CMFI and Scenarios

[sburke]

Not being a designer (at least not yet) I can't really speak to motivations or expectations on feedback, however I work closely with a team within our company that is responsible for generating a quarterly survey of user feedback.

The most common issues we run in to are lack of a usable survey baseline (not enough respondents) and lack of useful data in the response. Frankly getting good user feedback to project what we should or shouldn't be doing is difficult. Add to that that even good responses can go in opposite directions and I begun to understand Bimmer's feeling a little better. Feedback is very subjective based on what one person likes. What they liked about it can be entirely dependant on their player skill and methods. One person's challenge is another person's cakewalk.

You also have players who just can not accept losing. We have all heard the number of complaints about school of hard knocks. The designer of that scenario and campaign has taken enough hits on this forum, however what have we actually done by that? It was an attempt at creativity we have actively squelched. Personally I liked that campaign and enjoyed what the designer was trying to do. Was it tough, even demoralizing watching my pixeltruppen get obliterated trying to force that bridge? Well yeah but I also got a better appreciation for what the US army went through in Normandy. I got a scenario and a historical lesson wrapped up in one, dang! To the designer of that campaign I say ignore the feedback, it is an interesting campaign and if it is tough, fine I'll consider it to be the School of hard knocks after all.

[Erwin]

I suspect that CM2 scenarios just don't get played as much as CM1 used to - possibly cos CM2 takes a lot more effort, time and patience. FWICS there are unfortunately, not that many discussions going on about ANY scenarios or campaigns, but far more about technical details and historical accuracy etc.

I actually enjoyed HARD KNOCKS as it was an xnt trainer for CMBN. And the final mission in that campaign was awesome. But, experiencing that level of difficulty and frustration once or twice was enough. Now, I look for entertainment, and many CM2 scenarios attempt to be "historical" - meaning attempting to make the scenarios as bloodily horrible to play as the original RL experience. I find that CMA and CMSF is now a lot more fun as they are largely fictional so the designer could focus on making them interesting and entertaining, rather than "accurate".

[Bimmer]

I actually enjoyed HARD KNOCKS as it was an xnt trainer for CMBN. And the final mission in that campaign was awesome. But, experiencing that level of difficulty and frustration once or twice was enough. Now, I look for entertainment, and many CM2 scenarios attempt to be "historical" - meaning attempting to make the scenarios as bloodily horrible to play as the original RL experience. I find that CMA and CMSF is now a lot more fun as they are largely fictional so the designer could focus on making them interesting and entertaining, rather than "accurate".

This is quite true, I suspect. Greater fidelity in the model promotes greater fidelity in scenario-building. That said, individual design priorities come into play pretty early in the process. Personally, I try to make sure that the scenario is entertaining, by my standards; this means I don't build monster scenarios, and I don't keep things rigorously historical unless the battle was fairly balanced and that this can be modeled well within a limited scope. I will build small to moderately sized scenarios depicting anything from purely fictional situations to those based on a factual premise to those built as close to reality as possible.

[MikeyD]

I remember one CMBN scenario I did I made 'retrocatively' historical. I built the scenario how I wanted, then I scouted Google Earth for a similar looking spot on the map. Then I read up on who liberated the closest town on what date. Lo and behold, an action very similar to the one I had depicted had actually happened there! I was able to have my cake and eat it too!

[GreenAsJade]

IWhen it comes to developing free content, if you're not primarily self-motivated, you will inevitably be let down by users who have no vested interest in providing useful feedback.

Spot on. This is probably a general lesson for life too: if you depend on others for your self-worth, you're in trouble

Nonetheless, it's easier said than done, and is definitely a thorny problem.

I don't think that the reason is that scenarios are being "played less, because it's harder".

I think that most people are working their way through the existing scenarios, and demand will start to increase as they get to the end of that short tunnel.

Who knows, I may be completely wrong, and QBs are satisfying folk - that might be an unexpected (for me) part of it. At WeBoB, for CMBN, there are a significant number of QBs being reported...

