Storm in the East - Round 4

[GAZNZ]

Hi Guys
Ive played and owned all cm titles.
From CMx1 to present.
Tripps and myself were top of the warfare hq ladder many many years back for cm cmbb etc.
Me and Tripps are eastern front gamers/historians id say more so than any other area.
I was till i got into CMBS lol. Im top of that ladder now.
So we know how things should work.
From my perspective having played all the latest engines of CM is CMBS loads and plays very smooth and is more consistent in its spotting.
In saying that all units have radios (C3) which may play a part.
Most bugs are known and the game i consider more stable.
When i play i know its about tactics not luck to win a game.
CMBN is a bit more stable.
CMRT feels and plays like a different engine. It is the only cm game carrying troops on armour. The game is designed for mass armour with troop transport. It feels so different. It was a huge release with alot of units and this is full of bugs
ive sent many bug reports off to Battlefront for RT who said nearly two years ago they would fix. Still waiting.
LOS is appaling with certain units.
BF need to sort this.
Mine and Tripps experiences have been absurd.
The game has gone from a tactics game to being based on random luck.
In all CM games i know there has been a luck factor ( In calculations - i recall Steve noting years ago ) ive seen happen from time to time across all games. In RT its all the time and makes no sense.
I love eastern front games however RT needs some work especially on LOS.
Also the trenches and 88s - crew issues need to be sorted.
CMBS had some similar issues with spotting for russian bmps etc when it came out but they fixed it promptly.
I love the cm series but LOS issues need some work.
Cheers

[A Canadian Cat]

I don't know what to say. Ah sorry you are not happy - I can say that I guess.

The message I wanted to get across is that there is a disconnect here - I don't know what else to call it and again not trying to diss you guys. You say you are waiting for CMRT to get bug fixes but the only bug fixes it will get are those that are acknowledged as bugs. BFC will not fix stuff the a) don't know about or b) don't think are bugs. This is where I find threads like this difficult to square. I am not aware of any outstanding LOS issues that are acknowledged bugs in CMRT - none. I can definitively say that CMRT and CMBS are using the same engine (minus a few bug fixes and a few capabilities that only make sense for the modern game).

So, in effect you are guys are saying you are waiting for nothing to be fixed and you will not play any more until no additional fixes are available for the game. See what I mean about a disconnect.

On the other hand, if you are saying "I don't like the way the game handles spotting and LOS and I just cannot bring my self to play any more" I might argue with you a bit but I can sort of understand that.

[Tripps]

I don't know what to say.  Ah sorry you are not happy - I can say that I guess.  

The message I wanted to get across is that there is a disconnect here - I don't know what else to call it and again not trying to diss you guys.  You say you are waiting for CMRT to get bug fixes but the only bug fixes it will get are those that are acknowledged as bugs.  BFC will not fix stuff the a) don't know about or b) don't think are bugs.  This is where I find threads like this difficult to square.  I am not aware of any outstanding LOS issues that are acknowledged bugs in CMRT - none.  I can definitively say that CMRT and CMBS are using the same engine (minus a few bug fixes and a few capabilities that only make sense for the modern game).  

So, in effect you are guys are saying you are waiting for nothing to be fixed and you will not play any more until no additional fixes are available for the game.  See what I mean about a disconnect.  

On the other hand,  if you are saying "I don't like the way the game handles spotting and LOS and I just cannot bring my self to play any more" I might argue with you a bit but I can sort of understand that.

I understand, I appreciate your candor and - like I said I dont want to come across as bagging anyone here or BFC - I feel I am allowed however, to voice my unhappyness about something in a constructive manner and not feel like I am being attacked for it.

I understand where you say it is difficult to square, especially when it appears to be anecdotal evidence, in the one case where I did have the time and inclination to back it up with all evidence however, and I have related the link, there was a exhaustive reply explaining (although didnt make it palatable) one point, and nothing on the other - so the flip side of your argument is why should I go through the time and effort each time, when it is not aknowledged?

I know Gaz has logged bugs with BFC, I have seen some of the bugs he logged (for eg he was area firing an AFV at another, and the shots going straight through the enemy AFV as if it wasnt there) - I do not know that status of that particular bug report, or the others he has logged, perhaps that would shed some more light on the topic - I am merely stating this to answer A) They know about, and B) Dont think are bugs.

