Would a Mods On Choice Benefit BoS

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

The number of people doesnt matter. Remember the polls on the BoM premium aircraft. They were also far lower than total forum registered accounts or game owners but they served to show a trend, both here as well as on the russian forum.

 

You can't force everybody to vote thus every unvoiced opinion has to be considered as neutral.

 

I'm not a particular fan of RoF Mods on Mode as it basicly reduced MP mod compatebility to 0, but it's a great gain for SP flyers. Again DCS and Arma 3 show what can be accomplished with decent mod support and both found ways to make profit with them.

Having mods available would increase the number of support tickets for 1CGS. Yes they aren't obliged to provide help for 3rd party mods and programs but they'll still get the tickets. They probably get enough of these already.

You can't prevent people from spamming tickets for whatever cause but since theres 2 modes availabel it would be easy to cross check if possible errors were game or mod related. Decent modders also make updates and warn people about incompatebility issues.
It works well in other games, why shouldnt it here.

 

Edit: Whatever the reason for resurrecting this topic was, it's probably very unlikely we'll see mods on mode after BoM anyway.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Stab/JG26_5tuka

[SharpeXB]

The number of people doesnt matter.

 

The number of respondents has to represent a valid sample size. 80 players out 250,000 (the RoF polls are like this too) isn't a reasonable sample size. Also the respondents need to be selected at random if they are going to represent the average player. The very fact that the poll is voluntary on a forum invalidates that criteria.

I don't mean to spoil the fun of forum polls but you can't take them seriously.

[SharpeXB]

Again DCS and Arma 3 show what can be accomplished with decent mod support and both found ways to make profit with them.

 

The difference between this game and ARMA 3 is that ARMA has an average playtime of 151 hours vs 16 for BoS

Somebody who plays a game for hundreds of hours is much more likely to mod it than someone who only plays for a few.

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

The number of respondents has to represent a valid sample size. 80 players out 250,000 (the RoF polls are like this too) isn't a reasonable sample size. Also the respondents need to be selected at random if they are going to represent the average player. The very fact that the poll is voluntary on a forum invalidates that criteria.

I don't mean to spoil the fun of forum polls but you can't take them seriously.

 

So are you going to tell us that drug trials face an automatic statistical bias because the control and the sample group are not representative of the 7.5 billion human cohabitants of this planet..? 

 

The sample group that we do have have spoken pretty clearly:

• Of the 4,500 you mentioned who have at least one post 300 people for Mods On encompasses 6% vs .6% (a pretty polarizing result - still ten times the number in favor vs out of favor!)
• Lets assume that about 1000 of us have 100+ posts and can be considered "seasoned veterans" of the forums - 300 out of a thousand is 30% - 30 out of a thousand is a meer 3%.
• It's also pretty likely that if the 80,000 user base participated on the forums to the degree that you and I do that the results would still polarize outside of your favor... The majority of people like choices.

It's basic statistics, basic math, simple concepts - what is so hard to understand?

[6./ZG26_5tuka]

Sure you right about the numbers, they need to be within a reasonable region. Neverthanless polls in general are influrential for the devs decisions at best and not a final saying of anything. Given the number of people participating in this one and the fact it's a niche market, I'd say it should at least be considered closely by devs.

 

Don't see what playtime has to do with Mods. As I said Mods On mode would mainly be a benefit for SP players while probably only used for special event servers in MP at best.

[GunnyHighway]

What is easy to understand is that: this forum is also opened to the public at large  which does not own BOS BOM.

 

So the result of a poll that does not sample only BOS BOM players is not reliable.

 

Moreover, someone with different e-mail addresses could vote several times. 

 

An unreliable poll result is as important as a rainy day!

Edited March 29, 2016 by GunnyHighway

[unreasonable]

The number of respondents has to represent a valid sample size. 80 players out 250,000 (the RoF polls are like this too) isn't a reasonable sample size. Also the respondents need to be selected at random if they are going to represent the average player. The very fact that the poll is voluntary on a forum invalidates that criteria.

I don't mean to spoil the fun of forum polls but you can't take them seriously.

 

Your statements about sampling are a complete red herring. No-one is taking these polls to be an attempt to sample the "average player" (if such a person even exists). They are merely sounding whether there is an interest in a particular topic. Clearly there is.

