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A Proposed fix to AI scaling


Kevlarburrito

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Something I've been thinking about that makes sense, and that would maybe rectify this issue of AI scaling its forces and being overly powerful after a battle where it was just crushed, is to have an infrastructure or "Ability to Supply Army" attribute. Something that reflects your sides ability to support YOUR army. The AI and yourself would be forced to maintain a certain army sized based on its supply usage. This could be upgraded through the camp screen, or perhaps on the campaign map by building railroads, supply depots, naval yards, by selecting towns to raid. Hell the raids could require you to send cavalry or light forces to attack certain points and the AI would have to react by deploying men to defend certain areas, or raise militia. 

What do you guys think?

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This is a fine suggestion, as are other ideas that would prevent player "steam-rolling" of content without relying on the AI scaling cheat.  Some other examples:

(1)  Limit the availability of veteran troops of all types.

(2)  Limit the availability of horses.

(3)  Increase attrition due to disease.

(4)  (Your idea) Increase supply costs.

Etc...

 

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 think another idea to fix the problem of overpowering the ai would be to make the allied troops ai controlled. The more battles you win the more money and recruits you get, but the weaker the allied troops become (since you received the reinforcements instead of them).

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I don't think scaling is as big of a problem as you get better at the game.. and I say that with the most respect possible. I'm not just saying get gud noob.

This game has a learning curve and the more you understand the better you perform. Eventually you'll be wanting more enemies to fight, not less. You'll find that scaling isn't a problem with the game, it's what keeps it interesting. 

I think one of the main issues is that most people are reluctant to select easy difficulty mode. I think it's very beneficial to play one or two campaigns on easy mode to pick up the basics and learn some of the maps. 

I think it can certainly be improved. It effects more maps than others and each side differently.(I'm looking at you Shiloh and Antietam) I think the historical battles should be hard, but I also think you should be progressing toward them and planning for them, so the enemy numbers shouldn't change too much.

Shiloh definitely provides a steep difficulty curve because of the scaling, especially as Union, and if you've been squeaking by up to that point I suggest a campaign on easy mode. 

 

What I would like to see is more side missions before the historical battles and have them effect the enemy setup for the main battles. Win Thoroughfare Gap as Union? You also stop a few brigades from joining the battle as reinforcements for the AI at 2nd Bull Run.  

Give me a reason to smash my first corps at South Mountain right before Antietam besides just some extra manpower and money. 

 

Edited by clench
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1 hour ago, clench said:

I don't think scaling is as big of a problem as you get better at the game.. and I say that with the most respect possible. I'm not just saying get gud noob.

This game has a learning curve and the more you understand the better you perform. Eventually you'll be wanting more enemies to fight, not less. You'll find that scaling isn't a problem with the game, it's what keeps it interesting. 

I think one of the main issues is that most people are reluctant to select easy difficulty mode. I think it's very beneficial to play one or two campaigns on easy mode to pick up the basics and learn some of the maps. 

I think it can certainly be improved. It effects more maps than others and each side differently.(I'm looking at you Shiloh and Antietam) I think the historical battles should be hard, but I also think you should be progressing toward them and planning for them, so the enemy numbers shouldn't change too much.

Shiloh definitely provides a steep difficulty curve because of the scaling, especially as Union, and if you've been squeaking by up to that point I suggest a campaign on easy mode. 

 

What I would like to see is more side missions before the historical battles and have them effect the enemy setup for the main battles. Win Thoroughfare Gap as Union? You also stop a few brigades from joining the battle as reinforcements for the AI at 2nd Bull Run.  

Give me a reason to smash my first corps at South Mountain right before Antietam besides just some extra manpower and money. 

 

Good post. 

I"m a seasoned wargamer. I understand what the army is supposed to do, i'm trying to figure out how to make the game put the units where I want them and follow the orders I want them to have. 

Trying to do this on any setting but Colonel, dealing with the multiple variables, given the programming birthing pains the game is suffering right now, I would be no judge of how to balance out that algorithm or even attempt trying to counsel how to handle it. 

