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Post by orkel on Jul 1, 2020 17:04:05 GMT -6
The developers seem to have a policy on vagueness or "lack of details" in the game which definitely is my biggest gripe with RTW2. This game is supposed to be a simulation for hardcore naval fans, and there is no such thing as too little detail.
We lack numbers and percentages, and many explanations. Especially the combat log of battle phase could be improved by more details.
It is likely a combination of "we don't want to confuse players with too many numbers" (which has no place in a hardcore simulation) and "we are afraid of others copying our game if we release details" (like reverse engineering algorithms)
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Post by noshurviverse on Jul 1, 2020 18:35:42 GMT -6
I think that the game seriously needs to directly explain some of its function (for example by showing a text when you point at some checkbox). For example the difference between armor schemes, ship range, effect of certain shell types, effect of deck park and deck edge lift, effect of a seaplane hangar, and many other things. Many of those things are explained too vaguely, some explanations "got lost" in the forum. The game (even RTW1, but especially RTW2) must be an absolute mess for a player that never played RTW game before. Per the manual: •Armour schemes ○Protected Cruisers Protected cruisers will be more vulnerable to hull and superstructure hits, as well as splinterdamage from near misses. Before you research light cruiser configuration, CLs must be protected cruisers. ○Belt and sloping deck This is the standard WW1 era armour configuration. These ships will have extra protection against shells penetrating the belt damaging their vitals. ○Flat deck on top of belt These ships will have a larger volume protected by the belt and deck, but lack the extra protection offered by the sloping deck behind the belt. Note: An "all or nothing" ship (once you have researched it) should have this kind or armour layout and no BE or DE armour. ○Narrow belt This saves weight but means that shells that would have hit the belt instead might hit BE or no armour at all. •Range ○Ships with long range will: * Have better chances to escape interception as raiders. * Better chances of sinking merchants if raiders. * Better chance of intercepting raiders. * Less risk of being interned or scuttled from lack of fuel. * More fuel when a scenario starts (rarely of importance). Ships with short range will be unsuitable as raiders and are less useful on foreign stations. Theyare also unable to move strategically during wartime, except between one home area and another. •Shell types ○Armour piercing shells (AP) should be used against heavily armoured ships. The penetrate armour and will explode inside the target. However, they have smaller explosive charges and will cause less damage than a high explosive shell. ○High explosive shells (HE) are not good at penetrating armour, but does cause lots of damage against unarmoured ships or unarmoured parts of enemy ships. They also have a higher chance of causing fires. ○Semi armour piercing (SAP) is a kind of in between HE and AP. •Seaplane hanger ○A seaplane carrier (or any ship) may be equipped with a seaplane hangar. The cost of this installation will vary depending on the number of floatplanes carried. A seaplane hangar will increase the serviceability of aircraft on the ship I wouldn't say it's a bad idea to have this information in-game, but I'd wonder just how much of it you could easily present to the player without the popup box basically just being a copy-paste of what's in the manual. The developers seem to have a policy on vagueness or "lack of details" in the game which definitely is my biggest gripe with RTW2. This game is supposed to be a simulation for hardcore naval fans, and there is no such thing as too little detail. We lack numbers and percentages, and many explanations. Especially the combat log of battle phase could be improved by more details. It is likely a combination of "we don't want to confuse players with too many numbers" (which has no place in a hardcore simulation) and "we are afraid of others copying our game if we release details" (like reverse engineering algorithms) I would honestly contest the idea that RtW is particularly "hardcore". Sure, it's alot more detailed than many naval games, but in many aspects it's quite simplistic.
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magnin
Junior Member
Posts: 77
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Post by magnin on Jul 2, 2020 3:01:55 GMT -6
I think that the game seriously needs to directly explain some of its function (for example by showing a text when you point at some checkbox). For example the difference between armor schemes, ship range, effect of certain shell types, effect of deck park and deck edge lift, effect of a seaplane hangar, and many other things. Many of those things are explained too vaguely, some explanations "got lost" in the forum. The game (even RTW1, but especially RTW2) must be an absolute mess for a player that never played RTW game before. I agree and I also think that the manual could be expanded. On many topics, you have to spend hours searching on the forums to find explanations. This is not really a time-effective way of learning, and yes, much info gets buried here. Now, I understand that if this a one-man company, there may be way too much work. How about asking volunteers to expand the manual, using answers on the forum ? Collaborative work.
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Post by dorn on Jul 2, 2020 4:24:49 GMT -6
I lost one thing playing RTW which I can never regain even if I liked it most.
The absence of knowledge, the beauty of finding what works and what does not. To be in similar position as real people in century ago trying something which does not work so good. Right now designing ships meaning deciding between variants which effects I know. I practically cannot be in position to decide between unknown.
