Is Gameplay Better Than CMBB, How?

[Storm Chaser]

Thought I would check out the Battlefront website and look what I found, Battlefront is getting ready to release a new version of CM!

As a long time player of CMBB, and after reading many posts and viewing AAR/VAAR's, I must say I am very excited!!

Now I have been doing a lot of digging, and have answered some of my questions, but I would like to know from others points of view, how has the game play experience of CMBN been improved over CMBB?

I understand there is a newer game engine and the graphics are going to be better, but I would like to know from a nuts and bolts point of view, how is the game better and more fun to play than CMBB?

I know this is a pretty broad question, maybe geared more towards Beta Testers. But I would be very interested in any input that anyone can provided.

Thks, Storm Chaser

[panzermartin]

Try the CMSF demo to get an idea. Its a "higher resolution" game, less abstraction but it feels less strategic and more FPS/weapon platform simulation. But it's still CM.

[gunnersman]

Dude. Get the demo.

Two different worlds between the old engine and the new engine.

Yeah CMSF is contemporary. At least try the Marine demo. The Marines are fun with their 13 man squads and ample firepower.

[dkchapuis]

I bled CMx1 for years and years and years. Tried multiple times to play CMSF and just could never like it - although watching that automatic grenade launcher for the first time was AWESOME. Dont know if it was the setting (I didnt like CMAK battles in north africa too much) or the unbalanced forces or just the game engine. Or maybe I never found another human I enjoyed playing against - I only played human v human in CMx1.

But I have pre-ordered CMBN and I am hoping for the best. And I am hoping that CMSF - and "getting the demo" - are not the real indicators if I like will like CMBN.

[MikeyD]

CMSF is an excellent game. I don't see why people fell the constant need to badmouth it. Its the best tactical combat sim on the market. Gunnersman says to try the Marine demo scenario, but if you want more 'balance' perhaps try the British demo scenario instead. The old 2007 demo and the 2010 demo are like night and day.

[Cull]

CMSF is an excellent game. I don't see why people fell the constant need to badmouth it. Its the best tactical combat sim on the market. Gunnersman says to try the Marine demo scenario, but if you want more 'balance' perhaps try the British demo scenario instead. The old 2007 demo and the 2010 demo are like night and day.

I don't think many have questioned the quality of the game itself (especially after it was patched up) and dkcahapuis wasn't doing that either. It's just that many weren't particularly interested in the era/setting, or couldn't get into it for whatever reason.

I too would like to hear some thoughts from beta testers that have played both. I've been hanging around a lot recently so I have a decent idea of "what's new" feature-wise and all that, but I'd like some general thoughts on "feel" and such from those that have played both.

You know....if it won't distract too much from getting the damn thing out the door.

[Echo]

I can tell you the game play in CMSF was not better than the original CMBO.

Shock Force had no map generator, which is needed for long term replayability. And the quick mission generator, also needed for long term replayability, was practically unusable. The generated quick missions had limited maps, and very strange force selections which made for some uninteresting, or completely unrealistic battles, which had me restarting the game more than I played it.

The original CMBO was so good because it was like a sandbox, you could make any kind of battle on any kind of map with just a few clicks. Thats very hard to do with CMSF.

It sounds like it may be easier to make battles with this new CMBN, but I don't like making maps, or programing the AI (which is necessary if you build a map with the SF engine). I'll be wasting a lot of time online trying to find new maps to play on.

[Moon]

Echo, you'll be happy to hear that CMBN comes with (the last time I counted) 312 pre-made QB maps, including AI plans and everything else you need for some very good randomly generated QBs, thanks to very dedicated beta testers.

There are also QB map packs available for CMSF, btw, and IIRC some are included in the modules, too.

[Other Means]

The gameplay seems very similar to CM1 at first, in that you're moving men etc. around using proper tactics – using the same skillset in other words. It’s only when you’ve been playing for a while that the differences really manifest. The addition of relative spotting, the greater fidelity in terrain and the 1-1 modelling add together to make it feel more realistic. It doesn’t feel like a tabletop, rules driven wargame.

Of all the enhancements I would say it’s the 1-1 that has made most difference. The men are no longer amorphous blobs, they're physically there and the fact that you're getting them killed and you can see it happening gives the process more weight.

In CM1 I'd take a flag with 2 left out of a squad of 12 and think I'd won. I don’t really do that any more. It has slowed infantry combat down and made me, as a player, make more of an effort to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. Because of that I've more emotional involvement with it.

