Learning to love career mode?

[Nick_S]

Prompted by the discussion of the upcoming expansions, I've been thinking about my experience with the game.

I'm a fan, and a fairly casual player. I have spent many hours playing tabletop, and the base game was completely satisfying as both a fun computer game which tapped into all of my fondness and nostalgia (while being much faster to play). I played through the campaign twice; I'd consider myself a solid but not expert player.

When Flashpoint was announced I was excited about both that direction for the game, and for the announced Career mode which sounded like exactly what I wanted.

Then, when it came out, I started a new career, and ended up getting distracted and stopping without getting very far into and then not playing for a while. A couple weeks ago I dusted off the game, started a new career, and was enjoying it.

The power curve of gradually building up stronger light mechs and customizing them to be able to take on much tougher missions than one would expect from a lance of lights was satisfying. But I also kept feeling like I was making mistakes, or just wanted the opportunity to do things differently, and yesterday I ended up deciding to re-start from the beginning again.

So I observe, in my own experience, that I continue to enjoy the gameplay, and like the _idea_ of career mode, but something about the experience of it also pushes me away, and makes it difficult to feel the satisfying sense of immersion that I would expect, and I'm curious how many other people have had that experience.

I'd note a couple of things:

1) I still haven't gotten that far into career mode (150 days in my last career), so It's likely that much of what I'm experiencing will change as I go along -- I remember having that experience with the campaign as well.

2) Even when I wasn't playing, I still kept up with these forums, and that has been entertaining and has helped my tactics (I'm a better player now than I was last time I did the campaign, without having played much in-between) but it may also make me wary about things which aren't actually problems.

3) The biggest issue for me is balancing short- and long-term goals. 1200 days is such a long time, it's hard to know how to prepare or what the appropriate mindset is. Because of reading the forums I go into it with some sense of wanting to maximize my efficiency and success, but there's just no way to be maximally efficient over 1200 days.

4) I'm never quite sure if I want missions to be easy (so I can make continual progress towards my long-term career goals) or difficult (so I have fun an exciting battles. In the early game it takes so long to repair or recover from injuries that it can feel like the only measure of success is to complete a battle with no internal damage, but that's not a very exciting way to approach missions. I know from the campaign that repair and med-bay times get much shorter eventually, but in the beginning it's hard not to feel like the clock is ticking every time you wait 10-15 days without doing anything.

5) What's most interesting to me is what prompted me to re-start. I'd been working through missions on a planet, and gotten to the last mission that I thought I could tackle (so I knew I'd have some time to repair in-transit afterwards). I ended up taking a light lance against 1xDemolisher, 2xSRM carrier, 1xLRM carrier (protected behind a hill behind the Demolisher),1xThunderbolt, 1xSpider. I ended up losing one mech and pilot for the first time in the career (I ran a Jenner ahead to kill and SRM carrier and then the second SRM carrier showed up an unloaded on it. The next turn I thought I was going to kill the second SRM carrier but got unlucky with to-hit rolls and damage locations, so the smoking SRM carrier got a second shot at the Jenner and took off a leg. While trying to retreat it was cored the next round), but despite that I was proud of how I performed in the mission. I was able to destroy the rest of the OpFor with minimal internal damage to my other 3 mechs, and it was a satisfying victory.

I jumped to the next (2.5 skull) system, arrived saw only one contract available to me (the others were all too difficult or unavailable due to reputation). I had one day remaining on repairs to my Panther so I waited a day in-system to finish and happened to get an event that put two of my best pilots out of commission for 7 days (leaving me with only 2 active pilots due to other injuries as well). I decided to hop to the next system, and arrived to find that (in a 2 or 2.5 skill world) all the missions were 3+ skulls. That was when I started a new campaign.

