Skyward Collapse 1.005 "Player's Choice" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/05/skyward-collapse-1005-players-choice.html

This one reverts two very unpopular recent changes.  We've made some cool shifts post-1.0 on the game, but these two were not viewed to be among them.  Players complained, loudly, and so after listening to the reasoning we've decided to revert the changes.  Not the first time this has happened in an Arcen title, and not likely to be the last; sometimes we try something new, and it just doesn't work.  The key thing is we listen to you when you tell us about that.

Now: these changes were both intended to solve some edge-case "cheese" tactics that some players were using to basically break the game rules and win trivially.  These edge cases are frustrating for me in particular, because it makes the game feel broken.  "Somebody found a way around the game, to play the game without playing the game!  Augh!  Must.  Fix.  Now."

The problem with that is obviously when it impacts regular players in a negative way.  The ones playing the game, having loads of fun, and not wanting the mechanics to change and screw them up.  "Fixing" the cheese tactics that someone who is (clearly clever) but also clearly not all that into the game is... well, it's not the best choice.  Sorry for panicking and doing that to you, folks.  Bad move on my part.

I suppose the issue comes back to a fear that if a loose thread is found, then the whole tapestry will unravel.  If one person discovers a cheese tactic, what happens to the core players who love the game?  The fear is that they realize that tactic is there, start using it, and all the fun is sucked out of the game.  Soon it's a graveyard and a broken game because of a lack of developer attention.

I don't think that's an unreasonable fear, but there are definitely some sayings about babies and bathwater that are appropriate about now.  Anyway, I would still obviously like to solve the cheese tactics, as those irk me to no end and I feel like it does undermine the game to some extent.  However, it's certainly good to use the carrot rather than the stick when possible, and that is not something that these two changes allowed for.  They were elegantly simple changes in a lot of ways, which is why I went with them... but also unfun, so there goes that.

We'll all mull on the couple of edge case cheese problems and see if we can come up with something better between the players and the devs, and if we do we'll make a shift.  Beyond that, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. ;)

Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the  in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game.  When you  launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.

[Mick]

Yay for immunity revert! 

Boo to health revert. 

[x4000]

Yay for immunity revert! 

Boo to health revert. 

Ha -- not sure how serious the last is, but given the nature of the reversion, I would think that it would be more unbalancing to suddenly have things really different in that fashion.  If a health shift needs to be made we can certainly discuss it... but the health shift was originally only made because of the mythologicals no longer being able to hit them.

[Mick]

It was a little half serious, but as I think of it more, I think the bandit keeps as they are in normal are very good.

It's the jump to hard that I find a bit off putting. I find that unfortunate because there are things I like about hard (veteran mode and unlocking woes), but it gets combined with things that get very frustrating (more bandit keeps, bandits getting veteran mode too).

I hate suggesting nerfs to harder difficulties, so I'm reluctant to do so, but I do kinda think the jump between normal hard is a bit too steep right now. The biggest aggravation being the mix of veteran-mode leveled bandits mixed with dumb military. So I think the difficulty jumps up in an "unfun" way.

I'm pretty sure keep health reduction wouldn't fix that anyway.

EDIT:

The best suggestion I can think of is to add a difficulty between medium and hard that doesn't let bandits get veteran upgrades.

[Almaz]

You shouldn't have caved in on the mountains/lakes part imo, I actually agreed with your reasoning on removing them, it doesn't sound the slightest bit logical for there to be complaints about not allowing them on harder difficulties. (It actually kinda hurts my experience knowing that I could do that) Should ban them from harder difficulties, and allow cheat codes to make them available.

When I first bought this game and was doing tutorial I immediately thought of placing mountains/lakes before the age of monsters, and once I thought about it I immediately thought to myself "That's ALL it took?"
All I could think of doing is adding penalties or increasing the cost to putting your own mountains/lakes, but even then that won't be enough.  I think it's justified to not allow them in expert/hard.

[Mick]

The mountain/lake thing is really only an exploit if you play without score gating, and I would argue that playing without score gating is sorta an exploit in and of itself. The game is trivial if you don't have a score you need to meet, because you could simply build a minimal military (or none at all).

[Misery]

You shouldn't have caved in on the mountains/lakes part imo, I actually agreed with your reasoning on removing them, it doesn't sound the slightest bit logical for there to be complaints about not allowing them on harder difficulties. (It actually kinda hurts my experience knowing that I could do that) Should ban them from harder difficulties, and allow cheat codes to make them available.

When I first bought this game and was doing tutorial I immediately thought of placing mountains/lakes before the age of monsters, and once I thought about it I immediately thought to myself "That's ALL it took?"
All I could think of doing is adding penalties or increasing the cost to putting your own mountains/lakes, but even then that won't be enough.  I think it's justified to not allow them in expert/hard.

Aye, this exactly.

The way it was before was exactly that, having them only be available on medium and lower.... and really, people seemed fine with that.   And it DID fit the ideas of the difficulty levels in general.   So I would agree, simply revert that part back the way it was as well.   If those playing on easy or whatever absolutely must use a bloody ring of mountains..... then they'll use their ring of mountains.   But to be able to do it on Hard just seems a little absurd.  Unfortunately, the cheese tactics regarding the mountains are definitely still there, after all.

The mountain/lake thing is really only an exploit if you play without score gating, and I would argue that playing without score gating is sorta an exploit in and of itself. The game is trivial if you don't have a score you need to meet, because you could simply build a minimal military (or none at all).

