The Fun Factor

[Molve]

I believe the game needs a bit more tweaking if it wants to inherit the crown of a true classic from PG...

In no particular order:
* the combat outcome indicator is too often way off target. It isn't funny when you're given a 6-1 estimate and you lose 5-2.

I'm aware of the "war isn't predictable" argument, but for the estimation to have any value, it simply needs to be more accurate.

One change is to modify the combat procedure to never vary too much from the estimate.

But another change is to add more information to the estimate, somewhat like weather probabilities. Here I'm guessing the wildly varying results have identifiable causes, such as who shoots first. If the combat estimate was expanded to cover two cases (the 80% case and the 20% case) then that would be fine too. For example, instead of being told "6-1" I could be informed "6-1 2-5" meaning that it's probable I will maul the enemy, but that there's a significant chance the enemy will get the jump on my unit and almost reverse the figures.

In this case, the estimate will have gone from nearly worthless to truly useful: in this case it's telling me I probably need to precede the attack with one more bombing/artillery strike.

Continuing my example, let's say I first attack with a 10.5 cm leFH 18 standing nearby. If then the combat outcome indicator changes to "7-1 1-1", for instance, then I know I won't throw away the lives of my soldiers just because the estimate isn't accurate enough!

* experience and overstrength isn't valuable enough to bother with.
It may be more realistic that good preparation and proper combined arms is what wins scenarios, but the fact remains is that the fun factor of a PG-type game contains a fair bit of "rpg" elements.

As it is, a unit gains three stars of experience almost too quickly (only one scenario per star is needed for an active unit). On the other hand, elite reinforcements are so bloody expensive it's not funny to maintain your elite corps.

The killer is that experience doesn't seem to have much of an impact on winning battles (either inflicting casualties or avoiding taking casualties).

I realize this boils down to personal preference, but as I remember PG, you earned your stars through multiple scenarios, and was then rewarded with "super units" that you could shepherd through the war without crippling prestige costs.

In short, experience feels too "cheap" as the game stands. You gain it, you lose it again. That's not how I remember it...

Please change the following:
1) make units gain experience more slowly, making experienced units (yours) something really to behold and to fear
2) make experienced units more resilient to damage and/or make elite reinforcements cheaper
3) make experience a much more prominent factor in overall combat strength

Feel free to retain today's "realistic" system as an option you could activate; but consider having these changes for the default game.

* and, insert more scenarios in the thinnest branches of the campaign tree. Please.


With Panzer Corps you have the potential to make a game as fun as Panzer General ever was. You're not quite there yet though. Thank you for listening and make sure to never forget your audience is the casual gamers looking for a bit of fun first and the serious buffs wanting a historical challenge only second.

[Xerkis]

Let’s see here – I guess I should start by saying I agree with your points and observations in general, but obviously I have some interjections of my own.

I have also noticed that the combat predictions at times seem to be that the numbers are reversed. Glad you mentioned this one, since I have been honestly thinking that I must have had looked at the numbers incorrectly. Sure I can see them being “off” from time to time; or even more so than not – but shouldn’t be completely opposite of the results. However, you do have more extensive prediction information with the <ctrl> <click>. In what you are looking for in more information, does this not help? I ask that question in ignorance because I haven’t really used the extended prediction screen. If you’re asking for more information showing on the mouse over – it seems that whenever anyone suggests more info to show on the UI, it isn’t received well.

About the experience and overstrength; I also think you gain the stars way too quickly. But I think to slow this down there then should be many more scenarios interjected throughout the campaign. If you only have getting experience slower without more scenarios; I believe you will be greatly under gunned in the later scenarios.

As far as overstrength having enough value; El_Condoro has a thread on that viewtopic.php?t=27534&highlight= and by what he has done there, it seems he has sort of proved this.

[Molve]

Thank you for your reply.

It is paramount the "quick" combat estimator is accurate. If only the extensive prediction information gives you a warning you could lose and lose big then using this would become mandatory, and having to bring up a screen before most or all combats would be a major nuisance and very poor usability.

The "quick" combat estimator simply must be enough in itself. This is supposed to be a simple game of good, clean fun after all.

Probably the best fix, therefore, is to ensure the actual combat results never vary more than +/- 2 points in either direction. Full stop.

Getting a 3-5 when you were "promised" a 1-7 might be disappointing, but it doesn't make you go "WTF did I do wrong!?" as getting a 5-3 will.

At least, tie the "probability reductor" to unit experience!

