Eastern Front in SC2

[Night]

After seeing the last Screenshots and hearing the arguements, I am a little concerned about gameplay in the Russian Front. Yes I understand the game is customizable... but I don't expect to be shipped an editor and told to make my own game, what about the default scenario's that have been tested for months, shouldn't they be up to par?

Unless it was a rare event, the unit amount and placement seems to give the feel that fighting on this front is far less then the grand/epic scale it really was. For example, while Stalingrad was first being attacked by the Germans, there were still operations mopping up around Moscow. In SC2, will we see only enough forces to generly engage in 1 large operation at a time?

Also, the thing that bothered me the most about the first game, and what I was hopping would be fixed with this one, is the absence of large Soviet armored forces. Cost and pressure often made buying armor as the Russians non-exsistent. Esp. for the A.I. In SC2 will we see the Soviets more able to field large forces of Armor, as historical, that will drive the axis from their country? (Yes I realize that all unit's have some armor as part of their representation, save it.)

Last but not least, I don't post that much on this forum but I read it often enough. I am getting extremly sick and tired of people being faced with potential problems with the game and pointing to the editor. "Go fix it yourself!"

I am not paying someone $50 of my hard earned dollars so I can fix their game for them. I am also not paying $50 to play a game that 2 or 3 play testers thought was great. I WILL pay $50 if I feel I am getting a game that we ALL have contributated to. For all intents and purposes SC2 should be a finished product that has further potential with the editor, not a half-baked idea with an editor that leaves it up to whoever is playing. Everytime I have a few hours and want to play a game, I don't think I will feel like sparking up the editor and programming myself a historical Stalingrad. All that said, I believe the editor will be fantastic, I am looking forward to using it and seeing what everyone else does with it. But STOP HIDING BEHIND IT! GREAT! WE HAVE AN EDITOR! WHAT ABOUT A GAME!?

[pzgndr]

fighting on this front is far less then the grand/epic scale it really was

Night, please reread my AAR #2. If I have failed to convey what is actually a grand/epic fight going on, well then I guess I left something out. And bear in mind that this is just one game in progress and there are multiple strategies available to experiment with. We do not have the time to try them all! Soon enough, you will have your opportunity.

I am getting extremly sick and tired of people being faced with potential problems with the game and pointing to the editor. "Go fix it yourself!"

There is a big difference between fixing a problem and customizing a game based on your personal preferences. FWIW, most every game released these days has edit capability. Why? Cuz customers demand it. And that's not a bad thing, nor an excuse. HOI2 has CORE working on a customized mod using the editor. TOAW has extensive customized scenarios. Etc. Etc. SC1 went through various evolutions with patches and customized campaigns using the editor. SC2 will continue the tradition. Soon.

[Yogi]

1) I agree that I would not want a game that needs to be customized to work well.

2) I agree that I would want a finished product that works well without having to edit anything. I am not into game editors, I don't hink I'm alone in wanting a game that plays out of the box as it is wiothout need for tweaking.

3) I would also want a game with a top-notch AI.

4) The concern about gameplay on the Russian Front (or any front) may be premature however. Since games can vary greatly, making judgment on seeing only one or two games can be faulty. Also I don't have the same concerns you have expressed at this point from what I have seen.

Summary: It is hard to make judgements on what we have seen. I think it would certainly be prudent for those with concerns to not rush out and buy until there is adequate feedback after release. That would also give a chance for the usual first edition bugs (if any) to be worked out and corrected. Some of us will just have to have SC2 as soon as it comes out, won't be able to wait any longer and will take that leap of faith. Many, perhaps the wise ones, will display patience, wait for better information and then either buy with confidence, or not buy and be glad they took the time to review. I'm not sure which group I will be in yet, but I'm leaning toward buying.

[Desert Dave]

Whew, Night!

You got passion!

That's a good thing to have.

A shade on the grouchy side,

Ah well,

What the hell,

We ALL get that way now and then, eh?

So long as we KNOW that we ALL are fallible,

And, that nobody is,

All by themselves,

KNOWING the only "truth" of things,

Everything will be Jake.

