Messages

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Developer question: What god powers or mythological tokens don't you use?

« on: Yesterday at 10:41:36 PM »

Ok, a myth token that suddenly occurred to me that I dont think I've used even once:  Labyrinth.

I cant see the use for this.  It sounds like you'd have to have a ton of minotaurs around for this to really have a large effect, and you wouldnt want to use it if it's going to have a SMALL effect, because it'd then summon a bunch of evil ones that then go berserk.  Much, much too situational.   And you cant even use minotaurs right away!  They have to be unlocked first!


The Greek in general often seem like they dont have as many options in the myth stuffs, and with a few too many "passive" effects (like Palladium or Cornucopia).

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.954

« on: Yesterday at 08:12:49 PM »

On another note, these updates have really been having good effects so far.

I feel like the game is really hitting it's potential at this point;  I'm currently still in my everything-medium game, and things are continuing to get even more interesting and crazy.   Towns arent bloody invincible anymore, so I've had plenty of building destruction (which is as it should be), bandits are being somewhat of an actual threat, I've got some loopy woe-related stuff going on (ah crap Ultima in 8 turns, among others that have happened), there's some rampaging cavalry that are all buffed up on Pandora's Box, and so on....

....and now bloody Pan appears, argh.


The balance isnt perfect overall, there's still plenty of things that could do with a tweak (waiting for the Ice Giant buff here myself, that sounds like a good one), but it's really coming along great.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Official Trailer

« on: Yesterday at 05:13:51 PM »

On the note of the "hold shift to place multiples" thing:   I hadnt known about this either.   I suspect there are others.   It really helps, too.


I can do better than that though!

Something I hadnt realized for the longest time and now feel downright idiotic about:  Is the fact that I can place new tiles ON TOP OF already existing land tiles.   I'd been smiting the damn things out of the way every time..... *sigh*.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Nick Trujillo Presents: Skyward Collapse Comic Page 4

« on: Yesterday at 05:09:36 PM »

This is the funniest one yet.   The flooded pigs is my favorite bit so far. 


The guy doing these really is very talented.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.954

« on: Yesterday at 05:08:09 PM »

On the note of bandits, I'm wondering about that as well.   In my current game the RNG seems to have stopped spamming them at me, but.... I'm not near the end of the game yet.  It may well start putting out yet more of those guys.    The bandit keeps as a whole are a great idea, but both armies really do tend to be much too obsessed with them.  So when it IS being a bandit festival, the war between red and blue gets put on hold.   There's alot of RNG involved in terms of when and how often this happens, but it's pretty annoying when it does.


Two suggestions:

1.  Reduce the health of Bandit Keeps.  Maybe down to about 15,000.   30,000 is *alot* and is the same amount as a tower.  Even strong siege units can tend to take forever on these.  The only way to really pop them quickly is with a Trojan Horse.

2.  Make it so that it's not *always* bandit keeps.   I can see ideas for three types of spawns:   1.  Lone bandit, just one by themselves, 2. A group of them, maybe like 4 or 5 that spawn in a heap, and 3, the bandit keep.   Maybe an equal chance of each spawn type, so you never really know which one might come next.  But it'd help lower the overall staying power of the high health ones without really changing any of the numbers. 


After all, bandits really shouldnt be the central threat of the game;  the central threat should be the 2 armies themselves, and their balance constantly shifting with the woes and tokens and all of that fun stuff.    Yet at the same time, if you lower the bandits too much, they'd kinda fall apart, and they're an important part of the game here, hmmm.....



Also, on the woes, I agree..... need more of them!   I really like the ones that are in so far, there's some very interesting ideas here, and some of them end up being much more of a threat than you'd think, once they hit you (that guild-strike one!  Argh!).   But yeah.... more of them!  I cant see any point where you could really have TOO MANY of these.   And overall it's such a good mechanic!

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

« on: Yesterday at 05:34:01 AM »

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.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

« on: Yesterday at 03:37:12 AM »

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.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

« on: Yesterday at 03:04:31 AM »

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. 

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

« on: Yesterday at 02:03:09 AM »

So, I've started a new game (again) with this new update....


....already I'm *really* liking the effects of the balance changes here.  The new AP system changes so much!   There's actual threat here now, WITHOUT the numbers on unit stats being all out of wack.  This might go quite a long way towards fixing the "total destruction never happens" bit, as well as improving the challenge of the score gating.

The score stuff is much better now too, by the way.   The kills/building destruction as well as many of the numbers on tokens are much better.   I thought things like Palladium were going to get negative score though?  Aint seeing that yet.  Or is that in the next update?   Either way, it's so much better now.

