I'm enjoying Axis & Allies Online

The game is buggy. Lots of Java script errors that freeze the game up, whereas you need to restart. I was hoping the bugs would be worked out BEFORE releasing the product…

@Imperious-Leader said in I'm enjoying Axis & Allies Online:

The game is buggy. Lots of Java script errors that freeze the game up, whereas you need to restart. I was hoping the bugs would be worked out BEFORE releasing the product…

This was announced as an “early release”. Sometimes, “early release” == “beta tester”. My advice: submit bugs as you find them, so that Beamdog can fix them…

-Midnight_Reaper

Yes, please submit all the bugs you experience and feature requests at https://beamdog.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/3

I don’t do unpaid “homework” for company’s that should have hired sufficient beta testers to proof their product.In any case, the game has the following flaws:

1. Music sucks. The same damn nonsense for every battle. Each nation should have its own theme unique, like the Milton Bradley game.
2. It takes too long to get thru the battles, its chuggy. A player should click as fast as he wants to clear each roll, or default to results after each combat round.
3. The game needs player options for Technology, new unit types, timer, etc
4. Get rid of the stupid boxes that litter the map with strange icons, that indicate some silly idea that’s found on the right margin.
5. The AI is more ridiculous than Milton Bradley! WTH? Get somebody to play/ program some decent moves and have AI set for easy, moderate, and expert modes.
6. USA map cartography is horrific. who the heck drew this? must have had 5 minutes to finish.
7. Its not easy to move Bomber for SBR. Sometimes its just a combat unit instead.
8. A 2-6 mover may not travel over desired spaces, and takes too long to edit.
9. would love to attack neutrals as toggled option ( they would have units presumably).
10. Tired of the same picture before every battle, try unique pictures of exactly that nations units.
11. Need to be able to edit the costs of units, so the AI might have cheaper units and become competitive.
12. The Multiplayer rooms on steam need to have a space where players can state: The time the game starts and other info and not allow one player to have 15 rooms all with the same steam name. Either your playing here or there, not everywhere. Its not a Poker room.
13. alot more, but that’s just the top 13

@Imperious-Leader Thanks for the feedback. We launched the game into Early Access so that we could create a game players want based on their feedback. It can’t be done without reports and feedback like yours. We don’t demand from anyone to be a “beta-tester” - even the smallest feedback can greatly help us.

Anyway, here is what our development team has to say about your concerns:

We have a few tracks, but possibly not as much variety as may be desired over time.
Technology and new unit types aren’t faithful to this ruleset (1942, 2nd Ed). We may be able to look at other boxsets in the future. In terms of timer, we’re aware of requests for customizable timeouts, which may help address this concern.
This is temporary. We will address a map that lines up appropriately but wasn’t achievable in the timeframe/with the resources we had.
We have changes planned for our movement system, which may make it easier to assign bombers to raids vs an attack.
We currently don’t allow players to choose movement paths (except for blitzing tanks and transports), but have a feature request logged to address this.
We can log this as a feature request, as we’ve heard this from other fronts as well.
We’re not really sure that this is the best solution for the desired outcome (more competitive AI), but it could be logged as a feature request if you feel strongly enough about it. Please, log it at https://beamdog.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/3
We have plans to add in a chat to the pre-game lobby, but this will be a little while coming.

@Imperious-Leader said in I'm enjoying Axis & Allies Online:

12. The Multiplayer rooms on steam need to have a space where players can state: The time the game starts and other info and not allow one player to have 15 rooms all with the same steam name. Either your playing here or there, not everywhere. Its not a Poker room.

Not sure if this is directed at me (I’m currently trying to join like 15 games. None of them are mine btw), but I wouldn’t have to try joining so many games if they would actually start. Maybe a feature to automatically cancel games that haven’t started within a reasonable amount of time instead of forcing games to be played in real-time (which is what I assume you want).

