Has Luck Replaced Skill In CMBB?

[MrSpkr]

So I guess this means that none of the suggestions offered here worked?

Steve

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by bbaker:

though it would be nice if they were a little ... ah, let's say "nicer" to those who choose to play the game "the wrong way."

Of course, after a couple of years listening to a variety of people imply, or tell them outright, that they made the game 'the wrong way', it's a wonder they reply with anything outside a stream of obscenitites. Wink, wink.

[manchildstein (ii)]

'p33p0h'

when 'loosing' a tank to bogging it should only 'steal' one's resolve...

or

use 38t types!

seriously though... i can see why elements like bogging are randomized... and why it bothers ladder-type players... perhaps in a future version of cm, there will be a setting like 'never bog anyfink... i just can't take it!'... but for now what can anyone do?

i would recommend that... if there is indeed a problem with bogging in the 1.01 version... and it is indeed 'ahystorical'... then a person should do some kind of test to prove this to battlefront's satisfaction in order that it might be patched in 1.02...

myself... i'm too busy watching my 'witto' soliders 'huck tnt'...

and by the way... i have twice lost two (2) is2s to bog/immoblization in jaegermeister so i can sort of feel your pain...

[StellarRat]

If your whole battle plan relies on one or two tanks to win you need to think about the units you are choosing at setup time. Maybe you should take a bunch more infantry or some more artillery. Neither of these bog down.

[Treeburst155]

Now this is a topic I want to sink my teeth into. Luck abounds in CMBO, and moreso in CMBB. Steve says this is because they are making the game as realistic as possible. Realistic simulation of WWII battlefield = substantial luck. I don't think this can be denied; BUT, I don't want to play Yahtzee or Candy Land.

At the scale of a typical CM battle, realistic luck can very easily determine the battle rather than player skill in SOME scenarios IMO. That is one reason I like the larger battles where luck is more likely to even out. That is also the reason I dislike aircraft, variable reinforcement times, extreme low visibility battles (friendly fire), and variable turn endings in attacks and assaults. BTW, poor ground conditions do not bother me (except in small battles) because risk of bogging is proportional to how many meters the player chooses to move off-road. Calculated risk is not luck.

Some just want to command troops and deal with realistic situations and problems (luck). Winning is not as important to these people as enjoying the experience of playing. Some want to test their tactics against others in a clash of minds, as in chess. This is the strategy game mindset.

As CM gets more realistic (luck prone) the latter group will tend to voice gripes. I lean toward the strategy game group myself, and to them I say dump the aircraft, play big battles, use fixed endings, stay away from foggy nights, variable entry of reinforcements, random settings in QBs, and anything but dry conditions(if bogging bothers you). You should be able to 'adapt and overcome' when it comes to the numerous remaining luck elements. If you do all this and still think CM is too luck prone, I would suggest chess. It's a fun game, and your opponent can't blame his loss on bad luck.

Treeburst155 out.

[ January 09, 2003, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[demoss]

I would also like to see "shoot and scoot" changed from Fast/Reverse to Hunt/Reverse.

I'm guessing you wouldn't, and here's why. If Shoot and Scoot was Hunt/Reverse, your tank would stop (due to the Hunt order), fire - and stay there, and fire some more. That's how Hunt works. Once the target is destroyed, then it might finish the Hunt order and move on to the Reverse order. To get it to do what you REALLY want would take added logic to the code, so implementing S&S that way would probably be even harder on poor Charles than the current version, which basically just adds a one-shot pause.

[Cpt Kernow]

Surely its quite simple.

You buy a heavy tank because it has certain positive attributes that you want to use in your battle plan. e.g. survability against enemy fire and ability to deal out death and destruction. However when purchasing this unit you are aware also of its weaknesses such as its abilty to bog or throw a track on occasion.

That tanks bog is a fundamental charachteristic of their "nature". Whilst the enemy has done nothing to you to make this happen,and perhpaps you have made no tacticl mistakes on the battle field, you have taken the calculated risk of purchasing this unit. If you feel the risk of loosing x points from your OB due to a certain unit displaying its fundamental charachteristics ,(e.g. bogging) is too great then simply purchase other units with other strenghts and weaknesses.

[Mikser]

I must say, I agree totally with Fionn's definition of skill.

Prior to discovering CMBO, and later CMBB, I used to play Steel Panthers: World at War -

as a sign of my masochism in multiplayer I'd always play the defender in those grossly unbalanced and unfair assault missions, and I'd promptly lose more often than not. Why did I do this? Because I get greater enjoyment from devising new ways of mangling the enemy within the extreme resource limitations (and humiliating them time after time ) than from artificial and mathematical 'victories'.

