Things that still irk me

[TempusFugit]

If somebody thinks that my stance on this is very reactionary, since I am theoretically trying to influence people to “nip it in the bud” before it develops into something and takes gaming a new place, I can also understand that.

Most likely though, if my stance had any effect I would probably be doing the opposite thing.

 

[TempusFugit]

For me it is a great feature in learning / trying out or analyzing situations -- just take back and compare ... (or even for the developers while debugging, sic!)
As a student I played regularly in a chess club in competitive mode and it was absolutely clear, that I might not even touch any piece without consequences. Nevertheless in training we mutually often agreed just to take back dump moves in order to continue a more exciting game or take back several moves and go fully in joined analyzing mode of the position.

I would have no problem with a “training mode”, “debug mode” or “freeform“ mode with such an option. But I wouldn’t like it if this became the standard in the standard playing mode in turn-based strategy games.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Why deny other players the option to use a feature they find (sometimes) useful for their games?

Because human nature means people will be tempted to use it then find their game ruined as they regret it.

If we must have it, and I'd rather we didn't, let it be an option in your .ini file so you need to really want it to have it switched on.

For "what if experiments" we have have quick save and quick load already.

 

[Linklite]

Then they can learn not to cheat. As you've noted, it's not hard to abuse other systems for the worst abuses of an undo. Common culture already is to restart the game a bajillion times until a perfect start is found. It's just a PITA for those who aren't blessed with a great computer to run it on to not have a simple undo button because it takes ages to reload, but the system has so many glitches that it's not like it's even a lesson in "git gud".

Better compromise: it's there as standard, but there's an option for those who find it too tempting to remove it from the screen. Or you just resolve unit movement after ending the turn.

 

[fy00sh]

maybe a good resolution would be to have an undo button as a day one official mod, on platforms that allow mods at least, with it being a menu option for platforms where mods arent a thing. or maybe it counts as its own little mini DLC that is deactivated by default. that would give a way to not feel tempted to the people who would have their enjoyment ruined, while still giving the nice convenience of the undo button to people like me who play the game to execute on a citybuilding plan regardless of fairness to the AI. i dont care about winning because im better at working within the same restrictions as everyone else to achieve a fair victory over my opponent, i care about winning because i came up with a cool plan for where to place this one city to get a high science adjacency campus and im the human player so i get final say-so on whether or not the AI actually ever had that settler in the first place to block my city placement, i get to go back and cheat-menu the settler into nonexistence before continuing. way more convenient than having to wait 5 mins for the game to reload before deleting the settler.
thats just how i manage to find the most enjoyment in this game, and an undo button, even if it could only go back a single turn, would do a lot to boost my enjoyment even further. playing any other way just kinda feels like a slog i guess

 

[InsidiousMage]

The undo button is one of the best features of Old World. Soren Johnson is the one that said players will optimize the fun out of the game yet he put the undo option in his latest game, which I think says something about its necessity. Honestly, its not actually that tempting to use it for anything that doesn't go your way and I mostly use it for misclicks. Having to redo a turn is honestly worse than having the option of undoing something. Its nobody else's fault if someone can't avoid the temptation to undo every do every action until they get the optional outcome.

 

[Linklite]

maybe a good resolution would be to have an undo button as a day one official mod, on platforms that allow mods at least, with it being a menu option for platforms where mods arent a thing. or maybe it counts as its own little mini DLC that is deactivated by default. that would give a way to not feel tempted to the people who would have their enjoyment ruined, while still giving the nice convenience of the undo button to people like me who play the game to execute on a citybuilding plan regardless of fairness to the AI. i dont care about winning because im better at working within the same restrictions as everyone else to achieve a fair victory over my opponent, i care about winning because i came up with a cool plan for where to place this one city to get a high science adjacency campus and im the human player so i get final say-so on whether or not the AI actually ever had that settler in the first place to block my city placement, i get to go back and cheat-menu the settler into nonexistence before continuing. way more convenient than having to wait 5 mins for the game to reload before deleting the settler.
thats just how i manage to find the most enjoyment in this game, and an undo button, even if it could only go back a single turn, would do a lot to boost my enjoyment even further. playing any other way just kinda feels like a slog i guess

Not a mod. The worst offender for making reloads problematic is the Switch due to load times, and you can't get mods for it. A game mode could work, but I think that would make menus messy. I think hiding it in the settings menu alongside the other options like autoend turn etc is fine. It's not hard to get to for those who want to disable it, but it's not cluttering things.

