Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

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PeteMitchell
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by PeteMitchell »

Historically, I have some slightly different views on some of your statements (which is perfectly fine for me) but I just want to highlight these two things:
George_Parr wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:31 am how Germany would have to beg the USSR for necessities
Most likely he is referring to these:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2 ... ent_(1939)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2 ... ent_(1940)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2 ... _Agreement

George_Parr wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:31 am By early 1941, there wasn't really a way to isolate Germany or starve them like in WW1, not with how the situation looked like in Europe.
...
There wasn't a real chance for anyone to starve Germany of resources, especially food.
The above 39-41 commercial agreements with the SU are linked to this to some extent...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
Teku
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Teku »

I feel i should point out that, until the Luftwaffa started bombing london instead of airfields and factories, it actually was starting to win the air war over Britain. Pilots were suffering losses mostly amongst squadron leaders who were the most experienced pilots in the RAF. The pattern of rotating fresh pilots was starting to break down since there were practically no fresh pilots left to rotate and the tactics of the RAF were hopelessly inferior to that of the germans (side note, the Finger Four formation is a blatant copy of the Luftwaffa tactics from that time)
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Retributarr »

Teku wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 12:54 pm I feel i should point out that, until the Luftwaffa started bombing london instead of airfields and factories, it actually was starting to win the air war over Britain. Pilots were suffering losses mostly amongst squadron leaders who were the most experienced pilots in the RAF. The pattern of rotating fresh pilots was starting to break down since there were practically no fresh pilots left to rotate and the tactics of the RAF were hopelessly inferior to that of the germans (side note, the Finger Four formation is a blatant copy of the Luftwaffa tactics from that time)
Thank-You for bringing that information to our attention!. Some of what you have mentioned, I have also brought up before, it helps to strengthen these statements when others corroborate/reinforce what others have said.

If an actual 'Prelude' to operation 'Sealion' were to actually take place (Gamewise...that is_For those who would want to play it out), then an 'Air-Battle' over Britain should be attempted (For one's own personal satisfaction to then justify the attempt to invade England).

If British...'Fighter-Command' then resoundly defeats "Hermann Goring's" air armada, the invasion of southern England would be called off for that summer. Historically, preparation's were in the work's/planned to make a multitude of fixes, improvement's to ensure that an attempted invasion would have a much higher chance of success if conducted...instead in the following late spring of the next year. Alas...the invasion of Russia put the 'Kibosh' on that exercise.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by proline »

George_Parr wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:31 am I don't know, I don't really see any particular advantage to the British Empire, or how Germany would have to beg the USSR for necessities.
As one of the other posters noted above, Germany became heavily indebted to the USSR from 1939 onwards. That's not a tenable long-term situation.
George_Parr wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:31 amThere wasn't a real chance for anyone to starve Germany of resources, especially food.
Actually food rationing went on in Germany and all German controlled territories from 1939 onwards. Early on, German civilians got enough to eat. Enough is meagre compared to today. 1 pound of meat per week, for example. And of course no imports of anything fresh during the winter. No bananas, no chocolate, no coffee, etc.

Part of what made adequate rations possible is that the Germans starved the populations they occupied, particularly the Polish and particularly Jews. That's not a sustainable situation. In the event of the UK putting continental Europe under siege, things would have gotten ugly in Europe over time.
George_Parr wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:31 amThe Soviet Union could have made an impact in terms of oil, but for what possible reason would they have tried to cut the flow of resources? That only would have made them a target, something Stalin tried very hard to avoid.
The obvious reason to tighten the noose is not to empower people you can't trust. Yes, Stalin idiotically enabled Germany from 1939-1941. That wouldn't have gone on forever even without German invasion.
George_Parr wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:31 amAir Supremacy depends on the situation at hand. Germany had issues in the Battle iof Britain due to having to travel over the channel, having little operational time left there and losing every plane and pilot that crashed there, while Britain had all that working in its favour. But when Britain tried to turn the tables and itself send planes over the channel, they encountered the same issues and saw lopsided losses while German planes were having the advantage of operating near their bases. It was only when Germany was very busy in the east, that the Allies managed to gain an advantage in the air. And even that took quite some time. Without Germany being heavily occupied in the east, it would be very hard for the British to gain the upper hand over continental Europe. And without the heavy fighting in the east, and no particular need for Germany to go on all-out air offensives, they have the situational advantage.
The Commonwealth Air Training Plan could produce any number of aircrew. Canada alone had over 100 flight schools and produced over 100,000 aircrew. By 1944 most of the people graduating had no chance to ever see combat because they were producing far more aircraft and crews than they could use in Europe (lack of fuel in particular). Had there been a need, the CATP would have produced even more. The UK was simply far better positioned to win a war of attrition in the air, early stumbles aside.
George_Parr wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:31 amAs long as the Soviet Union stays neutral, the British don't really have much of a leg to stand on. US-involvement would certainly help securing the Atlantic, and maybe North Africa could be taken as well, but an invasion of continental Europe would be almost impossible to achieve. Germany would have way too many troops and planes for that to work out.
As I said, I agree with you that the UK probably wouldn't have liberated Europe. Nor would they have needed to to win the war. They could just take Africa, the overseas French colonies, and lay siege to Europe. Hitler would then find himself unable to offer the promised quality of life to Germans, hated by those in occupied territories, falling ever behind economically, and needing to humiliate himself before Stalin to get supplies. In this scenario he either has to make an embarrassing peace deal that makes him look weak and jeopardizes his political survival, or take the historical path and invade Russia. There simply isn't a path to victory even if he only had to face the UK. Canaris and others in German intelligence could see this from the start.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by PeteMitchell »