And unit combat is alot more interesting since they can strike multiple times.   This might also lead to having tile type really mean more than it did before.... need to experiment with that.

Overall, balancing basic units out with everything else going on is probably going to be alot tougher now.

Currently playing with everything on Medium, will see just how it goes.


EDIT:

There is one problem though.   While the balance changes mean that both sides are more of a threat to each other.... much more, actually.... this seems almost completely nullified by the fact that both sides are totally obsessed with bandit killing.   There's simply too much bandit presence!   The bandits are rarely a threat to the cities they're near (seriously, they do next to nothing to them, because they get swarmed), but their strongholds take 8 squillion hits to kill, as a tower does.   Red and Blue are hardly fighting each other at all, because they're too busy teaming up on Yellow!  This actually does NOT make it harder to get points, either.  It's much safer to use tokens of various sorts this way.

I'm thinking bandits need to be toned down somehow.


This is all on Medium and such, and is somewhat of an early-ish impression with the current build, so we'll see how it goes from here...

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

« on: Yesterday at 12:35:01 AM »

Had a look at the tutorial, to see if I could spot the problem myself.

The problem:  The tutorial seems based on the original balance of the myth units.   Neither the Elf or the Chimera were able to fire multiple shots per turn before!  With the original balance, the tutorial worked out better and there was enough options for even a new player to knock these guys out once they became a problem.

With the current balance, you have to get a little wierd about it to stop them, because the human units are not powerful enough yet to take them on.   It's not actually hard to do it without the human units.... if you know the game.  Indeed, it's quite true that new players simply wont know what to do.


That "done" save file, for instance, the solution to stop the Elf from rampaging was in fact.... mountains.  The red guys had 8 AP saved up, so I surrounded him with some mountains to block off his shots and prevent him from moving.  Sealed him off, and gave the blue guys a chance to recover. This type of tactic makes perfect sense once you're used to the game, but yeah, new players likely wont think of it.

Not to mention that in a typical game it takes a few turns to build up to such a point where you can use myth units at all....


So.... it seems to me the tutorial simply needs updating.   Though, at the same time, the myth units (the ranged ones anyway) might have gotten a bit too much of a buff (the high shots-per-turn count).

Yay, balance issues!  Though, it's kinda expected since the AP change for units was JUST implemented.   It'll get ironed out nicely, I'm sure, once the devs have a chance to deal with it.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

« on: May 21, 2013, 11:12:30 PM »

For this round's "I barely will give a chance" idea, I made it to turn 8.

At this point, I feel powerless against the elf, so gave up.

Still, turn 8, not bad.

Still, I wish the mythos weren't forced on turn 1. They are hard for vets on turn 1. It is a disaster to throw them into a game with newbies. Given my above save shows just how terrain so dramatically effects the game, and how RNG is so key, and how newbies will have no idea how terrian interacts...

Mythos in phase 1 simply are too unpredictable, able to kill games either way due to both RNG of unit movement and relative units placements at start , so I don't think you can really balance it without it wrecking games before even bandits occur.

Hmm, they're not AS unpredictable as they might appear, even in the first age.

Some of it is just a matter of learning the game to a degree;  even on high difficulty levels, I do fairly frequently use mythological units decently often in the first Age;  they very definitely have their uses, and generally if I'm placing one, I probably have a backup plan to deal with it somehow if, after completing whatever task I put it there for, it goes on a berserk rampage.  And I'm not trying to use them in a super-balanced way... it's not like I place one Greek mythos unit for every Norse one, or something like that.   I'll often have 2 or 3 ice giants on the Norse side, but nothing of that sort on the Greek side.   Generally, since the game really does give the player quite a lot of options (even if they're not always super obvious in how you can use them), I can find a way to keep the giants in check (unless of course I actually WANT them to go on a rampage, but generally that sort of idea is for later in the game).

I find that that concept is very darn important in this game as a whole.   The idea of having backup plans, that is.   Mythological units are SUPPOSED to be powerful and risky like that.... typically the best way to combat one is with an opposing myth unit, or perhaps a few human units boosted by some power, be it a ruins power, or something like Singasteinn.  By nature, they're not easy to deal with, but on the flip side, they have LOTS of uses.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.951

« on: May 21, 2013, 11:04:30 PM »

How does enlightenment work now in regard to all the recent changes? It's a feature I have pretty much not played with at all since many many versions ago.

Same as always.  It's super useful, actually, if you can get it working between two economically-focused towns.  Then you have these strongholds that simply can't be torn down.

Incidentally... somehow this never crossed my mind before... once we took out the score stuff, enlightenment became a "you automatically win" condition because those TCs can't be destroyed.  That's still the case when the score requirement is turned off.

