Theatre of War AAR at SimHQ...

[TuuSaR]

Having mortar units would un-balance every single mission that they would have design and test all over again! Its impossible to have them in initial release as far I guess.(apart from maybe multiplay)

Er, why?

With mortars player could destroy with pinpoint accuracy many enemy units with little or no danger at all. Not even needing LOS.

Polls would be good on many things, especially after demo, so that developers would know, should they focus to some historical uniform correctness or maybe something more relevant. With these sort of games devs might often go off course, focusing details that masses wont event notice.

[ August 03, 2006, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: TuuSaR ]

[Lars]

Er, why? Think both sides had them.

[Arkel]

Originally posted by TuuSaR:

Having mortar units would un-balance every single mission that they would have design and test all over again! Its impossible to have them in initial release as far I guess.(apart from maybe multiplay)

i'm no developer, but i've read once that mission-balancing is usually one of the last things done on a game, because you can only do it properly when all units and physics and AI have been worked out. So I hope it's not to late for them to take a look at it.

[Lars]

On another note, the thing that struck me was no Heavy Machine Gun teams mentioned in the AAR.

Looking at those wide open fields, where were they?

[Markus86]

And we don't know if they were ever full coded. There are screenshots showing some. But who knows if all animations exist and the code. I would guess to implant such a feature, a month is needed.

Some older screenshots:

[Dirtweasle]

Be that as it may TuuSar, the fact is without them it leads to some (wildy?) unrealistic scenarios / situations / tactics like we see in the AAR.

I hate to be a wet blanket, and granted perhaps if I had already known not to expect mortars it would 've not jumped out at me like it did, but honest to God, I kept wondering why in the world the attacker did not put those guns under mortar fire!

Maybe, a work around would be to have a couple light mortar spotters on-call if off-board arty like that is possible?

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Moon:

... focus on the general gameplay flow and feel.

Martin

Hey Martin,

Ernst Jünger called.

He wants his manuscript for "In Stahlgewittern II" back.

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by TuuSaR:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Er, why?

With mortars player could destroy with pinpoint accuracy many enemy units with little or no danger at all. Not even needing LOS... </font>

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

As seen in this AAR had the attcking German Kompanie been in possesion of something you normaly expect them to have the field guns would 've been dealt with other than infantry charges and so forth. It was an excitng AAR and looked just swell, but the lack of mortars organic to the units really jumped out.

Indeed. Lack of mortars wouldnt hurt so much if AT guns wouldnt feature so prominently.

In that case, without mortars one of the components of scissor-paper-stone is missing.

Lack of mortars isn't game breaking, but this AAR really highlights their lacking.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Bil Hardenberger:

Yeah, I kinda wish they had concentrated on one campaign instead of five, and used that time to get it as accurate and realistic as possible.

Bil

My guess is the people doing mission and campaign design are others than those doing the coding of the game itself (engine and data). So I guess restricting missions/campaigns wouldnt neccessarily free up a lot of resources usable for the game engine/data itself.

[edited for typos]

[ August 03, 2006, 12:16 PM: Message edited by: M Hofbauer ]

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by TuuSaR:

With mortars player could destroy with pinpoint accuracy many enemy units with little or no danger at all. Not even needing LOS.

Games like CC (from whose gameplay-feel ToW has been inspired) and CM both include them without the problems you describe.

Namely, if they do not have direct LOS or a spotter doing adjustment for them, they are just horribly inaccurate, as opposed to when they have direct LOS (or pre-registered fire tables).

So your point does not hold up, because while a mortar team without LOS can shoot at a pinpoint target, but would most likely go through all of what little ammo they have (when on the move) without destroying it due to sheer inaccuracy.

[TuuSaR]

I'm quite sure that those enemy AT's are not so major pain as this AAR let to imagen.

Thing was that in this AAR player tried to do many things at the same time, when in general against AI should always move very very slowly, taking one enemy unit at a time.(unless there is hurry to some tactical better position, like hill etc..)

And yes M Hofbauer, I should have added "always" somewhere between in that last sentence

But to consider something like 6 units of 82mm or 120mm mortars focusing one target that very often is totally without physical cover can cause quite some damage.

Of course is ridiculous to ponder these sort of things at the moment when we have no idea how it actually WOULD BE in the game.

[ August 03, 2006, 12:22 PM: Message edited by: TuuSaR ]

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

Be that as it may TuuSar, the fact is without them it leads to some (wildy?) unrealistic scenarios / situations / tactics like we see in the AAR.

I hate to be a wet blanket, and granted perhaps if I had already known not to expect mortars it would 've not jumped out at me like it did, but honest to God, I kept wondering why in the world the attacker did not put those guns under mortar fire!

Maybe, a work around would be to have a couple light mortar spotters on-call if off-board arty like that is possible?

Exactly my thoughts when reading the AAR, Kerry.

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by TuuSaR:

I'm quite sure that those enemy AT's are not so major pain as this AAR let to imagen.