Make it so five gold stars means the unit will always get the indicated result or better, and each less gold star allows a single point of variance.

This means that newbie/casual gamers have a real reason to overstrength their units, while veteran gamers will cope with using inexperienced units (much like today; no stars means variance of up to five points which is not much less than today's wild system).

[Molve]

About the experience and overstrength; I also think you gain the stars way too quickly. But I think to slow this down there then should be many more scenarios interjected throughout the campaign. If you only have getting experience slower without more scenarios; I believe you will be greatly under gunned in the later scenarios.

Well, currently an active unit only needs one scenario to gain a full gold star.

That is way too fast. Combined with the exorbitant price of maintaining those stars when you have your first 7 point loss (which WILL happen in this game), you can as well forget about maintaining control, and simply leaving it up to luck which of your units end up with more than three stars.

Which kind of shows that Slitherine haven't paid attention to what makes "rpg" aspects so fun in the old Panzer General... It's not the gold stars in themselves, it's that you are in control over which units get them!

[Martin_Goliath]

Thank you for your reply.

It is paramount the "quick" combat estimator is accurate. If only the extensive prediction information gives you a warning you could lose and lose big then using this would become mandatory, and having to bring up a screen before most or all combats would be a major nuisance and very poor usability.

The "quick" combat estimator simply must be enough in itself. This is supposed to be a simple game of good, clean fun after all.

Probably the best fix, therefore, is to ensure the actual combat results never vary more than +/- 2 points in either direction. Full stop.

Getting a 3-5 when you were "promised" a 1-7 might be disappointing, but it doesn't make you go "WTF did I do wrong!?" as getting a 5-3 will.

At least, tie the "probability reductor" to unit experience!

Make it so five gold stars means the unit will always get the indicated result or better, and each less gold star allows a single point of variance.

This means that newbie/casual gamers have a real reason to overstrength their units, while veteran gamers will cope with using inexperienced units (much like today; no stars means variance of up to five points which is not much less than today's wild system).

Use Ctrl-click to get (almost) all the gory details of the combat prediction. With some experience deciphering this information (use L after combat to see what actually happened), you will know when to expect wildly varying results, and when your guys will consistently do well. One useful info is the probability of rugged defence.

[Longasc]

I am afraid it isn't possible to make the "results more like the predictions".

Part of the strategy in Panzer General is to be prepared for the unexpected. Both horrible losses and sometimes lucky victories.


Darius III said the same at the Battle of Gaugamela, that rout was probably bugged and Alexander was such a lucky bastard!

[Molve]

Use Ctrl-click to get (almost) all the gory details of the combat prediction. With some experience deciphering this information (use L after combat to see what actually happened), you will know when to expect wildly varying results, and when your guys will consistently do well. One useful info is the probability of rugged defence.

Sorry but no.

Your advice would lead to it becoming obligatory to check the details before almost every combat.

While this might suit a deep, complex military simulation; it is entirely inappropriate for a light-hearted game such as Panzer Corps.

Don't get me wrong, I love that the details are there, but the quick estimator needs to provide enough details to give advance warning of any unpleasant surprises like that.

There are many possible solutions, however. But let me discuss one probable suggestion:

On the surface, the following would sound reasonable: "well, okay, how about we add an asterisk to the quick estimation when the combat contains possible complexity or surprises or what you would call it"

The problem with this approach is again, that it makes checking the detailed analysis obligatory, which isn't helping in a "quick and simple" game, such as the Panzer General family (in which I place PC).

[Molve]

I am afraid it isn't possible to make the "results more like the predictions".

Part of the strategy in Panzer General is to be prepared for the unexpected. Both horrible losses and sometimes lucky victories.


Darius III said the same at the Battle of Gaugamela, that rout was probably bugged and Alexander was such a lucky bastard!

Sorry but quoting historic leaders isn't a relevant argument here. And you're making it sound like PC is a realistic simulator as long as its inaccurate quick combat predictor is retained.

Come on; Panzer Corps is a game first and foremost.

Currently, the quick prediction simply isn't accurate enough to be trusted. Therefore it is worthless.

Tweaking this accessibility aspect of the game isn't merely possible; it's outright needed!

[Xerkis]

I guess to some PzC is a “quick and simple” game – but I don’t go about it as such myself. No matter though…

As you stated up farther in your thread; simply having the predicted odd and the outcome closer should be all the change that is needed. I completely agree with you: odds going from 1-5 to 3-3 is fairly close, but 1-5 to 5-1 is not even in the least.

