Does making a tank SIM more historically accurate make creating balance in game play more difficult?

[LachenKrieg]

Obviously historical accuracy, or realism of the vehicles themselves is very important in SP game play if you want to test your skill at pitting one machine against another in a realistic way. A Pz IIIL/M vs either of the in-game T-34 models will require a much different strategy then a Panther vs a KV-1s for example because of the type of balance created by the strengths and weaknesses of each vehicle. But what about balance in MP game play? What is balance, and how is it achieved?

 

Some have suggested that incorporating historical accuracy of armored vehicles for MP game play also includes things like player skill (human element) and historical outcomes, but does it, or even should it?   

 

If this were a Formula1 racing SIM aimed at capturing all the excitement of the 1996 season, the point IMO would be to accurately simulate the capabilities of the Ferrari F310 and Williams FW18 cars, and let the players decide who is the better driver and which team wins. The fact that none of the players would likely match the actual driving skill of Michael Schumacher, or Damon Hill is not the point of the SIM's use in MP game play IMO. On a personal level, the closer the SIM is to the real thing (the actual historical balance that existed between the cars), the more the players will be able to appreciate what it must have been like to win a Forumla1 race in those cars. But like any MP game, the outcome should be decided by the players themselves and not based on what actually happened in 1996.

 

So what is balance in MP game play, and how does having historically accurate (realistic) tanks affect it?

 

Balanced game play IMO is game play where both teams have an equal chance of winning the match. But because there is such a wide variation in the strengths and weaknesses of the various tanks, the server host itself would have to control which tank sets it allows for each match, as well as the number of each type allowed in order to achieve a somewhat balanced game play. To add variety, it is also easy to have different tank sets cycle between matches.

 

To include the non-Tank Crew owning players, one set might be the Pz IIIL, Pz IVG, Panther vs both T-34 models, M4A2 Sherman, and SU122 with numbers of each type allowed to spawn adjusted to achieve balanced game play. Another set could be the Pz IIIL, Tiger vs KV-1s, SU152, T-34 (1942) also using an appropriate number of each type. It is also important for each player to consider the role/strengths/weaknesses of the tank they are in. A player in a Pz IIIL should be either protecting the flank of his teammate in the Tiger, or flanking/tracking his opponents so that the Tiger can finish them off. Conversely, the other side should be focused on working their way behind enemy strong points to take out any Tiger tanks in defensive positions, or use the KV-1s/SU152 as a setting force for any Tiger's going offensive while the T-34's fire from side/rear.

 

So IMO, making the SIM more realistic does add a layer of complexity to achieving balanced game play, but it does not make it impossible if the server host is willing to devote the time needed to find the right balance.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by LachenKrieg

[[F.Circus]Adastra99]

One problem is that real warfare isn't very fun for most people on the pointy end. To simulate the experience of warfare, you'd need to spend more time being bored and miserable before and after every match, and if you die in the game (or if you're just unlucky that day) someone would need to shoot you. It's a real turn off for most gamers.

 

Other problems:

 

-Players can always communicate in ways that would be impossible for the actual tanks. No fiddling with radios, no being out of range, no interference, no just not having a radio because yours is busted. Anyone can talk to anyone in a way tanks could not, and you can't stop it since people would just use Discord or Teamspeak or whatever.

-Players do not suffer from physical exertion and stress the way that real tank crews would be. This could be modeled the way things like Gs are modeled in the flight component, but things like poor decisions from fear of imminent death can't really.

-Not enough people. War is a team sport, and IL-2 teams aren't big enough. Even a company on company action is liable to be more players than you'd normally expect to see. AT guns, infantry, etc are as relevant to a tank sim as crash barriers and rain effects in an F1 sim, to use your example.

-In most cases, it's one player to one tank, switching through crew positions and/or automating ones that are too tedious. This creates unique challenges (can't do everything at once without automating to the point where it's not really a sim on the level of tank crew anymore) and advantages (the "crew's" actions are far more coordinated than is possible in real life because they're all controlled by a higher being)

-People will never be satisfied. Even if you manage to actually accomplish true simulation of warfare, people will believe that certain things are more realistic even if they aren't. Pop history tends to severely drag down people's perception of realism, and even professional history has tons of bias, interpretation, and simple mistakes involved.

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Adastra99
Added additional detail to my third point.

[Thad]

Salutations,

 

Even if all vehicles or craft were presented historically accurate and realistic, presenting a balance battle would prove very difficult. There are so many variables. As you mentioned player numbers are currently limited.

 

In 1991, Iraqi tank unit members decried the defeat of their vaunted Republican Guard units because our American M1 tanks were engaging and knocking out theirs well before the U.S. tanks were in their effect range of the fire. Therefore it was a unfair fight in their minds.

 

It was. All forces seek the advantage in any way they can. Fairness has nothing to do with it.

 

As a single player Tank Crew mission creator, I know first hand that a numbers for numbers fair fight cannot be presented between the Russians and Germans.

 

It is true, overwhelming numbers has a quality all its' own.

 

Do you think the Allies defeated the Germans because their tanks were superior. They were not. But they had overwhelming numbers. Wave after wave after wave of tanks. In the end, it was the allies overwhelming numbers that defeated Germany not technical advantages.

 

In Tank Crew we currently can't present great numbers of Allied players to attack a smaller sized but of superior quality Axis force. We  have to set up a managed set piece battle to simulate it for the player. Currently, even if we could field equal numbers of players for each side, balance would definately not result. We would have to impose some limitations or handicaps to present the appearance of balance for the players.

