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Mannheim Tanker

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Posts posted by Mannheim Tanker

  1. Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

    Or is it unprofessional for me to have my own opinions?

    Never said that. Rather, it's the manner in which you respond (you clearly take it too personally) and the fact that you seem to obsessively respond to each and every post...again in that personal manner. Shrugs. Maybe it's just me, but I can't see how that contributes to you being a productive member of the BFC team when you have to delve into all of this personal stuff on an hourly basis every day. Seems to me a better use of time would be to focus on company/game related issues. If responding to forum posts is such a hassle why not just close down the board?

    So what is your response to my post here? You flamed me on another board.

    Heh, if that's considered a flame, you need thicker nomex. ;) Clearly you're taking all of this too personally. Relax and have a homebrew. :cool:
  2. Originally posted by abneo3sierra:

    I basically agree with your sentiment, however, found it amusing coming from someone with over 5000 posts, many of which I have just seen were in discussions much like the one you are condemning here.

    Mmmm, if you take another look you'll see that those non-game related posts you're referring to were mostly in the General Forum. Most of my comments in the CMBO, CMBB, etc. forums did actually pertain to the game. That's a very clear distinction.

    One would think that Steve would be spending more time tightening up his game than engaging in endless debates with a couple of posters on unrelated matters in the Game forum. That's the gyst of where I was coming from in that post.

    As for Steve's comment re: my previous 5000+ posts (made over a period of over 8 years, BTW)...the difference back in the ol' days is that the exchanges between him and other posters did not come across so much as personal disputes. That's the kind of crap that belongs in an email exchange, not on a public forum where you're representing the company. Again, just my opinion. I have no emotional involvement in this argument, and I was just making an honest point.

  3. Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

    I think the two of you guys just need to step back from one another.

    As a longtime lurker with no dog in this fight, I must agree with you. This discussion, if that's what you want to call it, is downright unprofessional and has really taken a lot of the shine of the company's reputation if you ask me. I'm not a fan of CMSF, never have been. However, I haven't really participated in any of the 'wheels-falling-off-BFC' discussions at Dosomefink either. My perspective is as a casual BFC customer, who frankly cannot understand how most people have the time to engage in these long-winded pointless discussions. Threads pertinent to the game I can understand, but post after post engaging in character sniping accomplishes next to nothing.

    I'm not defending the others in these exchanges, mind you, but they're just random people on this board. Steve is posting under the Battlefront login, and as such represents the company. As such, one would expect a higher standard of decorum, but that doesn't seem to apply on this board for some reason.

    I had to endure some childish exchanges as a GM in a metacampaign a while back, and I found the best policy was to simply ignore most offensive posts. If you had to ban everyone you had a disagreement with you'd have to really thin the ranks. It's much better to just let them have their say and concentrate on more relevant posts IMO. Just my two cents. Back to lurking.

  4. My AT guys must just be an extra kind of special then, because I watched two bazooka men open up on a halftrack with their Thompsons from 50 meters away. Their only saving grace was that the enemy HT's gunner was too stupid to return fire as he was more intent on the infantry I had running to cover more than 300 meters away. Somehow he thought they were the greater threat.

    Similarly, I cannot fathom why the enemy infantry insists on charging me from their defensive positions, only to have me hammer them in the open with artillery. I'm the one that's supposed to be attacking. Poor scenario design?

    I categorize all of these problems under 'Stupid AI'. I'm not asking for too much; Combat Mission handled all of these things properly eight years ago. The reason I sound so peeved is that they're thinking of including the improved AI in the add-on...as another poster said, this should have been part of the core game, not an add-on. Better AI would make this game rock; without it, it's nearly unplayable (if you want to enjoy the experience anyway). The developers are on the right track, but they're still missing the key piece that needs fixing before this game is ready for market. My opinion, of course (echoed my many on some of the gaming boards I've been reading).

