Heroes' Arena v0.20
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Ken_Oh
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Small bug/oversight: You can be poisoned, become undead, and still be poisoned.
Also, are you planning to just keep the strength/dex additions just as they are, so if you add an attack after getting max dex, you'll never be able to upgrade that attack?
I'd like to comment, but I think we need to be on the same page (i.e. your page).
What kind of gameplay flow would you like the map to have? Solo or with 2 players (on 100% exp), I can rarely get to a second castle without dying. The best I can do is get to a castle, collect the bonus and camp there until I die. Then I go from the spawn to another castle, rinse and repeat probably a few more times until I run out of gold or until around round 17 or so when there are too many units on the map to run away from.
The full 6 players will really get bogged down in the first castle they make it to and then will get sent back to the spawn where there will be way too many monsters for them to move around.
Is this the gameplay flow you envision? Would you rather players fight first and collect later or the other way around?
I think it would be neat if players could travel all the way through the game, but it would be especially important earlier on. That way there is a big incentive to get movement upgrades earlier on, even though the temptation always lies with gaining strength. How often you expect players to hit castles will help in thinking about the exp/gold bonus you get from them, since it seems low to me.
This is why I consider units that have 7 or movement to be especially nasty, since they can block you from traveling really easily.
About how many turns do you think you want a very good/lucky player to max out on? I also see some players taking advantage of the % exp bar, which I guess is legit enough as a "difficulty" bar. Recently, I haven't been able to get very many skills, but maybe it's better that way, to keep games short.
Good stuff, either way. I hope you are considering putting this on the add-ons server soon, because, even if you don't consider it complete, it's still very playable. And, not many people are replying here (or even downloading the file). I would expect something of this quality to garner more attention.
Also, are you planning to just keep the strength/dex additions just as they are, so if you add an attack after getting max dex, you'll never be able to upgrade that attack?
I'd like to comment, but I think we need to be on the same page (i.e. your page).
What kind of gameplay flow would you like the map to have? Solo or with 2 players (on 100% exp), I can rarely get to a second castle without dying. The best I can do is get to a castle, collect the bonus and camp there until I die. Then I go from the spawn to another castle, rinse and repeat probably a few more times until I run out of gold or until around round 17 or so when there are too many units on the map to run away from.
The full 6 players will really get bogged down in the first castle they make it to and then will get sent back to the spawn where there will be way too many monsters for them to move around.
Is this the gameplay flow you envision? Would you rather players fight first and collect later or the other way around?
I think it would be neat if players could travel all the way through the game, but it would be especially important earlier on. That way there is a big incentive to get movement upgrades earlier on, even though the temptation always lies with gaining strength. How often you expect players to hit castles will help in thinking about the exp/gold bonus you get from them, since it seems low to me.
This is why I consider units that have 7 or movement to be especially nasty, since they can block you from traveling really easily.
About how many turns do you think you want a very good/lucky player to max out on? I also see some players taking advantage of the % exp bar, which I guess is legit enough as a "difficulty" bar. Recently, I haven't been able to get very many skills, but maybe it's better that way, to keep games short.
Good stuff, either way. I hope you are considering putting this on the add-ons server soon, because, even if you don't consider it complete, it's still very playable. And, not many people are replying here (or even downloading the file). I would expect something of this quality to garner more attention.
I'll try to get this fixed by and by but no simple solution presents itself to me.Ken Oh wrote:Also, are you planning to just keep the strength/dex additions just as they are, so if you add an attack after getting max dex, you'll never be able to upgrade that attack?
In the old downloads the 2nd castle was easy. Now it's a bit harder since it switches from L0 to L1 units a lot faster, so maybe I'll slow down the rate of increase at first. Still doable, although it takes some luck and planning. Also sometimes it requires you to take a counterintuitive path, it can be very useful to take a longer path in order to avoid enemies.Ken Oh wrote:What kind of gameplay flow would you like the map to have? Solo or with 2 players (on 100% exp), I can rarely get to a second castle without dying. The best I can do is get to a castle, collect the bonus and camp there until I die. Then I go from the spawn to another castle, rinse and repeat probably a few more times until I run out of gold or until around round 17 or so when there are too many units on the map to run away from.
