|
Well, we were talking about how buildings would be used to help defend peasants...
Buildings too weak = peasant slaughter time
Buildings too strong = there are no early rushes
Ideal: buildings moderately strong
Here is how I see a typical game playing out: early game is mainly passive because it would be too hard and too risky to attempt an early game attack with resource drain. Both players try to build as many peasants as possible while keeping enough of an army.
Midgame both players are posturing. I think the ideal army would be Light Calvary with Spear Infantry support. As players slowly expand outwards, they leave Spear Infantry behind as defense while Light Calvary roam around trying to find openings. If peasants are killed by either player, that player has a HUGE advantage for the next few minutes and should build up Heavy Calvary and kill, while the other player tries to drag the game out as much as possible through delays.
Lategame, same deal. Spear Infantry at home, Light Calvary roaming. They build up grain banks. Either you try to poke and prod all game long, or... if you have a large grain bank, sacrifice some peasants, build a huge army, and kill the other player before your grain bank runs dry.
What parts do you disagree on? How do you think a typical game would go?
|
On August 13 2013 18:32 Entirety wrote:
Well, we were talking about how buildings would be used to help defend peasants...
Buildings too weak = peasant slaughter time
Buildings too strong = there are no early rushes
Ideal: buildings moderately strong
Here is how I see a typical game playing out: early game is mainly passive because it would be too hard and too risky to attempt an early game attack with resource drain. Both players try to build as many peasants as possible while keeping enough of an army.
Midgame both players are posturing. I think the ideal army would be Light Calvary with Spear Infantry support. As players slowly expand outwards, they leave Spear Infantry behind as defense while Light Calvary roam around trying to find openings. If peasants are killed by either player, that player has a HUGE advantage for the next few minutes and should build up Heavy Calvary and kill, while the other player tries to drag the game out as much as possible through delays.
Lategame, same deal. Spear Infantry at home, Light Calvary roaming. They build up grain banks. Either you try to poke and prod all game long, or... if you have a large grain bank, sacrifice some peasants, build a huge army, and kill the other player before your grain bank runs dry.
What parts do you disagree on? How do you think a typical game would go?
That doesn't sound so bad, sounds pretty accurate even. However you're disregarding how many viable unit compositions are possible I think. I also think that Light Ranged Cav might also work well in terms of raid defense. I myself thought that early rushes might not be viable, but when I think about it, it's more like this:
Building a stable and getting horses gets you Cavalry units, which are great units. However that's the equivalent of teching, and if you skip building a stable you can free up a lot of resources to invest in an early infantry force that you can rush with. That's because a player who is going Cav will have to invest heavily into it, especially considering the drain of Grain that Cav units have.
I think Late game will come down to how well you can protect your peasants while taking out theirs. To be frank, I think it's something that would have to be tested in game.
|
Now, earlier you stated you wanted some feedback on your economy system. As you can see, my biggest complaint is basically the resource drain. So far, I only really saw disadvantages of that system, so I believe it would be better to remove it. Could you explain why you chose such a design and what you hoped to accomplish?
|
On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?)
Hard counters is only one way to prevent that, and I would say it's the laziest / least interesting way to do it. It's a very archaic and outdated concept that might have been fun in some games in the past, but copying it accomplishes nothing and doesn't progress the genre.
Ideally, units should differ in the way they interact with the terrain and other units, and the "counter" system should emerge from those interactions combined with player skill, rather than from a pre-set numeric constant.
The prime example of this is reflected in the basic Siege Tank design - you keep it in tank mode and it's terribly cost-inefficient but can move around; you deploy it for a massive damage increase, but then it becomes inherently weak against fast melee units; you deploy it in favorable terrain and the only way to effectively deal with it is to attack it from air. It's role is defined by the very nature of the unit.
If I were designing an RTS, unit design as a whole would be inspired by the Siege Tank. There are situations in which a unit is good and situations in which it is going to be weak - and those situations depend on positioning, movement, map, basic unit behavior, and player control, not on +40 vs Armored nonsense.
|
Basically the idea is that an economy in this game is used not only for production but also for sustainability. It's not a one-time thing, it kind of emulates how it works in real life. Getting your economy shut down will shut everything down. It implies that both managing and defending your economy becomes really important. Peasants aren't just harvesting units; they're the true back-bone of your civ. This has been partly inspired by the game Total Annihilation.