    [ February 06, 2008, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: Mannheim Tanker ]

  5. Yeah, I guess you're right about the grenades. I was thinking more along the lines of the bazooka thing where you always seem to have to order the weapon change. It just seemed to me that the infantry use grenades very sparingly so I mentioned them as well.

    Either way, you have to really micromanage infantry movements to get anything out of them, and that's the point I was getting at.

  6. I tried the game when it first came out and the level of micromanagement required to get your troops to do anything worthwhile killed the fun factor for me...much more than any of the LOS and other issues.

    I downloaded the new patch, hoping to find an improvement in gameplay. I'm disappointed to say that the game is not fun to play; it's work. Sure, they fixed a lot of the LOS issues, etc, but the core problem of the game remains: you have to act as the frontal lobe of every single soldier if you want them to survive and accomplish their mission. I should be able to act as their commander, ordering them towards their objective without too much micromanagement.

    For example, I shouldn't have to tell an AT team to switch from their submachinegun to their bazooka to assault a halftrack. Or order soldiers to use grenades when assaulting a strong point. That level of micromanagement is pointless and detracts from the fun of the game.

    As I pointed out on another gaming forum, this game should have been called Combat Mission: 28 Days Later due to the way that your soldiers exhibit minimal intelligence and aimlessly wander the battlefield with little regard for their own mortality (when an enemy MG is spraying fire in their direction they should have the good sense to go to ground!). Even the enemy AI exhibits useless behavior like this. When I'm attacking their strongpoint (e.g. the first US mission) the enemy should not come charging out of their positions into an open field to oppose me.

    Sorry, but while this game is pretty and on the right track, the AI is utterly broken and such makes the game nearly unplayable (in a sense that you'll get any enjoyment out of it). If I want to micromanage some software I can work with some spreadsheets at work. redface.gif As antiquated as the original Combat Mission games were, including abstracted infantry, they were far more fun to play because your troops reacted realistically when presented with situations that called for actions other than precisely following your orders (e.g. go to ground when under heavy fire).

    edit: The problems of ToW go way beyond this game. Like me, I know of many other players (from discussions on other sites) that got burned by buying ToW sight unseen based on the formerly good reputation of BFC. This experience squandered any good will they had with many long-time BFC customers. CMSF solidified that problem IMO. After buying ToW and seeing all of the problems, I did not leap into buying CMSF, and I'm glad I didn't given the problems that came out of CMSF. Yeah, I know they're different development teams, but they have the same label, and the BFC label can no longer be automatically associated with quality development.

    That's really unfortunate IMO, because I'm always a strong supporter of the 'little guy'/independent business operator...but they do need to produce a quality product if they want my support. I have a limited amount of free time for games, and I want that time to be fun, not spent pausing the game every 3 seconds to micromanage every single soldiers moves. What the hell were the developers thinking!?

    [ February 06, 2008, 10:03 AM: Message edited by: Mannheim Tanker ]

  7. Originally posted by Jeff Duquette:

    </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by PFMM:

    A usefull tip, you can target obscured icons. Right click on an obscured target and it will be tracked by the unit.

    I do this alot during my games. Unfotunately if I have one of my units target an enemy icon that my unit can't see yet, there is the tendency for my unit to leave its position and move toward the targeted icon in an attempt to get a shot. </font>
  8. Originally posted by Normal Dude:

    Mission time is good, as long it isn't horribly over-done. Many a mission in Combat Mission was simply ruined because of a horrible scenario time limit, forcing people to do everything at a sprinting pace.

    Agreed. I guess my point is that there should be some time pressure on the commander. At present you can take all the time in the world.

    I keep seeing men or vehicles wondering off, or spinning around on their own.
    There's little you can do about the rotating to face unseen targets (see the other thread on this), but HOLD should keep your men in place. While under that command, the only reason your infantry will move about is if a tank comes in close proximity to them, in which case they scramble to move out of the way. That's actually quite sensible!
  9. Originally posted by Normal Dude:

    </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Freeboy:

    ok, did it carry amo? this bad bod lost a track, the back of the turret and kept it up!, it also was able to pivot the hull, at least initially with one tread? I know I cannot do that!

