your preference: Realism, gameplay, or a little of both?

[Ducimus]

Ive always thought this a source of contention.

In one corner you have the ultra realist grognard. Plays to experience the pages of history in the utmost detail. If it were possible to expereince the smells of a uboat, the motion of the sea while sitting in their chair playing, or the some how simulate the long boring weeks puncutated by sheer moments of terror, i think they' do it.


In the other corner you have your joe average gamer. Plays for fun. Enjoys blowing stuff up emensly, doesnt really bother with all the minor details. Sometimes does things that make the realist grognard wince in pain.


In the middle, you probably have some people who try find a balance between the two. May play for realism in one game, then turn around and do something incredibly unrealistic because its fun in another game, or tries to meld the two togther to form some sort of compromise between whats realistic, and what is fun. Personnaly i fall into this camp.

So which is your preference?

[CWorth]

I always played die hard realism no matter what.

That has become quite boring to do patrol after patrol,career after career.

Now I play with a mix of both realism and non realism just to change things up a bit to keep me interested in the game.

[Camaero]

In one corner you have the ultra realist grognard. Plays to experience the pages of history in the utmost detail. If it were possible to expereince the smells of a uboat, the motion of the sea while sitting in their chair playing, or the some how simulate the long boring weeks puncutated by sheer moments of terror, i think they' do it.


That is me perfectly ^^^ Realism realism realism!

[CCIP]

I think you have to distinguish "realism" from "reality", that's something that a lot of people miss. I'm of the Beery-type school of thought where "realism" == "gameplay", but "realism" =/= "reality".

Ultimately, I want my game to reflect what I know of history and reality. Getting less than that is a minus to gameplay for me first, realism later. :hmm:

[finchOU]

Good Poll

For me the more realistic...the better. I think that in the long run the sim will have a better gameplay experience and make people come back.....more work for the kill...the more that kill means something...not just point, click, Kill. Compromise is something that should be refleted in an Options or Realism options menu...not on sim developement itself......i think a sim/game can and should be both Realistic as possible...but Gamey as possible but that should be up to the player and their preference..not the limit of the sim itself.

I see it more as...if you going to make something (talking simulators) based off of history.....get it as acurate as possilbe to simulate as close to life (insomuch that realism can be brought to a computer screen) as possilbe...first...then worry about making it gamey to appeal to the masses....with the first comes the masses in my mind....and it teaches our youth a more valuable lesson on history (which is why I am so for a full manual with the History that the sim is based off of...like the AOD manual)....I learned so much History from the AOD manual..it made the sim even more immersive!


Also another reason to make a game as realistic as possilbe (with preference to make it more gamey) is that a player who first starts out on gamey and or less realistic settings always has the option to increase realims and voila...it is a whole new game......this was like the first time I played AOD without being able to spot contacts via the moving map.

[JScones]

finchOU and CCIP sum it up nicely for me.

If I want a mindless "shoot 'em up" I'll play COD or some other WWII FPS (nothing better for stress relief!).

I purchased SH3 as a *simulation*, and by golly that's what I want! For me, I'd *lose* enjoyment if I was tutting about in an XXI in 1939 or sinking ships with my super-dupa high-powered deck gun (hehe, although it is fun when testing things). Why? Not because I'm playing with 100% realism settings (I don't mind you), but because I *know* it's not realistic and it didn't really happen - and that's what matters to me.

Hence why I'm looking forward to fully trying the NYGM suite of mods which should improve some of the other little niggles that I have left with the game.

Anyway, click...bang...sink...click...bang...sink. Sorry, not for me!

[canimo]

I think its important to have the chance to choose it.

So the same game can suit different player profiles / mood !!! :know: :know:



:D

[TreverSlyFox]

I guess you'ed call me a "Hardcore" Gamer. I LOVE realism, I expect my boat to respond exactly as they actually did. I expect the details of my boat to be correct and there's enough detailed documentation out there for it to be modeled correctly. I expect my enemy to do what they actually did during the time frame I'm playing.

