Suggestion and player retention thoughts
 

First off, this is a superb sim, kudos to the devs.

Suggestion: Players have the ability to set a preferred role, and for this to be visible in the lobby. This would help players decide to invite a particular individual if their boat needs a radio officer or whatever. Their preferred real-life language might also help. The joining game interface seems a little clunky in respect of swiftly getting players organised into crews. Their Teamspeak/discord channel might also be useful as a clickable button? (if that can be done?)

I did play WPK a lot in the early days, and greatly enjoyed it. However I did find it terribly repetitive, and so in time, my play has fallen away. I was very fortunate in the late 1980's to talk a lot with Jonathan "Blue Baron" at Kesmai, who brought out one of the very first PVP "sims" at that time: "Air warrior". He was an interesting chap, who held that in order for such a game - or sim - to thrive, one had to promote the social side of the game, and design in features to enable players to socialise in game, and also to make the game PVP rather than PvAI.

This to my mind are the twin areas that need work, in order to keep players interested. To that end, I think:

The hunt for a convoy should be longer, and more involved, perhaps involving decryption of Enigma signals, and interplay between BDU and the commander. During this period, tasks should be available, but also some down time for crew members off-watch to socialise. The current game is too repeatedly intense, with convoys found swiftly, and the battle following a fairly predictable path thereafter.

Above all, we need to have playable escorts, so that the PVP aspect can be developed. It's one thing to be briefly depth-charged by an AI DD, and quite another to be repeatedly hunted and DC'd by a player-operated one, who may prosecute attacks for (say) and hour or so, forcing the Uboat to have to reacquire and reposition for a further attack. With more prolonged DC attacks, there's lots of scope for repairs/difficulties depth-keeping, and not just prosecuting torpedo attacks. This would hugely increase the variation in one game to the next, which imho is essential to the long-term success of a sim.

I'm yet to play Destroyer: U boat hunter, but from what I've seen, if these two games could be married, so to speak, then the result would quite superb.

I don't mean to undermine the great work this tiny team has done, but I thought an honest personal appraisal from someone who did previously spend a fair bit of time in WPK is worthwhile...?

Hey Fidd, I think you have some good ideas worth exploring.

I would add that players should be able to check off boxes for each of the roles they are interested in. So you could select say captain, dive officer, and navigator... or whatever.

Interesting you mentioned Air Warrior- I used to play it for years. It was a great game and I spent tons of enjoyable hours multi-crewing bombers and flying fighter escort in big ops. That seems like ages ago now and it really was ahead of it's time.

I would also add that variety will make the sim more interesting and keep people playing more often. Having actual land masses to navigate around, aircraft to avoid, ships or submarines to rescue or capture, special ops maybe. Personally I'd love to try making it through the straights of Gibraltar just to see if I could do it.

Agreed on the playable escorts, and I know that is being worked on but I'm sure it's going to take a while.

And yes, I have had the exact same thoughts about "wouldn't it be amazing if we could just get Wolfpack and Destroyer: U-boat Hunter to talk to each other" in multiplayer sessions.

I absolutely love Wolfpack and am always excited to see the next upgrade or update come out for it. But I do feel the need for more to do than just searching for convoys and sinking them and evading their escorts.

I think we should keep this conversation going and get Neal involved =)

Great minds think alike!:arrgh!: https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=253660

I wonder if merging the two games would actually be all that difficult, afterall the position/headings/depth of subs ships aircraft and escorts is the only information that need be common to both games. After that it's merely a matter of deciding which of the two games would handle what aspect of weapons firing trajectories and damage calculation. Easy. Neal should manage it in a weekend, possibly two if he's being lazy! :Kaleun_Wink:

Wolfpack is already engineered for U-boat vs Corvette, and we have the corvette minus the player interfaces. It's on the roadmap..

That's really good to hear, although I think two types are required, as the corvette is so desperately slow, it'll not be worth tuppence versus surfaced or submerged U boats at night. This will essentially make the ability of the players actually fighting the U-boats to influence the result of a game set at night entirely dependent on the AI performance of the NPC destroyer. Relying on AI to achieve a competitive game night or day, whilst also making the game experience sufficiently varied to retain players; is not I think achievable with AI destroyers.

