MoO3 rebuttal by Bruce Geryk

[darcy]

http://www.quartertothree.com/columns/geryk_analysis/MOO3_1.shtml

Bruce Geryk analyses how the removal of Imperial Focus Points from the original design broke MoO3's back. Interesting read.

[starfox]

An excellent review. It made me smile because everything the reviewer says is right, we experienced it. And then I thought about the people who still try to love this game, or even those who try so hard to persuade themselves that this game is indeed fun!

Yeah, right, right now I switched to freelancer, and this game IS fun right from the beginning. Of course it's not a MOO, but you actually do enjoy playing it.

Anyway, I guess all have been said except the doom that will befail that poor QuickSilver team. Thinking that they wanted some more time to refine their game. A dozen year wouldnt have been enough.

[booje]

Yes! Exactly so! This is an excellent article! Thanks for an article which points out what MOO3 was attempting to reach. That's why I've had the really odd feeling that there are so many POTENTIALLY cool parts to MOO3 and overall the game lacks focus. Know I understand what focus it lacks!

Know that we know this, can we operate on the patient in an attempt to graft functionality on him?

[kalbear]

I guess I didn't have to persuade myself all that much that it's a fun game. I like it quite a bit, even though there are tons of flaws. I don't know if I'll be playing it for years like I did MoO2, but I do like it.

I like it more knowing that I can manipulate everything under the hood. So far there's been quite a bit of success in making the AI more aggressive and produce more useful ships to attack with instead of massive amounts of transports and support units. And that's by the fans of the game after a week of release. That gives me a lot of hope that the game will be better.

It is an excellent read, and a conclusion that I arrived at also. There's a LOT of things that feel like they'd make more sense if only there were IFPs.

[lockstep]

I think Bruce Geryk's reasoning is flawed. Although he makes some interesting points about what a game using Imperial Focus Points (IFP's) could be like, these points do NOT explain Moo3's current shape (in Geryk's words a 'fiasco', IMO a potentially excellent game that needs some serious patching). Why do I think so?

To quote from Geryk's last paragraph: 'The bad AI, broken diplomacy, and ludicrously clumsy interface are all problems, and to some extent inexplicable. But in the context of Imperial Focus Points much of the rest of the design makes sense.'

At the moment, many posters on the different MoO3 boards seem to agree that the strategic AI for attacking - especially with ground forces - is nearly broken, and diplomacy actions lack any feedback. The interface is critiziced to some extent, mainly due to the many clicks needed to fiddle with individual build-queues. More serious issues (according to the discussion boards) are bugs in the combat system (point defense), the micro-management needed to build up decent fleets and ground forces (due to the lack of fleet/army plans) and the general lack of context-sensitive help and even documentation of some major game features (Huge Foot of Government).

Yes, Moo3 needs serious patching. However, I fail to see how most of these shortcomings (strategic AI, diplomacy, combat system, lack of fleet plans, lack of documentation) would suddenly fade away with the re-introduction of IFP's. Only the click-mania needed to micromanage planetary development would become less important with an IFP system, but planetary development seems NOT to be a major concern of Moo3's critics, because this part of the AI is quite solid.

And why would the rest of Moo3's design only make sense in the context of IFP's? Research, finance, empire management, espionage, ship design and (optionally) colonization are left to the player, offer a lot of strategic choices and seem to be quite fun at the moment. Bruce Geryk offers research project overruns as an example of a feature that makes no sense without IFP's, but while overruns are kind of 'fluff' stuff in the published version of MoO3, this is - IMO - due to a simplification of the research model itself, not due to the cut of IFP's. So, this is also no evidence that MoO3 is doomed to be a 'fiasco'. Surely, it could happen if Quicksilver isn't committed to patch this game ASAP ... but Moo3 could also turn out as the game that sets the new high mark in the TBS genre - because of its focus on macromanagement, which is a good thing even without an IFP system.

To quote Bruce Geryk a second time: 'Why have development plans at all, if you let the player control individual DEA's?'

A simple answer: Try to finish a game in Civ3 on a huge map, preferably by domination victory. You'll have to micro-manage hundreds of individual build-queues. Now, wouldn't development plans a la Moo3 be nice?