So, in effect, I am waiting for 'fixes', 'improvements', or whatever, to happen - because I am fairly certain BFC do know there is room for improvement, and if they dont, so be it, I am happy to be in the minority that wanted improvement but the majority were happy with the current state, so I had to reluctantly play something else.

Edit: Should have said Happy to be in the minority that wanted improvement, unhappy that I had to play something else

[Neutral Party]

I just played Tripps in round 3 and while I didn't have any frustrating game-bugs (all my frustrations were self-inflicted) I have experienced quite a few, especially as as the Germans, in previous games. Most seem to be armor LOS-related, where German units just don't see Soviet units that see them - even when the Soviets are in exposed positions. My feeling is that this is also unit-dependent e.g., in the round two game my IVJ's had this kind of problem while the IVH did not. In addition there are other less critical but still annoying bugs such as infantry units splitting apart where one guy runs in the opposite direction from the rest of the unit, effectively stopping the unit from being able to maneuver at all. In most cases I think it's unrealistic to have saved games that show the issue because often you don't know you have the issue until a few turns have passed.

On another subject, we're now at round 4 which is a repeat of round 3 with the sides swapped. Players who have already played as Germans are now the Soviets and are (i) familiar with the German defensive positions and (ii) in possession of an large amount of artillery. This is the downside of the sequential mirrored game approach. Given the size of this scenario and the time investment required, it's pretty hard to work up much enthusiasm.

Joe

[GAZNZ]

This ant personal on you Cat
But I find it interesting how you seem to defend ( or ignore )the spotting issues ( having considered all your comments on other posts ) when Steve and the BF staff have never in full clarity actually explained how it works and having read hundreds of accounts of spotting issues on the BF forums nothing has been done or addressed.

I found this strange behavior from BF not looking into this in general.
Its all about new releases and not addressing there current games.
CMBS seemed to get more focus.
as after CBMS was released the BMP crew ( and units it were carrying ) had noted spotting issues and C1/C2 issues. People reported the bugs and subsequent in a month spotting issues were fixed very quickly.
It didn't seem like a big issue.

Compounding the spotting issue with CMRT Dedicated supporters of the game CMRT/CMBN have defended the spotting issues and tried to explain it.
However they didn't programme the game and there explanations do not answer the majority of anomalies.
A massive C1/2 write up on the BF forums was done but it doesn't actually explain the spotting itself

Every game I played with RT i saw spotting issues.
I would have guys lying, sitting standing and a tank or vehicle 40-200 yards away would not be seen that was moving along ( with a tank icon coming up but they cannot see it ) in an open field in daylight
I can appreciate infantry sneaking up or being hard to see but not a big tank

In the last tournament my stugs could only see fast moving T34s - i shot one and it was immobilized and of course my tank couldn't see the T34 which was immobilized
even though he had just shot it and it stopped 20 yards from where he shot it in clear view for 2 turns. 3 Turns later it kills my tank.
Total joke.
My stugs just couldn't see tanks in the open in full view and when they could one made a kill from hardly seeing the tank - he saw a fraction of the turrent and hit and killed it.
Totally inconsistent.
Watching Tripps game turns I was quite shocked at this consistent spotting issue

As to absurd spotting
I saw guys on the forum advising CMBNs spotting issues saying his US troops had a German HT drive straight at them and over them and they never saw it.
They had he said 400 yards clear view before it happened
Was in broad daylight - 5 man squad.

Some guys on the forum tried to defend it but it was ahhh not defend able

I've read the same happening with a Tank in CMRT etc on the forums and ive had my squads not see tanks also in similar situations.

