DR4545
23-06-2008, 05:53 PM
OK, this will be a long one, and I'm going to order things in the order they were in the Creator's Hour. I will focus on ideas that I disagreed with, but I will also point out suggestions I thought were particularly good. I'm writing a summarized statement from the Creator's Hour in red, then my response in black. This way you can scan the red lines for any suggestions you were interested in and see my response.
Bunker busters should fire after bunkers.
The only way this could work is if bunker busters took -95% damage from bunkers and sentries. The entire point of the unit is to stop bunkers from being invincible. (Yes, they can easily be invincible to RPGs, they just buy enough Ninja flak and you can't touch them.)
Unit specific bonuses should be taken out.
Most people think the game is more balanced now because of them, why take them out now? That's a big step backwards and we'll be rebalancing for another couple rounds.
Vamps should get less of a bonus vs. spec ops.
How about make the damage reduction only vs. real vampires, and not all undead? So, SAs could kill Lesser Vamps with no penalty. That may help balance things while still letting vamps be an anti-spec ops unit.
Gargoyles should fire after TLs.
I 100% agree, vamps already fire before TLs. Gargs should still fire before Sorcs IMO, but it doesn't make a lot of sense having a mid-game unit that destroys a p-unit, especially when Vamps already beat up on TLs.
There should be one Score rank at round end, and portal only based on that so there is one clear "winner" at round end.
I couldn't possibly disagree more with this. Value rank is based almost solely on how good of an alliance you are in, and how contactable and active you are. Skill has very little to do with it. (The overall skill of an alliance can have a big impact, but the individual skill of a player within that alliance is irrelevant in comparison.) Effectiveness, on the other hand, is largely based on skill. It is also already largely boosted by how big you are. (Bigger BRs = more Eff.) So, the idea of having land grant you Eff per tick seems silly to me, it goes against what the system is about. There will be 5 people this round portalling on value that were not in Hell. If I introduce this game to a new player, and say "You can do really well and be in a hall of fame that people can look back on. But, you need to be in the best ally otherwise there's almost no chance you'll make it no matter how well you play." I don't think that person would look at this as a serious competitive game. Eff gives players who don't have the luxury of being in a top alliance a shot at making portal, and I like that. If we merge the two into one "score" rank, or make score only based on Value, then the only way to portal will be to get in a top alliance. That doesn't sound like a fun competition to me. I think skill should be what matters, not who has the least life, or the most friends or can find their way into a good alliance.
In most other games I know of, having more than one way to "win" makes the game more fun. You can look at Magic TCG, or Civilization for example. Every Civ game has opened up more ways to win, and people love that.
We need to merge the manual and wiki into one thing.
Sure, make the in-game "Manual" link point to the manual pages in the Wiki instead. Done deal. Then, we need the Staff/Units and Tech Trees pages to get linked to some other way.
People play solo because Gov defence is better than being in an alliance.
A solo with 0% AR is a sitting duck waiting to die. This argument is pretty silly. The real reason people play solo is to take that pressure off for a round. Less pressure to be active, to not let people down. To not be woken up at 3 AM to send defense. To not have to wake other people up at 3 AM to send defense. Not having to hand out your phone number to people you just met. For experienced players, government defense usually has very little to do with the decision. (I'm only talking about decisions that are made willingly, not out of desperation.)
Getting defense from pnaps should count against the chance of getting government defense.
Well, that makes pnaps a lot less useful. People will ask for defense far less often, and be less enthusiastic to seek pnaps. (See below.)
Disable pnaps, pure solo is pure solo.
I remember Azzer making the point that having pnaps gives you a chance to connect with people, instead of having nobody to talk to in-game. In my experience, pnaps do help to take away some of the complete isolation you have as a solo. Honestly, pnaps are not so powerful as people make them out to be. For someone to get help, they have to both be on (you can't see the other person's inc) And, they don't get a defending ETA reduction so that reduces defensive options. Normally, you try to attack solos when they're offline anyway, and at those times they won't be getting any help from a pnap.
SAS should fire at range only.
This is a silly simplification of what Azzer is already in favor of: Have SAS target only the player that triggered. Meaning, they will fire Range first tick, Middle second tick they're there, and Close the third tick they're there. If someone else triggers on a later tick while those attackers are still there, a second SAS mob can come and target them as well.
