Jump to content

Seriously Disappointed


Recommended Posts

The title is the main point. I have bought every BFC title and my friend and I played the CM1 series dozens of times. More than any other computer game and I have been playing computer games since the Atari 800. Never played the modern games but bought them anyway. With that said, I have become very disappointed in CMBN. We are almost finished with our third game: appx. 1.25 BNs worth of forces per side on a detailed 2x3 km map.

Frankly, it is like death by a thousand cuts. There are just so many minor bugs that wear you down throughout a long game, each one interfering with your tactical plan until your frustration level goes over the top. The final straw for me in the current game was my recently finished turn 36 of 45. I had almost my entire force going full speed (probably 30 or 35 vehicle units) to try to turn my opponents flank and reach several bridges. I sent the turn to my friend and he returned it as usual. When I ran the replay I discovered that a few of my units had moved a few meters but most had not moved at all. When I clicked the button to make my next move all my movement commands were still in place from the previous turn. I checked the save I made just prior to hitting the button for the real time calculations and everything was normal. Just a devastating result when you are trying to reach victory objectives and have very limited turns left to do so. The following site has screenshots of some of the movement paths.

In addition, there are four screenshots of another inexplicable (to me) incident in the same turn. Two zook teams on the top of a highway cut above a Panzer IV. When I checked the target line I could see the entire area below the teams position but could not see the tank. Gave them movement orders to circle right and left to come at the tank from back and front. They do not move and the tank swivels its turret and kills both teams. They could not see the tank below them but the tank could see them??

Comments on the above very welcome.

http://s1076.photobucket.com/albums/w444/smbeckett/

I love this game but IMHO it is not nearly as good as CM1. I also know that is somewhat unfair as BFC will improve it as time goes on. More than anything it is disappointed expectations. I expected everything that was good in CM1 and lots of great additions. Instead there are some great new features and graphics, etc., but many, many missing features from the original series. I wasn't going to post at all as I am a very poor typist but this game is too important to me! I will make a further series of posts presenting my main complaints and observations. Hopefully there are areas of the game I just do not understand fully and will hope to be corrected by those more in the know.

Sorry for the long post. If the password is necessary for the screenshots it is fredderf. The site will only be used for this posting. I also apologize for not having the necessary knowledge to include the screenshots in the post; just old and dumb.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had almost my entire force going full speed (probably 30 or 35 vehicle units) to try to turn my opponents flank and reach several bridges. I sent the turn to my friend and he returned it as usual. When I ran the replay I discovered that a few of my units had moved a few meters but most had not moved at all. When I clicked the button to make my next move all my movement commands were still in place from the previous turn. I checked the save I made just prior to hitting the button for the real time calculations and everything was normal. Just a devastating result when you are trying to reach victory objectives and have very limited turns left to do so. The following site has screenshots of some of the movement paths.

It's a little difficult to tell, but it appears that you have a big pile of halftracks attempting to pass through / over a wall. Halftracks don't go over walls (even destroyed ones) as far as I know, so all your vehicles are going to either just sit there or seek another path around the wall. If no other path exists then yeah, they'll just sit there because they can't leave their enclosure. Even if the gaps in the wall are passable, then your halftracks are going to just pile up in a giant traffic jam trying to cram 30 vehicles through a one vehicle gap. Anyone who has tried driving into New York City through the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour knows what happens during that situation.

I'm going to guess that your movement issue is possibly related to bad map / scenario design.

Not sure about the bazooka teams. There isn't enough info in the screen shots to really tell what's going on with any precision. Probably need to see the game file itself to understand that one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ASL Veteran, I must respectfully disagree. I made several gaps through low stone walls with tanks and HTs have been passing through with no problems. I know it is difficult to make much out of the pictures that show all the paths on top of each other but I am very careful to put in pauses to insure they follow each other and do not pile up at a narrow gap. That said there are always minor movement problems but that is not the issue here. There were many vehicles with long open paths that only moved a few meters and stopped in the open. In fact the movement glitches have been a problem on a minor scale in all the games my friend and I have played. Vehicles with waypoints down roads that decide to leave the road and move parallel to it, problems crossing bridges even after the 1.01 patch, etc., etc.

