Hacking.

[Bleh]

The updated demo is amazing until you hit the brick wall that is hacking:
An arcane minigame that has nothing to do with anything else you've been doing so far, with nothing but a black hole for a tutorial. For all intents and purposes, the demo might as well have ended there, but without leaving such a bad taste in the mouth.

I am the type of person who enjoys weird board games. I really just wish I knew the rules. I read every tooltip in that interface and none of it cleared up what I was supposed to do or why some actions are blocked.

The rest of the changes are really cool. Hope this part gets a lot more work.

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

There should have been a tutorial that popped up that told you exactly what to do and what the rules are. It's looks more complex than it is.

Early testers ran into a lot of issues with this, and it has been adjusted repeatedly to what it is now. At the moment, I don't have any data on this being confusing other than what you've just expressed, which is unfortunately not actionable without more information.

I am concerned that the tutorial did not appear, or something random like that. Because it walks you through the interface, how to move, what to do, etc.

Hacking is required in order to get through chapter one (you must do it once), because chapter one is the tutorial still, and it's teaching you all the mechanics. In chapter two and onward, hacking is one way you can solve problems, but unless you specifically want to be a hacker-type person, there's always some sort of alternative.

Chapter one does not give an alternative, because this is a teaching moment, and it's giving you an easy one to get the general idea. It should be fully tutorialized to the point that it's pretty clear.

Right now it's not clear to me what is not clear, so I can't help or make any changes without more information. Thank you for the note, though. People hitting the hacking part of the tutorial and getting scared off is certainly something that has been a concern.

[Phunisher]

The hacking minigame could probably use a bit more of a tutorial, but it basically goes like this:

You start with one shard (green border on square), on a square with a specific value (this is the value of that shard).

You can move to another square in a straight line (depends on movement type if you can pass 'blocked' (grey) or 'occupied' (Daemon on square)), so long as that square has a lower value than that of your shard (not 100% sure about this).

If you move to another square, half of that value gets added to the value of your shard, the other half gets sent to the square you left.

The bright green squares are those you can move to. The dull and grey squares are 'blocked' squares: you can't move over them with basic movement, but with a 'jump' you can jump over them.

If your value goes over 100, your shard splits into two, one on the old square, and one on the new one (both with half of the total value? Not 100% sure, it feels like the split value is higher than half of the total, but I've only done the minigame twice).

Each time you move a shard, there is a chance for a Daemon (basically antivirus) to move, dependent on their stats (which you can see by hovering over them).

The red border around squares around the Daemon is the area where they will attack next time you move. Different Daemon types have different effects.

If you have multiple shards, you can click one in order to destroy it, and everything in the four squares adjacent to it. If another of your shards is adjacent, it also gets destroyed alongside the shards adjacent to it.

If you destroy all the Daemons by sacrificing your shards, the 'leaf node' reveals itself (in my case it was access to the cockpit of the pilot). You can then sacrifice a shard in order to affect that system.

The rules of the minigame aren't that difficult, but it requires a bit of trail-and-error to discover how it actually works, unlike the majority of the rest of the game which has lots of tutorials and explanations.

I hope this helps you, and that you can enjoy the rest of the demo as well! I do have to mention again that I've only done the minigame twice now, and that was yesterday, so what I've written might not be 100% correct, but it should be enough to help you along.

[Phunisher]

Seems like I got ninja'd by the dev. As for the tutorial, if I remember correctly, I just gut a popup that I should hover over things to find out what they did, but I don't remember there being an actual tutorial. I'll go and check if I can find a save close to that point to make sure of this.

Edit: I think I see now what I missed. You need to actually click your shard in order to advance the tutorial, which you need to hover over in the top right of the screen to read. I just saw the first message, and missed that I needed to click my shard, so I just did it without tutorial.

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Actually, come to think of it, there is technically a way to bypass the hacking in chapter one now. I don't think that the game honors it the way it should, but it has come up amongst testers that there is a way to get past this thing.