People should get more injuries from SAS kills so the wtfpwnage isn't so bad.
I'm ok with more injuries, so if someone goes afk on an attack for some reason and comes back dead they aren't completely crushed. Done wrong, this is potentially abusable to build AR, but I'm sure there is a way to make it un-abusable. That said, I'm fine with the wtfpwnage. In my opinion, the entire point of SAS is to stop certain attacks, not make the fights even.
AR should be a smaller multiplier, like 1.1 instead of 1.45, but the AR mod should drop faster.
That seems good, maybe .2% per tick instead of .1% Overall I like the idea.
Instead of getting an ETA boost when sending on smaller targets, you should just get a bigger land cap reduction.
I disagree heavily. People don't always attack for land. What about when people are biker raping a smaller alliance? This allows people to gleefully bash away for kills without any repercussions. (IE units being out and unable to defend attacks or send for other land.)
The forum Goodbye section should be removed, and people be forced to post in Spam when they leave the game.
Just because some people tend to come back to the game time and time again, ending up posting several times doesn't mean the section is just abused for spam. Beginners never really post there anyway, that's why it's all used up by players quitting the game. I often read that section to see if anybody's leaving that I know, or I know of. It's nice to see how the community is shaping. I find it degrading and oppressive to treat people that want to say goodbye to the community as unanimous spam artists out to get attention.
People should start the game with more acres, so there is a faster start. That way beginners don't get bored.
I could get behind this. Most people try to buy to about 1,000 acres on the first day of the round, and that takes 9 hours or so. Most beginners don't want to spend 9 hours growing to get into the fun stuff. Maybe start people with 20 acres and enough funds to fill them and enough harvesters to cultivate 20 Bush acres for nighttime? I wouldn't go overboard on this, flak wars are a distinctive part of the round, and an experience that shouldn't be taken away.
It would be better to have dynamic injuries again, but have it be more like 20-50% instead of 10-60%.
Yep, I agree 100%. See my post <here> (http://www.bushtarion.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1268) for more on my stance. The biggest thing I want to add is, if a mob is under a certain size, it should not count toward total incoming for Injuries or Effectiveness. This will help prevent exploitation of the system, which is a legitimate concern for some people. I do think the dynamic system truly makes the game more skill-based and mindless bashing will be less productive than now.
Bunker busters should fire after bunkers.
The only way this could work is if bunker busters took -95% damage from bunkers and sentries. The entire point of the unit is to stop bunkers from being invincible. (Yes, they can easily be invincible to RPGs, they just buy enough Ninja flak and you can't touch them.)
Unit specific bonuses should be taken out.
Most people think the game is more balanced now because of them, why take them out now? That's a big step backwards and we'll be rebalancing for another couple rounds.
Vamps should get less of a bonus vs. spec ops.
How about make the damage reduction only vs. real vampires, and not all undead? So, SAs could kill Lesser Vamps with no penalty. That may help balance things while still letting vamps be an anti-spec ops unit.
Gargoyles should fire after TLs.
I 100% agree, vamps already fire before TLs. Gargs should still fire before Sorcs IMO, but it doesn't make a lot of sense having a mid-game unit that destroys a p-unit, especially when Vamps already beat up on TLs.
There should be one Score rank at round end, and portal only based on that so there is one clear "winner" at round end.
I couldn't possibly disagree more with this. Value rank is based almost solely on how good of an alliance you are in, and how contactable and active you are. Skill has very little to do with it. (The overall skill of an alliance can have a big impact, but the individual skill of a player within that alliance is irrelevant in comparison.) Effectiveness, on the other hand, is largely based on skill. It is also already largely boosted by how big you are. (Bigger BRs = more Eff.) So, the idea of having land grant you Eff per tick seems silly to me, it goes against what the system is about. There will be 5 people this round portalling on value that were not in Hell. If I introduce this game to a new player, and say "You can do really well and be in a hall of fame that people can look back on. But, you need to be in the best ally otherwise there's almost no chance you'll make it no matter how well you play." I don't think that person would look at this as a serious competitive game. Eff gives players who don't have the luxury of being in a top alliance a shot at making portal, and I like that. If we merge the two into one "score" rank, or make score only based on Value, then the only way to portal will be to get in a top alliance. That doesn't sound like a fun competition to me. I think skill should be what matters, not who has the least life, or the most friends or can find their way into a good alliance.
