The Wrong Left Turn and the Uncanny Valley

[Michael Dorosh]

I don't know necessarily that I believe everything I'm about to say, but I think it may generate some interesting discussion - hopefully constructive.

As a bit of background about where I am coming from. Between 1968 and the year 2000, some 115 separate board wargames were released depicting tactical level (meaning individual units depict platoons, squads, or individual men) combat in the 20th Century. I own 102 of them; the ones I'm missing are by and large modules or variants of ones I do own. This doesnt' make me an "expert" on anything, but it means I have an interest in the portrayal of tactical combat in a game setting. It's given me the opportunity to review how different designers have tackled design problems.

From 1985 to present, there have been about 55 different PC titles to portray the same thing - i.e. 20th Century tactical combat. I've personally played about half of them but have no insights into their design.

The history of the Combat Mission franchise is well known. Some points to note - it was certainly not the first tactical, squad-based game to graduate to the computer. Under Fire was on PCs as early as 1985. It was not the first 3D tactical squad-based game, Muzzle Velocity had that honour. It was, though, the first game to combine squad based tactics, turn-based planning, 3D graphics, and a WEGO system that was at that time revolutionary - and from what I understand, is still unique. Other games of the genre seemed inferior by comparison - Steel Panthers was far too "gamey" - you could draw fire by taking advantage of the turn-based system unrealistically since everything was sequential and strictly IGO-UGO, and Close Combat was too closed-ended - making maps was not something casually done, and on-map forces were restricted to over-strength platoons confined to a few hundred metres of terrain.

Scale

Designer John Hill - later famous for Squad Leader - published "Ten Rules for Playability" in the early 1970s. Part and parcel to playability was the concept of scale. You can't simulate Napoleon's invasion of Russia using 40 metre hex maps. Games were designed to be played in one sitting (for the computer, this is debatable, since we can now save games without having to worry about cats and kids, but I think a good rule of thumb remains that a playing time of a couple of hours for a single game is about right). His inappropriately named Squad Leader, released in 1977, had the player control company-sized groups of men, divided into individual pieces representing 10-15 men apiece. The system was highly abstract - "Design for Effect" was his mantra - and it worked. It was simple and it was fun, and it provided the framework for a ridiculous amount of more complex rules later, which have again been simplified down to the three Starter Kits - ASL Lite, if you prefer.

Complexity

I posted this in another thread, but let me reiterate it here. When Squad Leader came out in 1977, it abstracted a whole lot of processes that another squad level game released a year earlier had rendered in painstaking detail. It went on to become Advanced Squad Leader, which now has 13 modules, 2 deluxe modules, 6 historical modules/studies, a rash of TPP imitators, over 4000 printed scenarios and possibly the most commercially successful board wargame to date.

The game that came a year before it was Tobruk. Aside from being an ugly little game with flat terrain boards and an uninspiring choice of theatre, it tracked every single tank's shot in painful detail. And it was so labour intensive that almost no one played it. Publisher Avalon Hill thought so little of it, they actually gave the rights back to its inventor, the late Hal Hock, and said "thanks, but no thanks." The game sat around for 20 years until Raymond J. Tapio rewrote it heavily and made it playable. In other words, more like Squad Leader. It is now on the market as Advanced Tobruk System, but ISTM that Tapio still makes money selling TPP ASL stuff too because ATS won't do it on its own.

Combat Mission

Wargamers gagged for Squad Leader for the computer for years (and when Hasbro abused the rights to the franchise name with an absurd man-to-man game by that title, the gagging turned to retching, but I digress), and Combat Mission delivered.

What did Combat Mission really do?

Well, it provided the same painful detail of tank penetrating hits and ammunition that both Tobruk and Squad Leader did (not to mention other games I haven't mentioned here, like Yaquinto's trilogy of 88/Panzer/Armor who had great fidelity in the armour modelling realm also), but with the advantage of a computer doing the calculations so that the player didn't have to. The newcomer was a bit lost, but it didn't take much intuition to figure out Tiger=good, Sherman=Bad. And learning was part of the fun.

