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Post by Spiderweb on Jun 22, 2015 11:06:35 GMT
I think my first question on the steam forums was why is there no win state. The Astari are annoying and once defeated pointless. There is no way to lose in homeworld and therefore no challenge. You could have a sandbox mode for making a world to show off, but as that is not what we were sold on. If combat is just a minigame then it could well go the way of the other minigames.
I'm a little worried combat might end up a minigame.
Anyway here are my ideas (Taken from many other RTS type games):-
Build homeworld up till you get an interact with neighbours option (4 square or 6 hex map).
-Trade
-Attack
-Ignore
Neighbours (Colour code)
-Aggressive
-Passive
-Looking for Trade(ore/wheat/people/belief(to pacify)/others new resources...)
Population size determines difficulty of battles.
Pick from a pool of your homeworld warriors to start a base in a area of another world(map).
Enter a random map (let AI randomly generate while your army travels). Win that map for some region stats bonus (a la capture the flag) if you lose make that neighbour more aggressive. Manage maps from central location, ignore a region and lose population until it is conquered by a neighbour, fortify keep an army there for security (RISK anyone?).
Invade their land using your resources from homeworld (over stretch-lose stuff, get attacked/raided while away for another lose state).
Neighbours aggression depends on your choices to trade or attack. (Happy with homeworld zen then don't attack, attack and win the land and expand your empire but have more to look after/defend).
So many methods for this to be interesting, not just another minigame. Warn of a pending invasions from other neighbours (RISK turn based for simplicity).
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Post by Spiderweb on Jun 22, 2015 15:51:42 GMT
Any other ideas?
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Post by 13thGeneral on Jun 22, 2015 17:09:53 GMT
We'll see, but so far it's a disjointed mess; and seeing how it will be implemented as shown in the update, it's just a mini game at thus stage. That may change but I'm not holding my breath. Although, what they did show us looks really nice visually and the mechanics are improving.
Also, although I like your effort to create discussion, and generate ideas, I'm not going to provide any further suggestions about how I envisage combat because : a) been there, done that, too many times, and b) no sense lamenting on how much better/different it could be done before even seeing a more complete picture once it's implemented.
So far they've shown us what they have done on combat, but very little on where they're going with it, and how it connects to the overall picture. We don't even have an overall picture.
Sorry, not trying to derail or inject negativity into your post, that's just how I feel about it.
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Lord Ba'al
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Jun 22, 2015 18:47:12 GMT
I think the difficulty with combat lies in the fact that we're dealing with a long term continuous game. You can only really have combat if you are online and most people won't be online at the same times unless they agree to be beforehand. If you engage in combat with an opponent you have no way of knowing how long the battle/war will last and you would be forced to stop the battle if one of the players has to leave. And you don't want to leave and come back to find your entire world ravaged. Turn based could be an option but it would not work with a realtime game like we have now. Most people don't have the time to play long term battles anyway, or the will for that matter.
I think you're on to something with the RISK model of invasions and defense, but how do you work that into a game like we have now?
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Post by Deth on Jun 22, 2015 19:14:37 GMT
Well as we are god I almost think it should be a fire and forget kind of combat. As I am sure the AI would not be the best in the world you would give some advantage to the AI. Or maybe when you attack someone you get a copy of their world that you could attack. I would say the attacker gets a reward based on the amount of damage they do and the defender gets a reward based on how many people they kill. It would be optional if you open your boarders for attack or not. The only question is what would be the reward?
I had an idea of the attacker getting a copy of the defenders world that they can attack and once their battle is done that "Film" of the battle is sent to the defender to now go through and they get to do the battle from their side with the attackers action set by what the attacker did when they were playing. But I am not sure that would be challenging or could be easily broken by the defender. So I do not think that idea would wokr.
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Post by eskaton23 on Jun 22, 2015 20:04:52 GMT
I would set up a recruitment system that was Global or at least in all territories where Godus has been sold. I would train my army using a variety of skills and techniques possibly having to bring in expertise from far away places and of dubious legality.
