House to house fighting gripes

[Tuomio]

After 20+ hours under my belt, focusing on the RT playing, i am getting very frustrated with AI pathfinding and building representations.

Troops excecute house to house movements in completely unrealistic, unpredictable and unplayable ways. If there is a row of buildings, there is no way to tell whether my troops are going to have party on the street before entering the next building when i order them to do so. Usually there is even a door to the next room, but it beats me why troops refuse to use them.

Troops do not utilize windows as entrances in CMSF. I dont mind pathfinding bugs here and there, ie. sometimes 2 of my troops run to the streets when others go to the roof. I dont count that, but when a platoon gets massacred, houston has a problem.

These reasons force me to babysit every inch of the automated pathfinding of my troops when they are at foot. REnders WEGO 100% unusable and makes RT commanding the micromanagement this game was not supposed to be! This issue has to be urgently fixed. I have to be able to tell, which door they need to use when entering and if they cannot compute, then its better they sit on their backs and not start duck-walking on street guarded by 10 enemy MG nests.

Solution:

When selecting troop movement order, buildings should show passageways by 2-d (or any other clear visual and fast representation) arrows, be they room to room, exits or roof entrances. This "compass" would trigger on mouse hover upon the building. This way i could figure out how the pathfinding will end up.

[Laptop]

I completely agree. Path finding is messed up. I was playing the MOUT Hospital level and was successfully clearing the hospital until my platoon decided to wander onto the roof instead of going through the door to the next room. They got completely massacred.

Tim

[Berlichtingen]

Perhaps if, as you click way points, it would show you where they are really going to move it wouldn't be so bad

[Other Means]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

Perhaps if, as you click way points, it would show you where they are really going to move it wouldn't be so bad

Yep, the same system to HTTR would be good, so you can order "fast" which is a direct or "covered" which seeks cover etc.

Show the path the units are going to take and 90% of pathfinding error reports would go I think.

Of course, then you'd get "stupid routing" errors but it's a good swap.

[Sirocco]

I think showing the paths might be a good idea, too. I've seen some odd vehicle behaviour even moving off road a short distance - charging up a road taking a right turn, then driving back on rough ground parallel to the road to reach the desired position - and I've also lost an M1 that seemed to want to back up in clear ground instead of following a simple two point movement order.

If you could see the path the AI chooses you could cancel and re-plot the more obtuse behaviour.

[thewood]

CM showed you the final path that the AI was planning after you gave it a waypint. I didn't even notice it was missing until you pointed it out. Another time saving feature.

[Roter Stern]

Completely agree - pathfinding problems in general and during FIBUA specifically makes WeGo basically unplayable and turns RT into a game of route micromanagement.

[Blackmuzzle]

I would be happy if there was a way to TELL (as in, from the shape of the mouse cursor) where to click to get the guys pop in for a spell - or did I miss something and should RTFM again?

[Razgovory]

Originally posted by Laptop:

I completely agree. Path finding is messed up. I was playing the MOUT Hospital level and was successfully clearing the hospital until my platoon decided to wander onto the roof instead of going through the door to the next room. They got completely massacred.

Tim

Same thing happened to me. Instead of going in to the building I ordered them into they decided to enter the one two doors down, climb to the roof and hop roof-to-roof to the building. One guy actually made it. I ordered my Strykers to open up on him.

[thewood]

That'll teach him...cept he won't be doing an lessons learned

[Hev]

I noticed some awfull pathfinding on the $th training mission. I rolled a stryker up to the first house on the road and told my boys to assault the house.

Not only did the second building NOT BLOCK LOS to my boys ( hence they got creamed by syrians that can see THROUGH buildings ) but when they didnt get shot exiting the stryker they decided to run AROUND THE HOUSE AND USE A DOOR IN PLAIN VIEW OF THE ENEMY

OMFG This pathfinding is the worst i have EVER seen

[Pandur]

they decided to run AROUND THE HOUSE AND USE A DOOR IN PLAIN VIEW OF THE ENEMY

haha!

i had exactly the same thing today. funny though, the backside of the house was breached, they still took the long way.

that made me pause/safe my 2nd campain battle, wich is in fact runing verry verry well, but the pathfinding and inf house to house clearing is just too prone to failure with this tacAI.

however it works, but provokes many reloads and well, i play WEGO, to see a squad bunching up at some place, slowing down there or taking insane routes here for 60 seconds in order to get shot is too much.

i mean i can see how it "should" work, and that would be awsome, but some things need defenitly refinement.

for example it would greatly help if you could see if you can move inside a house or if you need to go around befor you try it.