But the whining about the graphics! The blocky 3D cavemen running around like refugees from a Jack Kirby comic book were positively grotesque. The twitch crowd whined to high heaven about camera controls and wanting to see every man on the map.

So what does BF.C do?

Why did Steve listen?

They listened, of course. For some reason, tracking individual bullets became a matter of priority. But let's stop and look at the decision for a second. A single Mimimi LMG fires 1100 rounds per minute of 5.56mm ammunition. An M4 carbine can fire 500 rpm. That's a lot of firepower for a squad. More important - that's a lot of trajectories for the engine to trace.

1:1 modelling became a buzzword on these forums after CM:AK, as if it was some kind of Holy Grail or something. But look what it's resulted in.

* reams of data for the computer to sift through. So much data, that we can't have WEGO TCP play anymore. We were almost in danger of PBEM being cut out, too.

* individual bullet tracking is in, but what about the brain behind the gun? There is no data on personalities; every soldier in every squad is a cookie cutter with the same physical - and mental - attributes as his mates.

* area fire commands still snap to an 8 metre grid; machine guns don't rack entire building fronts; they hammer a single window on the front of a building.

* map scale is reduced; where we could play comfortably on 4 square kilometres in CM:BB, high end systems chug away on maps smaller than that in CM:SF. Real time control of anything more than a reinforced platoon on a "medium" map is probably impossible in most situations anyway if anything like actual tactics are going to be employed against a human opponent using a dynamic defence.

Whose idea was this anyway?

Design for Effect was elegant, and it worked. It worked in CM:BO, CM:BB and CM:AK, too. There was no great "need" for 1:1 modelling except among those with no real understanding of what a wargame is supposed to be. BF.C understood when they made Beyond Overlord. People scoffed at those ugly 3D models and didn't "get" why 3 soldiers really stood in for 10. But the fans did - and hey, so did the reviewers. They LOVED CM:BO and the next two titles.

The Uncanny Valley

Is 1:1 the wrong way to go? I don't really believe so. Eventually, and soon, hardware issues won't be a problem with this level of modelling. But look at any "company-based" wargame in the field of board wargaming, and none of them have 1:1 modelling. Not one. Firepower is grouped at the squad or platoon level; that trend started with the very first tactical board wargame in 1968 and continues to the present day. What is gained in CM by tracking individual bullets? Nothing - in fact - it may even be a design blunder. Can't imagine counting up individual men on a Squad Leader map to count firepower factors. Just because we have a computer to do the computations for us, it doesn't make the design philosophy any more "correct."

I do know I still play the original CM titles and enjoy them. I feel more connection right now in the CM:BB Lauban meta campaign I'm involved with than I do to anything in the CM:SF "campaign" (which really isn't a campaign at all). It doesn't take 1:1 modelling to engage you - it's the gameplay. In fact, I think we've reached the Uncanny Valley in CM, where it is so close to real life as to heighten expectations about game performance unrealistically, but not close enough to be convincing in actual play. Seeing squads stack up outside a door is great - but why did they run around the building to do it, and why didn't half of them just jump through the window?

Of course, I don't know if a simple update to the CM:BB graphics would have been satisfying, either (i.e. three man representations with the new 3D models).

But what about stuff like convoy driving (we still don't have a "follow me" command)? We have hugely powerful artillery modelling now - but the philosophy in CM:BO was that the games all started AFTER the big artillery barrages. Again, this is a step in the other direction from the original philosophy of abstraction - a philosophy that worked well.

Conclusion

CM:SF is necessarily in the middle ground where it will please no one. The level of abstraction that was such anathema to the Operation Flashpoint fans (I am one) is gone, but it isn't replaced with high fidelity yet. Squad members are nameless, faceless zombie droids who are largely stupid. That every bullet they fire can be tracked doesn't mean much if every man aims at the same 8 metre grid.

The scenario editor/Tac AI has been revitalized - to the point that we are incapable of surprising ourselves. No random maps or forces, and the soldiers do whatever they're told to - and no more. The great appeal of random battles is gone. Again, there was abstraction in terrain and force mix, but because BF.C is now saying that the map editor is more "realistic", we can't have "fun" in the form of random maps.

