Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.803/0.804

[Misery]

I'd certainly like if score is replaced by more meaningful motivations to "play well". The edict system seems very AI-War, which I like a lot - and that's a game that has strong replay value without having a score.

My concern right now is how the game will play out. Score created a motivator (a weakish one I believe) to do things that seemed kinda dumb - like plop down overpowered myth tokens. Now, those tokens seems to serve more of the purpose of simply correcting imbalances, and are something you'd want to stay far far away from if things are mostly in equilibrium. Is this the goal?

Should I be building up a stockpile of hard to get resources to build these units, or should I ignore them completely and just "play well" so I never reach a situation where I need them. It sounds unfun to not try to build up for the powerful stuff.

Please keep in mind. I know things need to be implemented before I can judge the game as fun or not. All I can do not in the current state of the alpha is speculate.

What if every game had a big checklist of various things you can do for VPs (victory points). Like a point system, but with a variety of discrete objectives - where it's near impossible to complete all of them in a given game. For one example, you get 1 VP for every town center pair you have, up to a maximum of 10 (or whatever). You know, make points based off a set of very clear goals that the player can work toward, instead of them just finding goofy ways to game the system. This game has Euro-style board game roots, and VPs are a major part of that.

Aye, this stuff.

That's exactly my problem with it.   Explained a bit more concisely than I could, I think, hah.   I know the Edicts are there.... but what I've seen of those (that are listed so far) doesnt do it.  Like, the "build up 200 military units" one, for instance.   By simply doing (relatively) the same thing on each side, which is by far the most logical action, and making tweaks along the way as the RNG does it's thing, it's not an objective that would ever involve a major shift.   The other Edicts same exactly the same:  Where both sides need only do the same thing, never creating that tilt.   Worse though is that those are objectives that are done over the course of the entire game;  AKA, very slowly.   This game is at it's best when sudden, violent shifts.... perpetrated by the player.... occur, for reasons that somehow make sense. 


I'll point out, it doesnt HAVE to be a scoring system specifically.  I've been focusing on that idea too much in my yammerings on here, but it doesnt need to be specifically that idea.  Just that there needs to be SOMETHING motivating the player (constantly) to cause chaos and keep the balance out of whack while still maintaining,  beyond what the RNG might at times do (like bandits).  Something that makes the player say "Well, ok, things are balanced right now.... but if I want to try to get a lot of such and such, I need to prepare to cause some major mayhem here".   Preferrably with bigger, more risky mayhem bringing bigger rewards.   

Heck, one idea I'd had was something like mini-edicts, optional objectives that appear during each "round", yet are NOT the same for both sides, and are intentionally very lopsided and contradictive (so that pursuing them WOULD knock the balance all over the place, forcing the excellent strategic stuff to start up).    I know there's already bandits and all, but I've seen those as more of just a side danger.... kinda like barbarians in Civ, or similar things in other 4x games;  they're there, they provide some extra flavor and a little extra challenge and trouble, but they're never ever the central point of anything.   They merely add a little more to it and work with the bigger things that are already there.


There's probably LOTS of different ideas that could accomplish this very thing, though I havent any suggestions beyond that one.   I'm sure that you very creative devs could come up with something or other.   


EDIT:  Sorry, double post.    I was ninja'd, I tell you!

[Faulty Logic]

I also oppose removing the score, especially if you can't crank up the difficulty beyond reasonable.

I can easily see winning each edict at the hardest difficulty and then being done with the game. Forever.

Well, the edicts obviously need to effect the score, but, by how much? What about the challenges? Should the effect the score?"

Edicts make it more difficult to get points, but they shouldn't necessarily have any direct impact on the score. Challenges certainly shouldn't. Earning points around edicts and challenges would be a stronger system. I wouldn't oppose having a score multiplier based on just the difficulty, though.

I also don't like the whole "profile level" thing. It seems like nothing but forcing you to play an incomplete game for a while, for no good reason.


Edit: I definitely agree there should be some motivation to disrupt the balance, else the games where you play the best are the least interesting.

[tigersfan]

Wouldnt it make more sense to simply set basic values for different units/structures, and leave it at that?  I cant see why Edicts and such would necessarily need to come into play as far as the scoring goes; they're more of a framework than anything else, from what I've seen of them.  Not to mention, keeping such a scoring system nice and simple would probably work best here;  that's about how I'd do it, anyway.    Heck, it doesnt even necessarily need to be a full-on scoring system.  It could end up being more like a tally system; keeping a total count of how many units/buildings/things were destroyed in total, with the encouragement to cause more and more of that.  Wouldnt be AS interesting, but it'd at least be something.


Hmm, that's a shame though.   I hate to say, but the game does kinda lose my interest at this point, I think.  Even just in my initial playthrough, I realized.... there's alot of cool options here, but I wasnt USING the majority of them, as I got further and further into that playthrough.  When things were already balanced.... which they were, it's not at all difficult to simply maintain balance in this.... there's no reason to use anything that isnt basic structures.  The game would have to forcibly warp the balance pretty darn hard on it's own to make many of those objects useful in a practical sense, but doing that sorta goes against the concept of the player being the one to cause the chaos.   