So, my conclusions are:

Career mode gives very little feedback about what constitutes "success" on the strategic layer. I believe this is intentional to allow for many different playstyles, but for me it feels like a bit of the worst-of-both worlds. If there wasn't a scoring system I might be fine just wandering the galaxy and accepting whatever happens. But with the scoring system I feel conscious of wanting to maximize my score and that creates a sense of pressure from the beginning. I recognize that I'd be better off if I could just put it out of my head (particularly in early game when everything takes longer anyway), but it's hard to ignore.

By far the most stressful part of the game is making travel decisions in the Navigation interface. It is counter-intuitive (there are times when going to plant A will take more time than going to planet B by way of planet A), requires balancing a bunch of different concerns (travel time; skull rating of destination world; resources available on destination world; availability of other systems to travel to from the destination world; which factions to work with and how to best balance reputation) with very little information.

It was, literally, less stressful (and less annoying) to have something go wrong in a battle and lose a mech and pilot than it was to decide where I should travel next (even in early game when I had limited replacement mechs and pilots).

I don't know how to fix that, but from my perspective there is something that needs adjustment.

How does this match other people's experience?

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

One thing that helps is that it's possible to "scout" missions at a world without spending the time actually going there. The trick is to plot a route of several star systems. While you're waiting for the jumpship to charge you can check what missions are available in the system you're in and you can then choose to stop flying your route and instead go to that system if there are enough missions of the right kind. You just need to make sure to replot the journey before you reach your last jump as, once you've undocked from the jumpship you aren't allowed to plot a new course and have to go to wherever you've ended up. This allows you to take only 3 days checking a system rather than 20, which should help ease that early game tension.

Last thing, as a matter of strict efficiency, alliances aren't really worth it while you're chasing the score. It's easier in fact to just try to level up as many faction reputations as possible, especially as that leaves you with the most options as you move through the game. You can then save the alliance flashpoints for once you've hit your score.

 

[stjobe]

If there wasn't a scoring system I might be fine just wandering the galaxy and accepting whatever happens. But with the scoring system I feel conscious of wanting to maximize my score and that creates a sense of pressure from the beginning. I recognize that I'd be better off if I could just put it out of my head (particularly in early game when everything takes longer anyway), but it's hard to ignore.

I've never once cared, or looked at, what my score is. It's just a number you get after 1,200 days, it's not a measure of how fun you have had.

By far the most stressful part of the game is making travel decisions in the Navigation interface. It is counter-intuitive (there are times when going to plant A will take more time than going to planet B by way of planet A)

The reason that it might take longer to go from A to B than from A to C via B is that jumping is instantaneous whereas travel to and from the jump point isn't - and the distance to the jump point varies with the spectral class (read: size and colour) of the star.

A normal timeline for travelling between systems would look like this:

• Travel from orbit to jump-point A: 1+ days (say 5)
• Wait for JumpShip to charge is JumpDrives: 3 days
• Jump from system A to system B: Instantaneous.
• Travel from jump-point B to orbit: 1+ days (say 8)
• Total travel time: 5+3+8 = 16 days

As you can see, if you travel from A to B via C, it only adds 3 more days for a JumpDrive recharge, and might very well be shorter if in-system travel time is shorter in the destination system:

• Travel from orbit to jump-point A: 1+ days (again, 5)
• Wait for JumpShip to charge is JumpDrives: 3 days
• Jump from system A to system B: Instantaneous.
• Wait for JumpShip to charge is JumpDrives: 3 days
  
• Jump from system B to system C: Instantaneous.
  
• Travel from jump-point C to orbit: 1-7 days (say, 1)
• Total travel time: 5+3+3+1 = 12 days

Side note: In TT, it takes much longer to recharge the JumpDrive (between 6 and 9 days, depending on the star), and travel to and from the jump point can take much, much longer - as long as 4.5 months if visiting a system with a B0-class star and boosting at 1G with a mid-point turnover (see Strategic Operations, pp.86-89)

 

[Nick_S]

One thing that helps is that it's possible to "scout" missions at a world without spending the time actually going there. The trick is to plot a route of several star systems. While you're waiting for the jumpship to charge you can check what missions are available in the system you're in and you can then choose to stop flying your route and instead go to that system if there are enough missions of the right kind. You just need to make sure to replot the journey before you reach your last jump as, once you've undocked from the jumpship you aren't allowed to plot a new course and have to go to wherever you've ended up. This allows you to take only 3 days checking a system rather than 20, which should help ease that early game tension.

