Feature requests

[GerryM]

Some on here have played PzC games for more than a decade probably. I wonder are they resistant to change because of this, i.e. they have the mechanics down plus it doesn't matter how many clicks it takes as they have managed very large scenarios in say PzC games. I hope the developers will listen to new players of PzB and improve a system that is already strong in many ways. The UI is not one of those.

[ComradeP]

Units will lose the opportunity fire settings if spotted and will revert to normal AI control for defensive fire purposes.  This is as intended.  The player does not have a fine control over units engaged in the defensive fire against their opponent.  Such control would render PBEM file exchanges impossible.

But as you don't know when/if a unit is spotted, or feels it's spotted, it also means you can't be sure if opportunity fire works.

There are other oddities in the system that make me suspect the system might sometimes "reset" a unit by accident. Artillery defensive fire seems to be more frequent when there are fewer units around: Axis Nebelwerfers in a scenario like Authie or Carpiquet seem to fire more often than our artillery did in 5th of July. In Ozerovskii, single Soviet tank units fired more often than a broken down Panzer battalion. When it happens once, I'd say it's randomness, but there does seem to be something odd going on. It seems to work normally for infantry units, but not for gun and vehicle units. It might just be an impression, I'll run some tests at some point.

Regardless of the results setting you have selected, if your opponent has on-map results turned off, you'll get that as well.

A more clear OOB dialog would be helpful, particularly knowing how many men are actually on-map. The OOB dialog only shows units of a certain size, and it doesn't show HQ's, which can be confusing as HQ's can also be combat units in the game. That's my main problem with it: the strength totals don't add up with what it actually shows, as some units are hidden.

[Dog Soldier]

But as you don't know when/if a unit is spotted, or feels it's spotted, it also means you can't be sure if opportunity fire works.

The team discussed this extensively in testing Kursk.  Why would you know if one of your units was spotted?  Should the enemy spotting unit raise a flag that says I see you?

This is just one of the things in battle you just cannot be sure of knowing.  FOW.  I think it is really cool that this uncertainty exists in the game as it leads the player to make decisions from a position of uncertainty.  Just like a real commander. 

There are other oddities in the system that make me suspect the system might sometimes "reset" a unit by accident. Artillery defensive fire seems to be more frequent when there are fewer units around: Axis Nebelwerfers in a scenario like Authie or Carpiquet seem to fire more often than our artillery did in 5th of July. In Ozerovskii, single Soviet tank units fired more often than a broken down Panzer battalion. When it happens once, I'd say it's randomness, but there does seem to be something odd going on. It seems to work normally for infantry units, but not for gun and vehicle units. It might just be an impression, I'll run some tests at some point.

You are comparing apples and oranges.  Not a fair contrast.
Nebelwerfers in PzB Normandy #0607_02_Authie: 12th SS Riposte are A quality.  Nebelwerfers in PzB Kursk 0705_01 II SS PzK - July 5: SS Attack are all A quality.
Soviet regular army heavy artillery in PzB Kursk 0705_01 II SS PzK - July 5: SS Attack are D quality.  Soviet guards rockets and heavy artillery are C quality.
Naturally the A quality artillery will fire more often than the C & D quality artillery will.

#0704_01: Carpiquet - Operation Windsor the Nebelwerfers are C quality.  The battlefield is smaller than in 0705_01 II SS PzK July 5 SS Attack so maybe this plays into having more targets as the Allied units cannot spread out as much.

Or it may be be your instinct is misleading you about artillery firing more often in one scenario than in another.  I thought such things before when playing test PzB Kursk games with Strela.  I thought he was pounding me and later found out he thought I had the upper hand.  It can be hard to tell, which is a good FOW IMHO.  In testing such things I found no hard data to support such intuitions.

If you were thinking my German Nebelwerfers were not firing much in our game of 0705_01 II SS PzK - July 5: SS Attack, that is because I set their opportunity fire to Never at different times to keep them from being found by the counter battery fire OR.  During the entire 38 turns of the game, I got exactly the results I wanted and never had any problem with my artillery firing off in defensive fire if the opportunity fire for a battery where it was turned off .  So, I am having a hard time believing it is the game system here that is at fault.

