Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 warboss wrote:

I again agree with you in theory but the actual practice and implentation varies significantly and that is what we have to work with. I haven't seen many actual battle reports so I doubt there are too many people's time being wasted by tweaks. Even in the private playtesting, my multiple (4 IIRC) public offers for playtesting games didn't garner any response once IceRaptor bowed out. While I don't doubt that someone out there is playing somewhere, I suspect theory is driving much more of the feedback than actual experience. Some things (like the original Warrior stats) were so broken that they didn't need any games to prove their utter ridiculousness so theorygearing has its uses. As I said above, lemonade from lemons. The info is out there and the schedule is likely set in stone so why not try to make the best of it and correct broken units even if only partially? You can keep berating your friend for taking the stupid shortcut that took you over an unpaved road that caused the flat tire or you can get out and help change it and look out for further hazards. Both are technically "right" but only the later helps the current
situation.

That's the difference, I believe: you still think that it's helping. To be blunt, DP9 can not afford to make the same mistakes again. At this point, a bad release, even if it's not the worst possible, is worse than no release. No release would leave them on life-support. A bad release will finish them.
They seem invested in making those mistakes again. It looks like they would rather destroy the company and HG than change.

Also, the playtest structure without guidance is only going to generate comments based on whatever the testers think. You want people to play and test ? Give them something concrete to test, and show them concretely that their significant investment in time and effort is useful. Show that the progress is directly related to their testings. Well, that, or pay them.

Give out pre-made lists (for both players), and ask everyone to test them. Explain what you want to know, and how their testing will directly improve the game.

Hypothetical playtest manager wrote:
Ok, for the next 2 weeks, I want to make sure that having more activations is not a winning factor.
To do so, both players A and B will have access to 8 Troopers, 2 Scouts and 2 Fire Support, listed below.
Player A will have them grouped as (2 Troopers)*2 + (2 Troopers, 2 Scouts) + (2 Troopers, 2 FS).
Player B will have them grouped as (2 Troopers)*4 + (2 Scouts) + (2 FS).

Try to play at least 2 games, with the list swapped between the players between each game.
Report who won each game, using which list. This way, we will be able to see if one of the list has an inherent advantage.
Normally, both should win around 50% of the time.
Also report what kind of imbalance you see, if any.

Yes, it's not fun. It's testing. It's not supposed to be fun. Providing guidance reduces paralysis, on top of all the other procedural advantages I wall-of-texted about a few pages ago.

EDIT:Maths is hard before the third coffee; 3x5 is not a multiple of 2; figures need to be adjusted on all 3 sentences, not just on the first and last;3x2 <> 8

mrondeau wrote:

Give out pre-made lists (for both players), and ask everyone to test them. Explain what you want to know, and how their testing will directly improve the game.

I agree completely.

riker2800 wrote:
Well said Warboss, not enough people are getting their hand dirty to help improve things.

As Hudson and Mrondeau pointed out, I still believe I can make a difference even if only slightly. That said.. my comment was made with the full understanding and recognition that a common theme for people who tried to get their hands dirty and help is getting mud thrown in their face by the very company they're trying to help.

 warboss wrote:

I agree completely.

For the record, working, proven test procedures such as this one were sent to Dave at the start of the alpha. He didn't bother answering, and instead went with the tried and true DP9 methods.

 warboss wrote:

As Hudson and Mrondeau pointed out, I still believe I can make a difference even if only slightly. That said.. my comment was made with the full understanding and recognition that a common theme for people who tried to get their hands dirty and help is getting mud thrown in their face by the very company they're trying to help.

Oh, you'll be able to make a difference, sure. I'll go with the car as an example. Currently, the car's engine is faulty, the direction wonky, and the less said about the suspension, the better. Among other things.
If you keep up the good work, you should be able to have the car polished, and maybe the trunk fixed as well. The final result will still be a dud of a car. You want to know why ? Because DP9 is fine with selling it that way.

Wow, this has been interesting. Stumbled across this thread and gave it a quick read.

I use to be into Heavy Gear way back when 1st edition was out. I bought the rulebook on a lark (still not sure why I did that) and fell in love with the setting. Started picking up all of the other books they were coming out with and even picked up the old RAFM minis. And when they switched to their own minis, I even picked up those as well.

