P39 Question for Arkan and Akilpio

[Ricky B]

A quick comment on the balancing of campaigns in the games, based on HTH and all. Ed/Volcano Man in his FWWC games has the team including himself play through the campaigns HTH as team games, usually, and tweaks things as we go. It is still only one play through but leads to some reasonable confidence that they work, even if balance is not perfect. Since players vary so much, that would be impossible. For Serbia, for example, we did play all 4 invasion campaigns through to the end, although we had the termination rule kick in for at least the 4th campaign - although Ed did boost the CP major victory level by around 1500 points during the play as we were a turn away from termination at around turn 110 with only a few objectives taken.

So it is possible but does require a longer release timeline as shown in those games. I know a couple of the recent PzCs have had HTH play start at least but may be no finish, during testing.

[Steel God]

A quick comment on the balancing of campaigns in the games, based on HTH and all. Ed/Volcano Man in his FWWC games has the team including himself play through the campaigns HTH as team games, usually, and tweaks things as we go. It is still only one play through but leads to some reasonable confidence that they work, even if balance is not perfect. Since players vary so much, that would be impossible. For Serbia, for example, we did play all 4 invasion campaigns through to the end, although we had the termination rule kick in for at least the 4th campaign - although Ed did boost the CP major victory level by around 1500 points during the play as we were a turn away from termination at around turn 110 with only a few objectives taken.

So it is possible but does require a longer release timeline as shown in those games. I know a couple of the recent PzCs have had HTH play start at least but may be no finish, during testing.

When it comes to Ed and any work he has done on Scenario Design the "normal rules" don't apply.  He is quite simply the best all around scenario designer in my opinion.  Most of the scenarios he produces tend to be well thought out, and well balanced from a "head to head player's perspective".   Because he was such an excellent player and understands what makes a good scenario and what balance is, that shines through in his products.  Not saying others are bad at it, he is just a cut above the rest in this man's opinion.  Does he bat 1.000?  Of course not, but unbalanced ones are the exception, as opposed to the norm.

[Mr Grumpy]

I wonder if any of the game designers for the newer games would be willing to push out balance patches for the campaign scenarios as more and more games are completed? In my mind it would be a great thing to have the campaigns become higher and higher quality as they are continuously refined through play. The reality is that there are so many variables to the big scenarios and of course it is challenging to adequately playtest them, but still these are the most rewarding scenarios. 

Obviously cannot speak for WDS, but my gut instinct is that they would not be interested in addressing balance concerns in the manner suggested.  They certainly are amenable to taking inputs for OOB and map corrections, errors and such (I see it all the time in their forums) but as far as balance issues are concerned I strongly suspect that they would say that it's too subjective and they'd be chasing it forever, and as they have told me on several occasions:  "their largest Customer base by far are Solo players", so they plow their man hours into fixing the AI issues.  Roughly translated, if those of us in the PBEM corner of the hobby want to correct balance concerns with Scenarios it is up to us to do it.

Once upon a time the Blitz had a dedicated group of players who spent a lot of time addressing balance issues - the section is still there - H2H - and that's the kind of thing we'd need to do again if we wanted things balanced for PBEM.  I do believe the scenario currently being played in the Long Way to Tipperary Tournament was a product of the H2H process that eventually got incorporated into the actual game product.  But I'm old and my memory could be faulty 

Yes I was the one that ran that group, we did approve perhaps 15 scenarios through the system although I had a "30 turns or less" rule as like a Tourney if I tried to approve larger scenarios I had issues with testers dropping out.

Some of the scenarios were stock versions and some were Ed's "_Alt" versions and your memory is not faulty the S43 Dime scenario being used in the Tourney was one of those approved scenarios, not perfect by any means but for PBEM the Blitz stats back up how much more balanced it is.  

[Mr Grumpy]

A quick comment on the balancing of campaigns in the games, based on HTH and all. Ed/Volcano Man in his FWWC games has the team including himself play through the campaigns HTH as team games, usually, and tweaks things as we go. It is still only one play through but leads to some reasonable confidence that they work, even if balance is not perfect. Since players vary so much, that would be impossible. For Serbia, for example, we did play all 4 invasion campaigns through to the end, although we had the termination rule kick in for at least the 4th campaign - although Ed did boost the CP major victory level by around 1500 points during the play as we were a turn away from termination at around turn 110 with only a few objectives taken.

So it is possible but does require a longer release timeline as shown in those games. I know a couple of the recent PzCs have had HTH play start at least but may be no finish, during testing.

When it comes to Ed and any work he has done on Scenario Design the "normal rules" don't apply.  He is quite simply the best all around scenario designer in my opinion.  Most of the scenarios he produces tend to be well thought out, and well balanced from a "head to head player's perspective".   Because he was such an excellent player and understands what makes a good scenario and what balance is, that shines through in his products.  Not saying others are bad at it, he is just a cut above the rest in this man's opinion.  Does he bat 1.000?  Of course not, but unbalanced ones are the exception, as opposed to the norm.

It is such a pleasure to work with Ed that I gave up playing PzC to concentrate fully on helping to test his FWWC titles, the fact that his titles are developed with more of a focus on PBEM than AI solo play is what attracts me to giving up my free time to help out. 

