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Topic: Improving the game: suggestion
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Joe, July 2011, edited
I am opening up some threads to discuss ideas that are currently lingering in dev. Read carefully, think carefully and argue carefully. Make sure your comments in these threads make sense and please refrain from spamming. The goal of this thread is to suggest solutions for big structural problems that currently haunt AatW. I will expose my views in this thread. Feel free to comment or add other problems. Please refrain from posting up random small things and try to think in bigger game-structures. I'd like to suggest a guideline to think about suggestions to improve the game. Other new and creative ideas are also welcome of course, but try to get acquainted with currently existing ideas a little. There is no need to invent the wheel over and over again. ------------------------ The biggest problem of AatW is really the fact that it combines a timeless frame (infinity) with a timeframe in which tribes race to the top, struggle, fight, kill, etc... There is no clearcut 'win' or goal to achieve. Also, alot of game features were designed ages ago for a previous version of orkfia in which the game was framed within time instead of within infinity (the game was reset every 6 weeks and the goal of this 'old' orkfia was to be the biggest alliance at the end of these 6 weeks). The most obvious examples of this are the market and science (especially old science) Another problem created by this is that the game has become harder to learn, or at least that is my opinion. The game has also grown more differentiated. A final and biggest problem of the combination of a 'growing-race' aspect of the game (since we all still want to be the biggest asap) with a timeless frame (infinity) is that tribes of different ages can have about the same size. This is causing what is known to dev as 'military cluttering', the rising of OPA and DPAs due to highly aged and overpumped tribes that somehow refuse to grow, forcing many tribes around them to run high defs, which forces tribes around those to pump higher off etc... It's a spiral. Solutions for these problems are most welcome, but be as precise as possible and work your thoughts out alittle before posting them up. A thread is easily made unreadable. To summarize: find solutions to the following 3 problems :) 1- Infinity concept + old game concept designs like market/science. 2- The richness of detail, options and strategy of the game makes it hard to play and understand. Preferably the lot of options/strategy should stay while the game should get easier to learn at the same time ;) 3- Third problem is actually a subproblem of the first one: how to lessen the problem of military cluttering (which is caused by the infinity concept + the old 'race' concept in which tribes get as big as possible as soon as possible)
Joe, July 2011
Ideas about 'innocent' perks for races (innocent = not messing up the balance and/or forcing people to run insane offence/defence (3rd problem)): 1- Intelligence. Spirits are example #1 for this (no visions), and example #2 is the anonymous attack of Viks/Orcs. What about a race immune to recons(!) or intercepts (!!). Guesstimating is an art. Making HE or Oleg immune to recons might highly increase their chances to survive their first serious KA. Making UD immune to intercepts could also give interesting results. This can ofcourse also work the other way around: Mori Hai. Why not give UD or HE free tp on their homes? And why don't we make Mori intelligence ops cost 0 tp, and make Owl thieves 'untrackable' (succesful ops leave only damage report, faield ops leave no trace in enemy news)? Or devise some thief op that you perform on enemy tribe: if succesful all failed ops you will do will show to be failed by the succesfully opped tribe. 2- Science. There is no single science-oriented race atm. Weird. Remove EM and Britt walls and let every third Brittonian home produce 1 rp for free. (this is a big downtune for Britts because currently a Britt can get more rps by Napaing after 2 days with 20% walls). Maybe let certain races benefit extra from science and/or fame!? 3- Unit losses(?). It is very unvaried currently. Races could vary in their unit losses. Basically higher losses would be made up for by cheaper prices, which makes a race with higher losses faster but less powerful in a long grabwar. A race with lower losses has higher troop costs, grows slower but is stronger in grabwars. 4- Different starting sizes (?). This assumes that heritage is abandoned obviously. Let certain (powerful) races simply start with a drawback while weaker races can start with a bonus. 5- Resources. Let woodies produce extra wood. Spirit needs no food.. where is the first race that uses citizens to build buildings? Currently already differentiations that could be spread more: - returntimes (idea: let eagle be so hard to find that any attack against them takes +2 hours) - buildtimes - basecitizengrowth - new tactical spells/ops/attacks that alter income/time/cost aspects rather than power (operation that slows/quickens enemy/friendly returning army (waronly), spells that decrease enemy taxes etc.) -------------- Basically any trait which does not influence the military/citizen average power ratio is harmless in terms of gamebalance but could be useful in tactical/alliance terms.
Joe, July 2011
Thanks to Scorpias another 'race perk': alliancewide bonus if race x is being played in your alliance. Ot course the bonus needs to be again in a 'harmless' area to prevent the same old problem of military cluttering. Examples could be: Dwarf: For each Dwarf in your alliance, building costs are reduced by 5%. Light Elf: Each LE give +1% base citizen growth to all alliance members. Very powerful races could have negative bonuses. A serious drawback I see with this is that it can get very complicated if there are many of these bonuses around.
Joe, July 2011, edited
Oh and I forgot: Dev quite agrees that the elite-attackers have very much to do with military cluttering. We aim to make spec-attackers standard, making leets attackers at most run defs of 2-4 on their offensive elite. Being an elite-attacker is in infinity a VERY good racetrait which is in itself OP if not counterbalanced by simple boringness or the lack of any other bonus :P Another aspect that is forcing the militarycluttering is the extremity of current races like Templar (no acads), DE (regeneration), Repties, ex-Nazzies (simply too efficient), Britts (no money required), LE (unkillable) etc. In general, I feel like races should move a little more towards a balanced middle, rather than creating a huge flaw for a huge power. (Many races have huge flaws: Owl cant defend against BC, Mori cant defend against both raze + DM by lack of space, warmoded Temps cant defend against thievery+raze well enough etc.)
