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What should be in the patch


ColonelBlimp

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Just some quick ideas for the next patch...

Movement

Multiple Waypoints a must!!!!

LOS/Cover

No firing through tree's

More cover options

Create a drag out line that is colour-coded for LOS

Green Clear LOS

Yellow Obcured

Red No Line of sight

Infantry

Better feedback from orders (Taking heavy casualties, we need tank support, etc etc)

Wounded – only dash

Seriously wounded – crawl only

Critically wounded - should not move

Sound

Improve aircraft sound

Improve Artillery

Improve overall sound (more accurate weapon sounds)

Multiplayer

Objectives on maps - that give VP (victory points)

A Points system to buy units for custom battles

No doubt loads more to come...

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What I would like to see to make this game more enjoyable. I have not listed things I consider "enhancements" or "add-ons" (smoke, star shells, etc...), rather what seems like crucial fixes to the user presentation and/or existing game mechanics. Possibly some of this is my inexperience with the game showing. I've only played it now for around 6 hours so far, and while I think a 6 hour getting over the learning curve for a RTS Wargame is very generous, I'd be happy to learn how to improve my gameplay if I am missing something.

1. LOS feedback to player. Having a tough time figuring out quickly who or what can see who/what/where. What areas are in view to set up MGs, ATGs, etc... is very very difficult. At the risk of comparing TOW to CMxx, (Jamooba strike me dead!), in CM a TURN BASED game where I have time to figure this out at my leisure it's very simple to figure out, but in this REAL TIME game it is much more difficult and subject to a lot of guess work.

It seems at times as if the computer opponent "AI" has eyes like Chuck Yeager, possibly even the AI cheats, and I'm stuck with Barney F'n Google eyes.

2. LOF There is something odd going on with LOF as well as LOS, but since I cannot figure out LOS, I cannot put my finger on LOF.

2. Unit / Soldier path finding and movement issues

Waypoints - Need 'em Also the little gray arrows need to stay visible so I can coordinate movement of squads.

Path Finding - Better, more "intelligent" plotting by "Tac AI" - Too often I see my tiny little troopers running about like fools.

Fence climbing - need it.

Rotate facing to be more "sticky"

Hold Position to be more "sticky"

3. Cover and Concealment

Players need to know if a unit is in bushes/shrub cover, trees, rough, tall grass or whatever or if they are exposed for all the world to see. (See item 1 above).

If they are told to go prone and hold fire they need a bonus against spotting or somefink. I've seen others mention a hide command, sounds good but prone and hold fire is in effect supposed to be hiding, no? A unit told to go to ground & hold fire in any case ought to do so with more regularity.

4. Crew served weapons

Mortars - Need 'em badly. Rushing prepared defenses with just ineffective MGs and small arms fire is a pain.

MGs - Just light MGs so far? Need heavy MGs to move with the squad.

ATGs - Need to dig them in, in fact I need to dig in my squadies too. Where's the entrenching tool?

Field Guns - See ATGs above.

5. Target acquisition and getting fire downrange - Seems my squadies are a little slow picking up targets.

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Double the number of men for crew based weapons, ANTI-tank weapons and LMGs. The reason infantry seems so weak, in CM when one guy in a two men anti-tank crew is killed the unit still has the same firepower, in TOW the unit and firepower are gone. Infantry will last longer and be more effecitive against tanks.

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enter buildings

one of the mods (will not say who)

siad that most missons happed out side of towns and citys

well there are 5 missons where the fighting was in a small town

maybe he did not play the game, and i hope that is the case

but entering those building would have made the game play better for me.

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Reduce AI cheating (like when you enter an abandonned vehicle/canon it'll directly know it's manned and will shoot at it, often hitting directly straight at it even if the ennemy was busy elsewhere the second before.)

Correct LOS issues

Reduce firing through trees and bushes.

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Originally posted by huhr:

Any idea of when a patch will come out and/or are they actually working on one?

I believe this current version is a six-month patch on the Russian version. So don't hold your breath for anything more. If they couldn't get this turkey squared away in six months of extra development time... :rolleyes:
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Fix the AMD graphics problem - it is ludicrous that a high-spec machine has to turn everything down and work on one CPU to get this to run at all.