For reference's sake, which castles are you hitting first? Usually I go NE to NW or sometimes vice versa for the first two. Is there a problem with the south castle being tougher to get to/from in the first 10-15 turns?
Part of the idea is to have distinct differences in strategy between strategies so that you can choose between a relatively static defensive strategy or a more mobile castle-hopping strategy. Just now I ran a mainly mobility-oriented human hero through solo and got to turn 34 with 6 castle bonuses. Even though I was scoring very few kills I still had no trouble staying ahead of the main pack of enemies. Fast enemies do provide obstacles but they're hardly insurmountable, and really without them there wouldn't be much in the way of obstacles at all for a really fast character.
On the other hand I just got to turn 94 on the new version with a completely unmobile necromancer character. So maybe there does remain some balancing to be done for castle-running vs. stand and fight strategies.
Possibly. The change to enemy difficulty probably hits 6-player games pretty hard. The old version spawned mostly lots of L0 fodder for a while, which didn't have any ZOC and would probably end up killing themselves on the players' counterattacks.Ken Oh wrote:The full 6 players will really get bogged down in the first castle they make it to and then will get sent back to the spawn where there will be way too many monsters for them to move around.
I don't know. The undead character mentioned above got to turn 94 before being overwhelmed by level 4 "endgame" units, which sounds about right. 6-player games are going to reach that point in fewer turns, which is good because they take longer per turn.Ken Oh wrote:About how many turns do you think you want a very good/lucky player to max out on? I also see some players taking advantage of the % exp bar, which I guess is legit enough as a "difficulty" bar. Recently, I haven't been able to get very many skills, but maybe it's better that way, to keep games short.
Good stuff, either way. I hope you are considering putting this on the add-ons server soon, because, even if you don't consider it complete, it's still very playable. And, not many people are replying here (or even downloading the file). I would expect something of this quality to garner more attention.
I think my goal for putting it on the campaign server is going to be 4 or 5 characters done with reasonable variety in their upgrades, just so people don't look at the horribly unfinished character selection list and give up on the game. It shouldn't take too long to get there hopefully.
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Ken_Oh
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- Joined: February 6th, 2006, 4:03 am
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Took a few days to play through and reflect.
I just got to turn 69 with a castle-hopping "paladin" human. It's not that I really found castle-hopping is impossible (though those first 2 jumps can be rough). It's that I was expecting a different style of play. When I was trying initially I would always try to find good ground within a hex or two and would attack for a turn if it seemed like a good idea.
That will only get you killed.
The best option is to just run, run and run. I don't exactly find that fun since your biggest choices are whether to go to the grass hex to the right or the cave hex to the left. And, if one of those lets you get to your next hopping spot better, then it's automatically the best choice.
This gameplay is a lot like camping the spawn the whole game in that you never really get to do anything different.
I would say that my ideal mode of play would be a little running and a little fighting, taking on whatever you think can gain you the best exp out of for the moment and running when you'd rather not take on that Draug without getting arcane damage first. The problem is whenever you stop once for an attack, you're likely to get swarmed. Maybe this balance isn't even mathematically possible.
My other concern is about team play. If it's always the best option to run the farthest and fastest, I don't see much interaction with other players, since a healer might have to sacrifice a hex of movement just to heal.
Either way, what you have works for 2 styles of play at least, so you might be satisfied with that. I understand that maybe the choices with what AMLAs you choose just might replace the movement choices as far as what makes the game fun.
One suggestion that you might think about: Rather than have castle rewards increment with the number of times someone has landed on it, give it a "bounty" system. With each monster killed, increase the castle rewards based on its level (i.e. 1 for level 0, 2 for level 1, 4 for level 2, 8 for level 3, etc.). This is the only way I can think of a natural incentive for both killing and castle-hopping.
Can't wait to see what new classes/skills you're going to make.
EDIT: Bug with Guerrilla. It only works if you attack after you have moved a little bit. If you attack first without moving it takes your moves away.