Whoever said "realistic" was the way to go? It sure wasn't BF.C when I posted for six months about the Sten Guns in the British OOB for CM:AK during the patch releases. They're still there.

Whither Next

It may be too late to turn back, but I think embracing some of the limitations of the past may be a good thing. Abstraction is good.

But for all the fellows who complained about the 3-man squads in CM:BB, I hope you don't have the temerity to now complain about the results of our new over-modelled 1:1 system. Because, really, guys - this is your fault.

When Firepower came out in the 1980s, it was a man-to-man wargame that modelled every individual small arm from 1945 to the present, and had rules so detailed that you had to use arrow counters to mark which side of a tree your dude was standing on. And it wasn't nearly as much fun as Sniper! which was rereleased by TSR at about the same time, a reprint of the earlier SPI game from 15 years earlier, which had abstract values for weapons - and no little arrow counters.

All in one person's personal opinion, of course.

A PBEM correspondent of mine wrote to tell me that he felt BF.C's adoption of a RT option meant that instead of being the industry leader in WEGO, they now specialized in nothing, and were mediocre at both WEGO and RT. I don't know if I would go that far, and I don't intend to reopen the RT debate here. I think the 1:1 modelling has had a huge impact not just on computer hardware performance, but on perceptions of the game, design philosophy, you name it. You see that many guys on the screen you expect different things from the engine - stuff that has been explicitly stated aren't being delivered yet (like bullets not going through stone walls because of abstractions in the terrain mesh). Steiner14 and others have mentioned the "gamey" tactic of driving Strykers into buildings in order to let infantry dismount in safety. These are abstractions that one wouldn't expect to find in a 1:1 model - and speak to the heigtened perception that comes with this level of modelling that the new engine does not in fact pay off.

I don't know - throwing this out for discussion.

I don't think Steve is a whiner, by the way. I like Steve. A lot. He doesn't take **** on his own forum, and he occassionally posts with his heart on his sleeve, something I can relate to. I also like his games and his company. So there.

[ August 11, 2007, 06:19 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[dalem]

Michael-

It would be difficult for me to add anything to your excellent essay above. I agree with it 100% and it highlights my own chief concerns.

But I can search the 2000 CM"BO forum and find this.

In light of recent events, I admit I find the thread fascinating.

And I can post my relevant section here. From 12/15/2000 I give you:

"BTS is a tough act to follow, but this is a topic that hearkens to my own personal Holy Grail of wargaming:

Scale.

In my opinion, which is worth considerably less than BTS's, graphics and processing don't mean diddly next to scale. I don't care if every wargamer out there is running Pentium Twelves with the Holo-Thunder X-Thousand video chipset (cryo-cooled by the patented stare of the really hot chick at last weekend's corporo-bash) and Steve and Charles never sleep again - they can't make a good wargame that functions at CM scale with individual soldiers being modeled. They can't do it. Because it can't be done.

As Steve pointed out, that's what is really being asked for; individual soldier modeling. And let's face it, the individual soldier is simply not relevant on, say, a battalion scale, on average. Unit training, equipment, doctrine, and whether there was a hot meal that morning are far more important at medium scale and up than whether Private Parts has three clips of rifle ammo or only two. Or whether the MG loader is behind a tree or a bush. Allowing for individual soldiers' actions and motivations at those scales, even if it could be done, would be criminally counterproductive and lead to battle results so far out of true that I can't even think of a smart-ass example.

Again in my opinion, there are two groups in this debate: there are those that always divide debates into two groups of people and those who... Hmm. (Sorry, couldn't resist - read that once and thought it was funny.)

Anyway, CM and games like it are wargames. Wargamers in general are grognard history buffs and frustrated armchair commanders who believe (even just a little) that we could have done everything better even without our Hindsight 20/20 glasses on. But to our credit, and to a degree, we also understand that the average battle is determined by the boring and standard types of characteristics I listed above (training, unit cohesion, morale, etc.) - that's why we'll argue endlessly over whether having nine guys or twelve in your rifle squad is important, etc. We tend to see computers as great ways to play the wargames we've been playing on tabletops and hexboards for years - fewer charts and no dice in your pizza.