But there is also a point I don't cross. I don't understand the math involved to manually set up a torpedo shot and I have no intention of doing so. As Captain, I take the sights and my XO does the calculations and lays out the shot. Pretty much just as it was done on Subs. I'm the Captain, I make the decisions, give the orders and others carry them out.

I don't deal with Crew Management, that's not my job, that's why I have CPOs and an XO for. I shouldn't have to deal with crew rotations and I don't, I've edited it out. No, it's not right and it really POs me that it was scripted this way and I have to edit the game to avoide it.

All of the faults in SHIII could have been taken care of in game development and testing. There should have been a lot more options built into the game in the first place. SHIII is a "Good" simulation, but it's not a "Great" simulation and it could have been.

Our Modders have made SHIII what it is, the developers just gave us the base to work from. If they had released the SDK when they dumped the last to be produced patch on us, SHIII could have been a "Fantastic" simulation. As it is I doubt SHIV will be any better and I 'm not sure at this point that I'll buy it, we'll see.

I do know, if they release SHIV with Starforce on it, I WILL NOT BUY IT, PERIOD!!

[VonHelsching]

For me both gameplay and realism are related to the "enjoyability" of the game, which is subjective for each player. Key factor of the enjoyability is giving choices for the player:

- Choices about historic missions and the actual technologies
- Choices for the tonnage king firing Falke in nub escorts in 1940 blowing one after the other, plus deck gun duels with Armed Trawles, or playing "chicken" with V&W's :/\x:
- Choices about changing history with your sub
- Choices to play Dead is Dead by (x1) connecting SH3 with a home-made electric chair
- Choices to wait for 10 days as a Milk Cow in the middle of the Atlantic or lay some mines that you will never see exploding :zzz:

The developer gave a lot of choices, and the modding community added 300% more choices. Every SH3 installation has become almost unique once you start messing with mods. Offering a lot of choices would probably be a good message for the devs of SHIV...

Personally, I'm all in for gameplay. I wouldn't even twich by throwing
a salvo to the batleships that sunk the Bismarck, or by commanding the Surcouf (or even a XI U-cruiser, which was never boult) and nailing the escorts with my 203 mm deck gun). But...

When I changed the "dud torpedos" in realism settings, the game was not the same anymore, I couldn't alert the dumb destroyers (with some activity -in flank speed-) and then play head-to-head, cause I was not sure that the torpedo would detonate. It is true that realism sometime adds gameplay :yep:

[Ducimus]

Well when i said ill find a compromise between gameplay and realism, heres where i tend to make the distinction a bit fuzzy.


For instance, depth. Could an IX really go 275 meters? I highly doubt that. But for many reasons i find it fun to get depth charged at that depth.

Or say contacts. Ive ramped my contact.cfg up *slighly* Not so where im inudated with contract reports, but just enough to where i can see a bit more then i normally could. Frankly puttering around waiting for a convoy is damn boring (alibet realistic), and if i can give myself a hint on where to postion myself i will for the sake of fun.

Then theres radar and RWR. Are the stock values accurate? I dunno, my assumption is they would be, but are some of them really all that useable? I find the answer is, "not really". So ive ramped mine up *some*, but not to where theyre overpowering. If im seeing planes too early, then wheres the thrill of having to crash dive at the last minute? So i balance it out, improve the range, but dont make it where im giving too much info.

Then theres things ilke the free cam. I love and hate this thing. I love looking at my sub, i like watching the deptcharges land (its like watching a movie) but the damn "next unit" and "previous" unit keys are addicting. WIth those you can warp the view around and see things that give you information that you just shouldnt have if you were behidn a periscope. My solution, remark out the hotkeys for the unit cam. That way i can still see my sub, and if i want any extra info i have to "work" for it, cause moving the freecam out XX,XXX number of meters is damn boring so i wont do it. Only problem is i can still see above me when being DC'ed and i wish i could fix it so i can't.

Back to the subject of those long boring cruises looking for a convoy, planes in this game are weak. They should be alot more dangerous then they are. THere is the option of the Airpower mod to fix that, but i choose not to for the simple reason that i see planes, in the context of SH3 the game, as a way to break up the monotony and get some excitement. Watching a burning sunderer missing my conning tower by 20 feet is a thrill, and the stressed voices from the crew make it an engaging experience. But is shooting down planes realistic? No. But it breaks the boredom.

