Balancing the Japanese--ideas?

[Redit]

We are talking about balancing the gameplay mechanics, to deal with the fact that the Japanese land forces often had inferior technology. [...]

I don't agree with the premise here, the Japanese technology was only inferior in terms of the amount of sub-machine guns they had, their lack of medium tanks and their use of Mauser Pattern Arisakas vs. the M1 Garand.

Japanese artillery far outnumbered US guns on land, although being threatened by naval bombardments. The IJN and it's air force was strong at the beginning of the war and won major engagements around Guadalcanal against the US Navy.

The main problem wasn't technology, just as the Germans had lost despite having better engineering and technology. It is manpower. The Americans are not limited in any way compared to Japan and Germany in how much meat they can field to win. If you are you are to reflect anything I would say make a game mode where the Japanese are outnumbered but have great defences, and can win by effectively defending, while the US forces have more troops but can only win by effectively teaming up to destroy the enemies defences, e.g. bunkers, peepholes, trenches, minefields, etc

A good Japanese team should learn to use these defences to their fullest, laying ambushes, covering draws, laying traps. In this way I think you will not only create an enjoyable game and game mode but actually capture some of the personality of the Pacific war which cannot be strapped onto a game about the Eastern Front with some different maps and weapons.

No game has managed to do this in a realistic manner. CoD:WaW, MoH:RS, or even that terrible History Channel game. You have an amazing opportunity to make a great, honest game about a theatre few people know about or understand, even if they have watched a few Clint Eastwood films or the Pacific.

Don't be afraid to make this the game it should be, and deserves to be.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

I don't agree with the premise here, the Japanese technology was only inferior in terms of the amount of sub-machine guns they had, their lack of medium tanks and their use of Mauser Pattern Arisakas vs. the M1 Garand.

Japanese artillery far outnumbered US guns on land, although being threatened by naval bombardments. The IJN and it's air force was strong at the beginning of the war and won major engagements around Guadalcanal against the US Navy.

The main problem wasn't technology, just as the Germans had lost despite having better engineering and technology. It is manpower. The Americans are not limited in any way compared to Japan and Germany in how much meat they can field to win. If you are you are to reflect anything I would say make a game mode where the Japanese are outnumbered but have great defences, and can win by effectively defending, while the US forces have more troops but can only win by effectively teaming up to destroy the enemies defences, e.g. bunkers, peepholes, trenches, minefields, etc

A good Japanese team should learn to use these defences to their fullest, laying ambushes, covering draws, laying traps. In this way I think you will not only create an enjoyable game and game mode but actually capture some of the personality of the Pacific war which cannot be strapped onto a game about the Eastern Front with some different maps and weapons.

No game has managed to do this in a realistic manner. CoD:WaW, MoH:RS, or even that terrible History Channel game. You have an amazing opportunity to make a great, honest game about a theatre few people know about or understand, even if they have watched a few Clint Eastwood films or the Pacific.

Don't be afraid to make this the game it should be, and deserves to be.

Thanks for the pep talk - we are going to make this game the way we want it to be, have no fear about that.

What DOES concern me is that this (and many other threads on these forums) at some point get hijacked by pointless political arguments between people who it seems couldn't care less about gameplay vs accuracy but love a good ruck on the internet.

It happens a lot and I may have to start waving the ban stick if it continues to mess up the RS part of the forum.

 

[Landrik]

Hmm... Will flags attached to rifles be available or is that a bit of a stretch concerning what limitations there are against the time, effort, money of the team or the limitations of the engine?

When routing the enemy, I certainly would love a flag tied to my rifle.

EDIT: For the Imperial Japanese, of course. Not sure if the Marines did it themselves. I have a hunch they didn't.

 

[Nikita]

Another balance idea:

For the first beach cap of any landing missions, the option for Marine forces to "spawn on SL" could be nonexistent to reflect the chaos of a landing under fire, with individual soldiers losing track of their units and amtracks landing their troops in the wrong beach sectors. This would disorganize the attacking Americans for the duration of the first portion of the map, making coordination more difficult for the Allied team.