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

A quick comment on the balancing of campaigns in the games, based on HTH and all. Ed/Volcano Man in his FWWC games has the team including himself play through the campaigns HTH as team games, usually, and tweaks things as we go. It is still only one play through but leads to some reasonable confidence that they work, even if balance is not perfect. Since players vary so much, that would be impossible. For Serbia, for example, we did play all 4 invasion campaigns through to the end, although we had the termination rule kick in for at least the 4th campaign - although Ed did boost the CP major victory level by around 1500 points during the play as we were a turn away from termination at around turn 110 with only a few objectives taken.

So it is possible but does require a longer release timeline as shown in those games. I know a couple of the recent PzCs have had HTH play start at least but may be no finish, during testing.

When it comes to Ed and any work he has done on Scenario Design the "normal rules" don't apply.  He is quite simply the best all around scenario designer in my opinion.  Most of the scenarios he produces tend to be well thought out, and well balanced from a "head to head player's perspective".   Because he was such an excellent player and understands what makes a good scenario and what balance is, that shines through in his products.  Not saying others are bad at it, he is just a cut above the rest in this man's opinion.  Does he bat 1.000?  Of course not, but unbalanced ones are the exception, as opposed to the norm.

It is such a pleasure to work with Ed that I gave up playing PzC to concentrate fully on helping to test his FWWC titles, the fact that his titles are developed with more of a focus on PBEM than AI solo play is what attracts me to giving up my free time to help out. 

But, you are still playing!  That accounts for something.  

[Iceman]

I wonder if any of the game designers for the newer games would be willing to push out balance patches for the campaign scenarios as more and more games are completed? In my mind it would be a great thing to have the campaigns become higher and higher quality as they are continuously refined through play. The reality is that there are so many variables to the big scenarios and of course it is challenging to adequately playtest them, but still these are the most rewarding scenarios. 

Obviously cannot speak for WDS, but my gut instinct is that they would not be interested in addressing balance concerns in the manner suggested.  They certainly are amenable to taking inputs for OOB and map corrections, errors and such (I see it all the time in their forums) but as far as balance issues are concerned I strongly suspect that they would say that it's too subjective and they'd be chasing it forever, and as they have told me on several occasions:  "their largest Customer base by far are Solo players", so they plow their man hours into fixing the AI issues.  Roughly translated, if those of us in the PBEM corner of the hobby want to correct balance concerns with Scenarios it is up to us to do it.

Once upon a time the Blitz had a dedicated group of players who spent a lot of time addressing balance issues - the section is still there - H2H - and that's the kind of thing we'd need to do again if we wanted things balanced for PBEM.  I do believe the scenario currently being played in the Long Way to Tipperary Tournament was a product of the H2H process that eventually got incorporated into the actual game product.  But I'm old and my memory could be faulty 

Yes I was the one that ran that group, we did approve perhaps 15 scenarios through the system although I had a "30 turns or less" rule as like a Tourney if I tried to approve larger scenarios I had issues with testers dropping out.

Some of the scenarios were stock versions and some were Ed's "_Alt" versions and your memory is not faulty the S43 Dime scenario being used in the Tourney was one of those approved scenarios, not perfect by any means but for PBEM the Blitz stats back up how much more balanced it is.  

Is it possible to get that program started again? What would it take?

[Mr Grumpy]

I wonder if any of the game designers for the newer games would be willing to push out balance patches for the campaign scenarios as more and more games are completed? In my mind it would be a great thing to have the campaigns become higher and higher quality as they are continuously refined through play. The reality is that there are so many variables to the big scenarios and of course it is challenging to adequately playtest them, but still these are the most rewarding scenarios. 

Obviously cannot speak for WDS, but my gut instinct is that they would not be interested in addressing balance concerns in the manner suggested.  They certainly are amenable to taking inputs for OOB and map corrections, errors and such (I see it all the time in their forums) but as far as balance issues are concerned I strongly suspect that they would say that it's too subjective and they'd be chasing it forever, and as they have told me on several occasions:  "their largest Customer base by far are Solo players", so they plow their man hours into fixing the AI issues.  Roughly translated, if those of us in the PBEM corner of the hobby want to correct balance concerns with Scenarios it is up to us to do it.

Once upon a time the Blitz had a dedicated group of players who spent a lot of time addressing balance issues - the section is still there - H2H - and that's the kind of thing we'd need to do again if we wanted things balanced for PBEM.  I do believe the scenario currently being played in the Long Way to Tipperary Tournament was a product of the H2H process that eventually got incorporated into the actual game product.  But I'm old and my memory could be faulty 

Yes I was the one that ran that group, we did approve perhaps 15 scenarios through the system although I had a "30 turns or less" rule as like a Tourney if I tried to approve larger scenarios I had issues with testers dropping out.

Some of the scenarios were stock versions and some were Ed's "_Alt" versions and your memory is not faulty the S43 Dime scenario being used in the Tourney was one of those approved scenarios, not perfect by any means but for PBEM the Blitz stats back up how much more balanced it is.  

Is it possible to get that program started again? What would it take?

I would need to look at the testing system that our webmaster created to try to work out how it operated as there is no manual and I haven’t used the system for perhaps 10+ years.
But just as important is access to completed scenarios, we really need WDS to host the scenarios in the relevant titles just as they did for my Dime scenario, so that is a conversation we should have with them before restarting IMO.