Is it only me, or is Elite mode too tedious?

[Thomm]

After finishing the campaign on Veteran, I have switched to playing scenarios on Elite level.

I find the restricted info available on enemy troops very challenging!

But not being able to click on friendly units that are out-of-LOS of the selected unit is just tedious. As is being unable to coordinate movement of formations due to the lack of visual feedback about neighboring units. Especially, because I can readily obtain the information again by deselecting the unit.

Does anybody else feel about this like me or are you content with the current implementation?

Best regards,

Thomm

[Raptor 2101]

did you play Wego ore realtime?

[Cpl Steiner]

Rollstoy,

I actually think Elite is a good simulation of the fog of war (apart from the sound problem - i.e. units can't hear engine noises from very nearby vehicles). You can deselect all units for an overview but then you have to remember where everyone is when you are giving orders to a particular unit. Often this leads to realistic mistakes. For instance, I had an infantry squad that was taking fire from a building. It could see the enemy squad in the building. I deselected my unit and then selected a Bradley nearby. The Bradley could not see the enemy squad but it could see the building, so I ordered the Bradley to use its cannon against the building. It was only after a few minutes of fire that I realised that the enemy squad was on the ground floor but the Bradley was targeting the second floor.

This sort of mistake is a good feature IMHO.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Raptor 2101:

did you play Wego ore realtime?

real time.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

For instance, I had an infantry squad that was taking fire from a building. It could see the enemy squad in the building. I deselected my unit and then selected a Bradley nearby. The Bradley could not see the enemy squad but it could see the building, so I ordered the Bradley to use its cannon against the building. It was only after a few minutes of fire that I realised that the enemy squad was on the ground floor but the Bradley was targeting the second floor.

Well, but 'Veteran' does exactly the same, without hiding friendly units?!

One mistake that can be made by the commander is to send vehicles to spots that are already occupied by friendly vehicles, resulting in massive chaos!

Basically, I guess I would like to have an additional level that reduces information about enemy squads, retains the possibility of friendly fire, but lets me see all my units at all times.

Best regards,

Thomm

[SgtMuhammed]

I love elite. That's all I play. Sometimes the spotting gets a little strange though. In real life when a Bradley rolls past a squad I can pretty much guarantee that it will be seen.

[Cpl Steiner]

Rollstoy,

I see what you mean about my example. It wasn't very well chosen. A better one would be when you are trying to pick up a squad with its IFV and the IFV doesn't have direct visual contact with the squad. Often you can end up moving it to the wrong pickup location if you aren't careful.

[Other Means]

I've never played anything but Elite, so I've no idea.

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

I love elite. That's all I play. Sometimes the spotting gets a little strange though. In real life when a Bradley rolls past a squad I can pretty much guarantee that it will be seen.

That summs up my major gripe with it. 2 Abrahms next to each other will know about it. Otherwise how can they spot the T72 across the map? Same for Strykers etc. The friendly relative spotting seems very out.

[SgtMuhammed]

It just bugs me that it doesn't seem to make any difference if the unit is in communication or not. What is the purpose of all those slots for commo status? I don't know how many times I have clicked on a unit that has all the commo icons in place (radio, voice, sight, pda, etc) but still has no idea where anything is friendly or enemy.

[MarkEzra]

Elite, Veteran, Green....Oh Good Now I can Finally rant about something.

It is FOW settings...NOT how great my eye/hand coordination, click festing level of pixel killing is. What a pandering batch of phrases.

Just because 12 year olds can buy the game doesn't mean we have to use nomenclature to suit ten year olds....!

Thanks, I needed to get that off my chest.

I play Elite normally but Veteran pops up in my PBEM. The FOW issues like "Not Knowing" vs not "Not Seeing" friendly vehicles/units next to you is just plain Goofy. The abstraction of using no line of site should relate to sound and more slowly, unit spot reports as well. What I mean be this is unit "A":

1. moves out of LOS but not Sound is still recognized

2. Out of sight and Sound: Last known location.

3. Units reaching a way point or having been spotted by enemy forces/taking fire/or other actions and who have the ability to contact HQ should be located by HQ only. Time delays for that activity would naturally apply.

The entire FOW mechanism can better reflect Command and Control issues for both Blue and Red forces/doctrine.

[ September 04, 2007, 06:18 AM: Message edited by: MarkEzra ]

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by AdamL:

If they made it so when you held the shift key you could see all your friendly units, with the ones in LOS/command being highlighted we would have the control problem fixed. As long as you don't hold shift it would work the same as it does now.

I would like to know officially if this is intentional or if it is a legitimate bug. I think it is a band box or group selection bug.

I hope to heck this behaviour is a bug. (and will be corrected in v1.04)

I believe it was introduced in v1.03

is that correct?

-tom w

[Thomm]

Originally posted by AdamL:

If they made it so when you held the shift key you could see all your friendly units, with the ones in LOS/command being highlighted we would have the control problem fixed. As long as you don't hold shift it would work the same as it does now.

