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An Open Letter to the Developers

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SL:
An Open Letter to the Developers.

Hello and thanks for taking the time to read this.  Thanks for making this game on your own time and resources.  While I would like nothing more than to claim that I registered to thank and praise, I have to admit I want to humbly submit some criticisms.  I'm just a gamer, nobody important, and much of what I say below are simply my personal opinions, not truths.  So you are welcome to take what I said with a grain of salt or ignore them entirely.  Discussion of differences is a healthy part of any community and I hope you all understand that regardless of the level of criticism, I will do you no wrong and hope you continual successes in the future.


I thought about which part of the game I want to talk about first, but decided on an observation I have made on your forum.  I noticed good input, good discussions, as well as criticisms, disagreements and inapprorpiate trollings.  With the except of this last thing I feel that it is all part of anything that is put forward online onto public view and use, and subjected to public opinions and debate.  I will categorically say that I support the censure of those who just want to bait or flame.  On the other hand, after having been following you guys for a number of years, I have frequently noticed a distinct lack of tolerance for criticisms, the kind that are not trolling.

I am sure I don't need to tell you, but frequently the line of "If you don't like it then code it yourself" was used as some sort of discussion ender.  I would like to politely submit that this kind of rebuttal and statement is not healthy, and actually not to your own interest.  Imagine, if you go to McDonald's, and you said that a burger that they have made did not turn out well at all, is it an acceptable response if they reply with "if you don't like it then cook one at home yourself?"  If you go to a ball game, or a discussion at city hall, or attend a for-charity concert, is it okay to say a player played badly, or a politician didn't do the right thing, or a singer at the concert sang badly, or even VERY badly?  I think it is safe to say that one is not expected to make one's way into sports, or become a politician, or go on stage to sing, before one can criticize, even criticize harshly provided it is all done within the code of conducts of the premise in question.

You all have kindly put this game out in public.  It is absolutely truth that you are doing it for free and using your own time.  Just like anyone who posts their singing on youtube, or their funny videoes in the public domain, receiving *and* dealing with criticisms immediately become part of it.  And I said earlier that saying "if you don't like it then code it yourself" is against your own interest, because you need people.  There is a sticky post on the top of your forum right now asking for translators, testers, etc. etc.   Yes, you need people actually more than people need you, because so many don't even register on the forum to say thanks.  And by dismissing people's criticisms, legit or otherwise, with that line will almost certainly drive people away.  I know I would be much more willing to work for a boss who is not dismissive like that even if he disagrees with the substance of my statements.  Humility and thick skin, like in real life, will get many more people to help you.  So please, please don't tell people any more that if they don't like something to do it themselves.  Not only does it not deal with any issue itself, but you've just turned away the next potential tester, or money donator, etc.


I spent a bit too much time on the above so I'll quickly go into the ONE main specific things I most want to have the developers consider.  As mentioned, I have followed you guys for a number of years, since 2.1 (or 2.2 I don't remember the number).  Every release since, I can count on one change with absolute certainty, and it is that the new version will be HARDER.  Harder, more challenging, more 'fun', or whatever you want to call it, the result is the same.  Please consider the following :

There is already a difficult setting for the game.  Those who want an extremely unfair experience can already play on Very Hard.  Those who don't mind things being somewhat unfair and play on Normal.  No, I'm not being facetious and I would like to submit the following examples for your consideration -

1.  Aliens whacked Mumbai and are advanced and merciless, Phalanx will get the BEST that earth has to offer to ensure its survival.  So, why is it that nearly all my soldiers have the rank of "Mediocre", which is one step below Average?  Why are they less than average??  Are we getting the best or just anyone.  Why is it that I run short on such simple supply as Med Kit???  Does the UN really want me to do the job or are they joking?  And are you saying that the UN has set up my organization to save the world, but I can't get enough scientists to fill just a second Lab in May?  Again, either don't write up the story with Phalanx as the last line of defense, or TREAT it as such.  It is absurd that I can't get 16 Med Kits to fully outfit a second team until 2 months and 1 week has past.

