Curious...Why is this game so hard to get right?

[AbortedMan]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Bliss

Well I'm all ears to "proper mission design" with what is currently working in this sim atm. We've spent a few 1000 hours of our own time trying to make reliable missions (reliable meaning something with objectives that is fairly stable for the masses) with "what we have to work with".

I'm sure most think that even this air quake type missions you feel is happening on our server is accomplished in a matter of minutes. I cordially invite any one of you that has a scenario in mind to, by all means, make the mission having win scenarios/objectives, test it (spawn points, AI timing, objectives, handle 50 players etc.,) then and only then might some of you guys realize just how much is screwed up in the dedi server environment.

I know some of you think that this sort of thing is easy and are probably flabbergasted as to why we don't have 100% historical BoB scenarios going. Well, quite simply, 2 reasons. 1st one, the game can't do it yet. 2nd one, we try to cater to everyone. There are some people in timezones that hardly have anyone to fly with. Regardless of what side they fly for, regardless of the amounts of players on the server, they will always have something to shoot at or bomb. We are 1st and foremost a public server that caters to everyone in any timezone.

I'm sorry that we can't please everyone. We never thought we could, but until you have a very serious understanding of the problems in the dedi server environment compared to the SP/lobby portion of this game, you might be a little more understanding of the situation.

I don't think we remain one of the most popular servers because of mission design at all. I believe it's because they work. Again, it's taken quite a bit of time to figure this out, and it takes quite a bit of time to test old things that didn't work (to see if a particular patch has fixed them) and so forth, especially without any sort of read me telling us what has been fixed.

I'm sorry we can't please everyone, but (I've said this 100 times) many of the things we do in mission design go hand in hand with what the game is capable of. I'm sure anyone can slap a mission together, but it's only when you start getting a crowd of players in do you really know the limits/problems/slideshows etc that we try to avoid entirely.

I'm aware of ATAG's efforts and accomplishments regarding mission structure and I'm extremely grateful for what has been provided. I didn't mean for my post to seem derogatory or lacking of respect.

By my post I meant I would be seeking the avenues of communication and suggestions to address glaring problems that players have taken advantage of with the current mission setup. This is not ATAG's fault. I do not participate in scripting, planning, or building missions, so I want to research what the possibilities are by communicating with the proper people.

I feel the issue with ATAG's mission isn't with always having something to do, but with not encouraging enough discipline and consequence for players to not engage in iffy tactics and strategy...or "gaming the game." The concept is simple, take focus off of finding a dot and killing it, be it taking off, landing, or completely alone and effectively useless...but the execution is obviously difficult, perhaps so difficult it's completely out of my scope of comprehension at this time.

First things that come to mind are coming under contact at casual altitudes; not giving enough motivation to climb, more emphasis on escorting or piloting bombers, effectively creating "no-fly" zones around bases as it is not realistically/historically accurate that 2 fighter aircraft would be strafing an operational/primary airbase with little to no consequence for 30 minutes, and stressing the preservation of assets such as preferred aircraft.

These are not criticisms, but ideas and suggestions of which I'm almost sure have been brought up before, but in case they haven't, there it is.

[Blackdog_kt]

Yep, i don't think anyone here considers the ATAG guys responsible for the state of the game. It would be foolish on our part to do so. I mean, they provide a public server out of their own pocket and what they have works 99% of the time, it would be terribly ungrateful on our part if we were going "ATAG fix me some missions i like better, k thnx bye"

Like Bliss says, things go hand in hand. As the game improves, the community as a whole will be able to do more. What i'm proposing is that all of us chose a field we like and stick to it, so that as time goes by we can all do the same or better in less time.

I think that we are getting a good exchange of ideas here and maybe we can gather some proposals to submit to 1c, so that they focus on them once the graphics and stability optimizations are finished and contained in an official patch.

The consensus seems to be that we need the proper "setting" first and foremost, something that will coerce players to fly the scenario and cooperate to make it happen. To do this it must be enjoyable for players and possible for mission builders to construct.

