On the subject of RPG elements

[onelifecrisis]

Most of us have had a good joke or two about the RPG side of SH5, but I've been thinking... is it that bad? How could it be better? People have commented that making the boat turn faster and dive deeper is unrealistic because these things are fixed in real life. Okay, but in that case what would you replace these "abilities" with?

Obviously some things are easy to code and are realistic too. More experienced gunners will hit their targets more often and maybe even reload faster; a weapons officer who gives dodgy firing solutions which get less dodgy as he "levels up" would also be great IMO; but beyond that? How do you factor the importance of the crew's experience into a simulation of a boat that actually has fixed performance parameters? Seems to me the only answer is: you unfix them and make them variable, which is exactly what the devs have done.

We've all seen the quote "all you need is good men" in GWX. How would you build that into the game?

[Mud]

As long those abilities are not beyond believe it could be fun.
But please dont make uber torpedoes just because the torpedo man replaced the explosives with mini nukes, it ruins the game.
But if you gain a few seconds with reload the tubes or crashdive after a few patrols due experience, yeah why not.
But like I said, it must not go beyond believe.

Mud

[d@rk51d3]

Maybe "RPG elements" is their way of saying that the watch crew are armed with RPG's.

:D

[Alex]

Good post, OLC, I was wondering whether I was the only one thinking this way, I'm glad I'm not. :D
I understand very well this kind of new parameter can easily bring hesitation to all players as it was rather unexpected. :hmm2:
But, since the future of the SH franchise depends on the success of this upcoming game :huh:, anyone would say the devs have not been implementing absurd and senseless new features that would give folks reasons to protest and criticize the game only.
Give it a chance and test it before complaining, people. :03:

[vergol]

Certifications in SH3 gave a boost in 'efficiency' for specific sections of the sub. Crew member rank (gained by completing patrols) increased it even further.

You could certainly do away with laughable RPG-like abilities by implementing a more detailed certification/rank/experience system.

[onelifecrisis]

It wasn't meant to be a lecture. I'm curious to know if the anti-RPG people have any better ideas than what's being done in SH5.

Certifications in SH3 gave a boost in 'efficiency' for specific sections of the sub. Crew member rank (gained by completing patrols) increased it even further.

You could certainly do away with laughable RPG-like abilities by implementing a more detailed certification/rank/experience system.

And what do you suppose that "efficiency" translated to in gameplay terms in SH3? Did a low efficiency in the engine room make the boat go slower, for example? If so, isn't that just as bad as an "ability" that makes it go faster? And if it didn't reduce speed in SH3 then what did it reduce? Did that green bar really mean anything at all?

[vergol]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the fullness of the green efficiency bars in SH3 governed the speed and effectiveness of repairs, accuracy of your deck and flak guns, reload times for torpedoes, and the likelihood of successfully spotting enemies at longer ranges.

It wasn't a perfect system, but it certainly had a role in the game. I wouldn't call it meaningless.

[Schultzy]

And what do you suppose that "efficiency" translated to in gameplay terms in SH3?

This may well be the crux of the matter.
I don't think anyone would object to a well crafted, well reasoned promotion based system whereby experience translates to better performance.

After five patrols and many hours drill, I really do hope that my Torpedomate can now do his job so well, that it's almost second nature, and that as a consequence, the torpedos load 1 or 2 seconds faster.
I don't mind the idea that my Chief Engineer knows the limits of his boat because he's been to sea in her so many times, and that his inate knowledge adds a few feet of depth before crush is reached.

So, while perhaps it's engaging in semantics, it's no less valid to say, that as a player, seeing (for sake of argument) a pop up box offering the player a level two soup upgrade: crew don't tire as quickly, the suspension of disbelief is eroded.
It sounds and feels more like a we're playing a game, which we don't want to be reminded of.

have any better ideas than what's being done in SH5.

I'm not entirely sure it's a case of a better idea being needed, rather that the current idea be better implemented. Make the levelling up less overt. Give it context.

[onelifecrisis]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the fullness of the green efficiency bars in SH3 governed the speed and effectiveness of repairs, accuracy of your deck and flak guns, reload times for torpedoes, and the likelihood of successfully spotting enemies at longer ranges.

It wasn't a perfect system, but it certainly had a role in the game. I wouldn't call it meaningless.

Correct, but how much impact did those things really have? As I said, I'm not sure the engine room bar did anything at all. Same for the command room bar. The deck gun only ever got used on large unarmed targets at short range, so the crew experience made little real difference there, and the flak gun never got used at all except by idiots. Torpedoes are reloaded after all the depth charges have stopped and you're back on the surface in TC. I don't think I ever managed to get back into a firing position before the crew had finished loading them. So none of those bars made any appreciable difference at all to my game.

