Frustrated

[bushido]

I am curently at mission 9 of the campaign and I have a mix feeling about it.

On the one hand the mission are very well done, lot of atmosphere, acting is nice, lot of variety in the mission, plenty of action great work !

On the other hand, so many bug... On the 8 missions I have flew so far only one was without bug.

Mission 1 I had issue with the leader not landing back home

Mission 2 the wingman did not start the training

Mission 3 the wingman never join up after it's attack and some F18 were stuck on the deck preventing a recovery in the end

Mission 4 impossible to kiss off wingman

Mission 5 the leader decide to eject at the end of the training dogfight

Mission 6 no bug !

Mission 7 the wingman did not perform its bombing run

mission 8 impossible to save the result of the mission, had to skip it

I understand it is very complex missions and that DCS update can brake some trigger but it's really anoying to have a great campaign plagued by so many bugs, in each and every mission at some point you wandering if you do something wrong in the mission or if it is a bug.

And flying three time a mission to find a workaround or being obliged to skip it is no fun.

And to be honnest it was the same with your original campaign on the Mirage 2000, great campaign but so many mission bugged and had to wait for the next DCS update to reapair a mission (update that would brake the next mission of course....)

I'm still having a good time on your campaign but it could be so much better without all these greemlins.

 

[baltic_dragon]

Dude, if you are frustrated imagine what I am feeling. 

I submitted this campaign with all the missions tested several times and working well. Since the release, each update breaks new things and I cannot keep up with fixing them. I send several fixes for each patch just to learn that new ones have been introduced. This vicious bug circle is completely out of my hands, because no matter how much we as 3rd party devs work to fix things (if we can fix them at all) some others get broken all the time. 

There. Done ranting. 

[SchneeFee]

@baltic_Dragon: maybe the problem is your technical approach when designing campaings. Like bushido said there isnt a single mission on this campaingn that works as intended. I am also currently stuck at Mission 9. Tried about 20 times meanwhile. Today the problem was that Dutch just doesnt do anything, and finally after killing the sniper with my last Gun Rounds i ran out of ammo. Although i already changed my loadout from the MAV to 2 x GPU. 

I finally decided to skip this mission.    Skipping not possible in this Campaign. Maybe i try with 6 GPU and go for AAR.

Edited February 27, 2023 by SchneeFee

[MichaelJWP15]

The thing is this is very much a story led campaign (based on a book), and as such it relies on NPCs such as Smoke and the rest of the squadron doing the correct thing. You have to have triggers for mission scripts to progress, and there's the problem because if the AI fails for any reason, it isn't going to work.

I don't know what the solution is for this, but simpler objective driven campaigns will always be easier (e.g. pass waypoint X, destroy target A, B and C, survive and land on the carrier). In these cases wingmen are helpful but if they fail you can still progress.

Having read the book though, I am still having fun, despite the issues! As a former game designer I feel for you Baltic Dragon.

Edited March 7, 2023 by MichaelJWP15

[Yurgon]

On 2/26/2023 at 11:59 AM, SchneeFee said:

@baltic_Dragon: maybe the problem is your technical approach when designing campaings. Like bushido said there isnt a single mission on this campaingn that works as intended.

Well there was when the campaign was released, way back when.

DCS is a fairly complex environment to develop mission in, because it keeps changing all the time.

Like MichaelJWP15 said, story driven missions like in the Raven One campaign require the AI to perform certain tasks. When that AI changes and suddenly stops obeying commands, missions can break, just like when trigger actions change their behavior. There may be game environments with perfectly documented behavior, and when developers do everything by the book, it's guaranteed to work. As far as I can tell, DCS just isn't one of those environments, because it keeps getting updated and upgraded and improved all the time. The downside is that existing missions and environments don't always work the way they were intended to. But I can tell you that content creators like Baltic Dragon invest very considerable amounts of time to update their missions and keep them functioning, but keeping up with the pace of the environment isn't always an easy task. Even so, I do believe that campaigns like Raven One are pretty cutting edge in terms of story telling and are very much worth it.

