Difficulty is a Bit Much

[Rudankort]

No because that doesn't aliviate the necessecity of reloading the game. What I would preffer to see (short of changes to the CR mechanics) is the **purely cosmetic** option when buying a replacement unit to instead for the same prestige cost to reform a dead core unit with 0 experience, 10 str, but name, kills, medals, history, and possibly heroes intact and a little note in the history saying "destroyed date X, reformed date Y." In otherwords the ability to get "my" unit back instead of a completely different unit just "Atl-Ned" to the same same.

Unless it was caught it a pocket most "destroyed" units yielded a cadre around which they could be subsequently rebuilt with new recruits, retaining at least a semblence of continuity.

Hey boredatwork! Nice to see you again.

I remember we've discussed this suggestion in the past, and it does look nice on the first glance, but I have some doubts too.
- Will you attach to your units and value them same as now if you know that they are "immortal"?
- From experience discussion threads we see that some people prefer to buy new units instead of killed veterans. Won't the new rule clutter their core with a lot of resurrected units they don't want in the first place?

[IainMcNeil]

Maybe we could have a way to preserve a units history, if not its heroes & xp? Maybe a unit that is killed loses all xp, has a chance to lose heroes, but retains medals and battle history. This means there is a loss to it but that the loss is not so painful.

We would need to deicde how your resurrect these dead units though. Maybe they appear on the unit list at 0 strength but dont take a slot unless you heal them up. There are some logical issues.

[boredatwork]

Hey boredatwork! Nice to see you again.

I remember we've discussed this suggestion in the past, and it does look nice on the first glance, but I have some doubts too.
- Will you attach to your units and value them same as now if you know that they are "immortal"?
- From experience discussion threads we see that some people prefer to buy new units instead of killed veterans. Won't the new rule clutter their core with a lot of resurrected units they don't want in the first place?

Note I did say *option*. If some people want to treat their core as a throwaway commodity then by all means there's nothing stopping them. Notice that I did also suggest that the new unit be *bought for the same prestige* as a new unit and that it start as 0 experience. Hence also my statement that it is cosmetic - it in no way affects game difficulty.

It doesn't change the value I place on my core units - it allieviates the need to replay scenarios at lower difficulties or multiple reloads to keep the "spirit" of a favorite unit from succuming to *random* death than no amount of reasonable planning could reduce to an acceptable probability.

[Rudankort]

Note I did say *option*. If some people want to treat their core as a throwaway commodity then by all means there's nothing stopping them. Notice that I did also suggest that the new unit be *bought for the same prestige* as a new unit and that it start as 0 experience. Hence also my statement that it is cosmetic - it in no way affects game difficulty.

In case a unit is available for resurrection immediately, not between scenarios, yes, it does not change the balance that much. (Though it would be weird to lose a unit in one part of the map, and resurrect it on the same turn in another corner.)

But making it an option, while resolving my concerns, does create new problems instead. The problem with options is, when you add them, 20% of the players can customize the game exactly to their liking, while 80% of people will look at your options and think, "Huh? What am I supposed to choose here?"

It doesn't change the value I place on my core units - it allieviates the need to replay scenarios at lower difficulties or multiple reloads to keep the "spirit" of a favorite unit from succuming to *random* death than no amount of reasonable planning could reduce to an acceptable probability.

Just out of curiosity, what probability exactly would be acceptable to you?

From my experience, elite units are always very hard to kill, because they normally have best equipment available, highest experience, overstrength and some heroes on top of that. Combined effect of these assets is very strong. And if your elite unit does get crippled, you usually have means to protect it from total destruction (place a fighter or any other plane directly above it, back it with artillery, cover it with other units, bring it out of action). While it is still possible to lose a unit, probability of that does not seem high to me, and reasonable caution reduces it further.

There are exceptions of course, like naval invasions where your units are caught up in feeble transports, but even there you have your options (including delayed deployment of elite units, so that they can travel safely to the shore).

[Locarnus]

From a "realism" point, I would kill the heroes when the unit dies.
But the people who would reload for a unit death would do so for heroes as well, so it would not help them.

I m a huge fan of easy customization of playing styles.
Make check-boxes in the campaign setup.
[x] denoting defaults.

[x] Keep dead units in the roster with 0 XP.
[] Keep heroes on dead units.

So the choice is the players.

And while at it, more options for the random number generator.

[] 1/4 of the variance of the rng distribution (much less outliers).
[] Predicted results. (If there are some people who want to play chess, let them, its their game experience).

[boredatwork]

Imho this is one of the best ideas to improve the game experience.

Just leave the dead units in the roster, with 0 experience and 0 str as boredatwork said.
Then implement a condition for reinforcement, that reinforcing a 0 str unit costs as much a buying a new one (incl trucks).

Simple and elegant.

