Battle of Stalingrad review

Hi all, as I have in the past reviewed a lot of WWII sims and their add ons for SimHQ, I've been asked if I will be reviewing Battle of Stalingrad.

I have written a review for those who would like to read it.

You can read it here:

http://www.simhq.com/air-combat/il-2-sturmovik-battle-stalingrad-review.html

Enjoy!

Fred 'Heinkill' Williams.

(PS, and I managed to write the entire review without once mentioning War Thunder! )

Presented well HK.

Your opinions are similar to mine.

A semi-polished gem now with hopes of longevity and support from enthusiasts and modders.

Excellent review and encapsulates literally my own views... very well done!

Thanks HeinKill,

Good and balanced review. As you I find myself not flying very often.

Excellent review, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Well done!

Very good review. Highlights the positives and negatives without showing clear bias either way. One of the truly jaw droppingly bad moments for me in the SP campaign (lols), was the utter emptiness of the map. At one point I was meant to believe that the battle of Stalingrad consisted of 4 trucks, 4 artillery pieces, 3 IL2s a Lagg3 and 2 Bf109s.

Nice work. A very well written, fair and honest review.

Exactly what I expected from you.

There was one thing though.. in your conclusion you said


.. actually it was less than two years from announcement, 22 months to be exact. The announcement was in December of 2012.. the sim was released in October of this year.

A very accurate and honest review and I would have expected nothing less from Heinkill, a man who has contributed so much of his time to our hobby and over such a broad spectrum.

I will wait and see how things develop, but there appears to be sufficient foundation for a very good game. I noticed criticism of the AI was very brief and take this as encouraging from the point of view of the single-player game.

Thanks, Heinkill.

Will correct that, as this is an important achievement in my book.

H

He said while posting review on a WT blog...

Seriously though... so are you going to post that here? You should...

A very well written and fair review...

"So what is left is a very very professionally executed piece of code without much emotional appeal.

But, I felt the same way about the original IL2 when it was released.

I found that game to be a very clinically nice piece of software, but lacking the immersion and emotion of other titles of the period. And look what that turned into.

I have the same hopes for Battle of Stalingrad." - HeinKill


I have the same hopes, but with this philosophy:

"We worried that players might forget the genre in the wreckless rithm of modern entertainment industry, and that we might release a game too complicated and slow for players." - Albert Zhiltsov (aka =FB=Loft) from his announcement of the release of IL-2 Battle of Stalingrad

...I have serious doubts about 1CGS attempting to recreate the immersive single player campaign game style of the original IL-2 series. I hope I'm wrong.

Cool.. I see you fixed that already ... Also in the conclusion there is this...

and...

Given the time frame involved with this project if you substituted months for years it would make more sense... Simon pointed that out @ BoS... (TY E1!)

Other than that it is a great review and it should be here at SHQ to go along with all the other great write ups you have done over the years..

Updated. Also reconsidered and took out all references to CoD and the controversies around launch. Kept focus fully on my opinion of the game.

Added an overall rating: 7/10, reflecting how well I think the game plays, right out of the gate.

H

A good review, and I agree with the 7/10 rating.

I thought it was good before... the only thing wrong with it was that it wasn't here first aside from some of the minor factual errors..

Nicely put together,
Some rartional thoughts finally injected into the discussion.

Cheers,
SLug

Definitely a good review. I echo a lot of the same opinions. The one I tend to disagree with is the landscape. I think it's very well done taken for what it is.

As far as navigability, the snowy landscape coupled with the possible weather conditions, be it haze or a cloud deck, make the navigation piece a great challenge that I actually enjoy at the end of a furball. Trying to find my way home is actually pretty immersive, and I can imagine that pilots back then probably went through this on a day to day basis.

On the flip side, I feel like the detail of the navigation map (pressing "O") makes it pretty easy if you have clear weather. The map detail is probably a little unrealistic for the time period, but this is a decent compromise in my opinion, as I don't think I would have as much fun navigating home if I was lost 90% of the time. As it stands, I think that the terrain itself (and the navigation map) are perfect for what they represent.

The inclusion of more visible fighting on the ground would be a welcome addition, though. I agree that more destroyed equipment, as well as ongoing visible fighting would be a great thing to see.

"the VVS had only 200"

Maybe more:



Sokol1

17 in a day. That is astonishing!

I mean...how close was the airfield?

If I recall correctly from reading Rudel's book, he would take off, grab a little alt, align and release ordnance, wash, rinse and repeat.
He even knocked out a few tanks on the edge of his airfield a few times.

Not sure if that was in and around Stalingrad though, could have been in early '45 and a few thousand km back Westward where he belonged !

Cheers,
Slug

Think it would have been beneficial not to remove:

"Two free planes" (Loft speech) version is not free of payment.

The DVD version will cost ~12,00$ in Russia (and only there), have two planes (LaGG-3, Bf 109F) "free" - unlocked - for the player unlock - these free of payment - the other 6 Standard planes by playing the "Unlock Campaign", designed for this version.

------------


That would at least offer another option for new players to purchase? For seem reason it seems to be being treated like a dirty secret? No idea why?

Crash fixes are likely coming this week.

(Lots of vodka, back slapping and threats of Siberia)... be sure! (if not, then in two weeks)

I was getting freezes/crashes during the campaign especially in outside views trying to take screenshots (ironically, for the review).

I did this, and the freezes/CTD have stopped, so it worked for me:

- Update java
- Run at native screen resolution
- Update GFX drivers (nvidia) to latest version

H

Yeah, I was calling this falling in the range between 6 and 8 depending on your particular mission experience. If you had some exciting combat, it feels like an 8, and if you're in one of those ho-hum ones it feels like a 6.



The Jedi Master

Good and fair review. I have been silently watching the debate for some weeks now, all I can say is that the passion that these game releases bring out in people who play them can only be a good thing in the long term for the genre.

I had Cliffs Of Dover and Rise of Flight on my hard drive, unused and unusable for many months (if not years) and now I play them both regularly when I have the time. I am sure BOS will become another title given time. In the meantime after a week of grinding I am putting it on the shelf with the certainty that things will improve some day.