[MichaelJWP15]

Related question to this discussion; anyone know if there is a debug display in DCS where you can see exactly what other aircraft are trying to do e.g. their next waypoint, current target, selected weapons and so on?

Might be useful to see if the AI has gone screwed and need to reset the mission

[Yurgon]

4 hours ago, MichaelJWP15 said:

anyone know if there is a debug display in DCS where you can see exactly what other aircraft are trying to do e.g. their next waypoint, current target, selected weapons and so on?

Sort of. You'll probably need Combined Arms for this to work, and you need to be able to see the other units on the F10 map, which is not always the case depending on your global DCS settings and also depending on what is enforced in the mission.

With all of the prerequisites out of the way, when you click a unit in the F10 map, its current route is shown in the same style that a Game Master or a Ground Commander would see the routes of their controlled units. I don't think this extends to the unit's targeting or weaponeering, but at least it should give you an idea what the unit tries to achieve.

[ColinM9991]

On 2/15/2023 at 4:59 PM, baltic_dragon said:

Dude, if you are frustrated imagine what I am feeling. 

I submitted this campaign with all the missions tested several times and working well. Since the release, each update breaks new things and I cannot keep up with fixing them. I send several fixes for each patch just to learn that new ones have been introduced. This vicious bug circle is completely out of my hands, because no matter how much we as 3rd party devs work to fix things (if we can fix them at all) some others get broken all the time. 

There. Done ranting. 

This message struck me. I feel for you, it's quite a tough position to be in.

FWIW, I have had issues with some of your campaigns in the past but that's never been as a result of your actions or mission design. The issues stemmed from the poor wingman and general AI in DCS.

[bushido]

Just to clarify, I'm not challenging the talent of Baltic Dragon nor its dedication to provide nice and working campaign.

I eventually finish the campaign and the remaining mission past mission 9 where in the same vein i.e. almost all buged at some point. Some more than others (on Mission 12, I think, I have no other option but to skip it because the trigger did not play as intended and the bandit that were supposed to engage us never came up)

And that is my point it is not that enjoyable to fly a campaign when at the start of every mission you are not exciting by how you will complete the mission but bothered by what bug will biiiiip evrything  this time.

I had flew just before another payware campaign "Operation Cerberus North" that include also very complex mission with plenty of aircraft, script, dialogue, and in comparaison it was very robust. Yes a few bug here and there but nothing that break the mission, nothing that imply to refly the mission 3 time to finaly skip it because there is no other way to progress in the campaign (appart for waiting a potential bug fix in a coming Beta update some day maybe if you're lucky)

I was planning to buy the sequel (or prequel in that case) of Raven One but I'm on the fence to be honest. I have checked the relevant subforum and see plenty of post with "pb on mission X" "Bug on mission X+1" which make me think it will be the same so so experience. As I don't want to be spoinled either I have not read the post so maybe it is small bug and nothing importnat I don't know for sure.

It might read a bit harsh, it is not the intent, I appreciate the hard work perform by Baltic Dragon, I know nothing about mission building but just want to provide an honest feedback on my feeling playing this campaign. I don't know if there is possibility to include more fail proof script in your campaign but it would be so much nicer to just be able to enjoy your otherwise terrific work. 

[DD_Fenrir]

4 hours ago, bushido said:

 I don't know if there is possibility to include more fail proof script in your campaign but it would be so much nicer to just be able to enjoy your otherwise terrific work. 

This is the point - he can't.

The triggers he utilises are provided by ED, they are the that tools he is obliged to use and that he has zero quality control over.

Yes, he uses them in some very clever and complicated ways to get outcomes some of us who do know the ME can only marvel at, but when he built the missions the triggers worked, otherwise he would not have released the missions.

There is no way he can foresee what EDs updates bring in terms of breaking trigger logic. 

What you ask is impossible.

Whist it is appropriate to highlight issues here for Baltic Dragon to be aware, you need to direct your grievances at ED in the appropriate forum: General Bugs - ED Forums (dcs.world)

 

[bushido]

Fair enough.

