Game or sim?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

I tend to think of it as the old cat and mouse game.

That cat will lay there for hours appearing to be asleep or half asleep when BAM a bolt out of the blue they pounce with an action so fast you cant even see it.

With one difference: all those guard dogs just waiting for the cat to make his move.

Good thing our cats can turn invisible. Too bad the dogs can still smell us.

[mrbeast]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Quite frankly, Quitefrankly, go pick up a book or two on the subject. Reading the first hand war stories gives you some insight and imagination for playing the game. I just finished the book Bowfin. The book reads like the game. So it is cool to play the game and experience in-game what you just read from one of the books of real experiences. Next thing you know, your a sub/uboat junkie attempting to score new books and browsing E-bay for sub/uboat stuff.

Very sound advice.

I've been reading quite a lot about US subs, started with 'Run Silent Run Deep', then moved on to 'War in the boats', read the Osprey New Vanguard on US submarines 41-45 and now I'm reading 'Silent Victory' and thats not to mention the U boats!

I'm always surprised at how authentic some of the things that happen in the game are. Sometimes something will happen in the game that I think is not very realistic, but then I'll read about RL events and infact what just happened in the game did indeed really happen.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yeah, it kind of gets in your blood. After all of that, the next thing I know, I'm on the USS Torsk as a volunteer fixing, repairing, repainting and restoring.

[seafarer]

Originally Posted by mrbeast

Very sound advice.

I've been reading quite a lot about US subs, started with 'Run Silent Run Deep', then moved on to 'War in the boats', read the Osprey New Vanguard on US submarines 41-45 and now I'm reading 'Silent Victory' and thats not to mention the U boats!

I'm always surprised at how authentic some of the things that happen in the game are. Sometimes something will happen in the game that I think is not very realistic, but then I'll read about RL events and infact what just happened in the game did indeed really happen.

So true - reading about the USS Gunnel, for example. Especially her second patrol - charging a DD head on, on the surface, with shells from the DDs guns coming "uncomfortably close", then loosing off a spread of four fish and diving, only to find the bow planes improperly rigged out and a 900 ton DD about to run smack into you...

Or how about sitting on the surface, at a range of 700 yards, watching 3 torpedoes in a row plow into an already damaged ship, but having to score them as "misses" in the log since they failed to detonate (also in that linked 2nd patrol log).



The stuff in the game often seems amazingly tame

[the_belgian]

Originally Posted by quitefrankly

Hello. Is this meant to be a simulation or a game? If its a simulation, then I think I probably just bought the wrong thing. But if its a game, then I think I'm missing something, or doing something wrong. Anyway, this is what it seems like to me:

I get a mission, and its only ever one of about 3 or 4 things... Take a photo, deliver a spy/supplies, or patrol. So I set off from port, I go to the objective, I sink some ships, and then I return to base. And then its that all over again, again, and again?

Is that it? If that IS it, then thats ok... I'm not attacking the game or anything. Its a simulation and the depth is in the controlling of the sub and perfecting your attacks and stuff. But I was just hoping for it to be more of a game. Flight Simulator X I find boring. But something like Lock On, I really enjoy, because there are lots of missions and each one seems completely different, even although I am still doing pretty much the same thing.

But anyway, I'm about to uninstall this, so I thought I would ask incase I'm missing something and someone can maybe help. I just seem to be getting the same missions over and over, and its almost like a vague excuse to leave the port and blow up ships. I spent the first week figuring out how to play, but then its just sail to the deep ocean, blow up a bunch of ships, sail home, and repeat a million times. And I just don't really understand that. If thats all it is, then I can understand that its just a sim. But I would still find it odd that they didn't try to dress it up a bit nicer and add in some more missions or something.

Am I looking at this the wrong way?

Thanks.

p.s. I completed a campaign and its the least impressed I've ever been after completing a campaign in any game. And the only option left for me, was to just do it all over again in another campaign. I think I'm maybe more suited to flight sims?

for the moment i'm bored for +/- the same reasons...

