Delicious developer feedback omnomnom.
corps will have specific response teams, instead of [team-1] challengers of just=the=right profile. the problem is adding a corpsec response team with hackers/etc is a bit silly until the proper support attacks code is in place. actually prototyping out the next pass for conflicts this weekend: each side has a skirmish, flanks, and support section, so where you assign members determines how you're running the fight; screening for your hacker ops to wreak havoc on their systems, risking your guys in flanking to try and take out the rivals, or just going toe to toe...
So we're going to be able to strategize during conflicts? That'll be pretty neat.
Associations actually wouldn't be shown on the Intel menu until revealed. You see when you get Intel on something, you can then use that Intel to uncover one of its associations. This currently happening in the hard coded form of spending Corp Intel to gain Intel on an asset. How this actually works is you gain Intel on a public item (like a Corp), or something you've already uncovered. Then you can "burn" that Intel to attempt to uncover things it is associated with: for a corporation, this means assets, operatives, teams, etc. This also means if you the Intel on an asset, you can burn that to learn more about the company holding it, the team that's stealing it, etc.
So the process goes like: Gather intel on the corp. Burn intel to learn something about that corp. Gather intel on the thing you learned about, to learn about the thing? I like it, it's a layered system.
The economy needs a lot of finagling still. Right now it looks like assets are going to have a larger range of value, so individual assets can be more potent. The the budget should be growing with the corporations power, but it's a bit difficult because they also spend that to improve the companies, which increases their expenses, which means they can't afford a higher budget... Once the economy stabilizes and corporations are appropriately growing and shrinking, the budgets will appropriately grow and shrink as well. As is currently could be doing very well, and the budget will drop because your company - doing so well - invested a bunch in infrastructure and has nothing left to pay you!
Filling out the slush fund is easy, but given the whole point of it is to find and hire operatives, it doesn't actually mean anything on its own. That, and once I start doing the "Cap iteration", then if you just sit back and collect a bunch of money in the slush fund without actually doing anything with it, the corporation will start dipping into your fund to use on other expenses! " well if you're not going to use it, we will!"
This should REALLY come down to a corp's personality. Perhaps the corp's appetite for risk determines how close to the margin they're going to run their Department. Companies that like to fly by the seat of their pants pour a large portion of their profits back into their companies, leaving them a smaller bank roll to work with, but who are always seeing their budget increase because of the amount of reinvestment. More cautious companies, on the other hand, might always want a certain amount of money on hand. Honestly, WHAT kind of corp you work for, what kind of markets (i.e. Assets) they're interested in could have a huge impact on game difficulty from the Broker's perspective. I know there's plenty of other attributes/aspects to corps not revealed yet, but their propensity for spending money probably will be a meaningful part of how tough it is for their Broker to grow the Department. Also a long-term, relatively static challenge too. Unlike Asset depreciation, which can go up or down based on the assets and where they are in their lives...the mentality of your corp is going to be a constant.
Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the idea of working for an AI, and having the challenges in game be as much about the position your corp leaves you in, as it is about missions. But, I see a degree of frustration in there as your corp is a) spending your budget down to nothing on projects and b) stealing out of your slush fund as it sees fit. There's a fine balance between the fun of being a minion in the control of a volatile master....and being hamstrung by your own AI to unfun degrees. While Operative growth (we'll call this horizontal growth) will certainly help the player pass the time and stay interested watching things grow.....vertical growth (more, diverse Operatives, better facilities) is where the real meat of the game is. And because game difficulty is largely tied to vertical growth (the ability to take on many diverse challenges) and less on horizontal growth (the ability of a few Operatives being able to do a few things very well)....yeah. More balancing!
Consider, once all the corp traits and behaviors are in, trying to quantify all those elements into a "difficulty" rating. Certain traits and preferences push a corp toward being harder to play than others. Then, when the player starts the game, their difficulty settings dictate what kind of corp they get. Hard difficulty would very aggressive companies that spend much of the available money around the player, gives them the most directives and generally is the most active. Easier difficulties would be the corps that are more reserved, work on slower, long-term growth and maintain higher margins on their budgets so the player can be more flexible (or overpowered). There definitely needs to be an "easy mode" just so the player can understand the game as a sandbox and all the things that are moving sand in it.