 

Mission builders out there know what I am talking about. 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Thad

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

42 minutes ago, Thad said:

 

It is true, overwhelming numbers has a quality all its' own.

 

Not just being able to just make more tanks mind, but also being able to logistically support those tanks a lot more. T34s were a lot easier to repair in the field, whilst Tigers had to be shipped back to Germany to get the spare parts since the Nazi war planners hadn't accounted for Russia's sheer size. And then there's the famous unreliability of the late war designs!

 

Everybody talks about the Tiger but honestly the lowly Stug is the best German tank design of WW2.

Edited June 29, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[LukeFF]

1 hour ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

Everybody talks about the Tiger but honestly the lowly Stug is the best German tank design of WW2.

 

If only it was a tank! ?

[Monostripezebra]

The thing is:

 

Gamedesign for balance is always only the 2nd best option. The best option is probably people beeing mature enough to have an understanding that they themselves have a vested interest in a "fair" (however defined) game.. like for instance people playing board- or tabletop games and not going 100% with the rules but agreeing beforehand how they want to approach the game.

 

In flight/tanksims people are not overly mature, kinda obsessed with individual vehicle stats and appeal.. and often not really caring for the sessions game-goal but individual goals like "getting kills" or "astonishing V-life".. so mission design can matter, but that is not guaranteed and people on the same team can have totally different goals in what they want to actually "win" in the game.. (cool videos, internet fame for beeing the baaad ass lone wulf, obsessing over making other people salty, beeing the top spawncamper etc.pp.,)

 

but aside from the player-usable-vehicle or unit there are tradtionally a ton of variables used for balance:

 

-numbers

-player skill (and groupings)

-map design

-player communication enabling/obstructing

-mission design

-resource alotment

-abstract elements such as "victory points" and what goes into them etc.

 

now, tendencially the easiest fair game design is a match style setup, like the same map/mission gets played twice and players are assigned each side once.. like round one to side A and round two to side B. But the classical mechanism of people who "just wanna play their one thing" is people migrating, ie not playing a full set of 2 rounds but serverhopping, which is something you cannot really control, gamedesignwise (except for "re-join punishment" and "ranking punishment")  but overall, you can not force players in any way to stay on a server for 2 rounds, thus this concept works best for short games.. and except for "tournament" style pre-organized encounters it is thus never found in flightsims (gametime for realistic  flights forbids it)

 

So from my point of view, there are essentially only a few steps, gamedesign in flightsims can take towards balance.. if people do behave overly immature (in relation to having an actual game, example joing a wastly superior side and sitting there doing boring spawncamperisms).

 

In essence:

Player behaviour can change everything and mean everything in terms achieving open ended gameplay (you know, the whole usual bonkabonk of "pls balance teams", beeing kind to new players and show them tricks, take up new players into groups.. don´t have all the internet aces only on one side.. not villifying the other side as in one days opponent may be another days teammate and not "ah the luftwhinners" "ah the red losers" etc.pp.) Simple stuff, mature players can do.

 

Since that only works less then sometimes, what are gamedesing mechanisms that work in a flightsim-environment?

 

-Side relation limits.

Whichever side reaches a certain numerical relation (after a threshold) can not be joined until relation is changed. IE: you set a beginning threshold like "10 players on server", after that is reached, the set relationship like "team A can only be max 1.5x size of team B" gouverns numbers. So if more then 7.5 (8) players of the free beginning 10 are on one side, you simply can not join that side until the other side has gained players.

 

-Spawn protection

that just means to have more robust measures to prevent spawn explotations (currently 0), from spawn variations to no-go spawn areas to "invulnerability for first 15sec" etc.. many games have shown many mechanisms, but those are generally shunned by flightsimmers, because "muh, realism!!". Which kinda means this argument ends with with more random spawning zones, which would have to be "handplaced" by the mission designer, because of terrain making random issues unusable (tank on island problem).

 

-Ingame voice COM option

communication is actually one of the best side performance variables, but if only varying and external sources (teamspeak, discord, steamchat, myspace)are available, it splinters more.. in game com options would really lower the interaction barrier. I know that this is gonna be controversial, but in 2021 chat/teamchat are a bit antiquated and natural com options more becoming a standard and would be a good go-to strategy.

 

 

-Spawncost / resource alotment

this is mission designer territory and can be either historic numbers based, player perfomance based or whatever.. but making a low end vehicle like a Po2 or GAZ less impactfull then a Yak9 or a Tiger is kinda the standard go-to and allready used. Perhaps more databased evaluations of that would still offer somewhat more to toy around with in terms of balance.

 

another item here is factoring: ie taking the numerical side difference into account when calculating "winning points" or mission impact. This can however be a double edged sword, as it does not account for player skill.. so a typical scenario would be one side having more players, but more inexperienced players and thus would lose due to factoring.. I think I remember that in GAW the blue side once lost to the amount of planes lost which not necessarily reflected the other sides skill in shooting them down compared to the aspect of more, but less experienced players just steadily losing stuff on their own... or so, but I may be wrong here.

 

-having a bit more rounded vehicle selection

Il2 so far follows a bit a tit-for-tata approach.. so that 5 vehicles one side are opposed by 5 on the other, but with tankcrew I think it is safe to say that the german selection has the upper hand, so far. Some future vehicles like T-34 85s or IS2s etc.. would possibly offer more options but could, dependening on selection, also just invert the issue. But overall, it would make sense to take it into considerations as a factor when deciding on further additions.

