BUILDINGS,,,has this been fixed yet??

[Sargon]

Buildings are present in the game, but unfortunately the developers were never able to really get the infantry to use them properly. This means that infantry cannot set-up in buildings. Snipers can’t fire from church steeples, machine guns can’t set-up from inside houses and soldiers can’t take cover in basements when indirect fire comes down on them. While not a total game stopper, it is a real problem in a game that is trying to present total realism. If there is one real patch that the team really needs to work on, it is this problem. I don’t care how they fix it, but they need to fix the inability to get into buildings. Cover and concealment are the biggest protectants of the infantry and eliminating buildings is tantamount to leaving them hung out to dry.

[Flanker15]

This has been an issue since the begining and dosn't have much of a solution yet. The il2 engine just can't handle enterable buildings easily. Bunkers act as stationary vehicles so you could turn all the buildings into those but then you can only use the weapons built with it, not the weapons of the people in it.

It may be possible to do it with ALOT of coding but that could take a while and I'd rather just have the game now and see if it can be done in the future.

You can move infantry into the rubble of destroyed buildings I believe and you still have walls and fortifications which act as cover.

[Moon]

Every game designer has to make compromises and trade-offs if he wants to finish a game within a lifetime. No game is without compromises and limitations. We have them in the Combat Mission series, in that you are able to have battalions clash against each other on huge maps, but the trade-off is a certain level of abstraction at the individual soldier and team level. They are in games like COH, where you get every minute detail modelled at the individual level, soldiers can enter buildings and what not, but you lose the realistic engagement ranges, weapons effects etc. You have them in shooters where everything with regard to the individual is modelled in great detail (although usually restricted to mainly visual effects), but you lose the ability to fight with bigger formations.

A good game and a good game designer is able to pick the right set of things to do and the right set of things to leave out, simplify, abstract or fudge, so that the game as a whole "works". What this means exactly depends on the goal of what kind of game you want - fun, realistic, immersive, mix of all...

Theatre of War is great in what it does and is intended to do, and provides all three - fun, realism, and immersion. But it's not and never been intended to be an urban combat simulator. If that's what you're looking for in a game, you'll probably have to move on and find something better (good luck with that )

Some people said in previous threads about this issue that house-to-house fighting was such an important part of WW2, how can it be left out. But think about it - realistic engagement ranges are an even more important part of WW2, because unlike urban combat EVERY battle in WW2 is affected. So leaving out this aspect from the game is a much smaller overall abstraction than 99% of other games out there is offering.

But besides that - contrary to what some others seem to believe, houses were NOT nearly as important by and large as you might think. Houses are easy targets to blow up and if the enemy has only one tank or one gun battery, you're dead meat inside a house. SOPs for defense for the various nations call for avoiding individual clusters of houses entirely. Town defenses call for leaving the first rows of houses unoccupied and defend from within or from behind and the flanks.

This isn't to say that no house-to-house combat took place. Of course it did, and there are some very important battles, too. But you simply won't be able to simulate them in TOW because that's not what TOW is about. It's about the 90% of other battles which took place outside of cities and towns.

Now, to come back to good game design - if TOW did this abstraction and then provided the player with maps over maps of urban terrain and cities to fight through, then yes - this would be a serious problem, because the core game would simply be totally unrealistic. But 1C has proven with other games, most notably IL-2, that they have a team of great designers, and therfore the game is focussing on other areas of WW2 combat, and nicely gets around any possible issue with soldiers not being able to enter buildings.

People asking for a "patch" also quite frankly don't know what they're talking about. We're talking about hundreds of animations and AI for the soldiers - opening doors, climbing stairs, climbing windows, shooting through windows and doors, around corners, moving inside rooms, fighting in sides rooms. We're talking about interior graphics and models for furniture. We're talking about completely new interface code to allow the player to manage his soldiers inside buildings, give orders to them, find them...

This isn't a "patch". That's a new game.

Which brings us back to the starting issue about what games are designed for, and how to do good game design. Some people have previously suggested to abstract the insides of buildings. But this wouldn't be good game design and would break with immersion. You cannot have a game display every little detail on the map down to each individual tree and piece of equipment, and then leave house interiors empty. Anybody suggesting that would be the first complain that it feels bad, looks bad, and plays bad. And spending time on adding something that feels bad, looks bad, and plays bad, is again - bad game design, and not a good use of limited time and resources for a dev team (and developers ALWAYS have limited time and resources).

So where does this leave us? Adding interiors and buildings as a "patch" is totally impossible. But this isn't to say that an expansion or add-on or perhaps TOW2 couldn't deal with it. During the long dev history of Theatre of War, a number of things was done which isn't used at the moment, and which could be used to add some of the missing game elements. On-map mortars, maybe even a strategic element, and buildings might be possible, too.