[VonHelsching]

Ducimus,

That's exactly the point. By using Airpower mod, the game would become less interesting at this moment FOR ME. Later on, though, when I'm bored of the weak planes, I'll use it. It's all a matter of choices.

You see players going from the hardcore realism to the gameplay side and vice versa. Choices Is about making a game last longer and more enjoyable. And I think both the developers and the modding community gave us that opportunity. :up:

[The Avon Lady]

I like it as realistic as possible, with the exception of having automatic targetting enabled.

I just put up recently with a real-time 10 hour evasion of 2 escorts that were hounding me. So help me, I could feel the oxygen levels dropping. :dead:

[Wilko]

I'm alot along the same lines as TreverSlyFox,

I don't do crew management as I see it as my Exec's job to carry that out and I just don't have the patience at the moment to learn the manual targeting thing, I am happy to assign targets and order the firing of torps and live and die as the escorts hunt me... :|\

[Aqualung]

Realism for me :) Not with every game admittedly (also playing BF2 a lot these days as a 'medic' and runnign around with difibrilator panals reviving 'dead' repeatedly killed members of my squad is hardly realistic but fun none the less :) ) , but for a sim like SHIII, then yup I want to be able to play at settings as real as possible. That doesn't mean I play the *entire* patrol in 1x speed of course so am happy to bend reality a bit there, but for me the game would lose something if it just became another 'shoot-em-up' with UBoats instead of a UBoat sim.

Horses for courses. Some games I want realism, others I want 'fantasy', both are fun :)

[Ducimus]

Ducimus,

That's exactly the point. By using Airpower mod, the game would become less interesting at this moment FOR ME. Later on, though, when I'm bored of the weak planes, I'll use it. It's all a matter of choices.

You see players going from the hardcore realism to the gameplay side and vice versa. Choices Is about making a game last longer and more enjoyable. And I think both the developers and the modding community gave us that opportunity. :up:

Yeah thats pretty much where i sit.

Ill do a patrol or two, as realistic as i can.

Then i get bored, and do something incredibly stupid. I think the worst monstrosity ive ever commited was making a type IID do 35 knots on the surface , boost its hit points to the equivlant of an IXD, and tried to run through gibralter on the surface. No i didnt make it. :rotfl:

[Kaptan Tommy]

I like to 'play' my serious career guy as realistically as possible (74% for me). But for simple fun and when I'm strapped for time, I'll invent a new temporary career with some schmuck that's expendable. Then I'll head into some enemy port (or other unsavory situation) taking all kinds of chances just to see what happens. I take this experience back to my 'serious' career and use it there. This way I'm learning what I can get away with without jeopardizing my primadonna career man... :lol:

Yeah, I guess that's a form of cheating but when it's all said and done for me, it's still a game (that I can't stay away from, even though my job keeps me away from home for days at at time).

[nappy]

as realistic as possible(within the limitations of the game), no external
view, calculate all targetin solution by hand, dud torpedoes and the lot.
only thing i allow myself to use is the time compression thingie (which
withouth id go silly on those long voyages ) :up:

nappy

[DMarkwick]

Still a fairly new sim for me (about 2 weeks old) so I'm still finding balance. As I learn more & more I ramp realism up & up, but I usually drop back down again for a bit of a romp, same as the other sims I play.

There's nothing like the thrill of getting a totally manually solved kill under pressure, but also there's nothing like being among the convoy and snapping shots off when I can, at who I can. So I bob the realism up & down depending on how I feel.

I agree about the crew rosters though, stupid to have to micromanage that. At the most, have the captain set up an auto-roster right at the beginning of a mission.

[Kaptan Tommy]

On another string I saw someone mention how silly it is to have people going sour when clearly they're sitting around the torpedo rooms doing nothing. After all, most crewmen sleep on and under torpedos anyway, and if there's nothing going on, why can't they just be sleeping and renewing their energy where ever they are???

I've always got people in both torpedo rooms simply because there's nowhere else for them to be - and their stamina is going to pot because of it. Sumpin' wrong here... :damn:

[Uber Gruber]

The more realism the better, which is why I've turned off fatigue in IUB as there's not one fatigue model that approaches realism in SHIII.