Hey hooray, here we go:

... but I don't expect to be shipped an editor and told to make my own game

You WILL get the finest Editor, ever.

You don't have to make your own game

Unless you want to.

"Default," out-of-box, version will work

Just fine.

And, made even better

Due to future SC-2 forum input.

In SC2, will we see only enough forces to generly engage in 1 large operation at a time?

Certainly!

Depending on HOW you spend your MPP,s.

IF you buy MOSTLY hi-tech gadgets,

Well, you may be... a little thin

Red line, here and there.

In SC2 will we see the Soviets more able to field large forces of Armor, as historical, that will drive the axis from their country?

Yes.

If you recall, from pzgnder's AAR#2,

He had mentioned that he had about as many

Armor units, in early 1943, as

The GErmans had.

(Yes I realize that all unit's have some armor as part of their representation, save it.)

OK, saved!

Wasn't going to give you that

Grog OOB guff, anyway.

I am getting extremly sick and tired of people being faced with potential problems with the game and pointing to the editor. "Go fix it yourself!"

You are exaggerating, IMHO.

I do believe, in each instance, some

Somebody has said that you CAN,

Or... may, should you choose,

Change things around so to suit

Your personal preferences.

Good thing to have that opportunity, eh? :cool:

I WILL pay $50 if I feel I am getting a game that we ALL have contributated to.

EVERY war-game is an amalgamation

Of EVERY war-game ever made, I'd say,

Since Frederick the Great.

Before that, even.

It's an "accumulated wisdom," and, no doubt,

Your ideas are as good as anybody else's

Since, at least, 400 B.C.

And, as part of the prevailing

Zeitgeist , the Beta-Testers

Don't have such bad ideas, neither.

Hubert has the very best ones,

However.

THOSE are the ones SURE to make

"The final cut."

[Hubert Cater]

After seeing the last Screenshots and hearing the arguements, I am a little concerned about gameplay in the Russian Front. Yes I understand the game is customizable... but I don't expect to be shipped an editor and told to make my own game, what about the default scenario's that have been tested for months, shouldn't they be up to par?

Night,

I can only reiterate that Blashy's game WAS NOT based on the default settings and thus MUST be taken out of context for how the final game does/will play. For that I would STRONGLY suggest re-reviewing the AARs posted by Bill and Dave as these are based on the actual default settings that will ship with the game.

Also, please remember that since the testers have the full editor at their disposal THEY CAN make significant changes to the game play (that stray from the outline I have set for the default game) and this can produce some wild results as evidenced by Blashy's thread.

To put this into perspective, and this is of course NOT something I wanted to completely give away until the game is released (surprise is good), a few simple changes made in the editor can greatly change how the default game plays.

For example, with respect to diplomacy, in the default game diplomacy jumps have intentionally been left small with limited diplomatic chits for each major to apply. They are also consumable (by default) which means once a diplomatic chit has been expended it is gone and must be repurchased for further diplomatic effect. Now why so limiting? Well as you can see from Blashy's thread, if it is not, games can become much more skewed (from the historical norm) and much more dependant on diplomatic results. To quickly surmise, I AM NOT shipping the game where diplomacy (as based on the default settings) will be the major factor in deciding the war since in my personal opinion it never was. Yes there were some diplomatic actions here and there but it never threw any major curveballs and truth be told the default settings have only (for the most part) been criticized by the testers as being too limiting.

For a further explanation on diplomacy, in the end it is quite simply a matter of cause and effect... the cause being that if you spend a large amount of your MPPs on diplomacy then the inevitable effect will be that you will have much less MPPs left over to purchase units for the map. Yes, the default settings allow you to take some risks (and yes they may pan out) but in the end it could be at the serious cost of something else like being properly prepared for the Eastern front. As a player that is a choice you have to make, just like many other choices that require much more delicate balance than it did in SC1, like pursuing a naval/sub strategy as Axis or pursuing North Africa versus a historical Barbarossa, and each choice comes at potentially a much higher cost for other strategies than it did in SC1. Again this is a much different game than it was in SC1 and don't be surprised if it is much harder to get things done as Axis as was the case historically.