I'm of the view this is a bug or units cannot see tanks or units fully as they perhaps cannot identify it
so by them not seeing it fully ( identifying it ) they cannot shoot at it properly - target weak spots etc
By we wont know as battlefront wont tell us clearly how it works or is calculated

Submitting bug reports all ive been told is it is likely a bug and will be addressed in the new patch
I put Bugs in for 88's and LOS - Viewing issues and crew issues
Panther tanks - HE shots were going through panther tanks and exploding well behind
LOS issues with infantry not seeing tanks and trucks/jeeps
Soviet SMG ranges were too accurate out at longer ranges and need to be shortened
Panzer IVs seeing Tanks from side on at 500 yards before a Russian tank could see the tank staring right at it in its front arc
panzer IV killed it in 20 seconds
The Panzer IV was side on in the middle of a bridge.- my bug report
and also my other report PanzerIV LOS issues front on - not seeing other tank in plain view 100-400 yards out
varying issues and different games
T34 - general Russian tanks - not seeing enemy Tanks in plain view - similar as above
Soviet AT rifles / or German Ht issues - Hts were taking too much in shot damage from rifles and not being stopped
pen after pen after pen - targeting issues and would be looked at I as told
rifles were targeting main back hull not front it seemed
There were a couple of others relating to buildings etc and cover / damage ( kind of queries )
recently submitted were Stug spotting issues and Pak spotting issues
MG42 rate of fire issues - seems to be too slow - should be higher and more accurate for mounted
MG42s with AP rounds are not shooting at light armour when you target them

[Panzer Lehr]

Remember when LOS was not so complicated 

[raz_atoth]

I see a major issue is with the spotting and i agree, there are situations when the results are rather odd. I remember i was playing a CMBS campaign - i think it was the russian one - and i managed to sneak a rpg team behind an enemy tank. It took about 8 secs for the tank to be spotted from a distance of 6m or so. Two points i'm trying to make:

a) These LOS oddities might NOT be actual bugs. Thus BFC are correct when they say the LOS works as intended and there is nothing for them to fix. The issue is LOS operations are quite resource intensive. Imagine a 8x8 grid, with a total of 64 cells. Now, let's say you have a squad in a cell. For the spotting to work flawlessly you'd need to check the los from that cells to each of the other 63 cells each second. Now, consider the fact spotting might not be done on a per unit basis, but on a per-man basis. This means, in the example above, if the squad consist of 8 man, you'll have 63 * 8 = 504 los checkings per second. Now, let's consider a typical CM battle with a 1000x1000m map and hundreds of men for each side. As you can imagine the number of los checkings can go quite high. What i'm trying to say here is the los oddities are the result of hardware limitations rather than buggy code.

b) While spotting doesn't work in all 100% cases perfectly, it DOES work as expected in most cases and that's good enough for me.

[A Canadian Cat]

I understand, I appreciate your candor and - like I said I dont want to come across as bagging anyone here or BFC - I feel I am allowed however, to voice my unhappyness about something in a constructive manner and not feel like I am being attacked for it.

You are indeed allowed and I sincerely hope you do not feel like you are being attacked by me.  Because that is not my intent at all.  

I think Panzer Lehr has hit on something interesting I have been thinking is the root of a lot of people's problems with spotting. More later.

This ant personal on you Cat

Good, cool.

But I find it interesting how you seem to defend ( or ignore )the spotting issues ( having considered all your comments on other posts ) when Steve and the BF staff have never in full clarity actually explained how it works and having read hundreds of accounts of spotting issues on the BF forums nothing has been done or addressed.

I defend what I think is the game working correctly.  More accurately - at least to my intention - I try to explain and communicate to people how the game is supposed to work.  There is a good chance I suck at doing that

I found this strange behavior from BF not looking into this in general.
Its all about new releases and not addressing there current games.
CMBS seemed to get more focus.

Well, outliers and other issues that you and other have found are constantly getting fixed.  However, more expectation setting here, any one developer or tester can only work on one thing at a time.  What that means is the reality is they can only work towards one game getting a patch at any one time.  Yes, it is likely the case that fixes are being done on more then one thing in the same month but for a patch or release.  However, there is, like in all dev shops, one thing that is about to go out the door and a couple of things that are next.  But from the outside it looks like only one thing is happening.  BFC has a long history of releasing a product and then monitoring things to create a patch and then they release that patch - or perhaps a couple of patches (that happened with both CMBS and CMRT).  Then they focus on another project.  CMRT is the penultimate release so it is near the back of the line to get a patch release.  That is just the reality.  It will get a patch but they have fixes they know they want to go into CMBN and CMFI first plus what evernew content they have in the works.

As to absurd spotting

Long list of issues that may or may not be bugs or working as intended that I could not possibly address all by my self. :) I know mean right.

