CLOD

[thepope668]

I am a long time lurker here, mostly I play GB, but dabble a bit in CLOD.

 

But rarely if ever post on the forums, and almost exclusively a single player guy. Hence the preferance for GB with the dynamic campaigns.

So keeping my background in mind I would like to share something here, maybe someone can find something of value, or it might help someone make up their mind when deciding to purchase CLOD or not. 

 

Since I was little I always read about air battles and adventures (Biggles especially, also Higgins' Flight of Eagles, etc) and always one campaign stood out as the biggest and most important(at least in the media I consumed at that time) and as such it always seems to be the pinnacle of air warfare, the Battle of Britain. So naturally I was extremely excited when CLOD released back in the day, however back then my PC would not run it at all. So I promptly forgot about it. Then a couple of years ago the bug bit again and I got into flight simming, got CLOD Blitz, got frustrated with the UI and some other smaller gripes and got BOS on sale, ended up exclusively playing that and it's expansions for about 3 years. But the always when I opened Steam, CLOD whispers gently at me. Then last year I decided to try it seriously, especially seeing the visual update on the way (What can I say,I like clouds).  So there I went and attempted the stock Cliffs of dover campaign. Oh dear lord that sucked.  Back to GB it seemed. 

 

Thus it continued until a month or so ago when I decided to really try CLOD. So started with the tiger moth, until I could do circuits repeatedly and without fail, and update the controls as I went. Upgraded to the BF108 and same story with the controls,trying to get them the same as my GB setup. Then to the Hurricane. While I was just doing circuits and flying something clicked and I realised I enjoy the act of "flying" a whole lot more in CLOD than I do in GB, by a rather noticable margin.

 

Once I was relatively proficient in the Hurricane I decided to retry the campaign, but wanting to never touch the stock campaign again, remembered something about a redux campaign. So I got that and started playing. 

 

So that was in fact just a massive roundabout way of saying, HOLY HELL I AM ENJOYING THE CRAP OUT OF IT. 

Yes, it has gremlins, yes you have to add another modded campaign,yes there is no dynamic campaign, BUT, when it all comes together this has been some of the best and most exciting experiences I've ever had in a flight sim. Flak seems much more "lethal" in here, at least it feels more epic and dangerous, dogfights leave me stressed and clenching my joystick like I have not experienced in a long time. 

 

So for all the modders and dev team, thank you, CLOD might not be perfect, but it is brilliant.  

[Josp]

Hi thepope668,

 

thank you for sharing your experience.

Are you aware of this - https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/65736-updated-dynamic-campaign-by-theoden-dynmis-exe/ ?

Maybe you could try it.

Enjoy flying in Cliffs of Dover.

 

Josef

 

 

[kestrel79]

Once the VR release comes out, I'll give it another try. Looking forward to it, it's been a while.

[thepope668]

4 hours ago, Josp said:

Hi thepope668,

 

thank you for sharing your experience.

Are you aware of this - https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/65736-updated-dynamic-campaign-by-theoden-dynmis-exe/ ?

Maybe you could try it.

Enjoy flying in Cliffs of Dover.

 

Josef

 

 

Thank you, will give it a go

[Buzzsaw]

17 hours ago, thepope668 said:

I am a long time lurker here, mostly I play GB, but dabble a bit in CLOD.

 

But rarely if ever post on the forums, and almost exclusively a single player guy. Hence the preferance for GB with the dynamic campaigns.

So keeping my background in mind I would like to share something here, maybe someone can find something of value, or it might help someone make up their mind when deciding to purchase CLOD or not. 

 

Since I was little I always read about air battles and adventures (Biggles especially, also Higgins' Flight of Eagles, etc) and always one campaign stood out as the biggest and most important(at least in the media I consumed at that time) and as such it always seems to be the pinnacle of air warfare, the Battle of Britain. So naturally I was extremely excited when CLOD released back in the day, however back then my PC would not run it at all. So I promptly forgot about it. Then a couple of years ago the bug bit again and I got into flight simming, got CLOD Blitz, got frustrated with the UI and some other smaller gripes and got BOS on sale, ended up exclusively playing that and it's expansions for about 3 years. But the always when I opened Steam, CLOD whispers gently at me. Then last year I decided to try it seriously, especially seeing the visual update on the way (What can I say,I like clouds).  So there I went and attempted the stock Cliffs of dover campaign. Oh dear lord that sucked.  Back to GB it seemed. 

 

Thus it continued until a month or so ago when I decided to really try CLOD. So started with the tiger moth, until I could do circuits repeatedly and without fail, and update the controls as I went. Upgraded to the BF108 and same story with the controls,trying to get them the same as my GB setup. Then to the Hurricane. While I was just doing circuits and flying something clicked and I realised I enjoy the act of "flying" a whole lot more in CLOD than I do in GB, by a rather noticable margin.

 

Once I was relatively proficient in the Hurricane I decided to retry the campaign, but wanting to never touch the stock campaign again, remembered something about a redux campaign. So I got that and started playing. 

 

So that was in fact just a massive roundabout way of saying, HOLY HELL I AM ENJOYING THE CRAP OUT OF IT. 

