Developer Diary, Part 81

[Rjel]

Has anyone considered the possibility that 16x was removed to "help" find any bugs that might exist in the unlocking process? We are still playing with an unfinished game. Perhaps there are answers to questions not yet asked. I'm not trying to be a ray of sunshine here. I'm as baffled as anyone. But given what we have had for interaction from the developers so far, I can't believe this has been done out of spite.
 

[Afwastus]

They lurked silently in the shadows last time round too.

 

I think their strategy is based on the same diplomatic strategy employed by Japan at the end of WW2:

 

That afternoon, Prime Minister Suzuki Kantarō declared at a press conference that the Potsdam Declaration was no more than a rehash (yakinaoshi) of the Cairo Declaration and that the government intended to ignore it (mokusatsu, "kill by silence").

 

1) All vocal criticism is meaningless and simply rehash

2) There is no need to explain or validate a decision but merely to say that things will proceed as they are

Edited October 6, 2014 by Afwastus

[wellenbrecher]

Has anyone considered the possibility that 16x was removed to "help" find any bugs that might exist in the unlocking process? We are still playing with an unfinished game. Perhaps there are answers to questions not yet asked. I'm not trying to be a ray of sunshine here. I'm as baffled as anyone. But given what we have had for interaction from the developers so far, I can't believe this has been done out of spite.

 

Communication is key. They could've told us. They didn't, so now it's nothing but a "screw you" to everyone that doesn't want to grind bots to get all features out of the game.

Like Extreme_one said in another thread, if they'd just tell us in clear words what they plan, why they do it that way and what it means to us, people would still be unhappy but a lot of the crap could've been avoided.

[7./Sch.G.2_Stublerone]

Yes you are right I should have been more informed and took the time to read the fine print. And I will inform my 20 active members in our squad of this position on unlocks. A couple of us bought this to check for the squad to determine should we move from Il2 to BOS.

 

http://airgroup51.net/forum/

Changed my post, no offense was intended, but you took it right

BTW: Currently no need to move!

[39bn_pavig]

Interesting, it's nice to see that you can analyze it without making it out to be the "evil veteran" players hating on newbies. 

 

Having seen this kind of angst expressed to companies I've worked for online I can understand completely. Players are passionate about both the tangible mechanics of games, and the intangible politics of gaming constraints. We become very emotionally invested and so take these things personally. It's never a war, but in the forums it often looks like one. 

 

The thing is though, I don't think any of us have anything against getting new players to have fun and join the game, again, the major problem is when people are forced to run through single player (now without x16 time compression).

...

Semantics, the game isn't making you play a certain way, they are just strongly encouraging it by making it impossible to get XP or unlock by any means other than the campaign. I can avoid the single player campaign, but then I can also avoid all the modifications for the every plane which I paid for.

 

This is an interesting problem from a developer perspective. To take a step back from the language of the current debate about MP unlocks it's interesting to look at your sig. In the two days since this release using autopilot to exploit the campaign for unlocks has been the hot topic amongst the MP community - almost like a popular uprising - and those who haven't been so infuriated that they've deleted BoS off their hard drive have been agitating the community to... let's call it what it is... cheat. The language used by the vetran MP community which is mostly against "gamey" things like XP quickly coopted the lowest forms of behavior within online gaming such as exploit grinding and so on. Realism/RP was thrown out the window in the process. People kept talking about their wallets and such giving them rights on game content, and though opposed to pay2win gaming quickly began treating game content as a monetary asset they had been deprived. This is not how propper games work (unless you're farmville et al.)

 

I mention this just to illustrate some of the community reaction - not to damn it, but to critique the psychology of it from a developer perspective which I'll explain later.

 

Now there is a great debate to be had as to if cheating against the AI and game structure is really cheating if you only want to play MP, but to the develper it is an exploit. For a game designed to encourage and eventually achieve greatest replayability via MP, any exploits are a problem. The develpers "patched" this "exploit" right quick, and from an MP game perspective there is little else they could do. On release they need to have a solid game system in place which does not blatantly advantage some players who have discovered the secret key to success. They need to stop cheating, period. 

 

The big argument from the community I have seen for how to fix this is to allow people to "grind" (I hate that word), or achieve XP and unlocks via MP progress. Sounds ideal. I'd love to see that myself. But MP is the one area where it is even harder to avoid exploits. It is very simple to team up with a friend, take opposing sides, and hang out on an empty server grinding away on XP by shooting each other. So given the exploitability of MP being much harder to manage than SP it makes sense that the XP system was rolled out in SP first.

