Negative Opinion on SHIV so far

Wijbrandus · 05-15-07, 06:08 PM

My purpose for posting this is for you to help me find ways of either fixing my issues or maybe helping me deal with them in the game. This is not intended as a rant or a whine, though I fully understand it will come across that way.

Ok, first my good impressions. One, it's nice to be on the side of the "good guys" for once. Also, I absolutely love the updated graphics. Very very sweet eye candy in all aspects of the game.

Now my issues with this game so far. Bear in mind I've been playing GWX since release until this past weekend when I bought SH4, so I admit I'm coming at this from a "higher place".

1) The manual. Well, why did they even bother. I'm getting better and more useful info referring to my SH3 manual. Should have saved the trees.

2) Torpedos. I've given up trying to place shots to cause flooding. The torpedo damage system is entirely arbitrary and random. There is no sense in it that I can decipher. I'm actually getting better luck using auto-lock to hit the target dead center than I am when I put a fish in both cargo bays. This is really becoming a game-breaker for me, as I can't reliably sink a ship to save my life. And don't give me the spiel about how some ships would never go down in history. The damage model is pretty well broken. I'm hoping someone has figured out the Byzantine logic behind it and can tell me how to get results out of my fish.

3) Descent rates. When I tell my sub to "crash dive", I expect it to actually get under the water in a reasonable amount of time. Last night, I had a bomber make TWO PASSES on me before I descended, and then I swear the only reason I got under the surface was due to flooding and damage. I spotted the bomber at long range too. Crash dive, diving of all sorts, seems broken - or at least interminably slow.

4) Random reassignment. I'm told I'm first in line for a new model of sub. I accept. Suddenly I'm reassigned to Pearl Harbor? I hate Pearl Harbor due to the Dateline bug. I specifically chose Asiatic Fleet to avoid it. Couldn't they have warned me?

5) Damage Control. This seems remarkably tedious and unintuitive from before. Now I have to find the damaged unit, place it in the damage control queue, and then activate the damage control team. What were they doing before? Playing cards in the stockroom while the depth charges are going off? Oh, and if a module is "destroyed", can't you freaking tell me that in a mouse-over or something? I spent half an hour of real time trying to figure out why my damage control team wasn't working on my deck gun. My only guess after all that is that it must have been blown off. I could see it, but it was marked as a red item. So I guess that's destroyed?

6) Ubisoft needs a FAQ or something. I've reviewed the Subsim one, and it's fine as far as it goes. Maybe someone is working on a wiki like we have for SH3.

I really really want to love this game, but I swear I'm so close to going back to SH3. Running the Channel in a Type IX in 1945 on the surface seems like more fun than making another patrol in the Celebes sea.

I've tried a few minor mods, and I'm currently using RFB 1.24. I've got some other issues with that, but it's minor stuff. My absolute biggest gripe is the torp damage model, followed by the descent rates.

Ducimus · 05-15-07, 06:17 PM

D/L and run RFB, or Tmaru modpacks. Id recommend Tmaru, but im biased.

edit: reread your post.. You are running RFB. Ok, try TMaru then. A number of your issues it addresses. If you still don't like the game, well, *shrug* i tried man, i tried.

AVGWarhawk · 05-15-07, 06:43 PM

Quote:

I really really want to love this game,

You will man. It is still in it's infancy. The modders are hard at work making it go above and beyond. As I understand it, patch 1.3 in the works.

As far as your torpedoes...I'm not going into the historical deal like you asked but I have noticed that torps that hit very close to the stern or bow have little to no affect. Go for the fat juicy part of the vessels. As far as random and arbitrary. They should be IMHO. If the torps did the same thing over and over it would get quite boring. I like the unpredictability. Makes for a more enjoyable game. I like the fact that vessels speed up and slow down randomly. This can completely blow your solution.

As far as crash diving. A well run sub could dive in about 35-40 seconds. I'm on my 8 patrol with a well seasoned crew. We dive well under 60 seconds and the 60 second mark is the green crews time for a dive. I believe the dive time model is pretty good. It also seems to account for how the sea is at the time of the dive. Rough weather takes longer to dive.

Damage control has some major issues and hopefully will be repaired in the new patch. But, I would have to say my seasoned crew is darn good at it at the moment.

