Topic: Give enough information to make decisions

Holy.Death wrote:

What kind of information are we talking about? Backgrounds should give you enough information what kind of character will enter your party, because bonuses from classes are locked and you can see all the equipment they own.

To be completely honest I have a few men who are nothing more to me than a bunch of meatshields: a miner refugee, a fat swordmaster, a dastard archer (who’s a founding member), etc. and while I don’t care for them that much (because of their traits) they do contribute in combat. Think of it as managing your bad luck – to squezee all the value you can get out of a bad situation.

If I understand your point of view correctly, you are aware of what I am talking about, but:

A) Don’t really care that much about the characters and use them for cannon fother if need be
B) think managing bad luck is a part of the game

If so, I can respect your point of view. For me personally this is boring and I believe it is for many others (alhtough that I cannot know of course), and it will lead to save+load to avoid.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not against random factors in the game. There are hordes of them of course. During combat especially, but also what quests there are, what kind of characters you can recruit, what items to be bought, what enemies to face, what loot to find… the list is endless. That is fine.

I do manage my luck/unluck here and make decisions. Do I want to recruit some of the half assed characters available in the town I am at, or go look at other towns in the hope of be lucky and find characters I DO want. So this basically make the B objection to the suggestion a bit nullified. My suggestion is NOT to avoid bad luck in the game.

If the features like small, big, dastard and so on was revealed, then I would have to make decisions about what to do. Now it’s just a gamble. So the decision is… should I gamble? Since the hidden attributes (the background is already revealed…although for some reason I have to remember myself what bonuses they give) are so influental to the characters usefulness… this makes the recruitment decision less of a decision and more of a gamble.

So… do you think it’s fun to gamble or do you find it fun to make decisions? That is not a rethorical question. Although I might add… if you like to gamble… perhaps you should enjoy a gambling feature in the cities and allow recruiting to be more reliable. Or there could be a random recruit possibility where you pay for someone you have no clue about – good be bad, good be good… a beggar, a hedgeknight. To satisfy that kind of preference.

Personally (and this is of course subjective) I think managing the crew should be about making smart decisions based on the difficulties (including there only being half-assed recruits to choose from) and not a hazard game. Combat, however, is always hazardous, although by beings smart you can tip the odds in your favor. I wouldn’t save-reload until I win. I am sure many would, but that is their choice. As said… I would choose ironman if possible.

Holy.Death wrote:

I just fail to see how getting a man less ideal than expected is a deal breaker.

I am sure you understand that the less information you are given when making a decision, the less the decision matters? That is the issue. It’s not a dealbreaker if you regard it as a gamble. If you regard it as a decision, the fact that we currently don’t have enough information to make the decision makes it a poor feature for decision making. If that is indeed the purpose.

You have to make decisions before and after you hire them. A dastard archer can still be useful. A blind wildman can still tank, thanks to his heavy armor and a shield (because he has bonus to stamina). A fat swordmaster will still hit – because he’s very accurate – if you handle him a billhook. A man who will never be confident (or starts with wavering morale right away) can benefit from Hold Out, etc. On top of that you can always level up the stats you think need an increase. Will this mean your men will be less potent? Yes. Will they be useless? No.

You are right in what you say, yet it doesn’t make it a relevant response to my argument. If in fact you think it doesn’t matter at all, then why choosing recruits at all? Why make a decision that is not so much a decision but a gamble? ;) So just add a recruit button and you get something random then? That would suit you just fine?
And don’t get me wrong. I am not judging the gambling approach at all. I just like to see things as they are. If the purpose is a gamble, then gamble. If the purpose is to make decisions, then give enough information to make one.

Aren’t these smart decisions based on situation?

Yes, your suggestions on how to use the recruits you get sound fine. But that isn’t what I was talking about. I was talking about the aquirment of the recruits ;)

I like the random nature of the game, because it prevents staling: everything can happen and you have to deal with it, rather than keeping the dices rolling until you’ll get the outcome you want (me and my friends did this while playing a board game, wasn’t thrilling, even though we “won”). You are free to save and load at any point you find suitable men/loot/whatever, but asking the developers to change the core of the game because your recruits have some undesired traits…?

