Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, OK I see I am once again failing in my poor attempts to explain the game.
Production is required. But it is not there so much for the Japanese to alter the war with as it is as the primary focus of Allied war efforts. The Japanese have to have enough control to keep it going dispite the enemy. (So they can switch production focus to counter allied damage) It's primary purpose is supply and fuel. (not creating wonder airgroups)
There are many ways for the allies to attack Japanese production. Rather then bomb specific aircraft factories they can attack engine production. They can shut it down by targeting tankers. They can bomb Heavy Industry. In the Meantime the Japanese player will be taking steps to keep it going. I don't think you need be a chess master. Just understand as Japan that production of supply and fuel is your main effort. Stopping it is the Allies main effort. All the airbattle, sea battles and land battles that make up the OPERATIONAL focus of the game are subject to this. Operations are the primary purpose of the game. Operations depend on what is possible not on what player might like.

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Next, if the game is as you say, not a Production game, then Production should never have been put in the game in the detail it is in there now, or at least given the player the ability to control and alter it.

It's like they had an intent of design, and then badly missed the mark with this one. And it appears they have no interest in addressing it one way or the other. So for players and potential player, the only question remains is this area a big enough problem to cause them to abandon or refuse to purchase the game?

For me, it is not...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Caltone

I don't think anyone would argue that Japan can win the war. If you have any doubts, load up the '45 scenario and look at the Allied OOB

This is a wargame and while you can't win the war as Japan, you can win the game under the points system.

quote:

ORIGINAL: DBeves

And here we are ...
The "Other" excuse ... they have their heads buried in code and are so busy fixing this issue that they cant take 30 seconds out to let us know what the issue actually is or that they are rectifying it.
I'm really sorry but that is just an apologists excuse.
Many people come to this board saying how good at customer response matrix are - these kind of issues are how it is proved.
I grow somewhat tired of this. There is NO reason why matrix cannot post an answer to this other than they don't want to admit that this is a serious flaw and, what I am more concerned about - is that they are not going to fix it.
There is a 25 page thread on an issue many consider to be a game breaker - the war in the pacific was ALL about aircraft - even the navy was only there to get the troops to get the bases to fly the aircraft from.
The simple fact is this - I can live with a design decision - I can even live with a bug that forces me to go to great lengths to work out something that could have been hardcoded for me. I can even live with a bug that that while it breaks the bit of the game it is meant to portray I can reach an acceptable workaround.
What I can't live with is a company that sits back and watches an argument unfold that they know is causing some players to shelve a very expensive product without a single word.
I always knew I would have to wait a while to be able to play the game properly and that we would all be beta testers to some extent but if a company wants its users to co-operate with them it is a two way street.
What I really don't want to do is wait five weeks for a patch then only to discover in the read me (cause they didn't tell us) that a resolution of this issue is in it.
Again - this is a fundamental flaw.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

This whole thread is rather pointless as it is completely based on speculation not any from of reality from playing the game. People talk about problems that do not exist because they play with some numbers and think they have a problem by projecting the number out 48 months. That is about as valid as thinking buying a second lottery ticket improving your odds of winning by 100%.

Why don't you quit posting assumptions based on complete speculation and actually play the game instead. You might just find out to your surprise that funny enough, this *great* problem just doesn't exist. You want to complain about something, show me your mid '44-'45 save game that shows it.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, OK I see I am once again failing in my poor attempts to explain the game.
Production is required. But it is not there so much for the Japanese to alter the war with as it is as the primary focus of Allied war efforts. The Japanese have to have enough control to keep it going dispite the enemy. (So they can switch production focus to counter allied damage) It's primary purpose is supply and fuel. (not creating wonder airgroups)
There are many ways for the allies to attack Japanese production. Rather then bomb specific aircraft factories they can attack engine production. They can shut it down by targeting tankers. They can bomb Heavy Industry. In the Meantime the Japanese player will be taking steps to keep it going. I don't think you need be a chess master. Just understand as Japan that production of supply and fuel is your main effort. Stopping it is the Allies main effort. All the airbattle, sea battles and land battles that make up the OPERATIONAL focus of the game are subject to this. Operations are the primary purpose of the game. Operations depend on what is possible not on what player might like.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Caltone

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Next, if the game is as you say, not a Production game, then Production should never have been put in the game in the detail it is in there now, or at least given the player the ability to control and alter it.

It's like they had an intent of design, and then badly missed the mark with this one. And it appears they have no interest in addressing it one way or the other. So for players and potential player, the only question remains is this area a big enough problem to cause them to abandon or refuse to purchase the game?

For me, it is not...

