Are these features in?

[Destraex1]

a) Has the camera been fixed so that it allows more natural RTS camera? The camera is very annoying at the moment when it comes to getting the right angle/view.

Are the sounds less generic than they were in CMSF. I'm looking forward to a rich sound experience but this was thrown into doubt when textures for uniforms needed to conform to low spec machines.

c) Will men gain experience between missions in the campaign? Much like close combat?

[scottie]

c) Will men gain experience between missions in the campaign? Much like close combat?

100% sure this feature in not included. Several threads touch on this. I believe BF commented somewhere that its too gamey.

[Destraex1]

fair enough. Guess you need a whole campaign to be good at something/gain experience.

I did like it in CC as a way of getting attached to the men. It also makes every squad unique. Which is realistic. In cm normandy I bet the squads have clone like stats.

[stikkypixie]

fair enough. Guess you need a whole campaign to be good at something/gain experience.

I did like it in CC as a way of getting attached to the men. It also makes every squad unique. Which is realistic. In cm normandy I bet the squads have clone like stats.

Nope, it's a bit randomized, but just not shown.

[Destraex1]

oh nice.... should be fine then.

[Erwin]

From a a gamer perspective it's such a great aid for immersion and helping identify with your guys if at least a few can improve over the course of a campaign by at least one experience level.

There was some posts elsewhere that showed how guys did learn and become vets over the course of one or two battles. So, in a 8+ game campaign???

If the market is the average gamer, features such as this (plus in-game stats like in CM1) should have been a must.

[Krilly]

If the market is the average gamer, features such as this (plus in-game stats like in CM1) should have been a must.

No thank you. For me what makes the CM type of games unique is that they tend to avoid these 'gamey' type of standard stuff that crept into 'serious wargames'. I am not interested in an 'upgrade screen' between battles where I can hand out experience or replace my stugs with jagdpanthers or stuff like that, there's other games who do that stuff thank you very much.

I like my CM as 'realistic as possible' and that means leaving this stuff out.

And I think your 'average gamer' wont miss that if he recognizes that instead of those features he gets a game that focuses on modelling WW2 tactical combat as real as we can get it with the current technologies.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

If you think that a company of green troops should still be green at the end of several battles, then your idea of realism and mine do not match up.

[Lanzfeld]

I agree. I would like to see SOME improvement with the troops that live through several battles. Real or not, it goes a long way in helping to "bond" with your pixeltroopen.

[Sitting Duck]

It seems that a company suffering losses during a campaign would have both "green" troops (replacements) and "experienced" troops (survivors). The relative mix green/experienced troops could probably be modeled in a campaign based on casualty rates, but perhaps not the individual results.

Just a guess...

[Ron]

a) Never had any issue with the camera views in CMSF, though I will admit I have no idea what a 'natural RTS' camera is!

I agree, sounds add to the visceral immersion of gameplay. I'm not sure you realize that modders can alter the sounds - AKD and Oddball have done an incredible job with CMSF. I'm positive that will be the case with CMBN if the stock sounds are lacking.

c) While I understand the appeal from a roleplaying POV, it is fun to watch and nuture certain units during a campaign, that has never been a part of BFC's design philosophy. Agree or disagree, but there you go. I wouldn't ever hold my breath on this one!

[ZPB II]

As mentioned, you can download extremely good quality sound mods from the repository. They really change the atmosphere of the game 100%. In the army I spent a lot of time around automatic weapons, cannons and rocket launchers so I dare say my CMSF sounds pretty authentic now.

I am hoping that the stock sounds would pack more punch so people who don't know about mods will experience the immersion too.

C) There is the problem of quantifying exactly what gives experience and so forth. Troops staying in reserve most of the battle wouldn't really get that much out of it. Then you'd have to track other units outside the battlefield and their exp so you have the correct experience from reinforcements you get from them. Replenishment troops would dilute the overall experience level. All in all I'd say it is well out of the scope of a tactical simulator. I feel most ways to abstract this would be very lacking.

[Krilly]

This was the position BF took on campaigns and unit experience on CMx1.

I hope it hasn't changed much;

There will also be no unit experience gain between battles. A couple of 30- 60 min firefights are not enough to make a unit go up in experience. They would need to fight for weeks of sustained combat to go up even a single notch. Remember, Elite troops have been fighting for YEARS in some cases, so it doesn't make sense for some Green unit to obtain Elite status after a couple of minor scrapes. And it is impossible to simulate such large gaps of time at Combat Mission's level. So if you have a Green set of units, you will have to learn what to do and what NOT to do with them during the course of the campaign, and to keep applying those lessons each battle. They won't magically become better.

.......

In the end we have a system that maintains balance between scenarios (a real problem for all the other games) and is historically accurate instead of just plain silly. The only thing we don't have is the gaining of experience and the brag factor of having played x and y and z big historical battles all in a row. We are sure that you won't miss either of these last two things one bit after you play one of Combat Mission's campaigns.

And I simply don't care about troops getting better experience between battles or how fast that should go up and such. I'm interested in acurate battles and TO&E's, not whether 'Moe his squad' started out as green spasms last battle and now are 'Elite' because they happened to bazooka a Tiger or something.

And I shudder about all the discussions such 'experience gaining' could spawn to be honest. How do you decide at what rate troops should gain experience?

But most importantly you have to ask, what such a feature adds to the tactical battles that CM is all about?