Not to say you can't have a rip-roaring battle, it just matters more, kinda.

[dkchapuis]

CMSF is an excellent game. I don't see why people fell the constant need to badmouth it. Its the best tactical combat sim on the market. Gunnersman says to try the Marine demo scenario, but if you want more 'balance' perhaps try the British demo scenario instead. The old 2007 demo and the 2010 demo are like night and day.

I wasnt bad-mouthing the game. I pre-ordered and played a few of the 1.01 version. But it had lots of problems and I didnt enjoy it. i tried again about a year ago with the 1.21 patch (or something like that) and I didnt like it then either.

What I dont understand is why some people think that anybody who doesnt worship CMSF is a blasphemer. Best tactical game on the market? Not for my money. CMBB and CMAK are still more fun for me than CMSF is.

But I have high hopes for CMBN, although I am genuinely disappointed that acts like they are in the know said there will be no co-play for the next three game releases (not modules). Please BFC make it not be so.

[ClarkWGriswold]

Shock Force had no map generator, which is needed for long term replayability.

No. It's really not. Frankly, most generated maps in CMBO and CMBB, uh... suck. They look and play nothing like a real world location. Everyone I know who plays CMx1 finds user made maps far, far more realistic and enjoyable.

And the quick mission generator, also needed for long term replayability, was practically unusable. The generated quick missions had limited maps, and very strange force selections which made for some uninteresting, or completely unrealistic battles, which had me restarting the game more than I played it.

Force selection for quick battles has been completely revamped for CMBN, which should address those gripes. You can now pick your own forces and/or enemy forces, just like CMx1.

The original CMBO was so good because it was like a sandbox, you could make any kind of battle on any kind of map with just a few clicks. Thats very hard to do with CMSF.

Sure, it's easy to make a new map in CMx1 with just a few clicks. It won't be a good map, but it'll be one you haven't seen before.

It sounds like it may be easier to make battles with this new CMBN, but I don't like making maps, or programing the AI (which is necessary if you build a map with the SF engine).

Yes, making AI plans for the maps is more time consuming, but it pays off because the AI behaves much better and more realistically. Making an AI that can attack and defend well, without some sort of human intervention, is extremely difficult. CMx1 suffered for it. From what I've seen so far, CMx2 doesn't have the same issues, thanks mostly to AI plans. If you play against a human you don't even have to worry about all of this stuff, and can make a map almost as easily as in CMx1 (a good map, not the random generated crap).

I'll be wasting a lot of time online trying to find new maps to play on.

We've been told that the game ships with 300+ maps that can be used for quick battles. You can play as both sides, and most scenarios will probably have multiple AI plans to make them more replayable. That should keep you busy for quite a long time. It's pretty much a guarantee that the community will be cranking out even more quality maps shortly after release, and you'll get even MORE maps with each expansion module. I don't think you're going to have to look too hard or spend much time to find quality scenarios to play. In fact, you'll probably have to try fairly hard to avoid seeing them!

[dkchapuis]

Originally Posted by Echo

Shock Force had no map generator, which is needed for long term replayability.

No. It's really not. Frankly, most generated maps in CMBO and CMBB, uh... suck. They look and play nothing like a real world location. Everyone I know who plays CMx1 finds user made maps far, far more realistic and enjoyable.

Sorry, have to disagree with this. CMx1 generated maps were definitely not as good as user made ones, but I personally played hundreds of CMx1 generated maps. Just at the theblitz.org where I laddered, there were 1000's of games reported every year - just in that one place - the majority on generated maps. And you just cannot get that kind of replayability on the same maps - it gets old. And it does limit replayability because for me and people I play with, we dont want to play the same maps over and over. And 300 maps is a good starts, but I am not going to want to play on all of those, and I dont want to spend time looking for a map.

So, yes, that is a big feature drop from CMx1 to CMx2 that will limit replayability for at least a segment of the CMBN users..

[Rayak47]

Generally as a game the graphics are better and the game operations are more realistic. With all the soldiers represented and rounds tracked, rather than a three man "figure" shooting all rounds and taking casualties, only those guys that can see something can shoot at it and you get to see the guys individually take casualties. Buddy aid was annoying at first but you do have to think about abandoning guys for the sake of the mission, which really is a realistic decision. It also nice to see a vehicle saved by a tree once in awhile when the round is tracked into it.

