Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Goumindong
Posts: 193
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by Goumindong »

LordYanaek wrote:Input precedes the action. If i'm given a set of randomized variables and have to work with those it's input RNG. I have to work with randomized AWC perks so it's input RNG.
Output comes after the action. If i take an action without knowing what result i'll get it's output RNG. If i train someone without knowing what perks i'll get it's output RNG.
You know exactly what perk you will get when you train a perk up. The perk does not change, it's exactly what it says on the tin
Tuhalu
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by Tuhalu »

Goumindong wrote: You know exactly what perk you will get when you train a perk up. The perk does not change, it's exactly what it says on the tin
You have no idea what the next perk will be until you train a perk up. That's the part that is output RNG, unless you make your AWC perks visible and remove that output RNG.
LordYanaek
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by LordYanaek »

Tuhalu wrote:
Goumindong wrote: You know exactly what perk you will get when you train a perk up. The perk does not change, it's exactly what it says on the tin
You have no idea what the next perk will be until you train a perk up. That's the part that is output RNG, unless you make your AWC perks visible and remove that output RNG.
Exactly this.
If i train Biggest Boom on my sharpshooter because i hope to get a good T2 or T3 perk, then it's output RNG.
Sure i don't have to train Biggest Boom to unlock a T2 perk (just like i don't have to shoot that officer behind full cover) but once i do it it's output RNG and the entire point of hiding the perks is to put you in a situation where you should attempt such gambles (this was confirmed by jonnylump early in this thread) turning it into output RNG.

Once again i'm fine with them either hidden or shown by default and everyone using the option they like best but gambling for T3 perks is not input RNG unless you consider a fixed but unknown result as input RNG but then every shot would also be input RNG as the seed is fixed before the shot is taken.
josna238
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by josna238 »

I thought about the matter and I like the point of know what we'll have and decide according to it, but also enjoy the point of random perks that give us unusual soldiers. But definitively what don't like is a mixture because (in my case) at the end I have only 3 options (this soldier is elegible, this one isn't or this other is "gambleable").

I think it would be better if it was in any of this other ways:

1.- Totally known: we see the tech tree and decide our path for each soldier. But I guess that times and ranks should be higher to balance.
2.- Pure random: You don't know what will receive. But I guess the times should be lower in order to balance.
Goumindong
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by Goumindong »

Tuhalu wrote:
Goumindong wrote: You know exactly what perk you will get when you train a perk up. The perk does not change, it's exactly what it says on the tin
You have no idea what the next perk will be until you train a perk up. That's the part that is output RNG, unless you make your AWC perks visible and remove that output RNG.
You aren't training that perk though. You're training the prior one. You may then choose to train the next perk with the input to your choice being the RNG perk
fowlJ
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by fowlJ »

Goumindong wrote:
Tuhalu wrote:
Goumindong wrote: You know exactly what perk you will get when you train a perk up. The perk does not change, it's exactly what it says on the tin
You have no idea what the next perk will be until you train a perk up. That's the part that is output RNG, unless you make your AWC perks visible and remove that output RNG.
You aren't training that perk though. You're training the prior one. You may then choose to train the next perk with the input to your choice being the RNG perk
But the discussion here is in the context of the hidden perks specifically. It's not about making a decision to train a perk based on what that perk is, it's about making a decision to train a perk (that you wouldn't otherwise have trained, is the general implication) based on what the next perk might be.
Goumindong
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by Goumindong »

Do you not get the first perk?
JoINrbs
Long War 2 Crew
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by JoINrbs »

darkerevent wrote:Once the perks were revealed, we had a far more interesting time trying to decide whether or not we wanted to invest the time in each character (e.g., whether we wanted to slog them through two useless grenade perks in order to get them to something like Run & Gun at the end, or even if we could somehow perhaps make their grenade perks work together with a free utility grenade that they had rolled in the defensive side of the tree in order to make them into an offspec grenadier). Both of us ended up creating a priority sheet for which characters we ideally wanted to train what, and then we worked around the realities of wound times and A-team deployment necessities in order to make it all work. For us, that was a lot more fun than a blind dice rolling exercise would have been.
This is a good point imo, but the counterpoint is that you're frontloading the decision. Once you decide what you're going to do with different combinations of AWC perks you'll have little reason to engage with the decision-making process again. You lower the variety of the game but get to decide how to navigate that lowered variety more quickly, so it probably ends up being a more engaging decision the first time but less engaging the tenth time.
nightwyrm
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by nightwyrm »