    Maybe if the crew was suicidal it would carry ammo :D . Probably tools, personal effects, etc. We have similar structures on modern tanks as well. </font>
  10. Originally posted by Freeboy:

    maybe a bug??? I do not see this happening, even when I engage at an angle to the hull, my "hold" orders seem to keep the tanks stoppedd dead.. good luck

    It's not a bug, as it's a common occurence in my games as well. If you have enemy coming from multiple directions, your tanks aren't as prone to this behavior, but if only 1 or 2 enemy icons appear - even out of LOS - your tanks nearly always turn towards them. I'm sure it's happening to you too, Freeboy, look closely the next time you have only 1 enemy icon showing somewhere on the map.

    IIRC one solution is to also order your tanks to hold fire to prevent them from constantly spinning to face the enemy.

  11. Originally posted by PFMM:

    Let me put it this way, if you design a scenario in Combat Mission with as many tanks as Theater of War, would it be any different?

    If the scenario involved clearing a town of enemy forces, the answer it 'yes' it would be different. In CM, all the armor in the world doesn't do you any good if the enemy is really dug in and you have to clear a town without wasting much time. Armor was not able to clear towns without infantry support. In TOW, infantry has virtually no cover in urban terrain. That's not an oversight, it's a huge flaw as it renders infantry superfluous. I don't even bother moving most of them any more in the few games that I still play while I wait for the patch.

    That brings up another issue I have with TOW: no time limit. I know that this is a plus for some players, but it's not really very realistic. In the real world, there usually are time constraints. Commanders don't have all the time in the world to get their units into place 'just so' prior to making their move. They often had to do the best they could under the time constraints and finish the mission.

  12. Originally posted by PFMM:

    Infantry are not useless, far from it.

    Agreed, but the problem with infantry is that to get any use out of them, you have to micromanage them to such an insanely tedious level that it's usually not worth the effort.

    Take the Bulge scenario in the Allied campaign, for example. You get 7-8 squads of infantry IIRC, and you can win the scenario without moving a single one of them. Your tanks, TDs and arty can accomplish everything that your infantry are capable of doing, and in a lot fewer moves. For example, I could spend a great deal of time moving a platoon in to clear the town of defenders, but why bother when I can park a couple of tanks on the nearby hill and pick off each defender with 'sniper' tank fire.

    Again, I'm not saying that infantry don't work...they do as you pointed out. However they're not worth the effort required to get anything out of them once you make contact with the enemy. The game is really out of balance in this aspect. There should be situations where infantry are your best tool (e.g. urban fighting), but the game is unbalanced to the point where tanks do the job 10 times better. :rolleyes:

  13. Originally posted by PLM2:

    I dont see how people are gonna say that the 5.56 m16/m4 isnt loud. Your ears are gonna instantly be ringing if you're not wearing earplugs. Watch your hearing test keeping getting worse and worse if you think it doesnt do anything, its happened to several people i know

    Yeah, it's loud and can do damage over time, but as observed above, the M16 is pretty quiet compared to 7.62mm and larger. I remember a lot of the first-timers on the range commenting how amazed they were that the M16 wasn't louder. Hollywood has convinced most people otherwise I guess.

    Distance also plays a big role in the sounds that weapons - and vehicles - make. At close range an idling M1 tank is damned near deafening (literally). At a few hundred meters you can barely hear it above the ambient noise of a car engine, probably because it's high frequency noise that attenuates very quickly. On the other extreme, kids with their low-frequency bass thumping in their piece-of-**** cars can be heard from blocks away through closed windows from my basement. :mad:

  14. We only occasionally wore our ear plugs, even when on the firing range...shooting main guns on M1 tanks. Our CVCs (tanker helmets) provided some hearing protection, but to echo the comments of fytinghellfish, you need to be able to hear orders (especially warnings). When you weren't wearing your CVC you were encouraged to wear hearing protection, even when not on the range because the turbine in the M1 is so bloody loud. Problem was that you could never hear what anyone was saying with them in, so we often went without them.