I had been planning on trying to figure out how to close down that loophole, but now I think I may need to just lean into it. If someone wants to avoid hacking forever in the game, because that's just not for them, then that's something I'm fine with supporting. So I may just need to make this a choice of if you learn hacking, or if you do the other thing, at this point in the tutorial -- and then strongly recommend that people try to learn hacking, even if they might choose to never do it again, which is fine if that's the case.

Anyhow, that might be all that is needed, unless the tutorial just didn't pop for you. I can understand being frustrated at "what the heck is this unrelated thing that the game is MAKING me do," and then not really reading the tutorials, which is how your message reads. I've certainly felt that way in other games, so I can sympathize. For other people, it's a very exciting "oooh, I get to roleplay being an awesome hacker" sort of a moment.

I could be wrong, but it might be the fact that the tutorial forces you to engage in something which is otherwise completely optional is the key problem here. That's an easy thing to work around, but I'll have to do it after the LQA pass ends. So this will be something for after December 19th for me to fix up.

edit: I've added a note to allow a fork here, so that people can avoid this if they see this screen and immediately have a "hell no" reaction: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=29805

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Originally posted by Phunisher:

Edit: I think I see now what I missed. You need to actually click your shard in order to advance the tutorial, which you need to hover over in the top right of the screen to read. I just saw the first message, and missed that I needed to click my shard, so I just did it without tutorial.

Thank you! That's very useful. I have also made a note to fix this after the 19th: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=30004

[Bleh]

I got no tutorial, any of the 5-7 times I reloaded from the previous turn to restart the whole process and lemming it up again, hence my frustration.

Phunisher's comment is helpful in telling me a whole lot of stuff I didn't know(thanks for the effort of the write-up), so I might attempt it again, or see if I can read up on the exploit to skip it entirely.

Edit: Finally knowing the rules, I solved it after 2 more tries, though even after victory, I hope not to have to do it again, at least not in it's current form.

[Phunisher]

Originally posted by Bleh:

I got no tutorial, any of the 5-7 times I reloaded from the previous turn to restart the whole process and lemming it up again, hence my frustration.

Phunisher's comment is helpful in telling me a whole lot of stuff I didn't know(thanks for the effort of the write-up), so I might attempt it again, or see if I can read up on the exploit to skip it entirely.

Edit: Finally knowing the rules, I solved it after 2 more tries, though even after victory, I hope not to have to do it again, at least not in it's current form.

Great to see that my comment helped! It seems like you're not required to interact with the hacking again, so I hope you can go back to enjoying the demo.

[Bleh]

Having finished the demo again I can say that the overall the improvements from the previous version are significant. I am still very excited about where this game is heading despite my obvious issues with hacking.

Other suggestions
-Building upgrades lack clarity. I often had to go look at my building menu to figure out what my upgrade choices even were.
-Some droid upgrades like HP scale oddly with a single droid getting +20 HP and a whole stack of the same type in a bulk pack also getting the exact same +20, rather than a multiple of it. Overall, many of the unit upgrades feel a bit underwhelming, unless there are going to be a ton of them all stacking over a long game, in which case I guess it's fine.
-I also still think that weapon range scaling is very weird where every single weapon adds to that rather than only the longest range one. I understand that it's a balance thing, and I still think range needs an overhaul of some sort.
-Mineral Scrounger not collecting more than 1000 of anything is a real bummer. Adding a 0 to that figure would help a lot, if it even needs a limit.
-I really like that different buildings like the scanner and repair spiders now share a joint construction cap making the player choose between them. I would like to see that expanded on significantly to make the building caps feel less artificial and more like self-imposed strategic choices, or balanced by power/slurry upkeep. In general the less the player runs up against max of building x for "balance reasons" the better imo. Even the wind power which is the most obvious candidate for such a cap could be "capped" by being limited to one within a certain area. So if the player wanted extras they'd have to expand beyond what they could feasibly defend. Slurrybots/biomulchers/wells/geothermals are all candidates for such an aoe soft cap rather than an artificial hard cap.

Again, really cool experience overall even though it's only act 1!

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Cheers, thank you!

- I'd be curious to know more about your opinion on building upgrades. When presented with a choice, it should list all of the buildings you have, plus might have, when it's offering you some options. I can imagine some ways this could be unclear, but it's better for me not to assume. Can you elaborate?

