B17 Losses too heavy

[mogami]

Hi You do know that at least as late as July 1942 (after Midway) the offical USN position was
Our pilots are better then the Japanese but the A6M2 is better then any USN fighter. Because the AVG in Burma and USAAF in PI had reported success against the A6M2 the Navy was looking to adapt P-40 to carrier use. Then they found out the USAAF in PI had over reported success against A6M2 and the AVG had not even encountered a A6M2 let alone shot one down. (The AVG thought the Oscar was a A6M2)(When the Allies in Burma first saw the A6M2 they coded it the "Hamm" thinking it a new type but the AVG never shot one of these down either.
The USN still maintained that Germans were flying the Japanese aircraft (because the pilots were so good) They even claimed ME-109's were at Coral Sea.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Frag. You basically said what I just did. Not enough resources and time were given to this puppy. C'est la guere.

Ron, there were not, and likely never will be, enough resources or time for this game given what it tried to do. We can all lament that there wasn't enough time or test resources available to get this game out without problems. Or you can take the approach of saying that we got something very special done that if required to be perfect would never have happened. If you look at the business side of things, there's no way you can justify even more time going into the game given that it's sales are limited to a very small core audience (no matter how good or bug free it was, the massive scope and complexity of the game limits the potential customers). Had Gary realized what it was going to take to get WitP done when he started on UV back in 1999, I don't think he would have done it.

Yes, the design was over the top in all that it tried to do. Even Gary was overwhelmed by the monster that he created when he was in serious AI testing. These games are so much more complicated than the simple 48k Apple games of the past, and yet they're not going to sell a whole lot more than those games did. That's got to tell you something about just how difficult it is to produce these games. For most people, I'd bet the $70 they spent on War in the Pacific bought them hundreds of hours of enjoyment (if only from being able to participate in these forum debates), and probably a few hours of frustration. Not a bad ratio. For those that have a love/hate (or hate/hate) relationship with the game, feeling that it isn't what it could/should have been, I'm sorry you're disappointed. It was not for lack of effort on the part of 2by3, Matrix, and many dedicated volunteers. That effort has been continued by some and the game continues to improve.

[mogami]

Hi, When the game was first given to the testers I thought it already a great game and playable. However the present version is so far from that first test version to be an entire new game. The game is now at least 5 times as detailed. The real reason it was never tested all the way to the end is because it has never stopped growing. There has never been a "FINAL" WITP version to test. We are still testing new versions.
It grows because the end users keep demanding it grow.
Where once it was almost pure Operations it has become more and more tactical.
I don't think Ron S claims none of his ideas are in place or that he was the only tester suggesting changes or that other tester ideas did not become part of the game. The real conflict between design and implementing ideas is that the suggested changes have always been in the direction of making the game more tactical. Since this by is very nature is against the design intent it has created problems for some users.
I have never maintained the game is without bugs my contention has always been that when used as designed it works wonderfully well. When you try to make it what it is not and was never intended to be it fails. I have always been in favor of fixing the bugs and leaving the design intent intact.

[PzB74]

Despite of it flaws this is still the best strategy game I've ever played! I've been enjoying it every single day for a year
and it must be my best buy ever [8D]

I've almost stopped reading...well at least commenting all the 'game flaws' threads. Sure, I find bugs and game mechanics that are
annoying, but I can live with it. As everyone else I complain a bit now and then...but the best approach is to go with
the flow and adapt to the game instead of trying to make the game adapt to all our wishes. Strict house rules can rectify
most of the 'problems' - and the rest we can live with. Well, most of us at least!

I'm pretty sure the worlds best programmers could work on WitP for years without ever perfecting it. Not sure I would
buy a game that cost several 100$.

Constructive criticism is always good but there are limits... We all know that not much more reosurces
will be used on continued development of this game from now on. So I'd like to express my gratitude to all of you who have made this
game and spent time improving it or moderating the forum instead! You deserve it [&o]

So I encourage the rest of you who share my opinion to do the same. I think there has been too much complaining and too little
praise on this forum lately.

