Why I don't enjoy this game.

[Joe Perez]

I know I'm going to get reamed over this, but I hope that those reading it will try to understand where I'm coming from before the tops of their heads explode.

As I write this, Im sitting with all four boxed games from the Down in Flames series two feet away. In addition, I've bought all the issues of GMT's C3I magazine which had the DIF campaign add-ons, some of which appear in this PC game.

When I bought this PC version, my hopes were that I could finally play the board game to my heart's content, since I don't have many face-to-face opponets available. Unfortunately, what I found were changes to the board games that surprised, disappointed, and saddened me.

Rather than convert what I think is an already perfect game to the PC, the game suffers (for me) from the all-too-familiar practice of cramming as many bells & whistles as possible into a game (we used to call it "chrome" 30 years ago) to supposedly make it more attractive to people who just aren't satisfied with playing a good game.

The original board games focus on you , the player, conducting the actual combat. Most of the campaign "decisions" are made randomly by drawing cards. If a turn contains 5 missions, you draw a card for the target (and possibly the forces involved) and then the players can interject a "resource" from their limited inventory that are gone once expended (Bad weather, no drop tanks, etc). Any special abilities of pilots are extremely rare, and mostly random. Player influence in what actually meets, and where, and under what conditions, is mostly random. Fly, die, and then off to the next mission for that turn.

That's where I have the biggest beef with the PC game. In order to make the players feel like they are more involved, they get to buy (???) special abilities, and manage their aircraft practically down to deciding who polishes the propellar before engine ignition. That's about as "gamey" a function as you can have. Yes, it is a game, but the term refers to something that is/was not realistically posible/probable. Getting a random ability from the computer based on experience would be more realisic, but I'd prefer to not even have that. Why?

I think the game is engaging enough for the average player without having to keep track of all these extras. And the fact that you buy them makes me think I'm playing a game of Microsoft's Age of Empires. What ever happened to making use of you planes capabilities to prevail in combat?

It's unfortunate that effort had to go into this added "player involvement," rather than figuring out how to get more than two elements per side, like you can in the board games, and adding rules from the card games into the PC version. No ability to disengage? One of the most important aspect of the board game (that incidentally doesn't have a board) is that you can make a decision to break off if you've been jumped and gotten badly shot up. Forcing the player to stick it out in a fight to the death seems more than a little "arcade-ish."

I decided to post this after reading Stalin-dude's post about the problems with the BoB camapign. The ENTIRE campaign seemed to have been screwed up by stuffing too many pilots with too many special abilities, like Thanksgiving Day turkeys. To have to fix the campaign by tinkering with the pilot abilities made wonder if they should have been included at all. Does all this micro-management make the game a better game?

This situation reminds me of what happened to one of the best board games of all time, Avalon Hill's Squad Leader. What started out as a really good game dealing with infantry tactics, with an odd vehicle/gun thrown in once in a while, evolved into an overly complex game, which got more complex with each additional module, until it finally became ADVANCED Squad Leader, a game so involved that only the hardest of hard core fans still play it. Is this what will become of DIF, a game that only people who live and breathe the game are going to be willing to play?

Dan, if you get a chance to see this, I appreciate your decision to bring the DIF family to the PC. When I first saw the release information, I had a boner that almost cracked my monitor screen. But unfortunately, I feel as if you've chromed the game to death with these special abilities, rather than let the players see what it was like for aircraft to up against enemy aircraft with different characteristics. The ace counters in the board game campaigns are rare, and only one in three bombers gets a "crew counter," and most of those are DUDS ! I think what I would like to see more than anything is a campaign editor to play campaigns offline, so I can pretty much just re-create the originals from the board games, and C3I magazine.

This was a little on the long side, so thank you all for you time and consideration.

Joe Perez

Tenchi

[Guest Mike]

I've never played the board game - perhaps it's just as well, because I enjoy this game as it is, and I do not feel teh need to comapre it to anything else.

I think your comment about stuffing pilots with skills is right on the mark - there is too much temptation to do so both in campaigns and in "normal" play IMO. Campaigns especuially skills should be used to represent diffferences in actual skill, or equipment - eg IMO "Eagle Eyes" is a good way to represent radar, while planes that could or could not dive to get away can have, or not have, power dive, etc.