Many folks, however, have never seriously played a lot of wargames, but they have played lots of computer games and are very experienced there. The more whizz-bang computer games out there (of which I own and play several) are great for skirmish stuff - max of a platoon, maybe, but wouldn't really scale up very well to company- or battalion-sized. I'm not talking actual game-play here, but rather about that awful word 'realism'. Often hearkened after and never achieved in simulation, 'realism' is one of the things wargamers sweat over. And while I guess you could design a gigantic Unreal Tourney level for that Pentium Twelve I mentioned and stick 200 folks in it to fight on two sides, the individual slay-fests that would ensue would not be very 'realistic' for large-scale combat. If the individuals teamed up and formed units and maybe practiced together, maybe. But then we're talking units again, not soldiers.

And so it is as inappropriate to try to scale down CM to be a shooter/skirmish game as it would be to try to scale up a shooter/skirmish game to cover company actions. A real wargame will never make a good shooter and a good shooter will never make a good wargame.

-dale"

[Northman]

I absolutely agree with Michaels thoughts about this and I hope that BF, in the future, will listen to this type reasoning more than they (obviously) have listened to those that have pushed for 1:1 modelling and RT. CM:SF has alot more detail than CMx1 has, but when those details aren't done right it isn't worth it, especially when many of the features have close to zero impact on the game's ability to simulate warfare.

I don't think _showing_ every man on the battlefield is necessarily a bad thing, but when the position, stance, facing etc. of each of those men have a direct impact on the outcome of a certain situation, then the realism of the game will essentially be based on how the AI handles the situation there and then, and as is the case with every AI you never know what you get.

[Michael Dorosh]

Without putting in all sorts of very complicated and time consuming game features, 1:1 figures will actually detract from the gaming experience. This will make the people that requested it turn it off and demand that we then add in the features they previously said they don't care about.

Steve

Good link, Dale. I think we're seeing evidence that Steve was exactly right.

[Cpl Steiner]

Interesting post Michael. Here's my take on things.

1:1 isn't necessarily the problem. You talked about the "Firepower" board game and how it wasn't as good as the more abstract "Sniper!". I have both games and have to say I actually preferred Firepower back then. It too had problems. For instance, hit probabilities used a 10-sided die, which meant a couple of negative dice roll modifiers rendered fire totally ineffective. I ended up modifying the rules to use three 6-sided dice instead, so my men could blast acres of jungle with automatic fire and still have a slight chance of a hit, as opposed to having no chance at all after firing through a couple of tree hexes. This only serves to show that most game problems have simple solutions if you put your mind to it.

CM:SF's bullet tracking is actually one of the things I'd like kept in. However, I agree with you that it doesn't work right at the moment. As you rightly point out, it is pointless tracking every bullet if you can only ever target the corner of a building. I'm hoping that this isn't designed into the game though and can be fixed. In theory, the LOS "map" should just be used to establish LOS between "units" but LOF should be traced for individuals at the 1:1 level, and each LOF should diverge slightly from the "perfect" one that aligns with the LOS point-to-point grid. I'd rather have some bullets stopped by intervening terrain due to not having a LOF than have them all aimed at the same clear LOS grid point. This is, after all, how I thought Steve said the game was supposed to work.

Another problem is that soldiers have very low survival instincts and the player has no way to apply the necessary control themselves to compensate. When you give a squad a move order, the end point is some abstract centre of mass of the unit. That is not enough control if the unit will happily stand in the open under fire rather than seek cover. The game "Full Spectrum Warrior" got around this problem by showing you where each individual member of a squad would end up as a little circle for each man. Something similar in CM:SF would at least show us what the soldiers would try to do before the order was given. Full Spectrum Warrior also made sure that soldiers would hug walls or stack up at building corners. In CM:SF, when ordered to a building corner, half the men in the squad will just go past the corner and stand in full view of the enemy. CM:SF should allow us to control the formation the unit adopts at the end of its move, such as stacking up at corners in an intelligent fashion.

So, to my mind, CM:SF can still work as a game, but at the moment there is insufficient AI to make the soldiers look after their own survival, and not enough feedback from AI to player or fine controls available to the player to compensate. Fix these issues (either through better AI or more micromanagement facilities) and the game will be greatly improved.