It also means that having a large army and good tech will rely on having a strong economy to back it up, as well as map control. It's also an anti-turtle mechanism in a sense. In SC2 a Protoss player can sit on 3 bases and max out with a 200/200 army and then attack. A zerg might get 5 bases in the mean time but might still lose. In this RTS, a player who made the effort of finding fertile plains to expand or sending caravans across the map will be rewarded, because a turtle won't have the space necessary to fund his tech.
Basically I want economy to be a very important aspect of the game. Strategic decisions and tactics would be based around having a larger economy. You can tweak around the costs of tech and such so that rushes are still viable.
On August 13 2013 19:54 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?) Hard counters is only one way to prevent that, and I would say it's the laziest / least interesting way to do it. It's a very archaic and outdated concept that might have been fun in some games in the past, but copying it accomplishes nothing and doesn't progress the genre. Ideally, units should differ in the way they interact with the terrain and other units, and the "counter" system should emerge from those interactions combined with player skill, rather than from a pre-set numeric constant. The prime example of this is reflected in the basic Siege Tank design - you keep it in tank mode and it's terribly cost-inefficient but can move around; you deploy it for a massive damage increase, but then it becomes inherently weak against fast melee units; you deploy it in favorable terrain and the only way to effectively deal with it is to attack it from air. It's role is defined by the very nature of the unit. If I were designing an RTS, unit design as a whole would be inspired by the Siege Tank. There are situations in which a unit is good and situations in which it is going to be weak - and those situations depend on positioning, movement, map, basic unit behavior, and player control, not on +40 vs Armored nonsense.
In SC2 I would argue that there's a mix of soft and hard counter units, which is ultimately bad for the game, though I won't really delve too much into that. I haven't played BW enough to be familiar with how soft counters work.
The reason I felt like going for hard counters is that I want players to "always have an answer". If player A is massing only one type of unit, he's NOT going to win. If player A is mixing in a variety of different units and knows how to use them as a combo rather than a single unit. Player skill is absolutely guaranteed to make a difference in a fight.
Units are still useful in some situations but not in others. For example, the Light Cav that I described would work perfectly for running around raiding peasants, it would be quick enough to evade most units and still have an important role in the game (namely killing fragile but valuable targets). You could never raid with infantry units because Heavy Cav will easily come and wipe the floor with them. The Light Cav has a pretty specialized role here (raiding) as does Heavy Cav (map control). Even with hard counters, the units are still made in a manner that they have distinct roles.
To add to that, micro'ing an army with a complete counter-circle against another army with a complete counter-circle is some of the most fun I've ever had in an RTS.
Regardless, if you have another idea on how different units would work, using Infantry and Cavalry, I'm quite interested to hear your point of view, this is a discussion after all. ^^
|
That is merely a difference of opinion.
It's really cool that you need to be on top of economy all the time, even with a huge army (in your game).
It's also really cool (in SC2) that both aggression and turtling are viable, that the strength of economy is production and reproduction. I am forced to make a decision - should I sacrifice these 20 units to snipe that base? If I do, I could lose to the counterattack! I also like that even if you kill their workers, you cannot be careless.
In your RTS, trading units for workers isn't a decision. If you can do it, you've overcome your opponent! That makes defense much more important which, in my opinion, is boringly passive. Still, that's just speculation. Perhaps both players will play super aggressively (like TvT Hellbat drop wars).
|
On August 13 2013 19:55 Incognoto wrote:
If player A is massing only one type of unit, he's NOT going to win.
Soft counters stop this better than hard counters in the situation where it makes sense IMO. If I make only unit A and you make the soft counter unit B, as long as I'm not ridiculously ahead of you, you will win. However, if I'm on 5 bases and you're on 2, my A units will overrun you completely even if they are cost-ineffective.
At least from my perspective, this leads to far more interesting situations. Let's say you build an army and go to attack your opponents base. On the way, you see their army.
