Player Feedback requested - Edicts, propositions, and challenges.

[Misery]

Another idea regarding propositions.  Quests for our sides to compete over! For example, one of the tiles that flips might reveal The Golden Fleece (or whatever Norse/Greek treasure/item you want). It may or may not have monster guards, but now soldiers from both sides may (or might decide not to) shift focus to grabbing that. With the side that claims it getting a buff.

Players could choose to intervene, help one side, or try to prevent either side from getting it as its just too powerful for mankind  Entirely based off their own choosing as well. Totally agreed with Misery on challenges being limited, part of the reason I listed achievements as my least favorite idea.

Ooh, this one I really like.  A tile/location that appears that contains a quest or objective or something..... this would be interesting in that the PLAYER can ignore or focus on it if they want....  yet they always have to contend with the idea that the AI may, or may not, depending on it's whims, go off and grab it on it's own, so at the very least the player would have to pay attention to it, because it's completion means a big effect going off.   This, I think, adds even more to the "manage all of these sword-wielding maniacs" theme of the game.  As again, it's a concept that is something they can do that's not JUST basic chopping (even if it INVOLVES lots of chopping).



And to answer the question about the VPs,  the idea I'd had was simple:   There's a list of possible VPs that you can do, right?  Like, one of them might be, I dont know, "kill the god on one side", which might give you a heap of points.  There's tons of these that are possible.   Well, if there's a big list of these, right, say there's like 40 of them, it'd be interesting to me if the game would choose 20 of them randomly (totally arbitrary numbers here), and those are the ones that I can actually DO during that particular game.   This keeps things interesting, and ALSO means that there isnt always a best/easiest/simplest few VPs that the player can ALWAYS go after.  Different combinations of these could get.... interesting.  Particularly as, theoretically, these could impact each other, like the "kill a god" one might make certain other VPs harder to get if you do it, but some other ones might be easier to get.


Hope I'm making sense.  Not sure I am.

[Pepisolo]

Little time to post at the moment, but: what Madcow said. More randomization is the key to making this game fun, I think.  So, the closest to increasing the random elements out of the different choices is Propositions as far as I can see, although I would prefer many different types of random events not always related to the townspeople. Maybe the Master starts toying with you in the same way you might toy with your mortals, sending down giant squids or something -- hey, I said I didn't have much time to post!

[Hearteater]

My initial suggestion would be:

Victory Points are earned towards winning the game.  This means reaching the end of the game without having enough VPs is a loss.  It would also mean you could win the game early, but the scoring should be such that it pretty difficult to win before Round 3.  One simple method of doing this would be if VP earned is multiplied by the current Round.  The VP goal should scale linearly with Turns.  Simple formula would be 1 VP per Turn.  So on 40 Turns/Round, you need 120 VP before Turn 120.  What earns you VP should probably be anything indicating one side is unbalanced.  Capturing Towns Centers, killing Lesser/Greater Gods, whatever.  For stuff like killing a Lesser/Greater god, doing the same for the other side should award no points (since you just evened things out).  In fact, it might make the most sense to have a list of events which when they occur earn you VP, and have them all claimable only once per game.

Since AP are limited by Turns, you can actually map out AP to VP in determining awards.  Basically for every 6 AP you spend towards a VP, you get 1 VP assuming x1/x2/x3 Round multipliers.  For example, if you wanted to award VP for completely isolating a maxed Town (smiting all the surrounding land) that would take 24 Smites, so you would get 4 VP.  Something to note, you could gain no VP Rounds 1 & 2 and so long as you got to convert every AP perfectly into VP in Round 3 you could just barely win.  But you would probably want to have some VP before then to give yourself a buffer.  It might even be a good idea to have small minimum VP required at the end of Rounds 1 and 2 to proceed, just to prevent someone from accidentally putting themselves in an insanely hard position Round 3.  Obviously, a lot of VP conditions wouldn't be so easily converted into requiring X AP, but it makes a good baseline for valuing a given victory condition.

Difficulty can just scale the total VP needed.  So Normal might be 100%, Hard might be 120%, and Impossible might be 140%.