Now with respect to Blashy's game, I can't say I know all the settings he chose but I do know that he definitely was not playing with consumable diplomatic chits. As mentioned this can have a great effect as YOU KNOW whatever chits you apply will always be there no matter how many diplomatic hits you achieve. This may also change your strategy and it looked like his game was mostly based on a diplomatic strategy where he spent literally half of his MPP income pursuing diplomatic results. Diplomatic effects on a major country can give you desirable results, i.e. if Germany pursues a diplomatic game against the USSR and successfully lowers their join percentage it can have the effect of lowering the Soviet per turn MPP (note that join percentage is linked to MPP collection) and this is what appeared to happen in his game and thus the limited number of units for each side as shown by his screenshots.

Now is this the default game? Nope. But is it possible to set up the game to your personal preference and just to see how it might play out? Yes.

Remember, as mentioned before, with SC1 the game was pretty much as is, meaning the editing capability was very limited and what you got (in terms of info) in pre-release beta AARs accurately reflected the final product. Whereas wrt SC2, since everyone in testing has full access to change whatever settings they like, some of the AAR reports may highlight, granted, some interesting possibilities, but not necessarily the default game play.

Now, in mentioning the editor, and what you can or cannot do, I or anyone else in the beta team are definitely not HIDING BEHIND it, it is just a reminder of how powerful it is and how unlike SC1 you can literally change whatever you like. Yes, words are powerful, and perhaps the words chosen do not express that idea carefully enough, but either way, you gotta ask yourself, would you rather have a powerful editor or not? I can always scrap it but I think that might dissapoint a few people

With all that being said, something else that I think is still a learning curve for each of us on the beta team is that our words, screenshots etc., can go a long way in driving various opinions and/or *conclusion jumping* with respect to the game. We all have to remember that you guys don't see what we see on a daily basis and we may forget that whenever we try out something new, i.e. a new setting in the editor that strays from the many default games we have been playing, and think we have had a pretty interesting result to share that it might not garner the desired audience reaction. As a result, threads have sometimes spun out of control because I personally think we all forget the context of what is actually happening, i.e. we forget that you take our words as gold (just a reminder here that I am the only spokesperson deserving of the honour of "words of gold" ) and you forget that some of this is just simple outside the box testing that may not reflect the final product.

In the end, all I can ask is for everyone's renewed patience and faith that we have a pretty special game here. Again, for this you DO NOT have to believe me or any of the beta testers for that matter as there will be a demo to showcase what we got.

Also, as the game IS NOW truly near to completion I will be working on an entirely new batch of screenshots that will be hopefully posted soon.

Hubert

[ February 25, 2006, 07:37 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

[Lars]

Don't forget to include the screenshot with the game settings.

[Night]

Ahh well I am glad I made this post, a few thing's are cleared up.

I do not think it was made very clear that Blashey's game was so far from the default, I atleast was under the impression that they were Beta-testing a default scenario and that the major diffrence's had been in how they invested Diplo. chits. I for one totally like the idea of diplomatic's and believe they can and should be powerful, but with limitations.

The editor will certainly be half of the games value easily. in SC1 alone, with its very limited editor, we saw great fan-made scenarios. With this new one, we should basicly see brand new games that are fan-made. An excellent addition. I guess what I meant by saying people are hiding behind it was that it seems that more attention has been focus'd on the editor and what it can do rather then what the game is supposed to be: A fairly realistic strategic simulation of WWII in the European Theater.

HC, what would be useful to us here is if with the next batch of ScreenShots, you do prehaps a slide show of 3 or 4 turns on the same front, so that we can actually see with our eye's how major movements and offensives are carried out. In other words, take a SS of Barbarossa turn's 1-4 at the same spot in the map. This way we as fans (who haven't been testing keep in mind) can get a better feel for how a turn plays out and how it effect's turns after it. What movements leave you vulnerable? What positions give you the best advantage? What unit's usally lead offensives? Etc. As you are very fond of mentioning, this is NOT SC1 and thus it is difficult for some of us to understand gameplay.

