Some thoughts on scenarios balance

The new Cold War turned hot wargame from On Target Simulations, now expanded with the Player's Edition! Choose the NATO or Soviet forces in one of many scenarios or two linked campaigns. No effort was spared to model modern warfare realistically, including armor, infantry, helicopters, air support, artillery, electronic warfare, chemical and nuclear weapons. An innovative new asynchronous turn order means that OODA loops and various effects on C3 are accurately modeled as never before.

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Alex1812
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Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Alex1812 »

I have tryed all PBEM scenarios several times and here is my list about balance

Well balanced
The real good chance to win for both side
- HM_AS A Test of Wills
- HM_AS Dawns First Light
- HM_BS Rhino

Small balanced
The small chance to win for NATO player. Soviet is so strong
- HL_AS 3rd Herd
- HL_WGS Witch's Cauldron
- HM_BS Hell's Crossroad

Unbalanced
Imposible to win as NATO. Soviet side has great advantage
- HS_AS Eyes, Ears and Teeth
- HS_WGS The Pied Piper
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by CapnDarwin »

Alex, to clarify you are saying a win is any result better than Contested correct?
OTS is looking forward to Southern Storm getting released!

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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Alex1812 »

Yes, I never saw Contested result
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by kool_kat »

ORIGINAL: Alex1812

Yes, I never saw Contested result

Gents: [8D]

I've been able to achieve a "Contested" result as NATO in the Pied Piper. [;)]
Regards, - Mike

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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Mad Russian »

I'm aware that multiple updates have been made to the system since we released the game. That the scenarios play balance has been moved all over the board during that time. When the code is finally locked. NO MORE CHANGES...the intent is rebalance the scenarios and release them again.

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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Alex1812 »

ORIGINAL: mwest
I've been able to achieve a "Contested" result as NATO in the Pied Piper. [;)]
versus another human? how it's possible? [X(]
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by kool_kat »

ORIGINAL: Alex1812

I have tryed all PBEM scenarios several times and here is my list about balance

Well balanced
The real good chance to win for both side
- HM_AS A Test of Wills
- HM_AS Dawns First Light
- HM_BS Rhino

Small balanced
The small chance to win for NATO player. Soviet is so strong
- HL_AS 3rd Herd
- HL_WGS Witch's Cauldron
- HM_BS Hell's Crossroad

Unbalanced
Imposible to win as NATO. Soviet side has great advantage
- HS_AS Eyes, Ears and Teeth
- HS_WGS The Pied Piper

Alex: [8D]

Your original post did NOT state your matches were against a human opponent - only whether you considered the scenarios balanced.

Note - Against the AI, a NATO "Contested" outcome is achievable in the Pied Piper.
Regards, - Mike

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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Alex1812 »

I've already played for each side all scenarios with real guys. And here is summarized result of out battles.

For example, in one game I won "HM_BS Rhino" as NATO then lost as Soviet then lost as NATO and finally won as Soviet. I think it's the well balanced scenario where both players have the same chance to win. The close situations were with "HM_AS A Test of Wills" and "HM_AS Dawns First Light". In all other scenarios Soviet player won each time. In "HS_AS Eyes, Ears and Teeth" and "HS_WGS The Pied Piper" it was very easy. But I think that NATO player still have some chance for victory in the three other scenarios
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by pzgndr »

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian
When the code is finally locked. NO MORE CHANGES...the intent is rebalance the scenarios and release them again.

Would you please consider rebalancing for limited orders? Ideally this should be the most realistic option but it's annoying to select it knowing that it's actually unbalancing.
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Ardi »

Well, that's why you don't play PBEM Ears, Eyes and Teeth as NATO.

And this with Abrams being on defence in towns. Maybe I just got lucky, but even without such outstanding result from my recon platoon I still had 2 batallions inbound.



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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Mad Russian »

ORIGINAL: pzgndr

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian
When the code is finally locked. NO MORE CHANGES...the intent is rebalance the scenarios and release them again.

Would you please consider rebalancing for limited orders? Ideally this should be the most realistic option but it's annoying to select it knowing that it's actually unbalancing.

IMO, there is no way to balance for Limited Orders. The very nature of the option is all about making the scenario harder to play. Each play style will determine just how much impact Limited Orders has. Do you play like I do? If you don't then when I balance the scenario for Limited Orders you may never win it.

