Feedback over all

Feedback and debriefings from Berget 12
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Klings
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by Klings » 13 Jul 2014, 00:51

My observation from the town (and wherever i met civilians) was that amlost all civis looked like shady dudes, shady dudes with guns. And they all look like they have hostile intent one way or another. (by body language)

but... I had a great time. And i had water, food, toilets and enugh sleep.
I do not complain about cheating, because i saw none of it (rule bending yeah, but not straight up cheating).
The civilians did not bother me, i play along or ignore them.
I'd wish we could go back to the days in Poldavia. When there was two major factions in different uniforms/camos. And that all bavs receivers should be mounted on top of turrets and roofs, so they could be shot from all angles.
(I wasted 8 BAVS rockets trying to hit a receiver blocked by the turret, i could see it over the shoulder of the gunner, but i was unable to hit it.) The British black landrover with the 50. have set the new standard. top center. Bravo.
68th Poldavian Strategic Submarine Group
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Aznakh
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by Aznakh » 14 Jul 2014, 01:49

I for one want to address the shop in the safe zone this year.

I'm sorry to those who I'm sure worked hard to organise it, but frankly it was shit compared to last year.
Last year it was possible to buy loads of different camping gear, waterproof pockets for electronics, slings, molle-puches, camo-equipment, vests, accessories etc etc, this year the stock consisted mostly of gloves and rifles, and I have to say I was really disappointed. I was expecting to be able to buy different small and smart things I did not know I needed, instead all you had to offer was equipment I'm sure pretty much everyone brought along already (??).

As far as the game itself went, I had a lot of fun, and most of all in the village. What sets Berget apart from other games (at least for me) is the LARP-elements and having missions concerning actual people. Working security for Ravens HQ and command was a lot of fun, even if it did not produce a lot of action. The most memorable missions for me are the ones where I don't know if I can expect enemy contact, it gives me a lot more suspense than "we know the enemy is here, attack them".

I would also like to thank the crew for this years tents, which for J.A.R was a huge improvement from last year.
The latrines worked well, and I really liked having the water supply in the middle of the base.

For the game area I'd really like to see more of it used. I would not mind moving the border further into the game area, expanding Guyana a bit. I also imagine it's a little unfortunate for GCT and BoPo-forces to have their bases in locations where the vegetation is so light? I also think it adds to the game to have to actually use the map to find out where the border is, not just look for the huge power lines. And while I'm on the subject of maps, having more points of interests further away from the roads would be cool. Not everyone is mechanised.

All in all I had a lot of fun this year as well and I'm really looking forward to next years event! Thank you to Berget crew for putting in the hours and thank you to all the LARPers who make Berget what it is. (I got my shoes shined for 10B$ and he did a really good job as well. I also unknowingly bought a food supply from a fisherman I fined 100B$ for speeding. You guys rock.)
J.A.R / 6mm

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Coffe
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by Coffe » 14 Jul 2014, 15:48

@Aznakh

Using the powerlines as the border was a good thing. You can't expect everyone attending Berget to be adept at reading maps. If BE had decided that the border would be in the woods we would've had many instances where people just blundered through the minefield not knowing they were dead as a result.

At least with the powercables there could be no mistaking it.

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wormbyte
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by wormbyte » 16 Jul 2014, 22:29

M.Svensson wrote:The biggest problem with GCT was that when we went on a mission it was pretty much always all of the GCT members in one group. I think it would be better with more groups of 6-8 people being inside lerando sabotaging and delaying raven units through ambushing their mechs. That would have given the ravens and yuris something to worry about.
That would have been my preferred option, but I thought I was limited by the number of game radios available to the unit.

The mistake I made was that I failed to take into account that many of the players had their own radios programmed into the game preset frequencies.

That was a big lesson learnt for next time :)
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by Makaze » 01 Aug 2014, 23:13

Coffe wrote:@Aznakh

Using the powerlines as the border was a good thing. You can't expect everyone attending Berget to be adept at reading maps. If BE had decided that the border would be in the woods we would've had many instances where people just blundered through the minefield not knowing they were dead as a result.

At least with the powercables there could be no mistaking it.

