Add something new please.

[womble]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

No, just no. If you're talking about graphics from the year 2000, then sure, but too many things that were acceptable back then just don't cut it any more:

Very sorry, that was badly worded. I was certainly not suggesting that the graphics were hi fi. That bit was referring to the fidelity of the results of the simulation. The graphics suffice to represent what the game is doing, to the level that the player needs/ought to have given the specific level of abstraction. Could be prettier, I'm sure, but if you take my "it's a tabletop wargame using a computer to do things you could never do on a tabletop" point, it's far, far, prettier than any figure I ever painted

[Warts 'n' all]

14 hours ago, Tomiko said:

CQB is nightmare

I've never had nightmares about CQB. Was he C-3PO's older, evil brother?

[The Steppenwulf]

1 hour ago, Redwolf said:

The Macintosh build already is 64 bits.

Apple were pushing devs to move to 64-bit years ago because they pulled support for it. I think 32-bit apps will not even run in Catalina o/s. 

[MikeyD]

Sixty pounds? Where are you buying your titles from? Shock Force 2 is $42 on the BFC store. That works out to 32-ish pounds at the current rate. You've doubled the price of the game just to have something to whine about. Do you know how much CMSF would cost if BFC had raised the prices to account for inflation since it initial release in 2007? Even without sales and discounts CM costs 7% less in real dollars than it did last year.

Edited December 9, 2021 by MikeyD

[MikeyD]

Console games have budgets on par with Marvel superhero movies these days. I love the demand that BFC spend fifty million dollars to produce a console game-style title then sell it to you for 15 bucks. Okay, sure. We'll stick some wings onto a few pigs for you too.

[fireship4]

3 hours ago, BFCElvis said:

We are able to anticipate with the number of sales for what we release. And we know how much revenue we need to keep the doors open, feed our families and live "normal" lives. From there it's a matter of maths. "We're gonna sell about X number of units and we need to make Y total dollars. So, Y divided by X will be the selling price."

Yes but of course the price will affect the number of sales, and this is why economics is hard.  And maximising profit is a choice, no-one is doing a hostile takeover of battlefront, or taking its market share, until every other niche is filled or someone with the requisite passion and business nouse comes along.  Then again more competition will either reduce your market share or the increase its total size - people might discover Graviteam and eventually find themselves here...  All of this is more complicated than any simple answer from either side. 

I will note that sometimes the last people you want to listen to are the people who've made it big.  It's rare to know what if any of the choices you've made led you to where you are, and whether they would be appropriate to anyone else.  The sample size is too small.  I think experience is hard to parse with this type of thing, it's complicated.  CM is successful (as far as I can tell) because it's been well researched and made with passion and dedication.

Again though, the choices made in development have been choices - a normal business would have scaled up from er, one programmer (?), but if that is what they want to do, it's their baby (let a hundred flowers bloom and such).  I simply advocate acting on the best possible information, and considerations toward the greater good made where possible (this is a large chunk of the pc warsim experience after all, and matters a lot to fans of the genre).

1 hour ago, MikeyD said:

Shock Force 2 is $42 on the BFC store. That works out to 32-ish pounds at the current rate. You've doubled the price of the game just to have something to whine about.

You are a little off there MikeyD, it's £46.49 ($61.38) for people in the UK on steam at the moment, and the current sale brings the price on battlefront.com down from £52.91 ($69.87) to £37.04 ($48.91) at current exchange rates.

Edited December 9, 2021 by fireship4
Adding dollar equivalents.

[The_Capt]

15 hours ago, Tomiko said:

Me, as a youngling to the Combat mission, I'd request developers to add something new other than skin, maps, language and guns. It needs something different! The game is 90% same across all games. If I imported all the models and skins from Combat Mission Shock Force 2 to Combat Mission cold war, the game would probably run it as nothing.

Hmm, well you have some points to be sure, some fair, some unfair and some, well everyone is entitled to opinion and choices.  I am not going to weigh in everything, we already know we want to fix quite a few things in the next engine (e.g. graphics) and I totally agree that 1v1 (and maybe one day 2v2 or 3v3) is in need of an overhaul.

As to "all games being the same", well they do all share the same engine so in that way, yes they are but then again so are a lot of franchises. New features get added over time which add some new flavors but the base engine is pretty consistent, which is a good thing if you are fan and maybe not so much if you are not. 

