Ok so this is back to the shared control of the ai, and should it get removed:
Short answer is no. (all of you who have followed this thread and don’t wanna see my rant should stop here)
Slightly longer answer is go read quite a few of my previous posts on why not. (if you haven’t followed and cant take no for an answer then i guess go read the rest of the thread)
Responding this specific request for change: (to my rant about this specific suggestion)
This would really not work for various reasons:
Starting with the happiness hit for each option, would have to be variable to even start matching the variability of the ai decision making depending upon situation. Unless i showed you the unhappiness hit of a decision before you make it this would be extremely frustrating for the player. I’m not open to showing that before hand, because it encourages min maxing of stats during play, which i dislike and am trying reduce the ability for players to do. I personally think games that encourage people to make stat tables for items in game along with showing all character stats, such that people can make optimal builds, extremely tedious boring and just suck the life out of the game. Generally i find this is because the difficulty of playing the game is just then replaced with the tedium of making an optimal character to crush what ever task it was built to do. Were are no longer playing a game and just solving math problems, using stat tables, at this point.
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It would end with at the max unhappiness setting of it really trying to discourage certain actions, it would be called game breaking, and i would get comments wondering why i even offer the option in the first place, or to remove the system all together, all of which i have already discussed and went through. Again see earlier posts.
The system gives you a choice, however just like in real life, your choices don’t always lead to the outcome you planed was going to happen, for various reasons. People chose to go on diets all the time, sometimes they succeed in following through on that choice and eat the proper amounts, other times they fail to follow through(for various reasons) and have that ''cheat day", or several in a row. Same the other way, example lets look at the story of another game Forks, the main character Alex had chose to start “caketime”, multiple times in the past, but has failed to follow through. When she made that choice i’d be fairly sure she didn’t plan to not follow through, it just happened.
The game gives you a choice, that’s different from guaranteeing an outcome. I really need you all to understand choice being different from a guaranteed outcome.
Edit: So when looking at a choice outcome branch tree, there is simple ones like 1 choice leads to 1 outcome. For example picking sandwich means you always get a sandwich. Or you could add a variable into the mix for instance having a variable for the type of sandwich meaning the choice of sandwich could lead to lets say 6 different sandwiches. Now lets get way more complex and look at my game where you have a character with 150 plus tracked objects(some form of variable) for the character. some of these objects are complex like lists and dictionaries of other objects, that can have multiple values. When looking at a choice outcome branch tree if you assume more than one variable here is influencing the outcome of that 1 choice you made can lead to an array of outcomes, variable dependent. The problem and complaint i continue to get, is that there are outcomes that you all desire and expect and ones you don’t desire or expect. What it seems is wanted is a 1 to 1 equivalence for each choice to an outcome(when this happens you ''feel in control" choices led to an expected outcome). With suggestions on how to balance doing this by suggesting systems like the one suggested to balance the fact that were ignoring a bunch of the correct or more reasonable outcomes given the objects(variables) at play, by adding a penalty in trade for ignoring it them. So what’s the point of pointing this all out or discussing it. My point is this is a simulation of what would or could happen in the game. I don’t intend the player to be able to just skip bad or undesirable outcomes for a trade at the time of choice, for pre determined penalty. You are free to make a choice, however the outcome is what it is, desirable or not.
I really hope to not revisit the topic of shared control with the ai again. This design choice of this game with the shared control with the ai, as i thought i made i clear earlier, its not getting removed and is here to stay. As i said in the past, i’m open to hearing feedback as to the balance of the ai and if its making reasonable decisions, however if you suggest removing it, going forward depending on my mood i may either go on another rant or just ignore you. Either way i can guarantee you i will continue doing exactly as i please, which i have also tried to make clear earlier.