POA 2 - Dead?? What happened?

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Panther77th said:
Might want to hang it there, I dont want to commit Scott to anything but he stated days not months for the patch. It also adds more features, and obviously takes care of the more pesky issues. I will ask if I can paste his email response here. From what I read, its looking good. Based on how detailed this game really is, I think we would all rather have it work, than not work.

Panther
I sincerly hope so Panther, I really do, I will look forward to any patch that Scott plans to release in the near future ;)
 

Gary

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I have to say that Scott or sometimes Rich have replied to every email and error report I have sent them The latest two concered Divide by Zero error and artillery not emplacing.

The divide by zero error was caused by the programme trying to move knocked out vehicles and the artillery not emplacing was a problem of the programme thinking the units were still moving.

I fully agree with the commonly held sentiment that the game was bust when it was released, but since then, imho, HPS have done a lot to bring it up to a usable game standard. I think its not there yet but I still feel it is worth the wait. HPS do seem to be listening to us and adding tweaks as they go. I also, like many others here, would like to see more specific command options, i.e, " Bravo company move to ******, using box formation and dig in on arrival". I am still of the opinion that POAII has the potential to be an award winner, and I don't mean the wooden spoon for being the worst war sim ever released.

cheers

Gary
 

RedMike

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I agree. Patience, Jago! All will come right in the end...

OUT
 

meade95

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Great news - that a new patch is coming out soon -

I agree that HPS has tried to work with everyone since POA2 was released in the shape it was -

I'm hoping this patch is a real plus - lots of tweaks and changes - plus, there is suppose to be a whole new editor with it -
 

HercMighty

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Has anyone gotten a list of the tweaks and changes? How drastic are they? Do they cover the things we have been complaining about? And does it bring it in the direction we have shown it should go? Or is it just "it works better now" which in the past for me anyways has not been the case.
 

meade95

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From my understanding there is suppose to be quite a few fixes, plus some tweaks, plus some new features, plus a new sceanrio editor tool -

Lets hope this turns out to be true - we will be finding out shortly - a new "beta" version will be coming out soon.
 

meade95

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The new beta has a lot of changes! - I can say that -

Also, it has been beta tested some, but will have another 3 or 4 days of beta testing as well -

Whole new composite unit design is added.

Some info on this topic..

Composite Units

Composite units are a game feature that is designed to allow players to issue movement and targeting orders to a group of sub-units with a single command, as if they were one unit.

The global composite unit mode can be accessed either though the menu option: “Main Menu | Display | Composite Unit Mode”, or from the Preferences form. The mode acts as a system-wide toggle. If the global composite unit mode is OFF, none of the composite unit effects described below will apply. However, mode does not affect the composite units themselves, which remain defined, but are just in the background.

There are also two local options available with composite units: “Stay Together”, and “AI Targeting Only”. These values are “local” because they are assigned to individual composite units rather than applying to all composite units.

Expert Level Limitations:
• The global composite unit mode cannot be changed at the Novice or Level 1 expert levels; it is always on.
• The Stay Together local option cannot be changed at expert levels less than Level 3/Expert (the highest), and is enabled by default.
• The AI Targeting Only local option cannot be changed at the Novice or Level 1 expert levels, and is enabled by default.

There are no restrictions on the composition of the sub-units that can comprise a composite unit. Most commonly, however, the composite unit will represent a standard unit made up of sections different weapons systems, for example an infantry squad. In this case the composite unit may include infantry, machine gun, missile, mortar, and other sub-units under a single HQ containing the squad leader.

The following discussion covers every aspect of composite units, including many complicated situations unlikely to occur in most games. As such, novice players can skim over the following sections, or even skip them completely, since in the basic games composite unit structures will be handled completely by the computer and the players won’t even realize the composite units are there.
 

HercMighty

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What about staff officer usage. this seems to be one of thier big selling points and I have found them all to mostly worthless. Every once in a while you get the targeting one to do something but that is about it.

How about units calling for air support and artillery support. Units never seem to do this for me.

Also with the different sighted stages I think things need to be tweaked. Especially with units with a good Comm state and within command range. I also think there should be an overlay depicting the area a force is actually covering. Some of these units are not covering just one hex especially composite units. So when you select the main counter an area should be highlighted depicting the actual area being used. This of course could be a turned on or off feature by the user.