That is very helpful information. I've done some of that, but (a) I hadn't realized you could check contracts from the jump point (I just knew you could scout the store and hiring hall and (b) I didn't realize you could re-plot a route once you've started, so I was always worried about ending up somewhere that I didn't want to be.

I've never once cared, or looked at, what my score is. It's just a number you get after 1,200 days, it's not a measure of how fun you have had.

I know that intellectually, I just have a hard time maintaining that perspective. In addition to innate temperament, I think that can change over multiple playthroughs. I know, in the campaign, the second time through I had more information and could play better, and was also less concerned about score or competitiveness, because I knew what was going on. I think that once I get through career mode it would be much easier to do a second career without worrying about score. But the first time there's some worry of, "I don't want to make a decision now which will end closing things off for me later."

But, playing through a career takes long enough that I don't know that I'll do more than one. For the amount of time I have for video games I expect a career will take a couple of months (which is great, but is long enough that knowing, "some of the tension will go away on a second career" isn't helpful.

The response from ThatGuyMontag also reinforces my belief that the game is less fun than it could be because of how it chooses to present information and decisions to the player. I have no complaints about the underlying mechanisms of how travel time is defined and they way in which moving around the map affects which factions are present. I just think the the default way in which that's presented to the player works fine for the campaign (which is in a tightly defined section of the map) but is a hindrance for career mode.

 

[HBS_Eck]

If you can't get past that timer being an issue, and you can't seem to just ignore it. You could edit the SimGameConstants.json file to have career mode be something like 2 days instead of 1200. (I'm not sure if something like 0 would work). Then start a new game. After two days you won't have any pressure to do well besides making your payments month to month.

 

[Nick_S]

If you can't get past that timer being an issue, and you can't seem to just ignore it. You could edit the SimGameConstants.json file to have career mode be something like 2 days instead of 1200. (I'm not sure if something like 0 would work). Then start a new game. After two days you won't have any pressure to do well besides making your payments month to month.

I think my reply to stjobe better explains my feeling. I don't _want_ to completely ignore it because the scoring is part of the experience of career mode, and I want to have that experience. I know that I'm not going to be exceptional on a first career but, knowing that I may not play multiple careers, I want to pay enough attention to scoring that I feel like I've made some attempt at that part of the strategic-level challenge.

But, on a first playthrough it's hard to know what the right amount of attention is.

That said let me congratulate you, as part of the of the development team, on a great game. Despite starting this thread to talk through some of the aspects of the game that are slowing me down, I think it gets an awful lot right.

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

If you want a score then you'll (but don't want to mod the file as suggested and remember you can easily set it to 400 days rather than the 2 suggested) have to deal with the fact that you need to make some choices. Part of getting the score is going to be based not only on how well you fight but on how well you pick the fights (balancing risk/reward), your pilot skills and your reputation.

While there are a few items that I wouldn't mind them changing about career mode the block here is in your head. You should define your goals for what you want to achieve in career mode because from your posts it seems you are more goal oriented (as in story driven) than sandbox play (nothing wrong with that). Enjoying a game is about figuring out the elements that exist that you like and playing to the style that lets you enjoy those elements the most.

 

[Ballacraine]

Whilst I enjoyed the campaign story, and would like more in the future, it is basically linear & lacks a lot of options to make for more replays.
I would maybe playthrough a handful of times or more likely less.

Career mode is very appealing to me because you do have a more open game with lots of options.
The scoring system might be of passing interest to benchmark progress, but I find it more of a distraction than a target per se.
It would be handy if it could just be disabled via a tick box at the start of the game.
Whilst I do really enjoy building the strength of my lance, I wish there was more viable opportunity to use lighter mechs late game.
Perhaps have more missions which have drop weight restrictions?

