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Post by 13thGeneral on Jan 8, 2015 1:28:15 GMT
I guess I should probably suck it up and play the game through as far as I can, so that I have a full understanding of the mechanics being discussed, and have a clear idea of what I'm talking about in replying to the requested suggestions.
Does anyone have a good BFE that will help speed it along faster, so I can get up to speed with the discussions on Combat?
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Post by hardly on Jan 8, 2015 1:39:52 GMT
I don't suppose the included changes to sculpting in the BFE?
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Post by Gmr Leon on Jan 8, 2015 2:46:57 GMT
IMHO Moo is trying to push shit up hill and it is very likely he will fail to do so. However, it is a noble crusade he is undertaking and for that reason I am happy to support him. Nothing would make me happier than to see Moo succeed where the great Peter Molyneux failed so spectacularly. So let's all see where we can get to together. As Qetesh says we will likely need to let go of many of our expectations but at the same time we can hope that new ideas that we haven't thought of yet will be included. This hope may be in vein but I prefer to be a Pollyanna. Part of me says that's why he's looking into combat right now, to show that with revised and solid combat, they can draw in more player engagement/sales. If that's achieved, then he'll have more clout to draw on more resources to properly build out the game more. |
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Post by 13thGeneral on Jan 8, 2015 2:54:04 GMT
I have a feeling that by the time I can actually play far enough to experience combat, and have time to reflect and comment on it, that the conversation will have progressed beyond my input or well into another subject. Especially since I notice most of the discussion goes on while I'm at work.
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Post by hardly on Jan 8, 2015 2:54:20 GMT
IMHO Moo is trying to push shit up hill and it is very likely he will fail to do so. However, it is a noble crusade he is undertaking and for that reason I am happy to support him. Nothing would make me happier than to see Moo succeed where the great Peter Molyneux failed so spectacularly. So let's all see where we can get to together. As Qetesh says we will likely need to let go of many of our expectations but at the same time we can hope that new ideas that we haven't thought of yet will be included. This hope may be in vein but I prefer to be a Pollyanna. Part of me says that's why he's looking into combat right now, to show that with revised and solid combat, they can draw in more player engagement/sales. If that's achieved, then he'll have more clout to draw on more resources to properly build out the game more. I have two problems with that (1) I think significantly improved combat is less achievable that an improved economy simulation (2) interesting combat alone won't improve the game in the absence of other changes. |
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Post by hardly on Jan 8, 2015 2:56:05 GMT
I have a feeling that by the time I can actually play far enough to experience combat, and have time to reflect and comment on it, that the conversation will have progressed beyond my input or well into another subject. Especially since I notice most of the discussion goes on while I'm at work. Despite my loathing for godus I'm going to try loading it up to tonight and try and see how far I can get in a short space of time by making some insane changes to the balancing. I'll see if I can get to wayworld. Having said that are the military settlements there broken anyway so there is nothing to test? |
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Post by Gmr Leon on Jan 8, 2015 3:02:31 GMT
Part of me says that's why he's looking into combat right now, to show that with revised and solid combat, they can draw in more player engagement/sales. If that's achieved, then he'll have more clout to draw on more resources to properly build out the game more. I have two problems with that (1) I think significantly improved combat is less achievable that an improved economy simulation (2) interesting combat alone won't improve the game in the absence of other changes. Depends on what we're looking at in terms of asset revision/creation and access to the resources to do that. I'm kind of hoping we'll get some insight into just what resources remain available to FuriousMoo, as he's noted some of the problems with ideas such as new units and the possibility of them expanding or introducing new systems (i.e. new settlements for each unit type/entirely new systems as in unit veterancy/etc.). From what I gather, much of what he's looking at sounds like revising existing elements before (instead?) of introducing new ones that would require their own amounts of revision. I'm not sure how much of that is development style or resource constraints though, but if nothing else, at least it's better than the perpetual feature creep you could sense from Molyneux. If I'm misreading the vibe of those posts, feel free to correct me FuriousMoo, however as other posts here note that seems to be what others are sensing too. |