As to "skins. maps, equipment", here you (and others) are way off.  Each game has hundreds of hours of research on organizations and equipment/weapons and then we test them and re-address issues after release. CMSF2 and CMCW  are an excellent example of this, if you imported all the forces from CMSF 2 to CMCW, the game would crash as the TO&Es and equipment are very different; US force structures are completely different (H series vs J series), the basic squad of infantry has different firepower (e.g. Dragon vs Javelin) and even the mighty M1 Abrams is the 105mm gun version in CMCW.  All this effects sighting, C2 etc.  Soviets are armed with different equipment from the era and - the big one - CMCW is not hybrid warfare while it is in CMSF 2. 

Your point on maps might have traction between CMFS 2 and CMCW for the NTC maps but we built over 300 sq kms of German specific maps...from the actual ground that is there (as best we could) and they have very little in common with CMSF 2.  And then there is the hours of content in the scenarios and campaigns which are all custom for the game they are made. 

But hey I get it.  I bought MS Flight Simulator and find the 4 versions of Cessna's all pretty much the same but I am definitely not a hardcore flight sim guy.  My guess is that for people that the game seems the same and bland, well you might have bought the wrong game (I would suggest you give it a chance).  CM is for the (fanatic) hardcore wargamer, for whom the differences between CMSF 2 and CMCW are immense, to the point that they are not even the same species.  CM is not really designed for mass appeal (swear to god we should do the zombie thing) but instead has employed a niche strategy that relies on a small but really loyal base.  It is franchise that is never going to compete with "Call of Honor 8: Arms of Brothers" but it has survived (and thrived) for over 20 years with the same model...so there is that.

So to partially answer the title of your post: "we did"  

[chuckdyke]

15 hours ago, Tomiko said:

A skillful modder would probably make Shock Force 2, Cold war or Black Water out of Combat mission afghanistan.

Nope all a modder does I understand is have a similar unit and makes it look like something else. A unit in CM is researched and made from scratch. I am a critical of some units with the goal to make decisions which would work in real life. The game as it is not pretty for some but it will do. If someone wants to play Rambo with cinematic quality it is not for them. Entertaining sure but not based on reality. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by chuckdyke

[Codreanu]

15 hours ago, Tomiko said:

Literally every game is same

Are they all literally the same? No, they all feel different and unique to me, although I do wish there was a little more innovation and a feeling of improving with each new game, imagine if CW added some sort of advanced hit analysis feature to the engine that was added to the rest of the games down the road, that would make buying new CM games more enticing if there were a few new special features to mess around with.

15 hours ago, Tomiko said:

Graphics

The graphics and special effects are all pretty bad, I agree with you totally on this, and the games run terribly despite how dated they look. Better graphics would help a lot with enticing new players and increase the immersion factor of the games substantially. 

15 hours ago, Tomiko said:

Only 1v1 multiplayer with ancient connection system, no coop, no more players than 1v1 scenario.

Agree with you again, new PBEM system helped a little with not having to bother with sharing files manually but the ability to play with random people is half-baked at best, the only thing I can really say about it is that it functionally works, but not much else. PvP campaigns, co-op, some sort of server browser system, maybe dev ran tournaments would all be nice to see but I know it's never going to happen on the CMx2 engine. It means nothing to me but even something like Steam achievements being added might be enough to get someone to buy CM if they were already on the edge.

16 hours ago, Tomiko said:

Price tag too high

Really depends on how much you enjoy your time playing and how many hours of entertainment you get out of the game. I don't mind $60 for the base game but maybe shave the modules down by $5. I do think there needs to be more frequent sales that slash the prices down a bit more. I've been putting off buying CMBN for awhile just because I can't see myself spending that much money in one lump sum for a game, especially because to my understanding all of the maps and missions and campaigns were created using an early version of the engine with some campaigns having missing units due to OOB changes and smaller map sizes due to engine limitations at the time. If all of that was modernized and tweaked a bit for the latest version of the engine then I'd feel better about it.

16 hours ago, Tomiko said:

Planes/Helis are not part of the game. - We can get in argument that planes / helis fire from kilometers away and are irrelavant for the game, but I think it would certainly be healthy to add visual planes flying above, even if very far away. And when planes crash, you can see it too.

Of all the problems with CM, this one must be near the bottom of the list. It'd be nice to have I guess but I would rate quality of life improvements and modernizing the engine as far, far higher priorities.

16 hours ago, Tomiko said:

The DLC fest.

Already went over this, but I agree that $35 is slightly too much imho. I have zero clue about Battlefront's margins or how much they actually earn or anything about their finances and what they can or can't afford to cut prices on, but speaking purely as a consumer you can pretty easily get games off of Steam for 50% off if you wait for a sale and it would be nice if Battlefront would do that too. Maybe they've already done steep sales like that on Steam before and I just didn't notice though.

