March to slaughter, my mindless automatons!

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

Nor do I have time or inclination to try and explain the effects on the human sensory capabilities a combat situation..

In other words, you'd prefer to tell me that I'm wrong without having to tell me why I'm wrong. It's useless to the discussion if you don't back up your assertions.

I can assure you that your tactics are unsound and the result you describe very predictable..

I fail to see where I *ever* spoke about tactics, or claimed that my tactics were perfect for the situation. Again and again I've iterated that my points are -

1) Squads failing to see opponents in the clear 10 feet away from them.

2) Failing to react to the sound of enemy fire 10 feet away from them.

3) Failing to react to squadmates being cut down.

None of these have anything to do with tactics, and again, have happened under all movement types in all situations. I'm giving one example. Tear away at my tactics all you want, it's beside the point.

Your continuous griping about CMSF at every opportunity leads me to believe your "critiques" are suspect..

I "gripe" if you will because I was handed an unfinished product riddled with missing features and bugs. Moreso, I "gripe" because I see a lot of potential ruined by very specific things. I share those specific things so that others can add in their own specific input, and perhaps at some point a developer will see it, make note of it, and fix it. It's called feedback. Games are better because of it. I suppose you failed to see the numerous posts where I applauded the things that are a positive force in the game.

If you consider my feedback to be suspect, then take a look at the half dozen others that have chimed in here with similar feedback on these issues.

[ September 05, 2007, 11:20 AM: Message edited by: molotov_billy ]

[dalem]

To me this thread represents one of the reasons I personally think that simulations don't necessarily make good games.

-dale

[monkeezgob]

Molotov Billy, you just don't get it.

I thought I may as well say this and save Steve the bother.

[Guest]

Sorry, molotov_billy, I didn't mean to take the thread off track.

Speaking on topic again... molotov_billy's right. The three issues that he describes don't have anything to do with tactics, I've seen them, and they need to be fixed.

I think we probably need to start pooling savegames and screenshots to take this to the next stage.

[molotov_billy]

No problem Phillip! In fact I should take a cue from yourself and be a bit more civil about this.

When I get a couple minutes free (at work now), I'll get a list of situations where I see this type of behavior most often. When I get home I'll grab the name of the scenario and try to get a good save situation for a repro.

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

"...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.

Could not have said it better myself, would also love to see your tutorial Capt., MOUT combat is much deadlier in CMSF than in CMx1, any help in improving our tactics would be much appreciated.

Originally posted by 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

I am in agreement with that comment as well, in CMx1, we got used to scenarios 30-45 minutes long since WEGO tends to compress battles, in CMSF, the same scenario should be longer, say 90-120 minutes, to more closely reflect real time combat.

GeorgeMc's comments on his new scenario "Hammertime" reflects this, it is 1hr50mins long.

[SlowMotion]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

I think we probably need to start pooling savegames and screenshots to take this to the next stage.

If the developers tell they need more of those, it's easy to give good examples that would help tweaking those things closer to what most people probably find reasonable.

[Guest]

Cheers, molotov_billy! Thanks for bringing up these important issues. I do enjoy a good civil conversation as opposed to an argument. I (for my own part) tend to get more done that way. I'll try and help with the repro side of getting these things fixed.

SlowMotion, I'd say that it's highly unlikely that the developers will *ask* for this information. I think it's much easier for them if we just provide it. If you've got some saves or screens that show the issues at hand, throw 'em up and let BFC pick and choose what they're going to use.

To the folks with issues regarding scenario length (The_Capt, Sgt.Joch and Rocky), I totally agree. I always give myself the full two hours, no matter the scenario size that I'm building. Gives me more time to think and play it slow.

[Mord]

Yep. We need one mega thread with just issues and bugs. There are so many topics spread out it has to be a massive PIA for BFC to keep track of what's going on as far as issues...

I started a screen shot thread specifically for graphic glitches, but it would be better if everything was in one spot. Or we had a check list of what has been discussed and marked as in the works for a fix or identified. There's enough of us here that we could do this.

Anybody up for pooling together and making a master list?

Mord.

[peleprodigy]

i love the title of this thread.

[The_Capt]

Mr Billy,

Well I think we can agree on one central point...this is indeed a "useless discussion".

Your tone and volume in this post has been to take a debatable example and blow it as wide open as possible.

