Turrets overestimated by storyteller

Started by todofwar, November 18, 2013, 05:32:11 PM

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todofwar

After playing a few games I find the AI storyteller seems to assume turrets are much stronger than they really are. With turrets, I get a rapid scale up in raids that leaves me hopeless, without turrets I can fend off every raid with reasonable difficulty. Anyone else finding the same thing?

Side note: I know it's pre-alpha, and this is likely to get fixed, just thought I'd point out an observation.

Semmy

It is know by tynan and i think he is working on fixing this.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke

Galileus

Huge chance of full turrets removal, if that's not the case - huge changes in turrets. Tynan pretty much declared war on turret defenders ;)

Orch

The issue with not having turrets is that its extremely difficult to get research for blasting charges up quick enough, and for Cassandra Classic and Kassandra, the difficulty ramps up quite quickly that you can't get good weapons quickly, nor do you have lots of people ready to kill enemy raiders.

I wouldn't advocate a complete removal of turrets, but they need to remain to give you a good chance early game.

Galileus

They don't. Plenty of people went for no-turrets; no blasting charges, no waffle bunkers challenge and they - welp, we - did great. Not to mention we loved it very, very much.

Not to mention there's a catch 22 in your post ;) Turrets must stay because difficulty of raids ramps up quick... but difficulty of raids ramps quickly because you build turrets :P

The main point is yet different - balance issues are non-issues as this is going to change A LOT. So reasoning that turrets must stay because <right now> raiders are too strong? Not a solid argumentation. Turrets on the other hand - as well as other cheesy mechanics like blast-charge field - make the game too much of a tower defence game. You're not supposed to count your loses in metal - you're supposed to be worried for survival of your colonists and loose them from time to time. Turrets and the rest of the cheese completely negate that EXTREMELY dynamic and potent narrative mechanic.

CmdrQuartz

In a game of survival you are going to do what you have to to live. Which means finding the most defensible spot and funneling any bad guys as much as possible through one spot, even in a real situation you'd want to do something similar. I mean would you rather fight these things yourself or build something that can do it for you? I think turrets should probably be a research, not something you have immediately, but it's certainly not something that should be gotten rid of completely and it should be able to be improved so it doesn't become obsolete. Also Raid strength shouldn't be based on the number of turrets, or any construction that helps against raids, because it's kind of self defeating. These things should be built to make raids easier not harder.

Of course I don't expect anything now but I do hope defensive strategies, particularly automated ones, are not made completely invalid by the time the game IS done and that those who like imposing restrictions upon themselves respect the play styles of those that don't.

Galileus

Quote from: CmdrQuartz on November 18, 2013, 07:13:05 PMOf course I don't expect anything now but I do hope defensive strategies, particularly automated ones, are not made completely invalid by the time the game IS done and that those who like imposing restrictions upon themselves respect the play styles of those that don't.

This works both ways. If turrets stay, game needs to be balanced around them. So by requesting turrets to be allowed to stay, you don't respect the play-style of others ;) This is not serious argument BTW, as I hope neither was yours.

But, bottom line. It's not about turrets. It's about turrets taking all combat away from colonists. As long as turrets stay in a helpful form, but don't take away all the tactical and narrative engagement? I don't think anyone would mind them staying that way, except maybe for ShadowDragon. There's quite a lot of fuss over this, really, and the main thing people miss is that it's never about the turrets. There is no "turrets problem" - turrets are merely part of the bigger problem. If they can coegsist with the rest of the game, and not harm the system? It's all good.

Another bottom-line is - you can't just say "we like turret defence", it's much deeper than that. One - because tactical system is in game and, more importantly, is promised to be a big part of the game. It really shouldn't be just shoved aside right now. Two - because if you give player a tool like turrets (as they are now - not turrets in general) you teach him one way to deal with the problems and do not present any alternatives. That can very quickly spiral out of control and either rob players of the full experience, or even lead to unfair and punishing difficulty - when player is so used to his one tool, he is not even aware there are other ways to solve a problem. This can be a HUGE problem, and this is exactly why players can't be allowed to opt out of combat completely and simply build more turrets and mine fields instead; with no danger to colonists whatsoever.

Of course no-one is saying fighting part must be in there. It won't hurt to get more options for storytellers at some point - to adjust amount of raiders and so on, and such. Neither is it a problem if turrets can be brought in in a way that does not present the huge problems outlined here.

GC13

I can't say I'd be too sad to see the turrets go. If Tynan wants to hurry them out the door, then I'd be glad to help them with their bags if it means they'll be gone that much sooner.

bigwolf2101

I for 1 want them to stay as I cant seam to keep my peeps alive more then 30days with out the help of blast charges and turets

on a side note I hope nukers are added soon I hate sun power

GC13

That's not a very good reason to want them to stay. A reason to want them to stay would be because they are fun to use. If it's too hard to survive without them, and they really do make survival easier (which this thread contests), then if they're removed then survival can simply be made easier to compensate.

Lechai

My major gripe with turrets is the fact that they explode when destroyed, which never ever happens in real life (excepting very rare magazine chain-reactions). I think this should be replaced with a 10 %chance to explode (taking that into account), otherwise they just go into a 'destroyed' state which costs half their metal to repair.

Additionally you should be able to research a Bunker turret, which has much higher HP total. Then give raiders SPG's so you have to use snipers to target SPG's to protect the bunker turrets protecting you from the rest of the raiders.

murlocdummy

Quote from: Galileus on November 18, 2013, 08:16:44 PM

This works both ways. If turrets stay, game needs to be balanced around them. So by requesting turrets to be allowed to stay, you don't respect the play-style of others ;) This is not serious argument BTW, as I hope neither was yours.

