Engine 5 Wishlist

[The_MonkeyKing]

Oh yeah, actual multiplayer support. No 3rd party turn manager required

[The Steppenwulf]

Just to be clear, Cold war will not have any new features it states on the main BF page that it's game engine 4.

From the article posted:

Our intention is to add a number of other new features that enhance gameplay,” Grammont said in an email. “What these features are in detail I can not say because even I don’t know.

The inference I draw from this, is that any feature upgrade has not actually really been considered. I believe if it had, Steve would already know more. Consider also, it would be a bad marketing move for 2021 module releases to snuff out the 'future features' candle.

Hopefully there will be something forthcoming regardless of what the current plans actually are. In that, my hope is simply that we get H2H campaigns (I've been begging it since Black Sea), it's a well overdue feature and compared with many other requests - which will require lots of dev time to implement - it's not very onerous to give us this option..

[RMM]

- Vet movement orders/paths as they're plotted. Having the system slow down to do this would surely be better than watching a unit run off into death by taking a route that one specifically had plotted to avoid! This would also avoid idiotic movements like units taking off half way round the map, because there's one hedge or some such that they can't cross even though the plotted path goes right across it! There are so many instances in when having the game do this pre-plotting/vetting would save countless heart and headaches and make it so much more fun!

- (More WW2 specific) AI should not use SCW (eg. bazooka) against infantry/targets that are not behind some sort of solid surface (eg. steel or brick). Would never happen in RL, coz the charge/warhead would probably just bury itself in the ground and not go off at all! These weapons needed hard surface to work against.

- Have a way to order a vehicle to wait for pax to load/unload before moving.

- Ability for crews to re-crew abandoned ATG's, etc. For AFV's, they would usually have to be qualified to do so (ie. a Tiger crew could crew most any Tigers), but for things like ATG's, if a penalty were applied, it doesn't seem unrealistic (quite the opposite) that they would attempt to use enemy weaponry, especially if in a desperate position!

- Ability to 'Buddy aid' fallen enemy for their ammo and weapons. Obviously, a penalty would have to apply to using foreign weapons, but would certainly add to the realism factor.

- Indirect Fire observers should, absolutely not call for FFE unless they've actually spotted a round land at least somewhere close to the intended target, no matter how long it's been!

- Have the ability (in Options section) to disable the groups-orders function! That way, those of us who just have this create headaches and not ever, otherwise use it, can just turn it off, and not have it ruin a battle.

- Have the ability to select between normal Smoke and WP. WP had an offensive capability. I haven't really had an opportunity to see it in the game, but are its affects reflected in the game?

- When ordinance used to Area Fire, have the ability to specify what kind of ammo to use. It can default, but there should be an ability to change that if so desired.

[RMM]

- AFV's using Hunt should move slower than normal, just as infantry do. Also, spotting abilities should be enhanced when doing so (assuming they're not already, but it doesn't seem so).

- Instead of Hunt orders being cancelled when a unit is spotted, have a pause added, so that player can go back in and cancel that pause, causing unit to continue along the originally plotted path in next action phase.

- Conversely, bring back the Advance to Contact/Fire order. It would work by being able to attach an Area Fire order (even though the target are is initially out of LoS) to a movement waypoint. Subsequently, if there's any slight misalignment around that waypoint, where the unit has to manouvre some to bring that point into view, then it would do so automatically. Even if the Area Fire is not assigned, the unit will continue along its path, regardless of targets it may see along the way, until it gets to the end point.

[Jabble]

Here's my tuppence-n-quarter-farthing worth:

1) A linear LoS tool.
Should be easy to use frequently, e.g. click on a point of ground, then on another; it should tell if there's LoS between the two.  An enhancement would be allowing for height, e.g. 2m above first point to 3m above second point.

2) A React posture for use within the WEGO minute.
Problem: some encounters within the minute result in unrealistic responses, e.g. a hunting scout encountering a tank just stops and stays in the danger zone, or a static ATGM unit stays put after firing.  Dismounts from a stopped hunting vehicle continue on foot to their original destination.

Solution: create a React posture that determines how a unit will react to different levels of threat.  For example a scout encountering a low threat will just continue on its route, or a stationary ATGM team spotting armour will fire then immediately relocate along a predetermined path.

There would need to be a relative threat level applied to each encounter, taking into account attack & defence capabilities.  Hence an infantry unit would not see an ATGM team as a major threat, whereas a tank would.  Proximity would be a factor too.

A scout hunting along a path could see a far-off infantry or tank unit and ignore it, continuing its hunt.  Conversely if it encounters a closer threat it could retreat along a predefined path.  An infantry unit hunting through forest encounters an enemy infantry unit, so it stops and fights.

Reactions wouldn't be limited to the Hunt command, they'd apply to any movement or to a stationary unit.  Hunt should be considered a careful, eyes-peeled move, so any reaction could have bonuses applied.  Hence a hunting unit encountering a normally moving unit should have the advantage of surprise.

I'd suggest four main responses:
Continue (ignore)
Stop and fight
Stop (if moving), fire once, then relocate
Relocate immediately (retreat)

Any relocate path would need to be programmed into a waypoint to be available; like arcs they could be inherited along the sequence until instructed otherwise.  Similarly it could be programmed into a stationary unit, such as an ATGM team's getaway route after firing.

These are all actions within the current engine - this proposal would just add them as conditional to events during WEGO play.

[Erwin]

1 hour ago, RMM said:

- Have a way to order a vehicle to wait for pax to load/unload before moving.

You need to use the "DISMOUNT" order from the menu BEFORE making any waypoints.  Job done...

Edited March 31, 2021 by Erwin

[RMM]

2 minutes ago, Erwin said:

You need to use the "DISMOUNT" order from the menu BEFORE making any waypoints.  Job done...

For immediate dropping off yes, but particularly to have a vehicle  come and pick people up, is another issue altogether.

[RMM]

- In as much as campaigns continue play on the same map (eg. Bridge Too Close), the map should retain the wrecks and changes to terrain (eg. rubbled buildings and blasted hedgerows) created in the previous battles.

[chuckdyke]

On 3/19/2021 at 5:34 AM, Anonymous_Jonze said:

Something that differs from assault by having your soldiers always throw grenades first.

Then we get people who don't like this they like to suppress first. Till about 40 years ago I played social cricket. A grenade is a little like a cricket-ball. To throw it back to the wicket keeper 50 yards by a very good player, to hit the stumps which would be akin to throw a grenade through a window you do very well at 25mtrs. I would say cut the distances in half for this game and it is about what the designers came up with. In the US they play baseball, but they have a similar idea. Joking aside throwing grenades is a little stressful first time at the range compare it dealing with an enemy who has the same idea. Roll of the dice is I am afraid the best anybody can come up with. 

[chuckdyke]

If you play on WeGo. That the game pauses if there is an emergency eg a unit starts to flicker. You will have access to one of these emergency buttons. I feel it would make the game more realistic.

[A Canadian Cat]

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- Vet movement orders/paths as they're plotted.

I'm not sure that's practical or necessary (there are two better fixes). I responded to this in your thread:

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- Have a way to order a vehicle to wait for pax to load/unload before moving.

You can accomplish this by setting a pause order for a vehicle before it moves. As long as a team is embarking the vehicle before the pause runs out the vehicle will wait for them before moving. Not quite a good as a dedicated order in practical terms it works well.

 

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- Ability for crews to re-crew abandoned ATG's, etc.

Nope. Abandoned AT guns are considered to be disabled by their crews so as to not fall into enemy hands. I agree it would be nice to have the ability for crews to be a short distance away in better cover. Cross crewing tanks has been declared as not happening by Steve. I suppose he may change his mind but frankly my guess is he will not do this. The number of times crews did this during combat is vanishingly small. Typically damaged tanks or unhorsed crews would immediately withdraw to the rear for repairs and replacement and thus be out of the fight.

 

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- Ability to 'Buddy aid' fallen enemy for their ammo and weapons.

Nope. Contrary to myth this is not normal practice. Picking up weapons during combat would not be safe - is it damaged, is it booby trapped. Besides what happened to the weapon you were issued with soldier we trained you on that one and we expect it to be used and returned one day.

 

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- Indirect Fire observers should, absolutely not call for FFE unless they've actually spotted a round land at least somewhere close to the intended target, no matter how long it's been!

Yeah, that probably should happen.

 

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- Have the ability (in Options section) to disable the groups-orders function! That way, those of us who just have this create headaches and not ever, otherwise use it, can just turn it off, and not have it ruin a battle.

Huh. I have no idea why this would be helpful I cannot see a problem here. I cannot imagine Steve spending time doing that.

 

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- Have the ability to select between normal Smoke and WP. WP had an offensive capability. I haven't really had an opportunity to see it in the game, but are its affects reflected in the game?

Yes, WP effects are reflected (other than starting fires). I doubt the amount of work would be worth it to implement such a selection though.

 

20 hours ago, RMM said:

- When ordinance used to Area Fire, have the ability to specify what kind of ammo to use. It can default, but there should be an ability to change that if so desired.

You need more control than Target means through everything you've got and Target Light means just use your small arms and machine guns?

A lot of peoples' requests (not just yours) are for more choices and more orders and more micro managing. That leads to two problems. 1) The AI cannot take advantage of them because decision tree for that involves way more info that currently available. This means that the AI is at a further disadvantage against us humans. 2) more choice and more options means the game is harder to play. Which is not a good thing.

[RMM]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

You can accomplish this by setting a pause order for a vehicle before it moves. As long as a team is embarking the vehicle before the pause runs out the vehicle will wait for them before moving. Not quite a good as a dedicated order in practical terms it works well.

I believe that's true for pickup; although when I first posted about this, I believe there were those who commented that it might not always work. However, for disembarking, pause is treated by the game as the vehicle moving, so the inf. don't get off. This is most common when acquiring ammo. The vehicle has to remain motionless, without pause or movement orders for he turn the infantry disembarks, or it takes off with them!

[RMM]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

Nope. Abandoned AT guns are considered to be disabled by their crews so as to not fall into enemy hands. I agree it would be nice to have the ability for crews to be a short distance away in better cover. Cross crewing tanks has been declared as not happening by Steve. I suppose he may change his mind but frankly my guess is he will not do this. The number of times crews did this during combat is vanishingly small. Typically damaged tanks or unhorsed crews would immediately withdraw to the rear for repairs and replacement and thus be out of the fight.

I believe, when it comes to AFV's a crew will re-enter a vehicle they bailed out of (in fact, yes, I remember doing that recently), so I see your rationale regarding disabling the weapon, but I still think the same reasoning (for AFV crews) also applies for a crew to go back to the weapon they ran away from due to enemy fire. A deliberate abandoning of ordinance (ie. one that would involved disabling it), is something the player could order, and besides, the way things are set up now, the weapon is effectively disabled for the enemy anyway (feeds into the point about picking up enemy weapons further on), so why wouldn't the original crew set it back up after running away from enemy fire?

[RMM]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

Nope. Contrary to myth this is not normal practice. Picking up weapons during combat would not be safe - is it damaged, is it booby trapped. Besides what happened to the weapon you were issued with soldier we trained you on that one and we expect it to be used and returned one day.

Well, the primary reason would be that he ran out of ammo! Otherwise, I can't agree at all with the reasoning here. It has been very common practice - German infantry loved the Russian PPsH41 'burp' gun, particularly when compared to their arcane bolt-action Kar98K's. The same was true in Vietnam - US infantry were forever throwing away (literally!) their M16's to pickup AK47's! The only drawback that many mentioned was not using the 47 at night, because it's distinctive sound, but they absolutely still picked them up any chance they got and otherwise used them! All well documented in both cases. Think about being in city fight with a bolt-action rifle. You might consider whether it's booby trapped, but that SMG could, also very well save your life in that situation. After that consideration, I for one, would pick it up, particularly if it's in area my unit just managed to takeover. Please reconsider.

[RMM]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

Huh. I have no idea why this would be helpful I cannot see a problem here. I cannot imagine Steve spending time doing that.

Even highly experienced players mentioned to me previously about being caught out by this feature, and consequently having a battle utterly ruined by having a whole command's units enact orders only meant for the HQ unit. I can understand it may be more programming trouble than it's worth, but would still make the request, because it would just improve game play that much more but not having to roll back the action to a previous minute or having to contact your PBEM opponent to embarrassingly ask for a do-over!

[RMM]

1 hour ago, IanL said:

You need more control than Target means through everything you've got and Target Light means just use your small arms and machine guns?

A lot of peoples' requests (not just yours) are for more choices and more orders and more micro managing. That leads to two problems. 1) The AI cannot take advantage of them because decision tree for that involves way more info that currently available. This means that the AI is at a further disadvantage against us humans. 2) more choice and more options means the game is harder to play. Which is not a good thing.

This was in conjunction to a post I put in the Tech support as a 'bug'. I had British howitzers firing off their HEAT ammo, iso their HE when using area fire. I cannot possibly imagine that would an RL decision - to purposely expend your AT ammo in area fire! Not unless it's all you had left. This also feeds back into the point about being able to select smoke v's WP. Again, I can understand there might well be significant programming challenges, but I don't think it would make the game harder. Quite the contrary, not having to second guess what one's unit might do in such situations would surely make it easier? 

[marais]

Two features come to mind, one about C&C, one about graphics but really interface.

