Hard West 2 - sequel from Ice Code Games

[lukaszek]

A lot of the negative reviews on Steam cite how they don't like how its deterministic nature (including deterministic rng ) make it feel more like a puzzle that needs solving than something that can be beaten with flexible tactics. lukaszek what do you say to this?

im still wrapping my head around this issue actually.
Learning that people didnt notice there is deterministic(luck) system in hard west 1 was a stepping stone. Like Kacper Szymczak said - percentages were displayed.
Then you see people like fanta from THIS forum calling seed fake rng.

as it stands whether determinism is better than rng is meaningless when you are trying to provide answer to wrong question. Now what is this question is my new area of study. What people want? What people think they want?
If people say they want rng, but not real rng, what is it exactly that they want?

As a bonus: should 100% hit chance in rng system even be a thing? If most claim that they prefer rng as they want to be surprised, then there should be room for unexpected in every action no?

 

[Spectacle]

Unity random library

This pretty much sums up RNG in games very well. There is no excuse in using dog shit RNG like Mersenne Twister or the old C RNG. PCG and other generators are far more robust and behave as expected. Since this is a Unity made game it looks like someone can "patch" the RNG to use something modern like PCG.

What's wrong with Mersenne Twister?

Read about RNGs here:
https://www.pcg-random.org/paper.html

Do you think the differences between these RNG algorithms really matter when you're using them for rolling a d100 in a game and not some cryptographic shit? While some generators are statistically better than others, you need some pretty long number sequences to notice any difference.

You should read the paper above.

I want to know what you think, not the fellow scholars who wrote the paper.

 

[Spectacle]

A lot of the negative reviews on Steam cite how they don't like how its deterministic nature (including deterministic rng ) make it feel more like a puzzle that needs solving than something that can be beaten with flexible tactics. lukaszek what do you say to this?

im still wrapping my head around this issue actually.
Learning that people didnt notice there is deterministic(luck) system in hard west 1 was a stepping stone. Like Kacper Szymczak said - percentages were displayed.
Then you see people like fanta from THIS forum calling seed fake rng.

as it stands whether determinism is better than rng is meaningless when you are trying to provide answer to wrong question. Now what is this question is my new area of study. What people want? What people think they want?
If people say they want rng, but not real rng, what is it exactly that they want?

As a bonus: should 100% hit chance in rng system even be a thing? If most claim that they prefer rng as they want to be surprised, then there should be room for unexpected in every action no?

Hard West 2 definitely rewards the player for carefully planning out each turn, and only shooting when the hit chance is 100% so you don't leave any part of the plan to chance. I enjoy this, but it's certainly a different style of gameplay where hits are more unpredictable and you need to be ready to improvise after every move. I enjoy that too, but can certainly see some people liking one but not the other. If only people played the demo before buying and complaining...

On a related note, I find the Bullseye system in HW2 to be a bit of a double edged sword. Sure, extra damage and fast kills can be good, but sometimes instakilling an enemy that you only intended to wound can really throw a wrench into your plan, if the intention was for another character to refill their action points from getting that kill.

 

[Salvo]

Never understood why devs put in "anti-save scum" mechanics in their games tbh

 

[fantadomat]

Never understood why devs put in "anti-save scum" mechanics in their games tbh

Because they are try hard retards and think everyone else is too.


Also i find it sad how people find it more interesting to talk about the retarded RNG systems than about the fucking game. Anyone else outside of me in here even playing it ?

 

[Whisper]

Ohhh also the % to hit is fake lol,your hits are predetermined at the start of the turn. You could reload the same turn and see that the same actions have the same effect. So if you have 50 chance to hit someone,you will always hit him or not depending on what the game rolled at the start of the turn. You will need to change the position for different % to have different outcome.....maybe. Haven't tried to see if you will have the same outcome if you position yourself for 25%hit chance. That makes the game in to pure puzzle game lol.

It was same even in Kings Bounty: The Legend (2008).

