The psychology of playing dynamic campaigns

[Paper Tiger]

I have posted a new version of my campaign at CMMODS to correct a couple of the worst mistakes I made. However, having read a couple of things being posted about campaigns in other threads I wanted to start this discussion.

The campaign I put up attempts to be dynamic. That is, that the result of each mission will have some influence on what happens in subsequent missions in the campaign. The campaign therefore has a number of different paths to the finale.

However, it's very likely that the majority of players will simply reload a mission that they failed to win before progressing to the next one. Okay, that's fine if you want to do that. After all, it's on YOUR hard drive now, do what you want. But if you do that, you'll miss the branched missions.

I think the reason why people do this is because they are more accustomed to playing scenarios, or a campaign that requires the player to get a win before you can progress to the next mission. But a dynamic campaign is more like a story or an adventure. It's really one huge extended scenario and I think it is better to play it with this in mind.

To create a dynamic campaign, each mission must check if a particular condition has been met. therefore, you may feel like you kicked some ass in that mission but still got a loss because you failed to fulfill some important aspect of the mission. An example was quoted by Webwing in the 'Where do we go from here' thread. Somebody completed one of the missions but got a loss because he didn't find/kill the Red artillery spotter. Because of this failure, the artillery spotter was sitting in his foxhole calling in the coordinates of your units when the next mission started.

What are your thoughts on this matter?

[Combatintman]

Paper Tiger,

I'd love to give your campaign a spin but from what I've read some of the battles will overload my system. I've read the design philosophy behind your campaign and I know how much work you've put into it having followed the thread with interest. I agree with your whole methodology and by all accounts you've done a good job at executing it.

[Exel]

Dynamic campaigns are ages better than linear scenarios. I always tend to lose interest in linear campaigns before I play them through, because there's no feel of anything you do making any difference. The only exception is probably C&C, and only because of the human acting in between missions that actually make the plot interesting.

[Secondbrooks]

With me reloading is more related to heavy casualities, which usually is tied to me doing something stupid. Hard to say do i reload because objectives are not met... I quess i do it sometimes, let's give it more thought:

I quess it's dependant of mission size and amount work it requires to replay that mission. Some 'batallion bogged down in MOUT and mission lasting for 2 hours' kind mission is what i hardly ever replay, because sheer amount of dedication and work it requires to replay. Some 30 minutes understrenght company battle in wilderness is easier to replay.

What was the objective? Do i think i lost to bug or bad briefings, objective markings or poor mission designing. If this is so then i tend to think that i'm moral winner and i don't have to replay. I'm just wrongfully forced to submit into "the bad outcome" by greater force

There's one another thing: Am i playing that particular campaign first time? If it's first time then i have tendensy to try getting "clean" papers from it (=objectives met). While during on next tries, i'm more willing to play the mission with what i get.

Yet the most important thing: My mood when playing. I might be reaching for pleasure and exitment or then i might be reaching just "power play" where defeat is not an answer (but i'm getting out of this habit... getting lazy)

It's sum of many things...

[handihoc]

Reloading is always a single-player thing. In multi-play the reload option is eliminated, for the obvious reason that the other player ain't gonna let you have another bash at him just because you're moaning and howling that you made a couple of daft mistakes (ie, ran into his brilliantly devised ambush).

Shock Force campaigns are primarily single-player oriented (forgive me, designers, if I'm wrong), which is great because SF is an excellent single-player wargame. I'm pretty sure that were I to attempt these battles as they stand against a good human opponent, one of us would be disadvantaged. Certainly, that's the case in Task Force Narwick and In Search of a Ghost. Both are excellent, both provide major tactical challenges for the Blue attacker - but put a human in charge of the Red forces in either of them and the Blues wouldn't get past first base.

I hate to keep harking back to the 'good ole days' of CC, but the multiplay aspect of those campaigns really shone (whereas, as single player games they left much to be desired). I had many, many happy hours, days, weeks, months, years and countless late nights, playing through those campaigns online against a longtime wargaming friend - something which we, sadly, haven't achieved with SF. It is the one aspect that is missing for me in an otherwise superlative wargame.

Some of the ops in CMx1 also worked very well in multiplay, though they were obviously quite short.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the campaigns in SF, as well as many of the single missions. The AI, in well-designed scenarios, makes a challenging opponent, and the 'what's next' aspect of a campaign or operation always keeps me playing. I try not to reload too often - preferring generally to win by wits and skill, and take the consequences if I'm wrong. So for me it's really pleasing that designers like Paper Tiger are building in more dynamic, branching aspects.

Long may you continue - and perhaps the next challenge is to design campaigns that will stand the test of both single and online play, if such a combination is possible.

[handihoc]

"To create a dynamic campaign, each mission must check if a particular condition has been met"

That's a nice touch that I wasn't aware of, never having gone into the editor. I don't know how wide the parameters and options are but it certainly seems to potentially offer a lot of variety for an imaginative designer.

One day, if I ever get enough free time, I hope to go in and have a good look around, see what I can do with it. Unfortunately, I don't see that coming soon.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Well, as probably the main culprit of the "reloading after a failed mission" thing in the Hasrabit campaign thread, I thought I'd speak my mind on this topic.

I am actually really, really excited by the idea of a dynamic campaign and the ability to have a good, hard fight, end up with a loss, and continue anyway. That's one of the things I'm looking forward to about playing this campaign.

So why did I reload in spite of everything? I reloaded because I did not have a good, hard fight that resulted in a loss. Instead, I set up my troops sloppily and they got massacred as a result. I played so poorly that I felt that in the real world my persona would have been relieved of command immediately. I was so excited by the prospect of this campaign that I couldn't wait to jump in to the action. As a result, I didn't examine the terrain very carefully at all, selected terrible firing positions, and was just all-around bad.

In short, I restarted for no other reason than that I felt I hadn't done the campaign justice and that I hadn't acted like a real commander, which kind of ruined the sense of immersion for me (which was otherwise excellent). I'm downloading the newest version of the campaign, and I will not restart from here on out.

I think this is an interesting topic though, and I'm curious about other people's responses.

-FMB

[Bertram]

Might it be that it is a limitation of the engine at the moment? For a dynamic campaign you need other results then the win/loss (and the various values in between). The branch should be made upon the completion of the objectives, not on the addition of the point values derived from these objectives.

These point values are nice to summon up the result of a single battle (or at the end of a campaign). But arbitarily assigning a building on the left flank a 10 point value, and the other flank a 1000 point value, or an artillery observer 2000 points, because you need the win/loose points value to branch, leads the player to a wrong impression (ie that advancing on the left flank made him loose the scenario, or that not getting the artillery observer is not doing good enough), while the designer just wants to set up different follow-up situations.

Work for the programmer to make this possible?

[handihoc]

Originally posted by Field Marshal Blücher:

So why did I reload in spite of everything? I reloaded because I did not have a good, hard fight that resulted in a loss. Instead, I set up my troops sloppily and they got massacred as a result.

-FMB

I've certainly done that a few times, and suffered for it like you. One thing I've learned in SF is that the AI can be a very unforgiving opponent.

Sometimes that means taking things very slowly - ie realistically. Sneaking scouts forward metre by metre, giving them time to scan the terrain.

A good example of this is The Hideout mission in Webwing's Ghost campaign. In the opening stages my initial urge was to push my men forward, somehow assuming they'd survive and overcome.

They didn't.

I don't want to give too much away, but this is definitely a mission in which you progress by sneaking a very few 'specialist' units forward, while the main body waits. These units, allowed to do the jobs they're trained for, have a very significant impact on what happens next.

It's slow, it's tense, it's subtle. There isn't a lot of action for quite a while, but when it comes its a treat. Great fun!

Haven't completed it yet, so I could still come a cropper, but I'm delighted that I'm being made to think so carefully about my tactics and about the roles of the various units under my command, particularly against a computer opponent.

[Webwing]

Field Marshal Blücher,

You are not alone. I totally sympathize with you.

Paper Tiger,

You are the first one to use the campaign system in CMSF to it's full capacity.

I think doing a dynamic campaign is the way to go but in the end it's an option that the player might choose to disregard if he so choses.

Personally I see no problem in that. You tell the player how you think is the optimal way of going about it but it's up to him to do it or not.

I say that because although I believe players should play according to the rules of a dynamic campaign in practice I am a cheater myself!

I played the first mission in the Hasrabit and decided to replay it as soon as I finished it. I started to laugh when I realized what I was doing! Human nature I guess. We see where we failed and we just can't accept it. We want to correct it. We are sure we could have done better. We can't always do that in RL so it's good to be able to do it in a game.

