Make this game more accessible for Non Gamers

[Cik]

it's easy to hurl lightningbolts from on high, but what is actually wrong with it?

it works fine as long as you execute the correct steps in the correct order. you are basically accusing the machine of not reading your brain through an MMI.. "Execute my desires, not my orders!" no machine is capable of that (yet) any change to the UI, no matter how sweeping won't correct this basic problem - that is to say, won't flawlessly move intent to instructions.

i don't want to be insulting, but if you are having trouble getting aircraft to achieve basic, straightforward tasks that the game handles implicitly, you just need more practice at correctly inputting the instructions, or you need a more thorough understanding of how the game interprets your instructions.

[ARCNA442]

c3k is correct, the interface is (mostly) functional, but it requires a lot of trial and error to figure out because many of the controls are poorly labeled or have weird quirks as to how the system interprets them (for instance, I'm still not sure exactly how missions calculate the "maintain X units on station" feature even though I use it every time I play). There are also a bunch of places where you have to go through multiple menus to change doctrine so a new player might not realize what doctrine his units are using or how to correct it (EMCON is a particularly annoying example of this and the obvious GUI element telling you EMCON state doesn't actually work).

[AFIntel]

I read through all the posts, but didn't see the answer that I most believe is relevant to the original comment. And that, in my opinion, is this:

this is NOT an introductory game/simulation! It wasn't designed, nor was it intended, to be an introductory game/simulation.

When a kid dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, and graduates college and enters the US Air Force (since I'm American and am familiar with the analogy), he does not immediately climb into an F-4, F-15, F-22 (pick your era). He starts out in (from my era of service) T-37, and then graduates to the T-38. Many a moon go by before he even glimpses one of his dream birds...

CMANO is the F-22 / Su-27 / Typhoon.

[Gunner98]

1. 1 plane attacks one ground target

I would recommend the 'Strike Tutorials' for this, I think they gradually build up your understanding of how to use air power to attack targets. They don't answer everything but they get you started.

Myself and some of the others who have commented have been playing this game/simulation since the day it was released - that was 5 years ago! And I(we?) played Harpoon in its various iterations before that. So we know the genre, we know the game, have followed all the changes and tweaks - and there have been a lot of them, and become familiar with the nuance and idiosyncrasy of the UI. In short we are guilty of thinking the UI works so don't mess with it. I believe we can sum up the 'old hands' opinion as - its a great game and keep the improvements coming but focus on function, evolving weapons, improved DB or a better mission planner.

For a new player - I can imagine that opening up this game is a very daunting experience. I've tried to introduce it so some of my wargaming friends who have been playing games since Tactics II - and it's a no-go. They want to get into it but just cannot spend the time and energy to learn the game.

Somewhere there is a middle ground. If the game/sim is to continue to grow and get better; we need new players. Warfaresims and Matrix are only going to put effort into this if it keeps selling -that's business. But as Iain said above, trying to simplify the game to make it more accessible has a risk - pissing of the 'old hands' and losing a very loyal and active audience.

I don't know the answer. I do know that new players need to keep telling the devs what it is that bugs them, so they can try and make it better, and that old hands need to keep telling the devs how they want the game to evolve. From the track record of the past 5 years they've done a good job of listening to us.

This is a good debate.

B

[SeaQueen]

ORIGINAL: AFIntel
When a kid dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, and graduates college and enters the US Air Force (since I'm American and am familiar with the analogy), he does not immediately climb into an F-4, F-15, F-22 (pick your era). He starts out in (from my era of service) T-37, and then graduates to the T-38. Many a moon go by before he even glimpses one of his dream birds...

CMANO is the F-22 / Su-27 / Typhoon.

There's lots of T-37 scenarios. There's lots of F-22/Su-27/Typhoon scenarios. There's not many T-38 scenarios. Somehow we need to build scenarios in the middle, where someone who's familiar with the "buttonology" of the game can play it, and then start learning how to do just do one or two things, without having to do a million things.

[c3k]

Someone upstream said my "issue" (<- my word, not his) was that I was trying to have the game "read my mind". Not at all. Not in the least.

