Feature request thread

By the way, sooner or later (if not already) somebody is going to come along this thread and read these ideas and think this thread is a gold mine and snatch up and implement them. If that happens it'll be too late for Peter.

I've not heard back yet. Though that is to be expected: Peter is away at the moment.

Wait wait wait - "Extends it without alienating people"
Dude... I do believe the path you've been going down has successfully alienated pretty much 99% of your original backers and supporters and even now there are more and more negative mobile reviews popping up.

I'll agree that not every idea is feasible - but many ideas ARE.
And the ideas that are currently driving Godus aren't exactly making it a great game.

I have my doubts that you can truely turn it around. On the basis that you'd have to scrap so much of the base mobile game and have to remake it for the PC instead.

Which is exactly what happened when 22cans went silent for 5 months between v1.3 and v2.0 release.
You'd have to scrap so many features and completely rework them - are you saying that you are going to do just that?

Or are you saying that you're going to build on top of the mobile structure and add more PC oriented features?
I'll not hold any promises to this, I just ask your personal opinion or expectations. You already mentioned you are not one to have much (if any) say in these matters. So I'll will take your words as an observation alone.

Hmmm, I guess I'll take your word for it, since you have more experience in that particular field. =)
I wonder how much 'art' would need to be redone, considering if you'd be building on top of the existing systems they'd have to make new artwork regardless.
I suspect a lot of the existing artwork and assets could be used/reused even if the mechanics get altered (example: The mining animation is already there)


Oh - feature request: proper roads/waypoints and improved pathfinding.
I want to be able to make 'prefered' routes for my followers to walk along if I have them travel long distances (currently applicable to the pit of doom but likely usable for a variety of other mechanics later) and I want the pathfinding to have a "If I'm standing still for longer than 30 seconds, calculate different route" type deal so followers stop blocking eachother untill I as a god step in and tell the one from the left to "stop" and give the one from the right free passage.

Having some experience in graphics, I think it could be swung to utilize (repurpose) existing artwork - current or older "scrapped" graphics. Much the same with the "core" framework; given some creative thought while keeping within reasonable terms, there's a lot that could be done on top of what exists.

I like the idea of designated "paths", for your followers to journey on; sort of a holy pilgrimage idea. By repurposing the totem and the path abilities, they could create a "Holy Pilgramage" feature; designate a new land area to settle (totem), and then trace a safe path there - and then select the abodes you want followers from to follow the path. This would save having to leash great distances, which has been a bit tricky to do well with scrolli g the screen edge in the current system (often results in leaving the windowed edge which drops the leash too soon). Of course, other than long distance leashing, it's more of a convenience power than anything, not supplying much in the way of any significance in gameplay.

Creating predesigned paths isn't exactly a new idea, but, no doubt, is a good one.

Take Dune Emperor for example if you need.

At the risk of being a spammer I'm just going to repost some of my old ideas over here to save me retyping them. As I explained in my original post some of them were inspired (read stolen) by other peoples posts so if you see your idea in this list remember imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

•Priests, temples and such - I think priests collecting belief and taking it to a central building (church, temple, mosque, etc) that automatically beams that belief into space is great. I read it somewhere on the forums and its a good idea. This will be an automation of the belief collection that also adds variety to what your people do.


•Mountains are for mining - One of the reasons people flatten all the terrain is because (1) we have to hit population limits and (2) there is no benefit to mountains. Mountains should be for mining (low mountains for stone perhaps and high mountains for ore), you should only be able to mine at a certain altitude. This will encourage us to leave/build high points for mining. I'd consider starting the map of flat and incentivising the player to build mountains for their people. A mountain could also boost the belief/happiness of the nearby people e.g. Mount Fuji.


•Forests are for chopping - Same as with the mountains we strip the forests to clear land (probably the scarcest resource in GODUS) for expansion. We need to make forests cool. What if our people could be taught to sustainably harvest forests? What if forests were needed for building? What if we could grow forests with our powers? What if when we grew a forest it changed the way our followers worshiped us?


•Optimal altitudes - We want a varied map so we need all the terrain types to have their own purpose, if we can get say five different terrain types/heights that all interact with different resource collection mechanics that would really incentivise creating an interesting environment - sand/beach could be for fishing, plains for sheep, grass for grain, and higher terrain for mining.


•A real science system - One of the biggest complaints is about stickers. Stickers aren't actually that bad except for how we get them and how they are used. GODUS needs a science system. I suggest in the early ages priests also produce science which can be spent on "stickers" which can then be applied to different cards in the timeline. The timeline obviously needs to be reworked to make it less linear and to add choice but for now if you could get rid of the chests and make our followers build the stickers that would be a start.


•Great projects - In 1.3 it seems 22Cans felt we had too much belief, so to prevent us flattening the planet they reigned it back. If you want to soak up some belief then for a start make it so belief doesn't generate out of game, then give us some things to use it on other than expansion. I suggest great projects that look awesome and give us a small bonus somewhere but are more cosmetic than gameplay related. I'm thinking the great pyramids of giza, Notre Dame, the acropolis, the colossus of Rhodes type stuff. They would take a long time to complete but unlike some of our current timers there would be no limit on the amount of people dedicated to the task. So like 4 weeks of gameplay time with one person, but with 672 people it would take an hour. These projects would soak up manpower, resources and belief. There could be achievements for the people who build them first or build the biggest one in the case of a pyramid. Oh GODUS this is starting to sound a bit FTP. I just think that if you could look out and see some great works that have been constructed in your honour it would make you feel like a powerful god. Obviously there should be bonuses as well and these could carry over into some of the multiplayer games as well perhaps as long as it can be balanced. Belief is used in the construction of these because you need to inspire your people to build this symbol of your power.


•Take off the limits on belief and sculpting - You need to make sculpting cheap so we can do more of it and you need to make it easier. Reduce the cost of sculpting or increase the rate of belief generation. Also to make sculpting easier add in the option of holding the mouse to raise land or lowering it. That way it will be easy for us to make mountains. Give us multilevel sculpting early in the game. The challenge shouldn't be to expand across the map (that is why you have limits at the moment), the challenge should be to make an awesome civilisation. If we have varied terrain, great works, farms, mines, more professions, fountains and heaps of stuff to balance along the way then you wont need to hold us back from levelling the whole map.


•Fountains (and other gifts) - fountains are actually a cool idea but the way they were suggested by 22Cans is crap. No clicking on fountains. If we build fountains with belief that is cool although a stone resource requirement would enhance it. Once its built it should be automated (this goes for pretty much everything in GODUS please never have click, wait, click, wait, click for anything) with follower visiting to get the water they need. You could keep the happiness mechanic or you could do something else (see below).


•Self upgrading dwellings - Caeser and SimCity both have the idea of self upgrading dwellings that evolve as the infrastructure around them improves and as people get access to desirable resources. With fountains, and other improvements you could go down the path of having dwellings improve as the population get access to improved resources and services. Its an idea that is done before but it is a good one.

godus.boards.net/thread/220/constructive-design-ideas-godus

This is crucial, and a promising statement, but is this realisation shared by the persons in charge?