The single player campaign thread WITHOUT talking about unlocks

[89-]

Just wanted to separate the flies from the cutlets so to speak, it would be great to read and discuss actual campaign mechanics without constant distraction of complaints about the unlocks system. 

 

What are your opinions on it? Are the airfields populated- both your own and  the enemy ones? How is life on the ground?

 

I am curious as I wont be able to fly it until after the release...

[dburne]

Have you seen this thread?

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/11209-campaign-mode-skeptics-view/
 

[=69.GIAP=Shvak]

Take-off follow waypoint, attack target RTB ... Nothing to tell really. GUI and stats keeping are child-like. I really wanted to like it. But if you are not planning to fly online then I would wait a bit. There is nothing in the campaign that is immersive. You have excluded the only real talking point, that of unlocks.

[VRPilot]

It's not as empty as others tell, there is action around you, but you have to look for it. I saw german tanks advancing into russian AT and stuff. But it's not like there is the 6th Army fighting and if you expect 2mio soldiers beeing around stalingrad you will be disapointed.

 

It feels like you are somewhere at the eastern front in the middle of a no-mans-land, but not at some of the fierce battles in history. 

The campain is the worst way to do it:

 

we could have:

 

#Hollywood block-buster action like Ace combat or H.A.W.X. with SIM difficulty (would love that!)

 

#Historic campains (DESASTERSOFT add-ons for CloD!!!)

 

#dynamic campain (FALCON 4.0 if somebody remembers this masterpiece of software)

 

but we have:

 

#random randomness

[No601_Prangster]

To answer the original question, yes the airfields are populated with stationary aircraft, vehicles and moving ground crew. There is lots of ground activity around your flight path but I'm not sure how far it extends beyond. The missions are quite short in the first section of the campaign that I've played but that isn't necessarily unrealistic for this portion of the campaign. Overall It's been fun so far.

Edited October 5, 2014 by No601_Prangster

[LLv24_Zami]

I have enjoyed the campaign so far, just flew couple jabo and escort missions which were fun. I would prefer career type campaign but I can play this. Ofcourse there is room for improvement in all aspects.

There is people on the airfields, at least I saw some moving around my own base. There is action on ground and air but it is too small scale for battle of stalingrad. It is not a performance issue, campaign is very smooth with my rig (4670k&660ti). I hope developers do something improve it.

 

Well, back to test more now that work is not disturbing for couple of days

Edited October 5, 2014 by Zami

[Rothary]

I took off in my Bf109 G-2 and saw a formation of friendly fighters fly over me as my wheels lost contact with the runway. I really like flying in this enviroment where you can't tell what's going to happen to you up there.

 

Friendly radio messages about spotting enemy aircraft I found quite worthless. I kept on asking them in my mind about the ALTIDUTE they spotted them in. I knew the direction but saw nobody when looking there. Later I found out they were flying 2000 meters above me in the given direction. I really wish they'd eventually learn to add "high" or "low" to the end of their reports.

 

People who claim the campaign missions are no different from QMB don't know what they're talking about. In QMB you know the exact number of friendly aircraft and enemies. You know exactly what you're going to face in QMB, while in the campaign you never know. This is what I like about the campaign.

[39bn_pavig]

One of the things I really like (from a developer standpoint) is the way the campaign is generated server side. This, (in combination with the much hated pre-set graphics settings etc) will give the developers the opportunity to test and tailor mission templates for various options. (The developers are not necessarily doing these but they are possible due to the structure of their campaign system.By mission template I mean a recipe for producing a pseudo-random mission.)

• Introduce new mission templates transparently to the player: ie. no need for a new release to add new mission templates to the inventory. 
• Tailor mission template inventory to each player: ie. track success rates of the player and success rates of certain mission templates and feed the player missions appropriate to their skill level.
• Test new mission templates/recipes buy rolling them out to particular players and gathering stats on completion or bugs. This is how many cloud companies manage rollouts - by A/B testing tweaks and gathering stats on user participation to figure out what is working during iteration.
• Possibly scale mission complexity to hardware: ie. knowing the preset graphic setting and other performance parameters the developers can gather hard stats  on pc spec per player account, then possibly serve them missions of the maximum complexity (in terms of unit number etc) that their pc can comfortably handle. 

