For the Devs: Regarding ADHD and character builds

[Aldernut]

Hello!


I've been enjoying the game so far. Thank you for making it.

However, I just reached the point in the game, where I have to start choosing how to build my characters. As there are only 3/8 skills each char can have, this means making choices.

I'd guess normally in video game development, "making choices" is seen as a good thing. However, with ADHD "it's complicated". ADHD is a neurological disability, which severely lowers your brain's ability to make permanent choices. The result is a very stressful situation, with possibly hours of teeter-tootering.

Two concepts involved in this are "executive function" and "analysis paralysis". The first is basically the neurobiological part of your brain involved in e.g. planning and choices, while the second is the resulting paralysis of it being overwhelmed.

More info here:
https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/apa-blog/2017/01/executive-function-of-the-brain-key-to-organizing-managing-time-and-more
https://www.additudemag.com/slideshows/analysis-paralysis-and-adhd-trouble-making-decisions/

There are tens of millions of people with ADHD, many of them gamers.

A more hands-on description of the problem is, that you essentially have to "lock on" to certain character builds without experiencing any late game play. As there's no respec option, all skill choices are permanent. Make wrong choices, and you'll shoot yourself in the foot, potentially having to redo tens of hours of gameplay.

The best solution for me (and other ADHDs?) would be to not limit skills. With time and effort, each MechWarrior could unlock every skill available. Second best would be the ability to respec characters.

The way to cater to everyone would be adding a simple slider: "How many skills you can choose: 1-8".


Best regards,
Aldernut

 

[Queen Tekla]

Wasnt this topic locked on the steam forum?

 

[Aldernut]

Wasnt this topic locked on the steam forum?

Yeah, although I don't know why. Could be because people started trolling and derailing, though.

 

[BellaStrega]

I don't think the topic was locked because of the suggestion.

I'd love a good respec option.

 

[Chaotic-Entropy]

I think you just need to treat your initial pilots as entirely disposable, once you get a hang of the skills or check some tutorials to see which compliment each other it's easier to make a decision. I botched my first few pilots pretty badly and had to let them go, so... if you love them, let them go.

 

[Milano_II]

Never had issue making choices with my ADHD... Respec would be a cool option or something you need to pay for in the store.. Or maybe you need to earn rep with comstar and have them do it.. There's ways. If it came in I'd like the ability to toggle it.. or maybe you only get like 1 each game year...

That said, I think the medical tecnojargon and explanations are incendiary in that they're condescending and unnecessary.

 

[Kurnn]

I have ADHD and is a gamer. I dont agree with this at all.

 

[Fiona Marshe]

As a parent of one (ASD+ADHD combo) there are ways to deal with the problems. If you have good Behavioural Therapist (that understands gaming), a short treatment plan on how to cope with the decision making process can be invaluable.
If there are a few other players in the area, it could be set up as a "Battletech Club" group session (the same way many offer a "Minecraft Club" therapy session).

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

I don't have an issue with allowing respecs, but needing the option because of my ADHD...?

No.

This is a situation where we need to put on our big boy pants, find a coping strategy, and move on.

 

[Aldernut]

I don't have an issue with allowing respecs, but needing the option because of my ADHD...?

No.

This is a situation where we need to put on our big boy pants, find a coping strategy, and move on.

You know, telling disabled people that they "need to be big boys" and "cope" isn't really nice.

 

[BellaStrega]

I think the ADHD side of this argument is not really the point. That explains where Aldernut's coming from, but the suggestions themselves are the point and should be addressed on their own.

 

[project_mercy]

The skills are limited not only from a gameplay perspective, but from a UI perspective. If a pilot had multiple active skills, where would you put them all? there's only enough slots in the current UI design for a fixed number of abilities. If you've every tried to play a modern MMO on a smaller resolution, you can start to see the difficulties in an expansive number of skills in an otherwise already dense UI.

So, this doesn't preclude your Respec option, though. I wouldn't discourage additional options for people.


As an aside though, I can save you the issue on how to plan your mechwarriors. All your mechwarrior should have Bulwark. If we had balanced lances, it would probably not be this way, but as the game progresses the AI's gunner skill gets so high and they have so many weapons, that evasion is mostly useless, conversely Bulwark always works and you generally spend multiple turns standing somewhere blasting away. After that, you probably want one guy with Sensor Lock for certain situations. One should be enough. After that, split your mechwarriors between those with Multi-shot and those with Evasive Movement.