EDIT:

i will stick to open space for now, and explore the game in traditional firefight in red vs red scenarios for some days...

[ July 30, 2007, 08:07 PM: Message edited by: Pandur ]

[jomni]

After seeing all these posts, there is a consensus that your troops need to go back to the boot camp.

The individual soldiers should be taught battlefield doctrine. They should know how to act on their own.

Baby sitting is not the way to go for this level of detail... unless you want to be like the other mass market RTS games.

[Dirtweasle]

Anyone have a clue how to get the squads to breach through a wall?

Acording to the manual you can use the blast command but I cannot get it to work yet and have tried a few differnet structures and regular walls.

[Hev]

Ok, this is getting annoying. Still in the training campaign, on the mout mission.

SPOILER*****************

On the left side of the road is a two part building ( a one story part on the left and a two story part on the right ) Upon assaulting into the building i note there is i door going from the smaller to the larger part of the building. If i order my boys into the adjoining building they run outside and procede around the back of the building through a hail of fire.

Anyone else see this?

[Neutrino 123]

I think the "door" is only in one of the buildings, so you can't go through.

I just wish I could enter through windows...

[Hev]

never thought of that, but, on that note, if a door is visable you should be able to move through it.

Is this what we get, 1to1 representing of our troops, but doors that arnt doors!! c'mon people, this aint right.

[ChrisND]

Ya, know, I just thought of something and I feel stupid for not thinking of it earlier... windows are perfectly viable entry points, altough it would take longer.

[jomni]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

Ya, know, I just thought of something and I feel stupid for not thinking of it earlier... windows are perfectly viable entry points, altough it would take longer.

When doing close quarters, entering via windows is extremely dangerous as it makes you less capable of firing back when ambushed. Unless you do a window break in while rapeling like in Rainbow Six.

Going into windows should be done only when it is safe.

[Zipuli]

"When doing close quarters, entering via windows is extremely dangerous as it makes you less capable of firing back when ambushed."

Of course depends on the window... a 10 x 10 inch window is difficult. With a slightly bigger window that is broken (already or by the squad - takes some 1-2 seconds) the first guy goes prone and the rest run over him in to the building like they were using stairs and I don't find that any more dangerous than going in the door - the only place in the building every gun is pointing at if you think someone is outside and wants in.

"Going into windows should be done only when it is safe."

Going into doors should also be done only when it is safe. (But as it is now in the game the infantry does not fire at troops that are moving in the same floor as they are. The firing begins once both squads are stopped - and then it is always the one that got in last who wins, always! Because the other squad is looking out the windows etc. and not interested in the squad that just ran in and is now behind their backs.) If it's not safe, the grunts should trhow in a grenade or 2 and then do the entry - from windows and doors.

Zip

[jomni]

Lesson: for accurate depiction of close quarters combat... play an FPS or Full Spectrum Warrior.

Do you think the current engine can portray this accurately. I'd rather have an abstraction like in CMx1.

[ChrisND]

Originally posted by jomni:

lesson: for accurate depiction of close quarters combat... play an FPS or Full Spectrum Warrior.

LOL!!!

[Zipuli]

"Lesson: for accurate depiction of close quarters combat... play an FPS or Full Spectrum Warrior."

LOL!!!

"Do you think the current engine can portray this accurately. I'd rather have an abstraction like in CMx1."

Well it is trying to and that's why some funny things happen. As an example the unit that enters enemy occupied building (floor) NEVER suffers any casualties if there is not a 2nd enemy unit firing at them from somewhere else. If it was abstraction I would think that the calculations would be against the entry squad, not the one in good positions inside the houes?

Zip

[Guest]

I think this is my biggest beef with CM:SF... troops don't react properly. It's almost as if they don't "think" often enough (I am a programmer and my primary area of expertise is AI, so I have an idea of a) what this would look like and what I'm talking about in general).

They do fine when responding within their forward or set firing arc, but anything that invalidates that arc (like, say, assaulting into a building where your squad's generalized forward arc is no longer facing the bulk of your enemy) just blows their tiny minds.

If this is indeed the case, the "last guy in WINS!" thing would be just another excellent example.

Edit: Whoops, forgot to be explicit. It's an excellent example because it most likely requires BOTH the assaulting and defending unit to react outside their firing arcs, which would explain the severely delayed reactions that people are seeing.

Phil