Whats up?

wengart

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I've been away for 3-4 years now, and I've been wondering whats up in the world of CM.

A double release of Red Thunder and Black Sea in 2014. Final Blitz 2 years ago.

Apparently no new modules for any of those titles?

Battlefront lost a developer?

Engine upgrade #4 is out. I've tried finding a video displaying either of these features but have had no luck.
  • IMPROVED INFANTRY SPACING: Infantry on the move will now respect each other's personal space! While moving, squad and team members will maintain a few meters of distance between each other. Soldiers will also spread out laterally on the move when possible (some terrain may necessitate column movement, such as paths through rough terrain).
  • PEEKING AROUND BUILDING CORNERS: Infantry units positioned adjacent to building corners will now automatically post some soldiers at the corners to observe and fire around the obstacle
Do they actually work well?

Battlefront seems to be trundling along at the same leisurely development pace, but now they've got four different game families to develop for?
 

NUTTERNAME

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http://community.battlefront.com/topic/124910-has-40-made-the-stock-campaigns-unplayable/?page=4#comment-1720209

Typical SG.

When artillery comes in soldiers make a decision about what to do OR they panic. If they make a decision it is EITHER to hunker down and ride it out where they are, or relocate to some place else. Engine 4 introduced new behavior that allows soldiers to do the latter to an extent never before seen in CM. It seems that there's some situations where the new behavior (relocate) is getting triggered when the old behavior (hunker) might be better.

Actually, this is incorrect (IRL). It's a natural instantaneous reaction to change posture and get low. Crawling to any lower point would be realistic. Shell-holes and scrapes, natural depressions and foxholes and trenches would be best. Of course, IF the game modeled entrenchments correctly, this would not be an issue.

Do not confuse relocating with panicking. If a soldier is standing out in the open and there's a brick building 10m away, he's probably going to make a break for it (perhaps not that second). This is a conscious decision which may or may not be the right one. If a soldier is standing out in the open and panics, he makes an unconscious decision to do anything but stay in place. That too could be the right or the wrong thing to do. Sometimes panicking units survive simply because making a run for it was the correct course of action.

Very confusing logic if it can be called that. Troops will almost always seek a lower posture. The game does not model this. same as 'half-track gunners' standing up like Lego men. The game does not model suppression correctly.

With this in mind, we think there's likely some tweaking to do. However, 20 years of debating this very topic with you guys leads me to conclude that some of the criticism is based on unreasonable/unrealistic expectations for how units behave under fire. There's plenty of accounts of units getting wiped out because they did the wrong thing, like run when they should have stayed or stayed when they should have run. Therefore, expect to see things you do not understand or necessarily agree with in terms of TacAI behavior even after some things are tweaked.

The primary problem with patches is threefold:

1. We have to make and test five separate builds. We can not assume that if a tweak is made for one that it works for all, nor can we assume that avoiding unintended negative consequences in one game means all games will avoid new problems. This is time consuming to do.

2. We have to update all the full game installers (perhaps not right away), which is a separate process than #1 and also very time consuming.

3. We have limited time, therefore spending time on patches means not spending time on other things.

This has always been the case, and will always be the case. It's just that prior to Engine 4 we also had a fourth problem which was different CM games were using different versions of code so either Charles had to "port" fixes from the current code back to old code or would have to spend time bringing older games up to newer standards before a fix could be made. It took is nearly 4 months to update CMFI's code... just to give you an idea


Typical SG. Outliers are now his argument, he takes swipes at his customers, he has no clue about what he poses to be expert in. Things always need to be 'tweaked' instead of fixed or modeled correctly. Things take time and that is a problem because of how the game has evolved as far as families etc. Somehow, not his fault. And CMSF will not have these same issues????

BTW, the reason you don't see me as often as you once did is because if I'm here reading and posting then I'm not doing other stuff. I have a lot of other stuff to do
Therefore, we rely upon or testers to help us figure out what does/doesn't need our more immediate attention. It's a good system because our testers have many more eyeballs and collective time than I do, and ironically more gameplay time. You're in good hands with 'em.


Steve

Yeah, insulate yourself from reality. The help desk is not for Bugs. You don't read a thread till one of your 'testers' emails you. You blather on when it is APPARENT from CUSTOMER TESTING that things are nerfed. People are posting videos showing how bad this 4.0 PRODUCT is. You charged money for it. Now, you whine about fixing it so you can make more untested product? Slippery-Slope Grammont.
 

Browning

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Thanks Nutter. Your comments helped me make up my mind regarding buying or passing on CM: Normandy - I think I'll pass.
 
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