molotov_billy

Rune, my point is simply that I didn't demand anything from anybody, so it seems inappropriate for someone to tell me "not going to happen anytime soon." That's all.

Yes, happens very often in urban areas. I'm never sure when and where my guys will be able to shoot, and when and where enemy units can shoot/see me.

Tons of great info in the strategy & tactics forum.

Neither of which have anything to do with seeing full squads of armed men moving about - that phase in Iraq has come and gone a long time ago, word is that it didn't work too well for the insurgents. The issue in Afghanistan may have something to do with tasking a couple of battallions of armed men to patrol an entire country - though again in cases which armed squads of men have moved about anywhere near US forces, they haven't lasted very long, have they?

Fun scenario, super challenging. Caught myself in a sticky situation, praying for reinforcements... Outcome on the first try was not pretty. Of course on the 2nd playthrough, knowing where they were coming from, I was able to get a victory. Those javelins feel so cheap sometimes

Welcome to modern warfare, right? Nearly every soldier (US at least) has optics available to them, as does every vehicle.

It looks like the primary thing going on here is that LOD distances are being cranked up, despite the settings that people are using. It's strange to me that this isn't factored into the detail options already available within the game. Seems pretty obvious that there are people who would prefer to run at a lower framerate but at a higher visual fidelity - why is that option not given? Shoehorning everyone into a low gfx setting seems like a bandaid to the problem, at best.

I'd personally love to see a more robust UI for firing specific weapons - not just "target" and "target light", as they do not cover all weapon systems and occasionally do not work as expected. For example - say I want to put an AT4 somewhere, and only an AT4. Click the AT4 icon in the squad area, click the target, bam. Same for Javelins, main cannons, TOW's, etc. I've especially found it difficult to get the bradley to fire it's TOW into buildings. Hopefully more improvements in this area are on the way.

Sure, the keys should be an option within the game itself, and most might admit that the default setup/UI is a bit clunky. It's only a couple of minutes to edit the text file, though, and trust me, you'll be glad you did. Let us know if you need any help - I can send you mine as an example.

? [ October 05, 2007, 03:19 PM: Message edited by: molotov_billy ]

Edit your key config text, remove the key bindings for the various tabs. Assign a specific key for each action. Works really well, for me.

Exactly - "bottom line still remains it will not be done anytime soon." I didn't ask for or demand anything!

Wow! Totally inappropriate. I brought up a point that nobody had mentioned yet, including yourself. It's nothing to take offense over. I'm just trying to be helpful here and point out an additional, related bug.

Point being, with restrictive time limits in every scenario, the tactical situation is always the same, and rarely interesting. Players don't appreciate the meaning behind an arbitrary time limit without real operational context. Spoken like a stern farther to a delinquent son! I've never understood the usefulness of that type of language in this setting, it's not necessary or appropriate. To be clear - I'm not demanding a product, or a feature. I'm giving understanding to a problem that people have run into, a reason as to why any time limit seems odd, or out of place, or frustrating. If at some point there's real operational context to a CM game, these tactical scenarios would be infinitely deeper and more enjoyable.

Not necessarily. Say I'm in an operational context where I know enemy reinforcements are arriving in 60 minutes, I have several options - a) Move hastily, taking losses, but securing the bridge before enemy reinforcements arrive. (ie, CM's "time limit.") Moving slowly and methodically, destroying everything in front of me but preserving my own forces, therefore maintaining the ability to take on any additional enemy forces that arrive. (Not taking objectives by the end of CM's "time limit.) "A" is the only option you ever have in CM scenarios - whereas there would be literally dozens of options open to a player with operational control. Option C - don't attack but defend, defeat any enemy forces that arrive, then take the bridge afterwards. Option D - forget the bridge alltogether. Go around, or find another bridge. It goes on and on. All we get in CM is an aribtrary number of minutes to put friendly forces inside of a green box, or else we fail - completely unrealistic.

I was thinking of something more like CMC, actually. I don't think the player will fully appreciate a sense of urgency in any situation unless he's the one actually executing the operational moves - having an understanding of the larger picture, not just having it presented to you in text in a scenario briefing. The dynamic campaign may tell me to be quick about things, but it just doesn't matter that much to me - the time limits to me are still just arbitrary, random.

None of which show the case I mentioned of an anti-tank team without a javelin. Sorry you missed it.

Agreed - the "dynamic campaign" is a bit dry, not much more than a string of unrelated scenarios (and obvious that each made by a different author.) For what it's worth - please fold CMC into a future CM2 title - if nothing else, lessons learned.

I would absolutely love such a feature. Coordination, communication, etc - so much more interesting than one-on-one play, to me. Friendly fog of war would make for some interesting situations. Like you said - larger scenarios as well, especially in real time. It's difficult for me to control more than a company sized force without pausing every 5 seconds - but with a couple friends, up to a battallion. Sounds fun.

Agreed. For what it's worth, I abhorred the time limits in CM1 - it created some unrealistic gamey tactics at the end of scenarios. Soldiers do not rush to their deaths because some arbitrary "time limit" is running out. Unfortunatey the only real way to simulate time based concerns is operationally - ie, "I have to capture the dominating terrain here quickly, because I know enemy reinforcements are coming soon."

The other issue that I've seen is that when I split the squad into the "anti-tank" team (two soldiers), neither of them are the anti-tank specialist. (Whether they have javelins or not.)

Fantastic scenario! Thanks for making this - scenarios are keeping CMSF interesting, for me.

Absolutely not.

Correct in that he said it early on, yes, in the first day or so after release. However, I think you'd need to point out a more recent quote for this to actually mean anything in the context of the discussion.

Could you point that quote out for us? What I read was that sales were similar in the first couple of days, compared to previous releases. A bit of reasoning may lead one to assume that this is largely a cash-in of the trust and popularity that they've developed for the franchise over the past couple of years. (ie, loyal customers pre-ordering or buying on first day, given the company's previous track record) Now that a lot of honest reviews are being published (not the eight out of eight nonsense that we saw prior to the release), and people are spreading the word that CM:SF is indeed an unfinished product at the moment, I wouldn't be surprised if sales haven't done so well since those first couple of days. We haven't heard any quips about sales figures since then.