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

[gutted]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Can you give us some ideas on how we can make it a "hunting" sim?

Co-oping a single uboat (with captain controlled time compression) through a silent hunter style career is the game i really want.

But that's not what wolfpack is, and i'm ok with that. It's just not something that will (or even hasn't so far) kept my attention. It's become rather repetitive already. Cool for an occasional session, but not something we'd do nightly.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by gutted

Co-oping a single uboat (with captain controlled time compression) through a silent hunter style career is the game i really want.

But that's not what wolfpack is, and i'm ok with that. It's just not something that will (or even hasn't so far) kept my attention. It's become rather repetitive already. Cool for an occasional session, but not something we'd do nightly.

Thanks, gutted, for the feedback. Agreed it can be repetitive, although we have a lot more content to come and a lot of other features that will deepen the gameplay. The current version is about 20% of the total game. We have stuff planned that will address the variety of missions, some of it I cannot discuss at this time. I will say that when the Enigma, HF/DF and kurzsignale parts are finished, you will have more hunting options.

We had a lot of discussions about time compression and warping. Initially I was in favor of it, because my time to play games is pretty limited. We examined the mechanics of a Silent Hunter style career and essentially, it is the same thing over and over:

1. the player starts the mission
2. clicks on max time compression
3. watches a sub icon move across a computer screen map of the world
4. waits 2~20 minutes for the game to spawn a convoy ("intercept" a convoy)
5. alerts the player and stops time compression
6. player now makes the observations necessary for the approach.

Spawn a convoy or to "intercept" a convoy is essentially the same thing. Whether the game has convoys in a database and they are generated when the player's coordinates meet the required criterion for "contact" and convoy generation. Or if the game randomly spawns a convoy at predetermined intervals, the player really has no way of seeing this and the perception is the same: our sub is sailing at 2048x times actual speed and we came across a convoy.

When a player watches a sub at max TC zipping across a map of the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean, it's all imaginary and simply feeds the perception that the sub is "in the world". When a player is "hunting" he is simply watching a screensaver until the game spawns a convoy.

If there are radio messages informing the player of possible contacts or map updates that show intel where convoys might be, that does add a lot to the perception that the player is hunting. But it still boils down to the same thing--max TC until the game stops you and says "hey, you just found a convoy". Player decides to investigate a harbor? Spawned enemies, contact. Player sails across the Atlantic to the Horn of Africa? Spawned enemies, contact. Player sails to the US East Coast? Spawned enemies, contact. That's not bad, I'm not saying that. But it is what the games amount to.

With a co-op game, we simply cannot expect 5 players to spend a lot of time looking (waiting until the game spawns a convoy). We sure don't want 5 people to spend an hour looking for a convoy and never finding it. And we made the decision to avoid time compression because that's too game-y for the atmosphere we wanted for Wolfpack. Real time tactics build a lot of tension, real human emotion, and that makes Wolfpack different from Silent Hunter where a guy can zip around a convoy in 2 minutes and replay the same scenario until he gets the results he wants (that's fun too, but a different fun). In Wolfpack, no computer message alerts you "there's a convoy, get ready!" You and your crew find and examine the convoy with your own eyes.

So the current version of Wolfpack cuts out the hunting aspect that involves a lot of time waiting. Because as any hunter knows, there is a lot more time involved in hunting than in finding.

[John Pancoast]

Correct me if wrong Neal, but while there may not be a "There's a convoy, get ready" message, in reality, Wolfpack just starts (currently) at the next step from such a message and one knows there's a convoy somewhere in the vicinity.
I.e., in SH one gets: A. A convoy reported message then goes to an intercept spot and then B: hunts for and hopefully finds it.
Wolfpack just skips A and goes to B in other words. The B has the same aspects in either game (other than multi or not obviously) ?
Regarding TC, I'm not sure it's any more "gamey" then plopping one's boat in the middle of the ocean with the foreknowledge that there's a convoy already nearby.
But doing the "plopping" is a good time saver idea, which of course, is all tc is too.

[Ragnarokkr]

as mentioned previously by gutted, the gameplay does get repetive, with the current situation being that the subs spawn almost within sight radius to the convoy.


Personally I don't think this is inherently a bad way to do it, and Neil got right on the money.

Waiting is not always fun.
Games are supposed to gratify the player and not bore him enough to leave the hatch open on a hydrophone check.



For now atleast I will be waiting for new content and features, with my eye trained especially for

- new adversaries (like new warships and airplanes to dodge),

- later some variations to Uboat models (like the type II coastal boat and IX),

- maybe some sort of "career mode" (though no ideas how this would be done)
- i like interacting with the enviroment on the boat. If Wolfpack is going to be a firstperson immersive uboat crawler, then the conning tower, bridge etc should have some nice buttons and knobs to push and turn because i like things that do other things.
- mission fail/success screen rework. its pretty anti climactic the last i saw of it.




But a small dev team means no breakneck speed and so i will simmer down for now with these ideas off the top of my head, retreat back to my hole and wait for new updates.


TLDR: Yes its repetetive. New content pls. Good luck devs.

[blackswan40]

My thoughts on Wolfpack Updates ect


1. When the escorts get Hedgehogs that will be a whole new ball game and uboat crews will have to adopt new stratergies like greater reliance on the sonarman as he reports the escort with Hedgehogs closing calling out the distance as he listens intentley judging the distance of the approarching escort.