To me prettier and more realistic are the deciding factors in the comparision of which is better. I'm not a fan of the whole desert-syria thing either, but it should tranlsate great into France '44. Some x1 features are missing like anti-aircraft fire and the cool vehicles stats page (but hey, how many among us hasn't been memorizing that stuff since we were kids!) , hull down command (which I always screwed up anway and had tanks wandering into the line of fire).

Yeah the quick battle system stinks but that will be improved for Normandy. So instead I download scenarios and maps ain't a big deal since I like to play and let someone else do the work!

So my verdict is heck yeah, it's much better, you're going to love it!

[Guest]

Try the CMSF demo to get an idea. Its a "higher resolution" game, less abstraction but it feels less strategic and more FPS/weapon platform simulation. But it's still CM.

I think the weapon platform thing is down to modern (contemporary) warfare having some truly dominant weapons platforms that can become the focus of a battle. I think that's much less the case with WW2 - I think most of us can probably agree on that. More to the point - last night I was playing a scenario where a company of Panzergrenadiers with a single Tiger were trying to dig my half-company of paratroopers with two 57mm guns out of a tiny French village, and it didn't feel like a weapons simulation - it felt like a dirty knife fight.

Shifting the AT guns that last yard to get a flank shot on the Tiger, taking a small group to try and pin down a German platoon that had made its way around our rear, creating "bubbles" with my bazookas to keep the half tracks off my back... it's precisely the same stuff I would have been doing in CMx1. I don't think there's any less strategy or more "FPS" here than in CMx1, it's just at a more involving level of control.

[Sixxkiller]

Well I have played CMBN QB's for many months now and I have yet to get through all of the ones that have been made. I am not even close to being bored with them, and its like 400 times better to play on user created maps than the Random ones in CMBO.

As for not wanting to pick a map by looking for it....I dont wanna make coffee everyday, but I do cause it beats going to Starbucks for inferior coffee.

[Cull]

Echo, you'll be happy to hear that CMBN comes with (the last time I counted) 312 pre-made QB maps, including AI plans and everything else you need for some very good randomly generated QBs, thanks to very dedicated beta testers.

There are also QB map packs available for CMSF, btw, and IIRC some are included in the modules, too.

Also, I'll likely be making dozens myself and posting them up somewhere, as I'm sure many others will. Granted, it'll probably take me awhile to do some really good ones as I figure out the AI stuff, but I'll get there.

I'll admit to being initially at the lack of random QB maps, but I have no concerns now that there will be plenty of material to work with, and now that we can "program" AI the QBs should be much more realistic and challenging to boot.

[Battlefront.com]

For us there is a distinction between gameplay and game features. There is overlap, for sure, but for the most part...

Gameplay is about the way stuff directly impacts the PLAYING part of the game. Do units behave the way you expect? Is the graphical representation adding to or detracting from enjoying the game? Etc.

Game features are things which don't directly impact playing, but generally contribute to longevity. Editor, QB generator, PBEM option, etc.

When I hear people say "I only play CM because of QBs" I don't believe it. If the gameplay wasn't good, who would care to play even with the best QB system in the world? Same with TCP/IP or PBEM options... if the gameplay sucks, who cares how many different ways there is to play?

Obviously the gameplay is, and should always be, our primary focus for development attention. CM:SF development was mostly about getting the gameplay elements where they should be for the game engine as well as Modern. CM:BN was mostly about getting the gameplay elements where they should be for a temperate, WW2 setting. From here on out we can spend more resources on game features because the gameplay is pretty much where it needs to be.

However, we will never have randomly generated maps in CMx2. It's just not worth the massive effort. Most CMx1 players liked the variety from randomly generated maps, but not the quality of the maps produced. CMx2's far more plentiful and diverse terrain means we'd have difficulty even getting questionable CMx1 quality level maps. So best to spend less time making the AI better, the Editor easier to use, etc. than to concentrate limited resources on a lost cause feature.

Steve

[PapaKhann]

Have there been improvements to Area Fire since CMx1?

[DaveyJJ]

312 QB maps and the efforts of the community map makers, including myself? There'll be plenty to keep CMBN players occupied for a very long time I suspect.

LATER EDIT: Hey, I just noticed! 312 maps mentioned during my 312th post ... it's a sign the demo is coming!!!

[Battlefront.com]

As for gameplay comparisons between CMx1 and CMx2... it's almost impossible to compare the them against each other. It would be kinda like comparing CMx1 to Steel Panthers. Both have the same basic subject matter and scale, but just about everything about them is different in terms of execution.