[Horseman]

I don't find it to be that much of a problem...I get better results as often as worse results which is what I'd expect

[rezaf]

I'm in the camp that gets negative results far more often than positive results.
Wait, actually that's not entirely accurate.

If I have a very positive prediction, say 0-4, I can usually expect to take at least a loss and usually fall short of the prediction, so 1-3 is more like what'll happen.
However, when getting a negative prediction, say 3-3, it often occurs that my troops perform better than expected, say I end up with 2-4 or even better.

While I thus have to agree that better and worse results sortof even out each other, I also have to say the predictions are far too unreliable.
Positive results when facing negative odds should be possible, but an outlier, and negative results when facing excellent odds should also be possible, but an outlier.
As it stands, 0-x attacks far, FAR too often result in losses, and while it appears that attacks with unfavorable predictions can end up in your favor, thus "evening out the balance", this isn't really satisfactory.
Because if you face horrible odds, do you usually attack?
Meanwhile, if you face excellent odds, do you attack? And if you do, doesn't it frustrate you when you appearently always appear to lose one or two of your precious overstrength points when facing 0-x odds?

I could live with the system as it is unchanged, but it definately negatively impacts the "fun factor" for me, if not to a VERY big degree...
_____
rezaf

[Longasc]

I think I found a possible solution to make things more predictable without changing the entire system.

But I am quite afraid of it, to be honest. Let me explain!


"Fun" is unfortunately a rather weak argument as well.

It is a thought-terminating cliché stating that the random results are not "fun".
This follows the assumption that the game would be more fun if it would be predictable in the chess way: No random factor involved.
The aim to make the prediction more "accurate" only reflects the desire to minimize the random factor to the point of extinction.


I tried to explain why I think the luck factor adds fun to the game. In the US West Coast scenario I lost early Poland-Low Countries veteran troops and several tank veterans were close to getting wiped out.

Panther G survives with 2 Strength - relief!
Two flaks score unexpected and devastating hits on a 5 star He117 - WTF!

Psychology kicks in: as loss-averse creatures we remember our losses more than our wins.
The fun in Panzer Corps is IMO quite tied to this suspense. You want to kill it.


Think again about your assumptions, you are going to improve your own "fun" out of the game.
Quite a lot of difficulty is involved when planning for attacks to fail. Planning for the worst case scenario usually slows you down. I.e. deploying Infantry and waiting one turn before attacking instead of attacking right away. But next turn you could run away in case the attack failed.


Nevertheless I can think of solutions to your problem. Though I think you would not like your own suggestions in the end.


"Advanced" game options like:

- Random Seed ON/OFF: Reloading doesn't help in Panzer Corps. The result of the attack is always the same.
Unless you change attack order and attack with another unit elsewhere to get a better random number from the seed for your important attack.
There is always a way to cheat the system if people want to. I think this could be one of the "random related" advanced options.

- "Average Results": Let the computer calculate the attack up to 10 or even 100 times and then pick the average of the results. I hope it's clear what I mean. This goes a long way in staying close to your wish of results being more predictable, Molve.

But see above, I think it's going to kill some of the suspense and makes strategic planning for the worst case less necessary.

[Molve]

Longasc, your reply deserves a comment:

What I would the devs specifically to do is the following:

Reduce the wild range of outcomes.

There is something in the (internal, invisible) combat procedure that (sometimes) leads to wildly divergent outcomes. This was not so in Panzer General.

As a fellow programmer, I understand that it's easy to write a combat procedure that feels logical and for the most part gives you the results that you want.

But apparently the SSI programmers took the design one step further. Call it polish if you want.

The current state of Panzer Corps feels rough around the edges, put simply.

Not that this isn't something a patch can't fix, of course!

(After all, we live in different times, and applications doesn't need to be 110% finished when they ship - almost all customers do have reasonable access to patches and updates. So I'm not worried the program feels a bit rowdy at places; not unless these patches remain even after a patch or three )



But running the procedure several times and picking the average - that is not needed. From a programmer's point of view, that would be inelegant and wasteful of processing power. I'm sure the actual coding used by Panzer General contained a number of "catches", code specifically added to generate pleasing results.

This is what I suspect is still missing from Panzer Corps, a layer of "polish" or "customer satisfaction" if you will. I can understand a reluctance to add it, especially if you're not only a programmer but a WWII simulation buff too, but let me assure you the game needs it, and needs it badly!

[Molve]

More specifically, I'm not complaining about "Rugged Defense" and that your units might get slaughtered when encountering it.

