Curious...Why is this game so hard to get right?

[csThor]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

The consensus seems to be that we need the proper "setting" first and foremost, something that will coerce players to fly the scenario and cooperate to make it happen. To do this it must be enjoyable for players and possible for mission builders to construct.

You can't "coerce" players to do anything, they will do what they want anyway. Players play the game as a pasttime, to derive enjoyment. Which is why no kind of "coercion system" will do anything but drive players away.

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

1) Fix the bombers once and for all.

This makes people fly them more, which in turn gives the fighter pilots more interesting things to do, even with the current state of the dedicated server and without needing to construct new missions.

Wishful thinking. Sorry to be so blunt but IMHO only 1 to 5% of the player base would be willing to fly bombers. That has to do with several aspects - limited free time (not everyone can dedicate an hour or more for a bombing sortie), lack of interest (most people are fighter-centered players), lack of "gratification" (some people need tangible rewards to motivate themselves) etc. Even with heavy AI use you will never get more than a fraction of the people into bombers - certainly not enough to actually reach the historical force ratios of bombers vs fighters.

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

It's one thing to fly solo in an 88 and dive bomb or go skimming the tress in a 110, both against heavily protected targets in suicide runs, it's a totally different thing to have 4-5 people in bombers along with a few escorts.

IMHO you're aiming too low, although the number issue I desribed above makes that more plausible. IMO bombers should not appear below squadron strength, meaning 12 aircraft at least. Better (for the Luftwaffe) would be Gruppe strength (max 36 aircraft). This would depict history, this would make interception more difficult and it would allow for a much more plausible bombload per target.

Talking about 109 and 110 fighter-bombers in the BoB one should not forget that it was a single Gruppe at first which flew such sorties - a tiny minority. Only late (September and October 1940) this was enhanced to one Staffel per Gruppe of 109s operating as Jabos but given the targets they were given (London as a whole) that use doesn't make much sense to me gameplay-wise.

The abundance of fighter-bombers around is yet another sign for the fighter-centric view of most players and the utter lack of realistic force ratios and bomber target categories.

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

2) Debug the FMB and the methods (aka scripting commands) supplied with the interface.

If the previous is happening and they also fix the FMB and scripts, the mission designers then have an incentive to build on top of their existing missions. If it's streamlined, well documented and possible to get results, more and more people will do it. And since it's reusable pieces of code, after a while we'll be able to mix and match.

Say i'm coding a script that takes stock of fuel levels in an airbase, adding and subtracting fuel to the base fuel dump whenever aircraft spawn or land back to it. No fuel = no flying from that base. I give the code to the server admins, they test it, like it and use it, possibly even improve it and correct a couple of bugs.

Another guy comes along and wants to take this further, he gets my code and another person's code that spawns AI convoys and combines them: now, when your airbase is low on fuel an AI truck convoy will spawn to resupply the base. Suddenly, the RAF pilot has something to protect and the LW pilot something to bomb.

Yet another guy comes along and expands this whole idea. Why not do the same with the amount of aircraft and pilots (virtual lives) for each team?
And another one with an even better idea...why not expand this to make a complete supply chain?

Before you know it, we now have a chain of events upon which hinges our ability to fly our favorite aircraft from our favorite airbase. If the base is low on fuel and the convoy doesn't reach the base i can't fly, if the refinery where the convoy spawns is low as well then an AI ship convoy spawning at the edge of the map must make it to port, if the Supermarine factory is bombed my team gets -X% replenishment rate for Spitfires and the same for spare parts (damaged planes get in the "hangar" queue and return to action once repaired), similarly bombing the training airfields affects how many virtual lives your team replenished per day. And so on and so forth.

Well, if we have all this it's pretty clear we don't need specific mission objectives anymore and this will also be easier on the mission designers. What we'll have at that point is a set of starting conditions for each team and a set of victory conditions. Et voila, here's the dynamic online campaign.

But for all of this to work, we need to have the FMB and the scripting tools debugged. Otherwise, it's like Bliss says: fighting around the bugs to make the simple stuff work doesn't leave time to make more complex missions.

The problem of the BoB as historical background for such a "dynamic campaign" is that it was essentially an ad-hoc attempt at fighting a war of attrition, a war of economics. This can't be depicted in the game because the important industrial areas of central England and the major port cities are outside the map. That means strangling the RAF's fuel supply isn't going to be possible - the main reserves and the "source" of the fuel/oil (the ports where the tankers docked) are untouchable. The same is true for basically any war-relevant industry - aircraft, armaments, ammunition, oil refineries etc.

So what's left? Well, the airfields and the lines of supply and communication which are on the map (ports for coastal convois, London, all railway lines and stations, important roads and bridges etc). With these limited possibilities a dynamic depiction of the BoB is not possible and trying to develop an abstract version is IMO a waste of time and effort since it will always leave a sour taste behind.
All that could be done with this set of variables is a much more limited "campaign", perhaps one in which the Luftwaffe has to force the RAF to give up operating from forward airfields such as Manston or Hawkinge and damaging at least one or two Sector airfields (i.e. Biggin Hill or Kenley) to such a degree, that they cannot fulfill their role (in aircraft maintenance, as fighter controller etc) anymore. But for this to happen the airfields themselves would have to have pretty intricate damage states - a downed hangar lowers the maintenance capacity of the airfield, a damaged runway will be unusable until the craters are being filled up, a blown up ammo dump lowers the amount of ammunition available (same for fuel if that's realistic), ... All that is difficult to do right.

It's true that a tactical war such as on the Eastern Front is easier since it provides a much more flexible environment with a load of tactical targets the BoB doesn't provide. Just saying ...