However I think your comment about players who

manage their aircraft practically down to deciding who polishes the propellar before engine ignition

is complete ribbush. the skills are all "managed" by the computer - not the player - the player manages the resources he has - altitude and cards, and that's all.

[Joe Perez]

In the board games there are planes that have the special ability to play a "Full Throttle" card which can be used to adjust position towards nuertral by one, if you are tailed or disadvantaged. It can be used to respond to In My Sights and Maneuvering. Only certain planes (Corsair, Me 262) can use them.

As far as I can see in the manage pilots section of the game, you certainly CAN buy special abilties for your pilots, in addition to extra cards. Not in the campaigns?

Joe Perez

[Guest Mike]

Yes you can buy skills - but that's hardly managing "down to who polishes the propellor"!

You buy the skill once, the nthe computer tracks it and adjusts card nubmers and whatever else is required during the game.

[bartbert]

Originally posted by Joe Perez:

As far as I can see in the manage pilots section of the game, you certainly CAN buy special abilties for your pilots, in addition to extra cards. Not in the campaigns?

Joe Perez

In campaigns, the aircraft and pilot skills are fixed, so there is no purchasing additional skills during a campaign. If you haven't played any of the campaigns yet, you really should try them before passing final judgement. Personally, I think they are more fun than the board game campaigns, but I may be biased.

I think if we were given a "do over", one thing we would probably do is limit pilots to maybe 3 or 4 skills. I think if it had been that way from the beginning, most players would have been fine with it. But as it is, the genie is out of the bottle and the feedback we received is that most players would not be happy if we took skills away from their pilots.

But while I agree that pilots have too many skills, I don't understand why you don't like the idea of "purchasing" skills with experience points. This is a tried and true method used in many role playing games, and it seems reasonable that as a pilot gains experience he could focus his efforts on learning specific "tricks" or maneuvers that translate into a particular skill. Why shouldn't a player be able to decide what "tricks" his pilots will practice? Why would randomly assigning skills be better?

The above is not intended as a criticism. You're entitled to your opinions. I was just curious as to your reasons. For example, some people simply don't like role playing games, and see the pilot development stuff as micro management.

Like most things in life, this game is the result of many compromises between competing design philosophies. We wanted to be true to the original board game, but we also wanted the game to appeal to a wide variety of players, not just board gamers.

We tried to put a little something in for everyone. There is some role playing aspects to the pilot development for those who like that kind of thing.

For those who want the focus to be more historical, the campaigns have a lot to offer (and most of the pilots in the campaigns have very few skills).

For those that just want to jump in and mix it up in the aircraft of their choice, we have recently added the ability to start a pilot in any year of the war, which allows them to immediately fly aircraft appropriate to their start year without having to go through the process of building up experience to unlock aircraft.

[Dan Verssen]

Hello Joe,

I appreciate your comments. Whenever I see feedback from a player for one of the games I have helped with, I always take it as a compliment. Of course, words of praise are always nice, but critical words are also appreciated.

This is because no matter what the words are, the person cared enough about the game to give it a try, and write down their thoughts.

I think I can see where you're coming from with your comments. I would summarize them as being, "The card game was great the way it was, why did you guys mess with it?"

A good point that deserves an explanation. Here's why, way back in the first days of the computer game, we did not have pilot skills, XPs, medals, or Fatigue. It was the card game transfered to computer. We played it a few times, other people played it a few times, and it was great. It played just like the card game.

But, we quickly found that the ease of playing on the computer and finding opponents through the internet was actually a major drawback for the game. The game simply did not have enough depth to keep people interested for more than a week. During that week they could, and would, play 100 dogfights without a problem. They would also burn out on the game and never want to touch it again.

To be honest, I don't think I've played 100 dogfights of the card game in 10 years, but I have played a 1,000 dogfights of the computer game in the past 2 years.

Simply put, the elements (no pun intended) that make a good tabletop game are not the same as those that make a good computer game. What we have tried to do is take all the good points of the card game, and add to them the elements that are needed to make a good computer game.

I hope this helps to shed some light on why we have made the decisions that we have along the way.

[Joe Perez]

Brian & Dan,

Thanks for the reply. Funny as it is, I pretty much figured out what the reasoning for including all these abilities was. I just don't care for it myself. I've never played role-playing games. They just don't grab me. My 35 years in gaming has been spent playing games as much to gain historical insight as to have fun. I understand what you guys say that from a marketing perspective that the game could get boring quickly for those brought up on computer games if it were ported straight out of the boxes. Role-players have always been the bigger sellers, even back in the days of TSR.