JoINrbs wrote:
darkerevent wrote:Once the perks were revealed, we had a far more interesting time trying to decide whether or not we wanted to invest the time in each character (e.g., whether we wanted to slog them through two useless grenade perks in order to get them to something like Run & Gun at the end, or even if we could somehow perhaps make their grenade perks work together with a free utility grenade that they had rolled in the defensive side of the tree in order to make them into an offspec grenadier). Both of us ended up creating a priority sheet for which characters we ideally wanted to train what, and then we worked around the realities of wound times and A-team deployment necessities in order to make it all work. For us, that was a lot more fun than a blind dice rolling exercise would have been.
This is a good point imo, but the counterpoint is that you're frontloading the decision. Once you decide what you're going to do with different combinations of AWC perks you'll have little reason to engage with the decision-making process again. You lower the variety of the game but get to decide how to navigate that lowered variety more quickly, so it probably ends up being a more engaging decision the first time but less engaging the tenth time.
While this may be true, I don't think I'll ever play a 10th LW2 campaign. I probably won't even play a 4th or 5th campaign to completion. Don't get me wrong, LW2 is a great game. It's also a very long game that takes 100+ hrs to complete. At the end of the day, I've got other stuff to do.
Tuhalu
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by Tuhalu »

JoINrbs wrote: This is a good point imo, but the counterpoint is that you're frontloading the decision. Once you decide what you're going to do with different combinations of AWC perks you'll have little reason to engage with the decision-making process again. You lower the variety of the game but get to decide how to navigate that lowered variety more quickly, so it probably ends up being a more engaging decision the first time but less engaging the tenth time.
If the higher perks are hidden you just take all the good level 1s until a good level 2 turns up and instantly grab that (rinse and repeat for level 3s). Eventually you'll have all the worthwhile visible perks on soldiers you care about and are left with two choices.

Stack pistol perks or gamble.

The bedrock of this game is making informed choices about character builds. This system takes away that choice in favour of minimal thought gambling and cookie cutter builds (because respeccing to take advantage of revealed AWC perks is prohibitively expensive).
Bu6613man
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Re: Am I the only one that thinks AWC perks should be visible?

Post by Bu6613man »

Tuhalu wrote:
JoINrbs wrote: This is a good point imo, but the counterpoint is that you're frontloading the decision. Once you decide what you're going to do with different combinations of AWC perks you'll have little reason to engage with the decision-making process again. You lower the variety of the game but get to decide how to navigate that lowered variety more quickly, so it probably ends up being a more engaging decision the first time but less engaging the tenth time.
If the higher perks are hidden you just take all the good level 1s until a good level 2 turns up and instantly grab that (rinse and repeat for level 3s). Eventually you'll have all the worthwhile visible perks on soldiers you care about and are left with two choices.

Stack pistol perks or gamble.

The bedrock of this game is making informed choices about character builds. This system takes away that choice in favour of minimal thought gambling and cookie cutter builds (because respeccing to take advantage of revealed AWC perks is prohibitively expensive).
I agree, although I think you presented you point somewhat starkly. However, I think we need to look at the goal of hiding the AWC. IMO that goal is to present the player with meaningful decisions on how they spend their resources. It also aims to stretch these choices out, so that they happen through-out the game, rather than right away when you get the soldier and AWC. Right now, as you said, there are less choices, because gambling is extremely dangerous and pistol perks are almost always going to be a better plan. So the best obvious perks are picked, and then it's all pistol perks from there.

Right now I'm playing with revealed perks, and I am having a blast. But, I definitely get the sense that A)My best soldiers are a bit too good. B)I've run out of good AWC's to train, and am starting to run out of optimal pistol perks to train (I tend to focus them on Assaults, Technicals, and Sharpshooters.)

I think the best way to optimize the decision making aspect of the AWC, while also making non-pistol perks more worthwhile, is to do some culling of the more worthless AWC perks. The grenade perks are almost always useless. There is too much demand on utility space for them to do any good. Flèche is always going to be worthless on a gunner. My next playthrough (possibly 1.3) I think I'm going to edit out any of the perks I think are really terrible.

That way, I'm back to gambling, but the odds are going to be better.
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