More in sorrow than in anger: I'm done until pathfinding is sorted

[Bahger]

I tried the first mission of the campaign for the fifth time last night and, yet again, a vehicle strayed onto the berm, uncommanded, and got killed before I could move to initiate contact. I also tried one of the standalone battles and spent more time babysitting vehicles through wide urban roadways than fighting my Stryker force. Sadly -- because I spent some serious $ on the deluxe edition -- I'm done with this game until they overhaul the pathfinding.

I really admire the Battlefront guys, their concept, most of their execution and their obvious passion for their product. But as I said originally, it's wishful thinking to simulate MOUT with such awful vehicle pathfinding. I'm spending most of my time in this game mouse-clicking my way around corners, micromanaging vehicles into cover, figuring out where the "no-go" zones are, stopping them getting tangled up in each other. You shouldn't have to micromanage vehicle pathing in this way. And vehicles must maintain military formation, especially when moving to contact. I'm sorry but they just don't. They wander all over the place and even my active imagination (along with a reserve of goodwill towards this game) cannot excuse this lobotomised vehicle behavior as "fog of war". It's very simple: if a Stryker can drive up an alley in real life because it is, after all, a very mobile concept of offensive urban warfare, and if there are alleys in the maps, I expect to be able to drive it up that alley, place it in cover, dismount my squad and position them towards a threat. I challenge any one of the devs to prove to me that this can be done right now. It cannot because of both appalling pathfinding and anomalies in the design of the sequencing of orders. It gives me no pleasure to say that the way CMSF plays right now is more like having to be a kid pushing a three-wheeled truck around a sandbox than it is being the commander of the most highly mobile, technologically sophisticated company-level strike force in the history of warfare. It's a crying shame.

I think this problem was much less of an issue in WW2 CM titles because the battlefields were less cluttered and speed was not such a tactical issue. However, when fighting assymetrical battles in hostile, built-up terrain, whether city or village, speed is required to gain and keep the initiative. I need to know that if I send a platoon of Strykers there and then have them face that, they will do both, in formation and using exactly the route plotted. This is what we can expect from vehicle pathfinding AI in Steel Beasts, Company of Heroes and even GRAW 2. However, CMSF's vehicles get themselves all turned around even when moving to contact and by the time an enemy is spotted, I have to play traffic cop to a bunch of drunken teenage joyriders rather than take advantage of a fast and efficient deployment. The tactical asymmetry is often to the Syrians' advantage in MOUT; a Stryker needs to flank a Syrian tank so that the infantry can be dismounted with Javelins for a fast, lethal shot. However, such is the chaos in vehicle pathfinding that every attempted flanking maneuver is a pure crapshoot.

It's sad. I've bought and played about a hundred high-quality military-themed games across all genres in the last ten years and I was expecting to hunker down with this title, working my way through the single player campaign and playing PBEMs. I was disappointed to learn that PBEMs were saddled with 14 MB swap files but I understand this to be the consequence of the dev team's genuine technological advancements. However, never have I played an otherwise promising game whose very design concept is so completely sabotaged by one all-important aspect of gameplay, which is the need to recreate precise, orderly and military movement and deployment of vehicles. It's an awful shame and quite possibly nobody's fault but I'd have to side with Tom Chick about the unplayability of the game in its present state. It will stay on my hard drive, unused, until the next patch.

[Runyan99]

Didn't you already have a perfectly good thread about the pathfinding going? Just want more attention?

[Bahger]

If it's okay with you, I started this thread, having decided to stop playing the game, in the hope that there may be more chance of the devs paying attention to a fresh thread than revisiting an old one. As long as you don't mind, that is.

[Runyan99]

I'll allow it.

I'm sure they read your other thread too.

[stoat]

We need more threads!!!

[Deathsai]

It doesn't matter how many or how few threads are posted, there are still plenty of things broken with the game, and it's quite frustrating to just sit around waiting for a fix and keeping quiet.