I also have to say that I just don't understand why people that complain about each and every aspect about this game
without ever saying anything positive just don't drop it and do something else!? Natural borne whiners I guess.
There are lots of job opportunities at Dell support - heck, they even pay you for being a pest there! [:-]

[Mr.Frag]

TJ, a nice tale of speculation but not really needed.

I'm not going to bother to nitpick you post apart as anyone reading it can see just how many "I don't know"'s there are in it. That is right, you don't know, but as always your personal vendetta against Gary makes you feel that you can make up whatever you want and fill in the blanks.

War in the Pacific is a one of a kind monster, the likes of which will never be seen again in our lifetime as no business entity would commit development dollars to such a risky scope in todays market. You can love it or hate it, you seem to be all about the hate. That is your choice. It does not accomplish anything in the long run except to ensure you are ignored. A lot of folks gave up their lives so you could have a backlog of PBEM's in your email on a project that should have never been, but instead of being the naysayer like you they struggled on no matter what and will continue to do so.

As Mogami points out, the original game *before* it was stretched to include hundreds of player requests was (a) far more bug free and (b) a lot simpler. 2by3 made the cardinal sin of listening to us all and adding content after Gary's design was done and completely functional because they are just those types of people. They should be praised for allowing the design to be extended to more then doubling the scope of the project. It is sad that you want to distort that effort into a bad thing.

If you feel you didn't get your $80 worth, I am sad for you. Send me your address and I'll buy your copy then you can part ways and go complain about something else. If you don't want to sell your copy, it would be really nice if you let the Gary vendetta of yours die off, I can do without the complaints filling my email when you throw a tantrum.

This is a public forum. We are all guests here and there is a line between being constructive and posting for the sake of seeing yourself in print. Try and learn some self-moderating skills instead of expecting some unpaid volunteers to weed through and filter your posts, removing all the usual batch of insults. Your $80 didn't buy you the right to insult anyone.

[ChezDaJez]

For instance, a plane that can turn circles around the next plane, such as the Zero versus the Wildcat, will never be able roll very well with that other plane. The laws of physics tell us as much.

Not quite correct. Rolling and turning ability are based on different principles and pretty much independent of each. Rolling is a function of wing length, wing width, aileron placement and aileron size. Aircraft weight is not a factor in rolling ability. Turning radius and rate is largely based on weight/hp ratio, wing chord with corresponding lift coefficients (also known as wing loading) and a couple other factors.

Here's a small table comparing the A6M2, A6M3, F4F-4, F6F, P-40E, P-38F and Spitfire Vb.

-------------Roll Rate----------------------------------------------------- Turn Rate
------------ (in seconds)------------------------------------------------- (in degrees per second)
------------ 150mph--- 250mph--- 300mph---------------150mph----250mph---- 300mph
A6M2------ 4.9--------- 6.9--------- 14.8--------------------39.6--------34.6-------- 31.3
A6M3------ N/A-------- 4.7--------- N/A-------------------- 40.9-------- 33.0------- 30.8
F4F-4------ 5.9--------- 5.0--------- 7.5--------------------- 29.0------- 28.1------- 20.5
F6F-------- N/A-------- 4.8--------- 5.3--------------------- N/A-------- 24.3------- 22.4
P-40E------ N/A-------- 3.6---------5.7--------------------- N/A-------- 27.3------- 18.6
Spitfire Vb-4.6-------- 4.1--------- 5.1--------------------- 29.8------- 28.3------- 28.1
P-38F------ N/A-------- 4.3--------- 5.9--------------------- N/A-------- 27.1------- 22.6

-------------------(lower is better)---------------------------------(higher is better)

As you can see the Spitfire is the 2nd fasted roller and is second in turning only to the A6M series. It handily outrolls and outturns the Wildcat. The A6M3 roll rate was dramatically improved by the removal of the wingtips but the decrease in range was looked at very unfavorably.

