Game Difficulty
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There is likely to be no additional cost for Armor Repair beyond the periodic upkeep cost, but the timing of the Armor Repair and its duration has to the best of my knowledge not been specified. I would be surprised if it was instantaneous upon return of the Mech to the ARGO.
In the stream last Thursday with Anders and Connor, Jordan says "armor you don't have to worry about; armor's cheap and the guys can fix it up right away..." at about the 53:50 minute mark.
Maybe we'll get to see some of this in tomorrow's Paradox Twitch broadcast. As far as I know cKnoor's livestream should be same bat-time and same bat-channel. Has anyone heard differently?
Watched all of cohh's stream and I'm very concerned that the financial game is going to be trivially easy due to free instant armor and abundant salvage. Based on the contract negotiations he's done, it seems like maxing out salvage rights and selling the quite expensive loot even from vehicles is going to pay far better than cash. Even a milk run against 4 tanks looked likely to cover a months expenses, and despite your supposedly desperate financial straits you can take at least 4 missions before going broke.
I think the main culprit is the decision to make armor repair free in both time and money. I am begging that this be made moddable before release, if not adjustable via difficulty slider.
The possibility of infinite free ammo isn't going to help matters if it's true, cohh's unclear on the matter so far.
Granted I've not seen anything yet about maintenance of the Argo, let alone upgrading, but I don't want the only real risk in the campaign to come from mistiming starship repair. I have waited literally my entire adult life for a turn based mech mercenary company game where I had to scrape to survive. If this isn't going to be it, please at least give me the modding hooks to make it myself.
I think the main culprit is the decision to make armor repair free in both time and money. I am begging that this be made moddable before release, if not adjustable via difficulty slider.
The possibility of infinite free ammo isn't going to help matters if it's true, cohh's unclear on the matter so far.
Granted I've not seen anything yet about maintenance of the Argo, let alone upgrading, but I don't want the only real risk in the campaign to come from mistiming starship repair. I have waited literally my entire adult life for a turn based mech mercenary company game where I had to scrape to survive. If this isn't going to be it, please at least give me the modding hooks to make it myself.
I'm not worried. Between Cohh's somewhat-reckless stream and Bombadil's more cautious stream I think the balance is somewhere in the middle. There's a few reasons I don't think rolling in cash is going to happen:
- Every month you have an expenditure report, and it's around 200k to 250k which you just flush down the toilet to keep the banks from seizing your Leopard. This doesn't sound like a lot, until you have a 'Mech get stomped hard and have to repair it and replace the equipment on it.
- Mech armor is rolled into the maintenance fee along with replenishing ammunition stocks, which is good because you're going to need that money to get spare parts. Or extra parts. Or both. Cohh lost all his jump jets off a Spider and replaced it with armor, and it cost him a lot of money to refit a 'Mech which was put out of action through center torso destruction. (41 day repair time, too.)
- Salvage includes ammo elements, which are . . . the vendor trash of the Inner Sphere arms merchants. You're not going to make money quickly flipping that. On the other hand, you could make a profit flipping 'Mech chassis parts - at the risk of not completing new 'Mechs to expand your forces. Selling weapons is possible, but you really should keep some spares lest those lucky crits on you leave your poor Blackjack toothless.
All it takes is one bad turn in combat to turn it from "I'm going to make a profit" to "I'm going to need another job to make a profit from the hole dug on this job". All it takes is having something out of position and ganged-up on, or having unlucky head shots injuring your pilots and forcing you to put them in the medbay . . . yeah, this is a hard world. Playing well is rewarded by the risk of bad luck being reduced but not eliminated. The difference between wild extravagant success and white-knuckle merc work is in which one of the gods you happened to piss off today.
It depends of your definition of difficulty. I think it will be like darkest dungeon: you cannot really lose but any failure could set you back for a long time. It will make you grind a lot of half skull missions, corresponding to run of the first dungeon.
To have more something you want, you will need a mod to have like battle brothers: after sometime, there is no easy mission. If your company of mercenary decrease in efficiency, you will no be able to recover. It is a run against the clock. Clearly it is not something everboeve appreciate, so it should be a mod.
I think what needs to be realised is, in a game with no difficulty levels, challenge needs to be set with reference to casual gamers with no background. Like Cohh is playing at.
While making it forgiving for these types of players still doesn't stop them reloading, it will mean the econ sim will be a cakewalk for more experienced players (who will need to wait for the possible post launch ironman mode for a greater challenge).
This isn't a bad thing - Its certainly better than average players being locked out of progressing through the story or being subjected to endless grind.
But some expectations for launch may need to be recalibrated with this framing in mind.
While making it forgiving for these types of players still doesn't stop them reloading, it will mean the econ sim will be a cakewalk for more experienced players (who will need to wait for the possible post launch ironman mode for a greater challenge).
This isn't a bad thing - Its certainly better than average players being locked out of progressing through the story or being subjected to endless grind.
But some expectations for launch may need to be recalibrated with this framing in mind.
