I’m the same way. The more clear idea I have of how the difficulty is going to be ratcheted up and how precious a given resource is, the more likely I am to use it. If I don’t have a clear idea of those things then I default to not using just in case I need them later and I end the game with all six megalixirs sitting unused in my inventory and the game developers might as well have not bothered to include the item in the game in the first place.
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Hi. My name is Bill. I spend all of my LP’s every round because this is the wasteland and I’m a Mechanic and that means I will probably die during the next round… BUT before I do I make sure to spend all of my fun points!
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I am exactly the same way! I really should have foreseen that this would be even more difficult a problem in a game like we have here. I think if I were a regular player I’d never use single-use weapons in case I needed them later, even if the missions said explicitly that they would be useful.
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And just be the nature of how missions work in this game, if we do need them for a particular mission we have no opportunity to pull out the single use item during the heat of a mission that is getting a bit dicey. We essentially have to decide before a mission starts whether it will be difficult enough to warrant using an item we can’t get back. We don’t have a clear idea of the risks involved and once we do, it is already too late. That is a perfect recipe for the single use items to never ever being used.
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I thought the exact opposite, for example the single use Flame Thrower from round 2 was HI damage LOW cost and reminded me of a D&D Wizards “spell” (one time use per round basically).
To be honest I would like to see more types of weapons like that for the weaker classes… But not at the expense of over complication of the game system.
I think my attitude to single use weapons would be best summed up by the hundreds of scrolls I’ve been schlepping around in Skyrim without ever using any of them. I ever prefer to savescum over using restoration potions.
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Well, I think that falls into the category of story-based weapons in our game. We knew ahead of time that the flamethrower was needed for something specific in the next round which is why we provided it. I think we can certainly do more of that sort of thing, in addition to more earth-shattering story weapons.
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That was clear with the EARACHE. It was just too choice and fit too well within my repertoire, that even though I was trying to max armor and tank-it-up, there was no way I was going to pass on that.
Break my legs, eat my fingers, chain me to the Ark, and I’ll still be just fine playing DJ for the rest of the rounds.
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That is a good point.
To implement though we would have to add another level of sophistication to the game.
We need a store basically. Low cost upgrades that add small amounts of boost, +2FP for 3LP, +1AR for 1LP things like that, this would allow players to have the most flexibility possible when it comes to building their individual rides, to avoid the issue of players hoarding items and to overcome the problem of players not having direct control of their actions in a mission the “spell” items in the store should largely be used passively. Passive items trigger during a battle if you own the item, kind of like the fairies in the Legend of Zelda games. If your HP drops to 0 but you bought the spare tire for 5LP you will receive an extra five HP to hopefully push you through the mission. That sort of thing. We can get creative with it, you buy the flamethrower it gives you more FP if you are facing more than one enemy at a time. If you buy the crash helmet you get more AR if your HP drops below 50%, that sort of thing.
This vastly complicates things for the GMs (which is why this might be a bad idea at the end of the day) since they would need to keep track of 26 different inventories and what items if any would trigger passively. If we go this route I would recommend for the GMs sanity that inventory be dramatically reduced. 1 inventory spot for scouts, 2 for mechanics, 3 for escorts, and 4 for mules.
One of the GMs should be exclusively responsible for running the store and economy of the game. It could be kept relatively simple for the players by having a fairly reliable line up of goods each round. Maybe something is missing one round or an item is added for one round only but by and large the majority of the items can be counted on being around from round to round so we don’t have to suddenly weigh our purchasing options all over again each round all the while wondering if this is last time we will see an EN upgrade.
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Man, did I pick a busy time to commute in to work! Sorry I didn’t get here 1/2 hour ago. Anyway, I’m with Bill here. I developed a particular overall strategy during all my years of playing Halo: never die with a grenade in yer pocket.
