ClarkWGriswold

Off the roof, over the fence, nothing but net.

Okay, that was weird. I'm pretty sure that's a bug. No way in the world a shell that big would come straight down and bounce off the roof like that.

That was my thought. Have spotting rounds come down at all? It's possible for spotting rounds to be fired and your spotter to miss them (killed, cowering, hiding, view blocked, etc). If that happens you might get more spotting rounds or you might just get no fire for effect and have to re-call the mission.

I gotta tell ya, Mord... your voice mod is THE best CMBN mod out there. All of the vehicle skins and such are nice, but your voice mod increases the immersion and fun factor more than any of those. I was just telling my buddy that I made it a point to put the "they're burnin!" part in there. I had to do multiple captures and cuts to get it in there, but I was bound and determined that it would go in.

That's what I thought too! I specifically picked Panzergrenadiers knowing that they issue MGs to every squad. I figured that three squads (6 MGs) in the front hedgerow would make mincemeat of anything even remotely in the area, especially given the <100 meter distance. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Lots of guys were able to run past the gap and most of them didn't get into the kill zone in the first place. I probably should have made my cover arcs shorter, but since my men were spotted so quickly that might have made things even worse for me (my Germans were able to open fire in the same turn they were spotted, so my opponent didn't get to issue hide orders until after taking casualties).

I figured that crack units would be great shots, but I didn't anticipate them having the eyes of a hawk! Yes, it was a PBEM game. Honestly, the guys not leaving is the least of my concerns. The main gunner NEVER firing was a big issue though. If he had, he could have probably taken out half of the American forces huddled near the hedge (they were on the "wrong" side, after all). The spontaneous combustion is also eyebrow raising, mostly since I have been unable to determine exactly what caused it. I'm going with mortar round, mostly since I don't have any evidence that would suggest some other cause.

I really wish I knew the answer to that. The Germans were behind what is probably the best concealment in the entire game (tall, thick hedgerow). They weren't moving, they weren't firing, had a short cover arc, etc. Not only that, but they were in their initial deployment spots too. And still the Americans spotted multiple squads. I have no idea what I could have done to prevent my men from being spotted other than putting them on Hide, which would be disastrous since they cannot see approaching units. I could see them being spotted if they were moving around, deploying weapons, etc. But when they're spotted from that far away while being totally still... it doesn't sit well with me. Another other thing that really confuses me is what happened with the wooden bunker. Firstly, my MG42 gunner never fired a single round. Secondly, the bunker itself seemed to burst into flame for no discernible reason. At first I was sure that it had been hit by a 60mm mortar. But after rewatching the replay from both sides multiple times, that doesn't appear to be the case. There were no bazooka men anywhere nearby (and I didn't hear the telltale whoosh), and I also checked for rifle grenades being fired by the Americans. Didn't see any of those either (nor a change in rifle grenade inventory for any of the squads). One thing that I did notice is that the bunker was shown as Knocked Out well before it caught on fire. Even though it was knocked out, the men occupying it didn't move, didn't flee, nothing. Very strange behavior all around.

Understatement of the year. The Americans were veteran and crack (my opponent rarely buys anything less than Vet). The Germans were ALL regular, fit, normal motivation. I simply didn't have enough points to spend to buy anything better, but I made sure that I didn't get stuck with anyone unmotivated or green. I'm pretty sure having lots of crack units sealed the deal for the Americans, since they rarely fled (most withdrawals were ordered, not panicked men fleeing) and could pick off my men at a distance. I should have known when I lost a squad commander within the first 30 seconds of the match that I was in trouble. If I had not counter-attacked in the bocage, I think I could have pulled off a win - or at least made my opponent pay an even higher price for victory. Losing those two squads was really the end for me. If I'd held fast where I was and covered that lane I could have forced the Americans to either attack across it into MG fire or try to go around, at which point they would have been exposed in the road or the big field. However, as long as my opponent still had operational mortars it was risky to stay where I was. In direct fire, they are SO deadly. You get very little warning and they rarely miss by more than 20 meters or so.

You may remember my last VAAR, Darkest Before the Dawn. That one was an armor only battle. This new movie is a very small infantry only battle. I play as the Germans against a buddy of mine as the American attacker. I think this new video is much improved over my last one, having learned a few iMovie tricks since last time. The movie is available in 720p resolution, which I highly recommend to see the best detail. Enjoy! http://youtu.be/zyDCDRxeKAg

That's what I thought too, and is the reason I placed heavy reliance upon a wooden bunker to defend my left flank in my last game. But, like I said, it was taken out with the very first 60mm round that hit (a direct impact on the roof). I've got the turn file still, and I'm making a movie of the match, so you'll be able to see it within the next couple of weeks once I finish putting it all together. Edit: Oh, and not only did the bunker get killed by a single 60 mm round, but the frickin' MG inside NEVER EVEN FIRED! Not even when given specific target and area target orders. I'm still scratching my head over that one.