@djensen I’m curious how the game in its current state compares to the pre-release version you tested? Like what stuff was changed or which features are there now that weren’t then? There were a couple months between your initial post here and the early access drop on Steam, so that might give us some kind of realistic estimate about what kind up updates we might expect in a 1-3 month timeframe. Thus far we’ve only seen hotfixes, but its only been out a few weeks so maybe there is more stuff coming down the pipeline.

Right now the gripes can probabaly be grouped into 3 main categories.

1. People griping about the UI, game function, or server type issues.
2. People griping about the implementation of the online ruleset compared to OOB. (The stuff that was changed to make it asynchronous.)
3. People griping about the 1942.2 game itself, as compared to Classic or Iron Blitz, or more popular AA50 and G40 games.

The third group will be hard to accomodate short of some kind of re-release of the Classic game or expansions for some other gamemaps. I gotta say that one we could probably have seen coming a mile off just from the choice of board to translate digitally. The second group is kind of on Beamdog, whether they decide to put out a version geared more towards live play or traditional PBEM. The first group I think should be the priority right now for having their concerns addressed. I’m just wondering how much we can expect to see on that front, based on what was added from the preview state to the early access?

I kind of wish they had offered a closed or invite only Beta before early access to some of the people who post regularly in the 1942 sec ed section, since I think many here could have anticipated some of these issues in advance, and might have helped to shore it up before going public. But it is what it is.

As things stand currently I imagine some pretty signficant re-designs will be needed to get it into the state that many people are hoping for. My fear is another GTO type scenario, where the game just can’t accomodate the level of competative online play that many here have come to expect. We need a critical mass of skilled players coming over from TripleA or returning from Iron Blitz so we can hold more exciting tournaments and the like. But this is already an uphill battle because of the choice of 1942.2. Most tripleA players would probably want Global or AA50, most Iron Blitz players would probably want Classic 3rd Edition. So A&A online needs to be really slick and offer something more/better than what Hasbro gave us 20 years ago and something that just looks a lot nicer and feels cleaner than tripleA to get a lot of those people really pumped for 1942.2

Ps. Also I gotta say, this sub-forum feels really burried.

As the newest title with plugs and articles featured on the home page, I feel like 1942 Online should have its own highlighted discussion section a little higher up on the list.

There are many forums for older boards that are fairly innactive but which are still taking up the prime real estate. This version makes changes to some key rules so I’m not sure it makes sense to discuss this game in the current 1942 sec edition forums, though maybe as a sub forum there? I know these boards are focused more on the physical gameboards, but since this one is an official product I think it makes sense to give it a bit of a bump.

Right now there are a lot of disperate discussions going on at the Steam Forums, but that place is an organizational mess. It’d be nice to pull some of that traffic here, since I think many A&A 1942 Online users would find this place a more useful resource for general Axis and Allies Q&A and a better place to have fruitful discussions all around. But currently this section just feels hidden even to those who know it exists.

The Play Online section is probably the most active of all the forums on this site. It updates like every couple minutes because of PBF games, but that also makes it harder to see when new discussions or threads are being replied to in the other sub forums like this one.

@Black_Elk I don’t think Beamdog is shooting for capturing the hearts and minds of the competitive crowd, though. TripleA already sort of has the market cornered on that thanks to having almost every map (Please give me a 1914 map, I’m begging you) in the franchise available + Play-by-Forum integration with this website. Can’t really beat that, especially when you have a battle Calc packaged with the game.

I think they’re going for a more casual audience, hence the focus on style (UI, asynchronous play, WW2-aesthetic art, etc.) over substance (multiple maps available, ranked ladder, competent AI, etc.). Still not an excuse for having multiple maps available to play on. I’m surprised WotC/Hasbro aren’t gunning for more maps to be added (even something scummy like 99 cent DLC for maps or whatever), since I doubt they’re selling new copies of the older games these days.

@DoManMacgee

yea not sure their plan but that makes sense. One thing it’ll do is reach more people that aren’t aware of A&A.org and triplea. They seem as if they got a good group of people. Always important. Hope it works well for everyone.

