OFF P3 is.....

[+Winder 32]

Guys we have received a few e-mails about OFF being too hard.....

 

We are looking into reducing ground fire accuracy in a patch soon but thought I would hand the floor again to you guys!

 

 

Best

 

WM

[Creaghorn 10]

i chose OK.

perfect for me, as it can be, besides AI's bionic eyes and maybe a bit more unreliable guns.

great support as always from the dev's.

you are the best!

[Siggi 10]

I also chose OK. The only real issue I have with OFF right now is in relation to the clouds. Yesterday I was well clear of the clouds and had one suddenly spawn around me (one second I was in clear sky, the next second I was in a white-out). My plane got tossed about very violently, but no red-out/grey-out and no damage after recovering a couple of thousand feet lower. But as this is an un-fixable issue with Microsoft's code it's a grin & bear deal.

 

Winder, the AA is configurable via WS, but the realism-rating sours it for some I believe. Being brought down by AA should be not so common, without suffering a realism % hit by so making it.

[Hasse Wind 46]

OK from me too. It IS a hard game, but so it should. It's a simulation after all, and as far as I know, the subject it's simulating (WW1 air combat) wasn't easy either. And if one gets tired of constantly losing his pilots when at max realism settings, there's always the option of making the pilots immortal...

 

Fortunately the deadliness of the AA can be reduced, but the realism % does suffer a hit when you do so.

 

Support has been excellent - nowadays far too many games are released with no decent post-release support whatsoever. So keep up the good work! Your hard work is really appreciated. :yes:

[Dej 17]

I chose OK and I'm unanimous in this.

 

Losing pilots on full real settings is tough but a predicted lifespan of 17.5 hours was tough too. This is more than a sim it's an education - bringing the textbooks to life.

 

There are other improvements that can be made but the realism is fine for me. I'd say keep up the excellent work you guys have been doing so far in overcoming the shortfalls of CFS3 and leave the overall configurability of your product as is.

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dej

[Cameljockey 3]

I chose OK and I'm unanimous in this.

 

Losing pilots on full real settings is tough but a predicted lifespan of 17.5 hours was tough too. This is more than a sim it's an education too - bringing the textbooks to life.

 

Gotta go with you there, Dej. Humility is sometimes a good thing. It tends to make me work harder. Having my a$$ handed to me on a platter occasionally brings me down to earth and lets me know that I'm not as good as I thought I was. It's humbling and motivating simultaneously, but the real beauty of it is there's no script. It's like a different game every time I play. Winder and team!

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I voted Ok too..... Though the Ground gunners are a little 'too' accurate (imho) but I would live with that

[Bletchley 8]

I voted OK, but I agree with Creaghorn over the AI's ability to spot enemy aircraft - if it is technically possible to reduce this in a scaleable way (as there is, inevitably, disagreement on what the WWI airman could/could not see and at what range) then this would be great :)

 

Bletchley

[Jammer28 0]

Voted ok.

 

Great, Great, Great sim!!!

 

 

The ups and downs are incredible. Happy (and too cocky sometimes) at the end of one flight with one or more kills, then dead or captured and the end of another. Mad as hell at myself for letting it happen. What did I do wrong? What should I have done differently?

I must say that sometimes I get tensed up at trying to complete a mission such as ground attack, airfield attack or photo recon. It’s a challenge to move around clouds and enemy flights to complete the mission. To me this is way more than a dog fighting sim. I enjoy the mix of missions, even the scrambles. As I’ve stated in another post: This isn’t just a sim, it’s an experience!

Jeez, I could go on and on.

Getting back to the point of the post. My only wish, and not a criticism, is to be able to crash land (and survive) or land with injuries and spend some time in hospital.

I’m ok with everything else.

Great, Great, Great sim!!!

[JohnGresham 0]

I chose ok, no signifcant issues with the game for me. Simply staying airborne in WWI and staying alive was hard enough, never mind the added difficulty of engaing in combat, that's why the average life expectancy of a pilot was so short. In my opinion the game gets it just right. I'd hate to see it degenerate into an arcade shooter.

[Rickitycrate 10]

quote Siggi [Winder, the AA is configurable via WS, but the realism-rating sours it for some I believe. Being brought down by AA should be not so common, without suffering a realism % hit by so making it. ]

quote Jammer28 [My only wish, and not a criticism, is to be able to crash land (and survive) or land with injuries and spend some time in hospital.]

