Making MP Better

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

I like longer flight time servers.

 

I will agree though that the CB Kuban map layout is nice.  The land is easy to navigate, and targets are both close - for intense action and far - for infiltration sorties.

I do have the opinion that some CB maps (perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not) are designed to be shooting gallery setups for Axis to enjoy. 

 

I do notice that gunnery results seem dependent on server load.  Berloga has the closest to single player gun results (which seem mostly fine from my experience - some tweaking still needed), followed by WoL, followed by Combat Box.  Obviously, the servers are respectively running increasingly higher loads.  

 

The spotting in-game is something I really hope can be made better without killing my graphics card or CPU.  I think that would make a lot of players less susceptible to getting nailed by opponent planes they should have seen.   Then again, even in a lot of MP Youtubes that even the expert players post, I don't see a lot of looking in the direction of "UP".  Hell, most of the time I fail to make sure I'm on the top of the pile before entering a dogfight or bounce, I get busted.  

 

Oh, and did I mention that the P-51 - and possibly any other plane that IRL (yes, even the Axis birds) should either flip you on your back slamming the throttle from a standstill or be uncontrollable on the runway from a throttle slam - is either A). under-modelled for torque effect or B). underpowered? 

For the 51 at least, I'm going to say BOTH.  For the P-47, I want to make the same assertion, but I'm still learning the plane and results seem to be highly dependent on proper usage.  The little I do know seems to get me results that some people complain are "flap exploits" without using any flaps - so there's that...

P-38 is a beast. It's not the best or the worst, but it gives out enough fight and takes enough punishment now that it's competitive.  Not to say the 51 isn't but, it still is underpowered and/or over dragged and/or not correct in prop performance and/or all of the above.  I don't really use the Tempy, but they are apparently an actual threat to 262s so CB makes sure they only fly in small doses.   

Edited May 3, 2020 by 69th_Mobile_BBQ

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, BraveSirRobin said:

 

When you have no clue what is going on it is absolutely the best time to tell everyone what they’re doing wrong.

Hey I’m glad to be proved wrong if things have indeed improved. 

[ATAG_SKUD]

On 5/3/2020 at 5:34 AM, SharpeXB said:

Solutions:

Better mission design. Group the targets into fewer areas and more central to the airfields or spawn locations. Don’t place them randomly all over the map and way out towards the edges. Create an environment where players will actually see and engage one another. Most of the current missions I see would probably require 200 players to populate them effectively. 
Server admins could look at attendance data and run smaller missions during times where they know attendance will be small. 

 This may be OK for a fast action server but there are other ways to focus the action using a dynamic campaign with AI ground forces. Coconut used practically the entire map yet the action was focused on active battle fronts or supply movement to the active battle fronts.  Both sides needed to intervene at those locations that particularly affected that focal point, but it didn't restrict us bomber folks from helping out by destroying supply sources behind the lines. There was always good action at those AI battles or supply convoys even with 5 players online. The objective to winning was not how much stuff you shot up or how many targets you closed but how much your intervention helped the AI. I thought this was genius. But it's difficult to implement and there are few out there that have Coconut's talent.

I wish the devs would focus on providing tools and fixing a few bugs that would help the developers of these dynamic campaigns manage the AI and accounting of the battle results.

Remember that the entire purpose for the existence of air forces was to support the acquisition of territory by ground forces. I am hoping Air Marshall turns out to  have some of these features.

skud

[VR-DriftaholiC]

It's odd that you say you have no problems with spotting then complain that the large maps and layouts make engagements sparse. I implore you to watch a recording with icons on and see how many planes you fly by unknowingly on a full server. Spotting is the one thing that kills multiplayer for me. A secondary complaint is the low flight times to targets causing people to value their flight/life less. I personally think longer flight times are more of an incentive to have players group up before leaving friendly territory.

Edited May 6, 2020 by driftaholic

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, driftaholic said:

It's odd that you say you have no problems with spotting then complain that the large maps and layouts make engagements sparse. I implore you to watch a recording with icons on and see how many planes you fly by unknowingly on a full server. Spotting is the one thing that kills multiplayer for me. A secondary complaint is the low flight times to targets causing people to value their flight/life less. I personally think longer flight times are more of an incentive to have players group up before leaving friendly territory.

I do actually try that occasionally. Watch a track of the action and notice how many aircraft I missed. Or maybe one catches my eye causing me to miss others. Or looking around too quick and missing some. Others are just not visible, blocked by clouds or aircraft. 
Many of those situations though the sky really is just empty. 
And it is important considering the target placement that indeed many players have trouble seeing each other. That’s the nature of the game. But spreading the mission out across the entire map doesn’t help. Lots of new missions seem to do this better than in the past though. 
Longer flight times, I never think this makes people play smarter and I’ve never seen players group up. I just see them all rush into action taking off across the base without using the runways. 

