Wolfpack vs Uboat -- Differences ? ? Pro's/Cons

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by Ragnarokkr

I think it would be a improvement to the game to aim the game towards a PvP element such as a Wolfpack vs. Escorts, with all but the merchants themselves being directly human controlled.
Don't get me wrong though, I think the game is fine as it stands. I only think it benefits from having both sides controlled by humans to add in the unpredictability the game needs.

EDIT; Thoughts?

I couldn’t disagree more.

You’d have dickish human players constantly changing convoy course, speed and scattering such that you’d never get a working solution.

That’s not just unpredictability, that’s trolling.

Look at almost any multiplayer game where the gameplay isn’t sensibly constrained... you have large groups of stupid young men who’s only pleasure is screwing over other gamers (sea of thieves, rainbow siege etc).

Maybe one human controlled destroyer who can’t screw with the convoy would be Ok, but then you factor in that they’d constantly be pinging, and changing course and actively searching because as a human they’d be forewarned there’s a sub and again you’ve ruined the main gameplay loop.

MP almost always ruins games because people are selfish and ignorant, especially in a competitive arena. Co-op is better, but can still cause issues.

I don’t see a way of having MP pvp without the surface players ****ing up the game for the sub players.

[blackswan40]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal
Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?

My Thoughts on Human Controlled Escorts V Human Controlled Uboats
The merchant ships must be controlled by the Simmulations AI following the course pree set with the merchant thats the convoy commondores
ship and all other merchants are attached to him on same heading course the job of the escorts is to stop the Uboats sinking Merchants not necessarsilarly to destroy/sink Uboats ie to protect the convoy at all costs.
Keeping the Uboats from penetrating the escort screen or keeping the Uboats head down so to speak like stopping rustlers getting your cattle.
By dropping DC'S near to the UBoat to put him off is stroke if hes about to launch his eels.
also escorts could hunt in pairs similar to escorts in GWX3 one approaches you at slow speed pining you while another does an atttack run on you then they change over.
forcing the Uboat player to turn this way and that way at speed all the time runing is batteries down.
The human escort players would have to have some sort of points system a safe convoy icon on the results screen for protecting a convoy and not loosing a single merchant in the mission even if they did not destroy any Uboats.

The Uboat players probing the Convoy defences tring to slip through a gap in the escort screen once inside the Convoy then the Uboats can target the bigest ships but you could have AI twarlers inside the convoy to spice it up
as well as the five human controlled escorts that can also weave in and out of the convoy lanes.
Also what about Q-ships small merchants with sound gear on pinging the Uboats sending that data to the escorts by in game radio messages.


So in a nutshell theres the thrill of the Hunt for both sides

[nocken]

wolfpack is a realtime. strategic sim. human player based. if you introduce pvsp. well. it will turn into a call of duty/battlefield 5. or even worse sub vs sub. let the game grow. quiet simple if you dont like it, DONT play it. from like acorns,come major oaks.

[gutted]

I would just like to point out that despite the tone of my earlier post, that i really like wolfpack. My post was basically just me dreaming about the game me and my coop bud i always wanted.

[nocken]

wasnt a dig at you gutted at all. yes your right. lets see how it progress. excellent solvent solution app. been using it. spot on, mate. alls good. mate.

[stoppro]

I am back wirh wolfpack for now,I was just over at uboat It is way to nitpicky for me right now. i don't want to dress the crew! I couldn't belive that option. such a thing as too much

[Fearless]

I’ve purchased UBoat thus far and thinking of buying WolfPack. Just don’t know whether my Laptop can handle it.

[JuanLiquid]

If you can run Uboat, you will be able to play Wolfpack without any problem. Uboat is more demanding CPU/GPU game

[FPSchazly]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Maybe one human controlled destroyer who can’t screw with the convoy would be Ok, but then you factor in that they’d constantly be pinging, and changing course and actively searching because as a human they’d be forewarned there’s a sub and again you’ve ruined the main gameplay loop.

