Ok this is getting stupid

[Sixxkiller]

You have to do something about facing bots that are so far advanced and have target pilot. I mean its understandable that sometimes you would face pilots that are better, but everygame isnt realistic nor is it balanced or fun for that matter. And at lower lvls none of these planes should have target pilot as bots. Not much of an RPG if all you face is bots that make up for lower iq with extra draws and 200 more in exp point skills (target pilot, teamwork, markman, etc...) to your zoom climb.

Hope you can understand that a simulation isnt really a simulation if it goes past the paramaters of logic in an attempt to replicate serious combat.

Really hope something is done to randomize and lvl the playing field.

-Ray

[Moon]

Play more human players? Seriously... the AI bots are just that. And there is a limit as to how "good" they can be made.

Just thinking out loud, but maybe we should enforce a rule that above a certain XP level, you can only play human opponents...

Or we auto-retire your pilot once he's surpasses a couple thousand XP, with a big fat medal and a friendly slap on the shoulder?

Martin

[Sixxkiller]

Moon, play more humans players eh? Well hmm get online at 3am and see what ya got to pick from. Its usually the afk's or the ones that ask to play a game without firing so as to regen ed card. So maybe I should do that and never worry about losing a pilot to target pilot again. And I know you could figure out those players. Just look for high level players who lose ed and the next couple of games they dont shoot or get damaged until they get ed again.

But alas I dont need to cheat. And I dont think I am the only one thats asked for some variety in planes faced. I mean maybe I just suck, but if you ask around you may find out from the people I have played that maybe I dont. Maybe I am just unlucky IDK.

But dont get me wrong I love this game. But I do think that maybe it can be improved in this aspect. Just my opinion thats maybe shared by others.

As far as human play above a certain level... that would be great if you could kindly persuade the non nightowls to lose some sleep.

Oh god look at me, 4 paragraphs in a post??? I'm Kuroi Woods!!!!

-Ray

[bartbert]

We are actively working on improving the AI so that we don't have to rely quite so much on "brute force". As you might imagine, this is a non-trivial task. Good human players evaluate all kinds of factors and are planning things out a couple of turns in advance much like good chess players. Coming up with good AI routines to approximate this kind of play is not easy, but we have a very sharp guy (who you know) working on it.

Just out of curiosity, what level of pilots are you flying right now?

[Sixxkiller]

I am sure the guy you have working on it is smart. Just he may be making your eyes bleed from the internal emails.

I am not saying we shouldnt face stacked pilots, but just not every game. Andeven bots who have similar skills are still dangerous i would think. The AI really isnt that stupid except in its order of playing Ace cards when it could have played a lesser card or just taken the 1 hit or become disadvantaged. In an escort mission earlier I actually saw some excellent moves where they gang raped me leapfrog style.

I am playing all pre-14 point pilots since thats all I have now.

-Ray

[bartbert]

Well, I keep a bottle of Visine handy, so my eyes aren't bleeding yet. But there's also a bunch of spreadsheet data and code to look over, so I have to keep a bottle of Advil handy as well.

I'll try running a few 14-point pilots and see what kind of bots get generated.

[Fred19]

I have two thirtysomething pilots and they always get those Spits over and over again: quick reflex, zoom climb, power dive, shake that dog & + ... hard, if not impossible to down them.

[kuroi neko]

very easy : play 1v1 games, start at very low and go after the wingman no matter what .

[Ron]

Originally posted by kuroi neko:

very easy : play 1v1 games, start at very low and go after the wingman no matter what .

That works for awhile then when you get over 50 something the Bots will have a different skill set and often start Very Low/Low also. Then when you start Very High they decide to do the same. Go figure!

I agree though if there is some separation try and strike the Wingman first to at least damage him. I have been tending to buy a Vertical Roll card to climb away afterwards if things don't go well, having two is even better.

Right now with my top level Yanks and Brits(50-60+) all I have been seeing since level 30 has been Raidens. Not a German in sight.

Ron

[kuroi neko]

What is the point, really ? At this level you will stand a 50-50 chance of dying against humans. Only the bots are winnable due to a couple of AI shortcomings. And once your wingman will be gone you will want to scrape the leader as well.

Playing only against bots to storm the ladder is killing the game.

[Ron]

Well the game is the point, if not then why play? Your 50/50 chance of dying is equally applicable at any level past the beginning no? If I could use these higher Pilots with their skill set against humans then I would gladly, but obviously that rarely happens as getting the skills to matchup or even a willing opponent is like pulling teeth, so I am left fighting the AI if I want to use them at all. If that isn't part of the games design, then why are the better skills only reachable at higher levels? I have no interest to 'storm' the ladder as you say but simply to see the Pilots/Wingmen progress, if they die along the way then so be it. <shrugs>

The disparity between the player and the AI re planes and skills is apparent early on, not just at higher levels. The brute force method is fine to a point but not every time and some variety in the planes being faced would be welcome. As a Brit flying The HurrII or a Yank flying the P-47 you are already facing tricked out Raidens and that never changes. If the whole design of the game falls apart at the higher levels then obviously something is wrong. Flying an Escort mission at higher levels is futile. The sweet spot seems to be from level 10-20 iirc yet the better skills are still further away.

