Player actions need more noticable effect overall

[GC13]

Assisting with armada construction, for instance.  As best I can tell, this does nothing.

Armada construction? Oh, that definitely does something. Now, harvesting space junk? That does nothing. (Well, it makes the space junk go away, but it doesn't do anything else.)

[Platypus]

To shamelessly parrot what Mick has already said; more numbers is better. Or rather being able to hover over a number and see a tooltip describing the number's effect on the simulation. For Example "1 Medical = -0.01% Planetary Death Rate"

I want an endless conveyor of maths directly feeding into MY SKULL or at least there on the side so I can always make my own spreadsheets and get all analytical and stuff.

So yes, I'm adding nothing new here. Better clarity of the value of a particular action and a general cleanup/streamlining of what is already present in the game. To get all folksy, my friends and I played a game of their own devising that they called Ten Thousand the goal being to get ten thousand points. Each goal was worth one thousand points, even as a kid I remember being bothered by this because if the goal is to get 10 baskets why not just call the game Ten? The thousands were literally just extra zeros. I think I have adequately demonstrated that I was a weird kid. But the point still stands!

Also all the extra diplomacy stuff can come later, that's more of my own wishlist than anything. Or maybe it won't, it's hard to get over the desire for the game you want to be created vs the actual game being made.

[Conductorbosh]

To shamelessly parrot what Mick has already said; more numbers is better. Or rather being able to hover over a number and see a tooltip describing the number's effect on the simulation. For Example "1 Medical = -0.01% Planetary Death Rate"

I agree in general with many suggestions in this thread, but this one is specifically great and should be very simple to implement.

I've made a mantis for it:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14770

[Misery]

Assisting with armada construction, for instance.  As best I can tell, this does nothing.

Armada construction? Oh, that definitely does something. Now, harvesting space junk? That does nothing. (Well, it makes the space junk go away, but it doesn't do anything else.)

It never seems to do anything when I try it.

I'll jump in and do that for like 20 months, and come away from it thinking "Yay! I made like.... er.... 1/6th of a ship.  ....joy?" after seeing the related numbers not change at all.

Though, something like that is also going towards the need for more stats and screens and all of that.  I'd love to be able to open something up and see exactly WHAT is affecting all of that... just how much of an impact I did have, and what other factors may have been contributing or impeding progress, and why/how they did so.

Typically I aint a fan of math.... cant do a damn bit of it without at least a calculator.... but in the case of things like this, I'm not the one doing the math anyway, the machine is, and I *do* like to be able to look at the results and effects in a very detailed way.  It's usually the way I approach strategy games as a whole.

[Mal]

The problem is that alot of these actions available, in terms of pure gameplay and numbers, simply dont have enough effect. Assisting with armada construction, for instance.  As best I can tell, this does nothing.  Or the example of the explosive sudden war I mentioned originally.   Something like that massively affects the overall simulation, and more importantly, the strategies being implemented, but it happened and ended so fast that I couldnt do ANYTHING about it... it went by even faster than a very short dispatch mission.  Even if I hadnt been on a dispatch at the time, I still just could not have done anything about it in the 6 or so months that the war took. I have political options, but they're not strong enough.  I can sabotage things.... but not enough to have a true effect on the situation.  I could improve relations.... very, very, VERY slowly. 

The wars starting and ending suddenly with the conflict really only happens if you are busy elsewhere for a number of months..unless you are just spamming the 2x speed button that really throws shit into the future fast.

However, I find that you can influence things very well...but you MUST use the other races for their specialties in order to have these big effects. Like the boarines or peltians giving you a large boost of influence for races ( or making two races like each other by +15 in just a month, thats awesome!)....or the evucks generating a disease for a race that they hate ( and that you also hate as well)...or the burlusts going and knocking down the doors of any race you tell them sucks...

I have done all of the above...and I think they qualify for effecting the game on a big scale.

If you are referring to the dispatch missions, they are more useful for a broad spectrum of credit, influence, and a particular effect ( that is usually smaller but a bonus to the task generally). It can be useful if you need a few small bumps of money or influence to do more things...but it is not a method of conquering the game, its merely a small tool in your belt.

To shamelessly parrot what Mick has already said; more numbers is better. Or rather being able to hover over a number and see a tooltip describing the number's effect on the simulation. For Example "1 Medical = -0.01% Planetary Death Rate"

I agree in general with many suggestions in this thread, but this one is specifically great and should be very simple to implement.

I've made a mantis for it:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14770

The tooltip is a good idea but I know for a fact that medical does more than just this. But I heavily agree with the concept, I would love to see everything that medical does do for or against a race...if only it is somewhere in the games built in encyclopedia or something.

