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pompack -> RE: Should I visit this forum any more ?? (3/2/2011 4:51:59 PM)
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ORIGINAL: DBeves
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ORIGINAL: pompack
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ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Anyone who plays WITP-AE knows that it took a LONG time, about 5 years and a brand-new release, to get it sorta right. That didn't mean it wasn't fun to play all along, it just meant we kept sharing data, etc, to get things more historical or more playable or both. That is a fact of life with a complex gaming engine, like that one, or WITE.
First, Kudos to Q-Ball!
Now all of this fire and brimstone has been amusing to me because I lived through (and enjoyed) the complete WitP/WitP AE experience. It has a steep AND long learning curve and like WitE it was (is) an extremely complex game whose complexities lie in layer upon layer of complex tactics/strategy options.
I well remember the first months of the game as people first mastered the AI and then Japanese players began to demolish Allied players with even greater ease. There were howls of anguish that the Japanese were over-powered and that the game was so horribly unbalanced that no one could win as the Allies; there was even a quite vocal minority that hinted that the developers were secret Japanese militarists who were attempting revenge for WWII [:)]. Fortunately the devs just waited patiently.
Then people began to to understand how to play as the Allies. Now the howls of anguish were heard from the other side (but frequently from the same people, very strange) that the Japanese had no chance to win the war (what an novel idea [:D]). The "solution" was a series of user mods that boosted the Japanese and balanced the game.
Then came WitP-AE with even more layers of complexity. So we went through the same sequence again but this time quite a bit faster and the balancing mods were "official" scenarios.
Now the point I am trying to make is that I still feel that it is premature to run around in circles screaming that the game is broken when people (and I definitely DO include the devs under "people) don't yet have enough experience with the game to wring out the best performance from the model, especially with the multitude of tactical/strategic variations that human players just naturally develop.
With that said, I will note that WitP balance was easily adjusted with scenario mods (the adjustments were easy, verifying that they did what they claimed took literally years). While WitE can be easily moded, the "First Winter" effects are in code and today requires a "one size fits all" type of change. I would love to see a change to the game options to include a slider that nerfs all the "First Winter" effects by 0%-50% so PBEM players could select their personal level of comfort for a human/human game
Well, what would be nice - given the sheer amount of posting on this issue and how it in effect seems to break the game - is some kind of official response as to what - but more importantly if - they intend to do about it. given the number of posts - I find it only less surprising that they havent than an issue of this size and impact was not picked up in testing. I understand what you say about the complexity of the engine but surely someone played through the first winter in beta testing ? What concerns me if it was noticed is that the designers said no to changing it for reasons that are conspicuous byt their absence at the moment. I mean seriously - there are hundreds of posts on this and no one from 2 by 3 has seen fit to say so much as a we are looking at it comment. It seems to me this is something that should be quite easy to change.
Well, at the risk of repeating myself: I think it is somewhat premature to make balance changes in response to a lot of people's perceived problems before people really learn how to play the game.
As to your comment: You certainly believe it to be true but I do not. Joel has made numerous posts explaining how they are looking into the issue and even incorporated a balance change into Beta 6 (which I disagree with but he's the 2x3 spokesman).
Now as to why it was not picked up in testing: As the key test people have stated over and over and over again, it was not seen to be a problem because those people were able to survive the winter both against the AI and human/human. Now also at the risk of repeating myself yet again, it is clear that these people are ALSO still learning how to play the game; there are Russian strategies that they did not try and one of those strategies (a deep Robinovski with sacrifice blocking) CAN result in insufficient Russian casualties (talk to Q-Ball) which really, really hurts during the winter. To repeat myself yet again, it will be a long time before all the major stratagies are tested with a competent, experienced human on each side (but not as long as WitP because you can finish WitE in less than a year).
End of rant [:D]
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