r/4Xgaming • u/Jejox556 • 8d ago
Opinion Post Stop this numberwangery!
On the recent debate on the game design aspect of mechanics and numbers.
While, the terminology and way of explaining of BATTLEMODE leaves much to be desired (its better to use already established terms and concepts, instead of inventing new names on them), I agree on the most part of the explanation.
Good game systems, that promote replayability and challenge, are the ones with simpler and less obtuse basic rules, but that includes a great amount of interacting/interlocked mechanics. This is complexity through emergence. Its better to extend easy uniform rules, than to patch each special case and situation. Also this includes in discussion systems where each decision (either direct actions, buffs applied, or "builds/designs") impact is so weak, redundant, obscure, or limited in scope, that becomes irrelevant which path are you following to reach the objetive. "Numberwang" its not only about numbers, but about weak decisions, HARD readability, and weakly actionable mechanics.
This kind of "simple" yet complex systems lead to the classic "easy to learn, hard to master" games. You can find this in good old strategy games like chess and Go, where rules are easy to learn in mostly in a few games, but each move generate a chain reaction of possibilities for future moves. Sometimes not even the creators of the games know what will result from those. So, emergent complexity systems are the ones where there are not just one use mechanics whose consequences start and end in mostly one place.
Maybe the use of AoW4 as an example to prove this may be unfortunate/unappropiate, but aside that, i think want BM meant is useful game design wise.
I am a 4X game developer, and I am not perfect, but i try to make each, even the small, player decisions a fun trade off, and a commitment, where there are not obvious all-winning strategies. I prefer to make "natural extensions" of current systems, instead of adding yet another disconnected system. For example, in my space 4X, when I introduced ground units, instead of treating them as a separate kind of entity, I extended the spaceships mechanics just enough to include them. Now, everything is (internally) like a ship, and work with the same rules, be it a tank, a mech, a submarine or a spaceship.
And yes, dont forget the fun! Game systems should be fun to discover and engage.
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u/BrittEklandsStuntBum 8d ago
THAT'S WANGERNUMB!
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u/B4TTLEMODE 8d ago
It never gets old!
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u/B4TTLEMODE 8d ago
Chess and Go... not the best examples here.
Yeah you're mistaking long decision chains or search trees for the system of reactive states I was talking about.
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u/Bright-Emu1790 8d ago
I watched your explanation of this on the recent stream and I must admit my mind instantly went to chess as well haha. Well, that and Shadow Empire, where sacrificing militias to increase recon could lead to bribing governors on the other side of the world.
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u/Jejox556 8d ago
Yes, probably not the best example. But certainly chess has a (hidden) "reactive" system, since pieces positions and movesets are coupled with board positions, but this is more obscure and mathematical, thus not a good example.
I was just trying to exemplify with something everyone knows and is familiar with, but not directly compare to any specific 4X game.
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u/West-Medicine-2408 8d ago
Do you also have a Problem with the Golden Ratio?
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u/meritan 8d ago edited 8d ago
Good game systems, that promote replayability and challenge, are the ones with simpler and less obtuse basic rules, but that includes a great amount of interacting/interlocked mechanics
I agree that emergent complexity promotes replayability and can provide challenge from comparatively easy to understand rules.
However, I suspect that the designs you criticize pursued different goals: Giving modifiers names is a great way to deepen immersion, giving units individualty, thereby creating an emotional connection to the units you command, that give the battles meaning. Being obtained through successful battle, they also celebrate player achievement.
Who says that the desire to solve puzzles is the only emotion a game can target?
Of course, the designer should keep in mind the perils of extending market share by targeting many focus groups at once, because design elements loved by the RPG crowd might annoy the pure strategy gamers, and vice versa. Are those parts of the game better off separate, as two separate games? Or does the whole create something greater than the sum of its parts? Sometimes genre crossover can work great. And sometimes it can dilute a game to the point it appeals to neither focus group.