2. When Aircraft are put in Wolfpack that raises the bar again do you surface on a cloudy winter day trying to close the distance to a Convoy when liberators with radar are in your area and the Aircraft communicate with the Convoy escorts giving them your location


3. Wolfpack a one size fits all Simulation so to speak as regards from what the Devs have said so far AI Bots on the unmanned stations for Single Player nice touch that.
The idea of some sort of Campaign realy excites me i dont know if this will happen.

I have written a SH3 GW3 Campaign for the Steel Sharks Clan in the scripted leyer of the mission editor i would love to write something similar for Wolfpack as well as new Missions making them more challanging having the escorts with different crew class compitant Veteran Elite.
More escort types stretched Flower class river class captain conlony class Usn ewarts bensons buckleys tacomers as the war progresses with better deadlier Depth Charges.
Also Merchants from different nations.


Re Missions the bigest Wolfpack Convoy ive seen so far was 32 merchants 3 escorts
writing a Wolfpack mission 36-40 merchants laid out 4 rows of 9 then 4 merchants at the back with 4 escorts but a escort support group arrives on the scene an hour into mission so will you go for more tonage or do you now evade the toublesome escorts and slip away to fight another day


4 . Human Controled escorts now this sounds very interesting indeed dancing around AI escorts is one thing evading A Human controlled escorts a whole different ball game for sure.


I know its a Big wish list with a capital B

[THE_MASK]

Wolfpack Played 12.5 hrs
I dont like multiplayer so i dont play much of Wolfpack atm . I can see though that it is miles ahead for that virtual out on the sea feeling and comradary when you have real players playing along side . There is a lot of the roadmap to be added .
The devs seem fanatical about having a highly polished problem free game .

Uboat . Played 6.3 hrs
Too convoluted (maybe i just need to play it a bit more) , no hardcore options . Very early beta imo .
The bugs dont worry me because the devs atm are hitting the bugs out of the ball park .

I bought both games .
This is the golden era of pc ww2 sub games atm .

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Correct me if wrong Neal, but while there may not be a "There's a convoy, get ready" message, in reality, Wolfpack just starts (currently) at the next step from such a message and one knows there's a convoy somewhere in the vicinity.

You are correct, essentially that is what happens. When Wolfpack starts, you know there is a contact out there somewhere.

Same with Silent Hunter: when the TC abruptly drops from 2018x to 1x, you know there is a contact.

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

I.e., in SH one gets: A. A convoy reported message then goes to an intercept spot and then
B: hunts for and hopefully finds it.

What do you do if you do not find it?

[John Pancoast]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

You are correct, essentially that is what happens. When Wolfpack starts, you know there is a contact out there somewhere.

Same with Silent Hunter: when the TC abruptly drops from 2018x to 1x, you know there is a contact.




What do you do if you do not find it?

Myself, the watch can't find it visually or the sonar man can't find it via the hydrophones (I don't listen to them myself, that's his job) after the calculated time frame I should have, I return to standard patrolling whether that's continuing onto an assigned area, etc.

Re SH tc, I only respond to convoy reports and they don't stop tc. Only time it would drop is if I'm at an intercept area via a report, but I'm rarely above 1x there anyway.
Rarely use 2048 (sometimes near base during a return) and so never had a 2048 to 1 contact drop; at that speed wouldn't one be right on top of them (in a bad way) anyway ?
I need to get a new pc.

[fastfed]

Originally Posted by gutted

Co-oping a single uboat (with captain controlled time compression) through a silent hunter style career is the game i really want.

But that's not what wolfpack is, and i'm ok with that. It's just not something that will (or even hasn't so far) kept my attention. It's become rather repetitive already. Cool for an occasional session, but not something we'd do nightly.

very true, this game (wolfpack) what we see now is about all we will ever get. BUT! I do think its a good foundation for another company to take this work and make a silent hunter type of sim, with the wolfpack feel to it.

Time compression/missions/campaign with co-op is the dream. Wolfpack is nothing more than a quick linear action and that's it.

one day the dream will come true, but it might be many more years from now.

Wolfpack IMO is great, but IMO its a 10-20 dollar game at best

[gumbeauregard]

Glad i stopped by.

Bought and downloaded.

I have been hoping for a true WWII submarine simulator and this looks like a great start.

[derstosstrupp]

Originally Posted by gumbeauregard

Glad i stopped by.

Bought and downloaded.

I have been hoping for a true WWII submarine simulator and this looks like a great start.

You sir will not be disappointed!

[AP514]

This Thread has been totally derailed..............


PLZ Close this THREAD..thank you

[Pisces]

No need for exaggeration. The majority of this thread was still about Uboat vs Wolfpack comparison. Sure, it wandered off a bit to become a bit one-sided. But that can be steered back again. And in this forum threads don't tend to get closed until discussions start to go real sour. I think there is some life in it if people are willing to add their 2 cents.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

'Daelin[SHOT]! Great two cents worth!

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Great first post and solid ideas, thanks!

Originally Posted by AP514

This Thread has been totally derailed..............


PLZ Close this THREAD..thank you

Originally Posted by Pisces

No need for exaggeration. The majority of this thread was still about Uboat vs Wolfpack comparison. Sure, it wandered off a bit to become a bit one-sided. But that can be steered back again. And in this forum threads don't tend to get closed until discussions start to go real sour. I think there is some life in it if people are willing to add their 2 cents.

not totally derailed and it's doing what a good thread should with some very well written '2¢'s worth' posts in an unsually eloquent ongoing discussion; well worth continuing....imho