Annual look at the year to come - 2023

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, SgtHatred said:

Combat Mission isn't special, old software breaking in APIs that offer backwards compatibility because they cut corners is a tale as old as Microsoft.

Correct.  If Combat Mission cut corners it would have broken sometime since 2007.  Yet never once has a new release of anything, MacOS or Windows, broken anything in Combat Mission.  Thousands of drivers have likewise not broken anything, save the one example I listed about AMD.  So the logical conclusion that seems to be escaping you is that we didn't cut corners.

5 hours ago, SgtHatred said:

This is absolutely not the case and any first year software engineer could explain why. Hell, just look at all the games that broke when Windows Vista released. Microsoft had been telling developers since 95 how to save user data, and when Vista finally started enforcing basic security in the Program Files folder, **** broke. Just because the games used to work does NOT mean they were "properly coded" as you say. 

As stated, this has absolutely nothing to do with Combat Mission.

Since you have apparently lost your own train of thought somewhere in the tunnel, might I suggest you reread my previous post?  Just because one follows an API doesn't mean that new API calls, created for new hardware, automatically bestows advantages without re-engineering.  And that sometimes (prepare for a shock) the costs of re-engineering are simply impractical to absorb.  Especially for a niche company with a small fan base relative to the AAA games being compared to.

5 hours ago, SgtHatred said:

I don't think anyone here is expecting AAA production values,

And yet, that is what you are doing.

5 hours ago, SgtHatred said:

but I think seeing some progress on some of the problems Combat Mission has isn't the same as comparing you guys to EA. When it takes 9 months (and counting) to fix an issue like the T-90 not having front armour, or a year and a half to fix infantry units retreating forward into the fire they are supposed to retreat from, or the game lagging and stuttering just as much now as it did in 2011... that's a problem, and you have to expect that people will be frustrated by it.

We're frustrated by the glass is 1/10th empty attitude.  No, every single thing that every single player has a beef about isn't fixed immediately if ever.  We're as frustrated by it as anybody.  Life is full of tradeoffs and one of them is where do we focus our energies.  On making sure one particular game is 100% the way our most critical customers want it to be, or do we do our best at the same time as we bring out things that other people want?

5 hours ago, SgtHatred said:

But hey, if you are happy with how you are performing, then who cares what us suckers think, right?

Obviously I don't care what you think because I spent the time to read your rants and respond to them rationally and with thought.  That's what I do to someone I don't care about.  Glad you noticed.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Jaime said:

Some companies just take an unjustifiable amount of time to patch their products. It’s almost feel like their customers aren’t important to them.

Nice try

For sure bugs are frustrating.  For sure we were frustrated by AMD not fixing a bug that we couldn't work around.  However, we were pretty much the only game to use those API calls (apparently) and so our particular "pet peeve" didn't get high priority attention.  Many of the gripes I read about here are similar in nature.  Important?  Sure, but more important than all the other things we do?  Maybe, maybe not.  I'm no more privy to what AMD's workload and resources are than you are of ours.

We fix bugs all the time, as does AMD, just that sometimes it isn't the one bug that really bugs someone.

Steve

[Vergeltungswaffe]

The update is appreciated Steve.

I look forward to everything 2023 will have to offer in CM.

With the possible exception of the SF1 launch (no hard feelings, truly) CM gaming is great every year.

[Battlefront.com]

5 hours ago, Artkin said:

I will add the last thing this game series needs is bureaucracy intervention nonsense by Slitherine. Release the games when they are ready, ffs. You all already wasted a year on this nonsense PBEM++ which was clearly a downgrade. I assume this was heavily persuaded by/forced upon by Slitherine.

We were under no contractual obligation to add PBEM++ or Tournaments.  The only leverage Slitherine has over us is they know their customer based better than we do and ignoring their advice is pretty stupid IMHO.

What happened is we got into a fairly common engineering dilemma of doing an assessment, thinking X is viable, moving forward with X, finding a couple of problems, losing time to them, thinking "nearly there!", finding some more complications, thinking "this sucks, but we're so far into it let's keep going", thinking "nearly there!", then finding something else unexpected right at the end before finally getting X out the door.  In hindsight it would have been better if we spent the same amount of time on something else.

5 hours ago, Artkin said:

I'm not mad or anything but it has to be said. What the hell are we pushing release dates back for? These games are niche and pushing release dates makes absolutely no sense until you can market the game as something more. I.e. multiplayer.