While this particular instance certainly WAS a lucky shot (combined with the fact that 60mm mortars in direct fire seem to be more accurate than rifle marksmen), it wasn't a fluke. I did a few tests placing multiple bunkers on a flat field and pounding them with various flavors of artillery. 60mm mortars almost always took the bunker out in the least amount of time (especially when doing direct fire). While 81s and 105s are falling 50 meters away, the 60s often drop directly on the roof of the bunker, or at least within 20 meters of it. It appears that a 10m miss by a 60mm round (or, better yet, a direct hit) is much more likely to kill than a 50m miss but a much larger round. I also found that you often get a better chance of a kill by having a mortar round land in front of the bunker instead of on it. Several times I saw near misses by an 81mm take out the bunker as long as the miss was directly in front. I'm assuming they're taking into account shrapnel from a near-front miss flying through the firing slit.

I did several tests using various types of artillery and have found that 60mm mortars work the best (against wooden bunkers, not concrete). Not only have I found them to work well in my testing, but in my latest PBEM game my wooden bunker was taken out by ONE 60mm mortar shell being direct fired. The very first shot that was fired was a direct hit, killing everyone inside. The larger artillery works too, but since it's not as pinpoint precise as the 60mm stuff it takes more shells and luck. Even large naval guns have a hard time taking these out because the shells often fall too far away to do damage (though they do pin/panic the guys inside).

I agree with you - to a point. Designing an elegant, fluid UI is not a simple task. Companies like Apple spend billions of dollars in that pursuit. However, there are portions of UI design that are simple, and it's often quite easy to see problem areas if you just look (watching user interactions often makes these issues jump out). Having the "stop replay" and "end turn" actions being exactly the same is an example. This comes up time and again and it would have been quite simple to change the Big Red Button during development. Slight changes in color, shape, position, etc. go a long way towards reducing confusion and simplifying UI without much extra time in the design phase. Obviously, this isn't akin to designing a good UI from scratch or fixing more deep seated issues, but it's also not rocket science.

And what would you have us provide in order to meet this criteria? Many people have already given their own personal opinions (at first blush, the "it's horrible" group seems to outnumber the "it's fine" group). Other people (including me) have offered up anecdotal evidence that people we've introduced to the game think the UI is horrible. Then we have reviews from gaming sites, most of which complain about the UI. At some point you have to admit that despite scientific analysis, perhaps there is something to what we're saying and that maybe your opinion is actually the minority. How do you define "quite well"? Did it sell better than CMSF? Yup. Steve has said as much. Did it sell as many copies as Modern Warfare 2? Nope. There's a big middle ground in-between and we're talking about a niche product, so that makes it even more difficult to judge. Is it designed the way it is because it's a niche product? Is it a niche product because of the way it is designed? If it had a better UI would it appeal to a wider audience and cease to be such a niche product? Does it sell as well as it does simply because there's very little competition in this space? There's a lot more to this than just "it sold pretty well compared to their last game, so the UI must be fine".

I don't think wargamers should have to read that article, but wargame makers sure should! The author totally "gets it". Virtually everything he complains about applies to CMBN. What a fantastic article.

That was the idea I was going for. Nothing down at the bottom when you don't have anything selected. When you do select a unit, the rest of the info could be displayed. Most of the current UI wouldn't be needed though. If you cut out all of the redundant information, package things a little nicer, and get rid of unnecessary stuff (Like the VCR controls during command phase) you could probably cut what's displayed down at the bottom by 40-60%.