 

[Saduj]

On a related note, I find the Bullseye system in HW2 to be a bit of a double edged sword. Sure, extra damage and fast kills can be good, but sometimes instakilling an enemy that you only intended to wound can really throw a wrench into your plan, if the intention was for another character to refill their action points from getting that kill.

Hasn't happened to me yet but more than once, I've worried about killing someone I only intended on wounding because it would screw up the whole plan.

Another thing you have to be careful of is killing the one-shotable enemies without thinking it through. Yeah, you will get your AP back and sometimes it really doesn't matter who kills them or when. But at other times, they can be used to get a free move that sets up another kill or kills. Most of the time, they are more of a resource than a hindrance.

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

A lot of the negative reviews on Steam cite how they don't like how its deterministic nature (including deterministic rng ) make it feel more like a puzzle that needs solving than something that can be beaten with flexible tactics. lukaszek what do you say to this?

what is deterministic about it? It is RNG..what am I missing?

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

A lot of the negative reviews on Steam cite how they don't like how its deterministic nature (including deterministic rng ) make it feel more like a puzzle that needs solving than something that can be beaten with flexible tactics. lukaszek what do you say to this?

im still wrapping my head around this issue actually.
Learning that people didnt notice there is deterministic(luck) system in hard west 1 was a stepping stone. Like Kacper Szymczak said - percentages were displayed.
Then you see people like fanta from THIS forum calling seed fake rng.

as it stands whether determinism is better than rng is meaningless when you are trying to provide answer to wrong question. Now what is this question is my new area of study. What people want? What people think they want?
If people say they want rng, but not real rng, what is it exactly that they want?

As a bonus: should 100% hit chance in rng system even be a thing? If most claim that they prefer rng as they want to be surprised, then there should be room for unexpected in every action no?

D&D has critical miss and hit, maybe something like that is going on

 

[Roguey]

what is deterministic about it? It is RNG..what am I missing?

As mentioned earlier in the thread, it uses fixed seeding, so if you have to reload, your rolls will all be the same and the game becomes "how can I find the right solution to win with this particular set of rolls?"

 

[Harthwain]

im still wrapping my head around this issue actually.
Learning that people didnt notice there is deterministic(luck) system in hard west 1 was a stepping stone. Like Kacper Szymczak said - percentages were displayed.

But it wasn't entirely deterministic either - while there was Luck, it was entirely possible to get hit if Luck was low enough. So sometimes you had to take that into account and "drain" Luck before ensuring the kill (or refill your own Luck before taking a risk). The element of risk was still there, even though it was mitigated to a certain degree.

Then you see people like fanta from THIS forum calling seed fake rng.

You will also see people whining about AI cheating, because it ALWAYS hits and they ALWAYS miss. A bad workman always blames his tools.

as it stands whether determinism is better than rng is meaningless when you are trying to provide answer to wrong question. Now what is this question is my new area of study. What people want? What people think they want?
If people say they want rng, but not real rng, what is it exactly that they want?

People want to win.

If you look at fanta's example - he doesn't really want real RNG. He wants to hit the target. So he reloads until he hits. But he can't, because reloading doesn't change the seed. So he complains about "fake RNG". Even though you're not really supposed to reload until you hit. If you play the game as intended, it doesn't matter whether the RNG is "truly" random or seeded - you would still have to take a chance and live with it. And then you wouldn't know the "real" chances of hitting next target.

The same goes for messing up the chain: the game is not such a "puzzle" that you HAVE to get it flawless on your first turn (unless you next to do an achievement or a secondary objective, but that's exception proving the rule). You have a plenty of wiggle room to do things your way.

As a bonus: should 100% hit chance in rng system even be a thing? If most claim that they prefer rng as they want to be surprised, then there should be room for unexpected in every action no?

I think it should be, under certain conditions. The unexpected is needed to differentiate from chess, but at the same time having EVERYTHING to be subject to randomness doesn't always make sense or is a good thing. It's best to mix the uncertainty with something solid you can lean on, in order to be able to strategize properly.