This is the most beauty at all, trying again and again to design ship which suits best without knowledge how such ship will woks in certain situations and finding how often I am wrong. Right now I very good estimate how this design will perform in certain situations and even what type of situations could this design faced so probability I would design bad design is minimal.
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Post by noshurviverse on Jul 2, 2020 5:21:30 GMT -6
I lost one thing playing RTW which I can never regain even if I liked it most. The absence of knowledge, the beauty of finding what works and what does not. To be in similar position as real people in century ago trying something which does not work so good. Right now designing ships meaning deciding between variants which effects I know. I practically cannot be in position to decide between unknown. This is the most beauty at all, trying again and again to design ship which suits best without knowledge how such ship will woks in certain situations and finding how often I am wrong. Right now I very good estimate how this design will perform in certain situations and even what type of situations could this design faced so probability I would design bad design is minimal. This reflects a viewpoint I have. I find that the best time that I had with RtW was before I understood the ins and outs. I can remember patting myself on the back for my "ingenious" idea of slapping 12 10" secondary guns on a predread, only to realize too late just how terrible of an idea it actually is. I agree that some elements need better explanations (for example, more clarity on protected cruisers vs. light cruisers), but to skip the experimental stages of gameplay and go straight to meta builds is a great way to rob yourself of this game's fun.
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Post by lunalis on Jul 2, 2020 10:04:28 GMT -6
.... effect of deck park... can it be that "deck park" doesnt really do anything? it doesnt change any values or so when i design a carrier. from the description it should "allow more planes on the carrier", but there doesnt seem to be any difference clicking it or not. (i.e. aircraft not lighter so you can fit in more. and no errors in the designer either that you have "too many planes, use a deckpark"or so.)
but then again i probably miss something or havent seen where it changes stuff.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 2, 2020 10:37:39 GMT -6
(...) The absence of knowledge, the beauty of finding what works and what does not. (...) This reflects a viewpoint I have. (...) As so many things, I find this a complex issue. I mostly agree. However, this is, once again, a two-way street, for example I advocated (probably multiple times) for randomizing the infamous 16.000 ton CVL conversion limit. Let's say there is a hard +- number which is, and should be kept as a secret, let's say 1743 tons. When the player begins a new campaign, the game rolls a value between +1743 and -1743 tons and modifies the 16.000 ton value with it, so the player might get a "max CVL conversion is 14860 tons", or "17345 tons". Suddenly, the "I'll build a 16.000t "conversion-platform" CA in 1915 or so" becomes unviable. I have to admit, I really dislike "having a meta", and reading on the discord that if a player installs say, 2,5" as secondary armor, he'll get dragged down immediately. All in all, the game itself can combat this issue with it's ruleset, and while I dislike the feeling that having a "meta" ties up the players' hand, I also can't absolutely fault them for picking the best solution if one quite clearly exists. So, absolutely, I do believe that there are things that the player should not know, the theatrical curtain should not be lifted, so to speak, now completely disregarding the whole "stealing our product"-part of the argument.
BUT. There was one guy in discord absolutely flipping out over a 6" hit on a secondary armament mount which "penetrated 7" of armor" from 17k yards or so - concluding that the game has bugs, or the simulation itself is bonkers. I was actually defending the game by pointing out that the plausible trajectory warrants a hit on a horizontal surface - SEC top -, and the game does not use the "secondary armor" on the top plate. Digging up Fredrik's tidbits, RtW, in fact, seems to use DE for SEC top. Probably. Perhaps. So, the player has to go out of his way to get information about his own ship's physical parameters, as it's not in the game, and then deal with a semi-consistent hit report to assume that ultimately, in all this foggy environment ...the game actually is right. But deck park and such options are also falling into this category. Taking oxygen torpedoes for example, the player should not know how much more dangerous their usage to the carrying vessels are by the percentage compared to the standard equipment, but he sure should have some well-researched, hard "test data" at hand about how far they actually go.
RtW's dilemma isn't lost on me, don't get me wrong. The developers are clearly putting a lot of work into the manual for example despite constant changes, and it's also an interesting question if the player should, let's say, be supplied by very standardized, clear and beyond-any-doubt hit logs which could lower the chances for the "weeee, the game is bugged, bullshit RNG etc."-opinions. On one hand, absolutely not, realistically even after the battles surviving ships had issues with assessing the true nature of a given damage, let alone giving away range, caliber etc. informations about them. On the other hand, if just about every element of the game is a guesswork ("Some kind of armor of ours got hit by something, we may or may not have a problem, Hell if I know"), then the cause-and-effect chain of designing and then proving a ship in combat largely breaks, and feedback becomes incomprehensible ("I blew up because my armor was thinner than an arbitrary X value defined in the ruleset, or because the AI rolled a critical? Was I incompetent or unlucky? I'll never know.") - which cuts into the issue if RtW is a "simulation" or a "game", or something inbetween. There are most likely no good answers, but the current state of things isn't above criticism either.
