1. The dynamic front line was neat, but it kind of mitigates the need for reconnaissance units when you always know roughly where the enemy is. Possible band-aid: make the distance by which units project their influence smaller.
2. Mortars did not have a very convincing trajectory, firing almost like direct fire weapons. This is a theme in this engine and I'm having to wonder if IRISZOOM just can't handle mortars?
3. Planes moved at comically slow speeds. This in itself wasn't surprising, but it looked most hilarious when they performed sharp turns that would have stalled any plane at those speeds. Their bombs falling like looney toons pianos and making explosions that seemed no bigger than the bombs themselves looked equally silly.
4. The map sizes are more company-scale, battalion at absolute most. Seems to me that everything could have been scaled better, especially coming off of wargame.
All that said, it looks "fun enough." I just really hope at least some of the above issues are addressed, though. Especially if you're gonna keep strumming the authenticity angle in your marketing.
I agree with everything you said. To add to it, though:
1. my thoughts exactly, see
the thread I just made. Maybe if the frontline updated only once per minute or something it'd work better in my eyes.
2. agree. Some of the artillery/AA projectiles looked a bit "overdone", too. Too thick and big, if you know what I mean. Maybe that's what they look like, and I suppose it's to make them more eye-catching so you won't miss them, but I prefer ordinary tracers like in most WWII games and movies.
3. agree so much. I get that they are propeller planes, but they should move realistically fast.
4. yeah, the map was small. I suppose it's a 1v1 map, and I know you don't have jets that need lots of space, and helis that cover grund very quickly, but still, it felt pretty small. A bit disconcerting given how "quiet" the game felt in my eyes compared to the super-hectic Wargame. Are we meant to have fewer units to play with?
That's their way of resolving the old ALB truck conundrum, I guess.
It was suggested a long time ago, but I hoped they'd come up with something better...
The problem with lots of APCs and trucks sitting around doing nothing? Pardon my ignorance, I never played ALB.
I would've preferred an option to simply dismiss them, to have them drive back off the map or something. If the trucks simply magically disappear when you don't need them, and reappear when you need rapid movement, that removes some significant depth from the game. Keeping transport vehicles safe behind your lines was one of the challenges in EE and Red Dragon, and whatever micro problems arose from dismounting and mounting could be easily solved by things like World in Conflict's "Board nearest transport" command.
I hope this isn't another game following the "let's simplify stuff because that's the trend" kind of game.
Personally, I think unarmed trucks like that should just impart a tax on the unit when purchasing them. Said tax would get refunded upon successfully driving them back to an extraction point after they drop off their payload. In this way, an enemy who destroys the trucks can cause significant damage to a player's economy, and adds a level of complexity to the game.
This is ingenious. I would rather have this than magical shrinking pocket trucks.
This current implementation just looks tacky. That being said, of the complaints I have about the game based on this reveal, that's relatively minor. Aircraft looking silly is a much bigger deal to me, as is the micro management hell. Especially since a part of the marketting was that the micro management would not be heavy in this game.
Anyone else reminded of how the HOI devs threw out the OOB/COC tools from 3 when they made 4, along with pop-ups giving you updates on battles, and it made the game far
more frustrating and micro-heavy, because you had just as many units, fewer tools to manage them, and now you had to babysit them on top of that to know when a battle was going badly or when a unit had reached its destination?
Sometimes simplifying stuff doesn't reduce micro or complexity.
by "I wasn't looking at this part of the battlefield when they were fired upon".
^^which is exactly currently the #1 biggest problem with Hearts of Iron 4 at the moment. You have to constantly move the camera from front to front, because you can't take your eyes away from anything for half a minute of game time out of fear that the whole line will collapse without the game telling you.