 

 

Edited June 29, 2021 by Monostripezebra

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

 

If only it was a tank! ?

 

The german's best tank not even being a tank says even more about Nazi logistics and equipment planning IMO

[Thad]

6 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

If only it was a tank! ?

 

You are right. It was designed as a armored infantry support vehicle with a short barrel gun. It was very effective at that support role. It also had a low profile.

 

As the Germans began losing many tanks the Stug was forced into confronting enemy armor. The Germans soon upgraded them with a much larger, longer and more effective gun for use versus enemy armor. 

Edited June 30, 2021 by Thad

[ShampooX]

History is the balance.  Did God make Seals faster to outrun Sharks?  Did he make Cheetah's slower to make their prey more survivable?  Did he pit Man vs. Dinosaur because that might make for "better balance?"  No.  You could have it like War Thunder...where your Tiger Tank goes up against EBR's from the mid 1950's, or other tanks from the 60's and 70's...because the developers at WT think that's "balanced."   Do you want some programming nerd who couldn't tell the difference from a Panther D from a Panther A from a Panther G to tell you what "balance" should be?  I didn't think so.  If you want to know what it would be like in TC just play War Thunder from the 6.0 BR and higher.  You'll find out.

[Monostripezebra]

2 hours ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

History is the balance.  Did God make Seals faster to outrun Sharks?  Did he make Cheetah's slower to make their prey more survivable?  Did he pit Man vs. Dinosaur because that might make for "better balance?"  No. 

 

You have a somewhat peculiar idea of "history".  And what a game is..  and what they may or may not have in common.

 

My grandfather was a guy who worked with horses on the eastern front, comming from a hoofsmith family.. and by far the biggest mode of supply transport in WW2 for the german army was still horse and carriage... oh yeah, and we totally talked about player count, supplypoints balance and the great spawncamp of ´43, lol

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

1 hour ago, Monostripezebra said:

My grandfather was a guy who worked with horses on the eastern front, comming from a hoofsmith family.. and by far the biggest mode of supply transport in WW2 for the german army was still horse and carriage...

 

[NoelGallagher]

15 hours ago, Adastra99 said:

One problem is that real warfare isn't very fun for most people on the pointy end. To simulate the experience of warfare, you'd need to spend more time being bored and miserable before and after every match, and if you die in the game (or if you're just unlucky that day) someone would need to shoot you. It's a real turn off for most gamers.

 

 

 

you got the point 

many people who seeks the realism in game don't realize this 

if ever any dev makes the game completely simualtes how individual soldier expereince the ww2 

no one would paly it 

becasue what they seek is mostly combat 

they don't want to drive the tank for 1day to get to the frontline 

or march to the frontline with foot for several days 

the good simulation game is utiliazing the advantage from both of realism and game 

and present to the users 

and i think il-2 did a great job on that 

 

and i'm surprise to see amny people agree with the idea of FLAT balancing 

even though they have no capability of representing the superior man power and number of the tank allied had in the game 

i dont think it's right thing to make the sherman so powerful given that this is more closer to simulation than a typical casual shooter 

if you put it this in aircraft in game 

you nerf the 20mm cannon power from german side and increase the damage power of 50 cal 

this is not a warthunder.....

Edited June 30, 2021 by NoelGallagher

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

1 hour ago, NoelGallagher said:

 

you nerf the 20mm cannon power from german side and increase the damage power of 50 cal 

There's quite a bit of discussion wrt: HE rounds doing far more damage then they should and AP rounds (including the .50, which should have incendiary rounds chucked in there but doesn't) doing far less damage then they should on the plane side.

  

1 hour ago, NoelGallagher said:

 

and i'm surprise to see amny people agree with the idea of FLAT balancing 

 

Who?

 

1 hour ago, NoelGallagher said:

 

i dont think it's right thing to make the sherman so powerful given that this is more closer to simulation than a typical casual shooter 

 

The Sherman is perfectly fine just don't point your optics straight at it

Edited June 30, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[[F.Circus]sith1144]

55 minutes ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

The Sherman is perfectly fine just don't point your optics straight at it

 

[NoelGallagher]

1 hour ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

There's quite a bit of discussion wrt: HE rounds doing far more damage then they should and AP rounds (including the .50, which should have incendiary rounds chucked in there but doesn't) doing far less damage then they should on the plane side.

  

 

Who?

 

 

The Sherman is perfectly fine just don't point your optics straight at it

i'm not talking about the gun mantalet thing 

i'm talking about the shermans ability to withstand the 11 shot from rear and side in a point blank range

this must be corrected and there is a problem with the shermans damage model

Sherman is not even close to fine

i'm pretty sure you already saw this video

but just incase you didn't here are the clips 

and if you still think sherman is perfectly fine in the current game

then i don't know what to say anymore...

i can already see where this pointless debate will go

and i had already seen this shitstorm in post scrpitum communitry

so bye you can keep your point of view

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by NoelGallagher

[Peasant]

If developers cant change the historical attributes of vehicles, they should balance the matches in other ways.

