Suggestion: forget multiplayer focus on sim for single player

[Danelov]

What I dont like specially in MP is some types of crazy things. Some examples of my experiences:

-I have finded Zeros over Stalingrad

-Battle of Britain with players in P-47 Thunderbolt.

-In some mission V-VS vs Luftwaffe , 90% of the Luftwaffe(blue) pilots were in Yak-3s.

-FW 190s in combat patrol over Okinawa.

Etc, etc, etc

Exactly for that I prefer Single Player, correct and historical accurate.

[robtek]

Originally Posted by Danelov

What I dont like specially in MP is some types of crazy things. Some examples of my experiences:

-I have finded Zeros over Stalingrad

-Battle of Britain with players in P-47 Thunderbolt.

-In some mission V-VS vs Luftwaffe , 90% of the Luftwaffe(blue) pilots were in Yak-3s.

-FW 190s in combat patrol over Okinawa.

Etc, etc, etc

Exactly for that I prefer Single Player, correct and historical accurate.

That, you find ONLY on Air-Quake (TM) Servers!
Those are worlds apart from Mission-oriented Servers and usually have WW-View (TM) enabled.

[Blackdog_kt]

I think csThor is being a bit too negative towards MP. I've only ever flown in a couple of full switch servers back when we didn't have CoD yet, but i didn't see so much of a problem with player attitude.

Yes, it exists to a certain degree and yes, some times concessions have to be made to get a level playing field for everyone, but that doesn't mean it's completely ahistorical. I think csThor just had some bad luck and happened to encounter more of it than i did

On the other hand, there are also MP fans who are too dismissive of the SP aspect and i disagree with them as well.

The way i see it is very simple:
SP is for getting a realistic depiction of a theater of operations and realistic behavioral patterns of air forces and pilots on a strategic and tactical level, for example RAF flying in Vic formation early on in the battle or Luftwaffe ignoring the airfields and going after London later on. It's for things like orders of battle, stations/squadron placement and mission profiles.

MP is for getting a realistic depiction of pilot behavior within the actual combat engagement. It's for getting a believable set of responses by the guy in front of your guns.

The only way to successfully merge the positive points of both is to fly in a dynamic online campaign with players that will agree to do things like they were done back then even if it gives them a disadvantage. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but good luck maintaining that on a large enough scale to have MP qualify as historically accurate in the majority of cases.

A significant number of people do fly that way in online wars but another significant number fly the way Danelov described and as such, i can't just ignore the statistic and claim MP is accurate by default. MP is as accurate as the players themselves and the mission designer/server host want it to be, in fact, even if the mission designer does set out to do things a certain way it still doesn't work out if the players don't go along with it.

That's the main point csThor is arguing and in that he is entirely correct: the AI will shut up and do as its told within the constraints of its ability, while a human player will do what it takes to win. This is what makes human vs human competition more thrilling but at the same time it results in the RAF not flying in Vic formation ever and the Luftwaffe never changing their targets and keep hammering the airfields: we get believable piloting while the battle/operations in the theater play out in a way completely different to history.

I still like it because a properly orchestrated MP event is the ultimate "what-if time machine" available with today's technology, but it's a far stretch calling it a recreation of the actual battle. It's a recreation of the means used to wage the battle and not the battle itself, because the means end up getting used in a different manner 99% of the time.

I like both SP and MP because they are different, but neither one can give 100% of what's needed in 100% of the cases to be considered the pinnacle of realism. And this is why i don't only consider them equally important (each one tends to complete what's missing from the other one), but i also like to alternate between the two.

[csThor]

My attitude towards MP is the result of four or five years worth of experiences with online gaming. And five more reading various server message boards.

[JG5_emil]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

The only way to successfully merge the positive points of both is to fly in a dynamic online campaign with players that will agree to do things like they were done back then even if it gives them a disadvantage. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but good luck maintaining that on a large enough scale to have MP qualify as historically accurate in the majority of cases.

A significant number of people do fly that way in online wars but another significant number fly the way Danelov described and as such, i can't just ignore the statistic and claim MP is accurate by default. MP is as accurate as the players themselves and the mission designer/server host want it to be, in fact, even if the mission designer does set out to do things a certain way it still doesn't work out if the players don't go along with it.

Well said!

