Events log... please BF!

[CptWasp]

I know, this has been discussed already time ago. But today I was playing again CMSF after a long break (Nvidia lighting issue) and I was thinking "this is the only thing I would add to the game engine".

You are playing in a large map (there are lot of them). Or you are closing on some units. You hear an explosion, a vehicle has been hit. But what? where?

Situational awareness, will say someone. Ok, but in reality after some time I would have some status/report message, some info...

I think that an event log would add a lot to this engine. Similar to the one of the Close Combat series: stating relevant events with different colours. Completed movement orders in green; enemy spotted in yellow; damage taken in orange; kills taken in red.

And the best would be if clicking on a message you could centre the map on the relevant spot... it would be fantastic.

Then, if you think this would make things simpler, I have another idea: let messages appear in the message log with some delay, or better, with a delay depending on the C&C status of involved units! This would be very realistic.

Keep up the good work BF.

[Bradley]

This would be fantastic.

[Cpl Steiner]

This would indeed help with situational awareness. I like the idea of messages setting the focus to the relevant unit when clicked on - just as if you'd selected the unit and pressed <tab>. The unit would be selected by clicking the message and the camera brought to the unit's POV, to allow a quick reaction order to be given.

In terms of programming I don't think it would be too difficult as the <tab> key does essentially the same thing - you would just have to write the GUI code to display the message and allow the <tab> key function to be called when the message was clicked on. Good GUI design is all about calling the same routines from different places (menu, keyboard shortcut, icon, etc).

The main thing that would have to be got right is to avoid too much screen clutter. You would need to choose a part of the screen not used for some other information, and maybe have an "<alt>-m" or similar key combo to display/undisplay the event log. I don't think you'd need more than 5 or 6 event messages to show at any one time - older ones would disappear as new ones were added. With so many events happening in the game though, the game would have to prioritise what to report and what to ignore. For instance, "taking fire" messages for the same unit would be ignored (i.e. the code to display the message would check that there wasn't an identical type of message for the same unit already displayed).

[CptWasp]

In 16:9 monitors there are two large black areas in the lower corners, and so there is plenty of space to have an event log. For 4:3 monitors the upper left would be the best position I think.

[ZPB II]

Yes please. I play real time exclusively in both single player and online. I listen for sounds to cue in ongoing events but a log would help so much. Maybe have a simple toggle for harder difficulties than Veteran? :-D

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Honestly, I have yet to play any game where I made us of such a feature. I generally know what is going on. I certainly don't miss the significant occurrences, and for tracking minor occurrences such a log is next to useless due to information overload.

Such a log is probably distracting a player from what's going on more then it informs him. Watch the action, not the log.

A firm NAY from me regarding this feature. Programming time can be better allocated on other features, imho.

[CptWasp]

Honestly, I have yet to play any game where I made us of such a feature. I generally know what is going on. I certainly don't miss the significant occurrences, and for tracking minor occurrences such a log is next to useless due to information overload.

Such a log is probably distracting a player from what's going on more then it informs him. Watch the action, not the log.

A firm NAY from me regarding this feature. Programming time can be better allocated on other features, imho.

I think we all watch the action; simply I dislike searching for the involved unit, and clicking on a log is way better. You instantly jump there. Do you know Close Combat? The log works perfectly. It's VERY usefull.

And if you can remove the log with a shortcut you would be safe from distractions.

Another point: I think that after 3 expansions BF should think more to minor engine improvements that could be re-used for Normandy than to other units.

[Cid250]

I know, this has been discussed already time ago. But today I was playing again CMSF after a long break (Nvidia lighting issue) and I was thinking "this is the only thing I would add to the game engine".

You are playing in a large map (there are lot of them). Or you are closing on some units. You hear an explosion, a vehicle has been hit. But what? where?

Situational awareness, will say someone. Ok, but in reality after some time I would have some status/report message, some info...

I think that an event log would add a lot to this engine. Similar to the one of the Close Combat series: stating relevant events with different colours. Completed movement orders in green; enemy spotted in yellow; damage taken in orange; kills taken in red.

And the best would be if clicking on a message you could centre the map on the relevant spot... it would be fantastic.

Then, if you think this would make things simpler, I have another idea: let messages appear in the message log with some delay, or better, with a delay depending on the C&C status of involved units! This would be very realistic.