Net Gain is, in a sense, starting to remind me of Sim City 2000. A pretty awesome simulation that, because of all the factors involved it's very easy to back yourself into a corner. I would always start a pretty basic city with the standard features (power plant, police and fire station, ect...) and start a period of growth, then begin to spiral downward until I couldn't keep my budget up.
The language skills aren't quite what you think they are: everyone's chipped to speak the most common languages! language skills are specifically a combination of etiquette and cultural understanding. But yes, their generation should be a bit less random... But so should a lot of skills. That'll come in the next profile refactor.
I hear you. But I still feel like someone from Africa should have at least a 1 in Languages, being that they lived there and have likely experienced some of this cultural etiquette. Or to put it another way, I don't see how having more Acuity or Integrity helps you figure out the mores and etiquette of places you've never been, in a do-or-die moment. Because seriously, an Asian woman from Russia understands even the basics of African culture better than Operatives who lived in Africa? Just seems like a disconnect. Might be better to rename that school to something like "Culture" and make Language/Etiquette separate skills (or one?). Might make it a little clearer to the player what's actually going on. The rationale that everyone can speak all the basic languages isn't really explained anywhere (although it's totally reasonable.)
I'm thinking of adding a pane on the right side that slides into view when you click on a button, like a tool tip, but a full pane that is the details menu for whatever the item is. I just need to reconsider the menus that are already a bit wide, like planning missions.
Is there a problem with floating text boxes, or are you aesthetically just not interested in doing them? I'm ok with a slide out box, but I do find mouse over tool tips the easiest. You see an element of the UI you don't understand or you want more specifics, you point at it, it explains itself. I find that preferable to a box that tries to explain every element of a screen. Either way I'll live, it's just my preference.
When you fail a challenge, you have a 50% chance of "recovering" the challenge, and getting to try it again with their rank reduced by your previous success. If you can't recover or fail a recovery, it fails to an escape or if already an escape, to a conflict.
Ah ok. I suppose a mission log will make what happens a little clearer.
Timers will be varied. Bought and sold assets are going to be on a shared market. Acquiring and forming companies is in the next economic iteration.
Yay to all that! Corps not developing new companies does, for me, kind of bottleneck the game. It'll be nice to deploy those stolen assets to new companies.
There's no such thing as a financials(vehicle) asset!(?)
Not having a save game I can't show you, but I swear that's what it was. On the other hand, it's entirely possible I got confused, seeing as there are actually 3 levels between Companies and their Assets that you have to keep straight! The Market, the Type and the actual thing!
Assets should be developing regardless of who gives the order. They currently only update every week , though.
Ah. That's probably why it appeared to not do anything. The thing is with Net Gain right now...the timing of the budget cycle isn't clear. Which has been the basis for a lot of economic confusion. I mean, the principle is sound. Get Assets, Install Assets, Make Megabucks. (What IS the unit of denomination in Net Gain anyways? $1 = $100,000 e-dollars?) Are things generally done in Net Gain by the week?
Fonts really don't scale well, so I need to pick a size. Any smaller and it's a bit eligible.
I'm not harping on you but that does seem like a pretty big limitation. At least, to me, size is a pretty potent element of contrast. And I think everything being the same font size in Net Gain continues to contribute to readability. Then again, I am a certified font nerd.
Skills are factoring in the conflicts: there is a set of specific skills that are used in a fight, and each turn the operative is given a set of three skills on that list, and they choose the one they're best at... if any. If you have a fight, and the operative isn't a fighter, they'll just be going off their raw stat. I'm really looking forward to next conflict iteration, where fighters and support will shine.
Ah ok. That would explain the low rolls I was seeing. So what's "Recovered 2 Agility!" about in combat? I was pleased to see that until I noticed corpsec healing HP!
