Side missions (POI) and the timing thereof

[MishaTX]

Something I find confusing is the timing of the point of interest missions, meaning when do they finish so I get my ships and troops back?

Quite important as it helps me determine which ships I can afford to send on these missions without ending up missing a key ship or two when a major battle has to be fought.

[WilliamTheIII]

They end with the stage. This means that you should prioritize naval battles first and ignore the poi's until there is only one battle left. It is also important to note that once you assign a ship to a poi, you cannot get it back until the stage end. This means that you can accidentally force yourself to skip a mission or get totally stuck with a grand battle.

[MishaTX]

That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks

[Garm]

5 hours ago, WilliamTheIII said:

They end with the stage. This means that you should prioritize naval battles first and ignore the poi's until there is only one battle left. It is also important to note that once you assign a ship to a poi, you cannot get it back until the stage end. This means that you can accidentally force yourself to skip a mission or get totally stuck with a grand battle.

I surly hope, this is just a placeholder mechanic for now, since these missions actually have a "duration" and as of now it is basically as you say. You do all the navy missions first and then send your ships on the PoI missions. Would be more interesting if you actually had to make decisions here. 

[WilliamTheIII]

I don't see how having them progress after a battle would do much either. You'd just play the land battle and do all the poi's during that battle. If there is no land battle, you could also break them up so you can save ships for the naval battle and then do them for the second battle. Multi stage POI's could be interesting and would fit well with the narrative created for the 3rd US Chapter.

What sort of duration are you thinking of that would truly present a more in depth version of POI's rather than just a "point and click"?

[Anthropoid]

I agree that the current implementation is a bit awkward. Some suggestions . . . depending on how the designers intend these activities to fit within the campaign:

Whenever a user clicks to open a PoI, included very early in the information presented to the user, a line appears stating "Your chief of staff estimates that completion of this objective will require the commitment of one or more ships for _insert value from backend_ days. This might be longer than the current stage of the war, thus taking these vessels out of use until the next stage of the war."

[WilliamTheIII]

This would only compound the issue of playing naval battles first and wanting to really prioritize how to best change your ships. Also, this would break a lot of the lore as each stage can be several months resulting in a lot of re-editing which I would rather not have to do. XD

Although, I agree that the current implementation can be a "bit awkward" as well as incredibly gamy however, I feel that for most things, ending at the stage is currently the best options for how to do things.

[Anthropoid]

On 1/18/2020 at 2:30 AM, WilliamTheIII said:

They end with the stage. This means that you should prioritize naval battles first and ignore the poi's until there is only one battle left. It is also important to note that once you assign a ship to a poi, you cannot get it back until the stage end. This means that you can accidentally force yourself to skip a mission or get totally stuck with a grand battle.

Not 100% positive, but I think they may have changed this now? Seems like I had one early campaign (still 1775 or early 1776) PoI that I tackled while I had two missions left. I did one of the missions and then the PoI was done too. It may have been that it actually advanced the calendar but retained the mission from the preceding "stage?"

[Anthropoid]

23 hours ago, WilliamTheIII said:

This would only compound the issue of playing naval battles first and wanting to really prioritize how to best change your ships. Also, this would break a lot of the lore as each stage can be several months resulting in a lot of re-editing which I would rather not have to do. XD

Although, I agree that the current implementation can be a "bit awkward" as well as incredibly gamy however, I feel that for most things, ending at the stage is currently the best options for how to do things.

No, what I meant was that the interface would include a "warning" to the player that assigning units to a PoI would commit them for some time and make them unavailable to do missions. Strictly UI/UX matter, not how things progress or game play dynamic. For me, and I think this might be true for many first time users of this game or of Game Labs games in general, the first time I assigned to a PoI, I was just clicking around exploring things. Then I realized those units were "locked in;" I kept clicking and clicking trying to figure out what I could do. Finally had to 'give up' and just click "Next Stage." It is generally a bad idea when you back a user into a corner and give them only one tiny narrow passage of escape, tends to piss people off, and "lore" and "historicity" are often not good excuses to do that! 😊

Never assume that your user(s):

1. Will understand unless you draw them a picture, give them directions in language suitable for a 5 year old and provide diagrams and warning signs.

2. Will not get pissed when you assumed they could figure it out on their own.

3. Will not give your game a bad review on Steam just because of (2), then move on to next game and leave their little turd bomb to impact your bottom line for time immemorial.

This game is a masterpiece, and I have great admiration for the folks responsible for it. But like so many games down through the decades, a failure to focus sufficiently on UI/UX is an issue.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Anthropoid

[JerryRocy]

current system of Side missions (POI) is not good. Should be button to autoresolve mission in 5 seconds.

[Anthropoid]

19 hours ago, JerryRocy said:

current system of Side missions (POI) is not good. Should be button to autoresolve mission in 5 seconds.

I disagree with that. It seems the point of the side missions is to offer "opportunities" at some risk in cost of probably damage or mission failure. This puts an incentive on having a larger fleet, and being able to do these side missions as much as possible. But they should always require one "turn" to complete, meaning: If you assign ships to a PoI, and then do a mission, there is a good chance the PoI will finish, you get the ships back in the harbor and can proceed.

Either (a) making them take until the next stage or (b) having them resolve instantaneously would seem to miss the mark.

[doublebuck]

On 1/24/2020 at 9:37 AM, Anthropoid said:

I disagree with that. It seems the point of the side missions is to offer "opportunities" at some risk in cost of probably damage or mission failure. This puts an incentive on having a larger fleet, and being able to do these side missions as much as possible. But they should always require one "turn" to complete, meaning: If you assign ships to a PoI, and then do a mission, there is a good chance the PoI will finish, you get the ships back in the harbor and can proceed.

Either (a) making them take until the next stage or (b) having them resolve instantaneously would seem to miss the mark.

I like the idea of the POI to resolve in one battle turn instead of the end of chapter turn or waiting until the last battle.

[Bremg]

I really dont understand the side missions. I just started 2 sidemissions with a duration of 1, then did one main missions. After the main missions only 1 of the side missions was completed.  

This ain't so hard now is it? Why is the duration of 1 not 1 turn? Or why is there not an end date?