Re: Very upset.
Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 4:12 pm
An interesting topic and one that raises the age old issue of casual Vs. hard core players, achieving a balance can be very difficult indeed. I can fully understand Muddy's frustration and am about to find out just how hard things get. I'm on my first play through, well second for GC39 as I started it on colonel and decided to restart on a higher difficulty and have just finished GC41, so am about to find out just how hard it gets. What I would say is that its anything but casual, i'm playing via steam and have over 300 hours logged so far and am less than half way on the German route, that includes replaying a few scenarios and having the game running while reading forum posts and watching AAR videos.
I have only played under the 1.2 rules and have only just noticed the soft cap starting to become an issue, but I can see it becoming a big one very quickly with 400 being where it starts to kick in. I'm also guessing that that a few scenarios so far, Arras, Vyazma and Demyansk spring to mind, give a taste of what is to come. To date a combined arms approach and establishing air superiority as fast as possible has worked fine, I hope the game mechanics don't change that too much. One of the joy's of this sort of long term game is watching your units grow and develop, though it may be historically accurate they they all get butchered by a the never ending onslaught of the Russian human wave (and tank and aircraft) post Stalingrad, as a game, its just not the same fielding new green units as one you have carefully nurtured over so many scenarios.
So please make sure that there is a range of difficulties that suit all needs not just hard core players, you need to attract and keep new player's not just old farts like me who have been playing military strategy games since before PC's (anyone else remember the dice and string of pre PC Avalon Hill wargames). Gameplay needs to be attractive and fun for all levels of player and certainly not change too dramatically mid way through as appears to have happened for Muddy.
So now just my two pence on what would be a nice alternative to the way the game currently works, borrowed to some extent from a certain Mech game from a few years ago, I have no illusion they will be incorporated into PC but, but might be worth considering for WH40,000.
1) Separate hero's from units. It's all about making people want to carry on so let them put hero's where they make them want to see the unit develop, a spotting hero on an artillery is usually incredibly frustrating I'm sure most would agree, but if you van pop him on a recon or an forward unit and he actually has some utility and may become a favorite unit.
2) Deployable slots. Limiting the number of units that can be deployed kind of forces someone who has the available resources to go the best possible unit route, hence super cores of Over-strength Tiger II's, but if the deployment is prestige capped rather than number of units capped then suddenly the picture changes, there are options, if you can deploy a Panzer IV an artillery and maybe even an infantry for the same cost is that a viable way to go? Do you go 3 Bf109's or 2 FW190's?
3) Non Combat experience. Some units are. at least to me, very hard to get experience on. The little 35mm Pak you get at the start is a good example. Giving units some experience for deployment in a scenario and maybe when they capture flags would help with this and again give you something to think about, do I capture with unit X or unit Y.
Over all I think PC is a great game so far, I wouldn't have spent so long playing and researching better ways to play if it wasn't, but the trick is to hook players and make them want to work on units, nurture and develop them and be unable to wait to see how they can grow next. Except for the true hard core player, having them annihilated, ground to dust in a historically accurate manner, will never be a selling point.
Thanks for reading (I hope)
Bonesoul
I have only played under the 1.2 rules and have only just noticed the soft cap starting to become an issue, but I can see it becoming a big one very quickly with 400 being where it starts to kick in. I'm also guessing that that a few scenarios so far, Arras, Vyazma and Demyansk spring to mind, give a taste of what is to come. To date a combined arms approach and establishing air superiority as fast as possible has worked fine, I hope the game mechanics don't change that too much. One of the joy's of this sort of long term game is watching your units grow and develop, though it may be historically accurate they they all get butchered by a the never ending onslaught of the Russian human wave (and tank and aircraft) post Stalingrad, as a game, its just not the same fielding new green units as one you have carefully nurtured over so many scenarios.
So please make sure that there is a range of difficulties that suit all needs not just hard core players, you need to attract and keep new player's not just old farts like me who have been playing military strategy games since before PC's (anyone else remember the dice and string of pre PC Avalon Hill wargames). Gameplay needs to be attractive and fun for all levels of player and certainly not change too dramatically mid way through as appears to have happened for Muddy.
So now just my two pence on what would be a nice alternative to the way the game currently works, borrowed to some extent from a certain Mech game from a few years ago, I have no illusion they will be incorporated into PC but, but might be worth considering for WH40,000.
1) Separate hero's from units. It's all about making people want to carry on so let them put hero's where they make them want to see the unit develop, a spotting hero on an artillery is usually incredibly frustrating I'm sure most would agree, but if you van pop him on a recon or an forward unit and he actually has some utility and may become a favorite unit.
2) Deployable slots. Limiting the number of units that can be deployed kind of forces someone who has the available resources to go the best possible unit route, hence super cores of Over-strength Tiger II's, but if the deployment is prestige capped rather than number of units capped then suddenly the picture changes, there are options, if you can deploy a Panzer IV an artillery and maybe even an infantry for the same cost is that a viable way to go? Do you go 3 Bf109's or 2 FW190's?
3) Non Combat experience. Some units are. at least to me, very hard to get experience on. The little 35mm Pak you get at the start is a good example. Giving units some experience for deployment in a scenario and maybe when they capture flags would help with this and again give you something to think about, do I capture with unit X or unit Y.
Over all I think PC is a great game so far, I wouldn't have spent so long playing and researching better ways to play if it wasn't, but the trick is to hook players and make them want to work on units, nurture and develop them and be unable to wait to see how they can grow next. Except for the true hard core player, having them annihilated, ground to dust in a historically accurate manner, will never be a selling point.
Thanks for reading (I hope)
Bonesoul