A good humiliation is worth ten ladder victories.

[Treeburst155]

I agree with Fionn's definition of skill too. Unfortunately, we don't have a panel of experts to decide who demonstrated the most skill in a given battle. We have only the score.

Treeburst155 out.

[ January 09, 2003, 07:49 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Cpt.Kloss]

Question to Battlefront:

I think that terrain crossing capability is included in the cost of vehicle. Am I right?

If so, this makes an important point to this discussion: with immobilization possibility excluded they would be more expensive in game terms.

[Battlefront.com]

Green Hornet

Steve, you don't know me from Adam and I'm not a very prominent figure on this board, but I'd love to use that one in my sig unless you object for any reason.

Knock yourself out In general, anything posted here can be used as a sig line if the person is given credit *and* they don't ask you to remove it (i.e. after the fact).

Fionn,

You know... when I was writing the word "win" I kept saying to myself "doing the best possible for the given situation, even if it isn't a win". But somehow I slipped up You are completely correct, of course. If 10 people are given the same game/side which is overmatched by the enemy (played by the same person or AI), and 9 get total defeats and you get minor loss... well, you have clearly shown superior skill even though it is still a loss. Thanks for pointing that out.

bbaker

[quot]With all due respect to Steve and the rest of the Battlefron staff, I think you're missing Deadmarsh's point. It isn't so much that he's inflexible, or only wants to fight a certain way, but that he's playing a *game* and as such wants it to respond in a way a game would. He probably looks at a game of CM:BB as a complicated form of chess.

Correct, and chess is inflexible It has solid, predictable rules that can be counted on 100% of the time. Warfare is not at all like that. Plus, I am not misunderstanding the Colonel here. I've seen way too many posts of his like this to get it wrong

Further, in the situation he describes he lost his tank and the large number of points it represents not because of a poor decision on his part - it isn't like he ordered fast movement over soft ground - but purely because of bad luck on his part.

The game has essentially decided, in this instance, to subtract a couple hundred points from one side's OOB.

Not true. He decided to put a lot of his eggs in one basket. What is the difference between having the KT knocked out by a landmind or lucky top hit by a 120mm mortar? From a score point of view, nothing. From a game point of view, nothing. Actually, he has far more control over bogging than he does these other things. And the difference is that a bogged tank is not a LOST tank. The points are still his provided someone doesn't come up and pop it. So don't assume the points are lost, the just aren't going to help him out much. But again, that is not the game's fault.

Maybe it's realistic. But does realism always make for an enjoyable game?

For some, absolutely. For others, absolutely not.

I've always thought of CM:BO and CM:BB as games, or are they more akin to simulators?

Simulators. If we wanted to make this a game we wouldn't have spent 5 years getting all the details right. Games are just superficial simulations.

And, I hate to say this, because I'm going to draw flames and I have a great deal of respect for Battlefront and everything you guys have accomplished, but I find that description of Ladder Players (cherry-picking whiners) versus Historical Players (great guys!) to be fairly insulting.

I said these two positions are extreme, but insulting or not it is COMPLETELY accurate.

When the game then does something to my OOB egregious like Deadmarsh's example is it realistic? Sure. But does it make for a good game? For either side?

Sure it does. Makes it much more challenging for the German player at the very least. And if that is his only unit of power, then he was a fool to put all his eggs in one basket. The game system should not, and can not, protect a player from his own mistakes.

Part of the problem is that the battles fought in CM:BB are limited in scope, by which I mean that if both sides had a large number of units all of these things would even out, but if the battle is small how long a streak of bad luck does it take to put one player at a serious disadvantage?

If I had 12 Shermans and you 2 Panthers, and I stupidly rolled them out into a field and you killed 8 of them... does that put me at at disadvantage? You bet. But guess what... that is what war is all about. You make bad decisions and luck frowns upon you, you are screwed. Better decisions can withstand bad luck better. Better players can withstand bad luck better.

Deadmarsh has been on these boards a long time and if he were charging that tank through scattered trees or rocky ground I doubt he'd complain (despite being a ladder player) but if you can't trust tanks on dry ground, well, are you saying you just shouldn't choose any?