Limited Orders in in the game purely and simply to make the scenarios tougher to play when you have learned to beat the basic game and it's become less of a challenge. Limited Orders is a way to give the gamer a bit of stress in his game. It is not, nor was it ever intended to be the way that the game was intended to be played by everyone. I know it has a large following. I was the first follower. I'm the one that playtested and balanced limited orders for the rest of you. That's why it's even in the game.

But, no, I will not take all the time to try to balance that part of the game. It would take away from our working on the next step in the limited orders process. What I like to call stress management. Where the further away from the HQ Chain of Command you are the less likely that your orders will be followed, or that they will be acted upon right away, or that you get the supply you asked for... Stress Management will also be an option. Because my job is to teach you the basic game and give you the tools to create how you want the game to play. If you want the scenarios playtested for Limited Orders you are already doing that for yourselves every time you play them. There hasn't been a single post in the Scenario School thread about how to balance a Limited Order result. That tells me there isn't that much interest in it from the beginning. I only have so many hours a week to devote to the game series. I would much rather invest that time moving forward with something that may affect all the gamers that buy and play the game rather than just a few.

I hope that helps. It may not and it may sound a bit brutal. It's not intended to be. As I said, I was the first supporter of Limited Orders or they wouldn't even be in the game now.

Good Hunting.

MR
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Founder of HSG scenario design group for Combat Mission.
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Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm Development Team.
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by cbelva »

I have not weighed in on the Limited Orders discussion for various reasons, but I have decided to add my thoughts to it even through I may regret it. I am not a fan of limited orders and feel that they don't reflect reality. I understand MR argument that they add a layer of stress in the decision making process of the player, but I still do not see them adding to the realism of the game. We have had several lively discussions in the development team over limited orders, and to the pleasure of those who are a fan of limited orders you will probably be pleased to hear that I am in the minority. I have argued that limited orders should even be eliminated from the next version of the game. At this time I have lost that argument. I might add that I am the only one on the team that has experience as at the battalion and brigade staff level as an asst. operations officer. I have said all this so that there is no misunderstanding of my feeling about limited orders.
 
A statement that I keep hearing from some gamers is that the scenarios are "unbalanced" when playing with limited orders. That is just not true. When MR said that he "balanced" the scenario for unlimited orders play, he did not mean that playing with limited orders were "not balanced".
 
Limited orders were put in the game to give players who wanted a greater challenge that challenge by increasing the difficulty level. The word balanced is very relative. And the best definition of "balanced" for the scenarios in the game is that they play out the way MR intended for them to play out. It does not mean that each side has a 50/50 change to win the battle. Sometimes "winning" a battle is losing less than you did before. When you play with limited orders, you are playing with the difficulty level increased. That is all. If you don't like the way MR has the scenarios "balanced", you are free to go into the editor and balance them the way you want them or you can create your own scenarios. The editor is quite easy to use. If you do alter one of MR's scenarios please change the name and make a notation in the scenario that it was alter.
 
Real battles are rarely balanced and a good commander will do his best to ensure that the battle is as unfair and unbalanced for the other side as he can. 
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by pzgndr »

ORIGINAL: cbelva
I have not weighed in on the Limited Orders discussion for various reasons, but I have decided to add my thoughts to it even through I may regret it. I am not a fan of limited orders and feel that they don't reflect reality. I understand MR argument that they add a layer of stress in the decision making process of the player, but I still do not see them adding to the realism of the game. We have had several lively discussions in the development team over limited orders, and to the pleasure of those who are a fan of limited orders you will probably be pleased to hear that I am in the minority. I have argued that limited orders should even be eliminated from the next version of the game.

This begs the question why limited orders are even in the game. If it's simply for an increased difficulty setting, then there are many other alternatives for making spotting/hitting/killing more challenging, or just more frustrating for the player. There an opportunity with this game to better simulate NATO and Warsaw Pact strengths and weaknesses regarding command and control, and more realistically portray getting inside your opponent's OODA loop. Whatever. Hopefully the lively discussions will lead to improvements in v2.1.
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by batteran »

It's a bit out of the "balance/unbalance" subjet (which I don't really care: I like a good scenario no matter it was balanced or not: and when I play both sides my own performance is alway "relative" to what I see before from my opponent [:D] ), but I will add one consideration:

Some players are really impressed by the way your system "simulate" the feelings and mess of a commander at this scale. This really add some immersion. And thinking that the conditions/options we play are the "historically accurates" one add to these feelings.

