BB3 Some thoughts on Return Fire

[BoredEngineer]

@VOLAND

If contact can be initiated without activating interrupt, interrupt should never happen unless the player makes a mistake. If contact cannot happen without interrupt occurring, no contact should ever take place without one of the player’s making a mistake.

I don’t understand why you need such rules.

@VOLAND

The problem of a mechanic that predictably switches turns in a turn based game is that to switch turns with your opponent is always the optimal solution. That’s why you would need the die, to add an element of uncertainty.

That is not true. In Battle Brothers you can pass initiative to see where enemy will move or give him a chance to attack first, each case can have positive/negative outcome. Both AI and player use this depending on many factors. The most common case for AI is to wait for you to make a move when they have superiority in ranged units.
Next case is in JA2 1.13, again. You have enough AP to take a shot at enemy that can interrupt you, you take a shot, he gets interrupt and shoots back. But if you hit him hard enough, or suppressed or he doesn’t have free AP then no interrupt is going to happen. So there is no clear advantage of giving away your turn.

@VOLAND

About your arguments on RNG in game design. I don’t think it’s necessary to repeat that I’m not against rng per se, etc.

Well, you described it a poor excuse of developers to add complexity and uncertainty where it is non. I’m sure some devs do that, but we shouldn’t use bad designs as examples of proper use. I’ve seen some youtube rants where people with 1000 hours in XCom complained how “rng is killing games”. Which has nothing to do with rng itself but persons inability to judge why Hit rng in XCom can be so frustrating. It has little to do with rng but a lot to do with a other design choices. Simply because game puts so much stake into every shot that you or enemy takes. And stakes are high because team is small and etc.
I’m just asking too look at multiple things at the same time and not focus on a single element.

[SpiteAndMalice]

@VOLAND

So of course Snapshot is never going to go along with this because it goes against the design philosophy of their game.

They did exactly that in Chaos Reborn with the introduction of Law Mode.

The original game was probability based, but based on (a minority of) negative review comments, they added a 2nd game mode which stripped out as much of that RNG as possible. (They also arguably ruined the game in the process by alienating much of their existing player base who had been joyfully happy with probabilities up until that point, and splitting the player base that remained, but that’s a different story).

[VOLAND]

That’s true, but CR precisely makes my point - they changed the core system to take away RNG. What that they didn’t do is keep RNG in all except one of the mechanics.

Could Snapshot say let’s put RNG into everything in PP? I doubt it, but I think that is far more likely than them saying hey, why don’t we replace RF and OW with a mechanic involving RNG, but keep everything else as it is.

[SpiteAndMalice]

@VOLAND

That’s true, but CR precisely makes my point - they changed the core system to take away RNG. What that they didn’t do is keep RNG in all except one of the mechanics.

No, but they couldn’t entirely eliminate it either.

RNG is either game mode was employed for aspects of the game such as deck construction, starting hand, and map generation.

On the other hand in Chaos mode the player always had agency over what card to play next, where to move/attack with individual creatures, whether to cast spells as real creatures or illusions.

Some games, such as chess, are created to be entirely without RNG, others, such as roulette, are entirely chance based, however the majority sit somewhere on a scale between those two extremes. TBS games will certainly never be able to sit on either extreme due to the nature of those games.

I would say that PP is trying to look as if it isn’t RNG based, but it still has heavy doses of it. The aiming mechanic is an example of this, the player feels that they have complete control over the shots that they take, but the game still performs random number calculations in the background in order to create each bullet’s trajectory, and then adds in random movements of the creature being targeted in order to fluctuate the accuracy of any given trajectory, it doesn’t present you with a % chance to hit as it’s trying to avoid complaints about RNG, instead you’re given a, less accurate, visual indicator to work with.

So adding or taking away something RNG based into a game such as PP isn’t turning it from Chess to Roulette, or vice versa, it’s might be making it from 55% chess to 45% chess or vice versa but the game still sits between those two extremes.

How much RNG is too much RNG is to my mind personal preference. It all comes down to whether you’re able to and prefer to calculate using probabilities over pure maths. It’s true that some people don’t understand or don’t like to work with probabilities, but speaking as someone who does enjoy RNG the probability based maths involved in a game that utilises RNG mechanics is far more engaging and re-playable than a game that doesn’t.

