OK, opinions needed!

[Vanir]

Put me in the Leave It Alone camp. The reasons for this have been said by others above, but I'll summerise the problems with the proposed changes:

1. Steve's scaled system

The problem with this is that when you start factoring the "gameyness factor" of a vehicle into its cost, the only way you can get your points worth for it is to use it in a gamey fashion. Most people will simply stop buying them. You might as well just take them out of the game.

2. Increasing global moral penalties for vehicle destruction.

The problem here is that this will encourage people to buy small numbers of uber-vehicles instead of large numbers of "workhorse" stuff. This would not be a good trend and would certainly not increase historical puchasing.

Ok, you say "only make jeeps and a few others subject to this". The whole point of buying cheap, easily killed vehicles in the first place is that they are largely disposable. If you make easily killed vehicles have a severe penalty for dying, people will rightly decide that they are not worth the trouble and will stop buying them. You might as well just take them out of the game.

3. Make survived vehicles worth more VPs

This one has all sorts of gamey implecations. People can buy large numbers of cheap vehicles and hide them from combat. If you require the vehicles to be on VLs to count people will hide them until the last few turns and then rush them up. Gamey.

It was brought up by someone (might have been me ) in the Gamey tactic thread that the type of recon done historicly by jeeps and a few other vehicles in CM is actually outside the scope of CM, and would have taken place before any CM game began. Therefore, there is really no way to use these vehicles in a game of CM that is not gamey to a certain extent insofar as it is ahistorical. People should either accept this or lobby BTS to remove them from the game entirely.

Unit cost should be determined by the physical capabilities of a vehicle only, plus an option for rarity factors. When you start basing cost upon asumptions about the way in which a player intends to use it you are entering a grey area and will cause more problems than you solve.

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So maybe you should listen to this Vanir guy instead of ignoring him -- he has the best take on the whole thing. - Combatboy

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 09-28-2000).]

[Banshee]

I vote for "leaving as is"

-OR-

Make rarity a factor, but not in the price. i.e. can only buy 2 jeeps before they run out, or 1 King Tiger.. etc..

a la CC3..

you would get the added benefit of allowing Conscript through Elite in a PBEM, since you could sometimes find the ability to purchase a unit with a higher exp rating.

But the method you (BTS) initially described was not one of the better that you presented (IMHO!).

Thanks for reading.

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Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki

[Los]

I'm all for leaving things as is. Allow the tweaks suggested by BTS to reduce spotting ability at speed to take effect and then lets see...

Cav Scout says:

"It seems to me that some want the benifits of certain units but wish to take none of the risks that using them would incur..."

How very true.

Los

Los

[SS_PanzerLeader]

BTS: PLease leave the points alone!

changing the points are not gonna help keep the anti-gamey crowd in check - they still won't be satisified and pretty soon they well want edge creep and some other new feature addressed. The game is great as is (still needs TCPIP of course! )

If the price of vehicles gets hiked then some vehicles just will be a waste of money totally ... some of the lights became that way afer the first tweak. If this happens they may as well not even be in the game -- then that is less realisitic.

So I vote leave it ... as is

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SS_PanzerLeader.......out

[aka_tom_w]

I'm surprised by the number of leave it alone votes.

Are these people who are voting to leave the points alone also suggesting that Steve should go with the change to reduce the speed to something slower and more realistic and to go with the fix for the to reduce spotting for fast moving vehicles?

Are the people who are saying leave the points alone in agreement that they accurately reflect a good play balance?

I think the U.S. and the Allies should have slightly cheaper units and certianly cheaper tanks and AFV's overall, so as to model the material advantage the Allies historically enjoyed even if is was of lower quality than the "cool German toys".

-tom w

[L.Tankersley]

1. The purpose or intent of the point system seems to be to assist in gauging the relative "fairness" of a battle. It's a game-balancing feature, not a historicity-enforcing feature. Therefore, point values should not reflect "economic" value or rarity but solely combat value. If you want historic force restrictions or stiffer penalties for losing trucks you can develop your own "house rules." But you shouldn't restrict the ability of other people to play their own "what-if" games.

2. I personally feel that before you start tweaking point values, you should decide you're pretty much finished with tweaking the game engine itself. Get the game itself into a state where you're happy with the results (or, failing that, where you've given up on further tweaks), and then assess whether certain units are too powerful/not powerful enough given their point cost.

3. People here are mentioning the "next patch" which will modify off-road movement and spotting, among other things...when did this arise, and what's the deal? I did a couple searches on BTS posts but didn't find any official mentions. Can someone point me at the relevant thread?