I don't necessarily disagree.  Releases, however, are not done by us uploading something to a sever and saying "have at it".  Each release takes quite a bit of time to prepare and work through.  Unlike us, Slitherine has a ton of product releases going on all the time.  Can we get them to shrink the time between product releases from 3 months to something smaller?  Perhaps, but it's their show to run and we respect that.  Never the less, after Normandy is out I (already) intend on seeing if the timeline can be compressed.

4 hours ago, Artkin said:

I assure you I get the best fps in CMCW, CMRT, and CMFB. It is definitely beyond 25.

If you dont see a difference between CMFI and CMCW then you have a problem. If you want a direct comparison load up a chunk of the Berlin map from CMRT in CMCW and compare the difference. Or the nijmegan map from CMBN in CMCW.

Note that every CM2 Family uses the same code, give or take a little bit which game is running the most current code.  The differences noted probably have more to do with the nature of the game being played.  What specifically that might be I don't know as we have no data to sift through.

Generally, though, speed is mostly a function of how much stuff is going on at one time.  The more units, the more complex the terrain, the more things like path finding and TacAI gets hammered.  More simplistic terrain might be kinder on path finding, but is probably murder on LOS/LOF checks.  So many variables at work it's really hard to say.

The other issue is that some people's specific systems behave better or worse than another person's.  This is not abnormal in gaming, for sure, but it is probably more noticeable because CM pushes systems harder than most other games.  That's because we designed a simulation which is fairly open ended vs. AAA titles that tailor their game design to ensure high FPS.  If System B runs 40% slower than System A, a game that System A runs at 100fps is still 60fps for System B.  Tearing, stuttering, and other problems will be less apparent, especially given AAA games working very hard to avoid them even at the expense of the game.   In CM if System A is getting 40fps then System B is going to be running 24fps, which is low enough that lags, tears, etc. are going to be noticeable for B far more frequently than for A.

Steve

[Aragorn2002]

10 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Yes to BAOR, no to BOAR

Steve

Please give us the other nations for the NATO module for CW too. Many of us are dying to know.

Edited January 31, 2023 by Aragorn2002

[Battlefront.com]

7 hours ago, kohlenklau said:

Hi Steve,

Maybe you have noticed some of the folks playing with Blender and messing about with mdr's.

Question 1: We adjusted some tank commander positions in the turrets. It "looked better" and some folks are swearing that their tests seem to show better TC survival rates. Are we smoking crack to think that?

Question 2: Can these mdr bugs such as Cold War sprockets not turning be fixed by a system of "official BFC mods" where the new replacement BFC approved mdr is posted for download versus waiting on a patch?

Question 3: Will CMX3 use the same mdr files or will it use a "next generation 3D model"...?

Thank you.

I don't know for sure about any one specific thing, but for sure some details are controlled by the model, some by code, and most some combination of both.  Obviously a MDR fix can only address those problems which are specific to the model itself and either don't rely on a coded data point or the coded data point is correct.  In the case of the PzIII G noted here, looks like the center point for the turret was incorrectly set (amongst other issues), but the tank was correctly coded to have a turret.  That is one of those details that is most likely determined by the model alone because the coded component is unlikely to be incorrect.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

3 minutes ago, Aragorn2002 said:

Please give us the other nations for the NATO module for CW too. Many of us are dying to know.

I'll get some sort of discussion about the details going soon.

Steve

[Aragorn2002]

2 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

I'll get some sort of discussion about the details going soon.

Steve

Excellent. Thank you.

[SgtHatred]

18 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Correct.  If Combat Mission cut corners it would have broken sometime since 2007.  Yet never once has a new release of anything, MacOS or Windows, broken anything in Combat Mission.  Thousands of drivers have likewise not broken anything, save the one example I listed about AMD.  So the logical conclusion that seems to be escaping you is that we didn't cut corners.

So all the complaints about CM2 with the latest AMD drivers are nonsense?  I don't have an AMD card, so I just assume that the problems aren't made up. Also, that's some weak logic. A drunk driver can make it home 100 times, that doesn't make what he is doing safe.

 

21 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Since you have apparently lost your own train of thought somewhere in the tunnel, might I suggest you reread my previous post?  Just because one follows an API doesn't mean that new API calls, created for new hardware, automatically bestows advantages without re-engineering.  And that sometimes (prepare for a shock) the costs of re-engineering are simply impractical to absorb.  Especially for a niche company with a small fan base relative to the AAA games being compared to.