Speaking for myself personally, I think the CMBN UI fails at both: Information is very difficult to come by because you can only get info on a unit by selecting the unit. If a unit is not selected, the most info you can see about them is unit type (sometimes), general location, and you get an indication when a casualty is taken (if the unit is on screen when it happens). Ammo loadout, total casualties, morale, fitness, special weapons, split squads, etc. are not shown unless you specifically select a squad. Giving orders can be a big hassle as well. Just look at the number of threads have we had concerning the order in which things must happen for a unit to ingress/egress a halftrack during a turn. It's confusing as hell and there's no real indication of how it's supposed to be done to make it work. The same thing is true for obtaining weapons from halftracks. Two squads that are next to each other can share ammo, but to get ammo from a halftrack you have to get inside, then wait a turn to acquire and exit. It doesn't make sense! We don't have armor covered arcs, so it's difficult to tell your tank to disregard the one crew member that's running around in lieu of a enemy armor that's approaching. The way that deploy/undeploy is handled is confusing. It would be a huge improvement if there were a "Deploy" text on the waypoint, just like the "Pause" text. Even the basics like camera control and unit selection is made much more difficult and finicky than it should be. For instance, there's no way to turn off scrolling when the mouse cursor reaches the screen edges. Alternatively, there's no way to turn off scrolling using click+drag if you prefer to use the screen edges. So, both systems are always enabled and you end up fighting one or the other, rather than being able to choose which works best for you. Scrolling with the keys and "aiming" with the mouse works so poorly that I gave up on it. This is made doubly bad by the fact that the left mouse button is used for so many actions. You use it to select units AND to plot waypoints AND to drag the camera location. So, say you want to move a unit. You click the unit and then select Quick. The next leg of the move you want to go to a spot that's off screen. If you want to drag the screen using the mouse (the only way I've found that's acceptable) you have to right click to DEselect your movement order, then click and drag, then REselect your movement order to plot your move. Very cumbersome. And since you can no longer drag waypoints, you can't simply select a handful of units and then fine tune their orders. You have to move each one separately. It's tedius. I think there's pretty much universal agreement that the default hotkeys are terrible. It goes on and on. The game just isn't simple or intuitive to do what you want, even IF you know what you're trying to do (which you often don't because of conflicting design implementations).

It's hard to tell from the screenshot (it's awful small), but you might be trying to shoot too parallel to the bocage instead of perpendicular to it. In my experience, you are generally limited to about a 90* or so area of fire through bocage. If you're trying to fire directly perpendicular to it or about 45* in either direction you're fine, but if you try to shoot further off to the side than that it simply becomes too thick to see through and you lose LOS/LOF.

Everyone who is defending the game as it is currently is screaming at the detractors about not having sales figures. "It's all opinion! We don't know if sales are affected!" Frankly, that doesn't matter. Steve has already said point-blank that he (and I believe he speaks for the rest of the company) is very happy with the sales figures for CMBN. So, we KNOW that BFC thinks the sales are just fine. Or, at least, good enough for them. But here's what else we know: Lots of us really despise the UI and think it needs more than a little polishing. Added to that, we have a lot of anecdotal evidence suggesting that other people who aren't on this forum feel the same way. Sales might be better (and those of us who are bitching would be a lot happier) if the UI wasn't so clunky and unrefined. Case in point: As I said earlier, I personally know exactly two people who purchased CMBN. If I include myself, I know of three copies sold. ALL three of those copies were sold to people who had already played CMBO/CMBB and who pre-ordered CMBN before it even came out (worth noting: none of us played CMSF, though we tried the demo just before CMBN was released, after we had pre-ordered). So, three sales to people I personally know in the real world (including myself). I've introduced the game to multiple other people. Both of the guys I know who play have introduced it to other people. These other people are generally 30+ years old, WWII and/or history aficionados, and people who like strategy games. How many sales has that resulted in? Exactly ZERO. NONE of the people we've tried to get to play have stuck with it past the demo. And what were the complaints given by ALL of the people we've tried to get into the game? UI, camera control, and general "can't figure this out" issues (ie: Not intuitive, no in-game tutorial, no tool tips, etc). Now, while I don't have sales figures I definitely think that getting the exact same feedback and the exact same complaints from over half a dozen people who are this game's prime target does say something. I think that something is that the UI really, really needs to be addressed if it's going to appeal to most people outside of this forum (even people who realistically should be head over heels about a game like this).

That might be your opinion. My opinion is, the UI is the worst I've seen in a very long time. Not trying to overstate things or be dramatic, that's just how I feel. Thankfully, the terribleness of the UI is made up for by the tasty, cream filled center of the game. While I haven't worked on CMBN itself, I do work in the software development industry. So, I think I might know a little bit about which I speak. Doing it right the first time is always preferable to doing it right the second time. I see your strawman and raise you an ad-hominem. Your mother dresses you funny. I'm not so sure that it's a "disgruntled minority" at all. The number of people complaining about various UI issues on this very board seems to be fairly large. Consider the number of people who own the game and are not on this board (or are complaining about issues on other boards). Then consider the people who didn't buy the game at all because of the "clunky" nature of the UI in the demo (or even in past games, since the UI is basically a carryover from CMSF). It's quite possible that the people who feel these issues are pretty bad outnumbers the people who think the game is great. It's hard to say without hard numbers. But even if the people who think there are problems ARE a minority, does that make their opinion any less valid? Agreed. But I maintain that this is not an either/or proposition. Addressing these issues early in the development process requires LESS time/work/energy than fixing them after everything has been coded. I think the biggest problem here is that we're saddled with poor design decisions that were made 6+ years ago (during the development of CMSF). This far down the road, it's far too late to change course.

