Is CMBS worth buying?

[A Canadian Cat]

Double click now does the same. Which is now my preferred way.

[kluge]

On 3/25/2016 at 5:16 PM, MikeyD said:

Driving stick shift is no fun if you haven't bothered to learn stick.

I love this analogy, although to a new player the controls look more like the steering wheel of a F1 car. Somewhere between beautiful and overwhelming. 

[kluge]

@Hannib'al, the clunky mouse controls are really the only weakness of this otherwise excellent game. Use the hotkeys for "quick" and "target" and that'll cover 99% of the basic things you need to do. Fire and movement!

For everyone wondering why it's hard- the problem is that those two basic commands lie on separate tabs. Constantly switching between the two (and occasionally deleting an accidental waypoint) means it takes 4-5 mouse clicks just to issue a single order. And the tab buttons are the hardest ones to hit in the UI, so that gets old fast. It would be better if the game had a "basic" command panel that covers the most common orders, hiding the more tactical options for advanced usage.

[iluvmy88]

While i feel the game plays best as tun based you can play real time for a faster pace. all CM titles are an OCD dream or a starcraft players nightmare. like said its a niche game more like chess than traditional ts titles. that said its a good game with a lot of realism and depth.

[Battlefront.com]

As the developer, I'm biased   I agree that there's always room for improvement and the UI is no exception.  Anybody who has used CM since Shock Force knows that we've put a lot of energy into improving the UI.  We are not done yet!

Having said that, the problem CM faces is that it is really 4 games in one

1.  Turn based "strategy" (think old top down hex type games)

2.  Turn based "tactical" (think tabletop miniatures)

3.  RealTime "strategy" (think Command and Conquer)

4.  RealTime "tactical" (think First Person Shooter)

As you think of the other games you've played you will find that pretty much all of them are only one game, maybe two.  None I can think of have to make a UI that works well for 4 different types of games.  Certainly no games have 2-4 different UIs.  It's not even a good idea   Especially since each game requires play at the "strategic" and "tactical" level.  If someone thinks the UI is clunky now, just think how frustrating it would be if there wasn't a single, unified UI for all forms of play.  The best we could come up with is what v3.0 introduced and that's the different "styles" that a player can choose from.  It's still one UI for all forms of play, but the user has a little more control over the details than in previous versions.

 

[Combatintman]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

As the developer, I'm biased   I agree that there's always room for improvement and the UI is no exception.  Anybody who has used CM since Shock Force knows that we've put a lot of energy into improving the UI.  We are not done yet!

Having said that, the problem CM faces is that it is really 4 games in one

1.  Turn based "strategy" (think old top down hex type games)

2.  Turn based "tactical" (think tabletop miniatures)

3.  RealTime "strategy" (think Command and Conquer)

4.  RealTime "tactical" (think First Person Shooter)

As you think of the other games you've played you will find that pretty much all of them are only one game, maybe two.  None I can think of have to make a UI that works well for 4 different types of games.  Certainly no games have 2-4 different UIs.  It's not even a good idea   Especially since each game requires play at the "strategic" and "tactical" level.  If someone thinks the UI is clunky now, just think how frustrating it would be if there wasn't a single, unified UI for all forms of play.  The best we could come up with is what v3.0 introduced and that's the different "styles" that a player can choose from.  It's still one UI for all forms of play, but the user has a little more control over the details than in previous versions.

 

Although I am very much a fan and my 'give a flipometer' barely flickers about the GUI (stated for context) I had not thought about the design decisions required as stated above. Every day is a school day as they say. My view (FWIW) is that making it easier to move units around would be helpful but it is not a deal breaker.

[Wodin]

Sometimes I can never work out why people have issues with certain Game UI's, this series being one of them. Maybe if I wa snew and playing real time it could get on top for me..but WEGO gives me enough time to select and issue the right moves for what I want.

 

Recently the game that did give me trouble was Elite Dangerous. Oh and things like DCS flight Sims are to much for me aswell...now they to me a real steep learning curve headaches. Though I suppose there are those out there who have no trouble with them.

 

I see WEGO as the game giving me the time to decide on what to do where a trained soldier would know pretty much instantly.

Edited March 28, 2016 by Wodin

[MikeyD]

People tend to play this game with as little or as much obsessive detail as they feel they need. They're either plotting & timing movements for each unit from bush-to-bush, studying every terrain detail, or they're group selecting and giving a single order for everyone to march across the map. They're also either plotting all the firing orders for all the units or they're letting the AI target and shoot on its own. A 1 hour battle will either take 1 hour to play through or it'll take 5. So its either an OCD micromanagement click-fest or it isn't. There's something rather liberating about playing a big battle in realtime. You can't be everywhere doing everything at once so you're compelled to relinquish control to the AI. Let fate take its course.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

The only complaint I have is that it's hard to play CMBS well without a very obsessive level of detail to what each vehicle/team does.  In real life, you command a platoon to set up a defensive position, you've pretty much given it a place you want it, and what you want it to shoot into, but the platoon will sort out where exactly it needs to park, build sectors of fire etc.  You as the commander will need to adjust those things to make them better tie in with the other platoons in the company, but even then it's fairly straight forward ("LT I need your 3# tank so it can see the belltower at grids 12345678, that's now your right limit").  

So in that regard, I see any scenario with more than  a company+ of equipment for me to command (so like, 14-20 AFVs) I'm not really as interested because I hate having to juggle all those pieces (and it's not realistic in many ways, because between the player battalion commander and the squad on the ground, there's a chain of at least two other commissioned officers, and a 2-3 NCOs with something like 50 years combined experience of Army running that part of the show).  And that's really my one complaint for my end of things, that I feel Combat Mission is a lot of fun for Platoon and Company level games, but it's painful for Battalion level (and I'd contend once you've got 2+ maneuver units* you're into the realm where traditional hex based games have an advantage in abstracting that you do have a functioning Company Commander, Platoon Leader etc etc in the loop).


*I'm sure I'm walking into an ambush on this one with someone who's more current on doctrinal terms.  However maneuver units broadly are the echelon at which a unit becomes more or less independent, like reasonably could accomplish missions without much support.  For the US Army this is generally the Company.  Old style Soviet was the Battalion, and this appears to be in places still the case with Russian forces, although they've certainly made some strides in making more agile units.  If you're fighting old school with massed Russian companies, I don't think they're as hard to control, and generally the force balances in CMBS allows you to burn through Russian equipment in a way that would be war losing as a blue player.    