My argument, which you seem to have missed, is that a game breaking for people because new drivers have been released is almost always the fault of the game, and Combat Mission is absolutely no exception here. it has nothing to do with adding new features, and everything to do with the game working as well this year as it did in previous years. If it was done properly in the first place, that wouldn't be a problem.

 

37 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

And yet, that is what you are doing.

Wanting a game that looks like Combat Mission to run at a higher framerate than Star Citizen isn't expecting AAA production values. Expecting the game to keep working as long as the OS and GPU developers support OpenGL is the bare minimum.

 

39 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

We're frustrated by the glass is 1/10th empty attitude.  No, every single thing that every single player has a beef about isn't fixed immediately if ever.  We're as frustrated by it as anybody.  Life is full of tradeoffs and one of them is where do we focus our energies.  On making sure one particular game is 100% the way our most critical customers want it to be, or do we do our best at the same time as we bring out things that other people want?

 

Many of these problems have existed for years though, and we never hear anything about them, other than once a year in January. The fact that the T-90 in CMBS has been broken for so long is absurd. It is not reasonable. Forget asking about more complex issues like the weird texture LOD problems or infantry spawning with duplicate or missing weapons in multiplayer.

Game breaking issues should take priority over new content. Do you not think so? These issues have persisted for years. I'd even take a "no, we won't fix these issues, they aren't worth doing" over the status quo. I remember getting responses from ChrisND on issues, but since he left its just radio silence on these things.

 

44 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Obviously I don't care what you think because I spent the time to read your rants and respond to them rationally and with thought.  That's what I do to someone I don't care about.  Glad you noticed.

Sure, during the once or twice a year we can get a response at all, you are willing to do this. You also looked at what you posted last year and said "We did pretty well with our 2022 calendar". It sure doesn't seem like you care most of the time.

[Battlefront.com]

29 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

So all the complaints about CM2 with the latest AMD drivers are nonsense?  I don't have an AMD card, so I just assume that the problems aren't made up. Also, that's some weak logic. A drunk driver can make it home 100 times, that doesn't make what he is doing safe.

Your logic is what's weak here.  A perfectly safe driver can make it home 99 times and that doesn't mean he's drunk because on the 100th time there's a problem.  Without any evidence or even history on your side you have made some pretty bold conclusions to fit your narrative.

29 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

 

My argument, which you seem to have missed, is that a game breaking for people because new drivers have been released is almost always the fault of the game, and Combat Mission is absolutely no exception here.

When AMD drivers made clicking on stuff in CM2 almost impossible, that wasn't us it was AMD.  And that's the only problem I can think of where CM stopped functioning since 2007.  You seem to think Combat Mission is badly coded and we've just gotten lucky all this time.  Wow.

29 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

it has nothing to do with adding new features, and everything to do with the game working as well this year as it did in previous years. If it was done properly in the first place, that wouldn't be a problem.

And there you go again.  Bold claims, little evidence.

29 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Wanting a game that looks like Combat Mission to run at a higher framerate than Star Citizen isn't expecting AAA production values. Expecting the game to keep working as long as the OS and GPU developers support OpenGL is the bare minimum.

And it does.  What it doesn't do is magically work as well as games that have 50 programmers or have been written in the last few years.

29 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

Many of these problems have existed for years though, and we never hear anything about them, other than once a year in January. The fact that the T-90 in CMBS has been broken for so long is absurd. It is not reasonable. Forget asking about more complex issues like the weird texture LOD problems or infantry spawning with duplicate or missing weapons in multiplayer.

Game breaking issues should take priority over new content. Do you not think so?

Theoretically, of course I do.  However, the reality is everybody has their own opinion of what "game breaking" means.   We also have people who value new content over fixing small issues.  You may think you are more important than they are, but I think they'd disagree.

It's a balancing act.  We don't claim to always get it right, but we absolutely don't get it as wrong as you feel we do.  We'd not be in business if we did.

29 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

 

Sure, during the once or twice a year we can get a response at all, you are willing to do this. You also looked at what you posted last year and said "We did pretty well with our 2022 calendar". It sure doesn't seem like you care most of the time.

Combat Mission has grown too large for me to keep tabs on everything that goes on personally.  There's plenty of eyes and ears on various issues.  Wasting the time I'm spent arguing with your extreme, distorted, and entirely negative point of view is certainly not making me rethink how I interact with customers.

Steve

[SgtHatred]

28 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Your logic is what's weak here.  A perfectly safe driver can make it home 99 times and that doesn't mean he's drunk because on the 100th time there's a problem.  Without any evidence or even history on your side you have made some pretty bold conclusions to fit your narrative.