This implies having suitable mission types, which in turn implies a historically plausible relationship between the aircraft in the sim. What i mean by that is that even though it's impossible to get FMs 100% correct, as long as the relative strengths and weaknesses between individual aircraft are modeled, along with having the missions to make them useful, things will get a lot better.

Overall, from where i'm standing this means 2-3 specific things, starting from the easier fixes and moving to the more difficult ones.

1) Fix the bombers once and for all.

This makes people fly them more, which in turn gives the fighter pilots more interesting things to do, even with the current state of the dedicated server and without needing to construct new missions.

It's one thing to fly solo in an 88 and dive bomb or go skimming the tress in a 110, both against heavily protected targets in suicide runs, it's a totally different thing to have 4-5 people in bombers along with a few escorts.

The missions remain the same, but the way to accomplish the objectives becomes more realistic and more fun. Bomber pilots coordinate among themselves, the fighter pilots can join in to give an escort, the other team will try to organize a defence, etc.

So, even when flying the exact same missions under the same dedicated server code, we now have more things to do and more interesting gameplay.
This will keep us all busy until the following happen, plus it builds up a core of players that can then train more into the whole idea of making an ad-hoc sortie in a semi-realistic manner.

Even if the bomber FMs are not 100% correct yet it's ok. What we urgently need is the simple stuff: working autopilots, working bombsights and a new AI mode that simulates the bombardier talking the pilot through the bomb run (so that people can level bomb even when their bomber has no autopilot).

In other words, i don't mind for now if the service ceiling on the 88 is a bit too low or the 111 is a bit too slow, as long as they can be used to aim through the sight and drop bombs on target.

2) Debug the FMB and the methods (aka scripting commands) supplied with the interface.

If the previous is happening and they also fix the FMB and scripts, the mission designers then have an incentive to build on top of their existing missions. If it's streamlined, well documented and possible to get results, more and more people will do it. And since it's reusable pieces of code, after a while we'll be able to mix and match.

Say i'm coding a script that takes stock of fuel levels in an airbase, adding and subtracting fuel to the base fuel dump whenever aircraft spawn or land back to it. No fuel = no flying from that base. I give the code to the server admins, they test it, like it and use it, possibly even improve it and correct a couple of bugs.

Another guy comes along and wants to take this further, he gets my code and another person's code that spawns AI convoys and combines them: now, when your airbase is low on fuel an AI truck convoy will spawn to resupply the base. Suddenly, the RAF pilot has something to protect and the LW pilot something to bomb.

Yet another guy comes along and expands this whole idea. Why not do the same with the amount of aircraft and pilots (virtual lives) for each team?
And another one with an even better idea...why not expand this to make a complete supply chain?

Before you know it, we now have a chain of events upon which hinges our ability to fly our favorite aircraft from our favorite airbase. If the base is low on fuel and the convoy doesn't reach the base i can't fly, if the refinery where the convoy spawns is low as well then an AI ship convoy spawning at the edge of the map must make it to port, if the Supermarine factory is bombed my team gets -X% replenishment rate for Spitfires and the same for spare parts (damaged planes get in the "hangar" queue and return to action once repaired), similarly bombing the training airfields affects how many virtual lives your team replenished per day. And so on and so forth.

Well, if we have all this it's pretty clear we don't need specific mission objectives anymore and this will also be easier on the mission designers. What we'll have at that point is a set of starting conditions for each team and a set of victory conditions. Et voila, here's the dynamic online campaign.

But for all of this to work, we need to have the FMB and the scripting tools debugged. Otherwise, it's like Bliss says: fighting around the bugs to make the simple stuff work doesn't leave time to make more complex missions.

3) Dedicated server and netcode optimizations.

Pretty self explanatory. The previous two are a combination between 1C fixing bugs and us doing something with the tools we're given. This final one is squarely on 1C's lap to fix.