I say this as someone who can afford to and I know many others cannot afford the luxury of splashing out on unfinished or curtailed projects. I am sad to say that having worked for many years for large financial services infrastructure firms I am not in the slightest bit surprised that the industry is being squeezed, especially in niche genres. If the niche can be kept alive by finding a more robust financial model then that is the price that has to be paid. Unfortunately you and I are the guinea pigs. It doesnt sit well in the short term but in the medium term I hope it will work out and the niche will be secured.

Just my two pennies worth.

According to "Black Cross Red Star: Air War Over the Eastern Front" on one of the heaviest days of the air assault there were up to 900 individual Stuka sorties on 5th October against the Tractor Factory. Im not sure of the size of the Stuka force but im guessing no more than 8 GW or about 200-250 aircraft. I am thinking 17 may be a bit toppy and 5 or 6 may be more realistic, maybe a few more on the longer days of September/October 42.

Heinkill,, Excellent work as always ! Pretty Much Spot on with my feelings on the game !
I however hate the unlocks a little more then you so I would Personally say 6.5 ! LOL
Still,,, Spot on and I agree with others that the review should have been on SimHq !

Always a pleasure to read your work !

Sincerely Desode

I find it outraging that a flight simulator does not support triple screen setups in 2014.

Plus I think it is ridiculous that we are stuck with 4 graphic presets and no advanced graphics option whatsoever.

...and a max of 16 planes? It looks like a game coded with consoles in mind.

It is a frustrating title from the point of view of hardcore simmers, as you seem to be. So many of the things we have taken for granted in true IL2 titles are not present, or have been 'made more accessible' in dev speak. The devs have gone to great pains though to label this a 'flight game' not a 'flight sim' though, and stated they wanted to make the game as easy to get into as possible for a new generation of player.

The debate then starts about whether this really is a successor to the IL2 lineage, because using the IL2 name without delivering the type of game options former IL2 players expect is seen by many to be a misleading use of the brand. If you don't do your research, and just buy based on the name, you might end up disappointed.

I tried to show in the review, that you are not looking at a 'traditional' hard core IL2 title here.

H

And in the end, the old il-2 is more acessible... (for casual players).

Sokol1

Honest review HeinKill. Thank you for doing that.

The most disappointing part about BOS is that 90% of the problem this game has are bad decisions and attitude of the developers.
Time will tell, but I don't see this game surviving without some drastic changes and even then, enough damage has been done, to make people skeptical.

I pre-ordered it as soon as it was announced, just to show my support.

Triple screen setups worked fine when the first public beta came out. The support was broken with the introduction of presets. It is the same problem RoF has: the workaround is to just disable the post processing in the gfx options, it's that simple. Unfortunately BoS does not offer that option.

I understand companies wanting to gather to a wider audience, I do, but the issues I mentioned (including the limit of planes in a mission) could really be solved in like two minutes of coding. BoS is actually not half bad, it is just badly managed.

I don't regret supporting the developers but after this one I think I am through with early access, pre-orders, and kickstarter.

I bought into the BoS early access and don't regret that...it was fun being on the sidelines watching new features get added every month, then every week. So when the devs stick to their timelines and keep cranking content, it can be enjoyable as long as you accept you are using alpha/beta code.

Have also bought into the early access for DayZ though that is becoming a bit of a joke... I'm not sure it even has a planned release date, it seems to be in perpetual 'alpha' even though it is very playable as it is today and the game has changed radically from when I bought in (from a post apocalyptical FPS to more of a survival game where players can hunt, fish and grow food, as well as kill zombies and each other).

The one I regret was DCS WWII. But there I blame myself. I knew the track record of the guy behind it was not good, and it became obvious after a couple of months that as in the past, his project was falling way behind schedule and not hitting milestones. Should never have bought into that one. I'll eventually get something out of it thanks to ED coming to the rescue, but that was one I would not have done if I had the chance again. Wonder where Luthier is today BTW...

So, two out of three aint bad.

H

Cool, I've got a review copy and will be doing a review of Channel Battles, if you care to PM your observations on it to me, I can try to include them!

There are some good campaigns...

H

CoD failed because it was too ambitious...it did not deliver what it tried to deliver and the market was disappointed.

This title may very well fail because it was not ambitious enough....it is too hobbled by mgt decisions to dumb it down for a wider market while alienating to the core market.

The lack of configuration options is ruining this game/sim and is unforgivable. It is unbelievable that you cannot configure the graphics parameters to fit your conditions. I have a high end machine and there are times that the game truly shines in terms of the visuals/effects...only to be brought crashing back down to earth with stutters or lock ups.

Also my situation exactly. Before Custom Graphics was eliminated I was able to run BoS pretty much with maxed out graphics settings very smoothly. Can't remember now what I had turned off that my AMD card wasn't happy with, but whatever I had to give up was low impact in visuals and high impact in allowing for great performance.

Now I'm running at Low graphics settings, AA off, and the FPS Limiter set to 30 just to avoid a slide show at altitude, and near the ground it is a stuttering slide show. This was the final straw and ruined what little fun I could find in the game, and that being the fantastic visuals.

I think the decision to eliminate the Custom Graphics option, a feature they already had working nicely, was virtual suicide. If I had been planted into their organization by another game publisher with the task of sabotaging the BoS project I couldn't have come up with better than Loft is already doing. Someone needs to take all sharp objects away from 1CGS as they might hurt themselves.

And devs believe quite the opposite.
http://forum.il2sturmovik.ru/topic/2224-obsuzhdenie-versii-1005/?p=230697

For context there was a discussion about graphics quality.

Time will tell, but right now when I see comments like "let's support devs and they will make a brilliant game out of it" I cringe. They will "improve" the game of course, but in a way that they see fit, which is not guaranteed to match any expectations.
I supported ROF as much as I could with money buying stuff I never needed and with my time developing mods people (including me) wanted to have. And what devs did? Instead of fixing long standing issues they started to introduce bullsh*t nobody asked for like difficulty presets, "smoky cinema" loading screen, cocked guns at the start and whatever else I don't really remember already. And although I was enthusiastic about the IL2 for some weeks after its initial announcement I quickly understood that the game was a direct continuation of the same weird design that plagued recent ROF updates.

