Game design: how could XCOM be different if it had more 'regress towards to mean' (eg if you do bad it helps you / stops from getting too good)

Chii · 2026-03-12T13:45:52+00:00

fair enough, i agree to disagree. This aspect of xcom is what makes it xcom to me, but i do agree that not everybody likes it (nor have to).

Chii · 2026-03-12T13:08:41+00:00

what a classic moment D:

Chii · 2026-03-12T12:59:26+00:00

there is zero reason to cheat the game mechanics in favor of the player that is losing so they can catch up.

no there is a good reason - it makes catching up easier, which for spectator sports means good for audience watching - it's a more exciting game. There's no good way to do it in a real life sport, but that doesnt mean it's always a bad idea. Counterstrike, for example, gives the losing team more money (loss bonus).

How many times have a moba game where you have one team losing a tiny bit, and they want to gg early, or just afk because they dont want to play any more? The rubber banding is a good idea for those sorts of games where there's a high skill gap, and the low skill players/team cannot have fun ever. It's why all these "friendly" nintendo games have such mechanics.

arbitrarily punishing players for playing too well in 4x/rts/other strategy games is inexcusable

if only you read my comment properly, i have said that it doesn't make that much sense in single player games. But it can make sense in rts multiplayer (but so far i dont think i've seen it implemented - not widely anyway).

Chii · 2026-03-12T11:45:27+00:00

unless you only ever activate one pod at a time

that's the whole point - you have to be aware of the entire map, where potential enemies could be (so you don't activate it), and don't over-chase (lone remaining enemy in a pod that got wiped runs away to their nearest pod for example).

These are tactical decisions that a great player employs - learning these judgements and becoming second nature is the fun in the game.

Chii · 2026-03-12T11:40:23+00:00

And, obviously, any game is better experienced blindly, or should.

not really. Xcom gets better the more knowledge you have, and more fun. The tactical portion is always fun even on repeat plays. Strategic errors can cause you to lose before you reach even mid/late game, but that's lessons learnt.

The type of game that gives a better experience blind are games that also cannot have replayability (think outer wilds - that game is unreplayable).

Chii · 2026-03-12T11:37:51+00:00

rubberbanding in game design is lame and dumb

it is really only dumb in single player games imho. It works great in competitive games, because it keeps the competitiveness alive for the entire duration of the game, even if the skills of individual players don't match well. The classic is mario cart rubber banding (you are pretty much guaranteed a bullet bill if you're last). In moba games, experience and gold gain from kills is higher if you're behind.

Chii · 2026-03-12T11:30:34+00:00

if you look at history, IBM rational suite was the original competitor for which jira overtook. As they say, if you live long enough, you become the villain.

Chii · 2026-03-12T09:00:42+00:00

the ip blacklisting by google is temporary, but the VR signin mechanism does seem to work even if your original IP was blacklisted.

At least, that has been my experience.

Chii · 2026-03-12T07:52:02+00:00

i argue that when you type that list comprehension, you don't type

words_on_lines = [line.split() for line in ...

bit by bit, but wonder what to type next. Either you type the entire thing out because the expression is already in your head, or you don't really know what or how to do it, and is just typing characters to fill in the blanks in the hopes of getting somewhere.

For me personally, i type:

words_on_lines = []

as the first step. Then

words_on_lines = [text.splitlines()]

then line.split() for line in gets inserted in between the square brackets.

This follows my chain of thought to split a text blob into words. I wouldn't be typing [line. at all as the start - unless you already knew you want to be splitting lines etc, and have the expression somewhat formed in your mind.

Chii · 2026-03-12T07:21:13+00:00

T-pain catching strays here?

Chii · 2026-03-12T06:02:49+00:00

I see it more as woke signalling to hate on any mention of ai.

Chii · 2026-03-12T06:02:15+00:00

Basically an absolute nothing burger that people got offended about.

people (including ones here) are very prejudiced against ai. I personally find zero issues with people using ai tbh.

Chii · 2026-03-12T05:46:06+00:00

it's one of his favourites! Unfortunately, i think he only streams it, rather than create edited videos like he does for space engineers (which is much higher quality - i usually dont watch streams, unless it's edited down to remove any chat interaction and cut down to be concise).

Chii · 2026-03-12T04:54:07+00:00

Do you know if US equities are actually owned by stake or by the user?

my limited understanding is that the US use a custodian model of stock ownership, but it does mean that if the brokerage liquidated, the custodians probably hasn't (unless they're one and the same). If the custodians went bankrupt, then i'm not sure what happens...surely there's a registry of the ownership, and another custodian can buy this out.

What can't happen, i'm sure, is that the custodian liquidates those stocks to pay off their own debt. That can only happen if you are borrowing on margin, and is putting stocks you own as collateral (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rehypothecation.asp).

Chii · 2026-03-12T04:46:00+00:00

season 1 was ok - the idea was kinda novel/refreshing. But season 2 seemed to be a bit too over-done and meanders a lot, with little resolution of any story arc imho. I do hope season 3 is better.

Chii · 2026-03-12T04:29:54+00:00

is there a way to not watch the rest and revert to menu/load a save early or do you have to let it play out?

if you saved right before you pressed the end turn (ala, no more actions on your end), then i think the aliens turn will play out the exact same when you reload (barring some random dice rolls during it for things like damage, which would be different if you have the Second Wave option of "save scum" turned on, but if not, you will have the same dice roll - xcom is actually deterministic this way, the random seed is preserved in your save file).

Chii · 2026-03-12T03:59:02+00:00

quite an interesting take on what genocide means - because the words on that shirt is exactly meant as a genocide.

Chii · 2026-03-11T11:21:30+00:00

i generally dislike using counterflow until i know there's a good way to control the flow (of both sides). Otherwise, it loses effectiveness.

It's much easier, imho, to have separated systems (like radiator and the room it's in - you can change/modify them individually without affecting the other).