Take a scalpel to this game

Post Reply
The Boz
Posts: 88
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:01 pm

Take a scalpel to this game

Post by The Boz »

Been playing the demo for about ten or so hours, then the early access game since release for... don't know. In late 2025 now. I have... thoughts. Many thoughts. Lots of tiny things that need changed here and there, explanations of features, etc, but all those are just details and window dressing. The core of my feedback is this:
Take a scalpel, and apply it to the game. Cut away meaningless, irrelevant, inconsequential, minor, redundant, confusing, convoluted, and vague mechanics, statistics and choices.

"Too much ?!" is very much the crux of the issue. The game's core has a lot of potential, a lot of stuff to work with, but there is so much veggies to chew on until you get to the meat, it's actually hard to believe.
Let's start with everyone's favorite: The Council. Why are there umpteen different types of councilors? Why are their types so haphazard and random, ranging from generic "scientist" and "spy" to the somewhat more specific "astronaut", "drug kingpin", and "police inspector"? Why are there so many orders using so many stats, and then some not using stats at all (even if it would make sense to use a stat, such as Surveil for Investigation)? Why are minor order and stat variations their only differences? Why are administration and command separate attributes? Why is loyalty even a thing, if you have no way of manipulating it at all? A good idea would be to reduce the number of different councilors to about six to eight, reduce the number of orders and stats by merging and contextually morphing them (investigating a councilor and surveiling a country could be the same button, for example). Every additional dimension or granularity you wish to add can be done through perks.

The "too much" theme extends to countries' stats. It all feels like the amalgamation of parallel work of two different designers who wanted these stats they know of in the game, and then it got merged into some sort of hodge-podge obsessive-compulsive chimera, and nothing about it is explained. The tutorial says nothing useful about shares and economy and GDP and anything else other than "these are numbers, you can look at them here." Why do I care about GINI coefficients? How much do I really get out of Advise? Why is this country richer than that country, but gives me less money? The game told me I should build an ops center or something in Germany. I should what the what now? Where is the build menu? Is there a whole category missing from the UI?

I just managed to get to the space ship stage. It took long, because the event of "weapons test in orbit destroys your stations in four different ways; pick which, but they all mean your station modules are equally destroyed" triggered three times in the past year alone, even though nobody has any space weapons or space ships. I like how you can put together your own ship, and that there are a lot of parts (which, judging from what is available, and what the research panel implies, also looks like it will get bloated into a miasma of non-choice options, so ymmv) [one part being the exact same as another, but twice as good for twice the weight, really?], but... Why do I need a transport? All my councilors have been galivanting around with the "yeet self to orbit" order without issue, and my Moon base and space station seem to be prospering without need of individually constructed transport ships. Why do I want to make anything other than a gunboat? Why doesn't the game mention any concept useful to the player at all here? Also, are the probes bugged? I see to be stuck on the "launch a proble" step, launched four already, none have progressed that task, and none have phoned back, either. Can't see them anywhere on any screen listing any hab, fleet, resource, unit, etc. What are the relevant differences between low and medium Earth orbit?

Research needs to be... tied together better. It balloons into width too much too fast (current options for my own projects is three whole screens of scrolling, and my research is actually really good, and at least 60%+ selfish). Prerequisites and chains, instead of vaguely connected puddles that lead nowhere and get obsoleted six months later, before you ever get to use them. Number of options here actually feels okay, it just could be organized into a more cogent tech and project tree.

So many questions, and the game provides so few answers. It keeps giving me mixed signals. "Alien ship here, maybe surveil the country", but surveil does nothing. Only two years later you find out that you have to research a dozen different techs to maybe get any return on alien activity from a surveil order, and you are still firing those out blindly. Does the hilariously ops-expensive "investigate alien activity" ever result in anything other than a minor bump to xeno research?

I'll probably have more thoughts later, when I actually uncover more entire phases of the game.
User avatar
johnnylump
Site Admin
Posts: 1262
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2015 4:12 am

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by johnnylump »

Thank you for taking the time to try the game and write up your thoughts in this level of detail.

Honestly, and I really hope you don't hold this against us, but I don't see the game developing the direction you are proposing and you may just be outside our intended audience. I know the old rule about 'don't present more than 7 options at a time' in a strategy game to avoid analysis paralysis, and it's a conscious decision on our part to instead make a great big kinda messy strategy space to play around in.

