Want a Real Challenge? (Full Version)

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Charles22 -> Want a Real Challenge? (12/27/2000 4:17:00 AM)

I know it would probably be too complicated to program out, or to make it optional, but how about removing the 'spidey-sense' asterisk on units, so that you don't automatically know that your unit has been spotted? To think I played the entire Panzer Strike/Typhoon of Steel/SP games without knowing the function of the asterisk. That was when advancing was indeed adventurous (and realistic). Any thoughts?




hhsohn -> (12/27/2000 4:25:00 AM)

Hehe... I'm also guilty of recon by asterix. I've located sneaky enemy units on more than few occasions by triangulating with couple of fast units. It would definately make things more interesting.




Michael Wermelin -> (12/27/2000 7:24:00 PM)

It would be good to remove that asterix. Troops shouldn't have magical ability to know when they have been spotted. There are no active IR and IR-detectors yet. It would best wait until SP-modern...




Charles22 -> (12/27/2000 11:04:00 PM)

You can imagine some of the hell I used to go through. I didn't even know that back in the old days you could use recon units to spot anything, so that the first time I knew when I was spotted, was when I was being fired upon.




Securitas -> (12/28/2000 12:17:00 AM)

I wonder if it would be possible to code a selectable option that would allow players to choose if the "Spotted by enemy" asterisk is available or not. Personally I find it too convenient. I realize that people can have many clues as to enemy presence, but ALWAYS knowing you are spotted is a bit too convenient. ------------------ Securitas _________________________ 88 is a really nice number




Warhorse -> (12/28/2000 12:32:00 AM)

Doesn't bother me, I don't pay attention to the asterisk, I just look for visible units [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] ------------------ Mike Amos Meine Ehre Heisst Treue




Charles22 -> (12/28/2000 1:13:00 AM)

Maybe the reason this was ever implemented in the first place, was because you couldn't place your cursor over any given hex, and see what a unit could see out of it. What I mean, for example, is that if I'm stalking around with a PZIB, and it's spotted, I might run with it until it's fired upon, but then if I'm careful to watch the asterisk I can move to a spot where I cannot be spotted (we're talking about an offensive here, where the enemy can be depended on to stay stationary for at least a turn). Now, naturally, I might go to a hex which might lead to being unspotted, so some skill is being used, but with the asterisk I can be absolutely certain. If we could place a cursor on any hex, and see what that hex sees, then we could have a very good idea as to whether the enemy could see us or not (given that we could figure out a general enemy disposition). That of course might be considered necessary, because most of us probably cannot figure out just how the LOS is calculated, and if we manually started counting the number of line blocking hexes and whether an edge counts, and so on, it would take forever, so maybe that's the reason for the asterisk, but I think being able to see out of every cursor is a lot better system. This would be particularly true when you're playing the defensive battle over your own homeland, because you'd already know just what place could see what in advance. Didn't SP at one time allow you to see out of every hex? I know it allows you to do so in the setup screen, for your own side, when you redeploy a unit, but I've never seen it work during battle unless the hex you're wanting to look out of is entered by a unit. It makes sense to some extent to not to be able to know what you could see out of hex, where you've never been, but as things are, during battle, you cannot even spot out of a hex that is behind your lines. Here's an idea, working off the idea that you shouldn't have a 'spidey-sense', and that you should be able to spot out of any hex, at least the ones behind your own lines, and that is, why not have the entire map behind enemy lines as FOW? In other words, that part of the screen would be black, and any venturing into enemy territory would require units to advance their LOS forward. This would make the game a bit more adventurous, don't you think? Also, if you were on an offensive, and didn't know where the objectives were in advance (though some missions could be that way also - as it is now), this would make scoping out the whole map quite important, and it would certainly make the AI unpredictable, since it's advance would hinge on the objectives it discovered. You could also have missions where out of the five objective clusters, you knew where two of them were in advance (while the rest of the map was black), but not the others. Just an idea.




Tombstone -> (12/28/2000 1:46:00 AM)

It's HARD to ignore the asterisk. If Matrix could pitch it I'd be happy. It's still possible to tell when you're first spotted since you move slower, but at least you can't easily tell when you get in and out of LOS on a hex by hex basis. Tomo




Charles22 -> (12/28/2000 2:17:00 AM)

Tombstone: Good point, I had forgotten about the movement pace change, though I usually don't notice it either. Hmm, somehow I didn't notice that you mentioned the point about the asterisk still allowing updates to your being spotted, on a hex-by-hex basis, which I brought up and now edited. [This message has been edited by Charles22 (edited December 27, 2000).]




Tombstone -> (12/28/2000 5:29:00 AM)

Heh.. I know that when things get intense the asterisk becomes less significant, but unrealistic situations arise from the feature. I think that it was originally implemented with the larger scale of SP3 in mind. That spotted really meant 'semi-engaged' and an abstracted effect of 'friction' was implemented. This was communicated to player to allow him to consider this when he made his moves. In SPWAW the scale is smaller and perhaps the feature isn't appropriate? Who knows, and more importantly whoever knows how hard it is to remove. Personally, I say pitch it. It's not the kind of thing you can easily ignore and I would love it if I could hide guys and use their recon for once without my opponent knowing it. Tomo




MindSpy -> (12/28/2000 7:37:00 AM)

quote:

Originally posted by Charles22: I know it would probably be too complicated to program out, or to make it optional, but how about removing the 'spidey-sense' asterisk on units,
Spidey-sense is definitely an aid. However how about not just removing the asterix. Let's say we increase the level of difficulty by causing units to expend movement as a function of real time. Say you are on a road and there are two tanks in a hex. Either they both move and pay points appropiately or one just moves and things then are: Unit one having moved alone pays the normal 1 for paved roads. However unit two now moving behind the path of One now has to pay extra to keep up and is of course penalized in target acquisition/spotting and any hex that it follows one into since it is easier to lead then to follow Since time elapses for an entire column to advance unit to unit you would now find units at the end of the line after any stop and start that do not move making them vulnerable to the usual things like arty air close assault etc. But why stop there? How about if in addition to no asterix we had a phased single turn. That is you can move say 1/4 of your movement points of all your units then again another 1/4 until you have expended you points However if you exceed 1/4 with any unit then all your other units will have been basicially just sitting around and could not regain those lost points while watching a unit exceed it's 1/4 --True recon and spotting. MindSpy




Charles22 -> (12/28/2000 9:55:00 AM)

Mindspy: While the leader/follower thing you're talking about might be realistic, do you really think most people would understand that (they wouldn't understand why tank 10 only got 3 hexes to move while tank 1 got 15), when we have much simpler things that get questioned? When you say that, you are operating with the perspective of time, I take it, however, in it's current state, I would say the game works, but under a different system. My guess is that it operates under the idea of supply. One tank may wait on another one, so as to follow, but it uses no fuel to move, and as I recall at one time the Matrix people had mentioned that in either the original SP, or their SPWAW later, that there was some work done on making actual supply a factor for fueling tanks, but that it was dropped somewhere along the way. That's actually the reason they once had "fuel depots", because the fuel depots did nothing so to speak in the game as it turned out. As to your other idea about phasing, isn't multiple turns phasing? Aren't numerous shots, phasing? I mean, you can break your turn into phases if you want. You can go through all your units, fire once, move once, and go through the process many othe r times in the same turn and the AI does this regularly. If we had phased 1/4 turns, then that could be phased into 1/8 and 1/16 turns; you see? The current "turn" is merely the 1/4 phasing of a 15-18 minute turn. As things stand, you yourself, could, as I pointed out, change how you do things as to engage gameplay playing at 1/4 phasing (unless of course you're talking about you getting a 1/4 phase and then the enemy), but who would want to take that long? For a single scenario battle I could see it, but surely not with the expectations that go along with trying to play the entire war through monthly battles. Yes, I do phase at various times in key situations, but it's very rare, and only in a very limited area in a tight spot. Guess what? I think I like the ideas I had better, but it's interesting to hear a different take and I welcome any additional comments. I do think, however, that perhaps a more specific alteration to my idea might be in order, for example, the 2 known objective clusters of which I spoke, might always be the more frontal ones, for missions where you might know of two locations, and that the unknown ones would always be more towards the rear, and perhaps you could see all the map up to the known objectives, though they might be behind the enemy deployment line. While I have played "phasing" as you described it, through TOAW, to me it's way too much time being put into timing and less into tactics. It's not bad, but it requires going through the same units again and again, something surely not suited for individual tanks. It may be more realistic, but how realistic is it to expect the average wargamer will actually complete even just a 12 game campaign, when he's forced to play like the AI every turn, at such a small level? The ideas I've had have very little to do with making a turn more complicated, but only in making them more adventureous, and anyone can phase, as you've been talking about, though there's no penalties involved, but at least he's not forced to phase (unless you look at each turn as being a 1/4 phase for a 15-18 minute turn).




panda124c -> (12/28/2000 11:05:00 PM)

quote:

Originally posted by Securitas: I wonder if it would be possible to code a selectable option that would allow players to choose if the "Spotted by enemy" asterisk is available or not. Personally I find it too convenient. I realize that people can have many clues as to enemy presence, but ALWAYS knowing you are spotted is a bit too convenient.
I use the asterisk for recon, but I have found a flaw in it's use. As your units get more experince they are less likley to be spotted. So you loose the asterisk adantage with experinced troops.




Charles22 -> (12/28/2000 11:42:00 PM)

pbear: The "idea" is not to be spotted. If you're unspotted you should be happy. As I see it, it's when you're spotted, especially with thin stuff, that you try to find somewhere, thereafter, where you once more are unspotted. One of the funny things about this game being turn-based, is that if my unit has been spotted, but not fired at, and in the same turn I manage to manuever to another place where the unit is unspotted, the enemy will have no idea I was spotted at all.




Tombstone -> (12/29/2000 5:31:00 AM)

Totally. The moment you're spotted and a unit ends its turn spotted your course of action immedediately changes. How would you know? You shouldn't, but we do and we act on it. That's why I think it should go or be an option. Tomo




Charles22 -> (12/29/2000 9:29:00 PM)

I agree. The sad thing about it, as a campaigner myself, is that due to AI style, it probably never takes advantage of the spidey-sense as we can. In another thread somebody else was talking about phased-play TOAW style. To me, if such a thing were added, it would probably be one more thing that the AI would manage horribly.




xavier -> (12/30/2000 12:21:00 AM)

Please, remove the asterix. In multli-players games, impossible to make good ambushes with this function, my ennmies knowing something is aiming their troops, and thus stop their advance. XAAL.




David Heath -> (12/30/2000 3:44:00 PM)

Well guys I been following this thread and wanted to let you know that we will be putting out a verions 4.6 shortly and we will have a hotkey to turn on and off this option. David




Charles22 -> (12/30/2000 9:30:00 PM)

Alright, David!




Tombstone -> (12/31/2000 7:07:00 AM)

Yay. Tomo




Cona -> (12/31/2000 9:01:00 AM)

Bravo ! Feliz aņo nuevo a todos, Cona.




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