Any chance of getting the "run around the house and get shot" issue fixed?

[Bulletpoint]

4 minutes ago, c3k said:

A: Sometimes, if you track the battle, the building face they run away from has been exposed to incoming fire. In this case, the game engine tracks the building damage. It does not meet the level of "show damage". The result is a visibly undamaged building having an internally coded damaged doorway. Your troops cannot enter through the damage, so they run away to an undamaged entry. This undamaged doorway is usually on the enemy's side of the building, since you cannot fire at that facade for suppression.

 

6 minutes ago, c3k said:

My subset "A", damaged buildings with no visual clue to the player, is the more frustrating, to me. It would be nice (no idea if this is feasible) to have a damage decal added to buildings with inoperable doorways. Something that shows beams or debris in front of the door.

This is very interesting - I had no idea that doorways could be damaged and made unpassable by incoming fire. I agree with you that it would be great if the player could be shown a sign of what's going on under the hood of the engine. Doesn't have to be fancy at all. A rubbish pile flavour object placed in the doorway would do just fine, I think.

[Pandur]

I am sorry for my reaction, i guess, but if he would have read my post he would have seen that i know full well about the workaround to split teams, i think i made that clear. I am no idiot. His answer on my feedback was useless, would have been better to say nothing.

I just dont see how using a workaround for something that was working quiet well for many years, but got broken in version 4, is accepted as if it is working fine? The AI can not use the workaround and never will be able to, the AI squads will act even more stupid with that change and the player has to use more inputs now to do the same things that needed less input before while he gains nothing in return. Its not even faster at all.

 

[RockinHarry]

15 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

 

This is very interesting - I had no idea that doorways could be damaged and made unpassable by incoming fire. I agree with you that it would be great if the player could be shown a sign of what's going on under the hood of the engine. Doesn't have to be fancy at all. A rubbish pile flavour object placed in the doorway would do just fine, I think.

Personally I´ve no idea what a blocked/closed door means to military personnel. It surely wasn´t "dudes, lets check the back door in full view of the enemy". Occasionally it might be like this though:  

 

[Thomm]

16 hours ago, c3k said:

A: Sometimes, if you track the battle, the building face they run away from has been exposed to incoming fire. In this case, the game engine tracks the building damage. It does not meet the level of "show damage". The result is a visibly undamaged building having an internally coded damaged doorway. Your troops cannot enter through the damage, so they run away to an undamaged entry. This undamaged doorway is usually on the enemy's side of the building, since you cannot fire at that facade for suppression.

B: In the same case as above, but the internal game engine has tracked the building damage and it has passed the "show damage" threshold. In this case, you SEE damage, but it appears to be light. You -think- a few bullet holes in the wall would not cause enough rubble or debris to block a doorway, but your troops still run around to the enemy's side.

If I was the designer, I would remove this feature immediately, since it obviously causes complications for zero gain.

Best regards
Thomm

[General Jack Ripper]

On 10/24/2019 at 7:01 AM, Pandur said:

Maybe you only play tiny scenarios in realtime where you have 3 squads and that is it, god forbid i play scenarios where i push 2 or 3 companys through urban space. And using the workaround every turn on several squads, no, just no that is plain stupid. You can play your tiny scenarios as you like but leave me in peace with your smart suggestions.

Oh please. 

"god forbid i play scenarios where i push 2 or 3 companys through urban space."

You mean like this one?

You do not seem to understand my point, so I'll make it clear as day:

YOUR TROOPS WILL FLOW THROUGH A CITY LIKE WATER IF YOU BREAK THEM INTO SMALL TEAMS.

 

On 10/24/2019 at 7:23 AM, c3k said:

Wow. I read his commentary as being very on point with some sarcasm tossed in. Apparently, others thought it was some sort of personal attack??? Maybe I come from a less sensitive generation.

Whatever your FEELINGS are, @General Jack Ripper has made some SOLID points, AND has advised how to get around the game engine limitations...AND shown both techniques in action.

Nice to know someone around here seems to comprehend my posts. I do occasionally get the feeling I am screaming into the vacuum of deep space.

Thank you.

I work sixty hours a week doing a mostly thankless job and that results in my overuse of sarcasm to blow off steam.

Perhaps I should tone that down in the future, but after being here for so long you come across these complaints so wearily often...

 

On 10/24/2019 at 7:55 AM, Bulletpoint said:

And that aside, his post was not useful. I think most of the people on the forum already know and use those workarounds. They work to some extent to prevent the issues of teams running around normal buildings, but they do not solve the issue with the buggy buildings.