We would need to deicde how your resurrect these dead units though. Maybe they appear on the unit list at 0 strength but dont take a slot unless you heal them up. There are some logical issues.

Won't the new rule clutter their core with a lot of resurrected units they don't want in the first place?

It would be cool if on the next scenario any unit that ws destroyed in the previous one showed up in your core with 1 strength point and 1/2 the experiance and a random loss of heores.

IMO the best way to implement it would be keep all destroyed units in the unit database but don't make them take up a slot or be visible on the unit roster if they're 0 str (to keep the screen from becoming cluttered if you treat your core as a disposable commodity.

Instead integrate it into the purchase screen - either as a unique special class below strategic bomber "Resurrected units" or as an additional option in the individual class window.

Perhaps the best way IMO would be to create a dialogue box. If my 8th Panzer is killed I open the purchase window - select tank class - select which kind of tank I want - click ok - program performs a check to see if there are any 0 str tank units in the Dbase then if yes, interjects a new dialogue box asking "Do you want to create a new unit OR reform one of these units: 8th Panzer Reg, 2nd PzReg"


Key points should be that there should be no limit on time for ressurrecting a unit (if prestige is an issue) and if you're rebuilding it from scratch anyways you should have the option of rebuilding it with newer equipment, as opposed to paying twice to resurrect then upgrade.

[Rudankort]

A lot of options are good for hard-core players, but bad for everybody else. It is ok to place all these options in a configuration file somewhere (advanced options for advanced people), but making them checkboxes in the UI, even under "advanced" section, is not a good idea.

[Locarnus]

A lot of options are good for hard-core players, but bad for everybody else. It is ok to place all these options in a configuration file somewhere (advanced options for advanced people), but making them checkboxes in the UI, even under "advanced" section, is not a good idea.

Why are check-boxes in an "advanced" section not a good idea?
Dont get me wrong, a configuration file would be totally ok for me, but there have been lots of cases when I wanted to have something different, couldnt find such an option, only to find out years later, that I only had to change some value in some file somewhere and that hundreds of other people wanted the same change...

And for the aspect of confusing 80%, while only helping 20%:

1. Thats what an "advanced section" is for, not to confuse people who dont want to go into it.
2. This is not the 90s. People use Facebook and Word (have you looked at word for that matter?).
3. It depends on your audience. Since this is not a console game, or one with flashy graphics, or real-time strategy, do you really believe that 80% or so of your customers would be confused by additional options in an "advanced" tab?

[Rudankort]

Because even in advanced section the number of options must be reasonable, and the meaning of every one must be clear enough. Even people who go to advanced sections often do not go deep into game mechanics, for example. That is the reason why the options you see in gamerules.pzdat file are not check boxes in the game itself.

As for the Word, I think it is a good example why many options are bad. Even I have difficulties with their options screen. Please don't tell me that it is a piece of cake for everybody else.

[boredatwork]

In case a unit is available for resurrection immediately, not between scenarios, yes, it does not change the balance that much. (Though it would be weird to lose a unit in one part of the map, and resurrect it on the same turn in another corner.)

Given how the game stretches realism already (ex - planes in the air for a week) I can live with the occasional oddity

It doesn't change the value I place on my core units - it allieviates the need to replay scenarios at lower difficulties or multiple reloads to keep the "spirit" of a favorite unit from succuming to *random* death than no amount of reasonable planning could reduce to an acceptable probability.

Just out of curiosity, what probability exactly would be acceptable to you?

I'm not sure exactly but in an RPG style game with *perma death* something relatively low. The point isn't to make it so the computer can't kill your units, merely that he can't kill your experience, full strength units with less than 3-4 attacks so that you have a chance to interveen, either before the end of your turn or on your next turn to save it. Currently it's very probable that the computer can 2 shot full strength tanks an infantry. (10+ reloads for the Poland Forest Scenario because he did just that) You can prevent the computer from easily concentrating 3 units against any one of yours on any single turn by carefull recon/positioning. Preventing them from launching 2 attacks however is virtually impossible.

Eliminating perma death in favour of loss of XP upon death, although IMO the casualty rates are still too high, is AFAIK a reasonably simple to implement compromise which increases the enjoyment of the game for those attached to their core, without actually altering it in anyway for the people who enjoy it as is.

[VPaulus]

If there was an advanced configuration menu, with the optional suggestions already made by users in this forum, that would have to be a large Window.
I say this, but I'm not against such advanced configurations.

[rezaf]

many options are bad

This statement is just SO wrong.

I seem to recall a post from you a long time ago where you wrote you liked Master of Magic.
Go play it again.
There's so much stuff in there that's nonessential and could easily be left out without compromising some "core gameplay". Yet MoM benefits from all that optional stuff, and in the end is even more than the sum of it's pieces.
All that cool stuff, the heroes, the battlefield spells, the global enchantments, crafting artifacts, the guarded map locations with loot, the independent cities, wandering monsters, ... and so on and so forth, none of these things can be considered truly ESSENTIAL, but yet MoM included them.
Everything and the kitchen sink.

