1v1 Natural Shorts and Surpluses

from Offworld Forums

How does the community here feel about natural shorts and surpluses in the 1v1 quick match system? While I find that they put the market in interesting places in multiplayer games, I find them sometimes a bit too influential in the 1v1 matchup.

 

I guess the case I found most recently was a 1v1 where I founded, expanded to level 2, and put down farms as my HQ level 2 production as scientific. My opponent made an intelligent play to make glass with the higher prices. Up to this point everything in the game was determined by either the speed we uncovered our founding location (which is luck I personally choose to avoid in custom games where reveal map is an option) and the play and counter play between each other.

 

Then suddenly, a dust storm hit at the same time as a glass shortage. I found my production cut in half while his skyrocketed in value. In mere minutes after that he had an HQ level 5 to my HQ level 3 and bought me out. I agree that he made a smart play countering my farms with glass production, but the combination of random events really took its toll in that game.

 

In most competitive video games, randomness is kept to a minimum. Strategy games, MOBAs, and fighting games usually try to focus on the player's skills, strategies, and their mechanics as what determines a win. (With the noteable exception of hearthstone, which has developed its own "meme" where players and commentators sarcastically call "esports" as they gamble with a random feature). So how does the OTC community feel about the randomness in this game?

 

Personally I dont mind it in the non-competitive, 'for the spirit of fun' custom games. But with the addition of the (admittedly informal) 1v1 ladder, OTC's quick match system has taken a competitive turn. Do the random events have a place in that competitive environment? I understand that good players will adapt to new circumstances, and being flexible with ones strategy is another element of being the best, but as shown in the case above, he already had down glass, and I already had down farms, yet the random elements gave him a massive boost. I could have transitioned, I could have bought black market attacks, I get that, but it still didn't change that a massive element to the my victory or defeat was completely taken from my hands. Similarly I remember a game against YerAnd, one of the top players on the ladder, where I won almost completely on the back of a shortage at a critical point in the game. It was a close game the whole time, then suddenly a random event just threw me a free victory, one I was not sure I deserved.

 

How do you all feel about the random events, shorts, surpluses, dust storms, solar flares, etc? (I do not count the auctions as part of the randomness, as you still get a say in the price tag during the random auctions.)

23,493 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Offworld Forums Top

I personally find shortages and surpluses perfectly fine in a 1 vs 1 scenario. They are important for scav players and affect the market enough to force transitions and change of play. Some peopel complain with things like a carbon shortage can win scav the game, but it also means they can't transition as much and their upgrades cost more. It also makes an offworld transition almost impossible. This is similar for steel as well. Food sortages are a bit strong for scientific but an expansive can make more food and just overwhelm the market and get more of an advantage out of it.

 

I really don't like dust storms and soalr flare's though. It's not so much the fact that they exist, it's more the fact that they last for a random amount of time as well as turn up at random times. If I knew it was going to be a long dust storm I could plan accordingly, but sometimes they're so short that you cannot use them. Othertimes you try to wait them out and it lasts a full day. I'd liek to see some sort of 'weather warning' timer or something like that, give everyone the ability to see it before it happens, as well as how long it'll last.

 

I'm not arguing my idea's very heavily though because we had the same discussion at great length back in the beta 2 1 vs 1 tournaments and most people agree with you :P

Reply #2 from Offworld Forums Top

I like the random events.

I agree that it feels bad when you get punished by them, and sometimes they seem insurmountable, however my experience is that extreme cases are the minority and are worth putting up with

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Offworld Forums Top

If I remember correctly, the game you beat me you also won the Virtual Reality patent off the auction and I refused to believe the fact that PD is useful in 1v1 and you definitely made it work, so I wouldn't say that some shortage decided the outcome (if that's the right game I am recalling). I think the changelog for beta 5 says that the effect of random shortages/surpluses will be reduced which in theory solves the problem for me. The dust storm though... I can see how it rewards people for having wind turbines, which are normally the power source that people turn last to but I do question if it's really that necessary to punish people's food production with the dust storm.

It's usually not the end of the world either UNLESS you get back-to-back dust storms. Now that really is annoying and imo random events should never repeat, not one after another at least.

Reply #4 from Offworld Forums Top

I had not yet looked into the beta 5 patch notes, but even if they are reduced in their effects, do they have any place in the 1v1?