[Steeltrap]

Another thing to consider is that the USS Tang had the greatest rate of enemy sinkings per days on patrol - 1 ship sunk for every 11 days patrolled. That rate was more than DOUBLE the next best sub. So, if you were to equal the record of the best submarine in terms of sinkings per patrol days, you'd go 11 days per ship. Given time compression getting to/from Pearl and Midway, that still means it's not exactly a turkey shoot!

Best advice given is to go read some books. Wahoo and Clear the Bridge, both by Richard O'Kane (widely regarded as the best skipper), will give you a real idea of how things were. Unfortunately they also give you a real idea of the flaws in the sim, but that's another story!

More than anything, the sim/game requires PATIENCE! If you aren't the "spend hours stalking prey for the kill shot" type, chances are you're not going to enjoy it.

Good luck!

[monkeymagoo]

I normally play shooters (half way through Bioshock) but I'm hooked on SH4. Seems a bit hardcore having to draw the angles etc etc on the map and stalking the enemy for ages just to get one kill but its soooo satisfying when you get one.

And for a bit of a quick fix you can always use the deck gun. The only way I could seem to shake off a subchaser was to surface at just the right time, knock a huge hole in the engine room with an armour piercing shell and then sneak away while he was burning - nice

[the_belgian]

< After playing SH4 for months i got borred with it(something that never hapened with SH3!).
So i leave it on my HD and re-installed SH3.
It feld like a long lost son returning back home!
I think i'll be playing SH3 for another long time to come...
AS far i'm concerned "UBI;make SH5 happen on the atlantic front(maybe with a DC2 as counterpart )

[mrbeast]

Originally Posted by the_belgian

< After playing SH4 for months i got borred with it(something that never hapened with SH3!).
So i leave it on my HD and re-installed SH3.
It feld like a long lost son returning back home!
I think i'll be playing SH3 for another long time to come...
AS far i'm concerned "UBI;make SH5 happen on the atlantic front(maybe with a DC2 as counterpart )

Something that I'm getting bored of is SH3 players posting how boring SH4 is and how they just had to go back to SH3 again.

I love SH3 and SH4 but I don't jump into threads about SH3 just to say how bored I was with the out dated graphics and the weird angular crew in SH3 and so always play SH4 now.

Both games are great so I don't see why there has to be so much sniping by players of one about the other.

[the_belgian]

Originally Posted by mrbeast

1) Something that I'm getting bored of is SH3 players posting how boring SH4 is and how they just had to go back to SH3 again.

2) I love SH3 and SH4 but I don't jump into threads about SH3 just to say how bored I was with the out dated graphics and the weird angular crew in SH3 and so always play SH4 now.

3) Both games are great so I don't see why there has to be so much sniping by players of one about the other.

1)I have been in the SH-series from the beginning and,although mainly graphical,SH4 is a great game i went back to SH3 and am not scared to share my vision to others(not in a way"I am not satisfied but can better leave in silence...").

2)The reason i leave is simple;tention.SH3 has allot more of it than SH4.But when those who change collors(US into German)keep silent here it feels to me as if you could not stand the critics on SH4!

3)Sniping?I'd call it an anouncement
And who knows,one day i'll be back...

[quitefrankly]

Hi again, I'm back. It's been a few months! I am back, mainly because I am very excited about the upcoming expansion pack! And I just wanted to give a bit of feedback and support basically.

P.S. I appreciated the post above about SH3 by the way. I understand if it annoys some of you, but I personally have never played any of the other Silent Hunter games, so its interesting to see that this game is better in some ways, but not as good in other ways.



Anyway, I have had more time with the game, and I basically just wanted to reiterate what I said originally. I don't know if the UBI team read this forum? But hopefully they do. And if not, hopefully somebody has already given the same feedback anyway.

But basically, I am bored of this game, and its frustrating because it is so close to being a really special game. Usually if a game is boring, I'll just quit and move on. But this game is so close to being really great, I just wanted to speak up about it.

