Jump to content

Persistent Experience question....


Recommended Posts

I bought this game awhile ago and it is much better than Theater of War. It has great replayability so congrats as I have about every war game out there for the PC and XBOX.

The questions is this, do your units go up in rank from one mission to the next mission. I have not tried to watch this yet, as I admit, there are a lot of units to track some times. I assume it does but does my Hummer driver PFC Newbee, become Sergeant Newbee at some point.

A also agree that tracking kills is one of my favorite atributes so this is the only place where Theatre of War is better than Shockforce. I'd love to see that in the next package.

Since uploading the patch for 1.10 the fire missions on the mortars/artillery are awesome. I especially like the "shot over....shot out" and the talk back and forth.

Spent 4 years in the 1/508th Airborne, mainly as a M60 team leader. I have to admit, thes Combat mission series have always been a favorite of mine.

Take care,

Falconander

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Battlefronts argument, IIRC, is that a campaigns scope is not meant to cover a length of time significant enough for promotions/experience changes. Take that for what you will. I personally believe that the campaign designer should be able to dictate the effects that replacements have on the experience of reinforced squads. Thus being able to simulate an influx of green troops that can weaken the effectiveness of a unit even if it is restored to 100%.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I went back and played some old games this weekend, one of which was Squad Assualt Western Front. They have an excellent promotion, award and experience system in this game. After every battle you get to give awards and the like which effects the units experience.

Yea, I don't know how field promotions work in a combat zone. But there are plenty of examples of squad leaders going down and the team leader stepping into their roles.

I forget the term but when someone is made into an officer on the field of battle. Anyone.... ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Normaldude for that answer...

While it is understood that Shockforce covers a limited campaign and as such promotions might be limited, unit cohesion and experience would get better as the campaign goes on.

I also sorely miss tracking my guys from mission to mission. As I understand things, Sgt Sniper does not come back into the ranks on the next mission. It helps with the flow of the campaign and believability that you are following a real unit through a campaign.

There are so many things that are spot on with this game, so as always congrats on that.

But, I'd love to be able to follow my boys from battle to battle. You almost get into a mode of protecting your favorites for the important tasks and sending the green guys in as cannon fodder. It adds some realism to the whole campaign.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But, I'd love to be able to follow my boys from battle to battle. You almost get into a mode of protecting your favorites for the important tasks and sending the green guys in as cannon fodder. It adds some realism to the whole campaign.

While I'd love to follow my men from battle to battle as well, I don't think that protecting favourites and sending in green guys as cannon fodder is particularly realistic. In fact, Battlefront's argument for not letting you know which troops in the campaign are your core force is exactly that knowing would cause the player to protect them at the expense of others, and at the expense of realism.

But, that being said, it is a game after all, and it is fun to track your guys, I'd love this option too.

Cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yair,

Understand your point and I can see people might abuse this. But you won't see any Rangers or Special forces guarding the motor pool. Elite regiments/units have always been given special consideration throughout history. If I have a battle, that I have to win, this is where these guys come in for a swift and accurate strike.

The other night I had a huge hill off to one side that overlooked everything. I said it would be pretty cool to sneak my FO way up there. But knowing the enemy might pick him off I sent a Humvee up there to sneak the crew out as a recon.

Naturally, they got to the top but before they could unload, they were blown to pieces. I know I get more units next battle so that Humvee loss doesn't matter as the Humvee won't effect this battle at all. So the poor Humvee is expendable.

That would probably not be the case if this was the same humvee crew that I had through the last 8 missions.

I know it is about your own honor and no one knows the final score but you, but it would be cool to have some of your first troops walk off that final battle....

Blackhawk Down.... Saving Private Ryan....We Were Soldiers..... Captain Price (Sp?) in Call of Duty 4....

You almost cry when some of these guys go down... It misses that element in the game since no one is carried forward. Maybe the argument can be made that we are at Brigade level so we are not concerned with individual names just whether they get the job done.

But when you zoom in and you are literally on the rooftop with your recon element under heavy suppression with Strikers on the way, you are not at the Brigade level. You zoom from Company to Platoon to that squad leader ducking behind the wall trying to get your men the hell out of dodge.

Even if you do, they vanish in the next mission anyway.

Too late to make changes I know, probably even to the next addition, but somewhere down the line it would be good to bring back.

Awesome game though....awesome...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, FWIW, I agree with you about the emotional attachment, it would be great. In the CMx1 days I used to play with Robert Oleson's Quick Campaign spreadsheet that would track troops and run a campaign, and I loved to see how many kills my men got and see them increase their experience.

The realism comment was meant to say that I don't think it is realistic for commanders to send green guys as cannon fodder ahead of experienced guys, assuming they are from the same unit, etc. I think the point about the rangers not guarding the motor pool is more because it would be a waste of their skills rather than because guarding the motor pool is dangerous and the commander would prefer someone else to die instead.

Finally, your post made me unsure if you know about this, so I thought it worthwhile to mention, but the campaign does actually track a core force, it is just that you don't know who they are. There is definitely a continuation factor between missions in the campaign. If you lose to many guys in one mission you'll have less guys in the next ones. What is missing is the RPG element of having their names, kills, awards, etc. continue, and I would love to see that too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow,

I did not know that about the core force. I'll have to experiment with this one. I noticed that I had more units the second time I played so that might have something to do with it.

It does have the stats at the end too so that helps you to hone down your skills.

Would love someone to follow up on the core force application that you spoke of in the game and how casualties are simulated from mission to mission.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...