Black--Snow wrote: It isn't like X3 where there are a few static large main empires and the player, IIRC newly spawned systems have a chance of generating new factions and assets within them, meaning expanding is still a challenge. Also, if the universe expands without me I would be overjoyed, I want a game with a universe that feels alive and competitive, not like vanilla X3 where it's all static and the engine tries to emulate the feeling of life (It doesn't really work).

Not to mention games where ships fly around aimlessly and missions pop up depending on where you are and have no real effect on the environment. It is so important that we get LT with a living universe and not just one that is stagnate and artificial. (This is what my LTFC entry will be about.)

BFett wrote:

Black--Snow wrote: It isn't like X3 where there are a few static large main empires and the player, IIRC newly spawned systems have a chance of generating new factions and assets within them, meaning expanding is still a challenge. Also, if the universe expands without me I would be overjoyed, I want a game with a universe that feels alive and competitive, not like vanilla X3 where it's all static and the engine tries to emulate the feeling of life (It doesn't really work).

Not to mention games where ships fly around aimlessly and missions pop up depending on where you are and have no real effect on the environment. It is so important that we get LT with a living universe and not just one that is stagnate and artificial. (This is what my LTFC entry will be about.)

Indeed, my largest gripe with vanilla X3. Thankfully, mods mitigate the issue, but I really want the stark opposite to that for Limit Theory.

This is why 'corruption' and failure should be a very real and present threat with regards very large empires player or NPC. The bigger you get the more criminal fringe elements you will end up with, the more of said elements you will end up with the more you have to pay to have them managed (e.g enforcement) and this would be a balancing act. If you over enforce you could end up causing other issues to arise, after all people don't like oppression. This isn't meant to 'stop' growth, it is meant to slow growth as well as create functional management game play that would exist.

The problem with the 'snowball to infinity' is that it primarily works on a basis without increasing costs. E.g your power increases but your costs don't. That isn't how things generally work. I really think that 'empire' game play should be EMPIRE game play. Not everyone should set out to play the head of an Empire. If you want to play that, you CHOOSE to take on the risks that come with it. Such as all the issues such as corruption, uprisings, internal strife potentially making bad deals that can cost you a lot of money. If you don't want to play that kind of game... DON'T. No one is making you. You can play the lone wolf.

You can head a corporation rather than an entire empire. You can amass a fortune the 'safe' way by never letting your size grow to the point where those issues arise. But if you expect to grow exponentially these problems should not only exist but they should be a real threat. War should not be the only thing that threatens your increasing size. The key to this is that all those limits will affect the AI just as much as the player. No more, no less. The AI won't have special insight. They won't have special cheat methods to sit in the happy balance of infinite growth. They'll make mistakes. They'll overprotect or under protect. They'll fail on deals, or make bad deals. Why? Because that's EXACTLY what Josh is intending for them to do.

If you want this game to be the game you can 'climb the infinite ladder' with no oppositional forces then you're gonna need to either mod the game or use console/debug cheats.

Personally I think it should be Solo -> Group -> Corp -> Faction -> Empire

At the solo level it's just you and your ship. At the Group level you have your ship and a few NPC actors helping you out. At the Faction level is when additional game play should start happening. That's when you'd start dealing with 'growing pains' if you're not careful. Once you get into Empire level those growing pains should present a constant threat to your power. That should ultimately be the name of the game. Managing your Empire. From the logistics, to keeping people happy to keeping corruption down. Essentially a very detailed very epic space "Sim City/Sims/Spore/Theme Park". Which is why YOU DON'T HAVE TO PLAY THAT WAY IF YOU DON'T WANT TO! If you want to stay solo you can. Your income potential will obviously not be as high as if you were a group, faction or empire. But you also won't have the extra costs and risks associated.

The main point being that as soon as an actor (NPC or player) starts taking on staff... risk will go up. Because whenever you deal with other people there are things that will be beyond your control because they are in the control of the actor. And you might hire a NPC with psychopathic or sociopathic traits, traits you might not know about (hidden perhaps?) so you're happily in your group doing some mining and then that NPC mines your face off... because he didn't like the terms of your contract. That is just a natural increased risk of dealing with other people. In Limit Theory. NPC/AI actors are players. You need to view and treat them as such.

