How can I make a strategy game where you get emotionally attached to your hero units? The theme (as with most of my games) is space warfare, so the hero units are large capital ships. The genre is RTS or TBS; I have yet to make a determination on that matter. Obviously, there is going to be an immense strategic value to the units, but I want a reaction more of grief than anger when one of them goes down, and a relief when you save it from near destruction, etc. Some people have suggested giving the units personality, but that's hard to build, and players might get sick of reading/hearing the same dialog every time the same event happens. I was considering persistent hero units that are rarely destroyed and are not win conditions, but I don't know for sure how I would go about doing that either. Also , persistent units would require files saved somewhere, and to prevent them from being hacked, they might need to be encrypted and/or stored on a server somewhere. I also thought about making each individual crewmember, pilot, etc. have value, and act like real humans, but that'd be hard, and would lead to micromanagement where possible. I don't like to make games that require tons of micromanagement, mainly because I myself suck at it. Also, if I decide to make this turn-based, it would mean long turns and boredom for the off-player. Does anyone have any suggestions for how this might be done?

If you want grief rather than anger when something is destroyed, you need to make it militarily useless. The player is angry when a military unit is destroyed because it saps his military strength. Grief is an emotion borne of empathy, not financial loss.

Quote:

Original post by Sneftel If you want grief rather than anger when something is destroyed, you need to make it militarily useless. The player is angry when a military unit is destroyed because it saps his military strength. Grief is an emotion borne of empathy, not financial loss.

While true in most regards, I was saddened when I lost certain units while playing X-COM.

The general idea is to have the player make an emotional bond with the units. I don't know the best way to go about doing that, but I think having achievements associated with individual units might work. For instance, promotions after achieving some goal, or something, could make the unit more memorable. This would make them stand out and perhaps make the player feel like they've been through something with the unit.

Edit: I guess I should have read your post more closely. Your units are already "hero" units, so I don't know if what I said is really relevant, since such a system would already be in place. What I said was more reliant on having certain individuals stand out against many, not trying to make one individual stand out more.

I guess the registering process somehow made me completely miss your entire post. Ha.

Quote:

Original post by Aken H Bosch Obviously, there is going to be an immense strategic value to the units, but I want a reaction more of grief than anger when one of them goes down, and a relief when you save it from near destruction, etc. Some people have suggested giving the units personality, but that's hard to build, and players might get sick of reading/hearing the same dialog every time the same event happens.

If you want players to grieve over units, then give them personality and maybe make them persist between missions. I think the major problem here is asset production, namely writing dialogue, drawing art, and maybe getting voice acting for those units. You'll need quite a bit in order for it not to appear annoying, I think, but personality seems like the most obvious and most important way to build personal attachment. People care about great characters, especially flawed ones, and character design is a relatively well-understood discipline (and one with much room for creativity).

Quote:

I was considering persistent hero units that are rarely destroyed and are not win conditions, but I don't know for sure how I would go about doing that either. Also , persistent units would require files saved somewhere, and to prevent them from being hacked, they might need to be encrypted and/or stored on a server somewhere.

Well, if it's a single-player game, it will get hacked no matter what you do, as long as someone wants to do it. I wouldn't waste time on encryption too much. If it's an MMO-type, or even something on the scale of Diablo, you could store them on the server. For a LAN game, you'll have to end up trusting someone unless you still want to go the central server route. You could potentially designate a server as semi-persistent ie. Players A and B regularly play together via server installation on computer C, and only those units stored on computer C are permissible so only owner of C (probably either player A or B) can easily hack it. Or you could just trust your players to sort out the cheaters themselves. Or make the persistence only last as long as the gameplay session. If you can afford to host a server though, it would seem that storing that kind of data centrally is the best route.

Quote:

I also thought about making each individual crewmember, pilot, etc. have value, and act like real humans, but that'd be hard, and would lead to micromanagement where possible. I don't like to make games that require tons of micromanagement, mainly because I myself suck at it. Also, if I decide to make this turn-based, it would mean long turns and boredom for the off-player.

You could look at the Battlecruiser series to see how this works (or does not work, more often as not). I'd say if you micromanage crew members to such an extent you won't have much time left for the game, even if their routines are largely automatic. Plus, You Ain't Gonna Need It, most likely, but that depends on your design. There might be ways to make it fun.

Quote:

Original post by tstrimp I was saddened when I lost certain units while playing X-COM.

I was too, especially since I named them all after people I knew. The ability to name units is probably the cheapest way, resource-wise, of creating emotional attachment. It won't work too well in a story-heavy setting, but it should be viable in an RTS/TBS.


[Edited by - lightbringer on March 27, 2008 3:58:23 PM]

I'm thinking now it might be possible to do something where you control only a small number of ships, and you have to manage them... everything would have experience that they could gain, and you'd have to invest time and resources into them, so that you get that "I put so much work into that" feel. Not quite the same, though.

Any more ideas?

Then how about a situation where each of those big ships has, say, an officer crew, each uniquely named, who have experience levels, various training backgrounds/perks than enhance the unit's or the fleet's abilities, and who might occasionally communicate with the player? You could shuffle them around / assign their roles like "Weapons Control" or "Navigation" yourself based on their skills.

The thing is, I think that might go much more into the "anger when lost" direction, as opposed to the "sadness when lost" direction.

Radio chatter goes a long way towards it. If someone has been talking and joking with everyone for the past 10 hours of your game, and then you hear their screams as they die...well, I think you get the picture.

I think that to make players grieve their units, they must have a way to identify and remember those specific units that did something special. This can go with giving a name to the unit or to a group of units, or keeping statistics on the heroic acts of the units (for example, the number of enemies destroyed). I suppose that it could also work by giving specific ranks to some units that have been particularly efficient in combat, so that they stand out.

For example, I would feel a burst of pride, seeing the message "Destroyer Commander of the 3rd Squadron has destroyed the enemy mothership, adding the total number of killings to 138 at a total of $15B destroyed enemy value". To me, it means that the highest ranked ship (say) of a special group that I called this way after they survived an important battle, has made another kill, and has a great record of success. In the same way, loosing this ship would be a real disaster and really sadden me, more than the lost of a perfectly equivalent ship that's just been out of my factories and does not have the history attached to it.

Funnily enough, I gave some names to some of my special trains in Transport Tycoon (one was the Transcontinental, going through the whole map North to South, ah, the memories...), often followed them just to admire them, and I felt real sadness when I had to upgrade the good old train that brought me so much with a newer version... that I would then regret the upgrade after :) But maybe I am too sentimental?

Quote:

Original post by tstrimp Quote: Original post by Sneftel If you want grief rather than anger when something is destroyed, you need to make it militarily useless. The player is angry when a military unit is destroyed because it saps his military strength. Grief is an emotion borne of empathy, not financial loss. While true in most regards, I was saddened when I lost certain units while playing X-COM.

Oddly enough, I had the exact opposite experience playing X-Com. Your troopers were so fragile and non-differentiated in any way that I didn't care really at all if they died (which they very often did).