Design Discussion: Major Villains / Skyward 2.0 Design

[solosol]

About Making the bandits feel more unique in general, as well as a bit unique per game,  may be some of these things can be of use (sorry if I repeat something, it is because I like it).
-  Some Skills, passives and/or spells may have an Area of Effect (AoE) or splash, while others are Global, or Used only against the unit they are attacking, or having an effect over  only a  certain type of units (ranged, infantry, horsemen,  siege...).
- Having a pool of them and one is randomly picked when the bandit appears. Mixing both ideas: each major bandit or myth has their unique passive or ability, and a spell that is randomly picked.  I like this a lot, as makes major bandits with their "personality", but at the same time with that random component...
- About skills and spells, I like the AoE, because that implies in having more ranged units/myths to deal with them, and because there is a wide variety to choose. Anyway, next list can be used for global, splash or only attack action, according to their effect.
- Terror. As AoE, surrounding non-god units flee in random direction for some turns - as passive might be too OP.
- Medusa (myth bandit unit or spell, like "mirror of medusa" - as passive might be too OP-). Surrounding units can be set in stone (this can be they lose their turn -myths, gods- or they just die -human units -).
- Slave Mastery. It causes a unit to change into a bandit unit.
- Looter. If applied to a building, it steals resources.
- Intense Pillager.  The turn that is active, it steals like 10% of income resources. If other units have the same active on that turn, the effect is accumulative, so 10 bandits with them on and no resource income for that turn Alternatives might be: 1) this could be applied against a certain faction only, instead of global, so each faction has his own "pillaging counter" 2)The pillage affects only to a certain random resource, so that it just steals 100% of the turn's income and no accumulation is needed.
- About looting the player, being not able to place resources in that turn can, can be a skill/spell too... as passive might be too OP, specially if combined with the previous one.
- Summoning/invocation. A myth bandit spams...preferably near the summoner...but maybe the location is random.
- Sneak attack. Next unit  attack (or special attack that) has a bonus attack.
- Ambusher. Surrounding units have their attack reduced.
- Unbeliever. This allows some kind of protection from lesser gods attacks (like reducing 25% of gods attacks?)
- Ostracism. A lesser god can't use tokens in next turn(s) - as passive might be too OP

[Misery]

I think he linked the wrong document, because this one doesn't mention villains at all.

Hm, so he did..... argh.  Now it'll bug me till it's fixed   

I sure am curious as to what's in there, as I'm wondering just what this "2.0 design" means.  DLC/add-ons/whatever that's just going straight into the base game, beyond just the villain/bandit additions?

I'm sure it'll be interesting, whatever it is.

[Winge]

He was already discussing an expansion with the Japanese, so it may fit in with that.  Of course, I may be getting ahead of myself--happens a lot 

[Aydz]

How cool would it be if this turned into an Epic Fantasy setting during the Age of Gods where you had to unit the factions against the common enemy. Just think about it...

[Teal_Blue]

although i think i see your attraction to the idea, my own personal opinion, is i would prefer to preserve the 'balancing act' that the game has got going for it.    Adding mechanics that add new things, or ideas is all well and good, I just hope we don't get away from the 'balancing' part of it all.

That to me is the magic and the challenge of SC.    And i'm loving it!

-Teal

[x4000]

Huge apologies folks, I've been all over the place and my link to the design document was definitely wrong.  Here's the right one: https://docs.google.com/document/d/155UQcJpOm04Hk3RGNKtLt7XFQt3bANxEDHDBmfkbQME/edit

Will respond more to other things coming up, but I'm just absolutely scrambling constantly at the moment to keep up with a lot of things.  New build coming out today, though.

[Mick]

I'm excited about a lot of the changes, even the really simple ones like the score multipliers applying to each age.

[Misery]

Aha, the stuff in here sounds pretty good to me.

The Bune sounds particularly nasty.

One thing I wanted to bring up though, is the way that bandit forts work;  do you intend on making any changes to these, or perhaps creating multiple types?   The one problem with them right now is that for any given bandit fort, it's not too hard to essentially "seal" it, keeping units from ever stepping offa it.  Not done by mountains or lakes though, this is done simply by having various sorts of units around it;  melee things constantly hammering away at it can easily cause this.   It's particularly easy with forts that appear on the edge of the landscape, as you often only need a single unit standing in front of it;  depending on the units involved, even just a couple of your own guys can essentially lock down a bandit fort until something more destructive can get over to it and wreck it. 

Some of that might be undone a bit by some of these specific units in this list, but it remains to be seen just how easy or not it will be to keep doing that tactic anyway.

That's pretty much my only issues with the bandits as they are right now.


Either way though, this update sounds like a very good idea.   I like the unit ideas in here, and I like the ideas for how the heroes and villains and such will work.   

Do you intend on giving the villains activated powers, similar to Demonaica?   This one seems like a good idea to me still since it'd give them a bit more of a threat than the usual unit as well as a bit more identity.    Nasty passive abilities sound good too.  These guys should be quite the threat.

What about heroes, is the player going to be given any unique tools for interacting with these guys (like how the gods have their tokens and such)?  Not necessarily direct super powers like the gods use, but things that might influence these guys and their actions somehow.


Anyway, all sounds pretty great so far!