Today, another example popped up: I'm playing the first strike tutorial (great scenario, btw), when I launch an F16 with 2 Jassms. Somehow, they launch themselves!!! I never ordered that aircraft to target anything. That's a UI problem.

Also, 3 different aircraft, with 75% fuel state, went RTB (Bingo) for no apparent reason. There was no way I could change this. (Again, in the Strike Tutorial.) That's a UI problem.

When units do the "wrong thing" fine. When units do not follow commands, or their status is inderterminate, that's a UI problem.

These are just two more examples of the many UI issues which plague my attempts to have my units perform commanded actions.

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

ORIGINAL: AFIntel
When a kid dreams of becoming a fighter pilot, and graduates college and enters the US Air Force (since I'm American and am familiar with the analogy), he does not immediately climb into an F-4, F-15, F-22 (pick your era). He starts out in (from my era of service) T-37, and then graduates to the T-38. Many a moon go by before he even glimpses one of his dream birds...

CMANO is the F-22 / Su-27 / Typhoon.

There's lots of T-37 scenarios. There's lots of F-22/Su-27/Typhoon scenarios. There's not many T-38 scenarios. Somehow we need to build scenarios in the middle, where someone who's familiar with the "buttonology" of the game can play it, and then start learning how to do just do one or two things, without having to do a million things.

We are working on a feature that will hopefully enable players to do exactly that, and share such "mini missions" between them. Think of the "VR missions" in Metal Gear Solid.

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: c3k

Someone upstream said my "issue" (<- my word, not his) was that I was trying to have the game "read my mind". Not at all. Not in the least.

Today, another example popped up: I'm playing the first strike tutorial (great scenario, btw), when I launch an F16 with 2 Jassms. Somehow, they launch themselves!!! I never ordered that aircraft to target anything. That's a UI problem.

Also, 3 different aircraft, with 75% fuel state, went RTB (Bingo) for no apparent reason. There was no way I could change this. (Again, in the Strike Tutorial.) That's a UI problem.

When units do the "wrong thing" fine. When units do not follow commands, or their status is inderterminate, that's a UI problem.

These are just two more examples of the many UI issues which plague my attempts to have my units perform commanded actions.

So, as I understand it, in the former case you would like the F-16 to pop up a message box that tells you "Sir, I am now airborne, and since I have been assigned to a strike mission, I attempted to target ground contact XYZ. Since my WCS for this contact type is set to FREE, and the WRA for this weapon-target combination is 2, I am allowed to fire. Pre-fire technical checklist is also green across the board. Proceeding to fire weapon now."

And in the latter case, you would want the aircraft to explicitly tell you "Sir, although we still have plenty of fuel, our doctrinal settings ABC dictate that, when we have reached 75% fuel and we have shot 2 missiles and it's Tuesday, we should RTB immediately. So we are now bugging out."

Am I understanding your desire correctly?

[c3k]

ORIGINAL: Dimitris

ORIGINAL: c3k

Someone upstream said my "issue" (<- my word, not his) was that I was trying to have the game "read my mind". Not at all. Not in the least.

Today, another example popped up: I'm playing the first strike tutorial (great scenario, btw), when I launch an F16 with 2 Jassms. Somehow, they launch themselves!!! I never ordered that aircraft to target anything. That's a UI problem.

Also, 3 different aircraft, with 75% fuel state, went RTB (Bingo) for no apparent reason. There was no way I could change this. (Again, in the Strike Tutorial.) That's a UI problem.

When units do the "wrong thing" fine. When units do not follow commands, or their status is inderterminate, that's a UI problem.

These are just two more examples of the many UI issues which plague my attempts to have my units perform commanded actions.

So, as I understand it, in the former case you would like the F-16 to pop up a message box that tells you "Sir, I am now airborne, and since I have been assigned to a strike mission, I attempted to target ground contact XYZ. Since my WCS for this contact type is set to FREE, and the WRA for this weapon-target combination is 2, I am allowed to fire. Pre-fire technical checklist is also green across the board. Proceeding to fire weapon now."

And in the latter case, you would want the aircraft to explicitly tell you "Sir, although we still have plenty of fuel, our doctrinal settings ABC dictate that, when we have reached 75% fuel and we have shot 2 missiles and it's Tuesday, we should RTB immediately. So we are now bugging out."

