Items to Fix Before the Ocean Build

[DasTactic]

[Vic edit: Sorry i somehow managed to overwrite Das' original post... have recuperated his key points but not his intro]

Calculations for Skill Rolls
During skill roll events you are presented with a number of options with a very abstract description of how the skill roll is likely to run (eg, Oratory Roll 1d100 +31 vs. Diff=Complax calculation (avg 126)) but my character has an Oratory level of 2 and a total of 5. His Charisma skill is 30. What??? Nothing adds up. AND you can't trust the results because it seems in 99% of all rolls you still end up failing.
The maths don't seem to add up in the description and the results can be outside the parameters. The game should explain EXACTLY what is being calculated and WHY.
I usually just end up taking the bottom option where I know I'm going to take an unrest hit because the cost of failure is too much.

Resolution of Skill Rolls
Similar to the rolls above, skill roll resolution often seems to have no rhyme or reason. Please show what was rolled, what was added, what the totals are, and why the results are the way they are. Again, so many of these are confusing and usually end up with Critical Failures for no discernable reason. As I said above, I would much prefer a bell-curve approach with this that the player can see the rolls and understand them.

Profile Demands
Some factions will make demands that the player reaches a certain level in a Profile. These are painful for two reasons. First, you often have no way to control the profile before the time runs out. Second, if you say 'no' and take the relation hit, the faction is just as likely to ask for the same thing again in a couple of turns - and then again after that until you eventually say yes. I would much prefer these were just taken out of the game. I like that some demands push you in a direction you should be going (such as BP etc) but not Profiles.

Turn 2 Militia Cost
I'm not sure why this even is scripted to always show up on Turn 2. Would much prefer this to appear randomly. Depending on your start, this event can be a real stretch for players in the early game.

Design Screens
These have been mentioned before so I won't rehash them here, but the design screens in the game are very user-unfriendly (not just the Aircraft one). These really should allow you to edit your selections and see what the results are likely to be in terms of performance etc.

[solops]

+1

[ElectricGod]

Quite a few good points here im curious has Vic made any comments about any of these in the past?

As far as skill rolls go they definitely feel arbitrary and random the bare minimum would be lifting the hood a bit so i can see what went wrong, what went well etc after a roll is done. I'm definitely a huge proponent of this.

There are quite a few cards i won't use until i can afford failure and generally by that point the card becomes pretty moot..

[KingHalford]

There is a game design argument against making every roll completely transparent, and that is because players will learn to game the system. These kinds of decisions, I think, are there to add some flavour and to keep the player engaged with certain of the game systems so that they're faced with certain challenges that prevent them snowballing towards victory unimpeded. If there is no under-the-hood randomisation to the dice rolls then players will learn to game this too, which defeats their point in the first place.

There is enough strategy in Shadow Empire for the player to manage without needing to min-max the events, in my opinion.

What I think Das is complaining about here though is that the numbers he is seeing don't seem to match up to the results he's getting. The comment about 99% of the time it feeling like something different happens, I'll put that down to luck (and the occasional hidden bug perhaps) but I do agree that if you're going to show numbers, you either ensure they're shown correctly OR you do what they've done in Distant Worlds and state there is hidden randomisation added so the player knows. Otherwise it is frustrating. I've discussed this before but Shadow Empire is full of this kind of thing, and I like it for the reason I stated in the first paragraph, while others don't seem to be so happy about it.

[Bellrock]

Good points; all! Personally I find the design screens the biggest issue I’m having with the game. I really dread having to design an aircraft in the game given the iterative nature of the design process.

[KingHalford]

The aircraft design screen really does need sorting out. I don't mind the others so much, but when you're trying to get an aircraft design right they're quite painful to use. Now I understand how aircraft work, it's less of a hassle, and I can thank my Youtube audience for helping me out there, but before that I just avoided aircraft design completely.

[Soar_Slitherine]

Strong agree with the original post regarding profile demands and the aircraft design screen. And while I haven't felt the skill roll resolution to be a huge problem, it's certainly a bit obtuse.

[pbi298]

I agree with everything DasTactic has said here. I'm an old-school wargamer and while I do appreciate the negative potential in enabling players to game the system, being kept almost totally in the dark is much worse. To me, much of the rolls have a lottery feel to them, and that hurts my enjoyment of the game. Keep randomness as a feature - an absolute must - but the player must be presented with the details of how/why they succeeded or failed a roll.

[Voker57]

Skill roll mechanic can't be helped much: IMO it should just be replaced with skill level check or a counter, roll that can be made once per turn for ~20PP and is win or fail is too much.

Agree on the design screens, these have to go. Profile demands are quirky, can sometimes be satisfied with scrap card but these are totally random. There is a mod that lets you modify profiles for PP cost, perhaps this should be considered.

Most important issues I want to add: https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... &p=4957279 , nuclear weapons being overpowered (extra AS improvement for all atomic units, radioactives are rather cheap), and balance issues from https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... ?p=4938559

[Vic]

Hi Das,

I have been watching your latest playthrough and had already made some notes where you got annoyed. Its appreciated you take the time to report back on the forums.

