Borg Spotting vs Borg ID'ing

[hoolaman]

One thing that makes the FOW in CMSF much less effective is the no real feedback is given by the <?> icons.

In CMx1 the equivalent unit marker could be selected with the mouse and gave you some info about a unit, and this info could be wrong or right. Imagine how confusing the field would be if you could select the dozens of <?> and get fragments of conflicting info about them.

Even better would be to be able to TARGET the <?> icons too.

I can only imagine the original concept was that the <?> icons were a more integral part of the misidentification system and the fully ID'ed graphical representation was supposed to be the very last step in the chain.

[Battlefront.com]

Let's be clear with the terminology. CMx2 does not have "instant spotting". I keep seeing that typed in various posts here and it is misleading at best. There are several degrees of spotting information that are given to the player depending on circumstances. Therefore, nothing is "instant".

As has been stated by several people already, the early part of the spotting identification is actually more confusing and uncertain in CMx2 than it is in CMx1. Where CMx2 is not as strong as CMx1 is in the middle portion of spotting information. There's a much better, less certain graphical portrayal of the unknown unit now than in CMx1, however the floating icon above the unit (as generic as it is) does give the player a bit too much information to act on. But the player STILL doesn't know things like how many men, what major weapon type is present, etc. That's not shown until the unit is fully identified through direct observation.

I would also guess, though I haven't done a comparison, that the length of time an enemy unit spends in the "?" or partially spotted state is greater than in CMx1. Partly because of kicking Borg Spotting in the teeth, partly because you're now required to spot each and every individual soldier instead of CMx1's abstracted "good enough" system.

As I've said, the current system could use some improvements. No arguing that point. But so could CMx1's system. Let's not lose sight of context when being critical. Especially those who haven't played CMx2 games in any significant way.

Steve

[ZPB II]

I don't know what game you guys are playing but I just finished a 6 hour TCP/IP gaming marathon with my friend (we probably smoked 5g of buddah) and in not one game did I have solid, gamey spotting info that I could readily use. If I got a HQ flag instead of ? it would either dive into cover or disappear in smoke or whatever. I didn't identify a spotter even once. It was a sea of ? ? ? appearing and disappearing, I was really impressed since we paid special attention to Fog of War & spotting.

We played real time exclusively, and mostly rely on units themselves do the targeting. If you start manually targeting you won't have time before it disappears.

For those of you complaining about lack of fidelity, play real time. When you master the camera hotkeys for super quick moving around the battlefield, things get really intense.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally Posted by Battlefront.com

HEH! You were one of those guys, were you? I had forgotten you were part of that crowd.

Just thought I'd mention that this time around I am not going to swear not to use RT. I hadn't thought I would, but some of the information coming to light in this thread is bringing me around.

Michael

[ZPB II]

I tried We-Go initially but have been 100% RT ever since. It really delivers the most authentic experience.

I do admit to pausing generously when playing solitaire, though.

EDIT: Damn I love technology. Here I am watching my Strykers in overwatch grenading enemies while reading Death Traps on my iPad.

[DaveDash]

I disagree. The borg spotting was never something I was too worried about. In fact, the new spotting sometimes pisses me off in ways borg spotting never did.

But that is another thread altogether.

What I dislike about instant ID however, is that it makes the game far too clinical. No fear/hope of what that contact may be or how you must deal with it. An immediate "oh, it's X, I'll deal with that with Y." I'm talking about the emotional hook more then gameplay device.

The instant ID is much like watching a horror movie with the sound off.

Seriously, what are you talking about?

I see no instant spotting in the CMSF engine.

Contacts appear as a "?" the vast majority of the time, which means your men saw something. They're not sure what, but they know it's enemy.

Only usually after something opens fire, does it get identified (and not always), in which case it's perfectly reasonable to assume your guys will know exactly what it is. This is especially true with RPGs, ATGMs, machine guns, and so forth.

You are looking at it the wrong way and completely ignoring the whole "?" side of spotting.