For example, in a situation where the Allies don't possess a numerical superiority they shouldnt be forced to attack in order to win. Let their objective be to just defend a set of control points for a given time while the Axis team has to capture them all before the timer runs out. As the Allies know what the enemy objectives are, it will allow them to set up ambushes along the way. Additionally, add minefields, tank traps and other obstacles that will force attacking tanks to move around them, exposing their weak side armour to enemy fire.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

2 hours ago, NoelGallagher said:

i'm not talking about the gun mantalet thing 

i'm talking about the shermans ability to withstand the 11 shot from rear and side in a point blank range

this must be corrected and there is a problem with the shermans damage model

Sherman is not even close to fine

i'm pretty sure you already saw this video

but just incase you didn't here are the clips 

and if you still think sherman is perfectly fine in the current game

then i don't know what to say anymore...

i can already see where this pointless debate will go

and i had already seen this shitstorm in post scrpitum communitry

so bye you can keep your point of view

 

 

Those are indeed Shermans with holes in them.

Can you point out which shots should've caused the tank to fail? I have here this diagram:

And to me it looks like the shots you highlight as being noteworthy penetrations are actually in areas of the tank where they do little mechanical damage. Ofc, this is impossible to point out without being able to see what was actually damaged from the perspective of the Sherman, but still.

Edited June 30, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[ShampooX]

That drawing doesn't do a good job of representing the actual ammo storage which was all along the sides below the entire turret ring.  This is so the drawing can show you the gunners and CO's seats.  Any number of the shots in Noels videos would have produced an "ammo rack" explosion.  From what I understand the TC code does not permit for an ammo rack kill (I asked the question - would taking less ammo reduce the chance of an ammo rack explosion...and the answer was "no") although we do see some very nice explosions occasionally.  Plus Grizzly, you are not even taking into account the effect each one of those rounds has on body parts of the crew.  War Thunder actually does a pretty good job of coding all this internal tank stuff out - or at least they claim to - many times it doesn't work consistently.... so TC is still a much better game in so many other areas.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Shampoo_Actual

[LachenKrieg]

19 hours ago, Adastra99 said:

One problem is that real warfare isn't very fun for most people on the pointy end. To simulate the experience of warfare, you'd need to spend more time being bored and miserable before and after every match, and if you die in the game (or if you're just unlucky that day) someone would need to shoot you. It's a real turn off for most gamers.

 

Other problems:

 

-Players can always communicate in ways that would be impossible for the actual tanks. No fiddling with radios, no being out of range, no interference, no just not having a radio because yours is busted. Anyone can talk to anyone in a way tanks could not, and you can't stop it since people would just use Discord or Teamspeak or whatever.

-Players do not suffer from physical exertion and stress the way that real tank crews would be. This could be modeled the way things like Gs are modeled in the flight component, but things like poor decisions from fear of imminent death can't really.

-Not enough people. War is a team sport, and IL-2 teams aren't big enough. Even a company on company action is liable to be more players than you'd normally expect to see. AT guns, infantry, etc are as relevant to a tank sim as crash barriers and rain effects in an F1 sim, to use your example.

-In most cases, it's one player to one tank, switching through crew positions and/or automating ones that are too tedious. This creates unique challenges (can't do everything at once without automating to the point where it's not really a sim on the level of tank crew anymore) and advantages (the "crew's" actions are far more coordinated than is possible in real life because they're all controlled by a higher being)

-People will never be satisfied. Even if you manage to actually accomplish true simulation of warfare, people will believe that certain things are more realistic even if they aren't. Pop history tends to severely drag down people's perception of realism, and even professional history has tons of bias, interpretation, and simple mistakes involved.

 

What?

 

15 hours ago, Monostripezebra said:

The thing is:

 

Gamedesign for balance is always only the 2nd best option. The best option is probably people beeing mature enough to have an understanding that they themselves have a vested interest in a "fair" (however defined) game.. like for instance people playing board- or tabletop games and not going 100% with the rules but agreeing beforehand how they want to approach the game.

 

In flight/tanksims people are not overly mature, kinda obsessed with individual vehicle stats and appeal.. and often not really caring for the sessions game-goal but individual goals like "getting kills" or "astonishing V-life".. so mission design can matter, but that is not guaranteed and people on the same team can have totally different goals in what they want to actually "win" in the game.. (cool videos, internet fame for beeing the baaad ass lone wulf, obsessing over making other people salty, beeing the top spawncamper etc.pp.,)

 

but aside from the player-usable-vehicle or unit there are tradtionally a ton of variables used for balance:

 

-numbers

-player skill (and groupings)

-map design

-player communication enabling/obstructing

-mission design

-resource alotment

-abstract elements such as "victory points" and what goes into them etc.

 

now, tendencially the easiest fair game design is a match style setup, like the same map/mission gets played twice and players are assigned each side once.. like round one to side A and round two to side B. But the classical mechanism of people who "just wanna play their one thing" is people migrating, ie not playing a full set of 2 rounds but serverhopping, which is something you cannot really control, gamedesignwise (except for "re-join punishment" and "ranking punishment")  but overall, you can not force players in any way to stay on a server for 2 rounds, thus this concept works best for short games.. and except for "tournament" style pre-organized encounters it is thus never found in flightsims (gametime for realistic  flights forbids it)

 

So from my point of view, there are essentially only a few steps, gamedesign in flightsims can take towards balance.. if people do behave overly immature (in relation to having an actual game, example joing a wastly superior side and sitting there doing boring spawncamperisms).

 

In essence:

Player behaviour can change everything and mean everything in terms achieving open ended gameplay (you know, the whole usual bonkabonk of "pls balance teams", beeing kind to new players and show them tricks, take up new players into groups.. don´t have all the internet aces only on one side.. not villifying the other side as in one days opponent may be another days teammate and not "ah the luftwhinners" "ah the red losers" etc.pp.) Simple stuff, mature players can do.