 

[Alarantalara]

Given what you've said, I'd make the following recommendations to aim for a good score without trying to achieve the absolute best.

The biggest sources of points I've seen in high scoring results come more from collecting everything than directly from contracts. As such, you want to be visiting as many systems as possible, collecting one of each mech and getting reputation as far from 0 as possible. Don't worry about trying to do the hardest contracts as soon as possible. I essentially didn't do 5 skull contracts and still had more than enough points to reach elite level.

Since reputation doesn't change much from early game contracts, don't worry about it too much at the start. Just focus on going to new places, avoiding travel to or over places you've either been to before or are more difficult than you want to attempt and collecting different mechs instead of whichever one is "best".

As for some things you can do to help feel like you've put effort into getting the best score you can:
1) Get the improved drives as soon as possible. Fewer days between systems lets you visit more of them in the same amount of time, so you get more points.
2) At about 500 days in, make sure you have all the habitat modules and at least some of the training modules, and hire as many cheap mechwarriors as possible, then ignore those mechwarriors. Over the last 600 days, the training modules will be able to give you a bunch more points. Doing this earlier wastes money, but you do need about 600 days to get the maximum amount of points.
3) Seek out contracts from the houses without territory on the map. They don't have as many places where you can do contracts and you can't do normal contracts against them, so they're the "hard" factions to maximize your reputation with.

 

[Nick_S]

Thanks for the replies; talking about it does help me sort out my thinking.

If you want a score then you'll (but don't want to mod the file as suggested and remember you can easily set it to 400 days rather than the 2 suggested) have to deal with the fact that you need to make some choices. Part of getting the score is going to be based not only on how well you fight but on how well you pick the fights (balancing risk/reward), your pilot skills and your reputation.

While there are a few items that I wouldn't mind them changing about career mode the block here is in your head. . . .

I think that some of it is my head, but not all of it. Precisely because of your point that trying to achieve objectives requires making choices. I'm comfortable with handing risk/reward when it comes to assessing contracts and fighting them on the battlefield. I like that taking contracts which push my limits gives the option of higher rewards (better salvage and/or being able to complete more contracts on a given planet) at higher risk (chance of loosing mechs/mechwarriors or requiring repair time).

The place where I'm feeling is trying to gauge the risk/reward tradeoff when it comes to looking for new contracts. I agree with what everybody's saying that it's not necessary to maximize that, and part of the charm of BATTLETECH is the flavor and quirkiness of the galaxy.

But, the thing that I think isn't just in my head is that the game really doesn't give many tools to make those risk/reward decisions when you're trying to figure out where to travel. One reason I don't think that's just in my head is that ThatGuyMontag's suggestion is _really_ helpful. If there was an easy way in the game interface that I could identify 3 or 4 systems I was interested in, have it plot a course that passed through all of the systems and automatically stopped at the jump point in each system to check the offerings) that, by itself, would help a lot.

Given what you've said, I'd make the following recommendations to aim for a good score without trying to achieve the absolute best.

Those are helpful, thanks. Most of those are things that I would already do approximately, but it's helpful to have some clear direction about how to prioritize.

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Like I said there are things that I think should be changed about career mode but it is what it is at this point in time. As you want to play it now and not in the (possible) future if they change it more to your liking then the fact that you have to work harder and/or smarter (via methods such as were suggested to you above) doesn't impact the fun you can have in the game because some people are going to like that and some won't but other than adding mods or editing certain files you can't change the game.

Figure out what elements you like and play to those...….if there aren't enough elements for you to like career mode with what is there (and you don't get enough tips in this thread to make it fun) then play the campaign again or skirmish mode or take a break from the game and come back and play it when playing the campaign mode again might be entertaining for you again. Or investigate some of the mods out there and perhaps that will make a new campaign more interesting (or simply continuing your post campaign game).

 

[Crissa]

If there was an easy way in the game interface that I could identify 3 or 4 systems I was interested in, have it plot a course that passed through all of the systems and automatically stopped at the jump point in each system to check the offerings) that, by itself, would help a lot.