If you want to stick with it, you might try the small Solar System and a 3- or 4-faction game. That stuff isn't there only for older PCs, but for a different flavor. There's still all the research, mission options, and ship designs, but it does pare down some aspects for the tighter experience you may be after.
User avatar
Alitari
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:54 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by Alitari »

The Boz wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:37 amResearch needs to be... tied together better. It balloons into width too much too fast (current options for my own projects is three whole screens of scrolling, and my research is actually really good, and at least 60%+ selfish). Prerequisites and chains, instead of vaguely connected puddles that lead nowhere and get obsoleted six months later, before you ever get to use them. Number of options here actually feels okay, it just could be organized into a more cogent tech and project tree.

So many questions, and the game provides so few answers. It keeps giving me mixed signals. "Alien ship here, maybe surveil the country", but surveil does nothing. Only two years later you find out that you have to research a dozen different techs to maybe get any return on alien activity from a surveil order, and you are still firing those out blindly. Does the hilariously ops-expensive "investigate alien activity" ever result in anything other than a minor bump to xeno research?
These final two paragraphs sum it up for me at the moment.

It's nice to have choice ... but too much choice is bad. I like having a bit more than the usual (regular, railgun, laser, plasma) but this just feels excessive at the moment.

I'm at 2033 and generally pick the low hanging fruit technologies (so the ones that are the cheapest) ... and in just one category for ship design, I have 19 different kinds of Drive available to me, each with their own unique characteristics ... but which one is the best? Cheapest? Lightest? So many (really too many) considerations.
you may just be outside our intended audience. I know the old rule about 'don't present more than 7 options at a time' in a strategy game to avoid analysis paralysis, and it's a conscious decision on our part to instead make a great big kinda messy strategy space to play around in.
I am your demographic ... if your demographic is any thinner than me, there aren't going to be many people playing this game at all. I've put hundreds of hours into both XCOM games and deep strategy games like Stellaris ... but this feels like the micromanaging level of some of the early Iron Hearts games.

The challenge is ... we players haven't had the hundreds of hours you developers have had in putting the systems together ... so we can't see the details that are old hat to you. It feels like a classic overfamilarlization with a product that results in poor manuals because ... to the people writing the manual ... it's obvious, why should THIS need explaining?
The Boz
Posts: 88
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:01 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by The Boz »

Alitari wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 12:40 am I am your demographic ... if your demographic is any thinner than me, there aren't going to be many people playing this game at all. I've put hundreds of hours into both XCOM games and deep strategy games like Stellaris ... but this feels like the micromanaging level of some of the early Iron Hearts games.
This is pretty much me. EU3, 4, HoI4, Stellaris, etc. by the truckload. This? I'm vexed.
The Boz
Posts: 88
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:01 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by The Boz »

The Boz wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:37 amResearch needs to be... tied together better. It balloons into width too much too fast (current options for my own projects is three whole screens of scrolling, and my research is actually really good, and at least 60%+ selfish). Prerequisites and chains, instead of vaguely connected puddles that lead nowhere and get obsoleted six months later, before you ever get to use them. Number of options here actually feels okay, it just could be organized into a more cogent tech and project tree.
To expand on this a bit.
I am mid 2026 now, and am once again trying to cobble together my very first starship. The attempt was restarted three times because I keep getting the "oops weapons test wrecked your station" event, even though nobody has any weapon in orbit (no ships, and station armament modules seem to be missing for some reason).
I have Hall, Ion, VASIMR propulsion, half a dozen missile techs, at least three different rail or coil gun projects complete... Developing a new type of armor would take a month or two of research at the most.
The cheapest possible escort with the cheapest possible parts would take *almost a decade's worth* of Boost to complete (~380 or so, my current boost/month is +3.3). And then 90 days to "assemble" or whatever.

I can't be alone in seeing this is wrong, right?
User avatar
Alitari
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Sep 27, 2022 8:54 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by Alitari »

The Boz wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:49 amThe cheapest possible escort with the cheapest possible parts would take *almost a decade's worth* of Boost to complete (~380 or so, my current boost/month is +3.3). And then 90 days to "assemble" or whatever.

I can't be alone in seeing this is wrong, right?
This is the game's unspoken way of telling you that before you build space ships you need to build colonies to provide materials into the resources pool which you then draw from that to build. This is one reason why I think that Mission Control should apply only to habs / colonies, while having a second pool for fleets based on ports / supply depots / etc.

