First impression

[Alchenar]

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.

The campaign structure is just a big deal as well, separately to having a dedicated tutorial. Mainstream games that are comparatively quite simple still ease the player into the game by introducing concepts one by one and gradually ramping up the scale and complexity; 'Here's a simple squad vs squad firefight. Now there's two squads. Now a machinegun (see how it changes things). Now a mortar. Now a tank and anti-tank weapons'.

But to return to TF Thunder as our example: The first mission is 'Use tanks to shoot enemies in conditions where they can't shoot back!'. Then it's 'Use infantry to clear a mixed urban/open environment of irregulars and special forces!' then 'Use mounted recon and tanks to attack entrenched infantry and tanks!' It's an interesting and wide variety of combat scenarios, but the new player doesn't really get a chance to learn and develop an understanding of how to play from progressing through them.

ps. I know I'm picking on what's probably the weakest official campaign out of all the CMx2 line-up and that design got rapidly better even with the first module, it's just illustrative of my point. Scale matters just as much as complexity of elements, because a player with one platoon to control is going to have much more focused attention (and therefore a better degree of understanding) on what's going on with that platoon than one who's moving three around (and this is an issue that real-time has over turn-based play).

[Canada Guy]

I like the idea of an ambush command but can someone explain to me what they mean by a SKIRMISH LINE command?

[Childress]

From some website:

Skirmish Line is a battle formation used by motorized rifle squads, platoons, and companies during an advance. In such a formation, troops are deployed in a single line along the front at intervals of 6–8 m (eight to 12 paces). An individual may move slightly forward or to the side to improve his fire position or to better adapt himself to the terrain, as long as he neither breaks the general continuity of the formation’s front nor hinders his neighbors. First used in the second half of the 19th century, the skirmish line appeared in response to the widespread use of rifled weapons, against which troops in columns sustained heavy losses.

Sometimes referred to Line Abreast which is actually more of a nautical term. If SL on the squad level ever sees the light of day in CM one suspects it will restricted to battle tested troops.

[Seedorf81]

Put some soldiers in a position in front of the main line.

To be used as some kind of early warning system, and as a first line of defense to slow down/blunt an enemy assault.

[altipueri]

Blimey I thought skirmish lines were from Napoleonic time.

[Seedorf81]

Childress is more right, since my explanation is more valid for ancient armies, I believe.

[Childress]

A skirmish line if it gets implemented would probably be a rough and ready approximation- its use being highly modified by terrain. Also anecdotes referring to this formation in WW2 are rather sparse. The current Hunt command is a not an unreasonable facsimile.

And I don't think the game really requires an Ambush command. Cover-arc endowed troops that are Hiding just need to 'peek' more effectively.

[Battlefront.com]

I agree that ONE of the learning curve problems with CM is that it is so different from other games. We had this with CMx1 as well. Once people got over the hump they found the UI pretty easy to deal with. It was just getting to that point that caused issues.

Then we get into the gameplay issues. Most people are used to RTS and FPS games, which CM is decidedly not. Games like Total War are probably the closest to come to CM in terms of mass market gaming, but even that's just an upscaled RTS. Which means when people run their Strykers close to an enemy occupied building things aren't likely to go very well

We have been putting more efforts into the tutorials, but we don't have the resources to do things the way we would really like to. Specifically ingame tutorials with scripted actions and prompts. CM doesn't lend itself to that sort of IF/THEN hand holding and so it's largely impractical.

Steve

[Jock Tamson]

Hmmm, I look back at how popular Close Combat was back in the day. The principles of pinning the enemy [remember the shaded suppression area?] and manoeuvring, recon, scouting by fire, morale, cover, command radius etc were fundamental.

I don't remember people finding these ideas difficult to get to grips with, even outside of typical wargamer circles. I am not suggesting for a minute that the series had CM's depth, but successful play required a similar approach to most common situations in CM.

[Wodin]

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.