A. They have hard counters. Go back, build new army.
B. They have soft counters. Evaluate if it's worth it to engage in the situation you're in.
It's a good point that if both players have compositions which hard counter eachother in a circle, it's not such a flat situation and micro becomes a factor... but personally, I've only have bad experiences with these kinds of systems since hard counters lead to ridiculously fast engagements, like marine-baneling interaction in SC2. One missclick or bad decision and you've lost because his hard counter hit home and you're immediately screwed. This is compared to BW where engagements are longer and far more interesting movement takes place. It's not all or nothing (baneling connected, or it didn't) but rather a flowing scale (his dragoons did good target firing while placing decent storms).
|
Marine Baneling is beautiful. Each unit counters the other depending on micro. That is wonderful game design IMO.
|
On August 13 2013 20:23 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 19:55 Incognoto wrote:
If player A is massing only one type of unit, he's NOT going to win. Soft counters stop this better than hard counters in the situation where it makes sense IMO. If I make only unit A and you make the soft counter unit B, as long as I'm not ridiculously ahead of you, you will win. However, if I'm on 5 bases and you're on 2, my A units will overrun you completely even if they are cost-ineffective. At least from my perspective, this leads to far more interesting situations. Let's say you build an army and go to attack your opponents base. On the way, you see their army. A. They have hard counters. Go back, build new army. B. They have soft counters. Evaluate if it's worth it to engage in the situation you're in. It's a good point that if both players have compositions which hard counter eachother in a circle, it's not such a flat situation and micro becomes a factor... but personally, I've only have bad experiences with these kinds of systems since hard counters lead to ridiculously fast engagements, like marine-baneling interaction in SC2. One missclick or bad decision and you've lost because his hard counter hit home and you're immediately screwed. This is compared to BW where engagements are longer and far more interesting movement takes place. It's not all or nothing (baneling connected, or it didn't) but rather a flowing scale (his dragoons did good target firing while placing decent storms).
Yes, a unit kill quickly kill a unit that it counters, however when you have a combo out, the engagements are actually quite drawn out as you keep positioning, positioning and re-positioning all while both armies wear each other out. Hard-counters, at least with my experience with them in Aoe3, tend to lead to drawn-out engagements rather than being over in a split second as with banelings.
Also note that scouting in this game would be quite accessible, it would be quite easy to see what your opponent is up to due to wide open maps. You can scout his unit combo and then work from there.
As always, if you go for a full unit combo, both armies soft counter each other. Engagements aren't based off of units but off of unit compositions; that's the goal of this RTS.
|
On August 13 2013 20:26 Entirety wrote:
Marine Baneling is beautiful. Each unit counters the other depending on micro. That is wonderful game design IMO.
I don't think that's a fair assessment. Sure, amazing micro on the part of the terran can minimize the impact of the banelings (making it more of a soft counter than a hard counter because it's unreliable), but there's no such option for the zerg. You move the banelings towards the marines, or away from them. Sure, you can burrow them, but that's a gimmick and I don't think that's worth of consideration in this case.
|
On August 13 2013 20:41 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 20:26 Entirety wrote:
Marine Baneling is beautiful. Each unit counters the other depending on micro. That is wonderful game design IMO. I don't think that's a fair assessment. Sure, amazing micro on the part of the terran can minimize the impact of the banelings (making it more of a soft counter than a hard counter because it's unreliable), but there's no such option for the zerg. You move the banelings towards the marines, or away from them. Sure, you can burrow them, but that's a gimmick and I don't think that's worth of consideration in this case.
I used to believe that until I saw Life play!
|
United Kingdom14103 Posts
This does sound a bit like AoE I have to say ^^
|
yeah entirety i made an account just to reply to this thread. not necessarily to reply to your posts, but they ended up catching my attention  i'm a friend of incog's we played a lot of aoe3 together. i think he actually mentioned me somewhere.
Show nested quote +not the game, just that 1 fight. and morale adds a micro aspect which is retreating hurt units. this is how it worked in real life and it will make the fights not only more interesting but also more mechanically demanding which is never a bad thing. There are already benefits to retreating hurt units.