King Arthur: Knight's Tale is a pretty damn good example of this. Hard West 1 was good - in my opinion - for similar reasons.

 

[Tacgnol]

I'm enjoying using the melee guy, Laughing Deer. You can get some insane chain kills with him if you use him properly.

His charge ability in particular is really fun to use as you can get some one shots even on tough enemies.

Also a high risk high reward character, as if you misuse his turns you can easily end up with him stuck in the open and taken out the next round.

 

[lukaszek]

But it wasn't entirely deterministic either - while there was Luck, it was entirely possible to get hit if Luck was low enough. So sometimes you had to take that into account and "drain" Luck before ensuring the kill (or refill your own Luck before taking a risk). The element of risk was still there, even though it was mitigated to a certain degree.

and... what exactly wasnt deterministic?

 

[Spectacle]

But it wasn't entirely deterministic either - while there was Luck, it was entirely possible to get hit if Luck was low enough. So sometimes you had to take that into account and "drain" Luck before ensuring the kill (or refill your own Luck before taking a risk). The element of risk was still there, even though it was mitigated to a certain degree.

and... what exactly wasnt deterministic?

Hard West 1 had hit% chance, so most of the time when you shot at someone it was down to a non-deterministic dice roll. But every missed shot would also drain part of the target's luck, andGet once luck reached 0 the next attack was guaranteed to hit. You'd lose more luck when a high hit% attack missed, and getting hit would refill your luck.

So it's a game where shooting is about dice rolling most of the time, but you also have a system to prevent the frustration that some players feel when they miss many shots in a row and have nothing to show for it.

 

[lukaszek]

guyz... what the fuck

There's a classic Chance to Hit calculation (based on char aim, weapon mod, cover, elevation, range, etc.etc.).
Every character has a luck param (and a max luck cap).
If shooter's CtH = 100%, it's a hit.
If shooter's CtH < 100% AND it's > target's Luck, it's a hit.
If shooter's CtH < 100% AND it's < target's Luck, target's luck is reduced by shooter's CtH.
If shot, your Luck is replenished a bit.

So, basically, if shot at, you eventually run out of luck.
Luck is also like MANA in terms of trickshot and ability usage. So if you're focused on 'casting', you'll get shot easily.
Also, world map exploration and adventures modify your starting luck.

let me reiterate: deterministic

 

[fantadomat]

I'm enjoying using the melee guy, Laughing Deer. You can get some insane chain kills with him if you use him properly.

His charge ability in particular is really fun to use as you can get some one shots even on tough enemies.

Also a high risk high reward character, as if you misuse his turns you can easily end up with him stuck in the open and taken out the next round.

The teleportation chick is super op by the end,she could clear a whole room in a turn lol. Chaining people with the shotgun feels good,man lol.

 

[Harthwain]

let me reiterate: deterministic

I may be misremembering something, but aren't there flat out misses that do not drain target's Luck?

 

[Oropay]

I've completed the mission in which the player saves the native woman from the ritual, so working on the first chapter. Overall, not enjoying HW2 much. Very over the top in a way that the first game (one of my favorite tactics games) was not. Characters suck (they're petulant zoomers), gameplay sucks, skills suck (demon bullets instead of fanning the hammer), maps suck (like a cover shooter that designed the cover first, instead of subtly integrating the cover into a believable level), art sucks (feels low detail, like it was made for small screens), music sucks (has a very average, commercial sound to it). Feels like the game was designed for mobile.

Maybe my opinion will change as I play further. The one cool thing (don't remember whether this was in the first game) is the specific aspect of the card / buff system that asks the player to create various poker hands (e.g., two pair, straight) to activate or improve character skills.

Feels more like a puzzle game than a tactics game. Thus far, the game is restricted to narrow levels where you fight a few enemies at a time. HW2 really made me realize that, for a game to feel like a tactics game and not a puzzle game, the levels have to be wide and a large number of AP combinations with distinct party compositions has to be viable. That type of fleshed out flexibility, with a large number of systems at play, is much more enjoyable for me personally.