Thing is some ppl f***king ignored the minefield(border/powerline) and just went over >_< . or took cover in it.
best thing i saw was some ravens shooting their own for going/crawling into the minefield at north crossing :) .
and they did not mark the path as it was suppose to be marked according to the rules.

did a big mess for us in BoPo =/

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Re: Feedback over all

Post by LuKa » 04 Aug 2014, 21:11

Panzergraf wrote:For me, this was one of the better Bergets.
Some of the battles we fought, especially the Thursday afternoon mass invasion of Guyana and the Saturday last stand of the Ravens near the oil field, will join the ranks as some of my best airsoft experiences ever.
Much of what made this Berget an overall good experience is thanks to the 6mm crew who commanded the Ravens this year. They did a great job, as did the company and platoon commanders they had under them.
The main reason is my own team, Team Flecktarn. You guys are a blast to play with even at the worst of games.

Now, onto the bad stuff:
1 - Too many sides. As soon as the Berget 12 website was up back in October '13, I knew having more than two main factions would be a bad thing. It was a bad thing at Berget 6, and at Berget 7 too. Please, go back to having two main factions. Red VS Blue, Ravens VS GCT, or Poldavians VS NAF or whatever. Having small secondary factions like the UA17 and stuff is OK.

2 - Scripted events. This year, the Ravens did not have an official Mech unit, as far as Berget Events was concerned. We had mech, but we took our orders from Ravens HQ, not directly from BE. HQ got missions from BE, but at least they gave them to the units they thought most suitable for the task at hand. At B9 and 10 I was part of the Poldavian Mech Battalions, and we got our missions straight from BE. These often turned out to be pre-scripted ambushes, yay... :wank:
From what I hear, many of the missions other Raven units were tasked with ended up being pre-scripted like that too.
It sucks to be the ones who have to walk into what's obviously got to be an ambush, and I'm not sure if it's very fun having your prey served on a silver plate by BE either.
More free-play can potentially result in less action, but the reverse is also true. On Thursday, the ravens accomplished all missions early, and we sat around without anything to do for a great while. If missions weren't handed down by BE but rather set by Raven HQ, something would be planned. Give the commanders a framework to work within (ie. the in-game effect of tactical points) and a broad mission (ie. "keep the enemy from invading our side of the border") and just let the fun unfold itself.

3 - BAVS receivers. There were a lot of vehicles this year. A lot of really, really cool creations too, great looking armored vehicles with awesome looking turrets. Too bad playing against these was a pretty bad experience, as the BAVS receivers were impossible to hit from many angles. Killing the gunners was hard too, as they had a lot of cover.
Next time, have the Berget Crew members who mount BAVS receivers make sure they do so where they can be hit from all sides.

4 - The setting. Gameplay wise, this is irrelevant. However, immersion is a big part of airsoft.
Lerando is supposed to be in South America. First of all, the woods around Sollefteå do not look like South American jungles. By setting the game to, say, Eastern Europe, you set the stage for a much more immersive experience.
Then there's stuff that simply don't fit. Al-Kazzar - a muslim terrorist organization... in South America?
It's probably the least Muslim part of the world, almost everyone is Catholic. It would be hard for them to blend in.
Orlovs Mercs are supposed to be Russians, but I guess they have the resources to travel to the other side of the globe and set up camp there, so I'll let that one pass.

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Felix
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by Felix » 27 Aug 2014, 16:24

I went to Berget for the first time this year, and in total, I had a great game. I brought a UA 17 cell over in a shitty old Skoda Felicia which we bought the day we left Norway toting our new softguns and matching set of balaclavas from the shady nationalistic militaria shop in Oslo(they were the convenient option.) with swedish disco anarchy punk blasting on the failing old car stereo.

My background is from larping, some airsoft, and professional military service in Afghanistan.

High points for me was running the Orlov checkpoint Devils Rejects style playing Free Bird on the by then even crappier car stereo with guns blazing out of all windows, and later taking the Iron Walls to frenzied UA 17 cries. Now, I understand the battle involved some accidential-ish cheating, but the atmosphere was great. We also shot a good terrorist style movie after writing a consitution for the Free City of Dolina(to be uploaded soonish).

I think the larping in general worked satisfactory, the soldiers I met while pretending to be a journalist were generally fun to talk to, and I hugely enjoyed every search of the increasingly disgusting interior of my car.