[VOLAND]

I can agree with most of what you say.

@SpiteAndMalice

So adding or taking away something RNG based into a game such as PP isn’t turning it from Chess to Roulette, or vice versa, it’s might be making it from 55% chess to 45% chess or vice versa but the game still sits between those two extremes.

I don’t agree with this, in that I don’t think it’s right to view it in terms of %. In PP’s combat RNG is confined to ballistics. Not even damage, only bullet trajectories. That’s why taking RNG out of this confinement to put in some other mechanic would make a large difference. If, for example, PP used RNG for stealth and mind control, and it was put in something else, I agree that it wouldn’t be a big deal.

@SpiteAndMalice

speaking as someone who does enjoy RNG

I like RNG, I really do. But I also think that it is the easier game design option. It’s easier to make a “roulette game” than a “chess game”. And sometimes I want to play a game where I have no idea what is going on under the hood except that it involves plenty of dice and I’m playing “by feel”, and sometimes a game where there is plenty of dice and I can almost see them, and sometimes I want to play a game where RNG is very confined.
All have their merits. As an example of a very fun game where RNG is so confined it’s practically absent, take Dune the boardgame. Which has been recently being re-edited for the first time in I don’t know how many decades.

[MichaelIgnotus]

@BoredEngineer

It is needed as “anti-mehcanics” against choosing full cover as the most optimal solution. So what is needed at the end is ability of enemy to take a shot at you when you get out of full cover to take a shot. Do you agree?

To my mind that’s not what it’s there for at all - especially since ‘Full Cover’ isn’t full (as many have complained about in these forums), it’s high. RF exists - or used to exist - to simulate what I termed the ‘Tet Syndrome’ at the top of this post back in BB3. It used to force you to take into account the fact that in a well-coordinated attack, a target was covered by his Squad/Crabmates and you couldn’t just run up to him and stick a shotgun in his face without suffering consequences. I liked that: it was OP, but it just needed toning down a bit - but anyone who Dashes into the open (or as in one complaint I read, into a room) to take a shot in front of 5 guys armed with MGs deserves everything that’s coming to them in my book. Sadly, the way they’ve nerfed it promotes exactly that kind of non-tactical dumb-alpha play.

@BoredEngineer

I don’t remember a single instance where I would use Quick Aim on sniper rifle to get a more precise shot, I use it to take two shots per turn.

That’s because it’s not designed to do the former, it’s designed to do the latter. ‘Quick Aim’ is just a name, it’s not a description of how it works.

@BoredEngineer

Good example is idle animations. …you will have many people just sitting and waiting for a good keyframe of animation to make an attack. To me this sounds very meta like and overall awful as such waiting game will add to the boredom

Which is fine, because it is a choice the player has made. I do it quite often - I want to hit that Chiron in the head, so I time my click on the aiming reticle for the optimal moment when it has turned to expose its head, then track it in slo-mo through my sights until I get the best possible shot. But I choose to do this - I don’t sit there yelling ‘Get on with it!’ at the screen as 20+ Crabbies cycle through their oprtion trees to see whether they want to respond to the fact that I’ve just stepped out of cover. You think the RF hang is bad - you wait until 20 Crabbies are mulling over APR

@BoredEngineer

In this case it will lose it’s primary purpose - balance between full and half cover. But maybe it would be better overall I don’t know.

Since that’s not its primary purpose imho, I don’t care.

[pantolomin]

@MichaelIgnotus

I liked that: it was OP, but it just needed toning down a bit - but anyone who Dashes into the open (or as in one complaint I read, into a room) to take a shot in front of 5 guys armed with MGs deserves everything that’s coming to them in my book.

No problem with that … as long as RF requires AP not used in the previous turn.

[SpiteAndMalice]

@VOLAND

In PP’s combat RNG is confined to ballistics. Not even damage, only bullet trajectories. That’s why taking RNG out of this confinement to put in some other mechanic would make a large difference. If, for example, PP used RNG for stealth and mind control, and it was put in something else, I agree that it wouldn’t be a big deal.

We might have e bit of semantics there then, the game as a whole is definitely employing RNG.