I generally agree with your sentiments regarding multiplayer, however, I would caveat it with the fact that that's true of multiplayer with random people. Multiplayer composed completely of a tight community/friends does not really suffer from the trolling/dumbass behavior. I feel you can also mitigate that kind of behavior largely with smart, team-oriented goals.


I've put a lot of thought into the "randomness" problem you've outlined here. We have the same issue in Dangerous Waters. Simply because we're all humans playing a multiplayer match, we 100% know enemy is out there and within reasonable range. That ruins all the mystery of true naval combat. A way to remedy this could be to have two or more convoys in a multiplayer match (or the number of convoys equals the number of U-boats plus some other number. So if you have two U-boats, you have at least three convoys.) Doing it this way, the human-controlled escorts cannot be certain there is a U-boat attacking their convoy. However, then you have the issue that some human escorts may not have anything to do. You could remedy that by having a time limit or some goal-line limit, i.e., escort the convoy safely to this point and you win.

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by FPSchazly

I generally agree with your sentiments regarding multiplayer, however, I would caveat it with the fact that that's true of multiplayer with random people. Multiplayer composed completely of a tight community/friends does not really suffer from the trolling/dumbass behavior. I feel you can also mitigate that kind of behavior largely with smart, team-oriented goals.

That was my point about tightly controlled and well designed gameplay loops, but that’s hard and needs to be one of the first thing worked out before the rest of the game is built around it. Very, very hard to go back and shoe-horn in well.

Originally Posted by FPSchazly

I've put a lot of thought into the "randomness" problem you've outlined here. We have the same issue in Dangerous Waters. Simply because we're all humans playing a multiplayer match, we 100% know enemy is out there and within reasonable range. That ruins all the mystery of true naval combat. A way to remedy this could be to have two or more convoys in a multiplayer match (or the number of convoys equals the number of U-boats plus some other number. So if you have two U-boats, you have at least three convoys.) Doing it this way, the human-controlled escorts cannot be certain there is a U-boat attacking their convoy. However, then you have the issue that some human escorts may not have anything to do. You could remedy that by having a time limit or some goal-line limit, i.e., escort the convoy safely to this point and you win.

Interesting solution. I like it, but considering the distances involved and real-time nature of a game like Wolfpack, more often than not you’d end up with a very boring (for some) experience whereby the destroyer players wouldn’t have their convoy attacked, and the sub players wouldn’t be playing against smarter non-ai destroyers.

The only way around that is to remove the tension and be explicit that you know you’re convoy is going to be attacked and roughly when.

I think, where most game designers fail, is that they spend too much time on pretty graphics and nowhere near enough time on making a smart AI/NPC enemy. I know from personal experience how hard that can be, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be just as important as good graphics, and far more important than god-rays, bloom, lens flares and bow wave dynamics.

There’s no easy and complete answers. Some - like me - who could do a 4 hour mission, would love the chance to picking which convoy to target - or even as I suggested, having to intercept a sound contact only to find it’s not a valid target and have to find another, but in Wolfpack in real-time that’s a long long mission. With no saves (for some) that becomes a huge obstacle or a game killer.

I think when the real missions and campaign comes in then more variety especially carefully curated missions will help, but I still can’t see a good PVP gameloop that doesn’t destroy part of what makes Wolfpack so good and unique (the tension and slow build).

I accept your points about its who you play with, and for someone like you with exposure and a community of like minded people, it wouldn’t be hard to find some good players, but we’re not all as lucky as that and sometimes randoms are all we can get.

I know my fun with this game is proportional to how good of a Crew I have and how well we all behave, but that’s not easy to find.

After reading many ‘comments’ about Wolfpack and Uboat, it always seems to keep coming back to the fact that some people just want SH3 with co-op and PVP, modern graphics and nazi flags, and nothing will ever be accepted for what they can offer, unless they offer that.

