The Drox Operative Problem

[x4000]

Yep.  I actually just had some good ideas on how to make a more interactive auto-resolve rather than just having it be a button-press.  I am adding that to the spec right now for addition.

[Penumbra]

I actually just had some good ideas on how to make a more interactive auto-resolve rather than just having it be a button-press.  I am adding that to the spec right now for addition.

That sounds interesting. Usually the auto resolve is in games with a single victory condition coupled with a resource mechanic. You either win or lose in Total War, and the game can just determine how many units you lost. Final Fantasy(et al) is the same way, just with HP.

From your description of TLF's combat, it appears you could have multiple mutually exclusive goals, each with many different potential outcomes.

• Success! Took 35% damage and ticked off the Evucks (well, more than usual )
• Failure! Weakened an enemy planet
• Didn't really have a goal at all! 25% damage, saw some scenery

[x4000]

I actually just had some good ideas on how to make a more interactive auto-resolve rather than just having it be a button-press.  I am adding that to the spec right now for addition.

That sounds interesting. Usually the auto resolve is in games with a single victory condition coupled with a resource mechanic. You either win or lose in Total War, and the game can just determine how many units you lost. Final Fantasy(et al) is the same way, just with HP.

From your description of TLF's combat, it appears you could have multiple mutually exclusive goals, each with many different potential outcomes.

• Success! Took 35% damage and ticked off the Evucks (well, more than usual )
• Failure! Weakened an enemy planet
• Didn't really have a goal at all! 25% damage, saw some scenery

Something like that, except a bit more interactive.  It's actually making it almost into a choose-your-own-adventure multi-step battle but in a GUI.  You choose a target and see the likely outcomes, etc, and then it changes the state.  You can then do something else or run away, or you have won, etc.  It's basically all the decision-making of the combat, but abstracted out some and without any need for actual fighting in the SHMUP sense.

[Penumbra]

It's actually making it almost into a choose-your-own-adventure multi-step battle but in a GUI. 

That sounds amazing!

[Cinth]

Something like that, except a bit more interactive.  It's actually making it almost into a choose-your-own-adventure multi-step battle but in a GUI.  You choose a target and see the likely outcomes, etc, and then it changes the state.  You can then do something else or run away, or you have won, etc.

Reminds me of some old D&D adventure books I used to have.  Read a segment and come to a decision, make you choice, turn to the corresponding page and keep reading.  The reader had full control over the outcome in the book.  Very fun reads.

[x4000]

Hopefully this will prove the same!  It's not literature, but it does tell a "story" in a very loose sense, heh.

[nas1m]

Yep.  I actually just had some good ideas on how to make a more interactive auto-resolve rather than just having it be a button-press.  I am adding that to the spec right now for addition.

To me this definitely sounds like the way to go if feasible to keep those who are interested mainly into the Grand Strategy/Simulation aspect of TLF from being alienated by a more Action oriented combat model. My guess is that the Strategy grognards will be the crowd that decides over (the initial) rise or fall of TLF - not the Action crowd. Only my two Cents of course...

[x4000]

Yeah, I think you're probably right.

[nas1m]

Any News on when round 2 will start? I am itching a bit to get my hands on your new baby

[x4000]

We're still in what I would technically called Round 0, honestly.  The solar map stuff is still just too confusing due to explanations just not being in place yet, and there are more bugs than I would like thanks to all the things we just changed over the last month.

I don't really have any more ETAs on specific rounds of testing, but we'll be letting in groups of 10ish players at least once per week from now on, often twice per week.  Right now I think there may be ~30ish people in the alpha, and we have another 70ish still waiting.  I plan to use everyone, so with around 4 weeks at most of development left, that gives some indication.

[keith.lamothe]

Right now I think there may be ~30ish people in the alpha, and we have another 70ish still waiting.  I plan to use everyone, so with around 4 weeks at most of development left, that gives some indication.

(mental images of infantry charges in trench warfare)

[Teal_Blue]

When i saw this post I thought, oh no! It seems at about this point in the testing, we all go crazy with worry, that the game is too much like this, or its not enough like that...

Anyway, I am trying to avoid that this time. I think it possible the panic produces frustrations on the dev side, and concerns on the new players and  forumite side. Maybe that is a natural part of the dev cycle.

But I was hoping we could sidestep the worry this time and just test what is there. Is the game fun? Does it flow smoothly? Does it fit with the next part over there? In other words very small and specific answers to very specific questions.

The over large questions of is this too much like this other game are really 'too much' to answer at this point. We are just starting to test a small part of a larger and more complicated game. And those over large worries just distract us from that process, and get us further away from what the game really is.

Anyway,  I'm hoping for the best and will be here when it is all 'baked and ready to go'  

-Teal

[Teal_Blue]

Just saw the idea with the resolve idea, that really sounds wonderful!!    Looking forward to it!

-T

[Castruccio]

When i saw this post I thought, oh no! It seems at about this point in the testing, we all go crazy with worry, that the game is too much like this, or its not enough like that...

Anyway, I am trying to avoid that this time. I think it possible the panic produces frustrations on the dev side, and concerns on the new players and  forumite side. Maybe that is a natural part of the dev cycle.

But I was hoping we could sidestep the worry this time and just test what is there. Is the game fun? Does it flow smoothly? Does it fit with the next part over there? In other words very small and specific answers to very specific questions.

The over large questions of is this too much like this other game are really 'too much' to answer at this point. We are just starting to test a small part of a larger and more complicated game. And those over large worries just distract us from that process, and get us further away from what the game really is.

Anyway,  I'm hoping for the best and will be here when it is all 'baked and ready to go'  

-Teal

I mistitled the thread. My concern about Drox isn't as serious as my concern about the Valley series and its pitfalls.  I think Chris has a good point when he says that the game could still be successful even if it's like Drox (the way Terraria is a successful version of Minecraft in some ways).  The bigger problem, if it is indeed a problem, is that TLF has some real similarities to Valley 2 in terms of overall feel and pacing.  I think Chris's resolve to make this game a strategy game first and foremost is a good start, but I will be interested to see how that plays out with the combat.  Having an auto-resolve could be an indicator that the combat isn't fun, for example, but the plan now is to try to make auto-resolving fun.  But if auto-resolving is fun (or even more fun than the action combat) then what is the combat doing in there in the first place? 

I am glad that players are being given choices and different ways to play the game.  That said, those choices need to be in harmony with one another instead of being alternatives to one another.  For example, in AI War you can play the game 1,000 ways but you are always playing a pauseable RTS with a gazillion ships.  You can't choose NOT to play an RTS when you play AI War unless you are using the champion units (which past forum polls indicate need revisions because they don't quite feel right in the context of AI War).  In other words, arguably the least fun part of AI War (for strategy fans) is the part of AI War that isn't like the rest of AI War (which is otherwise a very coherent game concept: pausable RTS with a gazillion ships and great strategic decision making).  There's no auto resolve in AI War and there's no second genre of game shoehorned into the first genre (unless you count champions which could be said to be a controversial part of the game). 

And just to be clear, I think TLF has a ton of potential, especially if the concept is unified in a compelling way.

[keith.lamothe]

But if auto-resolving is fun (or even more fun than the action combat) then what is the combat doing in there in the first place?

I think that is an excellent question

From the way things look to me right now the answer would either be "for that subset of players who want to play an action game inside the strategy game" or "because we've put so many months of work into bringing the combat part to where it is now, and/or the game wouldn't have enough meat without it".

But it's possible there's another answer I'm missing.