By the way, the enemy attack was quite impressive! :eek:

handihoc,

I'm glad you are having fun with this one after the previous fiasco!

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[Battlefront.com]

Glad to see people using the tools Good work!

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

Sorry guys, I was posting at work and I had to stop suddenly and actually DO some work! Bummer. Anyway, I didn't get round to finishing my post. I was hoping to argue that it'd better for players to approach a dynamic campaign as if it were a single grand scenario.

To make the story work, I had to set up a couple of missions where a particular condition must be met to 'get a win'. It would be better to think of victory/defeat meaning go to branch A or branch B rather than, "phew, I sucked big time in this mission". A good example of this will be found when you play 'The Barrier'. You don't have enough time to hunt down and kill the entire enemy force so you can't negate a successful AI 'touch objective' by getting the AI to surrender.

FMB, I certainly wasn't 'aiming' anything at you. I have to confess that even I think it would be better to start again if you get a bad start there. Prior to 1.08, that mission was extremely simple to win as long as you knew how to use the tools you'd been given. I felt it was unlikely that most of you guys were familiar with handling Special Forces so it was actually intended to be a Special Forces training mission. However, the TAC AI self-preservation routines introduced in 1.08 certainly made it a bit more challenging than I'd wanted it to be. I hope you enjoy the newer version. It should be a lot more forgiving of your losses.

Combatintman

Thanks for your comments. Yeah, some of the early missions are quite big. I tried really hard to keep them challenging while going easy on the CPU. After all, if they won't run smoothly on MY computer, what's the point? I've been told that WEGO is the great equaliser for CPUs. Perhaps they might still be playable on your rig using WEGO?

Webwing.

The AI does quite a lot of attacking in this campaign. I've spent a LOT of time just designing the AI attack plans. If you think it's impressive in Ambush, I can't wait to hear what you think of 'The Barrier' >shudder<

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Originally posted by Paper Tiger:

FMB, I certainly wasn't 'aiming' anything at you. I have to confess that even I think it would be better to start again if you get a bad start there. Prior to 1.08, that mission was extremely simple to win as long as you knew how to use the tools you'd been given. I felt it was unlikely that most of you guys were familiar with handling Special Forces so it was actually intended to be a Special Forces training mission. However, the TAC AI self-preservation routines introduced in 1.08 certainly made it a bit more challenging than I'd wanted it to be. I hope you enjoy the newer version. It should be a lot more forgiving of your losses.

Don't worry about it. I suppose my use of the word "culprit" made me sound a little defensive, which I didn't intend.

I think that some of the TacAI changes work very well with the intended Blue-vs-Red setup, but I noticed some kind of odd "self-preservation" AI at work in Strong Stand that caused me to take unnecessary casualties (as I just posted over in the Hasrabit campaign thread).

-FMB

[Battlefront.com]

For what it's worth, I've been known to revert Campaigns to try again, so I for one certainly wouldn't fault someone for doing that However, one thing I do not do is revert to an earlier save within a battle because something went wrong. That would be "cherry picking" the starting point too much for my personal tastes. For me, it's do it all over fresh or not do it over at all. I generally don't do something over unless I feel I should have done better.

That's just me!

Steve

[Dschugaschwili]

To put it bluntly: as long as there is a save function that the player can use at will, there will be people who replay a mission that didn't go as planned. Or a turn that ended badly.

Of course, there are a couple of ways to fight this behaviour:

1. Remove the save function. Well, not entirely. You'd have to use a system like in Nethack where the game automatically saves the current game on exit and removes the savegame after loading. (Yes, this can be worked around by the player, but that can be made more difficult than the average user is willing to accept.) This will certainly greatly annoy non-hardcore players, so it's probably out of the question.

2. Design the game in a way to make reloading a savegame feel wrong. In my opinion, BFC does a good job here. At least reloading a savegame after some bad luck or bad decisions has always felt wrong for me in all CM games since the CMBO beta demo, and not many games "achieved" that.

3. Set the difficulty level of the game/missions accordingly. I have played far too many games that basically assume that the player will be using save-reload tactics and make up for that by making the missions so hard that it's almost impossible to play them straight. And if I get the feeling that that's the case I automatically adjust my behaviour accordingly. If you want the player to play "fair", design the missions to feel fair.