So, stuff comes up on BFC's forum often and sometimes people are not very nice about it - yeah I meant it that way it sounded, the issue finders can be over the top nuts just like the defenders can get carried away.

They fall into four buckets

1. actual bugs
   
2. user mistakes
   
3. stuff that we are going to have to live with
   
4. stuff that is working correctly the some people just cannot accept
   

Thankfully #1 is pretty small and #2 get sorted out pretty quickly although often #3 sucks but what are you going to do quit playing?  (if you they bug you that much, I guess you have to).

#4 is the big nasty one and I think the heart of these massive arguments - more below.

You have found some bugs - if support acknowledged them they are on a list some where to get sorted at some point. No doubt you have made some mistakes (lord knows I have <alt>K and <alt>T being my favourite two) but you probably figured them out before posting about them.  #3 I can see that you have hit some of those from your list.  The big one here is things going pear shaped when units are close together.  My other pet peeve is the problem of area firing at buildings.  #4 is the big nasty poka dotted elephant in the room.

Submitting bug reports all ive been told is it is likely a bug and will be addressed in the new patch

Which is excellent - we all thank you.  I meant it, I do.  And one day we will all see them fixed.  

Remember when LOS was not so complicated 

OK this is a great introduction to what IMHO is the root of when people say "X should have spotted Y" and declare the game broken.  Yes, LOS on a hex board is a yes no question.  Can unit X see unit Y.  We all played those games with perfect spotting where LOS = is it spotted = LOF. 

So the vast majority of us have played those games where there was no real FOW (yes I know fake counters, etc.  but come on you have to admit it was not really FOW).  And the only question was can unit X see where unit Y is.  I am not aware of any game that added "but does X actually notice Y".  And that is the big difference here.  BFC is trying to model the chaos of the battle field.  They are trying to model that soldiers get are not perfect people, that they are looking one way when something important is happening in the other direction, that they get tunnel vision due to stress, that they duck when you wish they would not.  They are trying to model the morale factors that cause people to perform less well and how that interacts with their training level.

So in the hex game above LOS = is it spotted = LOF.  In CM LOS <> is it spotted <> LOF.  LOS is just the first step.  The game figures out what places a unit can actually see then they get some kind of chance to spot the enemy that is in the location they can see.  With all the soft factors that model the imperfect human, the concealment of where the enemy is, etc. etc.  All of which I have read Steve say on the BFC boards.  I may try to find some of his posts but honestly this has taken a while to craft and I need to get to work so who knows when I'll get a chance.

All of which means, that if you expect that everyone of your units that can see an enemy will notice the enemy you will be very sad and frustrated.  Again not trying to be mean or cruel I am just trying to get this idea across. Some of us have totally out of whack expectations of what soldiers can process on a battle field.

So, having said all that I do realize (and so does BFC BTW) that not everything is perfect and there can be bugs.  Those - how the hell does X not see Y when Y is big and sitting in the open are hard to take.  The thing is sometimes people in real life miss important things they "should" see and BFC is trying to model that.

Our choice is to roll with it or go back to a simpler time :)

[Panzer Lehr]

I understand, I appreciate your candor and - like I said I dont want to come across as bagging anyone here or BFC - I feel I am allowed however, to voice my unhappyness about something in a constructive manner and not feel like I am being attacked for it.

You are indeed allowed and I sincerely hope you do not feel like you are being attacked by me.  Because that is not my intent at all.  

I think Panzer Lehr has hit on something interesting I have been thinking is the root of a lot of people's problems with spotting. More later.

This ant personal on you Cat

Good, cool.

But I find it interesting how you seem to defend ( or ignore )the spotting issues ( having considered all your comments on other posts ) when Steve and the BF staff have never in full clarity actually explained how it works and having read hundreds of accounts of spotting issues on the BF forums nothing has been done or addressed.

I defend what I think is the game working correctly.  More accurately - at least to my intention - I try to explain and communicate to people how the game is supposed to work.  There is a good chance I suck at doing that

I found this strange behavior from BF not looking into this in general.
Its all about new releases and not addressing there current games.
CMBS seemed to get more focus.

