Reply To: Give enough information to make decisions

[Holy.Death]

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…:

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, 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.

a) I point out that there is a huge random factor in the usefulness in team members when recruiting as we get little or no information on the characterstics of the characters we recruit. We know what background they have, but we don’t get any information (unless I am mistaken – perhaps what he is asking in pay is a hint or the text? But I haven’t spotted a pattern.) whether he is big, tall, fat or any other characteristics that intuitively should be spotted. Besides this being unrealistic (not something I care that much about) it’s also gives the effect that it’s impossible to make a good decision. It’s a gamble.

Yes, it’s 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.

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.

d) I point out that I have nothing against a random feature for those who want to gamble, but I find it important (assuming the game is about making decisions) that management of the crew is more about informed decision and less of a gamble. Now if you want to make an informed decision to gamble.. that is your choice ? Forcing those that want to make informed decisions instead of gambling to save/reload isn’t really a good practice imo.

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.

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.

And here comes a puzzlin part. The quote you supply from devs seem to NOT be an answer to my suggestion or informed decisions whatsoever. It kind of strengthens the perception that you seem to not grasp the concept.

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.

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.

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.