Balancing reallism and pleasure to play is the hard thing to do.[:D] And if some players have more pleasure with "limited orders" even if not accurate, so, it's a good reason to keep it.

I personnally will alway prefer the "historical ones" for that matter, unless totally unplayable, but I don't care about balancing.

So, my question is: which option is the most "historicaly accurate" in the case of "limited orders"?
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by CapnDarwin »

Batteran, complex answer. If the game used fixed turn cycles, like every 15 minutes, the use of limited orders via command points to perform various action or orders over a given distance would be equivalent to our system with variable delays based on command distance and state of command, which in our game is the dynamic cycle. At the end of the day, getting inside the enemies command cycle is a matter of being able to respond faster with more of my force.

There is a lot of discussion on this topic both here and in other threads. We are discussing a number of these items in our weekly Dev calls and we are working on some new mechanics to improve the realism of command and control.
OTS is looking forward to Southern Storm getting released!

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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by pzgndr »

ORIGINAL: Capn Darwin
If the game used fixed turn cycles, like every 15 minutes, the use of limited orders via command points to perform various action or orders over a given distance would be equivalent to our system with variable delays based on command distance and state of command, which in our game is the dynamic cycle. At the end of the day, getting inside the enemies command cycle is a matter of being able to respond faster with more of my force.

Personally I prefer fixed turn cycles. It's easier to understand what's going on? Players can get a better sense of how many things they can accomplish in a turn with X orders and be able to anticipate what to do in future turns. I do miss the Assault! feature where unused command points (orders) can accumulate to represent TOC staff planning; that's missing here so we only get a partial effect.

There could be things like electronic jamming or the TOC being under attack that could reduce orders. But really the thing that gets inside the enemy's command cycle is overwhelming him with more to react to than he has orders to issue. And there should be a noticeable difference between NATO and Warsaw Pact.

Sorry, I'm just kinda biased towards how I remember Assault! playing out, which I thought was pretty good and FWIW I'd like to see something like that implemented here. The dynamic cycles may in fact be better with some adjustments; it's not like the Assault! system was perfect. I will keep trying to appreciate this dynamic cycle business and perhaps get into the editor one of these days to make some adjustments to each side's number of limited orders. Basically the game plays pretty well and at the end of the day I don't really care about perfect play balance and results, since it's all hypothetical anyway and we don't have historical battle results to point to. Anyways, I'm still looking forward to the OTS team's innovations for v2.1 and will keep an open mind about whatever improvements you settle on.
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Mad Russian »

Pzgndr,

Don't take this the wrong way but this game is not an Assault clone. We didn't set out to copy any game. So, for you to expect, think it should maybe, or even accidentally not play like another game you really like has no bearing on how FPC plays or the functions we plan to put in it.

However, there's always a 'HOWEVER' :D the features that you liked from other games that would improve this series are welcome IF they make sense for this series of games. We aren't going to work around what we've already created to implement something that was great in another game if it doesn't fit here.

I had Assault all of about 2 weeks and loaned it to one of my best friends son. I never saw it again and didn't rebuy it. So, I have no idea how Assault played. In that respect I have no idea what you are referring to when you compare us to Assault.

Good Hunting.

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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by pzgndr »

MR, I was replying to Capn Darwin, who does have an idea about how Assault! played and should understand my points. I will start another topic when I get a chance to highlight some of the Assault! "features" that produced IMHO a better command and control "effect." I'm not expecting this or any other game to be a clone of somebody else's previous game, but sometimes certain features are worth emulating. Again, I'm looking forward to OTS's innovations.
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by 76mm »

Dunno, I enjoy both the limited orders option and the asynchronous turns. Both are part of what make this game unique IMO. Sure, both could probably be tweaked in some ways to make them better, but generally I'm glad they're in the game.
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RE: Some thoughts on scenarios balance

Post by Tazak »

out of curiosity what do people think of when they talk about balancing scenarios for limited orders
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