Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

[Mick]

I chronicled my 952/953 game in the AAR forum, and definitely found things to be much better overall. I think the issues left are a lot closer to "things need to be tweaked and balanced" than "the game concept is fundamentally broken".

One thing that seems off:

Ullr's Rune Stone: Costs 2 Sunstone, destroys all bandit keeps, gives 3000 points.

Pan's Harpe: Costs 4 Sunstone, destroys all bandit keeps, gives 1800 points.

This seems a bit off. First of all, both are doing the same effect, which is not really great for variety sake. Both provide a massive amount of points, for a pretty beneficial action. They cost different, and their point value is inverse to the costs.

I have a feeling that god tokens in general give way too many points. When they came into play, my game shifted from a feeling of "I'm well on my way to getting the needed score, but I best be careful" to "Plop, plop, plop DONE!.... now I just gotta survive for 50-60 turns."

[Cinth]

Palladium, Cornucopia, and Tyr's sword are supposed to have negative points.  Checking them in game shows that they don't have a points line in their tooltips.  A quick function check in the sandbox shows they don't subtract points like they should.

@Mick: Those two tokens just had their functions changed in 905.  Bandit keeps can be killed with three tokens though.  Pan, Ullr, and Heimdall.  Ullr's rune should be cheaper than Heimdall's sword though (it does more). Pan's harpe should have a cost appropriate to what Greek tokens cost (generally more than Norse).  Point costs on the harpe and rune should be the same.

[Mick]

Alright, it makes sense that one faction might be considered to be wealthier than the other. The cost of the tokens themselves is really kinda the least of my concerns.

EDIT: Looking at my game progress. It appears I would meet the score gate requirements for "Insane".

The difficulties should probably scale up faster in that regard.

[Cinth]

The Greek tokens, in general, cost more (or so I thought).  Also, just pointing out the other way to kill keeps   I do agree the points for those 2 tokens should be the same.

We are supposed to be killing the keeps in general so method of their death shouldn't matter.  If they give to many points then it should be lowered.

[Misery]

I chronicled my 952/953 game in the AAR forum, and definitely found things to be much better overall. I think the issues left are a lot closer to "things need to be tweaked and balanced" than "the game concept is fundamentally broken".

One thing that seems off:

Ullr's Rune Stone: Costs 2 Sunstone, destroys all bandit keeps, gives 3000 points.

Pan's Harpe: Costs 4 Sunstone, destroys all bandit keeps, gives 1800 points.

This seems a bit off. First of all, both are doing the same effect, which is not really great for variety sake. Both provide a massive amount of points, for a pretty beneficial action. They cost different, and their point value is inverse to the costs.

I have a feeling that god tokens in general give way too many points. When they came into play, my game shifted from a feeling of "I'm well on my way to getting the needed score, but I best be careful" to "Plop, plop, plop DONE!.... now I just gotta survive for 50-60 turns."

There are definitely some tokens and such that simply dont have enough, or any, risk to them yet.    An effect like those 2 should really have some sort of downside or side-effect, so they're not just pure benefit.  And JUST having them have negative scores every time is a little dull, there's already tokens that will be doing that.  Both of those bandit clobbering ones then, should DO something else in addition that causes a bit of trouble.... not sure just what.   Maybe it also chooses a couple of random units on one side and gives them a huge boost to throw things off somewhat?   Something like that. 

And god token scores probably need a bit more balancing. 

[Cinth]

Getting rid of the bandits frees your military up to go after the other faction instead of being distracted.  That can be a positive or a negative depending on the situation or player.

[Mick]

I chronicled my 952/953 game in the AAR forum, and definitely found things to be much better overall. I think the issues left are a lot closer to "things need to be tweaked and balanced" than "the game concept is fundamentally broken".

One thing that seems off:

Ullr's Rune Stone: Costs 2 Sunstone, destroys all bandit keeps, gives 3000 points.

Pan's Harpe: Costs 4 Sunstone, destroys all bandit keeps, gives 1800 points.