I understand that the abilities are fixed in the campaigns and no more can be purchased, but there are simply too many of them given out. And giving ANY out to bombers I feel is going way over the top. I don't see how a B-17 flying in close is going to be able to use a "natural pilot" ability, or just about any other. Is the B-17 going to sissors with a FW-190? I guess you'd say that these abilities are abstractions, then.

I have played about half of the campaigns, and have encountered situations where my element of Spitfires spending three full turns blasting away at He-177s were both shot down by the bombers, with one He-177 barely damaged. Whether or not something is built into the game to give the AI an advantage, I always seem to find MY bombers ripped to shreds immediately, regardless of what nationality they are, while the AI bombers repulse every attack. Since there are only two bomber in any escorted mission, and that mission is basically a microcosm of an extended period of time flying missions against an area, you can't have bombers felled with one shot. Even after losing 60 B-17s at Schweinfort, the target was bombed. Perhaps this is a problem related to the limitation on number of aircraft in any mission.

As far as purchasing skills, I beleive that the system should give them out based on how you perform in the game. Pilots that fly a certain amount of missions and survive while their plane reaches damaged status may or may not randomly get a survivability ability. More kills? better targeting ability. And so on. You can certainly practice your way to becoming a "natural pilot" but if it were up to me (which it isn't) most of the abilities would be done away with in the first place.

Thanks again for you time.

Joe Perez

[Sixxkiller]

Hi Joe,

First I want to say something for your original sentence about being reamed for posting your dislikes of this game. Now while I am most certain the great majority here dont agree with the things you dislike, I can empathise with some of the stuff you comment on. But no one here would go off on you for your opinions. This is a community much like going to a gaming shop in your community where you can say pretty much anything constuctive you wish. There is one major difference here though. We (Thats anyone who didnt create this game) are all kind of in a team. Its like a continuing beta process to make the game better. What I mean is this is like a living breathing organism where most of the changes to the structure and direction of the organism are directly affected by us and our wants, desires, and suggestions. Dan and Brian created the game but I can tell you that MUCH of the stuff after is due to what WE as customers, fans and non creators have asked for. Thats actually what sets Battlefront products apart from the others....they listen.

Now as for bombers having natural pilots in the campaigns and ladder portions of the game, I can understand you not liking it but it really is easy to shoot them down and an extra hit point does help to balance it. In the campaigns it is especially important for the simple fact of fatigue taking away the hit points to differing degrees. That extra hit point can make a HUGE difference in later rounds.

But I do also understand you liking the original card game and not liking all the extra options in the computer version. I hate remakes of original movies and so I can see your points.

Side note. I went into a gaming store in Berkeley California this past week to find Dans games (since I have never played any of them hehe) and all I could find was 1 game, Modern Battles, and they had never even heard of DIF the card game. I must say also that they had never even heard of Dan which I was kind of surprised. I was going to buy the game but decided to just get it from Dans site so these heathens didnt profit from not knowing . But if I could have bought this one $250 game on Leyte Gulf I think I would have, but $250 was a bit steep. Oh well so far off topic now.

I do hope you change your mind and give DIF more of a look.

-Ray

[Rastakyle]

Originally posted by Joe Perez:

Brian & Dan,

Thanks for the reply. Funny as it is, I pretty much figured out what the reasoning for including all these abilities was. I just don't care for it myself. I've never played role-playing games. They just don't grab me. My 35 years in gaming has been spent playing games as much to gain historical insight as to have fun. I understand what you guys say that from a marketing perspective that the game could get boring quickly for those brought up on computer games if it were ported straight out of the boxes. Role-players have always been the bigger sellers, even back in the days of TSR.

I understand that the abilities are fixed in the campaigns and no more can be purchased, but there are simply too many of them given out. And giving ANY out to bombers I feel is going way over the top. I don't see how a B-17 flying in close is going to be able to use a "natural pilot" ability, or just about any other. Is the B-17 going to sissors with a FW-190? I guess you'd say that these abilities are abstractions, then.