GaJ

[umlaut]

When it comes to developing free content, if you're not primarily self-motivated, you will inevitably be let down by users who have no vested interest in providing useful feedback.

You´re absolutely right, IMHO (and you can use that in your signature, if you like):

Let me use my latest (of two!) scenarios as an example: It has been downloaded 110 times, but as of yet no one has commented or rated it. I can only guess at what this means, but based on my own way of using scenarios I can imagine a number of reasons for not commenting/rating:

1. I downloaded the scenario, but then I forgot all about it

2. I downloaded it, had a look at it, and decided I didn´t like it (or didn´t feel like playing it today)

3. I downloaded it, played it, thought it stank but was too polite to say so (!)

4. I downloaded it, played it, loved it - but forgot to comment/rate.

There are probably more reasons, but these are based on my own way of using the repository.

I admit I am not very good at writing feed back myself. But all the same I do think that the lack of feedback is a great discouragement for scenario designers.

Speaking from my own experience again: Having spent around three months designing and testing a scenario - and then having zero feed back. Do I feel encouraged to upload another? Take a guess.

That doesn´t mean I might not still design scenarios for myself - that is afterall my main motivation for designing them in the first place.

But the step from playing them yourself and then to uploading them on the repository is actually pretty steep: Not only do you normally have to playtest the scenario vs other players. You also have to write a briefing, create a tactical map, make a few screenshots and so on. Chores that aren´t necessary when no one except youself are going to play the scenario. So why go through that extra hassle?

Mind you: I´m not complaining, only trying to explain why lack of feed back is a problem - in my opinion.

[MikeyD]

Unless a body haunts Repository on a regular basis there's simply not much incentive to go to the trouble of returning to the site, relocating the scenario in question, then typing up a review. Unless it was either the best or worst scenario you've ever played. A CMSF/CM:Afghanistan/CM:BN veteran might have more than 200 scenarios under his belt. You sort'a run out of new things to say about 'em. Sure, its not very polite but who does 'polite' anymore?

[Bimmer]

Generally speaking, I do not offer feedback on most of the scenarios I've downloaded and played. When I have, it has been to identify specific issues that need to be addressed (IMO) to make significant improvements in the scenario. If such comments are not necessary, or there are so many issues that no amount of tweaking will help, I don't bother. Simply selecting a number of stars without commenting is not something I even think about doing.

But player and designer perspectives are different. As a gaming community you are always going to have more players than designers. Would it be nice if more players offered their feedback rather than just grabbing what's offered without so much as a thank you? Sure. But as so rightly noted above, "who does 'polite' anymore?"

[Paper Tiger]

FWIW, I have a lot of stuff that I have developed for my own use that I have no intention whatsoever of sharing because I know that it will be unappreciated. Not just QB conversions of most of my maps with their own PT scoring system or revised and improved versions of my favourite campaign missions but also stuff that you guys have never seen.

[mjkerner]

You´re absolutely right, IMHO (and you can use that in your signature, if you like):

Let me use my latest (of two!) scenarios as an example: It has been downloaded 110 times, but as of yet no one has commented or rated it. I can only guess at what this means, but based on my own way of using scenarios I can imagine a number of reasons for not commenting/rating:

1. I downloaded the scenario, but then I forgot all about it

2. I downloaded it, had a look at it, and decided I didn´t like it (or didn´t feel like playing it today)

3. I downloaded it, played it, thought it stank but was too polite to say so (!)

4. I downloaded it, played it, loved it - but forgot to comment/rate.

There are probably more reasons, but these are based on my own way of using the repository.

I admit I am not very good at writing feed back myself. But all the same I do think that the lack of feedback is a great discouragement for scenario designers.

Speaking from my own experience again: Having spent around three months designing and testing a scenario - and then having zero feed back. Do I feel encouraged to upload another? Take a guess.

That doesn´t mean I might not still design scenarios for myself - that is afterall my main motivation for designing them in the first place.

