Considerations for authenticity.

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Mudroc0311
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Considerations for authenticity.

First off I want to say how amazing the gameplay footage from the Jolan district looks. You guys really knocked it out of the park. You can see how the terrain was decimated by the boys from 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment during earlier engagements in Operation Vigilant Resolve prior to it becoming 3rd Battalion 1st Marine Regiment's AO during Operation Phantom Fury.

Knowing that information however, my critique would be to ensure that your storytelling incorporates new damage to the Jolan District by the men of 3/1. Meaning, your product needs to have dynamic environmental destruction. This can be achieved by a myriad of weapons utilized during the battle. This could be in the form of CAS (close air support) , or CFF (call for fire) or weapons on board vehicles such as the MK19s, the Ma Duece, the 120mm cannon on a Abrams, or even having a good old D9 bull dozer bull dozing insurgents into an early grave in the house they occupied. The list can go on just name a few. Incorporating environmental destruction gives the city the perception that we are actively engaging it in full spectrum warfare.

For instance, I saw gameplay from Controlled Pairs where an AAV had pushed up to the Marines of 3/1. My question is why was the AAV's guns silent? Why was this asset not doing more for the Infantry Marines who were actively being engaged by the enemy? The AAV should be rocking and rolling with its guns not standing there staged for the moment the Marines needs to resupply or are in need of a CASEVAC. The AAV and the men that manned them has a story to tell to. They were more than just our means of transportation and resupply.

Another asset that I did not see in game from the three gameplay videos were PsyOps' reconfigured Humvees that were blaring out sounds of crying babies, the Predator laughing, the pinging sounds of sonar, someone speaking in arabic to surrender, even music from metal rock bands (I understand if you can't get the copyright to play those songs). Hell, on November 10 psyops played the Marine Corps hymn for us twice. That really got the insurgents upset and they began blindly firing.

What I'm trying to say is the footage of the demo released today lacked the authenticity of what Fallujah sounded like in those first few days. What it should of sounded like is a cacophony of a city that is actively trying to kill you. Instead, the city sounded dead as if it were already pacified throughout all the AOs. It sounded a lot like the weeks after we reached our limit of advance and were conducting clearing operations. It sounded like the last 2-3 weeks before we officially left the city after completely clearing it of insurgents.

You see in the first few days of the battle the enemy had bombarded us with IDF as we assaulted foward into their lines killing them. The city was very much awake, alive, and loud. The shelling was constant, you should get the impression that at any moment you can be shelled by IDF and die. To sleep one had to be aware that you might not wake up. You might die in your sleep from IDF or from an insurgent raiding party looking to probe our lines.

Now the last thing I want to mention is the wildlife and the corpses. One thing I noticed in today's gameplay was that although the Jolan district looked war torn and in complete disarray. (Which it should of been since it already was engaged previously by the Marines of 2/1 during the 1st battle.) The AO was missing corpses of fallen insurgents. As we assaulted foward we would engage any targets of opportunities. This would look like insurgents moving from one building to the next as the front lines changed dynamically. There were no corpses going into the AO in today's gameplay footage. The only corpses produced were from the insurgents that you had killed with your fireteam.

Lastly, wildlife. The main wildlife during Phantom Fury were the feral wild dogs. These dogs would fight over territory and the "food" within its territory. The food are the corpses of fallen insurgents. I can't quantify the amount of corpses of both humans and dogs I've seen. The dogs would try to kill each other for the human corpses. If the dog didn't die in its fight for food and territory than in most cases we would find them mortally wounded, and in turn we would mercy kill them. There were so many corpses in the city that eventually we were given orders to (1) kill all wild dogs on sight for our safety since they were feral and already seen us as a walking food source and (2) not to take in any docile dogs we found as pets. (I once found a puppy in a bird cage at a roof top and took it back to the house we staged in during the clearing phase of the operation.) In short, the AO needs both corpses and feral dogs to convey how the city was alive with so much death.

If you made it this far thank you for listening to my critique. I truly enjoyed seeing the progress made to your product. And I look foward to seeing the AO I took part in being the Goverment complex center, the Jubayl district and the Shuhada district.
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AmperCamper
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Re: Considerations for authenticity.

Sorry I missed this, Mud. I'm just catching up now, and I'll address what I can. Thanks for taking the time to write all this up for us!
Mudroc0311 wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 10:08 pm For instance, I saw gameplay from Controlled Pairs where an AAV had pushed up to the Marines of 3/1. My question is why was the AAV's guns silent? Why was this asset not doing more for the Infantry Marines who were actively being engaged by the enemy? The AAV should be rocking and rolling with its guns not standing there staged for the moment the Marines needs to resupply or are in need of a CASEVAC. The AAV and the men that manned them has a story to tell to. They were more than just our means of transportation and resupply.
We received some feedback from early playtests that our AAV was rocking and rolling a bit too much. Its fire was almost constant and did most of the work for the player. We tuned this down, but maybe we revisit this.
Mudroc0311 wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 10:08 pm You see in the first few days of the battle the enemy had bombarded us with IDF as we assaulted foward into their lines killing them. The city was very much awake, alive, and loud. The shelling was constant, you should get the impression that at any moment you can be shelled by IDF and die. To sleep one had to be aware that you might not wake up. You might die in your sleep from IDF or from an insurgent raiding party looking to probe our lines.
This is an especially good reminder for us. I've passed this onto our audio team, and there are opportunities to make our Fallujah sound more "alive" by increasing the audio frequency of fly-bys, mortar fire, etc.
Mudroc0311 wrote: Tue May 23, 2023 10:08 pm Lastly, wildlife. The main wildlife during Phantom Fury were the feral wild dogs. These dogs would fight over territory and the "food" within its territory. The food are the corpses of fallen insurgents. I can't quantify the amount of corpses of both humans and dogs I've seen. The dogs would try to kill each other for the human corpses. If the dog didn't die in its fight for food and territory than in most cases we would find them mortally wounded, and in turn we would mercy kill them. There were so many corpses in the city that eventually we were given orders to (1) kill all wild dogs on sight for our safety since they were feral and already seen us as a walking food source and (2) not to take in any docile dogs we found as pets. (I once found a puppy in a bird cage at a roof top and took it back to the house we staged in during the clearing phase of the operation.) In short, the AO needs both corpses and feral dogs to convey how the city was alive with so much death.
Our dogs react realistically to the actions of players and AI, so they were not active during the intense fighting shown in these videos. They get scared away by firefights and gradually come back after. There's just not a lot of pause in the action.
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