GameDesign - Informed vs. Uninformed decisions in game

I think the key here is distinguishing between what we can and can't actually control.

For example, seeing what voucher we would get from a jewelry order wouldn't change the fact that we have no control over how often that specific voucher turns up. If the ratio for vouchers is, for example, 4/3/2/1 from green/blue/purple/gold, the gold voucher is still only turning up 1/10 times, and the times it does turn up it's going to be exciting still.

Same with boats, gold vouchers will turn up at exactly the same rate- and they're actually more exciting this way, because you have the anticipation of filling the boat and knowing there's a good prize at the end.

This adds more strategy too, since the value of the voucher is a known quantity now, and factors into whether the boat is worth it. Normally, I'd send away cream/sugar boats, but if I see there's a gold voucher at the end- I might be more likely to fill it. The randomness is totally in effect still, since I have to wait 4 hours between boats even if I send them away all the time. This won't suddenly create a glut of gold vouchers, but it would reduce a lot of frustration.

The town is a similar story. If bricks only show up 1/20 visitors, that ratio will not change. But if the guy who wants to see beach café/spa/B&B is offering a brick, I might send him through- even though he wants a ton of ♥♥♥♥. Or alternatively, seeing what they want BEFORE they go into a shop- it's still random, you have no control over what they want- you can just see it before you commit to them.

I think people are missing the point between getting rid of the randomness, and making the randomness a little more transparent so you can see what's going to happen before you make a decision. The chests and fishing are absolutely fine, getting materials through your farm needs no change, but boat/truck orders could definitely benefit from the vouchers being transparent IMO, and possibly the town could be a little more transparent too.

To finish with an analogy- what most people are seeing with this idea is a game of poker where you can see ALL the cards (which would be boring as anything). What the game is currently is a game of poker where you can't even see your own cards. I'm recommending opening it up enough so you can see your own cards, giving you a little more control over what's going on whilst keeping the randomness a strong factor.

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Originally Posted by alcibiades

Excuse me, but this to me is just hyperbole. There are certainly times where I also have been willing to trade for a Mallet or even an Axe, but not anything. I bet that goes for you also - otherwise, please add me as your GC friend so we can trade some more ... .

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I'm sorry but I rarely if ever speak hyperbole. I have Aspergers. I say what I mean and mean what I say. My family says I am wysiwyg. The most valuable item in this game is diamonds and I have hired Tom just for axes. Or saws, or mallets. And since I really hate being tied to Tom, it takes a lot for me to hire him. I've traded bolts for axes and deeds for mallets. So I stand by my statement.

My point was that people assume that what is valuable to you is valuable to me and what you deem useless I should deem as useless also. Just because you can't stand to get yet another axe, doesn't mean I don't want one. People were complaining like crazy that they were getting more BEM and SEM than TEM when the town first arrived. Now I have more blasted tar buckets than eggs . As soon as my kid gets her last building, I will be happy not to see another TEM until the next update. I am glad we get SEM and BEM in the town because to me a bigger barn or silo is more valuable than all the maps needed to expand the town. And that's not hyperbole either. I have room for all the buildings in the town without using a single map to expand. Yet everyone is crying because maps are hard to come by. And they want SC to change the game to suit them. I am glad it is the way it is. That way everyone has the chance to get what they want eventually.

My CG ID is always in my signature. But I only trade with my long time barn buddies.

Hi

What would you think if we only could see one of the 3 products of the next boat order, and we had to fill them all to see the next product needed, and then fill all the second product crates to see the final one?. That's the feeling I get from the townies that arrive at my town by the express train.

Before building the Beach Café, I always served all the townies, even the ones who asked for raw ingredients (and I don't fill any boat who asks for dairy, sugars, jams, lobster tails or fish fillets, and only do crop and jewelry truck orders). But I liked the town, and I was happy to sell them all my premium items.

But now almost half the visitors that I get want to go to three buildings, and most of them ask for 3 different kind of products in at least one building.

I don't mind not knowing the final prize that I'll receive, but I really would like to know all the items required before serving a townie.

That's why, after not serving any townies at all for 2 days out of frustration (and to give myself time to restock), I'm currently dismissing every townie that I get from every express train, and only serving the ones I can pick up using my personal train.

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Originally Posted by betantx

Hi

That's why, after not serving any townies at all for 2 days out of frustration (and to give myself time to restock), I'm currently dismissing every townie that I get from every express train, and only serving the ones I can pick up using my personal train.

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i am also on a restocking break and have totally changed my strategy. I'm generally filling only BnB and spa. So I pick regular train orders that go to those 2 and 1 more only and send the townie to the other one first. If I don't like the order there I send them off. I am in no hurry to change back to filling all orders and may never do so!! Slower accumulation of rps but not by much since the BnB and spa have the most rps by far.

I would be be totally bored if things were less random.

