Post by Matthew Allen on Jun 17, 2014 17:33:03 GMT
Over the last few weeks, we’ve recognised that since the v2.0.5 update, an increasing number of players have found Godus’ Settlement mechanics to be a bit unintuitive and, well, just not as fun as they ought to be.
So, a core group of us went away and brainstormed a few solutions to this dilemma and in the process, we rediscovered some of our original ideas.
We’re not quite ready to share the full details of how we are going to be bringing these ideas to fruition – some of the new features and functions we have in mind for the Settlements revamp are quite advanced and we think it’s better to let you know precisely what we’re cooking up once everything has been locked down and proven to be technologically viable.
However, since we’re very excited and enthusiastic about these advancements, we do want to let you in on our thinking and demonstrate that we have read your comments, digested your feedback and are sprinting hard to bring them into reality.
Placing Settlements
What drives our thinking about Settlements is the course of human history itself. We want to give you a way to take your initially small group primitive followers and take them into the agricultural age while accounting for considerable growth in population.
While the current system does make specific areas within your Homeworld more distinct and civilised, we would prefer to do so in a way that’s less restrictive and more naturalistic, all while amplifying your abilities as a god.
When placing a settlement with the current system, it can be challenging to create farms around it due to the dense population you will have created up to that point. Additionally, all settlements tend to look a bit too similar to each other for our liking.
We know that that current system can lead to confusion over how to get the most out of your Settlements and even over the size of your Settlement before it is placed into the world. What we want is to give you a more accessible way to further the development of your Followers’ habitation and one that doesn’t rely on being menu driven or needing a lot of intricate GUI elements.
The new system we’re currently working on will add much more diversity to your Settlements. We’re developing an inventive (surprising, even) solution to make Settlements more charming, more efficient and more aesthetically pleasing… and makes you feel more like you’re playing with god-like powers, too.
Building Settlements on hills and valleys
We want to deliver on our vision of a world as presented in our original concept art for Godus, where Settlements can thrive across multiple layers of the landscape.
Creating Settlements under the current system does make good use of Godus’ trademark sculpting mechanics and allows you to bring life to flat areas, however we’ve seen that for many players, this tends to lead to the whole of their Homeworld being flattened as they expand their population.
We would prefer there to be more visual variety in how you evolve your Homeworld and between the Settlements you create for your Followers. We want to enable you to build Settlements in a less restrictive and uniform way.
Our goal is to enable you to see your followers build vertically as well as horizontally in harmony with a beautiful, undulating landscape.
Governing your farms and farmers
We want to make the involvement of farming in the Bronze Age and mining in the Iron Age feel more compelling and challenging without forcing you to worry about too much micromanagement.
We’re quite fond of how the current system works for Builders – we think it’s clear, simple and fun to play. We also like the current balance between building houses and farms, as it neatly reflects how we humans behave in the real world.
That said, the current way you assign roles to your Settlement’s workers is too clunky and fussy – we have seen that it has led to confusion, especially with the Buffer class of follower.
Our new designs focus on making the way you govern your farmers and miners more immediate, instinctive and cohesive by extending existing, proven systems as well as doing a better job in how we describe them.
Growing and harvesting crops
The way we think about crops is as a resource that makes sense without us needing to describe it in too much detail. We want you to think of them as behaving just like they do in the real world – people need food to work, after all.
As such, we like how the production of wheat is tied to building new Abodes. However, it’s become very clear that the current mechanics can be quite hard to grasp and require too much explanation, especially for less advanced players.
While the logic behind how wheat works at the moment is sound, it’s obviously not as fun as it could be. Also, the fact wheat disappears instead of being a resource you collect is in conflict with how we think about it as a resource in the first place.
We’re exploring new lines of thought as to how your followers harvest wheat as a resource for building and have this mechanic be as intuitive and engaging.
Additional improvements
One of the most requested features from the community is for a way to automatically collect Belief. We’re now in the process of implementing a Statue of Collection, which will collect all the Belief generated by your followers within a given area.
Other GUI improvements
We’re also looking into ways to increase the level of detail for the information you can gather about your Followers and Settlements as a way to enhance your god-like omniscience.
We’re sprinting hard as a team to get this new functionality into your hands as quickly as we can – we can’t wait to show you in full just what we’re creating for you. We hope that the new Settlement designs will not only address some of your concerns, but also lead to a more enjoyable and empowering Godus experience.
