Why didn't games like World in Conflict retain popularity?

[Stark]

Shep believes it takes 'too long' to capture points. It's funny, because it takes zero time - once you have a guy on each pad, the point is captured. It takes time to 'fortify' each point, which is quite hilarious given his ignorant posting. Fortifying is even faster the more players contribute units to the risky 'on-pad' area!

He's so poorly informed (and handwaves this away as saying it's been a long time, lol) that he thinks he can hide is complete ignorance of how to play behind trolling. Yes, the game tells you when points change status. So what? He can't have it both ways; if this colour change on the map is a terrible thing, the enemy must have no units in LOS so there's no local threat, and the artillery is easy to avoid by the simple expedent of NOT LEAVING GOOD UNITS ON THE PADS. People use trucks and jeeps for fortifying for a reason, after all. He's so stupid he doesn't understand that the enemy CAN'T constantly drop TA on the pads you capture - and it takes more than 10s for them to arrive anyway so they'll miss if you're not an idiot - so when they blow up your guys (surely a dickshrinking event for blustering Sheppoo) they just spent more TA than they earned. Remember, moving off the pad immeditately DOESN'T WORK. Guys, remember that?

I hear infantry sucks, too, and hiding in forests DOESN'T WORK either. Right Shep?

Anyway, the 'pad reset' time is irrelevant to being killed by TA due to map colour change (since anyone in range to exploit it would have LOS anyway and thus you'd expect them to call attacks on you regardless). Turns out he is an idiot who can't get his story straight.

His stupid criticisms of inf and support are simply his broken inability to accept that IT'S A GAME. It's NOT A MILITARY SIMULATION. A war against Russia wouldn't be decided by ownership of randomly place glowing circles either. The amount of airstrikes you can call down isn't really limited by the number of points you earn. The roles aren't reflected in the 1985 US Amry TO&E, THEREFORE GAME IS BAD! Who gives a fuck? It's a fast, team-based, tactical RTS. The accuracy of it's military organisation is TOTALLY IRRELEVANT, and whining on about how HAA can't shoot down TA is just hilarous myopia. Oh sorry, is that a purely cosmetic effect that you don't like because you keep getting raped by TA because you never bothered to learn how to play the game or work with a team?

At least he finally posted so everyone could laugh at him, instead of impotently IM'ing people like he has been for days.

Hawx, current status is that out-of-role penalty is massively reduced these days. It's irrelevant, since APCs suck shit and you're way better off getting air guys to do choppers, but you don't need to rely on teamwork anymore. That'd be too hard for fatty nerds that complain about the shape of the commander's cupola on the T-80U.

[Vanas]

Oh, I really need to reinstall WiC now I've got a better PC. Sure, I'll still suck, but I'll suck in high-res.

Liked playing infantry despite the fact they had no ablity to get around realistically other than hoof it. Always quite amusing watching helicopters get plinked by those diddy little stingers.Or watching guys reverse their tanks down a road straight into AT alley.

It's that or play support and use Med Arty and repair. Make friends and incinerate people.

[Darmalus]

I remember WiC was a great screensaver. Set up a game with AI vs AI and just watch.

Is there a way to control what units the AI deploys? I try to set up AI vs AI games just to watch while I do other, more boring non-computer things, but all I ever get are 2 AIs that spam armor units forever.

[Stark]

Yeah, hiding infantry in copses (or building) - which Shep claims doesn't work - was great for choppers, since players would park over a forest (safe from HAA) and then move their camera around looking for a target, so they wouldn't notice the stingers coming up every now and again. The reload in stingers is much longer now, so I'm not sure how effective it is. Infantry is great fun, it just takes a different mindset and tactics to play. I think my highest score was as infantry; snipers and infantry squads are a licence to print TA if the enemy is stupid. JSF had one guy human-waving into two of his snipers over and over again across open ground... ahhh...

