Can “Realism” Doom IL2:1946?
 

Let me say at the onset, this is not a critical piece. I love this game and appreciate all the work that TD has done to enhance IL2:1946. It has given me hours of enjoyment, but I have noticed of late that a drive for “realism” has begun to creep into the patches eliminating some of the features we enjoy on “easy” play.

I would like to thank the members of TD for all their hard work in bringing great us great improvements and additions to IL2:1946.

I have a question though. Would it be possible to make the new aircraft available without having to upgrading the whole game? I would love to have the new planes, but not the “realism” improvement. Is that possible? Right now, I’m holding at 4.10.1.

I know there are some players who are playing on “fully realistic”, but I would be willing to bet that most of those who play the game do so on “easy” setting. I use to love using to torpedoes to sink Japanese and German shipping. Since I upgraded to 4.10.1, my torpedoes do not work even when the game is set to full easy. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, but I don’t think so.

At some point it may become so realistic that it will be unplayable except by a small hand full of fanatics. Of the 44 or so thousand members of M4T, I would really be interested in knowing just how many play on full realistic settings. What has made IL2 so successful is it’s flexibility. The full spectrum of “pilots” can play. From the complete novice to the most seasoned ace, all can enjoy IL2:1946.

You folks have done a wonderful job upgrading IL2:1946. Again, let me say thank you. I, and I’m sure, all those who love this game really appreciate all the hard work you do.

All of the realism improvements can be turned off in difficulty settings, can't they? :confused: Why do you need the option to tick those difficulty settings removed - just so you can say you play on 'full switch'?

You should upgrade to 4.11, there realistic torpedo parameters have become an option.

You could fly on autopilot, then take the dog for walk, come back and find those ships sunk. Didn't have to think about it or do anything all, lol!

While some aspects have become more realistic it has always been the case that difficulty settings can be modified and the realism settings can be turned down as per each players preferences.

I'm not sure if you've noticed by in 4.10 and again in 4.11 the realism area got a bit of a workover and there are now even more fine tuning options so that you can turn off fragile torpedoes, use more basic bomb arming (i.e. they always go off no matter what you do), use easier to aim rockets, etc. Some of that was just done and some of it was community request but I think it looks pretty good.

The realism factors on IL-2 have always gone up. More realistic damage modeling, flight modeling, etc. have always been introduced as time went on. When 4.01 came out years ago it introduced a totally new flight modeling system that was meant as a kind of test bed for Cliffs of Dover. It totally changed how we all flew... but everyone has adapted nicely. Many people newer to the game never knew what it used to be like :)

I like to play on "easy", not lazy!:grin:

I think its not a question of realistic just more difficult.

So "fully realistic" should be replaced with "full difficulty"

As for bombers load outs being "changed" ............... lets just say we have options now :)

v4.11 brings a change in arming bombs and torps.

I am still to see the fighters ammo "changed" as far as canon/machine guns jamming due to high G manoeuvres or freezing and electrical/hydraulic failures in their triggering.

Seems strange to make changes to bombers load outs and not the fighters also.

:)








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As others have mentioned, 4.11 introduces a slew of new difficulty options, including those for torpedoes, rockets, and the new engine overheat parameters. The organization is now much better, with 5 or 6 pages of categorized options rather than 3 pages of mumbo-jumbo.

I understand that having an easy option is vital to the continued success of the game, even though I've personally moved on from that (but it is still fun to mess around in some easy servers now and again). As long as Il-2 has the scalable difficulty that it does, Il-2 won't be doomed for its realism/difficulty.

Getting 4.11 is totally worth it, but if you're still not sure, copy the game, and patch only one copy and then decide which you enjoy more. I think anyone will appreciate the new aircraft and new AI routines.

meh ... if you want easy fly by wire you can always dig up CFS 2

The reason IL2 succeeded and CFS 2 failed back in the day is Oleg refused to compromise and pander to the toy market.

Sadly marketing people never see that. They think for a game to succeed you need to let every random 10 year old feel like a hero after only one day of play.

The result can be clearly seen in the fantasy RPG market. Learning the various unique combat controls and what technique to use with each different monster was a real challenge in old school RPG's. Unfortunately combat in virtually every modern RPG consists of "stand next to the bad guy with your uber-sword and left click very fast".

rant over ... back on topic ...

To answer the OP's question, I have always played full difficulty and in addition set all icons off, speedbar off, the chat text bar off and the RHS hud style display (WEP , rads etc) turned off.

