Let's talk about design goal

[robinh3123]

I am worried about the direction of the development....

IMHO, if the ONLY design goal is to encourage people to play a long game, to enjoy the high tier units...  The game will not quite successful.
Different people has different ways to enjoy a game.   Someone simply has no time to play too much and enjoy a rush game.

IMHO, the 1st rule of goal is: to make human happy.   Game is for human to enjoy.  And we need to know men (and women) are different.

I would say, leave some room for fast rush game, like barbarian or werewolves.  Fine.   That's their play style, their enjoy style. Good for them, and the game works for them.  They feel happy.

I play rush game too, IF the rush game does need brain to think.   I don't really want to play long game, simply because too time-consuming.  Thus I mostly want to play strange but working combos, like rainbow books, low-level spell combos, to develop fast in early game.   Rainbow style also allows lots of possibility, due to the unpredictable research/trade spells, to adapt different spells for different combos.  That really need some thinking.

If the rainbow combos are not working for high difficulty level, fine.  I play lower one.  I enjoy the thinking process in the game.

In the word, someone may try to pick a worse, or worst initial picks, but lower the difficulty setting...  If it takes some thinking to play the game, it should be enjoyable.

In summary:  Do not close all doors.  Leave some back-doors (but don't be so obvious).   When the players find the back-door, that's very joyful.


After all, this is a single-person game.

PS. If all doors are closed, i.e. No one can end the game early, you will lost many players. They simply don't want to play the game, ever.

[Seravy]

I think we agree on this. Rush shouldn't be so powerful to win early on Lunatic, but it's ok if it does that on lower difficulty.

[robinh3123]

OK. That feels relived.

Perhaps I just got the wrong impression from the discussion atmosphere focusing on closing all fast win possibilities.

In my opinion, Rush win in Lunatic is still OK. One who wants to play long joyful game (another kind of joy than rash) won't pick the rush combos. As for me, I care playable, discoverable games. And am willing to find strange way to win... Lunatic is not my target. (Well, if I found some strange strategy working on Lunatic, I won't refuse to try it. However, that's not my mandatory goal.)

Focusing on making thing joyful is more important. For example, adding different kinds of spells, which may combo with one or even more spells together.

Oh, sorry, I am not the late game/big spell type person, since I am seeking for combos. Big spell is not suitable for combos: they consume much skills and appears so late in game. The more early I can get, the more joy I got from combining them. I am a low level combo fan!

When wraith form now cheap to cast, web + earth to mud + wraith form is a definite combo against melee troupes! Or even with ethereal blast can deal with magic shooters. (warp wood for archers).

[Nelphine]

The problem is specifically a) that most rush strategies actually end up stronger than late game strategies if they actually play through to the very rare tier, and b) the AI can't deal with rush strategy very effectively, which makes most rush strategies relatively unchallenging beyond the first ai.

These are the two main problems I'm interested in fixing - I certainly don't want to make rush unplayable. I just don't want the difference between rush and long term strategies to be as extreme as they are now.

[robinh3123]

Good luck to you if you can find a way to balance it!

There won't be too many options, for example:
Babrian's Berserker's rash: If you simply downgrade Berserker's attack, then Barbarian would not be a good race to play, and if you further buff up other unit of Barbarian, it won't be as distinguishable as other races.... Every races should have their style of play. Rash barbarian, good.

In my opinion, current implementation is already too good. I don't view it in your way but in this way:
Beginner level: Lot's of combinations can win
Normal to fair: Some very bad combination may lose
Advanced and Expert: very hard to win, need some strong combination/ brain/ patience to win, perhaps with some luck
> Expert: only a few choice can win... Including rash.

That's already too good for me. Thanks for your great work. But my opinion is still: Let the rush be. It will be a joy when, after I lose some game, I can just do some revenge by rash on Lunatic.

[robinh3123]

Please, don't just do balance. The distinguishing races styles make the game great! Balance is just numbers, but stylus is the beauty of the game. Some imbalance in single-person game is OK.

[Nelphine]

Don't worry, we've already rejected certain changes for not keeping gameplay and feel - and we've both let in weak options, and strong options. Balance is important, but sticking to the Caster of Magic goals is more important.