If your argument against game play is "But Josh can't make AI that good" then you clearly haven't been following the development. This isn't about making AI 'good'. It's about empowering the AI with the same mechanics as players have. Most developers do not do this, most cheat. They don't actually force the npc to use the EXACT same tools/commands/functionality as players use. A lot of the success or failure of LT will depend on how well Josh does with the AI. But in reality is all comes down to giving the AI a form of mechanically driven free will. The ability to make decisions and plan for decisions. If he nails that, then this will be a beautifully rich game.

TGS wrote:*Snip*

I support corruption and fringe elements, what I do not support is difficulty for the sake of difficulty. The player should be able to avoid these problems entirely through their use of resources and decisions. I shouldn't HAVE to deal with corruption in my empire just because it's an empire. Well payed members with good privileges and good trust in the player should stave off corruption, while similar methods should be able to mitigate criminal elements.

Black--Snow wrote:

TGS wrote:*Snip*

I support corruption and fringe elements, what I do not support is difficulty for the sake of difficulty. The player should be able to avoid these problems entirely through their use of resources and decisions. I shouldn't HAVE to deal with corruption in my empire just because it's an empire. Well payed members with good privileges and good trust in the player should stave off corruption, while similar methods should be able to mitigate criminal elements.

Well as I described it is exactly what I think should happen and as far as I know IF Josh included them they'd probably fit that.

Corruption is manageable through increased authority presence. Same way as Josh has mentioned if you have traders/miners getting attacked, you'd increase law enforcement to counter the piracy. But Corruption doesn't always come from piracy. It can come from internal criminal activities such as a NPC within your corporation stealing money out of one of your accounts allocated to a project. These are the sorts of things that you would expect when running a large entity of any sort with lots of moving 'human' wheels (Obviously the humans being AI). It might not seem like much initially but it could add up. And it should require counterbalance.

Best way to avoid those things happening would be to make sure the people who work with you and for you are happy and content. Obviously you don't want to have people working for you that have traits that would lend themselves to such behaviour. We know the NPC actors will have traits. Some of those traits would encourage more 'questionable' behaviour. Which means those types of elements would not necessarily be 'manageable' in the context of keeping them happy will stop them from causing trouble. Or... perhaps keeping them happy might be more expensive and difficult which ultimately makes it a choice of whether or not they are worth the extra cost.

These are all things that in some way shape or form would be manageable but add great depth to the game. Yes, difficulty for the sake of difficulty is bad. But this isn't about the difficulty this is about what it would mean to manage a large entity. (Faction, Corp, Empire whatever) It would also help limit exponential growth due to the fact that the bigger you get the more these issues present themselves which means that if you wish to keep expanding without such issues you'd need to constantly invest inwards to keep everyone happy which will slow your rate of growth.

There is nothing wrong with exponential growth provided it carries with it the issues that arise from said growth.

The key question here seems to be, what is "difficulty for the sake of difficulty?" What are some examples of that?

An easy example would be calculating a power score for each character (including the player character) and, when that number reaches X, spawning a boss of equal or greater power. That's pretty clearly the developer saying, "I'm just going to make the game harder for you at this point."

Does "corruption in an empire just because it's an empire" count as similar kind of arbitrary infliction of difficulty? Or is it a dynamic effect, which arises naturally in a simulation, that has a useful secondary effect of offering new and appropriate challenges for that level of play?

Basically, is this disagreement another case of the achievement-play kind of fun and the simulation-play kind of fun appearing to interfere with each other?

Flatfingers wrote:The key question here seems to be, what is "difficulty for the sake of difficulty?" What are some examples of that?

An easy example would be calculating a power score for each character (including the player character) and, when that number reaches X, spawning a boss of equal or greater power. That's pretty clearly the developer saying, "I'm just going to make the game harder for you at this point."

Does "corruption in an empire just because it's an empire" count as similar kind of arbitrary infliction of difficulty? Or is it a dynamic effect, which arises naturally in a simulation, that has a useful secondary effect of offering new and appropriate challenges for that level of play?

Basically, is this disagreement another case of the achievement-play kind of fun and the simulation-play kind of fun appearing to interfere with each other?

To your first question: Increasing NPC health and or weapon damage when the difficulty setting is set to 'Hard' is an example that comes to my mind.
To the second question: No it doesn't because the effect of the corruption should occur dynamically. When a large group of players are interacting with one another there are bound to be personality clashes and various opinions of how things should be ran and operated. This can be detrimental to the group and destroy its efficiency.