The difficulty level in the sim-game is keeping your mechs combat ready and your pilots ready to drop. Because as we saw on Cohh's stream, making some simple mistakes or having some bad luck will cost you a month with a pilot in the medbay and a mech laid up being repaired/refit.
A bit too much bad luck and you could see yourself with too many mechs being repaired or pilots recovering, and quickly finding your money running out because you can't do a mission that gives enough of a profit to cover your operating costs while you wait for your mechs to be finished and pilots recovered.
It's not just how good you can do in combat but how you run your company and pay the bills as well. So yeah the ammo and armor replacement may be covered automatically but the rest of it is the really difficult parts.
A bit too much bad luck and you could see yourself with too many mechs being repaired or pilots recovering, and quickly finding your money running out because you can't do a mission that gives enough of a profit to cover your operating costs while you wait for your mechs to be finished and pilots recovered.
It's not just how good you can do in combat but how you run your company and pay the bills as well. So yeah the ammo and armor replacement may be covered automatically but the rest of it is the really difficult parts.
Game is pretty much done. HBS has already said there is only standard difficulty with no options. Ammo is free. I doubt armor repairs will be easily moddable, but there have been quite a few discussions on what can be easily modded in the json files. There have also been discussions about self imposed difficulty options. Like permanent mech loss or always taking the most difficult contracts you can find.
I share your concerns, but we have only seen the easiest contracts in the streams so far. Earlier, I had a little rant about the AI not moving it's spider before firing on the miner mission. I think the AI just got a little confused. In later streams, I have seen the AI make tactical retreats to regroup and also some pretty sick focus fire. We have just seen the tip of a very large iceberg so far.
While trying to calculate ammo/armor amounts replaced to figure out a bespoke cost per 'Mech, per mission, would be a lot of effort. An easy way to do this would be to just up the flat rate cost it takes to keep a 'Mech and 'MechBay operational. HBS is already rolling those in to the monthly upkeep cost and all modders would have to do is change that rate. There is a section for "Financials" in the beta simGameConstants.json that has all the base costs and modifiers laid out, I'd assume the launch game would have a similar section and file.
So far the streamers were facing poorly maintained enemy units in combat. Maybe the things will change when enemy vehicles and light mechs will stop exploding because of an angry look in their direction.
Also, I'm curious about enemy reinforcements in generated missions. Is it possible that they are some kind of difficulty modifier, so the better you are performing, the more meat the game will throw at you?
Also, I'm curious about enemy reinforcements in generated missions. Is it possible that they are some kind of difficulty modifier, so the better you are performing, the more meat the game will throw at you?
It would be really cool to see, instead of standard Difficulty of "Normal, Hard" to have an Advanced Gameplay Options menu that adds difficulty/randomness to the game itself. At least this is what I would like to see for the series as it goes forward, in patches or a 'final' edition.
Here's the XCOM example:
Some ideas for completely optional things to select:
- Iron Man
- Bronze Man (secondary add-on for Iron Man, can restart mission only)
- Stock Only
- (TACs) Through Armor Critical Chance
- Table Top Indirect Fire (one unit must sacrifice its turn to "Spot" first)
- Engine Explosions (chance engine will explode, causing nearby damage)
- Pilot Damage Random (determined by skill check levels, may or may not take damage by chance)
- Multi-Target For All (All pilots can multi-target, but the aim chance degrades the more secondary units are fired on)
- Random Rookies (wider random variance for new pilots starting stats)
- Hidden Potential (when you promote a soldier, their stats increase randomly)
- Design Quirks (Mechs that have canon quirks are applied, some are positive, some are negative or have both) For Example, a Banshee has Negative Perk "Bad Reputation" 3 Series only except 3S making resale value cut in half and has Positive Perk "Distracting" - Morale drops for opposing unit in same hex
- Rapidfire Regular Autocannons (you can fire an AC twice in one turn, but it can jam rendering it useless)
- Table Top Ammo Explosions (more deadly ammo explosions)
There are plenty more TacOp Rules to gain ideas from.
Other than that, features like being able to mount a weapon rearward or flipping the arms to fire in the opposite direction would be super cool and add an extra layer for firing arcs/tactical decisions. Dump Ammo would be another one, useful for more deadly ammo explosions.
Here's the XCOM example:
Some ideas for completely optional things to select:
- Iron Man
- Bronze Man (secondary add-on for Iron Man, can restart mission only)
- Stock Only
- (TACs) Through Armor Critical Chance
- Table Top Indirect Fire (one unit must sacrifice its turn to "Spot" first)
- Engine Explosions (chance engine will explode, causing nearby damage)
- Pilot Damage Random (determined by skill check levels, may or may not take damage by chance)
- Multi-Target For All (All pilots can multi-target, but the aim chance degrades the more secondary units are fired on)
- Random Rookies (wider random variance for new pilots starting stats)
- Hidden Potential (when you promote a soldier, their stats increase randomly)
- Design Quirks (Mechs that have canon quirks are applied, some are positive, some are negative or have both) For Example, a Banshee has Negative Perk "Bad Reputation" 3 Series only except 3S making resale value cut in half and has Positive Perk "Distracting" - Morale drops for opposing unit in same hex
- Rapidfire Regular Autocannons (you can fire an AC twice in one turn, but it can jam rendering it useless)
- Table Top Ammo Explosions (more deadly ammo explosions)
There are plenty more TacOp Rules to gain ideas from.