Is it ironic that people are talking about tactics, little bits of teamwork, rear-exploitation, breakthrough assaults etc, and the milwanker in the thread is just complaining about trivia?

[Stark]

Is there a way to control what units the AI deploys? I try to set up AI vs AI games just to watch while I do other, more boring non-computer things, but all I ever get are 2 AIs that spam armor units forever.

I played a game yesterday and you can choose AI bot players now (not sure when it was introduced) so you can set up each bot in a role. Making everyone infantry with a few armour players would be interesting.

The bot are fucking good too, really good with TA placement prediction.

[CaptHawkeye]

Jesus Christ, I totally forgot WiC had AI bots for gameplay. They were so worthless in the early days of the game, but they fixed them? If they're good i'll probably just exclusively play with the bots forever. Unless that silly STERK or Jello Shortcake Flan ever feel like playing again.

[Stark]

They're so good I can't beat them, even when I'm in a team of bots. You can set basic AI parameters (aggressive, defensive, balance, obedient) but they use everything, they work together, they respond to q-menu, etc. Their pathing is a bit broken (an infantry AI had two units running in circles just outside a cap point while my airbourne sat on the other one waiting to cap so they could hide again) but generally it's good. They're almost as good at aiming AT-strikes as JSF.

[Serafina]

There were only two things that annoyed me in WiC:

-Buildings were next to useless. It was annoying that they were destroyable so easily (no such thing as an half-destructed building) and provided no bonusses at all once they were destroyed (no, you can not hide in huge piles of rubble). It was way too easy to capture an village hold by infantry: Send a scout (say, a scout copter) and drop gas on it. Or use a single heavy artillery to destroy the buildings held by infantry.

-No such thing as mechanized infantry. Really, i would have loved the option to utilise mechanized or air-mobile infantry.
But it was way to complicated and/or expensive. Oh, and those tranport helicopters could need some kind of weapon.


But then again, i do not think that World in Conflict was an totally innovative game in the first place.
The only original thing were the TAs and multiplayer roles - othwise, it was pretty standard.

[Stark]

1) They're not useless at all, you just need agility. There's no CoH cover system, which is a shame, but it's no big deal (and the game has no 'cover' anyway, only line-of-sight). If you're dropping gas on infantry you're daft; just use AT strikes to destroy whole rows of buildings. A single heavy arty probably won't destroy any given building in it's area.

2) This is funny because the game I just played against 8 infantry AI, they ALL USED MECH INFANTRY. I use Med AA as armour all the time, and buy jeeps as support. The option you 'would love' is already in the game. Oh wait, you want it to be cheaper! Just admit you don't want to have to talk to other players.

Explain how it's standard. Explain how it's the same as, say, Command and Conquer. Of course it's not 'totally innovative'; it built on Ground Control and GC2, and clearly took ideas from Battlefield 1942. It's ironic that the same people who say WiC 'isn't innovative' are the ones who demand changes to make it more like generic games. Remove roles! Give transports guns! Put cover in like CoH! I don't want to learn how this game works, make it like this other game I'm already good at!

[MKSheppard]

He's so poorly informed (and handwaves this away as saying it's been a long time, lol)

That might have something to do with my copy of WIC currently residing with a friend in South Carolina since at least December '08.

[Darmalus]

Now that I figured out what I was doing wrong setting up the AI vs AI fights, I'm having a great time just swooping around with the camera. It is also interesting to see how the AI uses the various units in multi player. I am still working my way through the campaign, but I can already see that none of my single player tactics would get me anywhere in multi player.

[CaptHawkeye]

The single player campaign teaches you absolutely nothing about the units or TA in MP. The units actually have their stats drastically altered in the campaign in order to fit the stupid plot.

[Darmalus]

The single player campaign teaches you absolutely nothing about the units or TA in MP. The units actually have their stats drastically altered in the campaign in order to fit the stupid plot.

That means I got two different games for the price of one. Score!