Chez

editted to correct table formatting

[Ron Saueracker]

2by3 made the cardinal sin of listening to us all and adding content after Gary's design was done and completely functional

Got to disagree for the most part here because most of the changes we imparted were basically cosmetic or minor...the ALPHA was complete before we got to it, and basically was from any major redesign standpoint since the time UV came out. EG... Canada was put in (thanks again bigtime Joel!!) but really, this was relatively minor when one sees the sort of effort Don Bowen, Andrew Brown, Mike (Lemurs), Justin (TankerAce) etc on the CHS. But changes to the ship damage model, CAP vs Strike combat, surface combat, land combat, ASW, logistics etc were basically taboo because of the need for major rewrites.

That's why I say "c'est la guere". Nothing could be done about many things because major code changes were necessary for many things many of us wanted. When testers, history buffs, researchers, programmers etc are available and offer to do stuff for free because they love the wargaming genre and do so because they realize it is a limited market and resources are limited, perhaps let them in much nearer the ground floor. If this were to so, I'm sure many of the big issues which have come up on the forums would have been realized as issues before the design was so deeply written in stone. Having one or just a few designers responsible for such a huge project with all the different design concepts, UIs, research, not to mention all the darn resources spent on such a lost cause as a full campaign AI (vs perhaps more the compromise of a scripted campaign for those who wish to play an AI) was overly optimistic.

I guess that was my big beef...not being able to impart any real good to the project, and it seriously irked me because I knew this was probably going to be the last chance a project like this was going to be attempted commercially. I bet many feel the same. To have come so close to something we all wanted, yet to fall short like this because the game's resources were all but maxed before we the public could significantly assist the process is extremely frustrating.

Anyway, I'm starting to babble. Once again I apologize for being such an ardent critic on some issues but I am (was?) very passionate about this project and thought I was expected to actually help out (at the cost of losing favour), not just try to break the game as a tester monkey and praise the design at every turn. That does nobody any good. I'm pretty sure that given the same beta test team, but with a much earlier inclusion date in the ALPHA/design dev/revision phase, with Rick (Kid) coordinating the testers (best coordinator I've come across...Navy CPO, go figure![;)]), but more importantly still, having Gary available to exchange ideas with rather than through a "chain of command", an innumerable amount of dividends would have been seen and we'ed all have a product more inline with the desires of the members on this forum.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Yes, the design was over the top in all that it tried to do. Even Gary was overwhelmed by the monster that he created when he was in serious AI testing. These games are so much more complicated than the simple 48k Apple games of the past, and yet they're not going to sell a whole lot more than those games did. That's got to tell you something about just how difficult it is to produce these games. For most people, I'd bet the $70 they spent on War in the Pacific bought them hundreds of hours of enjoyment (if only from being able to participate in these forum debates), and probably a few hours of frustration. Not a bad ratio. For those that have a love/hate (or hate/hate) relationship with the game, feeling that it isn't what it could/should have been, I'm sorry you're disappointed. It was not for lack of effort on the part of 2by3, Matrix, and many dedicated volunteers. That effort has been continued by some and the game continues to improve.

JOEL You're probably right in that I got my $80 worth of entertainment just griping on the forum about what was wrong, left out, or not working well in the game. And I've certainly enjoyed a lot of the time spent on the forum discussing it with those that are willing to talk about problems and perceptions based on their merits. My big complaint on the forum is the folks who jump in and defend the rediculous just because they like to play fantasies like "Japan conquers the World". My only real complaint about the designers and developers and Frag/Mogami (whatever their roles are described as) is that too often you have defended errors rather than admitting them. When one of you stands up and admits that "We coded ourselves into a corner and we can't get out" I have nothing but sympathy for you. Frustration because it means that nothing CAN be done about the problem, and anger with myself in that if I had HAD the time to participate in the testing, maybe I could have "weeded out" one or two of the problems before they were hard-coded.

