basrah is only weighted against the Insurgents if you have the wrong mindset, but on the contrary I see the Insurgents routinely win the map and even when BLUFOR wins its often by a relatively narrow margin.
Long story short: DON'T FIX WHAT AIN'T BROKEN

[SShadowFox]

Originally Posted by waldov

While you make some valid points I think you both miss some fundamental aspects of Insurgency that Al Basrah fully embraces and does a damn good job at.

Its NOT an even battle, the BLUFOR very clearly outmatch the Insurgents on paper, but that's by design. The Insurgents have plenty of opportunity to even the odds, but they cant (nor should they have to) limit themselves to a conventional warfare mindset.

I'm not arguing things should be perfectly balanced, but the way the map is designed just makes a insurgent victory completely unfeasible, at least according to my experience.

Basrah offers great opportunities for the Insurgent Sappers to severely limit and cut off BLUFOR vehicle access via the various bridges that are nearly essential too cross at some point.

Basrah gives the Insurgents plenty of equipment to contest the airspace: between MANPADs, numerous .50 cal techies and .50 cal emplacements Insurgents can again contest BLUFOR movement across the map and are offered a great opportunity to inflict potentially severe losses against BLUFOR shooting down loaded helis.

Further to this Insurgents still have plenty to contest BLUFOR land vehicles: beyond numerous, great choke-points for IED's, SPG emplacements, RPGs, numerous VBIEDs and an SPG techie expand their opportunities posing a serious threat to all BLUFOR vehicles (the vast majority of which are actually lightly armored if at all, bar the single Tank).

Those may all have been true when PR only had 64 people servers, but I find it extremely hard to move around the map unseen in the current state of the map in a full server, same thing goes for being able to properly being able to use .50 cal emplacements and vehicles to inhibit enemy helicopter movement. The moment you open up, you have 4 different ARs shooting at you from different directions.


And while the SPG techie and the suicide vehicles are very powerful, they're really loud, and a competent crew will always be set up in a very wide open area with the driver standing outside the vehicle to hear if anything is coming up.

Last but not least, the Insurgents aren't limited to direct confrontation, Mortars, rocket techie, snipers and IED's give them better stand off ability then BLUFOR if used right. You make a valid point that some of the caches on Basrah are incredibly vulnerable/exposed but IMO that's simply compensation for some of the great Urban/fortifiable caches the Insurgents get.

That's simply not true. The city is tiny, and even when a cache happens to spawn inside the city, it's often in the outskirts, which allows BLUFOR to put their heavy assets to work. There's also the issue that the insurgent main base sits right in the middle of the map and is very easily camped, even unconsciously.


And that final part just makes no sense. There are "godlike" urban caches, so we put caches that are essentially free for BLUFOR to take? That sounds like poor design, probably deriving from the fact that it was made during a time where the maximum player count was 64.

Al-Basrah is only weighted against the Insurgents if you have the wrong mindset, but on the contrary I see the Insurgents routinely win the map and even when BLUFOR wins its often by a relatively narrow margin.
Long story short: DON'T FIX WHAT AIN'T BROKEN

I would love to see some stats to see who wins more frequently, because in the Brazilian server in which I play, of the 4 times that the map has been played in the past months, it always resulted in a British victory, and not by a small margin. Would need to compare to other servers but I suspect the situation is similar. The British team needs to be downright incompetent to lose in this map.


I'm not arguing for the removal of vehicles. My complaint is regarding the map design itself. Outside the city it's mostly open areas with very little variation in the elevation, and it's not impossible to have all caches spawn outside the city. There's nothing to break the sightlines to give the insurgents some more freedom of movement, no trees, only a single village outside the main city.


Fallujah and Gaza are great examples of BLUFOR getting similar heavy assets, and yet not being completely broken because they can't just pick a place to camp from and do it with impunity. Them being heavily urban means the insurgents are more free to move around without being merc'd by a tank sitting at the edge of the map fog. Al Basrah also has very few enterable buildings in the urban core, so a lot of the caches that do spawn in the city are just sitting out in open courtyards.


Al Basrah was clearly made in an era when they couldn't afford to make a more urbanized map because it would lag like hell in the hardware people had back then. But now we have maps such as Zakho, which is the same size as Al Basrah, but with a significantly bigger city.

[dcm1]

I still think that Insurgents on the Basic Infantry Level are Under-Powered and Need some sort of Buff.

[waldov]

Originally Posted by SShadowFox

I'm not arguing things should be perfectly balanced, but the way the map is designed just makes a insurgent victory completely unfeasible, at least according to my experience.

Objectively wrong, I've seen Insurgents win this map more times then the British on full servers. We get that you had a bad run on the map recently, but making sweeping hyperbolic statements like "insurgent victory is completely unfeasible" doesn't help your case.

Originally Posted by SShadowFox

That's simply not true. The city is tiny, and even when a cache happens to spawn inside the city, it's often in the outskirts, which allows BLUFOR to put their heavy assets to work. There's also the issue that the insurgent main base sits right in the middle of the map and is very easily camped, even unconsciously.

That goes both ways, because the central location of the Insurgent main in the city lets them reinforce the majority of their caches without too many elaborate hideouts, and makes for an easy OP mortar hideout.

Also bear in mind the 5 cache count, finding somewhere cosy to sit back and blast caches with assets isn't a winning strategy in itself. The British team has to move quite fast and aggressively if it actually wants a chance to snag all 5 caches, this opens up plenty opportunities for competent Insurgent players to hammer BLUFOR INF and assets. Many of my best Insurgent rounds have been on Basrah for this reason.

Though I'll admit you have a point that an expanded city to move action away from the main would help eliminate some of the issues with main camping, that is undoubtedly a weak point of the map.

Originally Posted by SShadowFox

And that final part just makes no sense. There are "godlike" urban caches, so we put caches that are essentially free for BLUFOR to take? That sounds like poor design, probably deriving from the fact that it was made during a time where the maximum player count was 64.

You entirely missed my point. Not all caches can be equally defensible, that's not the case in literally any map. Some are epic, some are dogsh*t but none of them are "free" as you claim. The strategy just has to be flexible.

Yeah sure, if your whole team decides to spawn on some exposed cache in the middle of the desert and stand around like NPCs for assets too mow down you'll probably have a bad time and come to silly conclusions like "insurgent victory is completely unfeasible".

If your team is semi competent and instead opts to play aggressively around the general cache area (instead of right ON the cache like so many "noob" players do) and use mortars, IED's and snipers to cover the cache with minimal exposure. you can make the cost for BLUFOR in tickets/time very detrimental while keeping your teams overall focus on better positioned caches and avoid feeding BLUFOR boatloads of INTEL.

Originally Posted by SShadowFox

I'm not arguing for the removal of vehicles. My complaint is regarding the map design itself. Outside the city it's mostly open areas with very little variation in the elevation, and it's not impossible to have all caches spawn outside the city. There's nothing to break the sightlines to give the insurgents some more freedom of movement, no trees, only a single village outside the main city.

I get what you're trying to say, and I think you make some valid points I actually agree with. Al-Basrah could be even better with a somewhat expanded city and more broken terrain.

But I had to step in defense of the map, while not totally perfect (few maps are) its still great as it is. and any call to totally remove the map or nerf it into oblivion don't reflect the general attitude of the community. And I think its still well established popularity over a decade since its release reflects that.