A specialist - as the term is currently use in the game - is just an operative who is temporarily assigned to a team for that one mission. That all will change once actual specialists - who aren't on retainer, only working on that one mission than leaving for a fee - are included.
This makes much more sense now.
Intel does nothing to the budget, it is a means to an end: stealing assets, which helps the Corp, which helps the budget.
I get that. But this is 2043! Information is
power. Intel should have a real world dollar value, to both your corp and the larger world. While I get that, functionally, it doesn't work that way (Intel is just allowing you to know things are going on in real time), thematically that should be worth something. I think I may be barking up the wrong tree since Intel is viewed as a pool instead of as an asset or thing. But part of me craves the ability to sell intel, be an information broker and make money that way. Imagine, for the future, two rival corps that hate each other, and your Department runs Investigate missions against both, selling Intel on the targets to their worst enemies, eventually bringing them both down and profiting from the whole enterprise on THEIR dime.
On a more down to earth level, Intel being worth something financially means you're effectively not always in a race to get the next asset before your budget falls below a level you can do anything with. The concern may be rendered invalid by the fleshed out economy, maybe not.
Right now there's no difference between steal/destroy... But eventually destroying will be easier, since once you commit your sabotage, your team can bleed back into the shadows. Stealing requires getting in the objective back to base which can bring up its own perils, depending on what you're trying to smuggle across the borders.
Easier how? Fewer actual plots to run? Fewer challenges within each plot? (I've noticed it can be as few as 3 and as many as 7 challenges per plot.) Lower challenge values to beat? Doesn't the Heat and the specter of combat make Destroy missions arguably harder? (Seeing as they get more of the shoot people/car chases/beating people up/blowing stuff up plots.) Logistically I understand and agree that Steal Missions should be "harder" in that they take longer, their objectives require more complicated things and they have different exit strategies. It's just that there are several ways Net Gain approaches the question of hard.
There's always a delicate balance of giving too much information on the economy, and intentionally burying some of it. The broker should be seen enough to understand what's going on, but not get pulled into it, since I want their focus to be more on operatives and missions.
I'm erring on showing too much rather than too little; as Intel continues to be fleshed out, more of the rival information will be hidden - needing Intel to expose it. Of course some information will always be public.
So here's my thinking on what is public vs. private:
A corp's name, obviously, is public. Their market share is something either 3rd party analysts make it their job to decipher, or your own corporate researchers figure out, so that should be public too. Their Warchest and Income (i.e. department budget) should be deep level Intel stuff. Any of the info on their Operatives should be mid to deep level Intel too. What companies a corp owns should be publicly traded information. The value and location and industry of those companies should also be public. However, the depth of the companies' infrastructure should be low to medium level intel, and the amount of security it has because of it should be medium to deep level intel. (Assuming security isn't strictly locked to the size of a company's infrastructure. Otherwise you can infer one from the other.) Assets are kind of tricky. On the one hand, Pepsi can't hide the fact that Mnt. Dew: Blackhole is their newest and most successful product. On the other, not every military manufacturer announces the newest thing they're making to kill people. Some only quietly sell their wares to governments. So I'm torn on how assets should handle their info with regards to Intel. Can it be based on the Asset type? Can some assets reveal at a minimum their name, while others are shadow assets that you need to have Intel on to even know what they are? Just about everything else regarding assets should be private info: value, stage, even type. (Again, I'd love if that stuff is hidden or not starting out, based on what it is.)
Or will all assets be completely unknown without Intel until they are producing?
Yes, assets are the backbones of missions, but I have every intention of extending them to interact with all "iTargetables", including destroying infrastructure, or directly stealing wealth from other corporations, or inciting chaos in enemy territory, etc.
Splendid. I look forward to just cutting out the middleman and taking money directly from a corp where I can.
I put in those memo alerts specifically because of your posts!
Only half true. I saw there was a spot for them in some capacity in the first Kickstarter video
I do still need to address team size, but that comes in the next mission/conflict iteration. Basically the different form of tests, so we need to make a stealth tests, the * entire team* needs to pass the test. Sneaky operatives can help their friends, but it's still a risk.
