Plane unlocks in single player - now more relevant than ever
 

G'day Anton and crew,

I _love_ BoP, it's easily the game I've enjoyed most this year (and that's up against some very good games, including inFamous, Motorstorm:Pacific Rift, Killzone 2, and plenty others, which I all enjoyed a lot). I've been playing a lot of the online as well, mainly for fun but also because I'm both a big fan of planes and don't mind a dash of trophy-hunting as well. However, after spending almost three days solid (I kid you not, over 20 hours in the last four days, a lot of that time in European and US evening times) trying to get into games, I'm giving up on chasing all the planes (let alone the loadouts), as ?t's just not possible to get a fraction of the games needed without a lot of luck or an unreasonable dedication to the game. I've got some mates over here which I'll set up games with every now and again, but while we like trophies, we're not 'boosters', so we have no interest in playing a lot of three-minute games just to get a specific plane (and it'd feel cheap anyways).

In this context, is there a way of patching BoP so that the planes (in particular) and loadouts (if possible ;)) will be unlocked after finishing certain missions on certain difficulty settings? You can always make the harder unlocks only available to hard missions completed on Sim (although please make them possible ;)). I would _love_ to have a crack at flying and landing the B-17 on sim (this is the standout unlockable that I'm missing, although I wouldn't mind giving the Spit MkXVI a run either), or just doing a few random bombing runs on the training mission, or using it in some games with my mates, but as it stands, it's almost impossible (not hard - impossible, because the games aren't there) to get access to it. Indeed, at the moment it's considerably easier and more possible to unlock the highest-tier cars on Gran Turismo 3 and 4 (racing games that require a lot of dedication and skill to unlock all the cars) than get to some of the lower-end planes and loadouts on BoP.

In terms of the games, what happens is:
- you sit around in a room for 10-20 minutes waiting for people to show up.
- about half the time, one person joins, then leaves 30 seconds later.
- sometimes they hang around, and you play a 1v1 - if you start winning, they quit out. If you lose, it's a fun game, but you're no closer to the B-17 or whatever else you're chasing.
- on a very few occasions, you get a good crowd 6-10). When this happens about 15% of the time, or the game crashes out, 60% of the time one side or the other is completely dominant and half (or more) of the losing side quit out. Yes, the other 25% of the time you get a good entertaining game, but it's just impractical and illogical to spend that much time and effort waiting for a game that has such a small chance of working out.
- and, if you make some friends on BoP, and want to play with them, everyone sees you teaming up for the one side and bugs out quicker than you can say boo.

Now I'm not dissing the game - it's got enough in single-player to make it an absolute classic, but it'd be really good to be able to get to the planes, and also not have the trophy hunting skewed by a multiplayer setup that just isn't working at a scale that makes it practical to chase the planes and loadouts without getting a mate and 'boosting' - which kinda defeats the point. Am also noting that in another post you've pointed out that you can't change the multiplayer setup because the server is outside of your control, hence why I'm asking for single-player unlocks - would much prefer fixed MP (it's really good fun when it works :)), but understand that may not be possible, whereas patching the unlocks is likely a lot easier. Also, now that we're a couple of weeks past launch, it's likely that a lot of the people who have been turned off multiplayer won't be coming back, which means that other than specific organised games organised, finding general games in IL-2 is going to become harder and harder, even if it was fixed overnight and was perfect from here on in.

And it's not the end of the world if this doesn't happen, I'll still have and love the game, but it doesn't hurt to ask eh? I loved landing the Blenheim on sim, and want to have a crack at that B-17 :).

Note - I've posted this on the 'new' forum, but it looks like most folks are still here.

Completely agree with you. There were a couple of threads on the this last week, but there was no reply from Anton. I'd like to know if they've seen the threads and are considering them.

Something similar happened with Killzone 2 and, after a number of forum posts, all the classes were eventually unlocked for offline play.

Also completely on your side. This game is great, not the single player itself, it is too easy and not enough real. But the multiplayer could be phantastic if there would be players online. So many people have loaded the demo so it can not be that only 5 people bought this game. I hate it, when a game like this goes the bad way. So many guys played IL2 Stormovik on PC why now so less on console. What is the mistake, what is wrong with it ?!!
I see a large,very large potential in this game, hope you too and I hope 1C is able to push this game on top where it should be. To all the players in the air...if you need cannon fodder, take me, I have no problems with beeing shot down a hundred times, but ......stand up and fight.(in realistic mode)

Try this:http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=9875

Hey guys, just letting you know that Pavel (one of the IL-2 game designer) has replied to the 'partner' thread of this on the official forum and says that something will be done. They're not sure what yet, but it's great news nonetheless :). Was very impressed by their responsiveness - there are some great answers to questions about Strike there as well.