proline wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:09 am There simply isn't a path to victory even if he only had to face the UK.
Very true!
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
proline
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by proline »

Rudankort wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 2:33 pm
Teku wrote: Sat Mar 30, 2019 1:04 pm He said the next Dev dairy would be in april
and based on his last announcement implying they would showcase footage of PC2's beta testing, it might be related to that
Next Monday you will see footage from the current internal version of the game.
Interesting that in Fantasy General the sun is behind the gamer and the shadows are pointed away. This means you can actually see detail on the units, instead of the front of the unit facing you being hidden in perpetual shadow. When I suggested that for PzC2 you insisted it would never work, yet it works fine in Fantasy General.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by PeteMitchell »

proline wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:15 pm Interesting that in Fantasy General the sun is behind the gamer and the shadows are pointed away. This means you can actually see detail on the units, instead of the front of the unit facing you being hidden in perpetual shadow. When I suggested that for PzC2 you insisted it would never work, yet it works fine in Fantasy General.
This could help to differentiate/distinguish infantry units.
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Rudankort »

proline wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:15 pm When I suggested that for PzC2 you insisted it would never work, yet it works fine in Fantasy General.
I'm not going to argue with you any more about it, because it is clearly useless. I will only point out to what I actually said on this subject, and leave it to other people reading this topic to decide if your interpretation of my words is correct or not. I did not change my opinion since then.
We don't "insist" on anything. We will probably keep tweaking such things till the very release. But we have already experimented with lighting angles a lot, and any angle is a certain trade off, with its own advantages and disadvantages (no, reminding people "it's 3D!!!" is not one of them).

Advantages of the current angle are:
- The units stand out much better from the map. This is one of the most important traits of any past "Panzer" game, and it's also very high on our priority list.
- This kind of light is best to see shapes and textures of the terrain. In frontal light It's much harder to tell hills from plains, for example.

BTW I agree that some parts of the units (most notably chassis) are too dark now. This will be fixed, but it is not necessary to change the angle of light to fix this (you can add more ambient light etc.)
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by proline »

Rudankort wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:58 pm
proline wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:15 pm When I suggested that for PzC2 you insisted it would never work, yet it works fine in Fantasy General.
I'm not going to argue with you any more about it, because it is clearly useless. I will only point out to what I actually said on this subject, and leave it to other people reading this topic to decide if your interpretation of my words is correct or not. I did not change my opinion since then.
We don't "insist" on anything. We will probably keep tweaking such things till the very release. But we have already experimented with lighting angles a lot, and any angle is a certain trade off, with its own advantages and disadvantages (no, reminding people "it's 3D!!!" is not one of them).

Advantages of the current angle are:
- The units stand out much better from the map. This is one of the most important traits of any past "Panzer" game, and it's also very high on our priority list.
- This kind of light is best to see shapes and textures of the terrain. In frontal light It's much harder to tell hills from plains, for example.

