against the progress bar

[poesel]

This may sound a bit silly but I would like the progress bar during the calculation of the next Wego turn to go away.

Reason:

Somehow I'm usually the one who has the calculation turn. From the behaviour of the bar I can deduce events in the upcoming turn. One thing is the rough number of enemy troops. The slower the bar the more troops. This is of course not very accurate but you can roughly discern if your enemy has set on an all infantry or all vehicle setup.

Whats more accurate to guess is the loss of a tank. This seems to take quite some calculations and causes the bar to stop briefly. So one could theoretically save a turn, do the calculation and if you don't expect to loose a tank just do it again.

Silly, gamey - yes to all but still doable.

A bar that doesn't stop or just a line with "please wait..." would be sufficient.

[Wego McPbem]

Heh, I've noticed this too. You can also kind of tell how much happened from the filesize as well. I honestly don't think it can be used to gain an advantage in any way though.

[Boche]

Mr Wego McPbem should know. it runs in the family.

I noticed it aswell but never actualyl studied it! lol the lenghts some people will go to

[YankeeDog]

Hah. The irony.

Back when CMSF first came out, there was no blue progress bar.

Some forum posters mounted a very passionate lobby to "bring back the blue bar," which eventually succeeded and it was added back into the engine.

[Frenchy]

For some oddball reason, since the last patch mine has disappeared.

[Battlefront.com]

After all the abuse we took from the Blue Bar Brigade back when CM:SF was launched without one... I'd duck and cover if I were you, poesel71

You are, however, correct that the computation time does give a hint of what's to come later on. This was true for CMx1 as well. The more units doing things, the more combat, the more widespread the movements are... the more turn crunching time.

The only solution to this, I think, would be to have a 5 minute turn computation time whether it's needed or not. That way you'd never know what was going on because there would be no variation. Of course it would mean wasting hours of your life for only this reason, over the course of many games, so it's not something we're going to do. I'm just pointing out that's what it would really take to "fix" this. Hiding the Blue Bar doesn't since it's computation time that's really the source of the hint.

Steve

[vincere]

This may sound a bit silly but I would like the progress bar during the calculation of the next Wego turn to go away.

Reason:

Somehow I'm usually the one who has the calculation turn. From the behaviour of the bar I can deduce events in the upcoming turn. One thing is the rough number of enemy troops. The slower the bar the more troops. This is of course not very accurate but you can roughly discern if your enemy has set on an all infantry or all vehicle setup.

Whats more accurate to guess is the loss of a tank. This seems to take quite some calculations and causes the bar to stop briefly. So one could theoretically save a turn, do the calculation and if you don't expect to loose a tank just do it again.

Silly, gamey - yes to all but still doable.

A bar that doesn't stop or just a line with "please wait..." would be sufficient.

Sir... did you miss the wailing an gnashing of teeth when SF dropped the bar?

And Sir, more importantly, the hoots and cheers of joy when a few patches later the bar came back.

So yes it is silly and let nobody ask for the bar to be removed again...ever.

Edited- damn sombody beat me to mentioning the old threads

[MikeyD]

I've noticed the hesitations & such and have been able to make 'deductions', myself. But since its calculating during the 'replay' phase its a moot point. Whatever slowed the bar down you're going to watch happen to you in 10 seconds anyway. About it being an aid to cheating... there's no page in the manual that says you shouldn't cheat. So cheat with a clear conscience.

[Battlefront.com]

MikeyD,

USUALLY it doesn't give any practically useful information. But if you haven't spotted anything, or only spotted a few things, by the end of the turn you can surmise that the following turn might be a bit more interesting.

To me this isn't cheating. The player's reaction to this "hint" could very well backfire. For example, the enemy player is shifting a company to the west. The player sees one scout in the east and figures everybody is going to show up there within the next few turns. So the player commits his artillery and reserves to the east. A few turns later his positions are overrun and he loses. Bad decisions based on such "hints" are just as likely as good ones.

Steve

[Wego McPbem]

I've noticed the hesitations & such and have been able to make 'deductions', myself. But since its calculating during the 'replay' phase its a moot point. Whatever slowed the bar down you're going to watch happen to you in 10 seconds anyway. About it being an aid to cheating... there's no page in the manual that says you shouldn't cheat. So cheat with a clear conscience.

No it doesn't. If you're playing pbem it happens after you click end turn on the command phase. Then the file is created to be sent off to your opponent to watch. So in theory you could go back and create another file if you see something you don't like from the bar. Like I said earlier though, I can't imagine being able to gain an advantage from it.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Like others I noticed this as far back as CMBO. I've never tested it, but my impression is that while the pauses do typically mean an engagement, you can't really divine the results of the engagement from it. Maybe it was the other guy's tank that got waxed, or maybe they just traded shots and nobody is dead yet. Even if I were the cheating type I wouldn't redo a turn based on the progress bar.

[sburke]

Like others I noticed this as far back as CMBO. I've never tested it, but my impression is that while the pauses do typically mean an engagement, you can't really divine the results of the engagement from it. Maybe it was the other guy's tank that got waxed, or maybe they just traded shots and nobody is dead yet. Even if I were the cheating type I wouldn't redo a turn based on the progress bar.

My luck, I would redo it and instead of my tank killing theirs, now their tank kills mine. Messing with the Fates is a line I hesitate to cross.

[slysniper]

I will just shake my head.

What some people will do to try and win a game.

Now we know the real reason the bar is back.

