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Post by dohboy on Oct 27, 2019 14:13:26 GMT -6
I don't want to come of too negative, and I am not trying to insult the "team". This is a complicated game with countless variables interacting with each other. A big job for, from my understanding, one guy to accomplish. Fredrick W has done a great job and I am thankful that he has put this effort into a game that I have high hopes for, but...
I tried out a game as the US starting in 1900. The breakage is more evident than the fixes.
Invasion is still completely screwed. Spend vast resources just to get 'margin of superiority' messages repeatedly when the enemy is outnumbered 20-1. Meanwhile the enemy gets to decline invasions against me in battles in areas where I outnumber them, some in areas that aren't supposed to be valid for invasion. I had the French trying to invade somewhere around South Carolina one battle...
There needs to be an option to force the invasion, with appropriate penalties to prestige and unrest for a failed attempt. Give me a dialogue with the option to threaten to shoot these cowards and replace them before the gold runs out. The penalties could vary depending on the form of government and national moral values modifier. Not an uncommon practice in Imperial Japan or Communist Russia, somewhat less common in the representative republic democracyish thing US (and a bit of a scandal, unless you can call them a closet commie). It's a spectrum kind of thing, just to give you more variables to play around with.
CAP is still a crappy crap shoot. Making this issue worse still, the scout force bug has been "fixed", so I often have 2 forces with their asses in the breeze instead of 1. It might make sense if the separate scout force wasn't used for carrier battles.
The spawn locations are a major issue. In many battles my forces started out a major distance from the enemy when I had carriers, just like the release notes told me to expect. But the weather prohibited flight operations and time ran out before we could possibly have come into visual distance. The time limit before the battle ends because of not sighting the enemy should be nixed on the carrier battles where the starting distance has increased.
Another spawn glitch I noticed multiple times in convoy defense battles was my forces starting 25 miles away and the enemy spawning inside the convoy, like our starting positions got swapped. The convoy got completely destroyed before I had spotted the enemy. A few times my forces were spread out over a 750+ mile area, with nobody close to the merchants I'm supposed to protect. When you are trying to protect a convoy north of Haiti, and your scout is 120 miles from the flag division down by Port au Prince, and your support carriers are against the Venezuelan coast (the eastern end), something is seriously wrong.
Enough ramblings and mutterings. I hope 1.12 ends the famine.
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Post by sittingduck on Oct 27, 2019 17:19:18 GMT -6
Ditto most of the above...
Just finished second convoy escort in a row and both spawned my units at almost 36 miles from the convoy. Spawning seems to be in need of another look from the Dev's in 1.11.
Also, where does the AI Treaty indication appear. Have had two instances where Alliances were formed and applied against me but I didn't see any thing different than in previous versions of RTW2.
Thanks.
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Post by vainglory on Oct 28, 2019 1:14:32 GMT -6
I have to +1 this. I bought the game less than two weeks ago and my experiences range from "brilliant" to "exasperating". On the positive side, this is the sort of game I've wanted to play for years; I bought "Distant Guns: Jutland" at release looking for something like this. Every few years something reignites my fascination with the Dreadnought arms race and I reinstall Jutland, forgetting how broken it is, and then give up in disappointment. A game where I get to design the ships, with all the limitations that produce the sub-optimal designs like the original Dreadnought (wing turrets and no superimposed turrets), then build them, maintain them, and replace them, and all the long-term planning, it's exactly what I wanted every time I got keen on the subject. I adore the game in many ways and recommend it to my friends who also love this stuff.
On the other hand, there are things that almost ruin the game for me. I am getting a persistent bug when a battle is starting that presents an error message and the battle doesn't happen - I've been meaning to screenshot it and make a bug report. There are minor things, like there's a bug if you try to view the "fate" of submarines, that I can entirely forgive: it's a deep game with a small design team. But the worst aspects seem to be strange design choices that just aren't enjoyable for the player. The invasion system might be the foremost among them. I've had situations where after more than a year the invasion still hadn't launched, despite having a huge fleet allocated to it, which meant elsewhere I wasn't conducting operations that would be helping improve my situation.