- The droid upgrades all scale properly for bulks if they are equipment based. I have not checked recently if direct ones do. But it also depends on the stat. If you increase cognition, that does not stack in a bulk group, and should not. If you increase strength or agility, same. If you increase attack power or health, that does stack. I know it does with equipment, and I believe it does with direct upgrades as well. I'm guessing that you most likely were just looking at a stat (if you have 5 red sportscars that can go 100mph, the 5 of them together cannot got 500mph, type of thing). If that's not all it is, then it's worth a bugtracker note at some point.

- The weapon range scaling is on my hit-list, yeah.

- Mineral Scrounger is just giving you teeny tiny amounts of some random stuff. If you want a larger income of those resources, which is absolutely reasonable, then you want actual mining skimmers, or some other later mechanics. This literally has scrounger in the name, it's just giving you some scraps to keep you above zero. It prioritizes stuff you are lowest in, to an extent, IIRC. This is a deeply secondary source of income.

- Glad you like the new caps! Area-based caps are not on the table too much, as chapter two and onward is already balanced around the current concept. I see your point and where you're going with it, but there's a huge amount of content already in the game beyond the demo, and it gets you into choices at a rate I feel like is appropriate for most players to handle. Depending on the routes you take, it can already get absolutely bonkers. Making all of the buildings have defense requirements would just lead to mental overload. But, again, I see your point, and you're speaking from the perspective of chapter one. Don't worry, chapter two ups the ante on these. :)

Anyway, thanks again for the kind words!

[Bleh]

About building upgrades, the first part is that it pretty much always says "internal Robotics", which is worthless since it applies to all, then in small text at the bottom, it lists the building in question. Then I need to figure out what that stat on that building would actually give me. So maybe replacing the space that "Internal Robotics" & "Tower Mainframe" takes up with "Tower Mainframe" & "Output Compute Time", since that is the relevant info if one hasn't memorised the name and function of every building. At least that tells me more about what I'm getting without me having to check the build menu. Maybe a hyperlink to the building tooltip if I hover over it could also work? Not sure, but more relevant info without having to navigate back and forth between menus.

I don't think that HP stacks for droid upgrades, since that was what I noticed it on. I just went back and found a save where the tooltip of the upgrade says +30 HP for both normal and bulk variants. Whether it's a tooltip bug or an actual one, I don't know.

The issue with mineral scrounger is that it doesn't give enough to build a single unit with less that 1k of those resources, so it really feels like a bait when the cost of so many units is 1.5k-2k and you're stuck at 1k. What is that 1k for then? I can appreciate that you don't want it to serve a purpose it wasn't intended for, but maybe then just reduce the income rate and make the cap 2k? Or something. It just felt like another invisible wall, which is what I was arguing against for the building caps.
While on this topic, the cost scaling from a single droid unit compared to the bulk versions was also weird, with the "rare" resource cost for the single and group often being the same, which is weird.

As you say, I can't see the whole picture. I made suggestions, not demands, and even those based on incomplete info. I got 1k hours out of the two AI Wars, I trust that you know what you're doing, lol.

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Cheers!

Re the building upgrades, that makes sense. I will have to think about that, but I've noted it down: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=30015

For the HP stacks, I have that noted as well, but I need a save for repro. If you have one and want to upload it, here's the ticket. Otherwise QA will make one: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=30013

Points taken on the mineral scrounger. I think that's an artifact of me designing the mineral scrounger before the last set of updates to how much units cost. I've made a note to revisit it. I agree that probably a doubling is in order, after hearing your reasoning: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view.php?id=30014

Anyhow, thanks again -- and also glad you got so many hours of of the AI War titles!