Great news! If they were to unlock all the aircraft for SP training at completion of the SP campaign/training missions that would solve the problem.

The Trophy could be left for unlocking the aircraft though MP?

I havent bothered to play online yet, im still going through single player. im a bit intimidated by how complicate simulator mode is.

Give it time CW - also, most people online play arcade or realistic, so no worries there.

In terms of the MP trophy, I think it's silly leaving it as is, because the number of games online at the moment means it's probably one of the hardest trophies I've seen to get, particularly if you're in a non EU/US timezone and not nocturnal. It's also necessary to get the Soviet, Allied and Axis aircraft, or training missions trophy until after you've unlocked it - which means that the issues with online are effectively locking out around 10% of available achievements/trophies other than to the hardcore fans who purchased it and played it to death in the first week or so of release.

too be honest I think the developers have gone a little overboard with the online achievments and plane unlocks.

Ive never been a fan of too many online achievements.
I know devs want to encourage people to play online but I find that achievments and unlocks dictate what modes gamers play and how they play them.

a few online achievments I dont mind but when you have to play a certain number of missions with a specific aircraft to get a specific type of kill (ground or air ) it ruins it because it forces you to play rigidly.

Completely agree with this; for those of us who don't take games online that often (if at all), its becoming more and more common to be unable to properly complete a game.

Aye, completely agree - again, much less worried about the achievements/trophies, than just the ability to be able to get to all the planes (I dream of the B-17!) - and while I think a few things like that can encourage people to try different planes (a trophy for playing an online game with 20 different planes, for instance, would do the same job without turning it into a WoW-like grind), the current setup goes a bit overboard. But I don't think they meant it like that, and if the matchmaking/online setup was better, I'd play the required games to get the planes - when it does work online, it's heaps of fun :).

Excellent OP - behind you 100% (and leading with my sights slightly;) )

I personally think that the match-making and/or server querying is slightly broken. If you look at the leaderboards there appear to be a lot of people actually playing, so where are they...?

I play from 9pm to around 3am GMT, which must equate to 4 to 10pm on the US east coast and 1 to 7pm on the west coast. These are not abnormal playing hours, yet the server list reports no games 80~90% of the time.

Maybe the match-maker splits the community across several servers, so you can only find the sub-set that happen to have been put on your server..? I dunno, but it definitely feels like something is wrong. Which is a shame because this game is great online (once you have a game) and the longevity of a game is made or broken by it's multiplayer (in most instances).

I know that I've played a couple matches against you online. ;)

Sure on your side, try this thread and we can unlock all theese planes together
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=9875

Dude don't spam. And how you wrote that last spam sounded like it was a link to a porn site lol

I hope my smoke didn't get in your eyes too much... ;):grin:

I totally agrre with the OP. I'm a big gamer but really not a fan of online achievements/unlocks. Look at call of duty 2 and 4. Two of the best selling and best playing games ever made and not a single online achievement in sight.

What if your console isn't connected to the net? You can't fly the planes that are on the disc that you paid for. All wrong IMO.

sorry, not my intention. I deleted it.

Great thread Simfex - I'd join ya, but I'm on PS3 ;). But highly recommend doing something like this on both 'sides of the fence' :).

Am I the only one who actually doesn't mind the current unlocks?

Yea they require a lot of work, but at least not everyone will have them. Which gives them an extra value.

Then whats the point of them? Thats a gameplay bias towards online play that some people cant or wont do. Some of the unlocks are just plain rediculous, such as the IL2 starting with no bombs but requiring strike wins to gain. Others are over the top in the amounts required for many players.

The whole point of the game is to be FUN! Its no fun going online and getting creamed every time just because someone else (who may have a lower skill level) has played the game online more and gained (what is effectively) an unfair advatage. The unlocks are not about stroking your e-peen, its supposed to be a reward for dedication to the game.

All these players are asking for is a way to unlock them in single player mode, to allow them a level playing field when going online. Thereby still giving the same dedication to the game as online players.

That's exactly it - I wouldn't mind at all if there was an achievement for 1000 kills, or 200 CTA wins, or something like that, to reward the uber-keen, and give them that sense of accomplishment and elitehood - this isn't about bringing everyone down to the elite few who have the time to spend waiting in lobbies for games - but the planes that can be unlocked are seriously fun planes to fly, and are seriously handy to have in a scrap, and it seems a bit strange that (particularly given the current state of the online) that they're effectively locked off from the vast majority of gamers who are unable to find enough games to play. It also means that the people that got them first are harder to beat, so those that don't have them actually have a harder run of picking them up (try playing strike online if the bombers on your side are He-111s and the bombers on the other are B-17s - all else being equal, you lose, through no fault than your own).

