March to slaughter, my mindless automatons!

[molotov_billy]

The number one thing bothering me right now - just quit a game because of it, absolutely frustrating. It's happened in both of the scenarios I've played today, and it seems completely unavoidable in MOUT.

Squads don't stop moving when they're taking fire/casualties. I had a squad moving under "quick" from point A to point B in an urban environment - as they turned a corner, each one of them in turn was mowed down by an enemy squad that was lying prone 10 feet away.

Number 1 - you see people 10 feet away from you. My squad never spotted the enemy squad - though I knew they were there because of muzzleflashes. They can spot a hidden ATGM team 500 meters away from them, but they don't spot a gaggle of syrians laying in the road *RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM*

Number 2 - the movement order was never cancelled, or halted. The entire squad, to the last man, walked into the ambush.

Number 3 - none of my men ever stop to return fire in this case, even when they spot the enemy team. If you HAVE to keep moving, why not fire while on the move to at least supress whoever's shooting at you? Better yet, why the hell are you running towards a pile of bodies and the sound of machinegun fire a couple of feet away from you?

This doesn't happen just at short distance, either. I *always* have to cancel the move orders myself. Issue a "move" order and observe that even though your men are getting cut down, they continue to stroll along like they're on a quiet patrol. No stopping, no return fire, no seeking cover. Absolute vapid nonsense.

[ September 05, 2007, 02:33 AM: Message edited by: molotov_billy ]

[Thomm]

There are definitely issues.

What I found interesting is that lately I had a squad 'hunting' over a field when they were hit by machine gun fire. A few guys went down almost instantly, whereafter I cancelled the hunt order and put them on hide.

They dropped to the ground and took casualties at a very low rate, allowing me to evacuate four survivors with a Bradley.

It would be nice if they would act like that by themselves (based on surrounding terrain, of course) rather than walk on because they did not spot the MG.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Lindan]

Originally posted by molotov_billy:

The entire squad, to the last man, walked into the ambush.

[schnipp]

Better yet, why the hell are you running towards a pile of bodies and the sound of machinegun fire a couple of feet away from you?

Because every German WW2 squad in every Hollywood flick from the 60ies-70ties I've ever seen behaves like that. It's realistic you see?

[James Crowley]

I don't yet have a lot of experience with CMSF but this is a definite trend that I have noticed and it certainly needs to be addressed for WeGo, where, of course, you cannot immediately order your men to halt as you may be able to in RT.

In one two battles, squads filed around a corner, pretty much one man after another, and were mown down, to a man.

I cannot recall this happening with CMX1, at least to the same extent. The affected squad would stop, at the very least (I think! - isn't it funny not being able to remember CMX1 behaviour) and try to move into cover. Or do the dance of death - at least it tried to do something else!

[Abbott]

Because every German WW2 squad in every Hollywood flick from the 60ies-70ties I've ever seen behaves like that. It's realistic you see?

LOL!

[Becket]

Originally posted by James Crowley:

I don't yet have a lot of experience with CMSF but this is a definite trend that I have noticed and it certainly needs to be addressed for WeGo, where, of course, you cannot immediately order your men to halt as you may be able to in RT.

In one two battles, squads filed around a corner, pretty much one man after another, and were mown down, to a man.

I cannot recall this happening with CMX1, at least to the same extent. The affected squad would stop, at the very least (I think! - isn't it funny not being able to remember CMX1 behaviour) and try to move into cover. Or do the dance of death - at least it tried to do something else!

My recollection is that they plowed fearlessly onward for quite a bit, and that the forums erupted in a furor when the CMBB demo came out - simply because Soviet conscripts in Yelnia stare wouldn't move anywhere; they'd take fire and drop/retreat.