The graphics are amazing. It controls very well. I have seen people complaining about the UI, but I never even noticed that. It seems fine to me. Its almost the perfect game. Many people here play it with hardcore settings, but I play somewhere in the middle. I sail out into the deep ocean and track a huge bunch of ships. I don't bother plotting courses and angles of attack and stuff, I just try to do everything on the fly, and aim to approach the ships from about 90 degrees. I fire my torpedos and take out all the ships that can shoot back, and I sit back with a huge smile on my face and watch the amazing graphics! Then I surface the sub, and finish the other ships off with my big cannon gun.

Its a really fun experience, and I love it!

But where it falls apart for me, is simply the missions. (In my opinion atleast). I have been playing flight sims for probably around 20 years, and this game is basically a water based equivalent. It really isn't much different... You set off from your home base, you fly/sail to your objective, you blow stuff up, and you come home. Its the exact same thing, only instead of dropping bombs or locking on your sidewinders, you are using your torpedos and cannon instead. Neither is really better or worse. They are both pretty much the same. And both are fun!

But this game has a little bit of catching up to do, and I really hope they can do that! In flight sims, people expect there to not only be lots of great missions, but generally, people expect there to be a mission generator or custom mission maker too. LOMAC is a good example of this, in that you can just buy the game and then you have a very different campaign for every plane! And each one has about 20 or so missions (so in total, there are LOTS).

But when you are finally done with that, you can start making your own missions - which is a fantastic feature. And you can also go online, and download missions (or even entire campaigns) that other people have made. This prolongs the life of the game enormously.

So I am amazed and disappointed that this game doesn't have those same features, and I think it would make a massive difference. I saw people talk about buying books and using your imagination to improve things, and that is great, but really, we shouldn't have to do that in a modern game. If I was going to rely on my imagination, I would draw, or play with my plastic sub in the bath :p In a big budget game like this, all that should be taken care of by somebody else, and that is what we are paying for. So basically, you have done all the hard work! You have actually built a fantastic sub simulator. But you forgot to put the cream on top of the cake, and add the cherry, and its crazy to not do that.

Amazingly, this game only has about half a dozen missions. And they are just repeated over and over.. That is really unforgivable, and there is no reason for it. Ultimately, all missions will be kind of the same... leave base, find the objective, blow stuff up, come home.. But atleast in a flight sim, they dress it up with a real story. "Pilot! There is a large convoy of enemy tanks approaching a village just north of here! You must take off immediately and protect the village at all costs!".

Its only simple, and yet it makes a massive difference. I end up flying as fast as I can, on the edge of my seat, just a few inches from my monitor, looking for those evil tanks! Thinking to myself, "I better hurry! I'm going to save the day!!!!! I'll show them....". All that is lost in SH4, because there are no missions. So I want to see that. In SH4 terms, it needs to be, "A huge fleet of enemy ships are approaching Panama!!! We must protect it!!! They have an aircraft carrier and a dozen support craft!! We are scrambling our naval fleets there now, but they are far away. You need to quickly go there and just do what you can to weaken their attacks, before the ships arrive!!!". - Something like that will make this game completely different, and appeal to a much wider audience too. The hardcore sub sim people could still have everything they already have, but the rest of us would get something a bit more engaging.

And then there really needs to be a mission editor too.

Even Microsoft have realised this, and have changed their ancient Flight Simulator series, in its most recent incarnation. Flight Simulator X now has missions! So its no longer a Sunday driving equivalent of flight sims, where you get in a Cessna, and take a boring, eventless flight over some mountain and then come home... Instead, you now get great stuff like putting on an air show and landing on top of a moving truck! Or rescuing a capsised yachtsman etc... The missions have really turned the series into something much more fun, and thats what I want to see for this series.

After reading the notes about this new expansion due in 2008, it sounds like you have some nice improvements coming our way, but I am still not sure you have realised the importance of proper missions? It all sounds like it will really impress the existing fans, and for me, I REALLY liked the part about rising in rank and experience, and getting strategic resources such as recon aircraft etc.. That sounds GREAT! But I really hope to see proper missions too. Its surely not a big job to add that to the game, and I can't emphasise enough, how cruicial I think it is.

