Too much dice-roll not enough reality, a fatal flaw ??

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 9:02 am

Well thanks makes sense - a Firefly has a 17pdr! That is the best gun in the Allied arsenal.

It's entirely possible that 8 hits could bounce. Each one has a chance to kill, the chance of them all failing to penetrate could be very low but thats just luck. Getting 38 hits without a kill depends on what range he was firing at. Most German tanks cant penetrate a Sherman at max range. Without more info its hard to say if there is a bug but so far none of this is beyond the realms of chance and giving unbelievable results.

gib10 · Post by **gib10** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:18 pm

Just to let you guys know, I played a few games against him and he was using fast move and firing shermans at my stugs, tiger, and panther at 5-6 tiles. At one point he quit in frustration because he apparently expected frontal hits to penatrate while moving fast and not hunting and ambushing german armor from the rear. However, I do understand his frustration because he had suppressed my one stug and got like 6 shots on the rear at 3-4 tiles range and didnt kill it. I think he had 3 shermans stationary firing at it.

I hope he reconsiders and calms down, this is a fun game, not a grognard game.

Im 43 btw.

For those of you who have served, especially the ones who have seen combat - thank-you! <salute>. I have 2 buddies that servered in the USMC Arty. One in Afganistan, the other in Desert Storm.

Looking forward to engaging more of you on the field.

Gib

junk2drive · Post by **junk2drive** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 4:23 pm

It is the simplicity and ease of play that I enjoy. I hope all the requests for more complication stay in a mod and not in the base game.

Post by **pipfromslitherine** » Tue Sep 14, 2010 7:18 pm

I think some of the frustration is that there are internal factors which aren't explained and displayed to the player as much as we might need to do. Especially things like the movement penalties (both for the player movement, and for firing at moving targets). We're looking at ways to better teach the player the tactics needed for success.

I agree that we don't really want to add any more complexity.

Cheers

Pip

MesaDon · Post by **MesaDon** » Wed Sep 15, 2010 12:57 am

Oh well I guess I am one of the "boys" "that never saw combat" and I am getting to be an old man (58) and getting cranky. I guess spending your time teaching mentally disabled and autistic kids doesn't really count for any thing in life. I am happy that I was corrected before I got a big head.

Roadkingbill · Post by **Roadkingbill** » Sat Sep 18, 2010 10:37 pm

Hate the heavy dice roll aspects. I am about done with the game, its to frustrating. Way to much luck involved for me at least.

rich12545 · Post by **rich12545** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 1:51 am

I haven't played a real lot but am happy with the dice rolls. Heck RL is a dice roll. If a sherman shot at a panther there were so many variables. Facing, speed/stop, crew quality, vehicle maintenance, distance, amount of sleep the gunner had last night, and many more.

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 7:30 am

For anyone having trouble with the system can you explain why. In reality there is a chance you will hit or miss. There is nothing in between so the system is very black and white. How would you change it to make it better? I just don't understand how this could be changed. I think in most cases it is a lack of understanding of the mechanics such as moving fast halving your accuracy but if not we want to know.

Roadkingbill · Post by **Roadkingbill** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 8:18 am

I have played so many games were I have a unit that has not moved and is one sqare from from the end and miss. This a from a sherm to inf. Four to six hots 2 or more turns naded miss and then one shot death.

ssouthrey · Post by **ssouthrey** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:36 pm

First off, I love the game. It's been a long time since a computer tactical game has come along that is pretty realistic, and yet relatively simple to play. With that said, I do have a couple of complaints and a proposed solution for one of the problems.

1.
I don't mind the dice rolling or the variability of the outcomes. That's life. One thing I have noticed though is there appears to be a random element that is not displayed or an algorithm that is not apparent to the user. I believe LOGAN5 mentioned the hot and cold and I have experienced it numerous times. Too many to be statistically accurate with just a simple d100 (%) roll. I've played numerous games where I never hit anything and the AI annihilates me. I've played 3 games in a row of the same scenario where 1 StuG charging, destroyed 4 Shermans, 1 Cromwell, M18, and a M10 in 2 turns. These vehicles were not sitting in the open but positioned for ambush. My tanks just never op fired and when they did, they never hit. I've also played games where I'm hot (I love those games haha!) and just blow everything up with one shot.

My question is are there factors that we're not aware of. When it specifies a 75% to hit and 75% to overkill, I expect to blow up the target with 6 shots. That is a 1 in 1000 and I don't mind it happening once in a while (or 1 in 1000) but I've had it happen numerous times.

2.
Op fire seems broken at least with the probabilities (same as 1 above) and with the inconsistency. Example, from what I can see in the squads.xls, a 75mm anti-tank has a 75% to react to frontal threats (movement or firing). I played in one game where my 75mm anti-tank blew up 3 StuG's and 2 Panzer IV's in one turn (a hot game). I played the same scenario, and had a 75mm anti-tank and 2 Sherman's facing a narrow opening in the hedgerow about 4 squares away. A StuG advanced through the opening (no one fired), advanced one square (no one fired), fired at the first Sherman and blew it up (no one fired), fired at the next Sherman and blew it up (AT didn't fire still), advanced the 3 squares to end up adjacent to the 75mm anti-tank (it still didn't fire). Does the game make a check with each instance? Also, on the Stug's first move, does it check for the anti-tank gun and both Shermans? I assume that's the case since I've seen multiple units op fire on one move. Making that assumption, the above example has 12 chances with no op fires.