Yes, it has gremlins, yes you have to add another modded campaign,yes there is no dynamic campaign, BUT, when it all comes together this has been some of the best and most exciting experiences I've ever had in a flight sim. Flak seems much more "lethal" in here, at least it feels more epic and dangerous, dogfights leave me stressed and clenching my joystick like I have not experienced in a long time. 

 

So for all the modders and dev team, thank you, CLOD might not be perfect, but it is brilliant.  

Thanks thepope

 

We think a lot of players might find they enjoy the game a lot more than they might expect if they give it a try.

 

Yes, it can take some more effort to get it running, but we think our game is a challenging and exciting one.

 

And we are sure the experience will get quite a bit better once we add all of the graphics improvements with our Visual Update.

[Feldgrun]

On 8/4/2023 at 9:49 PM, thepope668 said:

...something clicked and I realised I enjoy the act of "flying" a whole lot more in CLOD than I do in GB, by a rather noticeable margin.

 

That's why I keep coming back to Cliffs & Tobruk - the flying experience. While I agree that the UI sucks, it is a better flying experience than in GB.

 

Is the upcoming "visual update" a rework of the UI, or just better clouds & trees? I don't think we'll get a significant boost in players because the clouds & tree graphics improve. Improve the UI and AI (so I'm not dogfighting spinning stunt pilots).

 

I love flying the Martlet (F4F) and what a boost this sim would get if a Japanese A6M Zero was added, if even over just a water map! (sorry to steal Jason's thunder with the upcoming Combat Pilot series).

Edited August 10, 2023 by Feldgrun

[PO_Baldrick]

On 8/10/2023 at 8:35 AM, Feldgrun said:

 

That's why I keep coming back to Cliffs & Tobruk - the flying experience. While I agree that the UI sucks, it is a better flying experience than in GB.

 

Is the upcoming "visual update" a rework of the UI, or just better clouds & trees? I don't think we'll get a significant boost in players because the clouds & tree graphics improve. Improve the UI and AI (so I'm not dogfighting spinning stunt pilots).

 

I love flying the Martlet (F4F) and what a boost this sim would get if a Japanese A6M Zero was added, if even over just a water map! (sorry to steal Jason's thunder with the upcoming Combat Pilot series).

The visual update was announced to include the following:

 

Below is the list of new features:

 

-  Addition of the trueSKY cloud and weather system.  (with new water and effects)

 

-  Addition of the option for the use of a VR view system for players

 

-  Addition of 4k cockpit resolution for aircraft

 

-  Addition of 4k resolution for aircraft external models  (optional in player settings)

 

-  Upgrading of all terrain tiles to 4k resolution as well as improvements to the terrain textures, especially those on the TOBRUK map

 

-  Improvement of Terrain Tessellation effects.  (this effect is what gives a three dimensional effect to terrain surfaces)

 

-  Increase of the player view distance by up to 10 times current view distances.  This is the distance at which objects begin to appear to the player... and will reduce the 'popup' effect sometimes seen for distant buildings, terrain features, objects, etc.  (optional in player settings)

 

It is a significant graphics overhaul, most importantly for me as a VR only flyer, the addition of VR support.

 

The community is diverse, for me an updated, modern graphics engine with all the features of the current Cliffs of Dover Blitz with the capability of displaying lots of aircraft in in a Battle of Britain scenario in VR is pretty much everything I have wished for.

 

For others more content seems essential to regenerate interest. That is why I believe TF feel the need to tell us both about the visual update to what we have now and what will be coming in 6.0.

[Feldgrun]

On 8/5/2023 at 3:46 PM, Buzzsaw said:

We are working on improving the fidelity of the AI behaviour... especially roll behaviour.  Will be part of the TF 6.0 release.

 

It appears that the list is mostly visual (but the visuals aren't the main reason for the drop in players). However, there's more than what's in your list...

[Dagwoodyt]

There can be differences flight modeling detail between survey vs study sims. The I-16 is modelled differently in BoX vs DCS. Feeling comfortable landing it in BoX won't help at all in DCS even when winds are calm. Throw in a quartering tail wind and you can have fun just surviving circuits in the airfield pattern.  ?

[No.54_Reddog]

9 hours ago, Feldgrun said:

 

It appears that the list is mostly visual (but the visuals aren't the main reason for the drop in players). However, there's more than what's in your list...

To what do you attribute the drop in players?

 

And to be fair, it's billed as "the Visual Update", so it would make sense to concentrate on the Visual elements being offered. I can't immediately think of anything non-visual that is worth mentioning but I might be overlooking something really obvious.

[Feldgrun]

4 hours ago, No.54_Reddog said:

To what do you attribute the drop in players?

The popular consensus is that it's the game play that's the problem, not the visuals. If anything, CloD is lauded for its visual realism, especially the damage modeling.

[BOO]

11 hours ago, No.54_Reddog said:

To what do you attribute the drop in players?