I'm on a 100% realism patrol in Sept 1939. I don't reload the game if I screw up, I try to learn from my mistakes and start a new campaign. Last night, for instance, I stumbled across a home heading convoy in AM54 and shadowed it till nightfall. Twice I let the bloody thing go right past me because of bad navigation in a wicked pitch black storm. So I had a rethink and then entered the convoy on the surface via the back door. Dived to 23M and went under the convoy at 7 knots on Full Engines (convoy doing 6 knots).

Surfaced between front excort and merchants and every torpedo hit their mark. Now have 1 torp left with two crippled ships, one i'm sure will sink (a C3) so i'm chasing the other (a C2) to finish her off.

Of course, this is the happy time, and the escorts are not very bright.....that will soon change so its important I learn what I can do within the "game engine" before the 1942/3.

To top it all, I've started to log my patrols on paper....7 pages so far on this patrol. It helps me plan my strategy and keeps me focused.

And finally, for those that have other commitments and can't play too often, i'm in teh same boat and playing this way rather than the "instant gratification" way, is far more enjoyable as I get to review my tactics when not playing.

As a long toothed programmer myself with a brother works in the game industry, we're looking into accurately modelling all convoy shipping during WWII - although adaptable to add unpredictability if required. Its turning into quite a hobby this U-Boat thingy :-)

Long Live Realism!

[Ace Pace]

Lurker posting alert!

I'm far more of a gameplay guy, I play on 37% realisim and I'm not ashamed of it, I don't have the time or the knowledge to play higher and I'm not sure I'd be intrested, I bought SH3 knowing that it had the ability to be played at my level.

One of the more intresting things I see from this thread is how many draw the line at manual targeting. :yep:

[Chardok]

<snippage>

Ooh! Ooh! My first "Me too" post!

I play generally on 35%-47% ( 47 if I'm feeling froggy.). I will never (Read: only if hell freezes over) do my own torping calcs because, well, I suck at math, and I was brought up in the nintendo generation. (You know: "If a copmuter can't do it, it's not worth doing.) Besides, I didn't spend 2.5k on a computer for it to *NOT* do my math for me!

I was working for awhile with the limited fuel setting, but I kept getting patrols in my type II that sent me to the very EDGE of my fuel envelope, and even then only at 1/3rd speed. I got sick of week-long patrols where I would see nothing but water.

I like some historical accuracy, however, (ie. I don't want to be piloting a typhoon against WWII ships.)

Though...that would be cool... :hmm:

[Ace Pace]

I like some historical accuracy, however, (ie. I don't want to be piloting a typhoon against WWII ships.)

Though...that would be cool... :hmm:

Shep has a modded version of the XXI that acts like the Nautilus.

[Chardok]

I like some historical accuracy, however, (ie. I don't want to be piloting a typhoon against WWII ships.)

Though...that would be cool... :hmm:

Shep has a modded version of the XXI that acts like the Nautilus.

NOT! Really? I'm all over that.

Just for entertainment purposes, mind you. Has anyone thought to attempt a full conversion mod over to modern-type sub combat?

[Sailor Steve]

For me it's 84%. I can't live without the external view, just so I can look at all the ships when I'm entering and leaving port (Rubini's Harbor Traffic mod). I also have my 1WO do the plotting and figuring. On the other hand, I use the original fatigue system. I know it's not realistic, but it makes it harder and for some perverse reason I like that. I also freely use time compression, as I can't do all the other things they did to keep from being bored, and I'm not going to spend ten years (allowing for time away from the computer) of my life playing out one career.

I have three simultaneous careers going right now, none of them going too well. Usually sink 3-4 ships in a 6-8 week patrol. Within the bounds of what's reasonable (and that's subjective to each of us) I play as realistically as I think is possible. I want to recreate the U-boat experience, not indulge in a ship-sinking contest with myself or anyone else.

But that's just me.

[ddwayne]

Im prefered realism.:arrgh!:

[joea]

Im prefered realism.:arrgh!:

Twat. :nope: