Battle Options Testing

[Stue (DC)]

Knowing that there are testers who conduct some checks of how things go in organized manner, I am curious whether there is testing of battle formations and troop behavior in combat.

Lot of talks was conducted about that before, but as far as I remember there were no too much conclusion. Several time I tried to present observations and doubts on Bugtracker, but whatever was shown - battle reports, some analysis - was always declared as insufficient for conclusions, though same things could be continually seen.

[Nosferatus]

Knowing that there are testers who conduct some checks of how things go in organized manner, I am curious whether there is testing of battle formations and troop behavior in combat.

Lot of talks was conducted about that before, but as far as I remember there were no too much conclusion. Several time I tried to present observations and doubts on Bugtracker, but whatever was shown - battle reports, some analysis - was always declared as insufficient for conclusions, though same things could be continually seen.

I am not sure what your question is but testers basically test recent changes in the code(on testing worlds) or updates.

If you suspect a bug but aren't sure, post your suspicion on the forum or in an OOC message in your realm so we can help/confirm.

[Indirik]

Also, make sure you have documented evidence of the suspected bug. Statements of "I always see this happen" or "It seems like this is how it works" are useless. The devs are normal people, with normal lives outside the game. They are NOT going to sit down and develop, set up, and run 30 test cases, then analyze them for your suspected improper behavior. Make sure you have all your ducks in a row, with documented examples of the behavior that you see. If you think, for example, that units jump off walls to soon, then provide multiple battle reports showing it happening, with as much concrete evidence as possible. Anecdotal cases are not helpful, unless the particular bug is blatantly obvious.

[egamma]

If you want ordinary players to try something, just ask. There are plenty of us who want to see a battle of Weakening Skirmish vs. Strategic Withdraw, or Waves vs. Mixed lines, etc.

Perhaps we could put an open call out to post battle reports here? I think there are plenty of people who enjoy reading battle reports.

[cjnodell]

I would love to see a collection of battle reports available to peer over and learn from...

[Stue (DC)]

Also, make sure you have documented evidence of the suspected bug. Statements of "I always see this happen" or "It seems like this is how it works" are useless. The devs are normal people, with normal lives outside the game. They are NOT going to sit down and develop, set up, and run 30 test cases, then analyze them for your suspected improper behavior. Make sure you have all your ducks in a row, with documented examples of the behavior that you see. If you think, for example, that units jump off walls to soon, then provide multiple battle reports showing it happening, with as much concrete evidence as possible. Anecdotal cases are not helpful, unless the particular bug is blatantly obvious.

well, there was one documented issue on bugtracker, where i posted several battle reports and add some analysis i was able to do.

more or less, that was my peak as the one who also does not have large blocks of free time to collect further information.

the main problem is that it is incredibly hard to collect row of battle reports with very similar settings that would prove the case. how to do it in-game? most of battles are far too important that settings would be applied artificially, just for sake of testings, so i posted the question being curious on how it works with new testers.

as one example, for some time i suspect much that box formation is useless, as whenever i tried to rectify defensive bonus against cavalry charge, i found no difference compared to line formation, while attack handicap of box troops was obvious.

i can even call anyone who reads it to contribute, with more evidence we will be clever, with simple analysis.

- look at battle reports where some infantry is in line formation and other is in box and cavalry is seemingly charging against them (so only turns where it happens are relevant)
- compare casualties per hits for both type of designations (they should have approximately the same cs per men)
- compare attack hits per men for both types  (again: similar weapon/armor)

so it is needed to have similarly strong infantry troops where some are in line, others are in box, and both of them need to sustain charge at least some time in the battle.

for defense analysis, it is not crucial what is strength of cavalry attackers, but bulk hits received per men.

for attack analysis, it is important that they have about the same cs per man, so as to see how many hits they produce.

battle reports do not show difference between attacking and defensive cs so I put that out of analysis, hoping that larger number of observation could give valid results even if disregarding this.

whole this explanation presents that it is not so easy to reach testing conditions... i had time and ability to reach it few times, and results shown what I suspected.

if someone thinks that methodology has flaws, please post it here.

