Additionally, He An noticed that the buildings and unit types in “Mission and Choice” varied tremendously in size. A ground base was several times larger than space battleships, space battleships were dozens of times larger than regular spacecraft, and regular spacecraft were dozens of times larger than the smallest combat units – the “Skylark” soldiers.
Therefore, the entire map of “Mission and Choice” felt extremely vast. When the camera was at its highest versus lowest positions, the scale changed dramatically. At the lowest level, you could see the armor details of Skylark warriors, while at the highest, you could see the full view of a massive ground base.
When pulled back to aerial views, those Skylark warriors marching on the ground looked like ants.
Different units operated at different elevation levels. Space battleships were at the highest tier, with regular spacecraft below them, and below that were the Skylark squads dropped from spacecraft to the ground.
So players had to constantly adjust their camera angles to better observe the entire battlefield.
The resulting problems were also obvious: high hardware requirements and inconvenient controls.
In classic RTS games like “Clash of Dreams” and “StarCraft 2,” the proportions between units were distorted. Many units that were supposed to be dozens of times different in size were only marginally larger in the game.
This was because RTS games required extensive micromanagement and high balance levels.
If made to true scale, what would be the movement speeds of a large carrier versus a scout aircraft? Would they overlap and cause players to miss them? Would controlling small units be too much effort for too little gain? Would small units do minimal damage to large ones? Would a squad of soldiers with machine guns destroying a main base be completely unrealistic?
RTS games were ultimately just games, not war simulators. These problems were troublesome to solve and nearly impossible to address properly. So traditional RTS games greatly sacrificed realism for balance and playability.
“Mission and Choice” did the opposite, maximizing realism, which meant completely sacrificing balance and playability.
In traditional RTS games, 30 basic soldiers could easily destroy a tank, but in “Mission and Choice,” no matter how many machine gunners faced large ground heavy equipment, they’d only get decimated.
In He An’s view, this undoubtedly increased the game’s probability of failure.
However, the game’s difficulty level was indeed quite low.
He An, being elderly, had reaction speeds and hand-eye coordination far inferior to young people, but he found the game’s controls manageable.
This was because units in the game primarily operated in formation-based groups. For example, the basic combat unit “Skylark Squad” consisted of 5 Skylark warriors. Higher up were individual warships, then small combat ship formations, and at the highest level were battle groups attached to motherships…
Players could issue commands to formations at any level, and enemy targeting also defaulted to formation-based selection.
For instance, ordering an entire mothership battle group to attack enemy main forces essentially functioned like an “F2A” command.
However, the key difference was that all units in “Mission and Choice” had some intelligence. They wouldn’t mindlessly charge forward but maintained specific formations to avoid ugly combat.
Of course, players could also command individual formations or warships to perform separate missions.
But this high degree of freedom wasn’t commonly used. Most of the time, issuing commands at the battle formation level sufficed, and even micromanaging individual ships or soldiers didn’t necessarily yield better results than simply sending them forward.
Therefore, even elderly players like He An found the controls effortless without any operational difficulty.
But this didn’t mean the combat experience was satisfying, because all units would act unpredictably!
Some ships would suddenly flee the battlefield mid-combat, and even when players gave them direct orders and repeatedly tried to control them, they couldn’t bring them back – they just acted willfully.
Some ships, in extreme panic, would inexplicably crash into cliffs or crash while flying, leaving He An dumbfounded.
Without story elements, this demo immediately launched into combat.
He An’s main task was to command formations to attack the insectoid race while continuously handling and responding to alert messages from AEEIS.
There were many alerts, but ignoring them wasn’t too problematic – after a while, AEEIS would handle them automatically.
After about twenty minutes, the battle ended.
Despite stumbling through his first experience, learning many things on the fly, and receiving a low score at the end, He An successfully completed the demo.
Pei Qian asked expectantly: “Teacher He, what did you think?”
He An was silent for a moment before deciding to speak honestly.
“The graphics are definitely fine – well-produced, and the combat scenes are spectacular, giving the impression of intense warfare.”
“But…”
“These troops often don’t follow orders, which is extremely frustrating! Many clearly winnable situations end in total defeat because units have their own ideas. It’s infuriating!”
“This is an RTS game, and this experience is hard for me to accept.”
Hu Xianbin quickly explained: “Oh, Mr. He, the troop AI is still in development, so it’s relatively simple and mindless right now. Once the AI is complete, units will have more diverse and intelligent choices, which should improve the experience.”
He An was silent for a moment: “So there will be even more ways for them to disobey me?”