I've been playing the game for a while, I can see applications like the Nvidia overlay not detecting the game running or print screen dumping a copy of the menu rather than the game in progress and I know why that happens in other titles. It's a fair assumption that it is the same here.

32 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

When AMD drivers made clicking on stuff in CM2 almost impossible, that wasn't us it was AMD.  And that's the only problem I can think of where CM stopped functioning since 2007.  You seem to think Combat Mission is badly coded and we've just gotten lucky all this time.  Wow.

70% of all software is badly coded, and that number probably jumps higher with games. When I ran into the problem running Combat Mission games with the realtek audio controller on my old Asus board running? It's evidence enough.

38 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Theoretically, of course I do.  However, the reality is everybody has their own opinion of what "game breaking" means.   We also have people who value new content over fixing small issues.  You may think you are more important than they are, but I think they'd disagree.

 Can you please state plainly that you believe that the T-90 bug is just a "small issue" and is not game breaking? It's possibly the most common tank of the most common faction in CMBS, and it can get knocked out by small arms fire frontally. It doesn't matter what I think is a game breaking problem, it matters what YOU think is a game breaking problem, since you are the one that can actually do something about it. I think your threshold on what bugs are worth fixing is something people here should know.

 

45 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

There's plenty of eyes and ears on various issues.

I'll believe it when I see results.

[chuckdyke]

7 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

I can see applications like the Nvidia overlay not detecting the game running or print screen dumping a copy of the menu rather than the game in progress and I know why that happens in other titles.

GeForce Experience works on my laptop, but I just can't sign up on my desktop. It needs to be in the computer you buy. No good downloading it in my experience. Also in the computer settings you need to add combat mission for the Nvidia Graphics to work. Windows of Let Windows decide will block optimal drivers in my experience. If I had good solid evidence of seeing fault with the game I would lead the charge.  We all know the game is archaic if CM wants to attract the next generation it needs to get its act together. Young players want to sit in the driver's seat of a tank when they put the camera in POV. After that they look at tactics and strategy. I am sure CM is aware of it.

 

Edited January 31, 2023 by chuckdyke

[SgtHatred]

Just now, chuckdyke said:

GeForce Experience works on my laptop, but I just can't sign up on my desktop. It needs to be in the computer you buy. No good downloading it in my experience. Also in the computer setting you need to add combat mission for the Nvidia Graphics to work. Windows of Let Windows decide will block optimal drivers in my experience.

 

Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean? Geforce Experience only requires a Nvidia graphics card (one made in the last 8 or 10 years ish?). You need an account, which is annoying, but you should be able to use the same account on multiple PCs without issue. If it isn't working on your desktop, but you have a Nvidia graphics card installed, then you have an interesting technical issue going on.

[chuckdyke]

16 minutes ago, SgtHatred said:

but you have a Nvidia graphics card installed, then you have an interesting technical issue going on.

Yes I can't make GeForce Experience work and it blocks starting CM when I downloaded it. Uninstalled and everything is back to normal. On the Laptop I found GeForce far superior to Windows Gamebar, but the game run ****ty till I connected the games to high performance. Here is my recent issues, all to complicated for me just thank my lucky stars I don't have AMD drivers. Things like the T90 need to be sorted The Charge of the Heavy Brigade is ridiculously easy. Not a single casualty and all the T90s were sitting ducks. I back you 100% on that issue.

Edited January 31, 2023 by chuckdyke

[SgtHatred]

17 minutes ago, chuckdyke said:

Yes I can't make GeForce Experience work and it blocks starting CM when I downloaded it. Uninstalled and everything is back to normal. On the Laptop I found GeForce far superior to Windows Gamebar, but the game run ****ty till I connected the games to high performance. Here is my recent issues, all to complicated for me just thank my lucky stars I don't have AMD drivers. Things like the T90 need to be sorted The Charge of the Heavy Brigade is ridiculously easy. Not a single casualty and all the T90s were sitting ducks. I back you 100% on that issue.

If you are looking for recording software that won't cause any trouble for you, OBS is the gold standard. You don't need to stream to use it.

[massi9797Dz]

Is CMBN battle pack still considérer to be released with the main game in steam by march or will it seperately ? 

[Dr.Fusselpulli]

3 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

What happened is we got into a fairly common engineering dilemma of doing an assessment, thinking X is viable, moving forward with X, finding a couple of problems, losing time to them, thinking "nearly there!", finding some more complications, thinking "this sucks, but we're so far into it let's keep going", thinking "nearly there!", then finding something else unexpected right at the end before finally getting X out the door.  In hindsight it would have been better if we spent the same amount of time on something else.