Best of all, if this course of action is pursued the offline players benefit too: corrected flyables and more people dabbling in mission design and scripting is good for both offliners and onliners.

So what do you guys think? If this sounds a good course of action to you, we can ask 1C to fix these things in the mentioned order (from easiest to hardest) once they are done with the upcoming patch.

[Talisman]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Yep, i don't think anyone here considers the ATAG guys responsible for the state of the game. It would be foolish on our part to do so. I mean, they provide a public server out of their own pocket and what they have works 99% of the time, it would be terribly ungrateful on our part if we were going "ATAG fix me some missions i like better, k thnx bye"

Like Bliss says, things go hand in hand. As the game improves, the community as a whole will be able to do more. What i'm proposing is that all of us chose a field we like and stick to it, so that as time goes by we can all do the same or better in less time.

I think that we are getting a good exchange of ideas here and maybe we can gather some proposals to submit to 1c, so that they focus on them once the graphics and stability optimizations are finished and contained in an official patch.

The consensus seems to be that we need the proper "setting" first and foremost, something that will coerce players to fly the scenario and cooperate to make it happen. To do this it must be enjoyable for players and possible for mission builders to construct.

This implies having suitable mission types, which in turn implies a historically plausible relationship between the aircraft in the sim. What i mean by that is that even though it's impossible to get FMs 100% correct, as long as the relative strengths and weaknesses between individual aircraft are modeled, along with having the missions to make them useful, things will get a lot better.

Overall, from where i'm standing this means 2-3 specific things, starting from the easier fixes and moving to the more difficult ones.

1) Fix the bombers once and for all.

This makes people fly them more, which in turn gives the fighter pilots more interesting things to do, even with the current state of the dedicated server and without needing to construct new missions.

It's one thing to fly solo in an 88 and dive bomb or go skimming the tress in a 110, both against heavily protected targets in suicide runs, it's a totally different thing to have 4-5 people in bombers along with a few escorts.

The missions remain the same, but the way to accomplish the objectives becomes more realistic and more fun. Bomber pilots coordinate among themselves, the fighter pilots can join in to give an escort, the other team will try to organize a defence, etc.

So, even when flying the exact same missions under the same dedicated server code, we now have more things to do and more interesting gameplay.
This will keep us all busy until the following happen, plus it builds up a core of players that can then train more into the whole idea of making an ad-hoc sortie in a semi-realistic manner.

Even if the bomber FMs are not 100% correct yet it's ok. What we urgently need is the simple stuff: working autopilots, working bombsights and a new AI mode that simulates the bombardier talking the pilot through the bomb run (so that people can level bomb even when their bomber has no autopilot).

In other words, i don't mind for now if the service ceiling on the 88 is a bit too low or the 111 is a bit too slow, as long as they can be used to aim through the sight and drop bombs on target.

2) Debug the FMB and the methods (aka scripting commands) supplied with the interface.

If the previous is happening and they also fix the FMB and scripts, the mission designers then have an incentive to build on top of their existing missions. If it's streamlined, well documented and possible to get results, more and more people will do it. And since it's reusable pieces of code, after a while we'll be able to mix and match.

Say i'm coding a script that takes stock of fuel levels in an airbase, adding and subtracting fuel to the base fuel dump whenever aircraft spawn or land back to it. No fuel = no flying from that base. I give the code to the server admins, they test it, like it and use it, possibly even improve it and correct a couple of bugs.

Another guy comes along and wants to take this further, he gets my code and another person's code that spawns AI convoys and combines them: now, when your airbase is low on fuel an AI truck convoy will spawn to resupply the base. Suddenly, the RAF pilot has something to protect and the LW pilot something to bomb.

Yet another guy comes along and expands this whole idea. Why not do the same with the amount of aircraft and pilots (virtual lives) for each team?
And another one with an even better idea...why not expand this to make a complete supply chain?

