QuickBattle tweaks

[Battlefront.com]

Hi all,

Last year we told people that the current CM:SF Quick Battle system would be completely redone for the first WW2 release (Normandy). The new system will better combine the organizational flexibility of CMx1 (particularly "Cherry Picking") with CMx2's organizational hierarchy (especially necessary for Command and Control). A return to the CMx1 QB system is not only impossible for us, but it is also highly undesirable.

Obviously many people given a choice between the CM:SF system and CMx1 would choose CMx1. That point has been clearly made, established, and reinforced over almost a year. But that's a bad choice! The old system had some serious shortcomings that, like many CMx1 things, are being conveniently forgotten about now that the system is so different. We have no intention of putting a lot of effort into a system only to have it wind up criticized for exactly the same reasons the original was. Therefore, we're coming up with a third solution which will combine the best of both systems, while erring on the side of concepts found in the original QB system.

Now that the v1.10 patch and Marines are behind us, from a development standpoint, we are able to work on larger features like QBs. I am starting to pull together a couple of years' worth of design ideas along with the feedback already seen here. When I have a comprehensive design I'll post to this Forum and double check that we have things covered as best we can. Now that the bulk of the game engine is solid and not subject to change, this sort of involved and focused discussion is now possible.

What about improving QBs now? About a year ago we said we felt it wasn't wise for us to spend our limited time and resources hacking in "fixes" to the existing system that a) don't really sort out the basic problems, won't make people that much happier with it, and c) will be abandoned as soon as we started work on the improved design. Our time is much better spent putting in things which we know will carry forward, not on things which we know for sure will be tossed aside. That philosophy is in everybody's best interests and therefore is still our plan.

However, there may be some extremely small and limited changes we can make to the existing QB system for current CM:SF players. I make no promises that anything will be done with QBs until the first WW2 release, but I am at least willing to entertain the possibility that some changes may be possible. What do I mean? Something like being able to cherry pick forces? Definitely not. Random maps? No way. A visible purchase point system? Absolutely not. Those things are massive from a development standpoint and are exactly the sorts of things we do not want to waste valuable time on.

What I am asking for here are very specific, limited suggestions like "it would be nice if you could be assured of a tank on tank battle instead of Mech Infantry being chosen instead". This is a very narrow suggestion that may, or may not be, something that I can tweak with little-to-no need for intricate coding. I haven't looked into this one specifically yet, and I can think of a few problems off the top of my head, but it is at least the sort of thing that might be possible to put into a patch after v1.10 (there likely will be one or two small patches before we put CM:SF "to bed").

So... are there any other VERY limited changes people feel would make the current QB system a wee bit better?

Steve

[thewood]

Being able to change out a unit would be a huge help in scenario development

Also, picking a platoon at a time for US forces, like you can for Syrian tank forces

Being able to know exactly what unit you get for tanks, AFV, snipers, etc. before actually purchasing them.

I am really thinking of just OOB selection, whether QB or editor.

I would like to see QBs working better, beyond just OOBs. I still find things in wrong places, facing the wrong way, etc. The manipulation of maps and parameters to make sure you get a certain type of map is also frustrating. My expierence with QBs is limited lately, so maybe some of these changes are already done. I gave up on QBs after 1.05.

[SlowMotion]

two limited requests:

-"tank on tank battle instead of Mech Infantry being chosen instead"

This would be useful

-Being able to select the battle map.

Currently if you want to do this, either you try enough times until you get the map you want or before generating the QB you move other maps of same category to another folder or something.

[Roter Stern]

Number One on my list - being able to load a specific map.

[rich12545]

This might be just a bit off topic. But I'm wondering if, when the ww2 game comes out and the new qb system is implemented there, will there be a patch for the SF series to bring it up to date?

[thewood]

Read the last page of the CMSF a step back thread...Steve basically says no.

[ChrisND]

Have the AI facing the right way. I have more than once had a half dozen enemy tanks facing in open fields to the friendly side, and cheerfully sit there as I shot them up.

[Gryphon]

I don't know how demanding this would be, but what about an option like in the scenario editor, where you actually get freedom of purchase within the selected setting, i don't know how the game handles "tiny", "small", "medium", etc. battles, but perhaps once could use those criteria as a limit to how much stuff you can "purchase" (i'd prefer to call it request as there are no points values involved).