However, not every map will feature a beach landing, so the larger-scale utility of this feature is more limited...

 

[Major Johnson]

I guess I'm at a loss as to all this talk about balancing. According to history, Yamamoto himself only guaranteed 6 months of victory, which is about what they got. Personally I don't want to vere too far away from being historically correct.

As far as MP goes, in my opinion, the balance is going to depend on the skill of the player, not the game.

 

[PsYcH0_Ch!cKeN]

I guess I'm at a loss as to all this talk about balancing. According to history, Yamamoto himself only guaranteed 6 months of victory, which is about what they got. Personally I don't want to vere too far away from being historically correct.

As far as MP goes, in my opinion, the balance is going to depend on the skill of the player, not the game.

Because having one team that does nothing but lose by design isn't even remotely fun. The difference in weapons between the US and Japanese sides is staggering and even the most skilled players are going to struggle if they have to use bolt action rifles against a team that's heavily loaded up with semi-automatic rifles and sub-machineguns. When we talk about balance, we mean ways to prevent the game from being a walk-over for the US team without turning into Call of Duty along the way.

 

[johncage]

The Japanese had terrain and entrenchment advantage. They should be loaded up with defense ordinances and camouflage.

There is no sense in destroying the doctrine set up by RO2 of realistic operating weaponry. Balance can be attained otherwise.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

The Japanese had terrain and entrenchment advantage. They should be loaded up with defense ordinances and camouflage.

There is no sense in destroying the doctrine set up by RO2 of realistic operating weaponry. Balance can be attained otherwise.

I think you may have skipped over the posts where we discussed how RO2's countdown mode would be implemented. terrain and entrenchment advantage count for little if you have to swap sides.

 

[guiltyspark]

i think the best way you can implement the japanese is to make them audibly scary


the japanese were famous for screaming during close quarters combat to freak out their opponents. maybe having a button for a japanese warcry that we can use to freak out our opponents would be a good thing. the only way it would work tho is if the voice over was done right.

another thing you can do is have the japanese be able to spawn in trees (or climb up them)

 

[togep]

Suggestion : kamikaze attack
If some prefectures has been captured, Japanese force can call kamikaze and it incapacitate US force's artillery support from battleship. I think its feature may be easy for implementing.

 

[Forssen]

I think you may have skipped over the posts where we discussed how RO2's countdown mode would be implemented. terrain and entrenchment advantage count for little if you have to swap sides.

That is how it works? I thought it always was for example Germans who was attacking on one map and then when you swap sides you will play as the other team. If nothing else you could always solve it like that in RS.

 

[Redit]

That is how it works? I thought it always was for example Germans who was attacking on one map and then when you swap sides you will play as the other team. If nothing else you could always solve it like that in RS.

That seems like the best option. That seems to me to be a better gamemode than the original actually, makes it fairer perhaps.

If it can't be done I don't see why you have to have countdown in. It suits HoS, so why not make a game mode that suits RS, e.g. Infiltration.

Night time game mode where Americans must defend their foxholes in the near pitch black from Japanese infiltrators. (Throughout the war the Japanese sent infiltrators to lower morale and cause havoc on an almost nightly basis.)

Just a suggestion.

 

[S/Sgt. Raider]

What about maps where the Japanese are attacking, like Wake Island for example?

Of course, defending is hard to do in most occasions but nonetheless 1 MG can rip apart several sqauds or more with sufficient ammo. Give Daihatsus a Type 96 LMG mount as a counter to higgins/amtraks having them Browning 30 cals? (Or 50 M2s, I don't remember the names)
Make Americans more prone to suppresion effect some-how for some reason?

Well, thats just in the event RS has Japan attacking islands too (which I hope they have maps for).

