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Post by williammiller on Jul 20, 2021 17:21:43 GMT -6
I'm assuming these officers will have names, but how exactly will these names be generated and can it be an issue if names run out. I know of some players who play on such large fleet sizes that they easily run out of ship names You can add your own names to the officer names list, and/or change names that are already there. I am willing to bet a few days after release there will be several "my favorite names" lists floating around here on the forums
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Post by alsadius on Jul 20, 2021 18:15:01 GMT -6
Suggestion regarding divisions:
Each division has a class, and must contain at least one ship of that class. Each division can also have units from one "adjacent" class added to it as well. So a DD division can have KE or CL, but not both. A CA division can have CL or BC, but not both.
Adjacency would probably be: AMC <> KE <> DD <> CL <> CA <> BC <> BB <> B AV <> CVL <> CV
I don't think this does anything unreasonable, and it'd be both simple and robust. So as long as it doesn't break the matchmaker somehow, I think it'd be a nice way to structure things.
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Post by charliezulu on Jul 20, 2021 19:36:06 GMT -6
This seems like a pretty big jump in logic to me. They're thinking of adding the ability to assign commanders that will have traits (with obvious historical inspirations like Beatty for RoF Enthusiast and Sturdee for Loose Cannon). Hearts of Iron also has a similar system, likely again because of the historical basis. From that you jump to RtW coming to resemble "a sci-fi style 4x game"? I'm failing to see the connection there, or why this is a poor idea based on your argument. I believe I said that my opinion might be in the minority, and that time just might prove me to be wrong. I also stated that I trusted the dev team would get it right in the end.
If you believe that my comments are invalid then so be it. I will agree that "sci-fi style 4x game" is an extreme example, and I trust NWS would never go that route. As far as the HOI comment goes, I'll stand by it as written. You are entitled of course to your opinion just as I am to mine. Let's just agree to disagree then. No need to justify ourselves to each other. Neither one of us is running the dev team or making the final decisions anyway.
I should have kept my big mouth shut and opinion to myself. In the end we'll all have to wait and see what the finished product looks, and make decisions based on that. My apology for bringing the topic up.
I don't understand your opinion because, to me, it seems to be coming out of the blue. I can't agree or disagree with it because I'm seemingly missing something - you're saying you dislike HoI because it veers away from the historical (well, at least in the latest iteration), which I understand and agree with to some extent, but I don't see the connection between that and this. Is it specifically that you think that commanders having traits which influence their command is inaccurate to historical behaviour? It's been a while, but IIRC TF commanders in WitP AE influenced their commands' abilities as well.
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Post by forget83 on Jul 20, 2021 19:59:00 GMT -6
I'm assuming these officers will have names, but how exactly will these names be generated and can it be an issue if names run out. I know of some players who play on such large fleet sizes that they easily run out of ship names You can add your own names to the officer names list, and/or change names that are already there. I am willing to bet a few days after release there will be several "my favorite names" lists floating around here on the forums Is the name generator similar to the current ship name a.k.a complete name only or is it a dynamic system that randomly combine family, given name.
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pz501
New Member
Posts: 29
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Post by pz501 on Jul 20, 2021 20:32:12 GMT -6
CZ,
I have to admit you have some good points. My reaction to the Commander feature is, I'll admit, really based on the "attribute" descriptions that closely resemble the terms used in HOI. For instance: "music lover". Now I do understand that these will add/subtract from a Commander's overall influence on a ship, or division, or TF. That's not the issue with me. WiTP-AE does indeed have Commander ratings for ships, TF, and ground units. They are rated 1-99 in these areas: Overall Skill, Inspiration, Naval Ability, Air Ability, Land Ability, Admin, Aggression, and finally Political cost to appoint/replace. On second thought I think that what's proposed here is very similar, and might have the same effect on ship or division performance. If so, this is good.
It's really in the end a question of semantics for me. I tend to take RTW maybe a bit too seriously. Even though both the NWS and Grigsby approaches appear to be doing the same thing, Grigsby's method "looks" more serious/professional for lack of a better term. At least to me.
I do agree with you about HOI - it's a big sandbox game that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but can be great fun as long as it's accepted for what it is. WiTP-AE is presented instead as a hardcore simulation that drills down to the smallest detail. I like to think of RTW as somewhere in between. There is a tiny bit of role playing for sure, and it is a sandbox more or less, what with the ship design, but it's grounded firmly in historic fact, and when it comes to attribute descriptions for Commanders I'd like it stay that way. (I will also admit that there were some real oddball Admirals in the Royal Navy during the Victorian era - just check out "The Rules of The Game" for some head shaking examples!)
