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

[x4000]

Not sure how other people feel about this, but from a balance perspective, I feel like deep gates maybe need to be toned down a bit.

I think the way they work is good, personally, except that sometimes when I activate one by accident from too far away and then it takes forever to get there.  I'm wondering if perhaps "2 tiles from a purified region tile" might be a better rule than 3 tiles.

Or maybe it just shouldn't count auto-purified tiles (caves, level-up towers, etc).  Or maybe it should be based on proximity to NPCs rather than purified tiles.  And then the range could be expanded to 4 tiles away, and it could be shifted so that 0-n deep gates could be active on a turn rather than just 0-1 like now.  Because in that case you'd be able to withdraw your forces to stem the tide of forces from the enemy.

I'm not sure.

[Billick]

Not sure how other people feel about this, but from a balance perspective, I feel like deep gates maybe need to be toned down a bit.

I think the way they work is good, personally, except that sometimes when I activate one by accident from too far away and then it takes forever to get there.  I'm wondering if perhaps "2 tiles from a purified region tile" might be a better rule than 3 tiles.

Or maybe it just shouldn't count auto-purified tiles (caves, level-up towers, etc).  Or maybe it should be based on proximity to NPCs rather than purified tiles.  And then the range could be expanded to 4 tiles away, and it could be shifted so that 0-n deep gates could be active on a turn rather than just 0-1 like now.  Because in that case you'd be able to withdraw your forces to stem the tide of forces from the enemy.

I'm not sure.

Yeah, I really like them as a concept, so don't nerf them too much!  Maybe if you can always see them, even if the tile they are on isn't scouted yet, that would be enough.  Lorewise, you could say something like "they are so powerful, they can be detected from far away", or something like that.

[keith.lamothe]

Not sure how other people feel about this, but from a balance perspective, I feel like deep gates maybe need to be toned down a bit.

I think the way they work is good, personally, except that sometimes when I activate one by accident from too far away and then it takes forever to get there.  I'm wondering if perhaps "2 tiles from a purified region tile" might be a better rule than 3 tiles.

I think we've discussed this a few times already, but from 0.727's release notes:

* Made the "free overlord spell" features of the Deep Gate and Stratospheric Citadel activate at a different distance-to-purified-land based on strategic difficulty. Previously they always activated within 3 tiles of purified land; now they activate within 0/1/2/3/3 tiles distance. So on Pawn they only activate when actually purified, and on Knight they only activate when purified or directly adjacent to a purified tile, etc.

But I think just making them only work when purified is better, at this point.

[x4000]

How about "when purified or when within X range of an NPC," where X is the current distance you've already got going.  Without the second part I think these would become too easy to avoid.

[Billick]

I'd like to hear what other people think about the deep gates.  Maybe I just need to man up 

[keith.lamothe]

How about "when purified or when within X range of an NPC," where X is the current distance you've already got going.  Without the second part I think these would become too easy to avoid.

With the autopurification I don't know that it'd be too easy.  The NPC distance rule would be hard to communicate to the user in a reasonable fashion, though I suppose just not trying to and relying on the undo-move would be ok, though if they got into combat on that move they'd eat a turn's worth of spawning.  But if it turned off after they backed off, then sure, I suppose.  Though that would get back into the realm of that second part of the rule not being there, once they'd done the critical steps in that small area.

[x4000]

Well, deep gates don't autopurify, so unless the player explicitly purifies them they would never turn on!  And that would be a pretty dumb thing to do, so they'd essentially just be a penalty for a turn or two when you need to purify something right next to them.  And since players would have such warning, they could just pile soldiers next to it, purify it, then pummel it.  Not really remotely the same mechanic.

Possibly the easiest thing is not to have them count auto-purifiable tiles when they are doing their distance checks.  Though that's still pretty opaque to the player.  The clearest rule is actually the one we have now.

All of that said... in the end I think that earlier suggestion about just being able to see their status popup things even through the scouting fog is a good idea.  Possibly we just make these particular tiles auto-scouted to make that work and no look like a bug.  Maybe even auto-scout the deep gate and the tiles directly adjacent to it.  That alone might solve the problem, because right now the problem is the complete suprirse of them.  If auto-purification does some funky stuff but I know the deep gate is over there, that's less of a problem.

[madcow]

How about having monsters/overlord on the strategic map need to reach the deep gates to activate them the first time. Not sure if that's possible to code in or not though.

[x4000]

I'll leave that one to Keith to answer, but that's an interesting idea.  It still seems like a pretty heavy nerf to me, but it's interesting.

[madcow]

I haven't gotten around to playing with the gates, so I couldn't possibly comment on the balance.

But I find that idea intriguing at least.

[x4000]

Every game I've lost, the gates have been what killed me, heh.  But they are also really fun, to me personally at least.

[zespri]

When you are in a tile menu, while there is no survivor on the tile you can get into Building Menu but it is not possible to see what each building that is there is going to do when built. You have the same problem if you don't have enough scrap. When you are learning the game it is very annoying - you can't gauge whether it worth moving a survivor on the tile without this information.

[Misery]

I like the idea of the gates, but they do seem too strong, and in some cases it can be WAY too easy to open them up.   Not to mention that multiple monsters PER TURN can be..... bad.   

I've a screenshot that shows an example of this going terribly wrong:




The tile that I'm standing on is the one that I actually purified;  and then that gate, which is a good distance away, instantly opened, and farted out two power-4 monsters on one turn.    This being AFTER I only just dealt with the starting monsters.... not only can I not possibly kill these, but I only have like 6 guys to begin with, two of which are scouts, and most of which are kinda wrecked.   I havent the foggiest idea as to how I could survive that at all.   Havent really built up much scrap to undo the destruction they might cause, either, and I cant really get at the gate itself without having to go through a forest of random monsters.

Fortunately I've been backing up the game REALLY REALLY OFTEN since I figured something like this was bound to happen (and starting over for the billionth time kinda interferes with testing stuff), but yeah, I'm thinking those are a bit.... off.... at the moment.    This is on the default difficulty, for strategic.


EDIT:  And I wanted to say, that I dont think the mechanic of caves and similar things auto-purifying should be changed here.   That mechanic actually works out pretty well most of the time.   Just the gates themselves need something done, though I dunno what that might be.... but I'm sure you guys will think of something good to do there, heh.


EDIT 2:  Er.... wait.   The text on these says it spawns ONE monster per turn.... is that what it's supposed to do?  That would actually make a HUGE difference here.... it'd still be pretty freaking tough but I could see a way of possibly beating the thing if it werent spawning two of them at once. 

Also, I do agree, these things are a really cool idea, and having threats come from places other than JUST Demonaica and his castle makes perfect sense within the game world.  So these are good in concept and execution for the most part, just maybe a bit of balance issues.

[Billick]

Maybe also have the difficulty level affect the relative power of the monsters.  I like the idea of having them pre-scouted along with the adjacent tile.  Then you know what you're getting into, and what the reward is for dealing with them.  It really would give the player some interesting choices. 

[Gemzo]

Maybe auto-purified tiles could extend your visibility in some way?