[MarkEzra]

There are two things here:

1. Improve situational awareness of Hunting troops...That's on BFC...And we all know they are busy addressing this issue. If history is any judge this will go through several tweaks before most players are satisfied,

2. The other point is on the player: if I run 'em around a corner without so much as a pause before turning...well that's on me. Quick movement lowers situational awareness and must be used accordingly. Your pixel squad would have been better served to quick move close to the corner, hunt move (with the corresponding pause between change in way points) around the corner, That would have improved spotting and situational awareness. Poor tactics generate poor results.

[Sgt Joch]

There are many things wrong with CMSF and I have posted a lot of issues (but I can't stop playing the game, so I guess it is a love-hate thing.. ), however, I would say this is more of a player rather than a game issue.

Squads are more fragile in CMSF than in CMBB/CMAK and get killed/rattled more easily as soon as they take fire.

Moving squads around dismounted using "quick" in an urban setting is a good way to get a lot of casualties, I learned that the hard way.

You have to be even more cautious than in CMBB/CMAK, and use every trick in the book, i.e.: 1) use your strykers/afv/artillery to "recon by fire" suspected enemy positions, 2) move one squad at a time to a close precise objective, use "hunt, as soon as you spot anything remotely hostile, plaster it with firepower until it is obliterated, etc., etc.,..and you will see your casualties go way down.

[Lurker765]

I don't think it is a lot to ask of your squad that if they turn around a corner and the first six guys get quickly shot that the seventh guy think that it might be a bad idea to keep going. Or to at least wait until the machine gun noises stop. Even if they are using 'quick' rather than hunt.

This is a fun destroying 'feature' in WEGO in my opinion.

[Sitting Duck]

Originally posted by James Crowley:

I don't yet have a lot of experience with CMSF but this is a definite trend that I have noticed and it certainly needs to be addressed for WeGo, where, of course, you cannot immediately order your men to halt as you may be able to in RT...

Why not?

Seems to me that since there is no blue bar in WEGO, the instant commands should be enabled.

[Sgt Joch]

you order 7 guys to "jog" around a corner, emphasizing speed over caution, they run into an ambush and are mowed down at point blank range before the last ones can react, sounds like a realistic result to me.

my point is that if you are using a "hunt" or an "assault" command which are more appropriate in the circumstances, the squad's casualties would be a lot less.

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Sgt.Joch:

my point is that if you are using a "hunt" ...

No. They stop when they spot something, but not when they are shot on. It hurts to watch.

See my post above.

Best regards,

Thomm

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by Sgt.Joch:

you order 7 guys to "jog" around a corner, emphasizing speed over caution, they run into an ambush and are mowed down at point blank range before the last ones can react, sounds like a realistic result to me.

Sorry, no - jogging does not result in blindness and deafness. Ten men, actually, slaughtered to the last.

I don't expect them to see targets to their flank at 100 meteres while jogging, or hear a distant tank. I do expect them to see a syrian *squad* 10 feet in front of them in open ground, I do expect them to hear machinegun fire 10 feet in front of them, and I do expect them to react to their squadmates being dropped *right in front of them* one by one by said squad and noise.

my point is that if you are using a "hunt" or an "assault" command which are more appropriate in the circumstances, the squad's casualties would be a lot less.

The same behavior occurs with every move type.

[ September 05, 2007, 10:00 AM: Message edited by: molotov_billy ]

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by MarkEzra:

2. The other point is on the player: if I run 'em around a corner without so much as a pause before turning...well that's on me. Quick movement lowers situational awareness and must be used accordingly. Your pixel squad would have been better served to quick move close to the corner, hunt move (with the corresponding pause between change in way points) around the corner, That would have improved spotting and situational awareness. Poor tactics generate poor results.

Absolute fantasty - a hopeless amount of micromanagement that cannot and will not happen if I control more than a platoon sized force - nevermind that given previous incarnations of this bug, it could have just as easily happened *before* the corner, the location to where you so astutely told them quick move. Bad tactics, my friend!

No, I ordered them to move quickly, not to put on blindfolds and to cover the ears of the man in front of them.