[=420=Syphen]

Sharpe, I commend you on ACTUALLY trying Multiplayer out - it appears you managed to put in an hour and a half in the last week - which is about the only MP you've played in the last year on any of the populated servers (Thank goodness for stats tracking).  You complain of massive maps with spread out objectives yet you seem to usually get bounced and shot down within 10 minutes. You're hardly flying on an empty map and it appears you tend to meet enemy contact quite quickly. The way you describe it makes it sound like you fly for an hour at a time without contact. 

 

 Also, congrats on the JU-87 kill - but you tailed him for several minutes. That's why you got shot down. Don't park behind aircraft with turrents. It's suicide. 

 

Try making some friends and flying with a wingman on voice comms. You may actually enjoy yourself and make it through a sortie. 

[Talon_]

1 hour ago, [CPT]HawkeyeP said:

You complain of massive maps with spread out objectives yet you seem to usually get bounced and shot down within 10 minutes.

 

Savage ?

[Beazil]

1 hour ago, [CPT]HawkeyeP said:

 

 

Try making some friends and flying with a wingman on voice comms. You may actually enjoy yourself and make it through a sortie. 

 

We've just hit on another point here that I was trying to being up earlier.  While it's fun to tease our friend Sharpe a bit, how do we encourage players like him (and the rest of us) to better enjoy multi player.

While I was doing my testing I had the chance to fly with Capt Stubing and a large crew of about eight other active pilots.

While the guys did not know me I knew alot of them just from posts and such on this and other forums.  Point is they were quite welcoming, even if we had never flown together.  

What can we do to encourage better communication, comms and general fellowship online?  I want Sharpe to not fly online or offline because he wishes to as a preference and not because it is less accessible.  That would be my wish for every player.

[RedKestrel]

7 minutes ago, JG51_Beazil said:

 

We've just hit on another point here that I was trying to being up earlier.  While it's fun to tease our friend Sharpe a bit, how do we encourage players like him (and the rest of us) to better enjoy multi player.

While I was doing my testing I had the chance to fly with Capt Stubing and a large crew of about eight other active pilots.

While the guys did not know me I knew alot of them just from posts and such on this and other forums.  Point is they were quite welcoming, even if we had never flown together.  

What can we do to encourage better communication, comms and general fellowship online?  I want Sharpe to not fly online or offline because he wishes to as a preference and not because it is less accessible.  That would be my wish for every player.

There's three groups that can impact this sort of thing: Server admins/operators, Squadrons, and the general community.

Server admins and operators can build their servers and missions to be accessible to new players by making it easy to dip a toe in. Training and dogfight servers are great for people to give online play a try without a huge commitment or the frustrating experience of getting turboganked 10 feet off the ground on their first flight. They can also moderate the servers a bit to prevent trolls, cheaters, and the like. The role there is to basically make a good SP-to-MP pipeline where players can make the transition to the online environment without running into a wall. It's the hardest job in Il-2. I might sound a lot like a fanboy here but Combat Box has done a lot on the administration side to enhance accessibility and be a good place for new players, while giving interesting mechanics. The server has a minimal number of clear rules focused on enhancing fun. Toxic and trolling users are suspended and then banned for repeat offenses. They have a discord setup and a looking for wingman channel for the server, regular events, giveaways, and a responsive admin team. Recently they have a dogfight and training server set up, which lets people just faff around in an online environment with less pressure and an opportunity to hone skills.

Squadrons can do outreach and recruiting to find people who want or need a more structured experience for the game, and also giving people a pool of friends to draw on when flying. They can also maintain a friendly attitude towards solo players and other squads. I'm not saying squadrons can't be exclusive or have high standards, but its much better when the individual members aren't actively hostile to solo players or other squads. A couple TAWs ago I ended up flying a lot with guys from TWB on Discord and they were very friendly to a relative noob. They flew cover for me on attack missions, didn't give me crap for obvious mistakes or problems with my flying, coordinated ground strikes, and were just generally stand up guys with no BS. An experience like that for a novice player is worth its weight in gold.

 

The general online community of players just needs to stay friendly and relatively open, and avoid casual elitism and a 'git gud' attitude. We all get frustrated with people asking silly questions in the chat, but we all have been there at one point or another. The game is F****** hard and has a steep learning curve. Many people just getting into the game are people who play games online from the get go and never touch single player mode, and are used to games that need no tutorials or training because it is so intuitive. So when a guy shows up in chat saying "how do i taxi" and someone replies "press CTRL-E" then we all look like assholes. Of course we can't be expected to train players by team chat but a response like "Please practice in the QMB, look up Requiem's videos online to learn, it takes practice" is a lot more likely to keep the guy playing than calling him an idiot. Sure you get real thick-skulled people online that just whine and complain and aren't willing to learn, but most people want to get better and need some encouragement. Using the team chat when you can to help out new players or just to broadcast your intentions in a mission can help it feel less lonely for people who can't get on voice comms for whatever reason, and help people understand how they can help. 

