Any sentiment for WEGO turns ||e?

[LongLeftFlank]

In designing/playtesting my Ramadi MOUT series, I am having difficulty managing my infantry-centered forces in real time play, since they are divided into groups fighting simultaneously in different parts of the map. It feels like a frantic "clickfest" a la StarCraft, and is not very enjoyable, especially when the premium is on avoiding unnecessary BLUE casualties.

I've tried WEGO as an alternative (which I don't use much even though I like the replay feature), but the problem here is that when my guys do something dumb that I didn't intend, I have to wait out the rest of the minute before I can intervene or correct -- in that time, an entire squad can get slaughtered in place. The self-protective behaviour of infantry (i.e. bugging out of a kill sack) still leaves much to be desired.

I thought that providing a player-selectable option to play 30 second turns rather than 1 minute would be helpful in lessening this problem. I am NOT advocating for 30sec instead of a minute, because 1 minute makes far better sense when playing AFVs and in many other situations. But in MOUT, a minute is an eternity.

Anyone else here think this is a good idea? How hard would it be to program?

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Pausing (ESC key) in RT solves this problem for me.

[Paper Tiger]

Agreed that 1 minute is too long to be hands off in MOUT. It might be more realistic in WW2 but I'd much prefer to play Modern Era MOUT with 30 second turns. In MOUT, the side that moves is in great danger whereas the defender gets to hide in the buildings and fire first. I need to manage my units quite carefully when approaching suspected enemy positions and, for me, RT works best here. I guess the way to do it in WeGo would be to give your units two or three 15-second delays before they start advancing so that you only have to wait 15-30 seconds before you can intervene.

BTW, I've had this problem while playtesting in RT too. I got around it by focussing on one part of the action while the other group rests/defends etc. It feels very slow paced and I'm sure that when other players more adept at clicking like crazy in RT will have no problems playing this mission. But that has rarely been the case. I suspect most RT players play the missions this way too. Or WeGo, when they can't do anything for 1 miinute excpet watch.

[c3k]

Funny: every time WeGo vs. RT is brought up, I hear that the reason WeGo'ers like it so much is because the WeGo'ers are inveterate "control freaks". Yet, as you just posted, it is the opposite. You are FORCED to accept the results of your tactics while you watch the replay phase. Too bad if you told a whole squad to advance into a kill sack. Ooops. In RT, as FMB posted, you have the option of CONTROLLING every single team and vehicle at every single instant of time, through the unfettered use of the Pause function.

There a pro's and con's to both styles. Kudos to BF.C for working to include BOTH in the same game.

As to the original poster's question, I see no benefit to slicing the WeGo turn down to 30 seconds. (Once that is done, the same argument could - and would - be made to have an option for 15 seconds. Ad infinitum.)

WeGo and MOUT; a favorite challenge. Good luck!

Ken

[Thomm]

Nothing against WeGo, but it simply takes an inordinate amount of wall-clock time to finish a given scenario this way. This was one of my biggest problems with CMx1: Those nightly four hour sessions to complete a one hour battle were not sustainable for me.

Best regards,

Thomm

[phil stanbridge]

I play all of my campaign missions in WEGO and the occasional single mission in realtime. I find realtime way too hectic and end up missing a lot of the action especially on larger maps. If I fluff a mission, I simply reload it. Gamey maybe, but sometimes it is the only way.

But isn't it nice to have the option? I'd absolutely hate to lose it.

[Thomm]

But isn't it nice to have the option?

Absolutely!

Keeping WeGo puts a pressure on TacAI development that RT certainly benefits from!

Best regards,

Thomm

[Sakai007]

I find myself using wego much more often then I thought I would when I bought the game. Mostly for large scenarios and my beloved red vs red. The T-72 won't take the beating an M1 will, and I need to be careful when engaging the enemy. Although I think I will try using the pause function in real time, as I also hate walking my troops into an ambush. Just yesterday I was advancing a company on syrian airborne mech infantry supported by a platoon of T-72M(Early). As I crested a hill with the T-72 and started down the other side, an enemy T-55 emerges from a smoke screen and lands a single round on the top of my tanks turret, SMOKED!!! I watched it all happen in the replay, three times. It was painful, really, even if that T-55 didn't live long after (killed by a BMP-2 73mm cannon, go figure) Just an example, and even though this moment killed me, it's what keeps me coming back for more!!!

[sfhand]

In a perfect world gameplay options are good! But with limited development resources, as a wego only player, I would rather see development time spent on other more-important-to-wego items like moveable waypoints. Besides, if turns were shortened to 30 seconds the "control freak" accusations might start having a basis in reality...:D:D

[MeatEtr]

Just wanted to pop in here and mention the mandatory point for any RT/WEGO discussion. That it'd be amazing if they included a 30 to 60 second replay feature for RT. It would make a huge difference and effectively making WEGO obsolete, except of course for PBEM.