[Combatintman]

Paper Tiger,

WEGO is all I play! I'd rather wait all the same - I really don't want to start the campaign and think hey this is great and then have to stop. I'll get a new computer later on this year so I can wait that long - I've just got to avoid the thread about the campaign now!

I am looking forward to trying it out though - I've been toying with some red v red stuff myself so it is something I'm interested in playing and I really want to see how your dynamic campaign works so that I can learn from it in terms of campaign designs of my own. I've started putting together some Mujahideen v Soviets in Afghanistan stuff and I think that for it to work it has to be dynamic with a number of roots and branches otherwise it just becomes a series of ambushes which don't really go anywhere.

However before anyone gets excited - this is unlikely to see its way on to CMMODs for a long long while yet because I am still not happy with my knowledge of how the AI works and I'm struggling with getting the right balance with victory conditions.

[Battlefront.com]

Little Willi... good to see you again

2. Design the game in a way to make reloading a savegame feel wrong. In my opinion, BFC does a good job here. At least reloading a savegame after some bad luck or bad decisions has always felt wrong for me in all CM games since the CMBO beta demo, and not many games "achieved" that.

I feel this way too, and I think I know why. For me, at least, I always have a feeling that no matter how bad I think I'm doing that I might not be doing as bad as I think Perhaps I've hurt the enemy more than I know, perhaps I have a lot of reinforcements coming soon, maybe the designer expected me to lose as many units as I have and still be able to win, maybe I've lost LESS than the designer expected, etc.

If I don't know that I'm losing badly then I don't have that urge to restart. But then again, I've always been the type of game player (of ANY type of game) that plays for the joy of the game, not for the joy of victory. Winning is better than losing, but losing can be a heck of a lot of fun sometimes

Steve

[Paper Tiger]

Saving DURING a mission and reloading from that point is about as gamey as it gets. I freely admit that I do this with RPGs and console games if the option is available but to do it in a wargame really seems like the worst form of cheating.

I like the idea that the game would automatically save at the end of a mission and overwrite the previous save file but I think that would be VERY unpopular. So, I accept that people are just going to play it the way that they want to and that's that, and I'm fine with that too. I'm just tyrying to encourage a few stalwarts to attempt to play the whole thing without reloading a failed mission. Apart from 'The farm' mission, none of the branches lead to catastrophic levels of difficulty. I was tempted to make failure in that particular mission an automatic 'out'. But I decided to let people have the chance to reverse the loss. But it will be really TOUGH to do that.

I read somewhere else about people complaining about core force abuse. To my mind, there is a remarkably simple way for the designer to discourage this sort of behaviour, and others have suggested this too. It's to select all the non-core forces in the mission editor and make them one (or more) group for the unit parameter victory condition. If you select 'Destroy' (NOT Destroy all) and allocate say 2000 points to the Red side for that group's destruction, you'll be able to really punish the player for losing units in these groups. Determining the point allocation requires some work on the designers part to get right here but it works.

In my campaign, this really isn't an issue as you're expected to abuse those pathetic reserve forces shamelessly when they're available . It's factored into the Friendly casualties bonii too so that you can lose most or all of the Reserves and still get earn the bonus.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

I agree with you, Paper Tiger. Saving during a mission and reloading it if you fail is extremely gamey, particularly in CM:SF when the scenario designer might have multiple AI plans. I only save during a mission if I have to stop playing due to real life reasons. Then, if the proverbial poop hits the proverbial propeller, I restart.

-FMB

[Webwing]

I don't save during a mission simply because it breaks the flow of the events and just doesn't seem right for this kind of game. Apparently a lot of people feel that way too.

On the other hand we designers tend to be a bit control freaks. We want to have the player do what we think is right or punish him for not doing so.

Talking to people here in the forum has made me change a lot of ideas I had regarding this. Some players feel that being restricted in some ways like duration, setup zones, etc. can take the fun away. Others feel that those limitations makes it more realistic and fun.

I know some players don't even read the briefing in some missions I designed! It seemed absurd to me. This is definitely not the way I planed the mission to be played but if the guy is having fun, what's wrong with it? It's his game, I just made the mission.

Today I think the ideal situation is to have a system that gives you enough options to do the project you have in mind, as well as possible, but leaving room for the player to experience this in his own terms.

CMSF has the potential to appeal to military guys that even want to use it as a simulation of RL combat. It has also the ingredients to appeal to the more casual player wanting just to blow some buildings and see some tanks in flames.

