An absurd ending...

hairlessOrphan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:36 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by hairlessOrphan »

DaviBones wrote:I wasn't trying to brag by explaining how I figured out, I was just pointing out that it is in fact possible with the tools they have given us to figure it out without looking online.
Sorry, I wasn't accusing you of bragging. Ironically, though, I was pointing out that it's not really feasible to figure it out without looking online unless everyone has the what-we-designed-on-paper experience you had, where the various ticking events are nicely spaced out so their effects are consistent and can't be conflated with each other.

I don't know what the best answer is, but I don't think I'd advocate for just exposing the Vigilance mechanics. Without context, that becomes just another mystery word in a jumble of words that are all closely related in English but mean critically different things in-game. My approach would be more like: ensure that players can not suddenly lose the game due to hidden mechanics they don't necessarily have a chance to understand how to interact with. You can achieve that by making the mechanics more explicit, but you can also do that by giving the player more chances to recover, slowing or smoothing out the Advent-is-winning-more curve, making the effects of the interactions more isolated, or something similar.

I agree that letting players reason about the mechanics using real-world logic is awesome, but I don't know that the Strategy layer in XCOM is sophisticated enough for that. "Vigilance" and "Strength" and "Threat" are abstractions that capture an arbitrary subset of factors a player would think about when trying to reason about real-world guerrilla resistance. The reason why Dwarf Fortress works like that is because it models so many factors so concretely (as in: non-abstractly) that it feels comprehensive. XCOM2 and LW2 is not like that. Is it easier or harder to pacify / liberate a highly-developed region like Western Europe vs. an under-developed one like East Africa? It isn't, and regional differences in economy - the #1 factor in reasoning about control on a global scale in the real world - is a non-factor here.

Even understanding the model that LW2 is using, I can't reason about it in real-world terms. How does my rescuing one sniper from a jail cell slow down their global R&D? The answer is: abstraction. Which is totally ok, but then as a player I need to know more about the abstract factors that are modeled in order to reason about them.
Jadiel
Posts: 214
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:28 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Jadiel »

hairlessOrphan wrote:I don't know what the best answer is, but I don't think I'd advocate for just exposing the Vigilance mechanics. Without context, that becomes just another mystery word in a jumble of words that are all closely related in English but mean critically different things in-game. My approach would be more like: ensure that players can not suddenly lose the game due to hidden mechanics they don't necessarily have a chance to understand how to interact with. You can achieve that by making the mechanics more explicit, but you can also do that by giving the player more chances to recover, slowing or smoothing out the Advent-is-winning-more curve, making the effects of the interactions more isolated, or something similar.
I'm still not sure what you're advocating here. I'm also not really sure what mechanic you think should be changed. You talk about 'suddenly losing the game due to hidden mechanics' - are you referring to the fact that the AVATAR project isn't revealed until you've liberated a region? Because I don't think that's really what this thread is about. If you're referring to the AVATAR project ticking up, then I would say the player isn't suddenly losing the game. It's pretty obvious what's going on. Marbozir knew he was close to losing the game, and he had been in that situation for some time (at least I assume that's the case, otherwise he wouldn't have run the clock down to 4 days). The game communicated this very clearly. If anything, I suspect the real culprit is carried-over learning from base XCOM2 which 'encourages' players to skirt the edge of the AVATAR project, and keep pip removal mechanisms in their back pocket. This strategy is not a good one to pursue in LW2, as you are given a method to slow down the AVATAR project right from the beginning of the game, and you should use it. The 20 day timer *is* the mechanic which stops you being able to suddenly lose the game, but if you insist on sailing that close to the wind, eventually you lose.

