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Post by earlparvisjam on Jan 29, 2015 13:54:22 GMT
There'd be little need to limit god powers if the belief system was overhauled. The biggest problem at the moment is that belief generates really slowly and powers are very expensive. This creates long periods of buildup with burst expenditures and promotes hording. If Godus had a faster/easier belief generation coupled with lower cost, more things to spend belief on, and an overall faster game pace, god powers would be limited by the existing mechanic. It worked just fine in Populous. Why I've been hammering that these fundamental systems need rework before adding more features is because of this design gap. It's like Godus is being designed for peacetime play and wartime play as if they are two separate mini-games. They aren't and need to be looked at as a whole game experience. At the moment, the way I see things, either you avoid using precious belief in war to avoid waiting forever for it to regerate in non-combat expenditures, or you use up all your belief in war and the non-combat portion becomes a huge belief generation wait. At the moment, it's possible to generate insane amounts of belief given enough time. The flaw isn't in belief generation but in how the game is played. A player shouldn't be able to just sit around and safely generate belief. This brings up the second problem that needs addressing: risk. There is no risk in Godus. Look at any rts and see how they address the turtling tactic. Godus hasn't put any effort into it. The "worlds" are still essentially safe havens where players risk nothing and victory is little more than a matter of playing long enough. All the fancy units, god power timers, specialty structures, and side-effects added to the game aren't going to amount to squat without figuring out how belief works for the game as a whole and if there's actually any risk involved. Right now, WE CAN'T LOSE. All of the mechanics have been built on this premise and it springs from the casual f2p game it's been designed as. This game is never going to make sense as long as the core mechanics are how they are. Doesn't sound like game mechanics to me what you describe is balancing, if they made the Astari Raiding parties aggressive and lots more of them and a progression train of way points through homeworld (via settlements) it would feel like you could lose. Belief generation and usage amounts can also be re-balanced. I'm one for random events and natural disasters too, but I think these can be implemented with the current design if they choose to. The questionable f2p mechanics are the lack of any kind of timeline progression (or tech tree), card and stickers being used for that purpose, gems and lack of other resources (wheat and ore) aren't enough IMO. Part of that balancing involves how belief is collected. Speeding up game play makes gathering belief unrealistic. No player is going to want to frantically cycle back and forth between directing troops and clicking bubbles. Everything about the system revolves around long timers and slow pacing. Just pushing the timers down to a quick pace won't cut it. Everything involved with belief will need to be looked at to make sure it even makes sense before pushing forward. That includes what actually generates belief. Currently, it's a hard mechanic with individual structures and tons of individual counters. Every structure in the game works within its own little microcosm. Is any of that necessary once the pacing increases? If belief automatically generated into the player's stockpile, all that timer crap for each individual structure would be unnecessary. As it stands, every structure that generates belief wastes resources with individual timer mechanics and code around managing the bubble clicking dynamic. Oh, and reworking generation speeds will likely cause another revamp of settlements (if they aren't replaced outright down the road to allow for more diverse building mechanics). The entire game dynamic works around the idea that the player is safe from loss. It's been the base assumption for every aspect of the Homeworld design since day 1. Pulling combat into it means that has to change. All the enemy troops in the world won't matter without incorporating a means of them actually causing a loss situation for the player. Otherwise, they're just speed bumps on the road to completion. That's not just balancing. It's going to take mechanics that don't currently exist in this game. Having enemy troops destroy buildings is only the first step... |
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Post by Spiderweb on Jan 29, 2015 14:28:10 GMT
Part of that balancing involves how belief is collected. Speeding up game play makes gathering belief unrealistic. No player is going to want to frantically cycle back and forth between directing troops and clicking bubbles. Everything about the system revolves around long timers and slow pacing. Just pushing the timers down to a quick pace won't cut it. Everything involved with belief will need to be looked at to make sure it even makes sense before pushing forward. That includes what actually generates belief. Currently, it's a hard mechanic with individual structures and tons of individual counters. Every structure in the game works within its own little microcosm. Is any of that necessary once the pacing increases? If belief automatically generated into the player's stockpile, all that timer crap for each individual structure would be