I don't think the literal construction of missions from the IL2 BoS FMB is hard. I do think the FMB is very very tedious. It's like building a spider web where every string has to meet in just the right place to combine itself to the full web. You have to ascribe mission parameters, way-points, trigger, timing, etc in such a way that if you miss one your mission will not come out correctly. With a complicated mission it's difficult to keep track of all the parameters for each and every item on the map. Having to save and close out the ME and start RoF to test out the mission adds to the frustration.

The User Interface is very unorganized (to me) thus compounding the tedium of building missions. It's set of commands is difficult to understand at first and sometimes still don't make sense, thus making it harder to decipher which commands to use, when to use them, and for what reason.

Someone who is very methodical and organized would fare better than most, but I still believe it would be tiring for even the most dedicated.

The IL2:46 ME seems much more intuitive and less tedious. On my few attempts to use RoF's ME I felt like I was making very little worthwhile progress in comparison. Again. Not hard, just overly tedious.... almost to the point of headache inducing.

I do have to tilt my hat in thanks to those who make missions, no matter what game they choose to create them in. They have added considerable enjoyment to my CFS playing.

I did create a simple mission for RoF some time ago during two afternoon sessions on a rainy weekend. Thanks to some very helpful tutorials.

Was it more complicated than in the original Il2? Sure. Was it still doable for a not-IT-professional-person? Sure.

Quite an emotive subject, showing just how neglected we single player gamers have felt!

Reading all the 777 staffer posts trying to play down the concerns about having to unlock content, and reassure people it isn't that big a deal, you have to ask youself...

Why did they do it?

H

And of even bigger concern to me is the loss of Custom Realism settings in the SP Campaign forever. I could live with only Normal and Expert realism during the unlock process, but to lose Custom Realism settings forever in the SP Campaign is a show stopper for me. I don't like MP and QMB game play and was banking on the SP Campaign which offers the type of game play I enjoy (full long realistic SP missions).

I've proposed that the last unlock be the unlock of Custom Realism settings in the SP Campaign on the BoS forum. I'm not going to bother with going through the unlock process only to be trapped in either Normal or Expert realism settings in the SP Campaign for the rest of my life while at the same time MP players can move on into MP play with Custom Realism settings. This is a very unfortunate design decision with a big impact on SP Campaign game play.

Didn't vote. There's no option that fits. Neither love nor hate it, but I'm okay with it since I think I understand why the devs feel they need such a feature in their game design.

The veteran player base is probably not enough to justify a title like this, the genre needs to draw in new players. Having a path promising gradual improvement and rewards is the devs' tool for this. New players will come for the game, if they come to a sandbox where they lack all the skill to use the toys they will soon lose interest. You have to give such players something to do. Not having all game elements available from the start is the carrot to keep going and finish the game and thereby learn.

Experienced players should have no problem finishing those campaigns quickly, even if they are not very keen on this forced path. Small price to pay for the overall success of the franchise, in my opinion.

MAC

MAC, what you are saying still doesn't justify taking control away of a number of options for whoever likes that. Have an advanced settings button to reveal more options to tweak. Have a "sandbox mode" hidden a bit in a corner, or triggered in the same way as we had "mods on" in ROF - noobs won't get confused by it but veterans can go straight there and have fun the way they like. I'll see how it goes but my feeling is that I'll only really enjoy IL2 BoS in a couple of years when mods and custom campaign engines will be available - that feels like a big step back in comparison to where we are with ROF, but maybe it's only a matter of time and patience before BOS catches up.

Agreed 100%. It's a business decision. If the market was still like 2001, then of course they would develop a sim along those lines. That would be easy. But this isn't that market any longer.

It's risky to bet your capital and reputation on an unknown. Loss of sleep, gray hair, dog gets crabby, wife ...

Greg

To me it tells that they have a origin in multiplayer minds where all that counts is to have a higher score than the other players, competitive airquake that is - not seasoned coop fliers.
As such they assume that the reason we fly SP is to gain alot of score too, which in a sim Environment I'm pretty sure does not apply (not to me at least and I never Heard of anyone striving for such).

(thank you autocorrect for putting capital letters all over when I write, bite me)

The gui looks very modernishy-phoney-windows eighty-tabletty like. I would be surprised if the younger gen didn't like it. I'm on the fence about the whole deal until i plug in my stick and actually fly it, which i have held off on until release even though i payed for some package way back. I can't even remember which one i payed for

oh and...

This same perception has hit me hugely...I would bet my house that Loft is a hardcore MP guy (or was). I'm just not seeing the fingerprints of a hardcore SP guy on BoS even though the foundation of the IL-2 series has always been SP.

Someone suggested an options unlock together with finishing the campaigns. Found this a good suggestion. Why aren't they making options available from the start? I think they want everyone to go through their curriculum, school A or school B. Not schools A-Z. And it makes the awarding of those XP points simpler.

MAC

I'm in marketing communications and there would be two schools of thought on this...this is how the conversation would go:

One is the 'me too' school: "Hey, see how many players the arcade free-to-play, grind-to-win games are getting! We need some of that in our game!!"

The other is the 'blue water sailing' school: "You can't be 'half pregnant' and win the arcade sim crowd by including a bit of grinding in a hard core flight sim. We are better to win over the hard core sim crowd than try to be something that is neither hard core, nor arcade - we are the only hard core sim coming out in the next couple of years."