Thank you for your time.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

My only worry with the editor is that we will get

this huge hodgepodge of mods, with newbies not being

sure which one(s) to use, or what exactly they do.

[Those who have played Silent Hunter 3 and have

perused the Subsim Forums looking for mods know

exactly what I'm talking about]

[Night]

That is a good point. There is a internet game called infantry, which at one time was totally free and highly populated. Now-a-days, the addition of a pay to play and the EXTREME learning curve have all but killed the game. You could quite literally not play the game unless taught, and teaching could take weeks to cover everything, then years to master the game. As long as SC2 does not get overly complicated and the fan's keep new mods etc. orginized I don't forsee this as a problem.

[Hubert Cater]

Originally posted by Night:

[QB] Ahh well I am glad I made this post, a few thing's are cleared up.

I do not think it was made very clear that Blashey's game was so far from the default, I atleast was under the impression that they were Beta-testing a default scenario and that the major diffrence's had been in how they invested Diplo. chits. I for one totally like the idea of diplomatic's and believe they can and should be powerful, but with limitations.

Ok, in fairness let me be equally clear that all I know for sure is that his game did not have the consumable diplomatic chits option turned on and that this alone can make a big difference as outlined above. But even with that being said, each game is different and it is quite possible that there were other factors involved as mentioned by myself and by Blashy.

Keep in mind that this game was under FoW and this time around FoW can be much more limiting as spotting ranges for Air units are halved during Mud/Rain turns so we may not have been getting the full disposition of units on the map. Also, and as Blashy had mentioned, the game not only depends on your strategy but that of your opponents. For example he mentioned that he had heavily invested in diplomacy and this was not immediately noticed by his opponent. As a result he had limited units but so did his opponent because he did not notice his join percentages dropping in turn affecting his overall MPP collection. In fairness, this could also be possible with the default diplomatic settings and I don't necessarily think this should be a reflection of any sort of weakness in the game overall. Rather just the particular outcome of a certain game between Blashy and his opponent.

The thing is... you could still heavily invest in diplomacy and this is still with the default settings and produce a similar result but how often would this happen and at what risk to the overall grand strategy? With SC2 there are more strategies to try but are they necessarily the winning strategy and will it work everytime? Maybe, maybe not but again this depends on your style of play and the style of play of your opponent. Think SC1 here... there are many gambits and some pay off and some do not and those that don't can end the game quickly, i.e. a failed Sea Lion for example.

Again to put things into perspective, and using another example from SC1, you could easily disband your entire French army correct? So, if someone from the original beta team posted a screenshot showing the entire French front line abandoned to pursue a particular strategy of building French Air Fleets in the hopes they would become Free French and in turn help turn the tide in a later year using an air strategy based from the UK... would this necessarily be a weakness in the game or just an interesting strategy that might have actually worked a few times?

Now, granted, is it such a good idea to post something along these lines when no one else outside of the beta team really knows what is going on? Perhaps not, but whether we like it or not the game as it did with SC1 can allow you to do all kinds of things (just to clarify this point, there are many more checks and balances and cause and effects this time around but alternate strategies are still possible, you just have to weigh out the risks) but some may not necessarily be a winning strategy each and every time. Either way, test games such as Blashy's are a good thing and very much needed as we want to make sure the game is not broken and can withstand some expected out of the box strategies. If not we will all hear about it and then this is entirely different sort of complaint like why didn't you guys try this or that, true?

HC, what would be useful to us here is if with the next batch of ScreenShots, you do prehaps a slide show of 3 or 4 turns on the same front, so that we can actually see with our eye's how major movements and offensives are carried out. In other words, take a SS of Barbarossa turn's 1-4 at the same spot in the map. This way we as fans (who haven't been testing keep in mind) can get a better feel for how a turn plays out and how it effect's turns after it. What movements leave you vulnerable? What positions give you the best advantage? What unit's usally lead offensives? Etc. As you are very fond of mentioning, this is NOT SC1 and thus it is difficult for some of us to understand gameplay.