The tank/zook problem is very straightforward. The tank has been sitting in the same spot for at least 10 turns. It is visible to me from a spotting unit on another hill. When I moved the zooks up there the previous turn I could use the target LOS and see to the bottom of the cut; right down the face of the cut under my teams and all over the area where the tank was sitting. But they could not see it. And yet when they stood up to move left and right (which they did not do - just stood there) the tank turned its turret and killed them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gee, someone is playing the game at considerably over the scale it was intended to be played and has complaints. I'm shocked! I can't recall CMx1 being much of a walk-in-the-park playing more than a battalion on a six square kilometer map either. But I forgot my rose-tinted glasses back at home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gee, someone is playing the game at considerably over the scale it was intended to be played and has complaints. I'm shocked! I can't recall CMx1 being much of a walk-in-the-park playing more than a battalion on a six square kilometer map either. But I forgot my rose-tinted glasses back at home.

Is this kind of attitude really called for? He is having some issues, maybe part of it is him doing something wrong, maybe not. Either way this is inappropriate coming from someone partly associated with BFC and exactly the kind of thing people from "other" forums complain about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The tank has been sitting in the same spot for at least 10 turns. It is visible to me from a spotting unit on another hill.
Another unit sees them. Not the bazooka team.

When I moved the zooks up there the previous turn I could use the target LOS and see to the bottom of the cut; right down the face of the cut under my teams and all over the area where the tank was sitting. But they could not see it.
You are seeing an effect of the new relative spotting. Just because a unit can see the area where a particular enemy is, doesn't mean it sees that enemy. Yes -- even against tanks.

This is strange, and I think in a sense sometimes wrong. I've seen tanks drive up within a few meters of infantry before being spotted. On the other hand, what you did is also wrong. You, as a totally unrealistic omniscient eye-in-the-sky commander, told a bazooka team to move for no reason they knew of, to see an area they had no idea contained an enemy tank. CMx2 allows this, because it must, because the player controls all of his good-order units. But it doesn't have to reward this sort of ahistorical movement; one way to prevent it is to make spotting things for moving units hard, even though it seems like pretty much any infantry would be able to see any tank very quickly at bazooka ranges.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

:rolleyes: Please ignore MikeyD. I don't think that is the core issue. There is a bug with HT movement across rubbled wall sections that should be addressed in the next patch that may be contributing, but regardless all those converging "fast" orders over rough terrain is asking a lot of the AI and may be causing pile-ups regardless of the pauses issued.

As for the bazooka, no way to tell exactly what the problem is with a single anecdotal situation. There will be occasional extreme outliers given CMBN's complex spotting system. Did you consider setting up a test in the editor to try and reproduce the spotting problem? Can you retry the move with the movement waypoints plotted further away from the cliff edge?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding what happened to your halftracks: they all were plotted to go through the place where the wall had been. They can do this. Therefore, they all tried, but they all blocked each other. When this happens, the code makes them wait. So most of them waited. I am sure a few made it through. I am sure you thought your pauses were enough, but I expect they weren't; and problems with them cascade.

CMBN makes it very hard to have forces in a column. This is a problem, yes, but at least once you know about it, it should not matter that much. Just don't expect lots of vehicles to squeeze through narrow gaps in a timely manner, and you will be fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is this kind of attitude really called for? He is having some issues, maybe part of it is him doing something wrong, maybe not. Either way this is inappropriate coming from someone partly associated with BFC and exactly the kind of thing people from "other" forums complain about.

+1. MikeyD you really need to stop and think before you jump down people's throats all the time. This is not an unreasonable post and he went out of his way to say he likes the game. We have all encountered moments like this -- I imagine I'd be pretty frustrated too especially if I was well into a highly competitive H2H game.

BFC does not need a self-appointed Defender of the Faith.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Map size notwithstanding, if you can buy formations by the bataillon (fire up a Large/Huge QB and marvel at all the goodies you can buy!) it certainly isn't unreasonable to assume that the game can handle one of them + assorted extras.

Regarding pathfinding... I wish you'd have a preview function in the game, just so you can see how the plotted movements work out and adapt your plan accordingly. While this doesn't improve pathfinding itself (and would thus be of little to no use to mostly RT guys like me...), it would massively help you maneuver around the shortcomings of the AI in that regard (gee whiz, bad pun).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Caveat: I have not yet looked at the turns you posted. As mentioned, there is a known issue with crossing rubled walls with halftracks. If one of the halftracks has that problem and it is the first one in the "stack", you could've had a cascading delay problem.