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magnin
Junior Member
Posts: 77
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Post by magnin on Jul 3, 2020 4:43:16 GMT -6
I lost one thing playing RTW which I can never regain even if I liked it most. The absence of knowledge, the beauty of finding what works and what does not. To be in similar position as real people in century ago trying something which does not work so good. Right now designing ships meaning deciding between variants which effects I know. I practically cannot be in position to decide between unknown. This is the most beauty at all, trying again and again to design ship which suits best without knowledge how such ship will woks in certain situations and finding how often I am wrong. Right now I very good estimate how this design will perform in certain situations and even what type of situations could this design faced so probability I would design bad design is minimal. Yes, I agree, Dorn. this is a great part of the pleasure.
Now,
There are certain things, like pieces of data in the game, which I don't understand because the game never says when they have an impact. For instance, submarine reliability. In the real world, an admiral would hear that his sub failed and why. He'd get reports. The game does not report on it. It does not say "your sub foundered or missed its target because its reliability is low". I'd like to have feedback as in real life.
To learn, you need reports. For instance, why did my raiders fail to work ? Why did this ship do this turn ? did it raid and fail, or did it do nothing ? Why did my policy of using 30 ships in TP fail ?
The superb game is improving on this (like raider reports in 1.22). I hope it continues. I'd love to have more optional detailed cause-and-effect reports, as in real life.
Cheers ! Arnaud
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Post by dia on Jul 3, 2020 12:09:23 GMT -6
I lost one thing playing RTW which I can never regain even if I liked it most. The absence of knowledge, the beauty of finding what works and what does not. To be in similar position as real people in century ago trying something which does not work so good. Right now designing ships meaning deciding between variants which effects I know. I practically cannot be in position to decide between unknown. This is the most beauty at all, trying again and again to design ship which suits best without knowledge how such ship will woks in certain situations and finding how often I am wrong. Right now I very good estimate how this design will perform in certain situations and even what type of situations could this design faced so probability I would design bad design is minimal. This would make sense if we got more detailed reports on how things actually performed. Ship logs, as detailed as they are, are still missing a lot of information and it all disappears after a battle anyway. Right now the player is limited to immediate analyzing of after action reports without manually saving every single individual ship log and battle log after the battle. The ability to view after-war summary reports in also missing. And then there are the "bad rng"/"flaws in armor"/"manufacturing defects"/"previous damage reopened"/"oh your citadel isn't actually fully armored" hits that never get explained in the logs and are only reconginzed by the player if they were familiar with how things should be normally performing. Simply put the player doesn't get enough feedback. It may not seem that way to some, but not all players are as hardcore, play as much as others, or are part of the NWS Team
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Post by dorn on Jul 3, 2020 12:34:56 GMT -6
I lost one thing playing RTW which I can never regain even if I liked it most. The absence of knowledge, the beauty of finding what works and what does not. To be in similar position as real people in century ago trying something which does not work so good. Right now designing ships meaning deciding between variants which effects I know. I practically cannot be in position to decide between unknown. This is the most beauty at all, trying again and again to design ship which suits best without knowledge how such ship will woks in certain situations and finding how often I am wrong. Right now I very good estimate how this design will perform in certain situations and even what type of situations could this design faced so probability I would design bad design is minimal. This would make sense if we got more detailed reports on how things actually performed. Ship logs, as detailed as they are, are still missing a lot of information and it all disappears after a battle anyway. Right now the player is limited to immediate analyzing of after action reports without manually saving every single individual ship log and battle log after the battle. The ability to view after-war summary reports in also missing. And then there are the "bad rng"/"flaws in armor"/"manufacturing defects"/"previous damage reopened"/"oh your citadel isn't actually fully armored" hits that never get explained in the logs and are only reconginzed by the player if they were familiar with how things should be normally performing. Simply put the player doesn't get enough feedback. It may not seem that way to some, but not all players are as hardcore, play as much as others, or are part of the NWS Team It depends on point of view. You get information of each hit - type of shell (caliber, type AP/SAP/HE), where the hit was scored and who made the hit. In reality you have no chance to have such precise information. Why PoW was sunk so quickly was not know even for decades and what was primary cause of sinking HMS Hood is not now till today and we will probably never now. Same applies to bomb hits. During battles you never had such detailed information in history and even after battle it took a lot of effort to get some information which can be incorrect (PoW as example). During battle you have such awareness which is impossible even today not mentioned 100 years ago. I understand that some players are confused as actual game industry provide usually exactly rules and that you know if you have such armour and enemy such shell this shell will never penetrate / always penetrate, maximum some random around. But this is not how it works in reality. Players sometimes are surprised that their ship with AoN was sunk even if she was inside her immunity zone against enemy fire. But the immunity zone is theoretical concept which is good for some reasons and it allows to give some definitions to your design but in reality it does not work 100 %. The best example is TDS. Mostly nations did a lot of effort to increase torpedo protection of capital ships and some of them even did test of their design of torpedo protection system. However almost all of this system failed in battle conditions to some extent (Roma class, KGV and US modern battleships). So theory is one thing, battle conditions another. This is something which RTW simulates best even if it is confusing as it was one hundred years ago.