PS: I really need to stop looking at IL2 forums and move on. The drama is fun to watch when it doesn't touch you, but this development still saddens me because of prior emotional investment.

My support for the devs just about died with that message. Their clarity seems to be our muddy graphics and low FPS with all kinds of problems to boot.

Id like to know what planet the devs lives on?


The fact that they(Han) pretty much calls everyone an idiot makes me think they have no clue (tell me it aint so ). The devs decisions kind of confirms that. Dont think iv ever seen a developer (whos not russian, seems to be a tradition over there) openly giving the costumer base the middle finger the way they do.

I know a lot of people say that they wont play anymore or wont pay a dime again, in rage, and end up doing it anyway. Difference for me is that im not raging but i say the same thing, i wont give them anymore money even if the bring me the moon. I do not/will not support something/someone i have no respect for. Sheer stupidity and arrogance tend to have that effect on me. I do not have neither the time or will for it.

The fact that its a flight sim makes no difference to me, i don't like it i wont buy it, simple.

GIFSoup

GIFSoup

This episode of How to Ruin Your Reputation in Under Thirty Days brought to you by Han.

Unless they make a major shift, which appears highly unlikely at this point, they will not get another dime from me. They fooled me once, they won't be doing it again...

For me, the gold bar has become a mark of shame.

Well I did what the devs suggested this afternoon while reinstalling Win on my wife's machine, ran my Heinkel through campaign on autopilot until I got the 1800 kg bomb. That plus 16 SC50s makes for a nice surprise for the red base in multiplayer so I went onto a Euro server for an hour or so.

Flew about ten sorties, climbing to 2000m mostly, but also tried to sneak in low level. Result:


Bombs on target 4/10
Shot down by AAA 6/10
Shot down by fighters 3/10
Rammed 1/10
Made it back to base 0

When you are the only bomber in the sky and no one cares to escort you, every run is a suicide run.

But it was kinda fun even so. Enjoy flying the BoS He111. Would enjoy it even more if I could muster up an escort!

Agreed!

That's a typical MP summary.

Same here my friend

I enjoyed doing very low level unescorted Ju88 mission in the original IL-2. I believe there were many historical single aircraft low level bomber mission flown over England by the LW, hitting dams etc. Personally I didn't mind being unescorted, if my escort didn't fly low enough they just attracted unwanted attention. The missions were quite survivable in IL-2, in COD they were a death wish, but haven't tried it in BOS yet. I'm waiting for the Oculus Rift consumer version, and improvement to DCS WW2, BOS, and COD V5 before venturing back into gaming.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about all this silliness......

The forums are mainly filled with positive and negative overreactions to any perceived action. Developers seldom overreact to any negativity as its usually a lose/lose situation. Jason/Loft haven't figured that out yet. Its very difficult to make enough profit to continue the development in such a small genre, so Jason is paranoid about any bad publicity that could hurt sales. While Loft appears to unwittingly lump all the community with the negative spammers, although mis-translations, and mis-interpretations could be a huge factor in that appearance.

In the end is about having a good product with plenty of options to suit most levels of play. That takes time, and money. The developers message should be that, yes the current options are limited, but its early days, and we hope to continue the development of the series, with more options. Respond too constructive criticism, and ignore the negative spam.

Nothing is written in stone with the continuation of series, its full of bug fixes, new content, new features, new options, that usually apply from the first edition to the last. Its all good, and constructive criticism can, and will change the evolution of BOS, COD, and DCS.

I vote for you as new Zoo Keeper....ermmm Community Manager over there

Comrade

If it was your business that was on the line and you that was subjected to the crap he's had to put up with, you too would probably be miffed with certain elements of the community.

You might as well laugh...

Remove the childish, and arcade "unlocks" and most would be happy.

What if it was not that simple.. What if it was either out of his control or so deeply embedded in the code that it was not as simple as a few hours of programming? Has anyone considered that?

Truth be told... if all this drama is over unlocks ... that says a lot about this community considering the levels to which this whole thing has gone to across the board...

c'mon, better than that can be done... the question is; why have "unlocks' (supposedly for the purpose of orientation, ie how to fly a plane) when they be fast forwarded through??

Unless you've got proof, this is just pointless supposition.




Yes, once again it's the entire community who's in the wrong here. Not the developers who refuse to listen to their customers. Ever think that perhaps it's you? You seem to relish sitting in judgement of everyone else here. Ever consider that maybe, just maybe it's not everyone else who's in the wrong here. Maybe you've become so invested in defending this product and generally just being contrarian that you've lost any objectivity you may have once had?

careful, else you be accused of just "latching onto statements" and taking those 'out of context"... or have some sort of weird man crush thing going
remember, the mod is his old friend

I have little problems with the unlocks, but without a full mission editor my interest is waning quickly.

Pls try not to get personal guys, it is so boring. It really doesn't matter what a person's motivations are, only their opinions.

As I speculated in the review, my uneducated guess (but based on the currently successful 'free' to play model in other games) is the unlocks are all about charging for DLC eventually.

What makes you think so?

Have a look at this screenshot from the 'plane card' in the GUI. This is from the current game, not pre release or Russian 2 plane version.

This is the 109F plane card. But what are the Stuka and 109G doing there?



You see the same on eg the IL2 plane card. Halfway through the other unlocks, sits the PE2. Why?

Clearly it only makes sense, if the Stuka and 109G are intended to be 'unlockable' just like the weapon mods and skins. In the Russian 2 plane version, this is already the case.

And we already have the ability to purchase 'premium planes' like the FW190 separately. Sure, in the Russian 2 plane version you can put the game on autopilot and have it grind its way to unlock the new planes for you - but that takes hours. Easier to buy a "Messerschmitt plane pack: get both the famous 109F and 109G with all weapons and skins unlocked today for just 39.99!"

It will be very simple for the devs to morph the game into a free or cheap-to-play, and pay for DLC model anytime they want.