I just want units to form a proper line, retrograde 20 yards without turning their ass to a flank shot, and withdraw and reform 100 yards back when I tell them to fallback. That is a bigger issue right now than force pools on the battlefield. 

Make all that stuff happen, then crank up the competition. 

Edited by Andre Bolkonsky
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17 hours ago, clench said:

I think one of the main issues is that most people are reluctant to select easy difficulty mode. I think it's very beneficial to play one or two campaigns on easy mode to pick up the basics and learn some of the maps. 

What I would like to see is more side missions before the historical battles and have them effect the enemy setup for the main battles. Win Thoroughfare Gap as Union? You also stop a few brigades from joining the battle as reinforcements for the AI at 2nd Bull Run.  

Give me a reason to smash my first corps at South Mountain right before Antietam besides just some extra manpower and money. 

 

This will likely be in the next patch from what Nick was suggesting.   Side battles will have some additional benefit to winning them that will affect the enemy army during the Grand Battle. To what extent this will be is unknown.  It could be as simple as reducing overall enemy army morale for that battle or total strength (-10%), etc. or more advanced (additional AI reinforcements to fight on your side, or on the enemy side if you fail to beat a side mission, etc).  My only suggestion to this, if it's how it will work, is to ensure the side battles are not predictable affairs.  If the side battles are relegated to a "map grind" simply to gain experience, men, and to negatively affect the AI at the grand battle then the purpose of having the side battles loses its novelty.  They become something you just "do" because, why not?  If there's little to no risk in playing them they why would I ever skip playing a side battle?

If there was always a level of unpredictability to the outcome of the side battle, then every playthrough of the campaign will result in you making different/difficult decisions each time.  And maybe the variability of the side battle isn't creating a wild swing between being very easy or very hard, but that there's an unknown risk to losing more men than you expect each time you play one.  There should always be an inherent risk/reward in these cases because it gives greater meaning and weight to YOUR decision to play the side battle or not.

The variability could be that each side battle brings up to an additional 0-15% enemy troop strength over and above what your recon tells you will be on the map.  When you start the map, the game rolls and hits at 8%, and that is how much the "base" enemy troop strength is increased.  You won't know this until you've already started the battle, so you either try and fight it out or withdraw to save your troops but lose the battle.  This way each time I play Battle of Newport News, and it says I'm up against 9k Union troops, it might actually be 9.5k or 10k which on those sized maps can be a significant difference.

Also, I agree about the easy difficulty setting and certain people not wanting to choose that no matter what.  I know my own pride and belief in my gaming ability will always keep me from playing on "Easy".  I refuse. lol.  So I think if someone plays on Normal, they themselves consider their ability "normal" and when perception doesn't match reality (they get creamed by the AI) then the initial reaction is that the game is too hard, not that they should try and get better at it (or try easy).

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19 hours ago, clench said:

I don't think scaling is as big of a problem as you get better at the game.. and I say that with the most respect possible. I'm not just saying get gud noob.

This game has a learning curve and the more you understand the better you perform. Eventually you'll be wanting more enemies to fight, not less. You'll find that scaling isn't a problem with the game, it's what keeps it interesting. 

No, that isn't the complaint here. The complaint is that it's entirely artificial whether brought 60k men or 80k men to a given battle provided you met basic minimums. You're in fact getting doubly screwed by AI auto-scaling because you have a harder time getting enough guns to staff those divisions and less opportunities to train your fresh brigades whereas the AI gets free veteran brigades as necessary. Bringing more men than intended through Army Organization or oversized brigades should be an advantage, not entirely negated/a disadvantage as it is in the current system.

The second complaint is that because the AI auto-scales, it heightens the lack of continuity between battles. Currently optimal play involves getting as much XP for your brigades in as safe a manner as possible, so long as you meet the minimum necessary strategic goals to keep playing. There's no advantage for taking risks or willingly taking higher casualties to completely eliminate enemy brigades because you're actually hurting yourself when doing so because the AI won't have to rebuild after those losses, but you do.