I just got to turn 69 with a castle-hopping "paladin" human. It's not that I really found castle-hopping is impossible (though those first 2 jumps can be rough). It's that I was expecting a different style of play. When I was trying initially I would always try to find good ground within a hex or two and would attack for a turn if it seemed like a good idea.
That will only get you killed.
The best option is to just run, run and run. I don't exactly find that fun since your biggest choices are whether to go to the grass hex to the right or the cave hex to the left. And, if one of those lets you get to your next hopping spot better, then it's automatically the best choice.
This gameplay is a lot like camping the spawn the whole game in that you never really get to do anything different.
I would say that my ideal mode of play would be a little running and a little fighting, taking on whatever you think can gain you the best exp out of for the moment and running when you'd rather not take on that Draug without getting arcane damage first. The problem is whenever you stop once for an attack, you're likely to get swarmed. Maybe this balance isn't even mathematically possible.
My other concern is about team play. If it's always the best option to run the farthest and fastest, I don't see much interaction with other players, since a healer might have to sacrifice a hex of movement just to heal.
Either way, what you have works for 2 styles of play at least, so you might be satisfied with that. I understand that maybe the choices with what AMLAs you choose just might replace the movement choices as far as what makes the game fun.
One suggestion that you might think about: Rather than have castle rewards increment with the number of times someone has landed on it, give it a "bounty" system. With each monster killed, increase the castle rewards based on its level (i.e. 1 for level 0, 2 for level 1, 4 for level 2, 8 for level 3, etc.). This is the only way I can think of a natural incentive for both killing and castle-hopping.
Can't wait to see what new classes/skills you're going to make.
EDIT: Bug with Guerrilla. It only works if you attack after you have moved a little bit. If you attack first without moving it takes your moves away.
Hmm. Well, the problem is that the balance is roughly about right if you try just standing and fighting everything, and it's roughly about right if you try running from everything, like you say it's when you try to do both that it becomes difficult. If I take out a lot of enemies than it would probably be too easy to outfight or outrun everything if you went for just one or the other.
However in the version I'm working on I have undertaken measures to vary the levels of monsters, so that around turn 15-30 for example you'll see a better mix of units all the way from L0 to L2, whereas before it was still mostly a fairly steady progression. It remains to be seen if it's actually any easier (the first 10 or so turns definitely are, but after that it's a toss-up) but it's certainly a lot more fun since you'll have more widely varying areas of danger/safety due to the positions of higher/lower level enemies.
I've been experimenting some with the "holy" side of the human upgrade tree myself lately as it is uniquely suited to a more aggressive style of play thanks to the Holy Shield ability. Unfortunately I've been having really terrible luck for the last 4 games in a row so it's hard for me to judge how viable this style of playing is at present! However the castle-hopping is definitely a lot easier now as even when I was taking some very unlucky beatings I was making 2-3 castles on my first life with no movement upgrades except a single +1 MV.
Also the new characters I'm working on should help improve the game's variety somewhat. I want there to be some overlap between abilities and roles (so a certain class isn't JUST for a certain style and vice versa) but at the same time I do want there to be certain specialties between different classes. I've got an orc in the works that's a real blast to play when you're chopping up swarms of weaker units. (Not necessarily very effective in the long run, but fun!)
However in the version I'm working on I have undertaken measures to vary the levels of monsters, so that around turn 15-30 for example you'll see a better mix of units all the way from L0 to L2, whereas before it was still mostly a fairly steady progression. It remains to be seen if it's actually any easier (the first 10 or so turns definitely are, but after that it's a toss-up) but it's certainly a lot more fun since you'll have more widely varying areas of danger/safety due to the positions of higher/lower level enemies.
I've been experimenting some with the "holy" side of the human upgrade tree myself lately as it is uniquely suited to a more aggressive style of play thanks to the Holy Shield ability. Unfortunately I've been having really terrible luck for the last 4 games in a row so it's hard for me to judge how viable this style of playing is at present! However the castle-hopping is definitely a lot easier now as even when I was taking some very unlucky beatings I was making 2-3 castles on my first life with no movement upgrades except a single +1 MV.