I have played about half of the campaigns, and have encountered situations where my element of Spitfires spending three full turns blasting away at He-177s were both shot down by the bombers, with one He-177 barely damaged. Whether or not something is built into the game to give the AI an advantage, I always seem to find MY bombers ripped to shreds immediately, regardless of what nationality they are, while the AI bombers repulse every attack. Since there are only two bomber in any escorted mission, and that mission is basically a microcosm of an extended period of time flying missions against an area, you can't have bombers felled with one shot. Even after losing 60 B-17s at Schweinfort, the target was bombed. Perhaps this is a problem related to the limitation on number of aircraft in any mission.

As far as purchasing skills, I beleive that the system should give them out based on how you perform in the game. Pilots that fly a certain amount of missions and survive while their plane reaches damaged status may or may not randomly get a survivability ability. More kills? better targeting ability. And so on. You can certainly practice your way to becoming a "natural pilot" but if it were up to me (which it isn't) most of the abilities would be done away with in the first place.

Thanks again for you time.

Joe Perez

Joe, I do like your posting style. What you like, what you don't and why. I'm a wargamer since about 1975 myself and I was always the same as you, gaming to gain historical perspective and learn something....the last few years I find myself simply trying to find a game that's fun to play. This one fits the bill for me perfectly. I bought myself a copy and paid for half of a friends copy to get him to buy it for online play. I couldn't be happier. Maybe I'd have a different perspective if I had played the card game first but I haven't.

[Joe Perez]

rastak,

I too bought a copy for a friend when I purchased my own, because we both have the "board" games but never got the chance to play face-to-face.

I don't have anything against the "fun" part, but I still consider historical perspective to come first. I want to play this game to see how Me-109s compare against the Spit & Hurris, and how other planes stack up against each other, and why some planes just have a harder time against other models. That I do NOT get from this game.

I find that the *flood* of abilities allowed eliminates ALL of the historical perspective. This game may as well pit Valkyries from Macross or Gundams against each other in space battles, since the abilities make the small differences between planes negligible.

I also am at a loss as to why the designers chose to mess with the burst ratings of the planes, particularly when it comes to the +1 bonus and -1 penalty. EVERY game I have ever played featuring airpower from the time of the BoB made the point of the Me-109 and Spitfire being fairly similar in performance, AND total firepower, despite the 109 having a cannon in the nose. The Me's MGs were very weak guns, so the Spit having 8 MGs (even tho' they were .303s, not the most powerful), gave them pretty even ability to inflict damage. But in this game, since all the performance ratings of the two planes are similar, the Me causing TWO more damage points than the Spit when it scores (+1 versus -1) makes the matchup absurd. To comensate, the Me gets NO bursts in a nuetral position. Does anyone think the differences in these planes' performance was so different that the Me couldn't fire in a head-on pass while the Spits and Hurris could? What makes this justified???

In the board game, NO plane, even the early biplanes, have damage penalties, and the early German planes (and Japanese, I believe) certainly get no bonuses, because the TOTAL firepower was judged to be equal. The early Zeros were in the same boat as the 109s: a cannon in the nose. but a practically worthless pair of MGs.

I'm finding the game to be even less fun every time I convince myself to go back to it "one more time" to give it a try, especially the campaigns, which continue to cause acid-reflux (I guess it's just because the opposing elements seem to start out with 4,000-card hands, and always mange to blow mine out of the sky in the first 2 turns, even when I conserve all my response cards for their attacks. ).

As it is now I can only see the game for me as a tool to practice one-on-one dogfights, for the day when I may finally be able to hook up with my friend.

Joe Perez

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Joe Perez:

I find that the *flood* of abilities allowed eliminates ALL of the historical perspective. This game may as well pit Valkyries from Macross or Gundams against each other in space battles, since the abilities make the small differences between planes negligible.

Sorry but this is gross exageration and utter nonsense - try playing a 410 against a Mustang sometime and tell me there's no difference!!

I also am at a loss as to why the designers chose to mess with the burst ratings of the planes, particularly when it comes to the +1 bonus and -1 penalty. EVERY game I have ever played featuring airpower from the time of the BoB made the point of the Me-109 and Spitfire being fairly similar in performance, AND total firepower, despite the 109 having a cannon in the nose. The Me's MGs were very weak guns, so the Spit having 8 MGs (even tho' they were .303s, not the most powerful), gave them pretty even ability to inflict damage. But in this game, since all the performance ratings of the two planes are similar, the Me causing TWO more damage points than the Spit when it scores (+1 versus -1) makes the matchup absurd. To comensate, the Me gets NO bursts in a nuetral position. Does anyone think the differences in these planes' performance was so different that the Me couldn't fire in a head-on pass while the Spits and Hurris could? What makes this justified???