Well, outliers and other issues that you and other have found are constantly getting fixed.  However, more expectation setting here, any one developer or tester can only work on one thing at a time.  What that means is the reality is they can only work towards one game getting a patch at any one time.  Yes, it is likely the case that fixes are being done on more then one thing in the same month but for a patch or release.  However, there is, like in all dev shops, one thing that is about to go out the door and a couple of things that are next.  But from the outside it looks like only one thing is happening.  BFC has a long history of releasing a product and then monitoring things to create a patch and then they release that patch - or perhaps a couple of patches (that happened with both CMBS and CMRT).  Then they focus on another project.  CMRT is the penultimate release so it is near the back of the line to get a patch release.  That is just the reality.  It will get a patch but they have fixes they know they want to go into CMBN and CMFI first plus what evernew content they have in the works.

As to absurd spotting

Long list of issues that may or may not be bugs or working as intended that I could not possibly address all by my self. :) I know mean right.

So, stuff comes up on BFC's forum often and sometimes people are not very nice about it - yeah I meant it that way it sounded, the issue finders can be over the top nuts just like the defenders can get carried away.

They fall into four buckets

1. actual bugs
   
2. user mistakes
   
3. stuff that we are going to have to live with
   
4. stuff that is working correctly the some people just cannot accept
   

Thankfully #1 is pretty small and #2 get sorted out pretty quickly although often #3 sucks but what are you going to do quit playing?  (if you they bug you that much, I guess you have to).

#4 is the big nasty one and I think the heart of these massive arguments - more below.

You have found some bugs - if support acknowledged them they are on a list some where to get sorted at some point. No doubt you have made some mistakes (lord knows I have <alt>K and <alt>T being my favourite two) but you probably figured them out before posting about them.  #3 I can see that you have hit some of those from your list.  The big one here is things going pear shaped when units are close together.  My other pet peeve is the problem of area firing at buildings.  #4 is the big nasty poka dotted elephant in the room.

Submitting bug reports all ive been told is it is likely a bug and will be addressed in the new patch

Which is excellent - we all thank you.  I meant it, I do.  And one day we will all see them fixed.  

Remember when LOS was not so complicated 

OK this is a great introduction to what IMHO is the root of when people say "X should have spotted Y" and declare the game broken.  Yes, LOS on a hex board is a yes no question.  Can unit X see unit Y.  We all played those games with perfect spotting where LOS = is it spotted = LOF. 

So the vast majority of us have played those games where there was no real FOW (yes I know fake counters, etc.  but come on you have to admit it was not really FOW).  And the only question was can unit X see where unit Y is.  I am not aware of any game that added "but does X actually notice Y".  And that is the big difference here.  BFC is trying to model the chaos of the battle field.  They are trying to model that soldiers get are not perfect people, that they are looking one way when something important is happening in the other direction, that they get tunnel vision due to stress, that they duck when you wish they would not.  They are trying to model the morale factors that cause people to perform less well and how that interacts with their training level.

So in the hex game above LOS = is it spotted = LOF.  In CM LOS <> is it spotted <> LOF.  LOS is just the first step.  The game figures out what places a unit can actually see then they get some kind of chance to spot the enemy that is in the location they can see.  With all the soft factors that model the imperfect human, the concealment of where the enemy is, etc. etc.  All of which I have read Steve say on the BFC boards.  I may try to find some of his posts but honestly this has taken a while to craft and I need to get to work so who knows when I'll get a chance.

All of which means, that if you expect that everyone of your units that can see an enemy will notice the enemy you will be very sad and frustrated.  Again not trying to be mean or cruel I am just trying to get this idea across. Some of us have totally out of whack expectations of what soldiers can process on a battle field.

So, having said all that I do realize (and so does BFC BTW) that not everything is perfect and there can be bugs.  Those - how the hell does X not see Y when Y is big and sitting in the open are hard to take.  The thing is sometimes people in real life miss important things they "should" see and BFC is trying to model that.

Our choice is to roll with it or go back to a simpler time :)

I decided to roll with it 15 years ago ... my boardgames are relics now

[A Canadian Cat]

I decided to roll with it 15 years ago ... my boardgames are relics now

Indeed.  I actually spent only few years playing board games and miniatures but just never got into them because of the lack of FOW.  So CM was like a rebirth.  I only wish I knew about CM1x when it was released - I have 10 years of war-gaming to make up for