For combat specifically how does the AI determine which of your soldiers to attempt to mind control, does it have a preset way of doing this? Or how is grenade damage calculated? Is it always a set amount to each body part? What I’m getting it is, whilst damage may be a static value, is it definitely the case that there are no other elements where RNG isn’t being used? - You genuinely might have to help me out a little here as I’ve not played PP since I saw how bad it was on release, I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the first balance patches.

[SpiteAndMalice]

@MichaelIgnotus

That’s because it’s not designed to do the former, it’s designed to do the latter. ‘Quick Aim’ is just a name, it’s not a description of how it works.

Surely it’s designed to do both (increase aim and reduce AP cost) - It either needs to fixed to match what Quick Aim should be (reduced aim and reduced AP cost), or renaming to describe what it actually is.

[VOLAND]

@SpiteAndMalice

For combat specifically how does the AI determine which of your soldiers to attempt to mind control, does it have a preset way of doing this?

I would imagine that there is no RNG in that piece of AI code, as it will probably look for the strongest soldier with the lowest will. But in any event I’m not considering RNG used by the player for decision making. You can use a die to decide a chess movement, that doesn’t add RNG to the game mechanics.

@SpiteAndMalice

Or how is grenade damage calculated? Is it always a set amount to each body part?

TBH, I have no idea. But I don’t know why RNG would be used there. I mean, I imagine the damage depends on distance of each body part from the the center of the explosion. Even if RNG was used somehow in grenade damage, that’s still very confined.

[SpiteAndMalice]

Okay, what are you considering RNG for then, is it just ballistic path and damage? If so RNG is used for ballistic path, which is half of that. You could also use it for damage, either the absolute values and/or crits, without changing the game concept as a whole

[BoredEngineer]

@VOLAND

I would imagine that there is no RNG in that piece of AI code, as it will probably look for the strongest soldier with the lowest will.

And that’s based purely on extrapolation of changes done to a different game made by the same studio? The amount of bias in this thinking is borderline fanatical. You are discussing what you want game to be not what it is. But for the sake of the argument let’s assume you are right. It means that lowering firefight distances and making soldiers run further was done to downplay role of ballistics and make it less random. Makes sense but this broke multiple systems of the game. If this is the path that designers are taking - no rng is more important than everything else, then I don’t see any good feature for this game.

[BoredEngineer]

@MichaelIgnotus

To my mind that’s not what it’s there for at all - especially since ‘Full Cover’ isn’t full (as many have complained about in these forums), it’s high. RF exists - or used to exist - to simulate what I termed the ‘Tet Syndrome’ at the top of this post back in BB3. It used to force you to take into account the fact that in a well-coordinated attack, a target was covered by his Squad/Crabmates and you couldn’t just run up to him and stick a shotgun in his face without suffering consequences.

What people are complaining in the forum is the result of multiple changes and bugs with cover system. Both RF and “Full Cover” exist since BB1. Way before melee weapons and shotguns made it even an option to run into someone’s face. I don’t think your assertion is correct. It definitely can be used like that but my argument is based on the fact of how shooting from full cover works. Doing RF after soldier got back into cover is probably like one line of code change, but current mechanics persisted since BB1.

[VOLAND]

Dear Sir, quote my whole f***** post:

@VOLAND

But in any event I’m not considering RNG used by the player for decision making. You can use a die to decide a chess movement, that doesn’t add RNG to the game mechanics.

[pantolomin]

@SpiteAndMalice

Or how is grenade damage calculated? Is it always a set amount to each body part?

My thought was that you have a singularity where the explosion takes place and the game throws a certain number of shards in various directions for a limited distance. Whatever they hit takes the damage (60 for odin).
But since it doesn’t seem to work like that for Kydoimos, I wonder (I’d like Kydoimos to do 10 sonic per hit body part).
I’ll have to do some testing to get to some conclusions. Can a body part take 60 twice (two shards hitting), …

[BoredEngineer]

@VOLAND

Dear Sir, quote my whole f***** post:

What does that change? You are clearly more interested in a game being like chess because you think that such games are superior to sims, because sims are based on rng which is in your opinion a cheap way to add depth and obfuscate simplistic system to make them look deeper. Which you keep repeating after being presented an argument that this is not how rng is used. So we are dealing with an ideology then and no arguments are going to change your opinion as it’s based on fate and not rationale.