It also creates a terrible incentive to boost. It's against my nature, but I could take turns with a mate to win strike games in 1v1 3 minute battles, and we'd both have the B-17 (or any other plane) far quicker than through normal play. Clearly, it's fair enough to make a friendly suggestion about tweaking the game design to make online a more level playing field and therefore more fun for everyone, and to discourage boosting.

boosting always happens when you've got hard to obtain online achievments or a rank involved.

COD2 didnt have any online achievments and it was fun to play.

I agree with most of it, although I would hate to see that the planes will just be lying there for the taking. I mean, the planes that can be unlocked now through single-player, don't require a difficulty setting higher than arcade, and let's be fair, arcade is easy for most of us. The more valuable planes should be harder to achieve, say, certain Single Missions or Campaign Missions on realistic or even Simulator. This would exclude a certain part of the players, since some are unable or unwilling to complete those missions, but they can just use the online unlocks. These are not so much hard as time consuming. In no way should the planes be available as easily as 'Complete this mission'.

It did, but the CoD's aren't heavily biased against less experienced players - there's no "B-17" strength CoD perk or unlockable weapon, whereas the B-17 in strike is unstoppable, if the other side doesn't have one as well, assuming equal skill and loadouts elsewhere.

And Ancient Seraph, _Fully_ agree - I'd love to have to complete mission/chapter X on difficulty y (sim :D) to unlock Plane Z - deffo not asking for all of the planes on a plate, just making them available at all. I'd much rather a good challenge for it - I'm just looking for a challenge that's practical.

For example, here's some basic maths on the time it'll take to get some of the IL-2 unlocks given the current state of online - estimated time of a game is 15 minutes (about the average, games are split roughly 50/50 at 10 and 20 minutes), and estimating that people will win 50% of them (which, on average the will), and that the time taken in a game that is completed is roughly the same as the time taken in lobbies and in games where the other side quits/there is a DC (so total time is gametime x2, which is around what it's been for me):
B-17 - 100 games at 15 minutes x 2 = 50 hours
He-111H-3 - 20 games at 15 minutes x 2 = 5 hours
IL-4 - 20 games at 15 minutes x 2 = 5 hours
Ju - 87D3 - counts towards B-17, so already counted
Spitfire XVI - Say you average 3 kills a game (probably a little optimistic for most - we're talking about what it takes for the average player to get these unlocks, not Black Death ;)) - so around 17 games, or 8.5 hours
Bf-109G10 - 40 games at 15 minutes x 2 = 20 hours
Fw-190F-8 - 20 games at 15 minutes x 2 = 10 hours
Bf-109K-4 - As per Spitfire XVI, 8.5 hours

So to unlock the planes, assuming average luck and that you can get on enough while there's still a good body of people playing online, you're looking at around 77 hours of play and lobby time.

Then you go onto the loadouts - I won't detail these, but the loadout requirements are far more online-game intensive than the planes. Which gives you a time requirement of probably 200+ hours for planes and loadouts. This is a _huge_ ask, and one of the most time-intensive unlocking processes I have _ever_ seen in a game - most MMOs don't take that long to reach the top level and max out your character. I actually wouldn't mind so much if it wasn't for the fact that around half of that will be time spent sitting and waiting in lobbies, or playing games that end half-way with the other side quitting out - if the online ran you from game to game quickly, and there were appropriate benefits for not quitting/penalties for quitting, you could cut this time in half, but as it stands now (and assuming there's no drop-off in player numbers over time, which is optimistic), unlocking every plane and loadout is a pretty tough ask, and one that is greatly disproportionate to any unlockables set I'm familiar with, particularly given the amount of non-game time that needs to be put in (the game time itself is very, very good :)).

You have over exaggerated to make your case. Nearly every aircraft can be unlocked in a half to a quarter or the time you stated.

I unlocked both the Spifire XVI and BF109K in two evenings and I'm not a great pilot. And I Know people that unlocked the B17 in 6 hours using Arado's, yet you exaggerate that to 50 hours. I also got the BF109G10 in a couple of hours and I have unlocked other aircraft aswell.

You figures are a load of rubbish, nothing takes as long to unlock as you make out.

Also 3 kills average per game, you want to stop playing arcade and move up to realistic, in a 20 minute game you should aim to get about 10 kills.

To get it in 6 hours means tickest are at the lowest (300) and time is set to the minimum (3 mins) and you have to complete 50 games in a bomber.