So no, I don't think it's wrong for a Commander to have traits that influence things, and yes there certainly are many historical examples. It's all in the way it's presented that makes the difference to me.
Maybe I did overreact some when I first read the news. We'll see what happens on down the road when things start to come more into focus I think.
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Post by kriegsmeister on Jul 20, 2021 21:23:00 GMT -6
I'm very intrigued by the new Commanders but I do have a few questions.
1. "A ship must have a CO assigned." Auto-assign is apparently optional, and we can dismiss COs, but what exactly happens if a ship doesn't have one? Does it work like currently, just doesn't have bonuses? Or does it become unavailable in battles and is effectively in reserve fleet status?
2. Officer "abilities" or I think the better term might be competency. Is it just a single overall stat like current crew levels, or do they have different stats with varying levels like spotting, gunnery, damage control? With the special abilities just being an even further boost?
3. It's already been announced that ships will have permanent logs in the expansion. Will Commanders have their own individual logs as well?
4. Not a question on Commanders but a couple pages back I asked what we will have available for start dates. Is 1890 just going to be another option added to the 1900 and 1920 options or replace 1900? And what about a later start date in the 40s or 50s for those that want to focus on that Era?
Also finally we're getting some strategic control with division formations. Hopefully we will also get to group divisions into squadron/force organizations as well.
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Post by charliezulu on Jul 20, 2021 22:25:06 GMT -6
Pz501,
I get what you're saying now. Personally, I viewed the ones like "music lover" as basically being filler traits that may have a small random effect via event and in line with historical practice (iirc Jackie Fisher made a big deal about having dances on deck, which is somewhat close) so that every trait doesn't necessarily have a massive impact on how a ship performs. That said, I am also apprehensive about some of the traits - Speed Enthusiast seems particularly game-y to me by the endgame when ships should be performing relatively consistently if they're being maintained well, and given that ships don't dodge incoming salvoes unless the player orders it AIUI, Wily doesn't make much sense. Hopefully this is the kind of thing that's defined in a config file, and thus can be modded so that people can choose which traits show up in their games.
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w2c
Full Member
Posts: 178
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Post by w2c on Jul 20, 2021 22:38:05 GMT -6
The commander addition sounds like it could be fun, but I'm REALLY excited to hear about the division addition and looking forward to how that can be expanded. I love that you keep the unpredictableness with some ships not being able to join the formation for whatever reason and having to be replaced by another similar ship, and I hope that same concept is applied if you expand on it to give the player more control over how their divisions are assigned so it's still somewhat balanced. What I mean is that players want divisions we can assign roles to, but obviously that will be something that benefits the player over the AI most of the time so retaining the battle generator unpredictability will be a good balancer. But I really really hope we get the ability to assign roles to our divisions to weight what kinds of missions they can be called for as that remains one of my biggest wishlist items.
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Post by tornado1555 on Jul 20, 2021 23:01:18 GMT -6
The commander addition sounds like it could be fun, but I'm REALLY excited to hear about the division addition and looking forward to how that can be expanded. I love that you keep the unpredictableness with some ships not being able to join the formation for whatever reason and having to be replaced by another similar ship, and I hope that same concept is applied if you expand on it to give the player more control over how their divisions are assigned so it's still somewhat balanced. What I mean is that players want divisions we can assign roles to, but obviously that will be something that benefits the player over the AI most of the time so retaining the battle generator unpredictability will be a good balancer. But I really really hope we get the ability to assign roles to our divisions to weight what kinds of missions they can be called for as that remains one of my biggest wishlist items. It's promising for sure -- game mechanic additions that give players more options, as well as more challenges! That said, I wonder what will be done about the vast hole that is occupied by submarines at the moment, conceptually just as much as currently... Submarines presently are very much abstracted, while being very powerful with little complexity to them. I hope I don't sound like a borked record but I am still concerned about what will happen as we enter the nuclear age of the 50s and 60s and the submarine enters into a fleet role of its own. Just imagine how submarines, as they're currently implemented, might make their presence felt in a future campaign game if not properly addressed! If your ASW is even slightly behind in 1960 in a general war you'll be getting entire divisions lost to "SSN Skipjack" or a November in one turn... or worse... a swarm of a hundred abstracted Romeos.