But, why did they even launch with a premium version, why not launch with the Russian '2 planes free' version right from the start, and charge for unlocking premium planes right away?

1C RG sold thousands of early access copies of the game before launch, without mentioning there would be a cheap 2 plane version with unlockable planes. That only came out when Loft let it slip during a livestream video a couple of weeks before launch.

If you think the community got feral about the whole unlock thing, can you imagine what it would have been like if all of those thousands of people had paid 90 dollars for early access, only to find out that at launch they could have got the same game for 20 dollars, with unlockable planes and/or 'premium aircraft packages' as DLC.

1C RG or 777 couldn't or wouldn't do that to the early access buyers, except in Russia apparently. And Jason Williams has said that he disagreed with that decision and wouldn't be following it where he has the rights ie outside Russia.

Maybe they won't go the 'pay for DLC' road outside Russia then?

Maybe they won't. Or maybe they will do exactly as they did for Rise of Flight. History does tend to repeat.

In 2010 777 released the Iron Cross edition of Rise of Flight. Eight or so flyable aircraft, others able to be purchased as DLC. Sound familiar?

Then two years later, in 2012, they released the 'Free 2 Play client' version of Rise of Flight. 2 Flyable planes, others available as paid DLC. Sound familiar?

Apart from the ability in this game to unlock planes by grinding WT style (a natural addition to the old model) the business plan looks almost identical to me so far, and the software is already set up to support it.

Just fun speculation. Personally I think it would be a great success. It eases the $$ entry barrier for people wanting to try a new flight game, and caters to the free2play preference of the gaming market today.

I don't know why they don't do it already.

But the early access buyers who paid 50/90 bucks for the game would freak!

Not if the devs just unlocked all the weapons and skins for them. Then they are getting the full 8/10 plane versions with all mods and skins, for their money. I would keep the standard and premium versions available as they are.

Could people really complain if there is now a 20 dollar version with only 2 planes? Some will, someone always does, but if you unlock all the content for the premium buyers, it softens the sting of having a 'pay to unlock' version out there as well.

My two cents.

H

And that is the tip of the proverbial iceberg....the clear intention in taking the old Il-2 title with its genre defining reputation towards some sort of War Thunder business model!.....this is why people changed their votes on the skin poll when they smelled a rat...that is through careful wording of the question they began to realize they were being set up to buy unlocks for the skins they had already paid for through early access.....and boy did the votes switch over from "I'd consider some sort of work around to get them unlocked" to "It negatively affects my interest in the product"

Like the iceberg, there is more here than meets the eye (and less when you look at the crappy SP campaign as delivered) but there is no denying that much of the furor in the forums regarding this release is that people think they are being played. This whole unlock model is likely just as described...it is a stalking horse for paid DLC...what form it takes and how much it will cost is anyone's guess...but I agree...those playcards and unlocks are there for that purpose....and the uncertainty over what this means (how much it will cost and what form it will take) in conjunction with the Devs PR fiascos has just served notice to everyone that this is not the IL-2 successor they were expecting and no one knows where this is going...

but it is obvious that the Devs have lost the goodwill of the Founders and for very good reasons and few trust their intentions now. There is no transparency here, quite the opposite.

Since when does one need proof to ask a hypothetical question.. seriously?

The last time I checked.. the devs were a part of the community too... so yeah.. and I am not blaming anyone for anything. All this drama speaks for itself. You're calling me a contrarian.. Now that is hilarious.

You have a few good points there (referring to Heinkill here, a few posters made it between us. Not saying othere didn't have good points, of course). However, I think the business model is more of a difference between publishers. AFAIK the free to play RoF model was Jason's idea and I don't know really how successful it was, but in any case it wasn't the approach chosen by 1C. Without any numbers at hand I think the RoF model has a lot of merit. Flight simulators take ages to make and they need a long shelf life and constant income. The only way to keep money coming in - and continue improving the game - is to release new stuff constantly and get some money for it.

You might also be up to something with your prediction of unlocking planes by playing vs. paying for them and I think that might actually be nice for the customers. Think about for example getting discounts to the RoF shop with in-game achievements. Unfortunately I'm not that convinced about it working well for 1C.

My interpretation of many things in BoS's game design is that the developers have been trying to utilize gaming mechanisms that are successful in one environment without giving enough consideration to their application in another. I'm not saying it can't be done - that would require proving a negative and that's kind of a challenge outside mathematics - but there are factors that make it hard in a flight simulator environment.

First of all, I consider the combination of unlocks and pilot levels damaging to the campaign design. Most importantly there is no replay value if you base the design on those two. Once you've unlocked the stuff, what then? In BoS terms that's a couple of weeks of intensive gameplay. A proper dynamic campaign should strive to hold people's interest for decades by offering them dynamic gameplay with cause-effect relationships that make their in-game actions meaningful.

In games that rely on grinding stuff you need to have a _lot_ of it. I've played over 17000 (seventeen THOUSAND) games of World of Tanks and I probably have about half the stuff available in it. The problem is that the core audience for BoS is very interested in the historical part of things and such a grind would make it extremely hard for normal people to ever reach the late war stuff with numbers high enough to put a game together. I don't have the exact data on what Wargaming make their money on, but it is generally thought to be the things that make the grind faster or more bearable - premium time and converting exp. Another thing the grind-based games rely on is massive numbers of players. WoT needs the untold millions of players to populate the servers for the paying customers to play with, but also because they don't make a lot of money per player.

I don't see masses of players coming in to play BoS for a few bucks, that just doesn't happen with flight sims. What you do get is a few people ready to throw money at a good simulator, which apparently has kept the ball rolling so far for a couple of companies. And the worst thing to do is to alienate these guys and that's _exactly_ what I see happening right now. Earning new stuff (=rewarding the player for doing well) is one of the fundamentals of game design and it can be used as a part of the gaming experience. To me it just seems that currently it's a far too dominating part of it. The true successes of previous simulators have been founded mostly on entirely different things.