I disagree. Mogami has provided an eloquent explanation of the production system and how it's used. If you do not wish to play with production, then don't. Much like turning over areas of the game to the AI, just leave the production alone. It will produce planes, supplies, fuel, and other machinery of war for you. Factories will even auto upgrade. All you need to do is capture oil and resources while scoring victories over the Allies. Do this well enough and you force them to offer terms (win on points) Hmm, that sounds like something I've read before

Sorry folks, this is not BTR. I sense some players have most of their factories producing Zero's, Kate's, Val's and Betty's at the start, while the rest research Frank's and Zeke's.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brausepaul

If Japan has no chance of winning the war...why play at all!?Japan definatly should have the possibility to win the war (but not with production only, production might help them in winning <or loosing>).

quote:

ORIGINAL: Caltone

quote:

ORIGINAL: ZOOMIE1980
Next, if the game is as you say, not a Production game, then Production should never have been put in the game in the detail it is in there now, or at least given the player the ability to control and alter it.

It's like they had an intent of design, and then badly missed the mark with this one. And it appears they have no interest in addressing it one way or the other. So for players and potential player, the only question remains is this area a big enough problem to cause them to abandon or refuse to purchase the game?

For me, it is not...

I disagree. Mogami has provided an eloquent explanation of the production system and how it's used. If you do not wish to play with production, then don't. Much like turning over areas of the game to the AI, just leave the production alone. It will produce planes, supplies, fuel, and other machinery of war for you. Factories will even auto upgrade. All you need to do is capture oil and resources while scoring victories over the Allies. Do this well enough and you force them to offer terms (win on points) Hmm, that sounds like something I've read before

Sorry folks, this is not BTR. I sense some players have most of their factories producing Zero's, Kate's, Val's and Betty's at the start, while the rest research Frank's and Zeke's.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, OK I see I am once again failing in my poor attempts to explain the game.
Production is required. But it is not there so much for the Japanese to alter the war with as it is as the primary focus of Allied war efforts. The Japanese have to have enough control to keep it going dispite the enemy. (So they can switch production focus to counter allied damage) It's primary purpose is supply and fuel. (not creating wonder airgroups)
There are many ways for the allies to attack Japanese production. Rather then bomb specific aircraft factories they can attack engine production. They can shut it down by targeting tankers. They can bomb Heavy Industry. In the Meantime the Japanese player will be taking steps to keep it going. I don't think you need be a chess master. Just understand as Japan that production of supply and fuel is your main effort. Stopping it is the Allies main effort. All the airbattle, sea battles and land battles that make up the OPERATIONAL focus of the game are subject to this. Operations are the primary purpose of the game. Operations depend on what is possible not on what player might like.

Mogami. Can't argue with any of the above because you are absolutely right. But
unfortunately, none of what you say has any bearing on the point Dbeves raised---
which is that the INTERFACE used to control/influence Japanese production is a con-
voluted mess. We're all glad that you managed to master it. But what we can't
figure out was why you didn't tell Matrix it was an overly-complicated piece of junk
while you were testing it and suggest that they consider using a "Production Sub-routine
Spreadsheet" that would allow players to get a grip on the "production game" without
a bunch of "player-aides" and pencil and paper note-taking? Spreadsheets are some-
thing computers do exceptionally well..., and a lot of players want to know why 2by3
doesn't seem to have heard of the application?

quote:

So patches that involve new executable binaries are NOT going to require restarts to take advantage of? So next Dec when we are all finally getting into 1944 with our PBEM games and we discover some big problem that requires a major patch to fix we aren't all going to have to start over? You can guarantee that?

quote:

Sorry, but with a player controlled Production system, the EXPECTATION by a LARGE NUMBER of players was that it IS a BTR.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

quote:

So patches that involve new executable binaries are NOT going to require restarts to take advantage of? So next Dec when we are all finally getting into 1944 with our PBEM games and we discover some big problem that requires a major patch to fix we aren't all going to have to start over? You can guarantee that?

Zoomie, quit being a space cadet. You claim to be a programmer a million times over then come out with this tripe?

a) OOB changes require a restart to pick up the new OOB.

b) Code changes that do not have anything to do with a) do not require a restart.

c) Corruption level fixes sometimes require a restart to cure the losses created by the corruption (example - air transported troops that vanished - fixing the code so they stop vanishing will not bring back the vanished troops)

d) New features - may require a restart to turn on the feature or the feature may be defaulted to on. (possible restart depending on the feature)

Having a silly pick list using data that already exists in a) while being b) code change does not require a restart as the data in a) does not change.

ALL changes fall into one of those 4 catagories.

c) is being worked on as an absolute priority as it causes the potential of needing to restart depending on how much you loose.

a) is being worked on like mad and could be worked on a lot more if people spent their time helping out instead of starting these threads about nothing.

b) & d) catogory stuff are absolutely of no priority because they do NOT need the game to be restarted.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

......

Marc von Martial
instagram stream

quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft
How to shut everybody up (this is what DBeves was originally asking for, I think):-
Official Matrix staff person comes on this thread (or the other one) and says:
"Sorry guys but production/aircraft upgrades aren't going to change"
I cannot for the life of me understand why this has not yet happened.

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC



For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Can someone please explain to me what exactly is their problem with Japanese production.