The issue raised was one of infantry movement. I addressed that issue, and provided a known workaround for the benefit of someone who may not have already seen it. I also took the time to address the most common complaint about said workaround, and attempted to place said complaints within a realistic context. I'm sorry you didn't find that useful, and I'm sorry I'm not a BFC staffer with secret inside information about how to painlessly and effortlessly work around every single problem people raise on the forum. I'm also sorry I haven't specifically tailored several different responses to the issue in the thread specifically tailored to everyone's personal experience with said issue.

Sometimes dealing with a problem takes time and effort. I suppose you could try to convince every single person who ever released a scenario to open them up in the editor and replace all the buildings in them.

I mean, you COULD try that. I doubt it would work though.

 

On 10/24/2019 at 7:01 AM, Pandur said:

Something else, is this what you do in this forums? Jumping people that have perfectly reasonable suggestions or feedback and act like they are retards that can not play the game?

Good question.

Why AM I even still here, anyway?

I guess after being here for sixteen years I've forgotten why I even signed up here in the first place.

Edited October 25, 2019 by General Jack Ripper

[General Jack Ripper]

On 10/24/2019 at 8:55 AM, Warts 'n' all said:

"liberal snowflakes" are they ones that fall neither to the left nor the right?

They are the ones who see a single snarky sentence buried within an entire post, and think the existence of said snark invalidates the poster's very existence.

(I.E. heat even a single degree above the freezing point will cause them to melt and run all over the place, soaking everything.)

[Pandur]

7 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

YOUR TROOPS WILL FLOW THROUGH A CITY LIKE WATER IF YOU BREAK THEM INTO SMALL TEAMS.

"If" right ... and IF not they suddenly loose all brains and act extremely stupid? The game should work no matter what, if i split teams or not should not make a difference in this case. It did work perfectly for like ~10 years or so. As i said, only the player can split teams, the AI can not, so on top of introducing quiet some extra input for the player that has no gameplay value or justification,  you break the behavior of the AI squads that can not use a "workaround" as it is so aptly called. They should just fix the game to where the workaround is no longer needed and the game just functions like it did for ~10 years instead of justifying some broken tacAI with some goofy arguments that are beside the point.

[General Jack Ripper]

14 hours ago, Pandur said:

It did work perfectly for like ~10 years or so.
They should just fix the game to where the workaround is no longer needed and the game just functions like it did for ~10 years instead of justifying some broken tacAI with some goofy arguments that are beside the point.

Having played Combat Mission since 2003, I can definitively state the game did NOT, in fact, "work perfectly" for "around 10 years or so".

In fact, it has been common knowledge the AI is incapable of launching any type of complex attack ever since Shock Force first came out.

 

Here's an example of what the AI looks like while it's attacking:

 

In fact, one of the earliest criticisms of Shock Force was that for a title that emphasized MOUT combat, the game engine itself seemed almost incapable of simulating combat in MOUT conditions.

 

14 hours ago, Pandur said:

As i said, only the player can split teams, the AI can not, so on top of introducing quiet some extra input for the player that has no gameplay value or justification,  you break the behavior of the AI squads that can not use a "workaround" as it is so aptly called.

You ever wonder why the Stryker (MOUT) Battalion has 10-man rifle squads split into three teams (4+3+3)?

That's so you can split your squads down into tiny little teams and use them in the confined spaces you see in urban environments. Splitting your squads down into teams is not a "workaround" for a problem with MOUT combat, it is HOW YOU FIGHT IN MOUT CONDITIONS.

I don't know why this is difficult for you to understand. It just so happens the justification for your extra input is to simply apply some tactical common sense.

If you want to argue about the inclusion of the ability for the AI to split squads into teams, then by all means do so. I will even wholeheartedly agree with you.

Edited October 26, 2019 by General Jack Ripper

[Warts 'n' all]

From my experience the AI needs overwhelming numbers to stage a winning attack. And, it is possible to fight a defensive battle without giving your troops any orders at all. But sometimes a scenario designer will get an AI attack spot on in terms of attacking force make up and arty support. I won't spoil your fun or your pain by giving examples, you'll have to find out for yourselves.

[c3k]

14 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

If you want to argue about the inclusion of the ability for the AI to split squads into teams, then by all means do so. I will even wholeheartedly agree with you.

This.

IF, and that's a big "IF", the AI could recognize when to split into teams and then the corollary, when to recombine back into squads, that would be HUGE. Sure, it'd a huge advance for CM and gameplay, but even more, it'd be a huge advance in AI programming. Charles would be featured on the cover of every software magazine, e-zine, blog, podcast, and even be a morning "news show" guest. The fame would corrupt him; front row sporting seats, sponsorships, glam lifestyle, etc. He'd never again lock himself in the basement with a six-pack of mountain dew and a bag of doritos and code for 24 hours. No, those days would be gone...as would CM3.