This seems a bit off. First of all, both are doing the same effect, which is not really great for variety sake. Both provide a massive amount of points, for a pretty beneficial action. They cost different, and their point value is inverse to the costs.

I have a feeling that god tokens in general give way too many points. When they came into play, my game shifted from a feeling of "I'm well on my way to getting the needed score, but I best be careful" to "Plop, plop, plop DONE!.... now I just gotta survive for 50-60 turns."

There are definitely some tokens and such that simply dont have enough, or any, risk to them yet.    An effect like those 2 should really have some sort of downside or side-effect, so they're not just pure benefit.  And JUST having them have negative scores every time is a little dull, there's already tokens that will be doing that.  Both of those bandit clobbering ones then, should DO something else in addition that causes a bit of trouble.... not sure just what.   Maybe it also chooses a couple of random units on one side and gives them a huge boost to throw things off somewhat?   Something like that. 

And god token scores probably need a bit more balancing.

I honestly think god token scores (and myth as well) could just do with a removal. I think if you need to slap a score on it to get people to use it, it's probably just not that interesting to begin with. Besides, it's often quite easy to find an easy way to ignore the negative effects of some of them.

If they do have scores, they really need huge negative effects to counterbalance them.

Getting rid of the bandits frees your military up to go after the other faction instead of being distracted.  That can be a positive or a negative depending on the situation or player.

I think in general they are a net negative. Bandit siege units will destroy your towns with zero point benefit. If the factions are not being distracted, you are getting more points because they are killing each other.

[Misery]

As the scoring goes, the myth ones seem mostly right to me (to a point).   Still some tweaking to do there, but the range is about right.  I find this does give me a bit more reason to take risks and use the things, though in some cases the risks need to be a bit greater.  That range-doubling one that the Norse have, for instance, could use some nasty negative associated with it, as it doesnt throw things off too much.   Wheras Pandora's Box on the Greek side can get pretty loopy.  And while negative score on certain things isnt a bad idea, I think a side effect (probably a strong one!) would be best (and absolutely necessary) for things like Cornucopia or Brokkr.  And it'd just be more interesting.   Simply tweaking the numbers on those positive-only ones isnt enough.


If the scores on the myth/god stuff were removed, honestly, it'd likely lead to a tendancy to simply spam the hell outta basic units (because how else would you get enough points?), while avoiding the use of tokens.  And spamming ANYTHING as a strategy is very dull.  I'm not seeing the scores as THE reason to use them (in many cases, I'd be using them anyway), but it's a way to encourage it, as well as give the player options for producing points.  It's interesting to try to fit the loopy ones into my strategy in order to produce points while at the same time not wrecking everything.


It doesnt help for testing and tweaking that the difficulty of the game can be pretty darn random.  The selection of woes and the timing of them, the placement of bandit forts, and many other factors can cause it to shift pretty heavily.   I'm on Medium-everything right now, but it's definitely being tougher than I thought (and that's with me using a decent amount of different things).  Currently it's a constant struggle to keep the poor red guys going, since woes and a couple of tokens gone horribly wrong are near to making the blues start snowballing all over the place.    Very.... interesting, currently.  Yet it COULD have gone in such a way to make it unusually easy, which would change up my feedback a bit, possibly.


EDIT: And the bandit thing, not as messed up as I'd thought.... the game suddenly stopped spamming them at me.   Musta just been RNG goofiness then.

[Misery]

Something occurs to me as I keep playing this:  Ruins, they might be a bit overboard at this point.

Stuff like Singasteinn and such are meant to provide a boost while creating an imbalance because of that boost.... but it's hard for this to have as strong an effect as it COULD have, when you've got so very many units getting Ruins boosts.  They get them from defeated bandit forts (I think that one gives the full 5), they get them from wrecked buildings of any sort, and I could swear the actual ruins tile is randomly appearing MUCH too often.   It's not uncommon that nearly every human unit on the board in my game has a ruins effect active;  if you have them ALL with it, or most of them, it kinda undoes the imbalancing effect that the ruins SHOULD be having.   Heck, something like Singasteinn with it's "lots of attacks" effect should be even MORE unbalancing with the new AP system, but.... yeah, the prevalence of ruins effects instead seem to make it weaker.

