Rating scenarios without any self reflection

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Chris,

Nice thoughts. But, I think "the designer" came here and made comments already? ;)

'Cross of Lorraine' was your design?

Maybe we can start a thread titled "When Scenario Designers Attack!" :curse:
Followed by "When players offer honest opinions based on their personal preferences." :2guns: :scare:

It isn't too hard to accept a little criticism? :pullhair:

[majog]

I just cannot contain myself on this one.... I have designed over 150 scn's and co-designed another 25 or more with Chema. I never one took any critique personally. Yes there have been a few this sucks or it is unbalanced but I take it with a grain of salt. Not many wish to spend weeks or months play testing the same scn again and again. It is even harder to get others to provide valid feed back on scn's and the changes that need to be made. Much of the time that feedback is critical to balance a scn or to make it playable for the masses.

When play testing with Jumbo, it was a major challenge to get it balanced because of how great a player he is. We had to go to a mirrored play approach and see how we each did and discuss the changes in detail. I have had some very harsh critism from some of the play testers that felt it was not realistic enough, historically accurate enough, or just plain fun enough. Some when away and pouted or became abusive if I did not implement their exact changes. In the end I am doing this for the 1400 good eggs on this brd and not the 4-5 :censored: holes.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion and even to be passionate about it. In a resent debate Huib was pretty passionate if I remember correctly and although I did not agree with his opinions 100% I did read them all and would fight all day for his right to voice them even if they did come across strong. The ranking and comments area for scn's is no different. Everyone has their idea of fun and some are more passionate and critical than others. If I let those few get to me then the 1400 other members would never benefit from the efforts of myself and others and DGVN among other new work would never exist.

Take it with a grain of salt and have another beer. Things always look better through the bottom end of a beer mug.

j

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Jorge,

I'll stand up for the right of all the 1,405 to express themselves. :smoke:
Though, in this instance, we are referring to an established game that went through vetting?
When you talk about providing feedback on a scenario under development I found that a lot of "testers" wanted to tell the designer what he wanted to hear, more than to offer that constructive criticism that could improve the product. :rolleyes: I guess designers listen as much as they want to or can listen? :conf:

Adversity creates a fertile field for growth? It's up to the person who experiences the adversity to see the opportunity to grow and not just to see a field full of :censored:! :chin:

[Hobbes]

Chris,

Nice thoughts. But, I think "the designer" came here and made comments already? ;)

'Cross of Lorraine' was your design?

Maybe we can start a thread titled "When Scenario Designers Attack!" :curse:
Followed by "When players offer honest opinions based on their personal preferences." :2guns: :scare:

It isn't too hard to accept a little criticism? :pullhair:

I'm not sure I understand this post so I will attempt to reply to each point.

1. Nice thoughts. But, I think "the designer" came here and made comments already? ;)

Yes but we can be defused by allowing us to vent on the ratings notes should such a thing be possible - my main response being to Huibs comments two years ago ironically (which I'm still itching to counter).

2. 'Cross of Lorraine' was your design?

Yep. eek?

3. Maybe we can start a thread titled "When Scenario Designers Attack!"

We are attacking! (but we hope meeting engagements are OK with everyone?)

4. It isn't too hard to accept a little criticism? :pullhair:

It's not hard to accept criticism. What is hard is when there is no forum to allow a response. I did respond to Huib's critic of 'Cross of Lorraine' on these forums but that is long gone - what remains is his
critic of the scenario on the ratings notes - that I would love to be able to post a response to!

Cheers, Chris

[Herr Straße Laufer]

I was trying, with a little levity, to point out that the scenario rating system is for the "players" of the scenarios. :)
I really can't see allowing the designers to come in and rank on the people who are answering the questions openly and honestly giving opinions. I thought the H2H development area was for that interplay? :eek1:
The questions are; how would you rate the scenario for enjoyment and balance. The addition of the comments area was for open ended comments about the players experience in the game?
If the designer wanted a full blown treatise on what made the game "good" or "bad" then that would defeat the purpose of the comments box?
If a designer wants my opinion and wishes to get an e-mail or private message that goes into detail, I can do that too!

I'm old school here. I did not care much for the change to the new rating system. It was much easier without the comment box. :stir:

Concerning Cross of Lorraine ... :chin: I lost it from both sides. My opponents got to report and comment on the scenario. :cantswim:

[Mike Abberton]

Concerning Cross of Lorraine ... :chin: I lost it from both sides. My opponents got to report and comment on the scenario. :cantswim:

Hey, Ed. I think we draw'ed on Cross of Lorraine, but I can't remember who posted the result. ;)

[Herr Straße Laufer]

LOL! Was it a draw? :chin:
It felt like a loss for me. :rolleyes:

I might have been shell shocked? :smoke:

Hey Mike, I have an open slot if you want to pick out a scenario. I'm "Matrixed up" and am ready to go!

[Hobbes]

"I was trying, with a little levity, to point out that the scenario rating system is for the "players" of the scenarios.
I really can't see allowing the designers to come in and rank on the people who are answering the questions openly and honestly giving opinions."

Ranking on players wasn't my idea for this. I just hoped that designers could put a point of view if they would like to respond. They may agree and learn from
constructive critisism. I also say this with some levity - but that doesn't always seem to come out well on boards. If we were all down the local pub I'm
sure we could have a much easier discussion about this! (In fact I bet it would be a great night - message boards are fine things but it would be wonderful to
all meet up together if the logistical problems were not so large).

As an example I have had several email conversations with Huib in the past couple of days about his critic of 'Cross of Lorraine' :-

"It is obvious the designer put a lot of work in this one. The engagement and the scale of it are well chosen. The scenario itself needs work. The main shortcomings at the moment are. -Low objective values and some of them seem irrationally placed on irrelevant hexes or on top of bunkers. -Mines in trenches and trenches in roads, the latter hampering movement severely. The main issue however seems to me that the scenario was not made with topographical map sources. Consequence of that is that the placement of the hedgerows seems guesswork, giving the scn a somewhat 'constructed' feel. A touch up of the map with topo sources might change all that and together with different use of objective hexes and values can make this scn a potential 4 or 5 stars. It is my experience that it is usually the map that makes the scenario."

I won't go into detail about the objective values - that would make a good pub conversation. What did make me want to respond was the "not made with topographical map sources" comment.
It was made with topographical map sources. I used both accurate maps from the time and aerial photographs. However an argument could be made about how many hedgerows should
be put into a 250 meter hex. The scale of the game does make this sort of desicion fairly abstract and up to the designer. Mines in trenches and trenches in roads (there were not many) were
there to give a feel for German trenches left with booby traps and mines and the few trenches on roads to slow down the game to give a feel for the actual speed of advance.

I just give this as an example as to how a designer might like to respond. We spend months on some of these scenarios and it would be nice to be able to give the reasons
for certain aspects of the design.

I appreciate Huib taking the time to post detailed comments. Huib knows what he is doing and is a very experienced designer. He has helped me a lot in the last few years in various ways
and I take no offence from his comments. I do think it would make us designers happier though if we could post our views. If we could I think Huib could post a counter to a comment
and we would all be happy people! :)

Cheers, Chris

[Von Earlmann]

I will only come close to being happy when the halftrack debate is completely settled :-)

[Hobbes]

We love the halftrack debate! It keeps the club going :)