No, I am saying he shouldn't ALWAYS take such vehicles and when he does he should do so knowing that they can bog or get lost easily before doing anything useful. Again, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I don't doubt that this has been addressed before, but is there a reason there isn't an options screen? look at any (decent) flight sim: you can adjust it from practically an arcade shooter to a sorta'/fairly realistic model of flight. Is this beyond the scope of the engine, and if so, could this be added to the engine rewrite? Wouldn't that put to rest these sort of arguments?

Because we had no interest in making such a game and because options like this take time to implement/test, we didn't do them. CM was never supposed to appeal to "arcade" gamers unless they wanted to take a break from their Play Stations and use their noodle more

Kapt Kernow

Surely its quite simple.

You buy a heavy tank because it has certain positive attributes that you want to use in your battle plan. e.g. survability against enemy fire and ability to deal out death and destruction. However when purchasing this unit you are aware also of its weaknesses such as its abilty to bog or throw a track on occasion.

Spot on. This is akin to people complaning that a piece of junk Stuart killed their Tiger from the rear after getting himself surrounded in a street battle. The excuses of the German player could be:

a) I should have been able to see it was a city battle before I bought the Tiger.

It wasn't fair! He had, uhm, like a hundred Stuarts and I just had this one Tiger. How was I supposed to win with those odds?

c) There weren't enough points available to buy enough infantry, so he was able to get my flanks too easily!

d) I don't see why the Tiger should be so friggin expensive or the Stuart so friggin cheap!! I mean COME ONE PEOPLE!

Etc

demoss

I'm guessing you wouldn't, and here's why. If Shoot and Scoot was Hunt/Reverse, your tank would stop (due to the Hunt order), fire - and stay there, and fire some more.

Correct. We looked into this a while back and concluded that we have to use Fast because even Move allows too great a chace of being distracted. So it will remain the way it is.

Steve

[Scipio]

Steve - About your first post here, I really don't see the point. 'Ladder players' seem to have a bad reputation for you. THAT'S RACISM . Does this mean that 'non-ladder-players' don't play to win?

In a PBEM I had a few weeks ago, my opponent lost 50% of his tanks to bog -> immobile. That was very frustating for him, and for me to, cause he finished the battle with surrender after 15 rounds. Where is the fun on this? Realism is fine. But loosing 8 tanks to immobilaziation within 15 minutes? The Fuehrer would have been very unammused! IMO this goes far beyond the 'luck factor'.

Generally, I think 'bog down' wouldn't be that worse if it wouldn't end up so often in 'Immobile'. Maybe it would be enough tough luck if the tank needs longer to get mobile again, and the rate of 'Immobile' tanks would be strongly reduced. If my opponent has 4 Tigers (for example), and they bog down frequently, so they reach the show only one by one, that's one thing. If they never reach the show, cause they get immobile after bog - that's pretty uncool.

The short time factor of a CM battle was often mentioned in other threats, and it's influence on the game is a beloved 'excuse' for many things in CM. I wonder why this doesn't apply to the number of bogged->immobile tanks. What is the historic source for this, if I'm allowed to asked.

[aka_tom_w]

This is a very interesting thread.

Is it possible that the majority of players complaining about bogging problems are the same players that insist on buying "heavy" tanks?

I don't know.

my personal preference is to Never be in the position to have to "buy" anything. What I mean is I only enjoy playing pretested and play balanced scenario's, and I am not active on any ladders.

I play both sides and I have not had any real bogging problems. The Strategy Guide on Page 2/5 talks about bogging and ground pressure. It says tanks with a ground pressure equal to or great than ( >= ) 13 PSI (such as the tiger) have a solid chance of bogging crossing snow covered or muddy fields.

If I look and see that the PSI of the AFV is any where near 13 PSI and the terrain is NOT dry, I know I "could" be trouble if I leave the roads.

ALL this info is in the game. Heavy tanks bog down and get stuck, I think this is realistic.

What is not realistic is buying units in QB battles, BUT that is another matter entirely and since there could easily be a majority of players here that prefer to purchase their own units in battles I must respect that .

BUT it should be noted the game can and will penalize players who fast move heavy tanks across anything but roads or DRY terrain, (I think that is fair to say )

tom w

[ January 09, 2003, 09:54 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Treeburst155]

If a designed scenario utilizes vehicles with high ground pressure and muddy conditions with few (if any) roads that are safe to use (enemy fire), then one would hope that the designer has taken into consideration that many of the player's vehicles will get stuck. If he has, you should still have a fun scenario. If not, you'll see an early surrender.

The situation is similar with aircraft. If one player NEEDS the aircraft to arrive and hit certain targets in order to win, and this doesn't happen, you have a highly unbalanced scenario. Balance in this case is determined by luck. How is this similar to the bogging example above? In both cases the designer did not consider likely possibilities that will severely affect balance.

Treeburst155 out.

[rucrazee]

Hmmm....Two armies slugging it out. Guns blazing, soldiers running for cover, tank and artillery shells are falling all around. That is what makes the heart pump. Give me chaos and confusion. Let me adapt and overcome. Let me rally my soldiers to victory or inflict great harm to the enemy when victory is just a pipedream.

I wanted a tactical combat simulation and that is what I got in CM. Thank you very much BTS. I don't care for a sterile evironment where my robotic forces do exactly as they are told. That would never do as a realistic combat simulation.

As far as luck goes, it is a two way street...dare I say it is probably just as likely that the player you are facing could have a run of bad luck as well. Of course egos are never a factor in ladder games. We all know that the ladder player who wins the game by luck will always do the right thing and replay the game due to the misfortune suffered by his opponent.

Great game, don't go changing it

[Treeburst155]

One does not have to sacrifice realism to any great degree to keep luck to an acceptable level for the strategy gamer. Just do away with unnecessary things that quite often played no roll in real battles anyway. Aircraft and reinforcements with a small chance of arriving come instantly to mind here.

Treeburst155 out.

[bbaker]

Re: Losing a big-point unit to bogging doesn't make the game more enjoyable.

Sure it does. Makes it much more challenging for the German player at the very least. And if that is his only unit of power, then he was a fool to put all his eggs in one basket. The game system should not, and can not, protect a player from his own mistakes.

Absolutely correct. But what if it wasn't his only unit of power? What if each side is playing with a fairly balanced small force and although, sure, he still has other units, he's now at a disadvatage. It can be overcome through skill, but it puts you in a position where the other player has to make a mistake or play poorly, or luck has to swing your way.

Really, as noted by others, this problem usually only comes to the fore in smaller games or when people make very bad decisions about purchasing. In the former case it's a problem, in the latter, eh, too bad. Personally, I think battles over about 1,500 points aren't as much fun.

I'd like to point out that at no point in his post did Deadmarsh say that it was his only tank, he was just bummed that it chose to bog on dry ground. For all we know he had a platoon of them and went on to win, but that isn't the larger point I'm trying to use his (admittedly severe) situation to make.

Re: Why there isn't an option screen to control such variables:

Because we had no interest in making such a game and because options like this take time to implement/test, we didn't do them. CM was never supposed to appeal to "arcade" gamers unless they wanted to take a break from their Play Stations and use their noodle more

That's completely legitimate, especially with a small team working on their own dime. It's just the sort of thing that if I were the producer at your publisher I'd demand. Darn your web distribution!

But, really, if this is a perennial issue on these boards, why not throw a bone to the barking dogs in the next iteration? And perhaps my use of "arcade" was ill-advised, it isn't like a set of sliders will make this Super Mario Barbarossa, it would just add a bit of tailorability to the product, letting those who are luck-averse play under the conditions they might desire. Maybe it's a real pain to put into the current engine, but I'd at least consider it for the next engine.

I mean, really, what might it hurt? Say what you want about the platformer crowd, but it would be nice if PC titles sold half as many units as console games. Making the game more accessible to more people can't hurt, and with as long as you're doing an engine rewrite anyway, why not?

But, uh, put it further down the list than full-movie playback

[Col Deadmarsh]

Originally posted by bbaker:

With all due respect to Steve and the rest of the Battlefron staff, I think you're missing Deadmarsh's point. It isn't so much that he's inflexible, or only wants to fight a certain way, but that he's playing a *game* and as such wants it to respond in a way a game would. He probably looks at a game of CM:BB as a complicated form of chess...

Bingo. Bbaker, you've summed up my entire points perfectly.

I do indeed look at the game as a complicated form of chess and since one can rely on one's one skills to win a game of chess, I want the same from CMBB. I admit that some of the luck that factors into the game doesn't supercede my skill, (i.e.--the success of arty misions, infantry skirmises, etc.) These are random factors I actually like and can easily welcome into the game. So I'm not against luck as a by-product of the realism of the game. I'm just opposed to the kind where it plays too important a part--like frequent tank immobilization.

Steve, you seem to think that I put all my eggs in one basket because I took a heavy tank. That didn't use to be the case in CMBO. Remember that game? Where you could take a tank, drive it over dry terrain and not have it bog down and become immobile. So why now is all this bogging on dry ground realistic? What other proof now do you have to validate this change in the code? I'm serious here. Did you come upon some books that said otherwise?

