"Soft" turns or how to make turnbased MP suck less

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

Moderator: Oberlus

Post Reply
Message
Author
STEDevil
Space Krill
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2005 9:58 am

"Soft" turns or how to make turnbased MP suck less

#1 Post by STEDevil »

I just found this project today and I havn't actually tried the alphas yet, thus I applogize if this is already implemented. Didnt manage to find anything about it on the forums or wiki though.

In any case, with MOO2, the worst part of the Multiplayer experience was that once you pressed end turn there wasnt anything usefull you could do while waiting for the other players to also finish. MOO3 didnt really impress in this area either.

What about if you instead of ending the turn when pressing "end turn" button in MP games, you stayed in the normal gameinterface and could do almost everything (tinker with research/dimplomacy/design ships/manage buildqueues/etc).

Ie the end turn button wouldnt really be an "end turn" button but more of an "Ive done everything important I absolutely have to do now this turn and now I'm only doing the finetuning while waiting for the others to finish" button. Then, when everybody has pressed the "soft end turn" button indicating all absolutely critical things has been done, text could be displayed for all clients that "Turn ends in X seconds" (X= a modifyable serversetting of seconds counted down to 0 until the real turnend, eg 30 seconds).

This would allow people to spend time on some less critical but still not unimportant things without worrying about delaying the game for everybody else. At the same time you can take advantage of the time needed by people with lots of important things to do currently without getting annoyed yourself becuse you have nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs. In short a win-win situation to lessen the bad effects of turnbased MP game.

BTW the solution for compability with SP is of cource to set the "soft turn" delay to 0seconds.

Impaler
Creative Contributor
Posts: 1060
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2003 12:40 am
Location: Tucson, Arizona USA

#2 Post by Impaler »

People have done some speculating on that problem, your idea is new as far as I can tell. Mostly we had been looking at finding things to do such as Design ships or review (but not make any further changes) to your empire.

The thing that I see being problematic is that people might get caught having half finished some tweakings or experimentings you know the (Hum what if I moved that fleet their instead, can I do that without leaving myself vulnorable). You obviously liked/accepted your initial set of orders but you might not like what you were doing while waiting. So their should be 2 buttons once you get the "All players have finalized soft orders, Hard orders will finalize in X seconds" they can choose to "Keep Old orders" or "Submit new Orders". At fists Keep old orders is highlighted, cllicking either button switches the highlighting and at the end of the count down the desired choice is finalized. The client either unloads a new order package or sends a confirmation that the original orders are to be used. The Sever then uses the desired orders to compute the Turn.

I think this idea has a lot of potential and should be added to our plans in addition to the other EndTurn bordom problems.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

LithiumMongoose
Audio Lead Emeritus
Posts: 188
Joined: Fri Jul 25, 2003 1:52 pm
Location: Cincinnati OH, USA

#3 Post by LithiumMongoose »

I like it.

@Impaler - Too complicated. And unnecessary. Just do any "experimentings" in the important phase before you hit Soft End. Leave tweaking (and designing and reviewing) for afterward.

Impaler
Creative Contributor
Posts: 1060
Joined: Sun Jun 29, 2003 12:40 am
Location: Tucson, Arizona USA

#4 Post by Impaler »

I definatly dont want to do anything too risky in the initial orders as thouse MIGHT be all I get, if your the lagger who is the last to hit Soft End then it will infact be the real end for you. If your going to experiment after Softend then their realy should be a way to remove thouse experiments, it will likly be too late to remove them once the count down begins. Thus the first set of orders to fall back on.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

Dreamer
Dyson Forest
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:44 am
Location: Santiago, Chile

#5 Post by Dreamer »

When exactly do you make changes you don't want t commit? maibe I'm missing the point of this "experiments" since I usually calculate (in my head) how to play but when I actually send commands I don't whant to abort them at all.

Anyway a commit/rollback feature is very complicated since you have to track exactly what have you been doing since you pressed the button. The other aspect that worries me is that the player could be doing something, have it partially ok, and then time is over, so he has to start all over again the next turn. This can be very frustrating I guess.

I would rather have a 2 fase turn. When a soft turn ends every player is notified that the turn changes in 10 seconds or so. All the changes made by the players after pressing the turn button are valid and only the last interface opened (for example the tech interface) is rolled back (always, not by choice). The next turn the game opens that same interface automatically.