That is not to say that the devs are doing any of this, but they have laid down the groundwork to be able to implement any of these improvements. Given that they are a comparatively small team and must produce their game whilst it is live, having such an agile development environment is highly advantageous. I am beginning to suspect that it is not silliness which has produced this setup, but a strong sense of acumen about how to create a highly tailored game on a minimal time budget. 

 

Just my two cents. 

[senseispcc]

Just wanted to separate the flies from the cutlets so to speak, it would be great to read and discuss actual campaign mechanics without constant distraction of complaints about the unlocks system. 

 

What are your opinions on it? Are the airfields populated- both your own and  the enemy ones? How is life on the ground?

 

I am curious as I wont be able to fly it until after the release...

 

+1

[Finkeren]

I've written my oppinion in that other thread, so I'll just summarize:

 

The missions are alright, not great but not bad either and occasionally engaging (ground attack is the way to go if you wanna have fun)

 

The problem is the framework. There's really nothing there to provide immersion. No reasonable way to roleplay a career, no sense of historical significance to what you do and no real sense of progess beyond simply unlocking chapters.

 

It would be adequate, at least for a while, if the devs hadn't trumped it up to be the flagship of the entire sim. It simply can't carry that burden. Especially when there are already multiplayer servers with mini-campaign like missions that provide far greater immersion and detail.

[89-]

So it looks like some of he main criticisms of sterile ROF campaign have been addressed. I have also read that missions in BOS campaign get harder and more densely populated with enemies becoming more determined (apparently after you reach pilot level 5 and above- according to Han, he said that he's expecting people to start posting asking for mercy from the relentless AI ). 

 

Are enemy airfields populated if you you were to fly over them, would you encounter flak and scrambling fighters? Would you see parked planes there?

 

One of the things I really like (from a developer standpoint) is the way the campaign is generated server side. This, (in combination with the much hated pre-set graphics settings etc) will give the developers the opportunity to test and tailor mission templates for various options. (The developers are not necessarily doing these but they are possible due to the structure of their campaign system.By mission template I mean a recipe for producing a pseudo-random mission.)

• Introduce new mission templates transparently to the player: ie. no need for a new release to add new mission templates to the inventory. 
• Tailor mission template inventory to each player: ie. track success rates of the player and success rates of certain mission templates and feed the player missions appropriate to their skill level.
• Test new mission templates/recipes buy rolling them out to particular players and gathering stats on completion or bugs. This is how many cloud companies manage rollouts - by A/B testing tweaks and gathering stats on user participation to figure out what is working during iteration.
• Possibly scale mission complexity to hardware: ie. knowing the preset graphic setting and other performance parameters the developers can gather hard stats  on pc spec per player account, then possibly serve them missions of the maximum complexity (in terms of unit number etc) that their pc can comfortably handle. 

That is not to say that the devs are doing any of this, but they have laid down the groundwork to be able to implement any of these improvements. Given that they are a comparatively small team and must produce their game whilst it is live, having such an agile development environment is highly advantageous. I am beginning to suspect that it is not silliness which has produced this setup, but a strong sense of acumen about how to create a highly tailored game on a minimal time budget. 

 

Just my two cents. 

 

 

Very good points! The only problem is that this system has been in place for several years in ROF and changes to the beta campaign have been very difficult to detect with a naked eye. The new planes continued to come out at a steady pace, but SP gameplay seems to have stuck very nearly where it was with the initial release of the beta campaign a few years ago. It's the basic  "moral hazard" problem- they will get the bulk of sales at around release date and spending more time on it will mostly eat into their profits, as reviews will not be rewritten and people will buy or not buy the game based on its reputation at release... 

 

I wonder how many people work on this campaign?