I'm not about to claim I would have found most of them in testing either. It would never even have occured to me to push an all-out attempt to conquer China or Russia or India in testing. As a Military Historian, I already know such projects were beyond the capabilities of the Japanese Empire, and would have assumed (making an ass of you and me) that the designers knew that as well and it was taken care of. But I might very well have realized the basing/size problem early enough to have suggested a more rational system. I'd made that "tweek" back when playing the original SPI game. So in many ways I kick myself for not "jumping at the opportunity" when it was offered because it leaves me unable to say I offerred a better idea when it would have done some good. Thought I was being noble and responsible; and it turns out I was just being stupid in not getting to play earlier.

So when one of you stands up and says "Look, we bit off more than we could chew" I have nothing but respect for the admission. I think I was the one who suggested those who could pay an extra $100 just to keep the design/repair process going longer---I know I volunteered to participate in it. I've seen whole
multi-million dollar companies try to do foolish things like "implement SAP on the cheap" and fall flat on their faces (and their stockholders), so I'm not suprised that 3 guys might have a problem doing the entire War in the Pacific on this scale. What ever happened to that notion of making the code available to some of the programmers on the forum once 2by3 gave up on it? At least a couple of them sounded like they had some interesting ideas and approaches---and as a "labor of love" rather than livelyhood they could afford more time.

[WiTP_Dude]

I agree with a lot of the points made by the "whiners" on the game's problems but think they are just wasting their time. Only bugs are being fixed at this stage of development. Better to put your energy into something else.

[Tanaka]

The real shame is that all this bitching and whining and conflict will probably make them never want to tackle such another gaming feat.

And thats when we really all lose...

This is the best game ive ever paid for or played period.

Unfortunately now it probably will forever be...


But as for me ill say it again and again. This IS the best game and gaming company ive ever been associated with. Im amazed they are still listening to us and improving this game. And I will keep buying Matrix games because of it.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

The real shame is that all this bitching and whining and conflict will probably make them never want to tackle such another gaming feat.

And thats when we really all lose...

This is the best game ive ever paid for or played period.

Unfortunately now it probably will forever be...

What it should cause is allow the outside testing to start much earlier. It does not cost the company any more to initiate outside testing at ALPHA than initiating the outside testing at BETA, it only cost those volunteers their time.

[Erik Rutins]

I believe everything that needed to be said has been said. Joel pretty much summed up what I was going to say and I will also not try to go through Tristan's post point by point, though I do disagree with many of the inferences there. Tristan, time to let it go.

I will add this though - I got the save files from Tristan (thank you for that) and spent several hours that I don't have in these weeks before Origins testing it, to make sure I and the team understood what was going on. I regret I don't have time to assemble, format and post my results - it's simply a time issue and much of them were viewed, noted and never recorded due to testing time. What I saw convinced me that the real problem was what it has often been, that larger air combats in this model are too bloody. Smaller to medium versions of the same type of engagement were not nearly as bad. Also, using only Zeros instead of Tonys made the results more reasonable. Finally, giving both sides some lower morale than 99 and higher fatigue than 0 and flying them at differing altitudes further decreased casualties.

I discussed this with the internal team, with Mike, Joel and Gary. We took a look over things. Mike spent an entire night looking at this. In the end, we decided that at this point we have to leave well enough alone. The air combat model is not as bad as some would believe but it definitely breaks down to a degree in large air combats and it is complex enough that trying to rebalance that could well cause a new "break point".

Ultimately, here's how it is: If you send in huge groups of aircraft on strikes and you meet huge groups of opposing
aircraft, there will be a lot of losses. If you send smaller (and granted, more historical) sized strikes, you will decrease your loss percentage as a rule. This is a choice each player will have to make when deciding on their strategy within the game.

In the meantime, we've put a lot of time into the next update and I'm creating a new limited beta version now. I think you all will be pleased with the bugs that this addresses and it should make v1.60 a very stable build to play with for some time to come.

At this point, the original posters have said several times they are done with the thread and further repetition has gone on to speculation. This one is locked up and I thank everyone for their input and participation.

Regards,

- Erik