 

[uhu]

Then they can learn not to cheat. [...] Common culture already is to restart the game a bajillion times until a perfect start is found.

Most of civ1 modifications were hexEditor-hacks à la Give gold, Give unit etc ...
Brian 'they can learn not to cheat' Reynolds great answer was to implement the integrated CHEAT MENU in civ2 ...

Despite human nature it helps some people to resist temptations by simply being able to enter said menu and edit almost everything. Demonstrating its futility.

Its nobody else's fault if someone can't avoid the temptation to undo every do every action until they get the optional outcome.

Proposal: two options during SETUP, which are binding for the whole game:
- enable/disable UnDo button
- enable/disable IronMan button: enabled IronMan implies disabled UnDo button && this mode has ONLY 1 valid save file. You can pause and (special) save, but correctly reload only the latest (with the same random numbers).
(GameOfTheMonth-events might demand IronMan mode)

 

[TempusFugit]

Common culture already is to restart the game a bajillion times until a perfect start is found.

Not all players do. But as you say a lot probably do. I think that is a better argument for not giving players this tool, than for giving it to them.

The players who restart a starting location over and over often have, I would guess, a more “perfectionist” approach or mindset when they play this game. So an important question would be if you are not doing them a disfavor, more than a favor, by giving them such a button all throughout the game.

But since I do not have the perfectionist mindset myself, this is pure speculation, and I’m probably not the best person to answer that.

In games in general I often see “perfectionist“ players disliking aspects of games that I like, like random events, information and happenings you can miss, and game mechanics that sways a game into having a less than perfect outcome.

It would probably have been better for me personally if game companies always designed games with a “perfectionist mode” and a ”dynamic mode” so both types of players could be satisfied. But that would probably be too costly and wasteful in most cases.

 

[TempusFugit]

Most of civ1 modifications were hexEditor-hacks à la Give gold, Give unit etc ...
Brian 'they can learn not to cheat' Reynolds great answer was to implement the integrated CHEAT MENU in civ2 ...

Despite human nature it helps some people to resist temptations by simply being able to enter said menu and edit almost everything. Demonstrating its futility.





Proposal: two options during SETUP, which are binding for the whole game:
- enable/disable UnDo button
- enable/disable IronMan button: enabled IronMan implies disabled UnDo button && this mode has ONLY 1 valid save file. You can pause and (special) save, but correctly reload only the latest (with the same random numbers).
(GameOfTheMonth-events might demand IronMan mode)

I would probably not have enabled the IronMan mode in this case, because I like the standard Civ save format making me able to go back and look at the history of my game some times. And I have no problem restraining myself from reloading outcomes I don’t like.

But it is a very good example. IronMan modes are made exactly for the kind of player who would enjoy not being able to reload bad outcomes, or in this case undo, yet who might be tempted to do so if they are not locked into an iron man mode.

On the face of it it sounds a little strange, but I have seen a lot of people online praise iron man modes for making them enjoy games more, or in a new way.

 

[Linklite]

Not all players do. But as you say a lot probably do. I think that is a better argument for not giving players this tool, than for giving it to them.

The players who restart a starting location over and over often have, I would guess, a more “perfectionist” approach or mindset when they play this game. So an important question would be if you are not doing them a disfavor, more than a favor, by giving them such a button all throughout the game.

But since I do not have the perfectionist mindset myself, this is pure speculation, and I’m probably not the best person to answer that.