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Post by dia on Jul 3, 2020 13:37:47 GMT -6
This would make sense if we got more detailed reports on how things actually performed. Ship logs, as detailed as they are, are still missing a lot of information and it all disappears after a battle anyway. Right now the player is limited to immediate analyzing of after action reports without manually saving every single individual ship log and battle log after the battle. The ability to view after-war summary reports in also missing. And then there are the "bad rng"/"flaws in armor"/"manufacturing defects"/"previous damage reopened"/"oh your citadel isn't actually fully armored" hits that never get explained in the logs and are only reconginzed by the player if they were familiar with how things should be normally performing. Simply put the player doesn't get enough feedback. It may not seem that way to some, but not all players are as hardcore, play as much as others, or are part of the NWS Team It depends on point of view. You get information of each hit - type of shell (caliber, type AP/SAP/HE), where the hit was scored and who made the hit. In reality you have no chance to have such precise information. Why PoW was sunk so quickly was not know even for decades and what was primary cause of sinking HMS Hood is not now till today and we will probably never now. Same applies to bomb hits. During battles you never had such detailed information in history and even after battle it took a lot of effort to get some information which can be incorrect (PoW as example). During battle you have such awareness which is impossible even today not mentioned 100 years ago. I understand that some players are confused as actual game industry provide usually exactly rules and that you know if you have such armour and enemy such shell this shell will never penetrate / always penetrate, maximum some random around. But this is not how it works in reality. Players sometimes are surprised that their ship with AoN was sunk even if she was inside her immunity zone against enemy fire. But the immunity zone is theoretical concept which is good for some reasons and it allows to give some definitions to your design but in reality it does not work 100 %. The best example is TDS. Mostly nations did a lot of effort to increase torpedo protection of capital ships and some of them even did test of their design of torpedo protection system. However almost all of this system failed in battle conditions to some extent (Roma class, KGV and US modern battleships). So theory is one thing, battle conditions another. This is something which RTW simulates best even if it is confusing as it was one hundred years ago. I think you're misinterpreting my post. I''m not complaining about theory vs reality of battle conditions on how things operate/perform. I'm complaining about how it gets reported. If a ship's armor or TDS or anything for that matter fails for reasons outside the norm (see my list in my last post for examples), the player should be informed of that. And don't give us that, "well the player already gets more information than they should" thing because if the player gets so much detailed information already, is it really a stretch to ask that the players also gets an explanation that, for example, a shell penetrated because "it hit a defect in the armor"? And that's not even the main thing of my complaint. It's the fact that any relevant information on performance is simply one misclick from permanently disappearing. We're moving away from the original topic though. I support OP's suggestion to a degree about in-game explanations, at least for items that are already in the manual. I think it can be done without ruining the experimenting of the game. For example, I see no reason why telling the player what a seaplane hanger does in the design screen decides for the player whether it is worth it or not.
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Post by warspite1995 on Jul 3, 2020 19:19:39 GMT -6
I don't suppose someone could make a mod that would simple use the manual as tool tips, simply find corresponding part of manual and make it a pop up when hovering over something ect?
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Post by mobeer on Jul 4, 2020 6:04:09 GMT -6
.... effect of deck park... can it be that "deck park" doesnt really do anything? it doesnt change any values or so when i design a carrier. from the description it should "allow more planes on the carrier", but there doesnt seem to be any difference clicking it or not. (i.e. aircraft not lighter so you can fit in more. and no errors in the designer either that you have "too many planes, use a deckpark"or so.)
but then again i probably miss something or havent seen where it changes stuff.
At present Deck Park does nothing and Deck Edge Elevators just makes a ship more expensive.
Developers have talked about addressing this but never have.
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Post by aquelarrefox on Sept 12, 2020 17:32:27 GMT -6
I wish a bit clear data about armour scheme should be available. What's the reaction with the hits.its not possible to get info from combat log data to know what's happening
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lucur
Junior Member
Posts: 72
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Post by lucur on Sept 13, 2020 9:16:26 GMT -6
I understand where you're coming from from a game perspective. Historically though it would be really hard to assess received hits in a precise manner. After a battle, impacts (or any sustained damage) were investigated carefully, and even then wrong conclusions were made quite often. The basics are given in the manual - see noshurviverse's post above. From there you'll have to see what works. When in doubt copy your save game to another folder, replicating it, if you're scared of ruining your run long term.
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