BTW, for those not familiar with PzB Kursk 0705_01 II SS PzK July 5 SS Attack scenario, there are a lot of Axis Nebelwerfers units in that scenario.  I think about 10 different batteries of Nebelwerfers.  Not a problem with their opportunity fire orders from my POV in my  game with ComradeP.

Regardless of the results setting you have selected, if your opponent has on-map results turned off, you'll get that as well.

That is the same as in any PBEM game of PzC or SB.  It is a newbie error in PBEM with these games systems.  I just let a new player know this and they turn on the on map results.  Having the fire results dialog turned on is mostly for people playing the AI to test things out.  That is a common social norm here at the Blitz.  No worries if someone new does it.  Even a veteran can forget once in a while if they were playing some with the function in an AI game, then loaded a PBEM game.  The setting would carry over.  In such a case most people turn off the dialog and return to on map results pretty quickly in their turn.  I do not see that as a big deal at all.

Dog Soldier

[Strela]

Some on here have played PzC games for more than a decade probably. I wonder are they resistant to change because of this, i.e. they have the mechanics down plus it doesn't matter how many clicks it takes as they have managed very large scenarios in say PzC games. I hope the developers will listen to new players of PzB and improve a system that is already strong in many ways. The UI is not one of those.

Hi All,

The petitions regarding UI and reporting is noted.

I'm mulling over some requests for John that may allow us to improve the UI without requiring a huge amount of coding.

One example is Wiggum's request for an improved strength dialog (possibly a review of all reporting) another is GerryM's 'hover' function. The 'hover' function would be an optional interface choice where placing the mouse cursor over a stack will show the units in the stack. This is akin to selecting a hex and hitting 'space'. When the feature is activated, holding the mouse over the hex for a few seconds would open up a listing of the contents of the hex - without requiring a click.

As far as ComradeP's request for 'Arrive All', I mentioned that to John and will follow up. DogSoldier is right - there will be defensive fire and I can think of a few ways that could be handled including stopping the Arrive All process when a unit is fired on. A player can then restart the process until it is completed or interrupted again.

Finally, I want to see what enhancements John has done for his handheld games to see if there is anything we can lift from there. Please keep in mind that John is a one man band who codes everything himself and that means every change needs a solid justification and prioritisation.

That said, with new players joining the Tiller family we need to make things as simple as possible.

David

[ComradeP]

You are comparing apples and oranges.  Not a fair contrast.
Nebelwerfers in PzB Normandy #0607_02_Authie: 12th SS Riposte are A quality.  Nebelwerfers in PzB Kursk 0705_01 II SS PzK - July 5: SS Attack are all A quality.
Soviet regular army heavy artillery in PzB Kursk 0705_01 II SS PzK - July 5: SS Attack are D quality.  Soviet guards rockets and heavy artillery are C quality.
Naturally the A quality artillery will fire more often than the C & D quality artillery will.

Are you sure about that? The manual documents no quality modifier for opportunity fire, and I have been asking for one of those for Kursk to help the Axis when facing large numbers of enemy tanks, but now you're saying it's in the game? I'm sceptical if that's correct, I haven't seen clear evidence supporting it thus far.

The team discussed this extensively in testing Kursk.  Why would you know if one of your units was spotted?  Should the enemy spotting unit raise a flag that says I see you?

This is just one of the things in battle you just cannot be sure of knowing.  FOW.  I think it is really cool that this uncertainty exists in the game as it leads the player to make decisions from a position of uncertainty.  Just like a real commander. 

I agree with the design choice that there's uncertainty, that isn't the problem. What might cause issues is that we also don't know if a unit "feels" it's being spotted, which might explain why it starts firing. All I know is that I've seen artillery units set to Never at some point fire later on without my intervention, so I'm trying to figure out what could be causing that.

