Money or minions, but time? (Heat Scheme Cost)

[SpellSword0]

A thought just came to me, why some long scheme times feel bad even as I made another thread defending them.

I think it's the heat reduction schemes specifically!

You have two types: The ones that take a chunk of change, and the ones that take a chunk of valets.

Which is fine but...! I think the valet schemes overcharge you by also taking 30 mins to an hour or more to run their course. This feels unnecessarily long and grindy.

Unlike long money schemes where you constantly get small deposits of the cash reward over time which you can do something with, long heat reduction schemes don't give you anything you can use and exist to only to act as a much longer lockout for your network that can only run one scheme!

This is why network lockouts that take 5 mins, feel 1000x more beneficial than trying to run a half hour heat reduction scheme!

I think the cost of minion blood should be enough of a price and the scheme timer should be down to at least a minute, or five minutes! Or 30 seconds like the paid ones. If the time is too short then up the cost of valets, I'd be fine with that.

Thoughts?

[Darth Alpharius]

bribe vs minions doing it.

[Darth Glorious]

I always use the one which cost money, if there is not, better to let the lockdown happen

[Darth Alpharius]

Region Heat resets when lockdown ends.

[Mandemon]

A lot of people forget that it took 30 mins to hour to clear out heat on the world map in the first game. Now it's an explicit timer so they think it takes longer, even if it's the same.

[Nya!]

I think, this long schemes are made to compensate the passive heat gain (to start the scheme and forget about the region for a long time without destroying the criminal network), but as you said earlier, the passive heat isn't a good system at all.

So, if developers (or more likely modders, if it would be even possible) would remove passive heat gain - those long timed schemes wouldn't be necessary.

[SpellSword0]

Originally posted by Mandemon:

A lot of people forget that it took 30 mins to hour to clear out heat on the world map in the first game. Now it's an explicit timer so they think it takes longer, even if it's the same.

Alright look, one, in the first game heat dissipated passively (instead of building passively) and did not lock you out of doing stuff.

Two, you could make the heat go away faster by getting agents to leave peacefully.

Three, this is all irrelevant!


We're talking about Evil Genius 2 here, and how to potentially improve this game! There is no saving the first game, that's done! Gone! Let's not let its mistakes and issues weigh down the potential for something better today.

[SpellSword0]

Originally posted by Nya!:

I think, this long schemes are made to compensate the passive heat gain (to start the scheme and forget about the region for a long time without destroying the criminal network), but as you said earlier, the passive heat isn't a good system at all.

So, if developers (or more likely modders, if it would be even possible) would remove passive heat gain - those long timed schemes wouldn't be necessary.

The issue is that waiting 5 mins for a lockdown to erase all heat for free, versus sacrificing X amount of minions to remove heat over the course of half an hour, something feels very off here.

The long heat reduction schemes feel like a waste of a scheme. Does anybody actually use them? Show of hands!

Personally, I just let the lockdown take care of it, or if I'm impatient, I'll plop down the gold for immediate reduction.


But... What if the long heat schemes would be made more viable? More enticing to the player? By not being super stupid long?

[ImHelping]

A lot of this has nothing to do with "Players are just impatient/Dumb!"

Turns out, a lot of world map basics are either "Not as good a deal as you thought" or even buggy as ♥♥♥♥ within their own intended logic!

For example.

I stopped wanting to rush Patriot because their level 3 crime network pay looks buggy as ♥♥♥♥ makes their intel discount a moot point until the crime level 4 late game.

T1: generic.
T2: Average pay for intel discount. (Actually decent, unlike garbage Anvil).
T3: Suddenly worst payout in the entire game, so the intel discount doesn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ matter. ($250k, even Anvil gets $300k)
T4: Back up to smooth sailing with long duration $800k for 10 intel and a shorter mission timer. (Vs 1 mil or 1.25 mil above it, or or garbage $525k in anvil/smash).

But everyone is too busy screaming "You just don't appreciate how deep this game is!" to notice how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ they might actually be are for their play time and effort in Patriot for a good batch of their networks.


Meanwhile, Anvil is clearly "Working as intended" but they have the worst pay in the entire game universally (Except for when Patriot ♥♥♥♥♥ itself at crime level 3). Their discounts on heat missions are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ scam when you need to be running twice or more missions for your earnings.

But every time you hear about it people are busy patting themselves on the back for how "Smart and paying attention to details" they are for falling for the bait of those heat discounts.


Hammer seems buggy as ♥♥♥♥ because they go from "Good fast cash at T1" "No cash bonuses at T2?", "Below average fast cash at T3", and then finally "T4. Best fast cash in game again"... But they always have garbage Anvil cash values for their long duration missions. So uh, kind of a mess, that distracts people with how it starts good and ends good (For fast cash only). My notes on hammer read like a fever dream for how inconsistent it seems.


Smash looks working as intended but possibly poorly tuned with how the game actually works, even if you follow the mindset of "Heat doesn't matter lockdowns don't matter LOL:. Said gimmick being mega heat, 40 vs 50 cap, 80 vs 100 cap, etc.

And before anyone says "Well who cares you get 99% of your money even if there is a lockdown before it finishes!" NO YOU DO NOT get "99% of" your cash from a lockdown or cancel. Cash missions ACTUALLY reserve a large final lump sum for actually completing, and Smash long cash missions also tend to take longer than normal.