In the board game, NO plane, even the early biplanes, have damage penalties, and the early German planes (and Japanese, I believe) certainly get no bonuses, because the TOTAL firepower was judged to be equal. The early Zeros were in the same boat as the 109s: a cannon in the nose. but a practically worthless pair of MGs.

Make up your mind - is a pair of machineguns worthless or not?

If it is worthless then those a/c that ONLY have a pair of MG's should be penalised should they not?

And if they are penalised then shouldn't a/c with better armaments get a bonus ?

I agree that all a/c should get eth same number of bursts, but this would require a lot more work to differentiate betwen the effect of various armaments.

IMO the damage bonuses work fine with the burst system - it's nto as good as it could be, but it is pretty good. Spitfires and Hurricanes have no problems shooting down 109E's and vice versa and I think they ARE roughly equal - just different.

BTW the 109E's and A6M2's have 2 cannon - 1 in each wing, not a single engine mounted one.

[Sixxkiller]

Hi Joe,

Well I was wrong, Stalin has taken offense to your post hehe. We love him but he can be pretty point blank, and in this respect he is right, just not in his tone. And I know there is no way you would know this but he is WAY worse about the historical aspects than any 10 players here. He is pretty invaluable to me when testing and trying to have some historical value and he just plain is an expert at WWII air combat. Unfortunately he is also the main critic of this game, but in hind sight he has made this game much more enjoyable.

You see I think you have this game all wrong. While this is a game about aerial combat, it isnt really a simulation. Seeing as this is a card game, luck plays a major part, maybe 30% of the game infact. In real dog fighting its 99% skill and 1% luck. The only way to take out the luck factor would be if you could pick the cards yourself.

As far as penalties go, the card game is I am guessing quite a bit less sophisticated and way less evolved. When the first demo came out this game was probably closer to the card game, but they have changed it according to player imput. When they sent me the file to test the new damage model, I told them I loved it but that some people would hate it.

So Joe I would just like to say one thing more to you. You may never like this game until you let go of the original card game and realize this is a new animal. And if you really dont like this game, thats sad for the community as every single player can add something to the pot and it makes it more rewarding for the guys here that devote large portions of thier time to make this game better. The more people playing the more rewarding it is for us.

Hope to see you around,

-Ray

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Sixxkiller:

Hi Joe,

Well I was wrong, Stalin has taken offense to your post hehe.

Not at all - I jsut disagree with soem of it is all - and I agree with other bits

We love him ...

:eek: :eek: I shall need trauma counselling to get over this!!

[Sixxkiller]

OMG this was a typo. I meant only his MOTHER could love him but then gave him away to be raised by sheepies in the down under and over island.

-Ray

[Joe Perez]

Stalin-o,

The original point I was trying to make is that the differences between some planes is nothing more than a single Performance or Horsepower point, and the more extra abilities that are heaped on a pilot, the more the differences in aircraft performance disappear. Yes, you can make the point that pilot ability can and *is* the deciding factor, but I'd prefer seeing how Hurricane I's can make do against Me-109e's despite having that one less critical Performance rating with pilot ability translated into HOW the players use the cards dealt to them, rather than each pilot with close to a dozen abilities, or extra cards making that difference in performance less important, if not non-existant.

You're not being fair using the Mustang vs Me-410 example. Of course the thoroughbreds are going to leave the nags in the dust. Even *I* was able to shoot down an Me-110 when I got a superior single engined racehorce to go against it

I called the German and Japanese MGs worthless because they weren't of very high caliber, and most of the 109's and Zero's stopping power came from the cannon. The Spits and Hurris had EIGHT MGs, harmonized to a certain range, which could cause decent damage. Of course cannon are better, and we know this because the Brits eventually replaced their MGs with 20mm cannon. But the point I was making in this respect is that every "cardboard" game I have ever seen that used numerical ratings for offensive and defensive abilities of the BoB aircraft considered the stopping power of Brit planes and the 109e to be very similar. And yes, you are correct about the number of cannon on the planes. Thanks for the correction. I was trying to remember the armament simply by what the layout of the guns was on a old air game called "Airforce" that I played 25 years ago. You jogged my memory and I now remember (I hope!) that the 109e layout MG-Cannon-MG-Cannon-MG. Be that as it may, I have always seen the offensive output of 109e/SpitI as numerically similar. That's why I don't see why the game has to give the 109 a damage bonus, and then even it back out by not allowing the 109 to fire until it gets at least into an advantaged position.