If the game is then too easy, then players should be encouraged to turn up the difficulty.

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37 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

No, that isn't the complaint here. The complaint is that it's entirely artificial whether brought 60k men or 80k men to a given battle provided you met basic minimums. You're in fact getting doubly screwed by AI auto-scaling because you have a harder time getting enough guns to staff those divisions and less opportunities to train your fresh brigades whereas the AI gets free veteran brigades as necessary. Bringing more men than intended through Army Organization or oversized brigades should be an advantage, not entirely negated/a disadvantage as it is in the current system.

The second complaint is that because the AI auto-scales, it heightens the lack of continuity between battles. Currently optimal play involves getting as much XP for your brigades in as safe a manner as possible, so long as you meet the minimum necessary strategic goals to keep playing. There's no advantage for taking risks or willingly taking higher casualties to completely eliminate enemy brigades because you're actually hurting yourself when doing so because the AI won't have to rebuild after those losses, but you do.

If the game is then too easy, then players should be encouraged to turn up the difficulty.

So you want the AI to manage their own army and then get completely wiped by Shiloh?

Because that's what's going to happen.

I do agree that Army Org could be tweaked, but it's really not a disadvantage to bring more when once you have more of an idea as to what you're doing.

Position, cover, and weapons are more important than numbers. 

I want every battle to be a challenge, even the side missions, taking away the AI advantages isn't going to make that happen. Could things be tweaked and streamlined? Absolutely.

 

But please don't forget you're basing this entire opinion on a half finished game.. there are still 10 more historical battles planned for the campaign and at least as many if not more side missions. I wouldn't expect to see a fully balanced and fleshed out campaign until every battle has been added. 

 

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On 08/12/2016 at 1:27 AM, clench said:

I don't think scaling is as big of a problem as you get better at the game.. and I say that with the most respect possible. I'm not just saying get gud noob.

This game has a learning curve and the more you understand the better you perform. Eventually you'll be wanting more enemies to fight, not less. You'll find that scaling isn't a problem with the game, it's what keeps it interesting.

 

I can turn this around and argue that the scaling prevents the player from getting punished for taking losses.

 

Edited by Sandermatt
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9 hours ago, clench said:

So you want the AI to manage their own army and then get completely wiped by Shiloh?

Because that's what's going to happen.

Yes. The campaign should actually be a campaign and not a theme park stop through notable battles.

Afterwards the player should realize they're playing on too easy a difficulty and crank things up.

9 hours ago, clench said:

I do agree that Army Org could be tweaked, but it's really not a disadvantage to bring more when once you have more of an idea as to what you're doing.

Position, cover, and weapons are more important than numbers.

It's 100% a disadvantage once you factor in the opportunity cost of having not spent money on raising veterans and bringing green brigades that you had to pay money for all of their weapons. You've paid money to get more inferior troops when the AI is going to get more veteran troops for free as a counter.

9 hours ago, clench said:

But please don't forget you're basing this entire opinion on a half finished game.. there are still 10 more historical battles planned for the campaign and at least as many if not more side missions. I wouldn't expect to see a fully balanced and fleshed out campaign until every battle has been added.

Further campaign battles are simply more content and don't presage changes of this fundamental a nature.

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13 hours ago, Lincolns Mullet said:

This will likely be in the next patch from what Nick was suggesting.   Side battles will have some additional benefit to winning them that will affect the enemy army during the Grand Battle. To what extent this will be is unknown.  It could be as simple as reducing overall enemy army morale for that battle or total strength (-10%), etc. or more advanced (additional AI reinforcements to fight on your side, or on the enemy side if you fail to beat a side mission, etc).  My only suggestion to this, if it's how it will work, is to ensure the side battles are not predictable affairs.  If the side battles are relegated to a "map grind" simply to gain experience, men, and to negatively affect the AI at the grand battle then the purpose of having the side battles loses its novelty.  They become something you just "do" because, why not?  If there's little to no risk in playing them they why would I ever skip playing a side battle?

