I understand it gives it a bit more realism, but up until now, I've found that it's rather an annoyance more than a utility.. It's very hard to tell what's up and what's down from top-down view, no?

Discuss!

True, there should be a camera movement that lets us see the heights.

Simple, I would hate it if the ground was completely flat

The heightmap also blocks a lot of distant shots, so you're less likely to get killed from a miss shot meant for another soldier in front. For the same reason, you can and need to get closer to the enemy, so the fights are supposed to happen within a small distance to make it more intense. This could be achieved with a flat map too by artifically reducing the weapon range, but it doesn't feel right.

Currently, in the camera, the darker terrain areas are lower and the brighter/natural colored areas are higher in relation to your soldier position. You basically need to have a Shader Model 2 graphics card to see it, as the effect is using vertex and pixel shaders. At least I find this effect helpful in finding a higher position to use M240 from to get more open range.

I could try different factors for the effect to make it more visible, if that's the issue. First, make sure you have the SM2 graphics card though.

Having said that, you can now argue how the height should be used and what should be avoided. The current heightmap is a random noise cloud with some intentional evening out for the buildings and lowered trenches, so the open ground has small hills and valleys here and there. Are those too steep, do you think smoothening them would help?

Camera movement is pretty much out of the question, you can't lower the camera too near to the ground as the soldier appearance is not suitable for close viewing.

You can try making the heightmap flat yourself to see how it would work currently. Just edit the media\maps\map1\terrain5_heightmap.png by filling it with single shade of gray, anyone should be ok, and let us know what happens. Of course, this doesn't reveal the whole truth about flat maps, as most of the balancing so far has been done on a lively heightmap and it should make a difference here.

Maybe a minimap-heightmap? With a Map key?

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There's a clear logic and intent here, and the overall issue certainly goes deep into the overall feel of the game.

It might be worth experimenting, though, how a more flat map would work in conjunction with lowering the accuracy of weapons somewhat. Maybe not a flat-out lowering of accuracy, but probably some combination of lower overall accuracy, stronger spread while firing automatic and so on.

Personally I'd prefer more spread on full auto fire anyway, and more emphasis on firing carefully aimed single shots at far away targets. This isn't because of any craving for realism, as that's an illusion and generally a bad idea in a game anyway, but for some "hey, this makes sense to me" kind of feeling. And, it would open the door to differentiating the weapons more and thus engaging the players more deeply by giving them the chance to find their favourite weapon. And, if tests indicate fairly big differences in weapons are fun, new kinds of weapons could become feasible (sniper rifle, shotgun and so on).

I do love the emphasis on short distance, intense action though, and I think whatever tweaks are done to heightmap, weapons or both, the great overall feeling now present in the game must not be lost.

Sustained fire should have more impact on accuracy, it does have some, but I haven't had the time to get it quite right yet. I'd also like to have a dynamic crosshair that gives you a visual hint of the current accuracy.

On another note, I think I've found a way to improve the understanding of the elevation further. Removing the terrain lighting due to the sunlight/moonlight, and only having the height map effect, greatly increases the reception of elevation - you can always count on that a darker area is indeed lower ground, not just a surface facing away from the light. I also tried to shift it so that it would be easier to spot the areas that are even just slightly higher than the player controlled soldier's position. You'll get to see it soon, I'm (again) intending to make some videos this weekend to show off also the other new stuff.

You should post an exclusive screenshot on the forums here of your new solution because we're your loyal dedicated forum fans.

I love the idea of more weapons such as mortars and sniper rifles all the more as a result of a height map. I have little trouble discerning the difference between hills and gullies, but I know not everyone has my computer.
Sniper rifles are of special interest to me as that is my favorite weapon in every shooter. The hills would be of particular use to a sniper in this game ESPECIALLY if the mechanics were shifted to suite the sniper rifle itself. Simply put, the view pan distance when holding a sniper rifle should be roughly doubled. This coupled with a hilltop posting would make for some awesome sniper action. Sniping wouldn't be much use when leading a squad with the current squad mechanics, but if you could issue some simple orders such as "Assault Targeted Location" or "Advance On Targeted Location" or even having the ability to promote a soldier within your squad to squad leader so that they could take control of the group from wherever you happen to be when the promotion is given. They could simply fill whatever role the commander is demanding of them nearest their current position or whatever.
Just some thoughts.

I'd like to see ultra-thin or faded isolines, at set elevations above/below you (basically using your current altitude as 0 and running lines at +/- a fixed height interval). make them white or lighter than existing terrain for terrain for elevations that are higher, and black or darker for terrain that's lower. you could even go so far as to have red iso-lines for terrain thats definitely too high to shoot over or the far sides of high's. Couldn't tell you the ideal elevation interval to use, because I don't really know the variance in the map terrain file, but just a handful of lines would tell you so much, and as long as they were subtle wouldn't overide the games aesthetic. Alternatively you could do prebaked iso's that appear right on the landscape and don't alter based on player height. That would provide slightly less information but would be a lot simpler to implement I would think. Just my thoughts on the issue.

That's a good idea to try out. If the isolines would be rendered as solid colors on specific heights on the terrain, I guess it would have to be somehow matched with the height levels in the map so that an isoline would not accidentally occur on a large even area, coloring the whole area in the worst case. I need to experiment with it at some point. Thanks!