Winter Idea......Comment

[PeeDeeAitch]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

I could ask how the game got launched with such obvious and fundamental issues (AI logic and GC winter effects), but I don't want to upset anyone, so I won't.

I believe you just did. I personally am on the "I still don't know how to play this game" side of the fence, I have only owned it for 3 months.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

I could ask how the game got launched with such obvious and fundamental issues (AI logic and GC winter effects), but I don't want to upset anyone, so I won't.

I believe you just did. I personally am on the "I still don't know how to play this game" side of the fence, I have only owned it for 3 months.

Cute. But I'm afraid the issues are obvious and many people are now posting on the same issues. I have yet to see a coherent reply from the developers that deals with the key issues.

If you look at the AAR thread you will see that I play this game enthusiastically and regularly. I am not a 'hater', I am a very disappointed lover of the genre with 40 year's gaming experience behind me.

[Zort]

How about this as a house rule:

No soviet attacks in Jan and only the first two weeks of Feb?  Or something like that? 

(Gee I can't wait for the Total WW2 game to come out and see the production thread...)

[PeeDeeAitch]

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

Cute. But I'm afraid the issues are obvious and many people are now posting on the same issues. I have yet to see a coherent reply from the developers that deals with the key issues.

If you look at the AAR thread you will see that I play this game enthusiastically and regularly. I am not a 'hater', I am a very disappointed lover of the genre with 40 year's gaming experience behind me.

I was not trying for cute, but thanks for noticing.

What I was trying for is that there has been quite good response to issues raised so far, and that if one reads the threads the serious issues are indeed being discussed by the developers but cannot be detailed here because of NDAs...patience is indeed a virtue.

[Redmarkus5]

ORIGINAL: PeeDeeAitch

ORIGINAL: redmarkus4

Cute. But I'm afraid the issues are obvious and many people are now posting on the same issues. I have yet to see a coherent reply from the developers that deals with the key issues.

If you look at the AAR thread you will see that I play this game enthusiastically and regularly. I am not a 'hater', I am a very disappointed lover of the genre with 40 year's gaming experience behind me.

I was not trying for cute, but thanks for noticing.

What I was trying for is that there has been quite good response to issues raised so far, and that if one reads the threads the serious issues are indeed being discussed by the developers but cannot be detailed here because of NDAs...patience is indeed a virtue.

Fair enough and no offence intended. But I paid $100 dollars for a game that simply isn't ready for general release. I'm a customer, not a friendly tester. I'm entitled to expect quality and I'm entitled to complain when it's lacking. And it is lacking.

Why should I have to play the campaign 2-3 times before I can have a half decent experience and a game that runs through to, say, 1944?

Am I the only person who thinks this way? Surely not...

Patience is a virtue, that's true, but identifying glaring design faults and obvious bugs, and fixing them before release is a commercial responsibility. It's called quality control and if you want to charge premium prices you need to supply premium quality

[karonagames]

First turn of blizz comes. 64 Sov attacks end in Axis retreat, 1 in rout, 1 in surrender, 4 are hold. Level 3 forts with SS divs turn into a pile of scrap. Enough said. I simply refuse to play that joke of a game (I admire Q-Ball for his tenacity to suffer for the sake of science but I don't have that in me ). By the end of this blizz comedy I would probably be back on Dnepr....

60 hexes x 13 turns is 780 hexes divided by a 120-130 hex long front line means that the front line will move west 6 hexes on average. In March the Axis can make 60 attacks per turn for 3 turns and take back 1.5 hexes on average. Net loss 4.5 hexes - 45 miles. How many AARs have shown how well the Axis recover in March and how much territory they can take back?

I made 68 attacks in the first blizzard turn against Speedy, the 2nd turn 40, because 1/3 of my front line went unready from the attacks made in the first turn of Blizzard. If 60 units are attacked and retreated, that means the rest of the army was not attacked and retreated, so it still takes 2 turns to retreat the whole army 1 hex assuming a 120hex front.

Just a few facts and figures to hopefully help keep a sense of perspective on this issue.

Discussions and debate on changes to the first winter rule are ongoing, and it looks like Speedy may well be the guinea pig for testing any changes - poor guy!

[Zort]

My opponent focused on 2 areas to conduct his major attacks.  Mid Jan he started attacking across the whole front.  Feb was the worse month in losing ground for me but he still pushed with just about everything that wasn't unready he told me.  March came and with what the few panzers I had and three fresh inf divs I kicked him back in many places mainly because he had no forts.  Turn 2 of march I ran into his lvl 2 fort line and made hardly if any progress.  Don't know where you got the units to attack in march, I had to use my panzers in Feb to plug holes and have little to attack with in march.  So regaining ground in March I don't see unless your panzers are all healthy.