One thing not on your list is the radio room bar. That made quite a big difference to the ability of the sonar guy (and presumably the radar guy) which did have quite an impact on gameplay, as did the ability of the watch crew which you mentioned, but in both cases it was a negative impact on gameplay. The sonar guy was like a deaf mute until he had the full green bar at which point he became like a deaf mute with a hearing aid. And the watch crew couldn't spot **** with less than a full green bar.

The only good one was the repair crew, who could really make the difference between life or death in some situations, but even then only after modding. The stock repair team could repair anything in five seconds with no experience at all.

So, all in all, the SH3 system was not a good system IMO.

[ichso]

There are some aspects of the boat's handling that could be effected by crew experience. Like maintaining depth which could be more steady while a young LI would maybe make the boat rise and dip a bit. With all those factors involved to trim a submarine experience could factor in in an abstract way.

Also the engine management and maintaince could be effected. Rising/falling fuel consumption could be a result of this. Engine failures could be a bit more unlikely with experienced personnel, especially when going high speed for a longer period of time.

It would be really great if navigation would become less accurate with an inexperienced navigator. You would expect him to do his job well under normal conditions, but when the weather gets rough...

[onelifecrisis]

So, while perhaps it's engaging in semantics, it's no less valid to say, that as a player, seeing (for sake of argument) a pop up box offering the player a level two soup upgrade: crew don't tire as quickly, the suspension of disbelief is eroded.
It sounds and feels more like a we're playing a game, which we don't want to be reminded of.



I'm not entirely sure it's a case of a better idea being needed, rather that the current idea be better implemented. Make the levelling up less overt. Give it context.

Well if the game actually says "level 2 soup upgrade" then yeah, my disbelief will not be very suspended. ;) Do we have that much information on how it's been implemented?

Edit:
ichso, I like the sound of that!

[martes86]

[...] and the flak gun never got used at all except by idiots.

Count me in! :rotfl2:

Now, seriously, those bars made indeed a difference for Torpedo Rooms, Hydrophone, Bridge, Deck Weaponry, and the Repair teams. For instance, if the bar in the Forw. Torp. Room was, say, at half, it would take half much longer to reload torpedoes than if it was at full. Also, if the bar was too low in the engines, they could even tell me there's not enough crew to operate them. :damn:

Cheers :rock:

[Iron Budokan]

The RPG aspect is interesting, although the replayability factor might wane after a while. The real problem isn't the RPG, imo, it's the full-blown fantasy elements that go along with it.

[LGN1]

Hi,

from what I have seen, the whole language and atmosphere is completely off ('Hello, big boy'. I cannot imagine that anyone talked like that on a U-boat in WWII :nope:). I also don't think that the captain knew much about crew members, their past,... maybe a little bit about the other officers, but not about the regular crew. This was not a holiday trip with friends. :-j:()1::|\\

I have read that especially on a U-boat the captain had to have a strong authority and had to keep distance from the crew because everthing was so cramped. The spatial closeness required an especially large distance between the captain and crew. Buchheim once mentioned that it was a very rare event if the captain broke out of the usual 'commanding language'. And it seems that Lehmann-Willenbrock was one of the more friendly commanders.

Well, SH5 anyway seems not to be intended to be a realistic simulation of WWII submarine warfare, so this aspects does not make things any worse (I hope, one day there will be an Oleg M. in the sub sim business :D).

Cheers, LGN1

Regarding the crew skills: I don't know how much influence the commander had on his crew. I guess the crew was just assigned to him and that was it. He then could do some diving excercises,... but not really train them. Just by surviving long enough and getting more experience they improved (and this can be modeled well without these crazy dialogues).

[mookiemookie]

The problem is by default our sub is extremely reliable. You always know exactly where on the map you are. Your sub's engines always run without problems. Your depth is always exactly what you order it to be. Torpedoes are usually reliable, no matter what the year.

Introducing some level of uncertainty for the player would be the first step in having a crew experience system that means something. An experienced navigator would be more accurate when plotting your position in the world. A more experienced LI would be more adept at preventing and solving problems with sabotage and breakdowns. A better diving officer would be better at maintaining your desired depth. More competent torpedo mixers could cut down on the number of duds - presumably because they're better at maintenance activities.

About the only one I agree with in Ubi's lineup of abilities is actually the level 2 soup upgrade - a good cook was highly prized and better food generally means better morale.

[frenema]

My idea:
-take out the fantasy 'skills' such as being able to dive deeper or making torpedoes explode more.
-It's true that with experience crews get better at certain things that require skills (such as accuracy) so represent that in a bar that slowly fills up as the crew's experience goes up (sort of like SH3). But not lvl1 -> lvl2 -> lvl3 etc. which gives us the impression of playing Pokemon.
-One other thing is that experience bar I mentioned with the crew needs to go up gradually and subtly so that the difference is barely noticeable.
-Randomized crew skills from start: even if no one has ever been on a U-boat before, people all have different level of skills and abilities.
-The Crew: take them out. It may be fun in the beginning, but do you really want to deal with the same people with same history and same personalities going along with you no matter which u-boat you go or which flotilla you go? What if you get fed up with the sonarman's crying and want a replacement with a better grip? Is Ubisoft going to make a totally different guy with different history and personality? For crissake, we should at least have the ability to get a randomized crew; this is not Star Trek.

