More Advanced AI Notifications

[AdmiralQ]

never used the space bar an once again won't help. say your in the middle of an attack an you here base under attack it you be nice to know more detail like say if the Eva says. Based attacked by enemy tanks I'll be like okay the defenses should handle that. but if it was enemy artillery I'll redirect air units to engage

[GeneralSGJist]

Something I liked in Act of War was that little news feed you had running across the top of your command bar which followed up the "EVA" announcements with more detailed information. For example, if you lost any type of soldier, say a sniper, EVA would say "Infantry unit lost," while in the meantime the news feed would read "Sniper KIA." Same thing for vehicles, helicopters, planes and structures. It didn't tell you anything specific like what area of the map it was happening in, but it was pretty helpful when you were multitasking your way around the game and couldn't care to check what unit every "Unit lost" announcement was in reference to. Maybe implementing something like that would be good.

I could agree with that

Like it says Base under attack, and it scrolls text saying exactly what is attacking. So you know just what you need to counter the attackers.

and insufficient funds, then a text scroll says exactly how many credits short you are of the thing you were trying to purchase, thus if u needed to, you could tell harvester to go back to dock immediately.

And the map notifications would only be the when the forces enter your line of sights if they have been in it, it will notify notify.

Such a system could also be integrated with a Tactical AI as seen in KW global conquest, in that it spots the forces, and it asks you if you want it to send the forces it deems necessary All it does and the best counter to intercept the enemy. (All it does is calculate the necessary counter and sends he forces upon your approval, it will not and not command the forces, It will still be up to you to micro as needed.)

[Golan2781]

I really don't see how either a voice feedback or text feedback could supply enough information precisely and quickly enough to be of much use in the situation you deem the current system insufficient. A video feedback would probably be the most efficient solution, showing you the situation in a separate frame, similar to split screen displays as in SupCom.

never used the space bar an once again won't help. say your in the middle of an attack an you here base under attack it you be nice to know more detail like say if the Eva says. Based attacked by enemy tanks I'll be like okay the defenses should handle that. but if it was enemy artillery I'll redirect air units to engage

Well, let's get away from the vague statements then and get down to it: what would you want EVA to tell you in this situation? "Heavy base defense under attack by tanks"? "Two heavy base defenses attacked by 5 medium tanks, 7 infantry squads"? The problem is, you need this system in a situation where you are already overburdened - could you really grasp the information provided so quickly? Plus, more elaborate descriptions don't get rid of the problems you face when there are many updates at once, quite in the contrary, actually.

[AdmiralQ]

I say that EVA tells use what kind of units are attacking, tanks, aircraft, infantry, artillery. I don't need the exact number. So I can choose whether to take care of it personally or not. I think this would be doable and useful.

[Lauren]

Wouldn't make much sense, it is much faster to blink over there and see in under one second that you have to react instead of when EVA is finished and half your stuff lies in rubble. Especially if the tanks laugh at your defenses and say "Too bad as we are many!"
EVA is fine how it is at the moment, you can't get as much information from sound as from visuals in the same time.

[GeneralSGJist]

ok then........

Is there a way you could see how the system could be improved?

or have we reached the pinocle of space bar alert technology?

And I rather lthink golan's idea is good, however, visual attention and redirection takes more effort then auditory alerts, a combination of both would be best.

[sgfan206]

Wouldn't make much sense, it is much faster to blink over there and see in under one second that you have to react instead of when EVA is finished and half your stuff lies in rubble. Especially if the tanks laugh at your defenses and say "Too bad as we are many!"

Maybe, however many tanks need more time to finish off your defences - and you can see it on radar (except you have none, but then it's your own fault^^). And signal words like "artillery" can quickly draw your attention. Or would you say that you are not alerted when it says "Enemy missile-silo detected!" ? The more often you hear "Base under attack", even if it's only one soldier, you are simply ignoring it. Once you hear the word "artillery", you get alerted. The human brain is simple: superflous or annoying things get blinded out, while a single signal word can put your mind on alert status instanty.

Also, by this the game would gain more flexability. I really like that idea.

[CrazyGDIfan123`]

i would never underestimate and ignore a base-under-attack warning... i hit space everytime i hear the warning because it could be just about anything

i also think itd just be stupid if it told me what unit was attacking my base -- it somewhat ruins the element of surprise if im told whether it was a few stealth tanks, or shadow teams, or bombers or artillery bombard that killed one of my buildings.

i didnt notice which unit attacked my base? ok, my bad - or my opponent was clever enough to keep me distracted.
either way its the superior tactics being rewarded, which is good.

[stephanovich]

I find it kind of funny how some wants to know what type of unit is attacking when in RA3 so many hated how the EVA would say an Engineer or Spy was detected.

[GeneralSGJist]

i would never underestimate and ignore a base-under-attack warning... i hit space everytime i hear the warning because it could be just about anything

i also think itd just be stupid if it told me what unit was attacking my base -- it somewhat ruins the element of surprise if im told whether it was a few stealth tanks, or shadow teams, or bombers or artillery bombard that killed one of my buildings.

i didnt notice which unit attacked my base? ok, my bad - or my opponent was clever enough to keep me distracted.
either way its the superior tactics being rewarded, which is good.

I would expect the element of surprise still to be there, if you didn't have any detectors in the area, then it wouldn't see. But in theory once it stealth and is in your line of sight, it's rather unreasonable to think a battlefield AI wouldn't note what unit it was, and the approximate size of the force it spotted.

In other words, I'm asking for the Eva AI to actually be more of an eyes and ears for you so you better know how to respond to a threat.

As said, letting you know what type of units are attacking can help a lot, just in TT, one glimpse of a unit will immediately activate a schema as to what units u need to use to counter it.

As of now, base under attack has so many variations of potential meanings, that the player must sort out what he needs to use in the time he sees the threat.

It's really just basic psychology.

And in Real war and combat, they always identify what forces and how armed the opponent is, so you can best counter them effectively.