Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

This isn't theory. I've applied it to multiple scenarios. Scenarios that work.

It's astonishing that every scenario that was made prior to the Attrition divider being introduced is garbage, eh- since the designer was forced to accept the default value even though it should have been one fifth or five times what it was according to your unbreakable rule.

Anyway, it may surprise you to learn that I also design scenarios. I've found that pushing the divider more than a few points one way or another makes combat extremely weird, because the whole TOAW combat model was built around the default value. Either units are annihilated without having the chance to retreat, or determined attacks bounce off hopelessly because it's impossible for them to do any damage. If you play my Rhodes 43 scenario you'll find that this still happens even though I dialled the Attrition Divider setting way back towards the default from where you say it should be.

I'm not saying you can't use extreme settings for the AD. You may even get recognisable results at the macro level. However the objective of design (for me) is to reproduce the conditions rather than the results.

Thanks again to all for the input.

I am up to 65 entries thus far in my database and the results are interesting to say the least.

I am still searching for patterns, and I totally get that even if you have a basic pattern or formula you have to test it.

It seems a lot of scenarios are still at the default and a lot have been modified. It almost seems like about 1/2 of my small 65 scenario sample.

As a scenario designer (and I learned this from creating over 300+ scenarios for SPWW2/MBT), each part of the system is a part of the took kit, and you have to understand what it does to help you use it to tweak your design.

I don't have the capacity to host an online Excel type of spreadsheet and have other plug in numbers, but I'll do my best and plod along as I build it up and am willing to work with coordination on it.

I do think that over time with a hundred or more entries, it would help other scenario designers make a good best guess with some of the parameters.

Of course that is just my pure speculation...lol

I did create a scenario with a map that states "What is this madness?" lol

ORIGINAL: golden delicious

It's astonishing that every scenario that was made prior to the Attrition divider being introduced is garbage, eh- since the designer was forced to accept the default value even though it should have been one fifth or five times what it was according to your unbreakable rule.

The AD didn't spring out of Norm's mind from nothing. It was demanded by plenty of designers - for problems they were having that couldn't be solved otherwise. And it's not an "unbreakable" rule. I break it myself when conditions warrant.

Anyway, it may surprise you to learn that I also design scenarios. I've found that pushing the divider more than a few points one way or another makes combat extremely weird, because the whole TOAW combat model was built around the default value. Either units are annihilated without having the chance to retreat, or determined attacks bounce off hopelessly because it's impossible for them to do any damage. If you play my Rhodes 43 scenario you'll find that this still happens even though I dialled the Attrition Divider setting way back towards the default from where you say it should be.

Not true for mine.

I'm not saying you can't use extreme settings for the AD. You may even get recognisable results at the macro level. However the objective of design (for me) is to reproduce the conditions rather than the results.

By results, I meant a broad swath of metrics. Not just the end of game results.

Interesting discussion, and I'll be interested to see Don's database when complete. So far, very much undecided on the best approach for what I'm doing.

Tom this whole thing stemmed from two of my small scenarios I have been working on, a platoon level one and a company level one. Then I started digging, and while digging I found some old pre-TOAW III scenarios that I converted over to TOAW III and then to TOAW IV and I wanted to start using some of the new features.

At the same time of doing all that, I started tweaking colors and got a bunch of those ready (lost count how many now, but I have a spew of them (just the xml file) to upload), not sure if they will get added to the official release, but they make the older scenarios look better, in my mind. Then I have a few scenarios that I like so much but have not been updated since TOAW III and the designers have most likely moved on that I took them under my wings and updated them and re-colored them and re-edited the scenario briefing a bit.

Goals is to zip all these up and publish them here for the general consumption.