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Because there's no feedback to indicate whether our miss streaks are due to a skill gap or crappy luck? We don't see rolls or margins of success (unless we're hitting?). To some extent we can RP "Oh, you finally got that guy who was giving me trouble, thanks", but for a low-skill character that's about as far as it goes.
Also, this stuff does happen. I did RP asking for others to help me get my target. So people are already doing these things you say we should be doing. But the system is fairly opaque and its hard to distill some information from the feedback we get, and so a lot of it is just kind of making things up. We can thank the better pilot for helping out, but no one can really say "Oh wow, you killed their superskilled guy."
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OK, you're actually worse than me
Yes, I am. I'm playing somebody who was a civvie a year ago and used to fly cruise ships. Her stats are not uber. But. Calliope has Just OK stats and is the first Raptor pilot to make ace in the squadron, iirc. I show up and RP and have fun with her, which is why that is the case. I do not feel horrifically crippled. I'm telling the story I want to tell.
Also, I understand how the ruling attributes work and will totally own that she's optimized there, but that doesn't feel like twinking I need to guilt myself for too much.
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There will be days you are Awesome. There will be days you are Not.
Check out Charlie's sheet sometime. Charlie should, arguably, be one of the best shots on the game re: firearms. She's meant to be. She's a sniper.
And then some of you saw how my dice treated me in that shooting competition. Even spending a luck point to reroll, she came out near the bottom. If I hadn't spent that luck point? She would've been the worst.Saying the quiet parts out loud since 1996.
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@Seraphim73 I don't think most people are 'ignoring' things shooting them, so much as we're trying to RP the realistic shape of a dogfight. It actually makes a lot more sense to be shooting something that isn't shooting you (because that requires you playing chicken, basically) and instead shoot something that's shooting someone else
If each round was just one instant, yeah. But I don't have a problem with two fighters basically 'dueling' in the sky, trying to each jockey for firing position. That works visually, at least in my head. Also, remember that (in space at least) Vipers can literally flip end-for-end and keep going while firing at someone who was behind them.
I... granted... have a biased view of the killboard, but I can guarantee you that it's not just stats. There are plenty of pilots with higher stats than Van's. Most of it's really luck and just how targets work out... given that kills are only scored if you're the only one who hits a target the turn its taken out. Honestly, unless everyone else just flew around and watched the dogfight, taking out Big Bads would generally be the same (especially Big Bads without the sort of work-up that Scar got in the show).
I love to see pilots calling out to each other during a fight, talking tactics, asking for help, offering help, all of that. It's great. I wish more of it happened on the ground too. I would also (and this is going to come back to bite me) love to see one or more Scar-style enemies start popping up in the story. Someone we know going into the fight is an ace enemy pilot, because they have a fighter that is somehow distinctive and they've been wrecking allied pilots (or us) previously.
But we've wandered a ways afield from system discussion. Oh well, welcome to MSB.
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OK I'm going to preface this with a big 'if I'm totally backwards on this and we're just totally talking past each other, my apologies' but... why are you posting at me, and what do you think you're arguing? It's getting kind of weird and feels maybe not as friendly as / more condescending than you seem to think it is?
Your first post amounted to 'I do things the smart way' (read: the most min-maxy way if you want a higher kill count, which is pretty obvious) while also implying that it was great teamwork on your part to be doing that... and maybe everyone else was NOT doing the right or smart thing? But you're bragging about explicitly NOT teaming up (in the sense of getting suppression bonuses) or anything. You're hunting for kill count. And don't get me wrong, that's fine, both OOCly (people like to brag) and ICly (fighter jock club stuff). But be honest and don't claim one thing while it sounds like you're talking down at others at the same time.
From what I see, most people who aren't focused on the killboard just RP and shoot at what makes sense. Yes, it's perfectly valid to shoot back at the thing targeting you but I think that's often the least interesting situation since generally it means very isolated solo posing rather than playing off other people. My posts to Faraday were merely pointing out what I thought might enhance the RP experience a bit (as it would give us more feedback to RP around), though if she doesn't want to do it, it's her prerogative.
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There will be days you are Awesome. There will be days you are Not.