I actually think I might have found part of the reason for the maddening "uncertain margin of superiority" messages. It seems that if the enemy has a type of ship present that you can't match, the total margin doesn't matter. So if the enemy has a single CL present and you don't then the invasion can't happen. I read the entire RTW1 manual (I found it will searching for more info and ended up reading it even though the RTW2 manual is obviously in the game folder), and I've been through the RTW2 manual and seen nothing about it. My observation was that I kept getting "friendly ships unavailable to oppose the enemy" messages even though I massively outnumbered them. Eventually I realized that most battles pit the same sorts of ships against each other, so a destroyer action will normally have DD and KE from both sides, but nothing larger, where "cruiser" battles often pit say CAs against each other, and normally you only get "mismatches" when the enemy say has BCs in the area and you don't. I didn't build CLs in my current game, and I realized I was getting that message when the enemy had CLs present and I didn't, even though I had many more ships of every other type available. Once I built CLs I didn't get that message anymore. I found that the "uncertain margin of superiority" message operated similarly: when I had a huge fleet with BBs, B, BC, CA, and DD present and the enemy had a tiny handful of vessels specifically including CL then I got the message. Once I had CLs and sent them into the area the "uncertain margin" message stopped. I had the same experience with AMC where moving in CAs fixed it, and I had it with CVL when I had BB, BC, CV, CA, CL, DD, and AV present but no CVLs in inventory. It is possible that I am entirely wrong and confirmation bias is at work, but so far every time I've had situations like 124 points to 4 but "uncertain margin of superiority" once I matched the missing "type" (where AMCs seem to count as CA and CL counts separate type from DD or CA and CVL different from CV) I stopped getting those messages. I did some Google searching and found nothing to corroborate my experiences though.
If I'm right, then it would be nice to have that spelled out somewhere in the manual. I found it very frustrating to have the enemy gain hundreds of VP each time "friendly forces unavailable" occurred, despite me having an enormously larger fleet that was superior in every way (or so it seemed to me). If I had known I had to have CL present to match CL I'd wouldn't have stopped building them; I deemed them unsuitable for my fleets since my DDs are built to close and unleash torrents of torpedoes, which necessarily means high loss rates, and CLs were no more likely to survive charging into the teeth of capital ships, nor provided significantly more tubes, while they cost about four times as much. Equally, I'd probably have had many more successful invasions if I'd realized I needed to "match" types, whereas the rules just say "4:1" margin of superiority. I was very frustrated by this and couldn't fathom why the game didn't do what the designers said it would do, I was so disenchanted with the blocked invasions and losing hundreds of VP for being unable to fight the enemy when I had entire battlefleets sitting right there, that I almost gave up on playing.
I did find that once I'd installed the latest patch that quite a few of the problems went away; I've become so accustomed to automatic patches that I forgot to even look for patches until I thought about submitting a bug report and then realized it had been patched already. Other things it took me several games before I learned how they worked - if I'd thought to look in the game folder first, which I should have, I would have avoided some other mistakes that I found quite annoying, like when all of the corvettes I'd just finished building disappeared (peace in the same turn the war-emergency KEs came off the slips). I wonder how many other people have experienced the same.
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Post by dizzy on Oct 28, 2019 3:20:56 GMT -6
Well, hold up just a sec, I actually am enjoying 1.11 more than the other patches. I'm really liking the distances being opened up. Taking time to be able to find the enemy fleet before they find me is nerve wracking, really ups the tension. So that's all good. And the other day the AI managed to sink one of my carriers. That's pretty rare the AI is able to do that to me. The AI keeps constant pressure on my carriers now. At one point most of my carriers were down due to bomb and torpedo hits and now I'll have to reassess the number of fighters I'm putting on my carriers. I think this is a good change and maybe the AI deserve a little more tweaking to make them more effective. And my torp planes don't drop all their torpedoes on KE's anymore. Those were the good ole days! So the tweaks they made seem to work and I'm liking all this so far.
Sure there are a few bugs to work out like you guys mentioning Invasions only work when they want to, they havent implemented a lot of quality of life features we have piled on them and you still can't copy to multiple airbases and Angled Flight Decks are still broken, but I really like a lot of the changes. It's rare I'm spawning on top of another scout force, that's annoying, but it's playable and fun. So yeah, some issues aside, I like the direction this is going.
I will say this, and I think this deserves discussion, the patch note for [1.11]: "Tweaked airstrike target selection so that they (your planes) will ignore non-carrier targets on their way to the specified target location." I like it and I don't. When I want to attack carriers, it's great. No more dumping their load at the first sign of some pretty ship, they'll fly on to the carrier and try and kill it. Love that! But when I want to attack a cluster of BB/BC targets, the planes just fly past them, get shot by CAP and then fly around a bit, and maybe they will attack something if they feel there's not a carrier anywhere nearby. That I dislike. I want them to attack those BB divisions like they pissed off a wasps nest. That's not what you get anymore and I miss the level of smack my coordinated strikes used to bring to the enemy line.