I understand that a lot of the military players would like there to be more normal civvies around, and less terrorists and undercover agents. For my part, there are two obstacles to this.
1. The military factions are all bad guys, and they can easily handle civilians with as much force as they like, as they don't care about public opinion one bit. Pretty much all soldiers I encountered comitted war crimes light heartedly whenever convenient, even the NATO-like GCT. In this environment, unarmed civilians have pretty much nothing going for them.
2. BE is not equipped to provide unarmed civilians with an interesting game in the way of larping. This is not a problem as long as they provide pretend civilians with action oriented play as well as the opportunity to improvise roleplaying as civilians.

In addition, civilians in failed states tend to be fairly well armed, so unarmed civilians might not even be desirable to the setting. Civilians in warzones are also often innured to the military presence, and dont react in the way civilians from peaceful countries would, this tends to leave fresh troops deployed to such places about as dumbstruck as airsofters when it happens.

For civilians to work better at Berget, I think they would need some independence, rather than living under the tender administration of a huge force of fascist soldiers(the roles, not you guys playing them). They also need to be armed, albeit not as heavily as the military units(few vehicles and no artillery). The main difference would be that the civilians would not really have a desire nor the capacity to attack en masse and conquer any of the military factions.

I also think that some of the factions should be good guys, meaning they are ordered not to execute or torture civilians. Teams tasked with interrogating prisoners or interacting heavily with civilians and undercover terrorists/criminals should have some minimum of skills to do this proficiently. In general, the game could benefit if there were consequenses to acting with cruelty or carelessnes against the civilian population.
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B14: Civilian

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Re: Feedback over all

Post by Pampers » 09 Oct 2014, 03:25

got to agree with Felix.

and i got to agree that the players (commanders in bigger units) need more freedom, i think if you handle it a little bit more like a "sandbox" type game with a smaller sett of fractions 3-6.... Just set up much like you have done the last years, fractions, story and all that, and make sure all is well balanced and properly informed of their role and "mindsett".
And when the game starts, just let it go where the wind blows.

U see... i (personally) can handle getting steamrolled, if it is due to our mistake or that the enemy is just awesome or MANY more then us (like Ravens and Orlov VS PMC and borderpolice).
But if it is due to that we cannot use "this or that" tactic/tool just because BE said so then i will get pissed, and stop playing


Mr.Black! LARP is cool LARP is best, LARP and civvi's like you makes berget great! ignore the Hate. you were the highlight of my day man, both this year and last year. in a non homoerotic way that is...*clears throat*
A berget without a civilian and LARP element is a berget i am probably not attending.
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MjProblem
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by MjProblem » 09 Nov 2014, 11:02

--- Macro level feedback ---------

--Getting started

1) Lack of information (briefing times or meeting times).
Coming to berget and linking up with our command we were surprised that briefing had been held and we had to hurry to get signed in so we could get transportation otherwise we would have to hump to some point in the terrain that we had no knowledge of since briefing had been held already.
All commanders should plan and inform for how & when they intend to do the planning: Simple if you have a base but takes more effort if you are shuttled into the terrain like the rangers were before game start.

2) Last second changes for radio frequencies and people not knowing their radios = Problems
The radio frequencies we got allocated before berget were not the radio frequencies we got when we arrived
This caused problems in communication in communications since some people did not have a good understanding of their radios.

While there is a large amount of uncertainty and variability in any combat situations there is also a lot of information, SOPs and training behind any cohesive unit they are not just thrown together and with the short timeframe of preparations once you come to berget I would recommend that BE spends extra effort on any units that are going to be operating out on the field and not from a base. Communications are more crucial for the distributed teams (especially when humping on foot) So BE get all the game support in place for rangers/airborne units and lock it down and shift things around for the base units if things need to be adjusted.

3) Radios reception and range problematic with the distances the rangers operated on. Made rangers operate in large units instead of smaller units disrupting ravens/orlovs.





-- Berget game mechanics
There is NO good way to micromanage a campaign like this, there are way too many players and things that happen.
Complex situations cannot be micromanaged and planned in detail, the system will play to the forces that has been setup from beginning.
It is like a childrens party you do not micromanage that, you set up the influecing forces to create the paths wanted and then you strenghten wanted behaviour and discourage unwanted behaviour.