And for the love of God, people, getting salty  in the chat every time you are shot down is unbecoming and off-putting for new players. We're all adults here. It's just cringy to see someone cussing up a storm in the chat when they get bounced and killed because it wasn't a fair fight or something. I mean, I curse and swear to myself when I get my ass shot off, but I'm not transmitting that to the whole server - if I did, chat logs would be nothing but "RedKestrel was Killed" followed by "%^%$##^*& you, random Ace!".

All that said, a certain amount of thick skin is required for an online player. Even with no trolling and friendly people it can feel incredibly disheartening to get shredded ten missions in a row with nothing to show for it. Coming from single player where people are shooting down planes left and right every mission, to MP where a single kill is cause for celebration for a new player, can be a huge disconnect for people expecting their skills to transfer 100%. Some people are just not going to have the time or patience to put up with it long enough to get past that initial school of hard knocks.

 

[Beazil]

Red I found myself nodding emphatically reading your post.  Thank you.

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, [CPT]HawkeyeP said:

Sharpe, I commend you on ACTUALLY trying Multiplayer out - it appears you managed to put in an hour and a half in the last week - which is about the only MP you've played in the last year on any of the populated servers (Thank goodness for stats tracking).  You complain of massive maps with spread out objectives yet you seem to usually get bounced and shot down within 10 minutes. You're hardly flying on an empty map and it appears you tend to meet enemy contact quite quickly. The way you describe it makes it sound like you fly for an hour at a time without contact. 

 

 Also, congrats on the JU-87 kill - but you tailed him for several minutes. That's why you got shot down. Don't park behind aircraft with turrents. It's suicide. 

 

Try making some friends and flying with a wingman on voice comms. You may actually enjoy yourself and make it through a sortie. 

Yeah I’m rusty. I actually used to fly online a lot. Of course because in the early days that was the only gameplay mode. Haha I got zapped bad like a few times in a row! SP really spoils you in that it’s sorta predicable that the AI isn’t right near your airfield. And the “empty skies” online aren’t... (those zaps were on full servers)

Some of my comments were my perception from a long time ago when I basically stopped. The missions weren’t as good and there were fewer players and it just got dull that way. 

The Ju-87 yeah that’s funny because that’s exactly what I did. I fly like a dummy online sometimes. In SP Career I would actually try to stay alive and be smart. But at that moment in MP I’d been patrolling for half and hour and had to quit. So I’ll just attack at make it exciting because I gotta go do something else. 
 

I’ll stand corrected because things appear to have improved a lot. Even at off times the servers are full and the missions appear to be better. 

Edited May 6, 2020 by SharpeXB

[Nic727]

The only thing I want is different weather and time in multiplayer servers. It's always bright sunny day with a bit of clouds...

 

Can we finally fly in servers with winds, rain, snow, sunset, etc? Why not just randomize weather each new game?

[Talon_]

10 hours ago, Nic727 said:

Can we finally fly in servers with winds, rain, snow, sunset, etc? Why not just randomize weather each new game?

 

In reality, day fighters do not fly in poor weather. Many Russian planes don't even have an artificial horizon.

[SCG_motoadve]

6 hours ago, Talon_ said:

 

In reality, day fighters do not fly in poor weather. Many Russian planes don't even have an artificial horizon.

 How about, low ceiling heavy weather, wind and turbulence, some variety is nice.

[SharpeXB]

On 5/8/2020 at 8:22 AM, SCG_motoadve said:

 How about, low ceiling heavy weather, wind and turbulence, some variety is nice.

There’s a mission on Combat Box,  Operation-Paravane-Sep-1944-ALT

It had some weather. Foggy and raining. 

Edited May 11, 2020 by SharpeXB

[RedKestrel]

On 5/8/2020 at 2:33 AM, Talon_ said:

 

In reality, day fighters do not fly in poor weather. Many Russian planes don't even have an artificial horizon.

Everyone’s gangsta until you go into a cloud bank at 500 m in a Yak1 and come out in an inverted vertical dive.

[Sparky_IBEW_353]

On 5/3/2020 at 3:59 AM, [DBS]TH0R said:

 

 

And now for the most important bit that would help with MP: we need a proper, modern MP interface. Just look at what Hyperlobby did for the old IL-2 '46. That piece of software alone was the biggest contributor why that title succeeded in MP and is today considered by some as "golden days of flight sim MP".

 

Current implementation of MP features are wasted (most evident the coop feature) due to completely inadequate MP interface. There are barely any filters when selecting a server, no favorites and many other features that are standard nowadays for MP games.

 

This alone is the biggest reason IMHO why MP numbers are rising so slowly, followed closely by unrealistic spotting system.

 

 

Totally agree the real issue is a lack of in game / centralized tools to facilitate communication and cooperation.