In terms of communicating how you should avoid losing, again I think it's pretty clear. Perhaps the information in the Commander's Quarters should be clarified to something like 'completing missions will slow progress on the AVATAR project', but the fact that there's already an indicator of how much you're slowing progress down, and it has to do with rebel activity makes it reasonably clear, IMO.
hairlessOrphan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:36 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by hairlessOrphan »

Jadiel wrote: I'm still not sure what you're advocating here. I'm also not really sure what mechanic you think should be changed. You talk about 'suddenly losing the game due to hidden mechanics' - are you referring to the fact that the AVATAR project isn't revealed until you've liberated a region? Because I don't think that's really what this thread is about. If you're referring to the AVATAR project ticking up, then I would say the player isn't suddenly losing the game. It's pretty obvious what's going on. Marbozir knew he was close to losing the game, and he had been in that situation for some time (at least I assume that's the case, otherwise he wouldn't have run the clock down to 4 days). The game communicated this very clearly. If anything, I suspect the real culprit is carried-over learning from base XCOM2 which 'encourages' players to skirt the edge of the AVATAR project, and keep pip removal mechanisms in their back pocket. This strategy is not a good one to pursue in LW2, as you are given a method to slow down the AVATAR project right from the beginning of the game, and you should use it. The 20 day timer *is* the mechanic which stops you being able to suddenly lose the game, but if you insist on sailing that close to the wind, eventually you lose.

In terms of communicating how you should avoid losing, again I think it's pretty clear. Perhaps the information in the Commander's Quarters should be clarified to something like 'completing missions will slow progress on the AVATAR project', but the fact that there's already an indicator of how much you're slowing progress down, and it has to do with rebel activity makes it reasonably clear, IMO.
That's exactly what I'm advocating: remedying the misconception that "skirt the edge of the AVATAR project" strategy is good. Why isn't it a good strategy? My early impression, given that Regional Strength was the clearest mechanic I could interpret, was that I was supposed to keep my head down for as long as possible (and keep Regional Strength as low as I could) while building up my team. Naturally, I dodged all the early "draw attention" missions, because why in the world would I want to draw attention to my ragtag band of rookies armed with popguns and rebellious t-shirts?

Oh. Vigilance.

If the message I'm getting right off the bat is that I'm trying to balance "minimizing attention" with "maximizing experience and resource build-up," letting AVATAR proceed sure seems like a good thing to trade off. Especially since it feels like deleting a pip on-demand is an effective countermeasure. Hiding the real cost of those early decisions - effectively teaching players that it works - and then unveiling the consequence hours later feels awful. I think the game should indicate that I'm actually trying to minimize AVATAR progress while sailing too close to the attention (the balance of Vigilance and Regional Strength) wind, or it should let me choose to skirt AVATAR.
DaviBones
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:30 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by DaviBones »

I'm getting the feeling we're over-complicating things here.

The basic strategic directive in not only Long War 2, but Long War 1 as well, is: "Do as many missions as you are able to do without losing soldiers, and spend all available resources on things that enable you to more safely do more missions. A wide roster is essential. Each mission failed, skipped, or not detected is a miniscule failure, but a failure nonetheless, and they will add up over the course of the campaign."

As long as you follow this directive, you will slow down the Avatar progress enough to be just fine.

What could be done to make this idea more clear to new players? That is the important question, it's not really necessary to delve into complex abstractions unless we are talking about Legend difficulty, which imho nobody should be playing for their first game, even Long War 1 vets.

There are of course a few exceptions to the above rule, but the only one that is really essential is "don't do missions in regions above ~6 strength unless you know exactly what you're doing." That's a bit easier to catch on to in-game though.
Dlareh
Posts: 125
Joined: Wed Mar 08, 2017 9:41 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Dlareh »

Currently when you skip a mission, it's obvious that you miss out on the rewards and event counters of that mission.

There are no obvious indicators that you're also missing out on slowing Avatar progress.

Wanting to make this more clear to new players is not "over-complicating" things.
Excitement continues to build as city centers across the globe prepare for the latest incarnation of Groundhog Day.
DaviBones
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:30 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by DaviBones »

Exactly. What *is* over-complicating is discussing vigilance, and its balance with regional strength, and which missions types add how much, etc.

The player just needs to work towards being able to do truckloads of missions if they don't want to lose the game. That's it. The hard part is wording that in a way that is both immersive and crystal clear.

