fun v. simulation

[dglewwe]

recent AARs posted from Blue Max and WoW games made me think:

how do those games reflect/represent WW1 aircombat? aside from the obvious use of models that look (and perhaps even perform) like aircraft of the era, what part of the dogfighting experience do they capture?

both reduce the actions/decisions of the pilots to a guessing game of paper-rock-scissors: how does that relate to the historical actions/decisions that are (in theory) being modelled by the game mechanics?


i know the age-old conflict in game design between realism and fun, and heartily agree that if it isn't fun, it's not a game. but i also think that to be titled a WW1 aircombat game, something beyond the physical trappings needs to be included, at least for my money.


dunno...must be the rain making me a contrary old grump today...pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

[Romani]

Originally Posted by dglewwe

recent AARs posted from Blue Max and WoW games made me think:

how do those games reflect/represent WW1 aircombat?

Poorly. I will limit myself to Blue Max. Wings of War seems to me the same but without hexes and figures instead of cardboard pieces, but I don't know enough.

To being with, any air combat game that doesn't have an altitude system is a no go from the start, in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong, I have an enormous respect for Phil Hall (BM) achievement and Andrea Angiolilo (WoW) in create a Great War in the air themed games, and to market them, but they are not simulations. After a while I find them boring because they are simplistic, full of frustrating limitations and unrealistic.

aside from the obvious use of models that look (and perhaps even perform) like aircraft of the era, what part of the dogfighting experience do they capture?

If BM was played fast enough , without players taking too much time to plot their moves, and by that I mean only a few seconds, the game could greatly capture some of the stress of combat and the need to make decisions.

They are good in that the movement is simple and you can focus on the tactical situation instead of flying the plane, wich is what dooms the games with movement points and step by step maneuvering.

both reduce the actions/decisions of the pilots to a guessing game of paper-rock-scissors: how does that relate to the historical actions/decisions that are (in theory) being modelled by the game mechanics?

That is a problem, with simultaneous playing, the player with the most skill at guessing or just lucky has the advantage, not the better pilot, having an ace pilot doesn't give you as much advantage as it should be. Historical tactics don't work, some initiative system that allowed experienced and ace pilots to hold or change part of their move would help and allow real tailing.

i know the age-old conflict in game design between realism and fun, and heartily agree that if it isn't fun, it's not a game. but i also think that to be titled a WW1 aircombat game, something beyond the physical trappings needs to be included, at least for my money.

I think there's a false conflict between realism and fun. If there's no realism, there's no fun either, you don't have a simulation anymore, just dice rolling and minimaxing a set of arbitrary rules.

The real issue is complexity vs fun. Realism demands more complexity, the trick is making that complexity, simple and playable. Blue Max and Wings of War make the most complex thing of all, the part of flying playable, I love the possibility of performing a complex acrobatic maneuver like an Immelmann or a barrel roll without having to plot step by step the correct speed and bank attitude. I am happy to be able to perform most of the maneuvers an airplane is capable off without going through the learning curve of a novice pilot mastering his airplane possibilities.


I like that all possible maneuvers for an airplane, or at least the ones that would actually be used in combat to be already calculated and served in a neat wrapped package, ready at my fingertips to choose the best maneuver in a situation.

Likewise, I want shooting to be already calculated and making shooting just a matter of picking a target, selecting a burst length, and applying some modifiers, not many. Shooting procedure is quite well done in BM.

What annoys me to no end is the damage model, wich is seriously flawed and is an "all or nothing" affair.


Summing it up, I like the basic mechanics, but I want the following added:

Altitude, initiative to compensate the simultaneous movement, more realistic damage model, and more detail to differentiate every airplane type.

Canvas Eagles, a spin off of Blue Max, was a step in the right direction.

dunno...must be the rain making me a contrary old grump today...pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

Truth be told, if I am not fond of Wings of War is because I am allergic to anything that hasn't hexes, and because I am bitter at buying so many Skytrex 1/144 miniatures and then to find WoW beautiful already assembled and painted minis

[dglewwe]

Romani wrote:
...any air combat game that doesn't have an altitude system is a no go from the start...

i agree. not having altitude in an aircombat game is like not having wind in a sailing ship-of-the-line game.


Don't get me wrong, I have an enormous respect for Phil Hall (BM) achievement and Andrea Angiolilo (WoW) in create a Great War in the air themed games...

again: agreed. they are both fun games. but i don't see them as aircombat -any more than i see "Stratego" as a Napoleonic-War game.


If BM was played fast enough...the game could greatly capture some of the stress of combat and the need to make decisions.

yes, imparting stress is good --but the decisions that need to be made have nothing to do with aircombat...do they? as you said:

...the player with the most skill at guessing...

...does not, imo, deserve to be rewarded with success in an aircombat game.


...having an ace pilot doesn't give you as much advantage as it should...

the advantage given is similar to allowing him/her to use "the bomb" in the papoer-rock-scissors" game --whether it is as great an advantage as it should be is irrelevent to the problem of it being a guessing game.