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Post by earlparvisjam on Jan 8, 2015 5:26:31 GMT
I have two problems with that (1) I think significantly improved combat is less achievable that an improved economy simulation (2) interesting combat alone won't improve the game in the absence of other changes. Depends on what we're looking at in terms of asset revision/creation and access to the resources to do that. I'm kind of hoping we'll get some insight into just what resources remain available to FuriousMoo, as he's noted some of the problems with ideas such as new units and the possibility of them expanding or introducing new systems (i.e. new settlements for each unit type/entirely new systems as in unit veterancy/etc.). From what I gather, much of what he's looking at sounds like revising existing elements before (instead?) of introducing new ones that would require their own amounts of revision. I'm not sure how much of that is development style or resource constraints though, but if nothing else, at least it's better than the perpetual feature creep you could sense from Molyneux. If I'm misreading the vibe of those posts, feel free to correct me FuriousMoo, however as other posts here note that seems to be what others are sensing too. If they are ever going to revise the base functionality, they need to do it before too much more new content is added. Every new feature locks the existing mechanics more in place. Every new military unit is going to need its own source of materials to produce, whether that's for the individual unit or the structure they are derived from. How those resources are gathered completely alters the dynamic of how they are used in combat. For example, let's say they include a musketeer unit that is derived from a shooting range building. The building uses ore to produce the unit for 20 ore each. If ore generation remains as it is now, a player is going to be very reluctant to field them unless they are significantly better than an alternative. For that matter, how are we getting these new structures? Are we now placing buildings? If so, why only certain buildings and not all buildings? If we're overlaying houses, how does this affect belief generation in the long run as more and more specialty structures become needed? We really need to hash out the basics we've been complaining about for over a year. If the plan is to avoid them until the game is fun, it's not going to work. We're still going to be digging for stickers. We're still going to have that hack sacrifice shrine. We're still going to have chest storms. We're still going to have tedious belief gathering. We're still going to have a simplistic resource generation system. |
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 8, 2015 6:32:12 GMT
*snip* Does anyone have a good BFE that will help speed it along faster, so I can get up to speed with the discussions on Combat? Try mine? Or YRUSirius's wasn't bad. |
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Post by Gmr Leon on Jan 8, 2015 7:45:52 GMT
Depends on what we're looking at in terms of asset revision/creation and access to the resources to do that. I'm kind of hoping we'll get some insight into just what resources remain available to FuriousMoo, as he's noted some of the problems with ideas such as new units and the possibility of them expanding or introducing new systems (i.e. new settlements for each unit type/entirely new systems as in unit veterancy/etc.). From what I gather, much of what he's looking at sounds like revising existing elements before (instead?) of introducing new ones that would require their own amounts of revision. I'm not sure how much of that is development style or resource constraints though, but if nothing else, at least it's better than the perpetual feature creep you could sense from Molyneux. If I'm misreading the vibe of those posts, feel free to correct me FuriousMoo, however as other posts here note that seems to be what others are sensing too. If they are ever going to revise the base functionality, they need to do it before too much more new content is added. Every new feature locks the existing mechanics more in place. Every new military unit is going to need its own source of materials to produce, whether that's for the individual unit or the structure they are derived from. How those resources are gathered completely alters the dynamic of how they are used in combat. For example, let's say they include a musketeer unit that is derived from a shooting range building. The building uses ore to produce the unit for 20 ore each. If ore generation remains as it is now, a player is going to be very reluctant to field them unless they are significantly better than an alternative. For that matter, how are we getting these new structures? Are we now placing buildings? If so, why only certain buildings and not all buildings? If we're overlaying houses, how does this affect belief generation in the long run as more and more specialty structures become needed? We really need to hash out the basics we've been complaining about for over a year. If the plan is to avoid them until the game is fun, it's not going to work. We're still going to be digging for stickers. We're still going to have