If there was always a level of unpredictability to the outcome of the side battle, then every playthrough of the campaign will result in you making different/difficult decisions each time.  And maybe the variability of the side battle isn't creating a wild swing between being very easy or very hard, but that there's an unknown risk to losing more men than you expect each time you play one.  There should always be an inherent risk/reward in these cases because it gives greater meaning and weight to YOUR decision to play the side battle or not.

The variability could be that each side battle brings up to an additional 0-15% enemy troop strength over and above what your recon tells you will be on the map.  When you start the map, the game rolls and hits at 8%, and that is how much the "base" enemy troop strength is increased.  You won't know this until you've already started the battle, so you either try and fight it out or withdraw to save your troops but lose the battle.  This way each time I play Battle of Newport News, and it says I'm up against 9k Union troops, it might actually be 9.5k or 10k which on those sized maps can be a significant difference.

Also, I agree about the easy difficulty setting and certain people not wanting to choose that no matter what.  I know my own pride and belief in my gaming ability will always keep me from playing on "Easy".  I refuse. lol.  So I think if someone plays on Normal, they themselves consider their ability "normal" and when perception doesn't match reality (they get creamed by the AI) then the initial reaction is that the game is too hard, not that they should try and get better at it (or try easy).

So, educate me if you would. 

Who is Nick. How is this open access structured. I'm rather sure someone is monitoring these little chats, but what is the best way to provide feedback on in-game issues? I've seen what they've done to date, played enough of the campaign to figure out how the mechanics of the game work, and I see some areas of opportunity they might want to address if they aren't already. And I rather suspect they already know most of what I'd tell them, but just in case. 

Total War proved you can't have a game be both full strategy and full tactics at the same time, it's going to be mediocre for both modes. A game has to make a decision on which lane it wants to be in, and I really like what they've done. Really, really like it. 

Truly, when the computer commands work properly and my divisions don't spin needlessly to take six steps to the left and rout when they immediately take that needless flank shot; this is as close to full blown table-top miniatures as I've ever seen in a wargame. 

Friends of mine who played Gettysburg stated specifically that one of the redeeming features of this company is they worked tirelessly to fix the little problems until the game was as good as it was going to get, then moved to this stage of the process. 

 

Edited by Andre Bolkonsky
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2 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Yes. The campaign should actually be a campaign and not a theme park stop through notable battles.

Afterwards the player should realize they're playing on too easy a difficulty and crank things up.

It's 100% a disadvantage once you factor in the opportunity cost of having not spent money on raising veterans and bringing green brigades that you had to pay money for all of their weapons. You've paid money to get more inferior troops when the AI is going to get more veteran troops for free as a counter.

Further campaign battles are simply more content and don't presage changes of this fundamental a nature.

I say this with all respect. Could the fundamental problem be you want Europa Universalis as the top layer and then effortlessly drop into a battle using the Gettysburg table-top miniatures model? Good luck, it would be a hell of a game as you perceive it. Unfortunately, its completely unrealistic. 

Personally, I think the Camp is a brilliant compromise to allow a player to hand craft an army of his design and move it across progressively harder and harder battlefields. All that massive micro required to maintain infrastructure and production, political machinations, and manpower requirements are boiled down and dramatically simplified.

Because this game is about nothing but pure Clauswitzian linear tactics. And I hope it stays that way, no matter which battlefield or continent they export it to next. No reason they can't tweak the firepower, change the horses, and start building Napoleon's campaigns next. Down the road, of course.    

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On 12/7/2016 at 7:27 PM, clench said:

I don't think scaling is as big of a problem as you get better at the game.. and I say that with the most respect possible. I'm not just saying get gud noob

 

I was going to make a similar post.  

 

I still want to feel like, if I am performing well in the campaign, my power is growing and resistance is overcome.   

 

But after four campaign play-through's i see why the developers structured this system the way they did.  

