Full Spectrum Warrior - final thoughts...

Eric

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I'm very close to completion of FSW now, so thought I'd throw out some of my
final thoughts.

The novelty of the game, unfortunately, has worn off. After playing for a
while, the reaction to each contract basically becomes routine: lay down
suppressive fire and flank your other team around across an environment that
is far too easily set up to accommodate such a basic battle drill. In most
situations, its even almost perfect -- with fields of fire and points of
cover layed out perfectly. I found it extremely easy to be able to deterime
the routing that the game engine was seeking.

A few things that I think would give FSW improvement and enhance game play:

- The ability to give the fire team that will be putting down suppressive
fire a secondary/alternate field of fire, that could easily be used as a
"shift fire" sector. The interface to do such could be similiar to the
interface used to give a fire sector prior to bounding a team. Perhaps,
say, after a fire sector is chosen, you could hold down left trigger plus
"A". This would be detected as the primary sector for suppressive fire and
the choose fire sector field would re-appear for the alternate. Put the
field over the secondary and press "A" again.

- If the suppressing team had a secondary field of fire for "shift fire",
it would be very easy to have them shift fire without switching from your
assault element. This is my main annoyance with the game. As your are
coming up to the objective with your assault element, you have to switch
over to the suppressing team and either call a cease fire or change their
sector. While it is possible to switch teams, cease fire or switch sectors,
and then switchback in about two seconds -- thats still two seconds too
many. Two seconds can cause you to lose your momentum, or "violence of
action" as it is called in the army.

- Pyrotechnics for the M-203. When I was in the army (airborne infantry,
82nd), we made extensive use of the M-203 for signaling with star
clusters -- primarily as a signal from an assault element (just as it was
coming up on an objective) for the support element to shift fire. This was
true whether the objective was being taken by a platoon (squads for support
and assault), by company (platoons for support and assault), or even a
battalion objective. The M-203 was primarily carried by our team leaders
and platoon leader's (LT's), simply because it's main application was for
signaling. I was an M-60 pig gunner (later, M-240 gunner when we switched
out) for a good three years and always had my eyes waiting for a star
cluster to go up over the objective while laying down fire. The size of the
objective determine how much fire would be layed down in support. A rough
minimun guideline is to have 3:1 personel over what the bad guys have.
More, of course, is better. For a squad/platoon "movement to contact"
objective, normally at the platoon level, these were reflexive tacticts that
you trained/drilled so much with that you reacted basically from
conditioning. When contact is made, a support element is automatically
brought online and the guns brought up. Squad leader determines a flanking
route and sends a fire team out to position themselves for assault. (Squad
leader always goes with the assault element.) For "deliberate attacks",
that is attacks that are deliberate (based on intel information) and not
spontaneous, everything is more carefully planned. You set out, form up in
an ORP (objective rally point), send out a leader's recon team to put eyes
on the objective, meticulously find a location for support-by-fire and the
assault elements, carefully put the teams in, cover likely avenues of
approach, set up CCP's (casualty collection points), designate EPW (enemy
prisoner war) and CC (casualty collection) teams, ect. This whole process
can take hours before firing the first shot. Thats hours of moving around
without detection, i.e. laying and moving around in nasty low grounds. It
would be cool in FSW to have been able to get teams in position for a
"deliberate attack" as well. (You somewhat can, based on the GPS, but for
the most part the game is movement-to-contact.) Anway, my main annoyance
is not being able to quickly shift fire. Even with "Authentic Mode",
practically all of my casualties in the game were a result of friendly fire.

- The environment and terrain is set up far too easy. It feels more like a
training range, with points of cover set up to make it "perfect", rather
than dynamic real-world battlespace. Even things that give moderate to
light cover (dumpsters and cars) can be found in "perfect locations". Some
of the points of cover need to be taken out, along with the given the
ability for the teams to move while in the prone (low crawling).

- AI has some bugs. I came across a few situations where one of my guys got
"stuck" at a corner. He would continuously keep "running against the wall".
Quite funny, but annoying. You either have to re-start the level or put
some fire on hit and shoot him. After he is shot, you can easily just pick
him up and take him back to one of the aid locations. (No comment on the
aid locations on how, after being shot, your guys are fully restored, hop
back up, and respond with "Thanks. I feel much better now.")

Anyway, I'm nitpicking on the game -- but doing so not because it is a "bad
game" rather than it being an "great game" and worthy of such. These are
just some of the things I'd love to see, if there is one, FSW2.

Cheers!
-Eric
 
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.. <9AB0e.1291$nC.965@fe1.columbus.rr.com>, % .
> I'm very close to completion of FSW now, so thought I'd throw out some of my
> final thoughts.
>
Dude, what a post!!

Fascinating. I've often wondered what a forces-person would make of it.

--



On Xbox Live you may address me as, atavaX
 

wjm

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"Eric" <ericmau001a@hotmail.remove.com> wrote in message
news:9AB0e.1291$nC.965@fe1.columbus.rr.com...
> I'm very close to completion of FSW now, so thought I'd throw out some of
> my
> final thoughts.
>
<snip>

Eric, nice post.

How do you feel Brothers in Arms stacks up?
 

Eric

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"WJM" <wjmuldowney@NOearthlinkSPAM.net> wrote in message

> Eric, nice post.
>
> How do you feel Brothers in Arms stacks up?


Thanks. Actually, it was playing "Brother In Arms" that led me towards
FSW -- so, I got sidetracked away from it while playing FSW. I played the
first few missions in BIA and found it enjoyable. I'd probably say that I
like the gameplay style of FSW better than BIA, but its refreshing to see
some new ideas thrown out in a FPS. Too many FPS's in the past were being
stamped from the same cookie cutter. BIA is certainly cinematic, with heavy
influence from "Call of Duty" and the mini-series "Band of Brothers". The
dialogue/script is pretty good, even humorous at times.

I'd love to see a FSW2 with gameplay at the platoon or even company level --
based more around deliberate attacks. It would be fun to spent a lot of
time getting your elements in place before execution. With multiple squads,
you could even set up faint assault elements. The satitisfaction and
feeling of accomplishment would come from taking the objective with maximum
momentum and velocity after spending a lot of time in preparation.

Both games (BIA/FSW) are pretty awesome though.

Cheers,
-Eric
 

Eric

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<I Will>; "But Me Mate Won't" wrote in message
>
> Fascinating. I've often wondered what a forces-person would make of it.

Thanks. I've since completed it in it's entirety (including the
downloadable content) and started playing around the "Official Army version"
scenerios. Those are entertaining, if not humorous at times. Don't know to
what extent that is actually used to supplement real-world training, but
willing to wager thats its more of a marketing/recruiting product than
anything else.

Nice to a new format of gameplay though. Looking forward to a "FSW2", if
there is one.

Cheers,
-Eric