Most of my gaming involved using counters and hex-based maps as that was what they were using initially. It eventually morphed into miniature gaming but the rules were still more or less hex-based.

Personally, I stopped following Heavy Gear pretty much after the second computer game came out. Again, I really loved the setting of Heavy Gear and all of the designs they came out for the various gears; they had a certain 'character' to them. However, things started to change; the vehicles and gears that they were coming out were starting to become more 'optimized' or more 'munchy'; I think I still remember who was kind of responsible for that. Not that there is anything wrong with it but it seemed like there was a change of thinking.

Then the setting was started to get messed around with, especially when someone from Activision wasn't happy that Paxton didn't have much other than the Warrior and Warrior IV and this whole lunacy of the 'Elite' series started coming out.

This kind of put a bad taste in my mouth so as a result, I started paying less attention to Heavy Gear and eventually dropped it.

Looking at one of the earlier posts, someone made a comparison to WH40K. I think I understand where that is coming from.

It's not that the game is being played like 40K but more with squad composition. Initially, we had a long list of Gears with different variants and picked our squads according to that.

Before, they didn't have this whole bit about swapping out weapons for +X points and dropping certain perks or weapons and so on. I think that is the whole 40K reference the person was making.

The more I think about it, the more I think there probably should be a complete split between the RPG or fluff and the miniature game; by trying to cling on to the fluff, you don't get good optimized Gears, which is not what you want in a miniature game. Why have 'useless' choices if no one is going to take them, other than because it is 'fluffy'?

I don't know, I could be wrong as Blitz seemed to play quite differently from before but the thing that pops into mind is the laser on the Hun. I think it was mentioned before but the laser was meant as an AA weapon according to the fluff. But I remember when using the Hun in a game, the laser became it's main weapon, instead of the HRF it had. After all, why use the HRF instead of the laser? The laser did more damage and was more accurate. The only thing preventing me from constantly using the laser was that it had a limited amount of shots. So therefore, the fluff doesn't exactly mesh well with the actual usage.

Sorry, I'm kind of rambling and my thoughts are all over the place as there are tons of things I could probably say about Heavy Gear (it's still amazing how often I'll think about the game even though I haven't touched it for probably more than a decade). Bottom line, personally, I think they probably should 'reboot' everything and separate the stats from the fluff stuff to ensure that you have well-designed and optimized gears.

We'll be seeing about that. Fact, the fluff is partially the reason there are so many hard-core fans of the game.

-Brandon F.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the fluff. I still flip through my old HG sourcebooks even though it has been ages since I've done anything HG related.

It's just that I'm not really sure if you can satisfy both criteria of making it adhere to the original fluff and make it an optimal wargame without any 'useless' options.

First thing that pops into mind is the Black Mamba's 'glass back'. Yeah it gives it character but really, why bother with it in a wargame?

I remember awhile back someone commenting on why the Grizzly has two MRPs as that just makes its TV shoot up more and that it was more optimal to take one bigger MRP instead. Yeah, number-crunching wise it makes more sense to do that but it is so much cooler to have it have two MRPs, especially if you've seen that one picture in the original rulebook that has a Grizzly standing there and opening up with its two MRPs.

Redeemer31 wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I loved the fluff. I still flip through my old HG sourcebooks even though it has been ages since I've done anything HG related.

It's just that I'm not really sure if you can satisfy both criteria of making it adhere to the original fluff and make it an optimal wargame without any 'useless' options.

First thing that pops into mind is the Black Mamba's 'glass back'. Yeah it gives it character but really, why bother with it in a wargame?

I remember awhile back someone commenting on why the Grizzly has two MRPs as that just makes its TV shoot up more and that it was more optimal to take one bigger MRP instead. Yeah, number-crunching wise it makes more sense to do that but it is so much cooler to have it have two MRPs, especially if you've seen that one picture in the original rulebook that has a Grizzly standing there and opening up with its two MRPs.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Dream Pod 9 should just man up and separate completely the RPG setting from the wargame setting, in a way similar to what they did with Jovian Chronicles/Lightning Strike (as in, alternate timelines and settings made for the needs of each game.