With this in mind I don't think this is a debate over two different gamer types than it is about the kind of game Limit Theory is. Will dumb NPCs rebel? No not likely, Will executive NPCs hired under the player? Yes if they feel mistreated or are bought off. Remember that the dumb 'worker' NPC is basically a robot that does what it is told. It doesn't have free will to do what it wants. The executive NPCs on the other hand are in essence other players with goals and ambitions. The player should always be cautious when hiring one.

find some rules acvording to which people would become corrupt, lazy, treacherous.
Apply law of big numbers and reverse map that to statistics on how likely it is for a given person to do anything non standard.
(Done in the design and balancing phase)

Let those rule checks occasionally run through the worker ranks.
Let the x people which the propabilities tell us that they do something do something.
(Done at play time)

BFett wrote:

Flatfingers wrote:The key question here seems to be, what is "difficulty for the sake of difficulty?" What are some examples of that?

An easy example would be calculating a power score for each character (including the player character) and, when that number reaches X, spawning a boss of equal or greater power. That's pretty clearly the developer saying, "I'm just going to make the game harder for you at this point."

Does "corruption in an empire just because it's an empire" count as similar kind of arbitrary infliction of difficulty? Or is it a dynamic effect, which arises naturally in a simulation, that has a useful secondary effect of offering new and appropriate challenges for that level of play?

Basically, is this disagreement another case of the achievement-play kind of fun and the simulation-play kind of fun appearing to interfere with each other?

To your first question: Increasing NPC health and or weapon damage when the difficulty setting is set to 'Hard' is an example that comes to my mind.
To the second question: No it doesn't because the effect of the corruption should occur dynamically. When a large group of players are interacting with one another there are bound to be personality clashes and various opinions of how things should be ran and operated. This can be detrimental to the group and destroy its efficiency.

With this in mind I don't think this is a debate over two different gamer types than it is about the kind of game Limit Theory is. Will dumb NPCs rebel? No not likely, Will executive NPCs hired under the player? Yes if they feel mistreated or are bought off. Remember that the dumb 'worker' NPC is basically a robot that does what it is told. It doesn't have free will to do what it wants. The executive NPCs on the other hand are in essence other players with goals and ambitions. The player should always be cautious when hiring one.

"You've reached the level of empire, have some issues" is the same as "You've killed x people, spawn big enemies!". However, issues being an indirect result of expansion is completely fine, as long as it isn't the expansion that actually triggers them.

Black--Snow wrote:"You've reached the level of empire, have some issues" is the same as "You've killed x people, spawn big enemies!". However, issues being an indirect result of expansion is completely fine, as long as it isn't the expansion that actually triggers them.

This distinction between direct and indirect effects is a good one.

The problem is that there's no bright line between these two sources of effects: it all comes from code that someone wrote.

"if X > Y, spawn_boss()" is an obvious direct effect that the programmer has inserted.

But even if the code says something like, "let NPCs have differing goals and then let them try to achieve those goals," and that winds up causing uber-NPCs because Josh wrote code that allows a few NPCs to be extremely good at creating projects to satisfy their goals, it's still code that he wrote. He will have coded features that allows challenges to emerge that make it harder for the human player to progress.

Is that indirect enough to feel like an OK way to have gameplay challenges no matter how powerful the player becomes?

Flatfingers wrote:

Black--Snow wrote:"You've reached the level of empire, have some issues" is the same as "You've killed x people, spawn big enemies!". However, issues being an indirect result of expansion is completely fine, as long as it isn't the expansion that actually triggers them.

This distinction between direct and indirect effects is a good one.

The problem is that there's no bright line between these two sources of effects: it all comes from code that someone wrote.

"if X > Y, spawn_boss()" is an obvious direct effect that the programmer has inserted.

But even if the code says something like, "let NPCs have differing goals and then let them try to achieve those goals," and that winds up causing uber-NPCs because Josh wrote code that allows a few NPCs to be extremely good at creating projects to satisfy their goals, it's still code that he wrote. He will have coded features that allows challenges to emerge that make it harder for the human player to progress.

Is that indirect enough to feel like an OK way to have gameplay challenges no matter how powerful the player becomes?

I think I recall these "Uber NPCs". There's a fine line between AI advantage and different AI. Uber NPCs should be essentially just normal NPCs with very strong productivity traits (Good at managing people, risk taker, etc.). If that's the case, I see no issue with that.