I would also guess, though I haven't done a comparison, that the length of time an enemy unit spends in the "?" or partially spotted state is greater than in CMx1. Partly because of kicking Borg Spotting in the teeth, partly because you're now required to spot each and every individual soldier instead of CMx1's abstracted "good enough" system.

What Steve says here is exactly right. CMSF is just missing the aesthetic middle part of the spotting process where units turn from completely unknown to "type" identified, to positively identified. In the CMSF engine they just remain as a "?" for longer, until your units have positively ID'd them.

[Battlefront.com]

Just thought I'd mention that this time around I am not going to swear not to use RT. I hadn't thought I would, but some of the information coming to light in this thread is bringing me around.

I think it is smart to keep an open mind, but unlike the "I won't use anything but the overhead view" I do think it is quite possible that you won't wind up liking RT. I don't mean that I have some sort of insight into how you might personally react, just saying that based on my experience that it isn't for everybody just as WeGo isn't. It's definitely something that is highly dependent on personal preferences, probably more so than any other feature in the game. And thankfully it doesn't matter since the game doesn't care if you're playing WeGo or RT

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

Yeah, I'm not making up my mind until I've tried both in the new system. I've played games using continuous time with pause before, so I am not unfamiliar with it nor uncomfortable with it. On the other hand, I am getting the feeling from what has been posted that it doesn't work so well trying to handle a force of larger than company size, whereas in the WW II arena I find that combined arms forces smaller than battalion size for the attacker is a bit unhistorical. Well, we'll see...

Michael

[Wiggum]

Another interesting thing about spotting are the tracers if you ask me...

In CMSF you could (most of the time) easily locate enemy positions just by watching the tracer fire. It was like a cheat you were forced to use !

So will there still be tracers fire all the time ?

It was always easy to spot enemy positions just by looking where does tracers coming from.

I nerver liked that, it kept the level of confusion (where is that damn fire coming from) quit low...

And would it not be possible just to remove all infos from enemy forces ?

I mean in CMSF if you click at a enemy unit you see "HQ tank" for example. But without this text this tank would look not very different from the other making it harder to decide what target to engage.

[Thin Red Line]

Another thing.... Say you see a sniper team move into a small wooded area and you target it with a Sherman. Once you see that you have killed 2 guys you can stop targeting it. In CMX1 it could have been an entire squad but you would never know so you may keep pounding away at it for another turn wasting HE on a couple of dead guys.

In fact in CMx1 there is a graphical bug in the unit info and from it you can tell that the entire unit is entirely killed or not.

So if you see a unit entering the woods and after just two turns of shooting the unit info becomes all grey you can tell that it is dead already and probably was a small team like a spotter or light MG.

[silverstars]

Another interesting thing about spotting are the tracers if you ask me...

In CMSF you could (most of the time) easily locate enemy positions just by watching the tracer fire. It was like a cheat you were forced to use !

So will there still be tracers fire all the time ?

It was always easy to spot enemy positions just by looking where does tracers coming from.

I nerver liked that, it kept the level of confusion (where is that damn fire coming from) quit low...

And would it not be possible just to remove all infos from enemy forces ?

I mean in CMSF if you click at a enemy unit you see "HQ tank" for example. But without this text this tank would look not very different from the other making it harder to decide what target to engage.

Tracer Fire is only seen when the unit that is firing is seen. That has been in CMSF since 1.2something, as I recall.

So I don't think you have to worry about it in CM:BN.

[Lethaface]

I have the self-restraint not to look at all infantry contacts to see if one of them is, for example, a Shreck team in need of immediate annihilation. But if an AT team rubs their Shreckliness in my face as it does in the current system? Shall I pretend I don't know? That is a lot harder and immersion breaking.

Normally I spot an ATGM / Shreck team after I just saw a BIG ass missile coming from the window/roof/whatever they were creeping.

I doubt my reaction would be different as a RL company commander; "Light up that window on the double!!"