And they should say they are doing so. That would quell the gripes for many people, knowing they're doing changes for a reason. But alas...

IceRaptor, in case you're still watching: I'm thinking about trying to integrate your rolling system (bonuses and maluses as dice with different X+ for adding +1 to the roll with dice) to the 2nd edition HG RPG system. I was thinking about doing it via skill rating (or well, actually Complexity at first), but I'm not sure yet.

 Albertorius wrote:
IceRaptor, in case you're still watching: I'm thinking about trying to integrate your rolling system (bonuses and maluses as dice with different X+ for adding +1 to the roll with dice) to the 2nd edition HG RPG system. I was thinking about doing it via skill rating (or well, actually Complexity at first), but I'm not sure yet.

I'm still here, just haven't felt the need to jump in on any of the conversations recently. I'm trying to keep a pulse on the three venues I know have discussions about it.

I had many discussions about adapting it to the RPG before, and though I never got to test it I think it should work well with skill remaining the number of dice you throw, attributes as the augment score instead of a straight modifier but keeping modifiers for other boosts. It makes it a bit more hodge-podge unfortunately, but it should directly correlate talent to success without penalizing experience unduly. I'd love to hear what your success is, so please let me know how it goes.

Cheers!

Oh, where's the third place having a discussion?

There's a recent thread in the public alpha section that's basically the perfect illustration of everything dysfunctional about DP9 these days :
http://dp9forum.com/index.php?showtopic=16051
It ended up getting locked, with a final post by the lead designer that's worth reading 4 pages for.

I like that the designer does not want to explain his intentions to avoid biasing the testers and because he wants to design based on the testers' opinion of what should do what. Then, in the same post, says that he will ignore what the testers concluded because it does not match his intentions.

In other words, he wants the testers in control, as long as they want what he wants.

It's a bit too bad the thread got locked, cause at least one of Dave's assertions (+1 PEN is better than +1d6 always) is factually incorrect. I feel like if the two independent debates had been in their own threads there's some more discussion that could have been had there.

MrThud wrote:
It's a bit too bad the thread got locked, cause at least one of Dave's assertions (+1 PEN is better than +1d6 always) is factually incorrect. I feel like if the two independent debates had been in their own threads there's some more discussion that could have been had there.

Let me see if I have the right of it, Its only factually incorrect if the extra die was less than the highest other dice, if one of the other dice was a six, for example, than the best the additional die would do is add +1 to the outcome? If on the other hand, it's the highest die (lets say all the other dice were 1s, it could contribute quite a bit.)

Which would give burst a better curve, that tops out at a lower point (ie, nubs using Burst have a better chance of having some success), while Rifles, while having less chance of success, when they did succeed, would do more damage. Which sounds like +1 Pen for rifles would've been a pretty easy thing to make them play, like you know, rifles.

Yeah, that's the essential of it - at low dice an extra d6 is worth more than 1 PEN. The extreme is at 0d6 (ie. result is a 1) an extra die is worth substantially more than just 1 PEN. It actually works out in favour of the *AC in a lot of normal situations.

MrThud wrote:
It's a bit too bad the thread got locked, cause at least one of Dave's assertions (+1 PEN is better than +1d6 always) is factually incorrect. I feel like if the two independent debates had been in their own threads there's some more discussion that could have been had there.

I don't think Dave was interested in debate at all, especially about proper playtest procedures.

Yeah, that's the essential of it - at low dice an extra d6 is worth more than 1 PEN. The extreme is at 0d6 (ie. result is a 1) an extra die is worth substantially more than just 1 PEN. It actually works out in favour of the *AC in a lot of normal situations.

Oh, it's not just that. His justification for the current rifle/AC split being balanced (AC better under 12", rifles better above 36") is completely faulty, given that the average table is 48 by 48, and 25% of terrain is recommended. You're not going to be shooting above 36" very often...

MrThud wrote:
Yeah, that's the essential of it - at low dice an extra d6 is worth more than 1 PEN. The extreme is at 0d6 (ie. result is a 1) an extra die is worth substantially more than just 1 PEN. It actually works out in favour of the *AC in a lot of normal situations.