Before you know it, we now have a chain of events upon which hinges our ability to fly our favorite aircraft from our favorite airbase. If the base is low on fuel and the convoy doesn't reach the base i can't fly, if the refinery where the convoy spawns is low as well then an AI ship convoy spawning at the edge of the map must make it to port, if the Supermarine factory is bombed my team gets -X% replenishment rate for Spitfires and the same for spare parts (damaged planes get in the "hangar" queue and return to action once repaired), similarly bombing the training airfields affects how many virtual lives your team replenished per day. And so on and so forth.

Well, if we have all this it's pretty clear we don't need specific mission objectives anymore and this will also be easier on the mission designers. What we'll have at that point is a set of starting conditions for each team and a set of victory conditions. Et voila, here's the dynamic online campaign.

But for all of this to work, we need to have the FMB and the scripting tools debugged. Otherwise, it's like Bliss says: fighting around the bugs to make the simple stuff work doesn't leave time to make more complex missions.

3) Dedicated server and netcode optimizations.

Pretty self explanatory. The previous two are a combination between 1C fixing bugs and us doing something with the tools we're given. This final one is squarely on 1C's lap to fix.

Best of all, if this course of action is pursued the offline players benefit too: corrected flyables and more people dabbling in mission design and scripting is good for both offliners and onliners.

So what do you guys think? If this sounds a good course of action to you, we can ask 1C to fix these things in the mentioned order (from easiest to hardest) once they are done with the upcoming patch.

Blackdog,

Your work in progress looks like good stuff. I am not sure about the fuel shortage model that you put forward for the RAF though, if it is for the BoB. As far as I understand, it was pilots that the RAF was short of, not fuel. I am not aware of an historical account of an airbase closing due to no fuel. The ROYAL AIR FORCE WAR MANUAL, AIR PUBLICATION 1301 for the period covers organisation and administration in part II . It covers many things, including policy to be followed for reserves of supplies (inc fuel) and ammunition. Chapter XV states:

"The main reserves of supplies and ammunition are held in depots. Owing to the bulky nature of supplies and the vulnerable nature of ammunition and fuel, only a limited amount of these commodities is held by units. A definite amount of supplies and ammunition is normally in transit between depots and units, and this may be regarded as a further reserve. In principle, in addition to the complete or partly expended day's requirements held at units, there will be two day's full supplies in transit beween the railhead and the unit. This two day's supply may in certain cercumstances be kept on wheels or may be dumped at a convenient place."

From this, it would appear that as one would expect, fuel and other supplies are constantly being delivered by trucks and tankers, not necessarily in convoy. I suspect that the location of a tanker on the road or the location of a "convenient place" will rarely be known in advance by the enemy. I believe German intelligence was very limited, or they would have known to take out all of the radar stations.

The RAF was on home ground for the BoB with a very short logistics chain. RAF expiditionary operation later in the war meant a longer logistics chain, but RAF War Manual policy still appled. The availability and re-supply of fuel (including 100 Octane) and ammo on the UK mainland was very well managed I believe. For example, Manston was under constant attack and did not close as far as I am aware. I believe sqns did become non operational for short periods due to loss of pilots though. I think it was losses of aircrew and aircraft in the air and on the ground that effected the BoB more than anything else.

Happy landings,

Talisman

[phoenix1963]

Actually I think ATAG do a pretty good job of trying to balance realism and entertainment within the current limits of the game. After all, you don't have to fly out on the deck and engage likeminded players.

May I suggest you could threaten map closure by both sides towards the end by spawning ai bomber raids aimed at player targets, forcing each side to defend.

I'm afraid the real flaw in this game from a df server point of view is the asymmetric (but actually somewhat equal) nature of the real bob, which lends itself to campaigns rather than dfing. Mapmaking that satisfies both sides is never going to be easy, or be quite like bob.

It also cruelly exposes the British lack of close air support capability and the German concentration on it.

Incidentally, Manston was almost abandoned as a permanent base, a bit like I've abandoned Hawkinge for similar reasons, so actually ATAG has got it sort of right!