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w2c
Full Member
Posts: 178
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Post by w2c on Jul 21, 2021 2:49:17 GMT -6
It's promising for sure -- game mechanic additions that give players more options, as well as more challenges! That said, I wonder what will be done about the vast hole that is occupied by submarines at the moment, conceptually just as much as currently... Submarines presently are very much abstracted, while being very powerful with little complexity to them. I hope I don't sound like a borked record but I am still concerned about what will happen as we enter the nuclear age of the 50s and 60s and the submarine enters into a fleet role of its own. Just imagine how submarines, as they're currently implemented, might make their presence felt in a future campaign game if not properly addressed! If your ASW is even slightly behind in 1960 in a general war you'll be getting entire divisions lost to "SSN Skipjack" or a November in one turn... or worse... a swarm of a hundred abstracted Romeos. Definitely agree submarines remain a glaring hole in the game, though I personally envision that as a great area for the next expansion perhaps? It's a weakness right now but it doesn't look as if they're going to be addressing it right now and likely just don't have the ability to fit it in with the features already being worked on but I 100% would love to see a rework that brings them into balance with the rest of the game.
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Post by mobeer on Jul 21, 2021 3:00:21 GMT -6
Commanders sound interesting - but could using Training in Doctrine affect the probability of getting a gunnery or torpedo expert?
Divisions are much needed, but please also consider: - CA + CL mixed division (especially when using Brooklyn style CLs) - CL + DD mixed division (especially for small fast CL) - CV + CVL divisions
A BC division should be allowed to have CA or BB, but not both of these.
Divisions should also have an Escort tickbox, when ticked making them more likely to be used as escorts to high value units (or convoys) than other ships \ divisions.
Will peacetime fleet excercises increase division experience?
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Post by akosjaccik on Jul 21, 2021 4:40:27 GMT -6
On my part I'd like to request - (if) only for the capital ships - two-ship divisions without the BG filling up the division itself. Naturally, I'd have no issues with either adding ships into the battle (in new ad-hoc divisions or additional two-ship [or more standard] divisions) or taking away for any reasons. Historically I'd say two-ship units would hold their ground as well. However, if "too small" divisions would be auto-filled with other ships in smaller games where in extreme cases the player may not have let's say, more than ~two-three ships in a given speed bracket, the manual division system would pretty much lose it's point and it would work in practice as the current automatically generated divisions with extra steps.
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Post by legion0047 on Jul 21, 2021 5:13:58 GMT -6
Ehhh, the reason for the USA adopting the standard pattern battleship is that they ordered battleships in twos and couldn't form them up into divisions otherwise.
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Post by avimimus on Jul 21, 2021 7:59:44 GMT -6
I like the idea of organising divisions - especially if it leads to reduced availability. However, the current solution still doesn't remove a major frustration - the classification of cruisers. In the late 1940s I tend to start building some dedicate anti-aircraft cruisers (homogenous 5" or 6" anti-aircraft batteries, lighter armour) to accompany my larger warships. However, I also operate some cruisers designed to engage other cruisers and/or support destroyer squadrons which retain heavier guns or armour. The game regularly mixes my anti-aircraft cruisers in with my other cruisers - and this leads them to get slaughtered - or forces me to pull all of my cruisers back from anti-destroyer screening/scouting to anti-aircraft screening. It is very frustrating (I've actually stopped several playthroughs). There are a few possible solutions:
- 1) Create a custom anti-aircraft cruiser logic
- 2) Allow adding cruisers to BB/BC or CV/CVL divisions
- 3) Making a distinction between forward/screening divisions and core divisions which determines how far forward they are in the formation.
I think this third option is optimal - because it would even allow putting destroyer squadrons with 3" guns closer to the enemy than ones wit 5" guns. It could be very flexible. So I'd suggest having a setting to determine whether the division should be placed in the vanguard or the rear. P.S. Some of these solutions might also help a bit with those of us who try to create 'through deck cruisers' as commerce raiders or try to create coastal monitors etc. It isn't a perfect solution, but it would at least make it less impossible. I also like the idea that player created divisions should lead to less availability for the ships (whereas ships which are left 'loose' tend to show up more often)
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Post by avimimus on Jul 21, 2021 8:02:05 GMT -6
The other frustration I've had recently is being blockaded when playing the Jeune École... if my ships aren't already on station I can't use them effectively for raiding. It would be great to have a 'break out at all costs' order to give to the navy.
This could possibly be done in the form of a battle (which one could accept or decline). Alternatively, if the player tries to break out three times in a row - have the third time succeed but with significant casualties.
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