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[q]This sparked an interesting idea though. If the goal is to make Lance more visible and susceptible to counter battery, why not make it actually visible? We could add an extra game rule that reveals enemy units to teams with vision on the beam laser projecting from the unit. This would many affect Lance and Lucifer, but would technically affect all beams. It makes sense from a unit AI perspective, but it does run the risk of being too visually messy.[/q]
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1 |
[q]This sparked an interesting idea though. If the goal is to make Lance more visible and susceptible to counter battery, why not make it actually visible? We could add an extra game rule that reveals enemy units to teams with vision on the beam laser projecting from the unit. This would many affect Lance and Lucifer, but would technically affect all beams. It makes sense from a unit AI perspective, but it does run the risk of being too visually messy.[/q]
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| 2 |
Another cost of making beams reveal their shooter is the reduction of fuzzy information. When you give people incomplete information it leaves room for them to make predictions. The gap between making the prediction and finding out the answer creates anticipation. If you get it right you feel smart for predicting correctly, but get it wrong and you feel surprise. Either way, this seems like a more valuable emotional journey than just having a Lance shoot and then instantly seeing where the Lance is, and that it is a Lance rather than a Lucifer or Paladin.
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2 |
Another cost of making beams reveal their shooter is the reduction of fuzzy information. When you give people incomplete information it leaves room for them to make predictions. The gap between making the prediction and finding out the answer creates anticipation. If you get it right you feel smart for predicting correctly, but get it wrong and you feel surprise. Either way, this seems like a more valuable emotional journey than just having a Lance shoot and then instantly seeing where the Lance is, and that it is a Lance rather than a Lucifer or Paladin.
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| 4 |
Mobile radar dot speed is a good example of fuzzy information. In theory a widget could track radar dots, estimate their speed, and then output a short list of likely unit types. But I feel like we'd lose something if this was done.
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4 |
Mobile radar dot speed is a good example of fuzzy information. In theory a widget could track radar dots, estimate their speed, and then output a short list of likely unit types. But I feel like we'd lose something if this was done.
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| 5 |
* Identifying radar dots from their speed is a skill that is built up in stages. Fairly new players might be able to tell a fast raider from a slow assault, intermediate players may tell skirmishers from raiders, and the best players might be able to guess at specific raiders. Noticeably getting better at something feels good, regardless of what it is.
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* Identifying radar dots from their speed is a skill that is built up in stages. Fairly new players might be able to tell a fast raider from a slow assault, intermediate players may tell skirmishers from raiders, and the best players might be able to guess at specific raiders. Noticeably getting better at something feels good, regardless of what it is.
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| 6 |
* The best UI for identifying radar dots is for a player to observe a radar dot, then for a hunch to arrive in their brain. Any UI that tries to replicate this will make the screen messy and mostly provide redundant information.
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6 |
* The best UI for identifying radar dots is for a player to observe a radar dot, then for a hunch to arrive in their brain. Any UI that tries to replicate this will make the screen messy and mostly provide redundant information.
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| 7 |
* It ties into game-feel skills around knowing what sort of units the enemy might have. Multiple units are more likely to be cheap than expensive. Knowing the enemy factories rules out many units unless they've built an extra factory.
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* It ties into game-feel skills around knowing what sort of units the enemy might have. Multiple units are more likely to be cheap than expensive. Knowing the enemy factories rules out many units unless they've built an extra factory.
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| 8 |
* It creates a lot of short prediction-anticipation-reveal loops. The skill is used and improved upon every game.
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* It creates a lot of short prediction-anticipation-reveal loops. The skill is used and improved upon every game.
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| 9 |
* Overall, identifying radar dots doesn't feel like a skill that has a massive impact on the outcome of games. I don't expect anyone to need to actively train this skill to improve at ZK.
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* Overall, identifying radar dots doesn't feel like a skill that has a massive impact on the outcome of games. I don't expect anyone to need to actively train this skill to improve at ZK.
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| 10 |
It looks like the cost of replacing the skill with a widget would be far greater than the benefits. The UI would become messier, players would lose a skill to improve at, and we'd lose the enjoyment of the prediction-reveal loops. Sure, ZK is fundamentally not about estimating the precise speed of moving dots, but keeping it as a secondary skill seems fine if the enjoyment of using and mastering it far outweighs any impact it has on games. It would feel bad to lose games to secondary skills such as this, but I don't see it happening for this one.
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10 |
It looks like the cost of replacing the skill with a widget would be far greater than the benefits. The UI would become messier, players would lose a skill to improve at, and we'd lose the enjoyment of the prediction-reveal loops. Sure, ZK is fundamentally not about estimating the precise speed of moving dots, but keeping it as a secondary skill seems fine if the enjoyment of using and mastering it far outweighs any impact it has on games. It would feel bad to lose games to secondary skills such as this, but I don't see it happening for this one.
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| 12 |
This is all before we consider counter widgets. In theory a widget could fight the first by telling fast units to move at the speed of slower units. People can already do this to some extent with formation move, but they have to have a slower unit to move. I expect people have actually spoofed each other with ability before. Players can't currently do things like move Glaives at Scorcher speed early in a 1v1. So there would still be some information game with these widgets, but I expect it would be a game of messy UIs and fiddling with widgets, rather than a game of hunches with a rare bit of spoofing.
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This is all before we consider counter widgets. In theory a widget could fight the first by telling fast units to move at the speed of slower units. People can already do this to some extent with formation move, but they have to have a slower unit to move. I expect people have actually spoofed each other with ability before. Players can't currently do things like move Glaives at Scorcher speed early in a 1v1. So there would still be some information game with these widgets, but I expect it would be a game of messy UIs and fiddling with widgets, rather than a game of hunches with a rare bit of spoofing.
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| 14 |
This
it
relevant
to
Lance
because
the
same
thing
happened
to
me
a
week
or
so
ago
in
a
Paladin
rush.
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14 |
This
is
relevant
to
Lance
because
the
same
thing
happened
to
me
a
week
or
so
ago
in
a
Paladin
rush.
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| 15 |
* The enemy team rushed a Paladin.
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15 |
* The enemy team rushed a Paladin.
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| 16 |
* The first indication of this was a Lance beam from fog.
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16 |
* The first indication of this was a Lance beam from fog.
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* The beam appeared at around the same time that my teams Paladin rush was ready.
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17 |
* The beam appeared at around the same time that my teams Paladin rush was ready.
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* This raised the thought "Did the enemy Paladin rush too?".
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18 |
* This raised the thought "Did the enemy Paladin rush too?".
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| 19 |
* A second beam appeared, and my fuzzy feeling of time said "that wasn't 20 seconds". I know Paladin has a 10s reload on its beam, so more weight was shifted to the Paladin hypothesis.
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19 |
* A second beam appeared, and my fuzzy feeling of time said "that wasn't 20 seconds". I know Paladin has a 10s reload on its beam, so more weight was shifted to the Paladin hypothesis.
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| 20 |
* The Paladin was revealed shortly afterwards.
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20 |
* The Paladin was revealed shortly afterwards.
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| 21 |
The period of uncertainty was not long, but I feel like it improved the game. Later in the game there was another Lance beam, but scouting revealed it to be a Lance.
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21 |
The period of uncertainty was not long, but I feel like it improved the game. Later in the game there was another Lance beam, but scouting revealed it to be a Lance.
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| 22 |
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| 23 |
I am also concerned about making the fog messy by filling it with a bunch of revealed units. Revealing firing units in aLOS already looks a little messy.
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23 |
I am also concerned about making the fog messy by filling it with a bunch of revealed units. Revealing firing units in aLOS already looks a little messy.
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Lance