2.  The mission deployment design, for the lack of a better word, seems to be just deliberately inconvenient and unfair.  Why are 4 out of 8 of my men facing the edge of the screen upon deployment?  What are they hoping to spot?  For that matter, the enemies are at the north side of the map.  So why is it that even when there are plenty of space, 2 of my guys remain inside the Firebird and 3 others have deployed south against the edge of the map?  Did they fly there to avoid with the enemies or to make contact with them?

3.  A lot of the maps are just innately unfair to begin with.  You are deployed in wide open space.  Even if you move for a full round you can't get under cover, because there are just perhaps a couple trees or a beach lounger around.  Now, if it is a terror mission where you are requred to assault a dug-in set of enemies, fine, I can accept that.  But you know that railroad map which is frequently used for downed UFO, or that large workyard map, and many other maps where you are simply and deliberately deployed in a retarded position, requiring you to get shot at regardless of what you do as you run for cover.  Please, there is no need to make things more 'challenging'.

4.  So if the excuse above is that we are arriving on scene to assault already landed enemies, why is it that base defense is so ridiculous?  I understand that rooms need four paths to link up a base to make it work, I don't begrudge that type of technical requirements even though no one would make a high security lab with four entrances.  But why are there access points in workshops just to make things difficult?  No engineer would design an incompetent base entrance where there is a balcony surrounding from above so arriving enemies can fire at your troops from an elevated position.  Again, if the aliens come to my base, I expect things to be difficult for THEM, just like if I were to assault them.

5.  So at one point, we could just build the Dragon, Starchaser etc. once we have done the long research, and yes they are already extremely long.  When it was then designed to require a Dragon to take 5000 Alien Materials to make, did that person ask : "How will this IMPROVE the game?"  Yes, it will make it harder, more challenging for some, more frustrating if you ask others, but how does requiring that absurd amount add to people's playing experience?  The requirement for Anti-matter fuel is already a good balancing factor for the use of these new planes, specially considering that most UFO don't even give anti-matter upon disassembly.  I played a 2.4 game to its conclusion and ended up using the same two craft types I started the game with, Saracen and Firebird.  What's the point of doing research, or pretending to make progress when tech are too expensive to build or takes too long to gather?  By the time I have collected 5000 for ONE new plane I would have already been so sick and tired of capturing UFOs that I'm ready for something different.

6.  It takes ten people altogether 12 hours to make ONE sniper rifle magazine.  Are you kidding me?  Even the old Soviet Union wasn't that inefficient.  At mid/late game, I have 5 bases and 8 soldiers in each base.  They are each responsible to clean up after down'ed UFO in their continent.  Each person is equipped with an assault rifle and a sniper rifle.  And I constantly have to waste workshop time making sniper rifle magazine despite the few that become available for sale each day.  And these soldiers were good at shooting and rarely wasteful.  It galls me that I'm asked to defend the planet and I have to waste valueable workshop time, not on disassembly or building aircrafts, but just to make enough bullets.

I have so much more that I won't go into details, suffice to say that most of the tech I research simply aren't PLAINLY better than my starter equipment.  I don't even like the nanoarmour because it subtracts TUs, which is far more important the protection.  But I have saved the best for the last : When it says you have a 99% chance to hit, you probably don't.  The number has always been very buggy when the target is on a slope.  It doesn't seem to consider well the obstacles in between.  I remember having a 100% chance of hitting an alien around the corner, but four shots fired ALL ended up hitting the corner of the wall instead of the target.  These numbers have always been inaccurate, sometimes wildly so.  I can't even count the number of misses at 99% I have in the course of a single game, and as a mathematician I understand the diference between probability and statistics, as well as the psychological aspect of it.  Unfortunately it is the only tool available to the players and they are stuck using that number.

Yes, all these things, be they deliberate design or necessities, or shortcomings, already make the game plenty difficult.  When I read someone wrote that 2.5 it will be even harder to not have casualties, and that there will be a punitive wound model, and now weight can literally half my soldier's TU's, and med kits, something that is used to keep me from losing irreplaceable combat experience will be nerfed/made harder, I question whether the developers are losing perspective.

Please, remember that a game is supposed to be, first and foremost, fun.  More difficult does not always translate into that.  If you are going to spend your valueable time and resources to make a change, please don't simply ask whether they will make it more challenging, but instead ask whether it will add to the player's experience as a whole.