That's generally correct; +1D6 is worth 'more' than 1 PEN in most cases, because the extra die shifts you towards the higher results, like so:

./calc_opposed.py 2D_4 2D_4 MoS: | -1 | +0 | +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 | +5 | | 41.28% | 17.44% | 15.28% | 11.34% | 07.87% | 04.55% | 01.85% | ./calc_opposed.py 3D_4 2D_4 MoS: | -1 | +0 | +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 | +5 | +6 | | 27.24% | 16.54% | 17.53% | 14.72% | 11.00% | 07.39% | 03.94% | 01.40% |

It's worth noting that rifles appear as both 'sniper rifles' on elite units, and 'light AT guns' on various vehicles. If you talk about just the former, you want them to have a range advantage (which they do) but they also probably need a little something ontop of that as well. +1D or +2D when braced tended to allow you to shoot through cover with some success, making the range versus cover issue less of a concern. However, those units also need their sensors massaged to make that work. Essentially, units like the Panther, Black Cat, SEBM and others look like snipers, and probably need to be massaged to work like them, but they were lower priority to get 'right' than the basics.

I'm not keeping up with the rules changes, but is it possible that you're overlooking additional elements on those units (high sensor ratings, etc) that would allow them to function as snipers *through* cover?

I agree he is pretty firm about keeping with the current procedure, and I actually also agree that a more rigorous test procedure could produce more valid results.

I think where I differ is in that I think that the idea that the current mishmash procedure is unable to produce good changes - Dave has already made some changes based on forum feedback. Sure, some stuff has been ignored (unduly or not), but there's been a number of (mostly) good changes as a result of forum discussions. Is it the optimal approach? No, I don't think so. But I have worked on several projects where suboptimal procedures have produced reasonable results.

I also disagree with Dave's idea that rifles are a useful weapon for shooting at offboard support. It conveniently ignores that most off-map support units are going to be tanks or other heavy support, which rifles are pretty pointless against. Saying that a primary weapon like an *RF is "balanced" because it is useful in a real corner case and is strongly worse in most others is not really valid, IMO.

 IceRaptor wrote:

It's worth noting that rifles appear as both 'sniper rifles' on elite units, and 'light AT guns' on various vehicles. If you talk about just the former, you want them to have a range advantage (which they do) but they also probably need a little something ontop of that as well. +1D or +2D when braced tended to allow you to shoot through cover with some success, making the range versus cover issue less of a concern.

<snip>

I'm not keeping up with the rules changes, but is it possible that you're overlooking additional elements on those units (high sensor ratings, etc) that would allow them to function as snipers *through* cover?

I think the thing relative to *ACs is that they have Burst, so they get an additional 1d6 always. So even though some snipers have Precise (conditional extra d6 when Braced), they are a pretty poor cousin to *ACs except beyond Range 36. Which as Hudson points out is a pretty rare range, especially rare effective range with a good amount of cover on the table. It also ignores the *AC's currently incredibly powerful Split which lets you do multiple shots in a 6" radius.

MrThud wrote:
I think the thing relative to *ACs is that they have Burst, so they get an additional 1d6 always. So even though some snipers have Precise (conditional extra d6 when Braced), they are a pretty poor cousin to *ACs except beyond Range 36. Which as Hudson points out is a pretty rare range, especially rare effective range with a good amount of cover on the table. It also ignores the *AC's currently incredibly powerful Split which lets you do multiple shots in a 6" radius.

Yup. Autocannons were designed to intentionally be useful, as opposed to how they were before. However, other weapons needed to be tweaked relative to them...

Yeah, which is what spawned the thread, with a lot of people pushing just upping Rifle PEN by 1 as a balance (along with some dropping the Rifle's min optimum range to match the *AC). It seemed pretty clean, but was shot down for what seemed like some pretty shaky reasons.

MrThud wrote:
I agree he is pretty firm about keeping with the current procedure, and I actually also agree that a more rigorous test procedure could produce more valid results.

I think where I differ is in that I think that the idea that the current mishmash procedure is unable to produce good changes - Dave has already made some changes based on forum feedback. Sure, some stuff has been ignored (unduly or not), but there's been a number of (mostly) good changes as a result of forum discussions. Is it the optimal approach? No, I don't think so. But I have worked on several projects where suboptimal procedures have produced reasonable results.

