IronDuke_slith
Posts: 1595
Joined: 6/30/2002 From: Manchester, UK Status: offline
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quote:
As for the chrome, just check the forums for this and WITP. It's the attention to detail that completes GG games for many people. For every Guy not that interested in the thickness of Porsche turret top armour, there are five more whose thirst for accurcy demands it is in there, and accurate to a nanometre. quote:
ORIGINAL: heliodorus04 And here is where I believe your line of reasoning is incomplete or flawed: The game has the data on the range of rifle grenades and the top armor of the 79 porsche turret Tiger 2s (actually I don't know you have that data, but you get the general idea: there is a huge amount of data for each element in the game). And even with all of this data, a Security division of 1200 guys can retreat successfully over and over from 3 panzer divisions doing deliberate attacks, and brigades of 16 T-70s with 1000 guys can harass the entire Das Reich motorized infantry regiment. Well, I haven't seen this sort of issue, but most games create anomalies at the outlier. In TOAW I, A man with a thousand recoiless rifle armed jeeps could defeat a Tiger Battalion. Norm's response was a new engine that went for just as much detail as WitE has. The detail helps produce more accurate combat results by measuring not overall strength but individual weapons effectiveness. quote:
So you can say that these data are necessary to the overall realism in the game, but you're looking right past the lack of realism in the game. This to me undermines your argument. The only realism I want is in the interaction of air, artillery, Tanks, infantry and terrain. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. The fact a security division retreated repeatedly rather than being crushed or something is hardly evidence the combat model is fundamentally broke. Show me an exhausted infantry division shorn of it's heavy weapons standing it's ground in the face of Panzer Guppe 2 and maybe we have something to talk about. quote:
Moreover: While the game has all these data, we still inherit a game where the supply model is, by comparison, infantile relative to the combat element model. The supply model needed more detail (for me) in order to represent what I consider "operational warfare". The combat model has so much information that you can watch it produce dumb results. I assert much of the dumb results in the combat engine are the result of unnecessary data going into it. Well, logistics is a complicated topic and subject to any number of influencing factors. The current model at least has the temeritry to be manageable. What more detail would you have wanted? I don't agree re the combat engine. As above, TOAW I was fundamentally re-written to add more detail not less, because of dumb results at the outlier. quote:
Finally: Strategically, only the Soviet has options. The German is tied to the decisions of history, at least in terms of his OOB, where the Soviet has literally infinitely more flexibility in how he assembles his force. What other options do you think the Germans reasonably had? The ability to combine support units, and mix and match units within Corps seems to me to give the German player everything he might have been able to do. What is it you feel is lacking? quote:
Conclusion: I look at this game through the perspective of a game consumer, not a historian. There are some game design decisions here that bother me enough that I might not want to be a Matrix game consumer, you're right (hopefully not, though, this has been an enjoyable, although occasionally disheartening and often frustrating). I do think I have valuable input on what makes a game compelling to play. I think WitE has been designed without equal emphasis on what's fun to play for each side: I assert that the 1942 trench warfare situation (which is being managed with great promise from what I observe of 1.05, I grant you) is an example of not emphasizing what is fun to play (and, by the way, a-historical to what actually happened in 1942 by a huge degree). I'd need to understand what you wanted the Germans to be able to do that was "fun" before replying to this one. In the past, it's been a production free for all or give the Allies the keys to Berlin and throw eveything into the east sort of thing. quote:
I would not be as ardent a critic if these were the first 90 days of release. We're in month 10. I also understand business, and the fact that this IS a super-niche market that has much smaller resources available. But I paid $80 for this game, so there's your niche mark-up. That's $20 more than the high price-point games in stores today, or 33%. I just think this has been an immensley complicated thing to balance, primarily because the Soviets made huge errors in real life, or fought under huge handicaps that the game can not fully replicate. In addition, it is difficult for the game to replicate the effects of doctrine when everyone wants to use their own style and plans. Trying to get historical results when everyone is behaving ahistorically is a real challenge. quote:
It is entirely possible that Matrix is more oriented to the hard-core historian than the veteran wargamer. That's an easy way to argue away my criticisms, though. These two sorts of people are not mutually exclusive, and are more the norm here than the exception. Regards, ID
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