It has been many years that I played the online wars in IL2 but they were fantastic until it just got crazy competitive with people using every exploit they could in order to win. There were people reading the mission files so they could see data they weren't meant to, then there was the stupid use of smoke and landing lights it utterly ruined the aspects that I loved which was to get the best of both worlds with a dynamic campaign but with human piloted aircraft.

There is no getting away from the fact that the diversity of human pilot skill and the fact that we all make mistakes is superior to any AI but then human nature will always try to find short cuts and exploits in order to win. This is what makes flying against humans so great but so frustrating.

I think they shouldn't focus on one or the other but at the same time they should be smart. The community can and will do a better job that the devs in certain areas (missions, campaigns, online wars etc) which is why the tools must be there for them to get on with it. I think they should just keep focused on the game play aspects, FM/DM, fixing things that are broken and making it possible that both on and offline pilots can have a good experience.

So if the community is to make offline campaigns then maybe there needs to be stats and medals etc for the offliners and the AI must be as good as possible. Obviously for the onliners they need the MP to be fixed and then make it possible for wars and coops etc.

[ATAG_Doc]

Oh no! I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. LOL

[Rattlehead]

Both are important. I don't see why it should be an either/or situation.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by SNAFU

Well, Life is always a trade-off and so is playing this game. But in my opinion, the focus of the development should lie on the sandbox and the tools, enabling the community to provide the needs of the players - singleplayer and multiplayer. And with the new system, in which AI controlled aircrafts are more or less the backbone of the theatre, the issues to be worked out, are easy to find. Therefore I would not sperate MP here - SP there, I would focus on the common intersection of both elements.

In 1946 there were little chances to experience tactical engagements of player groups, acting as a team as you would guess a wing or "staffel" would have done in real. Those experience were mostly restricted to coop-online-wars like AFW, VOW, SEOW and the like. AI was an integral part of this immersion, simply because you cannot fill a server with enough minded players. But that was also the setback of the system. You had to wait for the players to join and get ready and if you only have one hour sparetime to play, you don´t want to spent this hour in the lobby, waiting for the ranks to fill. Now, we have the possibility to fill a map, with randomly happening missions and I believe and I am going to test, if it is possible to build a map and missions in a way, that the lone wolf pilot, taking off to shoot something will not find his satisfaction on that server. I am gathering information at the moment, to rebuilt the english channel outfit of german and british airfields, with the correct squadrons and airplanes for time frames I set to monthes as a trade-off. So there is a map for May, June, July, August and September, on which the palyers can only take off from airfields with the plane of the squadron which was actually operating from this airfield in that time frame. I found out that it is not easy to get accurate data for the planes which were flown at the accurate time, but as I said, there must be trade offs. One problem which I am facing is, that acutally bomber airfields are not even available on the current map. The next step would be to design realistic submissions for this maps, which reflect the everyday life of a fighter/bomber pilot that days in the given constrains. And so AI is here again the backbone of the happening. The goal is to provide a server, which enables virtual squads to operate and train in a surrounding, in which flights have to be planned, lead and navigated as closly as possible to what is necessary to give the best immersion into the time simulated. Due to the wide spread theatre, the long flight times and the nature of the missions. it should be unlikely to meet a lone wolf player just looking for the next trigger action. This is what I and my squadmates are aiming at and want to realize some day. I expect such a server design to lead to a rather rarely visited server, but our main focus will lie on the chance for virtual squads to have a ground for organized flights and training with or against other virtual squads, without having to wait for coops to fill.

I also like the airquake severs for some occasionally fun-action, but I simply missed in 1946 a FR server, orientating on historically circumstances on which groups could experience an inch of immersion without having to build a coop mission, and now we have the chance to integrate coop-like missions into a server with randomized enviromental hazards, which is great and just needs to be optimized. The rest, dynamic, static campaigns for SP, Career mode etc. can be provided by the community I am sure, the developer should focus and the frame work, tools and stability.

That was exactly my point and i'm glad you explained it in more detail.

The new engine makes no distinction between MP,SP,DF or Coop, it's all based on the same underlying code, so let's just focus on the sandbox tools and the rest will come together nicely.

Like it's already been said there's a trade off in all of this: complexity is increased and to do the new features justice there's a learning curve involved with the new FMB and scripts so it will take some time before we start seeing creative use of the supplied tools, but just the fact that we can do so much more makes it worthwhile in my personal opinion.

[skouras]

i fly everyday online and its amazing
but personally i want singleplayer most
more campaigns and missions please

[Feathered_IV]

Voted SP.