 

The developers need to understand what exploits are available and tune the system to ensure that all the numbers add up, ie: campaign xp progress happens at an appropriate rate, xp scales correctly with difficulty and skill, unlocks happen in a timely manner, obvious cheaty shortcuts don't pay off, etc. This can only happen by putting a system in place and watching how the community adapts. Only when the easier to manage SP component is well tuned would anyone contemplate extending this system into MP, where public servers and third party mission design also play a part in game balance. 

 

So some righteous indigence is appropriate from the MP community... but not too much. The game isn't finished, and there will be a lot of tuning to do now that the rabble has some time to tinker with it. It is entirely expected that as soon as this system was released some of the MP community would try and exploit the system to short-cut unlocks (and stick it in their sig even   .)  It is also entirely justified for the developers to quickly close the loophole.

 

That's what I mean about it only being two days - a short time to reveal how readily some of the community will try to "break" the game when given a new tool to do so. I am not judging. This is the kind of thing that happens in games. I just figure veterans of MP gaming would have seen these kind of disruptions come and go over the years, and not think the sky is falling because of a bad weekend.

 

Call me old fashion but I don't see strong arming as a polite tactic.

 

"I'm not saying you have to wear a suit to use your car, but I'm afraid you won't be able to go past 50 Kph if you don't."

 

 

Like it or not some constraints are inherent in gaming. Without them gaming just doesn't work - it is the constraints that make the game, its fundamental nature. The best constraints are built something like what 777 has built here, where they "strongly encourage" a particular kind of play. Players are humans after all, and will surprise you with how they get around such constraints, so tuning game structure is partly tuning human behaviour.  It's like the law - nothing stops you breaking the law, but you are strongly encouraged not to.  I have no doubts that these constraints will move about a bit as the game develops, sometimes becoming more restrictive, and sometimes easing off.

 

It is a very difficult thing to balance both the structure of a game and the behaviour of its players. And this is the fascinating thing about game design - many games are released which do pretty much the same thing, but some soar and some crash, mostly based not on problems of the game itself, but by how the playing community engages with these constraints. The developers have a lot of experience watching how players interact with their other titles, so aren't entirely stupid. They know that they need to strike a fine balance between freeform play and structured play, because the gaming community will come from both libertarian and conservative gaming backgrounds. (Ironically many of the younger gamers are more conservative having grown up in a more commercially curated period in game developent. Such players understand games through almost a formal language which has been written by the market... but I digress.) 

 

Anyway I could bang on for hours about this stuff, but suffice to say that I don't think we've heard the final word on precisely how the unlocking system will settle after a few iterations and tweaks. Some MP players will never like it, but I think as it develops many MP folk will come back on board as changes are implemented and they warm to some of the future benefits of the neonate system which has been put in place this weekend. Like all our favourite flight sims, though they start out ugly ducklings they grow into swans. Except War Thunder. I hate that game.

[sturmkraehe]

I see a business model here:

 

Give me 20 bucks per plane and I'll unlock everything for you for this plane. You just need to provide me temporarily with your account info (and the money). No misuse guaranteed.

Edited October 6, 2014 by sturmkraehe

[Afwastus]

This is an interesting problem from a developer perspective. To take a step back from the language of the current debate about MP unlocks it's interesting to look at your sig. In the two days since this release using autopilot to exploit the campaign for unlocks has been the hot topic amongst the MP community - almost like a popular uprising - and those who haven't been so infuriated that they've deleted BoS off their hard drive have been agitating the community to... let's call it what it is... cheat. The language used by the vetran MP community which is mostly against "gamey" things like XP quickly coopted the lowest forms of behavior within online gaming such as exploit grinding and so on. Realism/RP was thrown out the window in the process.

 

 

1) You keep on making this about realism or RPing, it's not. No one is mad about unlocks because they reduce realism or somehow make it impossible to be immersed in the game directly by virtue of being added.

 

2) You call it cheating/exploiting, I call it salvaging what we can from the game or well what we could. It was a last resort, the "lesser of two evils" and for a number of players it actually made the game bearable.

 

3) Stop trying to shift this Single Player vs. Multiplayer, there are a significant number of offline players who were/are just as annoyed at having to jump through hurtles to play the game.