The AI in the game is not reacting to sights and sounds that a normal human force would react to. Fact. That's all.

[Guest]

Rollstoy, your issue is something that I've seen dozens of times. I hope that BFC can fix it up. I haven't seen it in 1.03 but I haven't checked for it.

MarkEzra, you're right about point 2), but if you're not micromanaging you can't slice every corner that every squad and team have to cross.

If your team is moving towards a known hot spot without micromanagement (as posited by BFC in another thread) you should be able to focus on getting them there without worrying that your nine (nine!) men will be cut down one after another by a new threat.

Units need to respond credibly to new threats regardless of their movement speed. This involves seeking cover and possibly attempting suppression, neither of which appear to happen at the moment in the situations described.

molotov_billy -- for the moment, I guess we need to micro our guys around corners if we want them to behave "normally". MarkEzra had a good suggestion (and his point 1) is REAL important, Hunt did not work in 1.02, I haven't tested it extensively in 1.03) with Hunting around the corner.

Additionally, though, I've noticed that troops will "check" their corner if you move the unit close to it -- a guy or two will poke their heads around if you give them a few seconds at the corner before turning it. I'd give that a shot.

[The_Capt]

Gents,

You know I recall a lot of this type of discussion back in the CMx1 days. CMSF is a lot more complicated than the old CM so the inclination for people to "blame the pool cue" appears to be an increasing trend, particularly in light of the fact the game did have some bugs on release.

"It isn't me..its that damn T-72s-explode-when- they-try-to-take-an-M1-front-on..bug. BFC fix it!!"

If you send your guys jogging around a blind corner in real life any opponent with a shred of experience or trg will simply wait until all eight memebers of the track club are in the open and then kill them all.

CMSF doesn't react quite that way but the results are the same. Don't know how many here have actually tried to move under fire but I can see at least half a section getting hit even if your bad guy gets jumpy and pops the first one around the corner.

"Move Move Move" and you whole section jogs ahead with a purpose, just like you were trained to do on a drill square. No "Hey Sarge you think we should move tactically?" When told to jog you freakin jog. First guy goes around the corner..noise and dust.

Number two is going to be right behind him because as a section you try and get your guns all pointing in the same direction quickly and you always want to cover the guy next to you. Number two has time to see number one in a heap and zap he is hit.

Number three with similar mindset may see number two go down but did the clumsy **** trip..again? Whoops no he didn't.

So by number 4 (who should be the section 2 i/c) you may get a reaction..against an inexperienced jumpy opponent. Get a vet or crack muji behind that PKM and you are looking at a whole lot of Defence dollars bleeding to death in the street.

And there you have the main reason we don't move that way in a built up area. And just because CMSF will let you move troops like that...in this situation, you probably shouldn't.

Oh and for the record..in CMx1 if you did the same thing all three Charlie Browns would hit the dirt, do the crawl of death and be cut to pieces.

Try entering the building that constitutes "the corner". If the door is on the wrong side, so are you. If it is a wall, get into a building that can see whats over it or blast thru it. Try slow, sneak hunt. Anything but "quick" except to cross a street into a building you know is clear.

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

"Move Move Move" and you whole section jogs ahead with a purpose, just like you were trained to do on a drill square.

Yes, and with your eyes closed of course.

I think you might be having trouble visualizing just how far away ten feet really is.

I think you might be having trouble imagining what an AK47 sounds like from ten feet away. It isn't "noise." Nine men successively falling in front of you isn't just "dust."

Human men do not continue to jog around corners when half a dozen others have died in front of them in doing so, or even one, or even from the gunfire alone, which is so obviously close.

[Rocky Balboa]

Cap,

I absolutely agree with what your saying and that's why I take issue with some of these scenario designers that give you 30-40 mins to clear a village. Most people get bogged down by the battle timer and start rushing to beat the clock and this is when these mistakes occur.