The problem is not that the current procedure cannot produce good changes, it's that whether or not the changes are good is random, and that it is perfectly designed to let problems unfixed. This is not speculation: that's what happened during every single playtest since LnL.
Confirmation and sampling biases alone kill the validity of the tests. Since the sampling is not random, quantitative techniques are mostly unusable (even assuming you manage to get a decent sampling size. You won't) and the feedback will be contradictory, so the designer will have to choose who to listen to on any given point. Ultimately, the designer is still the one deciding, with limited to no input coming from the anecdotes. This test procedure is only good to make the designer feels confident about his decisions.

To be even more direct, and with the caveat that I give DP9 and DP9's employees 0 credibility (been lied to too often for that), this procedure is perfect for a designer who want to do whatever he wants, without being accountable to anyone, and who does not want to bother with the boring parts of the jobs, like "thinking critically", "doing maths", "planning", and "coherent design".
Use this test procedure, and you can always deflect criticism by "we tested it, so it's good", "it did not come up during the tests", "we tried, the testers did not test enough" and "the testers only complained, they did not suggest". All of those have actually been used by DP9 and DP9's employees.
At this point, it's looking to me like that's what they want in a test procedure: a way to deflect criticism.

This is not happening in a vacuum. The current procedure was tried before, many times, and always failed the same way. That's the fundamental issue. What I'm suggesting is not the only way to get good results, but the current procedure is not going to work, is not designed to work, and has never worked.

Maybe we are just cynical in different ways. I am not sure I trust DP9 to come up with tests with enough coverage and to interpret results systematically enough to go with a pure command-driven approach. With that assumption I see some value in just the shotgun issue-raising that happens on the DP9 forum; I don't think Dave is ignoring issues out of any intentional malice, rather out of not considering all game issues through.

Was there an open forum in previous playtests? (I wasn't involved in them.) I feel like the openness of the alpha testers forum is very much a good thing from the usual closed-door nature of communications with DP9.

Given that the designer is trying to direct the feedback to an email address, that he explicitly tries to keep the testers in the dark and that he seems more interested in explaining to the testers that they are wrong than on listening, I'm afraid that the openness is illusory and is seen as a necessary evil, only there to deflect criticisms about the lack of communication.

That being said, LnL had a private forum, the other one I participated in was designed to isolate testers from each others. From what I heard, the more recent ones had mailing lists.
It is the first time that the playtest forum and rules are visible to all, with the exception of a portion of the original Blitz.

MrThud wrote:
Yeah, which is what spawned the thread, with a lot of people pushing just upping Rifle PEN by 1 as a balance (along with some dropping the Rifle's min optimum range to match the *AC). It seemed pretty clean, but was shot down for what seemed like some pretty shaky reasons.

That was the original design... a LRF would +1 PEN over a LAC. However, even that's lacking, and needs more 'characterization' for the rifles to be considered first class citizens. However, rifles often come with Stealth... so you have to be careful about how you set it up to work both with and without Stealth. A Jaguar Pathfinder w/o Stealth that has a Rifle needs to have a role the same as a Panther. Ideally they work in some way that makes it a hard choice between taking a Jaguar w/ MAC and Jaguar w/ MRF a difficult choice. *shrug*


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mrondeau wrote:
Ultimately, the designer is still the one deciding, with limited to no input coming from the anecdotes. This test procedure is only good to make the designer feels confident about his decisions.

IMO, the most interesting, and most difficult part of designing a game is articulating what you want it to do. That's difficult when you have a clean slate - but Dave has the rather unenviable position of having to refactor and existing design. Unlike in CS, what he can and cannot break is more defined, and he's got a really hard road to try to keep the 'feel' of HG - which is different for each person that played it - and find a new road that lets them be profitable. It would be massively simpler if you could simply say that a Grizzly has a single rocket pack and didn't have to deal with people saying "but I liked it as two" in this particular case. In short, he may simply need some validation because there's only one of him, and so many places to be.