If you don't support the game for what it is, though, you will have to wait until somebody comes up and makes an urban combat simulator if that's what you're after. But please don't turn around and complain that it's only letting you fire at 100 meters at most, or that there are no rural battles or long range tank duels.

Martin

[ April 01, 2007, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: Moon ]

[crazyman56]

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

I am scared now!!

You are good at putting your point across!

[Vern_S]

I totally agree with Martin's perspective on this. "TOW" simulates "Open" Warfare across the broad expanse of Europe. The issue of entering houses for this type of warfare is mute at best. Even while playing "CoH", blasphemy I know, I find myself staying out of buildings more times then naught and set up defenses around buildings using them as a shield or focusing a choke point. Buildings can be a death trap. No room to maneuver. Out flank an occupied building, toss in a few grenades and let the bar-b-Q begin.

Now that's not to say that "Urban" Warfare wouldn't be a great addition to the "ToW" franchise. Can you say "Theatre of War: Stalingrad". Urban warfare at it's bloodiest. It would be an awesome expansion!!!

I do think that the "ToW" Franchise has legs and will go places.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Sirocco]

How often would an attacking unit have access to armour? Buildings were useful parts of a defence, and their absence from TOW is an issue. But it appears one we'll have to live with.

[Vern_S]

For now perhaps... BF and 1C are good developers that care about their product and their consumers. If buildings remain off limits in "ToW" it's not because they don't care. "ToW" is like everything else in life. Far from perfect but "ToW" seems to have one helluva good start. At least that's the impression I get from the previews that are posted. Support it, nurture it and see what it grows up to be...

[Moon]

Sirocco, how often would a defending unit have access to buildings to incorporate in their defense?

Buildings were useful parts of a defense SOMETIMES. The fact that you cannot enter them in TOW means that you cannot simulate every encounter that happened during WW2 with TOW, such as large city fights.

But nobody of us ever made that claim. For the 90% of combat situations that remain, the inability to enter buildings (unless they're rubbled) is not an issue. Buildings can still be a useful part of a defence in TOW regardless.

Martin

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Moon:

Sirocco, how often would a defending unit have access to buildings to incorporate in their defense?

Well, the point is that when they did I imagine they made for good defensive strongpoints, as part of an all round defence. And in all likelihood they were overcome with flanking maneuvers rather than armour, which was available in limited numbers, after all.

I can understand the technical reasons for how TOW handles buildings, but if the spin is that buildings weren't all that useful in rural fights, and only really mattered in an urban context, then I have to disagree.

[zerocold]

Moon,A I agree with you about game design but I am interested about AI performance.Is this different from other games?What about micromanagement of units?As I have seen in some video and I have readed in other previews do I have to manually select the target e.g. for tanks?What I mean to say is if I order a tank to assault a position defended by infantry an antitank guns the AI has a priority targeting?Does it engage the gun position which is more dangeroes(I assume that antitank gun is in LOS) or will attack the infantry?I have asked this because TOW is a realistic games and there is no more room for tactical mistakes.Also i believe that a good game do not need to have all features

(urban fights,mortar on maps etc)if the AI will react and manage the units as everybody of as expected.

[SpetnazHobo007]

Well from the screenshots and stuff, i doubt buildings are needed for strongpoints etc. You'd be a sitting duck in a building since you'd be so easy 2 pinpoint unlike urban conflict where there are so many possiblities. So i would just accept the fact entering buildings isn't included in ToW and realize that it would be pointless 2 use them rly. Im still looking forward to ToW nonetheless, despite this exclusion.

[Markus86]

I can understand the arguments, but I still think it is missing

But I understand that it never could be added in a patch.

Like Martin wrote it is a lot of work, work which has to be done by workers and they need something to eat. To get food they need money. Patch = no money

So I have still hopes for an addon.

It would be my nummer one on the wishlist.

[franz]

I am surprised no has asked the obvious question.

that question being...." so is the engine for "Combat mission: Shock Force" going to be the uber-engine that can handle everything that Moon says is unreasonable to expect in a single game ?

Now that you have that Syria scenario thing out of the way, will Battlefront start working on what everyone REALLY wants - the new WW2 Combat Mission ?

[Col Deadmarsh]

Why is it that CMBB was able to handle men entering buildings and yet years later, with more processing power to use, this TOW engine can't handle this aspect of the game?

Or smoke either?????

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Deadmarsh, you must have noticed that the way buildings were portrayed in CM was more then a little simplistic? A squad 'ghosting' through a wall might be fine(ish) but when modelling the individual soldier in such detail as ToW I'd be inclined to call bull**** on a soldier walking through a wall.