Other than that, features like being able to mount a weapon rearward or flipping the arms to fire in the opposite direction would be super cool and add an extra layer for firing arcs/tactical decisions. Dump Ammo would be another one, useful for more deadly ammo explosions.
It seems that way until Cohh ran that pirate hunting mission with the BJ-1. He didn't expect that much resistance and didn't play the mission very well. As a result, repairs took 2 'Mechs out of rotation for a month and took a huge chunk out of his finances. And that was a mission he won! Remember also that he's only played half-skull missions so far. When he starts doing one and two skull missions, the risk of having a really bad mission will go up.
Don't forget that XCOM only got that in a later patch I believe. And that is something that HBS may be already thinking of.
But they have to balance things. They can't just think of those players who can waltz through the game hitting every difficult mission and completing the campaign with no problems. They have to balance the game for the average players. The ones who will find that they have to be careful not to make silly mistakes. And then they have the option for people to decide to go for slightly more difficult contracts when they want while also giving people the option of going easy contracts when they need them.
It's a difficult balancing act and so far things are showing that they have done a very good job. We haven't seen the 3-5 star contracts which are more mid-late game and they will be a real showing of how well they have balanced things.
But they have to balance things. They can't just think of those players who can waltz through the game hitting every difficult mission and completing the campaign with no problems. They have to balance the game for the average players. The ones who will find that they have to be careful not to make silly mistakes. And then they have the option for people to decide to go for slightly more difficult contracts when they want while also giving people the option of going easy contracts when they need them.
It's a difficult balancing act and so far things are showing that they have done a very good job. We haven't seen the 3-5 star contracts which are more mid-late game and they will be a real showing of how well they have balanced things.
Difficulty is my biggest concern for the game as far as longevity goes ...
I hope the devs dont agree with a previous poster about making the difficulty based on the knowledgeable masses.
I can give this suggestion although Im not sure how the game handles difficulty currently (skulls).
My suggestion is this: Make contracts that are 1 skull and lower your typical contract with little to no variance as far as Opfor goes. And contracts above 1 skull make it random - so say you take a 3 skull contract that on average puts you against a 180 OPfor lance~ create a random affect where you might have a 140 ton lance or a 220 ton lance (this is just an example). Obviously other factors could be put into place so the game is not easy.
Or as Gentask mentioned implementing some of those things there ie ironman mode etc etc ...
I think it would be exciting to not know the size of the forces you might go against so yes you could go against something easy or something really challenging and might have to face reinforcements.
I hope the devs dont agree with a previous poster about making the difficulty based on the knowledgeable masses.
I can give this suggestion although Im not sure how the game handles difficulty currently (skulls).
My suggestion is this: Make contracts that are 1 skull and lower your typical contract with little to no variance as far as Opfor goes. And contracts above 1 skull make it random - so say you take a 3 skull contract that on average puts you against a 180 OPfor lance~ create a random affect where you might have a 140 ton lance or a 220 ton lance (this is just an example). Obviously other factors could be put into place so the game is not easy.
Or as Gentask mentioned implementing some of those things there ie ironman mode etc etc ...
I think it would be exciting to not know the size of the forces you might go against so yes you could go against something easy or something really challenging and might have to face reinforcements.
We've already seen that's not true. 1/2 skull missions have run from 4 light vehicles to 2 vehicles and 3 or 4 'Mechs. I also noticed that payout is an unreliable estimator of difficulty: I think there was a 200k, 1/2 skull mission that ended up being 4 vees. I kept waiting for the "reinforcements" to show up, but there weren't any.
I actually like this, a lot. It means I can't meta-game-predict what I'm going to face in a mission. Otherwise it would be pretty simple to adjust my salvage rights around that. Now, there's no telling what kind of salvage you'll get from a mission unless you have specific intel otherwise. In which case, you should always negotiate for at least 1 priority salvage.
oh ok so there is a degree of variance already with missions even with low skull contracts (I was watching the streams on and off so didnt notice this). Thats Great to hear. I seem to have just seen some easy battles from cohh so this had me worried (not counting the main story missions).
Actually the sell prices are pretty low(they probably depend on reputation too). When cohn was at that pirate planet i've noticed that with low reputation buying a new small jump jet costs 33000 but you only get 3675 when selling one: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/244683915?t=03h46m36s
Dificulty is certainly a concern though. It seems like it would be pretty much impossible to run out of money, and you don't even lose mechs with blown out center torso, unlike XCOM or something. Not sure about the pilots though. Losing components is also not a big deal seeing as you can get 20 random salvage out of a contract to blow up 5 tanks. It seems like even a single locust without weapons could complete that mission by stepping on top of the tanks.