Gameplay Suggestion: Reduce RNG

[gbem]

The Problem

hey... after playing steel div for a couple of days i decided to return to wargame for a few games after constant frustration with the game..... and i have found what i consider to be the major issues of the game...

number 1 of all is RNG
in wargame u can literally calulate how many shots u can take before u have to pull back or make a withdrawal... tanks there are damn accurate and dont miss alot.... even the shoddy T-64BV... a mid range tank... has more chance to hit at max range even at rookie than a panzer 4 does at vet 1 (equivalent to hardened or veteran) (55% vs 42%)

let me cite an example.... in steel division i had developed a tactic of smoking... keeping it spotted via infantry.. maneuvering close to the enemy tank... and firing at it at close range.... issue is even at half the distance this is but 40 to 50% chance to hit ingame for a tank such as the panzer 4 or the firefly.....
meanwhile in wargame i successfully moved a T-80UM to half range and nailed the merkava 3d baz in 1 hit (was a sideshot) and in fact nails targets consistently... as the chance to hit is equivalent to 102.34%.... 65*(1.08) + (1125/175) = 102.34% chance to hit

it is extremely frustrating to miss and get fucked hard due to RNG...... RNG in many respects dominates too much in both penetration and hit chance.... as a result vehicle play is mostly a game of who gets lucky first instead of a game of who played better....

in wargame ive always felt like i was in control.... i could calculate how much fire i could take... how much fire i had to give.... when i had to push..... when i had to pull back..... one could simply send a leopard 1a5 at the flank of a T-72BU and oneshot him for showing his side...one could simply have a T-72BU and happily beat a force of badly positioned inferior units with ease... one could easily kite a leopard 2a5 into a losing gun only battle with a T-80UM... in wargame you decide what happens next..... more of it is decided simply by your decisions instead of a stupid roll of the die...

same cannot be said for steel division... sometimes id have an AT gun with 72% chance to pen simply bounce off a target..... resulting into a waste of an AT gun.... or a tank move into the perfect ambush position only to miss and get exterminated... or worst of all losing an m4 sherman as 3rd armored early on because a pak41 gerlich had 2% chance to pen.... and got lucky... RNG punishes tactical maneuvering..... RNG punishes good decisions.... RNG simply frustrates players... makes them furious for losing due to having awful rolls of the dice instead of being outplayed......

Here is my proposed solution to reduce RNG

1st is a return of one of the wargame vet systems.... a flat out 16% (multiplicative) veteran accuracy bonus per star of veterancy... this means 50% accuracy becomes 58% accuracy at vet 1... 66% at vet 2 so on...... this reduces the impact of accuracy in veterancy... which ingame can translate to as much as 31%!! (72-41) accuracy bonus

2nd is a general increase in the accuracy of all unvetted guns ingame... currently the accuracy is both unrealistic and bad for gameplay as stated above... the new value is debatable however i shall base this on the accuracy of one of the main battle tanks in use in wargame... the T-72A... without veterancy the chance to hit for a tank say the sherman 75 with 5 acc should be 50% at maximum range.... this coincides at least with the T-72A in wargame which like the sherman 75 is a medium firesupport vehicle with higher HE and armor but lower accuracy and AP to its counterpart the leopard 1a4/ panzer 4...
now of course i agree the price is a little out of proprtion compared to wargame but both the panzer 4 and the sherman 75 should most likely recieve price buffs

(stadiametric rangefinding still gives good enough range readings and rates 80% acc at 1000m for guns such as the kwk 43 42 and the kwk 40 but thats too accurate for gameplay if applied to all guns)


3rd is a reduction on the penetration RNG mechanic... american penetration tables use 50% penetration criteria when the penetration value equals the armor value.... and that should be the case... 50% chance to pen when AP = AV..... in turn the AP values and AP scaling should be tweaked to realistic models... the storm of the west mod seems to have good values for this and should be applied.....

a tidbit of info is that APCBC should be the model for judging penetration not solid core AP.... as that stuff shatters on impact against most targets it encounters

these changes in theory make the meta change drastically.... mainly positioning... these changes mean that good positioning and patience while lining the shot matter more considerably.... and that bad axis positioning is punished hard.... at the same time the same could be said for allied players that position their tanks badly.... getting picked off by axis tanks at long range..... but this time more reliably as tanks wont get super lucky anymore... meaning that 76 sherman with 2% chance to pen at max range against that panther D wont gib you anytime soon...

@EUG_MadMat

just my 2 cents

 

[Katsuki126]

Depends what you want, predictability or realism ?

It is, for various reason, realistic to have a lot of RNG at this scale. Personally I like that, and that is the reason I prefer SD44 over CoH.

Now if you prefer predictability, it is your right, but I don't think the devs want to go that way and I would be disappointed if they did

 

[gbem]

combat accuracy can reach 80% during testing... when range is unknown against a static target stadiametric rangefinding can be used to find the range and achieve 80% accuracy against a target at least 2 by 2.5 meters in dimensions... meanwhile ingame guns have a mere 27% chance to hit against static targets.......

regardless realism isnt the main concern here... its gameplay...it is frustrating...simply frustrating on how powerful RNG is ingame...
is it fun to miss shots fired by unsuppressed tanks at 600m? bcz 50%/40% chance to hit depending on the gun
is it fun to have a well prepared and well setup AT gun or tank ambush miss because RNG wants to screw you?
is it fun to have an AT gun lined up with a 72% chance to pen and bounce because RNG says fuck me?
is it fun to have a your m4a1 sherman die to a gerlich at 900m simply because he had 2% chance to kill you and simply got lucky?
i dont think so.... and i dont think its good for the playerbase either... its simply frustrating....

do u have experience in wargame red dragon katsuki? you might understand what im talking about if you compare the 2 games...

 

[dmdelor]

Eh. There's pros and cons to either approach, but the game works pretty well the way it is now, IMHO.

Despite the increased randomness in vehicles dying or not, I actually find that in practice it's way less swing-y than Red Dragon because everyone is so slow firing and inaccurate. In Red Dragon, a push could be annihilated really quickly because the weapons were so lethal. In Steel Division, you usually have some time to maneuver and back off.

Small comfort if your Buete Firefly gets popped by a lucky shot, I know, but IMHO that's more of a deck design problem than a game mechanic problem; decks dependent on a single, mega-expensive unit that it can't replace is generally not a good thing.

 

[gbem]

thats the fun part... just like in real war a single mistake means the end of your offensive... that should be the case.... meanwhile in steel div even a big mistake means the enemy still gets to turn and annihilate your well positioned flanking AT gun or tank....
is that the way you really wanna go? punish good positioning and movement?

this game emphasizes more on i got lucky over tactical outplaying :/

 

[Katsuki126]

do u have experience in wargame red dragon katsuki? you might understand what im talking about if you compare the 2 games...

No, I didn't, that is why I didn't mentioned it. I played a bit of European Escalation when it first hits the market and disliked it, never went further than that in Wargame. I played a lot of Company of Heroes though, hence my comparison

is it fun to have a well prepared and well setup AT gun or tank ambush miss because RNG wants to screw you?
is it fun to have an AT gun lined up with a 72% chance to pen and bounce because RNG says fuck me?
is it fun to have a your m4a1 sherman die to a gerlich at 900m simply because he had 2% chance to kill you and simply got lucky?

Well... Yes

I mean, call me a masochist, but I love the feeling that every action is a gamble, that a bad move which caused entire units to get flank might turn in a victory, or that I can't predict whether such tank will get destroyed, scared off or simply unscratched. That unveiling this hidden position too soon would result in a miss, too close is dangerous and yet, close or far away might turn differently. The feeling that my enemy is just to scared to move and that should he attack at once, might destroyed my tiny defences or on the other hand overwhelm me.

I might be overplaying it, but I do like it

this game emphasizes more on i got lucky over tactical outplaying :/

Nah, don't think so, if you tactically outplay your opponent he will need more than luck to win. Now, one very good maneuver might be defeated by luck but that is the way of life and I love it

 

[I WUB PUGS]

I don't think that bringing the games even closer is the answer. I had high hopes for steel division, but not as wargame 2.0. We could have had two fundamentally different games if steel division could settle its identity and step away from wargame's shadow. As it stands there's too many compromises, forced flavour, half-baked ideas for it to be the authentic experience that I expected and wanted it to be.

Perfect summary.

 

[gbem]

No, I didn't, that is why I didn't mentioned it. I played a bit of European Escalation when it first hits the market and disliked it, never went further than that in Wargame. I played a lot of Company of Heroes though, hence my comparison



Well... Yes

I mean, call me a masochist, but I love the feeling that every action is a gamble, that a bad move which caused entire units to get flank might turn in a victory, or that I can't predict whether such tank will get destroyed, scared off or simply unscratched. That unveiling this hidden position too soon would result in a miss, too close is dangerous and yet, close or far away might turn differently. The feeling that my enemy is just to scared to move and that should he attack at once, might destroyed my tiny defences or on the other hand overwhelm me.

I might be overplaying it, but I do like it



Nah, don't think so, if you tactically outplay your opponent he will need more than luck to win. Now, one very good maneuver might be defeated by luck but that is the way of life and I love it

1. well give red dragon a shot.... it had grown alot since the era of EE... for one T-80Us are no longer the destroyer of worlds... although are still dangerous opponents... and 2nd... rng is actually higher in the 1st 2 games in contrast to red dragon...

2. soo its sort of a good thing to punish good maneuvering and planning? and since flanking with AT is currently useless as it stands anyways essentially making dumb luck the more important factor is a good idea?...

because as it stands ive had 3 well planned maneuvers get exterminated.... in a row... i had a 17 pdr with vet 2.... a wolverine and a challenger.... each getting to the flank of a tiger E wittman...popped smoke and fired on the tiger E wittman... each missed every time and got exterminated.... essentially summarizing my point....

RNG makes dumb luck more important than maneuvering and positioning.. and steel division has a much larger RNG factor in contrast to WGRD...

in WGRD RNG only determines criticals and accuracy,,, not to mention accuracy was alot higher in WGRD and criticals were alot less common..

in steel div it determines criticals accuracy and penetration/damage... and is alot higher across the board...


3. more RNG is never a good idea...

 

[gbem]

Perfect summary.

they can be vastly different games but with less RNG overall.... the penetration mechanic i suggested is vastly different to that of wargame.... but has reduced RNG factor in it

 

[Protosszocker]

they can be vastly different games but with less RNG overall.... the penetration mechanic i suggested is vastly different to that of wargame.... but has reduced RNG factor in it

The RNG is what you have to handle just like real ww2 soldiers had to. Still you can just fear an enemy tank so much that the risk to shoot at him is zero or really low. In the end all rng balances out normally.

 

[gbem]

Not really... rng on this degree is simply unrealistic and bad for gameplay... less RNG is always better

 

[Katsuki126]

Not really... rng on this degree is simply unrealistic and bad for gameplay... less RNG is always better

There is a post from @Zinegata on another thread that explicitly explained the contrary. More RNG is more realistic due to the unpredictable nature of a battle. The smaller the scale, the higher the RNG.

 

[Drang]

Do you want to play a game about war, or do you want to play chess?

 

[Nebelwerfer 42]

The RNG is a great addition. It rewards people who are skilled enough to minimize it, you can park your AT gun in a bush, with no command unit, and let it fire at heavily armored tanks at maximum range and let it get it lit up. Or, you can pair it with a command unit, put it on return fire only, and let enemy tanks get in the sweet spot range, flipping the RNG tables in your favor.

Chances of penetration and missing are perfectly realistic

 

[gbem]

The RNG is a great addition. It rewards people who are skilled enough to minimize it, you can park your AT gun in a bush, with no command unit, and let it fire at heavily armored tanks at maximum range and let it get it lit up. Or, you can pair it with a command unit, put it on return fire only, and let enemy tanks get in the sweet spot range, flipping the RNG tables in your favor.

Chances of penetration and missing are perfectly realistic

you mean park your AT gun with a command unit wait for the target to close in to 600 meters and miss like a bitch? that shit has happened multiple times and RNG like that is completely unrealistic... especially considering the frequency of its occurence...

with RNG there is no "sweet spot".. only frustration as your stuff misses fairly reliably at even half the engagement range.... that shit used to happen in earlier iterations of wargame but does NOT happen in wargame red dragon.... RD was made alot more competitive and simply better right after the accuracy buff

realistically speaking accuracy should be at least 80% at 1000m but since thats too much id settle for at least 50% with accuracy being almost 100% within 600 meters ESPECIALLY during an ambush

 

[gbem]

Do you want to play a game about war, or do you want to play chess?

do you wanna play a game about war or do you wanna play wheel of fortune?

 

[Drang]

do you wanna play a game about war or do you wanna play wheel of fortune?

you seem to be under the impression that war, and wargaming, does not contain a massive element of probability/chance.

your impression is wrong

 

[gbem]

you seem to be under the impression that war, and wargaming, does not contain a massive element of probability/chance.

your impression is wrong

i am on the impression that a well aimed shot in tank vs tank combat using high velocity guns at 600m has a high probability of success..

and am on the impression that penetration chance is 50% when the penetration equals the armor value scaling up with minor standard deviation in its dispersion...

 

[Protosszocker]

i am on the impression that a well aimed shot in tank vs tank combat using high velocity guns at 600m has a high probability of success..

and am on the impression that penetration chance is 50% when the penetration equals the armor value scaling up with minor standard deviation in its dispersion...

with this version of armor tanks would be useless. And the accuracy also isnt that unrealistic. Hitting the first hit isnt that easy . even though we could talk about a +1 acc buff for a long time (20-30 sec) stationary at gun or a better hiding chance for them. But still its not like at guns back than were modern weapons with rangefinder and stuff.

 

[Boxman]

with this version of armor tanks would be useless. And the accuracy also isnt that unrealistic. Hitting the first hit isnt that easy . even though we could talk about a +1 acc buff for a long time (20-30 sec) stationary at gun or a better hiding chance for them. But still its not like at guns back than were modern weapons with rangefinder and stuff.

Sherman tanks were expected to have an accuracy of above 80% on the first shot in combat situations at 1000m with follow on shots being almost guaranteed hits. It is silly to assume that people who have spent months training on a platform can't hit the broad side of a barn.