How much do you calculate?

[John3:16]

The sneaky man appears if you do any action, including clicking on the spawn point and not spawning something. I tested this out when I was playing against someone and it really mattered whether thy spawned something at the end or not.

[TheGreatErenan]

Does anyone else feel like the delays between moves in the replay are proportional to real life delays? Let me explain. Sometimes I make a few moves and then think for a looooooong time about what I want to do with the rest of my wits. I might be crazy, but I think I've noticed a small delay in the replay right at that point.

[=) Random Task (=]

(02-05-2013 03:15 AM)Erenan Wrote:  Does anyone else feel like the delays between moves in the replay are proportional to real life delays? Let me explain. Sometimes I make a few moves and then think for a looooooong time about what I want to do with the rest of my wits. I might be crazy, but I think I've noticed a small delay in the replay right at that point.

Yes i got that impression too... Not always with every move but very often it coincides with the different speeds at which I made them.

[Ja Karta]

(02-05-2013 03:04 AM)John3:16 Wrote:  The sneaky man appears if you do any action, including clicking on the spawn point and not spawning something. I tested this out when I was playing against someone and it really mattered whether thy spawned something at the end or not.

So against people who actually watch these things closely we can benefit by clicking spawn points even if we don't spawn?
Man. I think A&A are incredibly talented designers, but I really think the replay mechanic is off. It's really smart as an introduction, but not for sustained play... :/

[connor34911]

(02-03-2013 10:17 AM)Ja Karta Wrote:  

(02-03-2013 06:54 AM)ElPared Wrote:  Outwitters is supposed to be designed for the casual gamer, and casual gamers don't want to have to take notes to figure out where enemies might be.

Very True.
Casual players (and non-casual) measure reward by time put in. If you want to play 10 games and feel like you're penalized for not watching and taking notes it's discouraging. Certainly not rewarding. (I saw this as someone who is a neuroscientist by training.)


2 Issues:
1) Confusion
2) Implementation


re: 1) Make it an OPTION. You can keep the normal replays. It's actually smart for first time players. But most people who play much will get into the game for tactics. Hence you want to make it easy to play (rather than watch) the game and hence the option for LKP (Last Known Position).
I would recommend a tool tip that pops up after the 15th game or so that mentions the option; so people are aware of the option, but not overwhelmed by it when first learning the game.

re: 2) Implementation is actually relatively trivial from a programming and design standpoint. (Changing a large program is never entirely trivial, but this isn't bad.)
From a programming standpoint you just keep track of last seen position of units in FoW and their current state at the time (whether they had moved.) Also same for spawns (state, not location obviously )

From a design standpoint all you do is a grey overlay (or other darkned overlay/background) on squares in FoW. You then show last known positions of units and spawn along with their state (whether they had moved or not). Bam. That's it.

It would look just like an OSN with regard to style, with the addition of darkned/non-darkened units indicating whether they had moved when you last saw them (the system that is already in use). The only thing not covered by this is barrier spawning and parentage.
Ignore it. That's fine. People can always watch the replay in those few instances where that matters.


(To reply to someone's question about e.g. a Mobi could move a unit after it was in the FoW. Yes. Of course. It's a display of information at your disposal. Not of the enemy unit positions, per se.)

---

(02-03-2013 07:01 AM)TheGoldenGriffin Wrote:  This game will get complicated if you add too much stuff. It isn't that hard to watch a replay of 1 turn.

Please don't take offense if I suggest that you're young. No offense meant.
A large percentage of gamers are older. If it takes me 1 minute to watch replays for 15 turns in a day: that's 15 minutes that I'm anxious about wasting my time. As people get older their time dwindles and the number of ways to spend it expands.

30 turns is half an hour. You'll be hard pressed to get me (and many, many people my age and up [30+]) to sustainably waste half an hour watching replays for very long...

Time efficiency is key to game's success. Even "time wasters" constantly let you interact or engage.

I dont think this is a good idea. A lot of the strategy of the game is hiding your units. The reward for watching the replay is possibly being able to figure out where some units are or what your opponents next move is.

If I have a wall of units with 2 soldiers behind it, then move on soldier behind the wall, will your system allow them to know which soldier I moved? Or will is just show "ghosts" of 2 soldiers? The latter would create the illusion of me having more units than I have. The former is just bad because it give away unit locations in FOW.

[aaronINdayton]

The proposed system would only provide information that could be gained by watching the replay, no additional information would be provided.

[worldfamous]

It is can be very challenging to calculate your opponents wits but the best way to figure out if they have the minimum is to see if there's a move that you're sure they would've made if they had the wits to do so. Anything beyond minimum is usually not worth calculating. As for skipping replays, I skip early on if the fog situation doesn't change. If it does, I'll hit the replay button and watch again. I'll also skip toward the end and check if I have a finishing move available, then go back and watch if not.

[Ja Karta]

(02-05-2013 06:02 AM)aaronINdayton Wrote:  The proposed system would only provide information that could be gained by watching the replay, no additional information would be provided.

Exactly.
It's just a proposal to have the game keep track of what was shown in the replay. All of the importance of FoW is preserved, it's just a condensed way of presenting the replay.

[ElPared]

(02-05-2013 03:01 AM)aaronINdayton Wrote:  But, I'd also like the in game replay system to be as good as OSN, and I don't see that happening either . Maybe if OML gets to a point where they feel the teams are all balanced perfectly and have released all the maps/teams they like, and for some reason don't want to work on another project, they'll upgrade the replay system.

I don't think it would be that hard. The big difference is OSN has a list of the moves that were made and can be stepped through move by move. This would be pretty easy to add to the existing replay mechanic in game.

like, there wouldn't be a list, but it sounds easy enough to add a 6th and 7th button to the playback buttons that just step through each move/attack/spawn in a turn. I'd also like the ability to hide the playback controls during the replay, just for aesthetics