Slitherine

First, my apology to start a thread on this. I'm a slow reader and horrible at navigating this forum. I've played this game extensively and had a lot of thoughts on all sorts of things. I found it really difficult for me to post everything all at the appropriate place. So I will just post all in here.

First, what a great game it is. I've dreamed for over 15 years, of a Panzer General with all it's problems fixed, and here it is, suddenly in front of me, my dream comes true. What a great feeling that is! Thank you all, the devs of Panzer Corps!

With that said, here are the things that I think can make this game even better.

About the multiplayers, I hope a ranking system can be implemented as soon as possible. Multiplayer is the ultimate way to truely enjoy this game, and a ranking system will more than double that experience.

With a ranking system, I believe people will get far more serious and addicted, and those with high rankings will have some serious bragging rights.

What's more, you will know your opponents strength, so you don't have to spend your time teaching someone if you don't feel like it. I just played a scenerio (still not finished) where I have destroyed 89 of his units, while my own unit loss is NONE, ZERO.

So when issueing a challenge, one should have the option to set it ranked or not, and allow only certain ranked players to accept it. It should also has an option to allow the accepting player to un-rank it within the first say, 10 moves of the 1st turn, in case he found the challenger has set the game condition unfair. In the case of paired games, then there should be no un-ranking.

I hope there can be more messaging back and forth, when a scenerio is finished in multiplayer. Right now once it's over, it's over. However, that's when players want to disscuss about all the strategies and tactics, "should have"s and "not"s. With the whole map visible, I hope the players can be given say, 15 or indefinite turns to discuss things back and forth.

Also, once a scenrio is over, I hope it can be downloaded and players can review them as many times as they want in the future. It will be awesome if all moves are recorded and players can play/pause/rewind the whole thing like a movie.

With a ranking system, cheating may become more of a issue in multiplayer.

Right now, players can edit the scenerios and the system won't tell it's an edited one if the title and description is not changed. I have encountered someone who edited the experience of his units and if I didn't look carefully, I'd never found out. Of course, this won't be an issue in paird games.

The big issue is if someone lost internet when uploading, the game won't get recorded and he can replay the turn again. This will at least give better intelligence if not better results. I am not sure if it's feasible to require internet connection and all moves will be uploaded instantly when playing multiplayer.

Hope all nations' units can get in-series upgrading, just like the Germans. This is needed in multiplayer, and can be done easily, right?

fenglicao wrote:Right now, players can edit the scenerios and the system won't tell it's an edited one if the title and description is not changed. I have encountered someone who edited the experience of his units and if I didn't look carefully, I'd never found out. Of course, this won't be an issue in paird games.

Hi fenglicao and welcome to the forums. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, but I am hoping you can explain this a bit more, please. How can someone in an MP game edit the scenario? I realise that your answer, if it is possible, might get some minds to thinking cheating thoughts but, since a ranking system is not yet implemented it would be good to get it sorted out beforehand. The way the MP system works, I thought this sort of thing is not possible.

I have encountered at least twice, that the scenerios are pre-edited by the challenger, while the system didn't indicate anything, when I accepted them. One is a paired game, and the oponent told me he did indeed edited it, when I asked. The other one is a single game, and he refused to respond, when I asked repeatedly about where those experienced units come from. I don't mean someone to edit the scenerio while it's being played.

So if you keep the same title and description, it's possible to fool someone into thinking it's just one of the standard scenerios that came with the game, but not a newly made one.

I am not a computer guy, but I am wondering if it's possible for someone to use a memory editor, to edit the die roll numbers and make as many kills as he want, during his turn in MP. Since it appears to me the die roll numbers are pre-generated as soon as the scenerio is started.

Now that is interesting. The MP system will flag if a scenario uses a custom equipment file but not if the scenario itself has been edited. Good pick-up because that's exactly the sort of thing that makes a ladder/ranking system such a can of worms - it increases the likelihood of guys trying to cheat and all the acrimonious stuff that goes with it. I'm amazed that someone would cheat when no such system even exists!

[Edit]: confirmed. Just changed a unit to have 500 xp in HV and the scenario could be started normally without warning of any difference. I have edited it back to before for future games of HV, too!

If we have a ladder/ranking system only official maps would be allowed to count so there would be no chance of edited scenarios.

The system makes it very hard to cheat as there are no saved games. We also have cheat detection systems in place. We're in the process of adding a messaging system to warn people when we see suspicious behaviour.

Having said all this we will continue to monitor and if further protections are needed then we'll add them.

Very important is to prevent "turn replaybility" (if you loose your connection... turn closed, your fault). Especially with the random seed beeing already determined, you can select to have the good dice rolls in the most important situations (like in single player), which should be prevented.

iainmcneil wrote:If we have a ladder/ranking system only official maps would be allowed to count so there would be no chance of edited scenarios.