Bazooka team, as mentioned, select the team and check to see what they can see/spot. If they don't see the tank, you've got to manuever them to give them the opportunity to acquire the tank.

Finally, if you've got a reinforced battalion in combat and the game is only 45 minutes long, you may want to increase the time limit. That many units takes time to get into the fight.

Ken

Link to comment
Share on other sites

+1. MikeyD you really need to stop and think before you jump down people's throats all the time. This is not an unreasonable post and he went out of his way to say he likes the game. We have all encountered moments like this -- I imagine I'd be pretty frustrated too especially if I was well into a highly competitive H2H game.

BFC does not need a self-appointed Defender of the Faith.

Send him off to the peng thread!!! That'll teach the boy!

Seriously though I do get MikeyD's feeling on the response. It might have been better if the OP had started with "I am having an issue that I don't understand, can someone please ..." rather than CMx2 sucks compared to CMx1 because I don't understand why this is happening. However given the 18 post count he apparently hasn't gotten involved in any of the detailed discussions that have gone on about the AI pathing, relative spotting etc and he obviously likes the game. Cut em some slack and off to the Peng thread with you Mikey! We'll let you out... some day....just keep banging on the door, some noob is bound to wonder what the racket is and open it at some point.

Interesting to note there is a HT bug with movement at rubbled walls - that in and of itself was worth the OP posting.

Besides I recall we seem to already have a high priest of of the church of fanboi-ism around here somewhere, but as I haven't attended services in a bit I've forgotten who it is....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I too am fed up with people coming along and moaning when really they haven't got to grips with the game mechanics and instead of asking for help they do the old it's not as good as CMx1. Well you should have 1. Played the Demo and 2. Browsed the forums before purchase.

To say the game is riddled with bugs is a massive overstatement or I'm totally blind to them.

Also why can't people understand this isn't CMx1 and never was going to be. It's a totally different beast that more than ever you really need to think along real life tactics, far more so than CMx1. Lastly there are many great tips on the forums about learning how to move and most importantly when to use and how to use the commands, Pause is very important for instance. yes there are a couple of commands the game could do with that CMx1 had, yet with clever use of the commands you can sor tof get around these on the whole.

I loved CMx1, yet I know CMx2 gives me a far more realistic experience than CMx1 gave me. I'd also rate CMx2 as higher in the complexity level than CMx1. If your coming from a CMx1 background you have to totally come into CMx2 with a fresh mind and leave everything you knew about CMx1 at the door. I'm sure eventually it will click and you will start to appreciate how good the game is, if not you know not to buy anymore and carry on with CMx1 or Matrix has PCO.

Anway when someone come son here asking for help I have no problem with that at all, but when they head their topic along the lines of this is rubbish it isn't CMx1 than it gets my back up also. It's one reason why I stayed away from the forum for awhile after release. Even now I usually skip straight to the mod section.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's not jump on the guy too hard, fellas. Complaining (politely!) while providing a) a detailed description of what is happening and B) screenshots is way more constructive than a lot of the stuff that goes down here. I wouldn't encourage bashing the game every time you ask for help, but we all need to vent sometimes.

As to your issues, smbecket: Wreck's answers seem like they probably cover things. And ASL is correct - we could get more definitive information from your save file (preferably the one just prior to nothing moving) if you have it handy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gee, someone is playing the game at considerably over the scale it was intended to be played and has complaints. I'm shocked! I can't recall CMx1 being much of a walk-in-the-park playing more than a battalion on a six square kilometer map either. But I forgot my rose-tinted glasses back at home.

Gee, MikeyD delivers another unneccesary smart-arse comment and manages to completely miss the point...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I find it interesting that someone would jump right into huge battles and after playing a few games be upset that the game is not working to their perception and get mad because of the wasted effort for such a big game.

Playing the game takes time to learn all the little things that do and dont work to your pre-thoughts. I would say I played 6 battles before some things started making sence as to how the game was going to treat things, it was only after that time that I started playing others, then at least I was not hurting myself much with doing things that the game could not handle.

I still had things to learn and much of that from reading what other players have found out also. But I just think it is your own fault for going into a huge battle before you were ready for such play.

