Reply To: Give enough information to make decisions

[Denjanjeau]

Holy.Death wrote:

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. […] I am looking forward to a dev explaining the thought behind incentives to save/reload.

The fact that something is not following your point of view doesn’t mean it makes no sense. <a class=”d4pbbc-url” target=”_blank”

The fact that it doesn’t follow my taste is not the reason that I say “it makes no sense” :) But you are TOTALLY right that that would be no good reason. I like that attitude.

The reason I say “it doesn’t make sense” (which again might not be the perfect words – I appreciate that you interpret it in a friendly way) is because it doesn’t seem to (based on the information I got) to correlate with what devs and you are saying the purpose is.

It’s like (imo) painting the hall way red and saying it’s because it should be soothing for newcomers, while all studies show that the color read ISN’T soothing. I may also personally dislike the color red… because it’s not soothing. But that isn’t my argument.

Not ironclad parallel perhaps… but that is what I try to argue. I will voice my own personal taste in hope that it’s something that others like, but this entire thread has mostly been about me explaining what the effect will be of certain things. And that are perceived facts, not personal taste.

href=”http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=136754.msg5206518#msg5206518&#8243; rel=”nofollow”>Here is the direct response to that:

I can imagine not having all character traits be permanent, and your reasoning on this is sound. One thing to consider, though, is that those character traits are also character-defining to some extent. Having “the fat guy” you came to love suddenly being “the regularly-sized guy” among a bunch of other regularly-sized guys makes him also less special, which is what those character traits are all about. Then again, maybe he just started out as “the fat guy” and has long since become “the axe guy, slayer of dragons and sole survivor of the battle of xy”. I suppose this warrants some more reflection once we’re further on with development of the campaign worldmap.

Very charming. And you are now supplying information to change the circumstances. I wrote last post (?) that the only way to make people (mainstream) not save/reload to avoid bad traits (as they are too bad) is to balance them. This is a perceived fact that I believe that I am quite competent in saying. Also that that is bad for the game as it diminishes feeling to save/reload. For that reason it’s good to address this.

Now, if the bad traits are balanced (not purely bad like some of the traits already) or/and they can change over time, then one is addressing part of the problem. As you say, one cannot force people not save/reload to optimize. But that is not what I am saying the game should. The game should give incentive to act in a fun and interesting way. Right now it does not. Which is what I pointed out in my suggestion and suggested a change. The answer may be that there is change coming in this area that will change the issue. But if not changed, then there IS an issue. Saying there isn’t because someone doesn’t want there to be doesn’t make it go away :)

Regarding your other point, the thing is that everything can and probably will be “gamed”, as you put it. We can discourage people in this instance by making the difference between 2 positive and 2 negative traits just strong enough to be taken seriously, but not in any way crippling. We can discourage throwing away people for their traits with prohibitive recruiting costs and recruits being rare. But ultimately, that mindset of powergaming can apply to everything, and attempting to design the game in a way that suppresses this without having gameplay suffer for it is a fool’s errant. Some people will reload the game for everything, from unfavourable battle results to characters gaining negative traits like being traumatized, as Levi suggested. That shouldn’t stop us from adding such traits in the first place. We’ll do our best to make this a balanced game that doesn’t necessitate or encourage any such powergaming, but ultimately, it comes down to how each individual player chooses to play the game for him or herself.

As I wrote in the paragraph above, the point isn’t to make sure no one can power game. This is a single player game so who cares? My point was that currently the game “forces” main stream user to save/reload because the recruitment situation is to “unfair” and is not an informed decision its a gamble. I am very sure that this perceived fact is correct and this causes trouble.

What the game shouldn’t strive for is therefore to make main stream users not wanting to save/reload but enjoy the game. That is my point! :) Exactly how can be debated of course. My suggestion was to give information so that you don’t have to. Other ways is indeed to alter the effects of traits and so on, although that is a much harder way. It’s very easy to end up with an either or situation. EITHER the bad traits are bad, and then people will save/reload to not getting them by mistake (it’s totally different if you know they are there) OR they are not that damaging to the character, in case they are really not that important. More of charm.

But, I have no objection against the latter. It’s charming and quirky. Right now, the disadvantages are sometimes REALLY damaging to the character (imo).

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.

Nothing is stopping them. If people want to game the system, they’ll do it.

Sure. But now you are just stating something obvious instead of extending it as an argument. Lets do that then. “I think it is irrelevant is a majority of the main stream gamers save/reload in order to avoid the bad traits”. That is what you are saying right?

Why do you say you want to achieve something and then say you don’t care if you implement things in a way that will totally ruin that aim. Because that IS what you are saying.

You are saying that you and the devs (links provided) want people to recruit merceneries that are NOT perfect and instead mold them into the squad. I have absolutely NO objection to that. Have you grasped that? Instead I am saying that the way it works now (and any similar fashion of ruining a recruitment with arbitrary bad traits) will cause massive save/reload for a majority of main stream players. Which means the game doesn’t offer most gamers what it says it wants to offer. And that is why I am suggesting a change here to avoid save/reload spam.

Now, there are ways to avoid this. Balancing traits. Or (as you said?) perhaps let ALL mercenaries have 2 good and 2 bad and so on. So MY suggestion to reveal isn’t necessarily the way to go. One may address i another way. But that still means that addressing my suggestion with “there is no issue” is faulty. And annoying for me. I always hate when people tell me 2+2=5.

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.

Right. Impression. I actually read developer’s diaries (Character traits and backgrounds, Character generation, hiring, shopping) as well as the FAQ and some other stuff that can be easily found on the internet if you look for it. That’s not an “impression” when something is stated clearly.

It totally respect that. I should be humble about not having that total impression that you have yet, because I haven’t been around yet.
On the other hand, the main “problem” in the discussion from my point of view is that there is an issue (perhaps an issue that is planned to be handled in another way I suggest) that isn’t about taste. And it seems that you repeatedly say there there is no issue because this is what devs want. The issue will still be there though. We are not helping in development by disregarding that there are things there that we don’t want to be there. We improve things by addressing them.

If unclear… I have not issues with random in the game (although it has to be reasonably balanced to work). There are links to devs saying this as well. Like stat gains when leveling. I have showed this game to two friends and they would save/reload when leveling to get max they can. I will not because it’s just variation, not crippling. And it’s not a result of my decisions so I don’t feel a fool for having bad luck. My two friends would (well, at least one of them) save/reload before going into town in order to get the best recruits available (hedge knight and sword master). I would not – it would ruin my feeling. They would save/reload before each battle and reply until winning. I would not, as it ruins the feeling for me.

As knowledgable in game dynamics I know that there is a line between power gaming and being “forced” to save/reload. I am pointing out that the situation with recruiting “forces” users like me to save/reload as it is now. I am not saying there cannot be other solutions than giving more information (although I would prefer that myself), but something should be altered here. Which is why we give information to devs what we think in early release? If you get all information and ALL mercenaries have 2 good and 2 bad. There you go – you will still be forced to mold mercenaries into your squad? And make an educated decision. Just an example of solutions.