Please, the game doesn't need to be harder, there is already a Very Hard difficulty level.

My apologies for the insane wall of text.

H-Hour:
That is an insane wall of text. I won't respond to each point individually, but instead will reply to a few of the themes you've brought up.

The game is getting more difficult
You should not take the claim that 2.5 is more difficult at face value. In the forums everyone complains about things that have been made harder, but you don't hear about all the things that have been made easier. For instance, in 2.4 it was very easy to face a sudden, early drop in nation happiness and lose the game -- especially if you did not expand very quickly. In 2.5, it's much more difficult to actually lose. You have to willfully ignore tons of missions or fall so far behind in weapon technology that you are losing tons of soldiers in each mission.

Likewise, the ground combat in 2.5 is more bloody -- meaning you are likely to take more casualties than before -- but the incredibly tight limits on the number of soldiers available has been raised. So, while it may be more difficult to carry out a flawless mission, it is much easier to sustain those losses over time. It is the same in the weapons department. Grenade launchers no longer have burst mode, but their range has been increased so they are more "useable". In air combat, some UFOs have gotten stronger, but advanced interceptors are cheaper to build and maintain.

These are just a few of the examples.

Difficulty is not always fun
No, but in a strategy game it is fun to face a variety of challenges and have a variety of ways to solve them. Previous versions of UFO: AI suffered from poor balancing, which too often limited the real, effective choices available. You mentioned a few of them in your post, such as the fact that advanced interceptors were too expensive to ever effectively deploy. Likewise, many of the weapons were useless because a few of them (laser rifles, grenade launchers, rpgs) did everything better than all the others.

At the core of the rebalance that occurred last year was an attempt to enrich the variety of the challenges a player will face and the solutions they have to overcome them. In order to accomplish this with the ground combat (where this was the biggest problem), weapons were given a series of advantages and disadvantages which set them out as unique tools. They were each made more accomplished at meeting certain tactical challenges and less accomplished at others. Sniper weapons are now the premier long-range weaponry, but they are poor at everything else. Shotguns and Plasma Blasters are quick weapons suitable for defensive close-range encounters, but are too inaccurate to be effective at range. Across the entire weapon set, the player now has a range of weapons which they will be rewarded for deploying and using effectively. For a lot of experienced players, though, this means that their old habits are no longer effective.

It's within this same framework of advantages and disadvantages that you need to consider the new wounding and weight system. The heavy weight of a grenade launcher is one of its disadvantages. The tendency to cause wounding even at great distance is one of the advantages of the needler. By developing a weapons collection that is multifaceted -- taking into account not just the default weapon parameters such as accuracy, number of shots, damage per shot, damage type and TU cost, but also the consideration of its weight, tendency to wound, and the ability to fire at targets out of view -- the strategic depth of the ground combat is enriched. Again, for a lot of experienced players, this will disrupt their old habits of taking 2 or 3 primary weapons, giving everyone a medikit and the heaviest armour. But this is part of the extension of choice -- and real, meaningful choice, not just a choice between two things that are essentially the same. For instance, you complained about the fact that a soldier carrying too much will lose half of his TUs. But a soldier carrying very little can gain TUs as well. Strategy games are all about balancing the strengths and weaknesses of your assets. The rebalance has sharpened the differences between them, leading some to feel the weakness of a particular weapon more acutely, but on the whole the player has a much wider and more effective range of assets to deploy than they did in 2.4.

Code it yourself and It would be more realistic if...
Yes, sometimes we can be dismissive of ideas. Read this post for reasons why.

SL:
Hi and thanks for the response.  I'm perfectly okay if you or others don't necessarily agree with some of the things I mentioned, thats completely fine.  I would like however to point out one specific point, where I don't only feel we have a disagreement, but it is something that I think you are wrong on.


--- Quote from: H-Hour on June 15, 2013, 12:11:00 am ---Likewise, the ground combat in 2.5 is more bloody -- meaning you are likely to take more casualties than before -- but the incredibly tight limits on the number of soldiers available has been raised. So, while it may be more difficult to carry out a flawless mission, it is much easier to sustain those losses over time.

