Gary Grigsby's War in the East Public Beta Update v1.11.02

[charlie0311]

@Von Kliest, scrolling along and there you are taking a shot.

The example is right there in the post by T, that whole thing is a pack of lies.

Leave me out and I will keep quiet, attack me and I will defend myself.

I will engage in constructive dialogue as well.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: charlie0311

@Von Kliest, scrolling along and there you are taking a shot.

The example is right there in the post by T, that whole thing is a pack of lies.

Leave me out and I will keep quiet, attack me and I will defend myself.

I will engage in constructive dialogue as well.

yes charlie0311 - stop the attacks on me and others and it would be quiet

if you want to be constructive take back the comments about me and only refer to the game

[charlie0311]

@T

Nope, you posted a bunch of lies about me.

[EwaldvonKleist]

@morvael: I believe the process should be more like this:
public beta published, after some time player feedback trickles in. Then, the public beta becomes the official version by fixing bugs only. So you have at least one version with is tested and not just a public beta relabelled "official version".

The current process (if I understand it correctly) only produces public betas and official versions which are public betas in disguise.

A game where the Axis player has no chance to win outright in 1941 has not so much appeal to me. What WitE IMO does is to reduce the "Stable zone" of the eastern front, which gives the Axis the chance to win in 1941, but the Soviet union the near-guarantee to be able to turn the table at some time in the game at some point after 1942 (at least that is my impression from looking in AARs). A historical 1941 appears to casue Soviets being earlier in Berlin than historical.

A perfect simulation with operational freedom will simply see the Soviets running in mid 1941, then steelwall the Axis somewhere along the historical frontline, then ( maybe) counterattack a little, if at all over teh winter, then something like WW1 trench warfare for several years.
So to produce a fun game, the engine has to motivate players to repeat operational mistakes OR change simulation parameters like the Axis logistics or losses.

@charlie: Contributions about what you consider being right/wrong about the air war model are welcome, accusing people of things usually considered as bad, like being "gamey", without giving good proof for it, is not.

[charlie0311]

@VK I know you guys hate the word "gamey" and don't want it used in reference to you. Do you want this word banned from the forums?

There is proof in all your arr's, and others for all to see. You want to say it's not really gamey, that's your opinion.

Since you guys want to say your methods aren't gamey and declare them not to be then, by your decree the are not gamey, and there can be no proof of something that doesn't exist.

Small problem, we all know that it does.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: charlie0311

@VK I know you guys hate the word "gamey" and don't want it used in reference to you. Do you want this word banned from the forums?

There is proof in all your arr's, and others for all to see. You want to say it's not really gamey, that's your opinion.

Since you guys want to say your methods aren't gamey and declare them not to be then, by your decree the are not gamey, and there can be no proof of something that doesn't exist.

Small problem, we all know that is does.

it's a pity every time you are given a chance to stop insulting people you always go for it again

[SparkleyTits]

Would it be gamey if somebody only ever pounced on new players in PBEM and made sure they gave the newer players unfair options ontop of that?

Honestly Charlie I do wonder if you are here on this planet with us sometimes mate [:D]

[charlie0311]

No insults by me, never said anybody was gamey, nope, referred to gamey in a general sense yep.

Now I guess you are insulted by the phrase "by decree". ok then pick your own words.

Stop attacking me is all it takes.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: charlie0311

No insults by me, never said anybody was gamey, nope, referred to gamey in a general sense yep.

Now I guess you are insulted by the phrase "by decree". ok then pick your own words.

Stop attacking me is all it takes.

Your comments about strategic bombing are exclusively about me - and all comments about "gamey" or "cheaters" are about intentions and so about people. Drop them.

[charlie0311]

And here comes the spam, and even more attacks

[Joneleth]

ORIGINAL: morvael

ORIGINAL: STEF78

It's not about russian ability but about german morale while winning defensive battles. Russian steamroll will be stronger and faster.

Yeah, but what if there is close to 0 defensive battles won by the German side? The change has no effect. And you can try more counterattacks without fear of losing morale.

But then the question becomes, why is there 0 defensive battles won by the germans? Is it because the the soviets are all powerfull and cannot lose a battle? Or is it because soviet players carefully select their battles to avoid giving the germans bonus morale?

Because if it is the later, then by virtue of removing this possible penalty the soviets are encouraged to do alot more attacks where they might have been more iffy about the result. Thus resulting in alot more won battles forcing a faster german collapse.

[chaos45]

Back to the red airforce morale issue---I disagree with your entire perspective on soviet pilot training.....also you then need to add in systems to tell if pilots are dead/wounded/returned to action...this entire add on was completely not thought through and should not have been added to the game with some consultation from the player base.

Im not complaining about lower experience in the soviet airforce---my complaint is my NM is 20.......

20 is way to low....give the soviets a slight experience penalty I have to grow back from thats fine its the NM morale of 20-25 in 1941 and 1942 that is absolutely stupid.

Having a experience hit after the huge influx of new planes and pilots IMO is fine...its the fact that no matter how long I leave pilots training now they will max out at the 20-25 which with how this game works is basically untrained labor level.

[SparkleyTits]

Try to keep in mind like Morvael said it is a beta version and meant to pre test possible changes out for a main stable version and I personally think it is a joy to be treasured that this game is still worked on

I don't think how the airwar plays out in 41 the way it is supposed to at the moment with current meta
Of course there might be teething problems with some of the betas when trying to create a better game flow but ultimately that is the point in beta versions and it will be two steps forward one step back but I am sure it will be fixed [:)]

I personally think the red airforce needs some kind of bottleneck for 41 as unless you get two players that do not care about the air war very much then it plays out the same way every game where the Soviets just suicide throw thousands of bombers pools away until they get an airforce with parity by 42 or they force Axis to turtle back with staging bases in 41 which in of itself is a defensive measure and not very apt of how 41 should play I feel

[SparkleyTits]

Also I agree 20 morale is way too low [:D]

[chaos45]

yes but at this point maybe they should discuss with the community proposed changes.....so major changes can be done within reason if they make sense.