I think this give the player a list of objectives they can work towards in whatever manner they wish, so they always have a goal throughout the game.  The implementation should be pretty simple, and it should be pretty easy to understand for players.  The difficulty multiplier is a bit of an Ante mechanic, and could even be worded that way: "I can earn 120 VP in one game"..."Oh yeah, I can earn 144 VP in one game!"  In fact, you might even allow a more AIW-ish difficulty setting were you just move what you think you can do up or down in increments of 10%.  For those people that like Scores, this is kinda like calling your Score before you play.

Edicts
These can just be a collection of VP items that you get a bonus amount of VP for completing.  But in exchange, there is some unbalancing effect on play.  Like, Norse require twice as many Pigs to produce Bacon.  The important part is it should make the two sides less even and so mirrored Edict penalties shouldn't exist so you can't just offset them.  The Edict bonus VP isn't multiplied by Round, but scales with turns so that it is always, say, 10% of the VP total (before difficulty multipliers).  It may also require the VP conditions be met for a specific side (The condition might be Destroy 10 Barracks on one side, but the Edict might require that side be the Norse).  The Edicts downside could also affect the play (No Command).  Harder Edicts (worse downsides) would give larger VP bonuses which would allow you to complete higher difficulties.

When you win a game with an Edict, you earn XP towards leveling up your profile.  The higher the difficulty, the more XP.  However, one stat that is track is how many times you win with each Edict, and you get 10% less XP for each previous win with an Edict.  So let's say the formula is 1 XP per VP you needed to score (you don't get more XP for going over your required VP...you want more XP, call it in advance).  In a 120 VP game, you get 120 XP from each Edict, so 240 XP.  You play again, with one new Edict, and the same second Edict.  You win again, on a 120 VP game.  This time you get 120 XP for the new Edict, and 108 XP for the repeated Edict.  After 10 wins, you'd get 0 XP for winning with that Edict.  There might optionally be a penalty for not scoring the Edict VP bonus (or a bonus for actually scoring it).

Those are my quick thoughts before I have to run to dinner.

[x4000]

Few thoughts before I run off for the night myself:

Misery: Thanks for the clarification on VPs. That's actually really interesting, although I think that possibly having the players look through a list of 20 possible VPs to be working on at any given time would be a bit overwhelming, don't you?  I can't think of an interface there that wouldn't freak a midcore gamer out.

Regarding quests: It's kind of interesting, but the AI would generally go for them, and I don't really know what you mean by quest TBH.  I mean, if these are powerups or whatever, we basically already have that in the ruins and the mythological tokens, mixed between stuff you place and stuff you don't place.

Pepisolo: Agreed in spirit, but it comes down to execution.

Hearteater: I'm really looking for One System To Rule Them All.  Not just because I'm super limited on time (which I am), but also because I think that's key to being able to understand what is going on.  If I have three categories of objectives, how do we show that on the screen?  How do I, as the player, begin to fathom what to do first?  Etc.  I like the idea of players being able to focus on 1-3 things at a time, but having some insight into what they will need to be keeping an eye on in the future.


Possible simple model.  We take Misery's idea of VPs and combine that with some of the other thoughts here:

1. We have 40ish VPs possible.
2. You are presented with 3 that you can work on at the start, and then 3 more that are grayed out that will come in after you complete the first 3 (each one that you complete brings in another one from the gray list, and then another one gets added to the gray list.  So it's incremental, not all-at-once).
3. You have VP goals per round, as Hearteater notes.  This would be set by the difficulty you choose, not really the map size.  Probably.  It's not granular enough to really do that unless we make VPs into 100 equals what people have been talking about 1.
4. In terms of co-op this will be extra tricky, but it can be balanced.  This also argues for more granularity, or even a floating-point number system so that the numbers don't get strangely large.  So you could earn, say, 0.33 VP from some action.


And that's basically it.  If the VPs are designed interestingly and well, these would provide all the randomization we need.  We could also add in more "calamity" type things like yellow towns spawning or yellow hordes on rare occasion or whatnot, but those would be just more sources of things to deal with, and difficulty-dependent as well.

That's a pretty straightforward model, and seems to take the best of what people like.  If people like this, we'd have to do another thread with VP ideas -- Josh and I already have dozens, but many of them are a bit inane and/or cross-game.  More heads are better than one.