Watch this spot...the game will achieve what you want.

donut · 05-15-07, 07:01 PM

I agree.Although agreement fixes nothing,the community,asked for all these features.(be careful what you ask for you might get it !)
The features/buggy implemented as they are,might be patched ? Only UBI knows when? Integrity,& communication,are in short lacking,from sellers side of the fence.
It seems to be human nature to complain,& hearing everyones concerns,only expresses the expectation that SHI is great,SHIII Good,SHIV needs work.Sorta like; They broke a doz.eggs,now make an omelet ! Can they? SURE. Will they,unknown !
These many similar posts,are like beating a sick animal/product;to get the job done.
Hope springs eternal.

Wijbrandus · 05-15-07, 07:23 PM

GWX was a long time coming. The game went through a lot of pain first.

I'll keep trying mods. Trigger Maru looks interesting, maybe it can give me what I want.

I'll see if I can get some patrols under my belt. Maybe that will help (experience for the crew).

I'm just ready for SH4 to reach it's potential now, not next year. Is that too much to ask?

I know it is. Heh.

I'll keep trying to deal with it until it's up to par.

Ubisoft, you guys still rock in my book. Nobody does it better, that's for sure.

SteamWake · 05-15-07, 08:05 PM

Are the descent rates "realistic" or abnormally long.

I dont know Im asking.

Wijbrandus · 05-15-07, 08:09 PM

Well, I can't really say.

Just now, my boat was attacked by a Betty.

I spotted it at long range. It almost made it past without spotting me.

The moment it was called out, I hit "Crash Dive".

It made two passes with machine gun fire before I was able to slip below the waves. I'm guessing at about a minute and a half. Might be a bit of adrenaline time adjustment in there though.

If I take my boat out into open water, and repeatedly crash dive and surface, will that train my crew? It worked in that one movie.

AVGWarhawk · 05-15-07, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wijbrandus

Well, I can't really say.

Just now, my boat was attacked by a Betty.

I spotted it at long range. It almost made it past without spotting me.

The moment it was called out, I hit "Crash Dive".

It made two passes with machine gun fire before I was able to slip below the waves. I'm guessing at about a minute and a half. Might be a bit of adrenaline time adjustment in there though.

If I take my boat out into open water, and repeatedly crash dive and surface, will that train my crew? It worked in that one movie.

Well, since the nice watch is not of much use I did used it to time my dive. If my crew is at battle stations I can submerge just about completely in 40 seconds. This was on relatively calm seas. My deal is stay submerged during the day. Manually set speed at 2 kts. Night time is the right time for a sub to surface and hunt.

jhelix70 · 05-15-07, 09:57 PM

Quote:

I'll keep trying mods. Trigger Maru looks interesting

It is....at the very least it fixes the pearl harbor bug, by starting you out on the right side of the IDL.

SteamWake · 05-15-07, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jhelix70

Quote:

I'll keep trying mods. Trigger Maru looks interesting

It is....at the very least it fixes the pearl harbor bug, by starting you out on the right side of the IDL.

<Shaking head> What a bizzare bug

Monica Lewinsky · 05-15-07, 10:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wijbrandus

My purpose for posting this is for you to help me find ways of either fixing my issues or maybe helping me deal with them in the game. This is not intended as a rant or a whine, though I fully understand it will come across that way.

thank god a normal person posted for a change of pace.

Welcome aboard. Looking forward to your future comments. I am FED UP of the whiners that post here. Your comments give us normal people hope. I look forward to reading your future comments.

I rarely post because of the cry babbies here and the UNFAIR and un-regulated polices of copy righted material posted HERE and how the the moderators ignore it if you do not have 1,000's of posts. They look the other way when you complain and send you a bitchy PM. It is so two faced.

AVGWarhawk · 05-16-07, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monica Lewinsky

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wijbrandus

My purpose for posting this is for you to help me find ways of either fixing my issues or maybe helping me deal with them in the game. This is not intended as a rant or a whine, though I fully understand it will come across that way.

thank god a normal person posted for a change of pace.

Welcome aboard. Looking forward to your future comments. I am FED UP of the whiners that post here. Your comments give us normal people hope. I look forward to reading your future comments.

I rarely post because of the cry babbies here and the UNFAIR and un-regulated polices of copy righted material posted HERE and how the the moderators ignore it if you do not have 1,000's of posts. They look the other way when you complain and send you a bitchy PM. It is so two faced.

Normal is always open for interpretation discussion, Monica. Just what is normal Monica? Why not stay on the posters topic, Monica? Your response certainly helped him out.

Iron Budokan · 05-16-07, 09:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Monica Lewinsky[/quote

thank god a normal person posted for a change of pace.

Your definition of normal may not be someone else's definition of normal.

jdkbph · 05-16-07, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Are the descent rates "realistic" or abnormally long.