[Letum]

B17 Flying Fortress II was half simulator, half RPG.

It wasn't the best simulator in the world and it wasn't the best RPG in
the world, but the two worked together well. There where no 'special
abilities', experience points and a poor pilot was unlikely ever to become
an excellent pilot, however often he flew.

None the less, you had an attachment for your crew.

[Heretic]

The 'level 2 soup' thing, if it wasn't just placeholder text, is just a label. Throw a different label on it and it could just as easily refer to a scrounging ability whereby your cook, in port, has the uncanny ablility to come with higher quality food to supplement the crews diet, increasing morale. Think Kat from All Quiet on the Western Front.

[Letum]

Did it really say level 2 soup?
I thought that was just a joke!

[Apos]

Im not against RPG elements in games. As long as they aren't stupid or make character overpowered.

Good example for RPG elements in game is Company Of Heroes Blitzkrieg mod. We have realistic Commander tree, nice lvlup options for our army.

Bad example are "fantasy" skills to improve something 50% - like reload or firepower of 88s faster etc.

ps. my soup is lvl 3 already! :D

[Heretic]

One thing I wonder about the RPG/storyline elements is how much freedom we'll have to do our own thing. The previous titles were sandbox games - here's the world, go out and play. Does the campaign in this one direct us down a particular path? Following orders is certainly realistic, but will it be the same missions in the same order every time you play? That's one limitation of storyline games, after the first play through, you pretty much into reruns.

Hopefully Neal will be able to let us know soon.

[Platapus]

the flak gun never got used at all except by idiots.



Hey! I resemble that remark! :stare:

[ichso]

Thinking about this RPG aspect got me to the conclusion that I think they could have done better with it in SHV (from what we're reading about it).

I think the whole concept of learning new skills, abilities or even improve your old ones is flawed by construction. And that is in most of the actual RPGs on the market.
It is just a very very simple abstraction from reality that you earn experience points and at distinct points in time your character hits a new level and magically learns a whole bunch of new stuff that isn't even connected to the stuff he already knows or to the things he did recently. That doesn't make much sense but I guess RPGs just rely on it because it has always been that way and players are expecting it that way. Some games went slightly of course with that concept, like the Gothic series, which made you find a teacher to learn new abilities and new skills didn't come out of nowhere.

Now how could they have done it better in SHV ? Look at Jagged Alliance 2 for example. This game was mainly a strategy game and didn't bother to fulfill any RPG criteria. It just added RPG elements on the side, for more depth, more fun. So it didn't use the whole flawed-by-concept-RPG-system but rather invented it's own neat little system.

This system involved that there where no experience points, no level-ups, no fixed skills that could be known or not known. The characters there would just learn by doing, totally on the fly. Based on the type of ablilty and their intelligence, this learning process would be faster or slower. Skills where presented in integer numbers between 35 (or zero) and 99.

And this is exactly what I would wish SHV to be. Not that I 'earn' to 'upgrade' one of my crew members with some 'special sonar ability'. But rather that all members of your crew have a particular starting set of values for each skill and that they might learn, if possible, based on some unchangable attributes like intelligence. Without direct involvement by me.
Needless to say that there should be limits in a way that not every guy in the engine room will have LI-like qualities after a bunch of patrols. Most guys should just be working with their given skill sets without huge improvements. That would make it easier to pick out the few guys that are really talented at what they're doing and therefore get promoted and the such.

But from what I've been reading I suspect it to be more similar to SH3+4 plus some added bonuses that come with those RPG-like abilities you can tack onto your crew.

[Onkel Neal]

B17 Flying Fortress II was half simulator, half RPG.

It wasn't the best simulator in the world and it wasn't the best RPG in
the world, but the two worked together well. There where no 'special
abilities', experience points and a poor pilot was unlikely ever to become
an excellent pilot, however often he flew.

None the less, you had an attachment for your crew.


I remember that game. The community HATED it, derided it, and the press beat it up mercilessly. There were protests and boycotts and anger. Pretty much killed the genre :( Funny how the game is now viewed with affection....

[Mud]

B17 Flying Fortress II was half simulator, half RPG.

It wasn't the best simulator in the world and it wasn't the best RPG in
the world, but the two worked together well. There where no 'special
abilities', experience points and a poor pilot was unlikely ever to become
an excellent pilot, however often he flew.

None the less, you had an attachment for your crew.