 

I do not envy the choices the programmers will have to make because at this point I kind of want BOTH 

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15 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

No, that isn't the complaint here. The complaint is that it's entirely artificial whether brought 60k men or 80k men to a given battle provided you met basic minimums. You're in fact getting doubly screwed by AI auto-scaling because you have a harder time getting enough guns to staff those divisions and less opportunities to train your fresh brigades whereas the AI gets free veteran brigades as necessary. Bringing more men than intended through Army Organization or oversized brigades should be an advantage, not entirely negated/a disadvantage as it is in the current system.

The second complaint is that because the AI auto-scales, it heightens the lack of continuity between battles. Currently optimal play involves getting as much XP for your brigades in as safe a manner as possible, so long as you meet the minimum necessary strategic goals to keep playing. There's no advantage for taking risks or willingly taking higher casualties to completely eliminate enemy brigades because you're actually hurting yourself when doing so because the AI won't have to rebuild after those losses, but you do.

If the game is then too easy, then players should be encouraged to turn up the difficulty.

I believe the AI needs to be "punished" in some way if it wastes men in a battle. Perhaps the AI should also have some "core" units that need to be looked after from one battle to the next? I don't know if this is feasable?

At the moment the AI can simply ignore it's own casualties, as no matter how many men it throws away, they're always replaced for the next battle. This is why the player always suffers substantial casualties.

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7 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Yes. The campaign should actually be a campaign and not a theme park stop through notable battles.

Afterwards the player should realize they're playing on too easy a difficulty and crank things up.

It's 100% a disadvantage once you factor in the opportunity cost of having not spent money on raising veterans and bringing green brigades that you had to pay money for all of their weapons. You've paid money to get more inferior troops when the AI is going to get more veteran troops for free as a counter.

Further campaign battles are simply more content and don't presage changes of this fundamental a nature.

 

 

Again, you are just assuming the state of the campaign is the final version of the campaign. Big changes have already been promised in the next patch that are going to change the dynamic a lot. 

Could it be the current state is a just a placeholder to keep the game challenging while continuing to tweak the balance? I think so.  The only thing I might agree with is that the AI gets too many 3 star veterans, but I'm sure that will be changed in future updates. 

It's not a 100% disadvantage. People have beaten the game on hard with full maxed army org. Buying rookies is cheaper as is turning them into veterans naturally. If you play well you can turn an entire rookie army into an entire veteran army much more cheaply than buying veterans. 

Edited by clench
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7 hours ago, Sandermatt said:

 

 

I can turn this around and argue that the scaling prevents the player from getting punished for taking losses.

 

I agree.

Scaling certainly helps when a player is doing poorly as well, which is something I think people are overlooking when they talk about it. I don't think it fails the punish the player however, because your losses are the punishment and then the AI is still going to match you and be slightly better anyway. 

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4 hours ago, clench said:

 

 

Again, you are just assuming the state of the campaign is the final version of the campaign. Big changes have already been promised in the next patch that are going to change the dynamic a lot. 

Could it be the current state is a just a placeholder to keep the game challenging while continuing to tweak the balance? I think so.  The only thing I might agree with is that the AI gets too many 3 star veterans, but I'm sure that will be changed in future updates. 

It's not a 100% disadvantage. People have beaten the game on hard with full maxed army org. Buying rookies is cheaper as is turning them into veterans naturally. If you play well you can turn an entire rookie army into an entire veteran army much more cheaply than buying veterans. 

No, you stated that the campaign wasn't finished and that they needed to add more battles. More battles is completely meaningless for the mechanic we're talking about. Changing the fundamental structure is separate and we already knew was coming, we are discussing what we think the actual nature of changes needs to be.

Saying they've beaten it with maxed AO is meaningless without knowing their actual army composition. I've beaten it with maxed AO but I sure couldn't staff 5 Corps; I could barely staff 3 before flat out running out of guns available in the store of the reasonable ones to buy. The AI simply doesn't have that concern and will continue not to unless we actually speak up about it.