I have my fingers crossed!

[ReallyDedPoet]

Originally Posted by mrbeast

Something that I'm getting bored of is SH3 players posting how boring SH4 is and how they just had to go back to SH3 again.

I love SH3 and SH4 but I don't jump into threads about SH3 just to say how bored I was with the out dated graphics and the weird angular crew in SH3 and so always play SH4 now.

Both games are great so I don't see why there has to be so much sniping by players of one about the other.

This is well said SH4 is my game of choice, lots of tension, lots of mission variety, the list goes on. SH3 is a great game, but it was flat as a pancake out of the box, mods made the difference. SH4 is not perfect, but it is slowly getting there, problem is some folks want it to be SH3 or GWX or whatever, it's not, it is a great sim in its own right.

Enjoy both for what they are, great games that offer a great experience. Oh, almost forgot, I do also play SH3, both can exist in harmony on the
desktop


RDP

[jazman]

Originally Posted by quitefrankly

But basically, I am bored of this game, and its frustrating because it is so close to being a really special game. Usually if a game is boring, I'll just quit and move on. But this game is so close to being really great, I just wanted to speak up about it.

...

I have been playing flight sims for probably around 20 years, and this game is basically a water based equivalent. It really isn't much different...

From what I've read about war, it's pretty boring at times. Hurry up and wait. Bring some good books along for the patrol.

This isn't like flight sims. I don't much like flight sims, oh I'll play IL-2 once in a while. But I love Silent Hunter. There's a world of difference. You're noticing it, but not understanding it: you like the flight sims, but don't like SH, but they're the same? Nope.

[Rockin Robbins]

Actually quitefrankly is the absolute target for the add-on--people who want a little more game in their simulation. In that way it can be a bridge for some of them to seek the realism that our mods will have available for them. But some of them will end up doing mods to put even more game into it, so hang on to your hat. You might find that you are suddenly having fun playing a gamed up sim!

A good sim can go beyone reenacting the past. It can also help answer the what if questions that take it beyond reality into......the twilight zone of games.

[quitefrankly]

Originally Posted by jazman

From what I've read about war, it's pretty boring at times. Hurry up and wait. Bring some good books along for the patrol.

But that is just down to the long waits on the way to the target and then on the way home. And that is eliminated by the time compression. So it isn't boring at all in a game (or atleast, there is no need for it to be). In LOMAC for example, you take off, then you hit time compression and the journey to your target is less than a minute. Then you spend the next 10 minutes (or more), actively fighting stuff, and then you whizz home with time compression again, and do the challenging landing. So there is nothing really boring there at all. And SH4 isn't much different. The slower speed of the sub means that the time compression needs to be >5000 times, rather than just 5 times or whatever LOMAC is. But the result is the same. The journey is made quicker thanks to the time compression, so all you are really left with, is the strategy and the action.

Originally Posted by jazman

This isn't like flight sims. I don't much like flight sims, oh I'll play IL-2 once in a while. But I love Silent Hunter. There's a world of difference. You're noticing it, but not understanding it:

What am I not understanding? I don't think you are understanding me. It IS like a flight sim. You might be sailing a sub instead of flying a plane, but its still technically the same process. You leave base, travel to your target and fight stuff, and then come home. Its the same process, and I like both equally! I explained that already.

But where it differs, is that flight sims dress up these missions with actual objectives and an actual scenario, and once you complete one mission, you are on to the next, and they are never repeated. SH4 is not like that. You get the same "transport a spy" mission, over and over and over and over. Or a "disrupt shipping in area x". That just doesn't cut it.

Originally Posted by jazman

you like the flight sims, but don't like SH, but they're the same? Nope.

You are misunderstanding what I am saying. I like flight sims, and I like SH. But I can only enjoy SH to a much lesser extent, because it lacks the missions and mission editor that you find in flight sims.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Actually quitefrankly is the absolute target for the add-on--people who want a little more game in their simulation. In that way it can be a bridge for some of them to seek the realism that our mods will have available for them. But some of them will end up doing mods to put even more game into it, so hang on to your hat. You might find that you are suddenly having fun playing a gamed up sim!