Only when my army was ready would I ship them en masse to the 22Cans orifaces and tear down the walls. I would rend the very firmament of existence if necessary to make sure that no soul was left doubting my wrath and vengeance.
When the last sorry opponent of mine was kneeling before me begging for mercy I would lay down my weapons and ask politely......'can I have my money back now please?'
Thats what I would do.
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Post by colin22cans on Jun 23, 2015 0:32:13 GMT
Only when my army was ready would I ship them en masse to the 22Cans orifaces and tear down the walls. Our what now?  |
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Post by hardly on Jun 23, 2015 4:57:05 GMT
I suggested in the past that combat should be similar to settlers 2. I feel this game has a good, simple, combat system that doesn't require a clever AI and would fit a basic God game/economic sim.
The problem with the combat design isn't what Moo is doing, that all largely makes sense but he hasn't considered how it improves the overall game or at least hasn't explained that. The fact that they are separating it from home world/ way world is worrying since it sees combat as another bolt on. Now abandoning Homeworld/ way world isn't necessarily a problem as you could create a new world for the game and move forward. The problem is having so many game concepts working in parallel that don't support each other.
Combat in godus is never going to rival the total war series, it will not even be close to the best battles we've seenu not a PC game and 22cans should accept that and embrace it. So godus needs to be the best game at integrating combat not the best game that specialises in it.
How does this happen? Well armies March on their stomach and need to be equiped. I'd look at combat as a drain on your economy and build the challenge into sustaining the biggest and best equipped army and keeping it refreshed. That is an economic, sculpting and supply challenge which is easier to create than a smart tactical AI making combat decisions.
Godus is the only game where you as the controller can change the very landscape. If you build the complexity of this then sculpting and placement becomes and optimisation challenge to support the best society, the biggest army with the most advanced tech. You can manipulate proximity, travel time and manufacturing logistics to build and interesting challenge. The fact that combat then resolves more like a spreadsheet isn't a problem becuase the person is building the elaborate design of sculpting and economic management.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2015 14:38:42 GMT
The problem is having so many game concepts working in parallel that don't support each other. Especially when it appears that you will have to slug through the crap paywall design of Homeworld to do much else. While Clash of Clans and Dungeon Keeper Mobile have Pay2Win models, where spending a bit allows you another builder or to improve your base a bit faster, and where games like Plague INC. have content paywalls where you can play the basic game but have to pay to unlock more content, Godus' asinine model is one where you pay to have a single-player game suck slightly less for a bit to have a few more things to click on before telling the game to fuck off for the day. That design needs to be redone completely for PC, else Combat will indeed seem just like another minigame. So how would I do Combat in Godus? Give it a base game worth the effort and fanfare being made over it. |
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Post by simon22cans on Jun 29, 2015 9:26:14 GMT
The problem is having so many game concepts working in parallel that don't support each other. Especially when it appears that you will have to slug through the crap paywall design of Homeworld to do much else. While Clash of Clans and Dungeon Keeper Mobile have Pay2Win models, where spending a bit allows you another builder or to improve your base a bit faster, and where games like Plague INC. have content paywalls where you can play the basic game but have to pay to unlock more content, Godus' asinine model is one where you pay to have a single-player game suck slightly less for a bit to have a few more things to click on before telling the game to fuck off for the day. That design needs to be redone completely for PC, else Combat will indeed seem just like another minigame. So how would I do Combat in Godus? Give it a base game worth the effort and fanfare being made over it. Well yes, I think its quite clear that layering combat into the main mechanics of the game wouldn't be ideal. Now that combat is taking place on separate maps, it can have a different base design which should make it much easier to create a good experience with less, how to put it correctly...'resource management'  The consideration is indeed how to make sure that it's not just a mini game, but integrates into the better god elements and becomes a decent experience in it's own right. |
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Post by simon22cans on Jun 29, 2015 9:54:02 GMT