that hack sacrifice shrine. We're still going to have chest storms. We're still going to have tedious belief gathering. We're still going to have a simplistic resource generation system. Yeaah, I don't really know which way this is going. If it's going through revision runs from recentish back to oldest or what the thinking is. If it were me, I'd look into going bottom up revisions from resources to more particular stuff like combat, but I'm in the same boat as everyone else here in terms of not knowing how any of the game's arranged as to whether that makes much sense or not. This is why I lean towards thinking that this area's being given emphasis to boost player engagement/sales to justify pulling on more resources to do more extensive changes, and in changing the god powers/combat, you can apply this towards both platforms more easily than a base overhaul (i.e. resources). Let's be honest here, most of the revenues from Godus on mobile almost certainly have to be coming from the way the resource system is configured. Any changes to this, if applied to both platforms, would have to rework what's being bought with gems if this is the case. If resources are too quickly/reliably gained, it undermines the reason to buy sticker packs/belief packs with gems. The only major alternatives being bought with gems are gifts, and you don't need to buy too many of these to get the most of them with the current balance, so it's doubtful these are seen as a worthwhile area to add to. I get the feeling the resource system might be severely hosed for changes, if all changes must be applied to both platforms. Some elaboration as to whether this is the case or not would be very good to hear, as well as what the thinking is in going after combat first, of all things. |
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Post by hardly on Jan 8, 2015 8:24:54 GMT
I think you have to uncouple both games and let PC go in a direction that mobile cant follow, anything else and GODUS will continue to suck. Peter obviously was wrong about the potential for mobile/PC convergence, certainly under the F2P model he was.
Its hard to see how Moo can get GODUS out of this hole given the parameters he has to work to. Peter sunk this one good and proper.
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Post by earlparvisjam on Jan 8, 2015 8:42:56 GMT
If they are ever going to revise the base functionality, they need to do it before too much more new content is added. Every new feature locks the existing mechanics more in place. Every new military unit is going to need its own source of materials to produce, whether that's for the individual unit or the structure they are derived from. How those resources are gathered completely alters the dynamic of how they are used in combat. For example, let's say they include a musketeer unit that is derived from a shooting range building. The building uses ore to produce the unit for 20 ore each. If ore generation remains as it is now, a player is going to be very reluctant to field them unless they are significantly better than an alternative. For that matter, how are we getting these new structures? Are we now placing buildings? If so, why only certain buildings and not all buildings? If we're overlaying houses, how does this affect belief generation in the long run as more and more specialty structures become needed? We really need to hash out the basics we've been complaining about for over a year. If the plan is to avoid them until the game is fun, it's not going to work. We're still going to be digging for stickers. We're still going to have that hack sacrifice shrine. We're still going to have chest storms. We're still going to have tedious belief gathering. We're still going to have a simplistic resource generation system. Yeaah, I don't really know which way this is going. If it's going through revision runs from recentish back to oldest or what the thinking is. If it were me, I'd look into going bottom up revisions from resources to more particular stuff like combat, but I'm in the same boat as everyone else here in terms of not knowing how any of the game's arranged as to whether that makes much sense or not. This is why I lean towards thinking that this area's being given emphasis to boost player engagement/sales to justify pulling on more resources to do more extensive changes, and in changing the god powers/combat, you can apply this towards both platforms more easily than a base overhaul (i.e. resources). Let's be honest here, most of the revenues from Godus on mobile almost certainly have to be coming from the way the resource system is configured. Any changes to this, if applied to both platforms, would have to rework what's being bought with gems if this is the case. If resources are too quickly/reliably gained, it undermines the reason to buy sticker packs/belief packs with gems. The only major alternatives being bought with gems are gifts, and you don't need to buy too many of these to get the most of them with the current balance, so it's doubtful these are seen as a worthwhile area to add to. I get the feeling the resource system might be severely hosed for changes, if all changes must be applied to both platforms. Some elaboration as to whether this is the case