 

4) Stop making this a "veterans" vs. "Developers and New Guys" debate, not everyone annoyed with the current system is an old hand nor is is everyone for the system a new player.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Afwastus

[falstaff]

Jason,

 

It seems to me that people are not annoyed because of *what* was implemented....they are annoyed because of *how* it was implemented.

 

A big difference.

 

Also, frustration and disappointment are not necessarily anger.

 

Of course you have people exploding and kidneys flying across the room, but more damaging still are the vast and potential silent majority who sigh, sip their coffee, and wake up the following morning with less than half the excitement fo rthis title they had the night before.

 

(And of course people are going to raise the ghost of Clod on the even of release. Natural nerves and the spectre of that particular nightmare make for a fairly potent brew)

Edited October 6, 2014 by falstaff

[Juri_JS]

@Jason

I think the developers are not aware of the bigger underlying problem of their many restrictive design decisions. Things like unlocks affecting all game modes, no custom difficult settings or removing autopilot and x16 time are all limiting the players ability to enjoy the game in the way they prefer.

 

Different people expect different things from a game like BoS, so it needs to be as flexible as possible and without too much restrictions.

 

I really hope you guys will keep this in mind when you discuss further changes.

[LLv44_Mprhead]

There is one thing to keep in mind: Most likely (bad) development decisions are not meant as personal insults to anyone...

[sturmkraehe]

@Jason

 

I think the developers are not aware of the bigger underlying problem of their many restrictive design decisions. Things like unlocks affecting all game modes, no custom difficult settings or removing autopilot and x16 time are all limiting the players ability to enjoy the game in the way they prefer.

 

Different people expect different things from a game like BoS, so it needs to be as flexible as possible and without too much restrictions.

 

I really hope you guys will keep this in mind when you discuss further changes.

 

I don't much enjoy this unlock thing that provides above all a sort of gamey feel. However, and you nail it perfectly for me, I really really dislike (to say it gently) these restrictions in how I can play the game. I have said it on several occasions but I do have the impression to be treated like a child who needs to be told how it has to play the game - or of which the devs think they need to tell how to play it. Well, I am no child and I can find out how to play and enjoy best this game.

Edited October 6, 2014 by sturmkraehe

[Jocko]

 

 

Wow...... Just wow.... instead of fixing the issue you took away the one thing that made it even slightly bearable. Now i really am going to have a hard time picking this game back up come November.

 

+1  Going back to CloD...

[falstaff]

Going back to bed

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

Ya know, there is a new update out there and that used to really peak my interest.  I'd jump right on it, download it and see what's new. 

 

This time, well, it's just a disappointment.  Haven't bothered.  meh...

[FZG_Merlin]

The big argument from the community I have seen for how to fix this is to allow people to "grind" (I hate that word), or achieve XP and unlocks via MP progress. Sounds ideal. I'd love to see that myself. But MP is the one area where it is even harder to avoid exploits. It is very simple to team up with a friend, take opposing sides, and hang out on an empty server grinding away on XP by shooting each other. So given the exploitability of MP being much harder to manage than SP it makes sense that the XP system was rolled out in SP first.

 

 

 

 

just make points available in official servers. problem solved.

 

 

Earning points in SP makes no sense at all.  

 

Ill say it again. for some people the SP mission don't represent any kind of challenge anymore. Nor in navigation, nor in tactics, nor in combat skills..  What the AI can do, the human mind does it much bette (or worse sometimes)

 

So, in the end, its a loss of time, and for some of us, time is precious.

 

I dont want to lose hours and hours to unlock things by doing things that require no specific skills and that arent exciting.

 

I dont blame those who find challenge or excitement in it either. and they are not forced to play MP either..

Edited October 6, 2014 by FZG_Immel

[39bn_pavig]

I don't think you understood what I was trying to get at.

 

 

1) You keep on making this about realism or RPing, it's not. No one is mad about unlocks because they reduce realism or somehow make it impossible to be immersed in the game directly by virtue of being added.

 

There are plenty of people who have complained that XP is RP breaking in the forums. I only mentioned it as a counterpoint. I understand that not everyone wants to RP or sees any of this as integral, just that exploits happen outside the structure of the game so to speak. They are not in the "spirit" of the game, even if they are part of the pragmatics of play for some people.