One thing that I should have mentioned early on is this: we are not dealing with a published game here. Everything that happens is freshly extracted, glistening and dewy, straight outta the asses of Chris and Jonas and me. We can’t run out of anything cool. When it comes to weapons, at least, we like our explosions at least as big as you guys do, and we give 'em to you so they can be used. There are no fixed assets here. We can’t run out of polygons or NPCs, and if we need more nukes it’s not exactly difficult for us to pull them straight from the orifice whence the last batch came. Blow shit up! Please!
It’s a sincerely flattering gentle fiction that you guys are playing this game as if we three had mapped it all out beforehand, assigned all odds, calculated exactly when to introduce certain factions and weapons and powerups and such, beta-tested the crap out of it, and found anything like a decent balance before releasing it on you guys. Seat of the pants, remember? I’m so barely ahead of you guys with this that you can reach out and smack the seat of my pants if you felt the urge.
Let us assume, for the duration of the campaign, that I’ll do everything in my power to avoid making you regret using your big boom too early. If the result is entertaining enough, bigger booms will come your way.
I don’t mean you should just fire off everything you’ve got at obviously wimpier enemies. But we habitually scale combat against what you bring to the fight. None of the enemies’ values are fixed in advance. Hell none of the enemies themselves are known in advance; they don’t exist until we need to gin up a conflict for a given round. I’ve known for weeks what Fleetwood’s driving; still couldn’t tell you what exactly he’s packin’ when it comes to FP.
I understand that concern very well, but since our game is being scribbled in the sand mere seconds before you see it, take my advice and don’t hoard the single-use weapons. I’d be frugal with gas, and maybe keep an eye on my LPs. But this is a game, not reality.
Firepower is power that is meant to be fired.
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Yeah, that’s what Stretch’s junkyard is for. Not just the one we robbed, but the rest of the Fleetwood MacChanics chain. I know it seems like an age since we had a friendly place to shop, but believe it or else, you could still buy upgrades from Stretch in Round Three, and we’re only in Round Four! Granted, that post was nine days ago, so no wonder it feels like forever. But we only intended to go just this one round without giving you guys a place to incrementally improve your rides for a reasonable number of LPs. Every round following will have upgrades and repairs available at varying-degrees-of-reasonable prices. Probably not too steep since none of the other junkyards want to follow Stretch’s example.
As for inventory items, well, Jonas and Chris and I are kinda maxed out on what we can keep track of. I think we’ll add a space in each round’s Entry Form wherein you can declare your use or transfer of an Inventory item or items (like a nuke, or a box of Lucky Charms, or whatever you got). You declare it, we can check and make sure you have it, and away we go. We don’t have the technical bandwidth to institute a real publicly-viewable inventory, with or without the capability to auto-execute any “passive” items. You can offer unwanted stuff for sale in-thread if you want, but we can’t enhance the inventory mechanic any further than it exists currently, as far as I can tell.
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I suspected as much, and don’t blame you guys. You are keeping track of enough as it is.
For the record I am against the notion of single use items for the various reasons I laid out. I was just giving my idea for what it would take to implement them in a way that they would make sense with the battle system we have. I don’t actually expect you guys to take that on as it would add an entire additional dimension to the game and wouldn’t just create a linear increase in the work needed to get us from mission to mission but rather an exponential one.
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On the subject of “single-use” - maybe something like the way it works in XCOM - you have a missile with a substantial FP benefit every round, but you can only fire it once. I don’t know how that would work in the context of a battle we have no visibility of, perhaps it gets used in the first round of combat or something.
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Wow. I only slept for a few hours and there were +45 posts!
I think you just inspired the name of my new business!
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I’ve been busy this week, so been half-digesting this immensely fun world.
Appreciative thanks for the scaffold of fun - I’ve had more fun fooling around with The Major than you’d know, and the whole shmoo is immensely entertaining.
And huge thanks for flexibility, lightness of touch and good-humoured approach, to all GMs! It’s fantastic that the narrative has been coming out so well, rather than, as has been pointed out, solely spreadsheet analysis.
Gotta go!
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