I know theoretically the player could use the big crazy things or whatever just to use them, in a sandboxy way, but that wont ever occur to me without reason.   Makes me think of disasters in the Simcity series.   Alot of players think those are fun..... but I never touched them, because they have no purpose or use.


For now, I'll just watch development of this one from the sidelines, I think, and see what happens with it as things continue.

A tally system would certainly be easy to implement, but, would it really be engaging enough to be worth it?

As for why the edicts effect points... they all change the game, some significantly, some less so. And many of them make the game more difficult, but, by varying amounts. If the idea behind a score is "How well did you play" shouldn't something that makes the game more difficult to play well award more points?

[Faulty Logic]

If the idea behind a score is "How well did you play" shouldn't something that makes the game more difficult to play well award more points?

I would be fine with score meaning "how well you did," and I think implementing it under that assumption would be a lot easier and more intuitive.

[Misery]

Wouldnt it make more sense to simply set basic values for different units/structures, and leave it at that?  I cant see why Edicts and such would necessarily need to come into play as far as the scoring goes; they're more of a framework than anything else, from what I've seen of them.  Not to mention, keeping such a scoring system nice and simple would probably work best here;  that's about how I'd do it, anyway.    Heck, it doesnt even necessarily need to be a full-on scoring system.  It could end up being more like a tally system; keeping a total count of how many units/buildings/things were destroyed in total, with the encouragement to cause more and more of that.  Wouldnt be AS interesting, but it'd at least be something.


Hmm, that's a shame though.   I hate to say, but the game does kinda lose my interest at this point, I think.  Even just in my initial playthrough, I realized.... there's alot of cool options here, but I wasnt USING the majority of them, as I got further and further into that playthrough.  When things were already balanced.... which they were, it's not at all difficult to simply maintain balance in this.... there's no reason to use anything that isnt basic structures.  The game would have to forcibly warp the balance pretty darn hard on it's own to make many of those objects useful in a practical sense, but doing that sorta goes against the concept of the player being the one to cause the chaos.   

I know theoretically the player could use the big crazy things or whatever just to use them, in a sandboxy way, but that wont ever occur to me without reason.   Makes me think of disasters in the Simcity series.   Alot of players think those are fun..... but I never touched them, because they have no purpose or use.


For now, I'll just watch development of this one from the sidelines, I think, and see what happens with it as things continue.

A tally system would certainly be easy to implement, but, would it really be engaging enough to be worth it?

As for why the edicts effect points... they all change the game, some significantly, some less so. And many of them make the game more difficult, but, by varying amounts. If the idea behind a score is "How well did you play" shouldn't something that makes the game more difficult to play well award more points?

Oh, the tally bit was just an example I pulled outta who knows where.   As I said in my second post, where ninjas pop out of nowhere and we all post a heap of things all at once and I get totally lost, it could be all sorts of ideas.

The idea behind the score to me though was never just "how well did you play", but more of a "how far were you able to push things, how much were you able to wreck stuff and tilt the board with big effects while still recovering and maintaining everything?". 

[madcow]

I really love the mini-edicts idea by the way. The idea of each side having different contradictory edicts is a cool one as well.

In regards to encouraging craziness. I'm tossing this idea out at least for some discussion. Don't necessarily think its ready for a mantis (or if its even a good idea). But what if there was another resource that's shared between both sides, think of it as YOUR resource.  Could be called carnage, chaos, sacrifice, or something like that. You get some when units are killed. And in exhange you can use it to help one side or another. In effect you could have one side smashing the other, and then use your personal power to intervene on he other sides behalf. Additionally. You could not use it, and it would be similar to a score. The trick would be simply keep it simple in terms of values.  Of people like this idea. I might refine it into a mantis suggestion. Though it might also be too complex for the game at this point.

Edit to avoid double posting.  Edicts effectin score... I think of it not as how well you did, but how well you did on this level. Edicts essentially being different levels. You can't compare the score you get in level 1 of a game to the score you get in level 10.

[Mick]

I'd like if 2nd and 3rd round starts came out with new additional objectives (maybe even distinct ones for each side). If they were random, that'd be great, so you couldn't really prepare for it.

The problem with the edict system as it stands is from turn 0 you will pretty much follow a specific strategy to try to match whatever edicts you selected. However, if you know that round 2 and 3 were going to throw monkey wrenches into the works, it forces you not to only shoot for your primary objective, but to play a solid "general strategy" that will help set you up for whatever challenges come later.

I bring up Civilization again. That's a game that suffers in the concept that from turn one you typically are playing for a specific victory condition (and some of the victory conditions, like cultural, you *have* to play that way). I think it would be interesting if new objectives came later that you weren't able to completely prepare for.

