Crucial notofications

[Void]

Hi

Is there a way to get noticed about important events, like one of my units getting under fire? Even Starcraft has it.

[ZPB II]

Unfortunately, no.

I would love to death a feature that would notify me of battlefield events. Make it customizable like in, say, X-Com Apocalypse and that would be perfect.

Right now you either stop caring about what happens to your men or meticulously comb every turn file over and over again to keep track of what's happening. I can't say I enjoy either option much.

Heck, the more I think about it the more the X-COM Apocalypse system would suit CM. It had this menu that had a variety of battlefield events, like spotting an enemy, taking fire/damage/casualties, running out of ammo, panicking and so on. And in the menu you could check what you want to happen when the condition is met by simple checkboxes. You could have the game automatically pause, give you a message or nothing at all. And you could focus on the event by simply pushing a button. Oh, dreams...

[Pak40]

Wow, so whenever your units takes some fire you'll be notified?? That's a lot of notifications! In the heat of battle you'll get tons of notifications within seconds. The replay functions basically serve this purpose anyway.

And, by the way, CMBN tracts LOS from each individual soldier. So, if you have 200 soldiers under your control and they all see 10 different enemy units in the same 60 second turn, then suddenly you've got 2000 notifications!!!

[ZPB II]

It's a game made in 1997 and they had the technology and/or magic available to make the game understand when fighting is going on (ie. units from different sides see each other and fire at each other.) Thus, the game was smart enough to only give the notification when the first shots are fired. If there was a lull in the fighting, the tag would reset. Even then, the user has almost full control over the notification interface and can tune it to his liking.

200 notifications? I have this feeling you are deliberately misunderstanding me.

An enemy unit is spotted by your units. You get a single notification about a spotted enemy unit. By the first unit to spot it. Others are not displayed, since the feature is supposed to bring to the player's attention that an enemy has been seen, not who in particular happens to see him. (Since that information is easily available by clicking the spotted enemy)

Hah, there! Try to misunderstand that one!

And yes, the replay function serves this purpose. But it serves it in the most anally retentive fashion possible. Why do we have an UI anyway? Why do units have bases of different colours? All the visual information is there, you can look how many men you have and how many HE shells your Tiger has left by moving the camera inside and having a look-see.

The whole point is, that is anal retention to the limiter. Some of us want to play a game about half-naked oily men shooting at each other with big guns and wrestle it out after they run out of ammo while explosions happen in the background. Others may want to play a game where they are the company accountant, tracking every bullet spent and when and where Private Nönnönnöö was hit and whether he ate his pudding or not.

[womble]

Define "taking fire". If you can't be bothered to notice when the first shots are fired, then you're playing games that are too big for the amount of time you have to spend on the game. Or you're playing the wrong game.

[ZPB II]

Define "taking fire?" Boy, I shouldn't have mentioned anal retentiveness...A unit fires at another unit as dictated by the game engine.

Did you guys forget about the whole real-time aspect of the game? One of the big cornerstones? Ever think it might be helpful for an RT guy to know which one of his units is getting shot at without meticulously and anally retentively looking through each of his units suppression bars. It's helpful for WEGO too.

Sometimes I wonder about this community. Why so hesitant towards change that is positive in all aspects (if you don't like it you can toggle it off and don't mention opportunity costs since it is used to kill discussion around here. It's a bread-and-butter feature that takes far less time and resources than a lot of the stuff that gets thrown around here.)

If you would be happy with BFC simply making new units and terrain with no new features to improve the game, hey, good for you, but others want to see the game they love and cherish be made better.

This is a feature that is in pretty much every tactics or strategy game out there. And for a very good reason.

[ASL Veteran]

There are already some visual cues in the game that are similar to what you are asking. When a friendly squad, team, etc takes a casualty the icon does blink and if you want to know what a certain unit sees you just select it. If by notifications you mean that you get a running text notification that cycles in a portion of the screen I'm not sure how helpful that would be. Otherwise I think that maybe if you can come up with a simple enough and concise system then maybe something like it would be considered. It has to make sense though and you have to be precise in your description. Just indicating that you want something like game x has doesn't really cut it because the games will be different and will probably require different approaches.