Historical tactics don't work...

that's the real litmus test of a wargame, isn't it? as well as producing historically-plausible results: AARs of BM/CE or WoW just don't read well.



If there's no realism, there's no fun either, you don't have a simulation anymore, just dice rolling and minimaxing a set of arbitrary rules.

well put.


...I love the possibility of performing a complex acrobatic maneuver like an Immelmann or a barrel roll without having to plot step by step the correct speed and bank attitude. I am happy to be able to perform most of the maneuvers an airplane is capable off without going through the learning curve of a novice pilot mastering his airplane possibilities.

that's one of the foundations of my game: the little guy in the model knows how to fly, so the player doesn't have to. i feel the player should be making the same decisions as the historical pilot, and i don't believe that the thinking going on 90+ years ago was anything like "hmm...maneuver #26 ought to do well here..."


Truth be told, if I am not fond of Wings of War is because I am allergic to anything that hasn't hexes...

i don't mind the lack, per se --it's ability to be played on any availiable table surface quickly and easily is one of its strong points-- but i'm not comfortable with using another minmax skill (the physical moving of the cards/models) in determining the outcome of the game: like guessing, i don't see it as an appropriate measure of skill in aircombat. personal taste, is all.

[Lufbery]

Romani,

Blue Max does have altitude rules -- two different types depending on the edition you're using. I've also found the tailing mechanism to really help take the randomness out of simultaneous movement. It's a real incentive for getting behind somebody and staying there.

Otherwise, you comments are pretty spot on. Blue Max is not particularly realistic, but it is a lot of fun. However, it is not all the luck of guessing which maneuver your opponent with make. It is possible to select maneuvers that put your own plane in the best position most of the time by relying on the strengths of the different planes.

For more realism, Canvas Eagles is supposed to be a step up from Blue Max. I've looked at the rules and I think the slight added complexity is not worth the additional realism.

For a better simulation of maneuver and fire, I play flight simulators. For more fun, I play Blue Max!

Regards,

[FlyXwire]

I used to put on many table-top miniatures games for WWI and WWII aerial combat, some turn-based, some using an airspeed-based impulse movement system, but none really replicated a real combat pilots mental or physical functions encountered during air fighting.

Aerial fighting requires situational awareness, which comes from first observing the enemy, and then being able to intuitively place the enemy in a spatial relationship to oneself during three dimensional maneuvering. Finally, there must be that near spontaneous connection between this spatial awareness, and the mental processes that calculates the next control input.

Perhaps the calculations that a flight leader considers when choosing his attack approach might be similar to what players can replicate in a game environment, but once the engagement begins, so much of aerial combat must depend on intuition, situational awareness, and reflective motions. Table-top type games just don't replicate the conditions for this type of decision making processes.

[dglewwe]

FlyXwire wrote:
I used to put on many table-top miniatures games...none really replicated a real combat pilots mental or physical functions encountered during air fighting.

agreed. the trouble, as i see it, is that it is the physical functions --the specific flying/maneuvering of the aircraft-- that have been the major part of pretty much every game. unfortunately, they all (even computer flight-sims) fall far short of the mark.

but why address those functions at all? no other genre touches them, and if the emphasis on the physical skill-set of the players' little alter-ego-soldiers that is present in aircombat games were to be tried in other genres i think the games would be dumped as horribly unplayable. example: if the rules for either Blue Max or Wings of War were used for, say, a barroom-brawl-type skirmish game the results would be laughable and --i don't think-- acceptable to most gamers.

rather than go down that dead end, i think more emphasis needs to be placed on the mental functions, detached from the micro-management of piloting the aircraft and concentrating instead on the general tactics of the engagement.

[FlyXwire]

Indeed dglewwe!

As I had mentioned above, the pre-contact manueverings between Flights and their Flight leaders, as these air units patrolled, spotted, and then were led into battle would perhaps lend itself best to the table-top gaming context (instead of trying to replicate the physical and intuitive functions of dogfighting).

Over these years of playing board games, miniature air games, and computer flight sims, I've come to appreciate that the most critical phase of air combat involves spotting the enemy, and then maneuvering for positional advantage, which is rarely detailed in our combat games. To me, the pre-attack phase is the most important phase towards insuring aerial victory, beyond the final imputus of carrying through on the attack.

EDIT: Matter of fact dglewwe, just this morning on the SimHQ forum I posted this account of an aerial engagement fought by No. 85 Squadron RAF, led by Mick Mannock on July 26, 1918, to illustrate the use of positional tactics to first avoid an enemy attack, and then to reposition for a successful counterattack:

From their newly released book The Life And Death Of Major Edward Mannock, by authors Norman Franks and Andy Saunders:

It was Mannock again who added to 85's laurels, on the 22nd. Shortly before 09.30 am, leading a patrol, he ran into five Fokker Triplanes near Steenwerck at 14,500 feet. These machines attempted to attack the SE5 patrol from behind, but Mannock's keen eyes had seen the danger, and pulled out of trouble. Part of the Flight now flew to the north-west, while the top three went to the north-east. This was another tactic introduced by Mannock, splitting the patrol in two in order to 'surround' the enemy, or at least, give him two groups of SE5s to watch out for, one on each side.