[chuckdyke]

Just be fair which other game let you go to the world map and let you recreate a map in 3D. Do research and let you experience history? 

[Lucky_Strike]

17 hours ago, Tomiko said:

• Graphics - Irrelavant argument for me but it's also why a lot of players turn down. Especially the edges of the map, the sky ...

 

• Price tag too high - Well. If we take in account that all the games are basically same. A skillful modder would probably make Shock Force 2, Cold war or Black Water out of Combat mission afghanistan. It's very high. 

Welcome to the forum Tomiko, that's a big stick you brought along to poke at the hornets with ...

There's a lot in your post that has been discussed many times here and will doubtless be discussed many more times in the future.

I just want to say that WRT graphics, yes I get it, the game is not Post Scriptum nor Hell Let Loose not even Arma, sure it could use a dose of what they have, but it's also not those types of game. If a new player comes to CM expecting those types of game they will be disappointed, if they come with an open mind then they might just find something quite unique, despite it's dated looks, a kinda milf amongst games. For sure a modern gloss would doubtless attract more players but the expense of that, not just financially, but also in development time and resources would distract our tiny team of developers from doing what they actually do best. I don't doubt that BF are acutely aware that the engine is far past it's sell by date in terms of graphics, amongst other issues, but I also believe that they have a roadmap, and their commitment to the franchise is peerless amongst developers.

Correct me if I'm making an assumption but I think you mean horizon when you say sky, the hard line of the skybox and distant ground is far from stellar ...

I take issue with your presumption that a skilful modder could turn one game into another, this is to not understand the games and engine in the slightest. Yes I can take all the graphics, textures and skins from one game and put them into another but it changes nothing of the underlying mechanics. CM2 has been with us for over a dozen years and no one has ever been able to do what you suggest simply because they can't. It would mean reverse engineering the whole game, everything, and then remaking it again. Now, I don't know about you, but as someone who has made a mod or two, which I hope dramatically change and enhance the game, I have an idea about how long that little lot took to do AND as a practicing professional graphic designer I have a bit of an idea about what my time is worth. So believe me when I say that there's more bang for buck built into one game than any modder's life works would cost unless of course you are independently wealthy and don't want a life beyond this game. Your assertion is bunkum mate.

[chuckdyke]

6 minutes ago, Lucky_Strike said:

a kinda milf amongst games.

I love that analogy at my age (72 soon) most milfs look like spring chickens. When I was brought up in the 60's it was airfix models and figurines. The Atlantic wall were shoeboxes and cut down toilet rolls with match sticks for guns. That is why the game is popular with older people.

[Artkin]

I gotta agree, the new MP was half baked and I wont be using it. It's horrible. We need a legitimate server browser.

Ian Leslie's Whose Turn is It tool is miles ahead of the new MP system. 

And I know my friends prefer using it too. 

[ZPB II]

This is such a hilariously meh post, even though I agree with many points.

Every point has been iterated multiple times beyond counting, which is not a problem per se, otherwise a forum would be a dull and dry place, but the authoritative way you tell those with opposing viewpoints to shut up and proclaim your view to be objectively true. Then you claim not to be a hater? Bit of a manipulative and gaslight-y way of carrying conversation.

You "request" the devs to add something new? Do you really think they aren't working on new stuff?

Edited December 9, 2021 by Zeb II

[chuckdyke]

Modern Chess. Improved fancy graphics is not the one I watch. 

 

Classical Chess.

 

[Aragorn2002]

2 hours ago, Zeb II said:

This is such a hilariously meh post, even though I agree with many points.

Every point has been iterated multiple times beyond counting, which is not a problem per se, otherwise a forum would be a dull and dry place, but the authoritative way you tell those with opposing viewpoints to shut up and proclaim your view to be objectively true. Then you claim not to be a hater? Bit of a manipulative and gaslight-y way of carrying conversation.

You "request" the devs to add something new? Do you really think they aren't working on new stuff?

He's baiting us, for sure. A newby who is already fed up with the game? Don't make me laugh. And yeah, nothing new there, we all know there's room for improvement. Always will be.

We see posts like that from time to time. Usually the first and last post.

Personally I find them quite refreshing, because it usually brings some interesting news from the side of BF.

Edited December 9, 2021 by Aragorn2002

[slysniper]

oh, here we go again. Another thread with the same old, same old.

Most of the same cast of charectors jump in and add their comments.

And then at some point the whole original discussion is long in the past.

 

Let people make their comments as to what they think needs to be improved in the game.

It hurts no one.

 

And as to the views of the original poster, likely much of it will never happen, that is his problem to deal with not mine.