In most other games I know of, having more than one way to "win" makes the game more fun. You can look at Magic TCG, or Civilization for example. Every Civ game has opened up more ways to win, and people love that.
We need to merge the manual and wiki into one thing.
Sure, make the in-game "Manual" link point to the manual pages in the Wiki instead. Done deal. Then, we need the Staff/Units and Tech Trees pages to get linked to some other way.
People play solo because Gov defence is better than being in an alliance.
A solo with 0% AR is a sitting duck waiting to die. This argument is pretty silly. The real reason people play solo is to take that pressure off for a round. Less pressure to be active, to not let people down. To not be woken up at 3 AM to send defense. To not have to wake other people up at 3 AM to send defense. Not having to hand out your phone number to people you just met. For experienced players, government defense usually has very little to do with the decision. (I'm only talking about decisions that are made willingly, not out of desperation.)
Getting defense from pnaps should count against the chance of getting government defense.
Well, that makes pnaps a lot less useful. People will ask for defense far less often, and be less enthusiastic to seek pnaps. (See below.)
Disable pnaps, pure solo is pure solo.
I remember Azzer making the point that having pnaps gives you a chance to connect with people, instead of having nobody to talk to in-game. In my experience, pnaps do help to take away some of the complete isolation you have as a solo. Honestly, pnaps are not so powerful as people make them out to be. For someone to get help, they have to both be on (you can't see the other person's inc) And, they don't get a defending ETA reduction so that reduces defensive options. Normally, you try to attack solos when they're offline anyway, and at those times they won't be getting any help from a pnap.
SAS should fire at range only.
This is a silly simplification of what Azzer is already in favor of: Have SAS target only the player that triggered. Meaning, they will fire Range first tick, Middle second tick they're there, and Close the third tick they're there. If someone else triggers on a later tick while those attackers are still there, a second SAS mob can come and target them as well.
People should get more injuries from SAS kills so the wtfpwnage isn't so bad.
I'm ok with more injuries, so if someone goes afk on an attack for some reason and comes back dead they aren't completely crushed. Done wrong, this is potentially abusable to build AR, but I'm sure there is a way to make it un-abusable. That said, I'm fine with the wtfpwnage. In my opinion, the entire point of SAS is to stop certain attacks, not make the fights even.
AR should be a smaller multiplier, like 1.1 instead of 1.45, but the AR mod should drop faster.
That seems good, maybe .2% per tick instead of .1% Overall I like the idea.
Instead of getting an ETA boost when sending on smaller targets, you should just get a bigger land cap reduction.
I disagree heavily. People don't always attack for land. What about when people are biker raping a smaller alliance? This allows people to gleefully bash away for kills without any repercussions. (IE units being out and unable to defend attacks or send for other land.)
The forum Goodbye section should be removed, and people be forced to post in Spam when they leave the game.
Just because some people tend to come back to the game time and time again, ending up posting several times doesn't mean the section is just abused for spam. Beginners never really post there anyway, that's why it's all used up by players quitting the game. I often read that section to see if anybody's leaving that I know, or I know of. It's nice to see how the community is shaping. I find it degrading and oppressive to treat people that want to say goodbye to the community as unanimous spam artists out to get attention.
People should start the game with more acres, so there is a faster start. That way beginners don't get bored.
I could get behind this. Most people try to buy to about 1,000 acres on the first day of the round, and that takes 9 hours or so. Most beginners don't want to spend 9 hours growing to get into the fun stuff. Maybe start people with 20 acres and enough funds to fill them and enough harvesters to cultivate 20 Bush acres for nighttime? I wouldn't go overboard on this, flak wars are a distinctive part of the round, and an experience that shouldn't be taken away.
It would be better to have dynamic injuries again, but have it be more like 20-50% instead of 10-60%.
Yep, I agree 100%. See my post <here> (http://www.bushtarion.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1268) for more on my stance. The biggest thing I want to add is, if a mob is under a certain size, it should not count toward total incoming for Injuries or Effectiveness. This will help prevent exploitation of the system, which is a legitimate concern for some people. I do think the dynamic system truly makes the game more skill-based and mindless bashing will be less productive than now.