I dont know Im asking.

From a "book" perspective, and modified by crew experience factors (I assume) are modeled in the game, I think they're about right.

What may be missing here are some of the "beyond the book" operational procedures used by many sub skippers and written about only after the war... the foremost being the practice of traveling on the surface with the negative buoyancy tanks flooded. Definitely not something they'd be doing during trials, in peace-time, or outside of a war zone.

JD

UnSalted · 05-16-07, 04:29 PM

SH4 is my first subsim game so I can speak as a newbie. And I admit I love it. I wasn't sure it was worth the money after patch1 but patch 2 and some gametime taught me it can be wonderful.

As for torps, I've played enough to know there is a randomness factor included in hit locations. I'm also too technically familiar with mechanisms to assume that WWII era torps were capable of consistently producing the same target hit point regardless of currents, water temperature, etc. There always is a difference in performance produced by factors outside the torpedo.

As for the bombers/fighters and AA guns, I hated them at first. I did discover after enough time spent watching myself sink that I needed two areas of the crew to be superb...guns and damage control. I make sure that the gunners, both AA and cannon, get the priority when it comes to crew members and the damage control guys come next. As a result, by my third or fourth patrol I can set the AA guns to take on attacking aircraft and simply make a quick course change while they shoot the bugger down. The only problem then is watching the flyboys pretend to swim. (And the graphics of a plane exploding almost directly overhead are amazing.)

On my last patrol (number 8 of 1943) I had something like 6 Zeroes, 5 Bettys and 4 HKs in my log. BTW, how many reknown points are they worth?

As for damage control, an excellent crew makes the game so much nicer to play. I can relax after seeing the scroll of items repaired during my hide-an-seek moments or just cruising afterwards. It also helps to remember the basics...can't repair deck or AA guns underwater or when Silent Running, etc.

Now then if the ^&$%#* radar would work all the time so I don't "find" a couple of destroyers within 2 miles of me suddenly, I might not need that good a DC crew....

05-15-07, 06:08 PM	#1
Wijbrandus Loader Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Littleton, Colorado Posts: 83 Downloads: 101 Uploads: 0	Negative Opinion on SHIV so far My purpose for posting this is for you to help me find ways of either fixing my issues or maybe helping me deal with them in the game. This is not intended as a rant or a whine, though I fully understand it will come across that way. Ok, first my good impressions. One, it's nice to be on the side of the "good guys" for once. Also, I absolutely love the updated graphics. Very very sweet eye candy in all aspects of the game. Now my issues with this game so far. Bear in mind I've been playing GWX since release until this past weekend when I bought SH4, so I admit I'm coming at this from a "higher place". 1) The manual. Well, why did they even bother. I'm getting better and more useful info referring to my SH3 manual. Should have saved the trees. 2) Torpedos. I've given up trying to place shots to cause flooding. The torpedo damage system is entirely arbitrary and random. There is no sense in it that I can decipher. I'm actually getting better luck using auto-lock to hit the target dead center than I am when I put a fish in both cargo bays. This is really becoming a game-breaker for me, as I can't reliably sink a ship to save my life. And don't give me the spiel about how some ships would never go down in history. The damage model is pretty well broken. I'm hoping someone has figured out the Byzantine logic behind it and can tell me how to get results out of my fish. 3) Descent rates. When I tell my sub to "crash dive", I expect it to actually get under the water in a reasonable amount of time. Last night, I had a bomber make TWO PASSES on me before I descended, and then I swear the only reason I got under the surface was due to flooding and damage. I spotted the bomber at long range too. Crash dive, diving of all sorts, seems broken - or at least interminably slow. 4) Random reassignment. I'm told I'm first in line for a new model of sub. I accept. Suddenly I'm reassigned to Pearl Harbor? I hate Pearl Harbor due to the Dateline bug. I specifically chose Asiatic Fleet to avoid it. Couldn't they have warned me? 5) Damage Control. This seems remarkably tedious and unintuitive from before. Now I have to find the damaged unit, place it in the damage control queue, and then activate the damage control team. What were they doing before? Playing cards in the stockroom while the depth charges are going off? Oh, and if a module is "destroyed", can't you freaking tell me that in a mouse-over or something? I spent half an hour of real time trying to figure out why my damage control team wasn't working on my deck gun. My only guess after all that is that it must have been blown off. I could see it, but it was marked as a red item. So I guess that's destroyed? 6) Ubisoft needs a FAQ or something. I've reviewed the Subsim one, and it's fine as far as it goes. Maybe someone is working on a wiki like we have for SH3. I really really want to love this game, but I swear I'm so close to going back to SH3. Running the Channel in a Type IX in 1945 on the surface seems like more fun than making another patrol in the Celebes sea. I've tried a few minor mods, and I'm currently using RFB 1.24. I've got some other issues with that, but it's minor stuff. My absolute biggest gripe is the torp damage model, followed by the descent rates.