[Stark]

That might have something to do with my copy of WIC currently residing with a friend in South Carolina since at least December '08.

Wow thanks for clearing up how everything you posted was either flat out wrong or just an example of your inflexible and ignorant thinking. You showed me!

I'm glad everyone else has sorted the bots in MP though - I have no idea when they were introduced, but you can play any sort of game you want now. This morning I played a 7INF, 1SUP match in the new Mekong Delta map, and it was great fun burning infantry. Sadly, the AI -wasn't- smart enough to realise there would be no choppers and at one point deployed a pair of HAA, which is a shame - but the Infantry guys didn't use snipers either, even though the map really called for it. Still, a shitload better than it was before and it means you can play a match with 4-5 mates without having to be assraped by clanner wankers.

The SP is actually kinda bad as a lead-in to multi; it's really quite misleading with the sizes and costs of TA, unit balance etc. I think SP balance has never been changed, so that's how the game was at v1.0.

[Sea Skimmer]

World In Conflict would have been way more interesting if they'd included a combat engineer excavator that could dig anti tank ditches (we can avoid needing bridgelayers, cool as that would be, by simply making tanks cross the ditch really slow) and hull defilade holes for vehicles to hide in. Also plow paths through forests. Better yet that should have been an entire class, which can also setup barbed wire and rows of surface laid mines and dig a narrow trench for infantry to hide in. That way a team can gamble on having a player with no direct combat assets at all spending some time to truly fortify a position other then a damn capture circle. All of this would also serve to reinforce the need for intelligent use of TA as well as team tactics.

Also infantry should have always come with an M113 or MTLB as minimal transport to making mobile and amphibious, even if a 1980s M113 can’t swim anymore.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

World In Conflict would have been way more interesting if they'd included a combat engineer excavator that could dig anti tank ditches (we can avoid needing bridgelayers, cool as that would be, by simply making tanks cross the ditch really slow) and hull defilade holes for vehicles to hide in. Also plow paths through forests. Better yet that should have been an entire class, which can also setup barbed wire and rows of surface laid mines and dig a narrow trench for infantry to hide in. That way a team can gamble on having a player with no direct combat assets at all spending some time to truly fortify a position other then a damn capture circle. All of this would also serve to reinforce the need for intelligent use of TA as well as team tactics.

Also infantry should have always come with an M113 or MTLB as minimal transport to making mobile and amphibious, even if a 1980s M113 can’t swim anymore.

Such a role simply would not work very well - anything that sits still for any length of time in WiC will have precision airstrikes and artillery all over it in moments. Sure these defences could increase the damage resistance of the units in them - but that just means it will take a few seconds longer for them to be inevitably destroyed.

The ability to lay mines would be useful - but they would probably slow the game down significantly; any time someone captured a control point they would immediately plaster it with mines, meaning most control points would require the attacking players to also remove any enemy mines from them, which could be pretty tedious under fire.

You can actually clear a path through forests though - just use a napalm strike to burn away the section needed.

[Stark]

It's funny when people demand features for 'realism' (in an tts lol) or just to suit what they 'want' without thinking at all about how it would work. Yes, let's make WiC slow and tedious and introduce another role nobody will understand for ... Well ... No reason. It's MilWanky! Lol. A TA that deployed mines might be fine (I doubt it) but a whole role? Laughable.

Similarly, demanding infantry should just 'come with' transport shows a disregard for how the points costs work especially compared to effectiveness. They already can buy the stuff, they're basically identical to trucks anyway. No it should be free, because that's More Real which is always better in games.

None of that matters. Just add in military trivia nonsense for REALISM and the game will be better! SOMEHOW

[RogueIce]

So, I don't know where else to put it and since this sort of turned into a general WiC discussion anyway, I figure I'll ask here.