unnecessary. As it stands, every structure that generates belief wastes resources with individual timer mechanics and code around managing the bubble clicking dynamic. Oh, and reworking generation speeds will likely cause another revamp of settlements (if they aren't replaced outright down the road to allow for more diverse building mechanics). The entire game dynamic works around the idea that the player is safe from loss. It's been the base assumption for every aspect of the Homeworld design since day 1. Pulling combat into it means that has to change. All the enemy troops in the world won't matter without incorporating a means of them actually causing a loss situation for the player. Otherwise, they're just speed bumps on the road to completion. That's not just balancing. It's going to take mechanics that don't currently exist in this game. Having enemy troops destroy buildings is only the first step... Yes, individual bubbles/building/timers probably do eat some system resources, but your forgetting the auto belief shrines (which I admit I don't like), they claim it is supposedly shows progression. So clicking after a while is removed and collection/generation is still a balancing issue. I agree it may improve things to remove it, but being realistic I don't think they will touch it. I totally agree, there is no real win/loss state and therefore no player challenge "gameplay" as discussed many times before (its currently glorified design software). But the Astari behaviour can be altered as Moo has stated through scripting that mimics AI behaviour (to be clear it is not AI it is faked AI), if the rules are complex enough you can easily be fake out into think your playing against someone, that is how most games work right? I think with homeworld, they should just leave it for you to sculpt in and create a beautiful safezone, that would please the casual players, but they should (if they continue with separate worlds) have places you can sail off to i.e. Weyworld and battle. I reckon these other worlds should give you something prized to decorate homeworld (your trophy cabinet). I'm not holding my breathe for miracles here, but I think some semblance of gameplay can be created with what they have, which would be a start, lets face it they are not going to re-code the basics any time soon that is for sure. |
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Jan 29, 2015 14:45:55 GMT
I think earlparvisjam is right. If you simply had an integer for the amount of buildings a player has of each type of building and belief generation was automated a simplified formula in pseudo code could look something like this: amountOfBelief = amountOfBelief + ((intType1Abode + intType2Abode + intType3Abode + intType(n)Abode) * timeUnit) Seems a whole lot more resource friendly than having timers for each abode. Plus it'd be less aggravating for the player as well. But let's try to keep FuriousMoo's thread on topic as much as we can. He had stated the following: Not really a design thread as such and don't read too much into it, but I'm curious what you would like, in very broad terms, combat in Godus being like if given the choice. Present your answers in this format: "I would like combat in Godus to be like (insert existing game name here), but with the (*name of mechanic) from (*other existing game)" and with (*ingenious new never before seen mechanic you just dreamed up).*Optional Do NOT go off on tangents about other systems like economy, generation of new units etc, this is just concerning the combat loop. |
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Post by 13thGeneral on Jan 29, 2015 18:03:26 GMT
I think earlparvisjam is right. If you simply had an integer for the amount of buildings a player has of each type of building and belief generation was automated a simplified formula in pseudo code could look something like this: amountOfBelief = amountOfBelief + ((intType1Abode + intType2Abode + intType3Abode + intType(n)Abode) * timeUnit) Seems a whole lot more resource friendly than having timers for each abode. Plus it'd be less aggravating for the player as well. But let's try to keep FuriousMoo's thread on topic as much as we can. He had stated the following: Not really a design thread as such and don't read too much into it, but I'm curious what you would like, in very broad terms, combat in Godus being like if given the choice. Present your answers in this format: "I would like combat in Godus to be like (insert existing game name here), but with the (*name of mechanic) from (*other existing game)" and with (*ingenious new never before seen mechanic you just dreamed up).*Optional Do NOT go off on tangents about other systems like economy, generation of new units etc, this is just concerning the combat loop. Huh, somehow I missed this thread; though format request is verh helpful. Maybe I'll put some thought into which games to use for comparisons. Of course, it would likely mean I'm going to have to revisit some games - to refresh my brain on thier features ans mechanics - which will take considerable time. That's an interesting observation about the belief generation; I agree that perhpas it needs consolidating to aid in both game balance and system resources. That would potentially open up more freedom with combat and interaction. *****SPACE LEFT INTENTIONALITY BLANK FOR EDIT AT A LATER TIME****** I would like combat in Godus to be like {nil}, but with the {nil} from {nil} and with {nil}. |
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