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Leland J. Tankersley

[This message has been edited by L.Tankersley (edited 09-28-2000).]

[Claymore]

As a physicist my vote is to address the problem by fixing only the operational characteristics of the vehicles.

(it's in the physics guys not the prices!)

E.g. MG jeeps cannot do 40mph across the grass

E.g. T8 or any other fast mover has its spotting radius reduced drastically

BTS has done a fine job with the physics already in the game and I trust them to tweak it that small amount more to more accurately model reality.

Cheers

[aka_tom_w]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by L.Tankersley:

1.

......

3. People here are mentioning the "next patch" which will modify off-road movement and spotting, among other things...when did this arise, and what's the deal? I did a couple searches on BTS posts but didn't find any official mentions. Can someone point me at the relevant thread?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Try this"

its around page 12 or 13:

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/010574.html

"Gamey Recon Tactics"

Steve Says:

"Just to clarify how it is we come up with the rules used to simulate reality...

1. We identify a particular "something" (I'll call it "element") that is in need of simulation.

That can be anything from the broad (morale) to the narrow (keeping LMGs after

casualties).

2. We identify the important componants associated with this element.

3. We then figure out how many of these componants have already been coded up and

how many new ones are needed to fill in the gaps.

4. The design for the new rules and modifications to the old are looked at to see how well

they will do the job and how practical they are to put into the game.

5. At this point we figure out which ones can be done and which ones can't, then we

readjust our designs to use alternatives where the first concepts proved to be impractical.

6. We beat the crap out of this design "on paper" to see if we missed something major or

will cause something else to become broken. Repeat step #5 if necessary.

7. Coding time Repeat step #5 if necessary.

8. Play test the crap out of the design "in game"

9. Go back and modify the code if things aren't quite right. Hopefully nothing is majorly

wrong or problem causing for something else.

10. Play test for the rest of the game's life to see if more changes are needed. Repeat #9

if problems warrent and time allows.

And there you go

All the time you MUST look at the game's results with a critical eye towards realism, since

that is the baseline standard we chose for this game. If something is allowed, and it is not

realistic, then we need to go back and fix it to the degree we can. And NEVER do we say

that CM is "good enough". CM can always be made better, even if it can never reach

perfection.

So we found a problem with light wheeled vehicles being able to do things that are utterly

unrealistic and impossible to do even in today's Army. Therefore... we MUST have made a

mistake somewhere. That means we had to go back to Step #9 and see how this slip in

reality is allowed to happen.

We identified 3 problems:

1. Borgspotting - unit sees something 400m away from any friendly unit and all the other

units in the game instantly know that the stuff is there.

2. Unstoppable - defenses against something like a fast moving Jeep are tough to do.

3. Good eyes - fast moving wheeled vehicles have a gerat ability to spot even hidden units

in cover.

OK, so how do we fix these two problems?

1. Well... the Borg Spotting is something we can not address. So we have to pass on this

for the moment, at least until we have Relative Spotting.

2. As others have stated, using real life and documented examples, we are letting light

wheeled vehicles travel off road too fast. Charles basically pulled the existing speed value

out of his butt, so trying to say that we shouldn't play around with this number is silly.

3. This is a design flaw and was never intended. The assumption of spotting was based on

there being a dedicated driver and at least one additional pair of eyes dedicated on looking

around. The problem is that the nature of driving off road in such a vehicle precludes this

type of observation due to the fact the vehicle is bouncing all over the place. The driver is

concentrating on the path and the passengers are trying to not fly out.

So there you have it. We are going to reduce the speed of light wheeled vehicles off road

using Fast. We are also going to limit the ability to spot in Fast to almost nothing. How

anybody can argue with this after reading this whole Topic is beyond my comprehension

Steve

[Mr. Clark]

If the point system IS changed, I would have to vote to change it in the direction of realism (as those more knowledgeable about such things have suggested).

Allies stuff cheaper because they had more of it, etc...

As for the Jeeps, etc... I say price them REALISTICALLY. As someone said before, if someone abuses it, it is really their choice and problem... it's not really a game bug or flaw.

As long as that recon jeep can be destroyed as easily as it would be in real life, and can only SPOT as well as in real life, then I have no problems with it being used for whatever the player can dream up.

So my overall vote is either NO CHANGE, or CHANGE for the sake of realism.

[Echo]

Point values should = common/rarity of unit.

There was a butt-load of halftracks in service, these should be cheap. Konigtigers were a bit less common, they should be expensive.