Definitely thinking that there could be some tweaking there somehow.

[chemical_art]

You got the idea Misery.

I'm not saying Mythos creatures are unstoppable or anything with just humans to fight them. Can't comment on their balance, don't know enough.

But what I'm saying that is an intermediate, if not advanced, situation, and has no business in the very early parts of the tutorial.

[x4000]

Okay, whew.  Lots of commentary on the tutorial.  I will address other things in this thread a bit later, as I think this thing is the most important by far.  Thanks for your thoughts, chemical_art -- I think a lot of them are spot on. 

Here are my thoughts on the tutorial after reading the feedback:

1. The reason we're showing the mythological creatures this early is that we want to establish that you CAN.  And also explain quickly and viscerally what the ideal conditions for it are.  I think that this is important, and that this is currently handled well by the tutorial as it stands.

2. Also, there's a bandit keep coming before too long (turn 10), and we want the humans to have some reason to build up military in that time.  The expectation was that the mythological creatures would be dead by turn 2 or 3, and then you have lots of humans roaming about and ready to take on the keep.  But this, naturally, assumes a very expert level of play, and the tutorial can fall flat on its face with this part.

3. Combat!  The other thing that this is trying to get across right from the start, and which it does very well, is showing the asymmetrical nature of the combat and how you have to bring balance to it.  However, actually requiring the players to do that without any assistance is... rough.  To say the least.  At best they get lucky and do it, at worst they are getting frustrated and quitting.  This is like a brick wall in the tutorial difficulty, and that's obviously a super hugely bad thing.

4. Given all of the above, my first instinct was to say "let's remove the mythological creatures from this part of the tutorial, and then figure out some way to introduce combat that fast."  Because, let's face it: if the first turns are all just about building stuff, that's going to lose part of the audience.  Is this just a citybuilding sim?  When do I get to the good part?  Etc.  They've already had a heavy dose of citybuilding in the setup phase, and it's definitely high time to show SOME combat.

5. That said, I think the secondary goals of trotting out the mythological creatures at that point in time are still laudable and are something that needs to happen.  Points 1 and 2 above.  So that really made me kind of a fence-sitter.  Something is obviously really wrong, and some other things are really right, and how to reconcile the two?

6. I think that the solution comes in addressing the core problem here: the player is not equipped to deal with the cleanup of the mythological creatures if the situation gets away from them.  Period.  So what I'm going to do is something minimally invasive: add a few more steps between "survive turn one" and "survive until turn five" where things are explained a bit more, AND where the mythological creatures get erased if they still exist on the board at the time of turn 3 or so.

This gives players an early chance to see combat and the mythologicals, to realize their power and also to hint at when they should and should not be used.  And then it gives them relief instead of frustration.  We'll see how this does, but I think this addresses all the main points here.  Aside from the textual things about the greeks vs norse, which I'll also fix.

Thanks!

[nas1m]

Okay, whew.  Lots of commentary on the tutorial.  I will address other things in this thread a bit later, as I think this thing is the most important by far.  Thanks for your thoughts, chemical_art -- I think a lot of them are spot on. 

Here are my thoughts on the tutorial after reading the feedback:

1. The reason we're showing the mythological creatures this early is that we want to establish that you CAN.  And also explain quickly and viscerally what the ideal conditions for it are.  I think that this is important, and that this is currently handled well by the tutorial as it stands.

2. Also, there's a bandit keep coming before too long (turn 10), and we want the humans to have some reason to build up military in that time.  The expectation was that the mythological creatures would be dead by turn 2 or 3, and then you have lots of humans roaming about and ready to take on the keep.  But this, naturally, assumes a very expert level of play, and the tutorial can fall flat on its face with this part.