[ChaotikVisions]

I agree, the article doesn't make much sense. Yes things would have been different with it, would it have worked better? Good question. Did they remove it because they couldn't do it/turned out not to work good? Probably. Is the way you manage the AI good now? Yes, then whats the point of the article? As stated by many the only truely annoying things are lack of feedback for some things, passive AI, no 1 click access to build queues, and then for some its not being able to build DEA improvements.

Also, what was the point of misc pictures throughout it? Was he trying to give the impression you're bombarded by things that mean nothing or what? The whole thing seemed sloppy.

[yin26]

The 'keygenerator' to his argument, of course, is *IF* you can have an AI (talking about your own here for the moment) that role plays convincingly. In other words, an AI that is so good that it not only can do all you'd want it to do but will actually NOT do what you want it to do so well that you'll be forced to make interesting decisions on what to go in and fix or simply let be.

You'd be an intergalactic administrator with various role-playing AIs that have their own interesting agendas.

Of course, without such an AI, the rest is academic...you'd be reduced to AI's that simply don't follow orders with no way to go back in and try to fix it. Faced with that, I'd take out IFP's as well.

Thus, if you designed the game HOPING you'd have role-playing AIs of this quality and then realized you didn't have them (who does?), you'd have a game that had to much, much later in the project go back in and allow the player more ability to micro ... of course, you didn't design it for micro in the beginning, so your UI is now in trouble.

That's his point as I see it: They shot for the moon but landed in somebody's backyard.

[lockstep]

I agree that MoO3's AI viceroys don't have their own agendas, but they DO seem to follow general orders via development plans. So, it is quite likely that there are other reasons for the cut of IFP's. And according to Quicksilver, IFP's caused some kind of weird micro-management where to spend them, and therefore simply weren't fun. MoO3 was re-designed, delayed and eventually shipped quite unbalanced, but I don't think this game is doomed right now.

And that's my point: Maybe they shot for the moon and didn't reach it. Whether they landed on a high mountain or in somebody's backyard nobody knows yet.

[Hydro]

It may be personal preference, but from what I have heard I am absolutely delighted that IFPs bit the dust. All the complaints about the game may be right but I know one thing: I would have hated the game and not even considered buying it if it had IFPs. If I want to have a game for those with limited attention spans I’d play Age of Empires or some other real time game. There are times, particularly in the early game, where I want to be a micromanager – sating a vile compulsion, if you will. With IFPs or RT you can’t focus on anything – it is literally shoot and scoot, a veritable click fest. No thanks.

For SP IFPs would have been extremely exasperating for me. That said, I can see how IFPs would be useful in MP. But, there is this wonderful thing called a timer that would make IFPs totally redundant since it would do the same thing. Want to stop players from lingering, pondering each micromanagement detail? Well, then say you have X minutes then you are done. That seems simpler than and IFP system (and it is what MOO3 has now).

For me MOO3 does succeed in doing a few key things. First, it does intelligently automate an empire, which (as Yin pointed out in a previous thread) is no small task since that prevents micromanagement h*ll in mid and late games. Planets are built so they are productive, and you don’t need to fiddle with it unless you want to. Sure, you can quibble about when-to-build-what, but they do a decent job. Second, space combat is automated, which (like it or not) is necessary for MP for this type of game unless you want the move-one-ship-at-a-time irritation of MOO2. I’ve tried to control combat myself in MOO3 and it was not a happy experience – I fully approve of losing this control since Emperors shouldn’t be getting involved anyway. Give overall orders and trust your experts to do the job.

Some parts of Bruce’s review are irritating for me. He makes it sound like you have to delve into the details (of which there are many), poring through all the horrifying levels of minute until your brain explodes. Well, you don’t. All you have to do is let the AI do it, flaws and all. Isn’t that what he wanted with his IFPs – abstraction under the auspicious of various imperial functionaries that do your work for you? In fact, one of the primary complaints I’ve heard about the game is you don’t have to do anything – just hit the Turn button and let it go. I think that Bruce is on thin ground here since I don’t see any micromanagement h*ll he describes – I see the opposite. (If he is really criticizing the UI then he is right – it is complicated. But that is not how he presented his argument.)