[NichG]

Armada construction really is one of the more potent ones you can do. I managed to get the Peltians, ravaged by disease and down to 1m population, to defeat an Acutian Fear Empire by just doing 60-month 'help with Armada Construction' dispatches. Plus there's a nice graph feedback of the effects - you can really see the fleet-size spike.

[Draco18s]

Plus there's a nice graph feedback of the effects - you can really see the fleet-size spike.

Assuming that your actions resulted in that spike.  Here's two screenshots.  They are 9 game-years apart.  I was actively doing NOTHING.




And if that isn't weird enough, have a third.  Compare it with the second.  Less than 1 game year has elapsed.



Uh.

Where did that 1m Skylaxian army come from, around year 76?

[Misery]

The problem is that alot of these actions available, in terms of pure gameplay and numbers, simply dont have enough effect. Assisting with armada construction, for instance.  As best I can tell, this does nothing.  Or the example of the explosive sudden war I mentioned originally.   Something like that massively affects the overall simulation, and more importantly, the strategies being implemented, but it happened and ended so fast that I couldnt do ANYTHING about it... it went by even faster than a very short dispatch mission.  Even if I hadnt been on a dispatch at the time, I still just could not have done anything about it in the 6 or so months that the war took. I have political options, but they're not strong enough.  I can sabotage things.... but not enough to have a true effect on the situation.  I could improve relations.... very, very, VERY slowly. 

The wars starting and ending suddenly with the conflict really only happens if you are busy elsewhere for a number of months..unless you are just spamming the 2x speed button that really throws shit into the future fast.

However, I find that you can influence things very well...but you MUST use the other races for their specialties in order to have these big effects. Like the boarines or peltians giving you a large boost of influence for races ( or making two races like each other by +15 in just a month, thats awesome!)....or the evucks generating a disease for a race that they hate ( and that you also hate as well)...or the burlusts going and knocking down the doors of any race you tell them sucks...

I have done all of the above...and I think they qualify for effecting the game on a big scale.

If you are referring to the dispatch missions, they are more useful for a broad spectrum of credit, influence, and a particular effect ( that is usually smaller but a bonus to the task generally). It can be useful if you need a few small bumps of money or influence to do more things...but it is not a method of conquering the game, its merely a small tool in your belt.

To shamelessly parrot what Mick has already said; more numbers is better. Or rather being able to hover over a number and see a tooltip describing the number's effect on the simulation. For Example "1 Medical = -0.01% Planetary Death Rate"

I agree in general with many suggestions in this thread, but this one is specifically great and should be very simple to implement.

I've made a mantis for it:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14770

The tooltip is a good idea but I know for a fact that medical does more than just this. But I heavily agree with the concept, I would love to see everything that medical does do for or against a race...if only it is somewhere in the games built in encyclopedia or something.

As the war bit goes, it happened over a VERY brief period.  About 5-6 months was all it took for total annihilation.  The derpy bit?  There WASNT major hate between the two... they were kinda neutral.   The Skylaxians just suddenly decided "KILL ALL THE THINGS", and BAM.... it was over.  Typically though, once a war starts.... that's it.  I can screw with political actions all I want, it wont stop it.  The only real thing that I can do is try to get a race to attack one of the warring ones... but this just makes things worse in most cases. And I'm not the sort to leap forward by 60 months in one go or anything... I get too much of a loss of control that way.  Typically, the max I'll do for a single dispatch is 10-20, unless it's a darned important tech that needs to be gotten ASAP yet has a high-ish cost.  That's rare though.

All in all though, my core point in all of this isnt so much what options do what, and how much.... it's that the overall impression that alot of players are having is that they just cannot affect things enough to truly HAVE an effect.  Not a good impression for players to get with a game like this.  I only agree in part, and I know what options ARE stronger, but the main fact is that there's still alot of weaker ones.  Some dispatch missions, for instance... they're an important way to get money, albeit a bit dependant on playstyle, but a good number of these are just too weak/slow.  Typically the main ones I do are research/construction, with many of the others being too weak to be of much use.   Which is a shame, because there's so much potential depth in the dispatch system.   And all of this affects their impressions and thoughts of the game, and their opinion on it as a whole.  It's the reason for some of the negative reviews I've seen from players in various places. 

The RCI is definitely the worst though, the numbers just cant be dealt with even remotely fast enough by the player to have an actual effect, since they seem to need to be quite high/low indeed, but they can only truly be dealt with in tiny increments most of the time.  But overall, this is a general issue that's been mentioned quite often, which is why I bring it up.

