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Reducing player's god-like capabilities


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The proposed system only really works for terrain that is both linear and exactly parallel to the shooter.

Who says that the orientation of the spread must be fixed?

There are a lot of design choices which could be made.

Oh and before the mentioned 6 action spots are brought up as the next strawman argument, the numbers were chosen for illustration purposes. The exact values and how things are designed, is up to the designers and developers.

Stationary heavy weapons are maybe the most important weapons for defenses and I find it strange, that you bring up examples that have no impact on the tactical outcome of a battle, but that now the decisive weapons can be knocked out so easily is much less of a concern.

the opposing player would know for sure whether or not the firing unit(s) had a contact marker.

Which is realistic: incoming fire on locations where no units are, show that it's only a fearful shooting into the air and indeed gives the defender feedback what was spotted and what not.

I'm somehow surprised that you seem to believe that hidden units are allowed to open fire only because they are shot at. This is only true for very inxeprienced units without leadership. The better the unit, the higher the fire discipline. Usually no one is allowed to open fire until dedicated weapons manned by experienced crews do so.

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Who says that the orientation of the spread must be fixed?

There are a lot of design choices which could be made.

Unless you want to make the length also adjustable then there is no way to make it work.

Oh and before the mentioned 6 action spots are brought up as the next strawman argument, the numbers were chosen for illustration purposes. The exact values and how things are designed, is up to the designers and developers.

The problem isn't the number 6. The problem is that the number is arbitrary rather than determined by the terrain, as it realistically would be.

Stationary heavy weapons are maybe the most important weapons for defenses and I find it strange, that you bring up examples that have no impact on the tactical outcome of a battle, but that now the decisive weapons can be knocked out so easily is much less of a concern.

The fact that you are dismissing speculative fires as irrelevant makes me think I am wasting my time here.

Which is realistic: incoming fire on locations where no units are, show that it's only a fearful shooting into the air and indeed gives the defender feedback what was spotted and what not.

Recon by fire is certainly not "fearful shooting into the air" are anything similar.

Reconnaissance by fire does not mean firing blindly with the hopes of hitting something. It is a technique of firing into areas believed to contain enemy in order to provoke them into returning fire or fleeing, at which time they can be engaged using more precise methods.

http://op-for.com/2007/07/recon_by_fire.html

I'm somehow surprised that you seem to believe that hidden units are allowed to open fire only because they are shot at. This is only true for very inxeprienced units without leadership. The better the unit, the higher the fire discipline. Usually no one is allowed to open fire until dedicated weapons manned by experienced crews do so.

I'm somehow surprised that you thought I was referring to the TacAI. I was referring to the human player.

This really is a waste of time. Although it varies in the details, this proposal is conceptually similar to others that have come before and it has no chance for the same reason they didn't.

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=86106&page=28

http://ftp.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=86244

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FYI: I see this as a friendly discussion about a change that will probably never come. Still interesting.

I would argue that the corner cases are actually the majority.

Well, that is probably determined by personal style and so I'll drop that argument.

What about rounded or irregularly shaped terrain features? What about linear features that are diagonal to the shooter? The proposed system only really works for terrain that is both linear and exactly parallel to the shooter.

That could be circumvented by assuming that the targets(!) are spread over an area (a circle?). If something is blocking LOF the shot would hit that something. So for instance firing at bocage would yield a linear result.

You wouldn't know that at all, unless you were to presume that area fire is only used in the above situation and never against suspect terrain in which nothing has been spotted. Also, because the length of spread is reduced when a contact marker is present the opposing player would know for sure whether or not the firing unit(s) had a contact marker.

You know where your troops are so you also know when the enemy is just guessing and shooting at empty terrain - precisely or not. Nothing changes here.

When the hits get closer to an actual unit you can assume that the enemy has spotted you - seems very realistic to me.

Thanks for the links Vanir. I wasn't aware of this discussion as it predates my time on the forum here. Especially interesting is this post from Steve:

http://ftp.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1123496&postcount=6

I quote from his post:

"

The realism problem comes from WHY a unit is being ordered to use Area Fire (note the "why" part is CRITICAL to this discussion). There are three possible WHYs:

1. The unit, through its own senses, suspects or knows about an enemy position but, for whatever reason, can't use direct fire on it at that particular moment that the player has to assign a Target Command. Maybe it was visible the second before, perhaps it is just a spot that looks too obvious for the enemy to occupy. The reason is irrelevant.

2. The unit places fire on a location as directed by another unit even though it has no first hand knowledge, or even suspicion, that firing at that location is the right thing to do. The more sophisticated the ability to communicate, the more versatile the weapons are, the greater opportunity for this type of thing to occur. The most common example is indirect fire, since the artillery units obviously are doing Area Fire on something it can't see or couldn't possible have sensed on its own.

3. The unit places fire on a location that it doesn't know about and wouldn't know/suspect to shoot at if it were not for the intervention of the God like player. In this case fire is being unrealistically manipulated to yield the best possible result regardless of the realistic chance of such fire happening in real life.

The only one of these three that anybody should have a problem with is #3, correct? I hope so biggrin.gif And how common are #1 and #2, from a realistic standpoint, within the course of a battle? I hope you also agree VERY common.

"

Any solution must not hinder #1 and #2 and make #3 harder or impossible.

So analysing HLs proposal wrt to:

#1 - the unit has a good contact so no spread - everything stays as is

#2 - artillery is not touched by this proposal - no change. Another unit giving direction - that will happen through good C2. A unit will get contacts through their neighbouring units. The better the C2 the better the contacts and lesser the spread

#3 - no contact - more spread.