Ah yeah... the classical "it'll all be over by Christmas" every wargamer should know about. 

[markus544]

I don't know Steve if the update was a good thing or a bad one. Looks like people are a bit on the twisted side. I was somewhat let down by some of the information, but you did say it was an overview, I was looking forward to more specifics. Having said that, I will wait and see what takes place. For me CMFB is what I am waiting for. Good luck, I a nice nap will go a long way.

[Miller786]

Hello, are there any details you can give us regarding the CMFI battle pack?

[Ts4EVER]

Also, I asked this before, but will there be Free French forces in the FB expansion?

[Probus]

14 hours ago, kohlenklau said:

Question 2: Can these mdr bugs such as Cold War sprockets not turning be fixed by a system of "official BFC mods" where the new replacement BFC approved mdr is posted for download versus waiting on a patch?

Official BFC mods.  Now that's an interesting question.  I'd like to see small mods like the introduction of certain Western weapons to the Ukrainians for CMBS.  Might be a workaround to the war embargo?

[BornGinger]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

The more units, the more complex the terrain, the more things like path finding and TacAI gets hammered.  More simplistic terrain might be kinder on path finding, but is probably murder on LOS/LOF checks.

That description of how much the CM2 engine has to work almost makes me think that there's a great need for making a new game engine that can deal with all that much easier.

[Killitwithfire]

Yeesh new comer to the series and first time seeing one of these threads do the developers always act like jerks to customers or is this new? I don’t care if you think his opinion of your product is wrong you are being super rude talking to a customer in that manner. Felt like all I really learned from this thread is that combat mission isn’t going to be making any real improvements any time soon and that they need a less aggressive PR person.

[kohlenklau]

I don't have a powerpoint presentation nor a flipchart but here is my pitch.

CMEW Combat Mission Early War

A war gamer kit.

This is designed to snag that segment of the market using as little of Charles' time as possible.

It will be a lot of "some assembly required" and a lot of "mods required" and fan content based.

It can ship without any scenarios or campaigns.

It should be based off CMFI as that title has lots of nations for each side.

Cram pack each side with all existing vehicles and as many of what I call place holders as possible.

Place holder Vehicles IN THE CODE to try and be the early war vehicles and match to an existing mdr but we could mod to be PzI, tankettes, etc. A vehicle with just an MG and light armor on tracks for example.

The scenario editor would be used to mix and match sides as needed for Spanish Civil War, Winter War, Poland 39, Norway, Invasion of France, Sea Lion, Barbarossa, North Afrika.

It would be designed to be able to try and replicate a wide range of "early war" confrontations AFTER modded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's called "THE ARISTOCRATS!!!" (famous end to a classic crude joke)

[Redwolf]

9 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

I don't have a powerpoint presentation nor a flipchart but here is my pitch.

CMEW Combat Mission Early War

A war gamer kit.

This is designed to snag that segment of the market using as little of Charles' time as possible.

It will be a lot of "some assembly required" and a lot of "mods required" and fan content based.

It can ship without any scenarios or campaigns.

It should be based off CMFI as that title has lots of nations for each side.

Cram pack each side with all existing vehicles and as many of what I call place holders as possible.

Place holder Vehicles IN THE CODE to try and be the early war vehicles and match to an existing mdr but we could mod to be PzI, tankettes, etc. A vehicle with just an MG and light armor on tracks for example.

The scenario editor would be used to mix and match sides as needed for Spanish Civil War, Winter War, Poland 39, Norway, Invasion of France, Sea Lion, Barbarossa, North Afrika.

It would be designed to be able to try and replicate a wide range of "early war" confrontations AFTER modded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's called "THE ARISTOCRATS!!!" (famous end to a classic crude joke)

I like the concept, but it doesn't make the whole thing much more "Charles-free". Right now you cannot do new TO&E without Charles, and that is the big blocker in releasing content that people like me want to throw money at. I like to explore the game in the editor and do silly little test scenarios. Battle packs are not useful to me, and everything else is not "Charles-free". 

For the stuff that you omit in the release in your proposal CM has staff and volunteers that are not Charles, so I doubt it would make a release much easier. The bottleneck is not removed. To make things worse, TO&E research has to happen before Charles-work.

%%

If you ask me what the killer thing to spend Charles-time on is it would be map import/export via XML. That would give people something to dig their claws into. An editor for CM-like terrain even exist and I think it is proper open source, so it could be built upon.