BTW I agree that some parts of the units (most notably chassis) are too dark now. This will be fixed, but it is not necessary to change the angle of light to fix this (you can add more ambient light etc.)
If those points are valid, they apply to Fantasy General as well. Fantasy General units have to stand out from the map, you need to see hills from plains, etc. Furthermore, your quote says that you were going to try to make the detail on the units visible via ambient light. Is the problem that you haven't gotten around to that, or did you do it and it just didn't make any visible difference?

I don't understand the resistance here, especially considering that you are putting a huge amount of effort into creating detailed units only to drop a shadow across them. The best I can come up with is that as someone who works on the game every day you think the units are identifiable enough as it is. That's simply not the case, especially if you want to attract new gamers which is a stated goal of PzC 2. Everything you can do to distinguish between units of different class, type, and faction is really important.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Patrick Ward »

There is a bug in Unreal that meant the extra brightening given to the units was causing a chronic flickering. That didn't matter when all we were showing was stills. As soon as we had to show animation we had to remove it since darkening of the units is not as offensive as irritating flickering. Once we have a solution, or as soon as Epic fix the bug, we'll sort it. In the mean time, yes we are fully aware they're too dark.

There isn't resistance. We have tried lots of lighting solutions and this works the best for the requirments of our game. Moving the lighting to the front adversely affects the readability of the terrain. We know because we have tested it. When comments like yours first appeared, Alex asked my why I'd chosen this lighting setup .. so I shared screens via Skype and went through it with him. In the end he agreed that it's the best solution. Right now its not working as planned. But it will.

And I was one of the consultants on Fantasy General 2 so I have a decent understanding of the graphics. The nature of their units - brightly coloured, intricate and easily distiguishable sillouettes - and their different scale, range of and use of terrain coupled with their choice of camera angles, means their lighting requirements are different to ours.
............................

Pat a Pixel Pusher

............................
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by loganfive »

proline wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:09 am As I said, I agree with you that the UK probably wouldn't have liberated Europe. Nor would they have needed to to win the war. They could just take Africa, the overseas French colonies, and lay siege to Europe. Hitler would then find himself unable to offer the promised quality of life to Germans, hated by those in occupied territories, falling ever behind economically, and needing to humiliate himself before Stalin to get supplies. In this scenario he either has to make an embarrassing peace deal that makes him look weak and jeopardizes his political survival, or take the historical path and invade Russia. There simply isn't a path to victory even if he only had to face the UK. Canaris and others in German intelligence could see this from the start.
I think it's all kind of pointless to speculate on what would have happened if Germany had not invaded the Soviet Union, when conquering the Soviet Union was the primary reason for Germany going to war in the first place. Lebensraum and the annihilation of the Jews and the Slavic peoples were all fundamental to Nazi doctrine.

And if invading the Soviet Union was a given, there was no better time to do it than 1941. The Red Army was in disarray in 1941, and not just because of the purge of the officer corps. The war with Finland had exposed huge problems in both organization and tactics. They were going through a massive restructuring when the Germans invaded.

Also, America staying out of the war indefinitely was never a real possibility. With German U-Boats threatening shipping in the Atlantic, and the Japanese navy seriously threatening American interests in the Pacific, it was only a matter of time. The UK going it alone beyond 1941 was never a likely scenario.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Teku »

America was fighting an undeclared war against german, more specifically the U-Boat threat, for 6 months before Pearl Harbor. Assuming Pearl Harbor happened at a later date (it was unavoidable), the public outcry from our ships constantly being attacked by u-boats with the mounting loss of life would have resulted in war with germany in any case.

Hitler Fully intended to invade the soviet union after the resounding success of the invasion of France. The german high command tho advised against a single year campaign and to prepare for a long war and they drew a line on the map of where to stop (by a strange coincidence, the line was along the same defensive line the soviet union had called the Stalin Line) While 1941-42 would have been a good time to invade from a Military standpoint, from a logistical standpoint, it was not timed well. I mentioned before that if germany didnt have to commit so many resources to aid italy, the timetable and potential outcome of many fights may have been different. The original invasion date was in early April, before germany had to do fighting in the balkans which delayed the invasion by almost 3 months. To put that into perspective, germany made INTO moscow when the russian winter forced them back. Hitler had made plans well in advance if i recal, of obliterating Moscow from the face of the world, and to replace it with a giant water reservoir.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Retributarr »

Teku wrote: Fri Apr 12, 2019 2:40 am 1941-42 would have been a good time to invade from a Military standpoint, from a logistical standpoint, it was not timed well. I mentioned before that if germany didnt have to commit so many resources to aid italy, the timetable and potential outcome of many fights may have been different. The original invasion date was in early April, before germany had to do fighting in the balkans which delayed the invasion by almost 3 months. To put that into perspective, germany made INTO moscow when the russian winter forced them back. Hitler had made plans well in advance if i recal, of obliterating Moscow from the face of the world, and to replace it with a giant water reservoir.
It's heartening to see from time to time discussion about alternate real possibilities that just nearly took place, but didn't!.