In games in general I often see “perfectionist“ players disliking aspects of games that I like, like random events, information and happenings you can miss, and game mechanics that sways a game into having a less than perfect outcome.

Personally, it would probably have been better for me if game companies always designed games with a “perfectionist mode” and a ”dynamic mode” so both types of players could be satisfied. But that would have been too costly in most cases.

As I said, it's common culture. Not everyone follows it (I don't) but it happens enough that people accept it and even push back against suggestions that they don't do it if they're finding the game too easy.

My point was that people who "cheat" are going to cheat. The idea that a lot of players have to suffer with problems that would be easily solved by the presence of an undo button because some want to nanny cheaters (or be nannied themselves) is not something I can agree with. I used to always play games on easy mode, until I decided that it was more fun to play on a level playing field - or even with it stacked against me. I would not support removal of difficulty though because it's an important part of fun for many people and it's not their job to put up with a difficult AI just because I had problems selecting more difficult settings. Nor should expert players put up with easy (to them) AI for similar reasons.

I wouldn't mind locking it at the start of the game, if people really insist. Looking at how much sodding time I waste because the game glitches and decides to send my unit halfway across the world despite the fact that I clicked correctly (or perhaps the time I would waste, I just accept the two wasted turns now, I was wasting a substantial amount of precious play time reloading), if they don't include an undo button of some kind, I'll be leaving the franchise because it's just silly. And no, mods are not acceptable. I don't have the time or inclination to mess around with mods just because they can't be bothered to include a quality of life feature.

 

[fy00sh]

Proposal: two options during SETUP, which are binding for the whole game:
- enable/disable UnDo button
- enable/disable IronMan button: enabled IronMan implies disabled UnDo button && this mode has ONLY 1 valid save file. You can pause and (special) save, but correctly reload only the latest (with the same random numbers).
(GameOfTheMonth-events might demand IronMan mode)

i like this implementation. itd just be like two more button presses for me to remember at the beginning of game setup and its elegant. i could see it going near where the options are to disable barbarians and tribal villages

 

[InsidiousMage]

I'm always amazing by the amount of paternalism when people talk about these kinds of mechanics. You can't really trial and error you way through a game like Civ6 the way you can, say. . . a FromSoft game. When you die to a midgame boss you don't have to restart from the beginning of the game, you start from the last checkpoint. Creating a quick save isn't the same thing as an undo button because of the amount of time it takes for each to function, not to mention the amount of steps involved in each. Yeah, I did undo a lot when I started playing Old World because I was still learning the game but know that I'm familiar and comfortable with the game the only time I undo is if I misclick. Its incredibly frustrating going from OW to Civ6 and not having that feature. Having to think about whether or not I want to reload the autosave and redoing part of my turn is, at a minimum, very annoying.

And I always find it hilarious the amount of people who reveal that they would be one of those people who would, in this instance, undo everything until they got the perfect outcome by saying it can't be the game because other, lesser players will abuse the feature, but not them!

 

[Ordnael]

Still no Leader Pass for Nintendo Switch is irking me a lot! Ignoring one of the best selling consoles of all time seems just dumb. I might believe there may exist more CIV players on Android systems than on the NSW but I seriously doubt the IOS install base comes even closer to Nintendo's.

 

[InsidiousMage]

Still no Leader Pass for Nintendo Switch is irking me a lot! Ignoring one of the best selling consoles of all time seems just dumb. I might believe there may exist more CIV players on Android systems than on the NSW but I seriously doubt the IOS install base comes even closer to Nintendo's.

The problem is on Aspyr's end, not Firaxis's and there isn't a lot they can do about it.

 

[Abaxial]

The main point of an undo button should be repairing a "fat finger error". As someone who makes wrong mouse clicks from time to time, I can appreciate that.

 

[VGhost]

The only thing I want an undo button for is when I lose a scout because it was fortified and the interface doesn't notify you that enough barbarians have walked up to kill it in one turn.

Although it would make more sense for fortified units to be "alert" by default as a fix for that.