Mission Briefings

[The_Capt]

5 hours ago, Pete Wenman said:

 

If you mean this

That was just me being too clever by half. When I was in the British Army it was (and likely still is ) convention when giving orders that the mission paragraph was always repeated for emphasis. Apologies it caused confusion

P

So this brings up another point...style.  These are clear choices by the designer, which you may not agree with but are not errors.  In the US Campaign for example, a choice was made to do it in first-person narrative style with deliberate lack of clarity on the tactical situation.  The reason for this was 1) to create a distinct feel of a story being told and 2) in service of the large demand by players for realism in gameplay. 

Some may wonder about the "realism" point and be frustrated by the vagueness of these briefings, well then it is working as intended.  No real fight plays out like it does in most CM scenarios.  The leaders on the ground do not get nice neat briefing graphics or a clear write up of the problem.  What you really get is usually nothing more than "Head down that road and keep your eyes open cause some guys got killed there last Tuesday.  If you see something try and kill it.  If you can't, shout for help...orders end."

Now you may very well totally disagree with this design decision and that is totally fine and to be expected.  But just because you do not like something does not make it an error (seriously, we have entire generations who could make life a lot better for everyone if they just took that one nugget in).

 

[danfrodo]

any of those here that read enough military history books know that orders are often not totally clear, usually because the situation is not clear

[domfluff]

 

40 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

any of those here that read enough military history books know that orders are often not totally clear, usually because the situation is not clear

There's a broader philosophical point to be made there - when it's okay to have an intentionally misleading set of orders, and when that comes across like a cheap trick. That's really a game design question, and there's no single best answer to it.

I do think it's wise to err on the side of accuracy, but definitely not in every situation - much of CM is predicated on hidden information as it is, and the briefing can be part of that.

[stikkypixie]

7 hours ago, Pete Wenman said:

 

If you mean this

That was just me being too clever by half. When I was in the British Army it was (and likely still is ) convention when giving orders that the mission paragraph was always repeated for emphasis. Apologies it caused confusion

P

Well it sure stuck in my mind

[danfrodo]

I guess orders could tell us exactly what the enemy has and where it is and how much ammo and how much experience and his objectives.  that would be a nice briefing.

[A Canadian Cat]

14 hours ago, ng cavscout said:

I hate misplaced comas.

Let's eat Grandma.

Commas save lives!

Let's eat, Grandma.

[White2Golf]

I personally like the narrative style for briefings.  The more proper one's often read and sound like a real order being delivered, but I like a story.   FWIW of course, I am just a silly C-DAT.  

[Cabal2323]

The battles selection is weak as well. A large portion of them are just the campaign broken apart. We have 8 training missions that occur on the same maps for 4 different years. Why? Do we really need 4 Kreigsbergs? LoL! Feels like just filling space.  The rush to get this out is clearly evident.

[domfluff]

So you're either just trolling, or you have no idea what this is trying to achieve, or what a typical scenario count is for a CM title. Either way, it's just noise.

[IICptMillerII]

5 minutes ago, domfluff said:

So you're either just trolling, or you have no idea what this is trying to achieve, or what a typical scenario count is for a CM title. Either way, it's just noise.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Clearly a troll. 
 

On a positive note though, a lot of the other people in this thread have been very positive and had some good discussion. 

[Vanir Ausf B]

 

13 hours ago, Combatintman said:

I was hoping for this one myself ...

Some might say it is appropriately metaphorical for this thread ... 

If the Red Army makes it to Austria in the module it could get interesting

 

[Bozowans]

The typos you find in the briefings are all historically accurate. 

 

10 hours ago, The_Capt said:

The leaders on the ground do not get nice neat briefing graphics or a clear write up of the problem.  What you really get is usually nothing more than "Head down that road and keep your eyes open cause some guys got killed there last Tuesday.  If you see something try and kill it.  If you can't, shout for help...orders end."

