Bug list / ideas for improvements

[Mongo]

There are still a lot of players on the multiplayer servers, and a lot of them seem to be from eastern Europe and a few from Russia. There are also a number of players from Britain, which is really no surpise because they're a bloodthirsty lot.

They really got the game play just right and I haven't seen any better since then. I wish they would upgrade the graphics a bit and I would buy it again. People are still doing mods for it.

[Tartari]

bollox! Looks like ToW2 has the exact same set of problems with AI and scripting that ToW has... good to see they really listen to their customers :-/

From the 4 pages Ive just read through, I dont think Ill be wasting another $45 ($90 NZD) on 1C's RTS games. Unfortunate, cause they sure know how to make them look good... if only they could make the game play enjoyable.

thanks for all the posts gents... you saved me the pain and expense of another flop.

don't believe some very demanding people , this game is the best wargame ever! (along with CMAK and I hope, CM N)

[Knokke]

R33GZ,

Your post is pretty unfair, to say the least. This game has still some problems, but they're been adressed at the moment in the patch that is going to be released soon. And you don't need to read the posts about bugs to make yourself an opinion: there is a demo that you can check without fear of "an other flop".

To be fair, I've seen only two gamemakers taking care of their customers: the first one is Bohemia Interactive (the very best support i've ever seen!); second next is 1C (thanks to you, Sneaksie).

I'm not speaking here about "ass-licking", but about fairness. It is the actual tendency in western democracies for peoples to surrender their intelligence to the opinion of the masses, acting like lambs going to the slaughter. Peoples like Tocqueville have already analysed this problem as far back as 1836. Everyone have a brain, so the best thing to do is using it. Show others that you have a brain and express your freedom by using it, and making your own opinion by yourself.

Actually, like Tartari said, this is the best wargame ever. There is a lot of room for further devellopment and improvement, and I hope ToW devellopers will do just what Bohemia Interactive has been doing with Flashpoint: setting a new standard that has still to be beaten. Since the days of Close Combat, there has been nothing in RTS games that come close to the standard set at that time, more than ten years ago. It looks like ToW and now ToW2 have all the qualities to go even further. Rome wasn't build in a day. I have eyes and a brain allowing me to see that this game was made by dedicated peoples, and I'm thankfull for that, so I'm not complaining about the shortcomings that I can find, as I know they're going to be adressed.

There are so many game companies that don't give a damn about their customers (like Ubi, to name just one). 1C is not one of them.

As for the improvements i'd like to see, they're mostly additions to the game:

In the game as it is, would like to see small caliber mortars, movable MGs, more units for the Italian and British side, engineers able to clear minefields.

In the game as I would like it to be in the future (that is having in mind a different theater than Tunisia 1943): I would like to see a converter to add 3D models made by third-party devellopers in the game; new content for other theatres of operation; the ability to cross rivers with amphibious vehicles; the ability to recreate paratroopers operation (droping paratroopers and glider landings); boats that the troops could use for river-crossing operations as well as landing craft to recreate Anzio, Normandy etc...; and a different way of handling pathfinding for bridges (the ability for soldiers and vehicles to cross bridges on top as well as under them - this would include river bridges as well as road bridges and tunnels). Mmmm... that's a lot of things not in game already. ToW2 IS already the best RTS ever, but it is not enough I'm hungry for more.

[amandus]

@ Tartari: don't believe some very demanding people , this game is the best wargame ever! (along with CMAK and I hope, CM N)

I totally agree with You!

But …

Would like to have those issues to be addressed by the developers:

- More units , particularly those already present in the predecessor and /or somewhat difficult to convert from TOW to TOW2 e.g.

o British: Matilda MK II Tank, Crusader Mk II / III, Churchill III, Valentine Mk V, British Shermans, Stuarts and Grants, Bishop SPG, Jeeps w. double Vickers MG (for Long Range Desert Group-scenarios) , British lorries

o American: M7 SPGs , AT-Gun M3A1 (3,7 cm), 6 pdr. AT-Gun, Gun Motor Carriage M 3 (SPG). M2/M3 Halftrack armed w. Browning 0.5” AA-HMG, Scout Car M3 A1, armed Jeep (w. AA-HMG)

o German: Marder-series SPGs, Sd. Kfz 233 Scout Car (w. 7.5 cm gun), Sd. Kfz 251 / 10 (w. 3.7 cm AT-gun) and probably for the Infantry AT-teams: Haftholladung (but don’t know if they were used in the African theatre though), AA-MG mounted on Sd. Kfz 251 /250 and VW-Kübel, Flak 38 (2 cm single barreled) – towed version . Spigot-round for PAK 36 (3.7 cm) (but don’t know if present in African theater) and StuGs

o Italian: all – but this is already being addressed by Tche (A special big Thank You to You Tsche ! – at this occasion! Looking forward to Your work.)