And yes... well... no promises, but I'll see what I can do on all the points except the last one.

The last one, thespecial UI for Model Design, is on my to-do list too but is a big task and will not happen soon. Oceans first here.

best,
Vic

[pauls2271]

Some good points.

Faction demands: Factions are SUPPOSED to be unreasonable - they want what they want. I do agree that once you say NO to them, they should never ask again (or have a very long cooldown before asking again).

Militia: Yeah, not sure why it is scripted at turn 2. I often say NO to it (if militia is high enough in the city and the approval penalty isn't too high and no enemies are nearby).

Tech: We REALLY NEED a power tech at TL3. I never play at any other tech level and a number of my games become power starved (especially on planets without oil).

[Soar_Slitherine]

Faction demands: Factions are SUPPOSED to be unreasonable - they want what they want. I do agree that once you say NO to them, they should never ask again (or have a very long cooldown before asking again).

The problem is that factions demanding profile increases is often a net negative for the increase of that profile even when you want to increase the profile, because several profiles have no consistent way to increase them, so it's just pure luck whether the profile gets arbitrarily nuked by a faction that's supposed to support it.

[DasTactic]

Thanks Vic for the wonderful additions of the latest beta.

After streaming again today I have a few more...

Management Screen
- I think it would be helpful for new players if the Asset screen started expanded. The most useful part is hidden until you open it.
- Leaders by default show the Relation level and the Natural Relation Point. When you click 'Reset' it keeps the Relation and drops the NRP. I think the default should just be the Relation and not include the NRP. There may also be an argument to also include the Capability as that tends to be used a lot.

National Budget
- When you get the initial National Budget screen with the first Organisation, the total is 65%, not 100%.

Roll Calculations
- This was great to see when looking to make a roll. Very helpful indeed.
- Would be good to see the range of numbers rather than just the averages.
- Would be great to see the actual results as well split out like the pre-roll summary.
- It would also be great to have a percentage change specified before making rolls. Many of the odds are still too obscure to make a definitive judgement of the viability of going for it.

Faction Profile Demands
- For me, I would much prefer that these were removed from the game (or maybe an option to remove them) rather than just less of them.

Rivers
- As a bit of feedback on rivers I would love to see some longer major rivers and more rivers starting from next to mountains and hills. It is rare to get major river systems on the maps from my testing today.

[ElectricGod]

For me an aspect of the role play is to be demanded things you may or may not want. That's what it takes to run a government

I just think it needs tuned. More variation a way to suffer a big penalty but force them to not broach a subject again either forever or a very long time.
If it's removed something needs to be put in it's place cause it's could be really neat aspect of political balance

As a side note pleny of times a demand comes in and it's an easy dunk i really dont see it being anywhere near troublesome to warrant outright removal

[DasTactic]

... As a side note pleny of times a demand comes in and it's an easy dunk i really dont see it being anywhere near troublesome to warrant outright removal

I was only talking about the Profile demands - such as 'achieve X Diplomacy by a certain date' which is basically just a random chance you will get it or not. The other demands such as BP objectives etc are great. I'd be happy if it was replaced with 'build building X by date' or 'capture freetown Y by date' or 'Have a stockpile of Z Metal by date'. At least we have control over the course of these sorts of events.

[ElectricGod]

I'm so sorry i was misunderstanding i had this idea ingrained in my head you wanted the whole thing scrapped but your specific example makes absolute sense my apologies

[KingHalford]

I've never really found the Profile demands particularly affect my game, I'm not sure if that's because of my playstyle or the types of planets I play on. I think reducing the frequency of the requests is a reasonable solution for people that didn't like it though. I'd also oppose them being removed completely, they're not that hard to meet, particularly with the card scrapping mechanic that was added: you can even raise stuff like Meritocracy relatively easily now. In the early game though, I agree with Das that they can feel a little punishing because you're often relying solely on other random events to achieve them.

[finrodfelagund]

I'd be happy if it was replaced with 'build building X by date' or 'capture freetown Y by date' or 'Have a stockpile of Z Metal by date'.

To be honest this would be a much better role playing element with what you choose at the beginning of the game; Like tech option gives you more BP/tech level oriented missions, military option gives you conquer Y town by date as you've said and so forth.

[KingHalford]

It's funny because after writing my last post I've had an issue with trying to get one of my Profiles up enough to get a critical tier (in this case, I'm so starved for money that I desperately need the Regime Feat "Discipline" to boost my meagre tax income.)

So I followed my own advice and started scrapping cards, then remembered why it was that I stopped playing roulette in the first place.

I know what it is that made me think that was a viable tactic. The last big game I played was the big Youtube series I did "Life on Seth" where by the end of the game I had so many cards it was choking my CPU, so I was basically able to endlessly scrap cards to get what I wanted. There's clearly been a change somewhere that reduces the amount of Strategems generated, so ignore that piece of bad advice I gave.

[Vic]

Hi Ben,
I am still looking at the whole thing concerning the profile demands. In fact I have been thinking about adding a Propaganda Council to allow you to force things in a certain direction at a (serious) cost.
Best wishes,
Vic