 

Since that only works less then sometimes, what are gamedesing mechanisms that work in a flightsim-environment?

 

-Side relation limits.

Whichever side reaches a certain numerical relation (after a threshold) can not be joined until relation is changed. IE: you set a beginning threshold like "10 players on server", after that is reached, the set relationship like "team A can only be max 1.5x size of team B" gouverns numbers. So if more then 7.5 (8) players of the free beginning 10 are on one side, you simply can not join that side until the other side has gained players.

 

-Spawn protection

that just means to have more robust measures to prevent spawn explotations (currently 0), from spawn variations to no-go spawn areas to "invulnerability for first 15sec" etc.. many games have shown many mechanisms, but those are generally shunned by flightsimmers, because "muh, realism!!". Which kinda means this argument ends with with more random spawning zones, which would have to be "handplaced" by the mission designer, because of terrain making random issues unusable (tank on island problem).

 

-Ingame voice COM option

communication is actually one of the best side performance variables, but if only varying and external sources (teamspeak, discord, steamchat, myspace)are available, it splinters more.. in game com options would really lower the interaction barrier. I know that this is gonna be controversial, but in 2021 chat/teamchat are a bit antiquated and natural com options more becoming a standard and would be a good go-to strategy.

 

 

-Spawncost / resource alotment

this is mission designer territory and can be either historic numbers based, player perfomance based or whatever.. but making a low end vehicle like a Po2 or GAZ less impactfull then a Yak9 or a Tiger is kinda the standard go-to and allready used. Perhaps more databased evaluations of that would still offer somewhat more to toy around with in terms of balance.

 

another item here is factoring: ie taking the numerical side difference into account when calculating "winning points" or mission impact. This can however be a double edged sword, as it does not account for player skill.. so a typical scenario would be one side having more players, but more inexperienced players and thus would lose due to factoring.. I think I remember that in GAW the blue side once lost to the amount of planes lost which not necessarily reflected the other sides skill in shooting them down compared to the aspect of more, but less experienced players just steadily losing stuff on their own... or so, but I may be wrong here.

 

-having a bit more rounded vehicle selection

Il2 so far follows a bit a tit-for-tata approach.. so that 5 vehicles one side are opposed by 5 on the other, but with tankcrew I think it is safe to say that the german selection has the upper hand, so far. Some future vehicles like T-34 85s or IS2s etc.. would possibly offer more options but could, dependening on selection, also just invert the issue. But overall, it would make sense to take it into considerations as a factor when deciding on further additions.

 

 

You have made a lot of excellent points here.

 

In terms of what should be simulated and how game play should be balanced, I think some here are pushing the boundaries a little too far. Its as if in order for the Dev's to stay true to the original vehicles, they would have to first give everyone a first hand experience of what it would be like to live a holocaust. 

 

The reason I used the F1 example is because it can be used to demonstrate very well the point I am trying to make. If a player does not care that the in-game vehicles are historically accurate, and all he/she wants to do is drive around and make things go boom, then he/she will probably never move on from something like WarThunder where tanks are balanced into battle ratings so that large groups of vehicles have very similar abilities. But if you want to pit yourself against an opponent according to the historical vehicle capabilities, then something like Tank Crew as I understood it is where you want to look.

 

In F1 racing, the cars for the most part a fairly close in terms of performance specs as they are governed by a very strict set of rules regarding what can, and can't be done to the car. You can get a sense about just how close they are in performance by glancing at the finish times of a race. What separates these cars to a large degree is driver skill. This can sort of be used to represent the WarThunder type tank game, where similar vehicles are split into red and blue teams of players with various driving abilities. But not all Formula1 cars are created equal, like when Mercedes developed its Dual Axis Steering for the 2020 season for example, it dramatically changed the way the car performed in the straight and through turns. The Mercedes cars in 2020 included a very unique feature over the other cars that set them apart from the pack. This is kind of the point behind a simulator IMO. It is about simulating the thing being used. And in IL2 GBS, the things being used are WWII planes and tanks. Whether the simulation is designed to train pilots, or teach surgeons, the thing being simulated are the tools of that specific trade. The point is not to turn the player into the golden boy of the field being simulated, it is to allow the player to experience the tools the golden boy of the simulated field used. It is through simulation that you can try your had at something someone else has mastered in real life.

 

In terms of player behavior, this is unfortunately an unshakable part of MP game play. If you are on a team that is interested in working together, you are probably on the winning team. My point about the player role is similar to what I think you are getting at in terms of behavior. The worst case scenario is everyone does their own thing. The best case scenario is the team works together. The nice thing about something like Tank Crew, you can take this concept all the way down to the crew of a single vehicle.

 

But in terms of addressing any issues that might exist with the teams themselves, your "SIDE RELATION LIMITS" point is spot on IMO. One workaround to the limitation of assigning teams could be for the server to simply control player spawn points for each team, and let the player decide if they want to spawn into the available team. So in other words, if one team has more players then the other team, and the next player to log on wants to join the team that already has more players, he/she would be given the option to either spawn in immediately on the team with less players, or wait for a slot to open up on the team with more players. I think most would probably decide to just spawn in immediately. But they could also even make it so that you automatically switch teams every so many matches if need be. 