[Guest ACTOR]

While making the changes might cut down on the gamey tactics, it won't stop them. If someone is being gamey...they're going to be gamey. Call them on it.

My vote is to leave it as it is, knowing the upcoming mod will help fix some of the gamey tactics.

[Guest Mr. Johnson-<THC>-]

Leave it alone. The allies are not a such a disadvatage as some people think. I can win with them often. Its not like the West Wall is solid rock. With proper tatics I can slice through it like butter. The only "percived" problem is CM is a computer game. Not real life. Because its a game, players don't cry when Sgt. Rock in the MG jeep dies. Because they are just pixels we players treat our troops like cannon fodder.

[ianc]

Some interesting points made, and I'll chip in on a couple:

1) There seems to be some loss of sight of the purpose of the points system; ie. making Shermans cheaper because the Americans had a lot of them, or basing them on a rarity factor, etc. Points are for setting up a matched battle, not for creating a realistic OOB. If you make Shermans cheaper, you'll unbalance QB's. Not what you want.

1) I don't favor a revamp of the points system; it seems to work well as it is. I favor a possible modification of the game to compensate for this. My vote for the solution is to just cause unarmed or soft vehicles to panic when they start taking fire. Let's face it, if you're in a jeep and someone starts popping off at you with an MG42, you're outta there instanter! There's no decision about this at all.

I don't consider this a big issue though, and at the risk of being an ass, I'd much rather see the hull down problems resolved.

ianc

[Jagdcarcajou]

Hey,

I vote leave the points alone, slow down the Jeeps, and hinder fast spotting. I have not noticed a point problem at all, since making Allied vehicles cheap would throw the balance of the game portion of the sim right out the window. If you want to play with odds that replicate history, build the scenario, but for QBs, points seem just fine.

Chris

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What the hell is a Jagdcarcajou?

[Jarmo]

Now this doesn't happen all the time. The arguments against

changing the values are so good I've actually changed my mind!

Leave 'em as they are.

Oh, 'xept I still feel the Greyhound and the german 20mm heavy AC are too expensive.

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Now, would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of

our trenches and walking slowly towards the enemy sir?

[Philistine]

Just a thought on the points system in general and people's resistance to changing points.

I agree (as does, I think, just about everyone) that the best thing to do in general is to make vehicles act as realistically as possible (e.g. no super-fast off-road movement, reduced spotting at higher speeds).

The points question, I think, really comes up because used in certain ways, some vehicles are more useful than their point cost would otherwise be.

I don't see a general problem with tweaking point costs, because it is something which is completely a play-balance abstraction in the first place--an attempt to scale different equipment against each other to come up with a fair match-up.

There is no direct historical record (or even common-sense) to look to to see if the points are right. It would seem to be an extraordinarily difficult job to balance dissimilar (and even similar) units' point values. Is a 105 barrage equivalent to a Sherman tank which is equivalent to a platoon and a half of infantry?

It's a testament to BTS' efforts (and good playtesting) that the point values seem to be pretty good overall, and there has been very little discussion that certain vehicles are too much of a bargain or too expensive.

But if it appears that certain point values are out of whack, why not change them? (Weren't tweaks made to certain equipment before--Puppchen?).

As I said before, I favor an increase in victory points for destruction of units, as a "tax" on players exposing "non-frontline" units to combat. But increasing the cost alone if BTS thinks they are more effective than they should be also works.

Of course, this runs the risk of the only ones buying jeeps would be those who would use them in a "gamey" manner, but I doubt the increase in point cost would be that high.

Interesting topic. I have faith that BTS will look at all the responses, think about the issues, and ultimately make some decision that will work out pretty well. (Even if it is no change). The fact that the pretty minor "jeep issue" has sparked this much debate I think shows the underlying solidity of the game.

--Philistine

[L.Tankersley]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

Try this"

its around page 12 or 13:<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Ah, ok. I abandoned that thread several days ago. Thanks!

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Leland J. Tankersley

[Richlop]

I think it should be left as it is. In my many months of playing this game i have only had one game where I questioned my opponents moves as "gamey." Perhaps others are unluckier than I, but i'm happy with the current setup. Thanks.

[Los]

"Are these people who are voting to leave the points alone also suggesting that Steve should go with the change to reduce the

speed to something slower and more realistic and to go with the fix for the to reduce spotting for fast moving vehicles?"

Yeah that's exactly what's being said, were you somehow not able to gleen that from the responses? Messing with the points without fixing the vehicle's behaviour first seems bass ackwards, and besides there's plenty of people that could give a rat's ass for points. Especially when desinging and playing historical scenarios in single player.