So, in my view, both destroyers and corvettes would need to be playable. If I were a developer, I'd start with the destroyers, then the corvette, and have suitable system of gears and levers whereby the destroyer captain is able to direct corvettes to areas, or require them to attack - and continue searching/attacking a given U-boat until otherwise ordered or a specified distance arises between the convoy and corvette.

It seems to me that were a "common" asdic room (views of instruments etc) used for both types, then it ought to be possible to convert the current in game destroyers to PVP ones in the medium-term. I do feel very strongly that this PVP aspect should be at the very top of the dev-list, as the current game lacks the persistent DC attacks that characterised U boat operations. Adding destroyers would also open up the possibility of further variety in the form of hunter-killer groups - ie several destroyers operating in concert, more than the compliment usually given to a convoy.

I'm firmly of the opinion that this personal aspect of PvP play, knowing, as a U-boat commander that the destroyer or corvette above is operated by an opposing player, with each trying to out-wit the other, would go a long way to improving player retention....

Fidd, I feel you are 100% correct. I can see that doing nothing but sinking tonnage from an instantly spotted convoy can quickly get 'old'. If a U-Boat sim is even going to think about the idea of realism, then just locating a convoy should be an accomplishment. Operating as a team with the other boats and a BdU to try and pin down a convoy would add a whole new element to the game.

Cheers. After an 18 month hiatus I played Wolfpack for the first time since this evening. I was amazed by the expanded interior of the U-boat and all the graphics improvements. In the intervening 18 months I have started to play Destroyer: U boat hunter, and whilst it too, is a well made game, it (ironically) suffers from exactly the same problem as Wolfpack, namely that the replayability is currently fairly poor.

So the next question is, what would a well unified game look like? How would PVP work?

[ quote ]The hunt for a convoy should be longer, and more involved, perhaps involving the decryption of Enigma signals and the interplay between BDU and the commander. During this period, tasks should be available, but also be some downtime for crew members off-watch to socialize. The current game is too repeatedly intense, with convoys found swiftly, and the battle following a fairly predictable path thereafter.[ end quote]

SH5 had an extensive enigma machine and a world map. the learning curve was very immense but it took some effort to decrypt BDU messages. I am sure what would help this Wolfpack become the premiere U boat sim would be all of the sub-simmers to constantly sell to our share of influence, The issue of people becoming more and more ignorant of history is also an issue for selling things. I am 60, and some people if you ask them, what was a U-boat is, might get a few weird answers, Iam think more users more motivated to make the devs anxious to install cool real virtual updates. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:

I think doing monthly release is a good way to retain players. I realize that you have been working on interconnected things, but it seems that it has been several months since a beta release.

Graphically, the game is looking great, but to have the best impact, it would be beneficial to release the game when the general game engine tech is still modern.

I am not sure why the team is so small. Perhaps the expected game interest ended up being lower than hoped. Did they started running a business like a hobby, albeit a very dedicated one, with low expectations?

"Keep the Hooks Filled"
--Slogan stamped on Stanley Works employees' pencils.

I think the very best sims are written by small teams, as they have the dedication to do so - and often the historical knowledge. Frankly it's astonishing what they have achieved. I do however, feel very strongly that the PVP escorts should have been a higher priority than the extra compartments in the U boats was. That said, I understand the lure of using skills you've mastered to produce extra content, rather than having to find new skills to deal with wholly new problems. The problem is, this "easy" content production is not a recipe for the long term.

You certainly are entitled to your interesting opinion.

When I worked for a AAA gaming company, I often worked weekends. During a crunch-mode, I even slept at on a couch near my office because I didn't feel safe to drive home. We were working at least 16 hours a day, all of us.

The gaming industry is full of crunch-mode stories. Because someone's health was involved, there is one I will not repeat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crunch_(video_games)

I fear you misunderstand me, I was not meaning in terms of effort, or hours expended, but in terms of knowledge of the subject, and desire for historic fidelity.

If there were monthly/bimonthly updates to Wolfpack, they would keep their base growing.