Overall it just seems that it isn't communicating what you need to do to get a ship built and that picking the wrong path is incredibly punishing but not telling you that there is a better path to take.
Steve84
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 11:54 am

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by Steve84 »

The Boz wrote: Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:49 am The cheapest possible escort with the cheapest possible parts would take *almost a decade's worth* of Boost to complete (~380 or so, my current boost/month is +3.3). And then 90 days to "assemble" or whatever.
Shipping anything from Earth is super expensive. That's very realistic. You're supposed to use the boost to build up colonies with local infrastructure and then transition to building things in space. Including ships from orbital shipyards. Try getting a moon or mars colony going.
The Boz
Posts: 88
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:01 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by The Boz »

I now have both a moon and mars mining going. Currently constructing the Sagitaur, a missile-and-torpedo based ship in the four thousand tons range.
Do you not find it strange how it is completely unfeasable to field a single armed ship until you have a thriving exoplanetary economy going? Even though there are two entire tiers of several dozens of techs before that step? In a game about protecting Earth from a superior space-based foe?
Deoloth
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:40 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by Deoloth »

No scalpel!

I think the core concepts are fine. Some of us love the complicated geopolitical simulators :D

I think a starting chain of objectives could be a good way to explain some concepts better. Maybe each faction should start with a pre-designated control point(s) and have some early objectives based around that, organizations, and nation management for the first few weeks/months of the game?
Just spitballing here.

Love this game so far. Early access so some TLC is a given, but I still really enjoy sinking my teeth into this, and I'm happy with how much meat it has at this early point.
There were a few early-game oddities I've noticed. My first event as academy mentioned 'debris from recent fleet battles' and that phrasing didn't quite make sense in the first few months of the game. A few techs also seem to hint at things that aren't quite known yet. I had a reference to the alien species before I even encountered them or knew what they looked like.

Still, I love this game so far, and I've already put in an obscene amount of hours in just the five days it had been out. Glad I had a few free days to enjoy this. I'm really excited to see where this goes.
The Boz
Posts: 88
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:01 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by The Boz »

What year are you in?
Deoloth
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:40 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by Deoloth »

Current game is Late 2028. I have the beginnings of a space force with three ships as Project Exodus on this playthrough. My last hour was crazy.
Earth situation destabilized. Humanity First, controlling the United States, just went to war with Servant Controlled E.U.
The E.U. actually nuked a U.S. army unit... IN Paris!
A few months later it dropped a nuke on Denver... So U.S. bombed London (Ireland, United Kingdom, France, and Portugal had merged. I controlled spain.). Then Dallas was nuked... Glasgow... Minneapolis... U.S. dropped a nuke for every one the E.U. dropped right until the E.U. ran out.

Nuclear Winter!
Perfect time for China(Initiative) to invade Spain (And get curb-stomped oddly from my two armies, but they also warred Sweden(protectorate) at the same time. Glad I had non-aggression with Protectorate and Academy. I finished my second martian mining base, so thankfully I'm not as reliant on boost now, because I'm more focused on popping armed forces or trying to maintain my economy. (What's left of the U.S. has 14k gdp per capita, all the scores are in shambles, but still has 14 nukes remaining.)

Almost don't need the alien invasion for this, jeez. Also, the weather patterns look crazy.
tstein
Posts: 20
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2022 4:41 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by tstein »

I think the main issue is not the sheer number of options but the fact they are NOT well presented.

Technologies for example.. order them by TYPE. Let me collapse them out and see only the types I want now.

On the economy and indicators, the tool; tips need to be reworked. They are very bad at transmitting what the items mean.

We need to have information of Why we can or cannot do something. A simple example?Why my 7 armies surrounding a country controlled by aliens cannot enter it? Why I cannot declare war against a country ruled by ALIENS? The game shows me a landed ufo and says I have 30 days to do soemthing about it, but does not LET me do it and does not tell me WHY.

Interface being clear on why you can or cannot do something is NOT a game design decision. That is not optional.
The Boz
Posts: 88
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2017 1:01 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by The Boz »

Hey, remember how the game outright tells you to waste *months* on surveiling locations, knowing you can't get literally anything out of that action until you unlock arbitrary abilities through tech projects? Good times, man. Good times.
blarglol
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:59 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by blarglol »

The Boz wrote: Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:28 pm Hey, remember how the game outright tells you to waste *months* on surveiling locations, knowing you can't get literally anything out of that action until you unlock arbitrary abilities through tech projects? Good times, man. Good times.
This I agree with you on. This is bad UI/UX
ecpgieicg
Posts: 48
Joined: Mon Oct 03, 2022 12:20 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by ecpgieicg »

No scalpel!

I would enjoy the game more if the game has more.

^^ just to share a perspective

For some of the issues covered in the thread, I don't see the solution being to cut the game's intended features. What could help is some narrative guidance and faction identity in terms of game mechanics.