 

But for all those out there that want change and something new and refreshing, if that is what you think will make you happy, have hope, some day CMX3 will come, and when it does. Just remember you were the ones that really wanted it and needed it.

because I recall how that played out when they went from engine 1 to 2 and how many of those that wanted all sorts of changes, many were not so happy when they actually received much of what they requested because it did not play out as they expected.

So when that day comes, just be prepared to understand, it will not meet your visions of the perfect game. It will be the third effort to make a engine even more capable to reflect the battlefield and thd combat that takes place on it. it will have new methods to reflect the same things, to some it will be great, to others they likely will complain, and thus we will see threads like this still and nothing ever really changes as to how we deal with each other on these forums.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2021 by slysniper

[ASL Veteran]

The original poster isn't the first one to say that all the games are the same, but that one is just mysterious to me because I'm not really sure what their expectation is.  The games are about tactical combat from WW2 up to modern, so you are going to have tanks, infantry squads, artillery, and various things that are involved in tactical combat.  What could possibly be different?  Is the expectation that Combat Mission Battle for Normandy have tanks and infantry, but that Combat Mission Red Thunder have Trolls and Space Lobsters or something?  What does it mean exactly that all the games are the same?  

[Rinaldi]

I think he's more referring to the use of recycled assets and "feel" to games released at AAA game prices every couple of years. Not to say that I agree with the position, but its self-evidently true from the art asset perspective, and is perhaps most painfully obvious between RT and BS's rural aspects. Thereafter it becomes a matter of opinion whether you think that diminishes from the game.

To my mind its a necessary time-saver by a dev team that is made up of, essentially, a lumberjack, a brain preserved in a jar (I demand proof of life for Charles now), and a smattering of commissioned persons. People relatively new to the games and ignorant of the context they're developed in may not share my patience or empathy, or don't care if they are aware - and for 42 to 60 bucks a pop for base game titles, I don't blame them if they take a less lenient view than me. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by Rinaldi

[Aragorn2002]

57 minutes ago, ASL Veteran said:

What does it mean exactly that all the games are the same?  

Well, I have noticed ALL soldiers in EVERY game have pointy noses.

1 hour ago, slysniper said:

Most of the same cast of charectors jump in and add their comments.

 

Wouldn't have happened to you, would it?

Edited December 9, 2021 by Aragorn2002

[chuckdyke]

I like a time traveler game. All of a sudden Abrams and Bradleys turn up mysteriously during the battle of the Bulge. Peiper's armor get blasted to smithereens and the shot from the 88mm's bouncing of the Abrams.  Or the Israelis turn up, Merkava's with the Star of David. 

Edited December 9, 2021 by chuckdyke

[A Canadian Cat]

1 hour ago, slysniper said:

because I recall how that played out when they went from engine 1 to 2 and how many of those that wanted all sorts of changes, many were not so happy when they actually received much of what they requested because it did not play out as they expected.

So when that day comes, just be prepared to understand, it will not meet your visions of the perfect game. It will be the third effort to make a engine even more capable to reflect the battlefield and thd combat that takes place on it. it will have new methods to reflect the same things, to some it will be great, to others they likely will complain, and thus we will see threads like this still and nothing ever really changes as to how we deal with each other on these forums.

Great point. We should start a database of who asked for what and how bitterly the complained about it. Then we could pull up old quotes one day.

Oh who am I kidding that would be a massive waste of anyone's time

[SimpleSimon]

On 12/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, Tomiko said:

Hello gamers and mainly devs.

 

Me, as a youngling to the Combat mission, I'd request developers to add something new other than skin, maps, language and guns. It needs something different! The game is 90% same across all games. If I imported all the models and skins from Combat Mission Shock Force 2 to Combat Mission cold war, the game would probably run it as nothing. And with it, it has the same issues. CQB is nightmare in reality too, but in Combat Mission, it's especially bad. If you have like 1 unit and need to perform CQB. Absolutely impossible.

CQB or MOUT as it otherwise known is a legitimately nightmarish experience for all forces involved. It just barely covered by the scope of the game but I remain unconvinced the results replicated by the outcome of close encounters are unrealistic or routinely incorrect. If you want depictions of close assault with higher fidelity than I suggest a game like Door Kickers or Insurgency because ASL/CM were never about that. 

Quote

 And the "Hunt" command is pretty useless as if they are in Hunt command, they start walking at slow pace and when see someone/something, they stop and will disable all following commands. Can't you guys make it that troops will HOLD for the amount of time they keep seeing the enemy or the enemy is neutralized? That would make CQB soooo much more easier and life would be good.