If there were an easy way to do that, the devs at HBS would be incredibly wealthy, as that's one of the hardest math problems currently known. ^-^

Now, the UI could be a little more clear about them, certainly... maybe give us some waypoints and trip duration ranges, please.

-Crissa

 

[Nick_S]

Like I said there are things that I think should be changed about career mode but it is what it is at this point in time. As you want to play it now and not in the (possible) future if they change it more to your liking then the fact that you have to work harder and/or smarter . . .

This makes me think I should clarify my reasons for writing the post. My goals were (1) to try to clarify what was a somewhat vague sense in my own head (I knew there was something that I was bouncing off of, but it was tricky to identify what it was (2) to reach out to the community for advice of commiseration, and (3) to offer to both the devs and the community a description of what I was experiencing.

I am a programmer, and I know that one of the most useful things to learn from or about users are what their "pain points" are. What are the parts of the program that just frustrate or don't work for them. Of those, it's comparatively easy to identify things that make people upset -- being upset still involves being engaged, and they will complain about them. It's harder to identify the points that cause people to disengage or just drift away. I was trying to identify that for myself (to work around it), but also to see if that was something other people recognized in their experience of the game and, if it was, it identify it as something to be aware of (both for the developers and for anybody on the forums explaining or introducing the game to new players).

If there were an easy way to do that, the devs at HBS would be incredibly wealthy, as that's one of the hardest math problems currently known. ^-^

Only if you demanded that the path was optimal. For most purposes a "good enough" approximation is both sufficient and much easier to produce

 

[Eximar]

Whilst I do really enjoy building the strength of my lance, I wish there was more viable opportunity to use lighter mechs late game.
Perhaps have more missions which have drop weight restrictions?

Mission skulls never change during a career, so there are tons of lower skull planets throughout.

I have always just made the skull rating a hard cap (Comstar puts it in place for arguments sake, or something like that), so I don't allow myself to take tonnage greater than the mission rating.

Voila', neverending use for lights and mediums.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

pOne reason I don't think that's just in my head is that ThatGuyMontag's suggestion is _really_ helpful. If there was an easy way in the game interface that I could identify 3 or 4 systems I was interested in, have it plot a course that passed through all of the systems and automatically stopped at the jump point in each system to check the offerings) that, by itself, would help a lot.

I don't get to claim credit, I simply listened when @mjbroekman put the really hard work in when career mode launched. He'd be a good voice to hear from here.

I know it's been said before but being able to plot my own nav points would really help this strategy.

Not making a feature request or anything @HBS_Eck but from your knowledge is that possible, or is it like moving 'mechs in mechbay: a lot more work than you'd expect?

 

[HBS_Eck]

@ThatGuyMontag Put the idea in the suggestions forum here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/battletech-suggestions.997/ I'm not sure how much work it'll be but it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for it. It's probably too late for this to sneak into 1.6.

 

[Sigil]

I love Career Mode because it lets me tool around indefinitely with my Light Lance. I do so love to run and gun and the ability to take whatever difficulty mission I want when I want is priceless. It also helps my new hires get some low stakes stick time to build their skills.

 

[Nick_S]

@ThatGuyMontag Put the idea in the suggestions forum here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/battletech-suggestions.997/ I'm not sure how much work it'll be but it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for it. It's probably too late for this to sneak into 1.6.

Thanks! I just made a suggestion: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/improvements-to-star-map-navigation.1172538/

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

Thanks! I just made a suggestion: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/improvements-to-star-map-navigation.1172538/

I was pretty sure it'd been raised already but was just about to post a suggestion to that effect when you beat me to it!

Cheers mate!

 

[Nick_S]

I was pretty sure it'd been raised already but was just about to post a suggestion to that effect when you beat me to it!

Cheers mate!

I'm sure other people have suggested the ability to create custom routes. But, selfishly, I wanted to tie it to this thread, and add a couple of other suggestions as well