PzCrps II_ just might not be able to handle these what-if...near-historical theoretical situations. Maybe a take-off Game from the roots of PzCrps II could be developed after this Game is off and running.

There have been probably nearly at least 40 to 50 or more such discussions like this throughout the passage of time at this site.

Yes!, if the invasion of Russia had taken place in April instead of June 22nd?, then the Million or so Russian troops may have never have been transported over from the far-east to have had any impact on the 'Moscau' front,...as well...the freezing cold winter, rain & mud would have been non-issue's.
--------------------------------------------
Edited After-thought!:
I forgot to mention...that if...Moscow was besieged and occupied, the Japanese just may have well then decided to assault the Siberian Russian troops and start making inroads into Russia!.
--------------------------------------------
What about if 'Hitler' had persuaded 'Mussolini' to delay his invasion of Albania? as well as to forestall any aggressive efforts in North and South-East-Africa...so that the Afrika-Korp's would not have to be created, which i'm sure drained a lot of precious resources away from the invasion of Russia.

Can such theoretical hypotheticals be delivered by PzCrps II?, I'm not so sure, but hopefully some of the discussions can bear fruition in the Game somewhere along the line?.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by proline »

Patrick Ward wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:09 pmThere is a bug in Unreal that meant the extra brightening given to the units was causing a chronic flickering. That didn't matter when all we were showing was stills. As soon as we had to show animation we had to remove it since darkening of the units is not as offensive as irritating flickering. Once we have a solution, or as soon as Epic fix the bug, we'll sort it. In the mean time, yes we are fully aware they're too dark.
Well that explains a lot. I guess that's a downside of relying on Epic for essential technology- we'll have to cross our fingers that they will ever decide that bug is a priority.
Patrick Ward wrote: Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:09 pmThere isn't resistance. We have tried lots of lighting solutions and this works the best for the requirments of our game. Moving the lighting to the front adversely affects the readability of the terrain. We know because we have tested it. When comments like yours first appeared, Alex asked my why I'd chosen this lighting setup .. so I shared screens via Skype and went through it with him. In the end he agreed that it's the best solution. Right now its not working as planned. But it will.

And I was one of the consultants on Fantasy General 2 so I have a decent understanding of the graphics. The nature of their units - brightly coloured, intricate and easily distiguishable sillouettes - and their different scale, range of and use of terrain coupled with their choice of camera angles, means their lighting requirements are different to ours.
The cartoony style of Fantasy will make things easier compared to the more realistic PzC look. But that just means that getting the lighting right in PzC is more important than ever. Unit identification has to be top priority. If that means the unit shadows have to be turned down so much you can barely see them and the game no longer screams '3D!, 3D!" that's ok. The game will be better off. We've seen this already thanks to the bug where air units don't make shadows over water but do over land. The former is far superior.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Molve »

proline wrote: Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:41 am Churchill had a way of speaking in absolutes that glosses over a lot of the nuance. US involvement no doubt was a huge relief to him, but even without that all scenarios are bad for Germany.

Germany vs. British Empire Alone (no Russian invasion): This scenario is the most favorable to Germany, but the British Empire, which included Canada, NZ, SA, India, and Australia, still has the larger economy, complete control of the seas, and eventually air supremacy (because they can stream in unlimited aircraft and pilots from the Commonwealth Air Training Program whereas German air training was much more restricted). Sure, the UK alone might not have been able to successfully reoccupy Europe, but in that situation Germany is left isolated having to beg the USSR for necessities like food, rubber, and oil. How long would the nazis stay in power in that situation?

