If you were to ask me what I thought was the worst part of the game I would say scrapings utility for success being so mismatched with how low its prominence in the UI is.
Not only can this make it annoying or confusing to use but for new players psychologically makes it seem like something you shouldn't do even tho its important.
I'm no game designer but what I would do is put a toggable button with clear symbology conveying the idea of scraping near the upgrade HQ button.
When turned on clicking on a building would scrap it and trying to place a building on top of another building will have the game scrap the underneath building then place the new building in one move.
The following is probably going to be more controversial but I would change the scraping patent to decrease or remove construction time instead what it does now.
Then I would have scraping be a 50% refund that all players get by default.
This to me would make the flow of the game feel better.
There are hot keys for scraping scrapping multiple buildings. I just click and hit delete multiple times to clear a section out. There might be one for scrapping everything of a building type, but I might be thinking of the power on/off keys.
There's no hotkey for group scrapping (nor a way to do non-uniform groups, currently) but I'm hesitant to add one. It could be super-bad if you accidentally click it.
-Scott-
The existence of hotkeys or not wasn't really my point obviously there is or will be hotkeys to do just about anything in a RTS game.
I said it psychologically effects the player for a reason.
If your a new player and see this major button near the upgrade button you are going to think "what does this do? Should I be using this mechanic?".
As for why I suggested giving 50% refund by default is also psychological as it doesn't matter to much balance wise if all players get the same benefit or lack thereof.
On the other hand if you at least get something back it makes it feel less of an incorrect move.
Why not 100% refund then? why did I suggested changing the nanotech patent?
This is because there does need to be some penalty for building the wrong industry compared to a player that made the correct decision in the first place.
the correct industry changes as the game progresses. There is no making the correct choice from the start, the correct choice changes continuously depending on other players' choices.
The decision about whether or not to scrap a building and replace it with something more profitable needs to be hard, not easy. Making decisions like that is a big part of the game (IMHO), and it should be a place where players can exercise their skill to gain an advantage.
I agree with XbadnameX that the importance of scrapping buildings is not intuitively obvious, and at the current state of the game it's poorly presented and poorly explained. Greater prominence in the UI might be a good idea, and incorporating it into the tutorials and/or strategy guides that presumably are forthcoming is a great idea. I'd also like the UI to allow for more convenient and rapid scrapping, perhaps something like group selection and deletion.
But I disagree with the idea of making scrapping more cost-effective by giving everyone a 50% refund automatically. That makes scrapping a no-brainer any time a building is running slightly in the red, rather than just turning it off and waiting for the prices to revert. That kind of decision should require some thought, and reward those who are better able to make the right call under time pressure.
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