 

Winder, I am in agreement with all the comments so far. The 2 points I quoted could be areas for change. Is there any chance of the tracer enhancement mod being part of a patch? It sounds like the guys that have done it enjoy it but I don't trust myself to muck about in the files. Thanks again for all you've done and continue to do. Best wishes, Jim

[Hauksbee 103]

I'm a QC devotee...but I could not be happier.

[der Falke 0]

Look good P3! but i speak no good englich give in next time a language patch? german/france

[Olham 164]

I must be shizophrenic - I just clicked "OK", although I was finding it too hard recently.

I know, that many variables could be changed in workshop (that's why I clicked "OK");

but on the other hand - what recently happened to my pilots was just annoiing.

 

1 Three or four planes broke up through clouds effect, although they didn't even yet really enter the cloud

2 Three planes broke up due to stressed airframe, even after I had reacted on the warning and it had disappeared

3 for 4 killed Albatros D V (me flying Camel), I didn't get a claim report at all (wings all dead), although it happened next to our field

4 after one or two flights with more than one kill, there seem to be only "killer missions" coming up

5 most enemies outnumber us

6 a crash landing with my most promising pilot ended fatal, allthough I had set the plane down

7 Two pilots were lost due to heavy ground fire

 

What annois me, is just the ammount, the density of bad things happening - I can't seem to get over 5 flights, unless I choose

a quiet area, with not much encounters.

But I know, that I fly at the limit mostly. I don't like the peaceful "hours collecting". And I know, I could change settings.

That's why I clicked "OK" - and I still feel shizophrenic about it.

 

I will report, if I could get it any better by changing some settings; over the weekend.

Edited April 18, 2009 by Olham

[chrispdm1 1]

Winder, the AA is configurable via WS, but the realism-rating sours it for some I believe. Being brought down by AA should be not so common, without suffering a realism % hit by so making it.

 

my thoughts exactly... I can never do more than 2 attack missions in a row on a campaign without being shot down. But the percantage that is assigned to ground fire is huge if a guy is trying to play DiD. THe solution: I don't play DiD.

[Winston DoRight 3]

I can't believe anyone would complain about OFF being too hard. Sure it's hard but thankfully the devs have included just about every kind of choice you need to adjust this sim to make it playable for everybody. When I first set my workshop realism settings I was shot down and died on my first mission! Time to back off a bit. Then I gradually increased difficulty as I got used to the AI and how everything worked and how the planes responded. Now it's much easier to stay alive at higher settings, even DiD.

 

Newbies, start out with something that is playable for you, not full realism. Work up to harder settings gradually. All the choices and variable settings are available to you in OFF, thank the devs for adding so many selections that are not available in the original CFS3. Play it at your own level. Don't punish yourself, enjoy!

[Velvet 1]

I voted OK, but I do find myself avoiding attacking Airfields, rail yards and other enemy targets, since the AAMGs are murder. I try to stay way out of their range. On the other hand, I've never taken any archie hits. Some scalability in AAMG effectiveness would be handy.

[CaptSopwith 26]

I also voted for OK. I find the sim nicely balanced - though I wouldn't mind slightly less accurate ground fire. They were using highly inaccurate weapons at the time. Otherwise, I think it's excellent!

 

The guys at Treyarch could learn a lesson from the OFF developers. Their game, Call of Duty World at War, once featured tanks on their online hardcore maps. Apparently, some kids started complaining that the game was too hard and just like that, out of nowhere, the tanks just disappeared one day. No announcements, no asking, no polling, just poof - no tanks. A decision passed down from a heavy-handed dev who obviously didn't care what the others thought.

 

If only all developers could adopt the flexiable, democratic, and open-minded approach of OFF.

[cptroyce 0]

I voted OK as well..challenged and content!

 

Royce

[Tonyo - legion 2]

I Voted OK too, even though i lose a lot of pilots, its always down to my foolish behaviour in the air, such as flying too low & being hit by flak, or trying to take on 5 enemy a/c who are at least 1,000 feet above me who promptly dive down & frag my ar*e!!!

 

 

I am one of those people who are more than satisified with the best wwI flight sim out there. to put it simply - IT ROCKS!!!!!!!

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Is OFF too hard? Hmmm, in a way this is a philosophical question, as it depends on your view of the true level of difficulty of surviving as a pilot in WWI and the inherent limitations of a computer simulation of that difficulty. Debates about whether it is fair (or historically accurate) or not to use the TAC to spot distant enemy aircraft is just one example of this problem.

