Friday Update, April 13, 2012

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

pvp is a MMORPG term meaning player vs player... Hence nothing to do with simulation but only fairness and balance...

Wow I mean I've seen people try to dilute themselves before but is is egregious. Pvp means player vs player. Ie you area player and I am a player. So we are in a pvp match. Sorry to burst your bubble man. No mmorpg in cod, just good old pvp action, that is now completely unbalance.

[bw_wolverine]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

Indeed.



Yes on public servers I suppose that fine.

Regarding the sim not fair/ game fair thing:

The simulation aspects of the game should be as close to reality as they can get them. So 109 / Spit / Hurricane / damage model, etc etc. Get all that stuff functioning as close as possible to real, regardless of which 'side' the details favour.

But the GAME aspect. Like, "Score 500 points to win the map!" stuff. THAT stuff should DEFINITELY be tuned to make the chances of winning equal to both sides.

If Luftwaffe fighters have the advantage in dogfighting (on average taking into account mistakes or a lapse in SA, etc.), or by a margin as you put it, then having a mission that is "First to 50 kills!" isn't exactly a fair gameplay target for both sides.

I don't really know how exactly I'd tweak missions to suit this kind of simulation / game issue, but I'd certainly make an attempt.

If a mission's objective is just to present a Battle of Britain scenario, ala Campaigns and the like, then this kind of thing isn't really necessary. Whatever happens happens.

But in a win/lose setup mission with points and targets and objectives and things, why not make an attempt to give both sides the same chances?

I don't think anyone can really seriously argue that the objectives and mission points systems in missions like the ones on ATAG are meant to be serious 'simulations' of action during the Battle of Britain. They're meant to be fun objectives to provide purpose to the action that might otherwise just be dogfighting.

If Red's strength is in taking on bombers, then give Red's target more emphasis on that. Vice versa, if Blue's strength is on air superiority fighting and bombing targets, make those the objectives for Blue. So for example:

RED OBJECTIVES: Destroy 50 bombers
BLUE OBJECTIVES: Destroy 25 ground targets and 25 fighters

Obviously that's just an example so please no one start posting "But 50 bombers is easier than 25 ground targets and 25 fighters!" That's not the point.

Right now, most missions I see have way too much symmetry. Each side has pretty much the same objectives, just opposite. "Red attacks parked Ju88s. Blue attacks parked Beaufighters. Red attacks tanks here. Blue attacks tanks there." Symmetry like that doesn't take into account the different weapon sets these teams have.

[CWMV]

Originally Posted by CaptainDoggles

Even Hartmann got shot down a few times...

Totally agree with your post, except this part.
He wasn't shot down, but had a habit of running into pieces of his kills......something like 14 times
To quote the man himself "I was never another pilots victory".

[F19_Klunk]

Originally Posted by Hooves

So basically you don't have a chance against a 109 unless you have your 3 friends with you. So if my 3 friends aren't on, I'm not going to log on either, leading to others not logging on leading to a bunch of empty servers, except for the packed blue team of coarse.


I love how the realites come out of the wood work when the nerf that has just occurred benefits them. But cry foul when anything is touched on their beloved aircraft.


Realism simply will not work in an online environment. At least not the realism that 1c is apparently going for. If a single player can't log on and have half a chance of surviving 5 mins let alone getting a kill. Well guess what.... They leave and they don't come back. Like it or not that is online gaming no matter what your targeted audience. if you aren't going to somehow enforce the tactical directive of the LW, how on earth can you think that FM realism will produce anything but discontent? In this case the circumstances are as equal to if not more important than the FM.

I understand your point of view. However - For me it is imperative that the FM as are close to reality as possible - that the theatre of war is depicted realistically. Once you tread on the "balance all the planes", you will end up in a scenario which I for one do not want to end up in..all planes pretty much looks and feel the same.

This is by no means a new discussion; this has been discussed over and over again since the day of flight simulation, and has always been discussed in the IL2 community.. and is still beeing discussed amongst mission builders for different "full switch" IL2 servers such as spits vs 109 et al. They have of course an easier job these days as the number of different version of all planes are five to tenfold the amount we have in Clod--- at least for the moment.

To take this in account though and use it as an argument to balance the planes performances to non-historical characteristics is a show-stopper for me though. When I fly red (and I do most of the time) I WANT to have the same challenges as the real deal... or at least as close as possible.

If you want the FMs dulled down for a non-historical setup, it seems that you have chosen the wrong kind of game/sim. ...