Rugged Defense is great as long as it has identifiable causes. As a player, even a rookie, you should go "Well, I could see RD happening, I took my chances and now I live with the consequences".

What isn't so great - in fact devastating for the beer'n'pretzels fun factor - is when you get butchered for invisible reasons.

And checking some detail screen before each combat to find out if these factors are present is NOT a solution.

Panzer Corps is a good effort, but to become truly great it must tweak the combat outcomes to ensure:
1) the risk of getting a Rugged Defense is determinable by a single glance at the situation
2) combat where the outcome is significantly divergent from the prediction is limited to Rugged Defense ONLY

For Panzer General purposes, rugged defense WAS the way you got slaughtered. You can - and should - make the regular combat outcome much more predictable, and this is fine, since you can get Rugged Defenses. As long as you can also work to eliminate RD's! (I'm not sure of the details, but reasonable suggestions include if all strength points are suppressed, or perhaps if the entrenchment is being reduced to zero by this attack, Rugged Defense should not be possible)

As it is now, I've experienced running my units into even ambushes, let alone Rugged Defense, with even a 0-0 outcome as the result. Something is wrong...

This tells me not enough care have (yet) been made to perfect the game aspect of the program. It's okay to make the player lose units when he or she runs them into ambushes, since that is a controllable aspect. In fact, the game should ensure that happens!

Not enough effort is currently being made to separate regular outcomes from devastating ones (RD, ambush, etc) AND TO MAKE THESE RISKS EASILY IDENTIFIABLE for casual players.

It's the same story with experience. The current implementation where gold stars are easily gotten but just as easily lost again tells me the team haven't truly understood what was so great about the (first few) PG-series games SSI made. Or, less uncharitably, that they simply haven't had time yet to tweak their game into full polish!

Overall I'm getting the impression the good Panzer Corps folks are a little too deep in to making the simulation, keeping things realistic, and have spent a little to little time as "game designers" and "fun consultants".

[TheGrayMouser]

Molve , how can you "predict the unpredictable? The game cant , in the pre combat predictor , incorporate the RANDOM 0-+2 initiative boost either unit can get when combat is resolved. (Im not even so sure it utilizes or factors in the nominal difference of two units initiative)

Since each point of initiative over your opponent gives 10% (or is it 20%??) ist fire capaibilty of your strength points(which allows them to supress or kill w/o firing back), very quickly you can see there would /could be an exponential increase in possible outcomes that cant boil down to a 1-5 preidiction.
You could , i suppose give a high low prediction but would that really be usefull? Yes , we will either win at 5-1 or lose 1-5 with everything in between being possible.... That is not helpful at all.

Cleary for the % dice that roll if you hit miss or suppress are not just staight up , pure random #'s either, my guess some curve, mean , median etc is used , otherwise you would at least by now have heard of a player losing a 10 sp tiger to a miltia infantry unit that takes no losses. Improbable yet possible if just straight random dice were thrown.

Rugged defence is somewhat of a mystery, at least in terms of what % chance you will trigger it yet it tells you what % chance it might be triggered. That should be enough in assessing the risk in your decision to attck or not, is it not?

[Fimconte]

Rugged Defence only happens when the defending unit is not suppressed and has fortification left.
At least I can't remember any time of getting RD without fortification.

So in that sense, it's not "random", as you know that if you attack a fortified position, you can encounter a rugged defence (unless you're using mass Pioneers).

[Horseman]

Rugged Defence only happens when the defending unit is not suppressed and has fortification left.
At least I can't remember any time of getting RD without fortification.

So in that sense, it's not "random", as you know that if you attack a fortified position, you can encounter a rugged defence (unless you're using mass Pioneers).

Replace the word fortification with entrenchemt and you've got it!

XP also plays a role as far as I'm aware...it definately did in PG

[MartyWard]

I rarely run into the really way off results, maybe once per scenario, so I don't see it as a big problem. It certainly isn't a problem when the extreme results work in my favor!

[willgamer]

So I'm feeling just gobsmacked and stuck...

IMHO, Molve has identified a real problem;

The RNG is broken because it gens long sequences of numbers in a narrow range;

The devs have said the broken RNG might be hard to fix, and/or, has a low priority;

We don't even have a list of items in the first patch, much less an eta for the first patch itself;

I give up!

[Xerkis]

It certainly isn't a problem when the extreme results work in my favor!

How would you know? When it error in your favor, you most likely didn’t attack. An opportunity lost.