Skyward Collapse 1.012 "Just Bonuses All The Way Down" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/skyward-collapse-1012-just-bonuses-all.html

This one has a number of bugfixes, tweaks, and refinements.  Nothing grandly exciting in the main, but the fixes to certain mythological and god tokens not working in the prior version is obviously welcome.

One big thing here is that bandit units dying now gives you points.  This makes it a lot easier to get points in circumstances where you are having to fight more bandits than the opposing faction, which sometimes happens.  In other words, your ability to generate points is not quite so hampered by circumstance.  This also leads to higher scores in general, so the score gates have been increased by 15% to compensate for that.

There was also previously some confusing logic regarding when units could and could not pick up bonus tokens.  This was confusing enough that it seemed like an error even to veteran players, though the units were actually working just as they were supposed to.  This restriction has now been removed so that units can super-stack bonuses a lot more.  This makes them act in a way that will be immediately more clear to players of all skill levels... and in terms of this affecting balance, it's only going to make things harder, not easier, since a super-stacked unit is rarely a good thing. ;)

There are also now scroll/panning speed sliders!  That is sure to be quite welcome. :)

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.

[nas1m]

Sounds cool all through .
Just a single question occurs to me: Does the change to token pickups mean that units can now pick up the same token repeatedly i.e. stack the respective bonus - this might be powerful indeed...

[x4000]

Nope, no repeated pickup of the same token.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Could you imagine that? Just stand on the token and get all of the stacks of it at once. I imagine that would be some kind of hilarious bug.

[Billick]

I like the change to give points for bandits dying.  It just seems to make more sense. 

I did find a bug.  Resource drops appear to be broken.  Mantis report here.

[Mick]

I was able to play a brief amount last night, and I really like the feel a whole lot better now that points are gained when bandits kill stuff. It's flip-the table frustrating when you were locked out of score gate because of bandits, it feels like you were being punished twice over.

EDIT: Forum allows me to post table-flip emote when I preview, but comes out junk after. Disappointing. :(

[Misery]

Ok, so, the new version, much less buggy.  Tokens (so far) appear to mostly be working, aside from the resource ones. 


So far all these new bandits.... pretty mean.  They're not so simple to take out now.  Things are quite a bit more exciting here.  The differentiation between the different types just makes it that much more interesting.

Now if only we could get the human units on the Norse and Greek sides to be a bit more differentiated as well.... that'd be a great improvement.

All in all though, the new bandits are pretty great.  And I love the way the Siege Drill looks.

[x4000]

Sweet!

And in terms of the units on the Greek and Norse side being more differentiated, I'm always open to suggestions.

[Misery]

Sweet!

And in terms of the units on the Greek and Norse side being more differentiated, I'm always open to suggestions.

Hmm, why not do another "developer feedback" topic, focused on that?   Those topics seem to generate good results and are easily noticeable on the forums.

On the note of that though, hmm.... I'll have to ponder it for awhile and see if I cant come up with some ideas myself.

I can say, there's a couple of units that probably DONT need to change as they rather are pretty different:   Trojan Horse (obviously), Arsonists (because of their many, many hits and melee-range-only traits), and Prodromos (huge AP count, so often a huge move range).   Possibly Oxybele as well because that thing is crazy strong.... I doubt that one needs additional anything.

[KDR_11k]

Just bonuses? Capitalism, ho!

[Misery]

On a side note:

Is it just me, or did Midgard become totally useless?  I'm not sure when it changed, but.... it's current effect is much, much too weak to actually be worth using.   Seems to do next to nothing now.  AND gives negative points. 

I'm almost thinking the effect on it should be changed entirely;  I can see how it was a bit OP before, buuuuut, due to the sheer randomness and high numbers of ruin tiles per destroyed town, it just doesnt do much of anything unless it's numbers are high.

At the moment, there seems to be no point in using it.

[Billick]

On a side note:

Is it just me, or did Midgard become totally useless?  I'm not sure when it changed, but.... it's current effect is much, much too weak to actually be worth using.   Seems to do next to nothing now.  AND gives negative points. 

I'm almost thinking the effect on it should be changed entirely;  I can see how it was a bit OP before, buuuuut, due to the sheer randomness and high numbers of ruin tiles per destroyed town, it just doesnt do much of anything unless it's numbers are high.

At the moment, there seems to be no point in using it.

Yeah, I agree.  It was somewhat overpowered before, but I think it got nerfed a little bit too hard.

[x4000]

My issues with Midgard are kind of twofold:
1. If it's way more effective than the souls ability, then that's really making the souls balance kind of off and not having interesting opportunity costs there.
2. As more civilizations are added, if Midgard is just SO overpowered that people are actively relying on it during every game, then playing without Norse is always going to feel really crippled.

So. 

A. I could make this destroy more in-town tiles if needed.
B. I could make it give a slight points gain again, but not a ton.
C. We could give it some other functionality.

One idea for a completely different function: For every town center, one non-building tile that contains a non-god unit on it will be destroyed.  Lasts for... 3 turns?  Small amount of positive points?  Maybe possibly also keeping the very-minor buildings rubble clearing functionality that it currently has?  That way it's a good way to clear the field of some potentially nasty guys running amok, if bonuses got away from you.

Or I'm open to other ideas.

[x4000]

New one!  http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13436.0.html

[melkathi]

Midgard is deffinitly better now than before.
Before it was an easy way of quickly getting rid of ruined tiles. Now it is not all that usefull. but if it became more usefull again, I am not sure how good Bless would be anymore. Though perhaps Bless could have a slightly reduced price if Midgar destroys more tiles again.
Convert is awesome as it is