Oh shit. That's both awesome and kind of scary. On the one hand, it was striking me as a little silly that my Gunner might need to pass a Longarms challenge (shoot a guy) then my Spy needs to be the one to look around see if anyone noticed. (Presence.) Guys aren't going to just sit around on mission with their thumb up their ass because they're there as back up. On the other.....the threshold for failure seems like it's going to go up because of that, by a lot. I mean, the threshold is going to be all over the place as the game moves along and new things are added, more general systems get more specific....I'll just have to wait and see. But now there is a direct trade off between more manpower and your chances of success, unless you've got an army of cloned soldiers with identical skills.
Hey. There's an idea. Cloning!
No seriously, it's a good idea and you should consider it for high-level gameplay. There's all sorts of fun shit you could do with that.
Mission/Plot variety and balance still needs work, though it got more diverse in the last build... but it got a bit TOO diverse, bit too random. balancing acts
Ah hah! So I'm not just crazy! I thought I was seeing missions I'd never seen come up that often. Or missions where you get the usual spread, and then the last one is something really quirky, like Science or a Backroom Surgery.
The plots you have available are based on the objective and target, with more granularity up as the system develops. For example when you steal an asset, that happens to be a politician, then you can choose if you'll try to bribe him, coerce him, convince hinm, blackmail him, etc. It'll give proposals that makes sense for that target. This another pass on plot tags I have to make that'll make them much better.
It kind of clicked for me when I saw some missions with [NO TAG]. And I'm already seeing the plots line up. A Steal Trainer Asset already went the social route for the final plot and I was pleased to see that.
I want to make a time slider, complete with a drop down where you can tag different events that you want it to slow down for.
Oh that will be nice. Especially when things start happening to your corp. Even though it doesn't affect you directly, it's something you need to know happened and observe the trickle down results of.
I'm gonna get all mushy for a second....seriously, I'm glad I backed this project. I've seen quite a few Kickstarters come and go now, all of them obsessed with things like graphics, stretch goals of questionable merit and end up with games that are 2 dimensional when they made us dream of 4. But Net Gain is really about the things I love: Mechanics. Relationships. Tradeoffs. Themes. Choice. Agency. Personalizing the game world. And it keeps growing these things.
I'm not an easy gamer to please. I hope big and tend to crash hard. I can't say I do that entirely on my own though, it has a lot to do with the games I put my hopes and dreams in. Most games start simple, get more complex, then get more simple as the needs of time money and design require it. Net Gain though....it's just becoming more complex as it grows towards its final product, instead of less. Or to put it another way, Net Gain is already at the place where I feel like most games would feature lock it, balance it, slap the GUI on it and go on to ship. And it's still a prototype!
I mean, I figure at some point you'll have to do that yourself: cut features for release, dial back the complexity of something when it outstrips your ability. And Net Gain is in a different position than most games because a lot of work is data-driven and under the hood. But still, of all the games I've backed on Kickstarter, I feel like this is the first one that's really in touch with just making a game, instead of making The Game
TM.
So yeah, keep trucking! You keep putting out builds and I'll keep playing them and spewing text at you. Can't wait for the next one!
Also, a suggestion. Net Gain doesn't have a huge community but that doesn't mean there isn't a talent pool to draw from.
Consider, as part of a community building effort (and to save your wrists) outsourcing some stuff. For example, put a competition out to the community to write headlines for the game.
Or, my personal favorite, a community music contest. It's dirt simple to make music these days if you've got the right software, and I've always found something to like when games have held music content contests. The game needs as many cyberpunky tracks as it can humanly have.
I'd say community art too, but there's no where to put any of it in Net Gain, now and possibly not even in the future. Corporate logos might be a thing though.
Maybe the community isn't large/engaged enough to really make it worth it....but it only really costs you something if it takes off!
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Topic: Net Gain: Corporate Espionage in 2043. Development probably abandoned. (Read 61980 times)