Here's part of the issue: what type of teams should the AI create? Should it split off an anti-tank team and leave them on overwatch? Maybe a scout team would be better? Or is this a situation where an assault team would be best? Or, maybe just split into the normal component fireteams?

It only gets more complex from there.

The current implementation is there to SOLVE the many issues that have been annotated previously. There is no free lunch.

[Pandur]

20 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

Having played Combat Mission since 2003, I can definitively state the game did NOT, in fact, "work perfectly" for "around 10 years or so".

In fact, it has been common knowledge the AI is incapable of launching any type of complex attack ever since Shock Force first came out.

No hard feelings here, but sometimes i think you read past what i try to say intentionally. For ~10 years squads did not act like a bunch of morons running around buildings to far side doors that are often observed by the enemy. That is what worked perfectly for about 10 years.

Yes, the AI generally does attack like a big blob moving forwards(CMx1) or like scripted(CMx2) without brains, i do not talk about that, i talk about the specific behavior of them spliting up where they should not, by them self. IF i want them split, i do it myself. The AI is usually too stupid to decide things but now they got the autonomy to decide anyways.

 

20 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

That's so you can split your squads down into tiny little teams and use them in the confined spaces you see in urban environments. Splitting your squads down into teams is not a "workaround" for a problem with MOUT combat, it is HOW YOU FIGHT IN MOUT CONDITIONS.

You are re-interpreting things here, the "workaround" is to get a group of AI morons to use 1 damn door, and not the other one too. The "workaround" is to take away autonomy that has been given in engine 4 to mindless bots that have no sense of awareness of their surrounding. THAT is the workaround.

If i as the player want to use split squad command, when where and how or not at all, should be my decision not the decision of a mindless robot tacAI that has no clue about things happening in the scenario. As i say before, it worked fine for ~10 years, that change in v4 was not needed at all.

20 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

I don't know why this is difficult for you to understand. It just so happens the justification for your extra input is to simply apply some tactical common sense.

I disagree! The extra input should be optional, when and where i want it. Not a forced mandatory move to "work around" the stupidity of the new AI behavior in v4 to get it to do what it did for ~ 10 years, as i keep saying.

.

.

Now, in order to say something positive, i think you make nice videos, there is good footage in there and the presentation is coherent, i like that. Good job on that!

[umlaut]

On 10/26/2019 at 1:57 AM, General Jack Ripper said:

They are the ones who see a single snarky sentence buried within an entire post, and think the existence of said snark invalidates the poster's very existence.

Well, in my opinion that is exactly why snarky comments should be avoided: Because they tend to overshadow everything else you might have said. If you want a reasonable discussion you are generally better off making sure that your discussion partner isnt ticked off.

Back to the topic:
I have had a lot of these running around the house issues with teams when playing the Welcome to Sicily campaign in CMFI (updated to game engine 4) recently. I have used the same methods as you described above - with no luck. But as this campaign is several years old it might be due to building issues "baked into" the campaign - as MikeyD mentioned.

[Warts 'n' all]

My biggest problem in the final mission of that campaign was a lack of doors. But, that is another topic all together.

[A Canadian Cat]

20 hours ago, Pandur said:

For ~10 years squads did not act like a bunch of morons running around buildings to far side doors that are often observed by the enemy. That is what worked perfectly for about 10 years.

Yeah, see that's just not correct. I cannot count the number of times we have had threads started because "my men took a bizarre route and used a different door and now they are all KIA - BFC fix it". This type of thing has been going on for a long time. That's why @General Jack Ripper was a) a bit salty in his response and b) why he had multiple possible causes and several suggestions to make it play better.

Having said all that: Reading this there are times that the description points to something that has changed rather than just yet another pathing complaint thread. I have less time right now than usual and I cannot keep up with my regular games, the top priority testing and the Beta AAR let alone start digging into this but I think this should have a little investigation.

If someone wanted to dive in and do an investigation here is how I would start: Pick a game, other than CMSF, and setup a simple scenario in the latest Engine 3 version of said game with a few buildings and some normal fences etc. Then test out a small force using sensible way point placement for building entry (by that I mean not just one lone move order across multiple terrain types into the building but don't go the team splitting route for this test). Find out when and how often you can get them to use the wrong door - if you can.

Then run that same scenario you built in the Engine 4 version of the game. Try the same stuff and see if the behaviour is different. Note where it is different and how often it is different.