I really think there needs to be a column added to the Airstrike panel for all the planes that lets you select 'CV Priority', meaning that squadron will behave like the 1.11 patch, but I also just want them to bomb the hell out of the 1st capital ship they come across (that's not sitting dead in the water). Maybe I don't understand 'how' they implemented this patch, but it would be great to have the intended behavior explained to me. It'd still be nice to have a toggle to tell my squadrons what they should focus on. How cool would it be if you could select Cruiser class, Capital ships and Carriers as priority targets? That'd give us great tactical control. Would that be fair to the AI? But regardless how it's done, bomber squadrons just dont bomb the crap out of the enemy main divisions like they used to. Kinda sad about that.v
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Post by orkel on Oct 28, 2019 6:00:53 GMT -6
I think this deserves discussion, the patch note for [1.11]: "Tweaked airstrike target selection so that they (your planes) will ignore non-carrier targets on their way to the specified target location." I like it and I don't. When I want to attack carriers, it's great. No more dumping their load at the first sign of some pretty ship, they'll fly on to the carrier and try and kill it. Love that! But when I want to attack a cluster of BB/BC targets, the planes just fly past them, get shot by CAP and then fly around a bit, and maybe they will attack something if they feel there's not a carrier anywhere nearby. That I dislike. I want them to attack those BB divisions like they pissed off a wasps nest. That's not what you get anymore and I miss the level of smack my coordinated strikes used to bring to the enemy line. I really think there needs to be a column added to the Airstrike panel for all the planes that lets you select 'CV Priority', meaning that squadron will behave like the 1.11 patch, but I also just want them to bomb the hell out of the 1st capital ship they come across (that's not sitting dead in the water). I agree. I just had a battle where I sent my planes on an attack run and they went right over the enemy cluster of 6 BB/BCs. |
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Post by dohboy on Oct 28, 2019 6:19:58 GMT -6
I'm really liking the distances being opened up. Taking time to be able to find the enemy fleet before they find me is nerve wracking, really ups the tension. So that's all good. I do like the longer starting ranges, as long as there isn't a time limit for "no contact between fleets". If the scouts can't fly it is sometimes impossible to make contact in time. I don't even mind having my units spread across the entire Caribbean at the start of the battle, if they are separate forces. Having the subordinate units of one force spread out like that doesn't make sense, they need to be close enough to do their jobs. A support carrier 700 miles outside the range of it's fighters from the flag division is useless. |
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Post by janxol on Oct 28, 2019 10:33:01 GMT -6
I'm really liking the distances being opened up. Taking time to be able to find the enemy fleet before they find me is nerve wracking, really ups the tension. So that's all good. I do like the longer starting ranges, as long as there isn't a time limit for "no contact between fleets". If the scouts can't fly it is sometimes impossible to make contact in time. I don't even mind having my units spread across the entire Caribbean at the start of the battle, if they are separate forces. Having the subordinate units of one force spread out like that doesn't make sense, they need to be close enough to do their jobs. A support carrier 700 miles outside the range of it's fighters from the flag division is useless. That's a bug and it's not meant to be like this. It will get fixed. The dev team is limited in size and speed at which they can work and fixing one bug often causes or reveals another. It might be a moment untill all bugs are fixed (And we might get some new ones along the way), but they are getting worked on and they are getting fixed. |
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Post by dohboy on Oct 28, 2019 11:03:44 GMT -6
That's a bug and it's not meant to be like this. It will get fixed. The dev team is limited in size and speed at which they can work and fixing one bug often causes or reveals another. It might be a moment untill all bugs are fixed (And we might get some new ones along the way), but they are getting worked on and they are getting fixed. It's definitely a bug for units in the same force, but it makes a lot of sense for separate forces to have them dispersed around the area, especially if you have many possessions in the area that spread out your responsibilities. You shouldn't always be lucky enough to have all of your forces in a good position when the battle begins. |
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Post by cogsandspigots on Oct 28, 2019 13:34:14 GMT -6
Well, hold up just a sec, I actually am enjoying 1.11 more than the other patches. I'm really liking the distances being opened up. Taking time to be able to find the enemy fleet before they find me is nerve wracking, really ups the tension. So that's all good. And the other day the AI managed to sink one of my carriers. That's pretty rare the AI is able to do that to me. The AI keeps constant pressure on my carriers now. At one point most of my carriers were down due to bomb and torpedo hits and now I'll have to reassess the number of fighters I'm putting on my carriers. I think this is a good change and maybe the AI deserve a little more tweaking to make them more effective. And my torp planes don't drop all their torpedoes on KE's anymore. Those were the good ole days! So the tweaks they made seem to work and I'm liking all this so far. Sure there are a few bugs to work out like you guys mentioning Invasions only work when they want to, they havent implemented a lot of quality of life features we have piled on them and you still can't copy to multiple airbases and Angled Flight Decks are still broken, but I really like a lot of the changes. It's rare I'm