I'm writing some thoughts, some ideas, I'd like you to consider. While it's written in an authoritative voice, please take this as simply my opinion -- like having a discussion over some drinks. Some theory crafting between mates, if you will.
....
Testing Oneself. One of the most important factors to giving a player a visceral sense of progress is the feedback loop created when they test themselves.
You can see where I'm going, this is the feedback loop, where you go and test your progress. Hold on to that while we take a look at another key gaming experience...
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The try-fail cycle. This is as old as video games, and is a big part of what makes them unique. A try-fail cycle is any task you attempt, fail / don't succeed to your satisfaction, try to improve your approach and attempt again. These are the lifeblood of many games, and they come in several sizes sizes:
What this means for GalCiv 2.
I quite enjoy many parts of GC2, so cheers! But, for the sake of GC3, lets talk some less-than-engaging experiences.
In this last game I quivered with fear, as all these alien races ranked above me on the galactic charts. Then the most powerful declared war on me, I built some warships, and destroyed him. The sense of threat, of desperation and wonder, was lost. Also lost, was the fear that I had no idea what to do against a prepared alien race, a fear that frustrated me and keeps GalCiv 2 with fewer played hours, and keeps me from recommending it to more friends.
See, before I could test my skill, experience the power I'd earned from my research, or learned anything of how combat is performed, I played 6 hours. In my mind, my whole plan for my empire was a tower built on sand: my foggy assumptions of what was good. I could have screwed up 4 hours back, left some weakness or not known about some critical thing, and all this invested time was a wasted. This fear soured my experience, because I felt helpless to gain the knowledge I sought in any way except sinking more time, and cringing when it all came crashing down.
Afterward, after I completely thrashed them, my experience felt hollow, free of challenge or threat. I didn't create a clever solution to a problem, there never was one! And all that research I did to get my weapons, well, it felt rewarding to blast them the first few times. Yet I never had a sense of growth. My only frame of reference was destroying them.
And with the sense of threat gone, the sense of reward from blasting them them dried up.
I could not test myself, and the feedback loop didn't close for 6 hours. And so, the magic is gone. (I have played around 25 hours of GalCiv II, so you all know. Roughly 70 games of StarCraft 2, or 4.5 play-throughs of a Halo campaign. Obviously I've spent some time with the game. I've had similarly poisonous experiences each time.)
"But wait!" you say. "Turn up the difficulty".
I don't want to, because I don't want to play anymore. The reason is simple:
Either I spend 4 hours waiting for it to fall apart, or I look up a strategy guide and copy someone else. And if I spend that 4 hours, it's 8 hour before I see how those adjustments play out... anxious hours (if I'm engaged) or bored hours (if I'm not).
I crave iteration, hammering out the strategy, and the 4 hours buffer is sand in the gears.
I'm not the only player, so take my view with a grain of salt. But do consider this:
But barbarians are only a half solution, and only address combat. I say, find ways to create more of these feedback loops, to find ways players can try and fail in as many of the elements of game play. Watching your damage numbers grow on your battle ships is nice, but watching a mighty enemy fall under your barrage after several sieges is compelling.
*Tips glass at you and then takes a frothy swig.*
-Colter Hochstetler
Had an idea on how to implement some of this: a counterpart to the UN feature, the "Galactic Arena". Earn prestige, fear, make moral choices, and steal enemy tech, as you pit your fleet against the enemy in the yearly games!
The strength of the enemy competition is based off their standing fleet.
I do think they need a better pirate option. As far as combat I would like it to look better. I do think that pirates and combat is probably the weakest aspects of the game.
Virtual combat simulation, similar to ArmA series mission editor - you put something inside, run it, test small blocks, then combine them. IF we talk about combat, then we can either call our newly designed ship and either test it against each and every existing ship, or allow to test it only against ships we know about. The latter would be suitable for campaign.
Have to agree with this post. As one who suffers from ADHD games like this can sometimes make me lose interest. I love these games and they appeal to my love of strategy and love of building something grand and long term but then the ADHD kicks in and I lose focus (drives me nuts!). This would help as I always play Civ 5 with raging barbarians to keep me busy while I build my empire. And it wouldn't change the overall feel of the game and if you make it option for those that would rather not be bothered by simple barbarians at the gate that their inferiors can handle by themselves.
Yeah since when do games don't have barbarians.
Why barbarians? Our military forces could participate in live exercise (not sure for live fire exercise) - full-scale maneuvers that could inscrease their experience and provide certain boost for our R&D. Old Majesty game (yes, one with "indirect control") had training grounds where you could train your heroes more or less harmlessly, and R&D boost part comes directly from Hearts of Iron. Combat simulation is one thing, live training is another. After all, we already built ships and have to pay their maintenance costs.
I agree with the points made in this discussion of feedback loops. A broader way of viewing this concept of feedback loops is to borrow a comment made by Sid Meier: "Interesting choices." Players need (or I prefer) to be faced, fairly often, with many interesting choices at many levels while playing. Many interesting choices early, interesting choices often.