[ZPB II]

And if this is too much to ask for, a simple stopgap measure would be to change the way icons behave when a unit is hit. Right now the duration of the flash is a bit low.

Different kinds of colour-coded blinks and icons that change in shape depending on the condition of the unit would greatly improve situational awareness. Just some simple stuff, like if a unit has taken a casualty that turn, the icon would be different for the rest of the turn. Different colour, shape, opacity, whatever. The point is to give an easy cue for the player that something is up. Without all the meticulousness.

Also, having the icons blink while paused would be great.

[The Steppenwulf]

Womble is drawing attention to the fact that the game engine isn't passing events in such a black and white way which you presuppose it is. The parameters for each flag would have to be established in order to then have a messaging system in the UI. Consequently, every other "event" could be a red herring and ends up looking messy and woolly. You know like stray bullets and inaccurate mortar rounds for example. I'm not saying the idea is without some validity or is impossible (running out of ammo is an event of particular note) but my gut feeling is that, generically speaking, this is not so easy to implement in a satisfactory way that can improve on the game and moreover justify the time spent coding it.

With regard to the latter point, do you think there are many other things that could be improved upon that should take priority? I do, issues such as better damage modelling on buildings (as has just been mentioned in another thread) and basic vehicle damage is something I personally would like to see in v 3.00.

The other point I would make is how such a feature could be implemented without it being a gamey addition that impacts negatively on the spirit of the current game.

Who is resistant to change and how did you suddenly manage to jump to that conclusion about the "community"? This is neither fair in this limited context nor helpful to this particular thread discussion.

[Guest]

Hi

Is there a way to get noticed about important events, like one of my units getting under fire? Even Starcraft has it.

Combat Mission is a different game. Obviously, sure, but really think about it for a moment. There's the potential for huge numbers of units fighting over potentially dozens of different locations in a single scenario, and every *shot* might be "important" depending on what's shooting / being shot at. The number of "important events" therefore could be much larger than your average 1-on-1 Starcraft game. So saying "even Starcraft has it" is neither valid nor all that helpful. More below.

It's a game made in 1997 and they had the technology and/or magic available to make the game understand when fighting is going on (ie. units from different sides see each other and fire at each other.) Thus, the game was smart enough to only give the notification when the first shots are fired. If there was a lull in the fighting, the tag would reset. Even then, the user has almost full control over the notification interface and can tune it to his liking.

Potentially hundreds of units, spread over a dozen square kilometers. "First shots fired at a unit" notifications could happen ALL THE TIME. "First spots" will happen ALL THE TIME.

There's magic all right in that otherwise imperfect if mostly enjoyable game from 1997: it's called having at most a couple dozen active units at once, in a relatively small area. Simply cutting-and-pasting design ideas from a completely different, much smaller game isn't practical.

It may be a starting point, but that's essentially like saying "You want to improve the game of basketball? The answer is... Ping-Pong." That's what you're saying when you say "Combat Mission could just use a system like X-COM Apocalypse... right?" Figure out how that would work in Combat Mission without our spending 500 hours on it, and then we've got a starting point for a discussion.

That said I don't think anyone would say that SOME form of better notifications wouldn't be cool. I'm just not sure where it is on the list of priorities, nor is it all that clear what the design would look like, at all, that would be useful for most people that play the game. I can ask Steve to come out and comment on that.

200 notifications? I have this feeling you are deliberately misunderstanding me.

If you think any large CM scenario couldn't generate several hundred notifications in short order, you may be guilty of the same. Customizable filters a la X-COM would be a huge help, true, but then we're getting into a LOT of design and coding time. And still, even then, you'd potentially be talking about huge numbers of particular kinds of events anyway. Remember that we need to support all different sizes of scenarios here, not just small-to-tiny tactical problems.

[A Canadian Cat]

Hi

Is there a way to get noticed about important events, like one of my units getting under fire? Even Starcraft has it.