 

[lukaszek]

let me reiterate: deterministic

I may be misremembering something, but aren't there flat out misses that do not drain target's Luck?

nah. You could game the system by draining enemy luck and then hit from across the map with largest weapon, even if hit chance was abysmal. From memory there were weapons that could punch harder through the cover.

 

[fantadomat]

Hmm finished the game and it is not bad one,but there is decent amount of problems. The combat is pretty much a puzzle game and gets pretty easy near the end. The leveling is a nice idea but sadly the skills are pretty useless,would have been better if there was some actual choice and you build an actual character. The companions are ok but sadly the game lacks in side content that will let you improve their loyalty. By the end i got the ones i don't care about ot max and the ones that i liked to near the last,and i was taking all the fucking possitive options with them. I just couldn't get all their points. The world map is pretty simple,the best chapter is 1 by far,even have the hardest battles. After that it becomes to simple and meh. Should have had a lot more side content and weird supernatural shit to be great game. By the final chapter the combat loop became just positioning the teleportation chick so she could multi hit people with the glorious shotgun and yet kill at least one to get the bravado,then i just use the other threes for a lowering enemies hp so she could get more bravado if needed,could win a whole encounter with that strategy in a turn or two.

 

[Rean]

Just started this. The girl's a qt3.14.

 

[Saduj]

This game is at 70% approval on Steam. It was 71% when I looked a couple of days ago. Almost all of the negative reviews complain about difficulty or "balance", aka difficulty. Wouldn't be surprised if some of those enemies that take 3 shots to kill lose just enough HP to be 2-shotable in the next patch....l

 

[fantadomat]

This game is at 70% approval on Steam. It was 71% when I looked a couple of days ago. Almost all of the negative reviews complain about difficulty or "balance", aka difficulty. Wouldn't be surprised if some of those enemies that take 3 shots to kill lose just enough HP to be 2-shotable in the next patch....l

Well it is not just the hp thing,they do tend to spam abilities and have a full regen. But once you finish the first chapter the game becomes a lot easier.

 

[Saduj]

This game is at 70% approval on Steam. It was 71% when I looked a couple of days ago. Almost all of the negative reviews complain about difficulty or "balance", aka difficulty. Wouldn't be surprised if some of those enemies that take 3 shots to kill lose just enough HP to be 2-shotable in the next patch....l

Well it is not just the hp thing,they do tend to spam abilities and have a full regen. But once you finish the first chapter the game becomes a lot easier.

I recently finished what I was calling the 2nd chapter, but I think you're calling it the 1st. You're talking about the game getting easier after the mission where wendingos make their 1st appearance and you have to do the double train battle immediately afterwards with no healing in between, right?

 

[fantadomat]

This game is at 70% approval on Steam. It was 71% when I looked a couple of days ago. Almost all of the negative reviews complain about difficulty or "balance", aka difficulty. Wouldn't be surprised if some of those enemies that take 3 shots to kill lose just enough HP to be 2-shotable in the next patch....l

Well it is not just the hp thing,they do tend to spam abilities and have a full regen. But once you finish the first chapter the game becomes a lot easier.

I recently finished what I was calling the 2nd chapter, but I think you're calling it the 1st. You're talking about the game getting easier after the mission where wendingos make their 1st appearance and you have to do the double train battle immediately afterwards with no healing in between, right?

LoL they are supper easy to kill,their mortal enemies are stairs,just get all your chaps on the roof and one of them blocking the entrance square.They can't get past him. The two missions could tricky back to back,but not that hard. The hardest part was in the first chapter when you get the coal,with the two regeneration idiots that spam bombs. Also the most broken shit in the game is bleeding,it should have been 2 per turn,not per action. Works pretty well on the wendigos too. Also the game have a lot of loose ends,clearly it is unfinished...sadly.