Discussion on "Undo Button"

[Cacaso]

Hello people, I would like to start a discussion that I think would be important in CIV7.

What is your opinion on the need for an "undo button" in this new game?

I have some experience playing CIV6 and in my personal experience, there are some times when you make a wrong click, you end up moving a unit to the wrong tile and then you need to load your last save and that means the loading time is huge (at least on my humble notebook).
So if there was an "undo button", it would be possible for me to return the last movement that was made wrong, and I wouldn't have to waste all the time loading my last save just to correct it.

In another game, "Old World", this mechanic was implemented in a way that I find interesting. You can reverse the movements you just made just by clicking (it's also possible to go back an entire turn, but in CIV I think it would be a bit exaggerated/like loading)

I know this could have the potential to be used as an exploit. So, to balance it perhaps it could be:
- only the last command performed
- There is a cost in gold to give each undo
- have an undo button that reloads, and then when used it takes about 3 to 5 turns to be enabled again
-only units with a great general on the tile can do this...

I don't know how this could be balanced, but I would like to see this discussion based on your gaming experiences as well.

 

[Sephi]

no need to balance that stuff, just make it single player only and optional.

 

[Willie5000]

Why not? Old World has an undo button and it works great! It’s restricted to the last move a unit makes and it’s pretty good for misclicks.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I'm indifferent, I understand why it exists and it's actually an amazing innovation, but I also don't really care that much about it to have to be needed, I do expect it though, would be surprised if some form of it doesn't show up.

 

[reddishrecue]

Yeah, some mistakes aren't even that critical to undo. You would have to do a bunch of mistakes for it to affect your game.

 

[Leyrann]

Yes, implement it.

And for people who don't want it? Provide an option to disable it. Simple as that. Don't have to play with it if you don't want to, but that's no reason to inconvenience those people who do want it.

 

[Vandlys]

For me it's less about mistakes even and more about unit movement that is displayed incorrectly. Oh you can move that worker along those water tiles, get to where you want to go, and improve that tile. Oh you popped out of the water to take a rest on land and now it's going to take me three to four turns instead of one. Thanks.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Terrible idea in a 4X game, we already have autosaves so you can reload because of an issue - this gives an appropriate time penalty to discourage misuse. I know people think they want it but IMO it would ruin the game for many people.

 

[user330977]

I think there's absolutely no reason not to include it with an option to disable if it the player wants. Old World handled it perfectly and it should be emulated in this game.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[UWHabs]

To me, when it's there, it sort of encourages you to use it. Similar to the "Restart" button, the fact that it's there means sometimes I'll spin up games and reroll until I get the right map that I want to play. If I had to exit out and go back in, re-select my options, I'd use it a lot less.

But at the same time, I do have a difference between the two. While the restart button is basically only useful at the start of a game, it can help you avoid all that setup again, and starting in a map that doesn't make sense for your civ you're playing just can lead to hours of not fun. Having an undo button, it's the sort of thing that you feel you're just going to use more often. I mean, yeah, duh, I'd love to use it when I mis-click, or right click instead of left click. But if it's there, you just know you're going to have a battle that you get the unlucky RNG on, and it's really hard to not use it.

 

[Nikolai II]

Terrible idea in a 4X game, we already have autosaves so you can reload because of an issue - this gives an appropriate time penalty to discourage misuse. I know people think they want it but IMO it would ruin the game for many people.

It works wonderful in Old World, though.

 

[Leyrann]

Terrible idea in a 4X game, we already have autosaves so you can reload because of an issue - this gives an appropriate time penalty to discourage misuse. I know people think they want it but IMO it would ruin the game for many people.

First, who cares about "misuse" in a single-player game (and yes you could separately restrict it for multiplayer)?

Second, if you don't like it, just turn it off.

 

[Dale]

Terrible idea in a 4X game, we already have autosaves so you can reload because of an issue - this gives an appropriate time penalty to discourage misuse. I know people think they want it but IMO it would ruin the game for many people.

Reload has never discouraged misuse. All it does is annoy the player having to wait for all that reload time. How is reloading any different to using undo? All undo does, is provide a quality-of-life improvement in that you don't have to wait all that reload time and keeps the momentum of the game going.

In Old World, there is no true RNG. Things are based on predictive seeds. Thus, if you undo and redo, you will get an identical outcome each time. You can't combat scum using undo, you'll get the same result each time (yes, I know you can do actions in a different order to try to change the seed, but in most cases this won't change the outcome). In Old World, there are also game options to disable undo, and even a hardcore mode that includes a hash in the save to stop save edits too. Also just to note that undo in Old World has been universally received very well, and very appreciated by players (see reviews, both critic and player).

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Yes, implement it.

And for people who don't want it? Provide an option to disable it. Simple as that. Don't have to play with it if you don't want to, but that's no reason to inconvenience those people who do want it.

