Feedback on UOC 2 as a business

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Grognard
First Lieutenant
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Feedback on UOC 2 as a business

Unread postby Grognard » Sat May 16, 2020 2:24 pm

As a fan I am looking forward to not only the German DLC but years of DLC's. I hope to fight the Burma campaign and other obscurities one day.

To this end I need this game to sell lots of copies so it is rational for the developers to spend lots of time on it.

I think the games is intrinsically good enough to go mass market and breakout of the war-gaming niche. The graphics don't have war-game quality l they have good indy platform game quality. And the UI and interface are far beyond most AAA titles. However, I am worried it won't as the learning curve is too steep.

It takes a long time (Sicily in my case) to understand the impact of 1) the XP level of troops 2) the role of specialists. A more detail orientated person might have picked this up earlier.

This game is very difficult till the core concepts get in people's heads. Italy requires a composite understanding of the aforementioned and a good grip on suppressive fire and supply.

I worry we will lose new players who won't put up with it. But there is an easy solution.

Civilization has a difficulty level that is impossible to win (Deity) and one that is impossible to lose (Chieftain) and all the gradients in between. Most players start at Chieftain; get the concepts; get bored at the lack of challenge and then move up the difficulties until they hit their sweet spot (maybe Prince or King).

If UOC 2 did the same. Perhaps, the equivalent of Chieftain was current easy mode + 8 turns and maybe 2x XP for units. And the current easy mode was the second difficulty. And a third mode adds in between easy and normal then I think you would find retention in the game would increase and it would appeal to a much broader audience.

Anyway just hoping for endless DLC's!

juoc
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Re: Feedback on UOC 2 as a business

Unread postby juoc » Sat May 16, 2020 6:07 pm

I also hope for plenty of DLCs and a lot of sold copies but I disagree with your solution to make the game more accessible.

I'm a Unity of Command veteran and I admit I found this game somewhat confusing at first. Someone going in to this game blind and not willing to read the manual or browse the forums run a risk of just getting frustrated and refunding. An even easier difficulty won't make the choices and game concepts easier to grasp only less meaningful. I think the best way to ease new players into the game is to do away with some of the choices and concepts. Unity of Command was very easy to get into so I would suggest using that as the template. Add a "Simple" or "Classic" Campaign with the same difficulties as now. This campaign has:

-no leveling between scenarios
-no casualty carry-over between scenarios
-no conferences
-no planning phase
-no buying of specialist steps
-player HQs with unlimited range

I would have played that version my first run if I had the choice.

Eqqman
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Re: Feedback on UOC 2 as a business

Unread postby Eqqman » Sun May 17, 2020 8:04 am

This is a very interesting philosophical discussion. I just finished getting the last Steam achievement currently available after 310 hours of play in 29 days (and I'm surprised how few players seem to have some of these). I say this not to brag but to post my position as a hardcore wargamer coming over from the Panzer General, Blitzkrieg, and Hearts of Iron series.

I agree that the game has a steep learning curve and while the UI is generally excellent it has some very non-intuitive quirks that seem completely unnecessary. For example, if no unit can do an artillery attack then perhaps the button for it should have some warning icon on it and be un-clickable (with an explanation tool-tip) rather than than allow me to click it and waste time scrolling around the map looking for eligible units that I won't find. Same sort of issue applies to adding steps to a unit. I won't get into a big list here as I've already made a separate post with much of my opinions on UoC 2 in general.

I also agree that games should be accessible to a wide audience, but you have to be careful what you wish for. The general market has its own needs which will will push out the core audience if followed too far. A good example is Sid Meir. I was a big fan of the Railroad Tycoon series, but when he followed RRT3 with Sid Meir's Railroads, he went the route of mass appeal. The game was oversimplified and given cartoony graphics and I hated it. Of course, if you drive out one customer and bring in 10 more I guess that's a win. If the developers can add modes where game complexity can be tweaked as desired then I'm all for it if the core game is the same, but if time is limited I'd rather the focus be on things that give the greatest benefit to the core audience.

