Jock Tamson Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I have to say I am really really enjoying CMFI so far. I played CMBN on a very high end machine so performance was never an issue, but everything feels so much slicker in CMFI, with the upgrades coming, OMG and Easter Front, and Engine 2.0 CMSF these are exciting times for fans. That said, there is one issue that I still find frustrating - playing on Elite or Iron and clicking on enemy floating icons and being told that it is eg "1 Squad B Team". There is no good reason I can think of why I should be given the squad's name. Apart from the obvious issue - that I now know I am dealing with a half section - what if: I engage them and they break off contact, retreating into the village (I think). I occupy their building 20 mins later. I see there are two enemy dead. Later I am engaged by enemy forces deeper in the village. Oh, it's "1 Squad B Team".... so I've got a pretty good idea how many there are. That shouldn't be possible. JT 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
womble Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Old gripe is old. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock Tamson Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Old gripe is old. We are often told it isn't a module. Therefore it's a young gripe in the context of this release. I've accepted that there are some things that will not change in CM2, not unreasonable to hope that this isn't one of them. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stikkypixie Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 We are often told it isn't a module. Therefore it's a young gripe in the context of this release. I've accepted that there are some things that will not change in CM2, not unreasonable to hope that this isn't one of them. I do have reason for hope though, the introduction of new contact icons is a step in the right direction I think. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bil Hardenberger Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 It may be an old gripe, but it is still a very valid one. It doesn't hurt to restate these issues form time to time.. squeaky wheel > grease, etc.... Bil 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltorrente Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Old gripe is old. And yet, still very vaild. This is the one thing that has really surprised me with this game. Everything is so realistic, yet I can see that a halftrack 1000yards away is carrying a platoon leader, and an MG ammo bearer. One guy is spotted through the trees, and I see that it's Squad 3 C. It should just say "infantry", unless you've been watching them for several minutes within a certain range - then maybe you can tell which guy is the leader, or you finally see a tripod get setup and "oh, there's a heavy MG" - and it updates. We shouldn't know which platoon, squad, section, and specialty of some guy who we caught a fleeting glimpse of in the woods, or saw his head in the back of a halftrack. I was really hoping that for CMFI this was going to be addressed - since they talked about new FOW icons being a feature. I also realized that there is another "issue" with the icons and FOW, that I hadn't thought much about until recently in some intense PBEMs. If you see one guy moving into position, but his icon is trailing behind him - you KNOW that he is just one out of several guys in his group, but you just can't see them yet. If the icon is right above him, he's probably alone. Not a game breaker, I know, but still.. I shouldn't be able to deduce these things at all based on seeing one guy off in the distance. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongLeftFlank Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Yup, I really can't see a valid reason why the UI should display a dursed thing about the enemy units, other than that they're Infantry or a Vehicle. I don't even like being told an AFV or bunker is Knocked Out. Best guesses based on a visual scan of enemies your men can see, or a unit TacAI knowing not to execute a Target order on a target it knows is dead (but you don't), that's legitimate. I just assume it's on Charles' lengthy To Do list, and in the meantime I can live with it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 If you see one guy moving into position, but his icon is trailing behind him - you KNOW that he is just one out of several guys in his group, but you just can't see them yet. If the icon is right above him, he's probably alone. Not a game breaker, I know, but still.. I shouldn't be able to deduce these things at all based on seeing one guy off in the distance. I just had the experience last night of a piat team (CMBN, of course) moving into a possible ambush position. Visually, I only saw one guy with a rifle/no piat moving (and pretty much right under the icon), and wondered if the piat gunner was actually alive or not. As I was watching, the guy with the rifle stopped moving, but the icon kept moving forward a bit into the action square. Question answered. I targeted the team, justifying it to myself as the spotter's sixth sense/hunch based on his combat experience. But I'd rather not know.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sburke Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I just had the experience last night of a piat team (CMBN, of course) moving into a possible ambush position. Visually, I only saw one guy with a rifle/no piat moving (and pretty much right under the icon), and wondered if the piat gunner was actually alive or not. As I was watching, the guy with the rifle stopped moving, but the icon kept moving forward a bit into the action square. Question answered. I targeted the team, justifying it to myself as the spotter's sixth sense/hunch based on his combat experience. But I'd rather not know.... or you could justify it that the amount of bushes etc moving justified believeing it was a larger force than just one guy... On the one hand I am all for having a lot more FOW in the game, on the other I know this has come up previously...many many times previously, but I haven't had the chance to go back and see what BFs responses consisted of (though I am fairly certain the issue is a lot more complicated than any of us would like it to be). Still one can hope. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collingwood Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 That said, there is one issue that I still find frustrating - playing on Elite or Iron and clicking on enemy floating icons and being told that it is eg "1 Squad B Team". I had no idea that happens, because it's never occurred to me to click on enemy floating icons. Perhaps that's the solution - maintain fog of war by only clicking on our own icons? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I had no idea that happens, because it's never occurred to me to click on enemy floating icons. Perhaps that's the solution - maintain fog of war by only clicking on our own icons? Unfortunately, those of us who play quite large battles, find it tremendously useful to click on enemy icons in order to determine who can see them ( your guys with LoS will "light up" ). It's a useful tool, but does unhappily reveal more than we want to know. sburke, as far as I know, BF have not commented at all on this issue ( I may have missed it of course ). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltorrente Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I just had the experience last night of a piat team (CMBN, of course) moving into a possible ambush position. Visually, I only saw one guy with a rifle/no piat moving (and pretty much right under the icon), and wondered if the piat gunner was actually alive or not. As I was watching, the guy with the rifle stopped moving, but the icon kept moving forward a bit into the action square. Question answered. I targeted the team, justifying it to myself as the spotter's sixth sense/hunch based on his combat experience. But I'd rather not know.... Yup, exactly. Once I started noticing this feature, I can't UNnotice it.. I just don't want to know. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skelley Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Agree 100%. Definitely detracts from realism. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collingwood Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Unfortunately, those of us who play quite large battles, find it tremendously useful to click on enemy icons in order to determine who can see them ( your guys with LoS will "light up" ). Ah of course. Quite right, bummer. Back to sleep for me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kanonier Reichmann Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I believe BFC have stated before that the problem with knowing exactly what you've spotted is linked in with the game engine where individual bullets & shells are tracked and how they intersect with other units means that the detail of enemy units has to be known. It's particularly a problem with AFV's which can vary significantly in size and shape. Personally, I would have thought retaining FOW for infantry units would be more doable since they are all of the same height and shape but the numbers of men in each formation varies of course. Regards KR 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newlife Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I don't buy that. The game can't just paste over Infantry over every enemy unit name? I know these things can be tricky at times, but the inability to write code that replaces displayed text? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newlife Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 And this isn't just immersion. I shouldn't just know who the FO is. More importantly my opponent shouldn't know who my FO is. Sure the guy standing next to the radio dude is often a good target, but I'll send serious ordinance on an FO that I wouldn't send for any other team and I'm sure my opponents will do the same. So while I can choose to not click on icons, how do I know my opponent isn't ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Kanonier Reichmann is confusing two issues. He's thinking of CMx1 style generic 3D representations vs. the literal ones we have in CMx2. His recollection of why that's not an easy thing to do is quite right. Though infantry isn't a piece of cake because although they are far more similar, they aren't necessarily the same from the game engine's standpoint. A soldier with a SMG doesn't use the same animations as a guy with a rifle. So the system would have to know "this dude is really armed with an SMG, and uses these animations. However, in this context the other guy sees it as a dude with a rifle, so it needs to use these animations". Not impossible, just extremely labor intensive and that means coming at the expense of other things. The text issue is different. I raised this with Charles a long time ago and I don't have a flip'n clue what the answer was. Maybe it was "I don't have time for it right now" and that's where it got left. I'll dust off the report and see if we can make something happen. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baneman Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Thanks Steve. The models can be justified by "good binoculars" and we've already learned to live with it. Fixing the text issue would be most welcome though - while obviously it's not a game breaker, it is irksome. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock Tamson Posted September 5, 2012 Author Share Posted September 5, 2012 Hopefully the removal of the text will be a do-able fix. In an ideal world I would take it further on the harder levels and not identify the type of unit either ie not distinguish between calibres of AT guns, use a more generic description, likewise for tanks etc. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newlife Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 Thanks for the feedback Steve. I know while the text fix is possible, it still may be X hours of time instead of some other project. You guys have made a LOT of improvements so perhaps this one will have it's time. Keep up the good work. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jock Tamson Posted November 1, 2012 Author Share Posted November 1, 2012 Hoping the icon / text issue in this thread will make it into the next patch. Clicking on enemy icons is a necessity to gather who has line of sight to the spotted enemy, but then being told that it is a LMG team you can see and not, say, the LMG from a full rifle squad is a real killer for me. Logically, if my guys can see one enemy carrying an MG34, how can they possibly know it is only an LMG team? Additionally, having no text would give us another reason to pore over the replays, to garner intel about what we are facing. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltorrente Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Here's yet another FOW issue that should never be possible: Double click an enemy icon, and all of the units in his formation also light up! There's no way you should be able to do this. One of my PBEM's is an A/D with me as the attacker. It's raining and dark, and my troops were moving through some woods on a wide front. My lead units suddently get into some small firefights with 3 small enemy Sections which were spread out ~250 yards or so. I thought - uh oh, he's attacking me - I wonder how many platoons he's sending at me. I clicked on the enemy units, and he sent sections 3A, 3B, and 3C. Interesting.. I wonder if they are from the same squad or are in different platoons? I double clicked one, and they all lit up. Oh.. no worries - he just split one single squad and is sending out some scouts. I don't have to worry about preparing for several platoons coming at me. If you double click any enemy leader, it'll show all of their subordinates. WAY too much information. I believe that all these "Too Much Information" issues are affecting gameplay and really take away from realism. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Broadsword56 Posted November 1, 2012 Share Posted November 1, 2012 Hopefully the removal of the text will be a do-able fix. In an ideal world I would take it further on the harder levels and not identify the type of unit either ie not distinguish between calibres of AT guns, use a more generic description, likewise for tanks etc. Even better if it could go so far as to give less and less reliable ID info, as the troops get greener -- so with green troops, virtually every German tank spotted gets reported as a "Tiger" -- as happened so often IRL. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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