But the step from playing them yourself and then to uploading them on the repository is actually pretty steep: Not only do you normally have to playtest the scenario vs other players. You also have to write a briefing, create a tactical map, make a few screenshots and so on. Chores that aren´t necessary when no one except youself are going to play the scenario. So why go through that extra hassle?

Mind you: I´m not complaining, only trying to explain why lack of feed back is a problem - in my opinion.

I agree, Umlaut. I have about two dozen scenarios I made for myself...it's the steep jump to finalizing them for the community that I just lack motivation to do. Maybe someday when I retire I will get around to it.

[sburke]

FWIW, I have a lot of stuff that I have developed for my own use that I have no intention whatsoever of sharing because I know that it will be unappreciated. Not just QB conversions of most of my maps with their own PT scoring system or revised and improved versions of my favourite campaign missions but also stuff that you guys have never seen.

Man that is just downright mean. Here we are slapping players around for not being polite and you gotta go say "I got lots of stuff and you'll never see it, nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah!" That hurts. Cough em up PT, we don't have time to be polite and give feedback, we are too busy playing!

I agree, Umlaut. I have about two dozen scenarios I made for myself...it's the steep jump to finalizing them for the community that I just lack motivation to do. Maybe someday when I retire I will get around to it.

Same goes for you mjkerner, I am not interested in sitting around in my senior years in a wet pair of depends too addled to even turn on a PC just as you release a dozen new scenarios. No that drool coming off my jaw is not me savoring those new battles, it is just my way of saying hello. Mind wiping my chin?

To all you designers, it isn't that we mean to be impolite or that we don't appreciate your work, but after finishing a grueling battle who wants to go back to the repository to write some flowering prose? No way! Back to the trenches and another killing ground! As MikeyD noted, the repository isn't exactly built to easily go back and find an item to write a response especially as it starts accumulating more material.

[slysniper]

Boy, do I relate to these later comments. In CMX1 I had designed 30 or so battles before I ever did any to give out, and the only reason I did then was that I wanted to run a new type of tournament so I needed scenarios that I knew no one had played.

But creating the ones I shared were much more time consuming. Just making sure I had good briefings was much more important, then knowing how picky people are. Trying to make sure about all the little details. Anyway, I did not mind but I knew I would get both ends of the feedback also. But I have thick skin. So I could care less.

Some would just hate some of my work, while others would just love some of the scenarios. It did not matter really. All that mattered was if the scenario played out how I designed it to. If it did, then I was successful. If not, then I had flaws in what I was trying to create.

I must have did ok since I had some highly rated scenario’s and was asked to make one for the Master’s Tournament. Which I did and some wrote me to mention it is one of the best they have ever played, but others said they thought it needed adjustments and did not think it was good. I achieved what I wanted from it. So it was perfect as far as I was concerned and could care less if some did not like certain aspects of the scenario. What they generally did not like was things I expected might happen if players did certain thing. Thus causing them losses. So I actually smiled when some criticized my work.

As for CMX2, I would like to support the community. But I just cannot find the motivation to create something worth the level it needs to be. Maybe if I do a tournament again someday. I have at least 30 scenarios I have created and tweaked for my personal use, but Like others have said. I have no time or interest in placing them for others to use as is, and no interest in doing what it takes to make them worthy to be available – for nothing in return.

[Bimmer]

I guess I'm in the minority, in that I release (eventually) most of the scenarios I build. Writing the briefings isn't a big deal to me, and I can become a bit obsessive about finishing up the details and tweaking the little stuff, so when I declare something to be done, it's usually ready for release into the wild. Of course, my scenario production is sporadic and fairly slow to begin with, and I can and do get distracted for long periods of time, which causes things to grind to an abrupt halt.

[mjkerner]

Same goes for you mjkerner, I am not interested in sitting around in my senior years in a wet pair of depends too addled to even turn on a PC just as you release a dozen new scenarios. No that drool coming off my jaw is not me savoring those new battles, it is just my way of saying hello. Mind wiping my chin?

Yeh, but I'm retiring next August, so hopefully your Depends will still be relatively dry.

[A Canadian Cat]

Wow, this is a really interesting discussion. I am new at this whole scenario design thing. My second attempt is in the works. I cannot imagine creating it and then not releasing it. I could fail at it though. That is what happened with my first attempt.

I agree with the comments about the repository being difficult to navigate. I have had trouble finding scenarios that I knew existed let alone discover a new one. I currently download pretty much every scenario that gets added to the repository (and I save the url as a short cut with the same name as the scenario). However I only get to play a downloaded scenario once I have exhausted those that shipped with the game. And given that I play them via PBEM double blind (neither player has played the scenario before or looked at the other side's briefing) that takes a long time.

My plan was to solicit some testers, once I am ready, and specifically ask for feedback as part of the test. After tweaking things based on feedback I will send it out into the world and not really expect any additional comments from the repository. Have others had any experience with asking for testers and getting feedback from them?

[LongLeftFlank]

Y'know if each CMFI purchaser made just one additional scenario and posted it to Repository we'd be playing new scenarios from now til doomsday. And new QB maps, and new campaigns... Unfortunately, reading some of the W.I.P. threads many people seem to be afflicted with 'overambitiousitis'. They start work on some photo-realistic 4x4km map but we never actually see the result. Try an 800x800m map instead, just big enough for an infantry action without much walking beforehand.

I resemble that remark!

[slysniper]

Wow, this is a really interesting discussion. I am new at this whole scenario design thing. My second attempt is in the works. I cannot imagine creating it and then not releasing it. I could fail at it though. That is what happened with my first attempt.

I agree with the comments about the repository being difficult to navigate. I have had trouble finding scenarios that I knew existed let alone discover a new one. I currently download pretty much every scenario that gets added to the repository (and I save the url as a short cut with the same name as the scenario). However I only get to play a downloaded scenario once I have exhausted those that shipped with the game. And given that I play them via PBEM double blind (neither player has played the scenario before or looked at the other side's briefing) that takes a long time.

My plan was to solicit some testers, once I am ready, and specifically ask for feedback as part of the test. After tweaking things based on feedback I will send it out into the world and not really expect any additional comments from the repository. Have others had any experience with asking for testers and getting feedback from them?

getting testers always helps, it just takes added time unless they are very quick at playing HtoH.

Actually that was part of my motive to have mine in a tournament. It was 16 games of each scenario, almost gareenteed to be completed and I would be able to receive game files and feed back. It was a good way to get a quick wide sample of how they played. I did do some tweaking on a few of the poorer ones and a few light adjustments to the better ones from the feedback and then I published them at the Scenario depot. Many of them did very well after that.

But taking feed back from just a couple of test can lead to incorrect conclusions. -- just by the decisions made in a game, the results might be poor. But players will look at the scenario being the fault instead of their play. So to adjust from testing, you need enough to get a feel for how it is playing out.

I feel that a good designer has a sence for what makes for balence in a game and that they see the likely results before they ever play it out. Then playing it is looking to see if that is correct and looking for the little flaws that come from mapping, unit placement and all the funny things that just pop up in the constructing of a battle.

[GerryCMBB]

If more people are designing scenarios but not making them public, which is of course their right, it means that the official scenarios become more important for future games/modules. Maybe we need more of them per module released?

This seems quite different than before. Everyone talked about how strong the community was in terms of user-generated scenarios. I acknowledge that CMFI has only been out a short time. Maybe a blast of them will come out soon!?

Gerry

[Bimmer]

When I playtested for Talonsoft way back when, the standard procedure was to play each scenario twice, once from each side, against the same opponent. We had a detailed form to complete after each run-through. As often as not the same player won both times. This indicates that the scenario is relatively balanced, and helps to eliminate player quality as an issue. It's not perfect, and having numerous testing pairs active helps, but it does work relatively well.