Check out Charlie's sheet sometime. Charlie should, arguably, be one of the best shots on the game re: firearms. She's meant to be. She's a sniper.
And then some of you saw how my dice treated me in that shooting competition. Even spending a luck point to reroll, she came out near the bottom. If I hadn't spent that luck point? She would've been the worst.Stats are weird like this. On my deeply mediocre Raptor pilot, I'm chill as fuck during combat scenes. I hit things, it's a cool little surprise! I don't, whelp, I don't expect to most of the time, but I'm not too fussed about it. Meanwhile, on Arx right now I play a veteran combat tank, and dice rolls stress me like whoah, because I'm not supposed to suck. I have solid combat dice and usually don't, but those fails get in my brain. It's been interesting playing these characters at the same time, as they're both action-oriented, but the effect of their action scenes on me OOC is quite different.
I think a lot of what's being talked around in this thread comes down to player psychology, which you can't 'correct' mechanically.
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@kitteh Definitely not coming off right, because I'm not intending to be condescending. I apologize for giving that impression.
I'm definitely not trying to talk down to others or suggest that they're doing something the wrong way, and while I have in the past hunted kill count (and readily admit it), I stopped doing that after Van made ace. Even when I was hunting kill count intently, however, I didn't do so to the exclusion of what made sense ICly. Either way, I'm definitely not trying to brag, and apologize for communicating poorly if it came off as such. I was trying to suggest that there are other ways to kill-chase than to attack a single target.
I was also noting that I also thought that some way to explicitly benefit element pairs would be nice (besides the suppression/quicker killing benefits Faraday mentioned), but that after some discussion, I had come around to Faraday's view that it wouldn't be used as often as I had originally though.
I'm really not trying to argue any point, I don't think, just mentioning some different possibilities (for instance, a way to view situations when two fighters are attacking one another in +combat).
Again, I apologize if I came off antagonistic or condescending in doing so, it was not my intention.
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I would nudge to point out that anyone who's seen the show probably realizes the vipers can fly backwards, and a lot of people pose doing it (because it's cool!). I know I did in the last big scene and I'm pretty sure I caught someone else too. So pointing that out was a little of what I meant! It's not so much that I can't conceive of how two things could possibly be shooting at each other, just that for round after round it's both limiting and can start to stretch believably (all these mutual firing solutions and no one is dead? what gives!)
Anyway, no problem. I'm sure we'd all love it the more... verisimilitude? Or whatever word you want to use, there was to combat. But Faraday is only mortal (if an impressive one) and we can only ask so much of her
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@kitteh It's cool, the feedback is good to have. I really do want to make the system better, but it will never satisfy everyone.
As an aside, I realized... you can tell the difference between a clean miss and a dodge by the combat output:
<FS3Combat> Raider8 attacks Kazimir with Kew but Kazimir EVADES! <FS3Combat> Fish attacks Raider4 with Kew but MISSES!If your target is constantly evading you, that probably means they're better than you skill-wise (or you're just having a really bad day). You can react to that as you see fit ICly, whether that means calling for help, switching targets, or kicking oneself for not being able to hit.
There are already measurable code benefits to teaming up with a wingman, as we've mentioned. If there's any way to better facilitate this in the code or just in the way the scenes are run, I'm happy to hear it.
@Seraphim73 suggested combat/assist - letting someone sacrifice an action to help somebody else. I didn't think it would be used that much (in general people like to shoot, not support, and I don't blame them), but more importantly - I realized there's already a command for this in the system: combat/suppress. "Suppression" natively reflects suppressive fire in ground combat, but you can use it for any situation where you're trying to distract / intimidate / etc. the opponent.
And then some of you saw how my dice treated me in that shooting competition. Even spending a luck point to reroll, she came out near the bottom. If I hadn't spent that luck point? She would've been the worst.
Yeah, results like that are kind of silly. There are ways to mitigate that with the way you score results, though.
I think if the contest was more like: Failure/Success = Hit the target, Good success = In the inner ring, Great success = hit the bullseye, and also had more than three shots (the Army marksmanship contest is 40 in contrast)... the results would have been very different.
This is not a knock against the player who ran that event AT ALL - they're awesome and I appreciate the effort. I think it's more of a cautionary tale about when and how to apply roll results. Any time you invoke dice you invite fluke results, and you have to ask yourself... does this really make sense ICly?