One of the things often overlooked in these conversations is War Thunder and what it's doing to the simulator genre. The commendable thing IMRO is that I'm certain that the developers have looked at WT and thought hard about how to best provide "the next level" to people who have picked up WT due to its simple accessibility, graduated to the simulation level and are looking for more. There's enough potential there to boost the entire simulator genre massively and I think that's exactly the right thought to have.

Again, though, I don't think the approach chosen is correct. People who have played WT and are looking for more are NOT asking for more of the same stuff with prettier graphics (WT is tough to beat in that department), more grinding - especially in single player only, these people are used to playing with and against real people - and somewhat improved flight modeling. What I strongly believe these people are really after is the more hardcore stuff, actual historical context, missions and campaigns with a lot of planning, complex and realistic mission structures and meaningfulness to the actions taken in-game blended together with a truly historical context.

Challenging WT and WoT/WoWP on their home ground is practically doomed to fail. Right now any sim developers need to be considered with providing a home for those who got interested in the subject because of the plane games but are now looking for something more. That can only be done by playing to the traditional strengths of simulator games, going back to the things that have made them great for decades. If you can add to that by including fun game mechanisms from other game types go ahead, but it's important not to lose track of the main thing.

Free or cheap to play is a good start, but the real challenge is to get money out of the people who are willing to pay a lot as well as those who need to be enticed with a low entry price. That's where grinding mechanisms traditionally come in, but so far I don't see a well thought out design that would do that for BoS, perhaps despite an initial uproar (people often complain about the "grind", although it's precicely the thing that keeps them coming back again and again). Instead I DO see exactly the worst possible thing - alienating the traditionally high-paying core users - and because of those two things I would back the heck off the design and FAST if I was 1C.

Excellent post Andy. I never understood why they didn't just go with the RoF model either. Initially I was opposed to it when 777 took over RoF but I have found it to be a sound model at least from the customer stand point. I would have no problem paying $20 per aircraft in BoS as long as each new aircraft was made available as AI upon release like they are in RoF. Buy what you really ant to fly initially and either wait for a sale or get the other stuff as you can/need to. I still don't get the unlocks though.. I know there were some folks who were all up in arms about the entire RoF model as it is now also. Cries of "Pay to win!" and "I refuse to pay for scarves and binoculars!! ".. with the indignation behind it were all over the place at one point and maybe that was a consideration by the devs in going this route. That last two paragraphs in particular are pretty much the way I see it as well.

Well put Andy.

They need to be transparent (honest!) in their intentions and application -- what do they intend/want to do and how much will it cost?

And you are spot on about historical context. The open platform of the old IL-2 permitted third parties to come in and provide immersive campaign play that made you want to go buy a book.....I did just that by purchasing the Black Cross/Red Star series. I wanted context to the play of the game/sim. No one in WT goes looking for that.

If these guys are incapable of being up front and honest (and not hostile!) towards their market (which is not the WT crowd) about where this is going and how much it will cost, and they don't fix the stuff that's broke (graphics presets, locks, etc), while opening the platform up like Il-2 was for 3rd party content (historical!), then....

fuggedaboutit

I agree that War Thunder is not the way I want BoS to follow but even WT has some merits, playing either Air or Ground forces and some grinding is okay for the FtP crowd it's kinda fun and it looks good, however if you are going to pay full price and have to unlock better weapons or field mods then it needs to be worth the grind. Personally I find the missions boring and repetitive and what gets unlocked is rather banal, so far I've only unlocked Bombs, a different Gun (cannon?), and a couple skins.. not terribly interesting or rewarding and I'm still not quite through the first tier of missions. I do like that in RoF you can purchase planes you want to have for personal use and they aren't too expensive but there is no way I'm going to throw $40 dollars into a Focke-Wulf in BoS it's just plane stupid, if it were a grinding prize for completing all the German Campaign I could see it but I'm sure as Hell not going to pay 40 bucks for it, especially when DCS has one with a fully clickable cockpit for about the same price. If I wanted to fly an FW I'd go there. I would really hope that this sim would follow IL-2 in the same way with add-on theaters eventually fleshing out aircraft and objects but I see it more likely going down the tubes because this community is so heavy handed in their criticism and the Devs seem to have allowed it to get under their skins.

Well your maybe in luck, because they only cost $20, the FW190 and La-5 were as far as I know, released as "bonus" aircraft so you could buy the "historical planeset" at a cheaper price,

Although the two user made maps are historical for the FW190 at that time period

From what little has been said by the devs about future Campaigns it looks like Kuban is intended to be next on the list along with planeset, then summer/autumn map of Stalingrad, I like this approach as all the aircraft will be relevant to the historical time period, so the intended roadmap is similar to old IL-2 in releasing theatres with related A/C, this however all translated from Russian forum and certainly not set in stone

Cheers Dakpilot

Of course anyone would be p*ssed at some in the forums take on their work, usually filled with embellished negativity, but don't make the developers cardinal sin of responding in the same manor. It only makes matters worse. The developer has to understand that its usually the same small percentage on the forums and customer base that vilify and embellish any feature they don't like. Most of the community can see the potential of the sim, and the possibilities of better optional features in the future.

I don't have a problem with BOS trying to tap into the much larger WT market, but it has to be optional. If they can tap into larger markets, with the correspondent profits, it only helps the development continue, and still develop the options I prefer in a flight sim. That said I think the ROF business model would work in the larger WW2 market. I would not have a problem with having the option to buy aircraft, content, and maps that would provide a steadier, larger stream of income for the developments security, rather than having them trying to survive years between major series addons.

The mantra of any WW2 series developer should be... that we are combat sim enthusiasts aswell, and want most of the features you want. We listen, but it won't happen over night. Hopefully we can develop a series with options to make most people happy within the obvious restraints of time, money, hardware, etc etc...... Of course I'm sure someone could word this a lot better than I can.

The developers lack of tact has an effect on customers. When developers start to name call people who bought their product, use sleazy marketing tactics, and have crying fits, it says a lot about the future of this game and the lack of professionalism.

Sorry, but product and customer service go hand in hand. Its hard to review that aspect, and I understand why it should be left out, but its still in the back of peoples mind.