Joe, July 2011, edited
To comment on problem #2: the difficulty to learn to play Orkfia, I think everybody agrees on a few points that I can make. 1- Bonuses should be somewhat standardized if possible in any way. (each second general should give the same offensive bonus for instance) 2- There should be a guide with two strong aspects: Firstly there should be a very good and clear 'how to get started.. what this game is about' section in which is suggested a good starting race + building/units you need, but also basic principles like income maximalisation, efficiency and the t/m/a balance in the game + ofcourse some tips abuot chatting with ppl and IRC. Secondly there should be a very clearly structured complete guide in which every game feature is documented completely. 3- Regarding the problem of attracting new players: I think Jamzi is completely right on these matters. Orkfia has always grown due to 'real life advertising'. Inviting your friends and play with them just for fun is what makes this game great =)
Joe, July 2011
Regarding problem #1, Science has been redesigned already. Here is a market suggestion from me out of the dev forum. -------------------- Market revamp: It's a boring and overbalancing aspect of the game. Favors 'old' alliances over new ones. Makes tactical 'resource'-wars impossible because all resources are always abundant. Goal: Improve alliance management importance. Open up possibilities for economical warfare against a badly run alliance. Ideas: 1- Attach goods to tribes. Remove goods from market when dying of old age in a smooth way. Example: let 'unaccounted for' goods decay at a 10% rate PER UPDATE. (resulting in leaving ~8% 'inherited' goods after 24 hours and less than 0.5% after 48 hours). Make sure this does also apply for 'unaccounted for' negative amounts. They need to be made up for and do decay away as well (producing market stuff into thin air). PROBLEM: if other tribes buy up excess resources from a dying tribe, they can not decay on the market as they aren't there. I.e. there will be 10 mill money unaccounted for and decaying with 1 mill the first tick, but there is no money in the market, resulting in -1 million crowns in the market after 1 update. Possible solution: Allow negative market amounts. Simple fill the gap first before you can take money back. This balances itself on the long run again when 'stealing' tribes die of age. They leave negative resources which are produced out of thin air as they 'decay' from a negative amount towards zero. Drawback: will need some attention for lazy AatW players to get used to the harsh 'classic' market rules again :P Pro's: Very clean, very handy, very simple. Tribe goods are automatically merged along when tribes merge. This market system is fair in all circumstances and is impossible to abuse. It does not favor old or new alliances but treats anyone exactly the same.
Bolle, August 2011
For further discussions on the subject, see also: http://aatw-live.rob-franken.nl/forums/game/373090/dev-game-concept-fix-by-joe/0-0
Donracs, August 2011
It's just a ideal like this but it could revolutionize the game... Construction Système: since a while not much alliance use laboratories any more, so we could take it out...but the problem it's the number of building wont match any more. But i use to think about it and we could mix up hideouts and guardhouse and call it tavernes... Taverns will be where soldiers and thieve crumble in same place and more taverns u got more thieves u can hide, and more soldiers can be use and be aware of potentiel danger like guard house depending wich races u play. For thives races it will be more efficiant, for mage races it would act more like guard house and for attacker like 50/50. so u we'll have 12 building instead of 14 to use: Hovels Grain Farms Walls Weaponries Guilds Mines Markets Churche Barracks Taverns Academies Yards and for replacement of laborateries u could install a système who will give automatic bonus in each branche. ex: u have combat,warding and economics combat give 1% •2% increased effectiveness of Weaponries •1% increased capacity of Hideouts & Guilds •1% faster generation of Mana Points & Thievery Points •1% higher crown costs for exploring 20% bonus •1 hour less waiting time after military returns from Blasphemy Crusade, Hit&Run or Raze attacks so for every Academies,Weaponries build a amount of .05 per tick and 0.025 from taverns and guild could be use for it. Warding 1% •2% increased effectiveness of Walls •1% increased effectiveness of Churches & Guard Houses •1% lower military losses •1% less damage from Raid & Blasphemy Crusade •0.25% more population 20% bonus •Buildings are constructed 1 hour faster for all races, including Dwarves so for every Wall, Church build a amount of .05 per tick and 0.025 from taverns and guilds could be use for it. economics give 1% •1% faster citizen regrowth •1% increased production from Farms •1% less citizen & defence required for exploring •1% lower crown & log costs to construct buildings •0.25% lower military training costs 20% bonus •Basic military is trained 1 hour faster for all races, including Brood so for every House, Market build a amount of .05 per tick and 0.025 from Farms and Mines could be use for it. something like that so what u thing???
Fakesmile, August 2011
i don't know if its a good thing to merge the GH and HO's. for magic and strenght you also have 2 buildings churches-acadamies walls-weaponries
Lady, August 2011
interesting. believe if i were to line up buildings opposite one another, it would be the same first two from above: Hovels-Grain Farms = necessities crap Walls-Weaponries = obvious but then... guilds-ho's churches-guardhouses markets-barracks yards-mines AND then i start to try and remember other buildings, and hmmmm.... oh yes, labs?? and i suspect this is why research is indeed underused... i personally have never gotten around to understanding it completely. apparently seems i'm not entirely alone. that said, perhaps some changes in this area are warranted? ok, now i think i'm still missing a building... perhaps irene got it?
Sim, August 2011
You are missing acadamies
mazja, August 2011
damn it, WHO let Lady out of her cage?!
Lady, August 2011, edited
academies... yes! oh, but then numbers are all uneven again?
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