The basic thing to keep in mind is CMx2 is a far less abstracted environment than CMx1. The reason for this is to get better end results. And that's what we've experienced in far too many ways to count.

Steve

[dkchapuis]

However, we will never have randomly generated maps in CMx2. It's just not worth the massive effort. Most CMx1 players liked the variety from randomly generated maps, but not the quality of the maps produced. CMx2's far more plentiful and diverse terrain means we'd have difficulty even getting questionable CMx1 quality level maps. So best to spend less time making the AI better, the Editor easier to use, etc. than to concentrate limited resources on a lost cause feature.

Steve

That is fine. i was never trying to argue anything different.

I'm just trying to point out to some that auto-maps is a game feature that was lost between CMx1 and CMx2, and I dont agree that it is irrelevant to gamers like myself. And I dont agree that having 300 or 3000 user created maps is the same as having auto generated maps. I'm sure there were well over 3000 user generated CMx1 maps (with better quality that auto-maps), but the majority of what I played on was auto-generated, because it was faster and suitable for what I did - I didnt have a problem with the quality of the maps.

It really isnt that big of a deal to me - I already bought the game and expect to have great fun with it. But dont take away my instant delivery of starbucks, and then say I didnt really like the on-demand delivery because I can make a better cup of coffee myself.

[Storm Chaser]

I would like to thank everyone for all the good information provided. I did as suggested and DL the Demo for CMSF. The command and control is going to take some time to get use to, I will have to see if I like that or not. After reading about the "AI Plans", I am going to pay paticular attention to the AI now and how it does attack and defend. I hope the AI is as good as advertised!

[Battlefront.com]

That is fine. i was never trying to argue anything different.

Just making sure everybody knows why there are no randomly generated maps and never will be.

I'm just trying to point out to some that auto-maps is a game feature that was lost between CMx1 and CMx2, and I dont agree that it is irrelevant to gamers like myself.

Oh, I never said it was irrelevant. What I said is it's not the same as gameplay. Quick test... how many people would be ticked off if their tanks refused to drive over bridges or one artillery round could take out a battalion of infantry? Pretty much everybody because EVERYBODY plays with the game to that degree. How many people will miss randomly generated QB maps? QB players are a smaller subset of the entire customer base so right there it's automatically fewer. And how many of them will be less happy with hundreds of hand made maps vs. randomly generated maps? A subset of the subset.

This is why it's important for us to focus our efforts in some places and not in others. Randomly generated maps would consume a huge amount of our resources, and probably still be only so-so. I'm sure the majority of players would rather we invest that time into something else.

And I dont agree that having 300 or 3000 user created maps is the same as having auto generated maps.

Sure. For some it's better, for some it isn't. All a matter of personal tastes.

but the majority of what I played on was auto-generated, because it was faster and suitable for what I did

There's no difference in CMx2 than CMx1 in that regard. You specify what kind of battle you want and bingo... the system selects a map for you that fits what you've asked for. No fuss, no muss! Even better, you can optionally hand select a map of your own choosing. That was impossible in CMx1.

It really isnt that big of a deal to me - I already bought the game and expect to have great fun with it. But dont take away my instant delivery of starbucks, and then say I didnt really like the on-demand delivery because I can make a better cup of coffee myself.

Every customer is different. There are customers who are pissed we don't have Moe Larry and Curley representing infantry. Are they wrong for wanting severe abstraction? No, but it's not the direction we're going in so that's just the way it is.

Personally, I think you'll find more to like with the CM:BN QB system than dislike. Call it a hunch.

Steve

[General_solomon]

dude, i am not sure about you but user created maps are ten times better than what a computer would generate.

In CMSF if you don't like something about a map, you can change it BY using the editor. my personal preference is longer games so i always change the time to the max.

there are time where i lower the lethality as well. if you play CMSF and its modules i promise you that it will take until next years to finish with all the campaigns and maps.

i cant wait to play user created maps.

good luck.

[dkchapuis]

Personally, I think you'll find more to like with the CM:BN QB system than dislike. Call it a hunch.

Steve

I can already say that is going to be true.

I am really excited about the improved QB system - so excited I cant keep from checking the forum every few hours. (I'm a huge BFC fan, but I must confess I was not happy with the CMSF QB system. Oh well, I got over it). The new rarity stuff seems better and (although I havent looked in detail yet) the adding units seems like it will feel better than the adding extras in CMx1 did. And getting to view the map before hand is a major game improvement over CMx1.

Anyway, thanks for the responses.

Co-play?