56RAF_phoenix.

[csThor]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

The consensus seems to be that we need the proper "setting" first and foremost, something that will coerce players to fly the scenario and cooperate to make it happen. To do this it must be enjoyable for players and possible for mission builders to construct.

You can't "coerce" players to do anything, they will do what they want anyway. Players play the game as a pasttime, to derive enjoyment. Which is why no kind of "coercion system" will do anything but drive players away.

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

1) Fix the bombers once and for all.

This makes people fly them more, which in turn gives the fighter pilots more interesting things to do, even with the current state of the dedicated server and without needing to construct new missions.

Wishful thinking. Sorry to be so blunt but IMHO only 1 to 5% of the player base would be willing to fly bombers. That has to do with several aspects - limited free time (not everyone can dedicate an hour or more for a bombing sortie), lack of interest (most people are fighter-centered players), lack of "gratification" (some people need tangible rewards to motivate themselves) etc. Even with heavy AI use you will never get more than a fraction of the people into bombers - certainly not enough to actually reach the historical force ratios of bombers vs fighters.

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

It's one thing to fly solo in an 88 and dive bomb or go skimming the tress in a 110, both against heavily protected targets in suicide runs, it's a totally different thing to have 4-5 people in bombers along with a few escorts.

IMHO you're aiming too low, although the number issue I desribed above makes that more plausible. IMO bombers should not appear below squadron strength, meaning 12 aircraft at least. Better (for the Luftwaffe) would be Gruppe strength (max 36 aircraft). This would depict history, this would make interception more difficult and it would allow for a much more plausible bombload per target.

Talking about 109 and 110 fighter-bombers in the BoB one should not forget that it was a single Gruppe at first which flew such sorties - a tiny minority. Only late (September and October 1940) this was enhanced to one Staffel per Gruppe of 109s operating as Jabos but given the targets they were given (London as a whole) that use doesn't make much sense to me gameplay-wise.

The abundance of fighter-bombers around is yet another sign for the fighter-centric view of most players and the utter lack of realistic force ratios and bomber target categories.

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

2) Debug the FMB and the methods (aka scripting commands) supplied with the interface.

If the previous is happening and they also fix the FMB and scripts, the mission designers then have an incentive to build on top of their existing missions. If it's streamlined, well documented and possible to get results, more and more people will do it. And since it's reusable pieces of code, after a while we'll be able to mix and match.

Say i'm coding a script that takes stock of fuel levels in an airbase, adding and subtracting fuel to the base fuel dump whenever aircraft spawn or land back to it. No fuel = no flying from that base. I give the code to the server admins, they test it, like it and use it, possibly even improve it and correct a couple of bugs.

Another guy comes along and wants to take this further, he gets my code and another person's code that spawns AI convoys and combines them: now, when your airbase is low on fuel an AI truck convoy will spawn to resupply the base. Suddenly, the RAF pilot has something to protect and the LW pilot something to bomb.

Yet another guy comes along and expands this whole idea. Why not do the same with the amount of aircraft and pilots (virtual lives) for each team?
And another one with an even better idea...why not expand this to make a complete supply chain?

Before you know it, we now have a chain of events upon which hinges our ability to fly our favorite aircraft from our favorite airbase. If the base is low on fuel and the convoy doesn't reach the base i can't fly, if the refinery where the convoy spawns is low as well then an AI ship convoy spawning at the edge of the map must make it to port, if the Supermarine factory is bombed my team gets -X% replenishment rate for Spitfires and the same for spare parts (damaged planes get in the "hangar" queue and return to action once repaired), similarly bombing the training airfields affects how many virtual lives your team replenished per day. And so on and so forth.

Well, if we have all this it's pretty clear we don't need specific mission objectives anymore and this will also be easier on the mission designers. What we'll have at that point is a set of starting conditions for each team and a set of victory conditions. Et voila, here's the dynamic online campaign.

