First impression

[Alchenar]

Having installed my gog.com copy of CM:BO the other day for notstalgia purposes I can't quite believe that anyone would genuinely want to revert from the freeform camera to the old-style camera.

[PanzerMiller]

Unrealistic comparisons to an impossible unreachable ideal does nobody any good.

Here here, Mikey. Sage advice indeed -- in gaming and real life. I could have consulted you for free instead of paying a therapist...!

[PanzerMiller]

It's been proposed before but I'd like to have all units off the map during the deployment phase. A TO&E window from which you could drag and drop formations. This window could also be used for quick navigation between the formations during the battle, it could also show current state of the unit (suppressed, engaged, taking casualties etc.) This would provide a better situational awareness for the player making the game more user friendly.

As others have said here, I love this idea. It would be excellent to have the command structure of your entire force handy in this way.

[John Kettler]

skellhell,

Maybe my experience in transitioning from CMBO (go back to Beta Demo)/CMBB/CMAK to CMBN will be of help to you. I've found it tough, especially handling infantry, which I not unreasonably compared to herding cats. And the game as it currently exists, even sans the paid upgrade, is way better than what we started with back when I first essayed the CMBN Demo--and got walloped. Repeatedly. At length. Vs the AI! As it is, soldiers everywhere should rejoice I'm not in command, though by one cynical criterion I read, I'm firmly on trend to become a general. The John Kettler vs CMBN thread covers not only my numerous martial disasters, coupled with the odd draw and rare victory, but it's awash in excellent how to material from highly knowledgeable CMBN players. Splendid stuff!

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=105379

Regards,

John Kettler

[Mord]

There is one little niggling effect (that has bugged me since I did my CMSF voice mod) that I think happens in WEGO because of RT, or at least seems to happen; When you issue a target order in WEGO you immediately get the units voice response, it happens way before you hit the go button. I always figured the immediate voice response was a remnant of RT because it happens just that once. I have never heard units shouting to fire at something when they target on their own either.

Whatever is causing it it's one of those little things I hope BFC will look at some time.

Mord.

[Humbug]

Hey guys, have any of you noticed that this thread is now eight pages long, and the OP (skellhell) has not responded one single time? I think he should receive some sort of award for the longest thread with the least effort.

Yeah I noticed.

At least when/if the guy comes back and finds his modest little post turned into a mutated monster of a thread he'll know the community is still pretty active, if nothing else.

[Quintus Sertorius]

Not true. The number and variety of commands have practical limitations for WeGo as well. That's because few people want to be confronted with a spreadsheet's worth of Commands. I know some people have no problems with quantity and variety, but any experienced game publisher will tell you from experience the number of such people is quite small.

My point is true, but preferred by "few people." It's still true. Personally I'd like significantly more micro-control, even if I seldom use it. Real-time adds nothing for me, and I wouldn't miss it for a second.

[BLSTK]

Is skellhell dying?

[Jock Tamson]

Not true. The number and variety of commands have practical limitations for WeGo as well. That's because few people want to be confronted with a spreadsheet's worth of Commands. I know some people have no problems with quantity and variety, but any experienced game publisher will tell you from experience the number of such people is quite small.

When we agonize over Commands and Command behaviors we never, ever, even for a split second think of WeGo or RealTime. We only think "is it REALLY necessary to have something new, or can we somehow utilize something we already have?". We try very hard to say NO to the first question simply to avoid the game becoming Combat Mission: A Command Too Far

So this is yet another example of an imagined WeGo limitation that I can say, without hesitation, has absolutely nothing to do with CM's core engine being RealTime.

I'm not sure, because I haven't counted, but I think CMx2 has more Commands than CMx1 had Orders. If not, they're not too far apart.

Yup, and we had the same issues with CMx1 when it first came out. People, by and large, didn't like the camera controls then either. That's not surprising to us because CM's needs, be it CMx1 or CMx2, are very different from other games. Gamers tend to not like learning new UI.

Steve

There are never any posts complaining about there being too many commands Steve. But there are often posts suggesting there are not enough. Which suggests maybe that we are still well short of the tipping point ?

[YankeeDog]

There are never any posts complaining about there being too many commands Steve. But there are often posts suggesting there are not enough. Which suggests maybe that we are still well short of the tipping point ?

Then you haven't read all the posts. I have posted in the past remarking that I don't think additional commands are necessarily a good idea, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

But there might be room in the UI for a few more commands. There are probably also ways of modifying the current commands in the game to get more out of them -- e.g., the "Assault" command, which has very limited utility for a human player and perhaps could be changed to make it more useful (though AIUI the Assault command is important to the way the Computer Player controls units).