So, that only leaves you your final skill.

Since everyone has bulwark, the 2nd tier of guts is Juggernaut, which is just not that useful. Given how stability works and how you get into melee, you're probably going to drop someone on their butt when you melee. By the time your mechwarrior could realistically have Juggernaut, you're facing heavies and assaults. They mostly all around phase 2 or 1 (except the tactical master heavy) There's no 0 or -1 init, and more of then than not, the ability to choose to go first (via vigilance or something) or after them (via reserving) is a lot more useful than dropping their Init. So, it's not a great skill. So that leaves you implicitly taking the one in the other tree you ended up with.

So really, Take Bulwark. Don't take Juggernaut. The rest will work itself out.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

You know, telling disabled people that they "need to be big boys" and "cope" isn't really nice.

There are times when it's better to be honest than nice. Life is full of situations where you have to make an immediate choice without knowing the long-term implications of a short-term decision. Think of the pilot skill selection conundrum as an opportunity to practice dealing with that fact in a safe, consequence-free environment.

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

Just so we're clear -

- My ADHD is as bad as yours. My daughter's is shaping up to be worse. I'm trying to teach her skills to cope with it because, frankly, the rest of the world doesn't give a damn. It's our problem to overcome.

- I have no problem with allowing pilots to respec. My objection is to the implication that people with ADHD are too fragile to cope with such a trivial issue.

 

[Cheetah2003]

So you're basically coming in here and telling Paradox and HBS to redo character skills and/or simplify (dumb down) the entire thing for ... you?

What about those of us who like choice, and complexity, and difficult decisions? Don't we get some consideration too?

To actually further the discussion, I present the general description of ADHD from the American National Institute of Health website.

Do you find it hard to pay attention? Do you feel the need to move constantly during times when you shouldn’t? Do you find yourself constantly interrupting others? If these issues are ongoing and you feel that they are negatively impacting your daily life, it could be a sign of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

ADHD is a disorder that makes it difficult for a person to pay attention and control impulsive behaviors. He or she may also be restless and almost constantly active.

Now, call me ignorant, stupid or what have you, but I'm failing to see any issue with decision making. ADHD seems to be a compulsive restlessness? That's my understanding. Educate us?

 

[EmptyPepsiCan]

Now, call me ignorant, stupid or what have you, but I'm failing to see any issue with decision making. ADHD seems to be a compulsive restlessness? That's my understanding. Educate us?

It's a whole lot more complex than that description. I could educate you further, but this isn't really the proper venue and I'm not interested in furthering the discussion. There are vast piles of data on the internet if you feel like looking.

 

[Aldernut]

There are times when it's better to be honest than nice. Life is full of situations where you have to make an immediate choice without knowing the long-term implications of a short-term decision. Think of the pilot skill selection conundrum as an opportunity to practice dealing with that fact in a safe, consequence-free environment.

Yes, life is full of situations like this. And it's not the disabled person's fault, nor is ADHD something that you can do away with by learning. At most, you can lessen the problems. It's similar to 1) providing people in wheelchairs with easy-access ramps, vs. 2) telling them to deal with it.

My objection is to the implication that people with ADHD are too fragile to cope with such a trivial issue.

You're literally trivialising the issue here, which is both unnecessary and toxic. When you're a gamer and so many games are developed with the "make hard choices!" -idea, the issue becomes less trivial. Rather, you get to crash into it over and over again.

My daughter's is shaping up to be worse. I'm trying to teach her skills to cope with it because, frankly, the rest of the world doesn't give a damn.

I sincerely hope all the best to your daughter. Hopefully, she'll get the help she deserves.

So you're basically coming in here and telling Paradox and HBS to redo character skills and/or simplify (dumb down) the entire thing for ... you?

I'm not asking this entirely for me. I'm asking for a demographic which suffers from analysis paralysis caused by executive function dysfunction. You're making it sound like I'm some entitled brat, which is a misrepresentation of my post and not very nice either.

I think the ADHD side of this argument is not really the point. That explains where Aldernut's coming from, but the suggestions themselves are the point and should be addressed on their own.

Thank you, exactly so.