 

Another example is the "17 hour average lifetime of a fighter pilot" premise. In my opinion (probably not shared by many others on this forum), :tomato2: the 17 hour average tends to overestimate the number of rookies who only survived one or two missions and underestimate the number of aces who lived for dozens, if not, hundreds of missions. Again, in my opinion, it is more fun for the sim to simulate life as it was for the aces, rather than the rookies (again, prob a minority opinion). Of course, even MvR and most of the aces on both sides didn't survive the war, so the sim pilot should only survive that long in maybe 1 in 500 (or more) chances.

 

Having said that, I am generally very satisfied with the current level of difficulty in OFF, with the possible exception of ground fire accuracy on the "realistic" setting. OTOH, fans of WWI dogfighting should be careful not to make OFF so difficult that it turns off the more casual gamer, because that will hurt sales and ultimately whether OBD will be able to continue producing an even more fantastic product in the future! Of course, the scalability of OFF helps to offset that problem, too.

 

OK, rant mode off! Don't misunderstand me, I am very happy with OFF, and I think Pol, Winder, and the boys have done a wonderful job! I just hope they are able to withstand the continued blatherings from idiots like myself without going crazy!

[Hellshade 110]

Winder,

 

My guess is that nobody who actually flew and fought during WWI said things were "too easy" or "just right" up there. It was hard as hell to stay alive out there, hence the 17 flight hour survival rate. So basically, "too hard" is just right in terms of realism.

 

But I agree with Sig that probably what bums some folks out is watching the "realism %" setting drop to a lower percentage in order to have a better fighting chance against AA by changing the AI Gun Range to "Normal". What makes it a bit tricky is that in 1915 - 1916, the Realistic AI Gun Range setting probably isn't realistic because they just weren't that accurate then. But from 1917 - 1918, I guess those ground crews had some pretty accurate gunfire and so the Realistic AI Gun Range is indeed accurate. Tough cookie to crack there.

 

Myself, I just learned to not care what the darn Realism % number was. Am I having fun? and is it challenging? are more important questions for me to be able to answer "yes" to than "Am I flying at 130% realism rating?" But I guess if someone is hung up on the 130% Realism rating, I can see where it might be a bit frustrating when the AA is so intensely accurate, especially on Normal DM mode where any damage at all just about dooms you to die and chances are, they WILL hit you sooner or later.

 

So what to do? Just a suggestion, but how about just like you got rid of the "Pending" number in the claim forms, get rid of the Realism % number. But then I'm sure a lot of folks would be upset because they like to see they are flying at a specific % Realism number. Or maybe keep the max 130% rating and just put a note right under it that says "WARNING! Anything over 100% is extraordinarily challenging and likely to result in a lot of dead pilots due to circumstances beyond your control." Ha.

 

But seriously. It's not a game. It's a WWI Flight Simulator. Part of the simulation is that fact that nothing in war is fair. At least I can change the challenge settings in the Workshop to fit my ability. Nobody in the real war had that option.

 

/salute

Hellshade

[Quoth 0]

Hi

I also voted ok, but I would agree with the comments that the AA seems a little too accurate

 

cheers

 

Q

[Bigfish2 0]

I think it's absolutely OK, and when it gets hard I just try to get better at it. I also agree with Creaghorn over the AI's super-human ability to spot enemy aircraft, and if it were possible to tune their abilities to be more like human pilots that would be nice, but it's not a show-stopper for me. I just love this sim, thanks for your continuing support.

[tttiger 0]

I voted for OK.

 

The ground fire is a tad more effective in this version but I thought it was not effective (realistic?) enough before.

 

There are so many aspects of the sim/game that can be adjusted (seasoned to taste) that I can't imagine anyone finding it too easy or too hard.

 

I do agree with Siggi (scary, huh?) that the percentage realism ratings kinda suck.

 

The very subjective "realism" values and penalties are highly arbitrary and I have no idea how they were arrived at.

 

What's realistic for some may not be seen as realistic for others.

 

To me, for example, the use of labels is MORE realistic because I can't identify planes without labels unless they are unrealistically close; others -- with better monitors and younger eyes than mine -- would legitimately disagree.

 

And, again to me, the ability of the AI enemy to see and track me means the labels tend to level the playing field considerably.

 

Basically, the realism ratings penalize people who have opinions on what is "real" differing from the developers. I don't believe any of us here really flew in WWI, so the ratings are not based on anything having to do with a quantifiable reality.

 

I would scrap those ratings.

 

Other than that, it's fine the way it is.

 

In fact, it's excellent the way it is!

 

Tony

Edited April 18, 2009 by tttiger