Wait, isnt this a bad thing though?  As I understand it, in a non-score-gated game, once you hit enlightenment.... the game is basically over, you've won, and the remaining turns become pointless.     Even in a score-gated game you could then take actions without much risk, spamming units and tokens everywhere for points.

That's how it seems to me at least, based on my understanding of it.  Though I've not messed with this mechanic at all.

Yes, that is basically an accurate summation.  And I do agree that's bad.  However:

1. I view the non-score-gated games as being a bit of a sandbox mode at this point.  To SOME extent.

2. Enlightenment is hard to reach.  Really REALLY hard.  So if you can pull it off, you probably deserve the victory.  Even there, how well you win is a challenge.  Reasons diplomacy is hard:
- Diplomats are expensive, and have to walk through the war zone to do their work.
- When diplomats die in general, or buildings die in that town, enlightenment drops.
- For every embassy on the map, the bandit spawn rate goes up by 1x the number of embassies.  And you need a minimum of two embassies to do diplomacy at all.  That's a 3x bandit spawn rate right there.
- You can only have one diplomat per embassy, so if you want to hurry the process along you're going to be flooded with bandits.

3. Yay, you reached enlightenment!  Let's say.  Woes can still affect the towns in question, even destroying them.


So while I agree the "you 'automatically' win with enlightenment" thing is less than ideal, I am not too fussed about it in the short term because I think it's super hard to do on any difficulty of substance.  So I don't think it's too exploitable, and in my opinion really is almost like an alternate victory condition.  A really, really hard one.  If someone figures out how to exploit it, then obviously changes will be made.  But I've not had anyone do that yet, not even remotely.

hmm, interesting.  A bit more to it than I thought.


All of that in mind, I think I'll experiment with that a bit and see how it is, go into a game with that as the primary goal, and then probably post the results.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Official Trailer

« on: May 21, 2013, 07:50:19 PM »

Best tag line of all time

"Free Will.... Why did they have to get Free Will?"

Aye.

I think I've had that sort of thought myself more than a few times already, like "Ugh, why are you guys allowed to have thoughts?  Now stop stabbing that huge, wooden Trojan Horse with a knife already and do something useful!"

That tagline does indeed sum up some of the feel of the game pretty well, then 

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.951

« on: May 21, 2013, 07:41:49 PM »

How does enlightenment work now in regard to all the recent changes? It's a feature I have pretty much not played with at all since many many versions ago.

Same as always.  It's super useful, actually, if you can get it working between two economically-focused towns.  Then you have these strongholds that simply can't be torn down.

Incidentally... somehow this never crossed my mind before... once we took out the score stuff, enlightenment became a "you automatically win" condition because those TCs can't be destroyed.  That's still the case when the score requirement is turned off.

Wait, isnt this a bad thing though?  As I understand it, in a non-score-gated game, once you hit enlightenment.... the game is basically over, you've won, and the remaining turns become pointless.     Even in a score-gated game you could then take actions without much risk, spamming units and tokens everywhere for points.

That's how it seems to me at least, based on my understanding of it.  Though I've not messed with this mechanic at all.

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Skyward Collapse / Re: Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.950

« on: May 21, 2013, 10:40:52 AM »

It looks like our starts are similar.  I'll set up the Norse with 2x barracks and the buildings for marauders. Then I add the resources.  I shoot for 4x wood stone pigs and iron in the first turns.  Greeks get 1 racks for Xiphos and the support for those guys. 4x resources in the rest.  Then I set the second towns for each mainly for resources.  Norse town 2 is just for my archers and resources, Greeks get one more military producer and then resources.  I try to get 4x all resources except horses (not placed at all) and sunstones (2x per faction).  I'll add military buildings as bandits and balance require in the first round. 

I don't want a ton of units running around in the first round at all.

@ Misery: Similar to the SS I have on the first page maybe?  Above is how I open.  Though it sounds like you hit more on resources than I do.

Heh, you definitely have alot more military in those couple of cities there than I do and are muuuuuch more organized based on that screenshot.  I'm unorganized to begin with and my short term memory is bloody horrible and I'm easily distracted, so alot of my cities end up looking like jumbled heaps.  My starting Norse city in my current game is:  3 rock, 4 wood, 1 seer, 2 pigs, 1 sheep, 2 iron, 1 barracks and 1 archery, the production buildings necessary to get shotput, mauraders, and huscarls, and then 3 or so blank tiles where I can stick extra military or schools or whatever.  None of these organized into nice lines or groups or anything.   I assure you it makes sense at the time.   Probably.   

And I generally dont like having huge numbers of units early on either.  I prefer to increase/build based on what's going on, rather than following a static strategy, so I keep the numbers lowish until I see how things are playing out.