If you find none make the terrain and the yards more extensive and add more buildings and try again.

After that we can see what might be considered undesirable.

[A Canadian Cat]

19 hours ago, umlaut said:

Well, in my opinion that is exactly why snarky comments should be avoided: Because they tend to overshadow everything else you might have said

Very true. Yeah, I know I can get snarky too. But @umlaut is correct. Thing is though *everyone* should resist the urge to be snarky in their reply but some people just don't seem to or they hit a threshold and never reset for a thread. It can be very hard to resist giving it back - I know because I sometimes fail to do so. My qualifying point is that I would not focus the blame on @General Jack Ripper when it can be spread around to at least one other on this thread.

And yeah I kinda expect that this comment will get jumped on and not my previous one where I make investigation suggestions. But hey I couldn't resist

[Pandur]

4 hours ago, IanL said:

Yeah, see that's just not correct. I cannot count the number of times we have had threads started because "my men took a bizarre route and used a different door and now they are all KIA - BFC fix it". This type of thing has been going on for a long time. That's why @General Jack Ripper was a) a bit salty in his response and b) why he had multiple possible causes and several suggestions to make it play better.

Ian, i would not credit the problem to v4 patch if i would have a "whole" squad run to the wrong door or take a bizarre path, i talk explicitly about them spliting up and 1 team take the close door and the 2nd team run around taking the other door. This was not possible in any other engine version of the game as far as i can remember(did any of your see that in any other version but v4? correct me if i am wrong). I play CMSF a lot, i play CMBN a lot when it was released and i play CMRT quiet a bit too, all of them not(!) at engine 4, only when i play CMSF2 demo that came with engine 4 i saw this behavior for the first time. Right in the first battle in the demo, it was plain to see. And i continue to see it in the full  CMSF2 game.

However, i am about to give up, i realize there is nothing that can or will be done about it, i guess i have to get used to use the glorious workaround. CMSF2 is better in everything compare to CMSF in my eyes, only that retarded tacAI behavior where their cue thresh-hold is way too low(to give it a name), leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I guess i have to load the save game in this cases and use the workaround where it is necessary. Terribly annoying

I am not in the mood to run lengthy tests in order for everyone to tell me everything is "in order". Id rather finish converting my scenario for now, that takes enough time.

 

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by Pandur

[A Canadian Cat]

18 hours ago, Pandur said:

(did any of your see that in any other version but v4? correct me if i am wrong).

Yes, I have seen stuff like that rarely since I started playing. Usually it results from not placing way points to control movement through restricted terrain sometimes entering buildings. I don't see is much any more because I have learned to be careful about my way point placement. If the v4 engine makes this harder to accomplish it is something that can be looked at.

18 hours ago, Pandur said:

However, i am about to give up, i realize there is nothing that can or will be done about it,

Well don't do that and who said nothing can or will be done. We don't even have an identified reproducible test case yet. Bugs need to be identified and reported with a test case before they start the long process of being worked on, tested and eventually released in a patch.

[Warts 'n' all]

4 hours ago, IanL said:

Yes, I have seen stuff like that rarely since I started playing. Usually it results from not placing way points to control movement through restricted terrain sometimes entering buildings. 

I remember watching a whole series of videos made using v.2 where the maker repeatedly gave his troops movements that would cross restricted terrain, and or, he would he would trace the movement path through the side wall of the building. No matter how many times it was brought to his attention what he had done, it was always the game's fault, never his.

[RockinHarry]

I haven´t seen move modes mentioned here yet (or I overlooked). I´d guess when it´s talked about "move" into or out of a building with a full squad, the "quick" and "fast" modes are meant? I´m as well used to use "quick" and "fast" for getting a full squad into a place but think the more appropiate mode would be "assault" actually, even at very short distance. In this mode the TacAI actually should sort out itself coordinating a squads individual components in timed and coordinated manner, thus avoiding the worst bottleneck situations. If first assault team reached its place then movement paths are cleared for the next team movement to the same location. That´s from my understanding and the same way a scripted AIP does (advance, assault and max assault modes).

Manually splitting teams needs the same coordination, meaning don´t move another team in until the first (or 2nd) is already at its destined place. Otherwise the TacAI might think not all 1m movement nodes for path finding are yet available and thus reroutes remaining squad component through a currently available free path (or nodes). This then could be the dreaded door at the wrong (enemy) side of a building. The interesting part would be when the TacAI considers a path beeing cleared/free for subsequent movements. In case of buildings, it is when team members finally gathered at assigned windows/doors, or already when all moved through the door bottleneck?

