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Silent Storm My gripe with Silent Storm

Sol Invictus

Erudite
Joined
Oct 19, 2002
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Pax Romana
First off, I have to say that I really love Silent Storm and it's been the best tactical turn-based combat game since JA2. ToEE comes close, but it doesn't have the same interactivity as Silent Storm.

That said, there's one thing that really annoys me about Silent Storm - the enemy turns. It took me almost 5 minutes for the enemy/allies/civilians to take their turns for me today and that pissed me off. The fast animations hack reduces that time by 60% but two minutes is still too long. It's the one issue I have with the game, and the implementation of the Panzerkleins doesn't really bug me as much as they bug a lot of other people. I just wish Nival used concurrent turns for the enemy, allies and civilians the same way TOEE does. TOEE feels like a 'better' turn based game because the combat isn't slow. Silent Storm can almost make you yearn for real time when you have to wait for the stupid civilians to move.

Another minor quibble I have with the game is the bug, or glitch, or whatever that happens with Civilians. Whenever you shoot a door or some other non-target, a whole group of them from the entire map will waste about 3 minutes to get to the location you just shot at to 'inspect' it. Seriously guys, what the hell is up with that? Not only does it waste my time, it makes no sense.
 

Megatron

Liturgist
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Dec 7, 2002
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I didn't mind the enemy turns, so long as I could see what they were doing.

The civilian turns (espeacially on the swiss factory level) are pretty long and pointless though.

I'd rather them keep it as it is, or mabye move groups of enemys/civilians at the same time. It seems a bit unfair that you have shorter turns than the enemy?
 

Jinxed

Liturgist
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Aug 5, 2002
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Special Encounter
I don't feel the game uses WAY to much time... Weird. And I'm not using a hack either. It usually takes around one minute for the enemy and civilian turn to end in the late stages of the game. Exit, did you time it or are you saying "that fish was THIIIIS big"?

Heh, and about the "curious" civilians, I would call them suicidal. It's a fairly known AI issue. They run up to you and start huggin. I think Nivel tried to make it more realistic, but failed. It's logical that they want to hide somewhere near the good guys(they are in total panic, they see you as as a possible safehaven) but not in the middle of a friggin crossfire, PWEASE.
 

Whipporowill

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May 18, 2003
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I really don't have much of a problem with the ai turns, but yeah - simultaneous enemy movement when waaaay out of your sight, sure - sounds spiffy (as we all know).


(som really miniscule spoilers below, and I mean REALLY)

My gripes with Ss, thus far, are more on the lines of credibilty - why the heck do the germans hiding out in that village wear freaking uniforms? I though they were like HIDING? It would have been way more cool to find a gang of heavily armed civilians attacking you - and maybe their elitistic superior hiding out in his uniform, since he couldn't stoop to wearing peasant garb. And why is YOUR team in uniform when conducting secret mission in the middle of an enemy town? COME ON!

Oh yeah, b t w - I'm loving it. Of course, how could I not?
 

Jinxed

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Whipporowill said:
My gripes with Ss, thus far, are more on the lines of credibilty - why the heck do the germans hiding out in that village wear freaking uniforms? I though they were like HIDING? It would have been way more cool to find a gang of heavily armed civilians attacking you - and maybe their elitistic superior hiding out in his uniform, since he couldn't stoop to wearing peasant garb. And why is YOUR team in uniform when conducting secret mission in the middle of an enemy town? COME ON!

lol, that's a funny thing you pointed out and by all means you are right.

However, perhaps it's the allied intelligence who got everything wrong, and those were british agents in disguise as germans? Until you came along and butchered them.

On impossible, I had to do some armed civilian missions... What bugs me about the that is what they say... They storm a fortified building and go "please, I mean you no harm" and proceed to shoot you and then go "they have no respect for human life".
 

Whipporowill

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I met some armed civilians along with a bunch of soldiers in a random encounter - the civs were all hostile, but I figured it was just a bug - since one cried that out when I shot him (just saw the red helmeted icon) and didn't attack unless I walked up to them. So, yeah - I can see that as annoyance - not knowing if they're actually SUPPOSED to be hostile or not.

I'm not that far into the game - but I'd like to see more different mission types than I have, as of yet, how about assassination, ambush, planting bombs and the like? I think a lil more variety would do the game some justice - just slapping you down INSIDE of a lab, instead of you having to search for the secret entrance in a warehouse is a loss...
 

Sol Invictus

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Oct 19, 2002
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protobob said:
I think enemy/civialian turn time is related to cpu speed and amount of memory.

It's not. I'm on a Pentium 4 2.8/800fsb/Hyperthreaded CPU and have 1 gig of PC3200 DDR. I don't think it's related to any of that because the enemy turns take the exact same amount of time (though perhaps slightly less) than on my P4 1.8 or my Athlon 1.2

I'd really prefer concurrent turns, a la TOEE
 

Megatron

Liturgist
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How would that make it any quicker though?