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@faraday Perhaps with the suppress/distract/whatever situation, one could have a list of suppress/distract aliases that all do the same thing mechanically but output relevant things. 'X distracts Y' or 'X shines a light in Y's eyes' or something, to demonstrate that a distraction or whatever is happening.
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@Three-Eyed-Crow
I can understand that, I think lot comes down to how we as players see the characters. If they continuously fail at what they are statted to be good at through luck it gets to be irritating because damn it this character is supposed to be good at that.
While if they are doing something that they are not particularly statted for the successes feel like a bonus. I have played plenty of combat characters who have done impressive things over the years but the PC combat story I tell the most is the nebbish who through dumb luck one punch k.o.ed a neo-nazi. -
@ThatGuyThere This still sounds like the odds are a little less awful than WoD when it comes to that problem, since it sounds like the amount of min-maxing required is less extreme in FS3.
...cannot even begin to recount the number of characters I've min-maxed and buffed in WoD over the years to be good at their one thing they're even remotely able to be good at that never once succeeded on a roll for it. There have been many.
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@faraday I've seen the evade vs miss messages and I gathered that's what they meant, but I still think you're going to be really reaching to meaningfully use the small amount of information you get out of that (again, without actually seeing successes on your rolls, margin of success, or something). As you've pointed out, combat is pretty short. So I mean, they evade once. Bad luck? High skill? You try it again and just miss (because we're talking non-elite characters here). Well you didn't learn anything. Try it again, they evade. Ok maybe now you think they're higher skill with some confidence and switch, but the combat is half over and very likely all the easy targets are dead because they got 1-shot in the first round.
I don't really have any new suggestions beyond the ones I've given.
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I had this whole thing typed out, read it over, and I came off as really preachy. (I know, it's hard to believe, isn't it?) Instead, here's a short answer:
Hidden number systems push the drama of another sort (I'm told that in the Walking Dead TV series some guy was thought to have The Cure and he was lucking out bluffing the whole time), and I think that FS3 is not meant to be a tabletop/wargame simulator like D&D. It's possible that you want a game system with more openness and therefore have two unfortunate options. 1) Don't play FS3 games. 2) Find a coder who can tweak the--knowing Faraday, probably extremely easy--changes needed to expose the numbers. Like, if anyone's even looked at my stat system they will look at Faraday's and say, "Why can't Theno do things this easily?!"
Because reasons, that's why.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
I think the young prodigy argument is overrated though.
I use age-based expertise arguments all the time as my go-to reason for why I dislike almost all XP systems and prefer it to be age based. My issue isn't young prodigies. If you want to play an 18 year old Olympic world champion, go ahead. I have issue with the 18 year old world champion, who is also a renowned surgeon, has been admitted to the US Supreme Court bar, is a Colonel in the US Army, and has a starring role in two summer blockbusters, which is also when their fourth album will be released.
An 18 yo can be amazingly good at something. A 40 yo can be good at about a dozen things.
Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam
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(Last shotgun post, I swear.)
I have issue with the 18 year old world champion, who is also a renowned surgeon, has been admitted to the US Supreme Court bar, is a Colonel in the US Army, and has a starring role in two summer blockbusters, which is also when their fourth album will be released.
I will channel the long lost @HelloRaptor for this:
"Yeah, because you never see anything like that on TV, or in movies or in books."
Back in my own voice: Yeah, I get it and agree with it, but a lot of people like it. That's the thing about the wish fulfillment that is the entertainment industry.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain It still comes off preachy. At least being told 'hey if you don't like it, don't play' comes off as unnecessarily extreme. I've praised the game in many places and overall I'm not even in it for the combat. But you know, we're having a discussion!
If she doesn't want to change it, that's fine. Her posts often include things like 'if there are better ways to do this, tell me' so... I don't think I'm being rude offering my thoughts. There are things I've mentioned she can pretty easily do. Identifying 'really badass NPCs' is doable in the existing game I'm sure (just naming them?). If she doesn't want to do it, OK. Exposing the degrees of success on rolls I imagine is doable also (the basic roll command shows them, the combat autocode doesn't), so maybe that would be a thing too.