Are victory conditions used better. Scott had said that the AI has a hard time with open ended games where there are no start lines or victory conditions. Which is why I was surprised that so many of them do not feature these especially the terrorist scenerios which I would like to play the most.

How about mission orders. For a game that is a macro game how did the developer ever think these would not be necessary. The tweaking you can do to units is nice but should be the exception not the rule so why set the game up to be a "macro" game when all the controls are "Micro".

How about LOS, Close Combat, and Helicopters. These areas needed great enhancements and tweaking. Sure helicopters are not shot down as much, but any of the terroists scenerios they were all but useless. Close combat happens but is ineffective and I do not protrays real life situations very well. And how about area targeting, seems to me that we should or the AI should be smart enough to level a building if it is taking fire from one.

LOS needs to be enhanced to take for example the elevation of a helicopter into account. Helicopters need to have a better SOP or mission type orders. Doing recon, and pop ups, shooting and then ducking back down.

Which again leads to spotting (Units should be able to spot for other units or for artillery and aircraft strikes providing a bonus to success), on call artillery and air strikes.

How about loading and unloading units? This is another aspect of the game that is way broken and the new composite unit idea made even worse. You have the leader of a team and you tell it to move in formation and it tells you the unit needs to be unloaded first. I find this whole aspect not very intuitive and very confusing.

For composite units when you bring up unit info why can't we get one pop up for all units that are composed in the group? Or at least be able to choose the unit you want to look at instead of having to click through them all? Also why not a mini map depicting all units positions so you can get a feel for where they are as part of this pop up?

Also is there a limit to the number of units that can occupy a hex? Seems to me that this is unlimited and therefore un realistic. I could be wrong on this and don't have time to test it.

Also on the unit detail pop up there needs to be a button on the movement tab to bring you to the movement orders screen. I think it is ridicules that you have to close the detail pop up and then go and right click on the unit and issue or modify movement orders.

These are not enhancements or new features, these are needed and should have been included features in my opinion. I had provided savegames and detailed questions and suggestions to Scott and never heard anything back. I know the emails were received because Rich said he was forwarding them, but then silence. Getting any type of answers on what I have may have been doing wrong did not come. I will more than likely give the next patch a try but I fear my expecatations are to hig and I will be sorely disappointed.
 

meade95

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Herc,

The new patch addresses many of the issues you brought up - it will be coming out within a few days -
 

HercMighty

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meade95 said:
Herc,

The new patch addresses many of the issues you brought up - it will be coming out within a few days -

If this is true and it makes great strides in addressing them then all of this will be worth it. I guess we will just have to see.

And switch_back this will mean the hounding for scenerioes will begin in earnest! ;) :D
 

Gregory Smith

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HPS is still working hard......

Hi Guys,
I'll have to personally take some of the heat for this thread even starting...I'm supposed to be here and check in once in awhile. Unfortunately I've been heavily involved in about 4 different games and so, well, there's my excuse :)

Part of the reason we've been quiet is that we've been working very hard on the patch for POA2. You will notice there are now TO&Es and national organizations for the French, German, Israeli, Chinese, and Australian forces. That was me....Scott was busting his butt on making the composite units work per user requests.

We would NEVER "abandon" POA2.....we are committed to making it as bug free and user-friendly as the world's most complicated tactical simulator can get :)

I apologize for the time it has taken but the changes have been significant, to say the least. But take heart in that we aren't just being satified with fixing reported problems, but have been continually upgrading and improving it as well.

Finally, I'd like to ask if anyone has more info on the Australian and Israeli TO&Es I'd love to hear from them at sturmer@hpssims.com. Valid info is pretty hard to come by.

Thanks for hanging in there and bearing with us.

Take care,
-Greg
HPS Sims
 

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HercMighty said:
If this is true and it makes great strides in addressing them then all of this will be worth it. I guess we will just have to see.

And switch_back this will mean the hounding for scenerioes will begin in earnest! ;) :D
If the patch solves the problems I am encountering then yes you will get some scenarios real soon!! I cant wait to get back to editing them! but hopefully someone will be pumping out some good maps to game!! I cant do that.

And Greg thanks for getting back to us on these issues, I myself apologise for being so doubtful of the efforts going into fixing the game this past week, but to be honest if we had of known what was going on we might have not been so doubtful overall, but as you said its not your fault due to the hard work you have been undertaking, and now we understand exactly what is going on ;) so thank you to you and all at HPS :D
 
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