It's not only to do with the type of player but the mood you are when you play. Sometimes I want something realistic and long. Others I just want to relax watching tanks blow up!

I don't mind seeing missions or campaigns that restrict the player in some ways and force him on a certain path if thats what the designer had in mind.

I would definitely not like to see that incorporated in the system though.

IMO we need a flexible system not a restrictive one.

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[Dschugaschwili]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Little Willi... good to see you again

Well, I'm not dead. But real life issues and a general lack of interest in modern warfare keep me in lurker mode most of the time.

I feel this way too, and I think I know why. For me, at least, I always have a feeling that no matter how bad I think I'm doing that I might not be doing as bad as I think Perhaps I've hurt the enemy more than I know, perhaps I have a lot of reinforcements coming soon, maybe the designer expected me to lose as many units as I have and still be able to win, maybe I've lost LESS than the designer expected, etc.

Funny how different views can lead to similar feelings. I usually don't have such an optimistic view of the situation, and I don't think about what the designer may have planned.

I think the main reason that reloading feels wrong for me in CM is that there are no inherent boni for the AI player. I know that the opposing force has the same capabilities against me than it would have in my own hands. Thinking about it, I think that's a large part of what I called "feeling fair" above. Add a scenario that's marked as designed for two players (so the scenario should be somewhat fair, too) and playing a mission straight through without reloading seems not only possible, but the right thing to do, too.

[YankeeDog]

Well, my $.02:

I haven't even finished the TF thunder campaign yet, but in general I frequently go back and restart a battle, or reload from a critical point. But usually only after I've completely played through once, and accepted the results "as is".

Only if I've really completely FUBARed the scenario will I stop in the middle and re-try. I haven't *badly* lost a campaign battle yet, but when I do, I'll probably think very hard before restarting, on the possibility that a bad loss in one scenario may send me down an interesting campaign track I wouldn't otherwise get to see.

I do, though, like to revisit after I finish a scenario and see how an alternate battle plan would have worked, what I could have done better in the execution of the plan I originally executed, and also what was just plain luck. I make saves at critical points in the battle as I play the first time around so I can jump back into the battle and re-play/re-run things as I please.

Same will go for the campaigns as I play through them. I'm accepting my results in the TF Thunder campaign as I go, as-is. Once I have played through, I'm likely to do a lot of replaying of the individual battles. In fact, given the fact that some CMSF campaigns may feature situations that you only get to play after poor performance in the previous scenario, I may also end up going back deliberately throwing battles in which I did well on the first play-through, to see what happens to the campaign progression then.

This is part of why it takes me so darn long to play through just the scenario/campaign content included with the game; I really like to revisit stuff and examine all the details and possibilities.

Cheers,

YD

[Battlefront.com]

PaperTiger,

I freely admit that I do this with RPGs and console games if the option is available but to do it in a wargame really seems like the worst form of cheating.

I agree. The big difference between a wargame campaign and something like an RTS or FPS game is that a wargame isn't a puzzle, the others generally are. If I wanted to spend 10 hours of my life going through the same f'n "level" or trying to build up my force the same way to take out the same enemy encampment... I'd just stop playing the game. I see no fun in repeating something I've already done in the same way that I did it.

Wargame battles (not the campaign, but the battles themselves) are dynamic and therefore if you replay the thing you are fully replaying it. That means things may work out worse than before, maybe better. But if you start at a known point then you don't have to risk doing worse up to that point. And that feels wrong.

Dschugaschwili,

Actually, I agree with you that goes through my mind. I do feel "dirty" about beating an AI by replaying it from a favorable spot. The easy way to check this is... would a Human player agree to go back to a spot earlier in the game that is favorable to you and not to him? Certainly not, so why take advantage of the AI's inability to tell you to go stick something up your rear and see if you can make it toot?

Steve

[Vergeltungswaffe]

PT,

Dynamic >>> all

Play it as it lies, too. If you want replay, finish it and play the whole thing again.

[Webwing]

Another issue that might be related and that is also dynamic is the fact that you can have several plans for the AI.

It means that you can replay the mission several times and have a good chance that the enemy will try something different.

So the idea of replaying the mission to try and do better might go against you in case you end up with a harder, more aggressive plan the second time around!!!

Now, how dynamic is that?

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