ME - Constructive Feedback.....I hope!

[Tiger 88]

First off - let me start this by stating up front that in NO WAY am I trying to put this game down!  My goals are this:

1.  Let Jason and Team know how several of us Blitz members feel
2.  Have our voices be heard
3.  Provide constructive feedback

So lets just say that I have been around the Blitz for a long time...have played many (maybe too many) scenarios, and have jumped into the ME Game since it's release and patches.  I also have played a few games with Jason, as well as supported the ME Tourney.

I do not know off the top of my head how many games I have played, but it is relevant and there have been several games that I and my opponent have totally enjoyed, but there are many, let me stress many that we have not enjoyed due to predominately one sided advantages.

I also have played many scenarios where the games were NOT reported - truly due to a lack of interest as the story goes..."here's another one that is un-playable".  I will be the 1st to say shame on me for not posting or commenting or providing the feedback necessary back to Jason as I am sure he and several of his team monitor the actions on the ME scenario board.  I due take responsibility for my in-actions!

Case in hand....only current ME game that I have going and we now are just calling it a draw due to the severe in-balance of one side vs the other...this is a 60 turn scenario and we are calling it around 16 or 17.  It is called "Sharon's Quagmire (Israel the attacker and Egypt the defender) - I am playing as the defender...the force mix is so out of control - Tank vs Tank and foot vs foot, but I guess the thought was to give the Egyptians some AT guns and of course ground forces that can kill a tank (RPg's etc) to overcome the onslaught.  I do have the terrain as my advantage but at the end of the day the game is fuitle from my perspective.  

Please read this excerpt from my opponent on the game after he and I decided this one should be wrapped up:

"Steve: We have played allot of ME scenarios & while some were fun (Shlomo , Hot Knife & Centurions, hmmm...) some like this one are lopsided. The Israelis have another two para brigade with tanks coming & while you have shredded the two on the board now, two more may tip things right over. Lets go ahead & call this one a draw. Another guy that I have played - well we started playing ME when it first came out & we found the scenarios were very lopsided (especially Israeli Shermans against most Arab 50s tanks). But due to this imbalance and other issues, He has since  stopped playing ME altogether. I hung on as I'm an old time AH Arab-Israeli Wars player who spend many years finding ways for the Arabs to win in that lopsided game. To me, the real problem is like you say: who ever play tested these scenarios were not very good players or play tested them in haste."

For me and my buddies who love the game and units and all that you offer - the H2H scenarios are not well tested from our perspective.

In looking at the ME games played I offer this:

Scenarios played at least once:

Rankings from 1 to 6 = 24 or 44%
Ranked as a 7 (neutral for me) = 11  or 20% (7 to 7.49 = 5, 7.5 to 7.99 = 6)
Rankings from 8 to 10 = 20 or 36%
Total Reported Games = 55

Now let me do a little more math if I include the games ranked as a 7 - those that are ranked 7 to 7.49 get placed in the 1-6 ranking section bringing the total there to 29 or now 53% of all games reported as basically un-playable.  Putting the other 6 into the 8 to 10 bucket, the total goes to 26 or now 47% of all games reported are playable.

Jason and team - I truly love the game and units and maps - but the games thus far are just not playable.

IMO - there is only one way to fix this and that is to make sure that ALL games H2H are play-tested to the nth degree.  Grant you some of the games reported I am sure are not the stock scenarios - but my gut says the majority are from the ME game we all purchased.

Thanks for reading and let me know if there is anything I can do to help make this game greater!!

Steve...aka Tiger 88

[Scud]

Well said and I have to concur. I like the game, but not too many of the scenarios, so far. I'm never sure if it's my inferior play or the scenarios, but when I can easily beat players who I have a tough time against playing proven WF and EF scenarios, then I have to conclude it's untested scenarios. I played a couple where it was impossible for one or the other side to win, based on the point totals of the objectives. The side with the advantage just had to limit his engagement.

I should have made a note of which ones as well, but all but a couple were reported.

What the game sure could use are some good EF and WF designers stepping in.

ME, like all the CS games, is a lot of fun when done right.

Dave

[Crossroads]

Guys, thanks for your feedback!

You raise several good points here. Let me comment on some of them.

First, I am not sure I agree "7" us unplayable, but regardless, like you point out, there's no substitution for play testing things over and over again. And then again. My kudos to CSME play testing team, who small in number did quite an effort in playing all games over. CSME was always a leap of faith, initially there was not much interest, but then again, it was chosen indeed  for that reason too: we wanted to give the new game engine a thorough work over before moving to the most popular of WW2 theathers of war. 

By the way: when reporting games to ladder, please make detailed comments there as well, or post here, or drop us an email - you know who we are! There's always the next update were things can be improved upon.

As you guys also point out, Arab-Israeli wars can at times be most difficult to model properly. Most battles resulted in most lopsided results. Even those can be balanced of course better, by using various techniques so hopefully not only by adjusting victory levels, although in some cases that is something that is left as perhaps the only option. With Event Engine now available as of CSME 2.0 and especially as something that will be available for scenario design from scratch with VN, EF, WF etc, hopefully that will be a tool to balance things out even more. Then kill rations and objective captures won't be the only tool, but it is possible to award event points during the scenario as well. For instance holding a certain area until a certain turn can be awarded. 