It didn't take me 5 minutes. I think the only annoying thing was an enemy running away from my panzerkleins in a random encounter and civilians getting hit by stray-bullets, bleeding over about 4 turns then dying, making me have to start again.

I thought your team was already dressed unusually? It'd have been nice for some sneaky missions though, like walking past a bunch of allies then waiting in a coffee shop or something. OMG TEH SUSPENSE. Very 'Great Escape'.

I was happy with the variety of missions. It'd have been nice too have one or two story missions, but I wouldn't know if this would mess up the game. I like it how it is, but some alternative sneaky routes would be nice. Also some features of the map that you can mess around with, like trees falling over ravines and making a bridge or being able to scout out an area first. It'd also be nice too be able to create your own team-members. Mabye some alternative world-maps like the south coast of england or something, then have a country map a smaller region and map out whole areas.

It's still a good game though. Thumbs, arms, legs...all up!
 

mr. lamat

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 21, 2003
Messages
463
Location
hongcouver
my gripe is... it's always nazi's. why is it always nazi's and the nazi-esque? or knights, i am so fucking sick of knights!

i want cavemen dammit! or pirates! that would be so much cooler. having a little tribe of cavemen and sending them on turnbased missions to hunt a bear or raid another tribe, with clubs, or 'teh ph4t l3wt', an obsidian dagger! no armour, no magic, no 'witty banter', just grunts and paleolithic pugilism. that would be a cool game.

there are no good pirate games either. that sucks. i would like to be able to raid towns and board ships and plunder. all the pirate games suck.

instead... we get endless redo's of nazi's and knights.
 

Sam Brown

Novice
Joined
Dec 26, 2003
Messages
12
Location
Northern Virginia
Whipporowill said:
I'm not that far into the game - but I'd like to see more different mission types than I have, as of yet, how about assassination, ambush, planting bombs and the like? I think a lil more variety would do the game some justice - just slapping you down INSIDE of a lab, instead of you having to search for the secret entrance in a warehouse is a loss...

A lot of those mission types are planned for the expansion. Doesn't really help you know except to say they are doing something to improve the variety of experiences in the game.
 

Sheriff05

Liturgist
Joined
Sep 24, 2003
Messages
618
Location
Chicago
Exitium said:
First off, I have to say that I really love Silent Storm and it's been the best tactical turn-based combat game since JA2. ToEE comes close, but it doesn't have the same interactivity as Silent Storm.

That said, there's one thing that really annoys me about Silent Storm - the enemy turns. It took me almost 5 minutes for the enemy/allies/civilians to take their turns for me today and that pissed me off. The fast animations hack reduces that time by 60% but two minutes is still too long. It's the one issue I have with the game, and the implementation of the Panzerkleins doesn't really bug me as much as they bug a lot of other people. I just wish Nival used concurrent turns for the enemy, allies and civilians the same way TOEE does. TOEE feels like a 'better' turn based game because the combat isn't slow. Silent Storm can almost make you yearn for real time when you have to wait for the stupid civilians to move.

.

Ex, are you playing with patch 1.2?
because I have maybe up to two minute AI turns max (and thats rare usually 1 min max and I am running a P4 2.0 with 512 RAM) thats during the big factory missions toward the end of game.
I like the concurrent turn idea too, but 2 min AI isn't that big a deal to me, 5 min plus would be a drag. That brings up another point and that there are serious performance issues with S2 either memory leaks or whatever but the game is a resource hog,
I have serious audio issues with game I have only begun to solve
(they are managable but not fixed)
But I read alot of people have various Graphic, Audio and AI issues with the game depending on their rig hopefully Nival will start to address these with the US release-
 

oldmanpaco

Master of Siestas
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
13,609
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Winter
Both are equally good.

Why doesn't the codex let people post as Anonymous anymore? Having a few guest posters would really spruce the place up. I mean agris has been posting for 14 years and I doubt he has anything useful to say anymore so fresh random blood can only help.
 

Plisken

Learned
Joined
Oct 8, 2017
Messages
255
my gripe with silent storm is its not as good as people make it out to be.

"easily the best turn based tactics since JA2" is a low bar to set when the genre has had nothing else but dogshit since JA2.

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but its paper thin strategy wise, and has a lot of annoying kinks and the maps are tiny. Generally the tactical options you have available to you are not very meaningful. Theres no suppressive fire or fear mechanic, so there is never any reason to use anything but the most accurate and rangey weapons, with the exception of clearing a house where magdumping some prick to ensure hes dead in one turn is useful. Theres no smoke grenades or distraction functions (i.e AI will never go "investigate" a sound), so thats another layer of possibly interesting tactics removed. You've essentially got a turned based shoot em up with cover and concealment, on small not very interesting maps.