Mannock also began to climb towards Lille where the Triplanes were now headed, and intercepted them over Armentieres. He fired tentatively at several of the three-winged fighters, following one into some clouds and on coming out the other side, and down to around 11,000 feet, shot the tail off it, confirmed by Lientenant Dymond.

This is the kind of tactics and maneuvering rarely enabled in air combat wargames or flight sims.

[Tufty]

Originally Posted by FlyXwire

I
...This is the kind of tactics and maneuvering rarely enabled in air combat wargames or flight sims.

I agree. Question is: why?

Would doing this actually create a fun experience?

Generally, I don't think WoW and others are setting out to provide an authentic experience. If authenticity of experience is the key I can't think how this can be achieved outside of the mother of all flight simulation cabins while varying quantities of drugs are administered to the pilot. (The latter to create the necessary cocktail of combat stress and exhaustion, with a ratio of sloppiness to skill depending on whether you were at the beginning, middle or end of your 'career'.) There would also need to be some consideration for any lingering injuries the pilot was carrying from previous engagements as well as some form of temperature control. Last but not least, there would need to be some consideration of mechanical failure, either mid-flight or shortly after take-off.

The simulator itself would most likely last ten seconds, depending on the pilots ability to spot formations below, dive and then fire on a completely unsuspecting enemy. Then the pilot could high tail it away from any further engagement. (Actually, this does sound kind of fun... But not for the lunch hour maybe... )

My point is that it may add realism but it hardly conforms to the generalised perception (right or wrong) of the classic WW1 dogfight which is what WoW and others use as their context.

I'm all for trying out new systems within the games - but I think we need to remember that they are just games not designed for 'real-time' and not intended for an authentic experience. The fact that engagement must always take place to play the game is in itself unrealistic but.. it is just a game....

On a positive note I know of a lot of people who through WoW have developed a strong interest in this period of aviation history. I feel that anything that encourages this is fantastic. It is a fun thing, played by a lot of people who enjoy it. And if you want to change aspects of the game rules then there is some flexibility to let you do this - we tinker with it all the time, especially the scoring. But the approximation, the 'take' on things, I'll settle for that - I'm not looking at WoW to 'take me there.'

I echo Lufbery's sentiments in this thread, if I want to experience something approaching realism I will fire up X-Plane and take the Snipe out for a spin (literally in some cases, especially in cross winds) . That way I get a tiny, tiny glimpse of the flight idiosyncrasies of the technology - if not the mindset of the pilot.

[Ricardo Reis]

Wings of War has altitude rules, just for record. And also what gives a kick to each one is, in the end, a matter of preferences and personality. I've noticed that there is, for instance, a big group of players of WoW that discard the altitude rules because they don't think the complexity price is to high for the playability. Others enjoy them.

What gives "fun" isn't the same for everyone so I would abstain of making generic remarks about it... In the end, it's all a personal basis. Even "playability". Some people would say that to spend 3 days to make a turn is still playable, others would just shun at it. So...

On the rest I can agree on the comments. WoW intends to be realistic under the restrictions imposed the it's own simplicity treshold. In the end, whats the level of your treshold? Or better (doing some minmax), whats the minimum complexity allowable for the reality treshold you desire (the question can be made opposite, with this level of simplicity, how real can it be?)?

best,

[FlyXwire]

Originally Posted by Tufty

I agree. Question is: why?

Btw, enjoyed reading your post Tufty.

Now to the question of why?

My observations, and something I have tried to impress upon the Rise Of Flight project Team, was the need to authentically enable the aerial battlefield. The contact dogfight has become the staple mode of play in WWI flight sims (and for table-top gaming too), because the rendered sky environment has been largely devoid of the natural and interactive terrain features that WWI pilots encountered, and were accustomed to using in order to hunt and maneuver for positional advantage (things like realistic cloud banks, and the blinding sun for example). Coupled to the need to enable these obscuring sky features, comes the inverse requirement that in-game spotting ranges needed to be increased, but with the requirement that continuous searching for the enemy becomes a necessary discipline that should be done manually by aircrews (players and AI), and never be made an automated feature. If you contrast the lack of these environmental elements and requirements to the games and sims we have experienced in the past, you can see why the close-contact dogfight has become the generated fare, and why our aerial engagements have resembled fighting in a fish-bowl.

The need has been there to enlarge the simulated fish-bowl, and to make it a more authentic-like aerial battlefield. Luckily, PC technology and programming advances may now finally allow this to be realized.

We shall see.