CFS1/2 were hacked to pieces, IL2 come along and was a one disc "almost" cheat free solution. That was the main attraction for many.

The stakes were raised and some of the CFS1/2 Aces couldn't cut the mustard in IL2 and skulked away from their CFS hero status once the playing field was levelled with IL2.

Times have changed the combat flight sim market is not as popular or isn't as attractive as it was back 10 + years ago, possibly because
there's a lot of other distractions out there for the younger generation as far as gaming goes unless they have a specific interest in WW2 aircraft.

You have to have all levels of difficulty to bring in new blood, if its too difficult from the get go then people will loose interest quickly,
remember its also about having some fun, far too many take this game too seriously and them selves along with it.

:)





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I think it is funny to honor those air-quake pilots as new blood for this long-lasting WW2 combat flight sim. It is quite obvious that those easy gamers has changed the multiplayer of IL2 into an arcade game. Hyperlobby is now occupied by those air quakers. Some of those air-quake servers have been there for more than 4/5 years. But none of their admins has ever considered gradually switching to a more realistic difficulty setting. And I have witnessed those rookie air quakers become ace air quakes after all these years. As long as their community is there, I don't think they will consider switching to a more serious gaming style.

I still cannot find another WW2 flight sim out there that can rival IL2, not even CloD. So where are those veteran simmers now? Why did they leave? If this situation continues, I'm afraid I will soon have to switch to DCS series.

I think there is a new wave of ez airplane shooters who focus on "playability". Maybe try some of those? Or you could just adjust your difficulty settings in IL-2 to full ez :D

Realism can ruin the game for lot of players. Not only this one but games in general. That's why is important for developers to offer different difficulty levels in game to ensure enjoyment for as many players as possible. We are trying to follow that rule and any time we raise "realism/difficulty" bar we provide difficulty switch for it.

It is possible that in 4.10.1 we missed to add switch for some features but difficulty menu is reworked a lot in 4.11 and I'm sure that you can now enjoy the game as you used to do in the past.

Realism/Difficulty is just a matter or semantic or perhaps matter of marketing. We can even argue is Full Switch the most difficult setting.

As far as Bombers/Fighters are concerned new bombing options are maybe a problem from competitiveness point of view but they offer bomber pilots much better simulation than before. So it comes down what is the more important to you in the sim.

Flight sims are niche market and you need every player you can get. Some of the people who started at easy setting will never advance to more difficult setting but some will. You can't expect that everybody will play Full Switch. At some point flight sims can get really difficult and demanding for casual players and lot of people simply don't have the time to learn to play Full Switch setting.

But nevertheless they pay for the game and keep the genre alive. If it's only for hardcore players nobody could make flight sim at reasonable price.

I have played full real since the day 1.

I remember reading advice about it like "chose full real - just do it". I did and haven't looked back. It was hard at times because my situational awareness was next to zero. However, I soon realized that part of the thrill is to develop and maintain your situational awareness. There is no way I would let computer to do that on my behalf.

Hold on .........the only reason TD introduced the 2 second arming delay on bombs in the first place was to stop DF server pilots wiping out spawn areas and nothing to do with realism, so please don't lets use that as a realism/difficulty option as it was ridiculous in the first place imposing it, and sanity to eventually remove it.

If were gong to make a start on changing the way pilots use weapons then start on the canons and machine guns ability to fire at all G limits no freezing hyrul/elec failures.

This will add realism to the sim and probably start an immediate argument about weapon g limits as much as the 2 second arming delay imposed on the mud movers.

:)

Thanks again for your support.

Also can you check the TD 1C PM I have sent a Pm there but no replies and Monguse isn't around either at the moment thxz.

PM sent

I think if TD's only goal was to stop online team-killers that fuse delay would have been shorter than 2 seconds (corresponding to about 100 meters drop height).

It was a stop-gap measure that was added before more research into exact bomb-type fusing could be made. The "idiot-repellant" was just a nice bonus.

Maybe it was a bit premature to include it at that time, but it certainly became more realistic than what it was before. As a mud-mover myself (I'm a horrible fighter pilot, but I can place bombs really well) I found the update to be enjoyable, and a step in the right direction.

I do agree that machine-gun jams would be a great addition.

Hehe not going all over that again as one of the team already informed us what and why it was done.

Needless to say its water under the bridge.

And Thx Guse got the PM.

You say it like the air quake servers are a bad thing...