Keep up the good work BF.

This can be only better, if they can save the Log in text format after battle end...

Including info about casualities, ammo status, damage, and state of fatigue...

With such info... may be some day a third party development team, can take this log info for a new Combat Mission Campaigns.

[akd]

Honestly, I have yet to play any game where I made us of such a feature. I generally know what is going on. I certainly don't miss the significant occurrences, and for tracking minor occurrences such a log is next to useless due to information overload.

Such a log is probably distracting a player from what's going on more then it informs him. Watch the action, not the log.

A firm NAY from me regarding this feature. Programming time can be better allocated on other features, imho.

Do you play turn-based only? I admit the relevance is low for a turn-based game with replay, but is essential for RT unless some sort of replay feature to that mode. It is simply impossible to "watch the action" at company level and platoon level in real time. Anyways, all this information should be tracked anyways and appear in and end-of-scenario statistics page (who died, who was wounded, what was damaged, etc.) Having a running "comms log" would just be a bonus, and with a FoW filter, very realistic.

Does anyone else get really tired of the "feature voting" that goes on every time someone posts an idea? Unless the idea is simply overtly unfeasible, based on a basic misunderstanding of the game mechanics or subject at hand, or potentially harmful to some other element of gameplay, I think it is generally very rude. Steve is perfectly capable of responding if he chooses and I don't think he needs the community to police or rank ideas for him.

[panzermartin]

+1, more situanional awareness is a must for RT gaming. If you find it confusing just make it optional. Some guys like to play larger battles. Its beyond the human brain to micromanage a battalion in real time, find the spots for inf, hull down for tanks and be everywhere all the time, anytine. For instance, I'd like to know that my tank is "under fire" on the other side of the map. Self preserving AI is still not that great, I would like someone to point me there to

reverse the vehicle to safety or respond(depedning on the situation) as any real tank commander would do.

Keep in mind, game is also played in RT, with no replay. Its even worse online. Yet feedback is even less than CMx1 turn based only days(no hit texts, no kill stats etc).

[Battlefront.com]

Honestly, I have yet to play any game where I made us of such a feature.

Same here. It's a concept that works on paper a lot better than it does in reality. And since it would have to come at the expense of other features which have more solid footing, we've got no plans on adding an event log.

Event logs work better when there is less going on and the important stuff happens less frequently. That's not Combat Mission

Which gets at the ultimate irony of an event log feature.

People want want an event log because they feel there's too much going on in a game to keep track of easily through regular gameplay. But distilling all that information into text results in a ton of text scrolling by the player, which is not easy to interpret because it's divorced from the 3D gameplay area. Which means the player now has even MORE information to overwhelm him and that additional information is not necessarily easier to handle than the regular game stuff. As a result the player winds up tuning the text out and misses the same things he misses in the 3D environment for the same reason. Hence the irony

Steve

[CptWasp]

Same here. It's a concept that works on paper a lot better than it does in reality. And since it would have to come at the expense of other features which have more solid footing, we've got no plans on adding an event log.

Event logs work better when there is less going on and the important stuff happens less frequently. That's not Combat Mission

Which gets at the ultimate irony of an event log feature.

People want want an event log because they feel there's too much going on in a game to keep track of easily through regular gameplay. But distilling all that information into text results in a ton of text scrolling by the player, which is not easy to interpret because it's divorced from the 3D gameplay area. Which means the player now has even MORE information to overwhelm him and that additional information is not necessarily easier to handle than the regular game stuff. As a result the player winds up tuning the text out and misses the same things he misses in the 3D environment for the same reason. Hence the irony

Steve

Hi Steve,

I think that it's very difficult to keep track in real time of a battalion, and not very realistic without some sort of an event log.

But it's more than that: it's tedious to search a big map for the unit under fire. In multiplayer it's even impossible, since you can't stop playing. Can you agree on this point? Many of us are playing only RT, and I love multiplayer.

I'm a little surprised about your stand (a very early one). Some posters in this thread are big supporters of your games, and I own all expansions. As a professional software architect I think that a request coming from some veteran players-customers COULD be more relevant of what the developers and the publisher think about their program. It depends from how many are requesting a given feature.

An example?

I requested printer-friendly manuals, long time ago. Other players requested them. If I remember well BF was against them, but now we have printer friendly manuals (thank you very much for them, it's great).

