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Old 04-02-2018, 03:08 PM   #1
Alain H. Dawson
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Default Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

We're doing a survey on what Ogre fans most want to see added, upgraded, and/or fixed in the Ogre video game. Please respond with your top three choices of what Auroch should prioritize as they work to improve the game. Also, what new features, options, and/or material would you be excited to see? Your answers can be anything from practical to pie in the sky (Ogrethulhu, anyone?).

Aaaaand GO!
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Old 04-02-2018, 04:00 PM   #2
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

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Originally Posted by Alain H. Dawson View Post
We're doing a survey on what Ogre fans most want to see added, upgraded, and/or fixed in the Ogre video game. Please respond with your top three choices of what Auroch should prioritize as they work to improve the game. Also, what new features, options, and/or material would you be excited to see? Your answers can be anything from practical to pie in the sky (Ogrethulhu, anyone?).

Aaaaand GO!
I'll focus on the "should be fixed before all else" items

1. Fix all outstanding bugs - I’m cheating by putting these together, but they are all related-but-different. There are three general classes of bugs that need to be fixed:

a. Rules bugs - Most of the remaining issues are terrain-related, especially where road/rail is involved. A prime example is a GEV getting a road bonus moving from water to a bridge and continuing along the road. This fails on almost every level of rule regarding how bridges work (illegal move, illegal bonus, etc), but it’s also not the only rules issue. It just happens to be a very visible one. It should really go without saying that the existing rules should be solid before anything new is done.

b. Gameplay bugs - The last update tried to address some of the multiplayer issues, game save/load issues, etc. While there was improvement, I’m seeing that there are still bug reports being made related to online play. Nothing kills game acceptance faster than losing progress or being force to forfeit (and lose ranking points) because the player interaction is borked.

c. Scenario Editor bugs - Arguably one of the biggest potentials being squandered because of bugs is the ability to make your own scenarios and share them. There are so many bugs in the scenario editor that they are hard to count; it’s also a real black eye on the game right now. When someone puts hours into designing a scenario, only to have it broken or lost because of a bug, it’s a real motivation killer. We lost Tim K and all of his work (a multitude of posted scenarios) as a direct result of this (not to mention some passionate words on the subject that don’t help the brand, as it were).


2. Add the missing “standard” armor units - This is defined loosely as “Any basic armor/buildings from Ogre, G.E.V. and Shockwave” LGEVs, et al. This does _not_ include Lasers, Cruise Missiles and Crawlers. This has nothing to do with my bias against them, but rather because they add another layer of complexity the Video Game can’t easily support (LOS, and out of turn attacks on CMs for starters). It doesn’t make any sense why some of these basic units weren’t added at release. Especially the LGEV, which already has the rules in-game to support everything it needs, should be an “easy” add. Trucks and Hovertrucks might be a little harder because there aren’t any existing rules to handle their terrain movement, but I would definitely add them before CMs/Lasers. It also includes making buildings and structures that exist in the Nightfall Scenario available to the Scenario Editor.


3. Better interaction between terrain types while building - A lot of scenario development in the Scenario Creator is severely hamstrung by the fact terrain is limited. The worst example of this is the inability to have road and rail sections in the same hex at the same time. This makes it impossible to recreate some of the existing maps, and more importantly, makes it impossible to do something rudimentary like a RR crossing; a hallmark of every G.E.V. map. There is no such thing as a proper river bridge (which probably contributes to “bridge rules” issues mentioned above), leaving you to fudge things in the scenario that rely on broken rules, or you simply accepting how it should work is not how it actually works, and play around it.


Short version: I want all the canon stuff to be bug free and work as expected/defined in the rules.
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Old 04-02-2018, 07:23 PM   #3
Alain H. Dawson
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

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Originally Posted by GranitePenguin View Post
Short version: I want all the canon stuff to be bug free and work as expected/defined in the rules.
Thank you for your helpful comments and detailed response.
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Old 04-02-2018, 08:32 PM   #4
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

I'd be content to have a reliable Basic and Advanced Scenario that I can play vs another human player when we want to play. (Not just reliable when neither of us signs out, and the internet stays glitch-free and happy the whole time.) (Not when the randomizer decides that's what we want to play.) Forget everything else until AurochDigital delivers that much.

After that I'd like a reliable Breakthrough, Raid, and Ceasefire Collapse that I can play against another human player when we want to play.

I don't care much about the rest - don't believe it will happen - until after those top two show up.

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Old 04-03-2018, 06:22 AM   #5
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

GranitePenguin nuked the nail on the head.