Unfortunately there is only so much time in the day for me to get things done and with much higher priority items on my list I would encourage you to hold out for the demo so you can see just exactly what we are talking about and judge for yourself

[ February 25, 2006, 10:49 AM: Message edited by: Hubert Cater ]

[Hubert Cater]

Now, granted, is it such a good idea to post something along these lines when no one else outside of the beta team really knows what is going on? Perhaps not, but whether we like it or not the game as it did with SC1 can allow you to do all kinds of things (just to clarify this point, there are many more checks and balances and cause and effects this time around but alternate strategies are still possible, you just have to weigh out the risks) but some may not necessarily be a winning strategy each and every time. Either way, test games such as Blashy's are a good thing and very much needed as we want to make sure the game is not broken and can withstand some expected out of the box strategies. If not we will all hear about it and then this is entirely different sort of complaint like why didn't you guys try this or that, true?

On a final note and just to follow up on what I had posted here, essentially what we are all looking for in terms of game balance is not to stifle innovation or alternate strategies but to rather encourange them while at the same time simply make sure they are not fool proof win everytime strategies, i.e. there must be the appropriate consequences for each and every action.

That being said, we all know that each strategy has its risks and rewards and to consider that next time since we have all seen how an innocent post on how a particular strategy happened to work out well (and I am sure Blashy had a lot of fun playing that game since his risks paid off) can be blown completely out of proportion as to how the game will play each and everytime.

[Blashy]

Originally posted by Night:

That is a good point. There is a internet game called infantry, which at one time was totally free and highly populated. Now-a-days, the addition of a pay to play and the EXTREME learning curve have all but killed the game. You could quite literally not play the game unless taught, and teaching could take weeks to cover everything, then years to master the game. As long as SC2 does not get overly complicated and the fan's keep new mods etc. orginized I don't forsee this as a problem.

Don't worry about that, playing SC2 is a breeze to learn, SC1 is the most easy and fun military game I've ever played, the others I never had much interest trying their demos, after 1 hour of SC1 demo I was hooked because of its simplicity.

SC2 is the same way, when I got on the beta I did not even check out the manual, I wanted to see how quickly I would get used to the game, it was easy and I had just a few questions that the manual made clear.

MODs won't make the game more complicated, one will eventually be the default for competitive play or it could be Huberts default shipped, who knows.

Some MODs will be more elaborate, but in the end any MOD will always be easy to learn because they will always run on the backbone of the game engine .

In the end, your least worry should be about this game being complicated to learn and that credit goes entirely to Hubert.

[Capt Andrew]

Thanks for the detailed posts HC. Sounds like we are alot closer to a demo and Gold announcement than I thought! (Come on Steve@Battlefront, fire up those presses!)

I think most of us understand the "basic/generic" AAR's are geared mainly to keep us hanging around and looking at SOMETHING. I think some of the frustration can be attributed to anticipation (which continues to build with every I see). But please, PLEASE don't stop the flow of AAR's or screenshots because some of us old timers forget our manners or make panicky assumptions. Keep it coming... I got a good vein right here for another AAR!

[Night]

I Appreciate the response HC.

[jon_j_rambo]

@GoodNight --- Dude, you bash everything just to apologize?

[Codename Condor]

Rambo, they are not releasin game...Go online and lets play oldie SC1. :cool:

[Night]

What did I bash? I asked some questions and said that I didn't want a response that included pointing to the editor.

[hellraiser]

"Also, the thing that bothered me the most about the first game, and what I was hopping would be fixed with this one, is the absence of large Soviet armored forces."

Well, did Axis forces' strength seem very historical to you in SC1(I mean after axis had racked up some cash and started churning out tons of LFs and PzGroups)? Did Germany have 7-8 Luftflottes supporting Barbarossa? Were Spain and Iraq Axis controlled? You catch my drift, eh?

Players used an 'alternative approach' to the war and as a consequence, obviously russian strategies, tactics and troops composition differ dramatically in SC1 from the historical ones.