A number of games have tried to recapture that formula, but they all chose to leave this or that feature out, and they were worse games for it.
More options == good.

Even if YOU (Slitherine) aren't going to use something in your official releases, it's GOOD if the engine has the capability to do it and modders (or your own scenario designers, eventually) can use it in their scenarios.

Check out Civ4. The game included an entire scripting engine, an a vast majority of it's features were rarely, somtimes never, used in the features of the core game. Yet it's existance and availability made amazing things possible - see the numerous great mods on offer.

And if you think Word is proof that many options are bad - the Windows Editor is proof that few options are even worse.
_____
rezaf

[Rudankort]

This statement is just SO wrong.

You are talking about a completely different thing here. The elements of MOM gameplay were not optional, they were the same for ALL players, even if not all players used them. It is the same in Panzer Corps - there are aspects that few people use to their advantage, but they are still part of the game.

We are talking about gameplay checkboxes here, and they are not only bad because they are confusing, but also because they "water down" your gameplay. All of a sudden there is no single standard gameplay people are discussing on the forum, but a hundred of different gameplays, and every person discusses his own. Even options for weather/supply/FoW are not ideal in this respect, but at least PG had them, so many people are used to them.

If you ask me, my opinion is this: if some idea is good for gameplay, you better make it standard for all players, not optional. And if you are tempted to make something an option, then it is probably not good enough, and then why implement it at all?

[kjeld111]

I have a hunch that the biggest culprit in players perception is close combat/close defense, that can lead to larger swings of results because of the lethality of those battles, depending who has the initiative and what the initial did attack achieve - that the "averaged out" combat predictor do not necessarily point out (the average result is accurately predicted, but the actual palette of results is extremely wide). Mentions about the "Poland Forest Scenario" seems to indicate this very problem - I would not be surprised to learn than most of the horror stories about brutal unexpected losses involved close defense at some point.

[Locarnus]

This statement is just SO wrong.

You are talking about a completely different thing here. The elements of MOM gameplay were not optional, they were the same for ALL players, even if not all players used them. It is the same in Panzer Corps - there are aspects that few people use to their advantage, but they are still part of the game.

We are talking about gameplay checkboxes here, and they are not only bad because they are confusing, but also because they "water down" your gameplay. All of a sudden there is no single standard gameplay people are discussing on the forum, but a hundred of different gameplays, and every person discusses his own. Even options for weather/supply/FoW are not ideal in this respect, but at least PG had them, so many people are used to them.

If you ask me, my opinion is this: if some idea is good for gameplay, you better make it standard for all players, not optional. And if you are tempted to make something an option, then it is probably not good enough, and then why implement it at all?

I see the general point here, that too much splitting is a problem for a small community. It is easily visible for everyone in the Hearts of Iron community. With 4 different "base" games (Arma, AoD, DH and HoI3), multi-addons and mods the community is split to the point where the forums are near dead compared to the days of HoI2 + addons and multiple mods.

The important lesson to learn here is, that addons and mods (small and large) improve a community as long as there is 1 common progressing base (base game plus newest addon) on which all additional content can be based.

Compare the growth of a tree and that of a brush.
With regards to the topic at hand, options do not lead the latter, as long as there is one default (vanilla, stock, whatever), like you said. Changing the rng does not significantly alter the game, all other strategies are still valid. Resurrecting units does not change the game mechanics, as long as there is still an incentive to keep them alive in the first place (eg experience).

[rezaf]

You are talking about a completely different thing here. The elements of MOM gameplay were not optional, they were the same for ALL players, even if not all players used them. It is the same in Panzer Corps - there are aspects that few people use to their advantage, but they are still part of the game.

I think in the discussion about the seed randomization (thanks again!) you wrote that you were very reluctant to add anything AT ALL to the game, which is what I was getting at.
Example: Many players (I wasn't one of them) missed tank overrun from PG2. Why not provide it as a trait, but not use it in the vanilla game. There's heaps of stuff you could do with additional traits alone.

We are talking about gameplay checkboxes here, and they are not only bad because they are confusing, but also because they "water down" your gameplay. All of a sudden there is no single standard gameplay people are discussing on the forum, but a hundred of different gameplays, and every person discusses his own. Even options for weather/supply/FoW are not ideal in this respect, but at least PG had them, so many people are used to them.

Well, depends. Stuff like core unit preservation in the way described, yeah, I can agree with your notion. I wouldn't mind options hidden away in an advanced options screen, but it's not something I crave desperately.