[lifehole]

The problem is that alot of these actions available, in terms of pure gameplay and numbers, simply dont have enough effect. Assisting with armada construction, for instance.  As best I can tell, this does nothing.  Or the example of the explosive sudden war I mentioned originally.   Something like that massively affects the overall simulation, and more importantly, the strategies being implemented, but it happened and ended so fast that I couldnt do ANYTHING about it... it went by even faster than a very short dispatch mission.  Even if I hadnt been on a dispatch at the time, I still just could not have done anything about it in the 6 or so months that the war took. I have political options, but they're not strong enough.  I can sabotage things.... but not enough to have a true effect on the situation.  I could improve relations.... very, very, VERY slowly. 

The wars starting and ending suddenly with the conflict really only happens if you are busy elsewhere for a number of months..unless you are just spamming the 2x speed button that really throws shit into the future fast.

However, I find that you can influence things very well...but you MUST use the other races for their specialties in order to have these big effects. Like the boarines or peltians giving you a large boost of influence for races ( or making two races like each other by +15 in just a month, thats awesome!)....or the evucks generating a disease for a race that they hate ( and that you also hate as well)...or the burlusts going and knocking down the doors of any race you tell them sucks...

I have done all of the above...and I think they qualify for effecting the game on a big scale.

If you are referring to the dispatch missions, they are more useful for a broad spectrum of credit, influence, and a particular effect ( that is usually smaller but a bonus to the task generally). It can be useful if you need a few small bumps of money or influence to do more things...but it is not a method of conquering the game, its merely a small tool in your belt.

To shamelessly parrot what Mick has already said; more numbers is better. Or rather being able to hover over a number and see a tooltip describing the number's effect on the simulation. For Example "1 Medical = -0.01% Planetary Death Rate"

I agree in general with many suggestions in this thread, but this one is specifically great and should be very simple to implement.

I've made a mantis for it:
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14770

The tooltip is a good idea but I know for a fact that medical does more than just this. But I heavily agree with the concept, I would love to see everything that medical does do for or against a race...if only it is somewhere in the games built in encyclopedia or something.

As the war bit goes, it happened over a VERY brief period.  About 5-6 months was all it took for total annihilation.  The derpy bit?  There WASNT major hate between the two... they were kinda neutral.   The Skylaxians just suddenly decided "KILL ALL THE THINGS", and BAM.... it was over.  Typically though, once a war starts.... that's it.  I can screw with political actions all I want, it wont stop it.  The only real thing that I can do is try to get a race to attack one of the warring ones... but this just makes things worse in most cases. And I'm not the sort to leap forward by 60 months in one go or anything... I get too much of a loss of control that way.  Typically, the max I'll do for a single dispatch is 10-20, unless it's a darned important tech that needs to be gotten ASAP yet has a high-ish cost.  That's rare though.

All in all though, my core point in all of this isnt so much what options do what, and how much.... it's that the overall impression that alot of players are having is that they just cannot affect things enough to truly HAVE an effect.  Not a good impression for players to get with a game like this.  I only agree in part, and I know what options ARE stronger, but the main fact is that there's still alot of weaker ones.  Some dispatch missions, for instance... they're an important way to get money, albeit a bit dependant on playstyle, but a good number of these are just too weak/slow.  Typically the main ones I do are research/construction, with many of the others being too weak to be of much use.   Which is a shame, because there's so much potential depth in the dispatch system.   And all of this affects their impressions and thoughts of the game, and their opinion on it as a whole.  It's the reason for some of the negative reviews I've seen from players in various places. 

The RCI is definitely the worst though, the numbers just cant be dealt with even remotely fast enough by the player to have an actual effect, since they seem to need to be quite high/low indeed, but they can only truly be dealt with in tiny increments most of the time.  But overall, this is a general issue that's been mentioned quite often, which is why I bring it up.

Pretty much. RCI and dispatch missions need to be rebalanced. The entire game is very wonky sometimes. It claims to give player feedback for their actions but then it doesn't give the player clear feedback on why the simulation is doing what it does or the mathematics behind the simulation. The reason I say that is because there is so much weirdness and lack of clear action behind WHY the (using above 2 posts up example) skylaxians just lost their entire fleet with little to no effect on anything else, and it happened instantly. The AI makes some really dumb decisions in terms of its tactics, and really needs to become aware of the odds and effects of its actions. It's ridiculous that the AIs war system at this point basically boils down to "well, we reached x population, and the random chance dictates that we go to war, so lets blindly go to war with no consideration for the political or military situation with some random neutral guy for no apparant reason! And then lets blindly send all of our fleets to their doom due to either poor strategy or lack of situational awareness!" I'd understand a stupid decision like this from races like the burlust, but when evucks and skylaxians just seem to do things for no reason it really paints a poor picture for the player.