This is in the pipeline. still a ways off.

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1063/power-of-politics-1914-a-wwi-scenario

I think the quickest fix would be the adoption of an editor.
The most basic edits:

Revert to Previous Phase
Add/Remove unit
Change IPCs
Change Territory ownership

If the user could do that, I think it would be a very popular platform for casual play while still being able to accommodate competitive play. Because at least then we could fix errors in friendly matches, while also being able to hold tournaments with standard pre-placement bids or the Larry patch. I think the casual audience would like those features too. Gives players control over the digital gameboard like they have over the physical one to take units or roundels out the tray, and make corrections when stuff goes awry. Its probably even more important for that than in allowing for the kind of stuff that happens in tournaments and such, but the later would be a big bonus.

Some of these features were on Iron Blitz, which offers basic editing of unit costs, which along my suggestion an additional range of units could be offered:

Heavy tanks, Volkstrum/Conscripts, Mechanized, Fighter Bombers, Jet bombers, etc
'And Tech upgrades if that option was toggled on

Another bummer is constantly clicking to roll, the option should be to toggle only results at end of each combat round. We don’t need to see the stupid dice roll, and BTW i don’t believe the randomness of these rolls. Their seems to be some tit for tat thingy going on, where if one side is doing poorly, the other side is too. Option for Low Luck might be possible, but somethings wrong in this department.

The product should not have been released before more play-testing, you stalled the success of the game when you just throw it up in the air and let buyers complain. Just give them nothing to complain about.

Well I’ll say this much for it, probably more boxed 1942.2 set up games have been played in the past 2-3 weeks than have been played in a couple years. But I’m concerned that it will rapidly advance to the point where the general concensus of Axis advantage is reached once again, (even with some of the rules changes they made to make it more like AAZ and with the defense profile thing) and there isn’t anything in place to go to the next phase of the rehash, which would be the standard preplacement bid and the Larry patch. Basic editor would get you there at least.

The click click is a big issue for me, the whole movement and combat UI just feels cumbersome and inelegant right now and really in need of a clean up/speed up. I tried to send some suggestions to the feedback link and on steam forums, but in general just wish that was a lot smoother.

Other things I feel beyond a basic capability to swap out the digital sculpts or change control markers and the like, would be some basic aesthetic customization. Map scale, unit/font scale, also Map or Unit themes (alternative colors or textures), things that people can use to customize to their tastes or for things like r/g colorblind. Alternative icons or textures would I’m sure be a little more challenging art asset intensive, but least basic colors/light dark. Like why not make it so you can have Classic colors, or Revised colors, or Modern Topographical, or with all the colors of the old sculpts, like lime green UK or Black Germany, Red Japan or whatever? Would be cool if it could just bundle the basic boxes and offer some more choices there. I also think looking backward could be cool, if borrowing from AAZ maybe also bring in something from one of the older rulesets. Another thing that I don’t dig is that we can’t close off sz16 as a standard option, even though that’s in the manual. Sz16 closed is probably to the Allies advantage in the opening rounds, so that would help.

Right too much “click-click” its terrible. The icons of units could change automatically if you change the unit values. I know its not 1942.2, but it would bring value to the game since its very basic anyway and needs some “window dressing”

@Imperious-Leader “hire” game testers? new to the industry?

Why would you want to waste time on the AI when no-one will play in that mode when live players are available.

While Tripple A has all the maps, its crude. It’s impossible to see what you’ve moved, the piece icons and layout are incomprehesible, you can’t reverse without looking through the log, play a PBEM game without forum moderation, and especially obnoxious how it treats loading transports…I cannot figure out when my units are loaded and when they are correctly set up or not.

This game does all that well, whereas in Tripple A, its barely possible for me to start a live game

I believe the transport loading/unloading issue you are referencing has been fixed as of the last pre-release. TripleA doesn’t put out new stable releases very often, but I’m always pretty impressed with how much gets added each time they come out.