Optionally we can have a "let me finish feature", the turn ends when every player that pressed this button hits "end turn" again. This reverts the game to a normal turn behaviour but with less players there and with players already warned that they are making everybody else wait. I can think several options to restrict or disincentive the use of this, so no player can abuse of this, so I think it's a good idea.

STEDevil
Space Krill
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2005 9:58 am

#6 Post by STEDevil »

Dreamer wrote: I would rather have a 2 fase turn. When a soft turn ends every player is notified that the turn changes in 10 seconds or so. All the changes made by the players after pressing the turn button are valid and only the last interface opened (for example the tech interface) is rolled back (always, not by choice). The next turn the game opens that same interface automatically.
This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of.
Optionally we can have a "let me finish feature", the turn ends when every player that pressed this button hits "end turn" again. This reverts the game to a normal turn behaviour but with less players there and with players already warned that they are making everybody else wait. I can think several options to restrict or disincentive the use of this, so no player can abuse of this, so I think it's a good idea.
I think everybody having to press end turn multiple times will just be percived as annoying/tedious. I could however envision a system where, when the "10seconds remaing" comes up, you could press another button with the functon "add 20s extension to hard turnend". That would only require user interaction of a player that actually needs those few extra seconds to finish up his changes (and who is sitting infront of the screen actively lookig at it) as opposed to by everybody in the game (of whom some might be on the toilet or grabbing a snack in the kitschen).

Of cource, adding extra time to the soft turnend should never ever be able to take the total turntime above the hard turnend normal maxlimit to avoid any possibility of abuse.

Dreamer
Dyson Forest
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:44 am
Location: Santiago, Chile

#7 Post by Dreamer »

STEDevil wrote:That would only require user interaction of a player that actually needs those few extra seconds to finish up his changes (and who is sitting infront of the screen actively lookig at it) as opposed to by everybody in the game (of whom some might be on the toilet or grabbing a snack in the kitschen).
My mistake. I should have exlained that, of course, only the player that pushed "LET ME FINISH" has to push end turn when he is actually finished. Not everyone else again. I think this is better than a preset extencion of X seconds.

User avatar
skdiw
Creative Contributor
Posts: 643
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:17 am

#8 Post by skdiw »

I like the idea. However, the most time consuming is combat. Managing one's empire doesn't take much time compare to the amount of combat that will be going on. There should be some system like paralleling combat like independent combat are controlled so other battles involving other players can duke it out.

An admendment to the idea is allowing you to control your empire for the next turn. You can fiddle around with all your control, though none are offically sent to the server until it is officially your turn.
:mrgreen:

Dreamer
Dyson Forest
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:44 am
Location: Santiago, Chile

#9 Post by Dreamer »

I would like more a feature that allows you to see other empires combat, it can depend on espionage or the like but in multiplayer be an expectator can be fun and also give you some insight to other's tactics. Of course this provided that combats are not that long in the first place, wich is as I would like it to be.

User avatar
Yeeha
Pupating Mass
Posts: 93
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:06 pm

#10 Post by Yeeha »

Yes more you can do between turns the better. Little offtopic idea what i got from dreamer post - not only to see with spyes combat but when you have stealthships in system then you can be hidden third party in combat and when one opponent almost has killed others forces you engage with your stealthships who is completely unaware of your presence in battle. Usually stealth only means not seeing in battle enemy ships but still knowing they are there but this would make things way more interesting.

User avatar
skdiw
Creative Contributor
Posts: 643
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2003 2:17 am

#11 Post by skdiw »

That's what I am missing: 3-way carnage!!
:mrgreen:

Murazor
Space Krill
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2005 8:44 pm

#12 Post by Murazor »

I think the problem of half finished tweaking could be solved by allowing the user to udo/uncheck the "turn complete" button while other players haven't checked in.

A short time delay would still be useful for notifying the players that an end of turn is imminent and should not allow them to back out of an turn complete situation. It also allows the program time to double check that all players are in the next turn countdown stage.

Under these conditions it's up to the player to uncheck their "turn complete" button before doing anything that could be potentially disruptive.

Post Reply