Glubokii Boy

Hello... look here...It does not get much better then this i belive..

I may not be all that found of the way that the briefing designing currently works in CM but i'm affraid i'm on the other side of the fence here... I do NOT want a narrower/simpler way to design the briefings...Simpler, YES, but narrower (less options, less graphpics) most certainly NOT. I think that a very well done briefing kind of adds to the immersion of the scenario. It would do even more so if additional functions could be made avalaiable imo. Some problems i see with the current setup is first and foremost the limited resolution for the graphical sections. The maps, pictures or whatever else you would like to include here are limited to a very low resolution. It can be hard to design detailed maps and pictures within these restriction. Using the 'stock graphics' for the briefing pictures seems to be rather tricky to do. I have never tried it myself but i have read a number of post asking about how this is done... The briefings are currently limited to a max of 3 pictures. This is a fairly low number. How to change this... First and foremeost...up the resolution. Secondly...SCRAP the entire current set-up ! and redo the way that the briefing screens are done from scratch... What i would like to see is this... Skip the 4 different sections that currently makes up the briefing screen...The text-section and the 3 map(pictures)-sections. The briefing screen should be made up of ONE section ! And one section only. This ONE section should...If it is at all possible...allow for a wider variaty of file types to be used compared to the current version that only allows for a text file to be used in the text-section and picture files to be used in the picture-sections. In this ONE section all the briefing information should be displayed on a number of pages (each using the 'full screen') to include both text and pictures. Each seperate file would represent ONE page in this new briefing screen. These files should be doable using the most common text- and graphic editing programs. The result could be something like this.. Maybe the first page(file) will be a 'cover picture' for the scenario, file(page) 2 and 3 will be textfiles, page 4 will be a map (or perhaps several maps), page 5 and 6 will be recon pictures and page 7 and 8 will be additional text files only... Something like this will give the designer full flexibility when it comes to how much work he wants to put into the creation of the scenario briefing. The simplest and fastest option would be to simply includy a number of text-files made with notepad (or whatever textprogram the designer desires) to make a text only briefing....Quick and simple ! On the other hand if the designer are willing to commit a bit more time to the briefing he could include things like picturesfiles that resembles RL briefing documents (both modern and WW2 time frames) He could include detailed maps, various pictures like air-, satelite recon. Maybe pictures of specific persons that plays a significant part in the scenario. For example in a shockforce 2 scenario in wich the goal is to kill/capture a terrorist leader/WIP... the briefing could include an actual picture of this guy. I think that would be rather 'cool' Lots of stuff like this could be included in the briefing and would increase the level of immersion imo. If the designer wanted he could also include a small encyclopedia with picture and text describing the features and capabilities of likely enemy equipment that the player may encounter during the scenario. I think that especially someone who does not play all that much or often can have a hard time keeping track of all the different equipment in the various games. Having this rundown of the most likely opposition in any particular scenario would be highely apprisiated i belive. If the designers 'favorite' text and graphic editing program could be used to design these briefing pages and then upload them to the mission editor i don't think that it would neccesarely take...all that long...to design really cool briefing screens.

The reason i...and i belive many others would like to get som feedback on our scenarios is not at all to recive a huge amount of prace or admiration... That would be nice offcourse...possitive feedback is what we hope for obviously...but if negative comments or friendly suggestions are called for they are equally welcome... The reason for me wanting some feedback is.. To learn With what parts of this scenario have i succeded...what is good ? Was it to hard...to easy... What parts are not quite as good...how can i improve these... If i as the designer gets no comments what so ever i have no idea about how the community recived this 'product'... Was it so bad that it was not even worthy of a single comment....maybe i have no tallent for this at all...maybe i shall not design any more of these as they are crap anyways... Or is my scenario actually fairly good...many players actually enjoyed playing it and would deffinetally download any future stuff i design... Without any kind of feedback at all i simply dont know. As for newbie vs seasoned scenario designers...when i previously mentioned that i belive that newbie scenario designers would benefit more from reciving feedback ones they upload their scenarios compared to more experienced designers... Part of the reason is simply to learn but also the simple fact that most times i belive a newbie designer will not get any feefback at all until...post release. A more experienced designer is way more likely to have a number of playtesters willing to try out their scenarios during the design phase...getting plenty of feedback this way. A newbee designer seldom has this i belive...they have to do it alone...therefore the need for post release feedback might be higher...