I'm not going to defend (or condemn) the testing process - but at the end of the day, the results will be decided rather simply. People either like the new game, and HG blossoms - or they don't, and the line becomes unprofitable. And it fades completely, instead of being held afloat by a handful of die-hards.

 IceRaptor wrote:

IMO, the most interesting, and most difficult part of designing a game is articulating what you want it to do. That's difficult when you have a clean slate - but Dave has the rather unenviable position of having to refactor and existing design. Unlike in CS, what he can and cannot break is more defined, and he's got a really hard road to try to keep the 'feel' of HG - which is different for each person that played it - and find a new road that lets them be profitable. It would be massively simpler if you could simply say that a Grizzly has a single rocket pack and didn't have to deal with people saying "but I liked it as two" in this particular case. In short, he may simply need some validation because there's only one of him, and so many places to be.

I agree that his task is not easy. It is a difficult task, no doubt about it. That being said, he is going the wrong way about it.
Some changes have to be made. The best way to get players to accept them is to explain the changes, explain why they are required, and why those changes could not be avoided. He's not doing any of that.
The Jaguar Pathfinder is a good example. The solution might be to replace the MRF by something else. That's acceptable, but that change must be explained.
Those decisions must be made anyway, and they are orthogonal to the test procedures. The tests are supposed to verify the impact of those design decisions on gameplay and balance. They cannot indicate whether or not those decisions respect the overall feel of the game.

As it is, changes are going to be made, but it's going to be a job half-done. DP9 is about to pay the full cost of a system/edition change no matter what, but they will have something that's not finished yet. That would be the third time in a few years.

 IceRaptor wrote:

I'm not going to defend (or condemn) the testing process - but at the end of the day, the results will be decided rather simply. People either like the new game, and HG blossoms - or they don't, and the line becomes unprofitable. And it fades completely, instead of being held afloat by a handful of die-hards.

Agreed there.

Swapping weapons isn't easy either, as there are existing models owned by players, and existing merchandise and molds

+1 pen, and maybe a slight drop in the min range didn't seem like a big deal. Giving them yet another special case rule seemed like more of a pain.

"The Jaguar Pathfinder no longer has a MRF. It now has a JPR. A JPR looks exactly like a MRF, but has a different name and different stats.
We were forced to do this because the role of rifles does not match the role and capacities of Jaguar Pathfinders <insert description of both>.
It was either that, or have a compromise that would harm the role of <insert list of gears with MRF>, which is <insert role of gear with MRF>."

That's a last resort, but it's doable, and it's easier to do if you have a well defined role for each component.
Even then, i's not easy. Writing and designing games is not easy. That's why I buy games, instead of making them myself. It's work. I don't want my hobby to become my work.

Finally, the best way to confirm that fluff matches player expectation matches game performance is to ask the players directly. This involves telling them your interpretation of the fluff, and how it's supposed to play on the table.

For that matter, my expectation is that rifles should have the same role as laser weapons: long range snipping. That, or being removed altogether, since the alternative seems to be having them in the same niche as the autocanons. That niche is already filled. By the autocannons.

Would be better to change the model instances that don't really look like they have a RF, like the Hun or whatever that northern tank is that has a...LAC or something sad. But really, I don't think we're at that point yet.

Well, that was an example to show that you can fix those problems without changing anything about the physical models involved. Apply "form follows function," and all that.
The Klemm, Hun and Skimisher, of the top of my head, are better candidates for rifle-ectomy.

mrondeau wrote:
The Klemm, Hun and Skimisher, of the top of my head, are better candidates for rifle-ectomy.

At least for the first two, simply giving them low powered AT guns was my solution. Seemed simplest to rewrite those models, and then focus rifles towards the 'Gear Sniper' ideal, rather than trying to make rifles bridge both of them.

 IceRaptor wrote:

mrondeau wrote:
The Klemm, Hun and Skimisher, of the top of my head, are better candidates for rifle-ectomy.

At least for the first two, simply giving them low powered AT guns was my solution. Seemed simplest to rewrite those models, and then focus rifles towards the 'Gear Sniper' ideal, rather than trying to make rifles bridge both of them.

I agree that it seems like the best and easiest solution, yes. A LTG or something like that would probably do the trick.