 

 

I can only speak ftom my own experience and those of the people I played with but player numbers crashed online immediately after Blitz came out. Some found the demands placed on the their systems by the removal of the abilty to turn on/off shadows a factor, some didnt like the new engine models that seemed to give merlins indestrucable qualities and placed long warm up times on others, some didit like the visual and sound "improvements" made made by TFS (some of which were enforced by their new found offical status), some didnt like the redone maps and some found the AI gunners skewed so badly one could not get near a bomber and others were dissappointed that many bugz reported over years remained.  

 

Any of those things in isolation could be managed but comng all at once was perhaps too much. Players who had hung onto CloD with ageing GPUs either stopped playing and/or upgraded and found they could run BoS, Squads that had persisted with Clod became factionilsed between those wanting a move and those not. BoS was in an ascendency at the time. Lots of servers, lots of squads and stuff to do over the 3 online maps in rotation on the ATAG server and it had DX11 in the wings.  That Blitz also hit in the middle of the "Treat yourself" season perhaps alos had some factor to push people to buy themselves new gear and new titles.

 

 

 

 

[Dagwoodyt]

For me as exclusively SP oriented, I bought DW-T and saw that the Team had not improved the UI in a meaningful way. I think the result is that SP oriented new players stopped fighting it and went on to other offerings. I bought DW-T soon after release and was apalled by the map that seemed mostly just seas of either blue or orange. On Steam it seems there have been a number of complaints regarding controller setup that even caused users to refund. AI gyrations, AI conversion to target drone behavior after a few aggressive passes and firing arc for rear gunners in Bf110 and Stukas that look comical in external view where the guns fire without regard to position of the gunner figure are still present. So called campaigns made of single missions strung together by text are immersion killers. "Why I love CloD" lists apparently do not counterbalance these deficiencies in the eyes of new players.

      On top of all that we are now in a situation in which TFS has a working VR beta that they will not release to Blitz users because, after nearly a year into Speedtree '8', they are unable to successfully inject Speedtree '8' into the beta. So Blitz users cannot get access even though the beta users have repeatedly opined that the beta versions work perfectly well in VR with trueSKY active! Just a horrendous customer' relations situation.?

Edited August 14, 2023 by Dagwoodyt

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

@Dagwoodyt If CloD is so appalling and their service/product not catering to your exquisite tastes and needs exclusively, just uninstall the game and move on. Your ongoing hate and drivel campaign against CloD and TF is getting tiresome to read, like a broken record. If you have nothing positive to say then maybe just keep quiet? There are a few others too posting same snide remarks and whatnot over and over again on anything TF says or does. If CloD is so bad the solution is to leave it and play whatever is better in your eyes. Or maybe make an own sim that blows all competition out of the water?  Not holding my breath it will happen though, by any of the Negativity-O-Matics here. I dumped Great Battles for various reasons, but did not start a tirade against them or the game. Uninstalling it was enough for me.

Edited August 14, 2023 by LLv34_Flanker

[Dagwoodyt]

48 minutes ago, LLv34_Flanker said:

S!

 

@Dagwoodyt If CloD is so appalling and their service/product not catering to your exquisite tastes and needs exclusively, just uninstall the game and move on. Your ongoing hate and drivel campaign against CloD and TF is getting tiresome to read, like a broken record. If you have nothing positive to say then maybe just keep quiet? There are a few others too posting same snide remarks and whatnot over and over again on anything TF says or does. If CloD is so bad the solution is to leave it and play whatever is better in your eyes. Or maybe make an own sim that blows all competition out of the water?  Not holding my breath it will happen though, by any of the Negativity-O-Matics here. I dumped Great Battles for various reasons, but did not start a tirade against them or the game. Uninstalling it was enough for me.

Apologies! I was just providing a perspective on possible reasons for the alleged drop in player numbers since DW-T release. ?

Edited August 14, 2023 by Dagwoodyt

[Blitzen]

Wait until you see the large formations of Luftwaffe Bombers in some of the third part campaigns - they'll take your breath away!

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

Not starting any crusades against any game/dev. I can choose an easier way just to uninstall and move on. Much simpler that way.

[BladeMeister]

On 8/14/2023 at 11:23 AM, LLv34_Flanker said:

S!

 

@Dagwoodyt If CloD is so appalling and their service/product not catering to your exquisite tastes and needs exclusively, just uninstall the game and move on. Your ongoing hate and drivel campaign against CloD and TF is getting tiresome to read, like a broken record. If you have nothing positive to say then maybe just keep quiet? There are a few others too posting same snide remarks and whatnot over and over again on anything TF says or does. If CloD is so bad the solution is to leave it and play whatever is better in your eyes. Or maybe make an own sim that blows all competition out of the water?  Not holding my breath it will happen though, by any of the Negativity-O-Matics here. I dumped Great Battles for various reasons, but did not start a tirade against them or the game. Uninstalling it was enough for me.

This. While I am a bit frustrated with how long the graphics/vr update is taking, I know that in the end when this update is released by TF that there is a very high percentage chance that it will be awesome. Patience is not always easy but being an ass about the situation is uncalled for. Don't like TF, CLOD/DWT or it's pace of development? Uninstall it and play what you like. As the old saying goes, 'Don't go away mad, Just go away.' Speculation and personal feelings have no place here.

 

S!Blade<><