[Joneleth]

ORIGINAL: chaos45

yes but at this point maybe they should discuss with the community proposed changes.....so major changes can be done within reason if they make sense.

I think Morvael uses beta patches as a way of discussing it with the community, so instead of just theorizing about a chance people can test it out before they make any immediate conclusions, that said I also think the air morale change is very bad for the game. Its already so hard getting anything usefull out of the red airforce.

[beender]

I still don't think the red airforce needed to be nerfed in the first place. For a while they seemed too strong, and then we discovered as long as Lufewaffe did not go too aggressively it could main very good exchange ratio at least throughtout 41. As stated and proved by more than one skilled player.

As axis, one can lose 100+ bombers in a careless bombing run where the opponent makes a well organized airwar campaign. But as far as ground support is concerned, my experience is the more soviet commits its planes, the more it loses, incurring very little damage to Germans.

So i simply dare not imagine how the red airforce would fare under the new patch.

[Sammy5IsAlive]

ORIGINAL: morvael

Yes, on the other hand some players were very comfortable with using well known tricks and exploits to win, and didn't want to start from a level playing field, having to find out and learn what works in place of their previous skills. There are also players who vastly prefer one side to the other (Axis or Soviet), and are furious everytime their favourite side gets a nerf, while being inconspicuously quiet when the other side gets a nerf. My stance on global balance is well known now, I think, where I don't want to see any sudden death Axis victories in 41 or 42 (including easily overruning Leningrad, Moscow and Rostov before winter'41), and I want to see Soviets in Berlin sometime in 1945.

Long-living computer games usually undergo some meta shakeup to keep things interesting. Without any patches player interest fades away as well. Of course if any changes are introduced there are possible rage quits etc from those who don't like new meta or don't want to make the effort to learn it.

I'll start by being clear that I (and I'm sure the rest of the community) am really appreciative of the continued support that this game receives, from yourself in particular.

But I do feel a bit uncertain about a lot of the above. It feels as if much of the 'design brief' of the recent patch is to balance out strategies that have been used by what you might term as the 'elite' players who are very active on the forums, have large amounts of time to commit to the game and who tend to have an approach geared towards getting the most out of the mechanics of the game rather than seeking historical realism. To be clear I am not taking sides for or against that approach or those players, just expressing an opinion that they may be different to the more 'casual' players who may fall under the radar a little.

The problem I see is that if you go too far in the direction of acting as 'referee' in the games between those players there is a risk that it turns into whack a mole. Every time a new patch comes out the elite players will go back to the drawing board to find new 'slack' in the engine. The next patch goes after these new 'tricks and exploits' and the process repeats itself. In the end I fear this could lead to a bit of disillusionment on all sides - especially as the nature of the game is such that most matches, even between the quickest players, will go through a number of patches if they go the distance. A game in 44/45 might have gone through 3 major updates and by the end of it it becomes difficult to tell how much of the final result is down to player skill and how much is due to having the rub of the green with the 'meta' of the patch changes.

Alongside this, from the perspective of a more casual player, a patch like this brings its own problems. For understandable reasons much of the official documentation is now out of date. Very big changes not only push the official manual further out of date but also potentially undermine the 'alternative' way of learning the game which is to go through the forum and the AARs and learn from the experiences of others. The more the game changes from patch to patch the less useful that resource becomes. Plus there is the risk that changes aimed to balance the 'elite' games have unintended consequences for games involving more casual players. You mention players leaving the game due to not wanting to relearn a new version - I think this is a much bigger risk among more casual players who may have found an approach which works satisfactorily but which suddenly stops working in a new patch version.

I think that many of the balance issues can be dealt with by players without intervention in the rule-set - either on a general level through people being explicit about whether they want to play 'historically' or (for want of a better term) in a min-max fashion; or through specific house rules on 'borderline' practices; or even just through natural selection as players really pushing something to the absolute extremes run out of competitive opponents willing to play them.

Going back to the original starting point - I really appreciate the continued work that goes into this game. But with WITE2 on the horizon I'd personally rather see a rule-set that stays stable up to that point, with work being more geared towards bug-fixes and 'quality of life' improvements rather than large scale balancing experiments.

This has ended up a bit of a ramble - I hope that it makes some kind of sense!

[morvael]

I would give a lot to have the tools in place modern games have - like DC3 Barbarossa, HOI4 - where certain metrics are reported from ALL played games online to developer statistic servers, and offer the most objective feedback possible, not limited to subjective biased opinions of the most vocal players only. But that's the reality we have here. If you want your voice or opinion to be heard - please write on the forum.

Also, I admit we're now at least 1 full year after I expected WitE2 to appear, where no one would play this game anymore and I would be free of the obligation to offer support. The longer we continue patching the game without proper testers and manual writer on board, the more it deviates from the original manual. For that I am sorry, but sadly we have to operate in such constrains. I still think the overall impact of the changes we made is positive, even if a few bugs slips unnoticed.

[Telemecus]

ORIGINAL: morvael
I would give a lot to have the tools in place modern games have

I think it is a great job being done and especially given the limited resources you have in support.

While there may not be the in built tools there are other ways to gauging game balance that does not depend on just the selection of contributors in the forums. Emailed surveys for example are pretty cheap to set up - and even if you get 1% of the base replying that is still a far wider variety. You can even have tick boxes and the results automatically tallied for you?