In an attempt to reset the discussion I would like to ask the OP his/her opinion on what kind of notification they want and point out that the game currently has the following notifications:

A new enemy unit is spotted: A new icon appears over the location of the enemy unit (selecting it will show you who spotted it)

A friendly unit takes a casualty: That friendly unit's icon flashes for a short period of time.

A friendly AFV is hit: Text appears over the unit with where it was hit and there is an indication of any penetration

A friendly unit panics: The icon of the effected unit dims.

All of the above appear in the larger game screen but in addition if you have a unit selected you also get:

A friendly unit takes a casualty: The solider who goes down gets shows with an X (both in the text status display in the bottom left and on the battle field) and is removed from the list of soldiers in the status bar.

A friendly unit takes fire: The suppression indicator begins to trigger.

Are you asking for any more events that this? Are you asking for them to be displayed in a different way?

[ZPB II]

An AI entity firing upon one another is a distinct event. Tracked rounds landing within a set distance is another. That is the starter. It doesn't matter what the player sees, what the game sees is more important. Spatial recognition and set cutoffs help fill the blanks. I'm not saying it's easy but I'm also saying it isn't as hard (impossible due to opportunity cost) as people make things seem around here.

As for importance, yes, I'd say it's pretty damn important personally. It's one of those little things that I find myself quitting the game over at times. The needless busy-work. It's one of those things that make the game exponentially better when fixed, unlike other features that are more incremental in nature. Kind of like the AT weapon ban inside buildings, it breaks the game in a way that makes one not want to play scenarios with buildings at all. This one pushes people away from playing large scenarios. It's such a basic feature in other games that the lack of it is glaring.

About gameyness I have to disagree. Right now, the game plays on the terms of gamey people, this is an equalizer. The kind of people who re-run a turn 5 times to pinpoint where that single tracer came from and look out for positional sound cues, fences breaking... This feature would equalize the playing field against people like this. The kind that take the time to map out contacts that appear during a turn for mere seconds. Someone who obsesses over details has a huge edge over a more casual player and in a very unrealistic fashion, extracting information from the game that should not be available to the player. Anything that combats this phenomenon is good, even if the effect is slight.

And about the community, the conclusion is as valid as the replies I have got, which includes hyperbole and "CM is not the game for you if."

There is a clique here that has a certain attitude towards new features for the game. I have spent some 12 years on these forums and I have seen many shapes and forms of it. Typical of the clique is a borderline attack on the suggestions, typically falling back on arguments such as opportunity costs, "spirit of the game" and carefully tip-toeing around the argument and presenting the state of things as such that the current flawed model is somehow inherently more realistic. Some call it fanboyism. But I am a BFC fanboy myself, so...

But hey, it's not such a big deal. Psychological defence mechanisms and all that jazz.

Atleast give us improved icon functionality (dynamic, reactive icons that convey more information over a longer period of time than the current without excess clutter), it will work toward the same goal but with less fuss. And to clarify, I adore CM. Always have, probably always will. This is why I'm passionate over seeing it improve!

[poesel]

IIRC when CMBN came out there was a great outcry about the UI. During the discussion Steve basically agreed that the UI sucks but they would have had to push the game another year back. He also said he had a loooong list of improvements and that they would implement them sometime in the future. But it would be a mayor overhaul and they better redo it all at once than wasting time fixing the current UI.

I learned to live with the current systems and keep my fingers crossed for v3.

Zebulon - I'm with you in the camp of 'better engine' over 'more content'. But I think we are a minority and new content also sells better (example: the outcry over the measly 5$ for the v2 upgrade).

[LUCASWILLEN05]

From a realism point of view I don't think we need this. You a a task force/battlegroup commander B Company on the right flank starts taking fire from La Mont Ferme and No 2 Squadron supporting them takes anti tank gun fire from the woods to their left. Task force commander gets a garbled report on theradio a few minutes lae. If he can see maybe there are half a dozen smoke plumes where No Squadron are supposed to be.