Meaning if the mission is canceled (manually or via crime network lockdown) you can potentially end up with LESS cash from Smash on average, not more. And they only seem impressive on a cancel if you are used to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ garbage tier money you get from Anvil or "below average" cash from Patriot.

Some people are too busy patting themselves on the back saying what a cool "exploiter" they are to notice this fact, I guess. Still actually decent in smash, but not quite the "big deal for smart tactical players" people tell themselves they are getting either.

A view further skewed by comparing it to the absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ areas like Anvil. Where a level 4 network only gets you $525k, vs 800k, 1 million, or 1.25 million elsewhere at lv 4.

So yeah... Anyone feeling something is "Wrong" or "Not good enough for your efforts" on the world map? You are not paranoid, that is actually happening quite a bit.

[Nya!]

Originally posted by S.S.:

Originally posted by Nya!:

I think, this long schemes are made to compensate the passive heat gain (to start the scheme and forget about the region for a long time without destroying the criminal network), but as you said earlier, the passive heat isn't a good system at all.

So, if developers (or more likely modders, if it would be even possible) would remove passive heat gain - those long timed schemes wouldn't be necessary.

The issue is that waiting 5 mins for a lockdown to erase all heat for free, versus sacrificing X amount of minions to remove heat over the course of half an hour, something feels very off here.

The long heat reduction schemes feel like a waste of a scheme. Does anybody actually use them? Show of hands!

Personally, I just let the lockdown take care of it, or if I'm impatient, I'll plop down the gold for immediate reduction.

Oh well, I used them at first, thinking that a lot of heat and lockdowns would cause bad consequences...
And after I realised that it does nothing - of course I started to ignore that.

So the issue here is bound to the overall heat system, which isn't working.
And I'm quite surprised you started this topic after you wrote a big and good one about the needed improvements, where you described the irrelevant heat among other points.

The root of evil is the passive heat, and if it would be changed - the entire scheme system would need to be rebalanced as well. And I hope this would happen.

[Deranged Duck]

I think the only benefit one would get out of using minions for such excessive time, Is if they're using it for uninterrupted passive income flow while other regions get more attention and micro.

[SpellSword0]

Originally posted by Nya!:

And I'm quite surprised you started this topic after you wrote a big and good one about the needed improvements, where you described the irrelevant heat among other points.

Well yeah but...

Let's say, by some miracle (or misfortune, depending on what side you're on), all my previous listed changes just got accepted and patched in.

It doesn't change the half hour long scheme feeling, bad AND pointless, in my opinion... I don't know! Maybe it does!

But, that scheme will still be there, and it'll still probably feel bad.

The last thread was focused more on the games core foundations. And I'm just trying to think of everything else after that, beyond the core.

A fixed core would be great! But it would only be the start. There is soo much more that would still need to be changed and adjusted after the fact, and I just really want to see this game do well... :(

I'm tired, I should go to bed...

[Nya!]

Originally posted by S.S.:

Let's say, by some miracle (or misfortune, depending on what side you're on), all my previous listed changes just got accepted and patched in.

It doesn't change the half hour long scheme feeling, bad AND pointless, in my opinion... I don't know! Maybe it does!
But, that scheme will still be there, and it'll still probably feel bad.
A fixed core would be great! But it would only be the start. There is soo much more that would still need to be changed and adjusted after the fact

Fixing the core without rebalancing the dependancies would be pretty much pointless, so this must go hand in hand.
Without passive heat gain - such long deheat schemes would become useless, and must be shortened.

But if they will leave the passive heat gain BUT will add consequences to the lockdowns - such long schemes would help to manage without constantly using short bribe schemes at each region. Still I hope they won't use this path.

However, I don't really believe they will do something other than just bugfixing and a couple of new items... And I'll be happy to be mistaken here.

Originally posted by S.S.:

I just really want to see this game do well... :(

I have the same feeling. This has so much potential to be a great game. And I really want to be able to enjoy it.

To those who already enjoys it - good for you, but everyone has different tastes.

[0hit'sJames]

I use the minions to lower the heat when the super agents are on that region. It keeps them from noticing and shutting down the region all the time, but it's hard to get the minions there on time when they are waiting in line for the helicopter.

[candyundfelix]

Originally posted by Darth Glorious:

I always use the one which cost money, if there is not, better to let the lockdown happen

use them too if i had the data for them because superagents ignore them too

[MaebeKnot]

I use a combination of money vs minion heat reduction missions. It all comes down to if I waited to long to address the rising heat and how much I want to micro-manage the world map for the next 30-60 minutes. It also plays a big part in how much time you want to give your minion pool to increase. If you are doing a lot of short missions you are going to start taking a hit on your minion count. You can also cause a really long line of minions waiting to go on a mission.

It's also not a great idea to just let heat raise without reduction. Letting a zone lock down. You will encourage more FoJ and stronger ones. This might not matter on lower difficulties. I don't know. I have only played on hard. In my experience, it is something worth putting some effort into keeping down. Money should also be easy enough to come by that you can have a combination of 30 minute heat reductions, a few long timer money makes, a few short time money makers, along with pushing forward on some story related missions.