A good sim can go beyone reenacting the past. It can also help answer the what if questions that take it beyond reality into......the twilight zone of games.

Yep! I can't wait. But I really hope they deliver with this expansion.

The features generally sound nice, but I am a bit sceptical of them.

For example,

German Campaign in the Indian Ocean: The new campaign spans from July 1943 until end of war, in May 1945. Players will operate from such far off Japanese naval bases as Penang, Singapore, Jakarta and Surabaya.

This may be heaven for some of the existing fans, which is good. But to me, its not really something I am all that interested in. Whether its the Pacific, the Atlantic, or the Mediterranean, it doesn't really make much difference to me. The game doesn't let you explore the coast lines and look at Manhatten etc. And you can't do land attacks with cruise missiles or anything. So you spend most of your time in the ocean, so one featureless blue ocean, is the same as another featureless blue ocean to me. The thing that makes the difference, is the mission and the story, and in SH4, there is little in the way of missions and story. You do a campaign that kind of semi-involves you in WW2, and as I said before, it is just mission after mission after mission, with the same objectives. Nothing really changes. There are the custom made missions in a flight sim, but you also have bombing runs on ships, air to air missions, tank busting missions, bombing a strategic building like a power station etc... In SH it is just ships, so the least they can do is put some kind of story around it, rather than just "disrupt shipping".

I also notice that they call it a campaign, and not a "dynamic" campaign. Something which a lot of flight sim players would expect, but this sub sim genre doesn't seem to offer that yet.

Strategic Warfare: As the player rises in rank and experience he gains access to new strategic resources such as recon aircraft that track down enemy shipping and even battle groups that can help wipe out superior enemy forces.

Do we get any direct control over these things though? In World in Conflict for example, you control your troops, tanks, and choppers, but you can call in "tactical support" wherever you want, and whenever you want! So you see a line of tanks approaching your troops, and you can call in a tank buster bomb from an A10. Or you see a bunch of infantry hiding in some trees, you can call in some napalm to get rid of them. If it worked like that, I would be very excited.

Heroes: Based on actual historical figures, these new crewmembers add a number of special abilities that can change the fate of battle and save the ship when the time is right, as well as adding historical color to the game.

Historical color is something many of the existing fans seem to add themselves, using their own imagination. It may look like a little generic icon of a sailer, but if people are reading books like "Bowfin", they are probably already imagining all kinds of things anyway.

Still, its a nice feature.

But I'm just concerned that none of this is really adding anything gamey. Perhaps us gamers are not welcome in a sim like this. But if thats true, they are only going to screw themselves, and their fans, in the long run. Hardcore simulations are a niche market anyway... but to aim squarely at a hardcore sub sim market... its aiming at a niche of a niche. In my experience, games that do that end up either fizzling out after a while, or end up wanting to make a new game, but lacking the unit sales to get sufficient funding, or to justify spending sufficient amounts. In that case, they usually end up "selling out", and going from one extreme to another. The result is that the once precious hardcore simulation, ends up becoming a very shallow, arcade shooter, with no depth at all.

I just hope that doesn't happen to this. They already have the sub sim aspect nailed pretty much. People love it. If they add the mission editor and some proper campaigns, it would just seem like a fully formed product to me.

Lastly, some people may not see any similarities between one kind of simulation and another, but as I tried to explain above, I do. So the game has atleast some competition, because around the time this expansion pack comes out, there is also going to be this:
http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/

That game has everything I have been talking about, and a lot more too. I'll definitely be buying it, but I would like to have a good SH4 expansion too. That DCS game by the way, has enormous scope. They are making an entire simulation environment, and the first stage is building a pair of combat choppers. The Russian Black Shark, and the American AH64 Apache Gunship. But their intention is to hopefully add others to the simulation in the future. So you could end up being able to fly jets, and maybe even tanks and ships - all within the same game. The fans are getting excited at the possibilities. One person said, "My brother could be playing a first person shooter as a special forces team, and then when he calls for air support... *I* am the air support".