Not that you should play blindly, but that you should make sure to "cover all your bases" so to speak.

Maybe one side will want to have an enlightened town (or more), and the other side will want to have a stockpile of particular goods in order to build a monument of some sort. Just some random ideas. Objectives should be such so they can scale well with round length.

I think this fits into the Euro-board game style theme, because many of them will have random events that are drawn between rounds that can totally change the direction of your strategy.

[chemical_art]

However, if you know that round 2 and 3 were going to throw monkey wrenches into the works, it forces you not to only shoot for your primary objective, but to play a solid "general strategy" that will help set you up for whatever challenges come later.

That comes with its own set of problem. Two actually.

1. It puts the fate of your game in one very, very specific act of RNG. Yuck.

2. For round 1, it really constrains your options as you will be somewhat railroaded to take a single, generalized approach rather then a number of specific approaches that have the potential of doing a a narrow set of goals better.

[chemical_art]

I also oppose removing the score, especially if you can't crank up the difficulty beyond reasonable.

I can easily see winning each edict at the hardest difficulty and then being done with the game. Forever.

I see this too. Very much so.

Comparisons to AI War, one any level, are very flawed as well.

In AI War it is Player vs. NPC, with strategically the two not being balanced at all. With the goal of both trying to wipe out the other.

SC is Player (self) vs. Player (self) vs. NPC, with the two strategically trying to be balanced, and not trying to wipe each other.

Comparing the two, without very very specific and narrow comparisons, are flawed.

[chemical_art]

I also don't like the whole "profile level" thing. It seems like nothing but forcing you to play an incomplete game for a while, for no good reason.

As I start to understand how it will be done, via challenges, my mind keeps drifting back to the hundreds of flash games that this system already...and then I feel sleepy.

[Misery]

I really love the mini-edicts idea by the way. The idea of each side having different contradictory edicts is a cool one as well.

Yeah, that's how I'd thought the original edicts were going to be.   Not just "Accomplish this by game end, using both sides at once", but instead, "Red side must do THIS.  Blue side must do THIS.  But both go in wildly different directions and are all sorts of lopsided, so good luck doing them without one side blowing the other to hell!".   Though, having the ENTIRE game to do something of that nature might still make it too slow to be all that tough.

I think the current Edicts work best as a framework.... the problem is that currently there isnt another concept within that frame.  The ideal situation (to me) would be:  "Ok, right now I wanna get the blue guys to do THIS, because of this thing over here that I've been given, but the red guys need to do this thing that goes in a whole other direction, and to accomplish both at once is going to make things really loopy because the red guys are going to end up with like 8 ice giants while the blue guys will have this horrible pile of siege units and a major effect buffing them and de-buffing the reds.... AND I mustnt forget the 2 main Edicts for the game as a whole".   And then of course you'd get random bandits and land growth on top of all of that, adding the finishing touches onto the balancing act.

However, if you know that round 2 and 3 were going to throw monkey wrenches into the works, it forces you not to only shoot for your primary objective, but to play a solid "general strategy" that will help set you up for whatever challenges come later.

That comes with its own set of problem. Two actually.

1. It puts the fate of your game in one very, very specific act of RNG. Yuck.

2. For round 1, it really constrains your options as you will be somewhat railroaded to take a single, generalized approach rather then a number of specific approaches that have the potential of doing a a narrow set of goals better.

Aye, is why I suggest that such a thing be optional;  you need to do the BIG edicts in order to win, that doesnt change.... but new pop-up-with-each-new-round things are optional.... you dont HAVE to do them if you dont think you can handle it or just dont want to, but it's alot more impressive and more challenging if you can win the game while defeating/fulfilling each of them that's thrown at you.


Also, omigod, ninjas.  So many.

[Mick]

However, if you know that round 2 and 3 were going to throw monkey wrenches into the works, it forces you not to only shoot for your primary objective, but to play a solid "general strategy" that will help set you up for whatever challenges come later.

That comes with its own set of problem. Two actually.

1. It puts the fate of your game in one very, very specific act of RNG. Yuck.

2. For round 1, it really constrains your options as you will be somewhat railroaded to take a single, generalized approach rather then a number of specific approaches that have the potential of doing a a narrow set of goals better.

Eh, well I like it. I've played enough TBS games where the victory is assured by how you played in the first 5-10% of the game, and the rest was just practically plays itself.

Saying the "fate of the game" is decided by RNG is a bit much. Many Euro-board games use round events, and they don't destroy your entire strategy when they come out, they just force you to adjust. It's not really strategy if you can just do the same sequence of actions every time without ever having to react to anything.

[tigersfan]

In case folks are just watching this thread. We'd love to see your comments on this: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13011.0.html

[Mick]

Yeah, I wouldn't have a big problem with "round objectives" being some kinda optional game setting, but I do think some option for it should exist. Right now, the "age" advances seem a bit bleh. The "Age of Monsters" and the "Age of Gods" should be catastrophic and game changing events.