Show nested quote +i think you're overestimating how much a unit would drain your economy. it's not like every unit drains an entire grain per second. besides, if it's not balanced, the numbers can always be tuned up or down.
the player who focuses on economy rather than military will have less units. remember what you said about morale? having less units is risky due to the snowball effect. i think morale is a good way to prevent resource drain from making early rush builds not viable. Sorry, I was not very clear. When you commit to an early rush, you have an advantage because you have greater production at that very second. In SC2, for example, 3rax works because you have 2 additional production facilities. However, in this game, there is none of that because the player with the larger army will naturally have worse income = worse production. Thus, early rushes = not viable at all?
Show nested quote +you can increase your lead by attacking, or you can increase your lead by not building that much army and instead booming your economy. that's how it should work. same in starcraft: expanding decreases your army production, and a lot of army production decreases your economic growth.
i know i don't... sure, they both have the same production, but player A has a larger army... go and attack, player A! do something with that lead... The problem with that is essentially, the player who is behind economically has no reason to try and punish the economically superior player. Imagine that your opponent went for economy and successfully defended, and now has more workers. In SC2, you would realize that you're in trouble, you need some desperation moves - double expand, or pull off risky plays. In this RTS, I would not feel so pressured because I know the opponent's army is growing at the same size as mine. If my opponent goes for solely peasants, I can do the same. Now if I have 5 troops and you have 10, I would want to drag the game on as long as possible so it becomes 95 troops vs. 100 troops. Suddenly, the player who is behind wants to extend the game, all because the player who is ahead cannot increase his army faster? I think that is a flaw.
Show nested quote +why are you losing peasants to raids? yes, peasants are important, they're your economy! they should be important and you shouldn't be losing them. i'm sure there would be buildings available to build near your peasants that they can garisson into. or you could simply leave some pikemen with them to fend off any cavalry.
you're forgetting buildings. i think you're basing this too much on starcraft where buildings are pretty much useless at protecting workers other than walling them off. in aoe there have always been buildings that can both attack and function as garisson for workers. why? because unlike in starcraft the maps are open and without such buildings raids would indeed be too strong. Of course, static defense is useful, but if it's like SC2, they cannot stand up to a decent army. If they are too strong, then early rushes again become completely useless... in fact, attacking becomes a terrible option. Yes, you are supposed to protect peasants, but if you are protecting them perfectly, then you are not moving out. Thus, a very passive game. If you are not protecting them perfectly, you practically lose the game right there. I think the game would be too unforgiving.
|
On August 13 2013 19:54 Talin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2013 16:55 Incognoto wrote:On August 13 2013 16:46 calh wrote:
Sounds like you should try out Knights and Merchants. Lots of micromanagement and lovely medieval-inspired music. I've played a bit of it and it's a really well designed game, but games take waay too long! :p @Tobberoth, nah have you ever played Aoe3? Game was excellently designed, it's actually better than SC2 and the micro in the game was ridiculously fun. Hard counters also you mean you can't just mass one or two units and a-move to victory (roaches anyone?) Hard counters is only one way to prevent that, and I would say it's the laziest / least interesting way to do it. It's a very archaic and outdated concept that might have been fun in some games in the past, but copying it accomplishes nothing and doesn't progress the genre. Ideally, units should differ in the way they interact with the terrain and other units, and the "counter" system should emerge from those interactions combined with player skill, rather than from a pre-set numeric constant. The prime example of this is reflected in the basic Siege Tank design - you keep it in tank mode and it's terribly cost-inefficient but can move around; you deploy it for a massive damage increase, but then it becomes inherently weak against fast melee units; you deploy it in favorable terrain and the only way to effectively deal with it is to attack it from air. It's role is defined by the very nature of the unit. If I were designing an RTS, unit design as a whole would be inspired by the Siege Tank. There are situations in which a unit is good and situations in which it is going to be weak - and those situations depend on positioning, movement, map, basic unit behavior, and player control, not on +40 vs Armored nonsense. arguing that it's the laziest way to do it is absolutely correct, but why is it less interesting? it encourages multiple-unit compositions which makes army control such a huge deal. as a strong aoe3 player starting to play sc2 i found the battles to be extremely boring. let's be honest, most of it is amove. in aoe3 micro was an actual art, and not just mindless splitting of marines. incog got into the basics of it in the OP. don't get me wrong i think the siege tank is a great unit (my favourite, actually) and most of sc2's units are really well worked out counter-wise (except sentries which basically destroy the game but that's another story), but army control is just less fun to me. i get that it's completely subjective but figured i would add some perspective.
|
That point about garrisons is very interesting. It still causes problems for slow armies though. As soon as you move out, your opponent's faster army can siege your peasants, and resource drain causes the slow army to slowly die. The slow army has no choice but to turn back.
I feel like AoE2 had a great way of solving this passive game tendency - Wonders. If both players sit back for too long, then starting a Wonder will certainly push the game towards its conclusion. On the other hand, having static defenses which are ridiculously strong leads to stalemate situations.
You talk a lot about your system where both players have a diverse unit control = pure micro, but that's pretty much what SC2's lategame TvP looks like. I move my Ghosts forward, you move your Templars back. I bring my Vikings forward, you bring your Stalkers forward and your Colossi back. I retreat my Vikings and stim a few Marauders, you try to Storm. However, that's only in the lategame.
Now a simple hard counter system would go like this: Spear Infantry put up their walls, Heavy Calvary cannot touch them and get slaughtered.
Instead, I prefer the interaction with Ultralisks, Zerglings, and Roaches. Ultralisks maul Zerglings, but Roaches fare better. Why? This is because the Roach naturally has higher damage, and higher damage breaks through the Ultralisk's armor. However, Roaches cannot run from Ultralisks while Zerglings can, meaning that Zerglings can abuse their mobility and threaten counter attacks. Also, Zerglings can quickly overrun Roaches because Roaches have less armor and Zerglings have crazy DPS. However, having lots of Roaches clumped together makes Zerglings way less effective because Roaches are ranged. Thus clumped up Roaches are great against Zerglings... except if too many Roaches start dying off, their DPS drops off sharply and suddenly Zerglings are great against them. Also, Roaches hold an advantage over both Ultralisks and Zerglings because they are ranged, meaning they can sit on cliffs. Finally, because there are simply more Ultralisks than Roaches, the Roaches can do target firing and quickly bring down an Ultralisk with a single volley if the numbers are great enough (with hit and run micro). This is negated if Ultralisks pull off a surround because if the Roaches cannot retreat, the Ultralisks eat them up.
Now, notice that Zerglings, Ultralisks, and Roaches do not simply have bonus damage vs. Armored, none of them are air-based, none of them have specific defenses against the others. Instead, all of the interactions that I described above are merely created by how the unit was designed, not through any counters. No one unit is absolutely better than the other, everything depends on positioning, micro, and the situation. That is what I consider to be good game design.
|
sounds like the game Rise of Nations, except with active income drain on bigger army sizes instead of increasing unit cost based on population.
|
On August 14 2013 05:30 Entirety wrote:
That point about garrisons is very interesting. It still causes problems for slow armies though. As soon as you move out, your opponent's faster army can siege your peasants, and resource drain causes the slow army to slowly die. The slow army has no choice but to turn back.
The slower army would do well to engage the army who are bothering your peasants, engaging the enemy army while you have defender's advantage (note that reinforcement's morale is completely fresh) is a good thing for you. I don't think it's viable to go directly for his economy with an army. You can raid with some cavalry though. Also note that raiding peasants is a good thing and all and that you can bother your opponent's income. But both players have stockpiles of grain which act as buffers for when your income is insufficient. It gives you time to re-establish your income again. You can raise the amount of grain which you can stockpile by building additional grain silos.
Now a simple hard counter system would go like this: Spear Infantry put up their walls, Heavy Calvary cannot touch them and get slaughtered.
When there are hard counters in the game, you don't make just one unit. if your opponent has Spear Infantry for example, you can easily choose to NOT engage the Spear Infantry. You should however have a force of Ranged Infantry who can deal with Spear Infantry. You need to have more than one type of unit at a time. Which leads us to your exact next sentence..
No one unit is absolutely better than the other, everything depends on positioning, micro, and the situation. That is what I consider to be good game design.
Answered in bold. ^^
|
Have to say, not a bad RTS design indeed. With a handful of adjustments, this could work out really well. The main problems with the current concept is how complex it is and a few design flaws.
Units:
*First a question, "group ability", doesn't that just work on solo units as well, but increase in power as more units do it simultaneously?
* "Also note that units of a certain type will stay in a neat formation together when moving. When in formation, those units will travel slightly faster." Pretty terrible idea, because you don't want too micro units into a formation and the benefit is not very logical. It's a mechanic that adds complexity to the game, which doesn't add anything else.
* Moral, personally I think it is a terrible mechanic in many games and takes away from micro and comebacks. I would simply remove this mechanic.
* Ships... No?
Economics:
* First a question again, the manpower mechanic is basically the larva mechanic in SC2 right? If you build up manpower, you can train units simultaneously?
* I actually like the income mechanic. People are arguing that it might make peasants to important and I can't disagree more. Atm in Starcraft 2, workers are not as important as they should be. When you make them more important, Death ball would not be an option, because you will get flanked and all your peasants will be raided. So defends while attacking is a big thing. It would work with a completely different metagame then SC2.
It is not as complex as people might think it is for the player. The player will only see Grain: 500 (32+) in there resource bar. And every building / unit will have a cost + income cost. Not that hard too understand right?
* I feel Currency is a useless resource, and I would just stick with Grain, Wood, Supply and Horses, with Manpower being a limited production resource (Larva idea right? =D )
* I would suggest allowing to build more "Production facilities" too improve Manpower income.
Civ:
* The 1 race idea, makes the game viable for creation, because it becomes easier to make + balance. I like the uniqueness of every civ. When balanced out, makes up for good fights.
* "English Knight will be named "Knight", a Germanic one "Ritte", a Spanish one "Caballero", and so on". Thank you! Love to detail =D
Maps:
* ATM your game is build around harass of workers, yet you allow building everything in 1 place. I suggest too expand on your "fertile plains" idea. Make it so that grain and horse production can only be build on those, and they are scattered around the map. You get the expand idea, you get the multiple spots harass / defend idea and the game will simply be more interesting.
Outside the game:
*Ouch painful to read, F2P and Pay 2 win. Why would you do this. Leave this over 2 the professionals 
I knew this is your wet dream concept, but I think this would make it a bit more viable for production
|
On August 14 2013 20:05 TeamSyntaxError wrote:Have to say, not a bad RTS design indeed. With a handful of adjustments, this could work out really well. The main problems with the current concept is how complex it is and a few design flaws. Units: *First a question, "group ability", doesn't that just work on solo units as well, but increase in power as more units do it simultaneously? Indeed, the more units in a group ability, the more powerful it becomes, up to a certain limit.. But it might be a better idea to use half a unit type per group ability, so that you have another one in case the first one "missed" or something. Or you can cast for example 2 volleys for archers at two different locations at the same time. i think solo units might be able to do it but it would obviously be pretty weak.* "Also note that units of a certain type will stay in a neat formation together when moving. When in formation, those units will travel slightly faster." Pretty terrible idea, because you don't want too micro units into a formation and the benefit is not very logical. It's a mechanic that adds complexity to the game, which doesn't add anything else. The idea is that when units are travelling across the map in a group, they're in a formation. It makes pathing easier for groups of units and we don't get a ball of units like in SC2. It also means that units of different types (Heavy Cav and Light Cav) won't mix when you're moving them around, so it's easier to position them correctly in fights. The added movement in formation is just a little bonus I thought would be neat and it might make retreating easier (since units that aren't fighting move faster).* Moral, personally I think it is a terrible mechanic in many games and takes away from micro and comebacks. I would simply remove this mechanic. The idea behind morale is that it actually increases the micro input. In Aoe3, fights were much more drawn out than what you would see in SC2 where fights can be over in 5 seconds. In Aoe3, you had time to see a unit's health bar decrease and see the unit die (because of hard-counters, units that don't counter each other take a long time to kill each other). Similarly, in this RTS, the fights would be a bit more drawn out and based off of positioning. A strong player could take the time to retreat hurt units so they don't die so morale doesn't decrease. In a large fight it might be really difficult to do such a thing, so micro becomes more demanding mechanically. Morale can also play a big role in small fights with few units. Overall morale adds mechanical demand which is something I try to put into the game as much as I can.
Also I think that there should be some sort of healing mechanism in the game. For the cost of some grain maybe you can heal your units! I don't know, but it could add depth.* Ships... No? I of course thought of ships and they could definitely add depth to the game. But I don't want to add ships in the game for a few reasons. First of all, water maps and land maps would play out differently, which might lead to two different meta-games. I don't like this idea. Secondly, if we do include ships and water maps, do we offer some civs water bonuses? Wouldn't that make them weak off of water maps or too strong on water maps? balancing two different meta-game is a nightmare and if we give all civs the exact same navy well then it's kind of boring. so ships? nah. unless someone can come up with a brilliant way to incorporate it in the game.Economics: * First a question again, the manpower mechanic is basically the larva mechanic in SC2 right? If you build up manpower, you can train units simultaneously? exactly. it's just like zerg, i always thought larvae was a nifty design so i decided to put it in the game. it allows people to quickly power up on either eco or military. that flexibility is really cool imo.* I actually like the income mechanic. People are arguing that it might make peasants to important and I can't disagree more. Atm in Starcraft 2, workers are not as important as they should be. When you make them more important, Death ball would not be an option, because you will get flanked and all your peasants will be raided. So defends while attacking is a big thing. It would work with a completely different metagame then SC2. It is not as complex as people might think it is for the player. The player will only see Grain: 500 (32+) in there resource bar. And every building / unit will have a cost + income cost. Not that hard too understand right? +1* I feel Currency is a useless resource, and I would just stick with Grain, Wood, Supply and Horses, with Manpower being a limited production resource (Larva idea right? =D ) currency, though very similar to grain in terms of how it's produced and used, adds too much depth to the game. you could have civ bonuses which focus on getting out a lot of currency or grain. upgrades should cost currency (basically gold really). some units would cost more currency, some more food. depending on the unit composition you're going to use, you're going to set up your currency and grain production differently. currency also has a way more awesome name than "gold"* I would suggest allowing to build more "Production facilities" too improve Manpower income. building additional forums (or command centers, hatcheries, town centers, etc) improves manpower income and the amount of manpower you can stockpile. so forums are manpower generating structures (like stables) but production facilities (barracks, cav barracks, etc) use up manpower. this is different from zerg where every unit is made at the hatchery, in this game the units come out of the barracks.Civ: * The 1 race idea, makes the game viable for creation, because it becomes easier to make + balance. I like the uniqueness of every civ. When balanced out, makes up for good fights. * "English Knight will be named "Knight", a Germanic one "Ritte", a Spanish one "Caballero", and so on". Thank you! Love to detail =D i know right?? :D and all the "lore" bullshit you see in some games would be replaced with actual god damn history, just like in aoe!Maps: * ATM your game is build around harass of workers, yet you allow building everything in 1 place. I suggest too expand on your "fertile plains" idea. Make it so that grain and horse production can only be build on those, and they are scattered around the map. You get the expand idea, you get the multiple spots harass / defend idea and the game will simply be more interesting. that comes down to map design but i agree. the way i see fertile plains is that they're too good not to fight for, but you can build on "normal" terrain as well in case you've lost map control or something. maps would definitely be designed so that map control is important and that economy isn't in just one place but scattered.
Outside the game: *Ouch painful to read, F2P and Pay 2 win. Why would you do this. Leave this over 2 the professionals you're probably right xD, though don't get me wrong, ranked 1v1 is completely free. conquest mode is something else entirely (it's not ranked) but it allows you to get really unique civs and such. everything (liek skins) can be bought with experience points that you get by playing. you can use actual money to speed up the rate at which you obtain experience points. but yeah i think this should be left to pros. :pI knew this is your wet dream concept, but I think this would make it a bit more viable for production
<3 ty for reading
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