[Misery]

Pretty much. RCI and dispatch missions need to be rebalanced. The entire game is very wonky sometimes. It claims to give player feedback for their actions but then it doesn't give the player clear feedback on why the simulation is doing what it does or the mathematics behind the simulation. The reason I say that is because there is so much weirdness and lack of clear action behind WHY the (using above 2 posts up example) skylaxians just lost their entire fleet with little to no effect on anything else, and it happened instantly. The AI makes some really dumb decisions in terms of its tactics, and really needs to become aware of the odds and effects of its actions. It's ridiculous that the AIs war system at this point basically boils down to "well, we reached x population, and the random chance dictates that we go to war, so lets blindly go to war with no consideration for the political or military situation with some random neutral guy for no apparant reason! And then lets blindly send all of our fleets to their doom due to either poor strategy or lack of situational awareness!" I'd understand a stupid decision like this from races like the burlust, but when evucks and skylaxians just seem to do things for no reason it really paints a poor picture for the player.

Actually, perhaps I phrased it wrong, but the Skylaxians werent the ones that got deleted.... it was them that crushed the Thoraxians.  Which.... actually seems a bit loopier.

Somehow the honorable Skylaxians became unstoppable galactic terrors because.... I have no idea.

Their actions throughout my playthrough so far actually seem more like the work of a glitch or something, but it's hard to tell.

[Mick]

It's hard for me to know how unbalanced RCI missions may or may not be, because I have no clue what +10/20/30/... of any RCI value even means.

[Histidine]

It's hard for me to know how unbalanced RCI missions may or may not be, because I have no clue what +10/20/30/... of any RCI value even means.

Times like this, I wish we could read the source code for ourselves to sanity check it.

[I-KP]

It's hard for me to know how unbalanced RCI missions may or may not be, because I have no clue what +10/20/30/... of any RCI value even means.

Times like this, I wish we could read the source code for ourselves to sanity check it.

Precisely. 

There are very good reasons why Paradox produce some of the best grand strategy games available today, and chief amongst those reasons is the ability to view all present (and sometimes past) modifiers that are applied to any given number; they also do a very good job of imparting the necessary knowledge to understand how 'valuable' any given number is, i.e., you always know exactly what a number is worth to you. 

TLF does the polar opposite of those things: it doesn't tell you what modifiers are being applied to any given number, and it doesn't give you any help in understanding the 'worth' of any given value.  The RCI numbers are an excellent example of where, in my opinion, TLF gets it wrong: I've got no idea what modifiers were/are in play to explain why, for example, the Skylaxian Economy went up by 500% in the space of four years, and I have no clue what 'Economy +1905' actually means.  (All I can say is that +1905 is 1905 times better than 1 – but actually is it..?!  I have no idea!)

I'm a fairly intelligent chap and I consider grand strategy games to be my favourite genre (a genre now almost entirely dominated by various Paradox offerings) but TLF constantly leaves me baffled as to why something just happened, and I find it completely impossible to even part-way-accurately predict what's about to happen.  I don't mind it when crazy things happen in grand strategy games so long as they can be traced, examined, and ultimately explained; in TLF that process is, by and large, impossible because every meaningful concept is agonisingly opaque.  I suppose I'm just meant to 'trust the simulation' but-- well, I don't because I suspect that the maths is fundamentally wonky.

I like TLF – or more accurately, a really want to like it – but to my mind this game has a very long way to go before it call believably call itself a grand strategy game, and a very large part of that journey would be accomplished by simply (yeah, if only it really was 'simple') making the numbers transparent to the player.

[lifehole]

I agree that more transparency on the exact effects is needed. There's good tooltips, but there should be something like if I mouse over the RCI value for economy it doesn't just give me flavor text of what it does, but directly shows me the stats it is effecting, and by how much. (The stats on the planet detail view? I don't even know what stats the RCI affects)

[Mick]

Have any mantis issues been created from the discussion in this thread? I've considered it, but I don't feel comfortable compiling a "consensus" into a ticket (because it feels like I'm speaking for other people). Would it make sense to kinda work out a summary of the of the complaints within the thread itself and post it once enough people have signed off on it?

Although maybe it's really just as simple as "Have the game show how the numbers work, especially in the case of RCI."

It's much easier to talk about the balance of various player activities once that is done first.