Yes, nice idea!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Hawkmek]

Rollstoy: One mistake that can be made by the commander is to send vehicles to spots that are already occupied by friendly vehicles, resulting in massive chaos!

With All Paths (ALT+P) turned on and no unit selected this should never occur. You can see everything and their destinations.

One thing that frustrates me is with no unit sleected, I see an enemy icon. Problem is which one of my unit has LOS to that unit? I have to click thru them all and wait for the icon to show to have that unit target the enemy.

What happened to the 'target sees me' blue lines from CMBO? Too gamey?

[SgtMuhammed]

If you click on the enemy icon all of your units that can see it will be highlighted. I just realized this the other night.

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

If you click on the enemy icon all of your units that can see it will be highlighted. I just realized this the other night.

This isn't always true. I often find that while selecting an enemy unit I don't always have LoS to this enemy from my own highlighted units. What I believe is actually happening is by clicking on the enemy unit I'm able to see which of my own troops the enemy has LoS to. If my guess is good then that's a bug.

[MikeyD]

I want to defend Elite but I've got to admit I do almost all my playing in Veteran. Maybe its because most days I'm not really trying to test my skills against a worthy opponent, i just want to see things 'blow up real good'! If you're just sitting down to a game before bedtime to enjoy the light show (airbust artillery at night is way-cool) stringent LOS and chain-of-command rules are rather beside the point.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by sgtgoody (esq):

If you click on the enemy icon all of your units that can see it will be highlighted. I just realized this the other night.

WAY Cool!!

I have NO idea

Thanks a million for that tip, I had no idea.

[bwgulley]

It don't work, when I try that several of my unit that "can" see the bad guys light up. When I select one of them to fire on the enemy I get a no line of sight message sometimes. Really bums me out. Happens more often that not.

[Renaud]

Posted this in tech support as 'manual errata', but no responses. The manual states that in Elite mode:

... If you have a friendly unit not in line of sight or contact with another friendly unit, then the only way to find this unit is by either re-establishing contact with anothr of your units or by clicking through the chain of command [...] jumping from unit to unit.

This would be a great form of extreme iron-man FOW! However, as everyone has probably figured out by now, this is not the case. You simply click off the current unit (anywhere) and then all friendly units become visible to the player including those out of contact. Was this a last minute playability decision?

As it stands, the friendly FOW is simply an annoyance as it doesn't add anything and forces you to do an extra click to select another unit. Is friendly-fire in the engine? This would seem to be the other great reason for implementing friendly FOW. Have seen no friendly fire yet.

Another seperate issue is that the FBCB2 only seems to show friendly units as blue "?" symbols. I have not used the system personally, but doesn't it show exact unit ID and type on the touchscreen? I would think friendly FOW and fratricide for FCBC2-equipped units would be limited to cases where the FCBC2 was damaged, a very hairy situation, or a very bad judgement call. In CM game terms the FCBC2 unit models would always be visible in Elite mode (though not necessarily 'in-command' per the manual text). I'm curious as to how the game-design decision was made there, admitting I haven't researched the FCBC2 functionality.

[Paper Tiger]

Like the others, I noticed that my units light up when I click on a spotted enemy unit but most of them actually have no LoS at all. Maybe this will be fixed later?

Actually, my main gripe with Elite is that you get too much information. My units seem to know instantly if they are looking at an HQ, AT team or whatever. Maybe this really happens in real life, I don't know. Or maybe I'm still stuck in the CMx1 WW2 frame of mind when it takes some time to identify enemy units.

[Statisoris]

For realism in Elite mode, it should probably take a little longer to identify the enemy unit type, unless its very obvious. I really dont know how you could instantly tell a HQ combatant unit from a regular combatant squad at 500m. If you think about it, you might not know that combatant HQ unit was an HQ unit until you pick over their dead bodies. Syrian army formations might be a different matter, since HQ units and their associated officers and personel would appear different from a regular infantry squad.

[aka_tom_w]

What kind of suggestions for further work or fixes to Elite FOW should be looking for?

How can Elite FOW be fixed.

Is it still too tedious to play because it does not display friendly units that are clearly in visual contact with the unit selected.

(this issue is compounded by how difficult it is to band box or group select in Elite FOW)

[panzermartin]

Friendly spotting in elite is plain tedious. Group select is a pain in the a** and it is just more work for your mouse and memory. Nothing to add in the game imo. Keep the enemy FOW as is or make it even harder but drop completely the friendly units going invisible. Just doesnt feel right. I'd play veteran but the instant enemy intelligence makes it uninteresting.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

Is it still too tedious to play ...

For me, yes.

I play 'Veteran' mostly to avoid the double-clicking orgy that 'Elite' tends to become. Which is a pity, because I would like to have realistic arty/air response times and reduced spotting information.

Best regards,

Thomm