But for all of this to work, we need to have the FMB and the scripting tools debugged. Otherwise, it's like Bliss says: fighting around the bugs to make the simple stuff work doesn't leave time to make more complex missions.

The problem of the BoB as historical background for such a "dynamic campaign" is that it was essentially an ad-hoc attempt at fighting a war of attrition, a war of economics. This can't be depicted in the game because the important industrial areas of central England and the major port cities are outside the map. That means strangling the RAF's fuel supply isn't going to be possible - the main reserves and the "source" of the fuel/oil (the ports where the tankers docked) are untouchable. The same is true for basically any war-relevant industry - aircraft, armaments, ammunition, oil refineries etc.

So what's left? Well, the airfields and the lines of supply and communication which are on the map (ports for coastal convois, London, all railway lines and stations, important roads and bridges etc). With these limited possibilities a dynamic depiction of the BoB is not possible and trying to develop an abstract version is IMO a waste of time and effort since it will always leave a sour taste behind.
All that could be done with this set of variables is a much more limited "campaign", perhaps one in which the Luftwaffe has to force the RAF to give up operating from forward airfields such as Manston or Hawkinge and damaging at least one or two Sector airfields (i.e. Biggin Hill or Kenley) to such a degree, that they cannot fulfill their role (in aircraft maintenance, as fighter controller etc) anymore. But for this to happen the airfields themselves would have to have pretty intricate damage states - a downed hangar lowers the maintenance capacity of the airfield, a damaged runway will be unusable until the craters are being filled up, a blown up ammo dump lowers the amount of ammunition available (same for fuel if that's realistic), ... All that is difficult to do right.

It's true that a tactical war such as on the Eastern Front is easier since it provides a much more flexible environment with a load of tactical targets the BoB doesn't provide. Just saying ...

[ElAurens]

Originally Posted by csThor

You can't "coerce" players to do anything, they will do what they want anyway. Players play the game as a pasttime, to derive enjoyment. Which is why no kind of "coercion system" will do anything but drive players away.

Well said. You can't even get players to follow way points in IL2 co-op missions.

I flew a campaign where my squad was always tasked with capping a certain airfield. 2 hours of endlessly circling while the action took place way on the other side of the map. After two weekends of that we were done. Was our job important and historically accurate? Yes. Was it fun and worth the two hours spent out of our weekend? NO.

Anyone who thinks they can re-create WW2 in total historic fidelity is kidding themselves. If I've learned anything in my 10+ years of playing this sim, it's that.

[catito14]

The problem for me, is not the game itself, is how the Russians do the things. Look the "IronFront 44" for ARMA2, he was released the game without a demo and full of bugs. I don´t know how manage the projects in Russia, but apparently they do so in a quite different way from our "western minds".

[SiThSpAwN]

Originally Posted by catito14

The problem for me, is not the game itself, is how the Russians do the things. Look the "IronFront 44" for ARMA2, he was released the game without a demo and full of bugs. I don´t know how manage the projects in Russia, but apparently they do so in a quite different way from our "western minds".

Holy WTFs Batman....

[csThor]

Originally Posted by catito14

The problem for me, is not the game itself, is how the Russians do the things. Look the "IronFront 44" for ARMA2, he was released the game without a demo and full of bugs. I don´t know how manage the projects in Russia, but apparently they do so in a quite different way from our "western minds".

Quite honestly it's the other way around. The only sims worth the title that have come out in the past decade were mostly done by teams originated in Russia. Western publishers have mostly dropped out of that market or have butchered promising concepts in favor of a quick buck. If anything has happenend then it's that western ideas about management have contamined the previously productive environment of software development in Russia. Or, even shorter, western greed (aka total capitalism) has come and it's showing its ugly face.

[catito14]

Ups!! Guys, sorry if you misunderstand my comment, i didn´t mean it as "bad critic" ... i said it because the title of the thread ... sometimes we (or at least in my case) can´t understand how the devs manage the things. I think this is because a different idiosincracy between the west and the russian ideas.