I don't wanna highjack the thread with B17 but I still play it

http://home.planet.nl/%7Ehart0751/images/ss11.jpg

http://home.planet.nl/%7Ehart0751/images/ss14.jpg

My last mission,fire in the nose and 3 wounded crew
RPG and immersion ......... nothing more to add :up:

Mud
http://home.planet.nl/%7Ehart0751/images/ss14.jpg%3C/a%3E


(http://home.planet.nl/%7Ehart0751/images/ss14.jpg)

[Nisgeis]

Would be good if you could insturct the first officer to drill the crew on:

Crash Dives or
Battle Surfaces or
Damage Control or
etcetera

Each drill would improve the efficiency in certain areas, but things not drilled for would become sloppy. IN such a way you could drill your crew for the way you wanted to fight. I hope the RPG system will not be so shallow that you can have all your crew have all the abilities. It would be better to have to choose what style to take with each crew. That way you could have different careers as different types of captain - one aggressive and one conseravtive and so on.

[vergol]

The 'level 2 soup' thing, if it wasn't just placeholder text, is just a label. Throw a different label on it and it could just as easily refer to a scrounging ability whereby your cook, in port, has the uncanny ability to come with higher quality food to supplement the crews diet, increasing morale.

Good thinking. And in more pressing times, an experienced cook would also know how to 'stretch' the food stores without starving the crew.

If all of the SH5 abilities are just a labels whose names and corresponding game functions can be easily modded, then I'm willing to ease off this whole RPG notion. But if my cook tells me mid-voyage that he has enough skillpoints to level up his soup ability, he'll instantly become the world's first living human torpedo.

[Frederf]

I think the problem in thinking from SH5 devs is that all crew traits have to be "bonuses" or improvements to performance. This doesn't leave room for mechanical breakdowns or lesser performance probably because the casual audience is perceived to be upset by this.

[difool2]

I think the interpersonal interaction absolutely can have a place in the sim-the subjective side of things most certainly was forefront in the minds of any good commander (morale most notably but also motivation and such). Of course there's a right way and a wrong way (lots of them) to model this...

[RickC Sniper]

The 'level 2 soup' thing, if it wasn't just placeholder text, is just a label. Throw a different label on it and it could just as easily refer to a scrounging ability whereby your cook, in port, has the uncanny ablility to come with higher quality food to supplement the crews diet, increasing morale. Think Kat from All Quiet on the Western Front.

When I saw that "level 2 soup upgrade" I assumed it was designed to affect morale as well.

Ever play Sid Meier's Pirates? Morale was affected when you weren't busy plundering, and kidnapping a cook helped deal with that problem somewhat.

I assume morale is important in SH5, and I think a better cook would affect morale.

We'll know soon enough.

[theluckyone17]

Modded right, I think the RPG elements will work out fine.

I don't mind having the detailed crew, too. Imagine a SH5 Commander that fleshes out a random history for each crewmember on each new career start, or while swapping out crew between patrols. Makes me want to drool.

By the way, I played both B-17 Flying Fortresses... fell in love with the first one. The second had its shortcomings (engine management, enemy figher AI, etc, flat clouds), but it kept me entertained for a long time. I spent a lot of time over at the Bombs Away forum, too.

[Steeltrap]

B-17 The Mighty 8th? :yeah:

Jagged Allaince 2? :yeah:

Had both those games and really liked them. Apart from the annoying navigation bug, I never understood why people got so p1ssed at B-17.

As a few have said, and I posted in the thread about 'Meet the Crew', I don't think anyone is against the idea of an experienced crew being able to do things better/more quickly than a bunch of rookies.

The question is what you enable experience to affect.

Some interesting comments around how experience should be gained and translate into performance. All questions of game design, and whatever you choose is going to p!ss of somebody.

But things that experience shouldn't be able to influence? That should be avoided under all circumstances.

[onelifecrisis]

The problem is by default our sub is extremely reliable. You always know exactly where on the map you are. Your sub's engines always run without problems. Your depth is always exactly what you order it to be. Torpedoes are usually reliable, no matter what the year.

Introducing some level of uncertainty for the player would be the first step in having a crew experience system that means something. An experienced navigator would be more accurate when plotting your position in the world. A more experienced LI would be more adept at preventing and solving problems with sabotage and breakdowns. A better diving officer would be better at maintaining your desired depth. More competent torpedo mixers could cut down on the number of duds - presumably because they're better at maintenance activities.

About the only one I agree with in Ubi's lineup of abilities is actually the level 2 soup upgrade - a good cook was highly prized and better food generally means better morale.

Yer, I agree with all of that, in fact I and others (and you too I suspect?) have been saying the same about "uncertainty" for years. And good point with regards to the soup. But like Letum I thought the wording "level 2 soup" was a joke! It's only wording I suppose, but it does sound ridiculous!

Anyway, +1 :yep: