Hi guys, just a note where we're at. It doesn't look like we're going to have the beta ready in time for Thanksgiving. It's pretty close but even if we made it by Wednesday, with so many people off for Thanksgiving, it's just not one of those things we would feel good about putting up and leaving. We hopefully will have it the following week.
Now, that said, let's talk about some of the stuff the team at Gas Powered Games is working on as well as things we're contemplating.
First, there's a lot of new purchasable items in the game. That said, one type of item we're contemplating are a series of rings that players can purchase that are particularly effective against specific Demigods.
For instance, let's say there's a Demigod who does a lot of stun-based spells. There would be rings that players can purchase that can greatly diminish that effect. Similarly, there are rings that do specific damage against particular Demigods. This way, players who are somewhat skilled can equip their Demigods up to go against their specific opponents.
We're still mulling this over but we'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Another concept we're contemplating on implementing are active flags. That is, if you capture a flag, that flag may give you a power you can make use of that would mostly take the form of building a special type of tower that would further magnify the effect of that flag. Other flags with different powers may make their way in based on time/budget but the idea here is that capturing flags wouldn't just give you a passive bonus to your team but also an active power you can make use of on the map tactically.
Well one of the key things we want to do is have these items be ACTIVE and not passive. That is, you should have to do something for the power, whatever it might be, to do something rather than simply being equipped.
Okay and I definitely agree, but then I still don't understand why the urge to make them anti-specific demigod. Why not just something like an item of spell reflect that on activation reflects the next non-melee damage ability to the caster, if cast within 5-10-whatever seconds? This would obviously be most useful against pure casters like TB than say, UB that while having some ranged "spells" is mostly a melee fighter. And it avoids the arbitrary specific-demigod counter. You can do a similar thing for melee, have a shield item that absorbs the next melee hit and heals you for the damage, so on so forth.
I guess I'm struggling to understand the basic reason you have for wanting "anti-Rook", etc items, instead of more general ones? General isn't bad, it can still open a lot of scale tilting options - and without being arbitrary
FrogBoy Wants:
Alright, that's the shopping list so far. Like any good idea building, it's important to list the elements we're trying to tactle here on the board so everyone can see what we're trying to achieve and adjust their mindsets accordingly. There are areas that Frogboys repeats a lot, and for good reason - we don't seem to be offering the kind of ideas he may be looking. What has been repeating?
Experienced Players & Skill
This pretty much automatically rulls out anything Passive, such as purchasable item. But let's ask outselves something, how can skill be a part of the this? What can we do that may potentially be simply, and not require a whole lot of recoding? A tall order, because it seems ideas which involve Skill may actually require a good deal of new code and even art direction to implement.
Rings of Power?
I think we should do away with the idea of equipment to resolve this and perhaps focus on something which a player actively thinks about and participates throughout the course of the game. Already the Player manages Gold, Mana, HP, Equips, Items, and even potentially Achievements and Minions. These elements are based on the players experience and play style.
Resolutions OTHER Games have Employed
Alright, skill in other games I've played is displayed mainly in two ways, the Type of Damage, and the Element which goes a long with it. Should we try something like this, or perhaps a modified version of this?
Damage Types: Piercing, Slashing, Blunt, etc.
Element Types: Wind beats Earth, Earth beats Lightning, Lightning beats Water, Water Beats Fire, Fire beasts Ice, etc.
So far we haven't used Element types or Damage types in this game, perhaps this is a window of opportunity?
There MUST be Penalties
The more I think about it, the more I feel that whatever system we choose to work with, we emply some sort of Penalty upon the player for taking that course of action. Increasing damage against a Demigod, makes you do less Damage to other Demigods and everything else, etc.
Another Possibility
Players can potentially collect fragments and materials on the battlefield and use them to modify already existing equipmentt. Modifications require certain materials and combinations. These combinations are unknown at first, but succeeding in combining or 'crafting' a successful modifcations will add information to a player's personal database they can access in future battles on the fly. The more difficult the game, and the longer it progresses, the rarer the materials become and the more complicated the craft.
Modifcations can be based on damage types, allowing players to actively employ new abilities strapped to their equipment which they can press to activate. Modifcations shouldn't be passive abilities, and when an ability is active the Demigof will recieve penalties for a duration of time while recieving benefits in other things.
The more a person plays, the large their knowledge will be become about these modifcations which will reveal that is is exclusive to players who are more experienced with the game.
Sadly, this idea requires a bit more code than perhaps desired, but I just felt it would be better to lay it out on the table and see what people think rather than just keeping my mouth shut.
Well the obvious penalty is that you've used up an item slot, and possibly your artifact slot.
I like Annatar11's idea, an effect that is active and so can be used with skill that is significantly stronger against certain demigods or more importantly certain builds by using effects such as next spell has no effect or a temporary trueshot aura. In DotA if you go PotM then the most common build is probably Treads, Linkens and Mjollnir but linkens in this build is commonly changed for BF or even Bloodstone if the enemy team lacks casters or disables.
The resolutions that you are refering to are used in RTS' or games where quick and effective changes in unit compositions or character builds can be made, because otherwise the counter system fails. I like the idea of colectable fragments but they shouldnt be demigod specific or have anti-certain-demigod effects. The problem with collectable fragments is where would they drop? Creeps would fail utterly, if its Demigods then what if you get a bad fragment and so have no reward? if its Neutral creeps like ive heard sugested before then the maps would have to have been made to cater for them from the start, they cant be aded at this late stage.
Demigod is a terrifically fun action contest right now. I think we need to be careful when speaking of complicating things, particularly in regards to the item system. Introducing a myriad of item and item modification options I think will drag down & dilute the action. I would rather not indulge in a ragdoll alchemy construction puzzle when I could and should be venturing forth and utilizing my abilities to crush enemies. You`d be shifting focus from combat to item equipping.
I don`t understand why one would need to distinguish between experienced players and inexperienced players, via acoutrements or not. What compulsion or necessity bades this forth? Why do so? Doesn`t seem necessary. People play the way they play, making the choices they choose. Doesn`t seem to be pertinent to the integrity of the game.
I believe additional game depth will be derived from the addition of interesting new elements to the playfield (flags, structures, gates, etc.), creative & balanced items in line with those we have thus far sampled, and good level design.
Example New Elements For Depth:
Mud-areas of mud that slow the movement speed of ground units that move through it by 30%
Wind-level phenomena that blows in a given direction for 'X' period, slowing airborne unit movement against it throughout the level by 10%-50%-increases airborne unit movement with its direction by half the penalty against-shifts direction per randomized incident-changes strength (see percentiles)-sometimes does not blow at all-obviously specific to levels where high winds make sense
Lightning Storms-localized areas (20 to 40 foot radi or irregular field?) that are struck randomly for 'X' period by lightning-if you do not wish to take damage, find an alternate route to your destination until the storm passes-no damage to structures (preventing the phenomena from playing too much of a role in the contest); this is mostly area denialMeteors-as Lightning Storms, but rocks from the sky; shorter in duration than Lightning Storms, maybe higher damage and concussive impactWarps-random "point A" to "point B" phenomena of limited duration; leading to anywhere on the map-rare; featured in stranger more supernatural themed levels-Demigods only... must click on Warps to use them
For the sake of combat depth (which I think the game already has) I am lukewarm to the usual slash/blunt/pierce and fire/water/earth damage approaches. This has been done many times before, so one might argue it is recognizably hackneyed. Perhaps an option to some degree, but then again it introduces the possibility of cursing certain Demigods with a permanent and decisive penalty versus certain other Demigods, which takes you back to the paper/scissors/rock algorithm on a fundamental scale (via mere charcter select!). Instead of simply choosing the Demigod that appeals to you the most, you`d be making calculations based upon what enemies are selecting. You ought to be able to choose without worrying about intrinsic handicaps... such contemplations ought to be left to the battlefield, not the character selection screens.
A fair insight WarlokLord, but the New Element For Depth is beside the point of this conversation. Instead of just giving up on the idea of trying to give something to experienced players, best we can try to do is keep the subject in line and try to iron out some possibilties we can potentially put to practice during this and future Beta Phases. Because honestly, we really don't know how fun it really is until we try it. We can argue what is and what isn't fun until the sun goes down, but it ultimately means nothing until we can really see it play out in the game engine.
I disagree wholeheartedly with WarlokLords presumptioin that distiguishing between inexperienced and experienced players is not important. Where would games like Starcraft and CS be if players of diferent skills didnt make diferent choices and it is easy to tell in both thes games how good someone is by the choices they make. Also i disagree with his sugestions for weather effects, they dont make the game deeper, just more convoluted.
A Slash/Blunt/Pierce or Fire/Earth/Water system of counters is cliched and flawed, it only works in a game where you can change unit compositions so that enemy counters dont work anymore, that the beauty of the system, but this doesnt work with a game like Demigod read the entire forum before u post and you would realise this.
Orkimond, I didn't make a suggestion to impliment the weapon types and elements like Slash/Blunt/Pierce or Fire/Earth/Water. I was merely making an observation that is how other games did it, my suggestion was at the conclusion of the more recent post mainly driving focus on a loose form of crafting which you gave no comment what so ever on. Make an effort to read an entire post before you respond please.
Damage and element types are fail, it's just rock/paper/scissors, anyone can come up with that and it's not fun or unique, especially in Demigod where you cannot choose your rock, paper or scissors. By the time I have chosen Rook with blunt, my opponent has UB which takes 50% less. Fuck.
My suggestion is still abilities similar to the Tower of Light, because those already buff each other when in range. Use ability X, you lose health but buff ability Y, proportional to how many friendly Demigods are in the area and have used Ability X at the same time. On the downside, when you've used ability X, you could suffer some risk such as extra damage done to teammates (here I'm thinking if your DG takes 100% and your teammates take 25% as well) or health cost added to ability Y, reduced defences, or you take extra damage for facing more enemy demigods.
Uh, because pay2play is a totally new concept, World of Warcraft is a failure of a game and no RPG games sell at all...
When you say "nobody wants this game to be SC" you do realize that about half the game's existing fanbase is from SC and it's from the same developer.. they might just have a few ties. I don't know and I really don't care what age you are, you've got the IQ of my dog.
Both of your examples of "skill heavy games" are completely and utterly incompatible with Demigod. They both rely on physical speed and reflexes, which is utterly besides the point for Demigod, which is a Tactical/Strategical game. A "skilled" player in Demigod has to be a player who is smarter not one who has higher APM.
Indeed, wits over twitch reflexes. I feel most RTS games have lost the 'thinking' portion of their game since StarCraft came around. Now, because of that game's success, the RTS genre has been transformed into a mindless rush-happy clobber fest of hyper active rock/paper/scissors and it's really annoying. Last thing we want to do is to turn Demigod into anything remotely like those games.
its a realtime game and you can't eliminate physical speed and reflexes from it, no matter how hard you try, so no they are not imcompatible, phycical speed and reflexes are incompatible with turnbased games (those without a timelimit per round).
And for most players its their slow mind which makes their APM so low, unless you get to a region of more than 250 APM everyone has the physical capabilities to do it. Its not like a 100m sprint where your lungs and muscles aren't good enough to finish it in 10 Seconds, its the mind which makes people having a high or low APM. Other parts of your mind are responsible for using that actions usefully then.
The thing you can change in a realtime game is how high the bargain per additional APM is but you can't remove it completely.
Go play Sins before you say that -- twitch reflexes are far from needed there.
No offense, but now you're not just being silly, but talking out your rear. 250 APM is around 3 clicks per second, sustained for a prolonged period of time -- that is a lot of clicks!
I will ward people away from Demigod if it becomes another click-happy twitch fest. I do not think speed and mass-micromanagement should be the way to succeed in a game, as it really limits who can succeed in it and takes away the fun factor. But understand we're getting off subject, the subject is how the heck we can figure out how these Ringd of Power Frogboy wants can be made possible and still be enjoable.