[MichaelIgnotus]

Auick Aim has never increased accuracy in the entire history of the BBs. It has always just been a way of using 2 or 3 WP to reduce the cost of a Sniper Rifle down to 2 APs and the cost of smaller weapons down to 1 or 0 APs.
The name just means you get to aim quickly enough to get more than 1 shot off in a turn. Once you’ve triggered it, you simply play out those shots the way you would normally and as far as I can tell it doesn’t (and never has) affect(ed) the targeting reticle.

[MichaelIgnotus]

I’ve been playing this game since its first release on BB1, and I can categorically state that the cover system hasn’t appreciably changed in all that time.

It has always been based on a ballistics system in which the trajectory of the bullet travels within a cone determined by the accuracy of the shooter and the weapon. If that trajectory happens to hit what you are hiding behind, the cover protects you. If it doesn’t, you get hit. Simple as that.

Most complaints on this forum come from XCOM (and I assume other system) players who assume that if they are hiding behind a rock that has a fully filled in shield icon, they are somehow completely covered from fire. That is clearly not the case, as the use of any Sniper against any Crabbie with his bum sticking out from behind a rock will demonstrate.

So you get cries of anguish that ‘Full Cover’ isn’t really working properly as full cover. That’s cos it never was! The cover system in this game works very differently to that. As I keep repeating to people, if you want full cover in this game, hide 1 tile back from the corner of a building, where the Crabbies can’t see you, then step forward and take your shot when you’re ready. If the Triton can’t see you, it can’t shoot its sniper rifle at you, but if you’re peeking your head around the corner, you’re gonna get it shot off.

So no, I haven’t seen ‘multiple changes and bugs’ with this cover system; i’ve just seen a lot of people misunderstanding how it works - and how it’s worked from the very beginning.

[BoredEngineer]

@MichaelIgnotus

Auick Aim has never increased accuracy in the entire history of the BBs. It has always just been a way of using 2 or 3 WP to reduce the cost of a Sniper Rifle down to 2 APs and the cost of smaller weapons down to 1 or 0 APs.
The name just means you get to aim quickly enough to get more than 1 shot off in a turn. Once you’ve triggered it, you simply play out those shots the way you would normally and as far as I can tell it doesn’t (and never has) affect(ed) the targeting reticle.

It increases accuracy by 25% and is useful on shotguns. Not that I personally use it for this as I don’t use shotguns anymore.

[BoredEngineer]

@MichaelIgnotus

I’ve been playing this game since its first release on BB1, and I can categorically state that the cover system hasn’t appreciably changed in all that time.

It has always been based on a ballistics system in which the trajectory of the bullet travels within a cone determined by the accuracy of the shooter and the weapon. If that trajectory happens to hit what you are hiding behind, the cover protects you. If it doesn’t, you get hit. Simple as that.

Most complaints on this forum come from XCOM (and I assume other system) players who assume that if they are hiding behind a rock that has a fully filled in shield icon, they are somehow completely covered from fire. That is clearly not the case, as the use of any Sniper against any Crabbie with his bum sticking out from behind a rock will demonstrate.

So you get cries of anguish that ‘Full Cover’ isn’t really working properly as full cover. That’s cos it never was! The cover system in this game works very differently to that. As I keep repeating to people, if you want full cover in this game, hide 1 tile back from the corner of a building, where the Crabbies can’t see you, then step forward and take your shot when you’re ready. If the Triton can’t see you, it can’t shoot its sniper rifle at you, but if you’re peeking your head around the corner, you’re gonna get it shot off.

So no, I haven’t seen ‘multiple changes and bugs’ with this cover system; i’ve just seen a lot of people misunderstanding how it works - and how it’s worked from the very beginning.

Well, if you compare it to earlier builds then while the cover itself works the same way it’s efficiency is not the same. Earlier you could hide behind a tree and it would provide you a cover until the enemy gets close. Now, enemy is always close as everyone can run further and visibility is lower, because of this, it became easier to get a partial flank on someone in cover and therefore the cover is less efficient than it was before.
What you are saying about picking corners is largely applicable only in release build. Even in BB5 I don’t remember a need of doing this. If triton was running with a sniper rifle, he would take shots way outside of your visual range. But now yes, the efficient cover is the one where you completely remove any LOS, which only adds micro-management.