Realistically...who wants to play a game of strike for 3 mins eh?

answer - anyone who wants the B17 ASAP. :-P

Firstly - these figures are based on my experience - I've got the IL-4, and it _did_ take me about 5 hours. I've spent well above 6 hours now 'working' towards a B-17, and am nowhere near half-way there. I've been playing the game heaps for the last week (at least four hours a day), such that my time online meant I only finished campaign on Sim (which didn't take too long, the transport mission out of Stalingrad was the only one I had any trouble with) yesterday. Any discrepancies in the figures will be due to:
- You playing just after IL-2 was released, when there were presumably more people online.
- 3 minute games (assuming you win half of your bomber games, 3*100 = 300 minutes = 5 hours - 10 minutes games =500 minutes=8 hours and 20 minutes). Now given the setup I have no trouble with you playing 3 minute strike games to get your B-17, but a 3-minute game of strike isn't exactly much of a contest - it's boot up, fly to the target once, drop a couple of bombs and all over (indeed, on Britain flying a Stuka in Realistic or Sim it takes longer than three minutes if you're on Team A to reach the target!)
- Also, unless you set them up yourself, you'll never see a 3-minute match. I haven't come across _one_, in five days of pretty intensive playing (and wouldn't set one up, as refer 10 or 20 minuters myself).
- Spending _no_ time waiting in lobbies. This may be due to you not being in Australia and playing at different times than me - but I guarantee that if you play IL-2 over here at any time outside of 8-10am in the morning, you'll spend a lot of time waiting in lobbies. Last night I was _very_ keen for an online game. There were none open, of course, so I set one up, went and made some toast, came back and someone popped in while I was half-way through eating it and we got an enjoyable 1v1 - this was a relatively quick lobby wait. I generally take a good book with me if I'm going to play BoP online, as without it there's plenty of staring at lobby screens (quite coincidentally, I'm currently reading the chapter on the strategic bombing campaign in his history of WWII!) But this could explain a lot of the discrepancy - my figures are based on equal times in "quality game" and in lobby/game with quitters/DCs. If you play at times when there are plenty online and don't have to wait in lobbies, and play with non-randoms (folk who don't quit when they're losing) this would explain a lot of the difference (with the 3-minute games the rest). But keep in mind that it's not really practical for me to make my IL-2 playing time 5am to 10am over here!
- 10 kills in a 20-minute game?! I'm not sure which BoP you're playing, but in a three 1v1 dogfights on Sim yesterday the most either of us had was 4 kills (and it sure as hell wasn't me - I got 0 kills in the first two games - so a _skilled_ player (edal86) couldn't get your rate of kills (5 in 10 minutes) against someone who's pretty average). On a 20 minute CTA or Strike game on realistic I average 2 kills, and a mate I play with who's actually quite good (which I'm not ;)) hasn't got more than 7 (and he's generally topped the kill count). I've played at least 20, 20-minute realistic games of BoP, and a number of Sim ones, and on not _one_ occasion seen anyone get 10 kills. Is this _really_ the average number of kills for people on both sides of the game, or are you and your mates ganging up and smashing new players?

Sorry but thats not accurate at all. I play Arcade and usually average 5 kills per match in Team Battle. In other modes my kill ratio is much higher which made it much easier to unlock the Spitfire. Strike and CTA are the two modes where its easier to rack up a high kill ratio, what with the bombers in strike and the stationary targets in CTA.

I think the unlocks are to time consuming for MP myself though. Some are plain daft(IL2 unlocks),and some are just a pain in the arse (B-17). They really do need reworking as its creating a heavily biased online experience.

And I'd wager, Lexandro, that you're a better than average player, as 5 kills is definitely not the average number of kills for everyone in any game of Team Battle I've been in. I'm arguing this for the average player, not for the top guns out there ;).

Weeeeeeeelll, not to toot my own horn but I am not to shabby at Arcade.

But I was actually meaning that when I first attempted to go for an unlock it was the Spitfire MkXVI. And I got it without to much fuss overall. And this was when I would considered myself to be "wet behind the ears" (so to speak) for playing BoP online.

It's all good mate, there's nothing wrong with being good at the game ;). You may have played at a time when most were a bit green though, whereas now most players are pretty experienced (I seriously struggle against the experienced ones, but if I find new folk these days, I rip through them pretty easily, which shows a pretty wide spectrum of skill levels playing). But I agree in that the '100 kill' unlocks are the easiest - they only require kills, not wins, and if you look at my time estimates they come in pretty low - if you cut out the lobby wait time (again, I'm guessing this was shorter earlier in the piece), and were a bit over-average, it'd be 3-4 hours of gameplay.