If the player chooses to focus on earliest possible space fleet, that can be a hard mode. And maybe it can be associated with the narrative of a faction like Exodus. (Perhaps it already is; I haven't tried it yet.) With that, there could be more guidance in the missions and pop-up dialogues for that faction -- on top of a "hard mode" label. For playthroughs with other factions, it should suffice to leave some cautions questioning the player why they should need a fleet and vague warn of the many components and difficulties.
neilwilkes
Posts: 184
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:44 am

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by neilwilkes »

Please, I beg you, no scalpel!
I missed out on the early development phase through not knowing it existed but the version I am currently playing (the Steam release) is incredibly rich, detailed & seriously involved - and I am so far out of my depth I need not only water wings but a lifeguard - and I am loving it.

The 'not knowing what I am actually doing' bit is not a weakness - it is very true to what would happen if this situation was real - First Contact with the Aliens finding us first would leave our entire species not knowing what had hit them & the way that the creeping paranoia that would inevitably happen in real life is done close to perfection in my mind.
I'm usually a Civ6 player, occasionally trying to get to grips with 'Children Of a Dead Earth' where you actually have to learn Orbital Mechanics, but this game makes Civ6 look like tiddlywinks.

Please, I beg you, do not dumb this down at all.
Darksidr
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Oct 07, 2022 8:15 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by Darksidr »

The Boz wrote: Wed Sep 28, 2022 9:37 am Why is loyalty even a thing, if you have no way of manipulating it at all? A good idea would be to reduce the number of different councilors to about six to eight, reduce the number of orders and stats by merging and contextually morphing them (investigating a councilor and surveiling a country could be the same button, for example). Every additional dimension or granularity you wish to add can be done through perks.
I agree with you on somethings but not about the loyalty of councilors. it can be manipulated very easily.

You can investigate the Councilor and find out his/her Loyalty then use INSPIRE to raise Loyalty.
eskander
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2022 9:56 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by eskander »

Always the risk with complex passion projects is accessibility. Unfortunately, those of us that like complex, crunchy, detailed games often get features simplified from us to appease a wider audience. I'm glad the devs have the stance they do in this thread and I"m sure many others playing this game are excited about the complexity.

That said, while agreeing that the rough information display/learning experience may be at fault for some of these gripes, I think another area that contributes to these gripes is not so much that there's too much to the game, but rather the core gameplay loop isn't smooth. Ie. the councilor whack-a-mole minigame.

If the common cycle of assigning/managing councilors weren't so time consuming and distracting on a constant basis, I think the players would have more headspace and focus on the depth that does matter.

Repeat mission is a small bandaid since often there's a variable decision on how much x resource to contribute as a bonus to mission success that may differ on each instance.

I think a salve that may change player experience in a large way is a rethink of the councilor mission cycle -- and possibly have more automation available. At the simplest, I can imagine an auto-pilot style mode that you may specify a loose priority and not have to worry much about what they're doing. The downside is this may radically have deviant resolutions from what the player had in mind and thus ultimately not be used.

A more difficult implementation would be another UI section for programming the councilor AI -- setting conditions, applying mission priorities, customizing budgets for bonuses, priority lists of targets, etc. I don't know if that's practical, but I can imagine how much more relieved I would be if I started a playthrough, made my programming templates for councilors based on what I wanted to achieve, and then could comfortably mass advance time, focusing on the all the rest of the crunchy detail in the game with only having to occasionally tweak/redirect the councilors. A downside here is obviously the AI programming might be even more complex than many players are willing to deal with.

Perhaps a third option might be more of a specification of endstates/goals than managing the councilors directly. ie. "I want to gain CPs in Eurasian Union countries -- and willing to use control, public support, purge, crackdown, coup to achieve this, willing to target any faction, and willing to use x budget of each resource every phase, with x councilors". Then the councilors are managed by AI for that endstate, perhaps with a quick approval screen for the player to commit to after the AI has selected the missions.

Really anything to speed up or smooth the core gameplay loop to allow us to better focus on the rich geopolitical sim that this is, without a loss or 'scalpel' of the detail we have already.
pestig
Posts: 9
Joined: Sat Nov 28, 2020 11:07 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by pestig »

Sometimes a quick small change can have similar impact on UX as a complex system like you mentioned:

As someone suggested if instead of select Councillor-> Select Job-> Select target as an alternative it would be possible to Select Target -> Select Job -> Councillor then some of the burden would be reduced.

Also probably some that are hurt by the optimization of councillor whack a mole: They could use an easier (custom) difficulty setting where they could ignore playing that part of the game optimal a bit more.

So I think a bit new UX in that job and 1-2 additional difficulty param could solve without compromising on complexity, and without a hard to implement automation - that also takes away from the experience - and can become a steep learning curve in itself.