You don't even need an option, simply.. don't use it.

 

[TempusFugit]

I am against it. I would have no problem at all with not using it myself, but it would lead to more people playing Civ in a "perfectionist" way, where they reload bad outcomes instead of continuing on. A lot of the Civ veterans here already have a set opinion on how they use such features. They already know how they like to play their games, whether that includes reloading bad outcomes if they feel like it, in certain circumstances, or not at all. But the Civ series is also played by a lot of other people, some who are new to the genre and some who have played for a long time, but have never reflected on if playing a game in a different way gives them more enjoyment. These people are much more susceptible to extensively using an undo button if it is turned on by default.

Some people, not necessarily in this thread, seems to believe that adding an option for players in a game can never be bad for the gameplay, as it is just an option that you can turn off. But that is incredibly naive. Deciding what players can and can't do is a fundamental part of game design, and just because games increasingly have given players more and more options, that doesn't mean that this fact have changed.

How you present those options also makes a big difference. Standard settings will be interpreted as the default way to play a game as the designers intended, and other settings somewhat less so. Having an option to reload a game is also interpreted in a very different way culturally than using an undo button. Reloading a game is understood by many players as a "semi-cheat" button. Which is, you don't cheat technically, as it a part of the game design, but reloading usually allows you to bypass most game mechanics at will, so it works in a similar way. An undo button is something everyone is already familiar with from word processors and other productive software. In those applications it is a very helpful tool that you would be "dumb" not to use. This interpretation will likely continue on when players encounters undo buttons in strategy games, so many players will think that undoing bad outcomes when you feel like it, is the way that the game is designed to be played.

Why do I care, when I'm not going to use this option myself?

First I care about how much enjoyment other people get out of their games since I enjoy playing games myself. This is very similar to how me and other music fans love to try to get other people to enjoy the same bands that we enjoy ourselves. It is both a selfish and semi-altruistic thing. I believe that there are certain ways of playing games that give the majority of players more enjoyment. And since not everyone is equally conscious of what gives them the most enjoyment, it makes sense to talk about it. Even people like me who have thought about these things a lot, can still learn plenty from other people by talking about it. Saying that some ways of playing games are better than others, is looked down upon as parernalistic in gaming circles. And not without reason, because there has been a lot of toxicity and unpleasant behavior by people who are convinced that the way they play games are better than others. Some people enjoy belittling other people and use such gaming disucssions as a tool for that. So obviously if you are going to discuss what you think are better ways of playing games with others, you should be respectful towards those who have different views and preferences. But while gaming discourse can stoop really low, we are also fully capable of being kind and civilized, so this restraint against discussing what are the most enjoyable ways to play isn't needed.

Secondly I care about the undo button in this game and others, because I fear that it could have a negative consequence for other aspects of game design in the strategy games I like so much. This is of course pure speculation, but if playing with an undo button and using it when you feel like it gradually becomes more and more popular, so that a large majority of players play this way, this could cause many strategy games to be designed in a different way. And intuitively, I suspect that these changes would make these games worse. (According to my preferences for game design.) There are a lot of if's here, so it obviously can't be taken for granted, but it does not seem like an unrealistic outcome to me.

I would prefer that an undo button was not included with Civ 7 at all. But, if such a button is included, I would strongly prefer that it is not turned on by default, but instead something you have to turn on yourself. This sends a message to the players that this is not necessarily the way the game is intended to be played, but that you can do it if you want to.

 

[Krajzen]

I'd support it, since I suspect even if my laptop is going to handle civ7 well it's still going to suffer from painful loading times, and I hate stupid accidental mistakes and bugs and having to reload and reload, or not being sure what exactly does an action do (or what are the consequences) and having to save check and reload. With this feature I could also quickly compare for example stuff like "policy option A vs policy option B - which shall give me higher yield?" without bothering with pen and paper.

Like people above me say, you can't savescum combat rolls if the random rolls don't change on reload - it is even an option already in civ5.

It does remove certain level of weight from "my click shall decide whether my scout encounters barbarians in the fog of war", but as long as we can only reload the preceding click, not the entire turn, I don't think it enables truly heinous savescumming, as you can't reverse your bad decisions except immediately after making them - and most bad decisions don't become apparent after some time...

 

[TempusFugit]

Reload has never discouraged misuse. All it does is annoy the player having to wait for all that reload time. How is reloading any different to using undo? All undo does, is provide a quality-of-life improvement in that you don't have to wait all that reload time and keeps the momentum of the game going.

Reload has never discouraged misuse, it has of course encouraged it. But it also has given game players a huge and important "quality of life" feature. In sum it is a very positive addition to the evolution of computer games. What has discouraged misuse of the reload feature, is the discourse and culture that has evolved alongside it.The idea that using the reload feature to reload unpleasant outcomes is a "cheat" or shortcut that can deprive you of other things, is an idea that is not necessarily apparent to a new player that is trying out all the buttons and options given to you in a game.