In game terms, if you are monitoring the battle as a whol which you really ought to be if yo are commanding a battalion you will be able to keep track of what is going on much more effectivly than if you zoom in on the action No 3 Platoon D Company is fighting on your left flank. Nice to know what is going on ove there but if you are a battalion commander platoon levwel fire fights are not really your job.

[Guest]

IIRC when CMBN came out there was a great outcry about the UI. During the discussion Steve basically agreed that the UI sucks but they would have had to push the game another year back. He also said he had a loooong list of improvements and that they would implement them sometime in the future. But it would be a mayor overhaul and they better redo it all at once than wasting time fixing the current UI.

I learned to live with the current systems and keep my fingers crossed for v3.

Zebulon - I'm with you in the camp of 'better engine' over 'more content'. But I think we are a minority and new content also sells better (example: the outcry over the measly 5$ for the v2 upgrade).

We've been working on the UI. The 2.0 upgrade included a heap of UI improvements and changes. I know because I made some of them. But let's maybe keep away from discussions about content vs. "better engine", shall we? Ideas wanted, but running commentary on BFC business practices will be of less use to us. Speaking of ideas, I posted above about same.

[ZPB II]

If you think any large CM scenario couldn't generate several hundred notifications in short order, you may be guilty of the same. Customizable filters a la X-COM would be a huge help, true, but then we're getting into a LOT of design and coding time. And still, even then, you'd potentially be talking about huge numbers of particular kinds of events anyway. Remember that we need to support all different sizes of scenarios here, not just small-to-tiny tactical problems.

I'm glad to see you're chiming in Phil, it's always humbling.

Bit of a communication problem here, I didn't mean CMx2 doesn't generate the events, I meant it would not clutter to player with all that information but instead filter it out in a more digestible form.

My idea was something akin to a toggleable, scrollable text box somewhere on the screen. Whenever something takes a hit it would print out something like "2Coy 3Sqd: 2 WIA", "60mm mortar out of ammo" "M4A3 Sherman immobilized."

When you click the text it takes you to the unit.

The idea of improved icon functionality could bear fruit. As I said before, the flashing is over a bit quickly. The icons could be colour coded, changing color depending on the number of WIA/KIA. Perhaps a small icon that disappears after you have selected the unit to notify it has taken casualties or damage. Anything that gives information to the player at a glance, instead of having to comb through your squads one at a time. There could an icon next to a support weapon that signals whether it is set-up or on the move etc.

The icon flashing is just a start, there are many ways to convey information fast using them.

Thanks for listening to feedback! All the best.

EDIT: I also wasn't criticizing the BFC business model, it was intended as a jab to people opposed to new features.

[womble]

Define "taking fire?" Boy, I shouldn't have mentioned anal retentiveness...A unit fires at another unit as dictated by the game engine.

So you don't count area fire that happens to be in the vicinity of one of your units?

Or area fire that's not in the vicinity of your unit? Define "vicinity". What about targetted fire that is way off target? Or indirect fire? This game is not like XCom. It uses a completely different paradigm for its engine which is extremely resistant to the kind of logging you're asking for.

Did you guys forget about the whole real-time aspect of the game?

Frankly, the RT aspect of the game doesn't exist, as far as I'm concerned, as anything but a mode that imposes unwelcome constraints on some of the WeGo gameplay.

[ZPB II]

So you don't count area fire that happens to be in the vicinity of one of your units?

Or area fire that's not in the vicinity of your unit? Define "vicinity". What about targetted fire that is way off target? Or indirect fire? This game is not like XCom. It uses a completely different paradigm for its engine which is extremely resistant to the kind of logging you're asking for.

If it suppresses the unit in question, I guess it can be trusted as hitting near enough for it to count. The game already handles suppression from ordnance flying nearby. :cool:

Frankly, the RT aspect of the game doesn't exist, as far as I'm concerned, as anything but a mode that imposes unwelcome constraints on some of the WeGo gameplay.

Well, that is bit of an attitude luggage to carry around in a thread about new features, eh.