1) If there is an imbalance between the forces it is impossible to make up for that afterwards. Focus on balancing the number of forces instead,
1a) the whole GCT was in the northern sector which gave Ravens all the space to attack and dominate the border crossings and BoPol and PMC were severly outnumbered.
1b) When Ravens were moving Rico they had more people protecting him that GCT could muster in an attack since GCT forces were always spread on various assignments.
1c) Placement of Raven and Orlov camps made it easier for them to meet their tasks since most areas with tasks were effectively in uncontested land when they held a few chokepoints. Mech transport on free roads with no one shooting at them.

2) Enough mech will tip the balance for one side since they can ferry people between the areas so much faster
2a) Being a ranger/recon/paratrooper on the far side of the map and meeting mech units and shooting them out means that soon there will be more mechs.
Since car radios with big antennas can actually contact the base and alert others or they just drive home in 10minutes and respawn and come back with more mechs.
3b) Not enough BAVS to go around, If one unit has majority of mechs then the opposing unit should have majority of the BAVS


3) Goal structures increased the game unbalance even further
Lets look at what happened on the blue side.
GCT recon: do not get seen you are not even allowed to be in the country)
BoPol: Protecting the border, should be neutral
PMC: Neutral, possible hostile towards GCT

This was a setup for failure for blue, when Raven attacked the southern border crossing neither BoPol nor PMC had the manpower to stop it, even if they had been in the same command structure and had same goals.
If GCT had been in their base instead of out in the field we would not have come to protect the southern border crossing (not our job, now we can hit our target)
Raven made a completley correct stretegic move of taking the border and attacking the bases to demoralize the opponents which cannot even get out from their base. This error is completely in BEs court, if you are
the largest force you should use that force agressively and BE did not count on Raven command to act smartly.
Then BE had to act to hamstring Ravens to create any spece for other teams to act which causes a sour taste in mouth when all your moves get scripted. After the first day that could have been solved by giving BoPol overwhelming missile/artillery support on day2 with 1h mandatory re-spawn time (GCT moved a airwing or a aircraft carrier with a battlegroup) to provide long range support which would have killed off all ravens & orlov attacking the border)
But at the best that would be a short term crutch since raven could just move some mechs a bit back and create choke points which would contest any mech movement inland.

4) Civilians, we watched the civilian camp for several hours and it is just men with weapons. There is no real way of distinguishing between civilians and other paramilitary units for sake of game mechanics
give civvies armbands that stand out from all the paramilitary units and lessen the number of undercover agents to few units like UA 17 and GCT PSYOPS/Rangers
Give LARPers more leeway to act within their own goal structures.
----------------------------------------------
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wormbyte
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by wormbyte » 09 Nov 2014, 12:43

MjProblem wrote:
It is like a childrens party you do not micromanage that, you set up the influecing forces to create the paths wanted and then you strenghten wanted behaviour and discourage unwanted behaviour.
Sounds like someone is familiar with Dave Snowdens work, and complexity theory.
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B7 - Company Commander (India Coy) - NATO
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by Panzergraf » 09 Nov 2014, 14:45

MjProblem wrote: There is NO good way to micromanage a campaign like this, there are way too many players and things that happen.
Complex situations cannot be micromanaged and planned in detail, the system will play to the forces that has been setup from beginning.
It is like a childrens party you do not micromanage that, you set up the influecing forces to create the paths wanted and then you strenghten wanted behaviour and discourage unwanted behaviour.
+1, well said!
Veteran of 12 Berget Games
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MjProblem
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Re: Feedback over all

Post by MjProblem » 26 Nov 2014, 09:47

Indeed Kurtz and Snowden and before them Donella Meadows "You can only dance with complex systems, control is an illusion".

Kudos for recognizing it - i guess you are a fellow scholar of complexity sciences too.

wormbyte wrote:
MjProblem wrote:
It is like a childrens party you do not micromanage that, you set up the influecing forces to create the paths wanted and then you strenghten wanted behaviour and discourage unwanted behaviour.
Sounds like someone is familiar with Dave Snowdens work, and complexity theory.
----------------------------------------------
Son, you only thought you had problems. Now you have Major Problems.
B16 - NAF - Coy Cmdr (C Coy)
B15 - NAF - Coy Cmdr (B Coy)
B14 - NAF - Coy Cmdr (C Coy)
B13 - GCT Engineers
B12 - GCT 9 Ranger SF
B11 - GCT SIDU

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