Make the basics work right.
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Old 04-03-2018, 10:32 AM   #6
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

More "nice-to-have" items (remember, ONLY after core bugs are squashed, please).

selectable ranked matches - Add a way to filter/select what kind of match you'd like to play, rather than have it completely random. If I only want to play a "Classic Mark V" on an Orange map, I should be able to tell the system not to match me up with a "Train" scenario on a Green map. I'd also like to be able to select a preference for Attacker or Defender.

access to the Nightfall scenarios as two-player skirmish games - Making these playable as two humans, or swapping the AI as the defense would really open up replay-ability. Maybe make it so they become available as each one is "beaten" in the campaign. That way, no spoilers, and it's an extra trophy for beating a scenario

more trophies - There's only 5 trophies available and they are not that hard to get. The game needs a lot more to keep interest. If nothing else, having more goals will make the completionists keep playing; especially for promoting online matches.
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Old 04-03-2018, 10:47 AM   #7
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

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Originally Posted by Alain H. Dawson View Post
Thank you for your helpful comments and detailed response.
Any time :-)
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Old 04-03-2018, 01:24 PM   #8
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

Another vote for GranitePenguin’s list. I agree with everything he mentioned.

It’s like he was reading my mind...
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Old 04-03-2018, 02:14 PM   #9
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

Quote:
Originally Posted by ianargent View Post
GranitePenguin nuked the nail on the head.

Make the basics work right.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfleisher View Post
Another vote for GranitePenguin’s list. I agree with everything he mentioned.

It’s like he was reading my mind...
Thanks. Great minds, something something... :-)

I'll drop a list of more "nice to haves" to prime the pump, too. It doesn't hurt to have things "on paper" so they don't get lost. The standard "only after the basics are fixed" applies.

* min/max scenarios - this is actually one that’s pretty important (to me, anyway). I’d like to see the ability to start a scenario with less than the maximum AU. I should be able to select _up to_ the maximum force, not be forced to use all my AUs. This was really annoying while making my tutorial videos, and it would be a great way to allow for handicaps (the classic example being a mark III attacking with only 10 AU defending instead of 12 AU for an “experienced” player).

* The ability to play/share/edit posted scenarios - Right now, the Scenario Editor is only useful for local play. This is a huge failing because the whole point is to share the scenarios. If you can’t download a published scenario and:
  1. customize it for yourself to make a derivative of it
  2. play online against another person that also has it downloaded
you are missing the point. The _only_ thing you can currently do is download a published scenarios and play by yourself against the AI. That’s a very limited use of it that does not breed acceptance or a willingness to play it.

* better AI - The current AI is not good. It has significant issues understanding what’s important during a game, making _very_ poor decisions when choosing between “win the objective” and “squash this gnat.” The AI needs some real work. At the very least, make it settable to give it more brute force time to decide what to do. I’d like to see a revamp of it that allows for serious players to have a challenge if they want one.

* Hotkey customization - all the hotkeys are currently fixed. I’d like to see the ability to set them however you want.

* Better chat system - Relying on the Steam chat system is rough (even Jake at Auroch has complained about it to/with me while playing). It requires you to be friends in order for it to work, but there is _no way_ to identify the person you are playing in a random game to even send a friend request to them. It makes playing random match games very impersonal. You can’t even send a simple “good game” to them. It would really help to grow the community if people could actually talk/chat while in-game without having to spend time hunting them down in Steam’s crappy interface.

* Get all the “Official” scenarios - We are missing a lot of scenario content. Heck, we are missing scenario MAPs. The current official content is pretty light, and due to the already-mentioned limitations in the scenario editor, we can’t even make them on our own.

* better scenario victory conditions - The current conditions are very limiting. they assume the only way to have a win is based on VP counts. It doesn’t allow for hitting objectives, secondary objectives, etc.

* multi-map scenarios - With the size being limited to 40x40 (or less), we can’t even have a basic G.E.V+Shockwave map.

* More than two players - A 3 or 4 player game would be really cool (admittedly, this one is out there a bit) Obviously, this is related to access to more of the Original scenarios (body blow, etc)

* Reskinning/painting armies - Everyone is all about colors and factions. Having more than just the Red and Blue available, and ideally faction logos (pink ARF, anyone?) would be cool.

* Mods - Being able to mod games is apparently “a thing.” Just being a variation of reskinning units to look like WWII units wouldn’t be interesting to me at all, and being able to introduce custom rules would be weird, too, but a LOT of people seem to think it’s a requirement for a “good” game to be allowed to hack it up. I don’t follow this, but I’m not the target audience for mods anymore. I like my Ogre Black, thank you very much.

That said, having classic (or ODE) counters as an option would be really neat, and would look a lot better in a stack than the current weird hex shape thingy.
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Old 04-03-2018, 03:51 PM   #10
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Default Re: Survey: Top Priorities for Ogre VG Improvement

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Originally Posted by GranitePenguin View Post
1. Fix all outstanding bugs - I’m cheating by putting these together, but they are all related-but-different. There are three general classes of bugs that need to be fixed:
Bugs are all three of my items right now. After trading screenshots with dwalend I'm boggled just how out of synch the two sides of a scenario were. I'm wondering how many of my "timed out" wins were somebody who saw a ridiculous situation on the screen and gave up.
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