gm_al wrote:@GHs comments:
I appreciate the comments. Believe me I am striving to make the game more attractive while keeping the balance, which is not obvious for many situations.
Ill try to answer your points now.
QUICK DEATH and DEATH FROM INACTIVITY: I understand the frustration a player can have when logging in and finding out he got killed overnight. This brings us to a few questions that need to be addressed. Try to answer them for me please.
-1- how many turns should it take to eliminate another species with the same stats/same number of specimens in a game that lasts 3024 Turns ? (assuming the maximum case of 50 species in a game).
Heaps of turns! Probably 50 or 100. You could consider something less, if there is some way to stop it happening all at once (eg. at the moment, somebody could log in 50 attacks then go to bed. Of course, they only have to log 5 attacks to kill somebody at the moment, but I believe death should result from all-out-war - not a sneak attack and your dead). I reckon 5-10 turns is ridiulously short. Any player should at least have a fighting chance to retaliate, even if he only logs on only once a day.
-2- how often should a player be required to log in in order to maintain good control over his species ? (3024 Turns mean 3 weeks of play at 10-minute Turns and a month with 15-minute Turns)
Once a day. Of course, I accept that someone who logs on twice or 3 times a day should have better control, and if he has a spell for 2-3 days, he should not be dead. It could all be managed if we put our mind to it.
The end result: After a month, I'd rather see 5 big and 45 little species running around, rather than 45 dead ones.
-3- how much food should an OMNIVORE/CARNIVORE get from a successful hunt ? (consider that HERB/OMNI/CARNIVORE should be three rather equal valid choices)
I accept that the three of them should be equally valid choices. I purposely did not mention herbivores on my post on the other thread (for the sake of brevity). OK, here goes - herbivores: 1 hunt should gain approx 5-6 turns of food (or more with better BP, more arms etc.). Omnivores eating other species: say 8-10 turns. Carnivores: say 10-15 turns.
The poitn I was making that eating other species should not destroy them as easily. In otehr words, you kill less specimens, but get more food from the ones you get.
Regarding hibernation I will keep saying that FLYING is the method we will apply to address the issue. It may not be a perfect solution, but Ill stick to it and tweak it a bit if needed. Right now it will allow you to stay away from the game for 1-2 days, at a price. We could consider making flying more easily attainable to encourage its use though. Any suggestions to make it work better are welcome. I wil still oppose any mode that would allow a player to cover more then 2 days of inactivity, especially if you can use the OQ to plan well ahead. So here is the next question:
-4- how would you change the effects/requirements for FLYING ?
I am "hopeful" that flying could work, but that was not able to be tested in the last test game. Worth looking at properly if the game gets going properly, so I can't comment in detail. I think the other problems wiped out any thought of flying.
I am also looking at the whole combat process again. Right now it requires you to either REACT to an attack or actively hunt the other guy down (while in other WOK games an attacker will always lose own units too when attacking) Its a HUNT and a REACTion opposed to a pure PATT vs PDEF battle where both sides lose units. That is done on purpose, to actually keep the players actively playing (and remember the mobile companies want their users to log in often....) However any suggestion regarding to make combat more challenging will be considered.
I'm undecided on this. I think there should be a risk in attacking, although probaly not the full effect as in WOK.
-5- how could combat/hunts be made more attractive and challenging ?
Easy---keep everyone in the game longer ...make it very difficult for someone to die or be exterminated (although not so easy so a player can come back and win in the last 3 days --they've got to work for it). I can foresee revenge, comebacks, mercenery activities in the mid-late game to make it interesting. More people, more conflict, more battlea, VPs for damage inflicted, as long as it's difficult to kill someone outright.
Im always trying to be as responsive and open to your ideas as I can. But please understand not everything that "might be cool" can be done easily, and also the views differ a lot on some issues. We cant make it perfect to everyone, so we try to make it fun and challenging for the most of you.
That's OK - I understand that. Whenever I make a suggestion, I don't mind if it rejected .... as long as it is seriously considered. I've made less and less comments in recent times as the game seems to be bedded down, but sometimes I just can't control myself when something seems amiss. Just can't help myself, I suppose.
All the best.
Goat Herder