Thoughts?

[Winge]

I like a lot of your ideas, Hearteater.  In fact, the only thing I don't like is the profile XP penalty for repeated edicts...especially if they are randomized.  I understand your desire to avoid repetition, but I don't think it is necessary.  I feel the better approach would be random cataclysm events.  Sure, I may pick an option that I find to be relatively easy to handle (using a certain ability or building up a certain way), and then, all of a sudden, the game spawns a Baelrog of Murdoch which arbitrarily harasses the weakened side.  I now have to find some way to halt the other side (or enlist their support) in order to defeat the new menace.  Even with warnings, there are some things you cannot completely prepare for.

Based on what Chris said, I could see VP being the One System to Rule Them All, with Edicts being player-chooseable subconditions.  Unlike most VP conditions (which would probably be God or Mythological tokens), you would chose these before you play--or possibly at the beginning of ever round.  You could also make them tiered.  For example, let's say you chose military production.  Producing the original easy condition nets you a mere 1 VP.  Producing the moderate condition gives you 2 VP.  Making it all the way to the hard condition gives you 4 VP.  This gives the player a little bit of direction right from the start, and also gives more opening for cataclysms to mess with the players plans.

My 2.7 cents.  Time for bed.

[Hearteater]

I only put the XP penalty for repeat Edicts in because Chris didn't want people to just keep picking the same ones .

[mrhanman]

2. You are presented with 3 that you can work on at the start, and then 3 more that are grayed out that will come in after you complete the first 3 (each one that you complete brings in another one from the gray list, and then another one gets added to the gray list.  So it's incremental, not all-at-once).

Do you mean something along the lines of the challenges in Jetpack Joyride and Temple Run, only repeatable and random?  I think that cwould be a great idea if so.  Those kinds of systems really add something to a game if they are well conceived.  I feel the same way about Achievements, actually.

[chemical_art]

Exhausted, but the key is organic randomness, not forced randomness.

Players need to react to randomness. If it is not random but constant across games, it is not random at all.

So tired, hard to clarify.


Having a player react to a needed random short term objective on the fly is reacting to randomness. Having a constant list of objectives to do is not random at all.

[Misery]

Few thoughts before I run off for the night myself:

Misery: Thanks for the clarification on VPs. That's actually really interesting, although I think that possibly having the players look through a list of 20 possible VPs to be working on at any given time would be a bit overwhelming, don't you?  I can't think of an interface there that wouldn't freak a midcore gamer out.

Regarding quests: It's kind of interesting, but the AI would generally go for them, and I don't really know what you mean by quest TBH.  I mean, if these are powerups or whatever, we basically already have that in the ruins and the mythological tokens, mixed between stuff you place and stuff you don't place.

Pepisolo: Agreed in spirit, but it comes down to execution.

Hearteater: I'm really looking for One System To Rule Them All.  Not just because I'm super limited on time (which I am), but also because I think that's key to being able to understand what is going on.  If I have three categories of objectives, how do we show that on the screen?  How do I, as the player, begin to fathom what to do first?  Etc.  I like the idea of players being able to focus on 1-3 things at a time, but having some insight into what they will need to be keeping an eye on in the future.


Possible simple model.  We take Misery's idea of VPs and combine that with some of the other thoughts here:

1. We have 40ish VPs possible.
2. You are presented with 3 that you can work on at the start, and then 3 more that are grayed out that will come in after you complete the first 3 (each one that you complete brings in another one from the gray list, and then another one gets added to the gray list.  So it's incremental, not all-at-once).
3. You have VP goals per round, as Hearteater notes.  This would be set by the difficulty you choose, not really the map size.  Probably.  It's not granular enough to really do that unless we make VPs into 100 equals what people have been talking about 1.
4. In terms of co-op this will be extra tricky, but it can be balanced.  This also argues for more granularity, or even a floating-point number system so that the numbers don't get strangely large.  So you could earn, say, 0.33 VP from some action.


And that's basically it.  If the VPs are designed interestingly and well, these would provide all the randomization we need.  We could also add in more "calamity" type things like yellow towns spawning or yellow hordes on rare occasion or whatnot, but those would be just more sources of things to deal with, and difficulty-dependent as well.