It sure is not to let you know how close you are to watching the next turn, Since half of its time is spent on 29%.

And that brings up a new question, what is going on during that 29%

[Stingray]

Keep the blue bar. I like it.

[sburke]

I will just shake my head.

What some people will do to try and win a game.

Now we know the real reason the bar is back.

It sure is not to let you know how close you are to watching the next turn, Since half of its time is spent on 29%.

And that brings up a new question, what is going on during that 29%

I believe that is the pause the High Priest of the fanboi cult had decreed be included in order to have time to wolf down a slice of pizza. If you could see in the code it actually says - Pizza eating countdown.....

[GreenAsJade]

It's actually quite straightforwards what's going on during 29%: it's loading all those huge files in Data.

You will notice that as you add mods, you get less time on 29%, and some other stops: for me right now it's 36% and 92%: these are I presume where it hits the new big mod files.

GaJ

[winkelried]

An extremely important aspect of the progress bar has not yet been discussed is its color. Why this boring and depressing blue? I think that it is this color that incites some of thef posters on this forum to bring up topics of questionable value - although this is a subjective judgement. So to be constructive I propose to have a progress bar which changes color. From invisible when nothing happens toa red flash when my last sherman gets turned into a smoking ronson. Blue should be used very sparsely - maybe when the MG bearer stumbles fording a creek at night.

[slysniper]

I believe that is the pause the High Priest of the fanboi cult had decreed be included in order to have time to wolf down a slice of pizza. If you could see in the code it actually says - Pizza eating countdown.....

and 39% is for the drink, now I get it

[sburke]

Yes I believe High Priest Sixxkiller's name according to the ancient lore stems from Six Pack Killer.

[poesel]

Hmm - I didn't know I would raise a zombie here

I probably missed the old discussion because there was (and is) no Mac CMSF...

I agree that it needs a very specific situation to pull an advantage out of this. But I had one and thats why I wrote this in the first place.

Short story: we are in the finishing phases of the game and both down to basically one tank and some infantry each. The tanks couldn't get at each other for sure. Neither could I do anything to his tank that turn. But my tank was in a position where it could have been ambushed from the side. Then I get the 'tank-lost-blue-bar'...

I sent it out as is but had a nail-biting day until I got the turn back! Turned out it was just one of his already dead shermans that brewed up and caused the delay.

So nothing could have been gained by using the bar info. I still feel its an advantage that one side has and the other not. But if its general consensus to keep it that way then its the price the opponent pays for using my computing time for his turn

@steve: decoupling the bar from the calculations or simply a text that says it does would be enough. Its the stopping that tells. Total time is not so important. That information goes together with file size, as someone here already said, and the opponent knows that, too.

@slysniper: I didn't mean the progress bar while loading

[sburke]

So nothing could have been gained by using the bar info. I still feel its an advantage that one side has and the other not. But if its general consensus to keep it that way then its the price the opponent pays for using my computing time for his turn

@steve: decoupling the bar from the calculations or simply a text that says it does would be enough. Its the stopping that tells. Total time is not so important. That information goes together with file size, as someone here already said, and the opponent knows that, too.

@slysniper: I didn't mean the progress bar while loading

My 2 cents, if I had an opponent I thought would replay a turn based on what they thought they saw from the progress bar, I'd get a new opponent. That isn't simply gamey, that is an attempt to cheat (but a strange one as they really don't have any idea what the progress bar is telling them). It's also disrespectful. You want to keep replaying your turn against the AI, fine, but don't treat me like the AI. If they would use that which is an extremely unreliable at best option, they are likely to do anything. If they initiate the game they might very well have altered a scenario to downgrade your units, upgrade theirs or add more to their side. You wouldn't be able to trust them starting a game. Seems to me that type of opponent isn't into the game at all just winning. My opponents are of the same mindset as I - the game itself is all that counts. I get enough angst over stupid s**t at work, I don't need it in my hobbies.

Now on the other hand if they realize after they closed the turn, they forgot to address one unit, I'd have no objection to them starting the turn over. They don't have any info to work from, they may have simply forgot to tell a tank to reverse. If it were a board game and I had not moved yet, I would have the same thing if they had said, oh wait I forgot to move that piece. Fine go ahead and move it. They still have no idea what I was going to do.

[Erwin]

It would be useful in this discussion if someone could describe in detail how the progress bar progress can be used for specific advantage to one player (as opposed to merely indicating that "something" happened).

[sburke]

It would be useful in this discussion if someone could describe in detail how the progress bar progress can be used for specific advantage to one player (as opposed to merely indicating that "something" happened).

I think it is all conjecture that based on the length of time at various percentage points it may indicate something. Frankly, that's when I get up for a break but I think others seem to feel you may be able to discern something that could cause some to go back and retry the turn based on reading the tea leaves of the progress bar.

Personally I am less worried by what someone might figure out what the progress bar is telling them than I am that they would even bother trying to figure it out.

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

I have to add some historical perspective here ) for the mac heads. The reason everbody wanted the blue bar (back) is that in ante-blue bar CMSF, you had to wait the full minute for the turn to play out in WEGO which was a major PITA in single player. In multiplayer it is/was irrelevant.

[poesel]

;1312064']The reason everbody wanted the blue bar (back) is that in ante-blue bar CMSF' date=' you had to wait the full minute for the turn to play out in WEGO which was a major PITA in single player. [/quote']

Ahh - ok. Didn't know that. And no - I don't want to wait a minute, too.