You scream "bugs", I say "crappy tactics".

You scream "troops running around a blind corner in line of file in combat should be able to instantly spot an opponent all halt as if mentally linked like the borg and instantly return effective fire."

I say, "you have no idea what you are talking about"

You say, "Yes I do, CMSF sux"

I say, "No it doesn't..you do"

You say, "No you do"

I say, "No you do"

You say, "I know you are but what am I"

I say, "a dickhead says what?"

*insert sound of doves crying*

And so on and so forth...sigh.

Regardless Mr Billy my CMSF-lovin-except-when-the-game-doesn't-do-exactly-what-I-want-cause-I-am-a-tactical-god. I will test your issues and perhaps deliver unto you some solace and ease your pain.

[Calvin]

Bugs or crappy tactics... Well, crappy tactics don't explain why dismounted infantry are so patently lousy at spotting anything. Buttoned up AFV's do it better.

Don't the fundamentals of combined arms tactics include the use of infantry as the "eyes" of the overall force?

I think this aspect, spotting capability, needs fixing now.

[Mud]

If we're talking about playing more cautiously... what would be a reasonable amount of time to clear an airfield the size of Ash Shammas on, say, Elite/1.03, w/o being gamey and taking advantage of knowledge from previous attempts?

[molotov_billy]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

You scream "bugs", I say "crappy tactics"

Sir, I ask again, where have I said anywhere in this thread that my tactics were sound, or that tactics had any relevance to the bugs I reported?

So if this helps - I readily admit that my tactics suck. I'm horrible at this game. I have little more brainpower than the automatons that I command - in fact I'm barely self aware.

If you want to dissect my tactics, I'll be even so glad as to start a thread in the tactics forum and you guys can have a field day over there. Make an instruction manual out of it and teach it to future officers in basic training as an example of "what not to do, ever."

You scream "troops running around a blind corner in line of file in combat should be able to instantly spot an opponent all halt as if mentally linked like the borg and instantly return effective fire."

What I actually said was that I expect a squad of men to see another squad of men in the open a mere 10 feet away. I expect them to have a reaction to point blank enemy fire, and to have a reaction to having their squadmates cut down in plain view in front of them.

I say, "you have no idea what you are talking about"

You say, "Yes I do, CMSF sux"

I say, "No it doesn't..you do"

You say, "No you do"

I say, "No you do"

You say, "I know you are but what am I"

I say, "a dickhead says what?"

*insert sound of doves crying*

And so on and so forth...sigh.

Regardless Mr Billy my CMSF-lovin-except-when-the-game-doesn't-do-exactly-what-I-want-cause-I-am-a-tactical-god. I will test your issues and perhaps deliver unto you some solace and ease your pain.

I think you need to take a quick glance at our conversations here, and I think you might notice that you're the only one here slinging insults around. My points may be emphatic, but at no point have I attempted to personally insult anyone here.

[ September 05, 2007, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: molotov_billy ]

[Scipio]

Originally posted by Redwolf:

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.

I second that!

[Guest]

I've seen molotov_billy's issues in other contexts, The_Capt, which is why I'm willing to say that they seem to be tactic-agnostic. I could be wrong, certainly, but I have seen it in many situations that seem even more clearly to be bugs.

Taking a step back and a deep breath, I think that:

a) your dissection of what is and what is not a tactical error will be a great help in pinning down how much of what we're discussing is a bug,

molotov_billy, et al. (myself included) need to start gathering information to help BFC deal with any parts of it that actually are bugs, and

c) if we all work together on this it'll go a lot smoother.

Honestly, it would be really sweet if just playing the game better would clear up the spotting and TacAI issues that I've seen, and I'm more than willing to listen if someone tells me how to do that.

On the other hand, I would really like to see any related bugs fixed if they exist so that I can enjoy the game.

So... let's get to work?

Cheers, guys.

Edit: Mord, definitely. What do we need to do?

[Dennis50]

a squad is on the move around a corner ...all of a sudden ...klac, klac klac klac klac ..klackity klac ......an ak is taking them out but the rest of the squad says so what, we have a move order so keep going ..10 seconds and the whole squad is dead. In real life not going to happen ..as soon as they hear that klac klac ..everyone will drop low and back off not run into it. The game isn't finished yet, far from it. Yet someone says I know tactics and you don't ..your fault for getting all your pixels killed. Right now it is too much like another action video game and puzzle game. No need to offer up saved replays ..anyone who plays it will see it period. It's all been said over an over in numerous threads. That's all I'm gonna say ..they have a lot of work to do on this thing and they know it ..they may not say it openly but they know it.