Anyone know how a 64MB GeForce 4 MX 440 with AGP8X would work with it? I realize my video card is probably from the Dark Ages and that I obviously won't be running on high-end graphics settings, but people mentioned it "scales down" well so I'm wondering if it can do so in this case. All my other specs meet or exceed the requirements.

[Uraniun235]

I really don't think it scales down that far. The 4 MX series was pretty underpowered even in its day (it was slower than Geforce 3), and that day was seven years ago.

[Thanas]

So, I don't know where else to put it and since this sort of turned into a general WiC discussion anyway, I figure I'll ask here.

Anyone know how a 64MB GeForce 4 MX 440 with AGP8X would work with it? I realize my video card is probably from the Dark Ages and that I obviously won't be running on high-end graphics settings, but people mentioned it "scales down" well so I'm wondering if it can do so in this case. All my other specs meet or exceed the requirements.

It needs a 128mb graphics card memory minimum.

[JointStrikeFighter]

You basicly need a 6 series card to play.

[Sea Skimmer]

[quote="Aaron Ash]
Such a role simply would not work very well - anything that sits still for any length of time in WiC will have precision airstrikes and artillery all over it in moments. Sure these defences could increase the damage resistance of the units in them - but that just means it will take a few seconds longer for them to be inevitably destroyed.[/quote]

So, that disadvantage would be different from the near worthless fortifications you can build already or garrisoning buildings how exactly? At least this way you can actually put things where they make sense defensively, not something one can often say for the little fortifications you already get which are often built in the worst possible arrangement.

A simple hole should make infantry and tanks near immune to any kind of area weapon except maybe cluster bombs anyway. That’s kind of the point.

The ability to lay mines would be useful - but they would probably slow the game down significantly; any time someone captured a control point they would immediately plaster it with mines, meaning most control points would require the attacking players to also remove any enemy mines from them, which could be pretty tedious under fire.

Or sacrifice units to explode them if you need to hurry in the glorious traditions of communist and islamic armies. I was thinking that mine related kills would not credit the user with TA, or only a minimal amount of it.

[MKSheppard]

They already can buy the stuff, they're basically identical to trucks anyway. No it should be free, because that's More Real which is always better in games.

I see that fanwhore Stark left out the fact that armored transports aren't classed for an infantry player, same as with helicopters -- meaning that while you CAN buy them; you have to pay an inflated price to get them which reduces the total number of units you can field -- which is important in WIC's kill-fest-athon.

I suppose you COULD team up with a tank player; but in my experience with WIC and Red Orchestra; players are total shitcocks, so you're better off buying your own organic Armored Transports or Helicopters. Plus Armored Transports are more heavily armored and armed than trucks; having creditable anti armor and anti infantry power.

None of that matters. Just add in military trivia nonsense for REALISM and the game will be better! SOMEHOW

That's an awful mighty big strawman you're fucking there, Stark, considering how me or Skimmer haven't bitched about some of the more really absurd things in WIC, realism wise.

[MKSheppard]

What really killed WIC in the end, I think -- was that the sides weren't interesting enough -- all you had basically was a set of different 3d models for each side; with only marginal differences in each side; like the medium tank can fire a WP shell for the allied player, and a HE Shell for the Soviets; stuff like that.

Even C&C 1 back in 1994 had more interesting and varied sides, and it would have been trivially easy to make the two sides different in WIC by looking at the specialist units that the US or Soviets fielded in that phase of the cold war.

[defanatic]

What really killed WIC in the end, I think -- was that the sides weren't interesting enough -- all you had basically was a set of different 3d models for each side; with only marginal differences in each side; like the medium tank can fire a WP shell for the allied player, and a HE Shell for the Soviets; stuff like that.

This was probably my only gripe with the game. It had great particle effects, cool gameplay ideas, pretty fun multiplayer, but shit all faction diversity. I know that faction diversity is 'going with the flow' and uninnovative and stuff like that, but would it have killed them to have had a decent amount?

I might dig it up later, it's been a while since I last played.