spawning on top of another scout force, that's annoying, but it's playable and fun. So yeah, some issues aside, I like the direction this is going. I will say this, and I think this deserves discussion, the patch note for [1.11]: "Tweaked airstrike target selection so that they (your planes) will ignore non-carrier targets on their way to the specified target location." I like it and I don't. When I want to attack carriers, it's great. No more dumping their load at the first sign of some pretty ship, they'll fly on to the carrier and try and kill it. Love that! But when I want to attack a cluster of BB/BC targets, the planes just fly past them, get shot by CAP and then fly around a bit, and maybe they will attack something if they feel there's not a carrier anywhere nearby. That I dislike. I want them to attack those BB divisions like they pissed off a wasps nest. That's not what you get anymore and I miss the level of smack my coordinated strikes used to bring to the enemy line. I really think there needs to be a column added to the Airstrike panel for all the planes that lets you select 'CV Priority', meaning that squadron will behave like the 1.11 patch, but I also just want them to bomb the hell out of the 1st capital ship they come across (that's not sitting dead in the water). Maybe I don't understand 'how' they implemented this patch, but it would be great to have the intended behavior explained to me. It'd still be nice to have a toggle to tell my squadrons what they should focus on. How cool would it be if you could select Cruiser class, Capital ships and Carriers as priority targets? That'd give us great tactical control. Would that be fair to the AI? But regardless how it's done, bomber squadrons just dont bomb the crap out of the enemy main divisions like they used to. Kinda sad about that.v I would really like this option too. Sometimes I really want to hunt down the enemy carrier force and strike them before they can strike me, but sometimes the most pressing problem is a squadron of battleships bearing down on my fleet. Being able to switch before launching a strike would give more flexibility. |
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Post by Fredrik W on Oct 28, 2019 14:50:18 GMT -6
Thanks for the feedback. You all raise some valid points, and we are working on improving things that you point out. But please be patient, this is a very complex game now and lots of variables and parameters to juggle.
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Post by Fredrik W on Oct 28, 2019 15:49:03 GMT -6
Ditto most of the above... Just finished second convoy escort in a row and both spawned my units at almost 36 miles from the convoy. Spawning seems to be in need of another look from the Dev's in 1.11. Also, where does the AI Treaty indication appear. Have had two instances where Alliances were formed and applied against me but I didn't see any thing different than in previous versions of RTW2. Thanks. Hover the mouse over the tension bars for the AI treaty information. |
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Post by dohboy on Oct 28, 2019 18:14:21 GMT -6
Thanks for the feedback. You all raise some valid points, and we are working on improving things that you point out. But please be patient, this is a very complex game now and lots of variables and parameters to juggle. I've been in the bug hunting business, in PLC programs far simpler than what you are dealing with. One addition that seems simple can cock up the whole works because of variables you forgot were connected. I really do appreciate your time and effort in this endeavor. This game gives me more entertainment than the others I spend time with, and I am glad you are on the job. I am always quick to criticise, but I really am thankful that you are working on this and I don't want to discourage you. Carry on. |
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Post by dohboy on Oct 28, 2019 19:25:47 GMT -6
On the new CV priority for strikes, I have some mixed feelings on it. The first strike after the update I went about it in the habit my old experience showed worked best, cut it long rather than short. Ended up with aircraft loitering and doing nothing productive. The change definitely makes you try to play a few more moves ahead and visualize how the battle will develop. I kinda like the challenge that brings to the game, but it isn't very logical sometimes.
What I would like to see is a target preference list for each squadron when you launch. Check boxes that you can select so that the squadron will attack any selected units as soon as they are spotted. If none of the priority targets are spotted on the way to the designated location they will attack any target they see there or on the subsequent search pattern.
There are some instances where I want to target a specific type of ship. The most common example is in invasion battles where I am heavily outnumbered and a surface engagement is likely to leave me with grievous injury. If I could send my aircraft on targeted strikes against the transports, while keeping my ships out of the furball, I could defeat the invasion attempt without bleeding excessively.
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Post by sittingduck on Nov 6, 2019 18:51:30 GMT -6
Ditto most of the above... Just finished second convoy escort in a row and both spawned my units at almost 36 miles from the convoy. Spawning seems to be in need of another look from the Dev's in 1.11. Also, where does the AI Treaty indication appear. Have had two instances where Alliances were formed and applied against me but I didn't see any thing different than in previous versions of RTW2. Thanks. Hover the mouse over the tension bars for the AI treaty information. Fredrik, I apologize. I just saw the reply you'd made. It was my belief that you'd made a new display to indicate that two nations had formed a coalition against the player. I.e., that Germany and Great Britain had signed an agreement to stop the US's aggression. I thought there may have been a symbol like that which you see when you sign a treaty with another country. My misunderstanding. |
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