Thanx for you input Dysdave, I'm glad at least I'm not the only number-crasher or whatever it is we are, in the game. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Tiggerr129

The most valuable item in this game is diamonds and I have hired Tom just for axes. Or saws, or mallets. And since I really hate being tied to Tom, it takes a lot for me to hire him. I've traded bolts for axes and deeds for mallets. So I stand by my statement.

My point was that people assume that what is valuable to you is valuable to me and what you deem useless I should deem as useless also. Just because you can't stand to get yet another axe, doesn't mean I don't want one. (...) I am glad it is the way it is. That way everyone has the chance to get what they want eventually.

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Good for you that you are glad with the way things are - however, there's no reason to assume things would be worse or you couldn't play game you changed it if some aspects were changed. In fact, if you don't want maps, knowing which visitors gave maps would allow you to turn those away and allocate your resources to the ones giving axes, which would from an pure gain/loss perspective also be a benefit for you.

I fully accept that we disagree on this, so I'm not going to continue this discussion with the intention of turning you over to my point of view, but I just want to point out that what you say about different items being of different value to different persons exactly supports the ideas I'm promoting. I'm not saying we should get more of one specific item (which happens to be the one I want), I'm saying we should be able to know what we get. You say diamonds is the most valuable resource in the game, but again, that is situational - clearly, when you used diamonds to hire Tom to get you axes, you made an (informed!) decision that you valued axes more than the diamonds in this situation. And to continue the poker analogy, would you have done the same if Tom could only bring a random subset of items which you didn't happen to know in advance - and would you have found it funny if you did hire Tom, and then axes happened not to be on the list? But then again, maybe you would if you like to gamble, and I guess that's fine and just the difference between the ways we like to play.

I think this is all about how much you want to control things or not. I have been called a control freak by some people, so I can understand very well why some of you want to know what those customers will bring before starting to serve them.

Still, I think it's part of the charm of this game that some things can be controlled and others can't. Trying to control as much as you can, thinking ahead and organising, assessing the risks and acting accordingly, that's the brain excercise. On the other side, going with the mood of the moment, choosing a customer just because you like the character, investing your gift cards in a mystery package or not, and breaking your own rules, just because you feel like it, that's the light hearted, irrational part of this game. Fun, even to me. I would never invest any real money in a game of fortune in real life. But investing some pizza in a customer in my Hayday town? Or filling a dairy boat, just because it kind of looks like it could bring a golden voucher? :D

No, I don't think we should change the balance between control and random in this game. Supercell has done a great job in making a VERY addictive game. Wouldn't dare to presume we could do better.

happy farming
Greebie

There were times I wished I could know what voucher/town gift it will be before I invest my products. But little by little, I find myself enjoying the "suprises" very much. Now I can say in definite tone that I prefer the way it is now. Judging by the responses in this thread, I think majority of players believe in the same. So I'm not worried that SC will make a change :o

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Originally Posted by alcibiades

No, I'm not going against randomness. I'm fine with town visitors offering a random item.

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You are fine with visitors offering random items but not red lock boxes? That rationale is completely devoid of logic. Going back to your original list of uninformed decisions or 'random aspects of game that frustrate you':

Here's a list of notable uninformed decisions in HayDay:

• Not knowing what gift we will get from town customers
• Not knowing what items they will want in the second and/or third store when deciding whether to fill their request in first store
• Not knowing what voucher we will get from filling jewelry or bar truck orders
• Not knowing what voucher we will get from filling boat completely
• Not knowing what personal reward goals are when doing events
• Not knowing what kind of fish that bites the lure (while some can be recognized by size/behaviour/habitat, many can't)
• Not knowing what items hide in locked red chests

You might notice here that the first bullet point is something you have said you are fine with. My question to you would then be how come all the others included on the list are an issue? The OP is simply a post against random events that you have thus far been unable to research or find a pattern in so that you may forecast the eventual output. That is a random event, plain and simple.

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Originally Posted by maxell

You are fine with visitors offering random items but not red lock boxes? That rationale is completely devoid of logic. Going back to your original list of uninformed decisions or 'random aspects of game that frustrate you':

Here's a list of notable uninformed decisions in HayDay:

• Not knowing what gift we will get from town customers
• Not knowing what items they will want in the second and/or third store when deciding whether to fill their request in first store
• Not knowing what voucher we will get from filling jewelry or bar truck orders
• Not knowing what voucher we will get from filling boat completely
• Not knowing what personal reward goals are when doing events
• Not knowing what kind of fish that bites the lure (while some can be recognized by size/behaviour/habitat, many can't)
• Not knowing what items hide in locked red chests

You might notice here that the first bullet point is something you have said you are fine with. My question to you would then be how come all the others included on the list are an issue? The OP is simply a post against random events that you have thus far been unable to research or find a pattern in so that you may forecast the eventual output. That is a random event, plain and simple.

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First of all, you clearly have not understood the difference between uninformed and random. Those are not the same thing, as I tried to explain in OP, and like Dysdave did a perhaps better job than me at explaining further up on this page. I'm fine with customers giving random items, but I don't want to be uninformed about what I get - i.e. I want to know in advance what item they will give. Secondly, I never said every item on the list needs to be addressed, but I did list them as options, and as such I'm open for discussion of them.