[sburke]

An AI entity firing upon one another is a distinct event. Tracked rounds landing within a set distance is another. That is the starter. It doesn't matter what the player sees, what the game sees is more important. Spatial recognition and set cutoffs help fill the blanks. I'm not saying it's easy but I'm also saying it isn't as hard (impossible due to opportunity cost) as people make things seem around here.

About gameyness I have to disagree. Right now, the game plays on the terms of gamey people, this is an equalizer. The kind of people who re-run a turn 5 times to pinpoint where that single tracer came from

I would not consider that to be gamey. Your unit would know, you just might not with all the activity going on. Trying to understand what your units perspective is is not gamey, it IS the game. Now hunting for fences etc that disappeared, yeah that is a bit gamey. Sometimes unavoidable, but still if your guys don't know it you are taking advantage of a lack of FOW in terrain.

As to your original suggestion and some of what Phil said. Here is an example. There is an enemy MG team and it opens fire on a unit it of yours it sees. Meanwhile you have several units behind it further back and that burst takes out say 3 guys in two different teams. You now have potentially how many messages? 3 teams say minimum that have just been fired upon, two with casualties. Do you now get 5 messages from a single MG burst? Now assume that all three of those teams see that MG, do you get 3 more alerts? Assume one of your teams was a bazooka team and the asst is the guy hit, you now get an ammo shortage message as well? Broadsword and I are now fighting out a scenario in our newest campaign. It is huge. So much so I can't track everything that is going on even in WeGo. We are emailing each other about events we have both missed and I find myself going back to turns to find out what the heck just happened (for example a PSW I had given orders to and inadvertently put it's destination AS on the wrong side of a hedgerow. It is now a burning wreck and I completely missed that it had even been hit) It isn't that your idea for some kind of alerting is bad, it just needs to take into account what all is being asked for and as ASL Veteran said, perhaps have the scope of the suggestion fine tuned. The potential to get so flooded with data is there just as much as it is already in the game - hence my sticking with Wego. I can process the info at my own lazy pace and still miss stuff.

[agusto]

If it suppresses the unit in question, I guess it can be trusted as hitting near enough for it to count. The game already handles suppression from ordnance flying nearby. :cool:

How a about somehow getting a small surpression-meter into the icon? The more surpression a unit takes, the more faded the icon becomes until its reached the state at wich the palyer cant control the unit anymore. This way you could see wich units are taking fire and wich dont really quick. You would also get a good overall situational awareness because you could easily see at wich parts of the front line units tend to break and need to be reinforced asap.

[Guest]

I'm glad to see you're chiming in Phil, it's always humbling.

Well, that's a very nice way to lead off a reply, and certainly puts me in the mood to answer.

Seriously though, discussions of this sort have a lot of value, insofar as the current rough spots in the game get a thorough outing. Whether there's much that can be done about it immediately is another question but it all gets put to use.

Bit of a communication problem here, I didn't mean CMx2 doesn't generate the events, I meant it would not clutter to player with all that information but instead filter it out in a more digestible form.

My idea was something akin to a toggleable, scrollable text box somewhere on the screen. Whenever something takes a hit it would print out something like "2Coy 3Sqd: 2 WIA", "60mm mortar out of ammo" "M4A3 Sherman immobilized."

When you click the text it takes you to the unit.

Thanks for clarifying. I was picturing something along these lines but it helps to know precisely what you were thinking.

You'd still potentially have problems, I think, especially in a situation where 2Coy 3Sqd is caught crossing a field and is losing a member every few seconds to various forms of enemy fire. If ALL of 2 Company is crossing that field, there very well could be a dozen new updates every second or two, just about those units, which is a) edging on uselessness and would definitely be pushing other, potentially more vital, messages out of the user-manageable queue.

In a game where a regiment per side is not completely out of the question, you'd have information overload pretty quick UNLESS we were very smart about the filtering, which then leads into the trap of designing and coding such a thing, and maintaining it (or worse, having the interested user discarding it) when it inevitably broke down.