If you think RT is a clickfest, then your doing it wrong. The best thing WEGO has going for it self is the full 1 min replays. In RT, you sacrifice this for unlimited turns with the pause feature. The control freaks love RT because you have full control every single second of the battle. With the pause feature it's not a click-fest.

[Mord]

Just wanted to pop in here and mention the mandatory point for any RT/WEGO discussion. That it'd be amazing if they included a 30 to 60 second replay feature for RT. It would make a huge difference and effectively making WEGO obsolete, except of course for PBEM.

Don't blaspheme!

The closet thing I've ever seen discussed about a replay feature for RT was a rolling save that only captured the last 30 seconds or less of the battle. That is not optimal in my opinion because as I understood it you'd lose everything that came before it. Hence, you couldn't go back later and watch a really cool moment if you wanted. I save almost all my turns so I can re-watch them if I want...not to mention it makes AARs easier to write.

LOL. You guys can change your RT if you want but don't advocate making our WEGO obsolete or I will have to put one of those Black Widows down your undies!

Mord.

[LongLeftFlank]

I'm perfectly aware much of the community prefers RT and I'm also perfectly aware that 1 minute WEGO works best for a lot of scenarios and PBEM.

But there are a lot of instances where neither option works well for me and this confirms that I am not the only one. For example, the Iraq scenarios I'm designing now are profoundly sensitive to US casualties. I want to force the payer to use US tactics not gamey stuff (if you don't like that fine, don't play). Because the TacAI is so bad at self-protective behavior you have to monitor your guys closely. Add to that 2 separated forces and RT is out of the question. Which leaves WEGO which has the flaws I noted above unless you don't move guys until the last 15 seconds.

This doesn't seem to be a hard feature to add - I could be wrong - and would add a lot of options for play. I gather the PanzerCommand folks have added an option for different length a

WEGO turns. I'm sure this request just goes at the end of a very long list of nice-to-haves for Charles, fine, I got that. But it's worth discussing.

[MeatEtr]

Don't blaspheme!

The closet thing I've ever seen discussed about a replay feature for RT was a rolling save that only captured the last 30 seconds or less of the battle. That is not optimal in my opinion because as I understood it you'd lose everything that came before it. Hence, you couldn't go back later and watch a really cool moment if you wanted. I save almost all my turns so I can re-watch them if I want...not to mention it makes AARs easier to write.

LOL. You guys can change your RT if you want but don't advocate making our WEGO obsolete or I will have to put one of those Black Widows down your undies!

Mord.

Actually I think it was me who threw out the idea of a rolling 30 second time block replay. Just meant as a starting point for this feature, to help get it off the ground sorta speak. Of course a full minute is the ultimate goal of it.

But great point about saving the files and using them for AARs. Perhaps if ever something like RT/Replay is ever implemented perhaps there could be a way to save the 30 or 60 second blocks.

Not that any of this chit chat really matters. Since I think Steve mentioned something like this wouldn't even get considered until farther down the CMx2 road. Also that the technical hurdles would probably make this not worth the effort. But ya never know.

Bring on the Black Widow, I'll be armed with a Brown Recluse.

[Jonny(FGM)]

I think the 30 second turn has merit. I can't see that it would be any harder to put in than simply changing one variable from 60 to 30, mind you I've never seen the code so of course I don't know.

[Michael Emrys]

I recall a flightsim I used to play 13 years ago called F/A-18 Korea that was pauseable RT, but you could watch the whole mission after completing it. I suppose it depends on the software, but it never occurred to me that that would be especially difficult to program.

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

IMO needing to be able to control your pixellated mens' every movement at any time makes for bad simulation - you couldn't in real life, and games are better without it.

One of the best AI's I've ever used was the old SSI Battlefront series -albeit in limited context of only 3 "formations" in a game, you set objectives and the subunits moved themselves.

and yes it coudl be really frustrating when they screwed up....

[MeatEtr]

IMO needing to be able to control your pixellated mens' every movement at any time makes for bad simulation - you couldn't in real life' date=' and games are better without it.[/quote']

Simply a matter of opinion really. But if your using the "couldn't in real life" stance then why stop there. Don't allow the player camera movement for a birds eye view then. Or the way the player calls in arty. The list goes on. There's always abstractions or liberties taken for almost all realism or sim games.

Back to the topic of a WEGO 30 sec option, I say why the hell not. Give players more options for their CMx2 experience. It would be nice to see a 30 sec option for CMx2 PBEMs.

[Mord]

Bring on the Black Widow, I'll be armed with a Brown Recluse.