One final point. I agree entirely with your assessment of RT and WEGO. RT is only really suited to small actions. WEGO needs to work much better to make the bigger battles playable.

[Molloy]

First off, a very interesting and engaging post, Michael.

I agree with you on the fundamental importance of a game's "level" of representation/abstraction. However, I must disagree with the appropriateness of what you call the "uncanny valley", the incongruence of expectations of "hi-fidelity" and the realities of current limitations with "1:1" modeling (not that it doesn't accurately describe many peoples response [you are certainly correct here], but that this response/criticism is the best way to view CMSF). In fact, I think much of the problem lies in positing "1:1" representation against "abstraction".

1:1 still contains enormous amounts of abstraction (expectations of "truly" modeling reality are ludicrous). What it does is simply shift what things are abstracted, to what degree, and what is graphically shown to the player. This also has enormous tactical implications for the player (generally speaking, the potential for a much more dynamic environment). In this sense, "1:1" isn't a finished project, but a long term (largely imaginary) goal of reducing certain types of abstraction in wargames to allow for the rich complexity and variability of "reality" to be better (but not actually) re-presented.

Also, from a design "philosophy", I think the choice of a contemporary setting goes hand in hand with the level of representation and real-time play. It certainly is a risk, and one that I applaud, even through its teething process.

[KNac]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Without putting in all sorts of very complicated and time consuming game features, 1:1 figures will actually detract from the gaming experience. This will make the people that requested it turn it off and demand that we then add in the features they previously said they don't care about.

Steve

Good link, Dale. I think we're seeing evidence that Steve was exactly right. </font>

[dalem]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Without putting in all sorts of very complicated and time consuming game features, 1:1 figures will actually detract from the gaming experience. This will make the people that requested it turn it off and demand that we then add in the features they previously said they don't care about.

Steve

Good link, Dale. I think we're seeing evidence that Steve was exactly right. </font>

[Steiner14]

Michael,

imo the key sentence in your interesting post is this:

Abstraction is good.

I already had written my opinion about that in the gamespot thread, before i came across your post.

I agree abstraction is good. And it should only be abandoned, if the less abstracted visualization REALLY works.

I still remember when Steve mentioned, that CMx2 will have 1:1 representation. Beautiful news, but i was sceptical, because i had the feeling, that this only works, if it is done well. Most abstractions that worked in CMx1 so great, will have to be visualized. And a proper visualizetion means a proper underlying model. And that means lots of development time.

But i would have never dreamt about, if CMx2 will have 1:1 representation, that walls, stupid rectangles with some textures on them, will be abstracted!

If i would have known that, i could have told immediately, it will not work for me because of the distorted impression that abstraction it will create for me.

IMO that is where CM really shines: the models, the abstraction and the visualization just fits perfectly together. Where the abstraction becomes visible, then there is nothing that disturbs your imagination, to see more than you see on the screen. You lose one soldier representation and you imagine the rest.

You shoot through walls, but since you only command visual representations, this is no problem. It fits.

But if you see single soldiers, even reloading when the magazine is empty, and then they shoot through walls, the player has a problem due to the obvious distortion of the detailed visual representation, giving no room for imagination, and the necessary imagination regarding the wall.

Or doors and windows. They are represented visually, but then somehow they are abstractions.

The eye sees something different, than the brain has to cope with.

This was not the case in CMx1.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Well I am as serious a wargamer as any, I go back to the SPI games of the late ‘70s, also as serious a military history fan as any. Have spent lots of time going through the archives of museums and have some Eastern Front manuals of which my copy is the only one I know of…anywhere… I play no PC “games”, only wargames if they are so good they are really a form of military history. The only ones I currently play are the CM series. Nothing else has ever made the cut for more than one of two test games.

Anyway… my take is that people are digging too deep. Way too deep .

If CMSF had launched as “bug-free” as we all expected it would be and with a friendlier UI all but the usual suspects/tiny minority would rave about it. It also would have got the usual rave reviews.