Los

[Mannheim Tanker]

Wow! You take a morning off from the forum and see what you miss...I'd just like to make it clear that I don't advocate a total, across-the-board increase in vehicle costs. My proposal simply mirrored Lewis' - assign VP's to any surviving vehicles that make it to the victory locations. This would provide a disincentive from throwing vehicles away in ahistorical recon tactics. This could be made optional, much as getting VP's for units that leave a map edge in designed scenarios.

I think the units COSTS should remain as is. I understand that BTS is looking at assigning an optional rarity cost to vehicles in CM2, but that's a different story.

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"The real groundbreaker of CM isn't the 3D modeling, it's the 'holy crap! what the heck was THAT' factor." - Dalem

[Juardis]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by ianc:

Some interesting points made, and I'll chip in on a couple:

1) There seems to be some loss of sight of the purpose of the points system; ie. making Shermans cheaper because the Americans had a lot of them, or basing them on a rarity factor, etc. Points are for setting up a matched battle, not for creating a realistic OOB. If you make Shermans cheaper, you'll unbalance QB's. Not what you want.

ianc <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I agree that if you did it this way it will unbalance the QBs.

However, I'm not proposing that at all. I'm proposing a relative rarity. e.g., Sherms M4A1 more plentiful than Shems M4A3(76)W+, therefore should be cheaper based on the relative rarity. PZ IVH were more plentiful than Panther Gs, therefore, they should be cheaper.

The trick to balancing is to make the base cost (most common of each unit type) comparable for each nationality. e.g., Sherm M4A1 cost 100, PZ IVHs cost 100. This would have to depend on timeframe as well, but in the small timeframe of CM1, that's not too much of a problem.

You then build in the fact that the Allies had a ton more stuff than the Germans simply in the number of points you allocate in a QB(as in 3000 vs. 4800 in an assault could be changed to 3000 vs. 4250 if the assaulter is Germany). That is, if you want to do it that way. I personally think the points allocated for each QB are fine the way they are.

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Jeff Abbott

[Peter S]

I think Steve's suggestion is the wiser one:

1) Reduced top speed and acceleration for vehicles who venture off road (as long as the reductions are based on historical performance figures instead of a quick-fix solution to offset 'gamey' tactics).

2) Reduce spotting success for fast moving vehicles. (I thought this was already implemented?!?).

[Guest *Captain Foobar*]

One thing that I want to point out is that jeep recon, or any of the "gamey" tactics that have been identified are not a crisis, in the CM community.

The size of the *gamey recon* thread might lead one to believe, due to the large amount of interest, that it is something everyone is encountering regularly.We have strong opinions on the subject, but the amount of attention paid to the subject is not proportional to the size of the issue.

I think the 400 posts is just the fact that we have something new and concrete to talk about for once, that hasnt been brought up 300 times before.

There will ALWAYS be ahistorical tactics used by players. We will never see a game that "fixes" this. There will always be tricks that stretch the game engine to do borderline unrealistic things, but I dont worry about it, because in a game as well designed as CM, the benefits of gamey tactics are negligible!

****Why I dont want points changed****

NOW HERE's MY THOUGHTS..highly valuable insights I might add...

I would like to see options that ENCOURAGE and HELP realistic force composition in the future of CM. I have to tell you, I am mostly guessing when I try to intentionally build a historically accurate fighting force, and there are ALOT of people in the same boat as I am.

Be pro-active with the realism, it is important to teach those of us who dont know how common a Greyhound or a Daimler is. The cost changes will not teach this. Some people wont want to read a book to find out every little detail, but they are still interested in the accuracy.

If there was a game feature that provided REALISTIC OOB templates, it would be much more effective than trying to social engineer the issue with point tweaks. Point tweaks comes across as negative and reactive. Templates, or something like that is proactive and will yield a better result IMO. Give the computer some historic guidelines during random purchase (if it isnt in already)

So there it is. Help us play more realistically, because there are many of us that want to, and dont know how to go about it.

[This message has been edited by *Captain Foobar* (edited 09-28-2000).]

[Los]

Don't let the size of that thread fool you it's bascically the same gang going back and forth rehasing what's been said in the first forty posts over and over....

Los

[Banshee]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Los:

Don't let the size of that thread fool you it's bascically the same gang going back and forth rehasing what's been said in the first forty posts over and over....

Los

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

With the added bonus of punishing Smoker for every new post (he clicked the "Email Me" option when starting the thread!)

*snicker*

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Veni, vidi, panzerschrecki