or not would be very good to hear, as well as what the thinking is in going after combat first, of all things. All of that is why it's absurd to bother talking about adding features and complexity when we don't even know what the foundation is. I can tell you flat out that it's a massive time waste to change the framework once features make use of it. I've seen it in testing so many times, it's become a running joke with my friends. "Just get it working and we'll clean it up later" always ends up making crap and the cleanup will take a minimum of 3x as long as just doing it right in the first place. Imagine replacing a single library in a several thousand line program. As long as the method calls, parameters, and return values remain the same, there's a good chance it'll be okay. If any change, then every time that bit is used elsewhere has to be fixed. Best chance is to hope that things fail to compile so problems are easily tracked down. Worst chance is that it compiles but it introduces hard to track bugs. Any changes to the core features are likely to affect multiple libraries and those libraries are likely to be implemented in several areas of code. Each time a new feature is added, more references are generated, which only increases the workload to making changes. I don't have to know a line of code in Godus to identify this either. I don't have to even know how their stuff is organized to point out pitfalls. For example, it's a problem that changing resource gathering is going to affect play balance (not even a code issue). If they decide that followers will actively generate ore from now on, it's going to impact game play drastically. It changes the dynamic for sacrificing followers, population profession distribution, and growth rates. All things that use ore have to be rebalanced to factor in the new dynamics1. Pathing has to be modified to handle the change. Animations have to be added to represent the new activity. AI has to be adjusted so followers actually perform the actions. It's a lot to deal with as is. Add more features to the mix and the task goes from moderate to high difficulty (and that's just in the planning/development portion of the whole process). |
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 8, 2015 8:48:33 GMT
I reckon Moo has been told to fix the rubbish military implementation first, so that they can get it out to mobile.
Then I hope they can go back to fix the larger issues (not sure, but that is what I'm hoping).
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Aron
Master
Posts: 125 
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198023768234/
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Post by Aron on Jan 8, 2015 11:44:59 GMT
Because there would be little or nothing to gain from posting it on the steam boards, like here |
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Post by Qetesh on Jan 8, 2015 12:35:59 GMT
Because there would be little or nothing to gain from posting it on the steam boards, like here Ehm? |
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Post by FuriousMoo on Jan 8, 2015 12:49:18 GMT
I reckon Moo has been told to fix the rubbish military implementation first, so that they can get it out to mobile. Then I hope they can go back to fix the larger issues (not sure, but that is what I'm hoping). Not true, I haven't been told anything in terms of direction. Combat isn't even the first thing we will be tackling, I'm just laying the groundwork for the design now. I'm not even sure in what form combat will come to mobile if at all. |
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 8, 2015 13:04:53 GMT
I reckon Moo has been told to fix the rubbish military implementation first, so that they can get it out to mobile. Then I hope they can go back to fix the larger issues (not sure, but that is what I'm hoping). Not true, I haven't been told anything in terms of direction. Combat isn't even the first thing we will be tackling, I'm just laying the groundwork for the design now. I'm not even sure in what form combat will come to mobile if at all. Hi Moo - please take this as constructive and not me having a pop. So I wonder why your experimental thread relates solely to combat and god powers use during combat. You've played Godus before you joined 22cans right? Is the rushed military introduction your highest priority or are you just trying to see what the community can offer input wise? If your just testing the waters, thats fine and dandy, but when you ask us what we'd like to see fixed the majority I think will point to features other than what was just added (military). You want positive input, I think you are best listing what you can/will work on in a poll, asking what the community thinks should take priority and would add most to Godus (quick wins) then question us on what we'd do design/implementation wise about the most popular item(s) as in your design threads. |
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Post by FuriousMoo on Jan 8, 2015 13:37:34 GMT