[Battlefront.com]

There's a couple of reasons that CM's UI is a little difficult for some.  Constant play of a single game creates "muscle memory" actions/responses.  Some game types became highly standardized over time and therefore switching from Game A to Game B doesn't tend to involve a lot of new UI conventions.  Switching between game types isn't generally a problem either because the muscle memory can handle remembering more than one routine, though perhaps it takes a game or two to get back into the swing of things.  Much like how I try to swipe my laptop screen after using an iPad for an hour or two

The problem for CM is that it is, as I said above, basically 4 types of games in one.  There is absolutely NO standard for this out there, which means playing CM is always different than playing any other type of game.  This means we had to tailor the CM UI to how CM works, not how FPS, RTS, top down, or miniatures work. 

This creates a bit of a brain dilemma because there are games out there that are similar in significant ways to CM.  The brain recognizes these similarities and tries to use established patterns (muscle memory) in those instances.  For example, CM is in a 3D environment just like a FPS so the brain wants the camera to behave like a FPS game even though in CM the camera *must* do things that no FPS allows for (like floating hundreds of meters above the battlefield or the need to select units).  Because a strict carbon copy of FPS controls won't work well at all, the CM UI breaks conventions and that requires conflicts with the muscle memory.  Worse, the player's muscle memory from an RTS game might want to do things one way, but the muscle memory from FPS games might want to do it a different way.  Now the player has competing expectations which the game might favor one way, the other way, or neither ways!

It's definitely a big design challenge, that's for sure   However, once people develop muscle memory for CM then things tend to be pretty good. Then players run into problems when they switch back to other genres because the CM muscle memory has a similar effect on FPS play as FPS play has on CM (for example).

Let's also not forget that all games have perceived UI shortcomings.  It's normal even for games that have UI that is 95% the same as every other game.  Anything different produces a split of opinion about if it is good or not.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Ah yes!  That's the other point I meant to make in response to MikeyD's post.  Thanks Panzerkraut

On top of different expectations for physical interaction with the game, we have the wildly different user expectations for what level of detail they want/need.  Some think that they can't hit the GO! button until they've checked and rechecked every single unit.  For these players they find the shortcomings/compromises/limitations of the UI designed for detailed tactical control and information.  For the players who wish a "command level" experience they find the shortcomings/compromises/limitations of the UI designed for higher level control and information.  As it so happens, these two extremes are generally incompatible with each other.  Increasing the information and controls for tactical micro management works against the concepts that need to be applied for those who want a higher level more hands off experience.  And vice versa.

This goes beyond the UI and into the game guts itself.  Game design decisions and coding effort necessary to give players more finite control are fundamentally different from the game design and coding effort that produces a really good command level game.  Like all engineered products, it is impossible to support two extremes equally well.  A good design is more about finding the best compromise that largely satisfies both extremes.  That in turn means both types of players will find things they feel need improvement.

Steve

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, MikeyD said:

 There's something rather liberating about playing a big battle in realtime. You can't be everywhere doing everything at once so you're compelled to relinquish control to the AI. Let fate take its course.

This.

I'm a big TB fan, I love the thinking and planning we can apply, but RT big games are just as you say - liberating. It feels more "real" to let a firefight take its course while dealing with the real crisis, then jump over and have to deal with the developing aftermath.

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, panzersaurkrautwerfer said:

 If you're fighting old school with massed Russian companies, I don't think they're as hard to control, and generally the force balances in CMBS allows you to burn through Russian equipment in a way that would be war losing as a blue player.    

This also.

I get a rush from the firefighting aspect, which is certainly easier with UKR and RUS forces, as you simply have more men to and vehicles to burn through. US definitely requires more handholding, but even then a solid recon phase before gameplay will do wonders. If you know your terrain, you know your battle.

Edited March 28, 2016 by kinophile

[Kinophile]

4 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Ah yes!  That's the other point I meant to make in response to MikeyD's post.  Thanks Panzerkraut

On top of different expectations for physical interaction with the game, we have the wildly different user expectations for what level of detail they want/need.  Some think that they can't hit the GO! button until they've checked and rechecked every single unit.  For these players they find the shortcomings/compromises/limitations of the UI designed for detailed tactical control and information.  For the players who wish a "command level" experience they find the shortcomings/compromises/limitations of the UI designed for higher level control and information.  As it so happens, these two extremes are generally incompatible with each other.  Increasing the information and controls for tactical micro management works against the concepts that need to be applied for those who want a higher level more hands off experience.  And vice versa.

This goes beyond the UI and into the game guts itself.  Game design decisions and coding effort necessary to give players more finite control are fundamentally different from the game design and coding effort that produces a really good command level game.  Like all engineered products, it is impossible to support two extremes equally well.  A good design is more about finding the best compromise that largely satisfies both extremes.  That in turn means both types of players will find things they feel need improvement.

Steve

A future (far, far , sci-fi future) UI could have two variants, GENERAL and ADVANCED, switchable in-game (using SHIFT-TAB?), with varying levels of detailed control.

It could even be a game option - use ADVANCED inset-up, then only GENERAL allowed in-game, or both available.

That could be a fun experience, for me at least. I like restrictions that force me to think (same as I like playing RUS and UKR rather than US) but a lot of people see that as an impediment and get frustrated because they want everything NOW PLEASE NOW GODDAMMIT NOW.

My $0.02.

Edited March 28, 2016 by kinophile

[Battlefront.com]

Having a more customizable UI is definitely the way to go.  Context sensitivity can also be customized to some extent.  These sorts of concepts can work well in terms of regulating the quantity and type of information that the player sees on a regular basis.  However, there are limitations on how far this can go.  UI is difficult to program and "get right", so the more options we add the more time is spent on the UI and not on the game.  Since this is Combat Mission and not Interface Mission, there are practical limitations on how much we can do.

Steve

[MikeyD]

"Since this is Combat Mission and not Interface Mission..."

Heh heh, I recall how looooong ago you admonishing us that CM was not a botanical garden sim.

[BletchleyGeek]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

On top of different expectations for physical interaction with the game, we have the wildly different user expectations for what level of detail they want/need.  Some think that they can't hit the GO! button until they've checked and rechecked every single unit.  For these players they find the shortcomings/compromises/limitations of the UI designed for detailed tactical control and information.  For the players who wish a "command level" experience they find the shortcomings/compromises/limitations of the UI designed for higher level control and information.  As it so happens, these two extremes are generally incompatible with each other.  Increasing the information and controls for tactical micro management works against the concepts that need to be applied for those who want a higher level more hands off experience.  And vice versa.

This goes beyond the UI and into the game guts itself.  Game design decisions and coding effort necessary to give players more finite control are fundamentally different from the game design and coding effort that produces a really good command level game.  Like all engineered products, it is impossible to support two extremes equally well.  A good design is more about finding the best compromise that largely satisfies both extremes.  That in turn means both types of players will find things they feel need improvement.