This is really nebulous. It sounds to me like you're expecting an awful lot of otherwise unspecialized rifle infantry who are literally just conscripts who had a rifle pushed in their hands. Westerners seem to be so captured by the powerful imagery of SWAT and Spec Ops tactics that they think these things are universal in military forces. They are not. 

On 12/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, Tomiko said:

• Literally every game is same - That is in my opinion very true. It doesn't mean it'd be bad. But the same issue Combat Mission Afghanistan has, it's also in Combat mission Cold war. 

I sort of agree with this. I think the games are definitely suffering from a kind of design blandness. I think it has more to do with the scenario and campaign designers all being a relatively small crowd of guys who are willing to put the time and energy in than the games being stale per se. So there's a sort of idea-drought in the games unfortunately and this comes across as stale-game-syndrome. Yeah, I can see that. 

On 12/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, Tomiko said:

• Graphics - Irrelavant argument for me but it's also why a lot of players turn down. Especially the edges of the map, the sky

CM is the virtual version of the Advanced-Squad-Leader series of board games from decades ago. It is not a "video game" in the sense that many consumers might see it. If you are unwilling to adjust your perspective on this, you will probably just not enjoy CM. I don't see how that's CM's fault though or why the development team should waste time and resources on better graphical fidelity. The alternative to these games are tabletop, and in that regard CM is and will remain for the foreseeable future-utterly superior. 

On 12/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, Tomiko said:

• Only 1v1 multiplayer with ancient connection system, no coop, no more players than 1v1 scenario. - In my opinion, very good argument. Combat mission is only 1v1 and without coop regime. This needs to be changed in the future (or would be amazing if was changed right now).

Actually a pretty good point. The games could totally go for a coop option of some kind. 

On 12/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, Tomiko said:

• Price tag too high - Well. If we take in account that all the games are basically same. A skillful modder would probably make Shock Force 2, Cold war or Black Water out of Combat mission afghanistan. It's very high. 

If they can then why haven't they? I think the whole industry has artificially low prices for everything honestly and this coming out the backend by causing burnt-out development teams to put in minimum effort and jump between various better paying gigs all the time. This affects product quality and if you think that's something that doesn't affect you (a consumer) then look at the utter catastrophe that was AAA gaming for the year 2021. (Big name titles all roundly blasted, widespread failure to reach target sales, etc) 

On 12/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, Tomiko said:

• Planes/Helis are not part of the game. - We can get in argument that planes / helis fire from kilometers away and are irrelavant for the game, but I think it would certainly be healthy to add visual planes flying above, even if very far away. And when planes crash, you can see it too.

They are part of the game actually, I suspect you're asking why the launch platform for aerial weapons are not depicted visually but depictions of them on map are necessary...why??? 

On 12/8/2021 at 4:03 AM, Tomiko said:

• The DLC fest. (Mostly Combat Mission Shock Force 2). - For the game where you charge 60€ for a same mechanical features as in every previous game. It's absolutely crazy to charge 20€ for a basically a nation bundle. 

Given the enormous work that goes on behind the scenes in software development from texturing to modeling, etc it this is just untrue. I have no sympathy whatsoever for reasoning like this either. The whole games industry is suffering from an extremely toxic wage suppression crisis and consumers are partly to blame for it. Attempts to raise the cost of mainstream titles met with enormous hostility, workarounds such as loot boxes, pay-to-win etc failed thankfully but all of this left a legacy of mutual recrimination between consumers and developers, nonetheless. Battlefront is a small independent studio thankfully mostly outside the mechanics of the mainstream gaming market. (They are much closer to the board-gaming and tabletop market) So Battlefront gets more say about setting the prices that it thinks are fair. Given how deeply invested the entire west is in wage suppression it is probably still far too low for the labour invested since it's hard to break consumers out of the mentality they hold about pricing. That's an entirely separate topic however...

[BornGinger]

14 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

Just be fair which other game let you go to the world map and let you recreate a map in 3D.

Cities Skylines allows you to do it and that game has a good utility for it too. You go to terrain.party and pick an area you're interested in, download the different three heightmaps and then open those height maps inside the game which gives you a 3D impression of them. After having corrected the 3D impression a bit you can start adding trees, water and other things you'd like to have on the 3D map. When all is done you save the 3D map and open it in the city building option of the game and start building your large city or towns and villages.

Some more information about the maps for Cities Skylines.

Look at YouTube videos about how it works with the Cities Skylines map editor and the terrain.party website.

But Cities Skylines is of course not a game about war but about economy and keeping people happy in the cities, towns and villages you build.

Edited December 9, 2021 by BornGinger

[Aragorn2002]

There's no better wife than my wife and there's no better wargame than CM.