[baltic_dragon]

One thing that Raven One taught me is to never again make such complex campaigns. Ceberus North which you mentioned is a very good piece of work which I highly recommend but uses nowhere near the amount of triggers used in R1 and R1:DF, which aim to replicate real life ops as closely as possible and where I had to use a lot of tricks to make the AI do what I wanted her to do to be able to replicate these operations... 

For all future campaigns I am going to keep them more maneagable - not at the expense of realism, but grandiose (so without 20 aircraft taking off from the carrier for Alpha Strike and then mission depending for all of the flights to perform their tasks to work). Gamblers for the F-16 will be a good example of this, where there will be full realism, it will give player more options (will be less linear) but also less prone to bugs. So will be the Raven One: Combat Wingman, a training campaign in the Raven One universe.

Having said all that, @bushido I completely understand your disappointment. You pay for a product and you expect it to work properly. I'm doing my best to make it happen, but am dependent on so many moving parts it is sometimes difficult. Looking at the forums, the Raven One: Dominant Fury should be working fine right now, with most of the bugs squashed (barring one or two with AI Tomcats that are still on ED / HB). 

[Roosterfeet]

This is a constant headache for third party campaign creators and I suspect that the only real solution is for ED to get serious about the Stable version being an actual stable version where the AI has been thoroughly tested and works as intended so that the missions they sell don't break. Right now stable is in no way more reliable than the the open beta; it has fewer features and the bugs are older. It's no wonder that everyone ignores "stable" in favor of beta.

[Dangerzone]

This might be a poor workaround - but could it be possible to list the version(s) of DCS that are best to play this campaign on. Then, those wanting to play the campaign can at least roll back to a version that's going to work OK while they play the campaign, and then re-update to the latest Stable or Open Beta version once they've finished?

I know for me personally - I really enjoyed the R1 campaign 'back in the day', and I had far less bugs that people are reporting now. If I was going to play it again, even though it'd be a bit of a pain - I'd probably prefer to roll back to a version that I know will work with the campaign, than have the latest and greatest broken DCS/Campaign combination. 

Just a thought?

On a sidenote - I'm very disappointed to read BD's latest response that he will never again make such complex campaigns. I completely get the reason, and would not suggest otherwise, but at the same token - to have seen what the R1 campaign was like and to know that the author/dev will not aim as high again due to DCS bugs is sad news. 

[SchneeFee]

On my last two attempts:

-> When attacking the Shilkas with Maveriks Dutchs Missle didnt hit the Target. Mission did not progress.

-> Dutch shot down one Mi-8, but Mission did not progress. 

Edited March 24, 2023 by SchneeFee

[SchneeFee]

Finally i managed to finish this Mission. Last time i tried Dutch missed the Helos at all, and the Mission only progressed when i hit one with an AIM9. After that everything went fine. After all a very cool Mission, and beside the problems i enjoyd it a lot!

[Pyrocumulous]

On 3/21/2023 at 6:28 PM, Dangerzone said:

list the version(s) of DCS that are best to play this campaign on. 

I'm not experiencing any game-breaking bugs with any Baltic campaigns, but I really like that idea. An author recommended version number would be amazing.

[baltic_dragon]

On 3/28/2023 at 11:25 AM, Pyrocumulous said:

I'm not experiencing any game-breaking bugs with any Baltic campaigns, but I really like that idea. An author recommended version number would be amazing.

But that would mean that the author should be constantly playing all his campaigns on several versions of the DCS to be able to tell that, and this author barely has time to keep up with updating the old stuff that constantly gets broken (on top of many projects he has open). So while a good idea, I am afraid completely unrealistic...

On 3/22/2023 at 5:28 AM, Dangerzone said:

On a sidenote - I'm very disappointed to read BD's latest response that he will never again make such complex campaigns. I completely get the reason, and would not suggest otherwise, but at the same token - to have seen what the R1 campaign was like and to know that the author/dev will not aim as high again due to DCS bugs is sad news. 

Don't get me wrong - I will still aim for the same level of fidelity, but avoid huge strike packages or things that are too scripted / rely on AI too much. But I am sure you'll like what I am working on!