The AI has some glaring errors like discarding an overfull hand every time or using Ace Pilot too early. If, and that's a big if, the AI could be a little smarter then more variety could be introduced into the AI opponent and not just brute force.

Ron

[ October 24, 2005, 04:13 PM: Message edited by: Ron ]

[Sixxkiller]

Well then Pierre, it seems you are damned if you do or damned if you dont....

And if you hadnt noticed, bots kill more than humans do, so they must not suck as bad as everyone suggests. In fact a human has never killed me, not once. I mean the bots are all aggressive because there is no penalty for being greedy.

But I think no one understands my point. I am not saying bots SHOULDNT be uber or fly Raidens. I am suggesting sometimes you SHOULD fly against more common planes like the Fw-190 or a Zero for that matter. And just randomizing the pilots isnt too much to ask IMHO. If the pilots in WWII had flown only against the cream of the crop all the time, no one would have come home alive. Its just common sense guys....

-Ray

[kuroi neko]

By 50/50 at high level I mean the game is decided by the initial hand against the wingie. Strategy plays no part in the vast majority of the games. Pure no-brainer go-for-wingie-and-hope-for-the-best.

About pilots lethality, I respectfully disagree with Ray. Bots kill a lot less players at comparable level. Up to level 30 or 40 they provide quick and easy XPs and EDs.

On the contrary, pilots trained against bots are likely to kill pilots raised only against humans, mainly because you can nurture a "perfect" wingman against bots with all the skills to backup the leader, while playing against humans only would see the end of your wingman much sooner.

Of course I am evoking a pure human vs human play just for the sake of the argument, right now the obvious strategy, at least up to level 25-35 depending on the nation, is to play bots, if only to regain EDs.

And also you can devote all your XPs to permanent skills in bot games, while playing against humans you will need extra cards, redraws, etc, if only to protect your wingie. Bots are not only allowing to evolve pilots quicker, but also to come up with more powerful pilots for a given XP total.

I think the way to escape the "damnation" Ray talked about is to focus on solutions to make low to mid-level games more rewarding against humans than bots, instead of asking for ways of going from level 50 to level 60.

The system needs polishing up, no doubt, but I think the most interresting part of the game is to interact with other players at a level where the game variety is at its best and various tactics are worth experiencing, rather than unlock a couple more skills at a level where the tactical options are reduced to the bare minimum.

[ October 24, 2005, 11:46 PM: Message edited by: kuroi neko ]

[hyperstork]

Is this problem happening in the campaign, or only in single missions? I only have the demo so far, and am interested in getting the game if the offline campaigns are good. But if they're stacked against the human player (since I only plan to play offline) that could be an issue for me... I know it's not a "real" simulation, but was hoping for something at least close just for my own enjoyment.

[Sixxkiller]

Hyperstork,

The campaigns are fantastic. Realy the strongest part of game even though at this time, you can only play campaigns ONLINE. But see the beauty for you is when you get online to play no one will bother you. I have been online for hours and not seen anyone message at all. But the campaigns that are included are worth the price of this game. And I am sure they will add more in the future.

One more thing hyper, this game isnt full of bugs. The problem isnt a problem with how the game runs, its a design decision that works as intended. Just trying to get them to think of how to improve the game for those of us attached to our pilots. Still a damn fine game. Its a Battlefront game so quality isnt the question.

-Ray

[Ron]

Please Kuroi, no one has or is asking on how to go from level 50 to 60. We are all adults here. It has always and only been about a rewarding gaming experience, not only for low to mid-level, but for all levels, whether 10 or 30 or 50 or 70.

All the best,

Ron

[Moon]

Thanks for the kind words, MantaRay! There is a similar discussion about this topic going on behind the scenes in the closed beta forum, as we're evaluating what to do with high level pilots and how to balance the game more at that level. DIF has always been designed to grow and evolve online, so this isn't entirely unexpected. We're kicking around a whole number of ideas right now, let's see what comes out of it. In the meantime, improvements to the AI and bots are ongoing.

Martin

[bartbert]

And as MantaRay mentioned, we are also working on new campaigns. The next one out of the chute will be Midway. This one will introduce a couple of new features as well. To simulate the uncertainty of carrier warfare, there will be "Unknown" targets. Basically, when you allocate your pilots, some regions on the map may have a question mark. After both players have allocated their pilots, the "Unknown" target is replaced by the actual target.