 

2) You call it cheating/exploiting, I call it salvaging what we can from the game or well what we could. It was a last resort, the "lesser of two evils" and for a number of players it actually made the game bearable.

 

From a developer perspective, yes exploits are cheating. I acknowledged that they may be justifiable but they are also game-breaking in that they are an example of players metagaming rather than engaging with the proscribed ruleset. For a develper (who can't babysit the players and make them "play right") there is no difference between a justified exploit and a cheat. For the game to survive the community that plays it they need to be squished. This is just pragmatics. You can't manage a multi player game where exploits are easily achieved as it leads to balance issues and community discontent. Multi-player is the bread and butter of any sim franchise, and the best guarantee of longevity and replayability so getting it right and exploit free is critical. 

 

3) Stop trying to shift this Single Player vs. Multiplayer, there are a significant number of offline players who were/are just as annoyed at having to jump through hurtles to play the game.

 

4) Stop making this a "veterans" vs. "Developers and New Guys" debate, not everyone annoyed with the current system is an old hand nor is is everyone for the system a new player.

 

I am not saying this is a war between vetrans and newbies or developers or pro or anti unlockers or whatever. I was just discussing how various types of players and the developer interact within the structure of a game. I tried to make an argument as for why it would be a terrible idea for the developers to lead with the system that the community is crying out for (XP in MP or XP in CoOp) before it had been tested in the community via SP. Locks, leveling, directed play and whatnot are fundamental tools of game design - even for many of the most open sandbox games. It seldom works to provide new players with the entirety of the game from day 1, nor does it assist in balancing to throw the whole game at an MP server and watch the inevitable "zerg rush". (The developers know far better than us the proclivities of online players such as preferred loadouts, kill rates and so on, so they have some idea where such problems will arise.)

 

But this is a sim, and some folk come to it with sim expectations. Just as the language of sims has developed over the years, and the language of console games in parallel, there is bound to be a balancing act to cater for both audiences. I don't think we have seen the last of develpments in terms of how game progress will evolve, but I tried to make an argument that the transitional place BoS is in now was necessary for it to move on. I think it is too soon to judge the sim based on changes this weekend.

 

Even so it is obvious that there are many folk indignant about the way this has played out. This indigence is justified - no doubt about that. But the story isn't over yet. The developers are talking to members of the closed mod making community about how to deal with unlockables and load out issues for MP missions. It's the weekend in Russia, and the devs, having released a massive (and to give it credit) highly impressive update should be having a few beers to celebrate a milestone instead of tweaking further code. Even the release notes say that the current campaign is beta. We really have to see how this plays out. 

 

Like it or not the sim is still in development so we are yet to see the final shape. Sensibly at times, but unhelpfully at others, the developers are taciturn about what they say regarding future tweaks. The build of the game though is predominantly cloud-based, so once firmed up will be able to be changed server-side to implement new policies and tweaks without the players even noticing. It is quite a brilliant design in that it is built to be agile and able to respond to community developments. Knowing this I don't think it is time to panic yet. It will evolve, but only when the foundation is firmly in place.

 

[Afwastus]

Knowing this I don't think it is time to panic yet. It will evolve, but only when the foundation is firmly in place.

 

Undoubtedly, however that won't matter much if a significant part of the community has rage quit long before that happens.

 

Of course, we can go with the "flight simmers" are not the target audience, but as with all things, word of mouth is important to attract more customers and at the moment the general perception of the game is going to hell in a handbasket.

 

Edit: I'd like to note this is not something I am happy about or something I post to troll, but rather something anyone can see for themselves by going through a large number of online forums (some game specific, some more general game communities and some just general tech websites) and observing what the reaction of many players have been.

 

Naturally, that doesn't mean that those who are unhappy are right or that the developers are wrong, but it should be causing some pretty major warning alarms to go off at developer HQ. Unfortunately, instead the only real reply we have gotten is one which simply stated the developers are staying true to their original plan, that the players complaining are just "haters" (and nothing new) and essentially chiding us as ungrateful/impatient.

 

Speaking for myself what scares me the most is the indifference of the developers to our opinions. I completely understand that they can't/won't change things per the random whim of the community, but it is worrisome when they don't even seem to take our concerns seriously.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Afwastus

[dburne]

Undoubtedly, however that won't matter much if a significant part of the community has rage quit long before that happens.

 

And some already are...