Your taste is yours. However, you seem to arbitrary ignore my arguments when responding to them. I have in my suggestion pointed out that saving/loading will be a necessity for anyone who finds the gamble of recruiting boring. I respect that you like gambling, and I suggested a random recruit button for people that like gambling. Denying people like me the pleasure of decision making is up to the developers of course, but it’s not at all unreasonable (as your last line suggest).
Instead it does seem as it is you who choose to thin that your desire of random and acceptance that the game will “force” most users to save/reload “all the time” as people don’t like their decisions to arbitrary be punished by the game – as something desirable. I have an open mind and have no problem with your desire to play the game. I do have trouble with the narrowminded approach you have that embracing random is the way to go for everyone.
Given also that I “know” that save/reload will be what people will do. Thus NOT actually embracing the random. If you indeed are amongst those that do not save/reload to avoid bum recruits then I predict you will be in the minority. That means that the feature of random you cherish is easily avoided by save/reload which in my mind diminished the feeling for the game. As I know from experience many gamers share that feeling.
It is prudent to avoid users to be forced to save/reload for that reason in general. That doesn’t mean that the developers choose this path. They are in the right to do what they want. You are in the right to question my right to ask them to improve the game. And it is in my right to point out that that makes you narrowminded ;)

EVANS UA wrote:

Denjanjeau,forget about it,Holy.Death never understand what he reading and never talking properly.You wont get any results in here.
But anyway,way you described isnt too hard and long to deal with…

Thanks for the response!

That said it was wrong of me to say he was narrowminded here. I should have pointed out that it was a narrowminded approach. Any affect reaction from that is on me. Sorry about that.

Holy.Death wrote:

If you find that word provoking (english is not may native language) then perhaps we should call it: “not keeping an open mind”?

Are you sure you’re using that word correctly? Because from where I am standing it’s not about keeping an open mind at all. Why? Because we are talking about a game that’s design and made in a certain way for certain reasons. I am simply pointing that out. The fact that I like said direction comes out from another fact that these features were advertised…:

If in fact the developers have stated that they want things to be random this way and people to save/reload rather than get information to form decisions, you are pointing things out and there is no reason to have an open mind. The issue is settled. But unless I am mistaken, you are not a developer, nor have you (so far) been able to direct me to a developer saying this. You seem to, from what I read, say that YOU think something. And thus I conclude that you are not addressing my suggestion with an open mind when YOU decide that people like me shouldn’t get enough information to make decisions on who to recruit.

Q: Will the game have flavor content or extra content like background stories for characters, areas, special weapons, statistics and so on?

Yes! We’re big fans of all those little details that come together to give a game that extra bit of atmosphere, sense of wonder and exploration. It’s one of the reasons we liked both the original X-Com and Jagged Alliance 2 that much. There will be short, proceduraly generated backstories for all Battle Brothers that also influence a Brother’s combat stats and traits.

…and I like such games, so I bought this one.

Sure! Me too. It has no bearing on the topic of my suggestion that we are discussing though.

Sure, you can add any suggestion you want. I am not questioning that. I am questioning the approach of going directly against what developers want the game to be.

And I question that you have the ability to judge this. Nor that that is actually what you are doing. You seem mostly narrowing in how you want to play the game and disregard my suggestion based on it having no merit from that perspective. I don’t mind you not caring for my suggestion, but your personal preference on how to play have no relevance for valuing the suggestion. Only as a fact about how one may play or appreciate the game, which I fully accept and think should be possible.

Yes, it’s [recruiting] a gamble, but the one that can be managed (as I tried to explain). And – much more importantly – working as intended. What would be the point of making various traits (including the negative ones) had the people been avoiding hiring them due to hints of characters having negatives? From design standpoint it makes no sense. You make such traits to be there, to be used. If not, then you don’t make them.