I am no programmer but if BFC had spent another month on “general bugs” such as the ATGM bug it launched with, another month on “crash issues” and lastly a month on “unit behaviour” such as pathfinding/TacAI 90% of CM fans, plus many new fans, would love it. That is “love the engine” but many would still prefer a WWII setting. Each to their own… I would prefer NATO Central Front .

I have just played out a modded version of the Brandenbug scenario plus a training scenario I built… all in 1.02. The training scenario was in many ways a WWII scenario in that it was a Stryker company but with all AFVs bar four removed attacking a village held by a single Syrian mechanised platoon, but without their AFVs. Everything that happened was very CMX1 in style… just better and more detailed . I was also using a full set of Direct Command Hotkeys for all bar one command, Cancel Target which cannot yet be Hotkeyed. It makes such a big difference that the UI issues are 100% solved… I have a list of the Hotkeys next me and am very quickly learning them all… it’s as quick to use as CMX1. (But dropdown menus when you left-click a unit would be my personal favourite UI method.)

There is no fundamental problem with the scale and scope of CMX2. The problem is that CMSF was sent out the door unfinished… three months early.

What is done is done…BFC have taken the hits in bad reviews as a result of sending it out unfinished.

Give it three months and CMX2/CMSF will be everything CMX1 was in its day…only way better .

CMX2 is everything and more than I hoped…it just needs to be finished .

All very good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

PS. The only possible qualification is whether or not the “unit behaviour” issues such as pathfinding and TacAI are down to the limitations of RT or not. And the only people who really know the answer to that are Steve and Charles.

[JasonC]

Mike is right and is right to cite John Hill in the matter, and design for effect as the relevant criteria that separates truly great wargames from also-rans.

It appears to me that BTS has followed a customer demand that is rooted in ignorance of the principles of game design and of the history of wargames. Fundamentally, they are making the recurrent engineer's mistake of believing that modeling 2-3 extra features as realistically as possible, without regard to effect, is the way to improve game design. It isn't game design at all, it is abdication of that function.

I think the military more than even the wider gaming crowd (as distinct from wargame "grogs") is the relevant target audience, and that it is that potential customer's institutional ignorance of wargame design principles that is driving the "design decline". The military suffers from the engineering delusion and does so in spades.

I note in passing that Sniper wasn't a very good game, but that the best things about it were (1) it had we-go in the form of plotted movement with simultaneous resolution or as near as you could get to it with hex-and-counter and (2) it kept the command spans small, and only tried to depict one squad or so at the individual man level. It's two major failings were the inherent lack of tactical interest and complexity of plans that low level (company to battalion combined arms is inherently a better subject for strategy than rifles and grenades at squad level), and the relatively uniform, poorly modeled terrain (empty buildings or wide open were pretty much it). I agree with Michael that abstracting firepower with numbers was no problem, actually a strength. But that is all an aside.

The reason designing for 2-3 new engineered features as "more realistic" does not work in practice, is one has never given the same level of realism of treatement to all of the interrelated aspects of the military situations being depicted. Some bits get drastically overmodeled and others under, and where they "join" in reality, the resulting sim attempt breaks.

To take the current example, tracking individual shots but not having super self-preservation seeking smart-brains in each soldier icon, results in levels of cover that are very low and levels of firepower that are very high, result firepower dominance and excessive causalties. Unrealistically so. Men in CMSF simply expose themselves far more than their real counterparts do. When firepower was handled abstractly, a realistic result of the interplay of firepower and successful cover-seeking could be tuned in after the fact - design for result fashion. When instead the firepower side is modeled as realistically as possible, it just reveals that the cover-seeking tac AI is not. The result is not more realistic, but less.

Notice also how "flat" it makes all the terrain feel - there are building interiors which are dismount cover but HE magnets, and there is everything else which is hideously exposed. Compare the tactical richness of CMBB terrain, in which a firefight can routinely be decided by which side has denser tree cover, or moving men in brush being so much more exposed than stationary men in woods.

Now compare the relative success of CMSF at depicting the engagements between vehicles and its depiction of infantry vs infantry engagement. Vehicles typically lack the cover seeking ability of dismounts, and the player can more nearly control what cover seeking they do engage in. There are still complaints about the tac AI and its fire decisions etc. But the subsystems are simply far less "stressed" by the depiction, than the soldier level infantry stuff is.