[Strela]

I agree with the design choice that there's uncertainty, that isn't the problem. What might cause issues is that we also don't know if a unit "feels" it's being spotted, which might explain why it starts firing. All I know is that I've seen artillery units set to Never at some point fire later on without my intervention, so I'm trying to figure out what could be causing that.

I think I may know what is causing this.

A unit that is recon spotted may begin to fire in it's own defense from that point on - despite being unaware it has been recon spotted. This only happens when a ground based recon does the spotting (not recon aircraft). This will happen even if the fire range is set to never. It will only fire at a unit in it's LOS from my experience to date

I talked this through with John and he was concerned that by forcing a unit to maintain the never status after being spotted might create some screwy situations. The assumption was that usually once spotted a unit would be fired on and it would normally drop the op fire rating.

DogSoldier you can test this with the Kursk test file I sent you today...

David

[wiggum]

Another idea for a UI improvement:

More shortcut icons !

I think you can safely assume that 95%+ of the players use a widescreen monitor.
There is a lot of unused space on the right side so why not place a few more shortcut icons ?
Stuff like "Shade->Maximum Range", "Hex Outlines", "Special Markers On Top"...

[wiggum]

Now that we have a feature request thread i will post this again:

As it looks there is no indication on the counter itself if a unit is DISRUPTED or not, unlike as with the BROKEN status were there is a indicator. I dont know why it is this way but i think this should be changed to allow a graphic indicator on the counter of a DISRUPTED unit too. It pretty important to know when and which enemy unit is DISRUPTED.

As i have shown with my modified artwork the indicator for a BROKEN unit can be made i such a way that he is even visible if another counter (unit) is above, see the screenshot below (Note, this already works ingame):
(see dark red bar)


Now if it would be possible to use a indicator for a DISRUPTED unit, it could look like this (Note, this does currently NOT work ingame):
(see dark yellow bar on the same spot as the dark-red one in the above screenshot)


This way you could quickly spot which of your own and more importantly which enemy units are Disrupted.
I dont know why this has section of the 2DSymbols file has been deactivated (or overwritten) anyway, it could just as well be left blank.

Should be a VERY easy fix, hope that gets included into the next patch !

[Strela]

If I was going to adjust the Broken and Disrupted symbology (after including Disrupted), I'd probably put the state indicator below the counter as that is still obvious in a stack and won't get confused with the unit type on the left hand side.

Image 1 - Broken (if done I would probably remove the 'giant B')
Image 2 - Broken in travel mode
Image 3 - Broken in a stack
Image 4 - Possible Disrupted indicator

David

 









David

[Dog Soldier]

You are comparing apples and oranges.  Not a fair contrast.
Nebelwerfers in PzB Normandy #0607_02_Authie: 12th SS Riposte are A quality.  Nebelwerfers in PzB Kursk 0705_01 II SS PzK - July 5: SS Attack are all A quality.
Soviet regular army heavy artillery in PzB Kursk 0705_01 II SS PzK - July 5: SS Attack are D quality.  Soviet guards rockets and heavy artillery are C quality.
Naturally the A quality artillery will fire more often than the C & D quality artillery will.

Are you sure about that? The manual documents no quality modifier for opportunity fire, and I have been asking for one of those for Kursk to help the Axis when facing large numbers of enemy tanks, but now you're saying it's in the game? I'm sceptical if that's correct, I haven't seen clear evidence supporting it thus far.

Absolutely! I am sure that there is no quality modifier for opportunity fire, but there is a behavior that lower rated artillery fires less often.  Why?  The lower quality rating reflects a lower rate of fire, less than adequate communications with spotters and overall less effective fire control.

This is all just my guess from years of playing.  FWIW, if I assume in my defensive plans that lower quality artillery is not to be expected to give timely defensive fire, then if it does I am ahead of the game so to speak.  I build a defense in this case that would rely more on the unlimited direct fire of the ground units.

Or the defense can hunker down and pray for rain.  

Dog Soldier