Regarding the scapel: Please don't. The niche of this game is being ambitious and a certain complexity. It will not became AAA game -> No budget for that anyhow. But can become a great game for the rest. On the other hand if I were Pavonis I would not promise the other scenarios as free. DLC them since the game will be a relative small userbase with hundreds of hours sink in.
eskander
Posts: 4
Joined: Sat Oct 08, 2022 9:56 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by eskander »

I'd be more concerned about the distraction/rabbit hole of different difficulties with different mechanics. And to be clear, I don't think anything should be taken from the existing councilor/agent system -- any automation remedies should not obscure or prevent a player from optimal min/max playing.

My line of thinking is just that we need that important tool to be quicker to get through -- especially when you reach those points in the game where you feel like you have more councilors than specific purpose for them. Maybe the target > mission > councilor logic you mention would smooth it a little.

As for the automation idea of giving broad directives -- it may be especially complicated for devs to implement on the backend, but i could imagine a user interface screen where you can create a priority list of a few broad directives with checklists/droplists that makes giving and managing them fairly easy and intuitive -- and selecting which councilors this applies to, so if there are ones the player prefers to regularly micromanage, then it is not an obstacle.

A specific example: Let's say I have decided the path for my session is to develop/grow the Eurasian Union through mostly diplomatic means. The gameplay loop that follows during that entire effort is generally assigning my persuasion heavy agents with control nation (for open ones), or public support for ones already controlled, sending my purge guy for CPs that have a decent chance, sending my crackdown guy for ones that don't. Then the meticulous process of looking at the time lock for full control and then the time lock for the next relationship improvement, and acting on it in each interval in the gradual process of unifying. The choices being made here at each assignment phase are not tactical or strategic decisions really -- rather it is much more clerical in nature. The strategy was in shaping the directive (conceptually) in the first place; arguably the most variable aspects are how much resources to throw at bonuses at each step which also feels formulaic (ie. give as much as I can to reach x percentage that I feel good about) and what adversary agent activity may thwart my efforts. The clerical work/decisions end up taking a significant amount of my gameplay time which might obscure a players' attention/focus on other deeper aspects of the game systems.

This is why a blended automation/micromanage system is better solution than gutting any micromanage part -- I can leave certain councilors free from this directive for me to manage -- for those actual tactical/strategic situations with meaningful choice; or since the automation is only doing the legwork of assigning the next target/mission, I can view these base assignments in a summary screen before committing to it and at that point deviate by tasking someone out to deal with a specific situation that has cropped up. Again, not taking anything away from the current options -- rather I see the value in a system that reinforces our position as an executive -- not middle management; where we may create directives (but are not forced to) at the strategic level, our AI managers do the clerical taskmaster work, and we are still in a position to make tactical decisions as we continually monitor and evaluate the situation. This may be a bit of a pipe dream, but I'm hopeful the devs can find a good way to smooth the current system out a bit so it does not cost so much gameplay time for clerical matters.

This game heavily reminds me of Star Wars Rebellion (1995) in terms of tools available to us. And I loved the micromanagement of the agents in that title. What was different, though, was that you had a much more massive pool of agents (easily 20-40 if I remember right) and travel for missions in the galaxy took a significant amount of game time -- assign an agent to a location across the width of the galaxy? That agent will be tied up for a LONG time. Thus even though you were micromanaging a whole host of agents, many, once allocated to a mission, you did not have to continually retask for a long while. Additionally, the game had many roles for these agents where they provided plenty of benefit from just sitting there, untasked -- ie. they could occupy command positions, providing benefits, or escort captives. Ultimately managing these agents did not feel clerical.

For Invicta, I feel too often like middle management, having meetings with my councilors every few weeks about overdue TPS reports. I think the devs have a lot of options for some remedy on this -- and within the frame of this thread's topic, I think that would go a long way to reducing some friction with at least a subset of players, but I may be misjudging that.

Sorry for the long winded thoughts, but pain pills for shingles make me talkative and pedantic. Good luck to the devs in navigating their already gem of a game. And though I don't think this needs to be said anymore here, but please don't simplify the depth of this game -- that is a path to mediocrity.
IAMTHELAW
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2022 4:43 pm

Re: Take a scalpel to this game

Post by IAMTHELAW »

So, I think the OP's post was written well.

However, I disagree with it. Posting mostly just to lend voice to an opposite viewpoint. I would prefer it to get more in-depth, complicated, and especially advocate for more transparency (more tooltips and more information in the tooltips)

The game is already too complicated to attract people seeking more casual gameplay.

Game is great already and I already recommend it to all my grand-strategy loving friends.
Post Reply