Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.813

[x4000]

Hoookay, new one: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Skyward_Collapse_-_Pre-Beta_Release_Notes#Alpha_0.813

Welp, this wasn't quite what I'd hoped to do today, but from last Friday it was pretty obvious this was what was going to happen.   There are a bajillion fixes for the god tokens in here -- thanks very much to the people who took so much time to report this.

There's a new sandbox difficulty mode, which lets you play around with all sorts of stuff in a very undirected sort of fashion.  You actually CAN lose sandbox mode, but you'd have to really work at it.   At least for 1.0, the idea of a scenario editor is being shelved; the sandbox mode answers most of the needs of something like that, and lets you play around with the gods or tokens of your choice, as well as building landscapes that you like, etc.

Speaking of gods, as was previously decided upon, the selection of those is now randomized.

Crime has also been removed, and there's some new stuff replacing the functionality of Pan's passive, the embassy crime-related stuff, and the Flower Garden functionality.

I'm pleased with how it's coming along.  Next up for me is the integration of the new tutorial, and then it's pretty well down to Woes and some extra statistics and so on in terms of polish after that.  Well, and multiplayer and achievements.

Folks have been asking for extra stats on unit kills and resource flows and all that jazz -- and come on, you know I'm just as in to that sort of thing as you.   And in case you're wondering, Josh is a baseball buff so he's potentially even more into it than any of us, heh.  At any rate, the lack of that sort of thing is mainly because it's just a polish-phase sort of addition, and not something that I consider vital to playing the game.  Vital to mastering the game, maybe; but if you can't play the game at a moderate skill level without the stats screens, something else is wrong.

Anyhow, things seem to be proceeding well, and we might start the next round of alpha tomorrow night or thereabouts; we'll see what all gets reported tonight and tomorrow, and how long the tutorial versus the first woes take me.

[Cinth]

The randomizing of gods thing I wish was in the next update :p
It's going to make checking those fixes a bit of a chore

And I'm a bit worried that Pan's new passive might be a bit harsh.

[Mick]

I'm glad sandbox mode made it in. I think that would be much more fun for people who like to play around than a scenario editor would be.

The randomizing of gods thing I wish was in the next update :p
It's going to make checking those fixes a bit of a chore

Another reason sandbox mode is awesome.

[Cinth]

I have 2 saves that I want to use to test with because those were the same saves I used initially. 

[PokerChen]

BTW, although Njord's ability now works as intended:
(1) They continue to convert flower gardens to primary schools. The flower garden's new role as a delayer makes this undesirable.
(2) The new schools and universities spawn as destroyed. Known issue, but just a reminder.

 = = =
 On Hera's Diadem: the new minor God is placed randomly on the map. This can be highly dangerous, so I think that could be stated rather than be left as a nasty surprise to new players.

 = = =
 On Pan and Heimdall's building destruction - I presume that you don't want to accidentally slay a God by smiting their tile, because Njord is still alive after Pan's attempt to kill him. On the other hand, he is now standing on a swamp tile formerly known as a woodchuck's place. Swamp intended?

[Cinth]

From the notes

When a god is standing on a tile that gets destroyed for whatever reason, that tile now turns into a marsh tile rather than killing the god.

I've managed to flip through my list of errors and Mantis has been updated accordingly

[Misery]

I'm glad sandbox mode made it in. I think that would be much more fun for people who like to play around than a scenario editor would be.

The randomizing of gods thing I wish was in the next update :p
It's going to make checking those fixes a bit of a chore

Another reason sandbox mode is awesome.

Ya know, something that occurred to me on this one:   Instead of an editor, why not just give the player the option to save the basic landscape at any time, and be able to load it as a starting map?  Provided that it has at least 1 town center for both red and blue, that is.   I mean.... if you've got a sandbox mode where you can just do whatever, you've pretty much GOT an editor right there, shouldnt it be easy enough to then just save maps for use in the main mode?

Either way though, I pretty much got what I wanted in terms of the "random" map type (which is quite zany), so it's all fine to me.


Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, this looks like a good set of fixes.  The god tokens, yeesh, those were pretty screwy there for a bit, haha. 


I cant really think of any other major problems with the game right now.... most things work as intended.  There's balance issues in some places, but nothing super terrible.

One that I wanted to mention before I forgot though:  resources, specifically the "hard to get" ones, could do with a little tweaking.    Like, say, diamond, for example.... it's not USED in enough things.  Sticking it onto some of the stronger things like the Norns ability, or stuff like that.... requiring a cost of Jewelery for some of the abilities like that.... would go a long way to making that a more desired resource.   It's already decently balanced in terms of how much you get from it's resource tile, but I find that I simply dont need/use it all that much because it's not attached to many things.  Considering that there are some abilities that seem like they really need at least some more cost (like Norns, again), I figured that might be a good change, maybe.

The moonstone/sunstone, I was also thinking that I tend to end up with alot of (relatively speaking) without using it, but.... yeah, that might change after the woes are added and god tokens get used alot more.


And giving smite the ability to pop buildings again for higher cost is great.  That'll make for alot less of me doing something bloody stupid with buildings, and not realizing it until the turn after, which.... yeah, that happens often enough for me to be glad for that change, hah.

[x4000]

Cheers Misery, I appreciate it -- I've pinged Josh about your note on the diamonds, etc.  In terms of the scenario editor something like that could work, but I've bigger fish to fry right now.

Glad you like the smite changes, I was thinking of you with those.

[x4000]

Thanks!

* When Hera's Diadem is used, the replacement god is now placed wherever the replaced god was standing.

* Njord's Nails no longer convert flower gardens into primary schools.

* Fixed an issue with Njord's Nails emptying the schools they upgraded.

[tigersfan]

And in case you're wondering, Josh is a baseball buff so he's potentially even more into it than any of us, heh. 

Yes. And, for those who might wonder, the "Tigers" in my screenname refers to the greatest baseball team in the world, the Detroit Tigers.

... I've pinged Josh about your note on the diamonds, etc. 

I'll take a look at those in the morning, and see if I can't make the game more difficult by requiring the use of more jewelry.