[De-Legro]

well, there was one documented issue on bugtracker, where i posted several battle reports and add some analysis i was able to do.

more or less, that was my peak as the one who also does not have large blocks of free time to collect further information.

the main problem is that it is incredibly hard to collect row of battle reports with very similar settings that would prove the case. how to do it in-game? most of battles are far too important that settings would be applied artificially, just for sake of testings, so i posted the question being curious on how it works with new testers.

as one example, for some time i suspect much that box formation is useless, as whenever i tried to rectify defensive bonus against cavalry charge, i found no difference compared to line formation, while attack handicap of box troops was obvious.

i can even call anyone who reads it to contribute, with more evidence we will be clever, with simple analysis.

- look at battle reports where some infantry is in line formation and other is in box and cavalry is seemingly charging against them (so only turns where it happens are relevant)
- compare casualties per hits for both type of designations (they should have approximately the same cs per men)
- compare attack hits per men for both types  (again: similar weapon/armor)

so it is needed to have similarly strong infantry troops where some are in line, others are in box, and both of them need to sustain charge at least some time in the battle.

for defense analysis, it is not crucial what is strength of cavalry attackers, but bulk hits received per men.

for attack analysis, it is important that they have about the same cs per man, so as to see how many hits they produce.

battle reports do not show difference between attacking and defensive cs so I put that out of analysis, hoping that larger number of observation could give valid results even if disregarding this.

whole this explanation presents that it is not so easy to reach testing conditions... i had time and ability to reach it few times, and results shown what I suspected.

if someone thinks that methodology has flaws, please post it here.

I wasn't aware that box grants a bonus against charging cavalry. It does give a general defence bonus, which I have observed to my satisfaction.

[Zakilevo]

I wasn't aware that box grants a bonus against charging cavalry. It does give a general defence bonus, which I have observed to my satisfaction.

Well horses do hate the box formation. They hesitate to charge against anything to do with squares.

[De-Legro]

Well horses do hate the box formation. They hesitate to charge against anything to do with squares.

In real life, sure. However that doesn't meant the formation in the game has any extra effect against cavalry.

[Stue (DC)]

I wasn't aware that box grants a bonus against charging cavalry. It does give a general defence bonus, which I have observed to my satisfaction.

can you describe how did you observe it, which specific data lead you to conclusion on what you call general defense bonus?

anything i ever imagined to be defense bonus  is: having less casualties per hit i.e. larger number of hits needed to create one casualty in some specidic troop. i never imagined how else defense bonus could be spotted.

[Phellan]

I wasn't aware that box grants a bonus against charging cavalry. It does give a general defence bonus, which I have observed to my satisfaction.

I was under the impression that:

Box formation reduces hits taken, but reduces hits inflicted (effective against a creature like a Beast, because of overkill)
Line formation is "normal" settings for everything
Scattered reduces hits from ranged, but pretty reduces melee effectivesness and morale in melee
Wedge has some sort of effect that increases the likelihood of breaking to the next line and may increase hits inflicted/hits recieved.

Or at least, that is what the players I learend from taught.

[cjnodell]

I think that a valid point that should not be overlooked is that it is not realistic for players to perform extensive battle tests. Just looking at the number of factors that need to be taken in to consideration is daunting. Only sheer chance is likely to provide the circumstances needed to validate any point of concern.

It would be nice if players had access to a battle simulator they could construct test battles in and run. Where players could set all factors (number of units on each side, strength of units on each side, weather conditions, and more) and run a test battle and get a standard battle report in the end. This would allow players to test theories and such. Then again, this might be too exploitable. I couldn't say. I know I could loose myself for HOURS playing with such a tool!

As things stand, I am not sure if it is realistic to expect players to test and provide incontrovertible evidence before any effort is put in by the dev team.  Just as it is unreasonable to expect the dev's and test team to chase down bugs with insufficient information. I do IT support for my day job and I know how impossible it is to accomplish anything with vague complaints like "It never does what I want it to do!"

[Anaris]

It would be nice if players had access to a battle simulator they could construct test battles in and run. Where players could set all factors (number of units on each side, strength of units on each side, weather conditions, and more) and run a test battle and get a standard battle report in the end.

It would be nice if the devs had access to such a simulator, too :P

[Indirik]

It would be nice if players had access to a battle simulator they could construct test battles in and run.

I completely disagree with this. Such a tool would be very detrimental to the game atmosphere.

[Zakilevo]

You can run that simulator in your head. After all we are playing a game based on the medieval period.