This has turned into a good thread.

The part of the BoS game design I don't get is the shallow single player campaign. I would think that some form of a DCG, or RoF style campaign, or PWCG would have been on the critical path, assuming that, as 1CGS has stated in the past, about 90% of BoS sales would go towards single players.

I used to be a heavy MP guy, and in MP (generally speaking) give me some great planes and a great map and we'll make our own fun. But in SP its all about role playing over a progression of missions called a campaign.

With the old IL-2 model in clear view, the BoS design has nothing of substance for single players (not just my opinion as many similar posts are starting to show up with this same comment).

With RoF I downloaded the F2P version, said "Wow, great feeling of flight and graphics, but what do I do?" and spent nothing. Then I found PWCG about six months later and bought every single product 777 had for sale to the tune of $300 or $400 over a short time. With the original IL-2 series it was DCG and user made campaigns that kept me around for years buying every product 1CMG offered, and never "Wow, look at the graphics" even when the original IL-2 was a "Wow."

The fact that BoS has nothing but the unlock campaign is a complete puzzlement to me knowing the history of IL-2 single player content. What surprises me is that 1CGS seems surprised that the single player campaign was ill received by many. Is there no one on their team that can honestly say that they have logged hundreds of single player hours on the original IL-2 series and CloD? I've heard it said that Jason and Loft are big MP guys. Did they really not "get it" with single play? If they "got it" it seems that some form of immersive single play would have been on the critical path for initial release. If I thought the game's initial release success hinged on a great, immersive campaign I would have found the money for it in the initial project budget. Pat Wilson has said that it took him roughly 1000 hours to develop PWCG (he's a professional programmer, so that's probably pretty accurate for a development house also). On a project the size of BoS with a team of 20 over a 2 year period 1000 hours is very much within reason, in particular if it is critical to success.

It just seems like a huge miss to me that I can't for the life of me explain. I know many MP guys can't get their mind around SP play being fun (many of my MP friends included). I wonder if that is the case with Loft (who I believe has the final say in game design)? I have MP friends who look at me in an IL-2 1946 single player campaign I've been playing for months that has maybe 70 or 80 missions and they think I'm out of my mind...lol, but it's fun! I wonder if Loft thinks I'm out of my mind also?

To be fair, the campaign we have now may well be just the first step and it might grow into better things in the future. That's how the development should ideally go anyway. What's bothering me a bit is the focus on wrong things, which is not very encouraging as far as the future is concerned. But we'll have to see.

The thing that really worries me a lot is the separation of single- and multiplayer game modes. You also kind of considered the campaign to be a single player thing, but that's not actually the case. For example the DCG you mentioned worked splendidly in multiplayer as well, providing countless of hours of entertainment for me and my friends. I really don't understand how DCG, RoF and pretty much everyone after the original Il-2 has failed to provide a multiplayer campaign.

The single player mode is just a special case of n users where n=1 and everything can run on the same codebase, a special limited mode for single player is completely unnecessary. That's how it was in Il-2 over a decade ago and that's how it should have been in every game since.

I stand corrected it's $39.98 for both add-on planes, I just remembered the price.. still won't purchase them however, I would pay that much for a few new planes, campaign and maps as an add on.

I'll interject that I NEVER liked the campaigns in ANY Il-2. Not CloD, not 1946 or any of its earlier incarnations. Lowengrin's DCG was decent, but clunky to use outside the game like that (like Pat's for ROF), and it wasn't a big enough improvement to make me keep using it. In other words, it was a 25% improvement for a 50% increase in work, so I quit using it after a few months.

I liked the campaigns in CFS3 and EAW, even though EAW's could get repetitive and CFS3 had other shortcomings like outdated graphics (at release!) and illogical DMs that dictated whatever you flew, no matter what hit you or where you were hit, your control cables were getting damaged 75% of the time. The 1% planes had superior modeling, and really made CFS3 a joy to fly despite the flaws, but Il-2 has ALWAYS felt sterile to me. I've never completed a single campaign in any Il-2 game, I always get tired of them before I can. I've never completed one in any Russian-made flight sim, actually. Not ROF, not DCS, not Il-2, not LOMAC or Flanker. Sterile worlds that always feel like I'm flying a simulator. EAW I could imagine I was a pilot in a war, Il-2 I was a pilot flying a simulator.

So to hold 1946 up as the gold standard of SP campaigns is like saying the early seasons of American Idol were what the current season should aspire to be like again.

I never download campaigns, and I certainly never buy a 3rd party one, either. I play stock, and if they suck, I stop trying, I don't look for more punishment that will COST me.




The Jedi Master

I'll interject and say that you are in a minority...

Let me correct your misconception about Lowengrins DCG first. Its not clunky. It does not need to be set up outside the game if you dont wish. It is seamless if you want it to be. IF you want to make changes to a campaign, you can, and only need to use the program outside the game once. After you set any custom options you never run/open/see the DCG program again, just the IL2 game. How is that clunky? Its nothing even close to Pat Wilsons program.

1946 might not be the gold standard in SP missions but it one of the tops as far as SP campaigns. Real dynamic campaigns, and real squadron stats, sub campaigns, and map changes. CLoD didnt have them, RoF didnt have them, and BoS does not have them. Thats why its held high in regards.

If you never download campaigns, then you are missing out. From Arma, Silent Hunter, X series, IL21946, and CLoD. User made content blows the doors off of anything that came "standard". Not to mention Desastersoft's campaigns for CLoD. No wonder you dont think 46' has anything good for campaigns.

Your lack of knowledge in 3rd party content makes your observations pretty void in this area.

Or...better said....DCG is a well oiled campaign generator.
Always has been, if you update it properly.
Easy to install, and operate.
Just read the instructions, gets easier as you use it.

And it works.

I very much appreciate his work.

I'm sure there are others also.......

FlatSpinman's Battle for Britain, Luftwaffe Pilot Afrika

Hurricane Season and SpitnFire by Cobra427

Price: gratis.

My favourites. List is endless. Default campaigns never get the same love, or have the same immersion.