Yes...I guess this is the best option avaliable at the moment... It is actually not that much work to do but i doubt that we will see a great number of such scenarios ( a decent pool) being made. It is still a 'little aquard' and a 'little aquard' might be enough to prevent this from being a thing for the masses... Thanks for clearing this up !

Could this work ? That would be kind of neat... IIRC you can chose to have the AI side picked by the computer or you could select to do it manually (picking them yourself). If you select the manual option and don't pick any forces at all for the AI...will the forces previously selected for the AI while designing the map (or using one of the already finished QB maps) remain...as the AI side...or will they be deleted ones that QB map is selected in the QB battle set up ? If they remain as the AI side this could actually work... One problem i can see with this though...how does the AI forces get devided into the various AI groups ? It could turn into a real mess if the various AI groups are scattered all over the map and not deployed tohether... I guess the easiest way to test if this works at all will be to load a finished QB map into the editor (as a regular scenario) and then deploy a small force to represent the AI side. Save the map (scenario) ones again and place it into the QB map folder...select the map as the active one while starting a new QB...not selecting any forces for the AI side...starting the battle...hitting cease fire... are those troops deployed on the map ? If they are i guess this is working ... The number one question then...will the computer be able to devide them up into reasonable AI groups ?

On a more serious note... I think that feedback is MORE wanted...MOORE needed when it comes to newbie designers... Speaking for myself atleast...i would wanna know what the players thought was good about the scenario and witch parts could do with some more work/improvements. Such comments i would find very useful for my next project and inspire me to do more work... No comments at all i would simply find 'depressing' after many, many hours of work... A more seasoned designer have a better understanding of how the gameengine/editor works and what is required of a 'good' scenario and might not neccesarely need that many pointers...

Those naughty guys !! NO salery for anyone this month...

Another thing that a belive might discurrage many new scenario designers is the lack of feedback ! They may have spent months designing their first scenario they intend to upload.. They upload it and wait with exitement to read the first comments...and they get absolutelly ZERO feedback on it...no comments what so ever...maybe one or two thank you at best. This could make even the best of us loose intrest in designing any more...

That is rather good advice But i would not be supprised if many new scenario designers does not upload their very first, and simple, scenarios...but rather keep them for them selfs. Ones they do decide to take the plunge and upload their first scenario they want it to be 'GOOD' Obviously it does not need to be a full Antwerp city fight...but they do want it to be...good. I think that it is pretty natural for most of us to want to do as good a jobb as possible if we are doing something for others... The bar has been moved up...when it comes to thelevel of quality we expect to see in a CM scenario. The community have been 'spoiled' by many good, very good scenarios being released lately... Even a newbie designer feel some preasure to deliver a scenario of decent quality i'm guessing... Therefore many scenarios might not get finnished...they get stuck or 'burnt out' or simply feel that the end result is not of high enough quality...

That would be a godsend

I know this has been mentioned and discussed 58-ish times before but a little reminder every now and then nerver hurts As mentioned above...mapdesign is usually a rather lenthy process. Especially with larger, huge maps. Not only with regards to the elevation but also 'the painting of the terrain' I agree that the time-commitment to produce a high quality map is probably one of the reasons for the limited number of scenarios being made. There are ways to improve this though. As mentioned before... Please BFC give us a copy, rotate, paste feature to the map designer. Combine this with a way to import/export (load/save) designated mapsections. If we as the mapdesigners could load something like 20, 30 or more different farm complexes, simular number of small villages, river/stream sections with appropiate vegitation, different kinds of forrest sections, urban sections etc, etc and rotate these as desired, place them on the map and if neccesary edit them further ones in place. The time require to design those larger maps would be seriuosly reduced.

I'm guessing that the community content will be up to the community to update... The game (CMSF 2) is still fairly new. Most people might still be playing the stock scenarios... I'm sure the pace of community scenarios being made/updated will pick up soon...