Regards,

Gunz

[John Catsack]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

I say, "a dickhead says what?"

Wow.

Billy's point is not that turning a blind corner is a good idea, but that a squad with "Veteran" quality should be smart enough not to march single-file into a killzone where half their number has already been mowed down. Tactics are not a factor in this discussion.

[sandy]

Well said Gunz!

It's yet another example of CMSF being worse than CM1 (IMHO of course)

But the fanboys have to make excuses...happens every time

Sorry - either it's crappy AI/unfinished programming (I hope) or fundamental design flaws (I fear).

[Mord]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

Edit: Mord, definitely. What do we need to do?

Compile a list of issues/bugs, maybe into a word file that can be emailed back and forth, until it is completed. Then create a thread. In each instance we could check off or verify what Steve/BFC has addressed as being worked on or noted, with his/their quotes pertaining to that particular problem.

We could add screen shots of graphics that need tweaking and any saved games with specific instances of weirdness.

It's a thought. Could work.

My email is in my Profile.

Mord.

[SlowMotion]

Originally posted by Phillip Culliton:

I'd say that it's highly unlikely that the developers will *ask* for this information. I think it's much easier for them if we just provide it. If you've got some saves or screens that show the issues at hand, throw 'em up and let BFC pick and choose what they're going to use.

I think they are well aware of many things already and working on those, so I don't know if extra screen shots are useful - especially when they are spread in countless threads. Lots of 1.03 pics have been posted already and in most cases there has been no comment whether those are considered bugs or whether they've been fixed already.

Redwolf started a thread about 1.02 path finding with very detailed description of how things worked in that version. After a long discussion the comment was that this had been already corrected before that thread was created.

1.04 patch should be out this month I believe. I think I'll check the situation then and post more pics if needed.

[Guest]

That sounds good, Mord. Simple and useful. We'd likely need help pulling together the saves and screenshots.

I'll give it some thought myself. I'll also take a crack at the start of such a list, see how difficult it would be to keep that going.

My issue (as a dev myself) is that BFC is more than likely dealing with this stuff on an entirely different level. It would be good to get some detailed information as to what they're actually working on, but I think then we might as well just ask to sign up to be testers. I'd hate to do work on something only to discover that it's been fixed in the current patch, but we didn't know because we're just Joe Public.

How many people would want a public-facing, user-created bug list? Could you guys make use of it at all, BFC? Or would it hinder your efforts?

Edit: SlowMotion, I was actually thinking of RedWolf's thread while writing my last couple posts. Creating redundant work is frustrating. A central list would be helpful in dealing with this, but we'll probably still end up with situations like his.

Still... as a developer, I know that when I'm working on a problem I want every piece of pertinent information at my fingertips, and it's a pain to have to ask. Provide what you have; BFC may not ask but they'll definitely listen.

[ September 05, 2007, 01:47 PM: Message edited by: Phillip Culliton ]

[flamingknives]

How long does it take for a squad to round a corner on quick?

[Abbott]

Originally posted by The_Capt:

Mr Billy,

Well I think we can agree on one central point...this is indeed a "useless discussion".

Your tone and volume in this post has been to take a debatable example and blow it as wide open as possible.

You scream "bugs", I say "crappy tactics".

You scream "troops running around a blind corner in line of file in combat should be able to instantly spot an opponent all halt as if mentally linked like the borg and instantly return effective fire."

I say, "you have no idea what you are talking about"

I think the point is Cap_ that Billy has a legitimate gripe, as do the many others on the Forum with the same gripe. The AI behaves much the same as the AI in Squad Assault does, poorly. I was expecting a LOT more from CM:SF because of my great experiences with CMX1. But if that is the pinnacle of AI behavior when 1:1 representation and RTS is included in a tactical simulation then so be it. I am sure the gang at BFC is aware of it and is likely working diligently to improve upon it. Personally (at this time) the AI’s inadequate actions are a game breaker for me.

[Huntarr]

Originally posted by Sitting Duck:

have already reported the instant commands not working as a bug