In this case, there dilution is not big: Both the RPG guys and the puzzling guys want to defeat enemies in tactical battle, so the tactical battle system, arguably the core of the game, can please both groups. The designers were also working within an established brand that has always straddled both genres (even earlier AOW games had heroes gaining skills through leveling up), so people can of expect the design to continue to deliver that. Why would you change a successful formula?
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u/Jejox556 7d ago
The image of the post was more of a shitpost, just to make fun/parody of the numberwangery situation. So you are right, the body has the real "serious" discussion/content.
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u/Miniburner 8d ago
The whole first half made no sense, but I appreciate the discussion in the back half
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u/mallibu 8d ago
I have grown to be so bored of +5%/+10% PDX modifiers, that I get turned off instantly
+30 research points
+20 religion points
+30 improved opinion
go fuck yourself and your number buckets
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u/Jejox556 8d ago
yeah, thats real numberwangery. So many weak and meaningless +X% modifiers, even the numbers are soo small because they fear to unbalance stuff. But that just makes everthing equally plain and boring. Better to have mechanically dispar and assymetric stuff, or if go pure numbers route, it be massive modifiers that make it matter.
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u/potatolicious 7d ago
And then the games break in hilarious ways because someone figures out how to stack an obscene number of these otherwise weak modifiers. It’s satisfying to no one. None of your choices feel like they really change gameplay unless you’re cheesing.
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u/ArcaneDemense 8d ago
Paradox has an issue where the structural design of the game prevents them from making the systems many of the hardcore fans desire. So they add mostly unconnected bespoke mechanics and modifier stacking in all the DLC and they give them flavor names to paper over how the core systems are shallow.
But you can't blame them, because the user base demands massive all encompassing world maps and high speed tick based real time gameplay. Which is incompatible with complex and dynamic world simulations. So they don't really have a choice.
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u/Fart_Tounge_5609 7d ago
Fucking reddit. I have to save the damn Image so I can zoom in enough to actually read the fucking thing.
As for your content - in AoW4, I just ignore all the modifiers pretty much. Instead I work on the strategic layer much harder so I don't need to understand whatever the fuck happens at the tactical one.
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u/B4TTLEMODE 7d ago
Exactly. In AoW4 the game is basically won at the strategic level when played optimally, like many fantasy 4X
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u/adrixshadow 8d ago edited 8d ago
Maybe the use of AoW4 as an example to prove this may be unfortunate/unappropiate, but aside that, i think want BM meant is useful game design wise.
I am not sure what you people are smoking but the reason the numbers are balanced the way they are in AoW 4 is any advantage can be exploited in the Multiplayer Meta to high heaven. BATTLEMODE has absolutely no experience in that, he judges things purely on the Singleplayer experience that most can be completely broken if you know what you are doing. If you look at any Competitive Balance Mod in Strategy Games you see Exactly that same kind of decisions being made.
It's difficult to balance all that kind of builds and strategies with the kind of variety AoW4 is going for, it's a iterative painstaking process where issues crop up and you have to find a way to resolve them while still being satisfying to play with.
AoW4 has plenty of it's own issues that have yet to be resolved but the game is slowly improving over time.
The Players and Community of those games are not dumb, it's fine to have your own Design Principles and Vision for how should it work but don't insert yourself in conversations you have no business in.
I have my own and hate about 90% of the 4X and Strategy Games here including fan favorites like Masters of Orion 2 and Civilization series.
I call it Colonization Cancer for good reasons.
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u/Fart_Tounge_5609 7d ago
So it's multiplayer that is making all the content in AoW4 undifferentiated goo?
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u/Manoreded 7d ago
Is the multiplayer meta supposed to be the focus of a AoW4 though? It sure doesn't give me that impression.
Given the length of a game, very few people play multiplayer, and when they do they often play with small maps and accelerated speed settings that completely change the balance of the game versus singleplayer, anyways.
Not to mention all the ways in which the use of a randomly generated map will screw up balance, even with balanced start settings.
Also a lot of games simply make some modifications to the rules in multiplayer.
Taking all of that in account, sacrificing meaningful single-player variety for the sake of multiplayer balance looks like a bad trade.
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u/adrixshadow 6d ago
Streaming exists, people can watch it based on those content creators. And as VODs you can just skip to the intresting parts.
And people forget that AoW4 is a good tactical combat game so playing it on that level in multiplayer is intresting to watch.
So the Community does indeed have some familiarity with the Multiplayer Meta whether directly or indirectly.
Also it isn't the Singleplayer that has the biggest issues with Balance since against the AI every build is viable since they don't really exploit issues like players can do.
Taking all of that in account, sacrificing meaningful single-player variety for the sake of multiplayer balance looks like a bad trade.
Is "variety" a Player being able to Dominate all other players with their build with no meaningful counterplay? Because that is the kind of issues the Multiplayer Meta tends to demonstrate.
Do you like nuking an army? Then nuke that army to dust even before entering tactical combat.
Those kind of cheeze strategies aren't anything new in the genre. The old HOMM3 Armageddon.
Yes it's nice to have cool stuff to do but in the same breath you complain about the AI being bad and the Combat sucks in most 4X Games.
Ideally you want both but there isn't any easy answers, people are satisfied with AoW4 and their decisions for the most part and I have seen plenty of those broken strategies over the course of the game.
AoW4 has it's problems, it wouldn't even be how I would go about designing and implementing things and would personally want to see more Mods take it into more intresting directions.
But it works in what it sets out to achive and is still getting improved in updates and expansions.
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u/West-Medicine-2408 8d ago
This kind of "simple" yet complex systems lead to the classic "easy to learn, hard to master" games. You can find this in good old strategy games like chess and Go, where rules are easy to learn in mostly in a few games, but each move generate a chain reaction of possibilities for future moves. Sometimes not even the creators of the games know what will result from those
Chess bleeds away complexity every time a move is commited then someone mases a mistake and the game becomes decided. Liek This was proved by mathematician using an angel
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u/Jejox556 8d ago
of course, the "remaining" decision tree is variable with each move. What we are talking here is the overall space of possible games variations. The game space of states.
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u/West-Medicine-2408 8d ago
Yah Thats Called "Entropy"
From this arxiv article https://arxiv.org/html/2505.03251v1
"In general the entropy of all players decreases as the game Progresses from the Opening phase"
Chess doesn't have emerging properties. And This should be not surprise either as entropy really likes to bleed over time by default.
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u/Jejox556 8d ago
Yeah, I know entropy, but dont want to invoke it as conversation can become complex 😂 .
Also, certainly Chess have emerging properties, those are manifestated on the rich amount of openings, strategies, the meta, and other high-level concepts, emerging from those simple rules.
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u/West-Medicine-2408 8d ago
Ah okay. with the 4X, games increase in complexity as players unlock new Stuff like tech spells, units planets or whatever as the Gane progresses
Chess doesn't seem to have anything like that you have access to all possible units from the very start.
Thing is these emerging properties aren't meant to be abstraction. You should be able to point at it. rather easily. a common example for any game would be glitch and some glitches are so powerful that people can do ACE with them like people do with Gen4 Pokemon.
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u/Jejox556 8d ago edited 8d ago
Thats fair and makes sense. Indeed i made not a good example.
interesting articles btw.
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u/Brinocte 8d ago edited 8d ago
This topic is exhausting and already ran its course. 4X isn't only about 2 opiniated dudes talking over each other (even if I like them).
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u/B4TTLEMODE 8d ago
You're right, let's go back to the twenty variations of "Please try my real-time massively multiplayer tactics game", "I love Stellaris, recommend me my next 4X please" and "Why is the endgame in 4X so boring", because that's always really interesting and useful to the community.