[MeatEtr]

I would just like to officially cast my vote.

1 vote for the expansion pack to focus on urban warfare.

Title name, how about:

"From Stalingrad to Berlin"

[Moon]

zerocold - the tactical AI in Theatre of War is quite aggressive and quite pro-active. The fact that you CAN micromanage the heck out of your forces in TOW doesn't mean that you must. In many situations your soldiers will know exactly what to do. This depends to a large degree on their individual skills, though. An experienced anti-tank crew will even start targetting vulnerable areas on enemy tanks all by itself. An unexperienced crew might need some guidance by the player to figure out that the big metal moving things are enemy tanks.

franz - like I wrote in my original reply, there is no uber-engine that can do all. CMSF, and the WW2 modules hat will follow, all will have yet again different design goals than TOW or other games. CMSF is actually a great example and proof to what I wrote - CMSF for example is designed with a strong emphasis on urban combat. We're putting a lot of time and effort to get MOUT operations somewhat right. But as with everything, it means tradeoffs in other areas.

Col_Deadmarsh - Elmar hit the nail on the head. The abstractions we implemented in CMx1 worked there because the level of absatraction is consistent across the entire game. Trees are not really trees, they represent "tree terrain". Soldiers are not really soldiers, they represent a squad. A door isn't a door - any unit can enter a building from anywhere. This doesn't work for a game like TOW which is much more "what you see is what you get" than CM ever was.

Martin

[Directive#21]

Now that you have that Syria scenario thing out of the way, will Battlefront start working on what everyone REALLY wants - the new WW2 Combat Mission?

Amen brother!

[stone75]

Hi guys,

I have been mooching over the forums since we got a release date and it seems a whole ton of moaners are out there now. No houses, No 88Flak's, no on field mortars.....But its the only game to simulate warfare on this scale in a very pleasing 3D world in realtime and personally i think its looking mighty fine for what it has got. 1c built it, BFC made it good and my hat goes off to the team (is it still 7 guys ??) for their efforts. If you want enterable buildings heres one you could try.....Take one copy of ToW in case and one copy of Sims. Place both on chair neatly alligned on top of each other. Then sit down really fast!! Voila, enterable buildings with chairs and tables and pictures! Hope it helps but if you hurt yourself dont come cryin

Steve

[MeatEtr]

Stone75, not just that, but nobody has even played the game yet.

[Cpt. Chapel]

Originally posted by Flanker15:

This has been an issue since the begining and dosn't have much of a solution yet. The il2 engine just can't handle enterable buildings easily. Bunkers act as stationary vehicles so you could turn all the buildings into those but then you can only use the weapons built with it, not the weapons of the people in it.

How you were saying bunkers act like stationary vehicles and have a specific weapon gives me an idea. They should make buildings like that and make them have a MGs and bazookas in them.

[Cpt. Chapel]

Originally posted by Flanker15:

This has been an issue since the begining and dosn't have much of a solution yet. The il2 engine just can't handle enterable buildings easily. Bunkers act as stationary vehicles so you could turn all the buildings into those but then you can only use the weapons built with it, not the weapons of the people in it.

It may be possible to do it with ALOT of coding but that could take a while and I'd rather just have the game now and see if it can be done in the future.

You can move infantry into the rubble of destroyed buildings I believe and you still have walls and fortifications which act as cover.

[pwncake]

HI Moon,

plz answer this question there is an whole topic over it. WHY NOT THE 88. This is in my opinion much more strange then when i cannot enter a building or not. You say its more for the other 90% of the battles that TOW is about. WTF am i doing in july fortyone in Russia when some t34's are comming. Just piss the hell out of them or kindly say that they have to return when the patch is ready which has an 88.

Sorry but can you at least give me details of which gun comes available at a certain time.

Because as i sayed in the other topic how are the germans going to destroy mathilda 2 tanks and t34's in the early stages of ww2

I find this more frustrating then entering a building or not.(still would love to do that too)

[Moon]

pwncake, I don't have an answer, or I would have replied.

You're right, it's an omission to only have the 88 Pak and not the Flak. I don't know why it's been left out by the team, it could be for play balancing issues. Unfortunately I also don't have a list of all availability dates on hand. I know that our teams fixed a lot of things here to re-instate realistic dates, but no doubt not everything will be 100% perfect, either.

Martin

[stone75]

Pwncake you make it sound like the deathknell for the germans because no 88. The Germans did indeed have much trouble taking out T-34's, KV-1's and KV-2's simply because they did not always have acces to 88's. So its hardly a game breaker them not being there. The germans still made huge advances through training air power and better morale all i assume will be implemented. Personally ill be waiting for the game before saying whats wrong with it.

Steve