 

  What ever needs to be done to fix MP game play should be considered because the MP community is extremely important to the growth of this franchise. But what they should not do IMO is lose sight of their value as a SIM by destroying the historical accuracy of the in-game vehicles.

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

19 minutes ago, Shampoo_Actual said:

That drawing doesn't do a good job of representing the actual ammo storage which was all along the sides below the entire turret ring.  This is so the drawing can show you the gunners and CO's seats.  Any number of the shots in Noels videos would have produced an "ammo rack" explosion.  From what I understand the TC code does not permit for an ammo rack kill (I asked the question - would taking less ammo reduce the chance of an ammo rack explosion...and the answer was "no") although we do see some very nice explosions occasionally.  Plus Grizzly, you are not even taking into account the effect each one of those rounds has on body parts of the crew.  War Thunder actually does a pretty good job of coding all this internal tank stuff out - or at least they claim to - many times it doesn't work consistently.... so TC is still a much better game in so many other areas.

Would this drawing be alright?

 

The thing with body parts of the crew is a fair point, which is in part why those videos are lacking some vital perspective, namely: What is going on inside the Sherman. These videos, as a result, don't really prove anything: The Sherman that is shown off as 'invincible' might just be suffering from crippling damage and just be crewed by a few highly skilled players who know how to work around these limitations and kick Noel's ass. Noel might be catastrophically bad at aiming (sorry Noel), or a netcode issue is happening, which has nothing to do with the game's historical accuracy and everything to do with multiplayer issues. There might even be an issue with how the game is displaying visual damage! We don't know that, becuase we only have one half (and arguably less then half) side of the story.

 

13 minutes ago, LachenKrieg said:

But what they should not do IMO is lose sight of their value as a SIM by destroying the historical accuracy of the in-game vehicles.

There's about a snowball's chance in hell of that happening tbh.
 

Edited June 30, 2021 by [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly

[LachenKrieg]

4 hours ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

The Sherman is perfectly fine just don't point your optics straight at it

 

3 hours ago, [F.Circus]sith1144 said:

 

Why not? Nothing would happen anyway! You can't shoot what you can't see.

2 hours ago, NoelGallagher said:

i'm not talking about the gun mantalet thing 

i'm talking about the shermans ability to withstand the 11 shot from rear and side in a point blank range

this must be corrected and there is a problem with the shermans damage model

Sherman is not even close to fine

i'm pretty sure you already saw this video

but just incase you didn't here are the clips 

and if you still think sherman is perfectly fine in the current game

then i don't know what to say anymore...

i can already see where this pointless debate will go

and i had already seen this shitstorm in post scrpitum communitry

so bye you can keep your point of view

 

Dude he is just trolling you. Your point is well made, he doesn't have one, and I believe he knows it.

49 minutes ago, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

 

Those are indeed Shermans with holes in them.

Can you point out which shots should've caused the tank to fail? I have here this diagram:

And to me it looks like the shots you highlight as being noteworthy penetrations are actually in areas of the tank where they do little mechanical damage. Ofc, this is impossible to point out without being able to see what was actually damaged from the perspective of the Sherman, but still.

Lets see... things that go BOOM! So what you are trying to suggest is that the armored compartment of a tank can be penetrated that many times with no effect?

 

Engine is on fire, but the tank is still driving around like he is late for lunch. Also, I am just wondering how heat from fire reacts with live ammunition and are there any risks?

[Peasant]

 

The keyword here being "usually". There probably have been instances where after several penetrating hits from high caliber guns the tank is still operational, for the most part and in other instances where a single penetration deals crippling damage.

 

Edit: The probability distribution of "number of shot required to disable the tank" can be modeled with Geometric Distribution. So, for example if any single penetrating hit has 50% prob to disable the tank, in roughly 10% of cases the vehicle would still function after 4 penetrations.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Peasant

[SCG_judgedeath3]

On 6/30/2021 at 5:05 PM, [F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly said:

War Thunder actually does a pretty good job of coding all this internal tank stuff out

I would like to mention world war 2 online has a even better one and can see what the shrapnel and everything does but one need to go into the game menu to see it or from the developers.

[[F.Circus]Adastra99]

1 hour ago, Peasant said:

 

The keyword here being "usually". There probably have been instances where after several penetrating hits from high caliber guns the tank is still operational, for the most part and in other instances where a single penetration deals crippling damage.

 

Edit: The probability distribution of "number of shot required to disable the tank" can be modeled with Geometric Distribution. So, for example if any single penetrating hit has 50% prob to disable the tank, in roughly 10% of cases the vehicle would still function after 4 penetrations.

 

More than probably. There are a number of recorded instances of tanks suffering penetrating hits and continuing to fight. And in the vast majority of cases, the vehicle is capable of functioning, it's just the crew that's bailed out/been disabled.

 

A big difference between the sim and reality is that most crews are going to try to bail out of a tank that's had a hole punched through it(not all though, and sometimes crews would bail even if there weren't any holes). This presents a problem. Do you want crews to behave realistically, such that they will usually try to get out of the tank leaving it effectively disabled (at least on the time scale relevant to Tank Crew). Or do you have the crew behave as puppets of the players? The first is often not fun, and adds randomness that people tend not to appreciate. Would you want to be "killed" because a hit panicked your crew into bailing despite no damage at all? The second obviously results in tanks continuing to fight until everyone's dead or the tank stops working entirely.

[LachenKrieg]

4 hours ago, Peasant said:

 

The keyword here being "usually". There probably have been instances where after several penetrating hits from high caliber guns the tank is still operational, for the most part and in other instances where a single penetration deals crippling damage.