I'd settle for the bronze standard. BoS's campaign doesn't even reach tin status.

Too bad you didn't download some free missions and campaigns for IL2. The community put out some nicely detailed and historic campaigns - especially in some of the mission briefings. We're lucky to get wind direction and speed in BoS. You didn't have to rely on paid download material to get the best of IL2's missions. I fear that BoS's ME won't even come close to allowing what the community provided in IL2.

So in BoS we have this boring Mission Generator and the developers clearly state that it's up to the community to make missions to cover for their lack of originality or effort. I don't see that happening. I've only read from a few (less than five) who said they could manage RoF's ME with little effort. I'll wager a months pay to see if we get the kind of community response that we had from IL2.

I had MSCFS 3 and the only thing I remember about that was doing fifteen bombing runs in a row with an ME 109. There was no variation in the least. A splash screen of a couple of guys sitting next to an hanger didn't excite me. I felt no immersion. Add in the sub par graphics and un-detailed cockpits and it was a poor excuse for a game.

BoB:WoV was sterile too, but had, for the time, exceptional AI.


In essence, it's one thing to not agree with holding IL2 as the gold standard, but if BoS had one shred of life in it there wouldn't be any need for the comparison - no matter how poor you think IL2 was. BoS is that bad.

Then you have no idea what you are missing if you enjoy immersive dynamic and static historical campaigns.

Lowengrin's DCG and the historic static campaigns listed by HeinKill (with many many more not listed including some for CloD by some guys named Fred Williams and Bolox) are the gold standard that all WWII flight sims will be measured against. Some of these historic static campaigns listed above are stunningly immersive where each mission is prefaced by a summary of a chapter from a book as you follow the pilot through the entirety of a book mission by mission. This is stuff you just can't expect a game publisher to provide as stock content.

Fred Williams. Legend.

H

Why is it that something so essential to flight as weather is so often overlooked in combat sims?

I still have a few questions about BoS that I didn't find an answer for in the review.

- How are the radio comms? I read that wingman commands appear to be working inconsistently. Is there any interaction with ground control? Can we at least get wind information from the tower? Do flights use separate callsigns? Also, how are the voices?
- Can aircraft have individual ID markings? I understand that BoS does not use a decal system, but is it at least possible to assign individual skins to your wingmen in pre-flight?
- Does the AI try to disengage when out of fuel/ammo or when it is at a severe disadvantage?


I wouldn't call BoB:WOV's campaign sterile. Far from it, in fact. I do agree about the AI, however, and it still holds its own compared to more recent sims.

Personally I found the AI in BOB WOV just as frustrating as any other sim. If while leading a flight you see an opportunity to inflict damage to the enemy apart from the mission design. Your squadron would followed you alright, but they wouldn't engage the enemy, no matter what method you used to direct them. Quite often your flight would be greatly outnumber and decimated, caught low, and slow while scrambling from base. In these situations, I remember many times returning to base alone,out of ammo, with a couple of 109's on my six. I'd fly repeatedly through other friendly squadrons passing by, screaming like a little girl for help, but they would completely ignore my plight. lol. That said the AI is almost impossible to get every situation right, considering the system resources it would take, while leaving no resources left for other aspects of the sim.

@Chivas



Fixed in one of the later patches. R-3-5 causes flight to break off from assigned target and attack nearest enemy.



Deliberate programming, not an AI fault. This was reality in Battle of Britain. Ground controllers would assign a squadron a specific target eg an incoming bomber raid. They were not allowed to deviate from that ad hoc to join other nearby battles, because if they had, there would be no systematic interception of incoming raids. Could always be better implemented, but that was the gameplay logic.



Agree. The way BOB WOV manages it is clever but a little unsatisfying. The game code creates a bubble around the player, slightly less than visual range. Outside that bubble all the aircraft in flight use a simplified flight model which means entire squadrons are treated as a single aircraft (they all climb, turn, dive identically).

Once within the bubble, the game assigns individual complex flight models to each aircraft (different skill levels are dynamically assigned to each individual aircraft in a squadron depending on the success of that unit in the campaign so far) and they use these. So if an AI unit had experienced strong results, with few losses, skill level would be higher, and if the opposite, skill level would be lower. The game tracks individual success/failure stats for every AI squadron/staffel and adjusts the skill of every AI pilot in the game accordingly.

This system enables the game to fill the sky with hundreds of aircraft with different skill levels (ie using the FM of their aircraft with varying abilities) to give the player the feeling they really are part of a huge air battle against varied opponents. But at the cost of seeing formations of aircraft 'outside the bubble' moving unrealistically around in the sky in perfect synchronisation.

BoS uses a similar 'bubble' approach to manage placement of objects and to trigger events such as the spawning of AI flights in the path of the player, but I don't think it uses it to manage aircraft outside the bubble with a simple FM - I think aircraft outside the bubble in BoS are simply 'disappeared' from the game to save on resources - so you don't have the same 'sky full of enemies' feeling.

@Johan

Good questions:

- How are the radio comms? I read that wingman commands appear to be working inconsistently. Is there any interaction with ground control? Can we at least get wind information from the tower? Do flights use separate callsigns? Also, how are the voices?

Success with radio comms is intermittent. I have flown mostly ground attack, tried the various commands, sometimes the wingmen attack, other times they just follow me around the sky. Rarely if ever do they use up all their bombs/rockets despite ample ground targets around them.

You can see all the key commands here: http://bobgamehub.blogspot.dk/2014/11/keyboard-command-list-battle-of.html

There are no commands for requesting takeoff or landing permission. As you approach an airfield it will fire a white flare to indicate you are safe to land. I have never seen other than a white flare, even when there are crashed AI aircraft on the runway.

The GUI gives you wind information if you enable it. Your flight has a callsign. I haven't noticed if others do. The voices are minimal in my opinion, they certainly don't bother me, but some players have asked in forums how to turn them off - I don't think there is a command for that yet.

- Can aircraft have individual ID markings? I understand that BoS does not use a decal system, but is it at least possible to assign individual skins to your wingmen in pre-flight?