Thirdly, the reason I drag red boxes into this discussion - and that is partially a detour from the original topic, but none-the-less connected, and since you bring it up, let me elaborate - is because red boxes is one of several game features that we could call dummy features - by which I means features that are there but don't serve the purpose they are put there for, or in the case of red boxes only do it partially. The red box has a dual function:

• It can be unlocked, in which case it gives you its content for free
• It can be locked, in which case you can choose to spend an amount of diamonds (currently 3) to open it

The first function obviously is fine - it's mana from heaven, no complaints about that. However, the second function is essentially useles because no-body in their right mind (who is just remotely familiar with the game) will ever use 3 diamonds to open a box whoes content you don't know, simply because there is an overwhelming chance of the content not matching the value of 3 diamonds and/or the content being something you don't have particular need of at that time.

The red box is not the only game feature that suffers from this issue - the daily "deal" offer in the paper and the rush function on most items suffer from similar issues, because who would ever pay 40 diamonds to rush one cherry juice or pay 3 diamonds to get 5 dynamite when you can just pay 15 diamonds and hire Tom for the day which will give you a much better returns in term of diamond spent per item?

Now one can speculate why SuperCell designed these game features the way they are. As I see it, there are only two logical explanations:

1. They designed them like that in order to trick new or unknowing players into spending diamonds in a bad way, or to get people to spend diamonds accidentally from mis-clicks
2. They designed them like that because they assumed balance would be different than it actually turned out to be and thought these choices would make sense in game

Now I can't prove which of these explanations are correct. If option 1 is the case, I hope they will at some point realize that tricking people into using "money" (in this case: Diamonds) may give you a profit on short term but will on long term give you dissatisfied users and thereby less profit. The fact that we did get a diamond confirmation button (even though it did take about a year and a half too long) at least seems to point in the right direction. Now I hope option 2 is the correct answer - after all, most of these features remain unchanged since they were introduced, and let's face it, game has changed a lot since then, so many features wouldn't do bad with a general check-up and tweaking.

So returning to my OP discussion about red boxes, the intend of what I wrote was to offer an outline of how one could make the second option of their function meaningful, and here my suggestion tied into the discussion of informed choices. If we knew what the box contained, and if the price of opening the box was reasonable (whatever that is), we might actually opt for paying diamonds to get the content every now and then. I'm not saying it has to be like that - one could change red boxes in other ways, or one could leave them like they are, but from a game-design point of view (and in my personal oppinion), having a game feature that is - conciously or unconciously - designed in a way so that it is not used, or only partially used, is bad game design, and something that should be adressed.

Can I just check that I have your definitions correct?

Something is random if it is generated by a random number generator and it is informed if you know the outcome in advance. So:
If each townie only gave a specific item (eg the teacher gave bricks, the strongman maps) this would be non-random and informed.
If each townie could still bring a range of items, but you could see what they had when they got to the station, this would be random and informed.
The current system is random (because each townie can bring a range of items) and uninformed (because we don't know the outcome before we try to serve them).

I tend to agree with those who suggest that having things somewhere between completely random and completely predetermined and giving partial information is the way to go. I think fishing is a good example of this. A completely random system would have only one type of lure, every fish could be caught in every region and there would be no indication of what fish you would get from the circle size. In this case, we would be fishing completely uninformed. Instead, before we commit to catching a fish we know the area we are in, the lure we used and the circle size. Although this doesn't uniquely predict the fish, it does limit it to a small number of options. If you're looking for a particular fish, this creates the possibility of strategy - you can try to work out which combination of lure and fishing area has the greatest probability of success.

I haven't focussed on fishing much yet (I'm waiting to expand all areas and have the time to strategise), so I can't comment on how well this has been implemented. It could be that you do all this strategizing and find out that your best option is a 1 in 10 chance, which I don't think is satisfying. But in general I think the intention is a good one, although it may be able to be improved by tweaking the fish distributions.

I think it would be nice if there was something similar in the town - for example the strongman gave axes, bricks and tar buckets, the teacher saws, deeds and drills. This would let us come up with strategies for deciding who to serve, but you could only benefit if you researched the patterns and thought about what you were trying to achieve.

With that in mind, I'm curious about XYZzY's comment. Have you posted these observations elsewhere?

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Originally Posted by XYZZY

There is strategy to the town. Keep a log of your townies and try to find behavioral patterns. Or pay attention to the amount of XP they give: I was super excited to finally get my beach cafe, but now never import somebody to it since the XP is just so freaking low to be not worth the trouble. In what I call the V2 town (from server update on Jun-6 until today), I find that Salesman has 71% chance of giving town expansion items, whereas Locals just 52%. So yeah, you can strategize, but it's harder. But I like that. And there is certainly planning: do you want to import one more person to the last spot in the spa, even though in 45 minutes somebody will free up in the diner and need to go to the spa?

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