Oh, it works with the score gating in place.   Or at least, it has in my own tests.   As I've pointed out in other places, you only need ONE walled off town on each side to become basically invulnerable.   This makes little difference to the score.... when you then have 5 or 6 other towns on each side.  PARTICULARLY if you wall off a resource-only town that isnt even supposed to be making military units in the first place.   With the one town protected on each side, I was free to just go berserk with the destruction and use big, chaotic tactics that would have been amazingly stupid ideas otherwise.   Score went up FAST.    Much, much too easy because of the lack of risk.


Really though, I say.... just revert the blasted mountain thing to how it was before, being restricted via difficulty.   It worked, and nobody really seemed to complain about it.





Now, the real question I'm wondering is.... what about the basic military units?  I'm now wondering what other players think of those;  I've heard a few times now that the human units are all "too weak", or something along that line, and that the myth units end up making up the entire army for some players.... which seems really off to me.  That might be the next thing to look at? 

I cant speak too much on that one myself;  my own playstyle involves a mix of both with higher numbers/frequency of basic units, and myth units added in to support where necessary.

[Mánagarmr]

I'm agreeing with both Misery and Chris, tbh. It's not nice having a cheesable tactic in the game such as it is, but just heavy-handedly swing the nerfbat at the game and removing ALL tactics revolving around mountains and lakes isn't a good idea either. I'm confident we'll come up with an elegant solution up ahead.

[Misery]

I'm agreeing with both Misery and Chris, tbh. It's not nice having a cheesable tactic in the game such as it is, but just heavy-handedly swing the nerfbat at the game and removing ALL tactics revolving around mountains and lakes isn't a good idea either. I'm confident we'll come up with an elegant solution up ahead.

Aye.    I'm sure there's SOMETHING that could be put in place that'd solve the problem.... not that I know what that thing is.

The best I've thought of is giving some military units (not the myth ones, but the normal ones) the ability to cross mountains.   Or even perhaps certain units can build on / do something to mountain tiles that then enables other units to pass them, albeit slowly?    Not that I know how in the heck ancient armies managed to deal with things like mountains and such (or if they did at all).   But it does seem a little off to me (from a gameplay standpoint) that they are this sort of absolute and total wall against EVERYTHING.

[Mick]

You do know that all bandits can cross mountains in hard mode and up right?

[nas1m]

I noticed a tendency to switch over to myth units as soon as I am able as well - mainly due to the reasons Mick already stated: a certain dumbness of human units, easier direction of myth units etc...

[Pepisolo]

Imagine if you were the Master and your Creator decided to wall off the two nations from each other -- you would be absolutely livid! I would say "Oh, you like mountains do you? Have all the mountains in the world then!" and proceed to to trash the players buildings and town centers by turning them into mountains. Something more organic and thematic like this would be cool. Having your Master get extremely angry and start shaking up the board a bit. At the very least, as ProfPaul suggested in the other thread there could be a significant negative score applied if any ring-fenced towns are created.

[Misery]

You do know that all bandits can cross mountains in hard mode and up right?

Yep.

Dropped myth units on them.   Elf fireball barrage FTW!!!     I typically keep some resources of that type in reserve so that I can use those guys (or tokens) defensively when something random happens and things start to go wrong.


Basically, I treated it the same as I would any unexpected attack on one of my resource heavy cities.    Though it seemed rare, as the bandits very often had plenty of other targets instead.

That is.... if they can get out of their keeps.  Unless they spawn somewhere wierd (which can happen of course) I generally had siege units (or a Trojan Horse, hah) and a few others on top of the keeps which generally kept the units from escaping anyway, with constant damage.


On the note of the myth units.... maybe the costs on these guys are too low?    I would be very definitely against the "place them anywhere" mechanic being changed with those guys, but it seems that they might be a bit too easy to use.   

Dare I say it..... maybe a cooldown?  Like the other myth-type stuffs?  The cooldown mechanic DID prove to be a very good idea for tokens and god powers and stuff.  Though this would be nowhere NEAR as long.   After all, the human units have cooldowns too.... hmm.    What if there was some building that didn't determine where you placed them, but instead determined how OFTEN you could place them?  Like, you have this cooldown, for these guys, but it's reduced by building/doing more of something?   

I admit I havent thought that one out too well, but you get the basic concept.

[Bluddy]

For mountains and lakes, you already have an algorithm that makes sure a town can't be cut off by smite, so why not apply that to mountains and lakes as well? Every random effect should also check that it's not cutting off the towns when it place mountains or lakes.

The bandit problem is indeed one of a much higher incentive to build monsters, which are a. directly placeable b. not susceptible to local (ie. town) supply shortages c. much more powerful. I think a purely monster build should be possible, but it should be very difficult. If towns could get supplies from other towns, but at a higher cost, then units wouldn't be so susceptible to supply disruptions. Furthermore, myth units could demand tribute every couple of turns or they'd eventually go berserk, joining either the enemy (if he has the resources for it) or the bandits' side, or just attacking whatever is in sight.

[chemical_art]

Thank you for the reverting.

A) There is a group of players who use tactics involving these things.

B) And a smaller group who will cheese it to the ground.

C) And an even smaller group who will be upset that they are allowed to cheese it to the ground.

In the effort to please C you must make sure to not hurt A, otherwise you cause many more problems then you solve.