A point I've been trying to make all along is that I don't like the idea, especially in the campaign missions, is that since each mission is supposed to be a microcosm of all activity in that "zone" over a day or so, these issues are being decided by "super-pilots.". From MY taste (and this certainly is the taste of someone more interested in the game from a historical perspective) I'd like to see the battles decided based on how the human and AI pilots use the performance of the planes they have, rather than how the matchup betweem Uber-Nazi Hans & Sir Rodney-the-Hun-Slayer play out, with the match decided by their 10+ abilities and extra cards.

And I think I better quit while I'm behind and refrain from commentign on how I feel about the fatigue rules -_^

Joe Perez

[Sixxkiller]

Joe,

Hi well I have designed 4 of these campaigns in the full game. Leyte Gulf, Greece, Crete, and Malta. I have a few more coming this week and a lot more in the works. The reason there are pilots that seem really awesome is I am hoping that in giving a range of skills options that each game may play a little different. Also playing "stock" pilots results in less kills which becomes boring and believe it or not, with the fatigue rules, makes human skill less of an option. Plus with say Leyte Gulf, having Kuroi Neko or Ron Alderdice die, it changes the campaign dramaticly.

But coming with the expansion pack, I will be toning it down a bit.

And if you hate the fatigue rules now, should have been here a few months ago lol.

-Ray

[bartbert]

Originally posted by Joe Perez:

Stalin-o,

The original point I was trying to make is that the differences between some planes is nothing more than a single Performance or Horsepower point, and the more extra abilities that are heaped on a pilot, the more the differences in aircraft performance disappear. Yes, you can make the point that pilot ability can and *is* the deciding factor, but I'd prefer seeing how Hurricane I's can make do against Me-109e's despite having that one less critical Performance rating with pilot ability translated into HOW the players use the cards dealt to them, rather than each pilot with close to a dozen abilities, or extra cards making that difference in performance less important, if not non-existant.

Joe Perez

We have tried to accommodate players with this viewpoint with the recent change that allows a pilot to choose a starting year. Prior to this change, you had no choice but to start a new pilot from the bottom and work him up to better aircraft by gaining XP. Now you can pick a start year and jump right in to any aircraft you want.

I guess I don't see what's preventing you from flying missions with pilots that have few, if any, skills. If you pick a pilot with no skills, you will most likely go up against AI pilots that have no skills or maybe one Draw Extra Card.

If you're playing against humans, you can either request that they choose pilots with no skills, or if you are the one who creates the game and you choose a pilot with no skills, it will usually limit other players to picking pilots with few skills.

As far as the campaigns, I haven't counted up the pilot skills, but in general it seems like there will be 2 or 3 elements that have pilots with a fair number of skills (4 to 6), a couple more with a low number of skills (1 to 3), and then a couple with no skills at all.

I think that besides adding a little variety, it adds another factor that the player must take into account when assigning pilots to regions on the campaign map. You tend to assign your better pilots to the higher value targets. And of course it really hurts when you lose a highly skilled pilot. When players care about their pilots, even just a little bit, I think it's a good thing. It means that they have been drawn into the game more than if it was just another hunk of metal that got blown out of the sky.

[Joe Perez]

Brian,

Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing now, flying one-on-one dogfights with a "squadron" of 4 elements (to help offset the fatigue rules). Since I don't have enough points to buy any "extras" other than the essential "Draw Extra Card." The ability to choose the starting year was definately appreciated.

As far as the campaigns go, I know that not all pilots have the same number of "extras" but it seems every mission I fly I getthe enemies that have just enough more than me to toast me almost immediately. Could my karma be that bad? Or just my flying? *o*

Joe

[bartbert]

Originally posted by Joe Perez:

Brian,

Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing now, flying one-on-one dogfights with a "squadron" of 4 elements (to help offset the fatigue rules). Since I don't have enough points to buy any "extras" other than the essential "Draw Extra Card." The ability to choose the starting year was definately appreciated.

