Inaccurate Mission Briefings

[rogue189]

I have been playing SF2 for awhile now and have noticed that there are briefings do not accurately reflect what is actually delivered in game.  For example in the Semper Fi Campaign mission Highway 2, the briefing (specially the tactical map) stated that I was supped to receive 60mm mortar support immediately and a CAAT elements after 10 min.  However, I didn't get any 60mm mortars and after 30 min, the CAAT had not showed up.  I also noticed in scenarios like Baker 1-1, the briefing started that you would receive a second platoon of reinforcements, but the game notes stated otherwise.  I found myself wondering, "where are they!" as I was playing.  Are these bugs?  Am I just being impatient?  Are they briefings that slipped through quality control?  Is this an attempt to say, "no plan survives contact?"  I don't mind if it is, but I just want to know if I should or should not expect additional reinforcements.

[ASL Veteran]

There were a lot of scenarios that got adjusted between CMSF1 and CMSF2 and every briefing probably wasn't gone over as completely as possible.  In most cases I would guess that any briefing discrepancies between what is in a scenario and what is in the briefing comes down to the briefing being unmodified or not completely updated between CMSF1 and 2.  I will personally confess to Baker 1-1.  I think I detailed a lot of the changes in the designer's notes if I recall correctly, but I don't remember how much I altered the actual side briefings from the original since my objective was to modify the original.  The issue with the briefings is that most of the scenario material that we were working with were from designers who no longer produce stuff for Battlefront and in many cases there were either incomplete briefings to begin with or in some cases no briefing at all.  Going in and picking up what the original designer's intent was without any context can be difficult to do, more difficult in some cases than modifying some AI plans or Victory conditions.  For example, for the briefing maps in many cases we wouldn't have a clue as to where the battle took place in 'Syria' so how can one create an operation map when you don't know where the battle took place?  I didn't modify many of the CMSF original scenarios, although I tried to retain as much of the original as possible for the ones I did since ultimately it wasn't my original work.  I didn't want to create something that was entirely new or that would erase the original designer's intent completely.  

[Howler]

While there are discrepancies in a few standalone scenarios, you guys (designers) did a great job handling the update overall. I treat such inaccuracies as either bad intel or to reinforcements being delayed in some unexpected manner. As a veteran of CMSF,  I appreciate the improvement of the AI play over the original and don't get too worked up over the odd SNAFU.

I haven't encountered any game breakers yet. Not having played Semper Fi, as I'm still nine engagements (completing) into Task Force Thunder, I do understand the concern the OP may have especially if he's never experienced CMSF (to serve as a sanity check).

 

Edited March 9, 2019 by Howler

[mjkerner]

What Howler said...+1

[rogue189]

Thank you for the response VSL Veteran.  I wasn't mad about any of it, just surprised mostly.  I have never attempted to contribute to the SF or SF2 community but is there anything I can do to help?  Typing is not too hard, generally, and I have no clue as to how to create missions.  

[ASL Veteran]

If you wanted to I suppose you could alter the briefings and upload the modified scenarios to The Scenario Depot.  It's pretty easy to modify the briefings - just go into the scenario editor, locate and load the scenario you want to modify, go to the missions tab, select the side's 'mission' that you want to modify, select the 'Text' file and click the export button and the briefing text file will be taken from out of the game so you can alter it.  You could even write something completely new if you wanted to and then just clear out the old one and load your new one.