Edited October 5, 2014 by 89-

[SCG_Neun]

I'm going to keep an open mind on this...realizing that this is the first little snapshot of the Campaign setup and this is a process.   The turmoil at this point is the non-targeted market group, is testing out a campaign system designed for casual gamers, or whatever you define the group that their marketing research has actually targeted.  So, it stands to reason that tensions are going to flare up a bit.  I'm really not savvy with all this....but if their gaming system can generate missions....can't they pump out some single player missions to offset the campaign in it's current state?  Throw us a bone.......and let the guys out there who like the unlocks....just blaze away at them.  There were some missions.....when this game was in it's early stages....and then we got a couple of VVS missions....but that's it?  Didn't anyone foresee that a little work in this area might help buffer the impact of the campaign process?

[dburne]

  Throw us a bone.......and let the guys out there who like the unlocks....just blaze away at them.

 

I am not sure I have seen anyone that likes unlocks yet, single or multi.

[SCG_Neun]

Well....I just noticed that I mentioned the unlocks as well and violated the OP's original intention...Sorry about that.....

[89-]

No probs, it is tough to stay away from the u*** word at the moment which is why I started this whole thread

[SCG_Neun]

[Anw.StG2_Tyke]

I took off in my Bf109 G-2 and saw a formation of friendly fighters fly over me as my wheels lost contact with the runway. I really like flying in this enviroment where you can't tell what's going to happen to you up there.

 

Friendly radio messages about spotting enemy aircraft I found quite worthless. I kept on asking them in my mind about the ALTIDUTE they spotted them in. I knew the direction but saw nobody when looking there. Later I found out they were flying 2000 meters above me in the given direction. I really wish they'd eventually learn to add "high" or "low" to the end of their reports.

 

People who claim the campaign missions are no different from QMB don't know what they're talking about. In QMB you know the exact number of friendly aircraft and enemies. You know exactly what you're going to face in QMB, while in the campaign you never know. This is what I like about the campaign.

 

Funny, I played several QM in the Campaign and I never saw friendly planes, only the ones in my formation. So I even don't see anything happening on the ground, and no AA nothing. The Radio messages atleast on the german side are simply stupid. I know I use hard words but it is so, they are so wrong on many levels never ever a german would have talked like that in the radio.

Why can't I use the radio to ask for landing clearance, start clearance or to speak to my wingmen? This ist really sad.

 

And to the last abstract, nope in the campaign I everytime know what happened. After 1 Intercept mission everyone was the same. Fly to the Active Point, fight against 2-3 PE-2 and 1-2 LaGG 3's and get to the exit point. Where is the difference except the QMB offers much more?

[heinkill]

I am not sure I have seen anyone that likes unlocks yet, single or multi.

On Sim Hq poll, 12 likes for XP system, 24 thumbs down. But we are not talking about XP system

 

Here are the simple ways I would improve the campaign if I could.

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: sequential time of day for missions, dawn, day, dusk / consistent weather and cloud for at least 3 missions

Benefits: create more immersion than random time of day and weather

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: have only certain aircraft available at each airfield, preferrably historical

Benefits: create incentive to unlock airfields. Currently there is no benefit of unlocking the airfields as all aircraft types are available at all airfields, so what is the point? Start airfield should have only early types available eg 109F, Stuka, you should need to open other airfields to get 109G, 190, He111 (or buy the unlock to get the aircraft)

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: more detail in briefings incle target type and altitude, altitude and type for escorts

Benefits: better briefings, missions

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: more bomber types for VVS, current escort and intercept missions include only PE2, should include IL2

Benefits: create more immersion and greater variety of missions

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: more random 'decoration', especially enemy AI on way to and from target. Missions are too small, too few aircraft not enough risk on way to and from target. Not enough enemy AI

Benefits: less boring missions

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign/multiplay

Explanation of proposals: better use of 'player card': include diary summaries of each mission (like BoBII) with place, enemy met, altitude, result. Allow player to personalise the player card with photo or emblem. Include player card for multi play too instead of just stats, and when a player gets a kill, add the enemy player card to your own collection so you can see who you shot down.