  15. Originally posted by Russkly:

    Infantry seem to have little chance against tanks, even when the latter are moving slowly through a village and the former are 'hidden' around (obviously not 'in') buildings and are armed with AT weapons. The tanks always spot them and kill them.

    I'd go even further and say that in the vast majority of scenarios, infantry is unneeded. Go ahead and try this in any scenario where you get some armor: park your infantry in the rear and order them to 'Hold Position'. Finish the scenario without your infantry, only using your armor. You can nearly always manage just fine without the infantry, even when assaulting hamlets and villages. Your uberpanzerinfanterielazer can handle any enemy grunts that venture into LOS.

    Seriously. At least this solution does away with having to micromanage infantry (one of my pet peeves). And before someone gripes and says that I need to spend more time with the game, I have spent many hours playing it, trying out differenct tactics, hoping that I'm missing something here. The learning curve really isn't that steep once you realize that rapid pausing and micromanagement of orders can get you the results you are seeking. The game really isn't that difficult, guys. The fact that you can beat many of the scenarios with a few tanks shows the flaws in the game balance.

    IMO, reducing the spotting ability of tanks and the ability of infantry to take advantage of cover and concealment would go a long way towards fixing the imbalance - and restore a lot of the fun that I can see lurking beneath the surface of this game. This game is so close to actually being fun that it's frustrating. So much potential squandered...

  16. Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

    Following Desert Storm, the Iraqi Air Force was estimated to include:

    * 15 MiG-29 ground-attack aircraft

    * 30 Mirage F1 ground-attack aircraft

    * 50 MiG-23 multi-role fighters

    * 20 Su-25 ground-attack aircraft

    * 30 Su-20/-22 ground-attack aircraft

    * 7 Tu-16 and B-6D bombers

    * 10 Tu-22 supersonic bombers

    Interesting. I am willing to bet that their operational strength was much less than that list implies. As most on this board probably know, military power goes beyond the amount of equipment in the shed. You need trained personnel to fly and support all that stuff, staff to manage the fight, and facilities to support it. 12 years of neglect post-GWI probably eroded much of that.
  17. Good comments, guys. Glad to see that I'm not the only one with 'ammo-envy'. ;)

    My other big pet peeve is the utter lack of concealment. There's something wrong when enemy tanks can spot your sniper sneaking around at over 700 meters. It's not like they have the thermal sights at their disposal that I was lucky to have on the M1! I'm really trying to like this game, but there are too many issue that just stretch the limit of plausibility. I don't want to play a fantasy game.

  18. Originally posted by SGT_56M:

    No, the AI is bright.

    Yeah, it's so brilliant that unless you micromanage your orders, you'll have a dozen men standing in the open while enemy MGs and tanks mow them down. ;)

    Guys, don't mistake all criticism for whining. Yeah, I recognize that a few players have been whining incessantly about nit-picky things, but you have to realize that many players are not satisfied with the level of micromanagement required to play the game well. This goes way beyond what one would call sound tactics. I personally feel that I shouldn't have to order my AT team to switch from his SMG to his bazooka to engage a tank. That should be programmed into the basic AI routine IMO.

    If you are comfortable with that amount of babysitting and handholding, good for you. Seriously. OTOH, don't dismiss the criticism along my line of thinking out of hand. Recognize that a lot of players would be much more happy with an RTS style game that intelligently handled some of the more basic orders (like weapon and route selection).