[Majakowski]

Well it makes totally sense. I leave home at 06:30 am, come back 5:30 pm then fly an hour on 2x time acceleration (if at all because accelerating without autopilot is suicide), get shot down out of the sun after an hour of boredom because of a mistake and get no XP that evening to "remove a head rest"?

For decades even simulations bore the possibility to switch time acceleration or a "sandbox" mode and leave everything up to the player.

Then came the restraints.

Silent Hunter V: permanent Internet connections, carreers ending in 1943, only one or two submarine-types. Result? Sh5 was a disaster, its successor is an arcadish browser game.
SimCity (5): A small rectangle to build your town on. Having scyscrapers after 20k inhabitants, 20 years of being forced to build grid-like road nets aaaand having to buy previously built in features for 20 Euros extra.

And now IL2: being a wonderful simulation with dozens of planes and possibilities, mods, addons. Now becoming the same as forementioned simulations: being overloaded with restrictions, taking every ounce of responsibility away from the player, forcing him to use the product in a certain way.

I had hope, I let convince myself to buy Il2 CloD. It was a flop I tried again and bought Il2 BoS. Now they show me the finger with sentences like "we financed the game, look in the EULA we can do what we want and don't give a damn about what you are thinking"

I wait my time for further developments. But trust me 1C / 777: I speak for many old breed sim users when I say that this was the last time you fooled a simmer in promising a future of flight simulation and then introducing arcade toys by simultaneously restraining him of everything he loved.

[Urra]

If unlocks(NOT talking negatively about them) have been recognized as an important part of the big picture why hasn't an equal amount of love or consideration been given to multi-player arena ( I have read many of the posts from the team about all the future development in MP after release that is promised...and that is great news.. but at release it isn't there.. and that makes a really strong statement). Coming from WT(first arcade, then rea listic, then simulator, then RoF, CLoD) I'm very used to seeing the unlocks(ones nerves can only handle a certain amount) and don't understand this void on one side of the game. It just seems that for a flight simulation to succeed this title is focused on single player scenarios but doesn't give as much weight to MP. It needs equal balance. I personally prefer MP coop, but don't mind and really enjoy exploring a single player campaign when we get tired of the MP world for a change of scenery every week. Why isn't a strong link to the MP world profitable for the company in this release ?? 6-10 really varied servers is a drop in the bucket from what is needed. Basing a title's longevity more on AI bot planes rather than people for interaction seems suicide in these days of social networks. Thanks for reading my ramblings.... just gut feeling.

 

PS. You wanted feedback.

Edited October 7, 2014 by roaming_gnome

[1./KG4_Blackwolf]

Sorry it seems fitting,

 

Its their game we bought, we all knew unlocks were coming. We didn't know it would be game wide, at least I didn't. As an MP player I thought oh the SP guys will have a campaign with unlocks and points and MP will go on as any other on line game does. Now we know what is what and we can chose to stick with it or not. 

I bought the EA game twice, one for me and a gift for my buddy. He plays offline more than on line and has no real interest to do this unlock thing. He told me he will just go back to the 1946 offline stuff like Hurricane season. I don't know what that is but he thanked me for getting him the game and said he may check it out later. I'm just not going to do the SP stuff auto pilot or not. Its not fun, I get board and it not for me. If I can't go in to qmb and set up my own mission or settings without unlocks, XP points earned or on line its not fun.  I see what the Dev's are trying to do. I just won't drink the kool aid. Up until now I thought it was going great. I will just hold off and see how this pans out.

[AbortedMan]

My personal view is that we have over 80 blog entries and many live streams that showed exactly what we were building. Somehow this has come as a surprise to some.

Look around you...Obviously no one knew about unlocks limitations being applied in MP and only unlockable from the SP campaign--a campaign that is not on the list of top favorable things to do in front of a PC, by the way--else there wouldn't be this crazy uproar. SP to MP unlocks is a big deal to people. Deny it, belittle it, downsize it all you want, you're not making the choice to buy the product or judge your company's popularity...all of these people are.

 

You keep saying things like "You knew this was coming", but it doesn't make it any less false. Please, show us the source that tells the community that we should have known this all along. I've been looking and I cannot find it--I'm a tester that had early access to the SP portion of the game and I still didn't know. I may be stupid, but I'm not that nearsighted to miss something like that. Those that are saying "I knew this was happening all along" were riding on an assumption and want everyone else to know it because...reasons...I don't know, they want to feel special because they guessed right?