This...far better than any extra commands.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I've said it before: the 2 things that are hard for new players to wrap their heads around are the UI and C2. It doesn't help that there are some functions of the UI that are not mentioned in the manual (last I looked) and C2 has some counter-intuitive technical quirks (some units out of C2 can call in artillery, ect.) that are not explained. I feel bad for players who never read the forums.

[Jock Tamson]

there are some functions of the UI that are not mentioned in the manual

I'd be interested in details of these.

[SlowMotion]

I've said it before: the 2 things that are hard for new players to wrap their heads around are the UI and C2. It doesn't help that there are some functions of the UI that are not mentioned in the manual (last I looked) and C2 has some counter-intuitive technical quirks (some units out of C2 can call in artillery, ect.) that are not explained. I feel bad for players who never read the forums.

Using on map mortars isn't trivial.

[Collingwood]

My earlier reference to flight sims deflected from my main point:

Provide extra commands as an option, enabled in preferences.

We can have whatever extra commands are deemed worthy, without the perceived worry of confusing beginners.

I'm not actually advocating the need for heaps of new commands. I'm saying you don't need to worry about scaring the horses, you can have your cake and eat it too. Even mix your metaphors.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I'd be interested in details of these.

Two off the top of my head:

1) Why there are different ammunition counts given for the same unit in two different UI panes. There is a reference to the right side pane being a "cumulative" count but it doesn't define what that includes (shared ammunition as well as nearby ammunition dropped on the ground).

2) That the units listed in the chain of command pane in the lower left are clickable.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Using on map mortars isn't trivial.

One intrepid guy went to considerable effort to make a detailed explanation of C2 and how it affects access to indirect fire. I consider it required reading.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=97507

[Alchenar]

My earlier reference to flight sims deflected from my main point:

Provide extra commands as an option, enabled in preferences.

We can have whatever extra commands are deemed worthy, without the perceived worry of confusing beginners.

I'm not actually advocating the need for heaps of new commands. I'm saying you don't need to worry about scaring the horses, you can have your cake and eat it too. Even mix your metaphors.

Hmmm... I'm skeptical. It seems to me that either an extra command is important to know (in which case it's important that beginners are able to use it to play the game), or it's of marginal utility (in which case it's adding to an already too cluttered UI).

[Collingwood]

in which case it's adding to an already too cluttered UI.

I don't agree about the UI already being too cluttered, but everyone's viewpoint is relevant. So, you'd be able to ignore any extra commands by not enabling them in preferences. This is what I'm saying: people don't have to think they will have extra commands needlessly forced on them, they could be an option.

You don't have iron level difficulty forced on you either, it's an option.

It doesn't have to be only one way or only another.

I think options are good, at least better than hoping a one size fits all will suit everyone as well as it suits oneself.

Anyhow, I accept that I'm probably dreaming.

[Michael Emrys]

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).

I think that is a fairly accurate description of the situation.

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'.

I tend to agree. I know my big problem time and time again when starting out was where I would hit these situations where I'd wonder, "What do I do now?" and wouldn't have a clue. Bil's tactical lessons fill some of that gap, but there need to be more of them and some of them need to be step by step, where the novice player is walked through the proper technique of crossing an open space or assaulting a building, for instance. CM is complicated and getting all the pieces to fit together is hard enough once you are familiar with the techniques. Trying to do that without knowing the technique is confoundingly difficult.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Why there are different ammunition counts given for the same unit in two different UI panes. There is a reference to the right side pane being a "cumulative" count but it doesn't define what that includes (shared ammunition as well as nearby ammunition dropped on the ground).

I think I finally understand that one now, after 2+ years of playing the game, but it still strikes me as a bizarre aberration. It may have been designed that way to solve some particular problem, but from the player's end it is very counter-intuitive.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

I don't remember people finding these ideas difficult to get to grips with, even outside of typical wargamer circles. I am not suggesting for a minute that the series had CM's depth, but successful play required a similar approach to most common situations in CM.