Not true, I haven't been told anything in terms of direction. Combat isn't even the first thing we will be tackling, I'm just laying the groundwork for the design now. I'm not even sure in what form combat will come to mobile if at all. Hi Moo - please take this as constructive and not me having a pop. So I wonder why your experimental thread relates solely to combat and god powers use during combat. You've played Godus before you joined 22cans right? Is the rushed military introduction your highest priority or are you just trying to see what the community can offer input wise? If your just testing the waters, thats fine and dandy, but when you ask us what we'd like to see fixed the majority I think will point to features other than what was just added (military). You want positive input, I think you are best listing what you can/will work on in a poll, asking what the community thinks should take priority and would add most to Godus (quick wins) then question us on what we'd do design/implementation wise about the most popular item(s) as in your design threads. Relax, my skin is thick. I picked the god powers in combat topic, because I felt that this was an area I could do with some input in. It's a tricky problem and I'd like to see if a) You can come up with solutions that haven't occurred to me and b) Whether you can provide feedback in a fashion that makes it worth my time to do this. It's just one topic, nice and discrete to get us started and you should not read too much into why I chose this topic first. I like to plan ahead. Also I really don't need you to tell me what you'd like to see fixed first, we've collated this data already. We'll be working through this list in order of easy wins, because right now you need to see some results and not for us to go dark for 6 months. Again I will point out that radical overhauls of core systems are not feasible at this point. We will be fixing what is already there and adding new features in small increments. When we hit a roadblock where we really can't work around the limitations of the current codebase that will be the time for difficult decisions. But there is a lot we can do to improve the overall experience prior to that point and that is where my focus will be. |
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Post by Qetesh on Jan 8, 2015 13:43:05 GMT
Not true, I haven't been told anything in terms of direction. Combat isn't even the first thing we will be tackling, I'm just laying the groundwork for the design now. I'm not even sure in what form combat will come to mobile if at all. Hi Moo - please take this as constructive and not me having a pop. So I wonder why your experimental thread relates solely to combat and god powers use during combat. You've played Godus before you joined 22cans right? Is the rushed military introduction your highest priority or are you just trying to see what the community can offer input wise? If your just testing the waters, thats fine and dandy, but when you ask us what we'd like to see fixed the majority I think will point to features other than what was just added (military). You want positive input, I think you are best listing what you can/will work on in a poll, asking what the community thinks should take priority and would add most to Godus (quick wins) then question us on what we'd do design/implementation wise about the most popular item(s) as in your design threads. My 2 cents: I think we are angry, rightfully so, but we do need to remember that he is the designer and we are just players. He has stated this is an experiment and one of many threads to come in various arenas of game design. I think that they are starting with one and will proceed into others as they go along. If he feels this is a failed experiment he could cease it all together so perhaps let's leave any Poll making as to how he designs the game up to him. I personally hate combat, not my thing, so I have no input for that thread. I am content to wait for next one that contains something I care about, but I am not going to push my personal thoughts on that to the one whose job is it to decide that, unless specifically requested. The onus will fall on him for the finished product so that is ultimately his call. |
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Post by FuriousMoo on Jan 8, 2015 14:24:06 GMT
Yeah I get you're angry, but if I'm being perfectly candid that is of very little interest to me from a practical point of view. My job isn't community relations and I can't claim any responsibility for design direction or the way community was handled prior to this point, so I will not engage at all in these topics. If you guys want to express your frustrations and grievances that's cool with me, Dave will engage you about those, but keep them to appropriate threads please. I'm here to discuss the improvement of existing game features and planning of new features ONLY.
I will be adding more topics, but I've already put too much time into the forums this week, I have to get on with some work.
Qetesh, the fact that you hate combat actually makes your feedback valuable. Why not try to abstract the concepts behind the combat and provide feedback based on that. Combat is in it's basic essence a contest of numbers after all. In terms of systems and mechanics without any graphical interpretation; the same systems could be applied to two armies engaging in bloody battle or two artists having a paint off.
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