That's a pretty straightforward model, and seems to take the best of what people like.  If people like this, we'd have to do another thread with VP ideas -- Josh and I already have dozens, but many of them are a bit inane and/or cross-game.  More heads are better than one.

Thoughts?

About quests:  I posted that before I'd had food/caffiene;  it made sense at the time... sorta. 

Anyway, that setup for the VP thing sounds pretty great to me.


Just a matter of people coming up with ones that are interesting/challenging/whatever.

Exhausted, but the key is organic randomness, not forced randomness.

Players need to react to randomness. If it is not random but constant across games, it is not random at all.

So tired, hard to clarify.


Having a player react to a needed random short term objective on the fly is reacting to randomness. Having a constant list of objectives to do is not random at all.

The VP system though is not meant to be a random pops-up-at-any-time sort of system.  It's meant from the start to be a throughout-the-game thing, which involves the conditions for victory.   Having these just pop into existence at any given time would be bad.  Random events and such are great, but that's just not what these are.  These need to be things that the player can apply strategy and planning to.

The randomness of them is in the selection;  you never know which are going to be on that list of 6 (3 available to start, 3 grayed out) until the game has begun.  Different combinations of VP conditions could affect your strategy in all sorts of ways.... but that's part of the point, is it's meant to be strategic, not based on mere reaction.  You wont know WHICH you'll get.... but you'll know WHEN you get them, and how long you'll have to complete them, which are the important parts.  When it comes to stuff like victory conditions, it is best if the player can plan an overall strategy to get at them.   If the game suddenly jumps at you with "GUESS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO THIS THING NOW", it'd lead to nothing but trouble.

Not to mention that by the game's very nature, more randomness will occur as you begin to implement your strategies towards each one;   you may choose one of them to go after to start with, but your plans could be thrown off by your AI troops, or sudden bandits, or unexpected effects from large-scale powers you activate, or whatever, which could change your planning overall;  it may suddenly become more viable at that time to do one of the other 2 currently available ones instead.   Which IS a case of the player reacting.    Really, I honestly dont think there's any lack at all of having to react to things in this game;  heck, there's ALOT of it already.   If the balance is holding perfectly, it's a bit stale, but the moment you start applying big powers or tactics or whatever that knocks the balance out of place (which you'd need to do to accomplish VPs), well.... yeah.  You're going to have PLENTY you'll need to react to.   That's been the case when I've been playing it anyway, if I throw out even a not-quite-as-crazy thing into the mix, like one of those "5 guys can use this" effects, I'm GOING to have stuff that I'll need to react to afterwards, which may cause me to have to use another major effect, which leads to MORE of that, which.... yeah.  You get the idea.



If there are random event sorts of things as you suggest, it'd be a seperate thing from the VPs, more along the lines of bandits and such (and I do indeed think it'd be nice to have more such things).

[chemical_art]

Misery, if I have to reiterate it again I will.

I still hate VP's.

Which is no small reason why what I want has nothing to do with VP's.

If you start making the VP's themselves random and individually important rather then a checklist of doing many, you are eventually just making edicts that the player does not choose, or are not revealed at game start.

[chemical_art]

Of the three choices of the OP, I like propositions the best, with them being needing a specific goal accomplished, but having several methods of accomplishing said goal, but the goals themselves being varied enough not one single strategy could be pursued to phase 3 from 1.

[PokerChen]

Responding to OP.

 Here were my thoughts on meshing together edicts, challenges, VPs and player leveling - I'm not really for completing cool challenges (secondary edicts in that post) to be the only method for earning player levels, and I'd prefer to permit players to be able to just fool around (edict only no challenges), win, but barely level up as a result. I.e., since you're employed - when you complete a minimal-effort job you should still be paid the minimum wage.

 For as long as the challenges are fun enough, I think that could be the baseline goal. Propositions can wait a little bit, as I would like them done well. I would enjoy Propositions / petitions that are meshed into the game universe. If you're thinking in terms of AI-War, it would be more like resistance fighters/marauders (logical in-universe) than mining golem (something that comes from out of the galaxy just to eat your stuff). Part of the free-will conditions you write in the blurb should imply that they will have their own desires as well. They should have a chance to worry about their survival and your nefarious hidden motives, and well... either go with it or not. Higher chance on higher difficulties.