Of course it can be managed. I do understand your description how it can be done and how you do it. That is not something I question. I point out the fact that the large portion of random deciding the quality of who I recruit is diminishing the relevance of deciding who to recruit. It is more about recruiting a bunch and firing the ones I don’t want or using them as cannon fother. Or using save/reload. This is not necessarily a bad way of playing, but it doesn’t allow for informed decision. It is a gamble. Again, I have nothing against people liking to gamble. I am asking for improvements on managing the mercenary company.

It is, as you apparently have decided that you know, that the devs favor gambling and not managing a mercenary party. But I would rather they tell us so than you, as your personal opinion has no relevance on how the game will be developed (nor mine). Facts or perceived facts about game dynamics should be evaluated, and I supply some thoughts about this. I repeat, if it stands like today people will simply save/reload. If there is doubt that this will happen, make some statistics on how people act and this will be evident :)

b) I point out that in my experience this leads to users using save/load and make playing ironman much less enjoyable as you get stuck with team members you don’t want due to the random recruitment effect.

But that’s not a problem. If you’re playing a game in a different way than it was planned, then it’s on you. That’s what I am trying to say. While you are not forced to play “the one and only correct way” you shouldn’t reasonably expect game/developers to accommodate your play style. Especially if this play style goes against what the game stands for.

Eh. First of all, I don’t recognize your authority on deciding how the game is planned. Unless you supply information from devs, this repeated statement has nor merit or value. And the irony is that your text above is easily targeted on yourself. Why are you SO afraid about people like me getting to make informed decisions when recruiting? You can use random if you want? This seem very illogical.

Now, either you retreat on your position or you explain to me what gives you the authority to decide that I choose a play style that “this game doesn’t stand for”. It gets boring. If you are right, direct med to devs saying exactly this or ask a dev to answer me. Otherwise It has no value at all.

When I am talking about how to use the guys you get (and when I am talking about planning which ones to get) I am directly talking about making a decision that is the core of managing the crew by making an informed decision (basing on their equipment, background, salary and needs of my group). I do not hire men blindly, because it’s not a complete roulette as you suggested by asking why not randomly recruit a brother.

Now you are selectively choosing what part of the game that should be managable with relevant information and not random, with argument based on how the early release is currently looking. What is the point of that? It is totally arbitrary. For a discussion and “open mind” it is counter productive. It is also NOT any argument whatsoever that support your point of view stated earlier in this thread or this post.

If you think there should be less information everywhere, why not support removing all numbers from all characters so you only know their background? Why not suggest removing % of hitting i combat? You can guess? No? Then you must realize that an arbitrary stand on where to give information to make decision and where to not cannot be the foudnation of saying that my desire for more information when recruiting is against the nature of the game. That is illogical :)

e) You seem to not understand the philosophy about making informed decisions and question that I should ask for this to be part of the game when it comes to recruiting.

The question would be “How much informed must one be in order to make his decision informed?” and “Why so much?”. But I will ask the most important question: “Would you hire that man, had you known all his traits?”. Then here comes the part speaking about the design and why you don’t put features that people avoid. Then I think the conversation should drift towards talking about the sensibility of cutting a large portion of the game – and developers’ vision – because of that.

How much information you need to make decisions that can be seen to be informed is of course also a judgment call and taste. Do you really need that you have 76% to hit? Would “over 50%” be enough to make that decision and think it’s fun?

But about the converstion about the developers vision – again – where do I find a comprehensive document that describes this in this area?

And… what do you base your conclusion that a large portion of the game has to be cut in order to abide to my suggestion (or something similar)? I haven’t said that. So it’s a conclusion you came on your own on a topic you seem to not fully grasp.

If the advantages and disadvantages on each character where known on recruitment, their value would have to be reflected in the expense or upkeep. Otherwise, as you apparently conclude, there is seldom reason to recruit a character with really bad values. Just as there is little reason now. Just save/reload as most will.