No to all. Game decides what skins your wingmen will fly with. Default 'winter' seems to be the norm.

- Does the AI try to disengage when out of fuel/ammo or when it is at a severe disadvantage?

Have not seen this but have not tried much dogfighting. In ground attack sorties wingmen are rarely out of fuel/ammo as I said.

On the subject of disengaging when damaged, AI with engine damage, streaming oil, smoke, fuel vapour, will continue to stay in formation as long as their engine holds out, and only when the engine fails will they fall from formation. So my feeling is that the AI does not pay sufficient attention to damage state and RTB if badly damaged.

Others welcome to contribute their observations!

H

What a stupid response.

I clearly stated that I'm evaluating the stock games. To then say "but with 3rd party it's so much better" when you then blast BoS for having crap stock is the ultimate stupidity. Either you compare apples to apples or you don't. Since BoS doesn't yet have any 3rd party stuff, I'd say your observations are pretty void in this area too. Maybe you should do something about that?

So no previous Il-2 had a decent stock SP experience, it had to be buoyed by 3rd party missions and campaigns, but "OMG BoS has crap stock!" and you don't see this as the least bit ridiculous? Of course you don't, you don't need facts to validate your irrational like of one product and irrational dislike of another, your mind is made up. Tell me this statement is wrong: There is no argument anyone can make that will convince you BoS is good or that Il-2 46 isn't great. No? Of course not, because you're in love with Il-2 46 and place a low priority on its flaws and emphasize what it did right, while at the same time you hate BoS and place a low priority on what it does right and emphasize its flaws.
Lack of SP content in Il-2 46? That's ok, look at all these 3rd party things! Thumbs up!
Lack of SP content in BoS? That's unforgivable, it's a mess, thumbs down!


And to reiterate I don't bother with 3rd party campaigns or missions because I don't have time. I don't have time to scour the internet looking at this fan site or that trying to find a campaign with 3 lousy votes averaging 2.5 to figure out if it's good or not. I fly sims maybe 3 hrs/week, if I'm lucky. If I spend half that time looking for 3rd party content, then I'm not flying, am I? I have a job, I have a family, I have many demands on my time.

If the developers can't be bothered to give a decent SP experience, how is it then the burden of the players and the community to make up the shortfall to provide one and hunt down that content and install it themselves?


Oh wait, isn't that what you just said is WRONG with BoS but RIGHT with Il-2 46?




The Jedi Master

Yet I do. The fact that none do anymore is not acceptable, and I don't care for static campaigns anyway. I have a good memory, I don't like flying the same mission more than once. Even today I can replay a game from 10 years ago and remember "Oh yeah, when we go around this corner we're going to get ambushed". I like a good dynamic campaign generator in a sim, and that ED hasn't had one for its sims for 20 years now is still a major irritant. The one in Il-2 was just ok, it wasn't great.


The Jedi Master

Facts! who needs them. Subjective views are so much more fun

In terms of third party mods, I have but one question. Will I be able to put a swastika on my german aircraft?

Well in its Forgotten Battles incarnation Il-2 did have a "dynamic" multiplayer campaign and a simple interface for people to connect their own campaign engines, currently BoS has neither. I find this worrying, but there's still hope and we should know more shortly.

Now commands have a graphical interface, command be F# keys, besides the Alt+key shortcut.
But as RoF "heritage", no Tower communication.

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/12435-developer-diary-part-84-discussion/

Dude, that actually drives me nuts. Not so much that they aren't there, but that there is the stupid outside of the thing on the planes. It looks ridiculous.

/\
\/

If Red Baron could have a campaign that was continuous from mission to mission, then we should certainly expect serious combat flight sims to ship with a good dynamic campaign generator today.

Its unfortunate that the current sim developers seem to have a very poor understanding of game development.

DCS, BoS, CloD (with TF), and the old IL2 all are technically excellent from the sim point of view but completely devoid of immersive game elements.

Wouldn't it be great if BoS had a campaign that tracked pilots in your squadron, morale and supply levels, damaged aircraft that could be repaired overtime? The ability to manage your resources to meet the task at hand? Could be great if you imagine it trying to keep your squadron operable in the face of wartime shortages and loses.

But alas the only time I can ever get into the state of immersion (odd that something that aims to simulate a real life situation should ignore this) is in the multiplayer aspects. Which is not to say that I am totally focused on multiplayer its that single player is just so ignored.

I don't mean the above as an attack on developers. Their own situation of resources and priorities is what it is.

I totally agree. I think a lot of that comes from the constant push for perfectly accurate aircraft that often takes the fidelity well beyond the point of diminishing returns. A lot of modern flight sims feel like a great switch flipping/aerodynamics simulator, but you get the impression everything beyond your cockpit suffered for it. While doing a full start up and that level of detail is cool, I personally don't think the push for that extreme level of accuracy actually adds that much to the game relative to the work.

I'd much rather have Flaming Cliffs level aircraft and have the game focus on doing just the core aircraft systems accurately. Leaving development resources for better SP content and better simulation of the world outside the plane rather than have more DCS like experience which focuses more on flying the plane over the combat. I like DCS and other high accuracy sims, but it's hard to stick with any period of time as once you've flipped all the switches and get up in the air, it tends to quickly feel limited in interacting with the rest of the world and in content. Linear campaigns quickly get very repetitive.

However, with flight sim fans being quick to scream bloody murder if a rivet is out of place, I don't think priorities will change as that's what people seem to want.

+1

This is really well stated and I think why IL-2 1946 is considered by many to still be the best WWII combat flight sim. It strikes a balance between rivets & switches and game play. Clod is too narrow in scope to claim that title and has now been essentially abandoned. TF has done a wonderful job with Clod but can only take it so far without access to the source code. BoS isn't even trying to be a combat flight sim by definition from the developers and you can't be something you don't aspire to be.

The Dark Horse could be DCS WWII. Now seeing that BoS isn't in the combat flight sim business ED may take a new view of the market opportunities for WWII.

Re CLOD. if 'only so far' is new theaters and aircraft. Then 'only so far' is pretty damn good