It may seem like I'm overreacting but I really believe the game has become more reliant on luck. You've now made it a serious risk for a ladder player (someone who plays to win) to take any heavy tank in any condition. This entirely changes the game in my opinion for that kind of player. Why even take a heavy tank if it's such a liability on anything more unstable than a dirt road? That's what it's come to. Christ, you give us all these beautiful tanks in CMBB and then penalize us more now for using them.

I just think you limit the dimensionality of play when you penalize someone for taking heavy tanks with what seems a gross exaggeration of bogging/immobilization. Can I ask that you consider Scipio's plan for keeping the bogging and cutting back on the immobilizations on dry ground for the next patch?

[ January 09, 2003, 10:57 PM: Message edited by: Colonel_Deadmarsh ]

[coldmeter]

I might be repeating myself here through this post, but did Napoleon not ask when a new general was brought before him for the first time after reading his credentials " yes yes, but is he lucky".

you may frown upon your unlucky or lucky scores/hits but I'm sure the man in the field sixty years ago would much rather prefer any source of welcome relief... be it lucky or unlucky.

I'm no brainy box know it all, I'm just saying it as it seems to an ordinary irish joe...

After all it's only a game lads.

[wbs]

From Colonel Deadmarsh:

Steve, you seem to think that I put all my eggs in one basket because I took a heavy tank. That didn't use to be the case in CMBO. Remember that game? Where you could take a tank, drive it over dry terrain and not have it bog down and become immobile. So why now is all this bogging on dry ground realistic? What other proof now do you have to validate this change in the code? I'm serious here. Did you come upon some books that said otherwise?

Colonel, in my first reply to your initial post I mentioned several reasons why it is logical for tanks to have a better chance of bogging down in CMBB than in CMBO. Whether these specific factors were used in modeling a higher bog rate in CMBB than in CMBO I do not know, but the end result is, I believe, historically realistic.

As a matter of record, I HAVE had tanks bog/become immobile on dry ground in CMBO, whereas I have yet to have my first one bog in CMBB. I realize this is contrary to what I posted above, so I guess that the law of averages is about to really nail me in CMBB

[Treeburst155]

Colonel Deadmarsh,

Choosing high ground pressure vehicles does not involve luck. It is a calculated risk you choose to take. The risk is higher in CMBB than in CMBO. This is your real complaint, not that there is too much luck in CMBB. Aircraft is the real luck factor. Down with aircraft!!

Treeburst155 out.

[ January 10, 2003, 12:09 AM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

[Gaylord Focker]

Am i the only one who has yet to use a heavy tank?

[ January 10, 2003, 12:18 AM: Message edited by: Gaylord Focker ]

[SgtMuhammed]

Not the only one. I usually prefer to have a bunch of decent tanks rather than one Uber tank.

A quick note about the rate of imobilization. Judging by personal experience I think tanks unbog too easily. It was nearly a certainty that if you couldn't get out in a matter of seconds then you weren't doing so without help. This is with modern armor and all their automotive improvements. WWII with second or third generation AFVs would have presended a much worst arena from a bogging standpoint.

[Wendigo]

If we're on the topic of luck in competitive arena, look at sports. In many sports luck plays a definite role. Sometimes even a great athlete fails because of the circumstances weren't favorable or they were even downright aginst him. It is part of the sport and the players aknowledge that.

Now people who play in ladder have chosen to play THIS game. They should be aware of the things it implies. As this is highly realistic wargame, it is possible to vehicles to bog, sometimes in the most unconvenient places and times. Been known to happen. The reasons why vehicles seem to bog more in CMBB are believable and as long everybody KNOWS that this is possible it doesn't give any advantage to anyone.

But, if player is skillful it all balances out in the end. It will happen to their opponents sooner or later too and by minimizing their own risks and using all the edges they have more skillful player will emerge victorious in the end.

High risks are optional, even in chess you might have chosen some hihg risk tactic that depends on whether your opponent spots what you're planning.

[Joques]

Originally posted by Scipio:

In a PBEM I had a few weeks ago, my opponent lost 50% of his tanks to bog -> immobile. That was very frustating for him, and for me to, cause he finished the battle with surrender after 15 rounds. Where is the fun on this?

There's something here I'm not getting: I have no idea why people say they bog so much. I hardly ever bog! And I go cross-country in snow, open ground, scattered trees, you name it. In my last 10 scenarios, I've had 1 - one - vehicle, a SPW 251/1 halftrack, bog and immobilize.