I think I covered this in the beginning of this post, but I will add that this developer’s post plus quote from the FAQ should be enough to come to a conclusion that by “We want you to pick up less-than-ideal candidates and mold them into mercenaries […]” they meant hiring people who come up with less than ideal traits. Note that they also meant: “[…] and we want you to keep an eye out for fitting recruits as you roam the lands […]”, meaning that they do seem to believe that you have enough information during recruitment in order to know which recruits will be fitting.

You are interpreting things to mean something that it doesn’t necessarily mean. The quote that they want users to have to recruit mercenaries that aren’t perfect doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t know that they aren’t perfect when recruiting them. It doesn’t follow. And, again, it won’t have that effect anyhow. People will just save/reload. In order to encourage people to recruit less than perfect mercenaries, the game will have to limit the access to the best classes (which in fact is what the dev in the quote is responding to) or give another reason to recruit those less than attractive mercenaries (cheaper and so on). This is alreay in play with different backgrounds and different prices.

So perhaps read back? Either you seem to misunderstand the whole purpose of my suggestion, or perhaps you didn’t read the thread you try to use as argument against it. Either way, feel free to argue as long as you bother to understand first and question later?

But I do understand your position. I simply argue against it for reasons mentioned above. Maybe I am the minority, maybe I am wrong or whatever. Ultimately it’s up to the developers to make the final call, but I am speaking my mind, because I think it’s better to have feedback than to be silent.

You should speak your mind. But you are repeatedly telling me that you KNOW what is in the line of the philosphy of the game without any foundation of doing so that I am aware of (based on information given in this thread and linked). You may be perfectly right that devs NEVER will make something like I suggest. But I see no merit in you knowing so.

As a parallel I read in another thread (was it in steam?) that devs answered that they consider people to be able to choose their starting squad in some way instead of it being random. I have less issues with it being random because it has nothing to do with my decisions. But I do understand that line of thinking as well. And that could easily be seen as and indication that devs DO think that it is in the philosophy of the game to control more than we do today, don’t you think? I am not drawing any lengthy conclusions about that though :)

One more thing, you put “Random vs. Decisions” in your thread. This is quite telling on its own, but also wrong – it’s not really “random vs decisions” as you suggest. It’s “decisions and more decisions caused by the outcome (which is based on some randomness)”. In a big scale you could just as well say that “this game is all about randomness” (and I did hear many people saying that about any game with RNG involved), but that’s why I say it’s about managing your luck. Can you manage what traits your man will have? No, but you can give him stats after you level him up and decide on the background (thus impacting his stats) as well as pick skills.

No, it is not wrong :) You are messing with this issue and twisting it all you can to support your idea of the game being as it is because forcing save/reload when recruiting should be part of the vision of the devs. Again – show me support of that or retreat from a position you cannot hold.

The quote above is impossible to write if you understood what I answered I think in my first or second reply to you. I said that there are and should be many random factors in the game. But when you make decisions they should be informed decisons. If they are not – if there are arbitrary random factors that pollute the merit in your decision… it is not a decision – it is a gamble. Which you said so yourself earlier in the post I am answering no less.

So I conclude (and you seem to agree) that recruiting today is heavily affected by random. The effect of this will NOT be diversity, but save/reload. You like the gamble, and that is fine. But then it is gamble and not a decision worth the name. Loot drops are also random, but is just an effect that you cannot control. So that doesn’t make a mockery of anything. When you make decisions on how to act in combat you get “enough information” to act by getting the % to hit and order of action and so on. But state (and you seem to agree) that when recruiting I am NOT given that information and that makes it a gamble.

Now, I have no problem with you liking that it’s a gamble and not an informed decision. But I do not accept that you try to twist your own personal opinion to claim that I am wrong or go against the philosophy of the game when you have no foundation to state that. That is just…. annoying. Speak your mind, but do it with respect. Respect is not trying to hit someone in the head with an authority you do not have. Your claim is also HIGHLY inconsistent with how the game is created so far.

Again, all this said, I have no issue with devs deciding whatever they want. I will respectfully inform what I think the effects are and if we can agree on facts, we can disagree on taste. Regardless it’s their game. But until then, I like constructive discussions about real issues. Not being hit in the head with imagiend authority.