  19. Originally posted by Moon:

    You might have come closest I guess as yet to the core of the problem some people might be having with the game. They're playing with the mindset of a company commander, ordering his squads and platoons around, whereas the scale of the game really is at the platoon level.

    It shouldn't really be a surprise though, in a game featuring skills for each individual soldier on the battlefield, allowing you to micromanage even the type of ammo each one is using.

    I can see where this is not to everybody's liking. If you are using to move companies around as one "unit" or, at best at the scale of CM, whole squads, then the transition to the individual soldier might be difficult.

    Tastes are different. For my part, I am usually bored to death by operational level games, but love the small scale, and I am starting to suspect that most people here enjoying TOW have a similar preference.

    Martin

    Fair enough, and I appreciate the response. I probably have only myself to blame for not spending more time with the demo to figure this out. Micromanaging individual soldiers to this degree (e.g. having to choose ammo when I think the AI should have a reasonable default) is too much like work and not enough like fun for my tastes. To each his own.

    Unfortunately, this has turned me off even more to

    RTS genre games than I was when I started. I'll have to stick to FPS and strategy games I guess.

  20. Originally posted by Rollstoy:

    To sum it up: great engine with tons of possibilities, great atmosphere, lots of ways to micromanage almost every aspect of the game.

    That's interesting, actually, because I guess that's the #1 problem that most detractors have cited: you must micromanage the game to accomplish anything. It's always nice to be able to take over the reigns if you so choose, but it really does take away from the gameplay when the AI is so dense that you have no choice but to micromanage everything.

    I saw a lot of promise in the game when I first tried the demo, and later bought the game. My big mistake was chalking my problems up to not understanding some nuance of strategy or tactics. After several games, especially in one of the scenarios that involved mostly infantry, it dawned on me that the game wasn't all that nuanced...I was supposed to micromanage my orders in order to acheive my goals. :rolleyes: At that point I continued to try to enjoy the game, realizing that I was already on top of the learning curve, but to no avail.

    I'm waiting for the patch to see if it resolves some of these problems; if it doesn't ToW is coming off my hard drive.

  21. :D Funniest statement of the week:

    Originally posted by Pas De Charge:

    And frankly, this is THE MOST realistic rts I've played, even without things like mortars, smoke and enterable buildings.

    Hehe...that's like saying internet porn is THE MOST realistic thing next to actual sex, even without the partner and need to make do with your own greased palm.

    Pas De Charge, the problems that people are griping about are fairly central to realism in this genre. Line of sight, proper cover, Tac AI, and weapons selection are integral to a realistic experience. You can certainly argue that ToW is fun, but please don't claim it's anywhere near realistic.

  22. :( .

    The utter lack of usable cover renders infantry useless and unrealistic. If you are better off clearing trenches and urban terrain up close with tanks than your infantry, that is a good sign that the game play is screwed up (if you're after realism). Tanks were historically meant to support attacks such as those, not be capable of doing it on their own.

    Combine this with the brain-dead Tac AI, and the game has serious problems. Soldiers #3 through #10 should not run through the gate after having watched two of their comrades get cut down. Yeah, you can micromanage them into performing correctly, but that kind of does away with the need for an AI, huh? Who is there to micromanage the opposing force? Nobody, so they make the same dumb mistakes that your AI-controlled men do. I'm amazed so many people find this game so difficult. If you micromanage your orders, as you must, you can cream the opposing force without much problem.

    I'm hoping for a patch to bring things up to speed, but I know it's a long shot if the developers are promising a LOS tool as our salvation. LOS isn't what's broken, guys.

    [ April 30, 2007, 01:30 PM: Message edited by: Mannheim Tanker ]

  23. Originally posted by Starlight:

    Modern APFSDS ammo pentrates the armour but generates and jet of liquid metal into the interior, unless the armour is too thin, in which case it will pass straight through the other side.

    Nope, that would be a HEAT round. Sabot rounds create spalling damage from a heavy metal penetrator.
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