In that case I think I might opt for an armistice...

Back to the topic of a WEGO 30 sec option, I say why the hell not. Give players more options for their CMx2 experience. It would be nice to see a 30 sec option for CMx2 PBEMs.

Yeah, I don't mind options...as long as I don't have to sacrifice what I have now...30 secs is fine by me as long as they keep 60 in.

Mord.

[hoolaman]

WEGO forces you to be disciplined in your orders, though it really helps if you are experienced enough to know exactly how to get your troops to do what you want every time, which is not easy and certainly very hard for a newbie to get their head around.

The 1 minute thing forces you to be slow and conservative in your moves. It is very, very rare for me these days that the game gets someone killed that I feel was a bug.

[LongLeftFlank]

IMO needing to be able to control your pixellated mens' every movement at any time makes for bad simulation - you couldn't in real life' date=' and games are better without it....[/quote']

I'd agree with this if infantry were better at extracting themselves from kill zones and seeking better cover without my active assistance. The TacAI has definitely gotten better, but it's still not up to the job. Unwounded troops mainly go to ground -- and die -- in place when 90% of actual human beings would have bugged out unless physically constrained.

I'm mainly playing Ramadi [a historical scenario that requires BLUE to link up separated forces in a dense urban area without taking more than 15 casualties in 90 minutes] in WEGO at this point. Getting better results than RT although it takes a lot longer to play and is less immersive.

I briefly considered hacking the different actions up into a "mini-campaign" of parallel or sequential 20 minute engagements on smaller maps (this would also support a form of co-play), but I decided that would deprive the player of a lot of command choices and just leave a series of block clearing operations.

[Stalins Organ]

I still think you are assuming that troops "in real life" would do better extracting themselves from kill zones - AFAIK history tells us that often they are not good at that.

Troops failing to move to take some advantage (eitehr forward or backward as teh situation requires it) are a constant motiff in military history. Indeed even senior officers failing to order them to do so when such action is patently obvious.

IMO the search for instant and complete obedience of troops in a game to a player's desire is a subtle but pernicious attack on the quality of "historical" games. Troops did not react instantly to orders.

The "correct" way to get troops out of kill zones is to not put them in them in hhte first place, and if you do then I see no reason why you should deserve a "get out of the kill zone free" option that tropos would not have if they were in the same situaiton "in real life".

[Alan8325]

I'm a fan of playing in real time and using the pause feature liberally to issue orders. It doesn't make for a bad simulation when you consider that it is up to the player to make almost every single decision for every unit on the map. Want your tank to be in a hull-down position? It can't do it on it's own so you have to tell it exactly where to go. In real life the tank commander would do this, squad leaders would make the squad splitting decisions, platoon leaders distribute tasks to the squads, etc. It would be impossible, for me at least, to do all of this without pausing, but I am slow.

In other words, the player isn't just in the role of the company or batallion commander, he has to micromanage at lower levels as well. Of course I also like to play wego every now and then for the replays. I too am glad BF put in the effort to include multiple play styles!

[Gromit]

I am not a owner of CMSF but I do play CoH and use pause to issue orders. I like the game and try not to over-micromanage the pixeltruppen.

I guess what I liked about WEGO in the CM1 series was that it put you more in the role of local commander. Make your decisions and give orders that may or may not be carried out in the timeframe you wanted- then hope for the best. The replay feature was really neat and let you assume (albeit w/o any control) the role of being "on the line" and under fire.

Looking forward to trying both RT and WEGO in the upcoming CM2 Normandy title, and imagine I will like both for various reasons. The only thing about CoH (and other RTS games) that I don't care for is how ranges are totally fudged for the immersion and simplicity of coding. It's no great surprise that BFG is the sole company doing real trajectory physics and all that it implies. Tough nut to crack even if you have been doing it quite awhile.

Also hoping for some details late this weekend, but not holding my (gaming) breath, that tends to be fatal where BF is concerned!

[MikeyD]

Nothing against WeGo, but it simply takes an inordinate amount of wall-clock time to finish a given scenario this way.

That depends on the scenario. WeGo can make quick work of a ten minute encircling maneuver before making contact with the enemy. Though I admit what you gain in time up-front you often lose on the back end as you compulsively rewind to watch the action to try to spot where that darned ATGM was fired from.

[C'Rogers]

This was discussed when CMx2 was in development as well as after release. I've tried searching for the the relevant links but having trouble finding them.

Anyway, I believe the idea was that originally this was going to be in and that there is no programming difficulties to putting it in. It was a design decision for it not to go in, not a programing one. I think the reason was that it would split the community.

At least that is what I remember. The discussions go all the way back to when real time was first announced I think.