Not much , I consider it fluff and windowdressing CM games can do without.

[Battlefront.com]

In theory what we should do is have each individual Soldier have his own stats, like Close Combat did. The individual Soldier's combat time would be tracked somehow and perhaps things like the casualties it individually caused tracked as well. The unit's Experience level would be a reflection of the sum of its individual Soldier's combat experience. Replacements, which are already a part of the Campaign system, would enter with a certain level of combat time, depending on if the Soldier is coming back from leave, was hastily trained, transfer from another combat unit, etc. This in turn would dilute, or possibly add to, the overall Experience of that unit.

This is what we would need to do to have Experience gain within a Campaign. And probably some more stuff I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. While it's a nice theoretical idea, and I personally like the thought of it, I don't know how difficult this would be to code and keep bug free. What I do know is it would be more than a little bit of work, and therefore it's not likely to be added any time soon. We have other things on our ToDo Lists that would offer more tangible benefit to the game than this particular feature.

As Krilly put it so well:

"But most importantly you have to ask, what such a feature adds to the tactical battles that CM is all about? "

The tactical battle is what CM, of all types, has always been focused on. Nobody wants us to lose that focus because that is, without any question, why people play CM.

Steve

[Stingray]

QUOTE

As Krilly put it so well:

"But most importantly you have to ask, what such a feature adds to the tactical battles that CM is all about? "

The tactical battle is what CM, of all types, has always been focused on. Nobody wants us to lose that focus because that is, without any question, why people play CM.

Steve

[stikkypixie]

In theory what we should do is have each individual Soldier have his own stats, like Close Combat did. The individual Soldier's combat time would be tracked somehow and perhaps things like the casualties it individually caused tracked as well. The unit's Experience level would be a reflection of the sum of its individual Soldier's combat experience. Replacements, which are already a part of the Campaign system, would enter with a certain level of combat time, depending on if the Soldier is coming back from leave, was hastily trained, transfer from another combat unit, etc. This in turn would dilute, or possibly add to, the overall Experience of that unit.

This is what we would need to do to have Experience gain within a Campaign. And probably some more stuff I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. While it's a nice theoretical idea, and I personally like the thought of it, I don't know how difficult this would be to code and keep bug free. What I do know is it would be more than a little bit of work, and therefore it's not likely to be added any time soon. We have other things on our ToDo Lists that would offer more tangible benefit to the game than this particular feature.

As Krilly put it so well:

"But most importantly you have to ask, what such a feature adds to the tactical battles that CM is all about? "

The tactical battle is what CM, of all types, has always been focused on. Nobody wants us to lose that focus because that is, without any question, why people play CM.

Steve

Hey Steve, I thought there were individual stats for the little guys? Can you otherwise explain how the leadership bonuses are "created" when the CO gets killed?

[akd]

The tactical battle is what CM, of all types, has always been focused on.

Steve

Why have campaigns at all? Narrative is important also, but perhaps more for some players than others. But that doesn't mean we turn CM into an RPG...

[MikeyD]

Is is my imagination, or do some posters concoct lists of random 'stuff' they're sure won't be in the game, ask if they'll be included then give mock cries of alarm and distress when they're told no? Oh no! No working wristwatches given to soldiers! Oh no!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Yeah MikeyD, that is it. I'm pretty sure I didn't really want it and just asked for it to annoy Steve.

Prick.

[ZPB II]

How old were you guys again?

[Melnibone]

Is is my imagination, or do some posters concoct lists of random 'stuff' they're sure won't be in the game, ask if they'll be included then give mock cries of alarm and distress when they're told no? Oh no! No working wristwatches given to soldiers! Oh no!

Is is my imagination, or do some beta testers insist on making unhelpful snarky posts on every thread. Over defensive beta testers will not make this a great place to be. They were very culpable in destroying the early CMSF forums IMHO. Reading a few threads today I can see the same shaping up here. Nice job.

[umlaut]

If you think that a company of green troops should still be green at the end of several battles, then your idea of realism and mine do not match up.

I agree. I would like to see SOME improvement with the troops that live through several battles. Real or not, it goes a long way in helping to "bond" with your pixeltroopen.

Exactly my opinion: This is a GAME afterall, not a simulation. BTW, I think a fairly simple way to acommodate both the "gamey" (like me, apparently) and the "purists" would be the option to turn experience on/off when launching a campaign.

[Erik Springelkamp]

BTW, I think a fairly simple way to acommodate both the "gamey" (like me, apparently) and the "purists" would be the option to turn experience on/off when launching a campaign.

Yes, fairly simple feature.

Would cost only a few days of designing, then coding, then a couple of bugfixes.

Oh, and a new breaking safe-file format.

Steve painted a rough design in a previous posting.

It will be on a to do list, for a next family.

[umlaut]

I wasn´t talking about the coding being simple - I know it isn´t.

I was merely suggesting a way that would ensure - once such a feature had been developed - that the "purists" would be able to play a campaign without the having to endure the gamey experience of experience.

[Sixxkiller]

Well I am on the opposite end of this spectrum. I would LOVE to see my units gain in experience and have individual unit stats tracked throughout the entire campaign. I do not see it as being gamey but immersive. Anyone who has even been in battle knows that bringing their buddies home means almost as much as accomplishing the mission, sometimes much more. Why would this be such a bad feature?

But I can also understand why this may be difficult to do coding wise and not sure if Charles and Phil have enough time to do it.