 == Summary: Prioritise edicts and challenges. Correct player progression is infinitely important to finish by release. If time for propositions exist, place a few as a taste of what is possible later on when game successful. ==

 There shouldn't be a need to tie the appearance conditions of petitions to the edicts. If you're playing too well along the lines of an edict, the perturbation should be more likely. Save-scum is unavoidable, but you may like to tie things to the starting seed with a separate pRNG, but that's up to you.

 The following petitions are tied to a particular town/neighbouring town (when a town is destroyed).
 "Dear Creator, sorry to disturb Your Greatness but... our towns are defenceless against these barbaric Greeks! (etc.)"
 Conditions: Likely to appear when a town of theirs is taken over, or when their buildings are destroyed. Won't appear when there's a God in town, they petition him/her instead.
 Choice 1a: Satisfy them by building X towers (which may be exactly what you want, but they don't know that). These tower you build grant better bonuses. You also risk citizens getting false sense of security. (-20% attack for 5 turns).
 Choice 1b. Satisfy them by planting Cerebus, etc. The Cerebus gains better stats.
 Choice 1c. Satisfy them by invoking a God token to bring him/her here. "Behold, I send you Apollo himself to stand vigil!" They are grateful, but no additional outcome.
 Choice 2: Ignore them. Random outcomes happens. In this situation, soldiers either lose the will to fight(-50% stats for 5 turns), get off their arses to take matters into their own hand (+50% stats for 5 turns), turn bandit.

 "Those stinking Norse diplomats are bothering us again! We're writing to inform Your Greatness that we are not very happy with this situation. We'll keep our more agitated citizens under control, but we would like to alert you that there may be... accidents as long as this continues."
 (with attendent appealing/un-appealing choices)
 - Smite the embassy. If you build it again within the next few turns, then see BTW.
 - Placate them with MOAR beer ( plant a Brewery, don't destroy it! ) Option is not available if they already have one - you have failed to distract them with alcohol from your schemes.
 - Ignore. See BTW with possible outcomes such as decreased military costs as more citizens are willing to join the army to fight off these unwelcome influence. Low chance of spawning blue/red directly to 'deal' with these foreigners.
 - BTW, "bandits" will naturally spawn near diplomats in question.


 The following propositions come from the Master:
 "I look favourably upon your handiwork. I wish to see some more creative flair (related to the edict)"

[Misery]

Misery, if I have to reiterate it again I will.

I still hate VP's.

Which is no small reason why what I want has nothing to do with VP's.

If you start making the VP's themselves random and individually important rather then a checklist of doing many, you are eventually just making edicts that the player does not choose, or are not revealed at game start.

.....er..... but they ARE mostly revealed at game start, and in a list form.   It's right in the description he gave:

2. You are presented with 3 that you can work on at the start, and then 3 more that are grayed out that will come in after you complete the first 3 (each one that you complete brings in another one from the gray list, and then another one gets added to the gray list.  So it's incremental, not all-at-once).

And even that is only a simple model, probably very much up for tweaking.  It may well end up being:  "Ok, at the start, here's a list of 9 which will be all of them (thus, not leaving any that you dont know about).  You must complete the first 3 to open the second 3, and complete that to open the final 3".  Thus showing them all at the start.

As for not choosing them.... they could always just give an option to allow the player to choose if they so desire, or other variations that give more control.   That, to me, is boring as all hell, but that's no reason why it cant be an available option.