In my statement I meant space Barbarians or pirates. That was missing in most of the games of Galactic civiizations I've played. I want something, but how they were done in Distant worlds is good.
i dont think space barbarians really works however pirates or rogue organizations would be nice
Barbarians = Pirates.
Yes! And one of the key components to choices is that the player understands the differences between Choice A and B. Without being informed on a choice, the player might as well be flipping a coin, or picking A because he likes the font A was written in. It's not a choice.
So in order to provide interesting choices, your players must be informed. So it's in the dev's best interest to inform players.
This may seem so simple that it doesn't need an example, but I think this example adds a lot: imagine your playing an Action RPG game like League of Legends or Diablo II / III. Pretend you're character has learned some magic missile attacks, but now it's time to level up. You can add an element to your bolts of magic! The game presents you with two options:
Fire.
Ice.
When you highlight Fire, you see a video showing your character. You fire a bolt of burning energy, that strikes the target and blasts them back a few feet, giving you room to maneuver, or letting you push enemies off cliffs. It can even blast several enemies back at once.
You highlight Ice, and you see your character throw out a razor sharp ice sickle, dealing extra damage. And when the enemy is hit three times, they're slowed. Sure, you cannot push crowds back, but it deals a lot of damage and still applies a slow to your main enemy.
Now you can decide which is best -- if you're a glass cannon, the fireball will keep you alive more. If you like to whip out magic more rarely, have a higher health pool, or need more damage against tough single targets like bosses, you know Ice might be a better decision. You are informed.
In GalCiv II, I often feel like I'm picking between Fire and Ice, if Fire and Ice didn't have a description. I have to pick a tech and try it myself, and unlike the Fire and Ice attack examples, they won't reveal their differences in just a few minutes. True, long-term strategy game like GalCiv does not lend itself naturally to simple descriptions, but I'd still like to challenge our fine devs to push themselves when it comes to informing the player.
tl;dr:
>Informed players see compelling decisions, where the uninformed might as well flip coins.
>Finding ways to inform the players enhances the experience start to end.
>Probably one of the best investments of time.
>I encourage the devs to challenge themselves here.
Divinity 2 had similar feature on character screen, if I'm not mistaken.
I can feel this I thought that it was kind of hard to read.
1. I agree I would rather have these options on the hilight screen instead of a slow right click when trading. I would like to have a description of the units and wonders instead of having to hilight the unit and wonder and only seeing the benefits. I felt the descriptions the game gave was not enough. You were able to right click the options in trading to get stats, units, and future techs, but I felt more was needed. You had to cancel that is definatly slower than your idea. This could also be applied to research.
As for the rest of what you said: I agree. Whether it's done through clips (high production costs), or just better text descriptions (tricky, but low production cost), I feel the need for more infoz!
I will have to say two things. I feal you on what you are writing about. Even though what you are saying it could be done. It required you to learn how to read what the techs did. The screens were slow to appear, and not easy to get rid of. What was done in the diplomacy screen should have also been done in the research. The research descriptions were cryptic. All you wanted to do is mouse over the tech, and have a description. The description needs to be clear and comprehensive.
I feel what you are talking about an easy description of a tech by highlighting it.
2. The descriptions that were given for the techs in the diplomacy screens when you right click a tech. Were not always clear, and I didn't like having to right click the improvement that came with the tech that needed to be clear.
These two things is what that one sentence was trying to say. Adding to explanation 2 sometimes I needed a description than the actual stats. For the most part knowing the tech was continuing in the diplomacy was more important than the specific techs it lead to. It would be needed to know what the techs lead to on the research screen not the diplomacy screen. I didn;t need to know what ships the tech made in the diplomacy screen or if I did all I needed to know was the ship not everything that was in the ship. If you want to help me with this just give me a description of what a unit does when I highlighted it with a mouse in the shipyard. That would be great actually.
Please visit this post to make a avatar with none thing more than windows and leave a comment when you are done. https://forums.galciv3.com/450709
One more bump before I let this post die,
In the hope it catches a developer's eye.
With rosy cheeks and a fond farewell,
I'm off, back to the land where silent watchers dwell.
In eagerness I wait for the game to be done,
hoping I've helped some, accepting I've perhaps done none.
And so with my fellow watcher's I wait to see
If the rebirth of GalCiv III will compel me
Nice poem. -- Perhaps some poetry could be used in some of the diplomacy dialog?
Drengin Poetry! If "I hate you!" is not enough!
Drengin Poetry! Brilliant!
Title: For when "I hate you" is not enough.
More than drinking the best brew
or weilding the finest crafted weapons few
or my biceps gaining inches two
or the brightest lasers going pew pew
More than my ship cloaking
or bloodlust stoking
or my mother-in-law choking...
I'd like see your hide smoking
Orbital bombardment - when "GTFO" simply not getting point across.
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