The complex tactical pieces are not what is garnering criticism; The basics like UI, control scheme, etc. are. Even simple things like those that have been highlighted in other threads (using the same button to end the replay phase AND the command phase, for instance) could have been fixed early in the design process. It doesn't take any longer to code a good UI than it does to code a poor one. It simply takes a little more effort to design it right in the first place (effort that is more than made up later by not having to fix the whole thing). Insulting or not, it's an opinion that's shared by a lot of people. The whole game needs to work well as a cohesive experience. It's not good enough to only have some of the game work well (It's apparently good enough to get sales from the types of guys like us who are on this forum, but not good enough to get sales from most gamers or garner high scores in non-military sim specific reviews). The guts of this game are simply amazing. The TacAI is great, the ballistics modeling is superb, multiplayer works very well, etc. But the way that the player interacts with the game is very confusing and a huge turn-off for many, many people.

I completely disagree. Look at indie games like Braid, Angry Birds, Limbo, Cogs, Machinarium, World of Goo, etc. These are very polished, universally praised, major sellers and they all came from very small developers. With the Internet, Steam, the App Store, XBox Live, and other digital distribution methods, small developers have more power than they've ever had. They can develop what they want to and bring their game to market without an outside company mucking with their concept. Today, a small developer can bring a game to market that's just as good as a AAA title from EA or BioWare. Indie games might not be as grand in scope, but indie developers can and do make some of the best games you can buy. Being small is no excuse for poor craftsmanship.

I made a post in the tech support subforum asking for this exact thing. It's SO easy to accidentally click the red button and once you do there is NO way to back out of it. Your only choice is "OK". Not even a Cancel option. And you don't even have to absent mindedly click. I accidentally hit the red button once because my mouse cursor ended up down there as I was clicking and dragging to move the camera (another peeve of mine). It's no fun to have to reload your PBEM and replot ALL of your moves from scratch because you accidentally clicked one button. Doing it in single player is even worse, because there's no way to reload the turn and do it over! I honestly have no idea how this kind of UI implementation has remained in the game this long. I mean, CMSF has been out for, what, 5 years? You'd think a solution would have been implemented by now. Why show the VCR controls at all once the replay phase is over? They buttons are non-functional, so just remove the whole thing. Make the button green during the replay phase and red during the command phase and throw a Cancel option in there after the red button has been hit. Problem solved.

Frankly, I thought the score was pretty generous. I love this game, but it simply does not hold up against other modern titles when it comes to some of the most up-front, apparent aspects (mainly, the graphics and GUI). That's all there is to it. It doesn't matter how deep the gameplay is or how accurate the historical details are when 90% of the game buying public wouldn't give the game a second look based upon their first impression (not particularly pretty, steep learning curve, confusing UI, etc). WWII grognards might be this game's target market, but it's not PCGamer's target market. They are reviewing for their market, not BFC's.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, sburke. I would also love to see area fire improved, armor covered arcs, changes to AFV movement, etc. However, I think there's a perspective that you might be missing. A lot of these UI issues cause fundamental problems with simply playing the game. YOU may not think they are problems, but many, many others do. For instance, I generally play CMBN with two guys from work via PBEM. All three of us *constantly* gripe about UI problems. Fixing the UI is the #1 priority for all of us (even more than fixing hunt/move to contact, which is a HUGE pet peeve of mine). A close friend of mine plays just about every PC game that comes to market. He's the biggest PC gamer I know, as well as being a WWII history buff and ex-military. He tried the demo and gave up on it. I went to his house, sat down with him, and guided him through how the game works (thankfully, I had enough experience with CMBN/CMBB that it was easy for me). He still couldn't get past the interface issues. He knew what he wanted to do, but simply got frustrated trying to figure out how to effectively do it. Another friend of mine was jazzed to try the game and gave the demo a shot when it came out. He gave up on it because it took too much time. Simply moving his units in the demo took so long that he determined he'd never have enough time to finish a game. My buddy from work introduced the game to his son, and his reaction was the same: It seems like it could be fun, but the controls are terrible and figuring out how to make guys do what you want is not intuitive enough. These three guys aren't 14 year old twitch-fest FPS players. They're all between 30-40 years of age, historically inclined PC gamers. They should be right smack dab in the middle of the demographic that this game appeals to. But they ALL gave up on the game because the UI is...well...horrible. All of the improvements that we want to see take time and manpower. But if BFC can't get people to buy their game they'll never be able to afford the cost/manpower to actually implement those changes. Steve has said that Battlefront has experienced brisk sales of CMBN and that they don't need to market to the general population, but surely the guys I've described here are people they would want for customers. It generates income for them, it generates opponents for me, and the whole community is better off for it. I don't think you can say the same about under the hood changes like area targeting.