That would be a real shame and cut out a lot of the appeal of modding for MP - to have it played.

Could an approval system be established that would allow players to choose from 2 sets of scenarios: approved and custom (or whatever name is liked better). Approved scenarios would be played off the server and their files would only be available from the server. To get 'approved' the scenario must go through a beta process - playtesting - and then added to the approved scenarios. Games played would count on a ladder (if one is established).

[Side note]: the list of scenarios should not be hard coded as it is now, but dynamic.

Custom scenarios would reside on the challenger's computer (My Games\Panzer Corps\scenarios -as now) and could be played in MP but not count against any ladder.

In this way only properly tried and tested scenarios would become approved but they would not only be from the official developers but the community as well.

Ranta wrote:Very important is to prevent "turn replaybility" (if you loose your connection... turn closed, your fault). Especially with the random seed beeing already determined, you can select to have the good dice rolls in the most important situations (like in single player), which should be prevented.

This is already tracked by the system, I think. You can open and watch the replay of a turn as often as you like as long as you don't make any attacks or moves - after that you can't close the turn without forcing the game to end. If you do that, they system checks and notes it - at some point it would be followed up (not sure how or by whom, though).
There are legitimate turn crashes (power outs, background program, child turns PC off etc.) but they are very rare, so only one replayed (as distinct from re-viewed) turn would be allowed in a time period (day?) This is not 'official', so if Iain or someone can clarify exactly what might happen, it would be useful.

User made scenarios could be made in to official scenarios, that's not an issue but does take time. But there would need to be an approved list of scenarios somewhere to prevent edited scenarios being used.

I'm not in favor of having only the approved, official scenarios to be counted in ranked/ladder games. User made scenarios will take forever to get into the 'official' list, not to mention it's some extra work for the devs, who should be spending their precious time somewhere else. For one, the paired game system already somewhat solves the problem. Two, allow the accepting player a chance to disagree. After he had some chance to review the scenario, from both sides in a paired game, he can decide to not have it ranked.

Or better, there can be a review turn in a scenario, just like a deployment phase, before the 1st turn, for the accepting player. During the review turn FOW is turned off, and the prestige for both sides, including how much per turn, is clearly stated. Only there when you click 'accept' that you have actually accepted the game. Otherwise you click a 'do not accept' button, and the game stays on the list.

I had once accepted a user made scenario (paired), and found it utterly worthless, and had to surrender both sides, and sent apology to the issuer, saying I didn't want to play it. These could all have been avoided if there was a review turn before accepting.

So leave the risk to the players, just give them a clear warning that you are accepting a user made scenario.

I suppose it's not a quick job to have every single move sent to the server instantly. But only this can truely solve the 'crash' / 'internet down' problem. So maybe this can be done for "Panzer Corps II"? I assume there has to be a PCII, right?

Or better, there can be a review turn in a scenario, just like a deployment phase, before the 1st turn, for the accepting player. During the review turn FOW is turned off, and the prestige for both sides, including how much per turn, is clearly stated. Only there when you click 'accept' that you have actually accepted the game. Otherwise you click a 'do not accept' button, and the game stays on the list.

There are some valid concerns here but this can't work because there is no way to see what the victory conditions are, nor if there are any trigger actions. The only way to know those things would be to have the chance to review the scenario in the editor or trust the other player to let you know what they are - ladder games tend to make people suspicious, though. With a scenario review process all of that stuff gets laid out beforehand and can be documented and/or discussed on the forum. Yes, it will take longer but the end result should be better.

Forcing the server to grab a save every time a player moves a unit would make the game unplayable as it would be completely unresponsive and probably cripple the server. We'll ensure there is a robust system in place and deal with any issues as they come up. It is already far more secure than the vast majority of other games and improving all the time.

About scenario balance, I found the current handicap sliders are too big in MP. One knotch is 25%, right? And that includes prestige per turn, and objectives captured. I played Gustav line once, when I can manage to a tough win as the allies playing no handicap. But once I gave the Axis 1 knotch of handicap, it became a complete 'no chance' for me in just a few turns where both my air and ground units got whacked quickly.

This is more significant for scenarios with large starting/per turn prestige. I hope there can be 10% increment adjustment for the handicap. Most of the scenarios are all pretty balanced at the beginning.

I don't mean to have the server to grab the entire save for every move. I mean like the online Chess, Go or many other client programs, only the info for the last move is sent to the server, which should be a very small string of codes. At the end of the turn, the server put the moves together and send to the other player. Of couse, this will require some major coding work to set it up this way. That's why I hope PCII can do this.