EDIT: As a side note... The same dynamic occurred in Long War 1, where if you started skipping missions left and right (usually because you didn't have the manpower to do all the missions), the aliens would pull ahead, resulting in a slow and painful death spiral. The only difference is, in Long War 2, the death spiral is over much, much quicker. It is interesting that its quickness is what makes it so much more painful. I suppose it is probably because in Long War 1, you had months on end to figure out "Oh... I'm actually losing. What have I been doing wrong?" There is certainly a lesson in game design to be learned here; I would have guessed that people would be more frustrated at playing dozens of hours of a losing campaign, but it turns out it's quite the opposite.
hairlessOrphan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:36 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by hairlessOrphan »

Iunno man, if that's the prime directive, then I think what's over-complicating it is the in-game tip that tells you to skip some missions.

I totally agree with your sidenote, though. The key is always letting the player answer the question, "What have I been doing wrong?"

That's been my point, in all of these posts, except I've been going after the "How do I do it right?" angle. There are two strategic questions players have that the game currently gives super obvious and super wrong answers to:

1) How do I do it right: deciding which missions to take or skip.
Super obvious but wrong answer: cost-benefit of enemy activity vs. mission rewards (I'm including liberation progression as a reward, since players know that's a goal, and the mission descriptions explicitly say, "Liberation: Do a Thing").

2) How do I do it right: managing AVATAR progression.
Super obvious but wrong answer: facilities.

In both cases, the correct answer is Vigilance. I'm sure that's not coincidental; all the information in-game about Vigilance is very coded. IMO there are two ways to solve this problem. Either make the super obvious answers less wrong, or make the right answer more obvious and the wrong answers less obvious.
Jadiel
Posts: 214
Joined: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:28 am

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Jadiel »

hairlessOrphan wrote:That's exactly what I'm advocating: remedying the misconception that "skirt the edge of the AVATAR project" strategy is good. Why isn't it a good strategy? My early impression, given that Regional Strength was the clearest mechanic I could interpret, was that I was supposed to keep my head down for as long as possible (and keep Regional Strength as low as I could) while building up my team. Naturally, I dodged all the early "draw attention" missions, because why in the world would I want to draw attention to my ragtag band of rookies armed with popguns and rebellious t-shirts?

Oh. Vigilance.

If the message I'm getting right off the bat is that I'm trying to balance "minimizing attention" with "maximizing experience and resource build-up," letting AVATAR proceed sure seems like a good thing to trade off. Especially since it feels like deleting a pip on-demand is an effective countermeasure. Hiding the real cost of those early decisions - effectively teaching players that it works - and then unveiling the consequence hours later feels awful. I think the game should indicate that I'm actually trying to minimize AVATAR progress while sailing too close to the attention (the balance of Vigilance and Regional Strength) wind, or it should let me choose to skirt AVATAR.
Ok, I get where you are coming from. My first couple of campaigns I also tried to minimise ADVENT strength, and thought that I should be trying to avoid attention. However, my lightbulb moment was not when I learnt about Vigilance (that didn't actually make any difference to what I was doing), but when I learnt that the number of missions you do has almost no effect on global ADVENT strength at all. The only thing that player activity does to ADVENT strength is change how it is distributed. Maybe that needs to be relayed to the player somehow, because I think it makes a big difference to how the game is played.
RantingRodent
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 12:01 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by RantingRodent »

DaviBones wrote:"Do as many missions as you are able to do without losing soldiers, and spend all available resources on things that enable you to more safely do more missions. A wide roster is essential. Each mission failed, skipped, or not detected is a miniscule failure, but a failure nonetheless, and they will add up over the course of the campaign."
Maybe this should just replace the text about successful missions distracting the aliens.
Tuhalu
Posts: 433
Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2017 9:02 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Tuhalu »

RantingRodent wrote:
DaviBones wrote:"Do as many missions as you are able to do without losing soldiers, and spend all available resources on things that enable you to more safely do more missions. A wide roster is essential. Each mission failed, skipped, or not detected is a miniscule failure, but a failure nonetheless, and they will add up over the course of the campaign."
Maybe this should just replace the text about successful missions distracting the aliens.
What's a wide roster here? 30, 50, 100 guys? I've seen Legend campaigns won with as few as 30 in the roster at the end and not many more experienced troops than a single A team of 12.