So what we'd see is a player selecting "mechanised infantry" for the syrians in a "small" scenario, this would bring up the scenario editor-like "request screen" and he would be allowed x formations mech infantry formations. Another option is to let people choose what they want but then randomising what they get. So they select a tank company and mech batallion but since the setting is "small" they either get a tank platoon or infantry company.

Nothing fancy, it's much to hard for you guys to go balancing stuff and i don't even know wether this suggestion is already way too complex, but who knows. Of course in human vs. human QB battles this would mean the opponents have to make create some rules what is allowed and what not. But it shouldn't necessarily be a problem.

An even simpler option could be presenting a cruder OOB list where the player chooses several units on platoon, company or whatever level and the game randomly picks units from the selected stack. I mean, apparently the game already randomly picks stuff and it has "some" sort of value, so this would help the current purchaser a hand. In this case, the "OOB list" could be very crude. It doesn't need to be the one fom the scenario editor. Instead it could give the player some better finetuning options in the shape of ticked boxes or whatever. These boxes might be "Infantry", "Reserve Infantry", "ATGM vehicles", "ATGM formations", "MG formations", "Tanks" etc. The player chooses Syrian infantry and only gets to choose from "Reserve Infantry, "ATGM formation", "MG Formations".

Alternatively, a player on the US side chooses Heavy Infantry and selects "Tanks" which will give him access to exactly that. If he chooses "Tanks" and "Mounted infantry" then he gets one of them (random) if the scope is too small or both with a bigger battle size.

I've created this crude photoshop modification so you understand what i mean as this became quite the clusterf. of text

If none of this makes it into CMSF, then I hope that for CM:Normany at least, we will see a more elaborate system where we can pick formations.

P.S. I know it should be MGS stryker, but ah well, too lazy to change it now

[Piecekeeper]

Dont know if its a minor change. But the ability to exactly customize what units you want to fight with.

[TheVulture]

Most complaints over the last year or so have been about unbalanced forces. Now its fairly clear that the concept of balanced forces is waaay to situational to be tractable for a simple algorithm. So I'd suggest the simple fall back plan of an option to ensure that both sides have the same units. It's not ideal (part of the fun is in trying to figure out what your opponent might have hiding somewhere) but at least guarantees a pretty even match for those times that people are looking for just that.

If you have time to kill, you could have a sliding scale of how matched the sides are forced to be, from exactly the same through to the current system (e.g. ranging from 'exact same tanks'; 'same tank unit with possibly different equipment quality, leadership etc.'; 'both have platoon from some kind of armoured formation' through to 'what do you mean you've got tanks? I've only got three guys with a sharpened stick').

Then people can fiddle around to find the level that gives them the mix of balance and unpredictability that they find most enjoyable.

[Lethaface]

I reckon that a few more precisely defined parameters would indeed be very helpful. I support the suggestion to add the possibility to select mechanized or tank, perhaps more categories (AT?) could be added?

Or defining fire support?

If those are possibilities, I think the QB's could become much more valuable then they are now. Atm a QB CAN be a good battle. But for example there is a lot of difference between a static tank and a moving one. Not knowing what you will get makes it rather unplayable, unless you like to try 3 games to get 1 nice one

[Fat Dave]

As long as a QB is balanced in terms of opposing forces, then it is up to player to do the best they can with the hand dealt to them. Of course, playing against another human is where the real tactical challenge lies, and currently, an almost gentleman's agreement needs to be struck about what forces to play with to ensure this balancing act. CM1 covered this very well in my opinion.

What about the idea to provide the player with various pre-selected balanced QB 'packages' of units to battle it out with? Imagine being able to select a Red QB uncon unit 'package' which could consist of either a small, medium or large uncon QB force - coming with fighters, AT assets, IED's and the like, to battle it out against a Blue force package of similar size/fighting power and experience.

[Meach]

Getting artillery spotters with no guns to spot for or guns with no one to spot for them plagues the Syrian forces.

[Other Means]

I had the same thought as Fat Dave. We really want balanced games so if there's a selection of "pre-picked" packages then that'll hold us until we can completely review it.

If we can combine packages; one from column A (Infantry), one from column B (Support) and one from column C (AFVs) then that would open it up to be a bit more fun.

If that's not possible then just a selection of 6 or so packages to let us choose how to balance would do. Packages like "Urban infantry", "Light armour supported infantry", "MG heavy", "ATGs but no tanks" etc.

[benpark]

Gryphon's mock up looks good to me.