The maps generate a certain amount of randomness in each game. Add that to a unique single time choice of 4 different HQs, and you already have a large amount of variability in each match. Finally there is a randomized black market and daily auctions to change the day to day play of the game. Each game is already influenced by all of these factors creating plenty of unique games and maintaining high re-playability value. I can only imagine that the game is supposed to be fun, so fun you keep playing and tell you friends to buy it and play it as well. Shorts, surpluses and weather affects were all added to make each game feel unique and add to the immersion of trying to sell goods on a fluctuating market.

 

But it does not do that. Sure it makes some games feel unique, but occasionally in a very punishing way. Adding randomness for randomness' sake is rarely a good idea in a strategy game. And while sometimes it adds to the immersion, why are there shortages on goods people are already creating on the map?

 

Couldnt a better solution be implemented? For example: if a good has not been produced for 24 hours, have it short. If multiple goods have not been produced, make it randomly choose just one to short. Scavengers would still get the benefit of knowing what is going to short, but then you wont have players randomly getting massive rewards for just getting a lucky short on something they already produce. Plus this would add to the immersion as these goods would be facing a shortage if no one had been producing them. I dont know what the formula is for deciding what should short or surplus, but having at least some transparency and less true randomness and more sudo-randomness would benefit the strategic player instead of the lucky one.

 

As for the flares and storms, maybe add a upgrade to the HQ, a purchasable add-on called the "weather array", make it cost something like, 20 aluminum, 20 steel, 5 chemicals, and have it give a warning for when certain weather affects will hit, the same way a scavenger gets a heads up about shorts and surps. It would not even have to take up a claim, just have the player's HQ grow a radar dish over the top of it. Player's who dont like getting blindsided by the weather can grab this upgrade and then be prepared, but have to take a hit for their cautious and overtly safe play.

 

Thoughts?

Reply #5 from Offworld Forums Top

randomness is good as long as the match is fair. A random map and resource distribution is not bad because players have to bid a certain amount of debt to get the good founding spot vs having no debt with the bad founding spot. The bidding game balances out the potentially bad vs good founding location. The random black market similarly balances out in this way because it doesn't give either player an inherent advantage that the other doesn't also have.

However when both players are founded, random events can simply give one player an advantage by virtue of nothing but chance, and it can not be balanced out in 1v1. It can hardly be anticipated because there are many random events (or at least, many resources that shorts/surplusses can happen to) that outright favor one or the other company at any given point. They can't be anticipated because there is no way of foretelling what will happen.

Reply #6 from Offworld Forums Top

Agree with Cubit32. I've never been a fan of the random events in 1v1 that players cannot equally react to. Surpluses and shorts/Weather events are some of the worst since players can not equally react to them.

 

Random surpluses/shortages are not OK in a competitive environment because players cannot equally react. Most of the game, players have their buildings and that is all they have to work with until they upgrade, or pay to scrap and change. In the normal course of play, there is no opportunity to react to a shortage/surpluses because most actions come in bursts, with the rest of the time managing the buildings and productions as stuck. Each short/surplus either helps or hurts each player, but its never equal since the players are never producing/consuming the same resources. A player has certain expectations of net profit for certain production, which is why the player chose to produce that resource and spend certain claims on certain resources. A bad surplus can at best take an entire group of buildings out of play (no profit/turn them off) to at worst bleeding a ton of money producing at a loss. At the same time, that surplus will have No effect on the other player, resulting in a serious hurdle for the players to overcome.

Random events that occur before making decisions are fine because the players have the opportunity to adapt to them.

Random events that occur after or during the decision makings are not OK because players can't react to them without incurring a cost since that cost is NOT equal to the players either in expected profits, or cost to adapt.

Reply #7 from Offworld Forums Top

I have to agree that a strong point has been made but I would argue that a shortage/surplus can really harm a player if it comes early in the game. If you have expanded your HQ to level 5, chances are you have the resources (and hopefully the time) to adjust to whatever event is taking place. But when a surplus comes at level 2 there really is no defense against it. Which is why I tend to be sceptical about people claiming "I lost because of that random <something>" unless it came early.

But I will not be sad if "no random events" mode will be the normal mode for competitive play.