Fix the map view - it is clunky and unnecessarily awkward. You did it well enough for CM, so what made you change it to this?

Get more of the map playable. Why offer a brilliant map then restrict play to a small part of it?

Allow a retreat/get-out clause when you screw up so badly. I hate having to watch and wait until everyone dies before the debacle is over.

Create your own battles. I can see why making new maps would be impractical but why not at least let me choose my own units and the opposition? Again - you did this on CM, so why not here?

I have not experienced serious LOS problems, or felt that a Hide command was essential. Overall, I think the AI is a bit powerful, but there is nothing much wrong with that. I do think that the compensation is not good enough - I don't need a No Morale on lower settings, I need the ability to add more troops/art/air.

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Originally posted by Krull:

Right on blow56.

Paying, playing peeps telling it like it is.

oh, come on old fighting mate Krull, its not all that bad and the patch will surely deal with the mp-play and than i will kick ur english island-monkey butt, with a nice online battle, where it belongs to! ;)

himmelstoss

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"oh, come on old fighting mate Krull, its not all that bad and the patch will surely deal with the mp-play and than i will kick ur english island-monkey butt, with a nice online battle, where it belongs to"

Just who is supposedly working on this alleged patch?

Sure isn't Battelfront, they didn't develope the game.

Hate to burst everyones bubble, but unfortunately I think, what you see, is what you get!

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I'll be devastated if there isn't a patch. There are so many things with TOW that could be improved with only a bit of work.

One thing I found odd was that, if there is no chance of enterable buildings being used, why have the insides of a lot of buildings been rendered?

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'Hope this LoS grumbling doesn't turn out to be a case of 'careful what you wish for'. I grumbled about it too, when I had played for less than a few hours AND didn't understand how it works.

LoS is extremely realistic in this game, 1C probably saw that continuous time strategy IS the most realistic treatment and ran with it.

Unfortunately, realistic wargames are played and bought by folks without much experience of RTS - cos they are usually kids' games - and so don't take into account dynamics they haven't had to approach before.

In reality, you can never be sure whether you have been spotted by an enemy or not. THIS is where the game is peeing its effectively 'newbie' players off (me too, originally). A bit of open-mindedness is due.

If you take the time, you can sneak even unskilled soldiers through thick grass, to surprise tanks and gun crews. At the moment you only know if you've been spotted when the earth starts erupting all around your units - just like the real world.

After playing and seeing that the game's LoS/LoF system works brilliantly and ultra realistically, I no longer want my hand held by the system in this regard. I no longer am in the uninitiated clamour for 1:1 indicators - some kind of percentage doodad, mebbe (but that is already indicated by those crosshairs over enemy units).

LoS/LoF isn't 'mutual' - there's a Piagetian belief going around here that because I can't see you you can't see me, 'I've closed my eyes, you no longer exist'.

From a vantage of shade, behind a thin screen of leaves, standing still you are are highly probably lost in the background to a distant viewer. Perhaps that is why guys are getting frustrated by seemingly 'impossible' knock-outs from far away.

The human eye/brain is also highly sensitive to movement, so there's another give-away. I wonder if this is modelled. Does sound (rustling, engines) help the AI?

'Seen how the viewing arc of a tank goes from wide to narrow? I'm thinking this is a buttoning efect - kewl! :cool:

In some ways the system gives you 'gamey' zoom and rotate views of enemy units that you wouldn't get in reality. No is complaining about that - me incuded. :D

However, if the devs are presenting tough, realistic LoS/LoF they should also give the player real-world WORLDS for the tactitian to work with.

Waypoints would give a dimention to tactics that is missing, atm. Micromanaging complex moves is painful and detracting from enjoyment.

That's the phenomenological stuff... . Any TO&E, OOBs, and ballistics I'll leave to the remarkably well-informed Grogs that make these forums growed up places to be and the games informatve to play.

Using/scaling, fences and walls has to be sorted - as with multistoried building entry, in the long-run. I suspect the devs/BFC probably know all that kind of stuff. ;)

Nice game, nice ui etc.

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"LoS is extremely realistic in this game"

no it's not, the los is half done in this game.Never mind the fact the enemy can see you before you see it rofl, and fire at your troops well behind the lines outside of any chance in hell they could be realistically spotted by the enemy.