The idea of improved icon functionality could bear fruit. As I said before, the flashing is over a bit quickly. The icons could be colour coded, changing color depending on the number of WIA/KIA. Perhaps a small icon that disappears after you have selected the unit to notify it has taken casualties or damage. Anything that gives information to the player at a glance, instead of having to comb through your squads one at a time. There could an icon next to a support weapon that signals whether it is set-up or on the move etc.

The icon flashing is just a start, there are many ways to convey information fast using them.

I think there's been talk on the outer forums about icon improvements for a while. Whether that's something that's near the top of the priority list isn't my call. This would be something that would be perfect for Steve to comment on... I'll see if I can snag him. We're all pretty incredibly busy. I'm popping in a sentence or two at a time in between tasks, and that only because my CPU and HDD are too busy at intervals to let me do much else properly. Right now I've actually got typing lag on my i7 while my machine is chewing through a mountain of things.

Thanks for listening to feedback! All the best.

We do try! Thanks!

EDIT: I also wasn't criticizing the BFC business model, it was intended as a jab to people opposed to new features.

Understood. My reply was about the seeds of a distracting secondary discussion in poesel71's post.

[Blazing 88's]

Not needed.

[Void]

I don't see all the icons/units when I am making a flanking move, so that kind of argument is invalid.

Of course I'm not interested in iformation about every bullet, just in the fact, that one of the units from the other maneuver group get's in trouble.

The reality has nothing to do about it, because in reality the leader of company A don't need to worry about company B, but it's a game and I'm only one.

[Pak40]

It's a game made in 1997 and they had the technology and/or magic available to make the game understand when fighting is going on (ie. units from different sides see each other and fire at each other.) Thus, the game was smart enough to only give the notification when the first shots are fired. If there was a lull in the fighting, the tag would reset. Even then, the user has almost full control over the notification interface and can tune it to his liking.

Yea, I know it's old technology - Baldur's Gate has similar settings. My question is, is it practical for the CMBN engine?

200 notifications? I have this feeling you are deliberately misunderstanding me.

Well, I wasn't really replying to you. But I am now, so I'll try not to deliberately misunderstand you.

An enemy unit is spotted by your units. You get a single notification about a spotted enemy unit. By the first unit to spot it. Others are not displayed, since the feature is supposed to bring to the player's attention that an enemy has been seen, not who in particular happens to see him. (Since that information is easily available by clicking the spotted enemy)

Hah, there! Try to misunderstand that one!

That will limit the notifications but it completely ruins the Fog of War for spotting units. Currently, if a unit is spotted, then not spotted, then spotted a second time in a different location, the opposing player has no real confirmation that it was the same unit. With your suggestion, players will know if it was a previously spotted unit or not. Not good for this game.

And if your response is to say that if all units shall report as a new spot every time it is re-spotted, then you are indeed talking about hundreds of notifications per game. Yes, HUNDREDS, because each soldier does his own spotting (although we can only view spots per unit). If you have 50 units on the map and your opponent has 50 on the map as well, that's a potential 2500 spotting notifications - and that doesn't even count the potential re-spots! Information overload.

[poesel]

We've been working on the UI. The 2.0 upgrade included a heap of UI improvements and changes. I know because I made some of them.

I'd like to disagree with the word 'heap'. From what I remember the only things changed was 'target briefly' and a better representation of things like demolitions. There may have been more but, as I said, I can't remember (btw, with 'UI' I mean everything below the 3D area)

Don't get me wrong - I'm ok with the upgrade but IMHO there is still much room in UI improvements.

But let's maybe keep away from discussions about content vs. "better engine", shall we? Ideas wanted, but running commentary on BFC business practices will be of less use to us. Speaking of ideas, I posted above about same.

?

I think I'm allowed to wish what I like and I wish you would put a higher preference on the engine instead of content because that is my preference. But I also know it won't happen because - I guess - it's not economically feasible.

I gave the example of the 5$ v2 upgrade - which I think is perfectly justified - but created some heated discussion here. Engine improvements are mostly invisible so they are hard to sell.

So I have to cope with that darn new content as I know it will bring engine improvements with it. Life is hard.