[Bahger]

As you can tell from the length (and hopefully the articulacy) of my post, I'm passionate about how great this game could be, and how long-lived. But this is not a subjective issue for me, nor would it be for any other serious military gamer I know; if they cannot improve the pathfinding radically the level of frustration will outpace the pleasure of playing CMSF by an enormous margin, I'm sad to say.

Thank you for allowing the thread to remain.

[Martin Krejcirik]

Bagher, I had no problem in this mission, CM has always required path micromanagement, SF is no worse then CMx1 games.

I would love improved pathfinding, formations and so on, but honestly I've never expected it.

[Bahger]

Originally posted by Martin Krejcirik:

Bagher, I had no problem in this mission, CM has always required path micromanagement, SF is no worse then CMx1 games.

I would love improved pathfinding, formations and so on, but honestly I've never expected it.

I understand, Martin, but the showstopping aspect of this issue stems from the asymmetry of contemporary urban conflict and the tactical significance of speed and accurate navigation. It would be better if BFC put big green lines on paths through which we could navigate our vehicles with confidence and in formation rather than leave us to hunt and peck our way through the maps wondering if a vehicle is going to balk and break formation, causing chaos at exactly the point of initiating contact with the enemy. My argument is that this is a design issue as well as an execution issue, and much more destructive to gameplay than it was in a battlefield context that didn't rely on speed of maneuver.

Can you imagine anything at all being salvaged from the urban battle in Somalia portrayed in BLACKHAWK DOWN if, once the choppers had gone down, the Humvee convoys got lost in the city instead of being able to navigate accurately and at high speed? It's the only way you can fight RPGs on rooftops. For the gameplay dynamic in CMSF to be satisfying, we need to be able to move vehicles with precision and confidence because the U.S. forces have to leverage their mobility and superior training in order to overcome numerical inferiority and win. This pathfinding anarchy (sorry, it's not too strong a word) makes a mockery of the very concept of battle behind the game.

[ July 30, 2007, 11:32 AM: Message edited by: Bahger ]

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Originally posted by Martin Krejcirik:

SF is no worse then CMx1 games.

I would have to vehemently disagree with this. CMx1 vehicles generally behaved predictably and didn't need massive amounts of micromanagement. I suspect this is due to the nature of the larger terrain tiles, whereas the SF vehicles have to make a lot more decisions on where to go to cover the same distance.

But, the SF vehicles act like the old CC vehicles. Turning around for no reason, going around the block instead of hunting straight forward 10m in the middle of the street, etc. Things I never saw, even in BO.

[thewood]

I was just going to post that about the tank dance in CC. It is very much like that. I am taking a long shot guess and say it might have something to with turning radius. Never really had it in CM. I have most of my problems with Strykers and the pattern ( with very limited data) is Strykers with cornering or coming close other objects.

[Pete Wenman]

Can you imagine anything at all being salvaged from the urban battle in Somalia portrayed in BLACKHAWK DOWN if, once the choppers had gone down, the Humvee convoys got lost in the city instead of being able to navigate accurately and at high speed?

As I remember it from reading the book, that's exactly what happened.

just my 2p

[fra]

Yes we need good pathfinding and good Formations commands as well!!!

[Sgt Joch]

With all due respect, Bahger, pouring virtual gasoline on yourself and setting yourself on virtual fire, 72 hours after the game has been released is not the way to resolve the issue.

CMx1 had major pathfinding issue, I have griped about them in the past. There appears to be an improvement in CMx2, although it is still hard to tell since the game is brand new and we are all still trying to figure it out. I have no doubt BFC is doing the best they can on this issue.

[thewood]

But the issues in CM were different. In CM most of my issues were related a tanks bunching or take a slightly off kilter path with really long aypoints.

In CMSF, I am seeing a lot of dancing around with Strykers.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

There are a number of pathing issues, some pretty bad ones. But keep in mind that the Stryker has the turning circle of a battlecruiser. I have the feeling some of you fail to account for that.