Oh yea I forgot, all my inf divs showed a cv of 1 or if I was lucky 2. Maybe I should have attacked with them but figured since most were at 40% TOE I should let them build up.

[karonagames]

So regaining ground in March I don't see unless your panzers are all healthy.

Practice makes perfect! It took me 3 Blizzards to figure out the ways and means to reduce losses, reduce the amount of territory I gave up, and increase the amount of territory I took back. I have done my best to pass on the benefits of my experience, but I can't take away the sense of shock that some people experience when they see the first winter rules translated from the manual into the game. I just keep reminding myself, that what we experience in a virtual world is nothing compared to what the historical participants had to go through.

[Oleg Mastruko]

ORIGINAL: BigAnorak
60 hexes x 13 turns is 780 hexes divided by a 120-130 hex long front line means that the front line will move west 6 hexes on average.

Quite a simplified calculation. Did you read the Q-Ball's AAR? His front is collapsed and he is in complete retreat, losing I don't know, perhaps 20-30 hexes along the line. Gaps opened are so huge Sovs exploit and whole front needs to be rearranged etc. I don't want to be his mouthpiece, do see his AAR. And if anyone did his Axis homework it was him. Oh in fact I think I did my homework even better than him but since I didn't write AAR I use Q-Balls as "Oleg AAR lite". [:D] Go read Q-Balls AAR then add 20-30% to his advances and factory captures and that's pretty much my AAR.

BTW 66 out of 70 is 94% success rate. I didn't keep notes for Axis first turn, but I bet it's not far from that. That's the first turn of blizzard attacks on most rested troops and their best prepared positions (mostly level 3). The following turns, with attacks on troops in the open, damaged by attrition, can only be worse.

Those are sustained attacks on units who suffer retreat losses, combat losses PLUS attrition losses. By turn 7-8 of my own blizz experience as Soviet I was literally walking thru ACRs defence at will. It didn't feel right but I thought that's because ACR didn't do his pre-winter homework. Now I see that no amount of homework will help, it just does not matter.

In March the Axis can make 60 attacks per turn for 3 turns and take back 1.5 hexes on average. Net loss 4.5 hexes - 45 miles. How many AARs have shown how well the Axis recover in March and how much territory they can take back?

Again, very simplified. By march what Axis sees is usually a wall, or several walls of level 3 forts without any supermen rules to help them. Just for the record, I would NOT like to see any help for the Axis.

In fact I am fed up already with "supermanism" in this game for both sides. It's just that the current "hate list" of supermen is topped by "Sov Winter 41 supermen" but IMO "German summer supermen" follow closely. Up to March 42 we have two waves of supermen from both sides, broken by a period of "Superman Mud", just so that the results can be tweaked to (kinda sorta) follow history but in fact they just invite abuse! That's two periods of blatantly one sided play, that only Flavio apparently thinks can be broken with counterattacking.

Discussions and debate on changes to the first winter rule are ongoing, and it looks like Speedy may well be the guinea pig for testing any changes - poor guy!

Good to know, but since you seem to talk about beta testing board, we cannot comment until you let the cat out of the bag.

[Mynok]

You testers need to do more AARs with your test games so we can see how really and truly experienced Axis players play.

[2ndACR]

I know the Devs are listening, I have been around long enough to have faith in 2by3 and Matrix.

Instead of "winterizing" even just doing away with the auto slashing of CV during blizzard turns and just allowing the attrition to take effect only would be a vast improvement. At least then, those level 3-4 forts might actually last 2-3 turns and make it worthwhile to dig hard and deep.

With that change, the German now has some counter attack ability, the Russian will not just run rough shod over the German and the forts levels are actually worth building to high level.

Just look at how hard it is to crack level 3-4 forts during Summer 41 with the German troops. Should be just as hard to crack them during winter as Russian. Get rid of the auto slashing of CV. I know that attrition alone will hurt any unit outside proper towns. That would be a good place to start IMO.

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

You don't have to convince me. But whining about the developers not listening when you are not overwhelming them with evidence sounds like slinging mud not real interest in making the game better.

Ok, here is some evidence. This is result of my first GC against AI (played as Axis with 1.03 beta 2). At beginning of turn 25 Soviets losses were 250-300 divisions. If someone think that this should be aftermath of blizzard then everything is ok.