That's true, but it was overly simplified. The variety and types of orders you could issue your guys were a lot fewer than in CM. On top of that, you couldn't do waypoints. Waypoints, unfortunately, are part of our UI problem with non CM players. Even most wargames don't have waypoints. CMx2 made this "worse" by making the waypoints vastly more powerful.

So in CC you could have a single Move and a single Combat type Command going at one time. Max. Anybody want to tell me what the maximum number of things you can instruct a single unit in CMx2 to do? If your answer is anything shy of "infinite" then you're underestimating

Provide extra commands as an option, enabled in preferences.

We can have whatever extra commands are deemed worthy, without the perceived worry of confusing beginners.

Our thinking is inline with others. If it isn't important enough to be needed by everybody, then it's not important enough to have at all. That's been our philosophy throughout the whole CM experience and we don't see a reason to change it.

One reason we broke the Commands up into 4 distinct categories was to make it less daunting to the newbie player. There's a max of 9 Commands per Command Type. That means the most you ever have to see is 9 logically grouped Commands. A big improvement over the old CMx1 everything at once all the time approach. It's why we initially didn't have the "spacebar" feature for CMx2 v1 and why we changed the behavior to be nested for CMx2 v2.

I think I finally understand that one now, after 2+ years of playing the game, but it still strikes me as a bizarre aberration. It may have been designed that way to solve some particular problem, but from the player's end it is very counter-intuitive.

Part of the problem is that we've been improving and enhancing game functionality over time. If we had to do a radical UI overhaul each time we added something I can tell you there'd be a lot less new stuff So one unintentional consequence of adding things is not necessarily having the UI do what we want we would have it do if we could start from a clean slate.

That's not to say we couldn't do a better job with stuff here and there, just pointing out that it's harder than it looks to keep all CM's moving pieces optimally in motion without some compromises somewhere.

Steve

[A Canadian Cat]

If we had to do a radical UI overhaul each time we added something I can tell you there'd be a lot less new stuff

Not to mention that moving the cheese around constantly - even if it is arranged in a better way - would generate its own complaints and "discussion" :eek:

[LukeFF]

Why there are different ammunition counts given for the same unit in two different UI panes. There is a reference to the right side pane being a "cumulative" count but it doesn't define what that includes (shared ammunition as well as nearby ammunition dropped on the ground).

This is a big one. Right now the way ammunition information is displayed is very counter-intuitive. What ammo is my squad carrying? What am I sharing with another squad? What ammo is actually assigned to this vehicle's weapon systems and what ammo can my infantry acquire for my own use? That sort of stuff is not conveyed very clearly right now.

Oh, and another one: the UI needs more tooltips when hovering over a particular graphic. The graphics for rank insignia are one example of this; the C2 icons are another.

And, lastly, for those running the game on larger resolutions, the amount of dead space taken up by the bottom portion of the screen is simply inexcusable. It may have been fine for CMx1 and the first iterations of CMSF, but that was years ago. It needs to be updated.

[Chops]

In addition to Rank, please add a mouse-over tool tip for Nationality in the UI.

[Battlefront.com]

The mouse over stuff is kinda like a bottomless pit. There is a case to be made for mouse over for just about everything. But that brings with it all kinds of problems, especially for us because we support many languages. Can we put in more? Sure. Should we put in more? Yes. Will we put in more? Most likely. Will we have everything with mouse help that people ask for? Definitely not.

You guys might find it interesting that a very early proposal for Upgrade 3.0 had a scalable 2D UI section at the bottom to address the issue of huge screens. It's been requested for a long time now and the benefit of having it is obvious. The answer back from Charles was "that's a huge amount of work" so I asked Phil to look into it in more detail. He said "please, God, don't make me do it!". Not surprisingly it was dropped from the possible feature improvement list right after. Sadly, it's tied into far too much code to make it viable. I doubt CMx2 will ever address this problem.

Steve