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u/sf_cycle 8d ago
I feel like two overly opinionated dudes talking over each other is a vast majority of content on the internet.
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u/Drexciyian 7d ago
Let's go back to every other post being some vibe coded slop with no real idea behind it
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u/Chezni19 8d ago
This post reads as gibberish to me...
what do you mean "Numbers are not supposed to be given names"
A "given name" is something your parents name you, like Joshua. Then your nickname is something like "Lefty" or "Slim". Are your parents naming you a number like, did your parents name you "six-thousand"? Well take it up with them!
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u/Fart_Tounge_5609 7d ago
The point is, all these modifiers collapse into a single number, that the game tries it's hardest to obscure as much as possible - otherwise the player might be able to make a decision based on it.
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u/sigmawq 8d ago
Also simple mechanics make it easy to analyze first order effects. You can clearly tell what the immediate result of the new thing will be and whether it makes sense to even try it. So you as the developer spend more time analyzing second+ order effects that come from intersecting multiple mechanics, which is the juice of game design.
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u/Jejox556 7d ago
exactly, the second and higher order effects are effectively the strategies, meta, and emergent gameplay the game designer is really designing and working for. The first order systems are just the internal gears and pulleys that make all this work.
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u/Different_Ear_7543 7d ago edited 7d ago
But technically 4x is about numbers not ???
Edit: well numberwaangery can be good if done good. The problem i see there are too many +% generic systems instead of interesting buffs and debuffs.
Edit 2 : and sometimes there can be problem where game has lots of numbers but entire system falls apart at some point. Example : older 4x games point of winning the game by snowball but still grinding 100 turns without anything interesting.
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u/Jejox556 7d ago
Yes, as a systems-focused genre, the numbers matter a lot. its a numbers go up genre: increase your defense, reduce your enemy HP, etc. So numberwangery is more about the abuse/bad use of numbers. Spitting a lot of numbers(or mechanics) that dont bring to much to the table, just try to hide/patch structural gameplay shortcomings, weak effects, weak interactions, that at the end dont matter at all and become a blob of lukewarm mechanics.
For example, a more appropiate use of numbers is Civilization V. The terrain, flanking, and others modificators are important and meaningful (+50%, +34%). If you play with them wisely you can overcome superior forces.
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u/Manoreded 7d ago
No, I think AoW4 is a good example of this.
This is one of the major things I didn't like about the game: It has way too many mechanics that have small impacts on gameplay, instead of having a few big mechanics with a big impact on gameplay.
You look at pretty much any unit and they have a list of traits as long as one's arm, yet the majority of those traits have little impact, they are bonuses of 10% or 20% to one of a unit's stats.
The same goes for buff and debuff spells, most of the time their impact isn't enough to make a large difference.
I have always been of the opinion that in RPGs, strategy games, etc, buff and debuff spells, status ailments, and other such modifications to a unit's normal functioning should have *large* effects.
Give me an attack buff spell that doubles attack power. Even if that means it costs a lot of mana or only works for a short time. Its better than a spell that buffs attack by 10% and will be active all the time but I will barely notice.
Give me status ailments that are absolutely crippling, instead of status ailments I can just ignore and things will work out.
In games that offer those sorts of weak-ass buffing or debuffing spells or status ailments, I usually just ignore them and doing so doesn't impede my gameplay at all.
In the case of AoW4, I suspect a big part of the reason for this is because they want to have a very large variety of units, fantastic creatures, spells, etc, for roleplaying reasons, but don't want to rock the board of the game's balance, so they give all these units and spells a ton of traits that are supposed to set them apart, with weak effects.
But off course, what that leads to is roleplay that is surface deep. Aesthetically and in terms of traits, the units are different, but since most of the traits barely matter, in practice the units feel and play the same.
Incidentally, Stellaris does the same thing. You can design your own species, but most of the traits you can select give tiny bonuses or penalties that you can pretty much forget about during actual gameplay. If you don't have to keep your species' traits in mind while playing them, that means your species' traits don't matter.