I have to admit that I do this too when there is only a question mark still. I imagine it as 'Sir, we just saw this missile coming out of this window but we don't know who or what launched it. What we do?' The answer seems simple

And with InstantID i meant that when the unit was (finally, after being a ? for quite some time) fully spotted, it is also instantly ID'ed (as opposed to BorgID'ed). Not that CMSF has instant spotting. Well, only M1A2 SEP's and Shilka's have that

[Migo441]

A couple promising ideas here:

dan/california says:

Use a vastly less detailed set of icons for the opposing side. Its that huge overhead diamond that says "ATGM here"(CMSF) that causes people to area target a company of Bradleys on the poor bastards. You can leave the actual 3D representation exactly as is. If people are willing to examine every detail at 3 feet they deserve to be rewarded for reading all those flash cards.

And Wiggum says:

And would it not be possible just to remove all infos from enemy forces?

But I must admit, I'm one of the people that has more ideas about what the game needs to do than actual experience with the CMx2 game engine. I did play the CM:SF demo several times way back when and have been (not so) patiently waiting for the WWII setting ever since. So unofficially I don't like the so-called Borg ID'ing, but I'm ready to play CM:BN before I really decide what I think.

One issue with the more restrictive settings as mentioned above is that they would be unworkable for RT play. Unless you had the camera positioned exactly so, you would never have any idea that there is a Bazooka/Panzerschreck positioned in that tree line and get really ticked off when your AFVs periodically blew up. Realistically, friendly troops in that area should see the ATG icon. With WEGO, you have the option to never miss any action so the lack of "smart icons" is less an issue.

Apologies if my assumptions are off track here. I promise to inform myself more fully as soon as the demo is available!

[ZPB II]

I'll repeat myself and say please keep in mind that in CMx2, you very rarely have long, continuous line of sight to the same target. The target ducking behind cover will drop him out of LOS unlike in CMx1. This means that before you even start to think about cherry targeting in PBEM, you need to have all the units you want to be doing shooting with see and ID the target and when if and when you get to do this, the target will highly likely drop to the ground and relocate, going back to a ? -contact.

In RT H2H battles with no pause you have no time to do cherry targeting. But the AI in CMx2 is excellent in taking care of itself.

Trust me, you need not worry about this. I have played CMx2 games to death especially TCP/IP RT and I know what I'm talking about. Hell, I played 6 straight hours vs. my friend yesterday and you know how many times the thought of gamey cherry targeting popped up in my head? You know how long a target ID'd as a HQ (this didn't happen often) lingered in line of sight of several units and enabled me to focus on him? I can say not very long. While at the same time the forest and village was full of ?-contacts and I could not establish a clear picture of what was going on at a hill that became the grave of 100 soldiers and 20 AFVs in a Red vs. Red battle. All this while artillery was raining down from spotters that I COULD NOT IDENTIFY INSTANTLY FROM 2KM AWAY unlike some posters make it out to be (infact I never identified the spotters). It was hectic, intense, realistic and buckets of fun.

[skelley]

Originally posted by DaveDash

"What Steve says here is exactly right. CMSF is just missing the aesthetic middle part of the spotting process where units turn from completely unknown to "type" identified, to positively identified. In the CMSF engine they just remain as a "?" for longer, until your units have positively ID'd them."

Sorry, I can't figure out how to quote properly.

Last night playing CMSF... My Scout platoon moving toward a few buildings got a contact on a rooftop 200m away. 5 seconds later the contact was fully identified as a sniper from 180m. While not Instant ID it is pretty fast. You can talk optics all you want but it was a guy poking his head over the roof wall. I think you are confusing the length it takes to identify because if you lose sight it just goes back to a "?". Maybe you are playing RT & are on opposite side of the map so you don't notice that they have been fully identified, because they change back to "?". I play WEGO so I see what the contacts are in replay. I would like to see the question mark stay for a lot longer even when directly observed (from a distance). It should be something like "I saw a soldier on that rooftop but I don't know if it was 1 guy or part of a squad". no other info until you close within a 50m and are fully engaged.