Thats just the tactical element. The strategic considerations are non-existent, resource management is never really a thing, and exiting a mission area insta heals all your guys.

I dont know if things change for the better in Sentinels, but as far as S2 is concerned its very shallow. The ability to destruct the environment is welcome but it doesn't add much beyond the novelty factory - the scenarios presented to you offer very little reason to ever blow a hole in a wall or lace a house with fire.
 

Master

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 19, 2016
Messages
1,160
It adds the strategic element you complained about by implementing resource management in the form of everything costing money. Everything, from the mercs, weapons, ammo, every piece of equipment, down to costly healing at the homebase and repairing of guns. Yes, now there's also a weapon durability mechanic, adding weight to engeniers; Panzerkleins also have to be maintained.
The main source of money is loot for which a niffty afterbattle screen was added; and successful completion of missions which can also be partially completed or even failed(no money).
You can rob a bank too.
Missions themselves are improved; they feel handcrafted and thoughtfully constructed. Think BG1 vs BG2 encounter design.
The story is also pretty good too, with a couple of twists, and the music has a nice x files conspiratorial vibe to it.
Also the voice acting. Maybe it's just me but the male PC voice actor sounds just like the "I never asked for this" guy from the new DX games, and listening to his retarded comments is a joy.
The difficulty can be tweaked in various ways to suit your playstyle(don't know why devs don't do this more often).
Can't think of anything else right now. I may be wrong about some things as I haven't played it in a while.

Edit
There is a certain mission that will make you rage hard and reload several hundred times. Minor point but this can't be helped as it's a Russian game after all.
 
Last edited:

Serus

Arcane
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Messages
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Small but great planet of Potatohole
my gripe with silent storm is its not as good as people make it out to be.

"easily the best turn based tactics since JA2" is a low bar to set when the genre has had nothing else but dogshit since JA2.

Don't get me wrong, I like the game, but its paper thin strategy wise, and has a lot of annoying kinks and the maps are tiny. Generally the tactical options you have available to you are not very meaningful. Theres no suppressive fire or fear mechanic, so there is never any reason to use anything but the most accurate and rangey weapons, with the exception of clearing a house where magdumping some prick to ensure hes dead in one turn is useful. Theres no smoke grenades or distraction functions (i.e AI will never go "investigate" a sound), so thats another layer of possibly interesting tactics removed. You've essentially got a turned based shoot em up with cover and concealment, on small not very interesting maps.

Thats just the tactical element. The strategic considerations are non-existent, resource management is never really a thing, and exiting a mission area insta heals all your guys.

I dont know if things change for the better in Sentinels, but as far as S2 is concerned its very shallow. The ability to destruct the environment is welcome but it doesn't add much beyond the novelty factory - the scenarios presented to you offer very little reason to ever blow a hole in a wall or lace a house with fire.

Thanks for this post. You put in words what I think about this game but more eloquently. I never understood the praise it gets on the Codex. Must be because, frankly, there is so little real competition.
What kills the game for me is almost total lack of strategic element. It makes the missions meaningless. The game feels like a series of small maps that you need to go through and it gets old fast because as you wrote - the combat is ok but not very deep, it lacks options.
 

Master

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Oct 19, 2016
Messages
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Lack of strategic element in the original is unfortunate but it does make sense: its wartime and you are provided whatever you need by the state, no questions asked. What do you want them, to charge you money in the middle of World War 2? In Sentinels you are part of a clandestine organization operating in the aftermath of the war, you are on your own and have to provide for yourself while racing against the clock to stop an invisible enemy(cool story bro).
Still i wouldnt skip the original as at least you get to play as the Germans which is pretty rare and it has some cool missions and you get to know some of the guys before they became mercs in Sentinels.
 

Serus

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Lack of strategic element in the original is unfortunate but it does make sense: its wartime and you are provided whatever you need by the state, no questions asked. What do you want them, to charge you money in the middle of World War 2? In Sentinels you are part of a clandestine organization operating in the aftermath of the war, you are on your own and have to provide for yourself while racing against the clock to stop an invisible enemy(cool story bro).
Still i wouldnt skip the original as at least you get to play as the Germans which is pretty rare and it has some cool missions and you get to know some of the guys before they became mercs in Sentinels.
Money is not the only possible resource in such game. Other options include time, personnel, advanced "secret"/"experimental" equipment and tech, information from intelligence, and probably many more. Those I mentioned were just out of the top of my head. The authors chose to skip it almost completely in favour of a series of tactical combats (on small maps, with limited options available for the player). And because of that I think the game is not that good - certainly over-hyped here on the Codex. Still enjoyable but could be so much better if that engine was expanded upon and used for something really good.
As to Sentinels - haven't played it, need to try one day but after SS being a disappointment I was never too excited about it - and honestly I have a long list of games to play and Sentinels is not even on that list.
 

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