[=(FGR)=Sentinel]

For me the big issue is, from what I've seen, your ability to actually "win" the hacking minigame isn't based off your ability to maneuver your shards to kill the daemons. That part is pretty easy once you realize you can't pass nodes that have a higher number than the shard itself has. Your ability to win the minigame is tied to a hard-to-get resource you only really attain from decisions you make, which means that they're limited. Every time you destroy (or at least via corrupting, the firewall option might be different) a daemon, it costs you points from your various pools (compassion and the others) and it also costs you points to claim (via destruction the way you kill a daemon) one of the hack nodes that either impact the mech/vehicle's stats or gives you control over it. Basically there's never a reason you WANT to hack/capture the same mech/vehicle type more than once because you get the ability to build your own version of each mech after you first hack it... At which point there's no benefit after that and using limited points on debuffing something that'll be replaced a few turns after it's destroyed doesn't necessarily feel worthwhile, especially since the points spent killing a daemon are spent regardless of if you win or lose the minigame.

On the other side of things, I have no idea if you "spend" points to destroy daemons and hack target nodes through using the firewall because it requires a lot more skill and shard placement that makes it extremely impractical (if not outright impossible) against at least one daemon type. This is made worse by the fact that daemons block out any space they've occupied every time they move, so eventually you'll run out of space to maneuver if you aren't careful. Altogether if the firewall method is "free" outside the processing power cost to use a firewall, you're left with a "free" method that's just too hard to use most of the time (from my experience) and an "easy" method that's too expensive to make hacking a practical longterm/recurring strategy.

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Quick hacking is a feature in the current demo and general game now. You can skip straight to the end and just pay the strategic resource and get the result, one click.

However, if your hacker is a lot weaker than he target, the cost goes up. If you want it at regular price, regular hacking but winning last a harder scenario is a way to go.

Quite aside from all of this, you get valuable upgrades from a large pool if you choose to hack manually, which you don’t get from quick hacking.

The goal being that people quick hack when it’s during combat and would break flow not to, or if they just don’t like hacking. And that if they want the extra bonuses or enjoy the feeling of being a hacker, or are hacking above their unit’s skill level, then regular hacking is still quite viable.

[=(FGR)=Sentinel]

Originally posted by x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park):

Quick hacking is a feature in the current demo and general game now. You can skip straight to the end and just pay the strategic resource and get the result, one click.

However, if your hacker is a lot weaker than he target, the cost goes up. If you want it at regular price, regular hacking but winning last a harder scenario is a way to go.

Quite aside from all of this, you get valuable upgrades from a large pool if you choose to hack manually, which you don’t get from quick hacking.

The goal being that people quick hack when it’s during combat and would break flow not to, or if they just don’t like hacking. And that if they want the extra bonuses or enjoy the feeling of being a hacker, or are hacking above their unit’s skill level, then regular hacking is still quite viable.

The issue is, from what I saw when I made the attempt in the demo, you still have to pay the cost to unlock the nodes at the end of the hacking minigame. I had one or two instances where I beat the minigame and went to take out the control cradle only to be told I didn't have the strategic resource points to hack it and I had to settle for something less valuable or, worse in one occasion, quit out of the minigame with nothing to show for it because there weren't other options I could corrupt to claim. That's more or less where my experience with it stems from so far and checking to see the tooltips after one attempt that got me nothing is how I found out that corrupting daemons also costs you points regardless of the outcome, which turned me off touching the hacking minigame and Crow androids in general. The idea that I could start the minigame up and spend a fair bit of time in it just to find out I can't afford to claim the reward took the wind out of my sails on trying it in the full game.

[=(FGR)=Sentinel]

Update to my above concerns: I can now confirm that you need 20 determination to corrupt the mech's cradle even if you do the hacking minigame. This price appears to be fixed if you do the minigame, but can be increased for quickhacking if the target's hacking defense is higher than your unit's hacking skill. Every "reward" node still has the strategic resource point cost associated with it regardless of if you're doing the quickhack or not and regardless of what method you use to corrupt/claim the related node, whether that be via a firewall or just corrupting from adjacent to it. This means, unless the target's hacking defense is high enough that it can actually give a large "cost" increase to quickhacking and you can't afford or don't want to pay the inflated cost, there's functionally zero reason to play the hacking minigame, especially because it's actually more expensive to take over a mech with non-inflated costs due to the point cost to corrupt a daemon.

Playing the hacking minigame, at least how it's set up (cost-wise) in the demo as of this moment just isn't worth it and the cost of quickhacking makes it unviable outside grabbing a single copy of a mech to be able to make your own copies of that type.