"But there aren't enough hard core simmers to make us rich!"

"Then we should have made a different game, not an IL2 title, if you are in this to be rich. How about 'Flappy Planes' for iPhone? (Sneers)"



"Have you seen our average demographic? Our players are all aged 40-60! What kind of growth potential is there in that demographic? All the growth is in the 18-30 year olds (shows Powerpoint slide)"

"And you want to charge 90USD per unit. How many 18 year olds will pony up for that, when they can play 'Flappy Planes' for free?"

"OK OK, how about this, we keep the game hard core, but we let the player grind for uber weapons and cool skins?"

"(Sigh) If that's what it takes to make you shut up...alright."

Fun take on things Heinkill, but one thing you may overlook.

It's HARD to learn flying and dogfighting on a flight simulator. I'm a professional pilot and when I got into this hobby it took me quite a while to figure out what to do. And I didn't start out in cockpit view and full realism, but in Arcade and external view. I find it therefore rather surprising such modes aren't included in BOS.

But it tells me that the devs really want to cultivate a more realistic flying experience as the entry level to their sim/game. They're relying on other games to attract attention to the WWII genre in general. But they still need to make a transition somehow, and make a game, not just a sandbox with difficult to handle toys.

There are other very realistic sims that don't offer much gameplay, and many don't quite know what to do there. I think that's what the creators of BOS want to avoid.

MAC

Oh? Please do tell me which ones you are talking about. Because all the sims on my HD now or in the past have provided a sim with plenty of "gameplay", aside from RoF which was fun for a few weeks, then boring.

So while we all agree that BoS is trying to get the WT crowd to take at a look it, do people that agree with strategy think about the future?

You market to these folks, with shiny HUDS (no need for gauges), XP points (you are leet), unlocks (XBox kiddies), preset graphics settings (you are too dumb to know how adjust your own), and to top it off, you throw in a mish-mash campaign that has no historical squads, that is basically like using the quick mission builder.

Now, lets say they are successful in getting these new arcade folks to play BoS. They got that money now right? So further development right? Do you REALLY think that is strategy will benefit simmers? Of course not. If all goes to plan you will see new unlocks, XP, and all the other corny crap thrown in to appease War Thunder or Wings of Prey folks. Why? Because thats the target audience now.

If you are a SIM person and think getting this new demographic in will help BoS become better for you (more sim), you are sadly mistaken. Arcade folks buying into this game will shift the already gamey BoS into full on arcade. You think that since the WT crowd are playing BoS they will want to jump on the more sim settings? Sure....thats why Call of Duty folks ALL switch to ARMA right?....lol.

Why people cannot see this is beyond me. 777 is not going to let their arcade demographic BUY you a sim game. Aint gonna happen.

BoS will be another IL2 Wings of Prey if they keep following this path.

Oh, so much angst...

MAC

No, we don't. That is your narrow interpretation of what they've decided to do. It's pretty much the same thing as saying someone was elected president in order to destroy America, because that's logical.

Every decision YOU see as trying to do that I say is a result of limited time and resources to simplify the development of a sim that has had 18 months to get made, not multiple years.

You've painted it with your brush and refuse to allow that any other color works.


That's odd, I have gauges in my BoS...you turn yours off somehow?

Yeah, like those dumb sim nerds and their wanting their pilot to go from Lt to Major to Lt Col! To prove how awesome they are.


Yes, on the first day of the war EVERY pilot was allowed to have their plane repainted in all red and decide they wanted rare experimental rockets or supply-constrained underwing cannons mounted up. It's not like their CO wouldn't grant every wish to an unproven pilot on their first day, that's what ALWAYS happened.


That's actually fairly accurate. I've dealt with literal rocket scientists that had no idea how to adjust the settings on their PC. The more options were hidden away from them, the less a mess they could make of things by tinkering where they shouldn't have been.
Of course, we all know 777 has millions of dollars available for supporting idiots who screw up their settings by trying to use max FSAA and minimum textures and wonder why it all looks so weird, so they should allow it.



Yes, because without historical squads it's EXACTLY like a quick mission builder, while using historical squads it is now instantly a brilliantly made campaign.

Wait, didn't CloD ship with campaigns with historically accurate squads?? That's right, it did, because they had more money and a lot more time to make them, years upon years actually. Of course, they were NOT brilliant, because we got Spitfire girl after over half a decade of work. The fact that 777 is working as fast as they can in a short time frame with limited money is no excuse NOT to make all those people who NEED historical squads and OOBs, including when this Jasta's CO got syphilis and had to take a month off and when that Russian ace fell off his bike after too much vodka and was laid up for a week with a bad ankle, happy.

The fact that they don't have the time or money to do that right now is of no concern to you, you want your Ferrari for the price of a Toyota and you're done waiting.

You're being so reasonable it has to hurt 777.



The Jedi Master

Well I'm with Loki on this one.
Sad news for me and many others I suspect.

Me too, but I'm not sure we're allowed to have such an opinion after reading Jedi.

I find it all very humorous to be honest.

The most successful combat flight sim of all time (by a LONG shot) allowed you to adjust every individual setting in a mission, in a server, in graphics, in well, just about everything you could ever want. Hence it being one big sandbox that everyone fell in love with.

But yeah, I guess those guys had it all wrong lol. Umm...., yeeeeeeaaaah..