Add reduced damage modifier or respawn from point destroyed in Game options

Having recently played Il-2, I was surprised by how well integrated its non-sim options were. Most flight sims only have the option to turn a few values to infinity with no regard if the game's still fun after.

Case in point, if you're hit in DCS you have the choice of invulnerability (zero fun), mission fail (the hardcore's choice), or respawning from mission start.

Nothing kills my enjoyment more then taking a hit during a mission, hitting respawn, and finding myself 50 miles away from the action with my engines cold. The majority of any playtime is going to be travel time. And for planes like the Viggen, their missions are centered around sneaking into enemy territory for a long time before you have 2 minutes of make-or-break combat. How many pieces of consumer entertainment can wipe out the user's last 30 minutes of progress based on a button press at the wrong time and expect them to come back for more? The issue is exacerbated due to hits usually resulting in binary states of "fine" or "critically damaged" due to jets being so combustible.

I think either an option that reduces all player damage taken to 1/5 of its value, or the ability to respawn near the point where you died would go a long way to keeping newbie players around.

In b4 outrage that a completely optional choice no one is forced to use that lessens the difficulty could be added.

you are in the wrong genere Temp.. sorry ;) There are lots of gaming games out there.. This is a Niche, its a Simulation, as real as it gets. No respawns, no powerups, no energy shields... The mind set of the Simmer revolves around realism and acuracy. You train so that when and If you do get to the target you dont screw up. ´

If you do, well... dead is dead, my friend, you can try again another day (a luxury real pilots do not have).

Thats one of the reaosns I left IL-2 it became a GAME, not a simulation fo WWII any more..

War Thunder is down the hall on the left. If you see Call of Duty, you've gone too far.

you are in the wrong genere Temp.. sorry ;) There are lots of gaming games out there.. This is a Niche, its a Simulation, as real as it gets. No respawns, no powerups, no energy shields... The mind set of the Simmer revolves around realism and acuracy. You train so that when and If you do get to the target you dont screw up. ´

If you do, well... dead is dead, my friend, you can try again another day (a luxury real pilots do not have).

 

Thats one of the reaosns I left IL-2 it became a GAME, not a simulation fo WWII any more..

Cue outrage. :music_whistling:

DCS offers plenty of non-sim options such as magic map, labels, infinite weapons, etc. Is your identity as an armchair pilot ("the mind of a Simmer!") so threatened by the idea of other players having the option to make the game more forgiving that you have to pretend that it's a choice between 100% real-life or CoD-style arcade? This is a consumer product. Its end-state is to give the user as much enjoyment as possible.

Case in point, if you're hit in DCS you have the choice of invulnerability (zero fun), mission fail (the hardcore's choice), or respawning from mission start.

You already happen to not enjoy the invulnerability so what would health bar fix for you, I don't understand. "You've got 3 hits left to go down" - you can count for yourself and then abort.

It's hard for me to believe that there are noobs who buy full fidelity module like Viggen just to fly in game mode anyway.

Why does it matter? Well, actually it does, not as a single point, but cumulative with many aspects, it very much matters. It's annoying to have to explain basic principles like this, but I'm bored, so will do. First off, years ago, things were mostly hitpoint based. Nowadays, that's not the case. It's not as simple as just tweaking a damage number. So what you're actually requesting is a separate simplified damage model and combat system for each aircraft and missile. This would be a collossal waste of resources.

#2 You can't please or cater to everyone, pointless to try. That's why there is more than one game in each genre, so you can find one appropriate to your tastes. To come to a game and then complain about it's base nature is ridiculous. Complaining about a hardcore sim being hardcore is like complaining that a turn based game isn't realtime : no shit.

#3 The end user is not the only consideration. What the devs want to do is also a factor. If ED was concerned with the bottom line and mass appeal, they wouldn't be making flight sims in the first place because there is more money and less overhead in virtually EVERY other genre. They WANT to make DCS, not Ace Combat, not WoWP.

Lastly, what 'gameifications' they have basically operate within preexisting boundaries using the same fms, dms, and so forth and just piping in a little extra ''radar'' data from, the position tracking the game is already doing. Flaming Cliffs simulates most aspects of an aircraft, it's YOUR interaction with it that are simplified (every aircraft is autostart, for example, no option for a true manual cold start). In neither case is there a major departure from mechanics (ie it's very easy to do and doesn't change much)

PS

There is a final point tying in to some previous aspects, is that deaign choices affect the composition of the community, what type of people use your product and how, which matters to anybody with self respect and pride in their work. Lets use the incoming F-18 as an example, it was years in the making, intricate attention to detail, years of negotiations with DoD, etc. You take that, dumb it down, make it hitpoint based, mouse flyable, etc. Yeah, you'll open it to the masses... fifteen year old xbox kids and so forth. Utter waste of all the labor that went in to it to do that sort of thing.

It's the equivalent of splashing pig blood on the artwork in the Sistine Chapel @@ It matters, to virtually everyone, for good reason. Not everything needs to be accessible to the people shambling around a Walmart at 2am =)

I don't begrudge them making concessions, because this is a game, concessions are made all the time for practical reasons, but that's not the same thing as some of the stuff people ask for that canalready be found elsewhere.

No. I think DCS has sufficient gamification options as it is. DCS is after all catering to the hard core end of the simulation market, small as it may be. Other games such as IL-2, War Thunder and some older flight sims cater very well already to the 'game' end of the market.

I feel that adding more gamification options would detract from the extreme realism that DCS represents, and would needlessly consume dev time that could be better spent working on new stuff, bug fixing etc.