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9 minutes ago, Hitorishizuka said:

No, you stated that the campaign wasn't finished and that they needed to add more battles. More battles is completely meaningless for the mechanic we're talking about. Changing the fundamental structure is separate and we already knew was coming, we are discussing what we think the actual nature of changes needs to be.

Saying they've beaten it with maxed AO is meaningless without knowing their actual army composition. I've beaten it with maxed AO but I sure couldn't staff 5 Corps; I could barely staff 3 before flat out running out of guns available in the store of the reasonable ones to buy. The AI simply doesn't have that concern and will continue not to unless we actually speak up about it.

No, it's completely relevant to the discussion.


Why are they going to spend time balancing the campaign when it's only half complete? Complete the campaign first then worry about balance. It's perfectly playable and enjoyable in the current state until it's completed and more focus can be put into balance at a later date. 

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8 hours ago, clench said:

No, it's completely relevant to the discussion.


Why are they going to spend time balancing the campaign when it's only half complete? Complete the campaign first then worry about balance. It's perfectly playable and enjoyable in the current state until it's completed and more focus can be put into balance at a later date. 

Completing the campaign is a matter of adding maps and expanding the minimum size of the enemy and is a fairly linear extrapolation from what is currently on offer. It's an entirely different effort compared to needing to get the balance right now for what currently exists because of how complex it can be with the different ways of doing it. In fact, fixing balance now while there are less things to worry about is a much easier task than putting it off for the future.

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1 hour ago, Hitorishizuka said:

Completing the campaign is a matter of adding maps and expanding the minimum size of the enemy and is a fairly linear extrapolation from what is currently on offer. It's an entirely different effort compared to needing to get the balance right now for what currently exists because of how complex it can be with the different ways of doing it. In fact, fixing balance now while there are less things to worry about is a much easier task than putting it off for the future.

 

How can it be a linear extrapolation when what you're clamoring is nothing close to linear? You want a more dynamic campaign where your performance effects future battles. How can you balance a dynamic experience that is planned to have over twice as much content as what's currently available until it's all finished?

 

I mean we're not even into the real meat of the Civil War yet in terms of content. Both the battles and the connections between them are planned to get more complex.. this type of thing isn't going to happen overnight though just because you want it. Scaling is likely always going to be a part of the experience however because the AI is always going to be a step behind the player in terms of competency. In Total War, the AI got infinity money to compensate. In this they're going to sometimes outnumber you and be better equipped to compensate. 

Edited by clench
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Just now, clench said:

 

How can it be a linear extrapolation when what you're clamoring is nothing close to linear? You want a more dynamic campaign where your performance effects future battles. How can you balance a dynamic experience that is planned to have over twice as much content as what's currently available until it's all finished?

 

I mean we're not even into the real meat of the Civil War yet in terms of content. Both the battles and the connections between them are planned to get more complex.. this type of thing isn't going to happen overnight though just because you want it. 

What? Please read more carefully. I'm saying that right now extending the campaign is currently only a linear extrapolation that will do nothing but complicate future changes further by being in place. It's quite possible to balance a dynamic experience without the rest of the content because the very nature of it being dynamic means you don't -need- that content for extreme scenarios and moderate scenarios don't require much change.

This type of thing is never going to happen if I just stay quiet like you seem to keep advocating for.

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11 hours ago, Hitorishizuka said:

What? Please read more carefully. I'm saying that right now extending the campaign is currently only a linear extrapolation that will do nothing but complicate future changes further by being in place. It's quite possible to balance a dynamic experience without the rest of the content because the very nature of it being dynamic means you don't -need- that content for extreme scenarios and moderate scenarios don't require much change.

This type of thing is never going to happen if I just stay quiet like you seem to keep advocating for.

 

I'm not sure what you're talking about. The first phase is planned for the next patch. 

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On 12/10/2016 at 0:02 PM, Hitorishizuka said:

And would they be doing anything if we were staying quiet like you have continually advocated for?

It would seem reasonable to me that they planned an entire game before starting to make it. I don't think your opinion on things has changed progress much. 

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