Finally, this:

IMO - there is only one way to fix this and that is to make sure that ALL games H2H are play-tested to the nth degree.  Grant you some of the games reported I am sure are not the stock scenarios - but my gut says the majority are from the ME game we all purchased.

Thanks for reading and let me know if there is anything I can do to help make this game greater!!

As we move on, hopefully we'll see a lot of you guys available to Beta Brigade to test the new games out! There's certainly more lop-sided battles to come, think only of the first months of Barbarossa... I've been reading a lot of contemporary books on both Fall Gelb / France 1940, and of course Barbarossa. How on earth to model the excellent German results, when they, tank-to-tank for instance, did not really have any advantages. The massive Soviet tank losses were often the result of their lack of knowledge of combined arms for one, but also, they were most suspect to technical malfunctions due to substandard service, often ran out of fuel and ammo. France, on the other hand: the French were using their tanks in piecemeal fashion, how to make that happen in a game with the player having a god-view to everything.

So yes, please join in for the coming testing efforts! Also, do expect to see some changes to game-engine with new optional rules as well. Artillery needs a complete overhaul, C&C needs to be made even more punishing, and who knows maybe something to model even better the difficulties in supply. Although for latter, that can now be handled with Events Engine, as supply for one can be made to change dynamically now.

[Crossroads]

For instance: how would you model a platoon of tanks where the tank type was with only a three-person crew? With tank leader often having the role of being the gunner too, they found it very difficult to keep track of how things played out in the dynamic battle field.

Should those tanks be able to fire only once per turn, for instance?

Should it be possible to have a varying visibility depending per unit? A tank platoon at point should not be able to reconnoiter the landscape to same manner as a recce platoon for instance. So perhaps instead of having a different visibility, should their capability to see other units be different? Like a further modifier to current concealment calculations?

[fritzfarlig]

The campaign series Middle East should have been made as East West Cold War with the Middle East conflict as a side show. but I have it all new with CS is good news I appreciate that there are people who want to spend time and effort to develop the game

[Crossroads]

Fritzfarligt: there’s a proper Cold War game planned for, once the VN and EF games are out. CSME will continue its own path, with an Iraq-Iran War DLC add-on at some stage.

[Tiger 88]

"First, I am not sure I agree "7" us unplayable, but regardless"

First off - thanks for the comments...

To be clear - I said that for me a "7" was neutral but those games from 7 to 7.49 I did lump into the - non-playable, but also gave credit to the 7.5 to 7.99 as playable.

I agree too that when the time comes for play-testers that many of us will "step-up" to answer the call - it is really the only way to make the actual games/scenarios playable and makes customers want to buy what your selling!

[Jason Petho]

Thank you for the feedback, it is really appreciated.

Details of the scenarios that you provided above is very helpful.

The key to Sharon's Quagmire is a fighting withdrawal and blowing the bridges before the Israeli's can capture them. If they capture them, it's all downhill for the Egyptians. If they don't, it's all downhill for the Israeli's.

[Three63]

I'd rather have real battles then a majority of scns. that are talior made for PBEM and are more fantasy then real situations, battles that occured. The battles are just a result of real life formations and wars. I'd say adjust the victory point level for certain games, add to each game when selecting a discription if it's PBEM worthy or not, add more type tourney games and what if? scns., and give players a choice between real life battles and balanced games for PBEM. That way everyone can be happy. I'm just glad this game exists! I like ME better then the WF, EF, RS games because of the setting and wars between the IDF and everyone else. THeir the biggest wars in near modern times.

[Boisforas]

Boisforas here, adding my humble opinions to those of Steves. I see the same problems with ME in the Avalon Hill game Arab Israeli Wars: lopsided scenarios. To me this was due to lack of proper playtesting, not that the play testers were bad players as much that they were not as imaginative as the best player in the game. Case(or two) in point: Jason mentions bridge blowing in the Quagmire scenario as a way to channel the Israeli attacks away from the best routes forward, but the Israelis are supplied with bridge building units which, if used properly would negate the Egyptians bridge blowing. Indeed, when I started my assaults on the bridges & found their defenses very tough, I began looking for the best bridging sites. But by that time(7 turns in)I had eroded the Egyptian forces to as point where they could no longer defend the huge expanse of open terrain along the main river barrier. Another glitch myself & another opponent found early  playing ME was the ease in which Israeli Sherman tanks burned when going toe to toe with almost any Arab tank in the 50 & 60s(not to mention AMX 13s). Now this should force an Israeli player to be very discerning with his armor dispositions but there comes a time in every battle against an aggressive player where one has to be able to go toe to toe, or at least at a distance advantage which against Centurions, T-62s & even SU-100s that isn't there. Yet in reality, Israeli Shermans almost always beat up their Arab opponents(Egyptian, Syrian & Jordanian). I agree that the game system, the design lay out of the boards & the detailed OOBs are superb but the scenarios almost all need to be restructured as to VPs, objectives & in some cases, unit abilities up grade. I hope the above is taken in a good light as I really like playing ME as I think its a quantitative leap over AV's Arab Israeli Wars, I game I really like for its potential. I just don't like to swim the English channel in an iron lung. Eric