An easy feature that would limit micromanagement

[Crispy1209]

I have been very happy with the amount of realism in CM:SF and intend to buy CMA soon once I have more time to play computer games. One big issue I've had with it is the amount of micromanagement. As it is right now, you have to manage everything from battalion level all the way down to team leader or sometimes individual soldier level. The AI is good at doing certain things like finding safe routes to objectives you give them, but it takes too long to do certain things that should be automatic, which also makes playing on Elite difficulty more difficult. I've been wanting to play more on Elite against a harder enemy, but to actually be able to maneuver my guys I need to be able to pause it or else they sit there like little robots and get slaughtered while I give orders to my other units.

Why not have a TTP's/SOP's screen where you allow the user to define how to AI reacts to certain situations and conducts certain actions? Then the user can specifically define how they want their Soldiers to react to ambush, react to near ambush, react to contact, clear a building, etc. This would reduce the amount of micromanagement needed by a lot. Even the the situation was slightly different and you needed to change a few things, it would just be a matter of moving around a few waypoints or something instead of having to specifically give out each order for each building.

Also a multiplayer coop mode or support for multiple players per team is also needed, so you can create some form of a chain of command where you divide up which units each player has control of.

[Michael Emrys]

Why not have a TTP's/SOP's screen where you allow the user to define how to AI reacts to certain situations and conducts certain actions? Then the user can specifically define how they want their Soldiers to react to ambush, react to near ambush, react to contact, clear a building, etc. This would reduce the amount of micromanagement needed by a lot.

This is not a bad idea. In fact, it is one that I began advocating over a decade ago, and that came up in these pages again not so long ago. I forget what reason Steve gave for not doing it, perhaps something to do with difficulties involved in coding it within the existing core game code.

Michael

[Crispy1209]

It shouldn't be much more than a simple macro. They already have a pretty good system for AI scripting, I'm sure they could do even better with that. It would just be "Assault toward enemy and return fire if you do not currently have attack orders on that enemy and the enemy fires at you within 50m" but in whatever method they use to script it. There's nothing super sophisticated about it. If the AI is capable of determining the safest path to a building as far as cover and concealment go, then they should be able to do that.

[dan/california]

He has also stated that it would make the learning curve for the game even steeper. It essentially creates a fairly labor intensive pre-game step to replace a lot of in game micro management. This not a new player strong point.

My personal opinion though is the Mr. Emrys is absolutely correct. At least in this case. Something as simple being able to toggle units between aggressive and and self protective behavior in a general way would be very helpful. A full page of toggle-able ROE options for each unit would be even better. And while it not easy to do, it is surely easier than truly decent AI.

[Crispy1209]

Well you can keep the standard scripting, but have a TTP's menu where you can specifically set how you want them to act in certain situations once you get more experience with the game.

[ChrisND]

It sounds great, but lets not kid ourselves. It wouldn't be "easy" to do, it would be a major feature that would take time to implement, test, and fix.

[Sitting Duck]

...My personal opinion though is the Mr. Emrys is absolutely correct...

This appears to be a somewhat transparent attempt to get yourself into Emrys sig...perhaps with a (sic)

j/k

[Michael Emrys]

Back in the day, what I was suggesting was something along the lines of what was done in TacOps, which seemingly was not all that difficult to code.

Michael

[Chops]

Mr. Emrys, please elaborate on your TacOps reference, since all you are doing is sitting in a Box of Rain up there in PT.

p.s. or doing something useful like shopping for a new computer so you can play CMSF or CMNormandy.

[dan/california]

The issue is always our two little enemies, time and priorities. It has to have a high enough priority to get some of Charles's time. And in this case I am not sure we have convinced Steve it is even a good idea. But, I am certainly willing to keep trying!

It probably is worth mentioning that something that was fairly simple to code in a very simple environment, like the TacOps engine, probably would a great deal more complicated in CMX2.

[pazuzusmiles]

Ive always attempted to manipulate my soldiers behaviors by the movement choices, like if they're looking for trouble I put them in HUNT mode, if they're into self-preservation I use SLOW & HIDE..ASSAULT is also useful when you need to get a reluctant frightened pixel troop to move his ass forward thru the door..Although Ive always thought more behavioral choices could benifit the games RPGish elements. However, having said that theres something very realistic about issuing orders to your men and keeping your fingers crossed that all the expierence, training and hit points are going to pay off in their actions--but their actions cant be predicted or controlled just like real life managment..Ive had great employees turn out to be thieves and then others that call in all the time have fantastic work ethic while they are on job.

Thats some of the fun of this game- issue orders and then cheer them on or berate them for taking the longer way around a waypoint just like some real crusty sergeant..

"Keep your heads down!!! We aint in Kansas anymore ladies!!!!"

haha..but yeah Id be game for any tweaks in this area

[Battlefront.com]

The short of it...

1. Anything that takes more than a few hours we don't consider "easy". For something like this we're probably talking months of coding and testing.

2. It doesn't really help with micromanagement too much. In fact I'd argue that it increases micromanagement. People would start investing significant time twiddling and tweaking the SOPs on top of everything that is in the game now. And those who do not want to twiddle and tweak will feel they are at a disadvantage and get annoyed that they are "forced" to micromanage each unit.

3. The UI for such a thing... much easier to picture, vastly more difficult to implement in a way that would be effective. That's not even considering the #2 issue.

4. Most players don't want automatic behaviors so they don't have to deal with all of this. The extreme portion of these players want a "command level" game where they (basically) don't even control individual units.

This is not to say SOPs would be a bad thing if implemented correctly. The problem we have with this is that correctly is a massive effort which, unfortunately, might not turn out very well.

Our experience with SOP type features in other games is either they work brilliantly or they fail miserably. There's not much inbetween. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything that works brilliantly with CM's level of detail.

We have no plans on implementing user controlled/defined SOPs. Sure, at some point it might happen... but our plans are looking roughly 3-5 years down the road, which means it's unlikely it would happen any time sooner than that.

Steve

[dan/california]

"We have no plans on implementing user controlled/defined SOPs. Sure, at some point it might happen... but our plans are looking roughly 3-5 years down the road, which means it's unlikely it would happen any time sooner than that."

Does this mean my 15 page plan for conditional if-then order options is unlikely to receive prompt attention?........

[Praetori]

Could we at least get an "alternate" command to the movement commands?

Say "hold key X" with a Hunt waypoint selected so that the unit performs the selected action or waypoint if the current one is interrupted.