Micromanagement - Thoughts of improvement

[gimmyabreak]

I love the attention to detail in MOW, but sometimes too much detail can get in the way of smooth gameplay. Especially during the age of stupid computers that do only what you explicitely tell it to do and even stupidier AI programming which tries to do too much and ends up doing nothing.

That being said, there's a lot that simple functional user interface will let you get away with in terms of computer generated stupidity.

1) Units which are out of any type of ammo should have a display balloon over them indicating their state of out of ammoness, and possibly even the type of ammo they lack (suggestion; a shell/bullet with a red cross over it? no?).

2) The resupply trucks should have a "resupply troops" button. When you press this, all nearby troops that have less than their standard ration of ammo come running up and collect ammo. This would not work for vehicles of any kind, instead they could be resupplied by parking next to them and hitting the resupply button instead. (I see no reason to manually move shells around other than to say "hey look I'm heavy on the micro management!!")

3) Stop having troops fire at tank operators. No living soldier in the world would do this unless they wanted to die fast and horribly, so knock it off unless explcitely ordered as such!! Note: this would significantly reduce the amount of soldiers that are out of ammo!! Have troops fire at other troops, and nothing else (it's "ok" if they also fire at jeeps, but please no tanks, no apc's, it's just dumb!)

4) Please give troops some kind of situational awareness (i know this is hard). Having a whole squad open up on some entrenched soldier miles away is NOT entertaining while a tank and 2 mg nests are scanning the territory. The notion I'm looking for is "display some kind of interest in self preservation you crazy jap kamikaze monkeys!!". I know there's a hold fire button, but HELLO, there IS a point where micromanagement becomes macro annoyance, and changing the fire stances of dozens of individual units crosses that line. So have them use some common effin sense.

5) Do have medics go around healing troops automatically (no not to the other side of the map, refer to point 4 about common effin sense). Real medics do not wait for order to save wounded soldiers, thus neither should make belief medics. I'm sure I mentioned this, but please do keep in mind the common effin sense bit... medics shouldn't try to revive soldiers that are being shot to micemeat by something menacing... situational awareness...

6) Have soldiers make more of an effort to rearm! They seem to only pick up their OWN weapon if they lose it. As if they have some kind of freaky emotional attachment to the damn thing. Have them pick up any weapon along the way that they are proficient with, and have them loot ammo they find automatically... again micromanagement to this degree is simply ANNOYING, as in NOT FUN. For that matters, have them pick up lost helmets and stuff two. Why do i have to keep telling my guys to equip themselves? What are they? Pining for death?

7) Have tankers STAY INSIDE THE TANK when it's being barraged with bullets. This seems obvious doesn't it? Only have them use whatever offensive weapons they can without leaving the safety of the armoured plating... that's what it's for after all! There's nothing more frustrating than seeing your tankers get nailed one by one because they take turn getting skewered in the top gun position. SH*T! My buddy died, better take his place and get nailed just like he did! War is NOT wack-a-mole!

Keep working on the UI, it's way WAY too tight lipped.

[Trotskygrad]

pfff, people in this thread complain way too much.

As for the medic, anyone with the "morphine bag" can revive a teammate. When my medic goes own, I just have some rifleman pick up the bag, use it to revive him, give the medic a SMG, and send him on his way like a SMG infantry.

As for weapons/ammo resupply, I agree that soldiers should prefer their own weapon over enemy weapons within a reasonable distance. However if it farther, they should prioritize enemy weapons of the same type within a certain distance.

As for ammo? perhaps have a "scavenge order" and hud notifications (like CoH, where things pop up saying "your unit is being attacked", "vehicle taking fire", etc, except with "your unit is low on fuel" and "your unit is low on ammo". Adding those would make the game more noob friendly without decreasing skill. (silenced weapons would not trigger alerts).

Also, when I have an infantry squad selected, I should be able to mouse over an ammo truck and issue a "resupply" command that divides up the ammo in the truck per unit type.

All of these things (except scavenge and weapon picking) have been already done by scripters in skirmish missions, shouldn't be hard for DMS to include these in a future update or MoW2

[Alcatar]

Well, this is a topic I brought up around a year ago, and it's what's kept me from buying and playing games from the series now.
I will not buy/play until resupply is fixed - it's ridiculous. I saw the issue in Faces of War and posted it with Men of War, never is it fixed and ever is it my biggest issue. My respect for the company is spiraling.