 

Actually if they were randomly sampled, 303 votes (not 80) is a fairly good sample size, given that we are not looking for particularly small error margins. There is no universal "statistically significant" sample size - you fit the sample size to the get the degree of confidence you need for the particular question you are are trying to answer. In this case it as not as though anyone is predicting which party wins an election or some such issue: an overly precise measurement would be superfluous.

Edited March 29, 2016 by unreasonable

[SharpeXB]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics

[SharpeXB]

Don't see what playtime has to do with Mods.

Because people who play a game for only a few hours are very unlikely to bother with modding it.

50% of BoS players have played the game for less than 5 hours

Players with more than 100 hours constitute about 4%

Greater than 200 hours amount to .9%

(Stats from Steamspy)

These numbers are pretty typical for most games. War Thunder has a median time of 5 hours as well.

 

So when the development team says that mods in RoF were not used much, the hours above help explain why.

Edited March 29, 2016 by SharpeXB

[unreasonable]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistics

 

Do not give me wiki references - I did statistics courses in both my undergraduate and post graduate degrees. What you need to understand is that statistical tests are designed to be used under specific circumstances to answer specific questions to a defines degree of certainty. This is not the case here at all. The question is "would a mods on choice benefit BoS?" , not "what proportion of the player base would use BoS mods". The poll is indicative, the discussion highlights the pros and cons. Focusing on pseudo-statistical issues like "sample size" is irrelevant. 

 

Now it may be true that even in RoF relatively few people use mods themselves, but this is not the point. When new people come onto the forum asking for help or general advice relating to SP, there is a core group - which naturally changes over time - that gives them that feedback. The majority of those enthusiasts use mods. If mods were not there, many of those enthusiasts would not be there either. I certainly would not - unmodded RoF is a very poor simulation mostly due to its poor DM and silly AAA and AI gunner behaviour, and of course many people also use PWCG - another mod.

 

I happen to think that BoX is rather better in many respects, but even so, if having a mods on mode means that there is an enthusiast group who welcome new players and acts as unpaid helpline and promoters for the game that is helpful to BoS. Whether that can be achieved with a reasonable investment of time none of us here know.

[Bearcat]

First off.. let's keep this non personal gentlemen. I have removes some sensitive posts..  Keep it civil.

 

Mods take away business from the creators of the game. And that is the reason why mods are authorized most of the times for games which are considered dead in the water by the creators; this one is not dead in the water. Yet you are openly saying that the game you purchased is not that good and needs to be improved, then that the creator of the game are not good enough to improve it and to let you improve it as you know better. You add insult to injury.

 

[Edited]

 

i disagree with this. You are confusing mods with hacks.  It all depends on how mods are done. If mods are allowed by the developer and their implementation is a part of the game itself they can be a benefit.

 

IL2 Mods had little to none effect until 408 patch. Hy days was 4.09, 8 - 9 years after first release of the game. So you are correct. I haven't missed mods yet in this game for the very same reasons you mention . 

But I would not lock that coffin, it might be a mod that finally make the JU 52 a cockpit . It free a lot of work from the developers. But you will also get a paranoia about cheating. We have seen that pop up in this forum already.

However, there is not a need to start a war about this, we will not see mods yet in this game if ever

 

Mods are the thing keeping IL2 alive now.. but in the beginning they were problematic. It was after Oleg walked away that things began to settle down and solidify but let us not forget those were hacks in the beginning because they were not authorized.

 

Having mods available would increase the number of support tickets for 1CGS. Yes they aren't obliged to provide help for 3rd party mods and programs but they'll still get the tickets. They probably get enough of these already.
Sure. The Forum is really the only way for the developer to get feedback. But you have to take the participation statistics into account when reading the posts. Of the 78,939 members, only about 4,500 have even made a single post. So what you see on a forum are from a minuscule fraction of the players.

The players who frequent the forum and vote on these polls are enthusiasts and probably aren't representative of the typical player. There's another poll here indicating 37% of players have muliple screen setups. How valid do you think that statistic is?

 

I disagree with this.. In fact I think mods done within the functionality of the sim would reduced tickets because the bottom line would be .. if you have a problem with a mod remove it.. and revert to stock. I have said it once I have said it a thousand times.. Options are always better..

[SharpeXB]

For a developer to get any meaningful feedback on questions like this requires an actual survey. The kind you get with nearly every product you buy. I can't recall getting one of these from game developers but I'm sure they exist. Perhaps 1CGS does this already. They know more about this business than I do.

