Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.803/0.804

[x4000]

Whew, this is a big one!  http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Skyward_Collapse_-_Pre-Beta_Release_Notes#Alpha_0.803

Some brief notes:

1. Thanks so incredibly much for all your feedback on mantis and so on.  We're frankly drowning a bit in it now, but we're still super grateful.  Right now I'm still focusing on trying to hit the most-critical mantis issues mixed with getting the game feature-complete before I go into all the polish stuff.

2. When it comes to the tutorial stuff and phase 0, we're definitely going to redo the tutorial and also make the "setup" phase just one turn with 15 points.  However, that takes a little while, and there are more pressing things in terms of alpha testing (since most of you already know how to play now).  Josh will be posting a draft of the new tutorial on the forums hopefully tomorrow, and then we'll be going through polish suggestions with you with that as we have with the marketing copy.  I should be able to implement that on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how long some other stuff takes me.

3. This release now completes the whole set 16 of mythological tokens, adding 11 new ones.  All of the new ones are the "global effect for a limited time" type, and there are some real doozies in there.   Anyway, this is one of those big things that I wanted to get in place sooner than later, because it has such a huge effect on the game.

4. All 16 of the gods now have their passive abilities implemented (up from 0 in the prior release).  This again has a HUGE impact on the second two ages of the game, but note that the god functionality is not complete.  Each god has 3 tokens, and those are key to their balance and functionality as well.  So right now you are seeing only part of the per-god picture.  So please no comments about relative balance until you see the full picture there -- I know that at the moment Njord is clearly inferior in every way to Hermes, by a ridiculous margin.  But that's just the passive ability, it doesn't take into account their tokens.

5. Coming up next version, we're going to be removing points.  Those are a time sink, they're opaque, and the game is plenty of fun without it.  We have a fixed amount of time that we are able to work on this game prior to release, and frankly we'd rather work on all the polish stuff you guys are bringing up rather than fiddling with points for days at a time.  Between the detailed stats on the profile, the challenges, the edicts, and the propositions, I think there will be so many intrinsic reasons for keeping on playing the game that a weak extrinsic motivator like score just isn't needed.  Just wanted to go ahead and mention this as an FYI in advance!

[x4000]

Okay, so I hadn't planned on releasing 0.804 so soon, as there's hardly anything in it.  It removes the score and fixes a crash bug, and the latter is the reason for the early release.  I'm off until tomorrow morning, so hopefully that's the last of the issues that are critical tonight!

[madcow]

...I'm off until tomorrow morning, so hopefully that's the last of the issues that are critical tonight!

Famous last words!

[Aklyon]

...I'm off until tomorrow morning, so hopefully that's the last of the issues that are critical tonight!

Famous last words!

*cue godbug out of nowhere*

[Mick]

Hmm, I understand the reasoning for taking out score, but it seems like a really major change, since score is what you referred to so much when talking about the goal of the game.

Are challenges going to feel like achievements in that they are something you work toward once and never deal with again?

I have no idea what propositions are.

I of course have to try these features out before judging them, but what I hope doesn't happen is I reach a point where I get a strategy down for reaching my edicts and feel I can just play the game out as inefficiently as possible, just to get to the game over screen.

That would feel to me like the same problem I have when I play games like Civilization. I reach a point where I know I've already won, but I still have to play out 100 or so turns. I felt in AI Wars you've beaten that feeling to some extent, and I hope you do so here as well.

[chemical_art]

Looking forwatd to tutorial changes so i can play. I've decided to wait for that so you can have some eyes of someone who currently got frustrated.

Are you going to re arrange the building layout locatations so.they will.be more clear?

[PokerChen]

I'm actually a little sad to see the score go - although it is rather sadistic to be a Creator who feeds on warfare. It brings out the "perfectionist" in people.

This change will also impact how the blurb related to the core game. Will more edicts come with kill requirements on them? If not, what other reasons are there to encourage fighting? Just thinking far ahead.