o All: fortifications are missing (covered HMG emplacements like in TOW), on map mortar (at least the 5/6/8 cm versions)

- Battle generator improved with easier to use trigger-modules to be easily used by “non-computer experts (like me ) :

- reinforcements

- surrender (panicked enemy units surrounded become neutral-at least)

- reaching certain areas on the map

- predefined bombardment/ smoke / air attack by AI

- minefields

- allied army units become – player units

- submissions

weather is difficult to figure out except “sunny day” would be nice to have the overcast, partly overcast, rain, foggy and sandstorm as predefined options

- Don’t know why heavy machine guns (MG 34/42, Vickers and Browning) are still not movable - (suggestion: team could be increased to 3 men and movable only with at least 2 men like AT-guns at a relatively slow speed)

- Bailed out crews should go prone or run away and look for cover immediately after bailing out and not stand around and happily loading their pistols until they catch a bullet or have finished their loading.

- Troops surprised or hopelessly surrounded and panicked should surrender and your own units should be credited for capturing enemies.

- On map radio-operators / forward observers (in command-squads) to call in support / reinforcements

- AI soldiers should not carry out stubborn assault orders particularly if they are knowingly run into known MG-fire or want to man an empty gun where already 20 men died at the same position on their way

Hope I am not too “demanding”

@ developers: thank You for Your attention and devotion.

[Prattboy9394]

Really nice suggestions from all you guys. There are different ways 1C can add behavior without too much code:

* Infantry surrendering - if a unit is panicking and it is surrounded by 5 or more enemy units, then add "cowering" animation. After a few minutes, unit "disappears" (captured, and we get credit)

* Suppression - there should be a suppression visual before "panic" is induced. I think we could use more feedback on that. Brothers In Arms does that well.

* Infantry AT - right now, if I have one tank and AI has none(and no ATG) then I can wipe the map clean. Infantry AI seem unable to rush a tank and throw AT grenades. I won't even mind if they up the number of bazookas/schreks or make them more accurate.

* Infantry in trenches - sitting ducks. how would they get run over by a tank if they're in a tench?

[GoodGuy]

I've seen only two gamemakers taking care of their customers: the first one is Bohemia Interactive (the very best support i've ever seen!); second next is 1C (thanks to you, Sneaksie).

Well, there are more, namely Panther Games (Highway to the Reich, COTA, and the upcoming CmdOps: Battle for the Bulge) and the actual devs of CloseCombat: TheLongestDay, and maybe the devs of "Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich (formerly Battle of Britain & Bombing the Reich), all distributed by Matrix Games.

[]....and I hope ToW devellopers will do just what Bohemia Interactive has been doing with Flashpoint: setting a new standard that has still to be beaten.

Well, thing is, they put several ideas (from other developers) together, and - with the release of Operation Flashpoint ("OFP") (in 2001) - they created a whole new sub-genre:

They "borrowed" many elements from other games, though, like vehicles that could be either manned by several players (online) - which was present in "Tribes" (1998) already, a pure multiplayer game -, or by bots and players (Tribes 2, 2001), but Bohemia never got anywhere near the level/quality of the AI-bots in Unreal Tournament (1999).

The element of combined arms (air support, tank support for ground forces, etc) for single and multiplayer wasn't exactly totally new either, but they put it all together in a smart way, then they put in some simple scripts (for friendly and enemy AI), and added the real groundbreaking feature:

Maps with sizes never seen before (you could travel on the entire island, roughly 40km long - with a width of like... 10 km?)... that was the stunning part.

Weapons, computation of traveling projectiles was flawed though, let alone the primitive AI scriping, entering or exiting vehicles (player) was somewhat buggy, and turned out to be a total desaster for AI crew members at times (they got turned into roadkill sometimes, or they couldn't re-enter the vehicle anymore).

Bohemia took this game as a base and developed a combat sim for the military ("VBS1"), and it took almost 6 years to come up with a sequel (released in November 2006 in Europe), Armed Assault, which was just a bug-infested 1.5 version of "OFP", but with updated gfx (which still look ancient) in fact.

That said, their "standard" like you say has been beat quite a few times already, maybe other developers just didn't mix features as ingenious as Bohemia did with OFP, but Bohemia themselfs have yet to deliver something that is able to meet today's standards AND deliver new and groundbreaking content (means, beat their own old "dusty" standard).

I played OFP a lot, even online (the netcode was extremely bad), i loved it, but saying the standard the game set (back then) hasn't been beat yet rather sounds like you romanticize the game's capabilities in retrospect.

Major companies like EA took OFP, Tribes 1 and 2, and maybe even elements from Jagged Alliance (1994), Counterstrike (2001) and HalfLife (1998) or Teamfortress and put them all in Battlefield 1942/Battlefield 2, with some Arcade elements (flight, vehicles, ships) and partially realistic elements (close combat). But there are other less known games that offer more realistic approaches.

Given, TOW 2 marks the best (as in most realistic) approach for the RTS genre so far.

There are so many game companies that don't give a damn about their customers (like Ubi, to name just one). 1C is not one of them.

I agree, with both statements, that's why i don't buy any Ubi products anymore. It seems they shifted their focus to console games, anyways.

don't believe some very demanding people , this game is the best wargame ever! (along with CMAK and I hope, CM N)

I wouldn't call it demanding. If I see that a publisher gives a damn about customers I just ignore/boycott their products. But if I see that a game has potential or that a game could be absolutely top-notch once flaws and bugs have been minimized/eliminated, I put in my 2 cents, in an attempt to help improve the game.

And, as a customer who has paid for the product, I think I have the right to "insist" on getting a game where basic functions (savegames, memory management) actually work. So I don't see why people shouldn't list issues.

I'm just not one of those people who just try to live with bugs and shut up, anxiously hoping or waiting that they'll get fixed some time in the future.

This game is really good, but it may take some time until the most imminent flaws are gone. It might take another sequel (TOW3?) or an expansion where ppl have to open their wallets again, just to get the things fixed that were supposed to work in TOW2, as I don't see 1C releasing more than 1 or 2 patches in the future. If 1C proves me wrong there, I'd be pleased to see that they're different.

My 2 cents.

[R33GZ]

R33GZ,

Your post is pretty unfair, to say the least. This game has still some problems, but they're been adressed at the moment in the patch that is going to be released soon. And you don't need to read the posts about bugs to make yourself an opinion: there is a demo that you can check without fear of "an other flop".

Sometimes life just isn't fair Knokke... my post however, is not in the 'unfair' category.

Having persevered with ToW since its release, it is now nothing but a dust collector on my shelf. I have gone back to it on several occasions, but every time I pick it back up, install all of the patches and add ons, it still disappoints.

From what I read in this thread, a lot of the same problems are still prevalent... which means, contrary to your understanding of my post, a lot of the problems from ToW have either failed to be addressed, or deemed to be unimportant by the developers... this thread alone is proof enough that they got it wrong... again.

To be honest with you, I'm not even remotely interested in going through the torture of downloading the demo and hopping it will live up to expectations when quite clearly... it will not.

I'm not speaking here about "ass-licking"

Ha ha! good... I think its called phelching lol.

There is a lot of room for further devellopment and improvement,

There has been since the day of its first release... thats the problem... a lot of potential with a stunning looking game that has had very little follow through. Most of the points in this thread are the same points being rehashed from the release of the first version of ToW.

I get huge enjoyment out of 1C's IL21946. They have had huge success with that title... it would be great to see that happen with ToW2. but I would wagger you that this will never happen, there seems to be more importance placed on the eye candy of the game, rather than fixing fundamental flaws in the guts of the engine itself.

Enough said I think. I hope you enjoy the game, you're lucky to have someone as dedicated to the cause as Sneaksie. Best of luck to you... may you not have a dust attracting doorstop anytime in the near future.

[SlapHappy]

Personally, I don't think R33GZ is being unfair. TOW also no longer resides on my HDD. I guess I have a bit of a different take since I came to the conclusion that 1C had a different vision for this game than what I wanted out of it. Fair enough. I can't really claim the game is broken if it matches up with the ideas the developers had for it.

What most of my concerns continued to be in this series was the way infantry was handled. I wanted more TACAI capability, while the developers were pushing more the concept of the individual soldier control methodology. That's simply a matter of preference. Traditional RTS players probably prefer this feature and would submit it's one of the stronger points of the game. I'd rather have more squads and be limited to controlling them at that level.

In fact the thing that ultimately dashed TOW for me was the low number of available troops per battle and the fantastic rate at which even small arms fire wiped out those limited numbers. It was a combination of problems which pretty much kept an all-infantry scenario out of the question for me because of the inherent lack of depth any such game would offer.

[manoi]

Just have noticed that if I switch the camera to the first person view, when I switch back to the normal view, I'm not able to zoom out as far as I was able before.

[beerhunter]

This is it, I just finished all campaigns in the game, and I'm sad that there is no more battles per campaign, like it was addressed before on this forum. Now, on 64-bit Win7 game runs very well, without a single crash... So bring us more campaign, this is too few for such a game like TOW 2.

[Piecekeeper]

Just have noticed that if I switch the camera to the first person view, when I switch back to the normal view, I'm not able to zoom out as far as I was able before.

Yes...there seem to be an issue with the zoom....

[Prattboy9394]

switch to freelook mode and you won't have problem