Think from now on I´ll use "assault" in urban environments more, even If I don´t actually want to assault anything. Just to see if it helps on the bottleneck situations.

A related problem (already mentioned elsewhere) I found is german squads with a certain guy in 2nd team firmly assigned as assistant gunner to a lMG (squad with just 1 lMG). I oftenly see happen this particular single guy staying outside a building when he (the TacAI) couldn´t sort out his place beside his lMG gunner already positioned inside the house. The same situation can get worse if a squad has 2x lMG´s. This is a case where BFC definitely needs a deeper look at path finding, particularly inside buildings.

 

[A Canadian Cat]

9 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

...I´d guess when it´s talked about "move" into or out of a building with a full squad, the "quick" and "fast" modes are meant? I´m as well used to use "quick" and "fast" for getting a full squad into a place but think the more appropiate mode would be "assault" actually, even at very short distance. In this mode the TacAI actually should sort out itself coordinating a squads individual components in timed and coordinated manner, thus avoiding the worst bottleneck situations.

...

Manually splitting teams needs the same coordination, meaning don´t move another team in until the first (or 2nd) is already at its destined place. ...

Actually that is a very good idea. If you quick or fast your squad to just outside the door and then assault into the building the TacAI should do a good job of having other teams hold back while the first team enters.

Brilliant - we all should have thought of that.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Unless I'm certain it's empty, I always assault into a building.

[RockinHarry]

14 hours ago, IanL said:

Actually that is a very good idea. If you quick or fast your squad to just outside the door and then assault into the building the TacAI should do a good job of having other teams hold back while the first team enters.

Brilliant - we all should have thought of that.

Yes, I´d assume the TacAI gets the correct timing (path clearing for next team) stored for assault move. Otherwise quick and fast moving a squad (or team) just means get everybody into the building as fast as possible and same time. "Assault" would be logical choice, even if there´s nothing to assault at all. Whether it solves some the various "move through wrong door" issues got to be tested. Maybe implementing assault move logic to "evade" (again a quick and fast move mode) would help on that problem too. But I fear the whole matter is more complicated than that (buggy buildings, TacAI cover evaluation, enemy/friendly map edge etc.)

Would be nice if assault move also provides a sub move mode like "normal" move and "hunt", just for the better squad components timings. Same for AIP´s scripted "Advance" and  "Assault" modes. So while the basic mode provides the leapfrogging for the squads components, the sub mode provides the speed and associated behaviors (for move and hunt). Also maybe adding "slow" like occasionally used for the AIP´s "max assault".

13 hours ago, Vergeltungswaffe said:

Unless I'm certain it's empty, I always assault into a building.

Even if not empty there could be anybody hiding behind or in LOF. At point blank range no building provides reliable cover. In any case I´ll resort to assault move more, in MOUT environments quite in particular.

Edited October 31, 2019 by RockinHarry

[Pandur]

On 10/30/2019 at 5:15 AM, RockinHarry said:

I haven´t seen move modes mentioned here yet (or I overlooked). I´d guess when it´s talked about "move" into or out of a building with a full squad, the "quick" and "fast" modes are meant? I´m as well used to use "quick" and "fast" for getting a full squad into a place but think the more appropiate mode would be "assault" actually, even at very short distance. In this mode the TacAI actually should sort out itself coordinating a squads individual components in timed and coordinated manner, thus avoiding the worst bottleneck situations. If first assault team reached its place then movement paths are cleared for the next team movement to the same location. That´s from my understanding and the same way a scripted AIP does (advance, assault and max assault modes).

I wish that would work reliable, i try that several times, i even mentioned that in the first post(or second?) i made in this thread. I have had squads parked right outside a 1x1 house right by the door, then let them "assault" into the building, i saw the first team run in the close door as they should, and the 2nd team still took the long way around to the other door. So it does not work reliable  

 

On 10/29/2019 at 3:37 PM, IanL said:

Well don't do that and who said nothing can or will be done. We don't even have an identified reproducible test case yet. Bugs need to be identified and reported with a test case before they start the long process of being worked on, tested and eventually released in a patch.

Maybe you are right, ... maybe i get back to it another time.

[Pelican Pal]

Just a warning when using the assault command. The AI will allow the teams within the squad to move independently of each other. However, because they are still part of a single squad they share state. This means that the moving element, if pinned, can then cause the static element (who should be engaging the enemy) to become pinned.

It makes assault pretty useless when you really want it to work as suddenly the ~five guys you expect to cover the maneuver element decide that they too are taking fire. Splitting teams splits the state of each team. Meaning that your overwatch element will not become pinned by the maneuver element being fired on.

[grungar]

I hate my troops getting shot at all