Hu Xianbin: “Uh… you could understand it that way.”
He An: “…”
He remained silent for a moment, then looked at Pei Qian: “Mr. Pei, don’t take offense to my directness, but I’m mainly worried about wasting money. After all, five hundred million isn’t a small sum. Even if spending it on luxury cars or mansions, that would be better than throwing it away.”
“Although the game’s AI might affect the player experience, I believe that even with completed AI given current AI technology limitations, there won’t be significant improvements to the combat experience.”
“About this current demo – I can only describe it as looking impressive but being useless. The visuals are absolutely fine, but the gameplay fails to attract me at all.”
“Good graphics also mean high hardware requirements, further narrowing the player base. This is extremely unfavorable for a game with such massive investment.”
“How much of that five hundred million is left? If you stop now to cut losses and modify the gameplay while reusing the current art assets to make a new game, you won’t lose the entire five hundred million.”
Pei Qian couldn’t help but beam with joy.
Lose it all?
That’s perfect!
When the game was first pitched, Pei Qian had explained the basic design concept to He An and received confirmation that it would “definitely fail.” But with the game still unfinished, Pei Qian felt uneasy.
Now that He An had played the game’s demo and still believed it would absolutely fail, losing everything, this was like a shot of adrenaline for Pei Qian!
However, Hu Xianbin was displeased.
He frowned, strongly disagreeing with He An’s death sentence for “Mission and Choice.”
This was just a demo, after all. The story wasn’t included, content was missing – wasn’t it premature to declare its certain failure?
Most importantly, this was Mr. Pei’s creation!
Could Mr. Pei’s creation be wrong?
So Hu Xianbin instinctively wanted to speak up and argue back.
Although He An was a veteran, designers often had different perspectives on games, with disagreements occurring regularly, sometimes escalating to heated arguments.
As a designer, confidently expressing one’s thoughts and improving game understanding and design skills through debates with other designers was normal.
But Pei Qian noticed Hu Xianbin’s dissatisfaction and subtly patted his shoulder, making him swallow his words.
Pei Qian didn’t want Hu Xianbin and He An to have a battle here – it would be pointless.
He An had just said the game would definitely fail miserably. Pei Qian was delighted before it was too late.
He smiled and said: “Teacher He, you’re absolutely right! I completely agree!”
“Well, now that we’ve seen the game, let’s head back to Slackin’ Internet Café for coffee. My treat.”
Seeing Mr. Pei’s attitude, Hu Xianbin’s furrowed brow relaxed, and his mood instantly lightened.
I got carried away. Mr. Pei’s approach shows true confidence and tolerance!
As a relatively young designer, it’s easy to argue with others. After all, to become a designer, one must have extreme confidence and defend their viewpoints.
When two designers both believe they’re right, conflicts naturally arise.
But Mr. Pei had clearly reached another level. His refusal to argue wasn’t from lack of confidence, but from too much confidence, so he just smiled it off, above such quarrels.
He An was a veteran after all. It was normal for him to not keep up with the latest game design trends or fail to see the brilliance in “Mission and Choice.” Rather than explain, Mr. Pei went along with the old gentleman’s views – this was correct.
So Hu Xianbin also smiled and said: “Alright, Mr. Pei, I’ll continue working.”
Pei Qian cheerfully led He An away from Tenda Games, preparing to return to Slackin’ Internet Café.
After walking a few steps with Pei Qian, He An felt increasingly uncomfortable.
“Mr. Pei, you say you completely agree with me, but you have no intention of making changes.”
“Even if you’re humoring an old man, this is too perfunctory!”
“Do you think I’m old and can’t understand modern games, so even explaining would be pointless, so you just agree without explaining?”
Pei Qian immediately sincerely denied this: “How could that be!”
“Teacher He, I’m absolutely sincere. I truly completely agree with your assessment.”
“But… the game is already at this stage. Changing it now wouldn’t be appropriate. Might as well finish it.”
“If we lose some money, so what? It’s whatever.”
He An was shocked but looking at Mr. Pei’s expression, couldn’t tell if he was joking.
Lose some money? It’s whatever?
That’s five hundred million!
He An was silent for a moment: “Ha, I see now, Mr. Pei. You’re confident. You agree with my concerns but won’t change them, meaning you have a better solution.”
“Fine, I’ll wait and see!”
Pei Qian: “?”
Looking at the old gentleman’s certain gaze, Pei Qian felt helpless.
There really was no way to explain!
Since that was the case, he wouldn’t explain. When “Mission and Choice” launched and lost everything, he’d treat He An to dinner and properly thank him.