MJ I agree with every single word in your analysis of how a combat unit should perform. However, it lacks the fun factor and that's the point where I start to disagree.
I WANT to be able to move in close and personal, have bloody firefights that end up in our victory, I WANT to be able to take risks that would get any real-life team leader court martialed if not shot by his subordinates and live to tell the tale in the debriefing thread. I WANT to have experiences that get the adrenaline rush that no 300-meter-pot-shot-engagements-with ACOGs would yield.
The missions we like to play would have NEVER been approved by any sane military leadership because they would have been declared suicidal. I bet my ass that the British Army will never order your outfit to storm a fortified position with enemy that outnumber your force 4 to 1, without massive artillery and aerial support that thin out the resistance and shrink it to ratios in favor of your force, and thanks heavens and the Queen for that. But the scenarios that often unfold in real life are no fun to play. Well, only if things go wrong, the intelligence is bad and suddenly all those GBUs the Air Force promised never get dropped.
So why do we play such scenarios? Correcto mundo! Because they are FUN. Well, let me correct that, they are fun only if the resistance allows you to play the thin line between what would be reckless in real life but fun in the game world. In coop nights, and I speak for myself now, it used to be that way, and I feel that it no longer does. All I want is the experience we had about two months ago and before. Did the AI back then allowed us to play recklessly at times? It certainly had. Was it more fun though? Oh, yes it was. I don't want to stick to military discipline to win missions. I prefer to lose 4 missions and win 6 when going close and personal in all of them than winning all 10 because we played cautiously.
But even if I look at what bothered me last night, I still find completely unrealistic behaviors. The AI clearly fires off 40mm grenades and doesn't even wait to see if the impact and correct accordingly. It just fires one after the other in succession with very good accuracy. Honestly, I would have never cared if we were any close to being that good with grenades, but we don't. The AI is extremely better than us at that, the gap is not marginal. If we want to play any reasonable scenarios in terms of fun, the AI can NEVER be better than us. Unfortunately, it was always better in certain aspects but these damn grenades really top it off.
If the current AI remains flawed, the following options are available:
I'm sorry for excessively bitching last night, but it frustrates me so much that coop starts to be an exercise in anger control and not the fun activity I'm used to do twice a week.
I WANT to be able to move in close and personal, have bloody firefights that end up in our victory, I WANT to be able to take risks that would get any real-life team leader court martialed if not shot by his subordinates and live to tell the tale in the debriefing thread. I WANT to have experiences that get the adrenaline rush that no 300-meter-pot-shot-engagements-with ACOGs would yield.
The missions we like to play would have NEVER been approved by any sane military leadership because they would have been declared suicidal. I bet my ass that the British Army will never order your outfit to storm a fortified position with enemy that outnumber your force 4 to 1, without massive artillery and aerial support that thin out the resistance and shrink it to ratios in favor of your force, and thanks heavens and the Queen for that. But the scenarios that often unfold in real life are no fun to play. Well, only if things go wrong, the intelligence is bad and suddenly all those GBUs the Air Force promised never get dropped.
So why do we play such scenarios? Correcto mundo! Because they are FUN. Well, let me correct that, they are fun only if the resistance allows you to play the thin line between what would be reckless in real life but fun in the game world. In coop nights, and I speak for myself now, it used to be that way, and I feel that it no longer does. All I want is the experience we had about two months ago and before. Did the AI back then allowed us to play recklessly at times? It certainly had. Was it more fun though? Oh, yes it was. I don't want to stick to military discipline to win missions. I prefer to lose 4 missions and win 6 when going close and personal in all of them than winning all 10 because we played cautiously.
But even if I look at what bothered me last night, I still find completely unrealistic behaviors. The AI clearly fires off 40mm grenades and doesn't even wait to see if the impact and correct accordingly. It just fires one after the other in succession with very good accuracy. Honestly, I would have never cared if we were any close to being that good with grenades, but we don't. The AI is extremely better than us at that, the gap is not marginal. If we want to play any reasonable scenarios in terms of fun, the AI can NEVER be better than us. Unfortunately, it was always better in certain aspects but these damn grenades really top it off.
If the current AI remains flawed, the following options are available:
- We change our tactics dramatically, start to play cautiously in ways that resemble real life military operations
- We switch the missions we play from small unit operations to more traditional sane military ones, with closer to 1:1 enemy-friendly ratios.
- We keep on playing the way it is now and live with it.
I'm sorry for excessively bitching last night, but it frustrates me so much that coop starts to be an exercise in anger control and not the fun activity I'm used to do twice a week.
The fewer men, the greater share of honor