[TulliusDetritus]

I am not really interested in saying anything here (because I do NOT know anything about the blizzard: yes, I see it's hell). But one thing is certain. MOST if not all the players except the testers are UTTER NOOBS... Soooo, when some of you say "look at x AAR, great German / Soviet player"... are you sure this is true? How do you know that? Because they kicked some ar***? What about the other player? He was of course a great player as well (not a simple NOOB)? Hmm... if I remember correctly the testers SAID they could survive the blizzard... They even shared tips.

Sorry but I do NOT buy the "x guy [a NOOB in fact] is a GREAT player therefore he can't do no wrong therefore the game does not work". I trust the games played by the testers, sorry [;)]

EDIT: needless to say, I think this is the simple truth because we just started playing this game er on december: 2 mere months. That does NOT make any player here a master, or even competent opponent, sorry.

[bednarre]

ORIGINAL: Mynok

You don't have to convince me. But whining about the developers not listening when you are not overwhelming them with evidence sounds like slinging mud not real interest in making the game better.

[/quote]

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Everyone should be patient. A simulation/game of this complexity will take time to balance out. I have worked on simulations which were unreliastic/unvalidated for 2 years! To speed up the process, I propose testing the various fixes be done in parallel involving 3 important phases of the campaign. Each would be played in multiple games by different players, and all scenarios would use the same fixes/coding. There clearly is a large group of anxious/interested gamers, and I think we are all reaching the same conclusions. Results could be reported in special testing AARs (not sure how to set up the heiarcharcy on the forum), and everyone can scan them to get a good feel how the game is progressing. The critical phases, with historical setups, are:

1) June 22, 1941 to December 5, 1941 German blitzkrieg #1

2) December 5, 1941 to April 15, 1941 Russian blitzkrieg #1

3) April 15, 1941 to November 18, 1942 German blitzkrieg #2


If my idea is not laughable, perhaps a 4th phase should also be considered, November 18, 1942 to April 15, 1943 (Russian blitzkrieg #2). This allows changes to be more effectively studied. Concurrent testing promises the shorted cycles to happiness.

[Emx77]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
Hmm... if I remember correctly the testers SAID they could survive the blizzard... They even shared tips.

I wonder what will developers say about map I have just posted. If they (or you) think that Soviets would be able to recover from lossing 300 hundred divisions and Moscow, Tula, Orel, Kursk, Kharkov, all Donetz industry and resource centers and after that mount offensive on such a scale to almost wipe out AGS then I'm not sure what we are talking about.

[2ndACR]

Until you experience it, there is not much you can say. I have stopped all offensive ops in Late Sept against the AI and had level 4 forts across the entire front, had every single rail repaired. And I still got crushed during blizzard. It does not matter if you prepare hard or advance till the last turn prior to blizzard, you will get crushed. That simple.

Not a matter of surviving. Of course we will survive. But the army will be a shell of it's former self no matter what you try to do.

[TulliusDetritus]

Emir, unless I was on drugs, I am pretty certain the experts (aka the testers) said somewhere and not only once that:

a) they could survive the blizzard (Big Anorak perhaps?)

and

b) a Soviet player CAN stop the Germans IF he plays correctly (Flavio certainly) [;)]

Now of course I might be wrong and NEVER read that... but I doubt it [:)]

These two questions deal with both the German and Soviet supermen (summer and winter that is).

[bdtj1815]

I bought this game on the day it was released and I think it has many things going for it. What I did not realise when I paid my £70 was that I was not buying a finished product. So far I have had to download six patches and still I read that the "game will only be balanced" when enough people play it who can point out its faults.

35 years ago my first wargame, bought as a present for my fifteenth birthday, was "Drang nach Osten" by GDW. In real terms it probably cost more than WITE but worked "straight out of the box" and is still playable today without amy major modifications.

When I bought WITE I wish someone had written on the Matrix website that "this game will be great when you all find what is wrong with it now".

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: Emir Agic

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus
Hmm... if I remember correctly the testers SAID they could survive the blizzard... They even shared tips.

I wonder what will developers say about map I have just posted. If they (or you) think that Soviets would be able to recover from lossing 300 hundred divisions and Moscow, Tula, Orel, Kursk, Kharkov, all Donetz industry and resource centers and after that mount offensive on such a scale to almost wipe out AGS then I'm not sure what we are talking about.

In that case, I think you should have been automatically awarded an Automatic Victory [8D] But still, apparently the testers know HOW to deal with blizzard. Don't get me wrong, but apparently you didn't.

[2ndACR]

Easy, don't want this in my thread please. I can handle balancing issues. But please don't thrash my thread. Idea's and comments on the issues are welcome, but please stay on topic.