--- End quote ---

Having plenty of raw inexperienced soldiers as potential replacements for soldiers killed because the game has been made bloodier is not a 'wash'.  Meaning, the reason you gave for its justification does not at all mitigate the harm of the cause.  I'm sure you know why.  Most of the soldiers that you guys gave us have absolutely crappy stats, Mediocre, Mediocre, Average, Mediocre etc.  In the past, when I lose 3 or 4 men during the course of a game, it hurt, specially if it is a CWO or 2nd Lt. or higher.  I'm not just losing some men, I am losing a lot of accumulated stats, which translates to accuracy, TUs, etc.

Clearly having lots of replacements does not explain away why it is okay to have the new version kills more soldiers.  That's like saying "Don't worry about me beating you up more because I'll give you plenty of first aids and free rides to the hospital".  As I have already mentioned, there is already a Very Hard difficult setting for those who want combat very harsh, with more aliens to fight, more UFOs to deal with etc.  And you guys seem to assume that most everyone is having a zero casaulty game and I'm seriously curious on how you got that data and whether it is representative of not just the elite few who are here.

If a soldier with 30 missions under his belt is killed, thats a lot of game time and experience lost that cannot be replaced.  In the past losing several soldiers like that is painful, but not so frustrating that I didn't want to continue.  Now I'm reading that typically a soldier die on every mission.  So every time one experienced guy dies, he is replaced by a raw recruit, lowering the overall competency of the team, which makes men that much easier to die in the future, and the viscious cycle continues.  I guess some may like this and consider it fun.  But I'm afraid thats not me.

ShipIt:
1. Most of the stuff you mention can simply be solved by using a raw text editor, like notepad++. HowTo. Create a mod.

2. I cannot see why it should be wrong if the people doing the work decide whether they want to spend their spare time on a feature or not.

3. Your whole post does not even contain a single thought about how to do things better. To be honest, I think its a waste of time to write such a wall of complaints about something you got for FREE.

Visitor:
While I don't agree on every point - for example, you certainly have a right to complain about trooper positioning at the beginning of the round, but it's a thing devteam already stated they'd use feedback on and is more like a bug that should be reported instead of put in an open letter - I can well understand where are you coming from and can share some of your impressions.

 Some things you don't have to worry about, though - for example, there was recently quite a great surge in critique of 2.5dev difficulty level, humans having mediocre stats where aliens are seemingly bulletproof sprinter-snipers, costs of new generation crafts taking materials equal to what you retrieve from dismounting big alien ships and so on (in fact, some of those problems I've made this account to voice, as for years I was content of just being a lurker myself) - but there are already a few adjustments done in regards to those issues and it's very probable that by the time 2.5 will be stable, it'll all get balanced.

As for ShipIt's post.

--- Quote from: ShipIt on June 15, 2013, 12:41:51 pm ---Most of the stuff you mention can simply be solved by using a raw text editor, like notepad++
--- End quote ---
Just because people can make mods doesn't change the fact that there are voices requesting some things to be balanced. In some way it may be exactly what there was a complain about here - attitude of 'if you don't like it, change it yourself' which can be easily avoided.


--- Quote from: ShipIt on June 15, 2013, 12:41:51 pm ---I cannot see why it should be wrong if the people doing the work decide whether they want to spend their spare time on a feature or not.
--- End quote ---
That is not wrong, and no one claimed it is. Certainly though people would react better to something akin to 'right now we're quite busy with [some features] but it is possible we'll consider it afterwards' or 'we're not particularly fond of this or that idea, because..' (which I don't say was never written).


--- Quote from: ShipIt on June 15, 2013, 12:41:51 pm ---Your whole post does not even contain a single thought about how to do things better. To be honest, I think its a waste of time to write such a wall of complaints about something you got for FREE.
--- End quote ---
That I'd disagree it. It wasn't simply wall of complain, it did direct attention, in rather polite manner to a few issues - and not even very obscure issues but things that already were mentioned a few times in the past. SL also mentioned he is aware the game is free, but critique, as long as properly formed and, dare I say constructive (because in this regard, just because of pointing some issue, solutions are readily apparent) does benefit the project.

While certainly repetition in mentioning what's could use some adjustment may be tiring - it's still good that the worries are voiced in a decent fashion as it underlines and supports the notion that there are problems perceived by sizeable numbers of users and thus could use some additional attention.

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