@JuliusBorisovBeamdog That’s not a fair explanation. Why can’t the dice all be rolled simultaneously or color-coded? If anything, having to select multiple casualties in a row can come across as confusing. Imagine someone with zero axis and allies experience being presented with a screen that just shows some dice and the message “assign 2 casualties”. I can easily imagine a beginner thinking that they only had to select two casualties, only to be surprised when, without any option to retreat/press attack, additional die rolls start occurring and suddenly they have more casualties to deal with.
That, and it blatantly contradicts the actual rules of the game, which has (admittedly situational) consequences on battles, as I explained above.
EDIT: A potential compromise I can see here is keep it column-based for custom games, but use the actual rules for ranked. This would make sense, sense ranked already forces you to play LHTR instead of OOB (for balance reasons). Sorry, posted before reading your response sense I was already typing.
I hear that, but that’s a digital adaptation of the game, and playing a digital version means certain things should go differently if compared to the RL experience, especially when we consider the wide variety of players who play A&A 1942 Online.
@JuliusBorisovBeamdog Please see the edit to my previous post for a potential compromise here. I understand the frustrations of adapting the rules 1:1 from a board game, however if ranked play is expected to be taken seriously the basic rules should still be enforced when possible. I can see things like pre-determined order-of-losses and not being able to land planes on Allied Carriers being necessary due to the programming constraints involved with asynchronous play, but loss calculation is something that only impacts the turn player, and no one else.
Furthermore, you’ve already added a beginner-friendly option to combat resolution. There’s a button in the bottom-left of the combat screen that lets me just use my defense profile to assign casualties if I want. Inexperienced players are already accomodated to with that, I’d imagine.
I understand that retooling the combat screen would be time-consuming work, so I’m not requesting that this be done immediately. Just something to consider for the next “major release”.
@JuliusBorisovBeamdog said in No More Lane Rolling:
I hear that, but that’s a digital adaptation of the game, and playing a digital version means certain things should go differently if compared to the RL experience, especially when we consider the wide variety of players who play A&A 1942 Online.
Honestly, there’s no usability issue with going from lane rolling to total hits. TripleA works this way and it’s just fine. It was a choice that Beamdog made and now we’re asking for that to be changed. Yes, Online requires some compromises (like Defense Profiles) but I cannot think of a technical reason nor usability reason to have lane rolling. If I’m missing something, let me know.
@JuliusBorisovBeamdog said in No More Lane Rolling:
I hear that, but that’s a digital adaptation of the game, and playing a digital version means certain things should go differently if compared to the RL experience, especially when we consider the wide variety of players who play A&A 1942 Online.
Why that? Didn’t the project originally aim for being as rules compliant as possible?
I actually think lane rolling exacerbates the effect of really good or really bad rolls. When you get zero hits with 10 infantry, it feels like crap and you hover over that “roll” button ranting not know 6 tanks are about to get 5 hits. But when you roll 5 hits with 10 infantry and 6 tanks; you skip past that feeling directly to “that roll was good enough.” Just my 2 cents on that one.
Also, one reason for lane rolling are the confusing (to the average or new A&A player, yes it is confusing) rules around subs in battles. The lane rolling makes it obvious what is happening. However, I still think you just skip assigning hits and do it at the end.
How about that? It’s now in the preview build. ;) https://steamcommunity.com/games/898920/announcements/detail/5761771209960330408
@djensen I don’t follow why you perceive that there’s lane rolling. The online implementation is equivalent to rolling all dice at once since the defender’s defense profile is set as soon as the defender clicks to complete their turn. A click pause between each level of rolling is simply a game flourish to build suspense.
Ah, I can see what you mean with how the attacker gets to choose the losses at each loss stage. It’s not the same as Triplea or the board game, but I honestly haven’t noticed a difference in my games. 99.9% of the time the order of loss is aa -> inf -> bomber -> art -> tank -> fig. Navy is sub -> dest -> car -> cru -> fig. There are some caveats, but I perceive the difference between selecting losses by lane vs knowing the entire round hits to be a minor effect. It has the effect of slightly disadvantaging the attacker since the attacker must make decisions prior to knowing the full hit information. On the balancing side, the defender has to select a defensive profile prior to the subsequent round of battles.
It isn’t about perception. There’s a real mathematical difference.
Also it isn’t “balanced”.
You get a pizza and it’s a slice short. You say “oh no”, the delivery person says “don’t worry!” and eats the rest of the pizza. Now you have a perfectly balanced empty box.
@aardvarkpepper Agreed, there’s a real mathematical difference. Beamdog made a game design choice that asynchronous play is an essential product feature of the online version. Defense profiles and lane rolling are aspects that are motivated from this product decision.
Whoops, I just realized that I replied to a thread that’s 2 years old. sorry about that!
Lane rolling isn’t necessary to asynchronous play.
DoManMacgee isn’t really trying to say 1942 Online should play like Classic. He knows 1942 Online isn’t even based on Classic, it’s based on 1942 Second Edition. I expect he simply expects others to understand.
J1 Pearl Light. 1 sub, 1 cruiser, 2 fighters, 1 bomber vs 1 sub, 1 destroyer, 1 carrier, 1 fighter.
US submarine submerges, Japan gets 1 hit taken on US destroyer, US gets 1 hit taken on Japanese cruiser.
Next round of fire Japan gets 2 hits (all remaining defenders destroyed). US rolls a hit on carrier defense roll (say Japan didn’t get a submarine hit).
Under 1942 Second Edition, US rolls fighter. The attacker then knows the total casualties inflicted by the defender for the combat.
Under 1942 Online, US does not roll fighter. The casualty must immediately be assigned.
If Japan takes the US carrier hit on submarine, 2/3 chance US fighter rolls a hit taken on Japanese fighter from Japan. Japan then does not need to commit its carrier to where US can easily destroy it. But then there’s also a 1/3 chance the US fighter misses. Then Japanese carrier must commit, and Japanese carrier and fighter both die to US counter.
If Japan takes the US carrier hit on fighter, 2/3 chance US fighter rolls a hit. The US fighter cannot hit the Japanese submarine as there is no longer a defending US destroyer (remember it’s been removed on a previous round). A second valuable Japanese air unit must be destroyed. 1/3 chance the US fighter misses.
You see the difference. It isn’t just limited to Hawaiian Islands. Counting the opponent, I expect 1942 Online’s changed implementation just with regards to “lane rolling” to be a problem at least once a game, if not more.
Yup, apparently not; think you were right on this point.
I read through Julius’s post and see that they are fixing lane rolling. Drag and drop units should also be nice!