 

Edit: The probability distribution of "number of shot required to disable the tank" can be modeled with Geometric Distribution. So, for example if any single penetrating hit has 50% prob to disable the tank, in roughly 10% of cases the vehicle would still function after 4 penetrations.

"Research for tank casualties in Normandy from 6 June to 10 July 1944 conducted by the British No. 2 Operational Research Section concluded that, from a sample of 40 Sherman tanks, 33 tanks burned (82 percent) and 7 tanks remained unburned following an average of 1.89 penetrations. In comparison, from a sample of 5 Panzer IV's, 4 tanks burned (80 percent) and 1 tank remained unburned, following an average of 1.5 penetrations. The Panther tank burned 14 times (63 percent) from a sample of 22 tanks and following 3.24 penetrations, while the Tiger burned 4 times (80 percent) out of a sample of 5 tanks following 3.25 penetrations.[104] John Buckley, using a case study of the British 8th and 29th Armoured Brigades, found that of their 166 Shermans knocked out in combat during the Normandy campaign, 94 (56.6 percent) burned out. Buckley also notes that an American survey carried out concluded that 65% of tanks burned out after being penetrated.[105] United States Army research proved that the major reason for this was the stowage of main gun ammunition in the vulnerable sponsons above the tracks. A U.S. Army study in 1945 concluded that only 10–15 percent of wet stowage Shermans burned when penetrated, compared to 60–80 percent of the older dry-stowage Shermans.[106]"

 

 

I really think the argument is grasping at straws at this point. What you seem to be overlooking is the number of penetrations. Each time the tank is penetrated, the chance of a major failure/crew death, or serious injury increases. The turret has 3 penetrations front to back which could have easily caused the ammo on the turret step/floor to detonate. There were also shots on the left and right sides that could have easily done the same thing. Looking at the penetrations on this tank, it is conceivable that all crew members are dead.

 

As you can see from the quoted text above, 33 out of 40 tanks knocked out burned after only 1.89 penetrations. Aside from the two videos linked above from MP game play, I showed 9 different scenarios in SP game play that occurred one after the other where the current game mechanic favored the Sherman. And this includes both me shooting at and from the Sherman. So when I am in a PzIV, the Sherman had the advantage, and the same thing occurred when I was driving the Sherman. Not to mention again that this has also been reported by other people including myself in MP game play.

 

 

 

[ShampooX]

And don't forget the internal shock wave caused by the explosion of the HE in the large caliber APHE Round.  One's brain is basically jellified....if you are lucky, you have enough wits left to attempt escape (see the famous Cologne Panther v. Sherman footage; PS one shot, if anybody is interested).  Nobody is going to fight back.  Now APCR is a slightly different internal damage story; thats just a hot lava tungsten core bouncing around your 10x10 interior a few dozen times...nothing could go wrong there right?  Yeah it's only APCR, so we fight on.

[moustache]

one of the problems is also that without being able to visualize the internal damage, to see how the shells behave after penetration (deflection, dispertion etc ...), we can only speculate for the moment on the model damage of the game, and it is difficult to understand it and point out if there are, the errors ... we would have to have access to a video of this type (a bit like in the old opus ...)

[SCG_judgedeath3]

Good example of a german tank crew bailing their tank after light damage and later the commander get wounded: bails it:

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by SCG_judgedeath3

[NoelGallagher]

why do you guys make your life so hard like that?

whether it's in online forum or in real life 

these kind of parallel debate will never end and never bring any resolution or solution 

  - this sums up this thread

let's stop this and fly 

[LachenKrieg]

13 hours ago, moustache said:

one of the problems is also that without being able to visualize the internal damage, to see how the shells behave after penetration (deflection, dispertion etc ...), we can only speculate for the moment on the model damage of the game, and it is difficult to understand it and point out if there are, the errors ... we would have to have access to a video of this type (a bit like in the old opus ...)

I agree totally. Although some have suggested that it would make Tank Crew too much like a WT arcade, I think this feature is probably the only non-arcade thing about WarThunder. Gun/Armor performance is such a critical part of tank warfare that having post analysis capabilities should be considered an essential part of any serious AFV SIM. The attached photo is not from WarThunder, but it demonstrates how useful the information from a feature like this can be when the model is detailed enough. The information doesn't have to reveal the location of the tank that fired the shot.

 

15 hours ago, NoelGallagher said:

why do you guys make your life so hard like that?

whether it's in online forum or in real life 

these kind of parallel debate will never end and never bring any resolution or solution 

  - this sums up this thread

let's stop this and fly 

Regarding any solution, it depends on how the Dev team sees this in terms of priorities and what their vision for the future of Tank Crew is.

   

[LachenKrieg]

Another name change?

[ShampooX]

Always change your call sign my friend, the muj used to love it.

[BlitzPig_EL]

In a true simulation there can be no such thing as "balance", as there was no such thing, in any war.  WW2 was a constant back and forth as the two sides either out designed, or out produced, each other, sometimes it was both.  That is how it should be in the sim.