 

[JohnnyRaygun]

That is how it works? I thought it always was for example Germans who was attacking on one map and then when you swap sides you will play as the other team. If nothing else you could always solve it like that in RS.

I agree with this. If it comes down to it, a team should win by working together as a collective group as opposed to just 1 side having better weapons. If thats the case, during CD, if say the American team wins, next round they are now the Japanese (and staying on their respective side). If said team works together as a group (albeit now having to use different tactics), they can still win easily.

On a side note, in terms of attack/defense, I'd really like to see the defending team get an ample amount of time ( at least a minute) to setup some kind of defense. In RO/DH the defending team had to rush up to the objective just in time (or even not quick enough) to fend off the attackers.

This makes the defensive team lose even more to the attacking teams initiative. If there was a delay in time for the defensive team they could setup properly and be ready for the incoming assault.

I think a lot of people don't like playing the defensive side because it just seems so much harder than attacking. By the time you respawn and get to the objective to defend, the attacking team already has a foothold and becomes a massacre.

So, attacking team wins? Cool, swap teams, now let's see how well they can setup defenses (a whole different ball game from attacking; making it a more unique experience for both teams).

 

[Mosin]

Perhaps have more pre-set MG emplacements? MGs always help turn the tide, however I don't know how many MGs you could expect to see in use by the Japanese in reality. Perhaps one of you Pacific War enthusiasts could correct me on that because I'd actually like to know.

Also, the Japanese had pride and a strong sense of unity and maybe you could find a way to implement that. In the same way HoS has the morale effects of the presence of a hero player, perhaps the Japanese can already have that morale boost from the beginning. The loss of morale (from hero players dieing, loosing capture points, suppression, etc.) should be minimal. I've read plenty of stories of how the Japanese fought as hard on day 1 all the way to the day of complete and total defeat, so I don't think they're morale should ever dip just that low, which could allow the Japanese to hold positions and withstand suppression better.

 

[Major Johnson]

I've read plenty of stories of how the Japanese fought as hard on day 1 all the way to the day of complete and total defeat.

Not true, and i just heard this the other night on the Military History Channel, that in the last year of the war when defeat was imminent, that more and more Japanese soldiers started surrendering rather than die for the Emperor and a losing cause.

 

[roosterhung]

For some reason I can qoute you Major Johnson, but what you said is not always the case. Look at Iwo Jima, it took place in the last year of the war, but yet less than 1% of the Japanese force was captured and the rest perished.

 

[Mosin]

For some reason I can qoute you Major Johnson, but what you said is not always the case. Look at Iwo Jima, it took place in the last year of the war, but yet less than 1% of the Japanese force was captured and the rest perished.

Exactly. Read With the Old Breed, I remember him talking about how the main resistance on Okinawa had been destroyed, but the remaining Japanese would continue in fighting from caves and MG placements. Besides, more Japanese surrendering means what like 10?

 

[Major Johnson]

For some reason I can qoute you Major Johnson, but what you said is not always the case. Look at Iwo Jima, it took place in the last year of the war, but yet less than 1% of the Japanese force was captured and the rest perished.

There were exceptions of course, and Iwo possibly being one of them. And quite possibly it might have been the turning point for the Japanese will to fight. I'm sure leadership had a roll to play in the "fight to the death" attitude as well.

And Mosin, it's common knowledge that some Japanese soliders fought from caves and jungles long after the war was over. Some didn't believe their leaders actually surrendered.

 

[Swi1ch]

The PTO is by no means my expertise, but I gather that the Japanese were more efficient in using the terrain.

Maybe this could be represented ingame by having a portion of the reinforce wave spawn in a semi-random place on the flank of the Americans, to represent the Japanese ability to move unseen and unhindered through the terrain?

Perhaps in the same way that HoS right now has HMGs that deploy at random locations across the map, you could have spider-holes deploy. They would only be accessable via the tunnels from the Japanese spawn. Or perhaps every few waves a spiderhole can be chosen as a spawn point.