How so?

Originally posted by TuuSaR:

Thing was that in this AAR player tried to do many things at the same time, when in general against AI should always move very very slowly, taking one enemy unit at a time.(unless there is hurry to some tactical better position, like hill etc..)

Martin is that right, you were just trying everyting out at once? I thought you were trying to play and show a combined arms assault as best you could.

[Lars]

And where were the Machine Guns, dangit?

Went over to the Russian website and managed to find the Browning 1919 listed, but I'd like to see how the game handles them. btw, when are we going to get a English equipment list?

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by TuuSaR:

...But to consider something like 6 units of 82mm or 120mm mortars focusing one target that very often is totally without physical cover can cause quite some damage...

Yea, well that is the idea! You again seem to be arguing why they should be there as a reason why they should not.

~~~

Hi Jochen, yea it's not that you can't play the game without it, or that I won't play it, heck I've spent $40-50 US on a lot worse, (including a hell of a hangover last weekend), it just seems odd not to have that weapon available...

Have a good weekend.

PS - I'm heading to the Dinwoody Wilderness for camping trip (horseback) next week! If you don't hear back from me in a couple weeks either the Bears ro the Sheepeaters got me.

[Moon]

Oomph guys, you're too fast. I can't catch up with all the questions. Sorry if I miss some in the previous pages or other threads.

I tried to play in a way to highlight certain things and features, so it was certainly not a "combined arms assault ... as best as I could".

Mortars are not on-map, but they are in-game. Depending on the mission you'll sometimes get "small" artillery support which essentially seems to simulate mortars.

Obviously it's not quite the same and clearly the lack of "the infantryman's little artillery" will have some impact on player tactics. In my case I tried to use the bigger arty that was available to me in a similar role, with mixed success.

As far as I know, code and support for mortars is largely finished, and it should be easy to put them back in and make them fully operational in fairly quick time - just perhaps not in the time left for the initial release because we still have a whole bunch of other things to do (and that list is growing thanks to your nitpicky posts on this forum We've just allocated 120 manhours to put in chicken for example )

Martin

[Dirtweasle]

Gotcha, and thanks again for the quick reply here and elsewhere durring the release of news for this new product.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Moon:

We've just allocated 120 manhours to put in chicken for example )

Do we get a flamethrower to cook that chicken?

[ParaBellum]

Originally posted by Dirtweasle:

Hi Jochen, yea it's not that you can't play the game without it, or that I won't play it, heck I've spent $40-50 US on a lot worse, (including a hell of a hangover last weekend), it just seems odd not to have that weapon available...

Have a good weekend.

PS - I'm heading to the Dinwoody Wilderness for camping trip (horseback) next week! If you don't hear back from me in a couple weeks either the Bears ro the Sheepeaters got me.

Indeed. I don't think the lack of onboard mortars or the inability of infantry to enter buildings will break the game for me. But I think it's very important to discuss these issues before the game is released and hear why the devs implemented these features the way they are. I would be suprised if they wouldn't be open to reasonable arguments.

BTW I didn't see HMG teams either.

Enjoy your trip! Err...wait. Did you say "horseback"? As in "riding on a horse"? Will you be wearing a funny hat?

[Dirtweasle]

Define funny.

It's that or burn your ears off, so pretty much you look funny one way or another.

Actualy, we're setting up a base camp with the pop-ups campers and taking horses into the Dinwoody. You cannot take jeeps in there, it's truly a wilderness, and I'm afraid backpacking would be too much.

We're going to hunt rock art with a family from the area.

http://www.artglyphs.com/mglyph/Dinwoody_Rock_art.htm

and

http://academic.algonquincollege.com/students/walt0050/spiritworld.html

[John Kettler]

Moon,

Did the Poles have real MGs in the scenario, as opposed to just their BARs organic to the squads? Seems to me that if they had real MGs, then the German advance in the open would've been considerably more difficult and expensive.

Regards

John Kettler

[Megakill]

On mortars - sometime ago we have completely changed animation system in the game. We have all mortar models, etc, etc - but those will be introduced for the addon. Currently we need around 3 months of implementing then in the new system (basicly almost every mortar will come with it own soldier animation sequence). Furthermore as we operate not full crews for all weapons as well, the amount of extra animations for mortars is staggering. Like 4 soldiers firing, 3 soldiers firing, etc up to 1 single soldier doing all operations - aiming, bringing the shell, firing, etc, etc.

Sorry, I know we are not perfect. :-(

[Moon]

The Poles had no HMG's, but HMGs are in the game. When you browse through the screenshots page you should see an HMG team in one of the US scenario screens.

And yes, with HMGs it would have been probably impossible to storm the ridge head on. I had a lot of trouble against the HMG team in that US scenario as I recall.

Martin

[Thomm]

Originally posted by Megakill:

... the amount of extra animations for mortars is staggering.

This sentence would have made more impact before you posted the promo movie

Best regards,

Thomm