Am I understanding your desire correctly?

Don't be an ass.

If you'd like to improve this game, and enlarge its player base, you should listen to the perspective of new players. Just because I'm new to THIS game, and find aspects of it puzzling, does not mean I'm technologically illiterate, unaware of the subject matter, or new to gaming.

I set the Jassm F16 to "Launch individually" off the airbase. As soon as it got airborne, it launched the two jassms. I never ordered it to do anything. It had no strike mission assigned (that I know of). It had no targets (that I know of). It just "whooshed"it's ordnance as soon as it was gear up.

The UI sucks. Sure, you can learn it...but it sucks.

For example, there are three different locations for WRA. There is one in the Game menu for "side". Then, there seems to be another for "group". As well, you can use the sidebar for the specific unit. Oh, none of your inputs will work if the "inherit" box is checked.

Another item: opening up the attack menu. You set your parameters, but to "lock it in" you hit the "x" to close the window? In most games there'd be a button to "attack as ordered" or "make it so". Hitting the "x" without saving would erase your changes. That was odd, but at least I now understand it.

How about this for a UI addition? If a unit has an Attack Order, draw a double red line from the unit to the object of the attack. If the unit is going to follow pathing and THEN attack, then draw that line from the last waypoint to the object of the attack.

That would be an EASY and VISUAL clue that the unit has orders to attack. Either player created, or AI.

In the other example I listed above, I've got planes going RTB (bingo) with 2/3s of their fuel left. No, I don't want flameouts and hull losses, but they've got PLENTY of fuel. I cannot access the fuel state settings to see how and why they've decided to bingo out within 30 seconds of the target.

[JWW]

Speaking as someone who has played the game some and is now working to get back into it, I have a couple of general suggestions. I'm also a former ground pounder, so anything that flies or floats is still somewhat exotic to me, though fascinating.

In general, new players should be able to access a path of tutorials that teaches them how to play the game in as simple a manner as possible while giving as few detailed commands as possible. And there should be simple scenarios where the new player can practice this. This would then allow the player to grow and learn more and more of the details of the game and engage in more complex scenarios.

And in fact what I just described is already in the game, but it can be confusing for a newer player to find. That may be the biggest problem for new players. Just click on tutorials in the scenario list and there are about 40 tutorial scenarios broken down into several categories, a daunting prospect right there (though I have been playing through the tutorials again and enjoying them, though I have yet to win the submarine 1.4 if I recall correctly after several tries.), even though there are many great tutorials and many are fun to play in their own right.

It might even be worth a tutorial DLC "CMANO for Dummies" featuring tutorial scenarios that allow the player to learn the simple approach that opens up the detailed approach. Again, I think this is basically already in the game, but not organized in a fashion that is easy for the new player to see. There are also some very good written help tutorials on Steam and other places, but it is all a little scattered.

I look at Command Ops/Command Ops 2 as a model for what I want to do in CMANO. I greatly enjoy that game, and it shares some attributes with CMANO. At its simplest, if the scenario is a division attack on an objective, I can click on the division headquarters unit, click on attack, click on the objective, start the clock running, and the division executes the attack without any further input if that is the way I want to play it. Or I can set up a detailed plan of attack for subordinate units, giving specific orders to each formation or even individual units from the start with many very specific parameters for each unit. I can turn over the artillery to the subordinate units or I can control the artillery myself and send each round downrange on my own order. Or anything in between. And I can switch from a simply to complex mode, taking control of any formation or unit at any time in the scenario. (Noting that CMANO is much more complex the CO2, which doesn't take you down the the level of individual weapons systems and loadouts, etc.)

I think CMANO has that same flexibility, but I think it is hard for a new player to grasp that. Or maybe I just have missed the perfect tutorial that explains how to do learn the game in sequence.

[IainMcNeil]

Hi ck3 ,

we are glad you are enjoying the game but your tone is completely unacceptable. What you are reporting is not a bug, but a design decision.

Dimitris tried to help you and understand your issue and you were rude an insulting. We don't accept personal attacks on the team for any reason. If you repeat this attitude you will be banned.

I'm sure you understand that when you post comments with that attitude you will not get any help so I am locking this thread. Please try again if you want help from the team.