Joe

Sounds good. That's about the best we can do at present in terms of providing missions that are more to your liking.

One of the enhancements that is high on the list of priorities (because it is frequently requested) is to provide more flexibility in the game creation process. This includes things like being able to specifiy which team a player gets assigned to, which nationalities are matched up, which aircraft are matched up, etc. I think that would make a lot of players happy, particularly those who want to try out specific matchups.

[lakespeed]

The only comment I can offer to you Joe is this:

I have the board game, and my brother and I played it for years after it first came out. I love it, the way campaigns played out, the specific pilot chits, everything about it. I even ordered the extra sets of cards when they were available so we could play massive homemade campaigns. This was rise of the Luftwaffe. Then the 8th Air Force came out and more of the same joy.

This game is nothing like the board game, and in order to enjoy this game you have to understand that and enjoy this game for being completely different.

I too was a little perplexed when I first played this game because I thought it would be more like the board game, but once I accepted this game for it's differences I enjoy this game just as much as the board game.

Hopefully you will take the time to give the game a chance, I don't think you will be disappointed once you give it a chance.

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Joe Perez:

Stalin-o,

The original point I was trying to make is that the differences between some planes is nothing more than a single Performance or Horsepower point, and the more extra abilities that are heaped on a pilot, the more the differences in aircraft performance disappear.

Play the game some more - I assure you that those single point differences are quiet major - after all you often have to pay 100's of EXP to get a skill that gives you the same difference!

Yes, you can make the point that pilot ability can and *is* the deciding factor, but I'd prefer seeing how Hurricane I's can make do against Me-109e's despite having that one less critical Performance rating with pilot ability translated into HOW the players use the cards dealt to them, rather than each pilot with close to a dozen abilities, or extra cards making that difference in performance less important, if not non-existant.

Sure - the ability to play games with defined pilots outside the role-playing aspects would be a good idea - it's been suggested, but I'm not sure if it is on the list of things to do or not.

I called the German and Japanese MGs worthless because they weren't of very high caliber, and most of the 109's and Zero's stopping power came from the cannon. The Spits and Hurris had EIGHT MGs, harmonized to a certain range, which could cause decent damage. Of course cannon are better, and we know this because the Brits eventually replaced their MGs with 20mm cannon. But the point I was making in this respect is that every "cardboard" game I have ever seen that used numerical ratings for offensive and defensive abilities of the BoB aircraft considered the stopping power of Brit planes and the 109e to be very similar.

And they are in this game too - IMO they are EQUAL but different - the 109 gets damage but fewer bursts, and the 8-gun fighters get bursts but less damage - against fighters I would not favour either.

Against bombers the cannon are clearly superior, as they should be IMO.

The original premis for 8 machineguns was that it would take 250 bullets to shoot down a bomber, and the pilot would only get in about 2 seconds in a burst - and it would take 8 guns to put 250 bullets into a target in 2 seconds.

But this was versus 1930's bombers - teh British realised it was inadequate even before WW2 started and the first cannon-armed Spitfires flew in the Battle of Britain in 1940 (19 squadron hab them Mk 1b's IIRC). Similarly specifications for planes like the Beaufighter and WEstland Whirlwind had specified cannon armaments before WW2.

From MY taste (and this certainly is the taste of someone more interested in the game from a historical perspective) I'd like to see the battles decided based on how the human and AI pilots use the performance of the planes they have, rather than how the matchup betweem Uber-Nazi Hans & Sir Rodney-the-Hun-Slayer play out, with the match decided by their 10+ abilities and extra cards.

Play more humans then, with roughly equal planes and skills, and see if you are still disappointed!

And I think I better quit while I'm behind and refrain from commentign on how I feel about the fatigue rules -_^

No, no - tell us what you really think!!

[ February 23, 2006, 01:24 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[Sixxkiller]

Stalin if you dont stop all the mushiness, we are gonna have to get together for a group cuddle. Hey hey, no swaping spit over there!!! Damn sheepies always wanna kiss. I knew I should have been a sheepy hearder! :cool:

-Ray

[Guest Mike]

An interesting article on the comparative armaments of the BoB is at http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/BoB.htm - it shys away from comcluding that one is better than the other in hte context of the battle, while concluding that 20mm was the way to go!