I never played Sins but even for slow paced RTS you need some level of speed. It might be that 60 APM is sufficient to play it good (which I doubt) , but being faster is always better, in every RTS there is more to do than you can do and even if there was less to do than you can do the faster player would be still in advantage as he gets his stuff done faster and has more time to fully concentrate on thinking while the other guy is still managing his units/buildings.Demigod surely won't need a very high APM, at least for the assassins, but faster reflexes give you an advantage. The most simple example is seeing a UB approaching you, if you notice it fast you get away, if not he will hit you; how are you going to "fix" that without making it a turn-based game? All you can do is to make sure that a slower player will still win vs a faster player because he has a better strategy but a faster player with a as good strategy will win most games vs the slower player, there is no way around that in a realtime environment.
Yes it is a lot but definitely achievable if you play very focused. 250 is 4,16 actions per second btw, thats a lot less than what you have when you are typing texts
You don't need to have fast hands to get in a region of 200 APM, you just need to spend less time starring on the screen and doing nothing - don't tell me that you need that time for thinking because your enemy does think as well or he will lose (if it is a good RTS). The ability to think simultaneously while doing things is the key element of RTS, introducing time as resource for the management of your actions. One of the fundamentals of RTS is to decide where to use your time on, do I spend looking a second on the enemy base to analyze its weaknesses or do I spend it changing the placement of my army or do I use the time for optimizing my economy. When playing chess you also have to make a decision where to spend your time on, you can't analyze all possibilites because of time constraints, not even Super Computers can, does that make chess a twitchbased game?
I however totally agree that even a vastly slower player should be able to win in Demigod if he strategy is vastly superior and that the differences from average APM/reactions to high APM/fast reactions should be a rather flat function (more like supcom than warcraft II).
Back to the ring, I am glad they are an active Item because that means there is deeper decisionmaking involved than buying the item and I really like the Idea someone here had that it gives a malus towards other Demigods.
I'm not sure if I'm all for the anti-specific demigod Rings of Whatnot. Sure, it'll eliminate the possibility of a 1type demigod team, but uhh, wouldn't we want that possibility, maybe, you know, for fun? I understand that these COULD be made optional, but I'm not all convinced this is such a great idea. I would be more at home with items that reduce/buff general effects. Also, wouldn't items like Ring of Anti-Rook (for each Demigod, then), sound kind of ridiculous? Also, I wouldn't like the concept of one Demigod having a specific Demigod as an arch-enemy. That's way too hard of a counter.
I definitely like TBO's idea of having Revenge items, but I'd say that should be just one side of the feature. Otherwise it might turn out to be a revengefest. Variety is key here, and we don't want item abuse, now do we? There is a possibility to go into a stats-based system for resistances and the ilk (Diablo 1 and 2 have this off the top of my head...), but I'm not sure if that's worth it either... As has been said numerous times by now, soft counters as items are the best way to go, but some hard ones mixed into the action can contribute nicely as well. Heck of a lot to balance, though. If I buy an item I'd like it to have an use not only against ONE specific type of demigod, I'd like to enjoy using it against other demigods as well, but with less effect of course.
Anyway, active flags sound great. Some sort of "airstrike of angels" would look cool as hell, for example, or some special structure to use, whatever. All of this sounds nice and all flags should definitely have a certain strategic value.
There could be a lot of uses. Something like a special unit even, that leads a certain unit of the reinforcements to fight better. There are many wonderful things that these flags could do: act as portable life wells, shortcut for reinforcements, a special unit barrack, a spell tower, etc.
Forgive me for any jumbled text, I added a lot of text after my initial draft, so at some points the text may feel a bit disjointed
Actually, yeah, I just realized we already have in the options menu an option to make unique demigods, isn't this redunant/not an option?
I'm still leaning towards having status specific rings, or even demigod type (assassin/general) rings, instead of demigod specific ones
another take on this is that the (fantastic) creep idea could be one of the penalties for using a ring. i.e. with a hatred type dynamic, when the ring is activated you do more damage against x (or nearest, to allow choice) demigod, but for the duration of the effect you are more vulnerable to damage recieved from the creeps IN AN AREA AROUND THAT DG. you said the code was there for auras, so could be simple? might allow some differentiation between experienced/new players with respect to the timing of it's use. if this was combined with the opposite type of ring (which could only be used by a teammate)i.e. when activated increased damage is taken from x (or nearest) demigod, but increased damage is done to creeps in that area.might leave room for effective teamplay - one clearing the creeps to give the other a shot at the DG, if timed incorrectly, or if too far separated from each other, both will die.
i'm new here so feel free to laugh it down.
or even for that matter, a combination set of items. with item 2 (anti creep) locked onto the target of item 1 (specific ring)
would require some cool combination work "lets buy the XXXX rings", but say the 1st might be bought on it's own...
kk, im writing this as i read so i wont have read all the posts at this point.