I see that you still have pretty much the same position as in 2011, when I saw you pretty much describing the same position. Five years have gone by and now I have a more informed position regarding this matter, and I must say that I think that you're conflating two different issues.

On the one hand you say that playing at the level of the squad leader and playing at the level of the battalion commander require fundamentally different user interface and design decisions. Indeed, they convey different requirements but they're not, in any way, fundamentally "incompatible" but rather "complementary". Often, failing to integrate coherently the micro and macro level in a simulation/game, is seen as a failure in design.

On the other hand, you mention an engineering question regarding supporting either extreme equally well. The thing is that right now, I don't see either extreme well supported, or perhaps it is more proper to say that by adopting a central position CMx2 seems not to care at all about either extreme. I am speaking by myself but I think that you guys could have totally been iterating over features on either extreme and with the exception of probably a few crazy persons, most of us would be very pleased to see some definite movement and change. As the age old military dictum goes, that who compromises achieves nothing.

I don't think I am exaggerating when saying that you have been very reluctant to invest time in resources on adding new features to the UI or improving UX (i.e. quality of life). Your position looks a bit too much like "kicking the can down the road" or not mending the "broken windows in the building". On a subject like this the usual trajectory ends up in a situation that warrants tearing down the whole thing and starting from scratch. And starting stuff from scratch is hard, as you know very well, and most of the time, "2.0" versions  never even gets off the ground. I know that you guys operate on a shoestring, but as a long time follower of the series and admirer, I encourage you to revise this matter with fresh eyes.

Examples of this "death by divesting from the looks and feels" abound. Consider the "official" rework of Close Combat, that has been for two or three years seemingly going nowhere, or TOAW's penultimate revamp, which was supposed to be an "sweet and easy" job. Both systems have been around from even longer than CMx1, and attempts to have them keep up with the times haven't been particularly successful. Those are I think good examples of what eventually happens when one becomes too cozy with a core of fanatic users who are already happy with the way things are, but sadly as years go by their interest and numbers dwindle accordingly.

In any case, I do agree that the games play very satisfyingly for a very specific sweet spot in scale. Yet there's other games handling this or similar subject matter coming up that bring some fresh ideas (note that fresh is not the same as perfect, but still it is fresh), and it's inevitable that as years go by, and people rack up more experience playing your games and playing other people's games, expectations change. And I am not talking about misguided rip offs of ASL crossbred with the UI of Steel Panthers...

Edited March 28, 2016 by BletchleyGeek
Better English

[Ivanov]

1 hour ago, kinophile said:

This.

I'm a big TB fan, I love the thinking and planning we can apply, but RT big games are just as you say - liberating. It feels more "real" to let a firefight take its course while dealing with the real crisis, then jump over and have to deal with the developing aftermath.

I absolutely get that playing RT may feel liberating because the micromanagement of every single unit is quite burdening. That's why I tend to avoid  battles that are bigger than company size. However I don't agree that RT is more realistic. It's actually less realistic than the turn based mode. In real life you have someone commanding every single smallest unit at all times. In RT mode your units are commanded only whe you pay attention to them and you can't be everywhere at the same time. So effectively maybe 80% of you units are without any command and are able mostly only to return fire or hide. Sure, if you play against a human opponent he would be constrained in the same way. But the lack of realism is what puts me off from the real time mode. I'd be perfectly happy if the pixeltruppen after taking a general group order ( like move to that location ), were able to chose the posture and the pick positions with the best cover and line of sight, without any interference from my side. But I'm aware that would require a introduction of a totally revamped, super AI.

[Kinophile]

25 minutes ago, Ivanov said:

I absolutely get that playing RT may feel liberating because the micromanagement of every single unit is quite burdening. That's why I tend to avoid  battles that are bigger than company size. However I don't agree that RT is more realistic. It's actually less realistic than the turn based mode. In real life you have someone commanding every single smallest unit at all times. In RT mode your units are commanded only whe you pay attention to them and you can't be everywhere at the same time. So effectively maybe 80% of you units are without any command and are able mostly only to return fire or hide. Sure, if you play against a human opponent he would be constrained in the same way. But the lack of realism is what puts me off from the real time mode. I'd be perfectly happy if the pixeltruppen after taking a general group order ( like move to that location ), were able to chose the posture and the pick positions with the best cover and line of sight, without any interference from my side. But I'm aware that would require a introduction of a totally revamped, super AI.

This is true. A much stronger, more tactically aware squad level AI would push this game into a whole other level of gaming quality. 

Simple rules like "if MG Enter Building Then  Deploy 2nd Floor Same Direction"  could be toggleable default behaviours. Civ 4 & 5 have similar orders (eg Workers leave Forest's alone is an option). 

If wishes were fishes.... 

[Battlefront.com]

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I see that you still have pretty much the same position as in 2011, when I saw you pretty much describing the same position. Five years have gone by and now I have a more informed position regarding this matter, and I must say that I think that you're conflating two different issues.

Nope

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

On the one hand you say that playing at the level of the squad leader and playing at the level of the battalion commander require fundamentally different user interface and design decisions. Indeed, they convey different requirements but they're not, in any way, fundamentally "incompatible" but rather "complementary". Often, failing to integrate coherently the micro and macro level in a simulation/game, is seen as a failure in design.

Failing to understand the limitations of both your customers and your engineering options is the easiest way to produce a "failure in design".  Which is why end users would fail miserably if they were put into a position that allowed them to redesign the product they are criticizing.  It is a complete fallacy that using a product gives a user the knowledge necessary to be a good designer/engineer (the two are closely tied together).  The result is users tend to speak with authority they do not posses and sureness they should not have.  At least on the bigger issues and challenges of design/engineering.  On narrower, more specific topics users can have extremely good, even brilliant, insights.  Though there's still the point that learned designers/engineers arbitrate conflicting user requests and use their expertise to determine the correct course.

The fact is that users have an upper limit as to how much information, commands, sounds, icons, etc. that they can handle within the context of a game before the game is viewed as "work" or "a spreadsheet" or something else that is the antithesis of enjoyment.  For some users the upper limit is quite low, for others it's quite high.  The more technical and detail orientated the player, the higher the threshold.  It is one reason why CM will never, ever, EVER appeal to the masses.  The game simply has too much going on and there's no way to water down the UI to the point where they will find themselves comfortable.

Tactical level play has an inherently different focus than strategic play.  Operational is somewhere in the middle, leaning one way or the other depending on the game system.  The more you load up the UI for one particular form of play, the less you can load up the other.  That's from a design standpoint.  From an engineering standpoint there's other considerations, but since the inherent conflict is with competing designs the engineering side basically has to sit around and wait for the dust to settle to see which side to favor before jumping into the fray.