I suggested in the past that combat should be similar to settlers 2. I feel this game has a good, simple, combat system that doesn't require a clever AI and would fit a basic God game/economic sim. The problem with the combat design isn't what Moo is doing, that all largely makes sense but he hasn't considered how it improves the overall game or at least hasn't explained that. The fact that they are separating it from home world/ way world is worrying since it sees combat as another bolt on. Now abandoning Homeworld/ way world isn't necessarily a problem as you could create a new world for the game and move forward. The problem is having so many game concepts working in parallel that don't support each other. Combat in godus is never going to rival the total war series, it will not even be close to the best battles we've seenu not a PC game and 22cans should accept that and embrace it. So godus needs to be the best game at integrating combat not the best game that specialises in it. How does this happen? Well armies March on their stomach and need to be equiped. I'd look at combat as a drain on your economy and build the challenge into sustaining the biggest and best equipped army and keeping it refreshed. That is an economic, sculpting and supply challenge which is easier to create than a smart tactical AI making combat decisions. Godus is the only game where you as the controller can change the very landscape. If you build the complexity of this then sculpting and placement becomes and optimisation challenge to support the best society, the biggest army with the most advanced tech. You can manipulate proximity, travel time and manufacturing logistics to build and interesting challenge. The fact that combat then resolves more like a spreadsheet isn't a problem becuase the person is building the elaborate design of sculpting and economic management. We think that separating combat from Home/Weyworld is key to allow the feature to properly stretch its legs (but yes, its never going to be TW!) It also allows us to not be constrained by the (good or bad) flow that exists at the moment and also allows us to make changes to the original flow in the future without having unmanageable amounts of legacy code. You're absolutely right about having too many concepts running together, its a big consideration, we need to make sure that there are good common elements between them but at the same time they aren't constrained by each other. The land sculpting will be key for tactics. Creating settlements in the best areas for deployment of warbands and making good posts to form attacks from etc. The AI will also be sculpting from a offensive and defensive point of view too (cue comedy sculpt battles of you make a path, AI destroys the path, you make a path, AI destroys the path). A big design consideration is also to try and create the feeling that you're a God and not just a general and how that links into a decent resource system. |
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zeruelb
Junior Apprentice
Posts: 63 
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Post by zeruelb on Jul 1, 2015 7:34:03 GMT
Like in Populous 2.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 7, 2015 16:46:43 GMT
Especially when it appears that you will have to slug through the crap paywall design of Homeworld to do much else. While Clash of Clans and Dungeon Keeper Mobile have Pay2Win models, where spending a bit allows you another builder or to improve your base a bit faster, and where games like Plague INC. have content paywalls where you can play the basic game but have to pay to unlock more content, Godus' asinine model is one where you pay to have a single-player game suck slightly less for a bit to have a few more things to click on before telling the game to fuck off for the day. That design needs to be redone completely for PC, else Combat will indeed seem just like another minigame. So how would I do Combat in Godus? Give it a base game worth the effort and fanfare being made over it. Well yes, I think its quite clear that layering combat into the main mechanics of the game wouldn't be ideal. Now that combat is taking place on separate maps, it can have a different base design which should make it much easier to create a good experience with less, how to put it correctly...'resource management' The consideration is indeed how to make sure that it's not just a mini game, but integrates into the better god elements and becomes a decent experience in it's own right. I suppose I was a bit too vague - why should anyone be arsed to play through the shite base game to even remotely care about Combat, as how Combat isn't supposed to be just another mini-game *IS* the main point of concern here? IS there goes going to be some purpose for Combat or is it just going to be another mini-game for resources? Yes, that is the consideration and the big question that we would like to know. Is THIS what you're banking on? That you can keep people interested enough to bother to get to where they can play Combat, and assume that they're going to be wowed enough to...do what, then? We got to click blue chests for the story - wheeee! |
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The consideration is indeed how to make sure that it's not just a mini game, but integrates into the better god elements and becomes a decent experience in it's own right.