But, bottom line. It's not about turrets. It's about turrets taking all combat away from colonists. As long as turrets stay in a helpful form, but don't take away all the tactical and narrative engagement? I don't think anyone would mind them staying that way, except maybe for ShadowDragon. There's quite a lot of fuss over this, really, and the main thing people miss is that it's never about the turrets. There is no "turrets problem" - turrets are merely part of the bigger problem. If they can coegsist with the rest of the game, and not harm the system? It's all good.

Another bottom-line is - you can't just say "we like turret defence", it's much deeper than that. One - because tactical system is in game and, more importantly, is promised to be a big part of the game. It really shouldn't be just shoved aside right now. Two - because if you give player a tool like turrets (as they are now - not turrets in general) you teach him one way to deal with the problems and do not present any alternatives. That can very quickly spiral out of control and either rob players of the full experience, or even lead to unfair and punishing difficulty - when player is so used to his one tool, he is not even aware there are other ways to solve a problem. This can be a HUGE problem, and this is exactly why players can't be allowed to opt out of combat completely and simply build more turrets and mine fields instead; with no danger to colonists whatsoever.

Of course no-one is saying fighting part must be in there. It won't hurt to get more options for storytellers at some point - to adjust amount of raiders and so on, and such. Neither is it a problem if turrets can be brought in in a way that does not present the huge problems outlined here.

In saying that those who request turrets to stay are disrespecting your playstyle, you're still disrespecting the playstyle of others.  The real problem is less about game mechanics and more of the depth of player interaction surrounding the game.  Tynan wants to see more focus on the combat system because he spent years developing a tactical combat engine.  Anyone that doesn't recognize at least that much is giving him a swift punch to the face.  The fact that so many players chose to abandon the tactical combat and opt for a turret defense gaming experience is extraordinarily insulting to someone who spent so much time and effort making the game.  At the same time, trying to place blame on those players for playing in the most efficient way possible is also distasteful.

A game that is truly great is one that allows multiple playstyles to coexist, like in Minecraft or Team Fortress 2.  Making an entire portion of the game redundant or totally removed simply to force players to play the way that you want them to play is a design for a gaming disaster.  Either that, or you're trying to create something like Half-Life 2:  Episode 2, where the entire game was little more than an interactive cinematic narrative.  As great as the Cassandra Storyteller is, it is only one story out of many that players can choose from.  If some players want a battlefield combat experience, then put an enemy colony on the map and have the player battle it out.  If some players want periodic raider battles, then allow them the option of creating their base around the threat of attack.  Some players will want to do the turret defense path, solely focusing on base management and defense placement.  Some players will want to be like Dwarf Fortress elites and use the game almost like a DnD storytelling tool.  The trick is to find a way to balance all of these differing playstyles in a manner that allows for not only replayability, but also for continuous play after the individual game's "objective" has been reached.

In these formative months, it's important to take data from players, figure out the story of each individual is, and what story each person is trying to achieve.  Angry Birds is a game that is a testament to the idea of fitting a game into what people wanted from a game; it is a game that fits into peoples' lives, and not the other way around.  Rogue is a game that tells the story of a rogue, and is one of the many successful titles that taps into the wishes of the roleplaying community.  It's not about whether this particular mechanic is good or that kind of unit is expendable.  It's the overall experience of all of the users that really matters.

RimWorld is a game whose major demographic is currently Dwarf Fortress and Firefly fans.  Tapping into these audiences is important for the initial phases of marketing the game, but with the acquisition of enough funding to have Ludeon Studios essentially function as half of Double Fine Productions for a year, development can move towards the bigger question of:  What kind of audiences is the game trying to acquire in the long run?

From a totally practical standpoint, I'd want to remove turrets from the next version of the game in order to figure out what most players would do when forced to not use them.  Having an entire game mode that doesn't have them is one thing, but outright smacking your fans with something is occasionally a useful tool if you can afford it.  Gathering user data is pretty important when you want to mess with the larger scope of a game.

In the end, though, it's all up to Tynan.  After all, he literally wrote the book on how to design games.

Pendryn

Look, can't we all just agree to disrespect each others play-style and let Tynan make the game he is gonna make?
Reticulating all the splines.

CmdrQuartz

I suppose in the end it's impossible to keep all sides of an argument happy. This is why modding is important to the life of a game, it can make everyone happy by changing the things they disagree with. Doesn't need to happen now and I don't know if he has said anything definite but I hope Tynan does support modding.

For the sake of arguing though I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to have fully automated defenses. It shouldn't be easy, metal cost could be exorbitant, could require more regular maintenance outside of the deterioration we have now, perhaps require extensive research, or (and I rather like this one) some blueprints to be found. Last one even adds in some randomization, everyone likes Randy right?... Right?

There should be many ways to play the game and playing with turrets should be one of them. Playing with just colonists should be just as possible. The choice really depends on the gamer and perhaps a touch of luck. Which is why raiders shouldn't be balanced around the existence of things to kill them but rather the other way around. One possible solution I've come up with is checking how fast the raiders get killed once engaged in combat, if it takes ages and there's lots of structural damage then obviously the next one shouldn't be that much more difficult. Alternately if they get wiped out instantly with almost no damage to the player the next set could be significantly harder. I'm sure there's flaws, I haven't put THAT much thought into it, but it's something that could accommodate both styles and player skill as well.

DarkThug

Quote from: Pendryn on November 19, 2013, 03:43:46 AM
Look, can't we all just agree to disrespect each others play-style and let Tynan make the game he is gonna make?
This. LOL