And the propositions thing you mention is..... pretty much the same thing, if I'm reading it right.   If the actual VP goals are thought out well enough, there'll BE several methods of accomplishing them. They're meant to ENCOURAGE diversity in strategies, not stifle it.  Simplistic examples like "use this thing" as a VP condition are just that.... examples, provided only to help explain the concept.   The only difference, by the original description of "propositions" VS the VPs, is that the goals of propositions are handed out at random times instead of at the start.... and that's it (and would be quite unexplained until that point).    Tying something like that in to the actual victory conditions.... would not go over well.   I'm generally fine with extreme randomness, much more so than many other players out there, but even I would be bothered by a system that doesnt even tell me HOW to win until some random point halfway through the game.   I want to know the basics of what I need to do to get basic victory RIGHT FROM THE START, and I'm thinking many others would feel the same way.    It'd be like, if playing one of the Civ games, you get 2/3rds of the way through and the game suddenly says:  "Oh, by the way, you can ONLY win via diplomatic victory now.  Good luck with that.".   That, honestly, would be the point where I simply delete the game, and I wouldnt be the only one.


The propositions thing, again, is a fine idea.  I'd love to see it.  But not as THE core of what you have to do to claim victory.  As side challenges though that pop up to mess with and challenge you?  That'd be pretty great.

[PokerChen]

Addendum:
 To me, a game at release should demonstrate what is possible with further work, and it's okay if the game is moderately polished. A lot of indie games need to be released before feature completeness for your exact financial reasons. To buy time for that post-release work, it will be good to have a dozen propositions in and other ways to encourage players to refine their game. On the other hand, I see current problems e.g. with you guys having to hit 100 challenges to get to player level 10, and to me that's a harsh goal to make 100 fun challenges in 12 days.*

 ...hence I suggested Favour as the way to build player levels, so you don't have to hit exactly 100 and can make sure every challenge is worth its name. VPs as Favour -> levelup will fulfill most of your goals. It's easy to understand as RPG Exp., all of your challenges/edicts become antes that you bet the Master you can fulfill in a single game (thus becoming carrots as you earn more Favour), and if the challenges are done well they will be fun and explore new mechanics.
 
 Whatever you do, don't randomly hobble the player for no reason. This isn't DF and it will alienate your midcores. Provide sticks intrinsically in challenges and random propositions/petitions. Every random hobble, I think, should be the possibility of being subverted for you ends or avoided for an action cost.

 *Also, if the challenges are in any way like Steam Achievement lists, then statistically 95% of the players will never achieve them all. Every game on that service has this exponential decay as you scroll down the %-completion list, and you'll merely lock out the more casual gamers from gaining higher profile levels.

[Misery]

Addendum:
 To me, a game at release should demonstrate what is possible with further work, and it's okay if the game is moderately polished. A lot of indie games need to be released before feature completeness for your exact financial reasons. To buy time for that post-release work, it will be good to have a dozen propositions in and other ways to encourage players to refine their game. On the other hand, I see current problems e.g. with you guys having to hit 100 challenges to get to player level 10, and to me that's a harsh goal to make 100 fun challenges in 12 days.*

 ...hence I suggested Favour as the way to build player levels, so you don't have to hit exactly 100 and can make sure every challenge is worth its name. VPs as Favour -> levelup will fulfill most of your goals. It's easy to understand as RPG Exp., all of your challenges/edicts become antes that you bet the Master you can fulfill in a single game (thus becoming carrots as you earn more Favour), and if the challenges are done well they will be fun and explore new mechanics.
 
 Whatever you do, don't randomly hobble the player for no reason. This isn't DF and it will alienate your midcores. Provide sticks intrinsically in challenges and random propositions/petitions. Every random hobble, I think, should be the possibility of being subverted for you ends or avoided for an action cost.

 *Also, if the challenges are in any way like Steam Achievement lists, then statistically 95% of the players will never achieve them all. Every game on that service has this exponential decay as you scroll down the %-completion list, and you'll merely lock out the more casual gamers from gaining higher profile levels.

Agreed on this one.    I think the same way about games at release.   I'm just hoping that the game will do well enough to make it POSSIBLE for them to keep working on and adding things to it.   Continuous work didn't end up being viable with Valley 2, and that really was quite a shame... would hate to see it happen with this one.

And particularly agreed on that last bit too:   I know I dont speak for everyone, but I would haaaaaaaaaaaaate having to do bloody everything in order to unlock everything.   I tend to be the "hardcore" sort of player when it comes to most games, but at the same time I'm sort of an anti-completionist in that I hate achievements, have very little patience, and rarely care at all about 100% completion, or even being anywhere near that amount.  Yet I'd hate to be locked out of different features because of that.