Benefits: create more immersion

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: defensive air patrol missions. All current missions are offensive, no 'defensive CAP'. Would be great have element of surprise not knowing exactly when, or what type of attacker.

Benefits: create more immersion

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: less balanced engagements. VVS should be historically outnumbered. Current missions are balanced and rarely is VVS outnumbered, usually other way around.

Benefits: more realistic and challenging to play VVS

 

Type of improvement: Gameplay - campaign

Explanation of proposals: ability save a generated mission and replay it. Ability to share saved mission files.

Benefits: ability to replay missions if the player fails, or if the mission generated is a good one, save it, replay it, share it

 

H

Edited October 5, 2014 by heinkill

[=VARP=Cygann]

Would be really nice if people stop the pressure on releasing the game now, and realize this is in a no state to yield long life to BOS. 

 

I hope they are smart enough to know that first impression when game is out will make or break this game. Better take more time and do it right, rest can keep enjoying what we have so far, changes nothing to us that bought it already or to those that just want to enjoy MP, yet it might change everything if it goes gold in this state and flops on reviews when people see SP does not deliver chaos of great battle.

[Voidhunger]

OK , for me the minimal changes to start playing campaign are:

 

- custom difficulty

- list of destroyed planes types

- historicaly accurate medals, units (with skins) and promotions.

- progress from wingman to a leader

- turn off childish achievements, debriefing and xp progress bar

- turn off subtitles - like stay sharp enemy bombers are near etc.

- winter skins without unlock for all planes

- no summer skins in winter

[Requiem]

The mission generator itself is a good backbone for the campaign to build on for the future, but as it stands right now the SP experience feels incomplete. The missions are well generated but there isn't as much war activity as I would expect for this region. For example, I don't think I ever saw a formation of He-111s larger than three aircraft, which tells me that the AI is still very resource intensive similar to how it is in RoF (Each He-111 would have 5 AI in it). You can tell the exact moment when a formation like that spawns in because the time acceleration decreases immediately.

 

The strangest aspect about this campaign is how it actively encourages you to finish your mission and restart another mission as soon as possible. For example, as soon as your aircraft is deemed 'critically damaged' a message pops up telling you to cancel and finish flight. In other games I would either bail out or attempt to glide and crash land and hope to avoid becoming a POW, but the messages on your screen basically tell you that there is no point in doing any of that. Just finish and start the next mission. It doesn't matter if you were behind enemy lines and would become a POW, it doesn't matter if you were wounded during the fight and would need time off flying to recover, you just cancel that mission in the air and you carry on like nothing happened.

 

If the mission generator was coupled with a system that uses results at the end of the mission to create a new mission, including what was destroyed in the previous, then they could step towards the makings of a dynamic campaign with high replayability. The missions right now are not interconnected with zero replayability, and the only relevance to the 'success' of a mission is how much xp I get. The primary goal of each mission within a SP campaign should be about survival, but without a supporting system which places you in a squadron to emphasise that all we are left with is missions of a hollow experience where our success or failure is of no true consequence.

Edited October 5, 2014 by SYN_Requiem

[Dakpilot]

Hopefully if there are not too many complaints about performance issues for the "general user" it would be fairly simple to programme in more activity

 

 am sure that was what this early experience was meant to test..not beta testing but a more general test on how it runs on a wide variety of Machines.....

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Juri_JS]

Can ground units in BoS shoot flares? During a ground attack mission I crossed the frontline into friendly territory and saw something that looked like a flare fired by a friendly ground unit. If it was really a flare it would be a cool feature.

[dburne]

Can ground units in BoS shoot flares? During a ground attack mission I crossed the frontline into friendly territory and saw something that looked like a flare fired by a friendly ground unit. If it was really a flare it would be a cool feature.

 

Don't know but the " patrol for air" command, shoots out a nice red flair from my plane.

Not so sure they did that in WWII...

[Dakpilot]

Others Have reported ground units firing flares, not seen it myself yet tho 

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Matt]

Yes ground units shoot flares. Happened a few times to me.