[Sixxkiller]

Haha Martin, you can send my payoff/bribe money to... If you guys ever make a clunker you can expect the opposite. But everyone here knows you are a blind faith company: You can buy the game without even seeing it (as evidenced by so many pre-orders of your products) and it will be a good game.

As for Midway I cannot wait. My favorite so far is by far Daylight 44 but carriers are my current inclination as in the last few weeks I have bought a few books and went to a Barnes and Noble and spent about 50 hours researching them.

-Ray

[kuroi neko]

I hope nobody got me wrong here. I dont want to give a poor impression of the game at all.

I'm just saying the most often voiced critics come from people playing often enough to push the game to the limits and encounter some limitations.

I think the next tweaks should rather aim at preventing players from wandering into currently reachable areas where the game system gets stretched too thin, and add more reasons even for "frequent flyers" to spend more time flying with middle-range pilots.

As Ray pointed out, the campaign games are a significantly different use of the game system (no career management for campaign pilots, but added strategic dimension). This is, I think, an illustration of the considerable potential of the core design.

Career and campaign modes have a significantly different feel and are blending together pretty well.

I'm sure these initial quirks in career mode can be corrected, and even more exciting additions can be made.

However, I am convinced that adding more reasons to fly against AI-controlled planes is not the way to improve the current design. On the contrary, the main strength of the game lies in player interaction. This is why, IMHO, the future additions should aim to promote player vs player interactions rather than give even more reasons to play alone.

[hyperstork]

So you have to go online to use the campaign, but you can still fly your pilots against the AI in it? Just trying to clear that up.... :>

[Sixxkiller]

Kuori, all wargamers eventually start complaining over even the most minute detail of wargames. Hardest to please and by far the most difficult to satisfy, but when you do, they are the most loyal and apprecitive. I am even getting assimilated into this hole myself.

With that being said, even though in the beginning of computer games, wargames were the king, but that isnt the case any longer. The entire library of battlefront wouldnt equal what say the sims games will sell on Christmas Eve.

So this is a niche market that as far as other genres go is small. Also the average age has to be quite a bit higher nowadays as the twitch skills go with some of you guys hair. And since the vast majority of gaming is still played offline, that leaves the pool of online wargamers frail at best.

So "bots" are majorly important to a game that is designed to be online, and adding more reasons to play against them is quite important. Limiting choices is never good, but Utopia isnt just found in playing humans as some people dont have time to hash out what planes they will use against someone when they have only a small amount of time.

Humans in general want convienence, and bots fill that in that wasting 5 minutes trying to set up a game with a human who doesnt want to risk his high level pilot when he discovers his pilot may die and those 10 hours on him he spent is down the drain.

And the campaign game works better because you face more realistic bot pilots who may be of all sorts of different qualities, not all the same. Thats why I think it would be better to set the online ladder up as a kind of campaign that is continuous until a set number of total missions, where planes you fly will only become available at certain dates instead of exp. But that would most likely be too much to recode. Maybe for DIF 2. Boy if I had a few million the ideas I have for this game......

-Ray

Originally posted by kuroi neko:

I hope nobody got me wrong here. I dont want to give a poor impression of the game at all.

I'm just saying the most often voiced critics come from people playing often enough to push the game to the limits and encounter some limitations.

I think the next tweaks should rather aim at preventing players from wandering into currently reachable areas where the game system gets stretched too thin, and add more reasons even for "frequent flyers" to spend more time flying with middle-range pilots.

As Ray pointed out, the campaign games are a significantly different use of the game system (no career management for campaign pilots, but added strategic dimension). This is, I think, an illustration of the considerable potential of the core design.

Career and campaign modes have a significantly different feel and are blending together pretty well.

I'm sure these initial quirks in career mode can be corrected, and even more exciting additions can be made.

However, I am convinced that adding more reasons to fly against AI-controlled planes is not the way to improve the current design. On the contrary, the main strength of the game lies in player interaction. This is why, IMHO, the future additions should aim to promote player vs player interactions rather than give even more reasons to play alone.

[Liebchen]

Originally posted by hyperstork:

So you have to go online to use the campaign, but you can still fly your pilots against the AI in it? Just trying to clear that up.... :>

Sort of (maybe) right:

1. You have to go online to play the campaigns, and you can play the campaigns against either humans or the AI.

2. You can't fly "your" pilots against the AI in campaigns, if by "your pilots" you mean the ones that you have developed in non-campaign missions. The campaigns assign pilots to you with predetermined skill levels and skill sets. They are good only for that campaign.

This is still good, though, as you can grow attached to pilots in the course of a campaign. Especially since you may be counting on them in a pinch.