What about those of us who like choice, and complexity, and difficult decisions? Don't we get some consideration too?

Indeed. I suggested right in my original post that they would put in a simple slider. Let's rephrase it: "Amount of MechWarrior skills 0-8". It's an option that would cater to everyone and nobody would lose anything.

Generally speaking, "making choices" has become the norm for deep gameplay in videogames. However, when looking at e.g. PnP RPGs, this kind of "limiting choices" via hardcaps isn't the norm at all. Cyberpunk 2020, MERP and GURPS come to mind, where you can learn almost any skills by doing. And there are really many different skills.

 

[BellaStrega]

To actually further the discussion, I present the general description of ADHD from the American National Institute of Health website.

Now, call me ignorant, stupid or what have you, but I'm failing to see any issue with decision making. ADHD seems to be a compulsive restlessness? That's my understanding. Educate us?

The ADHD thing is a digression, but I wanted to point out that it is literally impossible to sum up a condition as complex as ADHD in that tiny quote you posted, which is only a small part of the entire page in question. That entire page is still not enough, because ADHD's core impairment is in executive function, and that is a very complex topic. This isn't a copout - google "executive function" or "executive function in ADHD" or "executive dysfunction" and you can find all kinds of information on the topic and see what it encompasses.

That said, your best bet if you want to understand what ADHD is about is to do the research. There's reams of research papers and articles, and hours of videos on the topic.

And that said, focusing on ADHD misses the point of the suggestion itself.

 

[Cheetah2003]

A more hands-on description of the problem is, that you essentially have to "lock on" to certain character builds without experiencing any late game play. As there's no respec option, all skill choices are permanent. Make wrong choices, and you'll shoot yourself in the foot, potentially having to redo tens of hours of gameplay.

Or you could just hire a new pilot and train them out how you'd prefer, if one of your existing pilots isn't meeting your expectations. That is partly why you can have a lot of pilots on your roster.

That said, the only abilities worth anything are Bulwark, Breaching Shot and Master Tactician. Everything else is a waste of time and effort. Save yourself some headache, train 3 pilot with bulwark and breaching shot, and 1 pilot with evasion and master tactician (the scout/spotter pilot.) Anything else is less than optimal.

 

[Lawler]

The skills are limited not only from a gameplay perspective, but from a UI perspective. If a pilot had multiple active skills, where would you put them all? there's only enough slots in the current UI design for a fixed number of abilities. If you've every tried to play a modern MMO on a smaller resolution, you can start to see the difficulties in an expansive number of skills in an otherwise already dense UI.

So, this doesn't preclude your Respec option, though. I wouldn't discourage additional options for people.


As an aside though, I can save you the issue on how to plan your mechwarriors. All your mechwarrior should have Bulwark. If we had balanced lances, it would probably not be this way, but as the game progresses the AI's gunner skill gets so high and they have so many weapons, that evasion is mostly useless, conversely Bulwark always works and you generally spend multiple turns standing somewhere blasting away. After that, you probably want one guy with Sensor Lock for certain situations. One should be enough. After that, split your mechwarriors between those with Multi-shot and those with Evasive Movement.

So, that only leaves you your final skill.

Since everyone has bulwark, the 2nd tier of guts is Juggernaut, which is just not that useful. Given how stability works and how you get into melee, you're probably going to drop someone on their butt when you melee. By the time your mechwarrior could realistically have Juggernaut, you're facing heavies and assaults. They mostly all around phase 2 or 1 (except the tactical master heavy) There's no 0 or -1 init, and more of then than not, the ability to choose to go first (via vigilance or something) or after them (via reserving) is a lot more useful than dropping their Init. So, it's not a great skill. So that leaves you implicitly taking the one in the other tree you ended up with.

So really, Take Bulwark. Don't take Juggernaut. The rest will work itself out.

Actually, there are only 2 active skills. The passive will work regardless of if they appear on your UI or not. In fact, Mastiff, rest his charred and broken soul, had all skills when you used him in the tutorial. But only sensor lock and multi-shot showed up because the UI makes them preferential over the passives.

I’ve also been toying around with modding the upgrade parts for mechs by adding things like multi-shot and bulwark. Mainly just to make the upgrade parts useful, but also as an experiment in modding the game. The active skills take the place of passives even when added this way on pilots with 3 skills already.