3. Combat!  The other thing that this is trying to get across right from the start, and which it does very well, is showing the asymmetrical nature of the combat and how you have to bring balance to it.  However, actually requiring the players to do that without any assistance is... rough.  To say the least.  At best they get lucky and do it, at worst they are getting frustrated and quitting.  This is like a brick wall in the tutorial difficulty, and that's obviously a super hugely bad thing.

4. Given all of the above, my first instinct was to say "let's remove the mythological creatures from this part of the tutorial, and then figure out some way to introduce combat that fast."  Because, let's face it: if the first turns are all just about building stuff, that's going to lose part of the audience.  Is this just a citybuilding sim?  When do I get to the good part?  Etc.  They've already had a heavy dose of citybuilding in the setup phase, and it's definitely high time to show SOME combat.

5. That said, I think the secondary goals of trotting out the mythological creatures at that point in time are still laudable and are something that needs to happen.  Points 1 and 2 above.  So that really made me kind of a fence-sitter.  Something is obviously really wrong, and some other things are really right, and how to reconcile the two?

6. I think that the solution comes in addressing the core problem here: the player is not equipped to deal with the cleanup of the mythological creatures if the situation gets away from them.  Period.  So what I'm going to do is something minimally invasive: add a few more steps between "survive turn one" and "survive until turn five" where things are explained a bit more, AND where the mythological creatures get erased if they still exist on the board at the time of turn 3 or so.

This gives players an early chance to see combat and the mythologicals, to realize their power and also to hint at when they should and should not be used.  And then it gives them relief instead of frustration.  We'll see how this does, but I think this addresses all the main points here.  Aside from the textual things about the greeks vs norse, which I'll also fix.

Thanks!

This sounds very reasonable to me.

[PokerChen]

Something occurs to me as I keep playing this:  Ruins, they might be a bit overboard at this point.
(etc)

I'm inclined to think that perhaps only military buildings and town centers should give loot-able ruins,  as each bandit fortress already gives 5. On Destroyed production buildings just get converted into empty ruins. Or, slap a percentage chance on it containing 0 or 1 loot.

Not sure on God/myth tokens just yet. However, the chimera is almighty powerful right now - I've had one tear through 3 or 4 bandit fortresses on its own (Age of Man then Age of Monsters) and live with 50% health. Doing the same with Norse requires ~2 frost giants, I think.
They may be more powerful than all the others on the basis of many strong attacks + no counter-attack damage as ranged.

On points and banditry - current game is on Expert/Insane/Normal. The projected points total (on track for 70K end game) says that I vastly underbid and should've gone for maximum difficulty on all three. On the other hand, I have a feeling that dropping to Normal/Hard/Expert will net me vastly more points after multipliers, with fewer bandits lying around stealing town-kills.

One should probably be somewhat light-hearted on the scoring front.  Tokens seem to be ok for release on average (for an exception, see this on Norn resurrection/copying abilities). The 0-point policy on bandit-kills seems to be a little un-thematic, but I'm not sure if giving them points is a good idea. Given the maximum difficulty, I'm okay with the sheer number of bandits - I just feel that the player should be rewarded in some fashion for inflicting themselves with so many. There's not enough living human units after woes* to pick up 70% of the ruins lying all over the island.

*count byl ~turn 60: 1 blue (Norse) black death, 1 blue embezzler, 2 blue vegetarian uprisings, 2 red (Greek) serial killers, spies, inside job...

[chemical_art]

Erasing the creatures at turn 3 seems the best solution. As you said, newbies simply.are.not equiped.to deal with mythologicals in the.age.of man.

[Pepisolo]

Erasing the creatures at turn 3 seems the best solution. As you said, newbies simply.are.not equiped.to deal with mythologicals in the.age.of man.

Yeah, seems like a simple solution to me. No harm in getting rid of the mythological during the tutorial period.