 

Also talking about ground units, there are actually a lot of them in a mission. I checked the last mission i flew (intercept mission with the G-2) and there were more than 100 ground units overall in the mission. Finding them might be the problem though.

 

I've yet to fly a mission with more than 16 planes total though. If the devs are concerned about performance, there should be some sort of option to increase plane numbers client side.

 

Overall, i like the concept of the campaign mode and with some decent additions and changes, it can become quite good. Right now, it's just too simplistic. Both the missions themselves, but even more so everything around it (briefing, debriefing etc.). Also i think there should be some kind of random mission option. If you fly a fighter, it would be good if it would vary between escort, intercept and also add a patrol type mission. And there should be an option to adjust the skill setting of the AI. I think it's at lowest skill setting now and that's not even cutting it when flying a bomber.

Edited October 5, 2014 by Matt

[Blackcloud]

"Unfortunately I do not feel this is a campaign.  There is no immersion. Rather is is a collection of single player, single missions with some connecting videos. I don't care if I pass or fail a mission because if I don't the only consequence is having to refly the same mission.  I am not developing my character or affecting my unit or changing the war.  Next mission I might just fly the complete opposite side. What is the replayability here? Minimal in my impression.  I realise that this an early iteration of the final campaign but unfortunately if developed along these lines I don't see any great improvement that is going to make this a long term success.

 

RoF has a good campaign system and did the original IL-2.  Both have enjoyed long term success.  In my impression this campaign is like the Call of Duty (CoD) Single player, it is fun but really do you care?  No because if you a playing CoD it is probably for the Multiplayer.  I will play through this campaign once, but once done will I go back?  Probably not.  Unless like call of duty, they release a new version with pretty new colours each year, I don't think the single player aspect is catered for.  It seems they are using the single player as a springboard to multiplayer just like CoD. I am not particularly into multiplayer.  I don't mind dabbling here and there, but I love the campaign mode in RoF and 1946. I have played both for years.

 

The campaign element is a big part of the historical fun. The immersion, the feeling of being a part of greater events. That is what is historical.  In the last few weeks the changes seem to have made this game less historical and more XBox.

 

Sorry guys. I really wanted to love it.  I do enjoy playing the game.  But that first week of early access when I took off in, I think it was an F-4, I had a real sense of excitement about this game and about what it could be. Recently that has dropped off. Bring it back guys.  Don't rush it."

 

(I originally posted this in the other campaign forum and realised quickly that I don't care about the unlocking system anyway.  I just truly believe that the campaign model is deeply flawed.  I would have thought that this would have been done right given earlier games appear to have the better campaign)

[dburne]

Good post Blackcloud, expressed much of my own sentiment in the last couple of days.

[Afwastus]

I don't hate the campaign, it feels like a slightly expanded quick mission, however, if I was inclined to spend my time playing single player, I would be quite disappointed.

 

Again, it's not too bad, but saying "it's not too bad" isn't really a positive review.

 

It's a bit like all of the Battlefield games, single player feels like a placeholder or something added to simply say "yes, this game has single player."

Edited October 5, 2014 by Afwastus

[AcesHigh]

It is what it is and the community will add to the mission content, I'm sure some creative people will create new single player campaigns too before too long.   My only hope is that we can restart the campaign at will, clearing our stats and starting over if desired.   Additionally being able to restart a failed mission is a must as well. 

[VRPilot]

I now did complete almost the operation uranus and playing as a fighter bomber in my LaGG-3. It is fun for me, and missions start to get crouded now. I was attacking an airfiled an airfield, AAA was shooting, some dogfighting and on my way back home I crossed a formation of He-111 escorted by some G-2s being under attack by some YAKs. Wow, that was a really intense mission!   

 

also night or late evening attacks on trains or trucks is really cool. I almost finished all research of the LaGG-3 just by playing around and discovering what's going on in SP. 

 

Btw, I know switched from "normal" to "expert" which is even more fun. I enjoy the SP campain a lot!     