Edited October 7, 2014 by =SE=AbortedMan

[Airdrop01]

I personally find that when my customers ask me questions they're generally more pleased when I don't lie to them.

 

But I have a cool gold bar under my name I guess. That's worth $100.....said no one. Ever.

[FZG_Merlin]

Look around you...Obviously no one knew about unlocks limitations being applied in MP and only unlockable from the SP campaign--a campaign that is not on the list of top favorable things to do in front of a PC, by the way--else there wouldn't be this crazy uproar. SP to MP unlocks is a big deal to people. Deny it, belittle it, downsize it all you want, you're not making the choice to buy the product or judge your company's popularity...all of these people are.

 

You keep saying things like "You knew this was coming", but it doesn't make it any less false. Please, show us the source that tells the community that we should have known this all along. I've been looking and I cannot find it--I'm a tester that had early access to the SP portion of the game and I still didn't know. I may be stupid, but I'm not that nearsighted to miss something like that. Those that are saying "I knew this was happening all along" were riding on an assumption and want everyone else to know it because...reasons...I don't know, they want to feel special because they guessed right?

 

thanks for posting this

[Rjel]

Nope.

 

I guess maybe the sycophants might have considered this as a 'reason' but, considering we're not testers; the Testers are, it doesn't really make any sense.

 

I reckon most people here wouldn't have come to such a conclusion.

 

Think that of me if you will. Doesn't matter to me really. On the other hand, I'm too damned old to act like the world just ended because a game has taken a turn I'm not happy with. And honestly, I'm not thrilled with a lot of what has happened in the last week. But some people here are so over the top in their angst, it's laughable.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Rjel

[FlatSpinMan]

Good posts, pavig. Very well thought out.

 

Giving things a bit of time is a good idea.

 

To all, please don't make this about BoS vs CloD.

Don't get personal.

Post calmly and politely.

[VF101_jay]

Reading some of the replies has me worried, this is a great game and could be one of the best around, I just hope the devs haven't lost interest in what the core community wants, as shown with COD if the community turns its back, the game will falter. Like myself a lot of us paid double the likely retail because we want this game to succeed.

[Rivet]

- autopilot feature was turned off for campaign mode; - it's now possible to speed up time for x2 only;

 

Well that's pissed on everyone's cornflakes hasn't it!

 

That unlocks "hotfix" must have touched a nerve somewhere.

 

No SP campaign or career worth the bother

MP guys have to play SP campaign to get gear for MP

No custom controls

No custom Graphics settings

Even the QMB is plagued with the unlock system.

 

Seems like they're actively trying to drive people away.

 

How about joystick control being removed next. Xbox controllers anyone?

Edited October 7, 2014 by Rivet

[Sparrer]

S!

 

Thanks to the feedback Jason,

My opinion: The il2(it sold more than million copies) crowd still there somewhere, just waiting something nice to play. These unlock and gamey system and mainly, the LACK OF MP GAMEPLAY could ruin it down. The MP community is the one who merchandise the game for you, listen them also. The older games have much more interesting features than BoS now. You have a good combat flight simulator, but it's getting worse than it could be.

Edited October 7, 2014 by Sparrer

[II./JG53Lutzow_z06z33]

So why is there an aim helper in normal mode? If you had easy servers that would be fine but not in normal please Devs don't turn this Sim into a war thunder.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

S!

 

Thanks to the feedback Jason,

 

My opinion: The il2(it sold more than million copies) crowd still there somewhere, just waiting something nice to play. These unlock and gamey system and mainly, the LACK OF MP GAMEPLAY could ruin it down. The MP community is the one who merchandise the game for you, listen them also. The older games have much more interesting features than BoS now. You have a good combat flight simulator, but it's getting worse than it could be.

I'd like to QFE this. It's such a great core sim, but forcing the player to, literally, unlock everything is not going to endear the game.

[Requiem]

I laughed out loud and shook my head when I read the changes to time acceleration and autopilot. The autopilot removal is irrelevant and doesn't do anything than hurt those who may legitimately need it at some point. I find it strange talking about flying a flight sim SP campaign in this way, but it was easy to see leveling progress was faster by doing the flying and shooting yourself at the 'action point' because a trigger would go off when the AI autopilot achieved the minimum objective completion (ie- shoot at 1 plane or destroy 1 truck) and it immediately directed you towards the 'exit point' which would essentially reduce the amount of points you got per mission, so flying at x16 with autopilot on was actually a slower way to do it. That's why after a couple of missions seeing how the AI did it I switched to expert mode and took control since it was much faster due to the extra points. 

