(OT) Do you prefer to know game formulas?

[Suicide Junkie]

To me, lack of detail is associated with poor balancing.

The best possible balance is achieved when you can specify clearly and precisely what things do, and where players can and do win with widely differing choices.

Now, a lack of detail in items that you can't reproduce yet is quite reasonable.
However anything you do produce should have all the statistics you care to know about it. We aren't producing stone spears here, and if the factory can't tell me and guarantee to fine tolerances all the details, they won't be around very long.
Anything from fines and the loss of the build contract, to a "visit" from the elite stormtroopers, depending on your current government type.

Granted, giving me all the details without a summary is also a bad idea. Give me the range, damage, etc and any variance on each instead of making me keep a calculator beside my mouse

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In the big picture, lack of knowledge is fleeting. If you try to hide the details, players will slowly figure it out, and there will be a huge experience penalty to new players, regardless of their skill.

To level the playing field, either give everybody full information, or destroy the information advantage of the old hands by randomizing the tech tree and component values/strengths

[deccan]

I voted with the majority (and I voted in the one you made in the Dom2 board too), but I think the exception is if the ambiguity is part of the game design. I think that MOO3's original idea of Imperial Focus Points was quite cool, but it would have been a good rationale to prevent the player from knowing the exact details of some things unless he spent resources to know them.

[Randallw]

I've never given thought to such things as game formulas I think, however I am the sort of person who designs ships so they are built with as near as possible the number of resources usable each turn (but that's just good thinking)

[Suicide Junkie]

deccan said:
I voted with the majority (and I voted in the one you made in the Dom2 board too), but I think the exception is if the ambiguity is part of the game design. I think that MOO3's original idea of Imperial Focus Points was quite cool, but it would have been a good rationale to prevent the player from knowing the exact details of some things unless he spent resources to know them.

As long as the game lets you know the details of the ambiguity.

Don't say "DUC: does about 50 damage", when you could say "DUC: does 40-55 damage" (with linear/gaussian/etc probability curve)

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Focus points...
So many ways for that to go wrong.

You need to have both competent AIs, and AIs that can take orders without going insane.
You need to let them remember a priority list of your orders, and have them ask for clarification when things conflict.
And perhaps most importantly they need to be able to justify their actions to the player, and then adjust their priorities and values based on what the player orders.

Perhaps the focus points really should be used in a different way...
let the player adjust the sliders and generic orders all he wants: "Tell the governor of Arcturus that my flagship had better be done this month, or he'll be drinking his beer from the bottom of the lava mine on Hades II"

Instead, use the points for bringing in ministers for a personal tribute/talking-to/torture session. IE: give your AI's priorities and values a direct tweak so they will do better next time

You also need to let the player remain in control of everything... If they player orders something specific, it must remain that way.
If the AI wants to change something that the player did, they need to ask/beg first. And SAY WHY. If the player says no, then the AI had better increase its percieved value of leaving the setting as is. Ask again only if it is really important, and redouble the threshold every time the user says no.

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The question of Why would make a huge difference:
Consider if you had personally ordered a training facility built in a chokepoint system to help boost the troops as they arrived.

"Governor Joe wants permission to scrap your training facility at Algaran I"
Heck, no! I built that for a reason, dummy!
...(Two Months Later)...
"Governor Joe REALLY wants permission to scrap your training facility at Algaran I"
What? You again!? Grr, now I've gotta go and look at everything to see what's got you so upset. 50 lashes for wasting my time!

-or-

"Governor Joe wants to scrap your training facility at Algaran I because a higher-level training facility is under construction (2 months) near the resupply depot on Algaran II (Y/N)".
Ah, excellent work. Have a cookie!

Note that this isn't going to be easy.
The AI has to pick out just the new and/or major influencing factors in its decision, and decide which of those to present to the player in a sentence or two.
And you can't just try to maximize the number of "yes" responses. The minion needs to mention the big negative influences too, or it will be seen as manipulative and untrustworthy. A fair and balanced summary of why in a sentence or two is very hard.
Allowing a small chart/graphic/icon-map might help.

Hmm, this seems to have wandered really far off-topic.

[deccan]

Suicide Junkie said:
Focus points...
So many ways for that to go wrong.

Sure, and it wouldn't be for a pure strategy game of course, rather more like a new kind of strategy + RPG hybrid, in which governors et al. have "personalities" which determine how they behave as so forth.

Bruce Geryk's essay Master of Orion 3 rebuttal really says what I think on the subject.

[boran_blok]

I think exact values and formulas should be a research item in itself. when people made handguns at first they knew they could kill people, when people make handguns now, they know the approximate speed at which the bullet leaves the gun, how much of an impact force it has, and how much it'll travel in distance.

Also the formulas are like the formulas of physics. hence I'd keep the formulas hidden until you have researched physics.

Offcourse in the game you could write them down once you had them researched and never need em again. you could prevent this by making a semirandom universial constant. say, gravity is 9.8 m/s² today on earth, and another game its 11,4 m/s² slight differences, which still make it realistic, but make your previously noted formulas off by quite a margein.

Would be great imho, would also make the theorethical sciences more than just tools to unlock the others.

Because the exact knowledge of the formulas gives you a more detailed view of the game and helps you to build better designs, i think it's something you should earn and spend resources on.

[Aiken]

I prefere to explore (myself, or along with community) a _good_ game for its underlying mechanism (like formulas, algorithms), rather than to read this kind of info from manual. It reminds research work and it has an indisputable virtue - pleasure of gaining new knowledge.
Of course if game is bad, I have no interest in such research.

[Fyron]

deccan said:

Sure, and it wouldn't be for a pure strategy game of course, rather more like a new kind of strategy + RPG hybrid, in which governors et al. have "personalities" which determine how they behave as so forth.

Bruce Geryk's essay Master of Orion 3 rebuttal really says what I think on the subject.

That is what MOO3 was supposed to be... 5X, with the 5th X being "experience." Of course, due to the usual corporate marketing snafus, the game concept was trashed to hell before it was ever released...

[Timstone]

SJ said:

The question of Why would make a huge difference:
Consider if you had personally ordered a training facility built in a chokepoint system to help boost the troops as they arrived.

"Governor Joe wants permission to scrap your training facility at Algaran I"
Heck, no! I built that for a reason, dummy!
...(Two Months Later)...
"Governor Joe REALLY wants permission to scrap your training facility at Algaran I"
What? You again!? Grr, now I've gotta go and look at everything to see what's got you so upset. 50 lashes for wasting my time!

-or-

"Governor Joe wants to scrap your training facility at Algaran I because a higher-level training facility is under construction (2 months) near the resupply depot on Algaran II (Y/N)".
Ah, excellent work. Have a cookie!


Hahahaha!!!! Great stuff SJ! Almost fell from my chair. Hahahaha!!!! LOL!!!!

[Slick]

Although I voted for knowing exact values, I voted for this game only. I believe that this is consistent with the flavor of how I would want to play this game.

I could envision another game where I would want vagueness if it is consistent with the flavor of that game. A good example are First Person Shooters (which I play occasionally). I really don't want to know exactly how many hitpoints the various baddies have nor how much damage the Rocket Launcher delivers with a direct hit and/or splash damage. I'd much rather figure out by playing that some guys will be blown to smithereens with one hit and other bad guys are best dealt with by increasing the distance between them and my high-tailing rear end.

Bottom line for me is that it matters on the kind of game.