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

On the other hand, you mention an engineering question regarding supporting either extreme equally well. The thing is that right now, I don't see either extreme well supported, or perhaps it is more proper to say that by adopting a central position CMx2 seems not to care at all about either extreme.

This is akin to saying a parent who withholds a dangerous toy from a child does so because he/she doesn't care about the child.  Pardon me if I disagree with that line of logic If we didn't care then we'd most likely have gone out of business or moved onto something easier to do a long time ago. 

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I am speaking by myself but I think that you guys could have totally been iterating over features on either extreme and with the exception of probably a few crazy persons, most of us would be very pleased to see some definite movement and change. As the age old military dictum goes, that who compromises achieves nothing.

There are other long held sayings that are more applicable.  For example, putting all of ones eggs in one basket not being a good idea.  Or the least stable things in the universe are ones that are on the extremes.  So let's not go that route

The fact is that the very nature of CM requires us to make an acceptable game experience for more than one group of people.  We lack the ability to create reasonably good AI to handle micro details for the Command level player, which means they are required to work at a lower level than they would otherwise prefer.  Likewise, no Tactical player I know of would allow himself to be constrained by a higher level AI that enforced particular tactical decision making upon the player.  This means that inherently CM can not specialize even if it wanted to.  Because of that, the UI can not be specialized towards one extreme or the other.

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I don't think I am exaggerating when saying that you have been very reluctant to invest time in resources on adding new features to the UI or improving UX (i.e. quality of life).

This is not correct, but not surprising given your general attitude towards the game's UI.  The amount of effort we've put into improving the UI since CMSF is massive and ongoing.  The list of UI features that have been added, removed, tweaked, reworked, etc. is extremely long.  However, we also have to make improvements to the game since the game is absolutely, without any doubt about it, more important than the UI.  People are more likely to play a good game with a less good UI than a poor game with a fantastic UI.  Erring on the side of a better game than a better UI is in everybody's best interests.

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Your position looks a bit too much like "kicking the can down the road" or not mending the "broken windows in the building". On a subject like this the usual trajectory ends up in a situation that warrants tearing down the whole thing and starting from scratch.

You're also forgetting the fact that there's no consensus about what direction the game should go.  One man's best feature is another man's useless feature.  One man's best concept is another man's vision of disaster.  Hence why I've said that users are inherently not good designers.  Understandably users are selfish and uncompromising with their views when the fact is designers can not afford to have this point of view. 

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

And starting stuff from scratch is hard, as you know very well, and most of the time, "2.0" versions  never even gets off the ground. I know that you guys operate on a shoestring, but as a long time follower of the series and admirer, I encourage you to revise this matter with fresh eyes.

CMx2 was a fresh start both conceptually and engineering wise from CMx1.  CMx3, whenever it comes about, will break from CMx2 as is necessary.  We lost a lot of CMx1 fanatical fans when we moved to CMx2, but we gained others.  We expect the same to happen with CMx3.  So be careful what you wish for because you might find yourself liking CMx3 even less than CMx2

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Examples of this "death by divesting from the looks and feels" abound. Consider the "official" rework of Close Combat, that has been for two or three years seemingly going nowhere, or TOAW's penultimate revamp, which was supposed to be an "sweet and easy" job. Both systems have been around from even longer than CMx1, and attempts to have them keep up with the times haven't been particularly successful. Those are I think good examples of what eventually happens when one becomes too cozy with a core of fanatic users who are already happy with the way things are, but sadly as years go by their interest and numbers dwindle accordingly.

If we were still trying to sell games based on the CMx1 game engine, or perhaps even the Shock Force iteration of CMx2, you'd maybe have a point to make.  That's not the case.  Unlike those other games, we do continually reinvent the game system with an occasional total break (CMx1 to CMx2, CMx2 to CMx3).

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

In any case, I do agree that the games play very satisfyingly for a very specific sweet spot in scale.

Then you should understand that the reason you are able to say this is because we've done a good job with the UI given the constraints.

52 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Yet there's other games handling this or similar subject matter coming up that bring some fresh ideas (note that fresh is not the same as perfect, but still it is fresh), and it's inevitable that as years go by, and people rack up more experience playing your games and playing other people's games, expectations change. And I am not talking about misguided rip offs of ASL crossbred with the UI of Steel Panthers...

We've been told to "watch our backs" for nearly 20 years now.  So far nothing has come along that's been even as good as Combat Mission.  We have a feeling that trend will continue because the skill necessary to pull it off is extremely high and the financial incentives very low.  That said, we do understand that even without any competition we have to reinvent the game or people will simply get bored and wander off to play totally unrelated games.  Which is why we continue to improve CMx2 and will (at some point) release CMx3.

Steve

[BletchleyGeek]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

3 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I see that you still have pretty much the same position as in 2011, when I saw you pretty much describing the same position. Five years have gone by and now I have a more informed position regarding this matter, and I must say that I think that you're conflating two different issues.

Nope

Quote

On the one hand you say that playing at the level of the squad leader and playing at the level of the battalion commander require fundamentally different user interface and design decisions. Indeed, they convey different requirements but they're not, in any way, fundamentally "incompatible" but rather "complementary". Often, failing to integrate coherently the micro and macro level in a simulation/game, is seen as a failure in design.

Failing to understand the limitations of both your customers and your engineering options is the easiest way to produce a "failure in design".  Which is why end users would fail miserably if they were put into a position that allowed them to redesign the product they are criticizing.  It is a complete fallacy that using a product gives a user the knowledge necessary to be a good designer/engineer (the two are closely tied together).  The result is users tend to speak with authority they do not posses and sureness they should not have.  At least on the bigger issues and challenges of design/engineering.  On narrower, more specific topics users can have extremely good, even brilliant, insights.  Though there's still the point that learned designers/engineers arbitrate conflicting user requests and use their expertise to determine the correct course.

Was that directed at me specifically, Steve?

Yes, I can agree with the statement that most of the time users come up with completely impractical or bizarre designs or propositions. One guy came to me  once with a extremely baroque design for a system of tactical symbols, which may have worked well for cardboard counters but on a computer screen, and applied to an entity whose state is dynamic - suffers losses, changes in morales status, etc. - was just impossible to implement in a generic way (i.e. without having to hardcode the specific handling for a specific type of units such as "recon pioneers, flamethrower equipped, mechanised, 2nd Panzer division" or "infantry gun regimental platoon, 18th VG Division" etc.). It was very awkward and difficult because it was obvious that he had spent 20+ hours working on that, and I didn't want to sound like a jerk who didn't care.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The fact is that users have an upper limit as to how much information, commands, sounds, icons, etc. that they can handle within the context of a game before the game is viewed as "work" or "a spreadsheet" or something else that is the antithesis of enjoyment.  For some users the upper limit is quite low, for others it's quite high.  The more technical and detail orientated the player, the higher the threshold.  It is one reason why CM will never, ever, EVER appeal to the masses.  The game simply has too much going on and there's no way to water down the UI to the point where they will find themselves comfortable.

Indeed, that was a very celebrated finding you can see trumpeted in any book on UI design since the late 1990s. Yet I find you to take a too extreme position on this issue. Your position - as I read you - sounds analogous to enacting severe Federal laws that require that no more than 7 vehicles simultaneously share  a 500 meters long stretch of road, to keep the cognitive burden on drivers low and potentially reduce road crashes. Having a design that initially shows a bare minimum of information, but, as the user learns to cope with complexity - in the same way as a learner driver does - allows him to customise the amount, detail and source of information being displayed on the screen is something that has been done with - in my opinion - a great level of success on real time strategy games such as R.U.S.E. and the later Eupen games, or even stuff like Homeworld. They didn't appeal to the masses, but I do think they did connect with a quite substantial audience.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

Tactical level play has an inherently different focus than strategic play.  Operational is somewhere in the middle, leaning one way or the other depending on the game system.  The more you load up the UI for one particular form of play, the less you can load up the other.  That's from a design standpoint.  From an engineering standpoint there's other considerations, but since the inherent conflict is with competing designs the engineering side basically has to sit around and wait for the dust to settle to see which side to favor before jumping into the fray.

Why? That doesn't make sense to me when I look into concrete, real world, existing examples, Steve. Say you could have an stylized representation of the battlefield - representing elevation changes and terrain using an abstract representation as for maps. Sure, when I have a platoon on the map, there's not much to be shown on such a display. But as you integrate into that view what your troopers know of enemy positions, obstacles, etc. it can be quite a tool for planning, and some people would probably play the game all the time from that "view". I cannot see how that would detract from a "close and personal" attachment to my pixeltruppen, provided you can navigate between both views without having to restart the game or something like that. Take a look at ARMA 3 - there you can play the level of the squad commander and you have such an stylised view of the battlespace and when you want, you can walk into the boots of one of your riflemen and start firing yourself at those guys with the heavy machine gun. Other than a very underdeveloped set of AI behaviours for your troopers - which is a problem of a different ilk - nothing detracts in any fashion from using that game as a "Squad Leader Simulator".

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is akin to saying a parent who withholds a dangerous toy from a child does so because he/she doesn't care about the child.  Pardon me if I disagree with that line of logic If we didn't care then we'd most likely have gone out of business or moved onto something easier to do a long time ago. 

Well, define "dangerous toy" first. If you refer to a .22 caliber rifle with a pink plastic mount decorated with unicorns, yes, I agree with you those things are better taken off the hands of children. If you refer to the UI for a video game whose players average age range lie somewhere between 30 and 50, well, I think you're being overprotective.

 

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

There are other long held sayings that are more applicable.  For example, putting all of ones eggs in one basket not being a good idea.  Or the least stable things in the universe are ones that are on the extremes.  So let's not go that route

Who says that regarding extremes? Probably a political pundit not a physicist. Don't miss the bit I wrote about iterating alternatively - one feature on one side, another feature on the other side.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

The fact is that the very nature of CM requires us to make an acceptable game experience for more than one group of people.  We lack the ability to create reasonably good AI to handle micro details for the Command level player, which means they are required to work at a lower level than they would otherwise prefer.  Likewise, no Tactical player I know of would allow himself to be constrained by a higher level AI that enforced particular tactical decision making upon the player.  This means that inherently CM can not specialize even if it wanted to.  Because of that, the UI can not be specialized towards one extreme or the other.

Well Steve, even if I think that you underestimate yourselves when you say that "you lack the ability now", but that doesn't mean you cannot acquire that ability tomorrow, or next week, or lack the potential to do so.

What would be an actual innovation would be to allow the "power player" - or Tactical player as you say - to review and change the commands generated by the AI without incurring on arbitrary direct or indirect penalties and in a timely fashion. For instance, changing AI orders incurring on "delays" is not a great idea if you don't allow the player to have the opportunity to review those orders first. Allowing to do so by having the player to drop the notion of orders delay entirely has the negative connotation of "playing with the side wheels". Conveying this in a clear and elegant way is something that would be a real innovation - so you play simultaneously "with" and "against" the computer, rather than finding it to be either the enemy or a "fifth column" sabotaging your efforts by being cryptic or inept.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

This is not correct, but not surprising given your general attitude towards the game's UI.  The amount of effort we've put into improving the UI since CMSF is massive and ongoing.  The list of UI features that have been added, removed, tweaked, reworked, etc. is extremely long.  However, we also have to make improvements to the game since the game is absolutely, without any doubt about it, more important than the UI.  People are more likely to play a good game with a less good UI than a poor game with a fantastic UI.  Erring on the side of a better game than a better UI is in everybody's best interests.

Sorry if I sounded unfair - I was looking at CMBN as the actual start, not CMSF at release day.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

You're also forgetting the fact that there's no consensus about what direction the game should go.  One man's best feature is another man's useless feature.  One man's best concept is another man's vision of disaster.  Hence why I've said that users are inherently not good designers.  Understandably users are selfish and uncompromising with their views when the fact is designers can not afford to have this point of view. 

I don't understand this either. This is your game, not ours. What consensus do you need other than that of your team and your closest associates/advisors? I think you should make the game you want to play first and foremost. From what you say it sounds like you've sacrificed this in the altar of acceptance of random strangers. Engaging with your users is one thing, and allowing them to maneuver you into a corner is another one I think.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

CMx2 was a fresh start both conceptually and engineering wise from CMx1.  CMx3, whenever it comes about, will break from CMx2 as is necessary.  We lost a lot of CMx1 fanatical fans when we moved to CMx2, but we gained others.  We expect the same to happen with CMx3.  So be careful what you wish for because you might find yourself liking CMx3 even less than CMx2

Call me a weirdo but I like CMx2 much more than I ever liked CMx1. Looking forward to CMx3, unless you go the hybrid FPS way as ARMA does

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

If we were still trying to sell games based on the CMx1 game engine, or perhaps even the Shock Force iteration of CMx2, you'd maybe have a point to make.  That's not the case.  Unlike those other games, we do continually reinvent the game system with an occasional total break (CMx1 to CMx2, CMx2 to CMx3).

Sorry, but one thing is to refine the AI, better simulation of command and control,  have more accurate physics based models for small arms fire, or the action of kinetic weapons on armour. And another thing is to offer the players with visible new features. Of course, "features" on this context also means "new exciting content is supported". On the latter I think you're doing quite good - even if you should transmit clearer to your audience that adding a new vehicle isn't just a matter of having someone to produce a cool 3D model and textures and fill in a template XML or CSV data file, very much as is the case in the cutting bleeding edge for flight sims such as DCS, where significant programming effort is required to simulate a new plane.

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

We've been told to "watch our backs" for nearly 20 years now.  So far nothing has come along that's been even as good as Combat Mission.  We have a feeling that trend will continue because the skill necessary to pull it off is extremely high and the financial incentives very low.  That said, we do understand that even without any competition we have to reinvent the game or people will simply get bored and wander off to play totally unrelated games.  Which is why we continue to improve CMx2 and will (at some point) release CMx3.

 

Sorry Steve, I didn't want to sound patronising nor I was trying to push you into immediate action. I am painfully aware of how pitiful are the financial incentives. But I have a very long memory and it struck me as curious that your post was pretty much the same thing you answered to me on this particular subject five years ago. Indeed you stick to your guns, and I will do the same as well

Thanks for the conversation and all the best with the release of CMFB and the new website!

 

Edited March 29, 2016 by BletchleyGeek

[Battlefront.com]

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Was that directed at me specifically, Steve?

Yes, and pretty much everybody who criticizes a game's UI, be it Combat Mission or other.  IIRC you are not the average user in that you have worked at this stuff professionally, correct?  Well, that definitely puts you at the head of the class.  However, CM is a massive game which is, as I said above, four games in one.  That means no matter how many games you have played, coded, designed, worked on, etc. I seriously doubt you've faced the sorts of design issues we've had to tackle.

It took me roughly 2 elapsed years to come up with the initial UI design, which itself was based on 5 years of previous work with CM and another 5 working on other games.  Charles and I kicked it around and modified it significantly before coding.  Once coded we quickly realized it had some weaknesses.  Some were able to work out before shipping CMSF, some came into the game later, more still with CMBN and after.  I can tell you for sure that at every juncture there was multiple sources of input and more ideas discarded than I can count due to them being the wrong fit.  Which is why I'm skeptical that there's some sort of rather obvious better way to do it than what we have done.   I say this even though I can assure you that CMx3 will not look like CMx2.  Different game system, different resources available, and somewhat different design goals.  I still expect it will be a tough slog.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Yes, I can agree with the statement that most of the time users come up with completely impractical or bizarre designs or propositions.

Even when the suggestions are reasonable and generally small in scope they might not be practical for one or more reasons that the user isn't thinking of.  In our case it could very well be limited engineering resources.  Some of the games you mentioned probably had 2-3 programmers dedicated to nothing but UI for games that are inherently simpler than CM.  It's akin to expecting us to be able to make a game that is as pretty as a $50,000,000 FPS.  It simply isn't practical.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Indeed, that was a very celebrated finding you can see trumpeted in any book on UI design since the late 1990s. Yet I find you to take a too extreme position on this issue. Your position - as I read you - sounds analogous to enacting severe Federal laws that require that no more than 7 vehicles simultaneously share  a 500 meters long stretch of road, to keep the cognitive burden on drivers low and potentially reduce road crashes. Having a design that initially shows a bare minimum of information, but, as the user learns to cope with complexity - in the same way as a learner driver does - allows him to customise the amount, detail and source of information being displayed on the screen is something that has been done with - in my opinion - a great level of success on real time strategy games such as R.U.S.E. and the later Eupen games, or even stuff like Homeworld. They didn't appeal to the masses, but I do think they did connect with a quite substantial audience.

As I said, I do agree that allowing the user more flexibility is a good thing and it's something we've been working towards with CMx2 already.  The introduction of different control settings (default keys + mouse controls) in v3.0 is an example of that.  But these things come at a cost to the user.  The cost is less game improvements.  So it's a balance and that means someone is always going to say we got the balance wrong, though not agree where, how much, or to what degree.  Users are not very good at consensus building since, as I said, they tend to be selfish in the technical sense of the word.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Why? That doesn't make sense to me when I look into concrete, real world, existing examples, Steve.

That's because you're not using a good analysis.  Putting aside the probability that ARMA 3's UI programming budget was more than what we've spent on all CM games over the last 10 years in total, there's a very big difference you're overlooking.

The first person shooter portion of ARMA 3 is very established and extremely simplistic.  Move around, shoot, select weapons, hide, etc.  Most of it is achieved through a couple of keys that cycle through options.  Movement is achieved through long established keystrokes for footwork, mouse for aimpoint.  I could design this UI in my sleep because it's been a standard since the mid 1990s.  Customers also are very familiar with it, so muscle memory from previous games doesn't break a sweat when playing ARMA 3 for the first time.  This allows the players to ease into a totally separate layer of UI which is new to the game.  More importantly, there's a very thick, crisp line for the player when he's in one mode vs. the other.  It's no different than say Battlefield when you'd hop into a tank or run around on foot.  Distinct situations which allow your brain to easily switch between one set of controls and another.

CM doesn't have this.  Inherently there is nothing different between being on the ground and being in the air in terms of the environment or your tasks as a player.  There's not even a fuzzy line between these things, there's no line at all.  That is in part because the environment requires you to "think big, but act small".  Further, you can't flit back and forth between these two modes of thinking as you can in ARMA 3.  Try playing in RT and focus only on one unit with the Camera Lock on for 5 minutes and then spend 5 minutes doing nothing but hovering 1000m in the air.  I bet you won't like the results

Lastly, there's the scope/scale problem.  In ARMA 3 you are either a single dude or a squad leader.  That's basically one command level difference.  CM simulates roughly 6 command levels.  The differences between soldier and squad leader aren't even in the same ball park as CM's range of squad leader to regimental commander (or even squad leader to company commander).

This is a long winded and detailed way of saying you're comparing apples to oranges

 

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

 

Well, define "dangerous toy" first. If you refer to a .22 caliber rifle with a pink plastic mount decorated with unicorns, yes, I agree with you those things are better taken off the hands of children. If you refer to the UI for a video game whose players average age range lie somewhere between 30 and 50, well, I think you're being overprotective.

No, I'm being realistic.  Players need to be protected from their wild imaginations as much as our limited development resources do.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Who says that regarding extremes? Probably a political pundit not a physicist. Don't miss the bit I wrote about iterating alternatively - one feature on one side, another feature on the other side.

That is how we are doing things.  Though it's not just two sides... there's at least four sides.  Giving something to the RT guys often does nothing for the WeGo players and vice versa.  Giving something to the command level player tends not to do much for the tactical player and vice versa. 

 

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Well Steve, even if I think that you underestimate yourselves when you say that "you lack the ability now", but that doesn't mean you cannot acquire that ability tomorrow, or next week, or lack the potential to do so.