 

Now, the x16 time compression removal is a more appropriate action because they must want people to spend a longer time (and not grind so fast) when flying their campaign missions, but being someone with a dry sense of humour I see a funny irony in this. I've probably spent at about a thousand hours in MP across different sims (and more in SP overall), yet all that MP time was spent flying long missions at '1x time acceleration' flying without caring about points or rewards for doing so, but instead caring about mine and my wingmen's survival. However, I didn't want to fly the BoS SP without using x16 and level autopilot to get where I needed to go to shoot stuff, because there is simply no reason to care and no emotional attachment in what you are doing. Now that current progress will probably be wiped and time acceleration is down to x2 I'm happy to skip the SP component altogether until it's more fleshed out and use the aircraft as they are in MP because playing SP is not worth the time investment even with the unlocks. These aircraft in BoS all have enough firepower to kill something in one burst, so I look at them in the same vein as Rise of Flight mods. Nice to have, but not necessary, so I'll go without them until a later point if SP is improved. 

 

I've said earlier you can tell the basic framework is there for a good campaign generator, but without adding the immersive tools to get a player emotionally invested in caring about their pilot character, squadron, and friendly forces as a whole instead of the goal being to chase the next unlock I feel that offliners (who we are told make up the majority of users) will have trouble justifying exactly why they should buy BoS for a premier SP experience at release. I hope it changes in the future so I feel like I could have fun earning the mods in a more historic and immersive way.

[Sparrer]

Its simple:

Want to make people good enough for MP: Provide good tutorials(online community can do, encourage squads!), simple training missions, good key mapping, and simple in game checklists!

Want to keep people flying without x16: Make interesting and no boring missions with a nice generator


But of course, this is quicker and easier

[Sokol1]

"That's why we are beta testers."

"No, we are NOT testers."

 

Well, see in this way: You guys are a "Unlock Testers".

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

I do hope the current campaign is not indicative of the final product as it's fairly anemic. As it's been mentioned, it's essentially the same flight plan over and over. The air-to-air portion needs to be more than just bomber-oriented defense or intercept. Why isn't there an air superiority mission? As it stands, it's a repetitive slog without any feeling of consequence. AND unlocking things for multiplayer is dependent on this?

 

Guys, this is kind of scary. I don't want to see this game go down the pipes. If you need to delay, delay it. I don't think many people would be terribly upset with the delay.

 

As it stands this coupled with the inability really adjust graphics settings outside of presets leaves me unable to recommend the game to friends. Sorry.

Edited October 7, 2014 by MiG21bisFishbedL

[Static]

I love the genius behind this new bio-metric design stuff in games now, jk. 

[Sparrer]

S!

 

 

Guys, this is kind of scary. I don't want to see this game go down the pipes. If you need to delay, delay it. I don't think many people would be terribly upset with the delay.

 

As it stands this coupled with the inability really adjust graphics settings outside of presets leaves me unable to recommend the game to friends. Sorry.

 

 

Delay don't bother me as well. Could be a nice decision. Agreed

[VBF-12_Snake9]

 

 

How about joystick control being removed next

 

Trim on axis?  Accomplished!

[AbortedMan]

This sim is about more than just deathmatch. It is about the history, the difficulty of flight, the challenges of navigation, all manner of things. Aviate/Navigate/Communicate as they say. Members of the community are working on beautiful maps to aid long distance navigation via dead reckoning, which shows an appreciation of the pilot's skill. Yet on multi player servers the teamspeak channels are empty, suggesting that we are not flying in together as was historically done, but engaging in one on one brawls where coordination and communication are devalued. 

 

We have a long way to go to build the community spirit that keeps even CloD alive and kicking despite it's release faults. We will not get there by being reactive and immature when faced with things we do not like, but by fostering immersion and sportsmanship within the community. Like it or not (and I do not agree with all the developer decisions) the existing system has merits for introducing people to the game - partly in leveling the playing field, encouraging learning, giving players easy to understand signposts for reputation and achievement and so on. We have a lot to do as a community to make this work, and the developers have their own work to do too. It's not the end of the world. The sky isn't falling. Etc.

