New version .857 (RCI Dispatches, Combat Balance, Tutorials)

[x4000]

Release notes: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_Version_.857

Restart steam to force a quicker update if you like.

Huge thanks to those helping out translating the various feedback from threads into mantis.  Holy moly is there a lot of stuff, but thankfully a lot of it is not too serious.  I still desperately, desperately need to get quests in there, because their lack is really distorting... everything, really... about the flow of the solar map game.  A lot of the complaints about "there's no good way to do this or that" are actually really useful in helping me to design quests that let you do that sort of thing.  So if anyone wants to particularly point out those to me, feel free.  I have a pretty solid list of stuff that I was already planning and that was inspired by past player comments, though.

In terms of combat, I feel like it is more solid than ever.  Bits of the difficulty have been reduced, on harder difficulties bits have been increased, and so on.  The tutorial flow has been improved based on some general commentary, and my thoughts based on reading things by players.  The first mission is not insane anymore.  There are more tools in the combat interface to make it really clear what is going on when there are large battles, and your speed controls are better.

The early dispatch missions that could provide confusing uninteresting options have been delayed until certain mechanics have been unlocked, and there are four new powerful dispatch options relating to increasing the RCI values.  Those should really provide a lot of value, actually, in terms of the selection of dispatch missions at your disposal.

There were also some NASTY bugs in there.  Holy heck, there were things that were just skewing attitudes all over the place, and in some cases RCI values.  I'm not sure how we didn't notice this, it must have happened really recently.  Anyway, it works now, so that should help settle certain things down.

Enjoy!

[Professor Paul1290]

Combat feels quite a bit better now that crazy-speed on as much of the time, and engine power feels like a good thing to boost for those times you need that extra agility. It doesn't seem to have hurt the player's ability to evade damage as speeds "optimal" for dodging are still easily accessible, and that's good.

This note has me a bit worried though:

On hard difficulty, the speed of all shots except yours now goes up by 30%. On Misery difficulty, they go up by 60%.

Good grief, that sounds like it hurts! I'm not currently testing at that difficulty right now so I don't know if it does, but I guess Misery will let us know pretty quick. 

Other than that, it looks like I've gotten a fatal error while on the solar map, I'll Mantis it.

[chemical_art]

OK, playing round 2.

The first combat makes sense. Great!

OK, so the solar map runs in real time. That's OK. Paradox games do that all the time. However, in Paradox games, it is very real that sometimes you need peace so your country / population / resources can recover from war, because continous war causes bad things so you need peace sometimes. IF THF follows this model, that is OK. HOWEVER, if you should for the most part do something, I feel unless you press a button (space?) the map should pause so you can examine things.

Regardless of the optimal model, the game tooltip at start should ask "which do you prefer? realtime all the time, or turn paused with the option to skip turns by pressing a button?"

Also, on all paradox games that I remember, the game *starts* paused, so the player can examine their position and figure out how to unpause (and in the process figure out how to repause)

In a break from my usual model, this wasn't bad enough to stop my game, I'm now engaging a pirate baseafter giving a race some space faring tech. I have no idea how this will go.

[Mick]

I was with you on the pause thing at first, but honestly the game situation doesn't move very fast at the beginning to have pause really make that much of a difference. Even when stuff does start going down, it seems you have a very large window to react to anything.

I thought space used to pause, but it seems you have to press P now. (I could SWEAR that space paused before... am I crazy, or was the default changed?)

In any case, I think spacebar should be the default pause button.

[nas1m]

I was with you on the pause thing at first, but honestly the game situation doesn't move very fast at the beginning to have pause really make that much of a difference. Even when stuff does start going down, it seems you have a very large window to react to anything.

I thought space used to pause, but it seems you have to press P now. (I could SWEAR that space paused before... am I crazy, or was the default changed?)

In any case, I think spacebar should be the default pause button.

Pause was no longer deemed worthy of a hotkey as central as "space" in .857 .

[keith.lamothe]

I think the main trouble with the "solar map defaults to unpaused" behavior isn't that it hurts the player really at all, so much as the perception that many new players will have that it's hurting them because time's getting away from them.

That perception is very strongly ingrained from paradox games and the like, I think.  I know if I was playing HoI3 and it didn't pause immediately upon start/load, or unpaused automatically because I gave some kind of order (or whatever) I'd pretty much freak out even on speed 1

It's not so much the disadvantage, as the feeling of being out of control.