I'll say 90% of them left because of mods. The requirements for equal playing ground are higher on full switch servers.

The mods kill the multiplayer for me...

Funny, for me the servers are just a past time when there were no airwars available.

To me all servers are airquake, regardless of their difficulty settings.

A pitty that today, the only airwar still rolling is GS. It have grown into full maturity, but to be flexible, it needs to be played on the modded side.

SEOW, multisector, was a beauty in itself. But, there have been a general loss on interest in airwars.

Soon, nobody will care to generate this, because there will be nobody to play them. Mostly airwars are becoming private, and in lower scale. No more public moaning fest for campaign creators.

Really, you people better start taking a look on the sim, out of the dogfight servers. Old hands are really tired of them.
Stop adding planes for a while, that takes a lot of trouble and add very few variants to the game.

If you are to balance it, check missing weapon types. That will help campaign creators far more than new planes.

The Pacific DO need a lot of attention. Even the Med, and it is not in the air where attention is needed, and it is not on the ships also.

It is the ground and water scenery development, that needs attention.

Better ways to enable easy control of logistics in campaigns, and enable lesser flyer's to fulfill their role, like recons et all.

Most of this was what Zuti started to generate, but somehow, this got all lost after some bickering, and what we have now on the official version is just a very little tiny bit of it!

Mature players, took the planes they are given, and go to war and do their best with them... moaners... they never got enough!

Hey, RPS I'm interested :) I've hosted a few NGEN campaigns, but generally I became too busy to host them regularly.

[QUOTE=KG26_Alpha

You have to have [B]all[/B] levels of difficulty to bring in new blood, if its too difficult from the get go then people will loose interest quickly,


The fact that it was difficult is what got my attention. The first time I flew il2 everthing was set to full switch and I was not going to give up. Don't fly full switch anymore cause I hate running out of ammo and also like to have externals with flybys just so I can see all the great work that has gone into the skins.

Well, to be fair, most of those guys that left were probably already considering leaving and the mods were the final straw that triggered the exodus.

Actually, to be honest, in many cases it was clearly not the mods themselves that were the problem. At least not in the direct fashion of "... oh crap mod planes I am quitting online now". What seems to have happened is the mods arrived around the same time as IL2_1946 started to hit the bargain bins at $10 or less and as a result:

Mods + Cheap IL2 = more gamer types and points whores online

Which also meant less demand for online wars, co-ops and historical servers.

Unfortunately the loss of those servers meant the gradual loss of long term experienced veteran players and in some cases entire squads.

Now the veteran long term squad players were replaced with young new "talent". This is often cited as evidence the mods "saved" online play. However unfortunately only a few of the new "turn and burn furball" fans actually stay more than 6 months. So the end result is more fly by night gamer types and far fewer of the core long term players that sustained the game online for 10 years..

- Would things have been better or worse if mods had been somehow stopped?
... I really have no idea, but suspect it would have made little difference.

- Are the mods the reason online play is fading away ?
... Not directly but they were one part of a bigger trend that long term seems detrimental.

- is the future success of IL2 going to depend on easier settings and flying late war and postwar hotrods in unhistorical "WWI style" turn and burn furballs at low level?
... I seriously doubt it.

S!

SEOW HQ:
http://www.seowhq.net/

I see lot of action still going on the SEOW front. Lentolaivue 34 currently participating in Marianas.

As for mods killing SEOW: HSFX was purposefully created for SEOW. Don't know personally what it exactly does, suppose something to make SEOW work better with the game. But really, I don't care. Campaign needs this and that mod, I install them to get to play. If one wants to play, he/she will go to great lengths to play.

-LLv34_Untamo

You are right, my problem is being on a different time zone, so I have to choose in between playing the SEOW and keeping my job... :(
On my time zone, there is no front going on, so on the Americas in general there is no SEOW going on asociated with the multifront effort... still I considered going on with a jobless life, but my wife disagreed...:rolleyes:

On the other hand, when the MODS first appeared, I saw a lot off people that have quit the game for good, come back. What took those same people away, were the bickering's that played against a common goal.

The final stab, was the release of COD on mainly an Alpha state.
Now that it is in an almost Beta condition, we are trying to attract some people onto it, but it is still far from being capable of more than dogfight scenarios.

Can too many difficulty settings and too many difficukty features kill the Combat Flight Simulator that this game is?

Its quite easy really.

No, because every Major difficulty Setting can be turned off, and Il-2 can be flown in "ace combat" manner.