If she doesn't want to change anything or doesn't like my suggestions that's OK too! Maybe someone else will offer something. But I'm pretty sure we're all enjoying the game and don't need to be reminded we can take our balls home.
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@Thenomain said in FS3:
Hidden number systems push the drama of another sort (I'm told that in the Walking Dead TV series some guy was thought to have The Cure and he was lucking out bluffing the whole time), and I think that FS3 is not meant to be a tabletop/wargame simulator like D&D...
Well it's interesting that you mention D&D or tabletop games, because when was the last time you played tabletop and the GM told you what the badguy's skill was? I mean, maybe we've played different types of games, but in my experience the GM usually rolled behind the screen. Unless you were fighting someone like "Bob The Gang Leader" who was obviously a Big Bad, you had no idea whether BadGuy1 was a henchman or a boss or what.
The big difference I think between FS3 and tabletop is that in tabletop you get feedback about what your roll was. So you could know "Man I rolled 12 dice and whiffed! The dice hate me!" In FS3 combat it's as if the PC's rolls are rolled behind the screen too. So all you really know is that you had 12 dice and somehow he dodged.
Personally I think this fits with the IC perception, because your character also has no clue why he missed. He just knows that the other guy dodged.
At any rate, I respect @kitteh's POV immensely, but the in-game poll I did backs up my personal feeling that NPC skill levels should remain hidden to preserve the IC mystery. It saddens me if this frustrates anyone, but I think it falls into the "you can't please everybody" category.
If you're running a game with FS3, like Theno said it's a 1-line code change to expose the combat/skills summary to everyone and not just to the combat organizer.
... Edit to add ... I could easily change the code to show your rolls in combat too so you'd know if you whiffed, but it's already crazy spammy. I'd worry about making it moreso.
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Not a big deal. It only frustrates me to the degree that it gets a little boring just having to pose the same pose in different ways every round of combat and not having any good clue of an alternate strategy or anything that would fix it. Again I'm not especially interested in kill count, but I would like things that improve verisimilitude in the squad tactics, encourage team communication, etc.
To take on a (slightly) different topic it would be good if the... suppression things or other multiple-people on a target stuff was more obviously helpful? That's the one thing that's come up as a 'well you can do this' option in the thread, but in-game it often seems like the least satisfying thing. Not only do you not really see that you're helping (and thus, posing that you're helping can be assuming things not visible, and even kind of power-posing to a degree) but OOCly you may also be frustrating your (more skilled) wingmate as you're essentially cockblocking them on kills if you do hit (even for probably negligible damage).
It's another one of the reasons I generally shoot at the guy shooting my wingman rather than his target; I'm letting the guy who wants to chase kills chase kills and maybe stopping him from getting some incidental damage while he does it.
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Not a big deal. It only frustrates me to the degree that it gets a little boring just having to pose the same pose in different ways every round of combat and not having any good clue of an alternate strategy or anything that would fix it. Again I'm not especially interested in kill count, but I would like things that improve verisimilitude in the squad tactics, encourage team communication, etc.
I'm all for improving team communication, tactics, etc. But so far the only concrete suggestion I've seen as to how to do that was to make the NPC levels visible, which I explained why I wasn't going to do. If I've missed a different suggestion as to how to improve these things, I apologize - maybe you could point me to it again?
To take on a (slightly) different topic it would be good if the... suppression things or other multiple-people on a target stuff was more obviously helpful? ... Not only do you not really see that you're helping (and thus, posing that you're helping can be assuming things not visible, and even kind of power-posing to a degree) but OOCly you may also be frustrating your (more skilled) wingmate as you're essentially cockblocking them on kills if you do hit (even for probably negligible damage).
The suppression emit message is like so:
<FS3Combat> Calliope suppresses Raider22 with Ecm. <FS3Combat> Calliope tries to suppress Raider21 with Ecm but FAILS.Do you mean just make the first message say "SUCCESS" more blatantly? I can do that. If that's not what you meant, I'm afraid I don't understand in what way it's unclear whether you're helping or not.
Suppression does no damage, so you're not kill-blocking anyone by doing it. It applies a negative modifier to the target, making them easier to hit and less likely to hit your buddy.