Some of the things mentioned already appear to be in the game, it has difficulty levels and if you play a scenario in practice mode you get fully-enabled HQs so you can see how different features work when it's not mission critical. I actually only noticed that part today as I've been spending my time running campaigns; I loaded one up to see if something would work as I thought.

funky_trader
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Re: Feedback on UOC 2 as a business

Unread postby funky_trader » Tue May 19, 2020 3:02 pm

I've been playing UOC (1 & 2) for a while now, with added experience on HOI and Panzer Generals. I'll admit it took me two tries to really get into UOC (as in buy it, play it, lose horribly everytime, quit for a few months and come back), so the learnings curve is indeed pretty steep. Yet, I think that tweaking difficulty settings might not be the best approach to teach players how to play the game.

In easy, you can pretty much bruteforce your way through obstacles and not bother trying to understand the finer mechanics of the game. However, this means upping the difficulty levels doesn't simply make the game harder, it also forces you to change how you address the problems facing you. And as you haven't really been trained in using HQ special powers, optimizing XP generation, or managing specialist steps, you might give up and revert back to easy.

I think an easier way to ease new players into the mechanics would be to:
  1. First, admit this is a puzzle game built on a war game theme (i.e. there are not a lot of solutions or optimal combinations of moves that give you all the objectives + optional ones on time)
  2. Create a series of standalone puzzles that each explore a specific dynamic, and chain them together

For example, set piece attack. This is probably the least understood mechanic by new players (and it took me a while to figure it out as well), yet it is a prerequisite to master it if you want to beat normal and beyond. So you could create 4 mini scenarios:
  1. Set Piece Attack (Beginners) - Use the mechanic to take over a fortified position
    1. Units are prepositioned with the correct specialist steps
    2. Scenario length is two turns, one to use the action, the other to take the objective
  2. Set Piece Attack (Advanced) - Build the units, position them in the right place, and drive out a fortified units
    1. You start with 6 steps infantry, but with several specialist steps in inventory
    2. You need to add the correct specialists to the unit (i.e. engineer, artillery, rocket artillery, although you have others available which will be useless in this scenario)
    3. You need to position your units next to the fortified position that needs to be taken, then use Set Piece Attack, then take position
  3. Set Piece Attack (Expert) - Build the units, drive out the enemy units in front of the objective, and drive out a fortified units
    1. Everything that you did in the previous scenario has to be redone BUT ADD
    2. Introduce the concept of timed objectives by having an enemy unit in the way of the objective
    3. If you don't destroy it first (with say a tank or something), you can't position your engineer/artillery infantry to use set piece on the next turn
    4. This somewhat teaches/reinforces ZOC mechanics, use of tanks to clear the way for infantry, thinking ahead, etc.
  4. Set Piece Attack (Master) - Combine several mechanics
    1. Everythings that has been covered, but make it such that you need to use Feint Attack and Suppressive Fire
    2. Again, let the player build his units with specialist steps
    3. Perhaps explore the differenc between Artillery and Rocket Artillery steps (i.e. suppressed after movement vs. not) by requiring some units to use a Suppresive Fire at the right place AFTER moving
    4. This is essentially as close to a full scenario that you can get, but very short (3-4 turns max), and serves as a tool to master the understanding of the base mechanic combined with others

If you add Steam achievements (I heard kids these days want a ribbon every time they go to the bathroom :P /joking), likely a lot of new players will try these out along with the standalone scenarios before trying the main campaign. You probably also need a solid briefing that explains which mechanic/button should be used

Repetition is key! A solid tutorial doesn't simply tell you to do something, it tells you do it multiple times, but adds some new extra steps at every repetition. This creates reinforcement learning. I believe any new player/non wargame veteran would actually like such puzzle ladders, because they are usefull, interesting to solve at the higher levels, and do give a feeling of "meeting the objectives". In other words, we're tricking people into learning how to play the game, but it doesn't feel like learning :D

Eqqman
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Re: Feedback on UOC 2 as a business

Unread postby Eqqman » Tue May 19, 2020 4:11 pm

Agreed that maybe to few more tutorials would be nice. The one on logistics doesn't even explain the difference between having an off-map supply source that is rail vs. one that is a truck, and you can't even place a supply hub where they tell you. Another tutorial on the advanced special HQ powers would be nice too.

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Danielefc
2x2 Games
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Re: Feedback on UOC 2 as a business

Unread postby Danielefc » Wed May 20, 2020 12:27 pm

@everyone in this thread.

We are reading everything as always and there are some very good points and ideas here.... some of which were planned but scrapped due to time constraints. But that does not mean that we won't try to squeeze them in along the line.

Cheers!

(btw saying the p-word is now a 5€ fine - sorry if we forgot to mention that :lol: )