Orlean Knight i wastnt refering to you when i critisised the blunt/slash/peircing, i was talking bout WarlokLord, make an effort to read every post please.
DatonKallandor, warcraft 3 needed lots of decision making skill, and RTS' always need APM but in some decision making has more emphasis, have u ever played COH, that needed lots of decision making not micro.
TheBigOne is soooo right, listen to the man. And Sins does need APM, i have won many games because of my combat micro, if you pull back ships whenever they get attacked and bring them to your healing thing (cant remember the name) you can go a whole game without losing a ship.
Listen the TheBigOne, i used to play chess at a state level and it really needs alot of time management. The ability to make quick decisions and move your peices fast enough will add up to a win in a close game. I'm not saying the Demigod should be twitch based but a game with players with the same level of strategy will be won based one APM.
Demigod will be inevitably a game which needs good APM. Not so much for the Assassins, but more for the Generals I'd guess, but definitely not 250APM. If you play out your cards nicely you won't need to twitch much anyways.
OK, so let's work with the idea that the Rings are in. It could work, you just need to make a circular and synergistic system that takes it beyond simple RPS. Let's just retro entirely and tier the rings.
So you have the lowest tier, which allows generalized defensive and offensive buffs against certain things like stunning attacks or melee, maybe.
2nd tier is the same thing, only there are less rings and they add or subtract damage from specific demigods quite a bit more. Tier 2 ringholders have a small advantage over Tier 1 ringholders.
Finally you have the One Ring, which gives its holder a small advantage over Tier 1 ringholders and a big advantage over Tier 2 ringholders. If you use the One Ring too much, though, you become corrupted/vulnerable to non-ringholders, and eventually call down the Big Bad (Sauron) on your head. You don't want that last to happen, ever.
Once you buy or win a ring you can trade it for another of the same tier or upgrade to the next tier, but you can't drop it or sell it entirely. Each ring is actively used and completely unique. Tier 1 and 2 can be found in shops, if you insist, but the One Ring should be a very special achievable drop that takes teamwork to achieve.
What ends up happening is that you have to make a series of strategic and tactical decisions. Do I want to invest in a ring that will give me an advantage now but might make me vulnerable later? Shall I forego rings entirely with the understanding that my opponents might not? Should my team aim for the One Ring?
Unfortunately, this is not Frogboy's code-simple, translation-easy system, but it takes it beyond the simplistic mechanic alot of people seem to be objecting to.
On your CoH point - yes CoH needs very little micro. That's the reason why CoH is one of the few games under the RTS moniker that actually shifts the genre into the RTS direction. Let's compare CoH's perfectly playable APM of 60 (still a little too much, but you can easily get by with less) to Starcrafts utterly ridiculous numbers. 250 APM is considered the complete minumum, with so called "pro" players hitting 500 APM regularily. 500 APM means almost 10 clicks per second. That's not RTS.
On your Sins point on how your damaged-ship-retreat micro won you games - I believe that 100%. But that's not an indicator of how an RTS needs micro, it's an indicator that there's an AI option missing. Namely the option to tell ships at which % of hull they should retreat to which position (a feature that's already been in RTS titles pre-2000).
I wouldn't mind such features, but don't believe that they are as good as decisions made by a human mind. A rule like "retreat when health is down to 25%" might be good in many cases but sometimes you will want him to keep firing etc.
Warcraft III has auto-casting for most of the spells of non-hero units but good players disable most of it in most situations because an AI is too dumb to know when it is good to use a spell and on which target. Automated AI features can be most times exploited by your opponent.
(And honestly I don't want too smart AI helpers, I want to decide when its better to retreat a unit and when it shall keep fighting)
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