[stikkypixie]

Predictability, predictability, predictability. Please. Right now when I start a QB I have no idea what I will get. I don't mind having to stick to the OOB. But let me a least choose between the options given.

Right now it's just a lottery.

Get rid of the weird quality ratings for troops. Right now if I play a mechanized Syrians I have to set the quality to excellent to get regular troops. There is no need for this kind of thing.

Clearly indicate what button I have to click when choosing sides. Attacking vs Defending <=> Red and Blue. That's just plain confusing.

And get rid of having a lot of arty without spotters and vice versa.

[panzermartin]

I really want to shoot the guys who "criticized CMx1 QB system" At least it was working back then sniff..

I have to agree with the symetrical auto purchase of units. Just add a "Mirror Forces" Box. At least for BluevsBlue and RedVRed. No more Recce Jeeps vs Javelins and Strykers or Elite ATGMS vs hordes of infantry. Predictable but playable and fair. I can hardly think of any other "small" improvement to fix the weird QB selections. Players could come up with fair balancing if a cherry pick system was allowed, like the old rules of CM, but CMSF has a fixation on controlling everything and sticking to "realistic" OOBs and Command trees even when we talk about a bunch of toyota hiluxs. For Normandy, please consider reintroducing variable rarity. It made purchasing and constructing a fighting force a game on its own.

[Battlefront.com]

Some good ideas here. While there is no chance of being able to "cherry pick" which units you get, because that would involve UI and UI is very time consuming (and 100% loss in terms of the next game), there are definitely some things I can propose to Charles to get more balance/predictability without him asking if I've suddenly gone insane

I can't commit to anything at this point, but I am scribbling things down.

Steve

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I throw my hat in the ring for some pre-picked battlegroups.

[MarkEzra]

Keeping my request to the realm of "this sounds easy to me"...like I'd actually know...:

Syrian FO's always have Arty.

Tank vs Tank means just that.... ALWAYS.

[MarkEzra]

Regarding Unit facing:

Those who have made scenarios know that the editor unit "deploy" screen places units in one corner of the map. The designer must move them to positions and one side will ALWAYS be facing in the wrong direction. When I have isolated a QB map that has facing issues I seem to find that if units were not used during making the map (or were not properly adjusted), the game follows the editors logic which which gives one side a face and the other an ass... (so to speak). The simple (I hope) Fix would be that all QB selected units are orientated to the the opposite of "Friendly direction" the QB Map uses

[hoolaman]

I think the QB menu would benefit from a few extra options:

Firstly, the top bit of the menu could be changed so Battle Size equates to Map size. This would enable the player to finetune the map that they play on independant of force size.

A new option could be added "force size" to that effect. The options could be "battalion size" "company size" "platoon size" "byte size". The force modifier % could then be applied to this, giving you a depleted platoon, a reinforced company etc. etc.

An extra option on top of this could be "support". So levering off the "force size" option you could select things that are outside of the organic OOB for smaller formations by category such as arty, air, armour, ATGM, heavy weapons. This would then give you an appropriate amount of that asset in addition to your core forces.

What is the end result of this? You can fight with any size force on any size map. You can give your core formation support that can be balanced against your opponent eg. if one gets "armour" one gets "ATGM".

[c3k]

tagging onto hoolaman;

The forces could be hand-made: I'm sure a bunch of talented individuals could tweak many different variations of company size forces to come out with a wide selection of possible units. The same for platoon or battalion.

Glad you're at least thinking about improving the qb system.

Thanks,

Ken

[Herr Kruger]

CMx1 Quick Battles were/are the bomb! It's basically all I ever played. Loved the random maps and force purchase. Incredibly fun!

I'm not saying they were perfect. I'm not 'conveniently forgetting' anything about them. I loved them.

CMSF QBs, not so much.

[hoolaman]

I'm not saying they were perfect. I'm not 'conveniently forgetting' anything about them. I loved them.

I don't really understand what Steve is talking about there either. I think the outcry over the CMSF qb system is proof enough that the people who are still around playing combat mission like the old system. The only complaining I remember was a bit of "tank x should be worth more than tank y" but I think almost everyone enjoyed the qb system even allowing for a bit of grumbling about some things. Anything that was lacking could be overcome by agreements with your opponent.

The qb force selection is really just a FOW device, allowing opponents to set up a decent game of a known size without discussing in detail what they are going to get. It is the predictability thing that is critical as stikkypixie mentions above, if you want a tiny quick (in real life terms) quick battle and get a stryker battalion to control that is a problem.