An undo button is very similar to reloading a game in some respects, but how things are presented to the player and how the players interpret it, matters a great deal. In Civ 2, you are given a cheat button with cheat options at the top in the same bar as buttons for the Civilopedia and "orders". Technically it works much the same way as the other buttons and options you have there, but the fact that it is called "cheat", discourages its use, and makes it clear that it is not the intended way to play. (But that you can do it if you want to.)

Similarly, an undo button does not present itself to the player in the same way that a "load" button does. In gaming this is to my knowledge a recent concept. So the way it will be interpreted by a lot of players will be colored by the way the undo button is used in work and production applications. Some of the ideas and discourse around reloading save games will of course be extended to the undo feature as well, as it is here in this discussion, but giving players a clearly visible undo tool within the game, as opposed to having to abort the game and reload it to "undo", are two very different things.

The practical ramifications of removing the reload time is also a double-edged helping hand. On the one edge it is a lesser "quality of life" improvement as you say, but on the other, it also makes it much easier for those who are on the fence, or who likes to reload, to do it a lot, which also has negative consequences for them. For example it enables players who have a proclivity for a perfectionist playing style, to take that perfectionism much further. Whether a perfectionist playing style is something good or bad for those who have it, is a bit of a contentious topic in gaming circles, but what is clear is that enabling an undo feature in game is not as "neutral" as you make it out to be. Enabling it in a game has consequences beyond redoing misclicks and saving time.

 

[Quintillus]

I was a skeptic of the concept until I experienced it in Old World. Now I'm a convert.

It's a quality of life feature to me. Earlier today I mis-clicked the neighboring tile when ordering my Cavalry to advance, well, there's a wasted turn. I thought about reloading but it wasn't worth the load time and redoing the earlier actions on that turn. It would have been an easy undo and send it to the neighboring tile again. And I've been misclicking on tiles in Civ for 20 years now. Usually it's not a big deal, sometimes it has larger implications, it never adds to the enjoyment.

I can see having options for multiple levels of it. Full undo? Movement undo but not combat undo? Even allowing it in multiplayer could be okay in some cases; I typically play with IRL friends, and a "movement undo but not combat undo" would likely be something we'd both appreciate. The policy card undo is also an interesting idea, although I'd probably appreciate a "preview of effects" mode even more. There is a mod that adds more or less that, showing e.g. how much commerce you'll gain from switching to a particular policy, but it would be nice if something like that were included in the game.

 

[Dale]

Reload has never discouraged misuse, it has of course encouraged it. But it also has given game players a huge and important "quality of life" feature. In sum it is a very positive addition to the evolution of computer games. What has discouraged misuse of the reload feature, is the discourse and culture that has evolved alongside it.The idea that using the reload feature to reload unpleasant outcomes is a "cheat" or shortcut that can deprive you of other things, is an idea that is not necessarily apparent to a new player that is trying out all the buttons and options given to you in a game.

An undo button is very similar to reloading a game in some respects, but how things are presented to the player and how the players interpret it, matters a great deal. In Civ 2, you are given a cheat button with cheat options at the top in the same bar as buttons for the Civilopedia and "orders". Technically it works much the same way as the other buttons and options you have there, but the fact that it is called "cheat", discourages its use, and makes it clear that it is not the intended way to play. (But that you can do it if you want to.)

Similarly, an undo button does not present itself to the player in the same way that a "load" button does. In gaming this is to my knowledge a recent concept. So the way it will be interpreted by a lot of players will be colored by the way the undo button is used in work and production applications. Some of the ideas and discourse around reloading save games will of course be extended to the undo feature as well, as it is here in this discussion, but giving players a clearly visible undo tool within the game, as opposed to having to abort the game and reload it to "undo", are two very different things.

The practical ramifications of removing the reload time is also a double-edged helping hand. On the one edge it is a lesser "quality of life" improvement as you say, but on the other, it also makes it much easier for those who are on the fence, or who likes to reload, to do it a lot, which also has negative consequences for them. For example it enables players who have a proclivity for a perfectionist playing style, to take that perfectionism much further. Whether a perfectionist playing style is something good or bad for those who have it, is a bit of a contentious topic in gaming circles, but what is clear is that enabling an undo feature in game is not as "neutral" as you make it out to be. Enabling it in a game has consequences beyond redoing misclicks and saving time.

At the end of the day, how does me using an undo button in what is essentially a single player game, affect you?

It doesn't.

How does me using an undo button in what is essentially a single player game, affect ME?

It has numerous positives effects, and no negative effects.

So if my enjoyment of the game increases, and encourages me to play more due to less frustration with the game itself and how I want to play it, who are you to say what others will think, feel, or interpret it as?

 

[canadamufc]

Unequivocally against such an idea.