Combat Rework Design Goals

[Rophs]

 

Having a set of design goals around which to base future propositions of change to the combat system would do wonders in preventing needless bickering.

 

Let's make some design goals.

 

 

ITT: Design Goals!

 

 

 

 

My thoughts on what the Design Goals should include:
 

Add or remove as few of the following as possible:

• Creatures

• Targets

• Abilities

• Auras

 

 

Create a system that is fun while:

• encouraging meaningful decisions

• maintaining a large variety of useful rituals

• maintaining a large variety of useful creatures

edit1: rephrased "Limit the addition and removal of:" to "Add or remove as few of the following as possible:"

Edited September 23, 2014 by Rophs

[No one]

1. please rephrase "Limit the addition and removal"

 

2. great. Another genius new player with great ideas. Lets see what this turns to.

Previous ideas of new players : auras, freeze/antifreeze, vampire aura, item thefts, item decay / destroy.

 

This is my first and last comment in this topic: Warning : be careful what you wish for.

[Rophs]

1. please rephrase "Limit the addition and removal"

"Add and remove as few of the following as possible"

 

 

2. great. Another genius new player with great ideas. Lets see what this turns to.

Previous ideas of new players : auras, freeze/antifreeze, vampire aura, item thefts, item decay / destroy.

This is an example of ad hominem and genetic fallacy. Directly refuting your argument with that statement alone would be a fallacy fallacy. The purpose of this topic is not to propose ideas, the purpose of this topic is to establish a series of design goals to prevent needless bickering in other threads regarding the proposed reworks to the combat system.

 

This is my first and last comment in this topic: Warning : be careful what you wish for.

Careless wishing has been the destruction of many.

edit: Changed color of text replying to No one to purple and fixed a typo

Edited September 23, 2014 by Rophs

[Chewett]

Ignore the troll Rophs, this is an interesting topic :)

No one doesn't like things that he doesn't agree with and will just insult you when he doesn't like it. So ignore it :)

[Azthor]

While I do not begrudge the idea of one such a discussion, and even believe it to be necessary, to have it now may be precipitated. As an example, had we had this discussion a month ago, we'd likely have had a cyclic discussion around Freeze mechanics under myriad inaccurate notions on how Freeze & Antifreeze apply and interact with tokens and other auras, potentially culminating in the discussion dying out.

 

Without a sufficient lead-up to this, we risk having another variant of that very example happen.

Edited September 23, 2014 by Azthor

[No one]

Ignore the troll Rophs, this is an interesting topic :)

No one doesn't like things that he doesn't agree with and will just insult you when he doesn't like it. So ignore it :)

@C: I think I will insult you by just responding to you.

Yes and it is true, obviously, and I guess it is valid for everybody : "doesn't like things that he doesn't agree with".

By the way, my insults have to be earned.

 

@R: That is better.

 

As so far, everybody trolled here is the first proposal :

 

1st proposal : The freeze / antifreeze need major adjusting.

1.a. completely remove it (freeze / antifreeze)

1.b. change the permanent effect to freeze/antifreeze

 - a number of action turns (for creature auras) with limited probability of activation and

 - a boost in either number of affected turns of probability for token bonus

 

Probable effect :

 - The freeze will significantly lower its impact while keeping its advantage

 - will take use of the "initiative status" making the fight more fair

 

 

2nd proposal: Antifreeze while in effect should also prevent the freezing of the creature not just unfreeze. This should be implemented only with 1st proposal.

Probable effect :

 - will balance the freeze with antifreeze auras

 - will give the antifreeze a greater advantage

 

3rd proposal: Creature boosts ... cannot say anything on this as we need the exact list of boosts and their targets in order to see if they need adjusting

 

4th proposal: configure creatures

 - I am not sure about this, but I think that all the aramors are either identical or significantly similar. Make them mean something. Make them different.

 - there are creatures that are on the loose but still unconfigured like shadows

 

5th proposal: spoilers

 - lose the spoilers, create detailed documentation on everything involved in battles: explain auras, targets, abilities, tokens, creatures (for all levels) and whatever else there is

 

Probable effect:

 - will make the fighting easier

 - knowing what creatures / auras / tokens do, one player can decide as a target to acquire that creatures / auras / token

 

 

---- and this one with no effect on the combat

6th proposal: tops

 - create some more significant tops : creatures in numbers (just count them at beginning of day), worshipper of the month & year & ever (count donated heat), top trainer (top by number of creatures), etc, etc

[Rophs]

5th proposal: spoilers

 - lose the spoilers, create detailed documentation on everything involved in battles: explain auras, targets, abilities, tokens, creatures (for all levels) and whatever else there is

 

Probable effect:

 - will make the fighting easier

 - knowing what creatures / auras / tokens do, one player can decide as a target to acquire that creatures / auras / token

 

Spoilerz stuff is significantly hindering discussion.