As for CMX1 being better, I recall the same issues when I first started playing it also. Boy I would complain about aspects that did not play out to what I thought they should, but with time I learned what the game would do and adjusted my play style to match the game. I still hate how it Borg spotted and you could never ambush anything without have the map returning fire on you in 10 seconds. (I would not call that better)

I had to totally change my style of play in CMX2 compared to CMX1, the thing I find funny is, many players have slowed down and are cautious. I find that to be odd, I find I can be more aggressive and use movement much more to reposition and attack where I find weakness, between the terrain and the spotting limitations. Being able to play a fluid battle is much more available and much more realistic, Ambushes are common now and play out much more realistic.

So learn the game, then sit down and discuss bugs or poor play, yes, plenty can still be improved. but you as the player can control much of the shortcomings if you know what they are.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The way vehicles work is this: if a vehicle is moving along the terrain and another [moving] vehicle has blocked it's path the first vehicle will be issued a 3 second pause order, after which if the path is clear it drives on or if not, another 3 second pause is given and another until the way is clear [of mobile vehicles]. A destroyed/immobilized vehicle causes the vehicle to maneuver around.

With those 8 HTs all trying to get through a tiny hole the stupidly polite "oh no, I insist, you go" is going to be off the scales! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thank one and all for your responses. First, because of some of the comments I believe I should give a little more detail on how my friend and I play the game. Basically, we like larger engagements; a reinforced BN is about right although the last game of CMAK we played had three full BNs of infantry per side plus at least A BNs worth of tanks, TDs/stugs, engineers, etc., etc. The scenario called for two BN sectors to defend and one to attack. Objectives for each side were rolled from a prepared list. A lot of fun but exhausting and we did not reach the end. Also, I build all the maps that we play on so I am fairly familiar with the terrain and feature sets that were provided in the map editor.

I did play the DEMO and I do visit this forum frequently. I have learned a lot from all of you and I hope to learn a lot more as time goes on.

MickeyD, I understand your, shall we say, sarcasm, and I have no problem with it. But I will argue the point about the level the game was intended for. Yes, I know it is a Company level game but I believe there is at least a small group who enjoy playing with more forces than a CO. Besides, is anyone going to play with just a reinforced CO. on a 16 sq. km. map? I doubt it. And as Chris69 mentioned you can add units by BNs so the game should function with them, IMHO, without a problem. The problem with it is that I do not believe that if I expanded my map from its current largest size of 3x3 km that the map by itself would load, let alone with any units added. It currently takes about 6-8 minutes for the map to load to work on it and I do not have a poor computer (intel core i7 920 w/6 GB of RAM and an AMD 5780 w/1 GB of video RAM).

I also understand some of the comments about comparing the game to the CM1 series as I have been irritated by some of these posts myself. However, I did not say the game sucked or that it was riddled with bugs. I was, however, quite irritated and I beg the pardon of anyone I offended. I do stand by my comment that there are a number of MINOR bugs/glitches/design decisions/whatever, that adversely affect game play. These can, over the course of a long game, have a serious affect on the outcome. I will expound on them in a separate post.

To get back to my original post an erroneous impression was left after the first comment that I was trying to route 30 plus vehicles through a small opening in a low stone wall. Since my initial group of screenshots did not provide adequate information I have uploaded a new group to Photobucket. Please take a look as I believe what happened to my turn has some importance if it is in fact a bug. From the second group you should be able to see that there were many units moving and a relative few that were going to be moving through the gap in any particular stone wall. Even though many units had long, unimpeded movement paths most only moved a few meters, if at all. On a few I have added a separate picture showing the progress after the turn. I fully understand the need to provide lengthy pauses to keep vehicles apart, especially when turning. They did not bunch up at gaps because they did not move far enough to do so as a couple of the screenshots should clearly show.

For the tank/bazooka problem I am not sure myself what the problem is although I find it difficult to believe it is relative spotting. Two AT teams arrived at the top of a highway cut one or two turns before the one in question. There was a PZ IV directly below them (about 40 feet). One of the teams had a light blue clear target line to the bottom. There are no trees or any other impediment to a clear LOS. But they could not see the tank. I gave each team a command: one to circle to the right and the other to the left to end up, hopefully, to the front and rear of the tank. At the beginning of the replay they stood up but did not move. At 25 seconds into the replay the tank began swinging its turret. It lined up on one bazooka team at a time and killed the man holding the bazooka. The teams took no action for self preservation although just moving back a few feet and going prone would have saved them. As an aside this also raises the question of how a buttoned tank with only its vision ports could see these men 40 feet above it. I added three new screenshots to Photobucket. Hopefully my expanded explanation will make the pictures make a little more sense.