 

However, even if through some perverse sorcery a mission maker conjured up a "balanced" scenario, it still would not have balance, because you cannot change player behavior.  A good percentage of players will always gravitate to what they perceive as "the best" equipment, be that tanks, or aircraft, or in the case of the FPS, firearms.  I used to see it all the time in the original IL2.  When a map would change from either Russian Front or Europe, to the Pacific, all the Luftwaffe players would jump to the Allied side, every time. So there we would be, everyone sitting on the Allied side and no one flying for Japan, well except for a few of us that enjoyed flying the harder to be successful in Japanese aircraft.  Kinda makes you wonder who the real "experten" were.  But I digress.  People will be people and the only way around it is single player.

 

It has ever been thus.

Edited July 6, 2021 by BlitzPig_EL

[Monostripezebra]

On 7/6/2021 at 2:24 AM, BlitzPig_EL said:

In a true simulation there can be no such thing as "balance", as there was no such thing, in any war. 

 

Yeah, but a "true" simulation where people get conscripted with one life and one life only and no choice in sides and equpitment, comands and beeing shot for disobeying orders and a no free choices of when to join or leave a server has never been created, also

 

Only games, so far. And GAMES do always have this issue of how many players of what skill play for one side.. no "muh, it´s a sim!!" dumb shit will ever change that.

 

On 7/6/2021 at 2:24 AM, BlitzPig_EL said:

 People will be people and the only way around it is single player.

 

I guess the whole volumes of publications and courses on gamedesign and balancing mechanisms is all smoke and mirrors and games like "Red Orchester" attempting unequal WW2 stuff with balance and succeeding somewhat never existed.

 

I think it is funny that only in flightsims there is this obsession with nuts-n-bolts "realism" only focused on single tech items like planes combined with total disregard for any balance mechanism softwaresided while just beeing total douchbags that easily join vastly unequal bigger sides just to have their fav equipment in a shitshow of fighterfocused lemmingtrains and shouldershooting that has about the same to do with organised military action then a bunch of cats in an animal yoga class.  But muh YAK9!!! or "190 FTW!!!"

Edited July 10, 2021 by Monostripezebra

[Thad]

Salutations,

 

Just an opinion. 

 

Server operators can attempt to instill some play balance to their severs by limiting some overpowering unit types or numbers for either side. Doing so remains a challenge.

Many players don't or won't like any such limits to their pet plane(s) or tank(s) but at least it is an attempt to present some form of game balance for the players in multi-play.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Thad

[SCG_judgedeath3]

Finnish server does that very well in my opinion  

[BlitzPig_EL]

6 hours ago, Monostripezebra said:

 

I think it is funny that only in flightsims there is this obsession with nuts-n-bolts "realism" only focused on single tech items like planes combined with total disregard for any balance mechanism softwaresided while just beeing total douchbags that easily join vastly unequal bigger sides just to have their fav equipment in a shitshow of fighterfocused lemmingtrains and shouldershooting that has about the same to do with organised military action then a bunch of cats in an animal yoga class.  But muh YAK9!!! or "190 FTW!!!"

 

As I said, people will be people.  Red Orchestra was NOT a sim.  It was fun, but it most certainly was not a sim.  Your comments about balance in game design are very valid for FPS games, but simulations are a different animal entirely.

Edited July 6, 2021 by BlitzPig_EL

[Saedriss]

To be back on topic an way to achieve better balance would be to implement some of the aspect of war that affected said balance.

Like for example players needing to drive resupply trucks from factories to tank bases to allow more powerful tanks to spawn.

I would allow for a "pre-counter" by the enemy team by targeting said trucks (with flanking lighter tanks or planes).

It would be more interesting for both teams rather than arbitrary number limitation, giving purpose to certain sorties for both ground and air (resupplying, covering resupply, ambushing them, etc) with rewards affecting the gameplay (being able to spawn a powerful Tiger if the supply run is successful, and not having to face said Tiger if it is prevented)

 

Factory destruction by air strike would also affect this, making the supply route longer, hence more dangerous (while keeping some "indestructible" supply depots, preventing it to become altogether impossible if all factories have been destroyed)

This system already kinda exists with the airfields needing resupply in certain missions. The only trouble I see is that there is currently no "supply truck" drivable units, but an AA truck without the gun would fit the role perfectly imho. And the fact that it will rely on some players be willing to do the resupply job, but it already works in the air.

 

 

[Monostripezebra]

On 7/6/2021 at 6:43 PM, BlitzPig_EL said:

Your comments about balance in game design are very valid for FPS games, but simulations are a different animal entirely.

 

No. I really don´t see how or why they would be different.

 

 How does "sim" means you would never need numerical side balancing but much rather are compelled to play "1x T-34 vs 2x Tiger, 1x Ferdinand and 4 Panthers" 1to7 odds like my last game on Advance-and-secure, a server that asks newly joined players to balance teams. What exactly would be less sim about letting the further joining players at the above numbers only join the red side? There came 2 more and joined blue.. with very predictable results.

 

In the end, it is up to the server running guys and mission designers what happens but not giving them any tools to have at least somewhat equal player numbers is just the game shooting itself in the foot... especially on smaller population servers. 

 

For me that is one of the many reasons, why I will never buy "Tank Crew", aside from the invisible object stuff which I find really annoying and the medium annoying white circle gun curser that gets all the time instanciated out of center when you cycle through stations, meaning every switching through positions will invariably move your gun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BlitzPig_EL]

Ah, I see, you are talking about balancing number on sides.   Yeah that should happen, I agree.  My issue with non-sims is that they very often break history by giving nerfs or buffs to various weapons, vehicles, ships, etc... in order to achieve balance of everything, including numbers of players per side, even going so far as to use the "rock, paper, scissors" method.  It's maddening at best.