Nominations for "Most Needed Change To Strategy Game, Round 2" poll

[keith.lamothe]

I think 4 or 6 is a good number; "few and powerful" is more interesting than "many and minor" in this case, I think.

[x4000]

True

[Billick]

* Deep Gate Rebalance:
** Are now only activated by being purified.
** But are now auto-purified when adjacent to a purified tile.
** Now generate 1/8-strength summons instead of 1/4, which makes it more likely that it won't spawn multiple strong monsters per turn unless the overlord is really powerful (due to difficulty or turn count).

I'm inclined to say that this is too big of a nerf.  The power is being reduced by half.  Also, before it would take at least 4 turns to destroy one on the higher difficulties:  1 turn where it's activated, 2 turns to purify it, and then 1 turn to kill it.  Now it will be at least 2 turns to destroy it: 1 turn where it's activated, and 1 turn to kill.  So the total power is being effectively reduced by 75%, plus they are easier to avoid.  This is all theorycrafting without having played it, so I reserve the right to change my mind 

[keith.lamothe]

We'll see; with 1.0 in 6 days we don't have time for little incremental balance changes

[madcow]

Probably better to err on the side of too easy rather than too hard on the 1.0 release. Heh.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, revised the changes a bit, revised bits in bold

* Now while you stand on a tile you could purify (meaning it's corrupted but still can be entered) all tiles that would be purified (including autopurification) by that are highlighted.

* All Auto-purify tiles (caves, deep gates, level-up towers, etc) are now automatically scouted if they are adjacent to another tile that is revealed.

* Deep Gate Rebalance:
** Are now only activated by being purified.
** But are now auto-purified when adjacent to a purified tile.
** As mentioned above, these are now automatically always scouted.
** Now generate 1/2-strength summons instead of 1/4 (since there's now generally far fewer turns you have to deal with their spawns before you can take them down).

Couldn't let me be nice to you, so I'll be mean instead

Far more practice at that.

The way it will be now, even in an ideal deep-gate-assault situation you'll have to eat 2 turns of spawns: one for purifying it, one after moving an NPC to it.  Since that will now amount to a full normal summon's worth of power on top of whatever else you're dealing with I think that will suffice   May not hold a candle to the old deep gates of game-ending yore, but I'm not thinking that's a bad thing.

[Aklyon]

Flying over in a recon balloon... wouldn't that attract eagles?

Or Unimpressed Owls?

[Billick]

Ok, revised the changes a bit, revised bits in bold

* Now while you stand on a tile you could purify (meaning it's corrupted but still can be entered) all tiles that would be purified (including autopurification) by that are highlighted.

* All Auto-purify tiles (caves, deep gates, level-up towers, etc) are now automatically scouted if they are adjacent to another tile that is revealed.

* Deep Gate Rebalance:
** Are now only activated by being purified.
** But are now auto-purified when adjacent to a purified tile.
** As mentioned above, these are now automatically always scouted.
** Now generate 1/2-strength summons instead of 1/4 (since there's now generally far fewer turns you have to deal with their spawns before you can take them down).

Couldn't let me be nice to you, so I'll be mean instead

Far more practice at that.

The way it will be now, even in an ideal deep-gate-assault situation you'll have to eat 2 turns of spawns: one for purifying it, one after moving an NPC to it.  Since that will now amount to a full normal summon's worth of power on top of whatever else you're dealing with I think that will suffice   May not hold a candle to the old deep gates of game-ending yore, but I'm not thinking that's a bad thing.

This might actually be a moderate buff to gates on pawn difficulty, since the power is increased, and it's actually easier to activate them now that they purify if an adjacent tile is purified.  It's probably only a small nerf instead of a huge one on the higher difficulties.  Maybe I'm not explaining this very well 

[x4000]

I don't think that they really needed terribly much of a nerf -- what they really needed was to not pop out at you in such a surprising manner, when you then could be completely unprepared for them.  With the new stuff in the next build in practice, I think it feels pretty good to me.  But, that said, obviously we'll see what everyone thinks once that's released later tonight.

[Mick]

I have a simple nomination. Please stop giving me a text injection every time I brush up against an impasse tile on the world map. The first time is enough. I feel like I'm playing Operation and I get buzzed whenever I walk by them.

[zespri]

That reminds me that until you learned tutorial by heart sometimes you want to re-read what you have just dismissed. But there is no log or help record for this. So sometimes you keep scratching your head, "what was that, that I was supposed to be doing?"

[Ashnal]

Hmmm, Deep Gates. I know in the game where I steamrolled the world the two Deep Gates next to the stratospheric citadel made destroying it particularly painful.

In a way I kinda liked the old Deep gates. Honestly, I'd like them to go back to the way they were, BUT with some interface improvements and warnings. Since you're working on the auto-purification display, why not add another element to it that will highlight any Deep gates that would also be activated? Then, when the player goes to embark into the tile that will result in a Deep Gate being activated bring up a prompt that educates new players and warns them on the impending activation with a choice to cancel, similar to the dialog that pops up when you try to enter a purified tile with no perk tokens.

This way, you can have powerful Deep Gates without the pitfall of players accidently opening them. Players will have to consciously weigh the pros and cons of purifying that tile once they are properly informed.