[Bahger]

Originally posted by Sgt.Joch:

With all due respect, Bahger, pouring virtual gasoline on yourself and setting yourself on virtual fire, 72 hours after the game has been released is not the way to resolve the issue.

Exactly how am I pouring virtual gasoline on myself and setting myself on virtual fire? Do you really think I'm trying to commit virtual suicide in order to attract attention? Exactly how does this analogy work?

It's very rarely that most reasonable people can be completely confident of an argument they wish to make, but this is the case here, for me. I have many years of experience with battlefield simulators and much knowledge of the tactical arena in which modern infantry fights in built-up areas. I know that there is a crippling problem with the game's playability here and I'm committed enough to what CMSG could be to attempt to start a polite, but firm effort -- hopefully aided by others -- to redeem the game before it's too late.

[Bunyip]

Have to chuckle at strykers doing donuts around a waypoint, and finally stopping with their arse to the enemy.

[Vergeltungswaffe]

FWIW, Bradleys and Abrams do it just as much as Strykers in what I've seen so far.

[thewood]

I haven't seen the dances with M1 or M2

[Vergeltungswaffe]

Last night, in a town, they drove through each other and all over the damn place. Plenty of donuts, too.

[thewood]

OK, OK, I get it, all vehicles. There goes my test.

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by Bahger:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Sgt.Joch:

With all due respect, Bahger, pouring virtual gasoline on yourself and setting yourself on virtual fire, 72 hours after the game has been released is not the way to resolve the issue.

Exactly how am I pouring virtual gasoline on myself and setting myself on virtual fire? Do you really think I'm trying to commit virtual suicide in order to attract attention? Exactly how does this analogy work?

</font>

[cow_cookie]

Just in the first campaign mission I have seen:

- A Stryker charge full speed into two enemy bunkers when it chose not to go through a gap in the wall dividing the highway.

- A gap in the wall dividing the highway that vehicles mysteriously won't go through, whether they're Abrams or Strykers.

- Multiple Strykers enter the compound through the main road when I set their waypoints through a gap that had been blown in the wall.

- Infantry units unable to climb the berm to get a better view of the battlefiled. They always try to walk around the entire berm instead. While I understand why an Abrams can't just climb a berm, it shouldn't be impossible for infantrymen.

- Infantry units that insist on entering a building through a door when artillery has already leveled a section of the building and left massive holes on one side of the building.

I'm kind of having a love-hate relationship with the game. There are so many things I think are cool. I love that it's modern warfare, and I love the faster, more unforgiving pace that that type of warfare has. There are numerous cool features, too.

But I find myself cursing my units for stupid mistakes just as often. I'm not going to abandon the game, but I'm now playing the game like an FPS: Save after every turn in case a mass of units manage to get themselves killed in a spectacularly stupid fashion.

I don't know why the testers or Battlefront didn't catch this, although I suspect it's because the testing process is not objective enough. Next time, there need to be some testers who don't know much about Combat Mission and who don't give a flip about whether it succeeds or not. It's too easy to love something if you've already decided you want to love something. Someone less invested in a project would be more likely to step back and ask "is this the best way to do this" and "does this work as intended" - although I admit I may be wrong and they may have done this.

[PAEZ]

I will no stop playing, I love the game.

the pathfinding must be adjusted. I'm sure BTF. will do their best to improve it.

I don't expect perfection. but vehicles do behave in really "totally out of control ways".

It takes away from a other wise fantastic game.

I had a bradley that was told to reverse to a juntion and face the enemy, just 30 meters away. It procceded to go around the whole town and once it was there parked it self backwards with its tale to the enemy. In another instand a columm of Strykers was going a main road. I try a group command and all hell broke lose. If they wanted to avoid something on the main road, going in all kinds of direction was a lot more dangerous that the road, I tried the same move but this time ordering each vehicle one at the time and the first 2 did move but all the others keep going into alley facing the wrong way etc.

Again I can deal with it but it needs improvement in order to really enjoy this gem.

my two cent.