I don't know where you get your info but most of what you said doesn't happen much if at all in the game. For 1, good luck sneaking any troops through the grass if there is no hill/s to cover them. kiss them good bye because grass etc provides no realistic cover at all in this game otherwise.

"In reality, you can never be sure whether you have been spotted by an enemy or not. THIS is where the game is peeing its effectively 'newbie' players "

In reality that is why you have scouts rofl, and most of us are not new players, a lot of us are rts veterans and have a diverse games base to judge from. Some of us are even beta testers so please don't put the blame on people being newbs it's lame.

[ April 30, 2007, 03:01 AM: Message edited by: KiloAlpha4 ]

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"Soon as they pop their head up..it's cya later. " Well, there you said it. Popping your head up was where you broke cover.

Sneaking up to a target is relatively EASY. Use long grass and gulleys. If you try to move a whole squad near to a target that is bound to alter you chances of detection, too. It's easy to get one guy behind an ATG but how much damage he does before he is cut down is a toughie. smile.gif

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los is horrible in this game, immagine how much more intense it would be if you could actually hide from the enemy and place ambushes, like you can in CC. if in CC you place a PAK gun behind some bushes, and the enemy tank comes at you. he wont see you (try spotting a hidden pak gun from a tiny view slit, you will only see it when you drive over it) so you can tell it to hold fire and when the tank is at 75meters you tell it to fire and BOOM there goes the tank, so the next time the enemy will think twice and send his infantry first to clear the terrain.

this doesnt work in TOW

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Yes in certain situations it is easy, but you can't sneak up to a target when you have no cover like hill tops etc which was my point even with long grass, I know I do it all the time because I always send out scouts.The other point is also that with the prone command they shouldn't be popping their dangit heads up ;)

"Mostest folks are struggling cos this is a totally new model"

no it's a faulty model not totally new. Actually compared to some damage models I have seen it's fairly average.I really don't see any huge advanced damage model or penetration models, and to that I have even seen some inconsistent things in the game.Like I said earlier, you have to take the game for what it is and a realistic rts it is not. Still has some fun potential but replayability is not one of them.

[ April 30, 2007, 03:15 AM: Message edited by: KiloAlpha4 ]

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No KiloAlpha4, this game it's not marketed as über realistic RTS. It might have been early on, by other publishers, but not by us.

Yes, we're working on a patch ever since day one. By the way - this means 10 days since release day by the way, not weeks or months. Some here seem to be forgetting that.

Thanks to everyone posting constructive criticism here. We listen to that and it will help improving the game.

Martin

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Vegeorite, you have probably found a rare example of where you have actually succeeded in avoiding the buggy LOS.

Almost the opposite of other games, where you find rare examples of the opposite

(Cheater!! You shot me through the wall!) smile.gif

Yes, I call it buggy LOS, no moving buttoned T34 can spot a PAK40 in bushes through multiple trees at 500 meters, and the PAK40 not see it in return - even you agree there with your reference to eyes being sensitive to movement.

This is not even an extreme example.

This game is a Lemon - such a pity to, as its the most easy on the eye WWII game I have ever seen. If even half of the recommendations on this forum make it into a patch, i'll give it another go - but frankly, the fact that most of these recommendations are even being ASKED for after the release and were not implemented in the FIRST place leads me to not hold my breath for any length of time.

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Originally posted by Tripps:

Vegeorite, you have probably found a rare example of where you have actually succeeded in avoiding the buggy LOS.

Almost the opposite of other games, where you find rare examples of the opposite

(Cheater!! You shot me through the wall!) smile.gif

Yes, I call it buggy LOS, no moving buttoned T34 can spot a PAK40 in bushes through multiple trees at 500 meters, and the PAK40 not see it in return - even you agree there with your reference to eyes being sensitive to movement.

This is not even an extreme example.

This game is a Lemon - such a pity to, as its the most easy on the eye WWII game I have ever seen. If even half of the recommendations on this forum make it into a patch, i'll give it another go - but frankly, the fact that most of these recommendations are even being ASKED for after the release and were not implemented in the FIRST place leads me to not hold my breath for any length of time.

Very well said mate. smile.gif
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