The XCOM problem.

[Gasper]

XCOM2 Is legendary for the way it can make randomness (particularly the change to hit %) FEEL unfair. There are plenty of explanations for how this feels unfair for the player psychologically while being actually mathematically fair.

Still there are times when you play XCOM2 and you can tell that RNGesus, the AI, the game engine, or the universe as a whole has decided that you will lose this fight.

It goes beyond each individual chance, each individual time an enemy lands an impossible shot, or each individual point blank shotgun blast that fails to connect. It's that sinking feeling you get when EVERY 98% shot misses, EVERY grenade gets a minimum damage roll.

Then it gets even more heartbreaking when you manage to grit your teeth and stubbornly refuse to fail. You go back to rock bottom fundamentals, you triple the firepower you should need on each enemy, you take every possible step to remove the RNG (throw 3 grenades knowing you'll get minimum damage rolls on all 3). Using every possible tool in your toolkit to play a perfect engagement.

But, you will lose this fight.

You knew it 45 minutes ago when the BS started flying thick and fast, and it really isn't a surprise when something totally impossible happens and some tutorial level grunt manages to headshot your entire squad with a boot he found nearby.

 

This game has the XCOM problem. Just like in XCOM there are going to be plenty of statistical models that show that out of every so many games someone is going to have the "unfair" game. And just like in XCOM there are going to be times when it just FEELS so clearly nonsense. I've had a battleship empty 100% of its main AND secondary magazines at a CA @8-10KM and fail to deal significant damage. I've watched enemy formations pin my DD's to the ocean floor from 15km while they're in smoke and maneuvering while at the very same moment my BC fails to sink a single DD from 3km with 50 barrels pointed at it for 10 minutes.

I know that I am in some way wrong, that it can be proven that I'm wrong, but I also know there are times where I run a battle in XCOM2 or in UA:D and after 5 minutes I know damn well I need to exit and load the mission again, because the game has decided that you will lose this fight.

[7thGalaxy]

I guess the difference is that in xcom you make relatively few rolls, whilst in ua:d you make thousands. Over thousands of rolls things should average out. 

That's not to rule out the odd extraordinary thing: the 8 inch shell that breaks the turret traverse, or sparks a fire that grows out of control. The 6 inch that takes out the bridge and causes a c2 loss and a crash into another ship. 

A morale system is needed for this really: in reality a CA would run hard from a battleship, the balance of odds are well against a lucky strike. The odds are against the BB missing every time. It's just not worth the risk.  

[Right]

xcome2 is way worse, it decide the hit chance before you even make the move based on where you stand before taking it.

eventually it is about luck but you can turn it in your favor like any other thing in games are life.

once you understand how to build your ship the game in that regard become much less frustrating.

[Jatzi]

It does yeah. This is cuz of how they've set up the gunnery model. They've simplified it as much as they could. It was pointed out a lot last year early on. They said nothing so it's safe to say it's not gonna change. Is what it is I guess. They seem scared to go down either the overly simulator or overly arcadey route. They want to straddle the line and imo it hurts them but again is what it is. 

[Marko Dash]

it's fairly realistic, IIRC in long range gun duels BB's were said to have a 2% hit-rate.

[1MajorKoenig]

I don’t mind this flexibility.
 

May create annoying situations once in a while but I prefer this over predictability any day of the week 

[Cptbarney]

1 hour ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

I don’t mind this flexibility.
 

May create annoying situations once in a while but I prefer this over predictability any day of the week 

I think it may cause issues, when more complex damage models get added to the game, since it will need to then simulate pin point damage most of the time rather than simple RNG, which is fine as is since the hitboxes for each compartment are huge, but if they go down the warthunder route for internals. Then we will need a gunnery model thats more or less 85-100% non-rng, so calculations, using co-ordinates, rangefinding, target leading, prediction, speed and direction etc. Only RNG should really come from anything thats been damaged prior and/or Weather, malfunctions, crew, random events, unexpected events etc.

I would prefer a more realistic gunnery model if it makes the game much more enjoyable or simulates damage better, but without proper internal hitboxes and armour schemes, i guess what we have is ok for now.

[1MajorKoenig]

13 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

but if they go down the warthunder route for internals.

And I’m afraid this level of granularity is far beyond the scope of this project. And I don’t even think that everyone playing the game would even need or want to place internal stuff like boilers and such. I think a certain level of abstraction and aggregation is fine as long as it gives enough flexibility. 

[Cptbarney]

5 hours ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

And I’m afraid this level of granularity is far beyond the scope of this project. And I don’t even think that everyone playing the game would even need or want to place internal stuff like boilers and such. I think a certain level of abstraction and aggregation is fine as long as it gives enough flexibility. 

Too be fair, i was more on the point of properly detailed meshes for internals not placement as that would come with how you place things on the deck in the first place and the type of citadel you pick etc. 

Atm, we don't even have an internal armour viewer and the system is very basic atm. Even wows has a more complex system currently which isn't a good look, especially as realism is one of the key selling points of this game along with the designer. Also if you could customize the internals that would also be another selling point too.

They can add this in later anyways, weegee does it with random things as well. Since game development seldomly ever stops at the 'release' date anymore not like 10-20 years ago.

Plus we are still in i would say Mid-Alpha got a long way to go so plenty of time for them to add other features.