That said, once you do get used to TLF the slippery-pause nature of it isn't really a problem.  My concern is its impact on the new player experience.

[x4000]

Well, we could certainly change that to the default.  And if spacebar is something that seems like it is still needed to be the pause function, we could do it.  I honestly wasn't thinking about the solar map when I made that shift -- sorry, I am very tired, and that is not always good for decision-making.  In combat, it's definitely not worthy of spacebar, but it should be consistent between both either way.

[Tridus]

I tend to pause the solar map a lot, so I share that perception. Maybe it's not really an issue, but the perception is definitely there.

Having more success in combat, finally, and now that I'm getting deeper into the game the cool stuff is starting to unlock. In fact it looks like I can maybe form the federation now, so thats neat.

Once you start to get over the learning curve, it's pretty cool.

[x4000]

I'm trying to lessen the learning curve as fast as I can!

Thanks for the help with that guys, that aspect has come a long way recently.

[chemical_art]

So I stopped again. Not because I was bored, or frustrated, but because I didn't know what to do.

I got a few races some space faring tech. My next instinct was to improve their relations with me, but I had no idea how best to do this. I knew I could help them build things, warships, economy, etc, but I had no idea how they interacted. In short, I had no idea what to do. In other grand strategy games, you know either to build alliances (relations) or to war on enemies to keep them weak or to take their lands. But in this case, since I didn't know how to efficently raise relations, or how to really kick enemies down, i was confused. And that whole black market thing? No idea what is good or not.

[x4000]

Yep, that's a problem right now for some folks (the sort that aren't inclined to sandboxes naturally).  And I totally get that issue.  Right now the biggest thing on my to-do list is quests, which should help to alleviate that.  But if you wind up with specific things that also you would like strategy advice on at various points in your path through the tutorials, knowing those questions would be really really useful.  In as specific a way as possible, because then I can make the game answer those for you, you know?  What about the black market is confusing?  Etc.

[Misery]

The RCI dispatches sound like a superb idea.  Makes logical sense, too... going down directly to the planet to help them do something, as opposed to just researching something that they have to then help themselves with.  I like the idea of that direct intervention.

Feedback to come later.

[Mick]

I think one thing that's a bit confusing is the RCI tutorial.

All the tutorials pretty much halt the game and focus your attention on a new thing, but then it immediately tells you "don't worry about these". That's a little schizophrenic to me because the fact that it's focusing my attention on it tells me "hey, this is important stuff!", but then it tells me "no, not really".

But in addition to that, you get this tutorial at pretty much a point in the game where like 80+% of the actions you can do are about directly affecting RCI values for the planets. It seems you are telling me about these things, then telling me they aren't important, and then I run around the system looking for things to do and I can do is tweak around some numbers that I'm not supposed to care about, and have kinda hidden, non-obvious effects on everything.

It kinda makes me feel like most of the actions you can do are useless.

[madcow]

Could pausing just be removed from the battle sequences entirely? I don't really see a reason for having it anymore. Same with the slow motion option too. If any time related options are needed, it might be a "replay last turn outcome" but even that isn't really needed.

[chemical_art]

Yep, that's a problem right now for some folks (the sort that aren't inclined to sandboxes naturally).  And I totally get that issue.  Right now the biggest thing on my to-do list is quests, which should help to alleviate that.  But if you wind up with specific things that also you would like strategy advice on at various points in your path through the tutorials, knowing those questions would be really really useful.  In as specific a way as possible, because then I can make the game answer those for you, you know?  What about the black market is confusing?  Etc.

Well, the black market does do a good job in telling you to probably save your money, and do not buy technology if you don't need it. That's good. It also does a good job of letting you know why you need goons. That's good as well. So you are avoiding pitfalls which is great.

I guess one question I have is to clarify when to get goons. Is it a good idea to have a few around at all times in case you need them? Should you only buy them if you already have a use in mind? Does the price change ever, or does it stay the same? Is there another way to get them so I should wait in buying (or alternatively, should I just go ahead and buy?)


One question I have are resources. I know what they do, what I don't know is when I should use them to do X.

Also, if I right click on the black market i get a black screen. Pressing esc gets me out of it.