This kinda makes me want more scenarios that give you as little information as this. Reminds me of a book I was reading by a Russian platoon leader on the WW2 eastern front. Often the only orders he would get were just "Go take that town over there." His company commander also liked to go missing for long periods at a time, leaving the platoon leaders to do everything themselves. Vague orders might come down straight from battalion, skipping the company commander entirely.

The war was bizarre and confusing, filled with things like units going in circles or wandering aimlessly for miles in the wrong direction, zero coordination between different companies/battalions/tanks/infantry/whatever, or even friendlies launching entire assaults on their own positions by accident. To me, it would be interesting to see more CM scenarios that deliberately try to put the player in a very confusing situation that they have to think their way out of.

[Artkin]

19 hours ago, RockinHarry said:

Got to admit I dislike reading longish mission texts and "too much" info generally. I skip these most the time, whatever the writing style otherwise. Would prefer a full screen tac map (in briefing section) instead. Most the time would suffice to me personally to have relevant data all included here (simple sketch map and few points of interest).

yup same lol. I look for anything important like reinforcements and then fight my way through. Works fine.

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, Cabal2323 said:

The battles selection is weak as well. A large portion of them are just the campaign broken apart. We have 8 training missions that occur on the same maps for 4 different years. Why? Do we really need 4 Kreigsbergs? LoL! Feels like just filling space.  The rush to get this out is clearly evident.

Ok, well lets unpack this.  I, for one, do not think you are a troll (perhaps trying hard to impersonate one but...), you are a paying customer who appears uninformed and we aim to both educate and entertain.

So looking at the the ol' scenario list AND not counting the extra versions based on dates (more on this later) AND the US Campaign (1982) ones we are at 23 standalone scenarios.  Now one could say that the Soviet Training Scenarios do not count, which based on the number of YouTube videos is pretty unfair, but let's be brutal on ourselves (sorry Justin).  This would bring our paltry total down to 19 standalones.  Now BFC policy for a base game release is 15-20 with emphasis on the 20, if we can get to it.  So here we fell one scenario short of the upper end of content range.  Now in our defence CMCW requires large maps in order to really show things off, much larger than other titles, so that played a factor.  

Now as to the "why the multiple years?" question.  Well we did that because CMCW covers off a 4 year period in which available equipment varies significantly year to year.  These differences create pretty interesting and noticeable variations in gameplay.  For example in 1979 you could see M48s vs T55s and in 1982 we have M1s vs T80Bs, the balances is very different between these dates.  So we thought, "hey there is a lot of kit here and maybe players don't really know the ins and outs of all of it.  We should create different time versions so they can easily see and learn how different equipment stacks up."  

Now as to "rushing".  I am not sure what your scenario design and building experience is, or is not; however, it is no small task to create multiple versions of the same thing.   For example, the work that went into the 1982 vs 1979 US Campaigns was such that it probably would have been easier to simply do two completely separate campaigns.  The testing and play balancing is a long process, as is the deploying of units and AI.

Finally, as to the the "cheating" US Campaigns ported over as standalones, there are 10 in total.  Well the thinking here was that these should really be bonus content.  First, not everyone is going to finish the US Campaign, or play all its battles, so this gives the player a chance to play and try any of them up front.  Second, it allowed us to offer them for H2H play, which should be very interesting for some.  Again, as to "rushing", porting the campaign scenarios over into standalones actually took more time as Red side briefings and Human vs Human considerations had to be made.  The US Campaign alone has over 190 square kms of map work btw, again very big maps required all tied to the actual ground in the region (seriously, check it out on Google maps). 

To this we add one NTC campaign, and two versions of both the Soviet and US campaigns, I would sincerely hope that the average player can squeeze out at least of 60+ hours of quality play time, before hitting the QBs or Scenario editor.  

So there you have it.  As per content guidelines, based on past titles, we are safely in the upper end of content requirements by about any metric.  I will leave the qualitative judgement to all you fine grognards.