 

But what should be documented publicly?

Yes:

• What the targets (weak, strong, dying,  etc) are and how they work
• What the auras (creatureboost,  are and how they work
  • Creatureboost would likely need to be changed so that it boosts all creatures in the same "family" for ritual building (family meaning creature limit stuff, someone else can word it better)
• What the abilities (damage, heal, regen, etc) are and how they work
• What the creatures (aramors, imps, etc) are and what auras they have (maybe...?perhaps only let them see the stuff for a creature family once they've obtained a creature from that family...?)

No:

• Creature's stats and specific upgrade costs
• Stats/principles received when saccing crits
• Where creatures can be recruited

 

Once a player has had a creature they should be able to view the base stats of that creature somehow. Eg I have a level 3 imp. I should be able to "View Lesser Forms" of it to see the details of level 2 imp and level 1 imp.

 

[Ary Endleg]

That is one hell of a post No one, I like what you're saying, except unsure about tops. Tops should exist and be visible for devs so they can know what is OP and what is not. I'm not so sure if players should see that, since this is not combat-only game. I especially like loosing up the spoilers.

 

Also this is design goal topic, rather than proposal topic :p meaning we are trying to define how should end result look like, what concepts should we stay true to and such stuff. Simply said, defining how to approach proposing changes for specific, joint outcome.

[Chewett]

This is my first and last comment in this topic: Warning : be careful what you wish for.

 

 

@C: I think I will insult you by just responding to you.

Yes and it is true, obviously, and I guess it is valid for everybody : "doesn't like things that he doesn't agree with".

By the way, my insults have to be earned.

 

I consider your insults worth it if I can get you to stop being silly and refusing to further comment on topics. It worked so I wont mind your insults :)

[Rophs]

Every creature/creature family should fill a niche not filled by any other creature/creature family

 

Five examples designs implementing the above design goal:

• Aramors might have strong single target damage and morale
• Bloodpacts might have aoe damage/weaken (using the n*m**(n-1) formulum for all)
• Sharptears might have strong single target damage
• Pimps might have strong aoe damage/weaken (keeping target multiple at all levels and not having access to all)
• Drachs might offer a mix of utility and damage
• Knators might have strong aoe damage

Edited September 23, 2014 by Rophs

[Ary Endleg]

No to pimps, knators do that, pimps as difference to chaos have weaken def.

[Rophs]

Pimps have weaken too IIRC but a vanilla knator has higher attack than a vanilla grasan but lacks the option of weaken. Examples updated.

 

Premium knator with creatureboost?

*drools*

[DARK DEMON]

Why not have premium of everything with creatureboost, huh?

[Rophs]

Why not have premium of everything with creatureboost, huh?

Because some things don't need creatureboost.

 

A pimp/knator would need creatureboost to compete with bloodpacts and drachs at higher levels, while in a black and white competition normal Knators would still be useful.

[Krioni]

That is one hell of a post No one, I like what you're saying, except unsure about tops. Tops should exist and be visible for devs so they can know what is OP and what is not. I'm not so sure if players should see that, since this is not combat-only game. I especially like loosing up the spoilers.

 

Also this is design goal topic, rather than proposal topic :P meaning we are trying to define how should end result look like, what concepts should we stay true to and such stuff. Simply said, defining how to approach proposing changes for specific, joint outcome.

 

 

Still thinking about this, but wanted to comment here. If this is about design goals, and not proposed fixes or changes, then these suggestions should be about goals. This differs by this: goals define what and why to change, based on what conflict or conform to the goals, while fixes and changes are meant to follow the goals.

 

What, then, are the goals for combat? Based on some of the suggestions in the pages like "Understanding the combat system.", this would be that there is a ritual, a combination, for whatever you want to accomplish. Now, this causes some confusion, as it could be used as defense of powerful rituals, saying that something like the ultimate ritual should exist, while it could also be used for a counter argument, that something to break an ultimate rit should exist. 

 

Now, this lack of clarity in design goals leads to a lot of the debate on whether certain things should be changed or not. There will always be people who disagree or do not want something to change, but instead of just going by gut or the whim of what is the opinion of the time, we need well designed, clear goals that can help steer us toward well reasoned changes to the combat system. 

 

tl;dr: This should not be about how to change mechanics, but what motivations are core to what the combat should be that would help us define how to (or how not to) change such mechanics.