I know you're not talking about BoS' SP campaign...are you? The only thing that is about the history in the SP campaign is the cinematic before the chapter starts. The missions have literally nothing to do with any events that happened in Operation Uranus and the surrounding era other than they are over and around the Stalingrad area. The map could easily be replaced with the planet Mars and it would be the exact same game...except red.

 

There's was more historical gameplay in the first 5 seconds of loading into the Eagle's Nest server (and Syndicate server) in MP by reading the briefing than there is in this entire SP campaign!! And lo and behold, the missions that were on those MP servers are actually historical in context!...and that was given to the community for free!

 

The sky isn't falling, you're right...but our $100 is gone.

 

I don't think you understood what I was trying to get at.

 

 

 

 

There are plenty of people who have complained that XP is RP breaking in the forums. I only mentioned it as a counterpoint. I understand that not everyone wants to RP or sees any of this as integral, just that exploits happen outside the structure of the game so to speak. They are not in the "spirit" of the game, even if they are part of the pragmatics of play for some people.

 

 

From a developer perspective, yes exploits are cheating. I acknowledged that they may be justifiable but they are also game-breaking in that they are an example of players metagaming rather than engaging with the proscribed ruleset. For a develper (who can't babysit the players and make them "play right") there is no difference between a justified exploit and a cheat. For the game to survive the community that plays it they need to be squished. This is just pragmatics. You can't manage a multi player game where exploits are easily achieved as it leads to balance issues and community discontent. Multi-player is the bread and butter of any sim franchise, and the best guarantee of longevity and replayability so getting it right and exploit free is critical. 

 

 

I am not saying this is a war between vetrans and newbies or developers or pro or anti unlockers or whatever. I was just discussing how various types of players and the developer interact within the structure of a game. I tried to make an argument as for why it would be a terrible idea for the developers to lead with the system that the community is crying out for (XP in MP or XP in CoOp) before it had been tested in the community via SP. Locks, leveling, directed play and whatnot are fundamental tools of game design - even for many of the most open sandbox games. It seldom works to provide new players with the entirety of the game from day 1, nor does it assist in balancing to throw the whole game at an MP server and watch the inevitable "zerg rush". (The developers know far better than us the proclivities of online players such as preferred loadouts, kill rates and so on, so they have some idea where such problems will arise.)

 

But this is a sim, and some folk come to it with sim expectations. Just as the language of sims has developed over the years, and the language of console games in parallel, there is bound to be a balancing act to cater for both audiences. I don't think we have seen the last of develpments in terms of how game progress will evolve, but I tried to make an argument that the transitional place BoS is in now was necessary for it to move on. I think it is too soon to judge the sim based on changes this weekend.

 

Even so it is obvious that there are many folk indignant about the way this has played out. This indigence is justified - no doubt about that. But the story isn't over yet. The developers are talking to members of the closed mod making community about how to deal with unlockables and load out issues for MP missions. It's the weekend in Russia, and the devs, having released a massive (and to give it credit) highly impressive update should be having a few beers to celebrate a milestone instead of tweaking further code. Even the release notes say that the current campaign is beta. We really have to see how this plays out. 

 

Like it or not the sim is still in development so we are yet to see the final shape. Sensibly at times, but unhelpfully at others, the developers are taciturn about what they say regarding future tweaks. The build of the game though is predominantly cloud-based, so once firmed up will be able to be changed server-side to implement new policies and tweaks without the players even noticing. It is quite a brilliant design in that it is built to be agile and able to respond to community developments. Knowing this I don't think it is time to panic yet. It will evolve, but only when the foundation is firmly in place.

I'm not sure why 777/1C are trying to reinvent the wheel. As someone said earlier in this thread, the IL2:1946 players are out there, they're just still waiting for a good game to play. BoS has the ingredients for a great game, all they need to do is follow a simple formula. Jason stated earlier that IL2:1946 was lightning in a bottle...why aren't they trying to emulate that? It was a success in its mature form...products that are similar to the current iteration of BoS (like War Thunder) two years into their development cycle are hemorrhaging players and potential income, according to their insiders. I see this following suit.

 

 

 

The developers are talking to members of the closed mod making community about how to deal with unlockables and load out issues for MP missions.

And what's this about? Do you have a source? This is just hot air and not even worth mentioning unless you provide something of substance. 

[JG1_Vonrd]

All this grinding is beginning to seem very War Thunderish. Please don't let it devolve into another WT.