I'd like to add another thing: even if this thing makes it harder to concentrate fire on that lonely single tree on top of the hill: the shells that hit close to it would still suppress an enemy behind that tree as suppression spills over to neighbouring AS. And that is what was intended.

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That could be circumvented by assuming that the targets(!) are spread over an area (a circle?). If something is blocking LOF the shot would hit that something. So for instance firing at bocage would yield a linear result.

I don't understand what you're saying here.

You know where your troops are so you also know when the enemy is just guessing and shooting at empty terrain - precisely or not. Nothing changes here.

When the hits get closer to an actual unit you can assume that the enemy has spotted you - seems very realistic to me.

IF he is shooting at empty terrain, but you can't assume that area fire against unstopped enemy units will always hit empty terrain. The point is that under the present system if fire is hitting the AS your unit is in you may assume that unit has been spotted but that may not be a correct assumption, leading you to move or return fire when you would have been better served laying low. Under the proposed system area fire will never hit exclusively on one AS, thereby giving away the awareness level.

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If you want to reduce the player's God-like ability without gimping legitimate tactics in the process you have to reduce or alter the information that gets to the player. One way to do that is fog of war. Specifically, I think that the location of the initial contact icon should be randomized. They were in the CMx1 games, dramatically so, and it has always puzzled my why they are located pretty much right at the unit's actual location in the new games. Even sound contacts are correctly located. It wouldn't be a big difference maker, but it wouldn't be insignificant either, IMO.

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I don't understand what you're saying here.

Simplified example, numbers made up:

9 AS in a 3x3, count by row from top left 1 to bottom right 9

Initial target is at 5, AS 1 to 9 all have the same probability for a hit

Now bocage runs from 4 to 6. Shells aimed for 1 to 3 will be stopped by the bocage -> 1 to 3 get no hits, 4 to 6 twice as many and 7 to 9 the usual.

That works from any direction.

IF he is shooting at empty terrain, but you can't assume that area fire against unstopped enemy units will always hit empty terrain. The point is that under the present system if fire is hitting the AS your unit is in you may assume that unit has been spotted but that may not be a correct assumption, leading you to move or return fire when you would have been better served laying low. Under the proposed system area fire will never hit exclusively on one AS, thereby giving away the awareness level.

Yes, correct - mostly ;)

Under the current system you cannot learn if the spotter or shooter has spotted you or not. In both cases the accuracy is the same.

In the proposed system you also don't know if a spotter has spotted you or not but you get a hint if the shooter has or not. If not the hits will be spread out. If he has all will fall into one AS.

I think we agree here.

Now the question: which is more realistic?

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If you want to reduce the player's God-like ability without gimping legitimate tactics in the process you have to reduce or alter the information that gets to the player. One way to do that is fog of war. Specifically, I think that the location of the initial contact icon should be randomized. They were in the CMx1 games, dramatically so, and it has always puzzled my why they are located pretty much right at the unit's actual location in the new games. Even sound contacts are correctly located. It wouldn't be a big difference maker, but it wouldn't be insignificant either, IMO.

I don't think it'd make sufficient difference to be worth futzing about with. Most "tentative" contacts I get are "historical", i.e. a unit was spotted at that place. The proportion of time of existance of the "?" icon as a "not spotted yet" compared to its time as a "not spotted any more" is trivial. Making them rattle about wouldn't make me less likely to fire on them, since

a) (assuming I'm hitting the BRB often enough to keep a track) "not spotted yet" icons will still be valid targets, just a little bit less, since there might be more misses, but they'd still be "somewhere near", which counts if you think of 75mm HE as a big handgrenade.

B) They'll still attract eye attention, and won't often be "tentative" for long.

Obviously, this is based on my play style and the experience the game presents to me personally. YMMV.

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Just to put one item in perspective on area fire and recon by fire, Broadsword and I are currently gaming a battle for Son in our campaign. Gonna violate a little op sec in here Broadsword, but just a little. At this point in the battle Broadsword's Paras are fighting their way though the woods trying to close on the town outskirts. They are using a prodigious amount of area fire to clear the Germans ahead of them. In at least one instance I have suffered casualties from a team quite a few AS deeper in the woods. One should never discount the potential impact of area fire beyond simply the targeted AS.

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Just to put one item in perspective on area fire and recon by fire, Broadsword and I are currently gaming a battle for Son in our campaign. Gonna violate a little op sec in here Broadsword, but just a little. At this point in the battle Broadsword's Paras are fighting their way though the woods trying to close on the town outskirts. They are using a prodigious amount of area fire to clear the Germans ahead of them. In at least one instance I have suffered casualties from a team quite a few AS deeper in the woods. One should never discount the potential impact of area fire beyond simply the targeted AS.

I'm actually finding recon by fire easier to do in the woods (or at least in these particular woods on this particular map) because when I move a unit, I can check LOS for each waypoint and usually there are only 1 to 3 AS in LOS from each waypoint. Even if there are more than 1 to 3, I can usually narrow it down to just one based on the logical place that enemy would most likely occupy. So it's not necessary to spray a wide area and burn a lot of ammo, as I had to do on Normandy bocage lines. If my unit is plotting a move where there turns out to be many possible LOS points, I know it's time to make sure there's overwatch and a more concerted plan to react to contact.

And yes, round really do travel on CMx2 maps. I recall in Hamel Vallee that some reserves way in the back of the map and way out of action had to duck stray StuG or even HMG rounds now and then.

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