Intresting suggestion...but i don't think that this will be a good idea. Regular scenarios have been designed and playtested with the specific player-forces that the designer has given you... Change any of this and the AI force might become very inapropiate for the new situation and the AI plans might work badly with a totally different enemy to face... Or...are your suggestion that these scenarios should be designed with no player forced selected to start with ? The designer would still need to add AI plans to these scenarios...it will be kind of the same thing as designing the current QB maps i think... I belive that my suggestion with a save feature for the QB battle set-ups will be a far simpler solution...only requring the selection and deployment of the AI side to 'design' a scenario...

Yepp ! Hopefully this effort will also benefit the development of any future CM3 games. Or are BFC planning on staying with CM2 and provide us with early war and north africa games perhaps...

What will be the greatest benefits of these " standardized TO&Es for all WW2 titles" going forward ?

The flamthrowers can indeed be tricky to use but they are one of those units that can bring great satisfaction ones they do work... "ooohh, YES !!!!"

When placed in ambush possitions they can do a decent amount of damage to careless attacker though...they may only get one or two bursts of before taking heavy fire...but thoose bursts can render entire squads more or less useless...a decent trade of i think..

In thoose somewhat larger/ more compex scenarios that includes multiple terrian, multiple destroy and perhaps also casulty/amno level objectives it can be quite tricky to get the scoring right...the player may fail in securing some terrain objectives that is pretty vital but still score - full point - in all the others...friendly, enemy casualties...killed the right enemy unit and keept the right friendly units alive etc...resulting in a draw or maybe a minor victory...but they still failed to secure all the terrainobjectives for the mission. Kind of the primary objective...a skilled designer usually manages to get the scoring pretty much right to be able to handle every possible outcome...but this could get pretty tricky to do at times. What if the objectives could be classified as primary and secondary objectives...and the game end-screen could include success or failure for both of these...? For example...securing the terrain will be the PRIMARY objective for the scenario and maintaining a low casulty level will be the SECONDARY objective... Both of these sets of objectives can be a succes or failure individually... Terrainobjectives seccured...primary objective achived. Casulties to high...secondary objective is a failure... In another scenario some terrain objectives may be classified as primary objectives and other, less important, as secondary objectives... If the primary objective is achived the mission will be considdered atleast a win (at various levels dependant on the result of the secondary objectives...). If the primary objective fails...the mission will be at best a fail (or maybe a draw)...dependant on the result of the secondary objectives...

The areafire with the on-map mortars is a nice new feature with V.4 but unfortunatelly it is limited to HE and rather low calliber HE at that...when 'timed' smoke or larger caliber HE is desired the area fire feature is of no use currently... Its a nice step in the right direction but not quite there yet..

Yes, yes, yes...give it to me !!!! This is something i would really like also...some kind of timer... Do this for XX minutes...wait at this waypoint for XX minutes...the gameclock and triggers that we have now don't allow for this since there is no way of knowing excatelly when each AI order will be carried out as far as the gameclock goes...a certain AI order may be triggered at min 23 or at min 31 for example...the usefullnes of the gameclock as a timer is therefore limited... I agree with the sgt...please BFC...give us a timer...

Yepp... And i can see other uses for this 'retreat in place' trick...for teams to pop smoke for others...in streetfighting for example it could perhaps work nicely if the main body provides suppression and coverfire as a small part of the force moves forward. Ones in place this forward team could pop smoke (retreat in place) to cover the advance of the main body as they move forward....

One of those neat little tricks that can come in very handy during the right circumstances...thanks for the tip

Hey... One more LIKE and you deserve a nice, coold beer imo

Will these faster elevation calculations in the editor also impact gameplay i wounder ? It has been recomended for as long as i can remember to try and limit the directly specified elevations tiles in the editor because of their negativ impact on FPS...hopefully these recomendations are now obsolete if elevation calculations are now faster...

Yepp A nice new feature for the QBs could perhaps be to include a function that would allow one player to pick and deploy the forces of the AI side and then 'save' the game...upload it to a special thread/location on these forums ( or elsewhere ) to allow other player to download this save and load it into the QB interface as the AI side...pick his own forces...click go ! And the QB battle would start with the AI commanding the forces picked by the first guy... This way we could help eachother to build up a 'pool' of QB battles picked and deployed by a human but playable as singleplayer vs the AI... Hopefully a decent pool of such scenarios could soon be avaliable...they would be doable with a very limited effort on the part of the picker i think...