Bruce also goes out of his way to describe the ‘bad’ AI. I found this to be amusing since in this same review he says that the AI should, under the IFP system, countermand your order and make ‘stupid’ decisions, or at least decisions you don’t like. I see a fundamental flaw in his reasoning – does he want an irrational AI or not? Right now the AI seems to overbuild transports and magazines. Bruce would have us think is a positive design feature, but then he goes on to criticize this exact sort of AI decision as ‘bad’. Sorry. You can’t have it both ways.

I will not dispute Bruce’s complaints about MOO3; they are real and hopefully soon to be fixed. Could MOOs interface be improved? Yes. Are there playability issues? Yes. Might these be the lingering debris from scrapped features? Maybe. Will these be fixed in the next patch? Probably most of them will be, or they will at least be addressed. I just do not see how IFPs would have fixed or improved anything since I view them as another useless layer of ‘stuff’ that would prevent me (as a player) from mucking around if I want to, and letting go if that suits my purpose. Again, I do not want another Age of Empires – there are LOTS of those types of games out there, and soon to be more, too, and for me IFPs would effectively make MOO into a RT game in TB clothing. For all its flaws MOO3 did make a stab at doing the CIV model differently. In my opinion they still have time to make some fixes and dramatically improve the game.

I just wish that the various players/critics out there were not quite so fixated on removed features, and that they could appreciate what has been achieved and wish the MOO team well as they strive to achieve the potential that I think MOO3 presents.

[kalbear]

There was another reason - namely, IFPs actually made the player take longer to play their turns, when the desired effect was for them to take less. Seems players worried incessantly over how to spend their IFPs.

[Ianpolaris]

Kalbear,

Of course players worried incessantly over spending IFPs. If I had a choice between 'doing it myself' and letting an AI handle it, I would worry too. The fact is a good gamer will want to maximize his effectiveness at each and every turn....so if you are only given a limited actions per turn (which is what IFPs do), you have to spend them sparingly....and that takes lots of (real) time.

That's also IMHO the real reason why the game and interface are so cryptic and why there is basically zero feedback. The designers will never admit this on a public forum (they'd be lynched), but it is my strong opinion that you were never supposed to understand what was going on in hard numeric terms.

That's right: The lack of feedback was supposed to be a feature

The reason is simple: If a human is allowed to min-max in a strategy game to his heart's content, he will always beat any AI handily. To stop that (and *force* him to use the AI), you deny the human player information he needs to make good decisions. It is no wonder though why QS, Rantz and Co, and the BTs can't out and out tell us that though (because it nixes the point of being an imperial leader).

Then again, once you learn the interface, you can win just by hitting 'turn' anyway, so what's the point? :shrug:

-Polaris

[lockstep]

Originally posted by Ianpolaris
That's right: The lack of feedback was supposed to be a feature

I can't proof it, but from the old Delphi boards I remember Alan Emrich (the former MoO3 designer) saying that even with IFP's all the information (statistics, game mechanics) should be accessible to the player without limitation. Only the number of actions per turn would be restricted.

I guess Quicksilver simply didn't realize for a long time how steep the learning curve of this game would be for the casual player. Now they know that there's a big problem at hand and are working on a revised manual. Also extensive in-game help seems to be high on their to-do list.

[Ianpolaris]

lockstep,

I simply don't believe that. I am only a casual programmer, but even I know that it would not be that hard to put the instantaneous, numeric feedback perhaps accessable to a 'right click'. In fact that adjustment could be made with only 1-2 days of work.

That tells me that the lack of feedback was done deliberately and with aforethought. Of course the designers will tell you differently....because if they told the truth, they'd be lynched by angry gamers (although in large part it is happening now).

In short, I don't believe it was an oversight. Not when the solution is so simple and incorporated in every other TBS strategy game.

-Polaris

[lockstep]

Well, I'm not a programmer and can't really comment on that.

Anyhow, Ianpolaris, do you think that Bruce Geryk is right and MoO3 is doomed due to inherent design flaws? Or can it be patched to a classic the way it happened with Master of Magic?

[mactbone]

I don't think he makes a blanket statement saying the game is pure crap. I know he's not making the assertion that IFPs would fix the game or make it better. He's just postulating that many of the problems and oddities are remnants of the defunct IFP system. A system btw, which I cannot see being equated to an RTS - consider it more like a feature that would add a layer of complexity to the game, instead of just deciding what to do you also have to decide whether you should.