Holy.Death wrote:

Here is an answer directly from the developer directly on subject of being able to see character’s traits.

Spot on! This link supports your impression of what the devs said they wanted to achieve and also explains the flimsy logic behind your argument in this thread as your argument is in line with the devs argument in that thread. Or at least the argument he refers to:

as for seeing quirks of mercs for hire….then why have any bad perks? why have good ones at that matter. if you let everyone see what they are buying, they will just chose the good one and there will just be leftovers that will cycle out in time. to me that would make the individuality of each merc pointless. at that rate the game and army’s will get very cookie cutter. in my opinion that ruins the idea that the devs originally had. now im not saying they cant change it or even shouldn’t. but if they do, they will lose a large amount of fan base from people who actually like this idea. to be honest it don’t even make any sens logically. the fact you say you save scum is not in tune with the heart of the game. again, im not attacking you, its your right to do that. but the nature of the game is to get a random chr, and deal with it. he will die or live depending on how you play. or live forever if you save scum. but the thing is, with the idea of reveling everything to the player kinda destroys the nature of the game. no randomness is not bb. its some other game. again if the devs want to do this thats fine. i already donated my money to them. but i would not do it any more due to the game going in the complete opposite direction of what they originally stated it would go in. i like this game because it reminds me of a cool rendition of dwarf fortress, but take away those element and i got nothing to like besides a nice artwork.

Although I totally respect and understand anyone who like gamble and uninformed decisions and being forced to live with that result, I always get a hiccup when someone strongly argues for reaching a goal and then not realizing they are buying tools that won’t lead them there.
Let me repeat why this is so (although evident in this thread):
A) The goal is to be forced to use characters with bad traits to assimilate them to the squad (or use them as cannonfother and recruit new ones).
B) As long as there is a save/load the practice of hidden skills will create the absolute opposite (because of the nature of the bad traits the characters can have) as most gamers typically save/reload to avoid this. Now it’s argued in the quote that this ruins the nature of the game. On the contrary, the game is created in a way to give incentive to save/reload because of this.
C) The only way to offer diversity in characters is to have no load/save for all (non-option), or diversify the bad traits so they aren’t just bad, or to make the bad traits lower recruitment cost (which basically is the same as making them not all bad, although it would still make them cannon fother).
Another disappointing (for me) answer in that illuminating thread is:
Question:
*In the recruitment screen, it would be good to be able to see what each background does, stat-wise, by hovering the mouse over the icon(much like it’s already done in the Roster screen).
Dev answer:

That’s probably not something we want to do. You have to realize that stats are a tiny part of what makes up a background. They also influence heavily the traits a character can get and will have a huge impact on the coming event system. Sure, a Tailor may seem somewhat useless now and a Swordmaster a must-have just based on their stats, but things will become much less clear-cut as we add complexity to characters over the coming year

Although I think the answer is intelligently put and correct in that the background is so much more than +5 x and -10 y as planned. It makes little sense to listing those bonus/penalties as it just forces people that care about it to go to a wiki or record it for themselves.
To me this is a very strange attitude. You cannot force people to play a game exactly the way you want when it goes against the nature of people. It doesn’t make sense. If you want people to not care about things you need to address it in another way. Not tell anything at all or not have any -/+ like they have now, but instead all those “soft” effects from being a tailor or rat catcher only. In that case the feeling of the background is the key. But if you give “hard” bonuses like today… OF COURSE everyone will care about them. Why add something relevant that all know, and then think people won’t care about it and record it? Won’t work :)
Anyhow. Thanks for clearing up where your view of devs intentions came from and (indirectly) why your argument was firm but inconsistent. I see now that you were right in your impression of what the devs said they would do. Very disappointing to me that they would create a game that gives massive incentive to the use of save/load button. Personally I will do my best to only use that to override the nonsensical uninformed decisions and never to reroll battles (as that takes away the fun for me).
I am looking forward to a dev explaining the thought behind incentives to save/reload. One cannot “hide” behind a vision for the game that the dynamics don’t give you incentive to live up to :)