This is because a game is, after all, made to be played by the customers, and not by the developers. I'm wrong? Maybe my idea is bad, but I'm sure that a lot of players are sharing my request.

I would be glad to pay 20$ for this feature, only to give you an idea of the relevance of it for me. For me it would make the game much better.

Then... I will support your games even without this feature

[Michael Emrys]

Does anyone else get really tired of the "feature voting" that goes on every time someone posts an idea? Unless the idea is simply overtly unfeasible, based on a basic misunderstanding of the game mechanics or subject at hand, or potentially harmful to some other element of gameplay, I think it is generally very rude.

I disagree. Whether it's rude or not depends on what kind of language the reply is framed in, as is the case with all discourse on this board.

Steve is perfectly capable of responding if he chooses and I don't think he needs the community to police or rank ideas for him.

I don't either, but I think you are missing something. If the community appears to be more or less unanimous in favor of a feature and gives it priority over other features, BFC is likely more inclined to go to the trouble of including it. But if negative votes are not registered as well, that gives a false impression of how much demand there is for it. If anyone feels that a given feature is really not all that important, they deserve to be heard as well.

Michael

[sfhand]

...I would be glad to pay 20$ for this feature, only to give you an idea of the relevance of it for me. For me it would make the game much better...

To add some perspective, I would be glad to pay $50 dollars for movable waypoints. I'm sure many WEGO players would.

See the problem with this approach?

I'm pretty sure BF spends/has spent a lot of time analizing their "development path" to get the most bang for the buck as well as the best gaming experience for all of their customers. I, for one, don't think they need to explain their reasoning to the customer base as we only have a very minor investment in their games compared to them. That they do explain their reasoning, when they do, is just an added bonus as far as I'm concerned. As much as I think moveable waypoints would enhance the WEGO experience I also know it would have virtually no affect on RT, which means it is, unfortunately for me, probably a very low priority. An event log would be completely unnecessary for the WEGO player and as a result I imagine it would also be a very low priority for that reason alone.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

I think that it's very difficult to keep track in real time of a battalion, and not very realistic without some sort of an event log.

But that's just it. A log won't help. A battalion sized battle will produce a solid wall of non stop text. How will that help situational awareness?

btw, I play almost exclusively RT.

Does anyone else get really tired of the "feature voting" that goes on every time someone posts an idea? Unless the idea is simply overtly unfeasible, based on a basic misunderstanding of the game mechanics or subject at hand, or potentially harmful to some other element of gameplay, I think it is generally very rude. Steve is perfectly capable of responding if he chooses and I don't think he needs the community to police or rank ideas for him.

This is a discussion forum. I think you are going to have to get used to some people not agreeing with others.

I do not feel I was rude in raising my objections to this idea, nor do I think merely doing so is rude in itself. I think I raised reasonable points and don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to voice them.

Programming time is after all finite and it's in everybody's interest that BFC get a full picture of this communities likes and dislikes.

[Battlefront.com]

CptWasp:

But it's more than that: it's tedious to search a big map for the unit under fire. In multiplayer it's even impossible, since you can't stop playing. Can you agree on this point? Many of us are playing only RT, and I love multiplayer.

Our time would be MUCH better spent on things like adding a viable Pause feature to RT play, don't you think? See... it all comes down to choices. And customers don't like choices so we get surprise like this...

I'm a little surprised about your stand (a very early one). Some posters in this thread are big supporters of your games, and I own all expansions. As a professional software architect I think that a request coming from some veteran players-customers COULD be more relevant of what the developers and the publisher think about their program.

99% of the time a good game developer is much better at figuring out what should be in the game, and how it should be implemented, than the customers. OK, that's not really fair. Maybe 98.5% of the time There is only so much time in the day to implement things and only the developer understands this. Each customer thinks his own idea should be implemented first. Ask 1000 customers for their most important feature request and I think there would be about 20,000 different suggestions. So a good game developer learns how to decide which things to implement and when with customers influencing, but not determining, these decisions.

For many years I've referenced a Simpsons episode where Homer is put in charge of making the "every man's car". In the end it was so horrible that even Homer wasn't interested in driving it, yet the engineers faithfully implemented all his ideas. Not all of his ideas were bad (some were hysterically silly, of course!), but clearly he shouldn't have been in charge. Of anything, actually, but that's just how Homer is

sfhand,

To add some perspective, I would be glad to pay $50 dollars for movable waypoints. I'm sure many WEGO players would.