But in general I think BFC has to be very careful about additional commands; This game has a high enough learning curve as it is.

[Placebo]

But in general I think BFC has to be very careful about additional commands; This game has a high enough learning curve as it is.

I agree, you may not get a stream of protests from people on here wanting commands simplifed but it will push the learning curve higher, and potentially lput people off investing the time to understand and enjoy the game.

[A Canadian Cat]

But in general I think BFC has to be very careful about additional commands; This game has a high enough learning curve as it is.

Yep, and they do a good job of it.

Adding to the UI is easy and there are always voices asking for more stuff. But there is an imbalance there. There are people who ask for new stuff to be added to the UI but the other side are people who get frustrated and confused and give up with UI that is too complex and they never say anything and those that do say something don't articulate the opposite - give me fewer commands. So, you never hear and equal calling to simplify. The development staff have to keep that in mind - because no one else is going to.

[Jock Tamson]

Then you haven't read all the posts. I have posted in the past remarking that I don't think additional commands are necessarily a good idea, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

But there might be room in the UI for a few more commands. There are probably also ways of modifying the current commands in the game to get more out of them -- e.g., the "Assault" command, which has very limited utility for a human player and perhaps could be changed to make it more useful (though AIUI the Assault command is important to the way the Computer Player controls units).

But in general I think BFC has to be very careful about additional commands; This game has a high enough learning curve as it is.

I said I hadn't read any posts suggesting we had too many commands at the moment. It doesn't sound like you have posted to that effect either.

If that is the case, then presumably there is room for x number more up to a point where it would be felt we had hit the maximum.

So the question is, what is x?

As for the learning curve, I am not convinced it is steep. Generally this series attracts people who have played wargames in one form or another so most of the concepts are familiar, and it can be played in a form - WEGO or paused RT - where there is time for contemplation.

The much lauded Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations has a relatively steep learning curve and yet the clamour from the community has been for more commands. Which they are getting in the next patch.

Maybe that's where all the grogs are these days ;-)

[womble]

As for the learning curve, I am not convinced it is steep. Generally this series attracts people who have played wargames in one form or another so most of the concepts are familiar, and it can be played in a form - WEGO or paused RT - where there is time for contemplation.

I'd played CMx1, amongst other wargames, and I found the learning curve for x2 steep enough to need to take two bites at the cherry. And that's not because I couldn't lose my "x1 bad habits" (it had been so long since I'd fired up x1 that I could barely remember how to play when I tried a game in preparation for BN). I think the curve's slackened off since the days when SF was the only game in town and relative commands were the default, but it's still a game where you pretty much have to read the manual, and that counts as a steep learning curve when compared to most games out there.

[Michael Emrys]

As for the learning curve, I am not convinced it is steep.

Heh. Then I'd say that you are one in a thousand. I've been playing wargames for fifty years and I played CM since its inception, and I have to say that I found learning to play CMx2 nearly broke my will. It was stunningly difficult, and I know that I was not alone in that. It ultimately proved worth the effort for me and for the rest of us who are still around, but let's not kid ourselves that it didn't take that effort. How many people simply gave up and are never heard from? Impossible to say. But I suspect that BFC rightly wants to be cautious about increasing those numbers. They occupy a small enough niche as it is.

Michael

[Childress]

Agree with Womble and Emrys. They gotta to be vary careful introducing more commands. But Steve has hinted at a couple of potential ones: Ambush and Skirmish Line. They can make way for these by eliminating the baffling Hide Vehicle command which, in biology terms, persists as a rudimentary or degenerate structure.

[Bartokomus]

As others have said and done, when CMSF came out I was extremely disappointed and pretty much quit playing the CM games for about 2 years. I finally made myself reinstall and TRY to learn it and I loved it. It was far more demanding, and it exposed how many bad tactics CMx1 allowed me to get away with. the only real feature I miss from CMx1 is head to head campaigns, and I truly hope they come back with the next engine iteration. Managing your forces against a respected foe for a year or so was amazing.

[Collingwood]

If people feel more commands would make things too difficult for beginners or the casual gamer there could be a simple solution.

In the settings provide the option for 'advanced' command menus.

This way beginners needn't be confused, and those wishing for more commands can have them.

My own experience is that CMx2 wasn't unreasonably difficult to learn - anyone having experienced some of the more hard core flight sims would tell you the commands for CMx2 are a doddle in comparison.