Germany vs. UK and USSR: This scenario is interesting if Germany beats the USSR, but they didn't. They were stopped long before the Americans had boot on the ground and their economic aid to Germany's enemies, which was their biggest contribution to the war in Europe, began before Germany declared war on them.
While I don't necessarily agree the British could not have lost to Germany even without any allies, it seems we are in agreement that the main reason Hitler lost wasn't the US.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Molve »

proline wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:04 pm
Rudankort wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:58 pm I'm not going to argue with you any more about it, because it is clearly useless. I will only point out to what I actually said on this subject, and leave it to other people reading this topic to decide if your interpretation of my words is correct or not. I did not change my opinion since then.
If those points are valid, they apply to Fantasy General as well. Fantasy General units have to stand out from the map, you need to see hills from plains, etc. Furthermore, your quote says that you were going to try to make the detail on the units visible via ambient light. Is the problem that you haven't gotten around to that, or did you do it and it just didn't make any visible difference?

I don't understand the resistance here, especially considering that you are putting a huge amount of effort into creating detailed units only to drop a shadow across them. The best I can come up with is that as someone who works on the game every day you think the units are identifiable enough as it is. That's simply not the case, especially if you want to attract new gamers which is a stated goal of PzC 2. Everything you can do to distinguish between units of different class, type, and faction is really important.
Maybe you didn't read his response?
Rudankort wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:58 pm I'm not going to argue with you any more about it, because it is clearly useless. I will only point out to what I actually said on this subject, and leave it to other people reading this topic to decide if your interpretation of my words is correct or not. I did not change my opinion since then.
He clearly says the discussion is over and he won't argue with you anymore. So there is no reason to keep going on as if you're in an open active discussion. My advice is to drop the issue and accept that Panzer Corps 2 won't have the lightning angles you desire.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by jad43 »

Any clue as to how much progress has been made towards a completed game design?
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by PeteMitchell »

Yeah good point, it got kind of quiet again... by the way, this latest Dev Diary got released on 6th of March...
Comprehensive Battlefield Europe AAR:
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=145&t=86481
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by proline »

Molve wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 11:21 am
proline wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:04 pm
Rudankort wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:58 pm I'm not going to argue with you any more about it, because it is clearly useless. I will only point out to what I actually said on this subject, and leave it to other people reading this topic to decide if your interpretation of my words is correct or not. I did not change my opinion since then.
If those points are valid, they apply to Fantasy General as well. Fantasy General units have to stand out from the map, you need to see hills from plains, etc. Furthermore, your quote says that you were going to try to make the detail on the units visible via ambient light. Is the problem that you haven't gotten around to that, or did you do it and it just didn't make any visible difference?

I don't understand the resistance here, especially considering that you are putting a huge amount of effort into creating detailed units only to drop a shadow across them. The best I can come up with is that as someone who works on the game every day you think the units are identifiable enough as it is. That's simply not the case, especially if you want to attract new gamers which is a stated goal of PzC 2. Everything you can do to distinguish between units of different class, type, and faction is really important.
Maybe you didn't read his response?
Rudankort wrote: Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:58 pm I'm not going to argue with you any more about it, because it is clearly useless. I will only point out to what I actually said on this subject, and leave it to other people reading this topic to decide if your interpretation of my words is correct or not. I did not change my opinion since then.
He clearly says the discussion is over and he won't argue with you anymore. So there is no reason to keep going on as if you're in an open active discussion. My advice is to drop the issue and accept that Panzer Corps 2 won't have the lightning angles you desire.
Although there wasn't any further response from Rudankort, I did manage to get some great information from Patrick Ward's post above. I suggest you read it, it's a good one.

I also don't accept the idea that discussion of the lighting is futile. Go back to dev diary 1 and see how dreadful the camera angle was. It got fixed largely due to fan feedback, even though the initial response was that they had tried everything internally and already optimized it prior to dev diary 1. Turns out they had not even remotely optimized it and they benefitted hugely from feedback. I highly doubt this game will ship with all the fronts of the units black. Indeed, the post from Ward strongly suggests it will not. I'm not really sure why there's a difference in the tone between Ward and Rudankort- I appreciate that Rudankort is frustrated at being asked about it multiple times, but the flip side is that if Ward is correct that the current lighting is a bug, Rudankort could just say that. Also worth remembering is that Slitherine has not been able to publicly show off any infantry units because they look bad for a variety of reasons, one of which is poor lighting.
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Re: Panzer Corps 2 - Dev Diary #9

Post by Molve »

proline wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:32 am Go back to dev diary 1 and see how dreadful the camera angle was.
No I won't.

Now kindly stop discussing lightning angles with me or I shall be forced to ignore you. I see now what Rudankort meant.
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