We'll see what happens with CMx3

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

What would be an actual innovation would be to allow the "power player" - or Tactical player as you say - to review and change the commands generated by the AI without incurring on arbitrary direct or indirect penalties and in a timely fashion. For instance, changing AI orders incurring on "delays" is not a great idea if you don't allow the player to have the opportunity to review those orders first. Allowing to do so by having the player to drop the notion of orders delay entirely has the negative connotation of "playing with the side wheels". Conveying this in a clear and elegant way is something that would be a real innovation - so you play simultaneously "with" and "against" the computer, rather than finding it to be either the enemy or a "fifth column" sabotaging your efforts by being cryptic or inept.

I don't follow you here.  CMx2 basically does not have command delays.  Or at least nothing like CMx1 had.  The ones that are still experienced in CMx2 are largely circumstantial.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

I don't understand this either. This is your game, not ours. What consensus do you need other than that of your team and your closest associates/advisors? I think you should make the game you want to play first and foremost. From what you say it sounds like you've sacrificed this in the altar of acceptance of random strangers. Engaging with your users is one thing, and allowing them to maneuver you into a corner is another one I think.

If we tell the players how to play the game we are "over protective".  If we let them tell us how to make the game then we've "painted ourselves into a corner".  You've made both of these arguments, so it is surprising you don't understand the position I'm trying to lay out with more clarity.  Because you've basically outlined the exact problem... customers want a strong game design because weak game designs tend to suck.  But they also want it to be exactly as they picture it, no compromises.

The truth is we only stay in business if we make enough people happy to spend their money on our games.  Therefore, ultimately, we have to make the game that people want and not the one that makes us happiest.  To do that there has to be outside input from customers, testers, other team members, and then to distill that into what is most likely the best path forward that gives customers most of what they want without jeopardizing the game as a whole or the commercial viability of Battlefront.com.  Mixed into this is the customer's repeated and strong demands for more game features that are separate from UI considerations.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Sorry, but one thing is to refine the AI, better simulation of command and control,  have more accurate physics based models for small arms fire, or the action of kinetic weapons on armour. And another thing is to offer the players with visible new features. Of course, "features" on this context also means "new exciting content is supported". On the latter I think you're doing quite good - even if you should transmit clearer to your audience that adding a new vehicle isn't just a matter of having someone to produce a cool 3D model and textures and fill in a template XML or CSV data file, very much as is the case in the cutting bleeding edge for flight sims such as DCS, where significant programming effort is required to simulate a new plane.

Everybody has their laundry list of what they view as "improvements".  The lists generally have few things in common other than minimizing the importance of the work that's already been done.  By that I mean the reason why you can think about significantly better AI is the basic game mechanics work very well.  Game mechanics that we've been working on steadily for almost 12 years at this point (we started CMx2 in 2004).  And as good as the graphical environment is, I think more people would opt for us to spend our time using more CPU power to speed up/even out framerates than to go diving into AI improvements.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Sorry Steve, I didn't want to sound patronising nor I was trying to push you into immediate action. I am painfully aware of how pitiful are the financial incentives. But I have a very long memory and it struck me as curious that your post was pretty much the same thing you answered to me on this particular subject five years ago. Indeed you stick to your guns, and I will do the same as well

The reason the arguments are roughly the same as 5 years ago is that nothing really has changed.  CM is still a melding of 4 often contradictory games that have customers with extremely different views on what is important to them.  This complicates design decisions and requires us, by necessity more than anything, to be pretty conservative about what we do and do not do.  We have to stick with the Eisenhower "broad front" strategy no matter how many players want us to go the Monty "narrow front" concept.  For this type of "war" we are running, broad front is the most likely path to success.  Which is why you won't see much change in my viewpoint until we stop making CM type games, now or in the future.

27 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Thanks for the conversation and all the best with the release of CMFB and the new website!

 

Thanks!  I do enjoy having these sorts of discussions as it reminds me of where things stand.  It also distracts me from the horrors that is website development

Steve

[BletchleyGeek]

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes, and pretty much everybody who criticizes a game's UI, be it Combat Mission or other.  IIRC you are not the average user in that you have worked at this stuff professionally, correct?  Well, that definitely puts you at the head of the class.  However, CM is a massive game which is, as I said above, four games in one.  That means no matter how many games you have played, coded, designed, worked on, etc. I seriously doubt you've faced the sorts of design issues we've had to tackle.

Let's say that I engaged on pro-bono consulting for a well-known operational/grand tactical real-time war game with simplistic yet intricate models of logistics, movement, combat by direct and indirect fires for a couple of years. I kid you not: I was involved in the attempt to give that system a major facelift. Some of what you say sounds very familiar, although since I was collating the brainstorming and doing the programming as well, generating prototypes to iterate over them as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, one of the prototypes was taken as the final thing by some important persons, which was and is unfortunate.

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Even when the suggestions are reasonable and generally small in scope they might not be practical for one or more reasons that the user isn't thinking of.  In our case it could very well be limited engineering resources.  Some of the games you mentioned probably had 2-3 programmers dedicated to nothing but UI for games that are inherently simpler than CM.  It's akin to expecting us to be able to make a game that is as pretty as a $50,000,000 FPS.  It simply isn't practical.

Quote

I doubt very much that every person cited on the credits worked on those titles from day 0 until release day, and probably even less worked on it doing "support". Given what you have already in-place for rendering and interacting through OpenGL I would be surprised that you couldn't find a decent programmer/designer that would get up an running a fully functional prototype (not very optimised, not looking very nicely) in 3 or 4 weeks of full time work, reusing existing components. You could have the "background" pre-rendered on a texture (maybe as part of the scenario "baking") and then plop the whole thing into existence on a virtual rectangle/canvas that you literally place between the camera and the main 3D representation/GUI. 

Of course, easier to think about it than doing it but 90% of solving a problem is having a clear plan to solve it...

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

That's because you're not using a good analysis.  Putting aside the probability that ARMA 3's UI programming budget was more than what we've spent on all CM games over the last 10 years in total, there's a very big difference you're overlooking.

The first person shooter portion of ARMA 3 is very established and extremely simplistic.  Move around, shoot, select weapons, hide, etc.  Most of it is achieved through a couple of keys that cycle through options.  Movement is achieved through long established keystrokes for footwork, mouse for aimpoint.  I could design this UI in my sleep because it's been a standard since the mid 1990s.  Customers also are very familiar with it, so muscle memory from previous games doesn't break a sweat when playing ARMA 3 for the first time.  This allows the players to ease into a totally separate layer of UI which is new to the game.  More importantly, there's a very thick, crisp line for the player when he's in one mode vs. the other.  It's no different than say Battlefield when you'd hop into a tank or run around on foot.  Distinct situations which allow your brain to easily switch between one set of controls and another.