There's too much inconsistency with op fires. Sometimes a unit will fire 8 times in one turn. Other times, a unit can charge 5 squares up a road toward the frontal face of an anti-tank gun with no op fire. It makes it very difficult from a tactical perspective because you have absolutely no idea how units are going to react. You could have a 17 pounder in a fortified position covering a wide open field and the enemy tank can advance adjacent to you without a single op fire. On the flip side, a defensive unit can hold back an entire 10 unit offensive if it gets lucky and continually op fires.

My suggestion would be to give units a 100% op fire on the frontal side. Units have a limit of fires just like on offense. For example, a tank has 3 defensive shots and an anti-tank gun has 4 defensive shots. I think this would add to the tactical factor and remove some of the unpredictability. Luck is still a factor as the defender has to hit. Secondly, this would make some units better defensively. Machine guns and anti-tank guns could have more defensive shots. Even Archers, M-10's, etc, could have more defensive shots.

What do you think?

rich12545 · Post by **rich12545** » Sun Sep 19, 2010 11:46 pm

I don't like 100%. In RL sometimes a gun will malfunction and there's no opfire. Stuff happens. Maybe it can be repaired for the next round. I think the wide variance simulates all the different things that can happen but aren't necessarily mentioned in the game. Maybe it's happening too often and needs tweaked but not to 100%.

LOGAN5 · Post by **LOGAN5** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:14 am

ssouthrey wrote:
I don't mind the dice rolling or the variability of the outcomes. That's life. One thing I have noticed though is there appears to be a random element that is not displayed or an algorithm that is not apparent to the user. I believe LOGAN5 mentioned the hot and cold and I have experienced it numerous times. Too many to be statistically accurate with just a simple d100 (%) roll.

at the time i posted that I trusted the math ... but now it has become clear to me that the math is somehow bugged. The "hot and cold" happens all the time and it is almost predictable, if you miss a bunch of shots in a row you can pretty much bet that the whole match will be rigged against you.. It does not happen every single game, something is triggering this.. maybe a number went negative or something is screwing up the formula and once this happens it doesn't recover which tells me that the rolls are not random each time and somehow depend on previews results (lame). So... if we can just pay attention and figure out exactly what we did right before the "cold streak" starts maybe we can find out what is causing this bug

junk2drive · Post by **junk2drive** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:22 am

I just finished a desert campaign battle using the easy button.

The game definitely has changed since release. I don't know if that means something got broken with the patches.

ssouthrey · Post by **ssouthrey** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:38 am

rich12545 wrote:I don't like 100%. In RL sometimes a gun will malfunction and there's no opfire. Stuff happens. Maybe it can be repaired for the next round. I think the wide variance simulates all the different things that can happen but aren't necessarily mentioned in the game. Maybe it's happening too often and needs tweaked but not to 100%.

I agree there are the intangibles so maybe put the value at 95%. Reloading, changing barrels, etc., can all be covered by the number of defensive fires a unit possesses. The rate a unit op fires should be extremely high on the frontal side.

ssouthrey · Post by **ssouthrey** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 12:48 am

LOGAN5 wrote:at the time i posted that I trusted the math ... but now it has become clear to me that the math is somehow bugged. The "hot and cold" happens all the time and it is almost predictable, if you miss a bunch of shots in a row you can pretty much bet that the whole match will be rigged against you.. It does not happen every single game, something is triggering this.. maybe a number went negative or something is screwing up the formula and once this happens it doesn't recover which tells me that the rolls are not random each time and somehow depend on previews results (lame). So... if we can just pay attention and figure out exactly what we did right before the "cold streak" starts maybe we can find out what is causing this bug

I agree with you. This hot or cold trend is happening way too often and it is extremely one-sided. You're right

you can actually predict with 90% accuracy (real math not Battlefield math

) whether you're in for a great or crappy game. I played a defensive scenario twice in row. The first time, I lost half my VP's and 80% of my force and lost. The second time I played, I used the exact same strategy (didn't think that was why I lost) and won the game losing 20% of my force and shredding the Germans.

I think your theory is right. There is something wrong with the random number generator. Maybe the seed gets stuck or there is some kind of result carryover. Hopefully there isn't a mechanic we're not aware of such as a momentum value or something that gets factored into each result.

LOGAN5 · Post by **LOGAN5** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:27 am

ssouthrey:
there is an initial value that is not being re-calculated each shot, this is clear because of the percentage increase on the 2nd shot. Only way to really debug this would be to have a display in realtime that displayed all current variables for units, and just play the game, wait for the cold streak and i bet it would be immediately obvious looking at the numbers, like they would all get stuck or something... maybe the number being displayed is not the actual number that is a whole different theory, but you could be looking at old values that didn't update. No way for us to figure any of this out only the developers would be able to tell, unless someone wants to reverse engineer the game and try to debug it for them.. maybe the guy that figured out how to cheat multiplayer can do it

ssouthrey · Post by **ssouthrey** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:32 am

LOGAN5:
I thought the increase after each shot was part of the game. I guessed it was factoring in that you adjust after each shot increasing your chance to hit. But you're right, only the developers will know. Until then, I might fudge some of the op fire reaction numbers and see if that improves the balance/realism.

MesaDon · Post by **MesaDon** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 2:35 am

I also agree with the hot and cold observations and that they can run for the entire game with no averaging out. It's nice to see it isn't just my computer. Not to say it happens all the time but enough to be a concern.

LOGAN5 · Post by **LOGAN5** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 5:20 am

well cpt higgins the creator of this thread must have hit a cold streak bug that would explain why he got so frustrated and has now quit the forums

berndN · Post by **berndN** » Mon Sep 20, 2010 8:44 am

I noticed this a bit and after this observations could it be that the random generator isn't random enough? There's a dice roll but does the dice roll really use a new random number or is the random part determined one time starting a scenarion and then used all over in the loaded scenario.