[SlowMotion]

Agree about flight sim commands.

And IMO Target Brief is the biggest playability improvement to CMx2 games in a long time.

[Battlefront.com]

Good discussion. I'll chime in now

Wargamers push for more and more and more finite control. The more hardcore the wargamer is, the more control they push for. Worse, people follow narrow agendas so you'll see one guy hammering us for 5 new Commands and another guy hammering us for a different 5 Commands. Even if we just listened to those two guys... we have 10 Commands suggested! And believe me, there are a lot more than two guys suggesting Commands Not to mention that many of them are counter intuitive, unnecessary, or contradictory with other behaviors. Though that doesn't seem to stop people form wanting them.

Now, here's where the problem comes in. People who do not want to see a ton of Commands do not "push" for fewer. They just walk away. Which means the people pushing for things don't see a counter push, but our bottom line does. And that's obviously quite important even for you guys.

Because people walking away form a game that is too complicated, too steep to learn, don't lobby us we have to act for them when we engage in conversations with you guys. Obviously I'm not talking about acting as an advocate for Pokemon players, as they're a lost cause. I'm talking about folks who are basically interested in the subject matter and challenges, but aren't used to being confronted by the totality of what CM is compared to what they are used to. Since we've pretty much tapped out the pool of established hardcore wargamers, we either keep the game accessible to such people or we go out of business.

I for one think that CM's learning curve is vastly higher than the average game, much higher than most popular war themed games, and pretty much on par with other sim orientated games. If we had a choice of where to push the UI to, it would be to simplify it instead of making it more complicated.

That being said, we have shown a willingness to add Commands that have a distinct, proven value that can't be easily replicated with the current suite of choices. Target Briefly was just such a Command. There will, no doubt, be more in the future. But each time we face a choice between adding a Command and not... we're going to try super hard to not add it. Madness lies down the other road

Steve

[Los]

Better to focus on getting the pixeltruppen AI to act more natural hence less commands needed. E.G. crossing an open area..spread out, 5m between each man if possible.

[Michael Emrys]

...anyone having experienced some of the more hard core flight sims would tell you the commands for CMx2 are a doddle in comparison.

Quite true. But flight sims and the people who play them are a different species of critter (and yes, I know that there are loads of folks who play both). But speaking for myself, I gave up playing flight sims about a decade ago when it became necessary to have rudder pedals in order to fly, along with a Ph.D in aeronautics just to get through the manual. And this in spite of the fact that I had loved the earlier sims and flew some of them all the time. Mind you, I'm not saying that it was wrong for flight sims to have evolved in the direction that they have, just that they left me behind and I haven't purchased one in about fifteen years.

Michael

[Alchenar]

Obligatory:

(they manage to take off at the 40 minute mark... and that's with one person at the controls and two people with the manual open reading out stage-by-stage instructions)

e: I don't think the learning curve of CM is necessarily higher than other games, just different (it's sharper at the early point and then gets easier). It's just so very different to anything else on the market and that makes it very difficult to understand how you are supposed to play. Example: the first time I played Shock Force I tried to use use Strykers like Warhammer Space Marines - I'd drive a Stryker right up to a building I wanted to occupy, pop smoke, dismount and assault right in. Obviously this did not work well. It didn't help that the tutorials... weren't and the first map of the campaign was this huge thing but which was actually 'here's a bunch of Abrams vs stuff that can't shoot back, you can't really lose so just have fun'.

Aside from a remake of the UI, the best thing that CM could have is a real tutorial that takes the player and says 'all of these rules you've learned from playing other strategy games don't apply here, these are the terms you need to be thinking in'.

[A Canadian Cat]

Mind you, I'm not saying that it was wrong for flight sims to have evolved in the direction that they have, just that they left me behind and I haven't purchased one in about fifteen years.

Jibs with what Steve just said - to complex and Michael stopped playing / buying. He did not spend time lobbying a game vender to simplify their flight sim. Although that probably would have been an entertaining thread to read.

[A Canadian Cat]

I don't think the learning curve of CM is necessarily higher than other games, just different (it's sharper at the early point and then gets easier). It's just so very different to anything else on the market and that makes it very difficult to understand how you are supposed to play.

Great Warhamer example BTW.

One of the issues with CM is that there are actually two learning curves to cover. One with the UI - just like any new game it has its way of doing things. Then the other UI - you have to use proper tactics. For many of us - even those with war gaming experience those learning curves are happening at the same time. That definitely does not make things easier.