Would this be solved by adding lots more control over where every man within the squad goes, or SOPs that effectively do so? No, because it runs up against the command span problem. A battalion level action in which each motion of each soldier is controlled by a centralized hive mind is not realistic. It is also not fun. A system that awards the best performance to meticulous micro-management is a broken system that has not been designed for effect, with the requisite simplicity.

The whole point of design for effect with simplicity is to put the relevant variables and only those variables in the player's hands. If one instead places four tiers of minutae in their hands, one does not get realism, one gets unplayability.

It is all very well to say the computer can calculate all the minutae for you. But if in fact no tac AI can be written that is up to the task of seeking the best crevice to shelter in, given every known enemy shooter position, then this is whistling dixie. The computer flat cannot do it. The real world version requires a highly motivated super processor at the individual man level to do so, and a few threads of bad heuristics spared from the bullet-flight calculations share of the CPUs time, are not going to duplicate the result.

I expect to play around with CMSF, but it won't replace CMBB in my playing time. It simply isn't as well designed a game - and I am not talking about the bugs I assume BTS will patch.

[KNac]

Kip I think you nailed it, you should post that same post in the "Gamespot" thread.

MOST people does not have a problem with the underlaying system and engine, some do and have rationalized it. I could agree or not with them.

But the majority of whiners just have the problem the game is not polished enough. They are right to complain, if they bought the game and were not aware of the current problems.

[ August 11, 2007, 02:35 PM: Message edited by: KNac ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JasonC:

I expect to play around with CMSF, but it won't replace CMBB in my playing time. It simply isn't as well designed a game - and I am not talking about the bugs I assume BTS will patch.

Thank you for that entire post. I obviously agree with all that you said and appreciate your clarity of expression.

I'll quote your last paragraph. That CM:SF is not "as well designed" as other games shouldn't be made to imply that anyone thinks BF.C put little thought into the concept, of course. We know for a fact they did. Years of hard work and testing. But as I attempted to point out, and as Jason's points better illustrated, there are fundamental design decisions that don't seem to mesh with the vision. CM:BB's do, and I think that is why we see so many CMX1 fans not really embracing the new game and perhaps not knowing why or being able to articulate why. And I think perhaps it is easy to then dismiss their concerns as simply rose-coloured glasses, or unwillingness to move on.

At its core - and I don't like to suggest this because I'm not as willing as Jason to say this for a fact - I think perhaps the concept of 1:1 is faulty, at least with the current level of modelling. Is that patchable? Some of it may be. Jason suggests individuals seeking cover appropriately is not ever going to be possible. I don't know that, but I do think it is a core issue that is perhaps driving many of the other discussions - how much abstraction are we willing to accept, and what form does it have to be presented in?

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[Steiner14]

Michael Dorosh,

i'm wondering that you don't defend CMSF no more stricly. Have you been removed from the team?

[Kineas]

Don't confuse 1:1 representation and micromanagement, because they are too different things, though the first seems to imply the second.

1:1r. is not a problem, it's the future. In addition to making wargames spectacular, it will also enable a lot of real tactics and abolish unnecessary abstractions.

You can advance your inf behind your T34, and 5-6 HE grenades will clear a trench. You can check some of the elements in CMSF already. A lone machine gun will stop a squad in the open even at 500m, and bullets will have deadly trajectories not just hit chances at a particular grid location.

You don't have to get lost in the details, but a very strong tacai needed, especially for infantry fights in urban areas etc.

Is it possible? Yes, launch a Battlefield 1942 cooperative game with 64 bots on a 4 year old PC, and realize their behaviour is not that bad at all. It's possible to simulate very much detail, and if you don't need realtime, you can pretty much simulate everything. (Which is not really important, of course).

Regarding design for effect: I see your point. If you will be in disadvantage unless you micromanage every individual in your battalion the game will be unplayable. If you don't be in a disadvantage then what's the point in simulating that at all? Maybe having the option for a small micromanage-boost at the decisive location is worth it? A wargame should have some depth too, if we abstract out it to rock-paper-scissor it's just not fun enough.