[Gkenny]

On 5/10/2021 at 8:22 PM, Double Deuce said:

Since we're talking about briefings, anyone know if a set of CMCW Official Briefing Template stuff is in the works?  

Ditto, would love to see this.

[RockinHarry]

3 hours ago, Artkin said:

yup same lol. I look for anything important like reinforcements and then fight my way through. Works fine.

yep, didn´t mean I won´t appreciate any the extra (setting the mood) and maybe interesting historical info. I find the CM briefing screen layout is just not well suited for the overall tasks. Also considering with high screen resolutions all the text is not fun to read through with small fonts. I´d wish for more flexibility here. One screen just for text (scaleable) and other screens just for maps and graphics (making full use of set screen resolutions). But that´s a topic for many the wishlist threads.

[ng cavscout]

8 hours ago, White2Golf said:

I personally like the narrative style for briefings.  The more proper one's often read and sound like a real order being delivered, but I like a story.   FWIW of course, I am just a silly C-DAT.  

You silly 19K

[ratdeath]

Would it be possible for future releases to have the briefings as a PDF?

Especially if you make them into small stories. Like a supplement manual with campaign and scenario briefings.

Easier to read that way for us old gamers

I copied the text from one of the scenarios into word myself. So there is a DIY workaround

Edited May 12, 2021 by ratdeath

[chuckdyke]

They could look into the making of screenshots and video making. Screenshots takes 2 or 3 tries with pressing 'print-screen' on the keyboard. Window+Shift+S doesn't work. Safe a turn, go back and record it would be nice. Just to share on this forum. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

1 hour ago, ratdeath said:

Would it be possible for future releases to have the briefings as a PDF?

Especially if you make them into small stories. Like a supplement manual with campaign and scenario briefings.

Easier to read that way for us old gamers

I copied the text from one of the scenarios into word myself. So there is a DIY workaround

Haha, nice example on how silly it is that the game has no resolution scaling what so ever. It is the same old 720p? 4:3 screen for all of the UI.

[ratdeath]

7 minutes ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

Haha, nice example on how silly it is that the game has no resolution scaling what so ever. It is the same old 720p? 4:3 screen for all of the UI.

I have 27" 1440p screen so it's still readable for me, but I also found the briefing screen in the scenarios is better suited for short briefings and not short stories. As an old gamer it would be nostalgic with the story text in a journal, takes me back in time to games like Pirates! and Pools of Radiance.

Edited May 12, 2021 by ratdeath

[chuckdyke]

2 hours ago, ratdeath said:

Would it be possible for future releases to have the briefings as a PDF?

I agree with @ratdeath read the missions before we must open the game. They even could offer it as an after sales service on their website. Or promote it to turn it into sales. 

[The_MonkeyKing]

The high resolution small screen laptops are more common by the day. I would say CM is close to unplayable unreadable on these devices. 15 inch 4k screen.... hrrrr

I also have 27 1440p and the game is very readable. 

[ratdeath]

I would probably still run the game in 1080p on a 15 inch 4k screen.

Shouldn't look any worse than on a native 1080p 15 inch screen?

 

[Holien]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

They could look into the making of screenshots and video making. Screenshots takes 2 or 3 tries with pressing 'print-screen' on the keyboard. Window+Shift+S doesn't work. Safe a turn, go back and record it would be nice. Just to share on this forum. 

Hi not sure what Video Card you have but I was looking for a solution to FOG2 not having a replay function and it was an easy solution I found which puts me on track to becoming a youtuber!!

Alt F9 to start recording and Alt F9 to end recording, free software came bundle with my Nvidia card.

I even have it set up so that if I am not recording and I see an Ohh Wow moment I can just hit record last 5 minutes... Bit like a dashcam working always...

Geoforce Experience is the software.

Shadow Play 

Here let me introduce a young someone using it for something I would (can no longer play)...

 

So for CM to introduce something that is pretty well done already would IMO be a waste of their time which could be spent on the next engine or an Early War module with French Tanks!!!