Send a truly randomized questionnaire to some of the 70-80,000 email addresses of the game owners.

Phrase the questions in the correct way. You can't ask "Does everyone want ____" obviously the answer will be yes. That's the trouble with the way this poll is formatted. In the way the question is asked, most people will just want something if you ask them. That doesn't imply the real choice a developer has to make about time and resources.

 

A real survey question is like

"What factors influenced your decision to purchase this game?"

- Graphics

- The Eastern Front

- I like flight sims in general

- The aircraft featured in the game

- Realistic Flight Models

Etc etc.

 

"What future improvements would you like to see in the IL-2 Series."

- Additional aircraft

- Additional theaters

- Improved physics

- Improved damage model

- 64 bit support

- DX 11+ support

- Support for VR

- More AI

- Better AI

- Campaign improvements

- A Mods On Mode

The list could go on and on.

 

And the all important part of phrasing this question is "check only three". Otherwise people would just check all of them.

That's the normal way companies get feedback like this and it's probably being done already.

 

Do not give me wiki references - I did statistics courses in both my undergraduate and post graduate degrees.

Ok. Do you think 28.79% of BoS players really have triple screen setups? Like this poll would seem to indicate?

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/9470-how-many-you-have-triple-screen-setup/

 

No of course they don't. The poll indicates that 28.79% of poll respondents have triple screen setups. Not all players.

If you're looking for a statistic that's representative of the entire player base you won't get an accurate answer from a forum frequented by enthusiasts.

 

I don't mean to spoil the fun of the Polls section but you must realize who's answers you are seeing here.

Edited March 29, 2016 by SharpeXB

[unreasonable]

 

Ok. Do you think 28.79% of BoS players really have triple screen setups? Like this poll would seem to indicate?

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/9470-how-many-you-have-triple-screen-setup/

 

No of course they don't. The poll indicates that 28.79% of poll respondents have triple screen setups. Not all players.

If you're looking for a statistic that's representative of the entire player base you won't get an accurate answer from a forum frequented by enthusiasts.

 

I don't mean to spoil the fun of the Polls section but you must realize who's answers you are seeing here.

 

Why do you keep repeating this? No-one has said that this poll is a random sample, or that it indicates the proportion of the total player base that would use mods.

 

The poll is a test of opinion of those who are motivated enough to answer it - quite a large number, by the standards of BoS polls, as it happens.

 

For modding to be beneficial to BoS it is not necessary that the majority - or even a large proportion - of the player base use them. As I explained before, and other have explained, the overall benefit to BoS is the impact of a community of enthusiasts. There clearly is a fair number of people who would be considerably more enthusiastic about BoS if it was moddable. The same would be true of other features that only a minority might use: VR for example.

 

Set against this are the disadvantages. The only one I can see is the resource investment, which I cannot believe is huge - RoF does it. The other disadvantages people have come up with in this thread - and others - turn out to be fear-mongering. Indeed we have even had comments from someone on the RoF forum that "modding the DM would be death for RoF" or some such wording: oblivious to the fact that a DM  mod has existed for years and is widely used!

[SharpeXB]

Han's response from the Questions section.

"no, for a while we don't plan to implement mods off mode."

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/7-questions-developers/?p=288571

Edited March 30, 2016 by SharpeXB

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

Han's response from the Questions section.

"no, for a while we don't plan to implement mods off mode."

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/7-questions-developers/?p=288571

 

Cool, but that doesn't dismiss the results of the poll. 

[SharpeXB]

Cool, but that doesn't dismiss the results of the poll.

If this poll is valid, then do you think the one that seems to indicate that 28% of the players have multiple screens is valid too? Or are they both inaccurate for the same reasons?

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

If this poll is valid, then do you think the one that seems to indicate that 28% of the players have multiple screens is valid too? Or are they both inaccurate for the same reasons?

 

 

Why do you keep repeating this? No-one has said that this poll is a random sample, or that it indicates the proportion of the total player base that would use mods.

 

The poll is a test of opinion of those who are motivated enough to answer it - quite a large number, by the standards of BoS polls, as it happens.

 

-snip-

[SharpeXB]

The total number of people who respond to polls is vaguely relevant enough. More responses would tend to indicate a higher level of interest by more people.

 

Polls:

Campaign Unlocks 1179 responses

New Theater: 1142

Next Aircraft: 532

Graphics Option 507

Triple Screens 330

Mods Mode: 303

RoF style Career 123

Flight Model Wobbling: 80

 

You can draw some conclusion from those.

Edited March 30, 2016 by SharpeXB

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

-snip-

 

You can draw some conclusion from those.

 

So what are you trying to gain here, again? Are you seriously so effected in your gaming experience that you'd keep them from the majority of people who voted in this poll who think they would benefit the sim?

 

It seems that you are still trying to contest an evident fact: 10 people for every 1 person who participated in this poll thinks that Mods On would benefit BOS.

 

There is so little to contest about a 10:1 ratio that I seriously, seriously, seriously can't see what you're hoping to gain by repetitiously arguing non-points.

Edited March 30, 2016 by Space_Ghost

[SharpeXB]

So what are you trying to gain here, again? Are you seriously so effected in your gaming experience that you'd keep them from the majority of people who voted in this poll who think they would benefit the sim?

 

It seems that you are still trying to contest an evident fact: 10 people for every 1 person who participated in this poll thinks that Mods On would benefit BOS.

 

There is so little to contest about a 10:1 ratio that I seriously, seriously, seriously can't see what you're hoping to gain by repetitiously arguing non-points.

The way most of these polls are worded will guarantee 90% of the respondents will want whatever is being asked for.

When it's stated like "Do you want ____?"

Everybody wants everything so the majority will always vote yes.

And you're only sampling the top 1/2% most active players who bother to read forum polls.

 

The devs know the real answers to all these question and statistics for the game and already responded on this so it's rather moot. It sounds like they'll consider it at some point in the future.

In the meantime they have more important work to do.

Edited March 30, 2016 by SharpeXB

[GunnyHighway]

I wonder among the posters , if anyone is working for Desastersoft or team Fusion?

Edited April 13, 2016 by GunnyHighway

[GunnyHighway]

First off.. let's keep this non personal gentlemen. I have removes some sensitive posts..  Keep it civil.

 

 

i disagree with this. You are confusing mods with hacks.  It all depends on how mods are done. If mods are allowed by the developer and their implementation is a part of the game itself they can be a benefit.

 

I am not confusing mods with hacks, reality is never all black or all white, there are no such boundaries in life. Hacks and Mods are some times part of the same package. Also the one benefiting from the mod would call it mod, when it is actually a hack in disguise for certain "enlightened" players.

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

I wonder among the posters , if anyone is working for Desastersoft or team Fusion?

 

No, nor do I see how that is even remotely relevant.

[GunnyHighway]

Encouraging Fair Play

UEFA EURO 2016 starts today and first and foremost it's based on Fair Play principle, just like any other sport.

We're stepping up our commitment to Fair Play!

We want to provide a level playing field for everyone.

As part of our Fair Play policy, players using prohibited third-party software will face disciplinary action, including but not limited to: permanent ban.

We consider "mod" use cheating, and strongly encourage players to remove any aforementioned programs from their PCs.

By offering this warning, we hope to give our community a chance to enjoy IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Moscow and Battle of Stalingrad the Fair way.

 

Best Wishes,
The IL-2 Sturmovik Team

 

So now we know what happens to hackers and their mods!....And you know to who i am looking at, right now!!

[Feathered_IV]

Those are not the kind of mods we are talking about and not the kind of ones that can be created with an RoF style of mods-on mode. I can say that with confidence after more than ten years of making mods for flight sims.

[pilotpierre]

Those are not the kind of mods we are talking about and not the kind of ones that can be created with an RoF style of mods-on mode. I can say that with confidence after more than ten years of making mods for flight sims.

Some bloody good ones too.

[unreasonable]

This pretty well summarizes why I have just about given up on BoS, quite apart from  the patriotic education aspect of the series, which I can tolerate, although that is not made any easier by some individuals turning the forum into an extension of the programme.

 

Mods are conflated with hacks, which cause panic and consternation, because everyone realises that sections of the MP community are so childish that they will cheat in order to "win", or even just for the anarchic pleasure of it. 

 

So the absurd and impossible desire of the e-sports players for a "level playing field" over-rides the interests of everyone else.

 

Meanwhile us SP players are still stuck with player levels that we cannot reset or adjust, a game mechanism never before attempted in the history of gaming (AFAIK, based on 45 years of doing it), presumably for the reason that it is "galactically stupid", if I may borrow one of Hollywood's better expressions.