For my part I find the beamdog UI for movement very hard to parse. I set up 4 screenshots in discord showing Beamdog compared to Iron Blitz GTO and TripleA.

HASBRO

TRIPLEA

GTO

BEAMDOG

Iron Blitz and Beamdog both have all movements of a given phase displayed visually on the map with curved arrow lines, and rely on clicking of individual units to undo move. GTO and TripleA show arrows only for the current move, with previous moves made during the phase recorded in a sibebar list, with the undo move from there as well as right click option.

Iron Blitz, GTO and TripleA all indicate combat/non com moves by actually moving those units into the territory or sz they are entering. Beamdogs is the only one that hovers along the border (which I think can add to visual confusion.)

Iron Blitz, GTO and TripleA also show all units in a stack including Transports. Beamdog has each transport separate, which I think adds to clutter and crowding misclicks.

Anyhow just thought some side by side screens might help for the discussion.

Today I watched a game-play introduction by “The Historical Gamer” on YouTube, but I haven’t played the game personally yet.

In the video I was struck by how many prompts the player encountered during combat - why all the clicking? When I’m playing TripleA, I have the speed set to the fastest possible… and not only does the dice animation take forever in this game… but the constant mouse clicking during combat makes the combat phase long and tedious.

I liked the visuals that I saw however, it has a much nicer polish than Triple A.

@Black_Elk Fair enough, I suppose that it comes down to personal preference. Can’t get any of my friends to play any e-edition in any event…and prefer live play anyways.

@taamvan In Chess, the IA is most strong. Why cant it be even competitive, or why even have it if its a joke?

Most of the criticisms I’ve been hearing of the Beamdog movement UI revolved around the difficulty of doing/undoing moves, and a lack of visual clarity regarding the current move or moves just made. Personally I much prefer vector arrows with crystal clear paths, to curved ones that bend around, but the issue there is more ease of use than aesthetic preference.

The other major issue is an inability in the Beamdog version to move units in groups (move all) or to bring up some kind of list of available units by clicking the territory or sz. It is really time/click intensive trying to move each unit 1 by 1, and the potential for misclicks is high because left click will also undo a move if the wrong unit is clicked by accident.

I also much prefer units entering the tiles rather than hovering by the border, which can lead to confusion about whether/where exactly the unit is ending up.

Another big issue is unit overlap or movement path overlap, where it is hard to actually see the unit types or the numbers involved because they are actually covering each other up sometimes even at full zoom. Other games have used the ‘push aside’ method rather than overlap to deal with unit crowding, with a line or something indicating the units actual current position on the map.

GTO and TripleA both have a fast combat window that can be accessed from the main map rather than a separate screen, so both can be viewed at the same time.

Finally one thing that jumps out immediately to me in the Beamdog version is the lack of a minimap and functional sidebar. While it does technically have a sidebar (and a bottom bar if you count the war report and VC tracker) this is only used for information tabs and offers no way to actually control stuff, like tracking or undoing moves. Iron Blitz had a different approach where the default view was full zoom and you had to click the world map button to bring up the full map. I don’t think anyone would like to go back to that, since its very scroll intensive. It didn’t really have a sidebar either, but separate screens accessed from tabs or menus.

For the actual look of the thing, I’m ambivalent at this point. Obviously I have preferences there too, some things I like and some things I don’t. But purely from a functionality standpoint I think there could definitely be a lot of improvements so its easier to read at a glance and use quickly.

For single player vs the AI the game currently only allows Standard Victory conditions, whereas many would probably prefer Total Victory for that (if they want to take Washington or whatever.) Right now the AI is middling at best and makes a number of truly ill advised moves/purchases. I can’t see it being useful for anything other than learning the basic mechanics, not something a player could look to for guidance on tactics or strategy for example. Who knows, maybe it gets better but there isn’t anything you can do to increase the challenge level in solo play right now.