Considering the long drought we’ve had for sub games and then we’ve had three in less than two years I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

Although I wouldn’t mind dangerous waters 2 lol I love me some Seawolf!

[FPSchazly]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

I accept your points about its who you play with, and for someone like you with exposure and a community of like minded people, it wouldn’t be hard to find some good players, but we’re not all as lucky as that and sometimes randoms are all we can get.

Considering the long drought we’ve had for sub games and then we’ve had three in less than two years I’d say we’re doing pretty well.

Although I wouldn’t mind dangerous waters 2 lol I love me some Seawolf!

Fair point about who we play with.

The current mood is bright for sub sims! I too wouldn't mind a Dangerous Waters 2

[Daelin[SHOT]]

Since this thread has somewhat derailed into suggestions and ideas for Wolfpack, I hope this is the rigth place to post some more. If there is finally a dedicated thread about suggestions and ideas, please point me there and I will either copy my post or delete it here and post it there, thanks.


Anyways, here goes:

There was the question how to improve the current feel of the game, or how to make it more interesting. And there was especially some comparison with Silent Hunter and U-Boat.


Most people just pointed out that SH compresses time until you meet the convoy. Kind of right, but you still have to leave the harbour!

Why is that of any importance? Because to me (and I guess to some others too) it gives you more of a connection to your boat and crew.
You just left the harbour, cheered on by your fellow sailors and people along the quayside. In SH there even was a band playing! That gave a great sense of starting into an adventure (at least to me).


Now, I do not say the Devs should go straight away for an option to "sail out of a harbour" before you get to the actual convoy-mission. But in the long run, that would make a great addition.

Compared with U-Boat and SH, I am also missing the option to customise the boat. Having some progress after a successful "Feindfahrt" would really add to feeling like it is "my/our" boat. And not just some random "pop it up" convoy-attack. It could also mean, that if you actually get sunk, you lose the progress (or most of it, not all ;-) ). That would give an incentive to sometimes run away instead of hunting till the escorts kill you. Currently my crew and I just disconnect after we sunk some stuff. Running away after the escorts missed you one or two times just takes up time for no reward what so ever.


Another nice option would be if in the lobby menu you could have people place a call for other crews to join them. Yes, I understand you can do that with discord already, but having something/some indicator in the lobby like "looking for additional sub-crew" or something like that would help. at least as long as the attack hasn't started yet. Maybe with some timer or something. At least in my opinion. Or at least the option to name your lobby (like "german sub-crew, looking for additional subs, TS-adress xyz.de")


Additionally some statistcs would be great. Nothing too fancy at the start, just something along the lines of:
Number of "Feindfahrten" as:
- Captain
- Navigator
- Dive Officer
- Radioman
- Helmsman

Times sunk

BRT sunk

So you can somewhat get an idea of how experienced somebody is.


Also it would be great to have a leaderboard. But not simply "most BRT sunk" but more a combination of must successful hunts (maybe also with other subs) and a community leaderboard with stuff like "most helpful player/crew".




TLDR:

Ideas/suggestions:

Short term:
Get some statistics for players (no. of sorties, times sunk, BRT sunk, etc.)
Get an option to call other sub-crews into your lobby (and/or edit lobby name)


Mid-term:
Option to customise the boat (e.g. turret decoration, posters inside, maybe even torpedo equipment, sonar-euipment, like in SH/U-Boat)
Leadershipboard (not only BRT sunk, but also community stuff like "most helpful player/crew")


Long term:
Have the option to leave the harbour prior to the atcual mission (like in SH/U-Boat) with customisation of the boatd and cheering people and a band. And also the option to return to the harbour. Probably best with a tick-box to select if you want that prior to the mission or not.



Just my 2 cents.
The game is already really great as it is, even if you just keep attacking convoys. just some more incentive to actually survive would be good!

[Aktungbby]

'Daelin[SHOT]! Great two cents worth!

[Onkel Neal]

Great first post and solid ideas, thanks!