First, a change to C&C of split squads. An oddity of the command and control system is that, if you split a squad, the resulting fireteams both report directly to the platoon leader. This is reasonable for small squads, especially ones with lots of radios. It falls apart in close terrain and with limited lines of sight. It's a particular challenge for the USMC, where squads split into three fireteams, only one with a radio. This results in odd situations where, say, a fireteam is out of sight of the platoon leader and thus out of command, even though it's sitting right next to the fireteam with the squad leader. Better for the B and C fireteams to report to the 1st, which contains the squad leader, and then to the platoon HQ. I can imagine the data structure complexity here, and why this might be necessary, but one can dream.

Second, hillshading. I wonder if graphics cards are now up to the task of having terrain cast shadows? This isn't just eye candy—it would greatly improve the player's understanding of terrain, and in a more intuitive way than the contour line mods.

One quick example:

I could imagine this as a controllable feature, even, with exaggerated hillshading available for low-contrast and nighttime conditions. The interface isn't just a scene from a war movie, it's a tool that gives players information.

I'll probably say more about hillshading later. I'm a cartographer, and I tend to understand CM maps as, well, maps or visualizations.

[marais]

More hillshading example from Edouard Imhof, a Swiss cartographer known as a master of this technique back when you had to do it by hand, whose ideas remain influential even now you can generate this in a web browser.

 

I'm wondering if it's less computationally expensive to do this once, at the start of the game, as a darker overlay on terrain textures, rather than by modeling light and shadow in real time.

 

[chuckdyke]

Camera position 5-9 to resemble military maps (topographic or roadmaps), function to plot move or for FO use commands without revealing eg bunker or pillbox dents in the terrain. Foxholes deemed to be camouflaged it will enable us to have proper standing patrols. Game integrity, example to make trees disappear. Camera 1 POV selected unit, Camera 2 POV Fighting compartment AFV. The use of Camera 3 and 4 I can't see the use of. If you occupy key terrain or hilltops your spotting ability will improve dramatically. 

[RMM]

15 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Camera position 5-9 to resemble military maps (topographic or roadmaps), function to plot move or for FO use commands without revealing eg bunker or pillbox dents in the terrain. Foxholes deemed to be camouflaged it will enable us to have proper standing patrols. Game integrity, example to make trees disappear. Camera 1 POV selected unit, Camera 2 POV Fighting compartment AFV. The use of Camera 3 and 4 I can't see the use of. If you occupy key terrain or hilltops your spotting ability will improve dramatically. 

Well, I will say that I default to 3 all the time. For me, it gives a balance between height above the field while not being too far away, but I like the idea of POV's and military map overviews

Edited April 2, 2021 by RMM

[chuckdyke]

@RMM the important thing is that as many people as possible should enjoy the game. If you like Camera 3 or 4 who am I to say you shouldn't? I feel I am a little bit of a cheat when I disable trees and view it from a bird's eye view. Oops there must be a bunker foxhole or trench. Happy gaming

[Freyberg]

On 4/1/2021 at 4:00 PM, RMM said:

- In as much as campaigns continue play on the same map (eg. Bridge Too Close), the map should retain the wrecks and changes to terrain (eg. rubbled buildings and blasted hedgerows) created in the previous battles.

I don't agree with some of your other ideas, because I don't want to have to micromanage units, but this suggestion I like.

Actually, the Team have said they won't be implementing map damage across battles, nor the ability to import troops or maps (with damage) from a previous battle to a new one, as it would represent a kind of Campaign feature, and the game has a Campaign feature.

...but the Team also said they'd never do CM Fulda Gap, so who knows....

[RMM]

8 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

@RMM the important thing is that as many people as possible should enjoy the game. If you like Camera 3 or 4 who am I to say you shouldn't? I feel I am a little bit of a cheat when I disable trees and view it from a bird's eye view. Oops there must be a bunker foxhole or trench. Happy gaming

Indeed

[RMM]

2 minutes ago, Freyberg said:

I don't agree with some of your other ideas, because I don't want to have to micromanage units, but this suggestion I like.

Actually, the Team have said they won't be implementing map damage across battles, nor the ability to import troops or maps (with damage) from a previous battle to a new one, as it would represent a kind of Campaign feature, and the game has a Campaign feature.

...but the Team also said they'd never do CM Fulda Gap, so who knows....

All comes down to how many are willing to pay for the upgrades, features, etc. After all, at the end of the day, it's a business.

[RMM]

2 minutes ago, Freyberg said:

I don't agree with some of your other ideas, because I don't want to have to micromanage units, but this suggestion I like.

The thing about micro-manage features is, if done right,  they can be ignored by those who don't want to use them