See the problem with this approach?

I certainly do Customers like to think of their ideas in a vacuum. If we spent our time making the $20 feature for a log, which maybe 100 people would purchase (a different point to consider), then we didn't spend that time putting in moveable waypoints. And if 100 people would be willing to pay $50 for that, well... then obviously we should put our time towards those. But what happens when one person is willing to pay $10,000 to have obscure Italian TO&E put into the game? Should we do that instead?

Our time is not open to a bidding war, though the idea is actually kinda fun to think about

Elmar,

But that's just it. A log won't help. A battalion sized battle will produce a solid wall of non stop text. How will that help situational awareness?

Yup, and that's my point exactly. Customers have a tendency to look at their ideas as fool proof and/or solidly useful. Even professional game designers think this way. The difference is game designers are immediately confronted with having to make the transition from idea to implemented feature. In that transition a professional game designer, a successful one at least, has to kick the Hell out of the original idea to make sure it will work as intended. A customer, on the other hand, doesn't usually do this. He instead imagines a fuzzy vision of nirvana and that's about it.

As I said, the issue is too much information for some people. If that's the case a log won't help because all it does is cause information overload. People then either pay more attention to the text log than the battle or ignore the text log. I've yet to play a wargame with an event log that I find anything but distracting. There's other features which we could implement that would do a lot more for the game, guaranteed, than this so it's not an option we're considering.

This is a discussion forum. I think you are going to have to get used to some people not agreeing with others.

I do not feel I was rude in raising my objections to this idea, nor do I think merely doing so is rude in itself. I think I raised reasonable points and don't see why I shouldn't be allowed to voice them.

Programming time is after all finite and it's in everybody's interest that BFC get a full picture of this communities likes and dislikes.

Correct. Discourse means pros and cons should be discussed. Having threads be designated "Happy Bunny Land" would be counter productive. For one, I'd never read them which means whatever is discussed in there would not enter into any design decisions.

Steve

[Frenchy]

Since I play strictly PBeM, I play back my opponent's turn as many times as necessary to get an idea of what may be going on. That in effect becomes my event log.

[CptWasp]

Our time would be MUCH better spent on things like adding a viable Pause feature to RT play, don't you think? See... it all comes down to choices. And customers don't like choices so we get surprise like this...

It would be great.

99% of the time a good game developer is much better at figuring out what should be in the game, and how it should be implemented, than the customers. OK, that's not really fair. Maybe 98.5% of the time

My professional experience is the opposite

Often the customer doesn't know exactly what he wants; but when some mechanic or feature is clearly requested by more than one player/customer, it's often an interesting one.

Very often the devs and architects like me and you have their own idea of the software/component, a "mental project", and this hides the real needs of the customers (or of a part of them, obviously, I understand that an event log can't interest players not using RT). When at work someone is requesting a feature not in my mental project I find it a trouble, by instinct; but very often it's what the customer is expecting from me.

I certainly do Customers like to think of their ideas in a vacuum. If we spent our time making the $20 feature for a log, which maybe 100 people would purchase (a different point to consider), then we didn't spend that time putting in moveable waypoints. And if 100 people would be willing to pay $50 for that, well... then obviously we should put our time towards those. But what happens when one person is willing to pay $10,000 to have obscure Italian TO&E put into the game? Should we do that instead?

Our time is not open to a bidding war, though the idea is actually kinda fun to think about

Sorry, it was only an example to give an idea of the relevance of the feature for me. What I want to say is that for me another module with some other tanks is secondary to an engine feature like this.

Yup, and that's my point exactly. Customers have a tendency to look at their ideas as fool proof and/or solidly useful. Even professional game designers think this way. The difference is game designers are immediately confronted with having to make the transition from idea to implemented feature. In that transition a professional game designer, a successful one at least, has to kick the Hell out of the original idea to make sure it will work as intended. A customer, on the other hand, doesn't usually do this. He instead imagines a fuzzy vision of nirvana and that's about it.

I think that before taking a clear position against an idea it would be interesting to see how many players are interested... then, if the number of interested persons is marginal, it can be rejected with a simple "we will evaluate it". There is no need of censuring it. I think that an event log is not a fuzzy vision of Nirvana. It's a very common thing, and a lot of real time simulations have it. Close Combat (and I think it has less need of it than CMSF, because the map is smaller and easily scrollable); the awesome Panther Games series (HTTR, COTA, BftB); if I remember well Operation Flashpoint; IL-2...