Of course time constraints are a part of war and 30-40 mins may be all you have to clear an objective so my advice to scenario designers is this:

Give some serious thought to the battle timer and if there is a reason why the commander only has 30 mins to secure an objective then design your scenario accordingly. Don't just select an arbitrary 30-40 mins because that's what you did in CMx1

[molotov_billy]

Another fun fact - if the other stuff does not convince you that something is wrong - the execution squad could not even keep up with my stream of automatons - in fact, many of the soldiers were running over their friend's bodies past the corner to mindlessly continue the "jog" to their waypoint. That ten feet number was perhaps half that for some of them. Not a one saw a trace of the enemy.

[Redwolf]

This is another point where I think CMx2 is overengineered.

From incoming fire you either get what is described here, an inappropriate attempt to continue to follow your orders.

Or you get automatically given other orders, such as the (in-)famous "crawl of death", or auto-sneak-exhaustion like I like to call it.

I don't see anything wrong with reacting to incoming fire by just canceling or suspending all player orders, not give any new orders either, lay down where they are and return fire. Give it a little timeout so that you can then give orders to crawl out if you want and they don't get instantly canceled.

And I don't make this up, it is tested and works well. What I describe is what TacOps does and I think it is very elegant and straightforward, realistic and useful.

[Guest]

molotov_billy, funny -- the issue that I've seen with Hunt is exactly what you're describing with your Quick move. Just plain damn failing to see the enemy ten feet away (although, as stated, ironically they can "spot" an enemy gun team in a building three blocks away).

I initially stated, way back at 1.01, that the TacAI seemed to "tick" too slowly. I wonder if that's issue here.

I don't think *any* suggestions are going to help if your guys just plain aren't going to notice the enemy.

BFC has stated that troops don't notice "dust", but I wonder about noise? Would hearing the gunfire so close make a difference to the unit?

Redwolf, your suggestion would be a great starting point to a fix for this. Of course, the troops need to *notice* the enemy first.

[The_Capt]

Originally posted by molotov_billy:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by The_Capt:

"Move Move Move" and you whole section jogs ahead with a purpose, just like you were trained to do on a drill square.

Yes, and with your eyes closed of course.

I think you might be having trouble visualizing just how far away ten feet really is.

I think you might be having trouble imagining what an AK47 sounds like from ten feet away. It isn't "noise." Nine men successively falling in front of you isn't just "dust."

Human men do not continue to jog around corners when half a dozen others have died in front of them in doing so, or even one, or even from the gunfire alone, which is so obviously close. </font>

[Guest]

The_Capt, it would actually be cool if you could provide a tutorial to all of us that don't necessarily have the background to use sound tactics to get the results we want (not including molotov_billy in this, just saying).

If my problem is that I haven't been playing right, I'd really like ideas about how to do it better. I'll be the first to admit that "lectures" regarding the sights and sounds of urban combat, and how to fight my platoons more capably, would be useful to me.

[The_Capt]

Phillip,

Regardless of Mr Billys response (which I fear may be somewhat caustic) I would be all to happy put together a tutorial that may help players prevent the disaster as outlined at the start of this thread. Gimme a couple days, my wife is going out of town so I can dedicate more time to my "electronic mistress".

Urban combat is a tricky thing at the best of times but some basic rules of the road can help one avoid excessive pain.

And for Mr Billy, I will make it my priority effort to test the scenario you have spelled out (and others have also expressed concerns over) to better determine what was bad tactics and what may be a game issue. Again I would ask you let me know what the scenario was and where exactly it happened.

[Guest]

Thanks, The_Capt. I'd really appreciate it.

With regards to game issues (especially AI issues, which I do feel pretty qualified to spot ) I have noticed that units do not take notice of nearby enemy units as readily as they spot distant enemies.

Hopefully it's another one of those "fix one thing and suddenly dozens of different complaints are dealt with" sort of things.