//written with no purpose to belittle you point of view

PS: Regarding historical tactics, e.g 109 hugging bombers etc...
There is no chance we can ever depict BoB..or any theatre of war, 100%.... the reason alone that we don't actually die when shot down is a reason alone. Virtual pilots are more careless and tend to go solo, dimissing mission objectives. I for one always try to team up with either a fellow squadmember or another fellow red pilot... working in teams and choose targets accordingly; solo 109s or 109 in inferior tactical position. As someone said: Teaming up and outnumber the enemy is a better advantage than a faster airplane. Use the servers Teamspeak! This in itself makes it easier to team up when no squadmember is around.


Oh. and let us not "paint the devil on the wall" (to quote an old Swedish proverb) before we have actually seen and flown the patch.

[Ace Cheese]

What do you all think about the % of completion for BOM,
how long will we be waiting?

I would suggest 30% complete with 7 months left of development.

Very stupid and biased remarks towards spitfire myth post...

If at year 1940 Luftwaffe fighting doctrine would allow to use Bf 109 at it's full potential as a fighterplane in Battle of Britain, there would be no discussion anymore about spitfires nor miracle of BoB. The fact was and still is the spitfire is very inferior fighter plane compared to the Bf 109. Turn radius is only minor advantage which is so easily to countermeasured in terms of dogfight.
Why somebody thinks BoB was won by Brits and Spitfires specifically must be from the myth because Germans did switch their resources from Brit front to the eastern front to set up operation Barbarossa.


Read your history (not just winners very coloured history), you might gain something of it in terms of knowledge...

[Hooves]

U have proven my point. You CAN'T have a simulation in an online pvp environment. It is the unattainable monster due to the very fact that we aren't living in the life or death struggle.


So your choice is to either force the issue in gameplay or attempt to closely balance the sides for the quake style gameplay that we are currently attempting.

But first things first you have to admit that you can't have just one aspect of realism ( fm's ). And not have the other aspect of dealism ( circumstances). And expect anything near what happened in the scenario you attempting to recreate. If you do you are diluting yourself.

I like wolverines ideas though. Change the symmetry to objectives that make sense. This may help.

Originally Posted by Hooves

U have proven my point. You CAN'T have a simulation in an online pvp environment. It is the unattainable monster due to the very fact that we aren't living in the life or death struggle.


So your choice is to either force the issue in gameplay or attempt to closely balance the sides for the quake style gameplay that we are currently attempting.

But first things first you have to admit that you can't have just one aspect of realism ( fm's ). And not have the other aspect of dealism ( circumstances). And expect anything near what happened in the scenario you attempting to recreate. If you do you are diluting yourself.

I like wolverines ideas though. Change the symmetry to objectives that make sense. This may help.

Spot on. I agree fully what you say.

[Buchon]

This is not about balance but realism.

If you want talk about balance go to some arcade game where climb with your Corsair like a rocket and shot with his eight cannons or to some Call of Duty or Battlefield forum where you can degree shotguns, MGs and pistols to rush with your Thompson like gun at will.

This is about realism, this is about make the most realist WWII airplane behavior out of real documented data and real pilots to make the most realist Simulator.

Its not the 1940s airplane engineers fault don't make Hollywood planes like.

If a plane have weak points is in the hands of the pilot get over it, in fact every plane have weak points, if your plane is weak at speed you should rely in maneuverability, if your plane is weak at climb you just should stay at low altitude.

This is not about balance but Realism.

This is IL-2 !!

[F19_Klunk]

@Hooves

The missions' design are imperative .. for me anyway... to achive some kind of sensation of accomplishment. That is why I prefer servers for IL2-1946 such as "Spit vs 109" / "Zeke vs Wildcat".. they are objective driven(!). For me it has the past 5-6 years only been "winning the mission" that is the main goal.. not scoring as many kills as possible. That is why F19 and F16

F19's and F16's

(our squadrons ) get killed in droves online flying inferior bombers/attackplanes.... chasing to win the map.

In that aspect, IL2 1946 would never have been what it is to me and many others without the 3rd party development such as FBDj.

So far the multiplayer aspect of CloD is only in it's beginning in comparison; ATAG-server is pretty much the only server that comes even close to beeing objective driven -but then again; how many online servers are there? A handful?
So instead of balancing FM.. away from realism, MG should focus on developing tools for missionbuilders to design just that; objective driven missions.... with ..as u mentioned.. symmetry to objectives.
If they don't come up with these tools, I am sure the community will eventually - just as they did with IL2:1946. As I said - without US all servers for Il2:1946 would be quakewar.

EDIT: That particular IL2-T attack showed aboved was actually one of those missions in which we all survied when going for target ..NOT dying in droves

In short; I prefer balancing mission objectives rather than "balancing" FM/DM and other characteristics of these historical airplanes we all love. We can never really simulate the actual war (too many aspects), but we can simulate the actual planes.