For me, as a fan of the original PG, the most important goal of PzC was the replication of the original game. While I basically disagree with every single change you decided to make from the original formula (sorry), I think the result is close enough. I'd be even happier if you would provide the options to tweak the game to behave even more like the original, but I'll survive without them.
There was no hero roster in the original (no heroes, either - hey, those are actually a change I don't disagree with :p), so I don't miss it in PzC.
(Random seed reset upon reload WAS in PG, which is one reason why I missed it in PzC - though I'm not sure you can call this a feature).

I do miss some of the features from later games such as Fantasy General's research portion, but those also were not in PG, and chances are, if PzC is successful, you'll be expanding the engine over time, so who knows what the future might bring.

If you ask me, my opinion is this: if some idea is good for gameplay, you better make it standard for all players, not optional. And if you are tempted to make something an option, then it is probably not good enough, and then why implement it at all?

Thank god you don't run, say a restaurant.
"If some dish supposedly is good, surely EVERYONE should order it. And if it's something not everyone would order, it's probably not good enough, and then why add it to the menu at all?"
_____
rezaf

[Rudankort]

For me, as a fan of the original PG, the most important goal of PzC was the replication of the original game. While I basically disagree with every single change you decided to make from the original formula (sorry), I think the result is close enough. I'd be even happier if you would provide the options to tweak the game to behave even more like the original, but I'll survive without them.

You know very well that a lot of such options are available. That is basically the reason why gamerules.pzdat file exists.

Thank god you don't run, say a restaurant.
"If some dish supposedly is good, surely EVERYONE should order it. And if it's something not everyone would order, it's probably not good enough, and then why add it to the menu at all?"

There is a whole bunch of reasons why a restaurant is different from a PC game, but I don't feel like explaining it all in this thread. Nor will I reply to any other analogies from now on. They only bring us further away from the point of the discussion.

[rezaf]

You know very well that a lot of such options are available. That is basically the reason why gamerules.pzdat file exists.

Some options are there, yes. However, you cannot, for example, make it so that you can gain prestige from combat.
Anyway, like I wrote, the result is close enough for me, and I would be happy about more options still, yet won't be crushed when they are not added.

There is a whole bunch of reasons why a restaurant is different from a PC game, but I don't feel like explaining it all in this thread. Nor will I reply to any other analogies from now on. They only bring us further away from the point of the discussion.

Heh, you made it clear on several occasions that you are set in your mind and believe you are right on many things, and no amount of counter-arguments can convince you otherwise. And, hey, don't misunderstand me pressing my case, I do NOT disagree with the principal notion that, since it's you who do all the work, it's you making the calls. Even if they were OBJECTIVELY wrong (which I do not claim to be the case), you'd still have every right to make those wrong calls. McDonalds doesn't serve pizza, steaks or burritos, after all.
See, the analogy isn't as bad as you thought, even from your perspective.
_____
rezaf

[deducter]

No because that doesn't aliviate the necessecity of reloading the game. What I would preffer to see (short of changes to the CR mechanics) is the **purely cosmetic** option when buying a replacement unit to instead for the same prestige cost to reform a dead core unit with 0 experience, 10 str, but name, kills, medals, history, and possibly heroes intact and a little note in the history saying "destroyed date X, reformed date Y." In otherwords the ability to get "my" unit back instead of a completely different unit just "Atl-Ned" to the same same.

There was a discussion of prestige sinks. Sounds to me like this could be it. You want to reconstitute your destroyed 8th panzer battalion with new tanks and a new crew? Pay 3x (or more) the prestige, and it's done.

Heroes can make a massive difference though. I'd pay 10x the prestige to keep a +3 initiative infantry hero, for instance. I think it would be unbalanced for them to be resurrected, BUT, it might not be bad to have in the unit window a description of when a hero distinguished himself and when a hero died.

Edit: Obviously the new unit would have green recruits. For instance, the 6th Army (the one lost at Stalingrad) was reconstituted by the time of Kursk, but destroyed again in late 1943, and it was reconstituted AGAIN after that, to be destroyed in 1945. Not that the subsequent formations were anything like the original in terms of fighting power. So there is historical precedent for this.

[deducter]

Note I did say *option*. If some people want to treat their core as a throwaway commodity then by all means there's nothing stopping them. Notice that I did also suggest that the new unit be *bought for the same prestige* as a new unit and that it start as 0 experience. Hence also my statement that it is cosmetic - it in no way affects game difficulty.

It doesn't change the value I place on my core units - it allieviates the need to replay scenarios at lower difficulties or multiple reloads to keep the "spirit" of a favorite unit from succuming to *random* death than no amount of reasonable planning could reduce to an acceptable probability.

Unfortunately I cannot say too much on the matter until DLC 41 comes out, but if you play at a higher difficulty, you should expect the game to be harder and that you should lose units. Otherwise what is the point of the higher difficulty?

I do feel more options is a good thing. I'd just like my "no undo" option for MP.