You feed in oil and resource.
produce heavy industry points
use these to produce other items.

It will never produce enough items to off set the Allied production advantage.
It requires minor tweeking from time to time to continue supporting existing units and providing for the introduction of the new units.
It is not an instant response system. (There was one post where the poster complained new land units did not arrive at 100 percent. Are land combat units created over night at 100 percent?) Players seem to want Japanese pilots to arrive trained in numbers to allow excessive loss so they can conduct operations without fear while ignoring that portion of planning that dictates you perserve your force. Players appear to want to be able to produce only those aircraft they think worthy rather then using what the Japanese thought good enough. By including production they think they are no longer an Operational commnader but the Japanese arms Minister. Production is included as a target for Allied Operational planning. Japanese Operational Level planning is to provide the means for the industry in the first phase and defend it there after. It's detail is to add depth to both sides Operational conduct of the war not to supplant this. I think players are misunderstanding this. The intent is not to be "a game within a game" I can see where production might be confusing or disappointing if you move your focus from operations to war production managment.
As Japan plan for what you industry will support. Counter enemy efforts directed against it. As the Allies you know the ultimate objective is to have B-29 in range of Home Islands.
The whole game on the surface is rather simple. I only see problems if you try to use it for something else. It is an OPERATIONAL level game based on WWII in the Pacific. Not an economic model of that contest. (That is why the Allied production is so limited. It was not a target of Japanese Operations.) Because the Japanese system was the primary target it was required to have more detail. I'm sorry I am unable to verbalize this concept. I think this is where the root of all the discontent and misunderstanding lies.

As for 2by3 and Matrix not addressing this I can only say we all have short memories. Nothing here is new and it has been covered many times. Well before the release of the game this was a major topic of discussion. Had industry/production been anything else I would have posted detailed coverage of my treatment of it in AAR. I believe in more then 1 AAR I covered Japanese Phase 1 Operations in detail as to their impact on my production (explained why I conducted some Operations and excluded other possible paths) I don't want to claim responsiblty for the present system but during testing I focused on it. As such it was my feedback that produced it. So any problems can prehaps be laid on me. My concern was not to change the porduction system but to test that it worked according to design. I feel it does. Prehaps it could be explained better. (I'd begin the treatment with "Don't expect miracles"

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

quote:

Sorry, but with a player controlled Production system, the EXPECTATION by a LARGE NUMBER of players was that it IS a BTR.

Sorry, but that is YOUR assumption. Show me a single post during the alpha and the beta that says or even requests this.

quote:

These threads indicate some SERIOUS game flaws in either bugs, design, or documentation/communication.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
Captain,

quote:

quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft
How to shut everybody up (this is what DBeves was originally asking for, I think):-
Official Matrix staff person comes on this thread (or the other one) and says:
"Sorry guys but production/aircraft upgrades aren't going to change"
I cannot for the life of me understand why this has not yet happened.

If that were certain, I would absolutely do that. However, we give all feedback consideration and the problem is simply that our current schedule is not allowing us to deal with this issue quickly enough for some. I think expectations have to adjust to give us at Matrix and 2 by 3 time behind the scenes to deal with some higher priority issues before addressing feature requests and design changes one way or the other. We're not going to dismiss this out of hand, but we can't give a firm answer yet.

Regards,

- Erik

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Captain,

quote:

ORIGINAL: Captain Cruft
How to shut everybody up (this is what DBeves was originally asking for, I think):-
Official Matrix staff person comes on this thread (or the other one) and says:
"Sorry guys but production/aircraft upgrades aren't going to change"
I cannot for the life of me understand why this has not yet happened.

If that were certain, I would absolutely do that. However, we give all feedback consideration and the problem is simply that our current schedule is not allowing us to deal with this issue quickly enough for some. I think expectations have to adjust to give us at Matrix and 2 by 3 time behind the scenes to deal with some higher priority issues before addressing feature requests and design changes one way or the other. We're not going to dismiss this out of hand, but we can't give a firm answer yet.

Regards,

- Erik

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

quote:

These threads indicate some SERIOUS game flaws in either bugs, design, or documentation/communication.

Once again, show me the bug. Show me the flaw. Show me the documentation that is wrong.

System works just fine ... you might not like it, but *that* is not a bug or flaw.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, If you have 500 Franks in Pool and 15 depleted Oscar groups you screwed the pooch production wise. You knew the Oscar groups needed Oscars but produced Franks instead.
And your saying that is the games fault? It required perhaps 30 minutes at some point to see where this was heading and what was required. Then you had to watch turn after turn of your Oscar groups decreasing size. A 30 second check of the pools and production would have fixed it. But no. It's 2by3's fault because they did not provide some sort of warning devise or pie chart. If you can't see your own airgroups condition how would a pie chart help?

Twinkle twinkle PBY
Seeking Kido Bu-tai
Flying o' the sea so high
An ill-omen in the sky
Twinkle twinkle PBY
Pointing out who's next to fry