Then, you are the boss, so you are right

[RecceDG]

I'd love an event log - after the fact.

The ability to record and play the whole game from start to finish as a movie, with both sides clearly visible, and with an event log (a la Steel Beasts Pro) would be an invaluable AAR tool.

CM1 had something similar. I miss it.

DG

[JonS]

I'd love an event log - after the fact.

CM1 had something similar. I miss it.

Wait, what? :eek:

You might miss it, but I completely missed it. What feature are you talking about?

[panzermartin]

I dont know, there is a contradiction going on here. We get two modes, WeGo and RT. In one mode you can replay a thousand times from a thousand different angles to get your "event log" right and in the other (RT) you just get a pause and absolutely nothing in online. So RT becomes a fast forward WeGo with less situanional awareness, less depth, less connection to the troops and ultimately less interest. I deliberately double scenario times in online RT to make the experience a bit less epidermic but shouldnt RealTime mode be given a little more care?

Also, lets not forget we already have a kind of event log, about the status of every single soldier in a squad. We already get info about whether Private Smith is waiting or aiming or reloading his weapon. Which is cool, immersing and sometimes useful. But on the other hand there is nothing informing us that an Abrams has been hit 2 times from ATGM 1km away from our camera POV.

[Lethaface]

I figure that if RT had a 15-30 secs replay function in it, it would solve the whole 'event log' thing and even open up for biddings from other users that don't want to pay for an event log

I'm not in favor on an in-game event log, however more post-game information would be interesting. Although that is a separate feature. Especially I would like to see unit kills, although I'm not sure how valuable it would actually be. It is just something that I want because there have been times I really wanted to know which of my precious tanks made all those wicked shots.

Regarding the event log, I do own ToW2 Africa and played around with it a little bit. Hated the eventlogpuase whatever feature, although it probably was possible to turn off. The rest of the game didn't also really appeal to me so I didn't play it since. Anyone actually liked it (the eventlog feature)?

In other games like Europa Universalis an event log is necessary because the 3D (or 2d rather) representation doesn't show all events which are actually occurring. Therefore it is also filterable.

These games are in my eyes not comparable with CMSF. The only problem I see with RT and or onlineRT, is that sometimes you miss beautiful action that you would like to have seen. And at times it could be helpful to have vision into the past when you lose vehicles while being occupied in another place.

So, to recount the votes

- No event log: 2 + Veto

- Event log: 6+

Seems that we win

[akd]

Correct. Discourse means pros and cons should be discussed. Having threads be designated "Happy Bunny Land" would be counter productive. For one, I'd never read them which means whatever is discussed in there would not enter into any design decisions.

Steve

I'm not talking about discussing pros and cons. I'm talking about treating customers' ideas or suggestions like they are up for a forum vote that will determine their merit regardless of pros and cons. It is meaningless, as you have yourself pointed out, reminding us that the forum represents a tiny minority of the customer base and that you don't make decisions based on forum popularity.

I didn't request moderation of threads. I simply said I was tired of it. Seems like it has become increasingly common to literally "vote" yea or nay on suggestions or ideas, or to reply with rankings of the idea/suggestion relative to the posters own priorities. Since you have pointed out that it is meaningless behavior, it can only serve to dissuade open discussion of ideas and suggestions. I think there is a good reason you don't have polls on this forum, but it seems some still like to try to sneak "polling" into discussions of merit.

Hell, maybe I've done it myself in the past and am just in a bad mood and noticing it more now.

p.s. Elmar - not really about you, but the "vote nay" comment just brought a more general complaint I'd been stewing on to the surface.

[JonS]

I figure that if RT had a 15-30 secs replay function in it, it would solve the whole 'event log' thing and even open up for biddings from other users that don't want to pay for an event log

Err ... but then it wouldn't be RT

So, to recount the votes

- No event log: 2 + Veto

- Event log: 6+

Seems that we win

No, because some votes are more equal tham others

[MeatEtr]

IMO a rolling one minute replay function for RT players is far more important than a event log. But a more simplistic click-able casualty light/warning that takes you right to the hotspot would be useful.