[ZPB II]

Noone's saying it's perfect, just that it's nowhere near as bad and gamebreaking as some people who haven't even really played CMx2 make it out to be.

[skelley]

I love the game and in no way think it is game breaking. Just pointing out my observations on what IMHO the problems are and to help resolve them. Just some friendly feedback:)

[sfhand]

Originally posted by DaveDash

"What Steve says here is exactly right. CMSF is just missing the aesthetic middle part of the spotting process where units turn from completely unknown to "type" identified, to positively identified. In the CMSF engine they just remain as a "?" for longer, until your units have positively ID'd them."

Sorry, I can't figure out how to quote properly.

Last night playing CMSF... My Scout platoon moving toward a few buildings got a contact on a rooftop 200m away. 5 seconds later the contact was fully identified as a sniper from 180m. While not Instant ID it is pretty fast. You can talk optics all you want but it was a guy poking his head over the roof wall. I think you are confusing the length it takes to identify because if you lose sight it just goes back to a "?". Maybe you are playing RT & are on opposite side of the map so you don't notice that they have been fully identified, because they change back to "?". I play WEGO so I see what the contacts are in replay. I would like to see the question mark stay for a lot longer even when directly observed (from a distance). It should be something like "I saw a soldier on that rooftop but I don't know if it was 1 guy or part of a squad". no other info until you close within a 50m and are fully engaged.

Can you say with 100% certainty that the sniper team never shot at your scout team? Incoming fire can reveal the unit type in many instances - not hq I realise.

Everyone who has played enough to be familiar with the game seems to agree that while improvement would, well, improve the current situation, the current situation is not as bad as some would have us believe. As I mentioned a few pages back, any new improvement would be subject to controversy as well. Take your suggested "fix" for example. I would find it way to limiting. For me any solution that doesn't take quality of spotting unit, quality of spotted unit, time of day, weather, distance, concealment of enemy, and other such nuance into account would be more of a sideways move than a forward move. But, intermediate generic icons that would allow direct targeting - grunt or vehicle - coupled with eliminating some information all together - too much squad and hq info - would be cool, no doubt.

[skelley]

I can't confirm that. But at 600 ft while on the move with 1 guy shooting at you (causing no casualties, and it is a sniper) and being able to ID them feels wrong. Also the time of day is just after dawn. I will have to check but I think the sun was behind sniper which might make spotting him easier but IDing him harder. I don't know if in game it works that way, but would in real life. I believe all units involved were vets.

Posted by sfhand

"For me any solution that doesn't take quality of spotting unit, quality of spotted unit, time of day, weather, distance, concealment of enemy, and other such nuance into account would be more of a sideways move than a forward move."

I thought these variables were already baked in.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Ah, forget it. Those I most disagree with are the least worth having a discussion with.

Everything is fine and dandy and those that don't agree don't know what they are talking about. Move along, nothing to see here.

[skelley]

I'll do some Hotseat testing tonight and try to break down as many variables as possible.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Ah, forget it. Those I most disagree with are the least worth having a discussion with.

Everything is fine and dandy and those that don't agree don't know what they are talking about. Move along, nothing to see here.

BFC have acknowledged that the current system is not ideal and they would like to improve it at some point. What more do you want?

[sfhand]

...I thought these variables were already baked in.

Would we be having this discussion if they were?

[skelley]

I'm fairly positive they are baked in at least with spotting, so I just assumed the same would be true with IDing. Maybe not, who knows. Weather, Time of day, distance and concealment would far outweigh quality of either unit IMHO. After all a human eye is generally just as good as the next eye no matter how much combat you've seen

Before when I said I would like to see the "?" last a lot longer, what I meant was a generic infantry Icon but no further info.

[Battlefront.com]

IDing is based on Spotting, so whatever variables go into Spotting (and there are plenty of them) by definition mean they are "baked" into IDing. If we had a misidentification system, which obviously we do not, then there would be another round of variables which would, in turn, determine what information is shown to the player.

Steve