[Vaxxtx]

I now did complete almost the operation uranus and playing as a fighter bomber in my LaGG-3. It is fun for me, and missions start to get crouded now. I was attacking an airfiled an airfield, AAA was shooting, some dogfighting and on my way back home I crossed a formation of He-111 escorted by some G-2s being under attack by some YAKs. Wow, that was a really intense mission!

 

also night or late evening attacks on trains or trucks is really cool. I almost finished all research of the LaGG-3 just by playing around and discovering what's going on in SP.

 

Btw, I know switched from "normal" to "expert" which is even more fun. I enjoy the SP campain a lot!

What's the biggest bomber formation + escorts you have seen?

[VRPilot]

What's the biggest bomber formation + escorts you have seen?

 

so far 3 +3 as a single group and the larges amount of planes in one mission: me + 3 wingman, 4 yaks as escort, 2x 4 109s and one enemy bomber group (3 111s) and a third group of YAKs. In later missions it gets realy crowded...

this was a ground attack mission

[LLv24_Zami]

so far 3 +3 as a single group and the larges amount of planes in one mission: me + 3 wingman, 4 yaks as escort, 2x 4 109s and one enemy bomber group (3 111s) and a third group of YAKs. In later missions it gets realy crowded...

this was a ground attack mission

 

Thats more like it. Maybe it really gets better later in campaign.

Have anybody seen AI Stuka or Sturmovik on any mission? I havent

[Vaxxtx]

so far 3 +3 as a single group and the larges amount of planes in one mission: me + 3 wingman, 4 yaks as escort, 2x 4 109s and one enemy bomber group (3 111s) and a third group of YAKs. In later missions it gets realy crowded...

 

this was a ground attack mission

That's disappointing. I assume when nobody answered my questions on object limits on this engine, this might be why.

 

So seeing 100 + aircraft in the same area won't be something one will see anytime soon in BoS I guess.

[LastRightsXIII]

Nope.

Now you have your answer.

[Y-29.Silky]

 

The strangest aspect about this campaign is how it actively encourages you to finish your mission and restart another mission as soon as possible. For example, as soon as your aircraft is deemed 'critically damaged' a message pops up telling you to cancel and finish flight. In other games I would either bail out or attempt to glide and crash land and hope to avoid becoming a POW, but the messages on your screen basically tell you that there is no point in doing any of that. Just finish and start the next mission. It doesn't matter if you were behind enemy lines and would become a POW, it doesn't matter if you were wounded during the fight and would need time off flying to recover, you just cancel that mission in the air and you carry on like nothing happened.

 

 

I mentioned this in the other thread. I love the implementation in 1946, if you could make it back past friendly lines to bail out, you still pass the mission. Doing the full mission, I'ved botched a couple landings in this campaign, which caused me to fail the whole mission itself; it's frustrating!

[VRPilot]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but AI has the same FM as the player. Calculating this for 100+ planes would need some serious CPU power...

[Finkeren]

That's disappointing. I assume when nobody answered my questions on object limits on this engine, this might be why.

 

So seeing 100 + aircraft in the same area won't be something one will see anytime soon in BoS I guess.

 

I'm pretty sure, that has been answered several times. The actual limits are not known, but 100+ propably won't become reality. Based on what was posible in RoF several years ago though, I don't think it's unfeasable to have AI plane numbers in the high 30s perhaps even 50s on high end machines, which should do fine for most purposes. Asking for 100+ is just getting greedy.

[Vaxxtx]

I'm pretty sure, that has been answered several times. The actual limits are not known, but 100+ propably won't become reality. Based on what was posible in RoF several years ago though, I don't think it's unfeasable to have AI plane numbers in the high 30s perhaps even 50s on high end machines, which should do fine for most purposes. Asking for 100+ is just getting greedy.

Greedy? Nothing greedy about wanting realistic air engagements. 3 plane bomber formations were common during BoS?

 

I gave up wanting more ground war after RoF, but was hoping the engine got an upgrade in order to at least commodate air warfare in a less than condensed form.