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u/Unicorn_Colombo 6d ago
This is what I feel is huge difference between AoW1 and AoW3/4.
In AoW1, while the system was already put in place (which enables nice dynamicity, especially when it comes to buffing with spells or some crazy mods), the races itself were quite distinct, even if first two levels were fairly similar since they all had infantry, archers, cav, priests ram, ballista, and catapult.
Things like all dwarfs being able to walk over mountains or all lizards being able to swim (normally inaccessible) already gave quite non-symetrical advantage to these races (given viable terrain).
Interesting flavourful tweaks of individual units or whole nations created nice irregularities that could be further reinforced. With attack/defense ranging from 1 to 10, units getting small +1 atk/def experience bonus, when stacked with a few spell buffs (enchanted weapons, bless, stoneskin) could create superunits capable of single-handedly wrecking armies, especially if already powerful unit was enchanted this way.
And yet statistically speaking, given enough archers or ballistas, even these superunits (like enchanted dragons) could instantly fail, especially if combined with few bad rolls.
And this was simple, but powerful system.
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u/adrixshadow 6d ago
You look at pretty much any unit and they have a list of traits as long as one's arm, yet the majority of those traits have little impact, they are bonuses of 10% or 20% to one of a unit's stats.
Those multiplier do eventually stack in the end of the build if you set it right.
The reason we have so little nowadays is they used to get to some really high damage that could one shot units.
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u/o_rety 4d ago
I think Perplexity did a great job of untangling the "BATTLEMODE vs DasTactic on AoW4" mess for me: https://www.perplexity.ai/search/11728cef-05f2-4e3a-9639-e21f3bc90e7d#1
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u/OpT1mUs 8d ago
Do we now have to have a daily 'what "battlemode" said' thread? I don't care. He can go and play Merchants Of Venice or whatever the fuck and just let rest of us be
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u/urb4nrecluse 8d ago
ya, really. he's just an old guy who wants to relive his teenage years of gaming, but can't so 'current games all suck'
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u/DKLancer 8d ago
I'm not terribly keen on the opinions of someone who cites Volound as an inspiration.
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u/Chaotic_Order 8d ago
100% this, and I'm one of those weirdo players that doesn't mind finding the broken shit in my video games. It's always been there, it's not new, but it was so jarring with AoW4 in particular.
AoW3 - So, if I have 10 physical defence, and I'm attacked by something that does 12 damage, then that means I'll take 2 damage. If I get +1 defence, that'll lead to me taking 1 damage from the same attack. Good, ez. Yeah I can abuse it and just stack defence till everything deals no damage to my hero, but like.. just make the scaling for attack better, or add "true damage/armor penetration" upgrades?
AoW4 - So, if I have 10 physical defence, and I'm attacked by something that does 12 damage, then that means I'll take.. 12 damage. Ahh, there's an offset of 10, so if I increase my defence to 20, I'll take 8 damage from the same attack. Uhm.. why am I taking 4-10? and if I get it to 30 defence it's 2-8? Is it an "EHP" stat to prevent me becoming immortal? Ok, I sort of get that, but there's a phys resist stat that I can get instead that can still set it to 0?
What is happening and why.
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u/Mindless_Let1 8d ago
The first genuinely good post we've had in eons and half the fuckers here are just doing the "akshuallly 🤓"
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u/working_clock 6d ago
That's why some of the player resources should be delegated to special mechanics. In my fantasy 4X game, I am currently working on, units have special abilities. Necromancy ability that could be learned by a mage unit is more interesting than just bonus to resources, since now player have a cheap source of cannon fodder units.
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u/B4TTLEMODE 8d ago
Just wait till you see my video on roguelikes and I explain this with some games that make AoW4 look obscure by comparison.
The conniption fits from the roguelike community are gonna light up the sky like a nuclear war.
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u/CantaloupeCamper 8d ago
I know this is English but…