For C3K: good to know about HTs and rubbled walls although I believe I had only one serious problem on my mad dash. Two HTs merged and it took about 3-4 turns to get them to separate. Your comment on a 45 turn game with the forces we had was spot on. I did it because the last game was set for 120 turns with appx. 1.5 BNs per side. At turn 43 the game crashed with an out of memory problem right after the last reinforcements entered and we could not continue. I shortened the game and the forces and the reinforcement timetable to keep our frustration to a minimum if it happened again.

Thanks, Phil, for your comments although I am not worried about criticism. My goal is to make my problems known in case they can uncover any problems with the game or help anyone else. And as far as the comment about me posting the OP with inadequate experience I do believe that playing appx. 110 turns with a BN plus has given me quite a bit of experience. Not that I don't need a lot more. I still make stupid mistakes and probably always will but I am learning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To get back to my original post an erroneous impression was left after the first comment that I was trying to route 30 plus vehicles through a small opening in a low stone wall. Since my initial group of screenshots did not provide adequate information I have uploaded a new group to Photobucket. Please take a look as I believe what happened to my turn has some importance if it is in fact a bug. From the second group you should be able to see that there were many units moving and a relative few that were going to be moving through the gap in any particular stone wall. Even though many units had long, unimpeded movement paths most only moved a few meters, if at all. On a few I have added a separate picture showing the progress after the turn. I fully understand the need to provide lengthy pauses to keep vehicles apart, especially when turning. They did not bunch up at gaps because they did not move far enough to do so as a couple of the screenshots should clearly show.

Did you look at the damage levels for your vehicles? Did you look to see if your halftracks have any wheel damage from not passing through those rubbled wall sections? If your wheels or tracks are yellow or orange damage status then your vehicles are going to move at a snails pace even down the center of a paved road. Vehicles with a big red X over the wheels or tracks in the damaged section are immobilized but there are several in between states where the vehicle is not yet immobilized but the movement rate is reduced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For Phil Culliton: I did not respond to your comment re: saved game file. I do have one although due to the large scenario it is 53.719 MB in size. If you have Dropbox or a similar program I would be happy to send it to you.

For ASL Veteran: Thank you for the comment on checking for damage to wheels. I had not thought to do that but as a result of your comment I surveyed all of my units and found the statistics interesting. During the turn in question I had a total of 55 vehicles and 14 ground elements moving. Thirty five vehicles had moved through at least one rubbled wall gap, twenty eight had moved through four and appx. nine had moved through five. This force consisted of six tanks, nineteen HTs, three HMCs, three trucks and four jeeps. Two tanks had yellow tracks; I believe they were the ones that made the gaps. Of the nineteen HTs thirteen had light green wheels (good) instead of the dark green (excellent) indicating some degradation. A couple of HTs and jeeps were dismounted and their status could not be determined. The other vehicles had no damage. I need to remember to keep better track of damage as a scenario progresses as it can certainly have an effect on your capability!

For Paper Tiger: Thank you very much for telling me/showing me how to add screenshots to a post. Maybe this old dog can learn a new trick. I will take a shot at it at my earliest oppurtunity. Thanks again!

LJFHutch: Thanks for the info on the time delay. That is one of the welcome improvements in CM2. The eight HTs you mentioned were not ordered through that particular road cut, just up closer to be ready for a future advance, if it became possible to do so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For Phil Culliton: I did not respond to your comment re: saved game file. I do have one although due to the large scenario it is 53.719 MB in size. If you have Dropbox or a similar program I would be happy to send it to you.

You have a public folder in your dropbox. Copy the file there, right click it-> Dropbox->copy public link

You can now paste the link with ctrl-v anywhere you like and anyone who clicks that link can download the file.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just wanted to mention that although I am a regular forum reader ( not too often poster ), I was unaware that there was a possible HT/rubbled wall bug, so this thread has at the very least brought that to light.

And it must be heartening for the OP to see that BF do respond positively to a possible bug report no matter how it's worded ( ok, I guess there are some wordings that wouldn't work ;) )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...