Lemonade Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 I would like to share with you, armchair generals, some of my thoughts that could affect the improvements of the series. I hope the devs will hear my rants and hints too. So to cut the long thing short, let's begin with it: MAJOR FIXES: 1. The AI, both infantry and vehicle needs to be severely tweaked in order to allow the player focus on planning instead of guiding his units by hand to their destination/objective. That's the most important thing I can think of. 2. The "Trenches of Death" as I like to call them. Trenches/Fortifications/Weapon pits visible from the very start of the game, wide as a barn just to let those arty shells hit them, thus eliminating everyone inside. Those should not be a part of the map! They should be placeables like they were in the Steel Panthers series. Hidden, until discovered by enemy units. And, most importantly, giving good protection against hostile fire. Especially small arms fire and direct HE shelling. In the current ToW release (Tow2: Caen) infantry in trenches cannot lay prone, nor can the crewmen of the dug-in guns. 3. Infantry cover system. The real world terrain is complex. It has ditches, small streams, depressions, bushes and other stuff that could raise or decrease the chances of infantrymen survivability. Right now, we only have, like, nothing that would help the poor sods to survive. The current map geometry resolution isn't enough to represent true terrain topography, so perhaps an additional high-resolution "cover map" bitmap would? It would help to abstract the infantry cover system. 4. Implementing short lived memory to units. ATM the units remembers shi*t. Given: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=94776 examples. This topic also addresses trench, and as I've recently experienced in Caen - city, warfare. And please, fix that invisible predator suit bug. 5. Vehicle crews not leaving their vehicles under serious fire. Even when the AFVs are damaged. That's what I don't understand. When a tank crew is being fired upon, and is hit by several shells resulting in track, main gun or hull damage, it does not leave the vehicle. They stay in it even when being surrounded by enemy tanks. I think that this behaviour is far from being realistic, although I've heard that 1C has implemented surrendering system into the game. So perhaps in Korea it works better. 6. Almost indestructible buildings - mostly in Caen. Sometimes it takes up to twenty 75mm HE shells to level a one story hut or barn. Not likely in real life I tell ya. 7. Tanks at close range encounters (noticed at 20-30 meters) tend to ignore the aim settings. Even when it's set to aim high, they randomly shoot at track/wheels, thus doing insignificant damage in critical situations. 8. Infantry reacting too slow to enemy fire. When under small arms fire or (especially) machine gun fire the infantry had the tendency to lay prone (or quickly seek for nearest cover) being suppressed. So if the mg firer shoot one of the hostiles after his first or second burst, he had little chance to repeat it without changing his firing position. None of the fired-upon infantrymen was stupid enough to either expose himself to further fire, or moving to another place while still being under mg fire. Now, I would like to give ya guys a link to a page with a very cool comment to Ambrose's Band of Brothers movie, containing the description of MG crewman guidelines, but unfortunately I lost it. But I bet some of you know what I'm talking about. (Please relink me to this page via PM) In ToW2: Caen, when your infantry happens to stumble upon a MG trigger happy opponent, it tends to die very quickly in open space. Even though the terrain supposed to have some ditches... blah, blah, see point #3. MINOR: 9. mentioned at the bottom of my post: http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1235779&postcount=15 10. Main map overlays. Height overlay (but not that monochrome, red coloured thing 1C provided us in the mission editor. That means nothing. I can't even tell the difference between depressions and the hills! Make it a rainbow colour, from blues being the lowest parts to reds being the highest. Allow the players to see it as a toggle during the game. Same with infantry cover system. 11. If an enemy unit is spotted, let us see who spotted it by LMB clicking that unit. Use arrows pointing who spotted it. 12. Display toggleable arrows picturing destinations of all player moving units. 13. Briefing map is a must. But I think it has already been implemented in Korea. 14. More detailed briefings. 15. More detailed MANUAL! Provide us with a more detailed guidelines to game mechanics. 16. Do not ever, EVER repeat the US campaign of Centauro add-on. ToW is supposed to be a wargame, not a story-driven RTS. Same mistake was done by Nival in their Silent Storm series. Instead of focusing purely on tactical warfare, they introduced us a story. Bad mistake. It would do better by being a pure tactical wargame consisting of random missions. Like MPS' X-Com was. 17. And guys, the morale things is crap. I've been with you from the very beginning of the series and, to be honest, I haven't notice any improvement of this. I hope the Korea will satisfy my needs. 18. The mighty Chain-of-Command. I bet many of the people would request for it... Lot of explanations about it, but no time do to it at the moment. Right now you can take, like, four company commands on the mission, or if you award one of their leader one or twice, a battalion command. That's bullcrap... More to come in the following days, so stay tuned... Feel free to post your own comments, rants or bugs that need tweaking. Let's give 1C a base to make one of the greatest tactical wargames since Close Combat series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneaksie Posted March 13, 2011 Share Posted March 13, 2011 That's a lot:) Anyway, we'll soon publish an article explaining new fragamentation damage calculations, mathematical approximation of small terrain features and etc., which should be an answer to your complaint #3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted March 14, 2011 Author Share Posted March 14, 2011 Oh, good show! I'm looking forward to this article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneaksie Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 You can read it here in Dev Diary or on the game website (www.tow-game.com). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted March 24, 2011 Share Posted March 24, 2011 You can read it here in Dev Diary or on the game website (www.tow-game.com). I love this stuff! Best regards, Thomm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemonade Posted March 24, 2011 Author Share Posted March 24, 2011 Very interesting article, Sneaksie. I'm really impressed with the changes you guys have implemented. But what about machine gun and small arms fire against infantry? Has this algorithm also been improved in Korea? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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