CM doesn't have this.  Inherently there is nothing different between being on the ground and being in the air in terms of the environment or your tasks as a player.  There's not even a fuzzy line between these things, there's no line at all.  That is in part because the environment requires you to "think big, but act small".  Further, you can't flit back and forth between these two modes of thinking as you can in ARMA 3.  Try playing in RT and focus only on one unit with the Camera Lock on for 5 minutes and then spend 5 minutes doing nothing but hovering 1000m in the air.  I bet you won't like the results

Lastly, there's the scope/scale problem.  In ARMA 3 you are either a single dude or a squad leader.  That's basically one command level difference.  CM simulates roughly 6 command levels.  The differences between soldier and squad leader aren't even in the same ball park as CM's range of squad leader to regimental commander (or even squad leader to company commander).

This is a long winded and detailed way of saying you're comparing apples to oranges

Obviously I don't have the numbers Bohemia spent on those tasks. Still, I am not sure they spent a lot of money, since probably they re-used code and systems from previous installments.  Indeed, there is just one level of command difference in ARMA, but that's exactly the reason I picked it up. If you address one level of the hierarchy, you can expect the solution - in part or as a whole - to be reusable at higher levels of the hierarchy. Of course specific algorithms and heuristics for the "assisting AI" would change in a more or less dramatic fashion, but you would get the "general" outline of the solution.

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I don't follow you here.  CMx2 basically does not have command delays.  Or at least nothing like CMx1 had.  The ones that are still experienced in CMx2 are largely circumstantial.

That was an example following from what other systems addressing command delays do.

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

If we tell the players how to play the game we are "over protective".  If we let them tell us how to make the game then we've "painted ourselves into a corner".  You've made both of these arguments, so it is surprising you don't understand the position I'm trying to lay out with more clarity.  Because you've basically outlined the exact problem... customers want a strong game design because weak game designs tend to suck.  But they also want it to be exactly as they picture it, no compromises

Sorry, I think I read too literally into what you wrote. 

58 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Thanks!  I do enjoy having these sorts of discussions as it reminds me of where things stand.  It also distracts me from the horrors that is website development

 

No worries, Steve. Some of the things you have said require me to think a bit about them. So I am cherry picking the bits for which I can say something about. All the best with the website development, that to be honest, is more important than anything we have discussed here so far

Edited March 29, 2016 by BletchleyGeek

[Peter Panzer]

1 hour ago, Battlefront.com said:

We'll see what happens with CMx3

Hey Steve:

Granted it may be early, but have you guys started sketching out possible timeframes and settings for CMx3?  Perhaps a past hypothetical (Fulda Gap '84), future fictitious action (Korea 2025) or will we return to WWII (Barbarossa '41)?

Personally, I consider Battle for Normandy to be a real masterpiece at this point with Black Sea showing an exciting degree of promise.  I'm curious if you can share a thought on at least the chronological direction the next iteration of CM may take.

By the way, congrats on Final Blitzkrieg entering the homestretch - being able to play out scenarios in the Hurtgenwald is very enticing...

[Battlefront.com]

47 minutes ago, BletchleyGeek said:

Let's say that I engaged on pro-bono consulting for a well-known operational/grand tactical real-time war game with simplistic yet intricate models of logistics, movement, combat by direct and indirect fires for a couple of years. I kid you not: I was involved in the attempt to give that system a major facelift. Some of what you say sounds very familiar, although since I was collating the brainstorming and doing the programming as well, generating prototypes to iterate over them as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, one of the prototypes was taken as the final thing by some important persons, which was and is unfortunate.

Sorry to hear that it didn't end well.  Kinda part of the point I'm making

Quote

I doubt very much that every person cited on the credits worked on those titles from day 0 until release day, and probably even less worked on it doing "support".

CM has been programmed mostly by one guy with periods of help from another guy.  My guess is that our 1.5 guys spent roughly proportional time on the UI as Bohemia did for ARMA series, but they are vastly larger in scale.  Put another way, the rumored budget for ARMA 3 was $50,000,000, which itself was a sequel to two very large budget games.  Chop it up any way you like, the result is the same... comparing us to them is not really useful.

Quote

Given what you have already in-place for rendering and interacting through OpenGL I would be surprised that you couldn't find a decent programmer/designer that would get up an running a fully functional prototype (not very optimised, not looking very nicely) in 3 or 4 weeks of full time work, reusing existing components. You could have the "background" pre-rendered on a texture (maybe as part of the scenario "baking") and then plop the whole thing into existence on a virtual rectangle/canvas that you literally place between the camera and the main 3D representation/GUI. 

Of course, easier to think about it than doing it but 90% of solving a problem is having a clear plan to solve it...

Yesh, that's too flawed to even bother touching.  Let's just say that I've been doing this long enough to know the result of such an attempt would not be worth the money invested in it.

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Obviously I don't have the numbers Bohemia spent on those tasks. Still, I am not sure they spent a lot of money, since probably they re-used code and systems from previous installments.  Indeed, there is just one level of command difference in ARMA, but that's exactly the reason I picked it up. If you address one level of the hierarchy, you can expect the solution - in part or as a whole - to be reusable at higher levels of the hierarchy. Of course specific algorithms and heuristics for the "assisting AI" would change in a more or less dramatic fashion, but you would get the "general" outline of the solution.

You're missing the point.  When you jump from Tactical to Operational there is a huge shift in concept as well as task responsibilities.  When you shift from Operational to Strategic there's another big change.  ARMA didn't have to mess with that.  They stayed firmly within Tactical.

Basically, your argument in the real world amounts to saying that you can run a basic training course in a military and crank out Privates and Colonels equally well because the same principles that the Private needs to do his job are inherently scalable by snapping fingers.  Or perhaps you are saying that you can put all recruits through higher education courses and that's going to make then excellent riflemen because that knowledge can be scaled down.  This is absolutely not true.

The UI has to be kept in synch with the player's needs at that moment and, as I stated in detail above, those moments are not neatly separated as with ARMA 3.  They also sit in the development queue along with non-UI related tasks that people have requested that we do because we don't have a team of programmers.  When Charles is coding a UI feature he's not coding a game play feature and vice versa.

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That was an example following from what other systems addressing command delays do.

We've had debates about command delays many, many, many, many times.  There's so many different schools of thought on this subject.  And again, there's extremely different PoV from the WeGo guys vs. the RT guys vs. the Command guys vs. the micro control guys.  There is no agreement, so any design we pick is going to be a poor choice for quite a few people.

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No worries, Steve. Some of the things you have said require me to think a bit about them. So I am cherry picking the bits for which I can say something about. All the best with the website development, that to be honest, is more important than anything we have discussed here so far

Website development might be more important, but it still sucks.

Steve