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  1. #1

    Suggestions on formations

    This was written on my phone, so there's bound to be mistakes.

    There are a few things I think would benefit the game and make it much more responsive/less frustrating. I'm sure much of this has been said already, but just in case here's my two cents.

    As far as 19th century napoleonic line battle simulator games go, this is a gem, and I'm proud to support it all the way to the end. However, a line battle simulator should not be frustrating to stand in lines and march, as that's the focus of the game. Currently, marching and advancing in line is buggy, delayed, and unpolished. Players fight for positions, often overtaking or sliding out of line unintentionally. I suggest a kind of "soft lock" feature. Say an officer could place a 2D flat plane with different variants like "single column", "double column", "triple column", etc, that can be rotated into the needed direction, that players could stand on which activates after a second or two, or could be entered with a key. That would automatically lock them in place, while still making it easy to move out of line if need be by holding any WASD key that will push you out of it, making a seamless drop in drop out kind of feature. Officers could direct this line by stepping in and marching along side of it or in front, and move at quick or double quick, with sprinting breaking the lock.

    Soft locks already exist in games, notable ones including the assassins creed franchise or the witcher with your horse automatically following a path. This would prevent people from sliding and would keep each person in place, and would work particularly well when advancing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, as the lack of spatial sense that simply can't be replicated in a game as real life, causes people to walk in all sorts of directions and split apart the formation.

    TL;DR: add a locking function for lines so players don't slide around
    Last edited by Add man; 11-29-2017 at 01:27 AM. Reason: general typos

  2. #2
    The movement is being worked on and actively improved by the developers, we've even seen improvement in the marching and collision problems (the sliding and buggy effect you seem to be talking about). As for the formations, I have suggested before but without the locking function and I think it was going to be added later (not totally sure). But the locking function would be something challenging to add, and the developer should just focus on smoothing on movement and collisions and I'm sure if they did that, the annoying 'buggy' effect would be very minimal if at all noticeable. Plus, it seems overly complicated to code in officers directing the line and all of that which can be achieved by average drill skill and smoothed out collisions and marching.

  3. #3
    Thank you for your input, I appreciate reading what others have to say.

    Quote Originally Posted by McMuffin View Post
    Plus, it seems overly complicated to code in officers directing the line and all of that which can be achieved by average drill skill and smoothed out collisions and marching.
    Yes, I'm not saying that I demand a soft lock system to be added immediately, but rather as time goes on and the rest of the kinks are banged out we can see a feature like this. Drilling and learning to march works to an extent. The only reason I think this should be a feature is that this is a game, and not real life. Real life consists of a 3D space in which you have all of your senses, the most important ones being touch and depth perception, which makes it a simple task to walk beside someone or a group of people without thinking. In a game, however, you only have a 2D screen to work with and sight as your only ally. You have to unnecessarily micromanage your position and use the existing alt key to look to make sure you're still heading the correct direction and aren't marching off with the rest of the people behind you who also can't see the person next to them in some random area, and just rely on the person in front of them to lead his or herself. I just think a lock feature will take away that stress that we have to deal with.

    As for the officer strictly leading the line, I feel that whichever player positioned in front of the line could perform the task just as easily. It doesn't really matter who leads and who doesn't, so long as they're in the front.

    I'm not a coder however, nor am I or have ever produced a game on the scale and depth such as this one, so I'm not familiar with the difficulty of coding in a system such as a lock. Thank you for reading this.
    Last edited by Add man; 11-29-2017 at 01:40 AM.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Add man View Post
    Thank you for your input, I appreciate reading what others have to say.


    Yes, I'm not saying that I demand a soft lock system to be added immediately, but rather as time goes on and the rest of the kinks are banged out we can see a feature like this. Drilling and learning to march works to an extent. The only reason I think this should be a feature is that this is a game, and not real life. Real life consists of a 3D space in which you have all of your senses, the most important ones being touch and depth perception, which makes it a simple task to walk beside someone or a group of people without thinking. In a game, however, you only have a 2D screen to work with and sight as your only ally. You have to unnecessarily micromanage your position and use the existing alt key to look to make sure you're still heading the correct direction and aren't marching off with the rest of the people behind you who also can't see the person next to them in some random area, and just rely on the person in front of them to lead his or herself. I just think a lock feature will take away that stress that we have to deal with.

    As for the officer strictly leading the line, I feel that whichever player positioned in front of the line could perform the task just as easily. It doesn't really matter who leads and who doesn't, so long as they're in the front.

    I'm not a coder however, nor am I or have ever produced a game on the scale and depth such as this one, so I'm not familiar with the difficulty of coding in a system such as a lock. Thank you for reading this.
    I get what you mean, I really do, and I actually wanted something like this when I was just starting out and even into 40 hours plus of game play. Although, after I had been a guide in enough formations and been in the middle, front, rear and all other spots I know what it feels like the best suggestion I can give you is to adjust your FOV. I have mine narrower than usual, 60, but I have learned to adjust to it, if you are constantly looking around with alt, you're doing that to adjust for lack of field of vision. And trust me, a well drilled unit that practices marching can get damn good at it, even with the system now.

    However, I do not wish to totally discredit your idea as valid. I think later down the road, that after collisions and marching have been smoothed out, units still find themselves constantly dealing with people sliding around or veering off course, I would be behind exploring the idea. But, it would be very complicated to do then, and now it would add more than is needed to be done. It would have to account for, locking players in place according to unit size and adjust that on the fly, different formation spacing, all of the advanced movements or even custom movements units do, the guides and having to reassign the leaders to base the system off of, and imagine doing that for the many units and massive sizes we could see later. I'm not doubting the developers skills to do this, I just know it would be a hell of a system to make.

  5. #5
    David Dire's Avatar
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    I've never had any problems with the movement. Players fighting for position in line is a fault with your unit.
    http://i.imgur.com/STUHVb8.png

  6. #6
    People good at keeping a formation should be rewarded somehow. And those not, shouldn't be rewarded as much. How is up for debate (resistance to morale hits, "line" statuses) but it's clear it had advantages in real life. You wouldn't want to put that much power in any single player's hands ever to move a formation around.

  7. #7
    We used to use the WW2 Online system of your own. Rankings internal, war medals etc.. You did not receive them easy either. We also had a ranking system internal for things in RedBaron 3d which our squadron was the proud supporters of the league back then. It went overwhelmingly great with the players. Unless you can reward them through the company tool? Which is an idea.

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