[chemical_art]

Yeah, the lack of scoring removes a lot.of depth. I understand it is removed to save time, but if edicts or.mechanics are now having to be altered i wonder just how.much time.will be saved.

[madcow]

On the topic of scores. I would definitely want to see stat tracking on units/buildings killed on each side. Maybe even a mythic creatures/gods killed stat too.  Obviously that isn't info needed on the main game page, but would be nice to see somewhere at least.

[Misery]

Well, this is an interesting update.   Cant wait to try out the gods/tokens stuffs!

One thing occurs to me though:

5. Coming up next version, we're going to be removing points.  Those are a time sink, they're opaque, and the game is plenty of fun without it.  We have a fixed amount of time that we are able to work on this game prior to release, and frankly we'd rather work on all the polish stuff you guys are bringing up rather than fiddling with points for days at a time.  Between the detailed stats on the profile, the challenges, the edicts, and the propositions, I think there will be so many intrinsic reasons for keeping on playing the game that a weak extrinsic motivator like score just isn't needed.  Just wanted to go ahead and mention this as an FYI in advance!

That one seems darned unfortunate;  I thought that was a pretty good motivator, as well as most of the game's replay value.   My problem with this is that if the game is JUST about winning, and nothing else, a huge amount of the reason to take any risks (beyond edicts) just jumped out the window and fell off a cliff.   That, to me, was the point of the scoring:  It made it so that it wasnt JUST about winning, you wanted to both fulfill the win condition, but were also encouraged to do risky things, so that you win with a big score instead.   Heck, I thought this was a big part of the game's appeal, since strategy games are much too often just about "fulfill win condition", with little motivation to do much more.  While I like strategy games in concept, that fact is why I actually dont play very many of them, as too many of them have absolutely zero replay value.

It's also alot like how shmups are, to me, as a huge fan of that genre.   If it was JUST about clearing the game, with those, I wouldnt play them even remotely close to as much as I do, and I'd likely just outright lose interest in any given one the moment I do manage to beat it the first time, because there's zero point in going further without the scoring.   And that's provided that the game in question can even hold my attention long enough for me to beat it.... with those, without scoring systems, they actually dont.   If I dont like the scoring in one of those, I usually just end up not bothering.


I can understand the need to save time, but..... ehhhh.  I think that particular thing woulda been worth it, for alot of players.   Also, I dont really think it'd take THAT long to balance out that bit, and it doesnt have to be balanced out super perfectly or something.   To be totally honest, my own interest drops quite a bit with this one.

[Winge]

My first impression is that the point system should remain.  As others mentioned, it brings a lot of replay value to the game, especially since the game is about causing the most mayhem possible.  I'll play a few games with the new patch and see how things go.

[Hearteater]

I think pulling points is the right call.  They can always come back later.  But if the game isn't compelling to play without them, I think it won't draw enough people in.

[Wingflier]

Out of curiosity, how will a person know how well he or she did without points?

Or are we making "lose scenarios" part of the game now?

Sorry I'm a bit confused.

[BobTheJanitor]

I've been out of touch with development for a while here, so I may not have anything useful to say. But in general I will mention that I'm the type of person for whom points don't work at all as a motivator. They're just too arbitrary. I can't see much interest in score attack style games. I play through it once and I'm done. I just can't get even remotely interested in playing it again for a high score. If the points actually do something, anything, that's more interesting. If you have to get score > X to unlock a new gun/hat/whatever then that gives some purpose to it. But if, at the end, your only reward for scoring X points is having scored X points... well that's just too arbitrary for me to even understand.

Probably also doesn't help that a lot of games tack on a lot of pointless zeroes to the end of your score. I never did get that concept. That just takes the arbitrary and nonsensical nature of scores and really brings it front and center. But again, I don't really know much about this particular game aside from the basic marketing releases, so maybe there's something I missed that makes this whole diatribe of mine rather pointless. (rimshot)

[orzelek]

Norse got really screwed by this one.
Greeks pull out Apollo and you are dead.  Pretty much guaranteed unless you want to spend tons of actions to replace all your chapmans every 9 turns