Whether one, as an independent scenario designer, can find a group of people willing to do this and actually keep it up is another matter. In lieu of that, the tournament idea works well, to a point; when I ran "The Farm" tournament for CMBN, I was able to confirm relative balance in the scenarios, but getting players to complete the required AARs was impossible without instituting punitive measures, which I was not willing to do in an informal tournament. And after all that, at last check not a single comment has been posted for any of the tournament scenarios in the Repository, and that with 32 confirmed players in the first round, 16 in the second, 8 in the third, and 4 in the final.

[GreenAsJade]

This seems quite different than before. Everyone talked about how strong the community was in terms of user-generated scenarios. I acknowledge that CMFI has only been out a short time. Maybe a blast of them will come out soon!?

Only time will tell, I guess.

On the one hand, it is my impression that the wheels have come off the community support a fair bit. Speaking as someone who put a fair bit of effort into community support, I can tell you that from where I'm sitting, the environment that BFC has set up is not conducive. I doubt if this is deliberate on their part, but nonethless its how it is.

On the other hand, as I've said before, it takes time playing a game before the necessary experience is there to be inspired to create new things. That amount of time simply might not have passed yet.

Time will tell.

GaJ

[Paper Tiger]

This game engine is not new at all. Some of us have been designing for the CMx2 engine for several years now, cutting our teeth on it with CMSF and moving on to CMBN and now CMFI. So why are we not seeing so much community-created content?

Let's be honest. It's hard work to create a good CMx2 scenario. However, there seem to be a lot of folks who are willing to do this work and there are plenty of folks who are willing to help them and encourage them to do so. Just look at the responses to threads posted to ask questions about how to do this or that for proof of this.

However, when these budding designers finally offer their work for free to this community, what happens? Well, almost nothing. They get a quick 'Thanks for doing this' from some folks and nothing from the rest and that's pretty much it. They get precious little in the way of encouragement from this community after their product is downloaded. Plenty before, mind you to encourage the poor sap to keep producing for free.

'Wow! That map looks awesome, dude!'

'Can't wait to get my hands on that map!' etc, etc.

And, if you are 'lucky', you can look forward to getting your work dumped on by those who are not happy with how you designed it and how they expect you to design for them in the future.

Let me tell you what I want after I post something at the Repository. I want to read AARs of your experiences playing the mission. I don't care how detailed the AAR is, or that it has lots of screenshots photoshopped to include battle plans etc, (although this is particularly gratifying to receive ) I just want to hear from you what you did and how you felt. I don't care about tips for improving the mission. It's made the way I want it to be, not you and I'm not designing for YOU. If you don't have any suggestions on how to improve it then write about your experience. What you did. How it worked. etc.

I think more discussion of experiences playing content will enliven this community and take it away from the dull, dry groggery that predominates in the discussions here. Boring! The tools for this already exist here. You start a thread here or in the scenario discussion forum with the scenario's name in the title and type your feedback. Or you can add a post to an existing thread. See? It's not really a lot of work, is it?

[Ted]

getting testers always helps, it just takes added time unless they are very quick at playing HtoH.

Actually that was part of my motive to have mine in a tournament. It was 16 games of each scenario, almost guaranteed to be completed and I would be able to receive game files and feed back. It was a good way to get a quick wide sample of how they played......

I remember at the end of the Rumblings of War (RoW) Tournaments everyone did an AAR, anywhere from a single paragraph to a thesis sized tome.

They were not only informative to the designers but also to the other players as well.

Just when you thought the scenario was impossible from one side or another you would read an AAR where someone tried a different direction and won (or vice versa).

They really helped me in expanding my tactics in future scenarios.

And how to write an AAR

Perhaps it's time to have another tournament.

It's would be a good way to bring the community together, members meeting other members from around the world. Good stuff.

We could invite several people to submit scenarios.

Balance, although preferred, may not be necessary.

Can you say Nabla?

(Where's WineCape, I'm getting thirsty)

[GreenAsJade]

Good idea.

GaJ

[Bimmer]

Hey, I'm all for another tournament, but as noted above (based on my experience), if you don't institute a "produce an AAR or forfeit" rule, plenty of people will simply ignore the requirement.

[GreenAsJade]

That sure was a good rule.

GaJ