[dalem]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

There is no fundamental problem with the scale and scope of CMX2. The problem is that CMSF was sent out the door unfinished… three months early.

I disagree. If you were playing a game about, oh, firefighting, where you drove your truck around and put out fires, and there were burning trash barrels in the game that you could see but never put out, and that caused big buildings next to them to ignite which you then had to fight, you would wonder why the burning barrels were in the game at all, wouldn't you? Why not just say the fire started somehow and go from there? After all, it's a firefighting game, not an arson investigation game.

Showing me a specific guy behind a specific wall but forcing me to accept that he's not really there and/or the wall isn't really there is a burning trash barrel that I am forced to watch but can never extinguish. Same thing.

-dale

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Kineas:

Don't confuse 1:1 representation and micromanagement, because they are too different things, though the first seems to imply the second.

Don't think me too stupid to know the difference. I'm not. And I do.

1:1r. is not a problem, it's the future.

Future of what? Company-level wargames? That's like saying that as soon as computers are powerful enough to model the invasion of Russia on a 1:1 level, that will be the future too. But I bet we still see games where players command armies and corps, and there is no need to calculate exactly where every man in the invasion front is.

Your other comments are simply talking past me rather than responding to me. Your points on micromanagement are well taken, but irrelevant. To quote Steve Grammont - "you obviously don't get it."

[Darren J Pierson]

I also get the impression that the military is more the audience for this game than the old CMx1 crowd.

I think for small tactical games 1:1 is the future, but if we are going to suggest that we are removing the abstractions, then the physics engine (correct term?) and the graphics are going to have to sync perfectly. I don't think our pcs are there yet.

[Kineas]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Future of what? Company-level wargames? That's like saying that as soon as computers are powerful enough to model the invasion of Russia on a 1:1 level, that will be the future too. But I bet we still see games where players command armies and corps, and there is no need to calculate exactly where every man in the invasion front is.

Of course we will see wargames in every form of abstraction, up to card games.

Future of wargaming, meaning that most computer based wargames will use 1:1 rep. Because you are a grog you still relish the eye candy, together with a lot of casual customers. And of course a huge leap towards physical realism.

[junk2drive]

On the 1:1 subject, tanks in CMx1 are 1:1 correct?

Franko's Tank Warning as Soviets has you managing a large herd of tanks vs the Germans with not as large a herd.

If the 3D units had legs instead of tracks it would be like commanding a company or so of 1:1 troops versus some other troops with different weapons and skills.

1:1 can work if my analogy above is correct. I did not micromanage my tanks and troops in that scenario PBEM. Of course I lost, but it was fun and an awesome sight to see all the tanks firing at each other and some exploding.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Kineas:

Future of wargaming, meaning that most computer based wargames will use 1:1 rep. Because you are a grog you still relish the eye candy, together with a lot of casual customers. And of course a huge leap towards physical realism.

Fair enough, but the visual fidelity has to mesh with the engine. CM:BB did that in ways that Steiner and JasonC have eloquently described.

I don't know what to say about CM:SF; I enjoy the visuals a great deal and I still think it is definitely Combat Mission there on the screen. I don't feel the extra eye candy has added any great realism - in fact, as stated, and as Steve himself predicted - its actually been a distraction in some ways.

Which isn't to say it can't get sorted out. I honestly don't know, but I do think it is worthy of discussion. Perhaps I'm guilty of not taking your examples seriously enough, but they really didn't speak to me of any great "need" for 1:1 rep.

[Kineas]

Originally posted by junk2drive:

On the 1:1 subject, tanks in CMx1 are 1:1 correct?

Not really because you could form a super-tight pack and they could shot trough each other, making the fist-tactic unrealistically strong.

I call 1:1 what FPS do. Every polygon, every visible object counts. (Well, almost...)

[KNac]

So the question is: can a good enough AI be programmed to behave in a way that can make 1:1 feasible instead of following the abstraction aproach?

IMO, even if AI is the most difficult programming, it can be done (yes, not perfect, but good enough to make the game fun as well as realist). It may take a lot longer than is thought, specially with the current BFC roster.