In every successful campaign I've seen or played, at least twice as many missions were ignored as played. You are never going to play every mission you detect, much less detect every mission, much less detect every mission with doable timers. You might win every mission you can attempt with reasonable timers, but even that isn't assured or necessary.
hewhoispale
Posts: 62
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2017 1:27 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by hewhoispale »

Tuhalu wrote:
RantingRodent wrote:
DaviBones wrote:"Do as many missions as you are able to do without losing soldiers, and spend all available resources on things that enable you to more safely do more missions. A wide roster is essential. Each mission failed, skipped, or not detected is a miniscule failure, but a failure nonetheless, and they will add up over the course of the campaign."
Maybe this should just replace the text about successful missions distracting the aliens.
What's a wide roster here? 30, 50, 100 guys? I've seen Legend campaigns won with as few as 30 in the roster at the end and not many more experienced troops than a single A team of 12.

In every successful campaign I've seen or played, at least twice as many missions were ignored as played. You are never going to play every mission you detect, much less detect every mission, much less detect every mission with doable timers. You might win every mission you can attempt with reasonable timers, but even that isn't assured or necessary.
Having watched a few of those Legendary campaigns, some of them had so few guys left on the roster as a result of attrition. Xavier seemed particularly distressed about the thinness of his roster.

My observation is that optimal roster size is seems dependent on the point in the campaign. Early on, you need every warm body you can find. Mid game, feels to be throttled by equipment production, with depth of barracks providing backup hands to carry the cutting edge guns. End game seems to be mostly about building the A team for Golden Path missions, with a B squad(s) to cover retaliations and dark event missions while the tricked-out squad is infiltrating the primary objectives (and also train back-ups for the main squad).
Skeazix
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2017 3:35 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Skeazix »

DaviBones wrote:
However, let me point out that the fun in games like this is supposed to be in the learning experience, not the outright victory (although that is surely nice when it comes). Losing is part of learning, and is part of fun.
Losing a game that you played for an hour can be a fun learning experience. Losing a game that you played for weeks is never fun.
DaviBones
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Apr 03, 2017 8:30 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by DaviBones »

Skeazix wrote: Losing a game that you played for an hour can be a fun learning experience. Losing a game that you played for weeks is never fun.
For you, that is. I, and many others, feel quite the opposite. I just enjoy playing games, I don't care much if I win or lose. If anything, losing is a challenge to improve my skills and do better next time (yes, even after dozens of hours of investment).

Not trying to devalue your opinion, just pointing out that it's not the only opinion with value.
Skeazix
Posts: 10
Joined: Wed Feb 08, 2017 3:35 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by Skeazix »

DaviBones wrote:
Skeazix wrote: Losing a game that you played for an hour can be a fun learning experience. Losing a game that you played for weeks is never fun.
For you, that is. I, and many others, feel quite the opposite. I just enjoy playing games, I don't care much if I win or lose. If anything, losing is a challenge to improve my skills and do better next time (yes, even after dozens of hours of investment).

Not trying to devalue your opinion, just pointing out that it's not the only opinion with value.
Some people also have the opinion that sawing into their scrotum with a hot knife is a good time.
hairlessOrphan
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 4:36 pm

Re: An absurd ending...

Post by hairlessOrphan »

Skeazix wrote:
DaviBones wrote:
Skeazix wrote: Losing a game that you played for an hour can be a fun learning experience. Losing a game that you played for weeks is never fun.
For you, that is. I, and many others, feel quite the opposite. I just enjoy playing games, I don't care much if I win or lose. If anything, losing is a challenge to improve my skills and do better next time (yes, even after dozens of hours of investment).

Not trying to devalue your opinion, just pointing out that it's not the only opinion with value.
Some people also have the opinion that sawing into their scrotum with a hot knife is a good time.
Not even remotely comparable.

Losing a game that you played for weeks can totally be fun, *if you got something out of it*, for example knowledge about how to not fail next time.

The important factor is neither winning/losing nor quickly/slowly. It is always "did you get anything out of it?"
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