05-15-07, 07:01 PM	#4
donut The Old Man Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: The Shifting, Whispering Sands, NM Posts: 1,463 Downloads: 10 Uploads: 0	Communication the key I agree.Although agreement fixes nothing,the community,asked for all these features.(be careful what you ask for you might get it !) The features/buggy implemented as they are,might be patched ? Only UBI knows when? Integrity,& communication,are in short lacking,from sellers side of the fence. It seems to be human nature to complain,& hearing everyones concerns,only expresses the expectation that SHI is great,SHIII Good,SHIV needs work.Sorta like; They broke a doz.eggs,now make an omelet ! Can they? SURE. Will they,unknown ! These many similar posts,are like beating a sick animal/product;to get the job done. Hope springs eternal.

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05-15-07, 06:17 PM	#2
Ducimus Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 12,987 Downloads: 67 Uploads: 2	D/L and run RFB, or Tmaru modpacks. Id recommend Tmaru, but im biased. edit: reread your post.. You are running RFB. Ok, try TMaru then. A number of your issues it addresses. If you still don't like the game, well, shrug i tried man, i tried.

05-15-07, 07:23 PM	#5
Wijbrandus Loader Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Littleton, Colorado Posts: 83 Downloads: 101 Uploads: 0	GWX was a long time coming. The game went through a lot of pain first. I'll keep trying mods. Trigger Maru looks interesting, maybe it can give me what I want. I'll see if I can get some patrols under my belt. Maybe that will help (experience for the crew). I'm just ready for SH4 to reach it's potential now, not next year. Is that too much to ask? I know it is. Heh. I'll keep trying to deal with it until it's up to par. Ubisoft, you guys still rock in my book. Nobody does it better, that's for sure.

05-15-07, 08:05 PM	#6
SteamWake Rear Admiral Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 13,224 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Are the descent rates "realistic" or abnormally long. I dont know Im asking.

05-15-07, 08:09 PM	#7
Wijbrandus Loader Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Littleton, Colorado Posts: 83 Downloads: 101 Uploads: 0	Well, I can't really say. Just now, my boat was attacked by a Betty. I spotted it at long range. It almost made it past without spotting me. The moment it was called out, I hit "Crash Dive". It made two passes with machine gun fire before I was able to slip below the waves. I'm guessing at about a minute and a half. Might be a bit of adrenaline time adjustment in there though. If I take my boat out into open water, and repeatedly crash dive and surface, will that train my crew? It worked in that one movie.

05-16-07, 04:29 PM	#15
UnSalted Machinist's Mate Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 130 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	SH4 is my first subsim game so I can speak as a newbie. And I admit I love it. I wasn't sure it was worth the money after patch1 but patch 2 and some gametime taught me it can be wonderful. As for torps, I've played enough to know there is a randomness factor included in hit locations. I'm also too technically familiar with mechanisms to assume that WWII era torps were capable of consistently producing the same target hit point regardless of currents, water temperature, etc. There always is a difference in performance produced by factors outside the torpedo. As for the bombers/fighters and AA guns, I hated them at first. I did discover after enough time spent watching myself sink that I needed two areas of the crew to be superb...guns and damage control. I make sure that the gunners, both AA and cannon, get the priority when it comes to crew members and the damage control guys come next. As a result, by my third or fourth patrol I can set the AA guns to take on attacking aircraft and simply make a quick course change while they shoot the bugger down. The only problem then is watching the flyboys pretend to swim. (And the graphics of a plane exploding almost directly overhead are amazing.) On my last patrol (number 8 of 1943) I had something like 6 Zeroes, 5 Bettys and 4 HKs in my log. BTW, how many reknown points are they worth? As for damage control, an excellent crew makes the game so much nicer to play. I can relax after seeing the scroll of items repaired during my hide-an-seek moments or just cruising afterwards. It also helps to remember the basics...can't repair deck or AA guns underwater or when Silent Running, etc. Now then if the ^&$%#* radar would work all the time so I don't "find" a couple of destroyers within 2 miles of me suddenly, I might not need that good a DC crew....