[Stormnet]

This might sound a bad idea, but I thought, if we ever get actuall shell physics simulations, having a system where the computer creates a firing solution, not based on a aimbot "will it hit" arc, but based on data it receives, like ship speed, position, trajectory, size, etc. Once fired, the physics engine determines the shell trajectory, without any influence after that by the aiming computer.

One way to not turn it into a aimbot, would be to limit the accuracy of the data received by the computer to calculate the firing angle. If the ships are far away, or in a stormy day, at exactly X 30,58974 and Y 67,31223, then give the computer the coordinates of X 30,589 and Y 67,312 and tell it its only an aproximation with an uncertainty of 0.001 (egg innacuracy of 100 meters) (the aproximations should be somewhat random, sometimes the data fed might be above the real parameters, sometimes lower, so the computer doesnt simply fire in the middle). The computer must then calculate a trajectory, and since its dealing with innacurate data, it will try to randomize the shots a little (but never outside of the aproximate target location). 

Factors that affect accuracy would make the firing data less accurate, and so undermine the computer's ability to aim. The computer would always try its best, but would rely on some sort of bad parameters. 

This likely is a flawed system, but I just wanted to share the idea.

Edited March 27, 2021 by Stormnet

[Cpt.Hissy]

How it's done in that other unity game with guns:
A ship has a set of detection equipment, consisting of any number of any from like a dozen of different types.
Every detector has rate of measurements (N per second or once in N seconds, depends), precision limit (in degrees!) and an actual accuracy against given target (depends on target's properties, distance, time of day, possibly weather)
With things above, every detector repeatedly captures the target's location (which has some randomized error to it) and feeds that to the AI
AI takes all the measurements and brews them together, using individual weights of each detector's data to estimate target's position
Then AI processes estimated positions over time to measure target's speed and heading, and plot it's course.
Then AI uses "simple" movement prediction algorithm to plot that course into near future.

Every gun gets aimed at that chosen target accounting for it's ballistics, that means at the projected future position, and fires.
Every gun has it's own accuracy, and shells go onto random paths within that margin.
Each individual shell is actual physics driven entity.
They hit where they hit and do whatever they're meant to do with what they did hit.

All of this runs fast enough to allow dozens of active units with no issues, though many other ongoing things will slow that game down regardless so it's hard to measure impact of this specific system.

Stress test of several hundreds of smol guns on stationary platform  (each with own full detection suite) caused a lot of lag tho.
 

Now on topic, the system described above is quite advanced for a game and even approaches "realistic" levels, but still based on random number generators.
But it doesn't create those chains of success or failure.
I guess it's due to many layers of RNG applied over one another.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Cpt.Hissy

[akd]

On 2/7/2021 at 4:14 PM, Gasper said:

XCOM2 Is legendary for the way it can make randomness (particularly the change to hit %) FEEL unfair. There are plenty of explanations for how this feels unfair for the player psychologically while being actually mathematically fair.

Still there are times when you play XCOM2 and you can tell that RNGesus, the AI, the game engine, or the universe as a whole has decided that you will lose this fight.

It goes beyond each individual chance, each individual time an enemy lands an impossible shot, or each individual point blank shotgun blast that fails to connect. It's that sinking feeling you get when EVERY 98% shot misses, EVERY grenade gets a minimum damage roll.

Then it gets even more heartbreaking when you manage to grit your teeth and stubbornly refuse to fail. You go back to rock bottom fundamentals, you triple the firepower you should need on each enemy, you take every possible step to remove the RNG (throw 3 grenades knowing you'll get minimum damage rolls on all 3). Using every possible tool in your toolkit to play a perfect engagement.

But, you will lose this fight.

You knew it 45 minutes ago when the BS started flying thick and fast, and it really isn't a surprise when something totally impossible happens and some tutorial level grunt manages to headshot your entire squad with a boot he found nearby.

 

This game has the XCOM problem. Just like in XCOM there are going to be plenty of statistical models that show that out of every so many games someone is going to have the "unfair" game. And just like in XCOM there are going to be times when it just FEELS so clearly nonsense. I've had a battleship empty 100% of its main AND secondary magazines at a CA @8-10KM and fail to deal significant damage. I've watched enemy formations pin my DD's to the ocean floor from 15km while they're in smoke and maneuvering while at the very same moment my BC fails to sink a single DD from 3km with 50 barrels pointed at it for 10 minutes.

I know that I am in some way wrong, that it can be proven that I'm wrong, but I also know there are times where I run a battle in XCOM2 or in UA:D and after 5 minutes I know damn well I need to exit and load the mission again, because the game has decided that you will lose this fight.

So what you are saying is that you never want to be HMS Hood, you want the game to make sure that only your opponent is ever HMS Hood?

[Steeltrap]

On 3/28/2021 at 11:27 AM, Cpt.Hissy said:

How it's done in that other unity game with guns:
Now on topic, the system described above is quite advanced for a game and even approaches "realistic" levels, but still based on random number generators.
 

Am curious to know what game that is.

[Cpt.Hissy]

24 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

Am curious to know what game that is.

It's "From the depths". Has nothing to do with navy and is as far from realism as it can be while more or less following real world concepts. So, can't replace something like what UAD was meant to be

[Steeltrap]

On 4/3/2021 at 5:33 AM, Cpt.Hissy said:

It's "From the depths". Has nothing to do with navy and is as far from realism as it can be while more or less following real world concepts. So, can't replace something like what UAD was meant to be

Ah, right, thanks.