We’re eager to hear your thoughts, so please share your impressions in either our Kickstarter backer forum or in our Steam Early Access forum here.
So, a core group of us went away and brainstormed a few solutions to this dilemma and in the process, we rediscovered some of our original ideas.
We’re not quite ready to share the full details of how we are going to be bringing these ideas to fruition – some of the new features and functions we have in mind for the Settlements revamp are quite advanced and we think it’s better to let you know precisely what we’re cooking up once everything has been locked down and proven to be technologically viable.
However, since we’re very excited and enthusiastic about these advancements, we do want to let you in on our thinking and demonstrate that we have read your comments, digested your feedback and are sprinting hard to bring them into reality.
Placing Settlements
What drives our thinking about Settlements is the course of human history itself. We want to give you a way to take your initially small group primitive followers and take them into the agricultural age while accounting for considerable growth in population.
While the current system does make specific areas within your Homeworld more distinct and civilised, we would prefer to do so in a way that’s less restrictive and more naturalistic, all while amplifying your abilities as a god.
When placing a settlement with the current system, it can be challenging to create farms around it due to the dense population you will have created up to that point. Additionally, all settlements tend to look a bit too similar to each other for our liking.
We know that that current system can lead to confusion over how to get the most out of your Settlements and even over the size of your Settlement before it is placed into the world. What we want is to give you a more accessible way to further the development of your Followers’ habitation and one that doesn’t rely on being menu driven or needing a lot of intricate GUI elements.
The new system we’re currently working on will add much more diversity to your Settlements. We’re developing an inventive (surprising, even) solution to make Settlements more charming, more efficient and more aesthetically pleasing… and makes you feel more like you’re playing with god-like powers, too.
Building Settlements on hills and valleys
We want to deliver on our vision of a world as presented in our original concept art for Godus, where Settlements can thrive across multiple layers of the landscape.
Creating Settlements under the current system does make good use of Godus’ trademark sculpting mechanics and allows you to bring life to flat areas, however we’ve seen that for many players, this tends to lead to the whole of their Homeworld being flattened as they expand their population.
We would prefer there to be more visual variety in how you evolve your Homeworld and between the Settlements you create for your Followers. We want to enable you to build Settlements in a less restrictive and uniform way.
Our goal is to enable you to see your followers build vertically as well as horizontally in harmony with a beautiful, undulating landscape.
Governing your farms and farmers
We want to make the involvement of farming in the Bronze Age and mining in the Iron Age feel more compelling and challenging without forcing you to worry about too much micromanagement.
We’re quite fond of how the current system works for Builders – we think it’s clear, simple and fun to play. We also like the current balance between building houses and farms, as it neatly reflects how we humans behave in the real world.
That said, the current way you assign roles to your Settlement’s workers is too clunky and fussy – we have seen that it has led to confusion, especially with the Buffer class of follower.
Our new designs focus on making the way you govern your farmers and miners more immediate, instinctive and cohesive by extending existing, proven systems as well as doing a better job in how we describe them.
Growing and harvesting crops
The way we think about crops is as a resource that makes sense without us needing to describe it in too much detail. We want you to think of them as behaving just like they do in the real world – people need food to work, after all.
As such, we like how the production of wheat is tied to building new Abodes. However, it’s become very clear that the current mechanics can be quite hard to grasp and require too much explanation, especially for less advanced players.
While the logic behind how wheat works at the moment is sound, it’s obviously not as fun as it could be. Also, the fact wheat disappears instead of being a resource you collect is in conflict with how we think about it as a resource in the first place.
We’re exploring new lines of thought as to how your followers harvest wheat as a resource for building and have this mechanic be as intuitive and engaging.
Additional improvements
One of the most requested features from the community is for a way to automatically collect Belief. We’re now in the process of implementing a Statue of Collection, which will collect all the Belief generated by your followers within a given area.
Other GUI improvements
We’re also looking into ways to increase the level of detail for the information you can gather about your Followers and Settlements as a way to enhance your god-like omniscience.
We’re sprinting hard as a team to get this new functionality into your hands as quickly as we can – we can’t wait to show you in full just what we’re creating for you. We hope that the new Settlement designs will not only address some of your concerns, but also lead to a more enjoyable and empowering Godus experience.
We’re eager to hear your thoughts, so please share your impressions in either our Kickstarter backer forum or in our Steam Early Access forum here.