Also the new characters I'm working on should help improve the game's variety somewhat. I want there to be some overlap between abilities and roles (so a certain class isn't JUST for a certain style and vice versa) but at the same time I do want there to be certain specialties between different classes. I've got an orc in the works that's a real blast to play when you're chopping up swarms of weaker units. (Not necessarily very effective in the long run, but fun!)
I'd love to help with any development trees, I have a few small ideas, such as an alchemist or a monster-based unit, perhaps using the big mudcrawler graphic for the monster... if you'd be so kind as to PM me with what you have, I'd love to give you some more ideas...
If enough people bang their heads against a brick wall, The brick wall will fall down
You know, all the discussion lately about advancing made me realize this is going to be basically unplayable in networked games anyhow since it would just pick upgrades at random if you leveled up when it wasn't your turn (which is fairly likely). I'm going to see if I can't get a workaround system that will give you the standard HP boost you always get from the AMLAs in this but still let you save your XP until your turn so you can make a decision. (I guess I could just forget about using AMLAs and use a custom menu routine... but that's a lot of work and the AMLA dialog window is fairly handy... so for now I think I'll just try to work around the problem.)
I'm pretty sure it's built into the network architecture, because it can't pause in the middle of someone's turn and get input from someone else. Maybe it works differently for AIs but I don't think so.
Anyhow, the workaround hasn't been a problem to implement so it's not such a big deal. I still wish there was a way to trigger advancement from an event (it's listed in the changelog/wiki but appears to have been bugged) but oh well.
Anyhow, the workaround hasn't been a problem to implement so it's not such a big deal. I still wish there was a way to trigger advancement from an event (it's listed in the changelog/wiki but appears to have been bugged) but oh well.
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Clonkinator
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- Joined: July 20th, 2006, 4:45 pm
- Location: Germany
Hm, I think I got one: I don't really know if this also works with AMLAs, but when choosing an upgrade, also increase the count of a certain variable (Let's say ranged damage for player 1: RaDaP1). Then, when the same player the variable belongs to gets a new weapon, add the amount of the variable of damage to the new weapon (should not be that hard to do, just look at the Wiki). It's not THAT simple at all, but it should do it.TL wrote:I'll try to get this fixed by and by but no simple solution presents itself to me.Ken Oh wrote:Also, are you planning to just keep the strength/dex additions just as they are, so if you add an attack after getting max dex, you'll never be able to upgrade that attack?
Is it possible to use AMLA's to apply objects to a unit? I think that in Temple of the Nagas there are a few upgrades that have affects such as doubling the unit's speed, if it would get 1 speed upgrade in a level up, it gets two MP instead... not sure how it works, but I think it could apply to attacks...
If enough people bang their heads against a brick wall, The brick wall will fall down
Storing variables for stat bonuses is pretty easy (especially since most AMLAs add abilities and only a handful are plain stat boosts), the trouble is that I'm not aware of any convenient way to automatically detect when a new attack is added. Hmm. I wonder if testing unit.modifications.advance[$unit.modifications.advance.length].effect[0].apply_to=new_attack would work. Wait, no, I'd need something with the value of unit.modifications.advance.length minus 1, but then that ought to work.
I've thought of doing it through adding objects too but again it's not as simple as just adding objects to the AMLA definitions; I'd have to get an event to check for new AMLAs and add the objects manually. Plus it wouldn't show up in the AMLA dialog.
Hmm. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn't just write a custom option dialog anyhow. It would be a lot of work but it would mean fewer workarounds to get things working the way I want them to.
I've thought of doing it through adding objects too but again it's not as simple as just adding objects to the AMLA definitions; I'd have to get an event to check for new AMLAs and add the objects manually. Plus it wouldn't show up in the AMLA dialog.
Hmm. I'm starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn't just write a custom option dialog anyhow. It would be a lot of work but it would mean fewer workarounds to get things working the way I want them to.
It's been over a month now, so in case anyone's wondering no I haven't given up on this. The original version had so many problems with crappy workarounds and such inflated WML I decided it would just be easier to start over. I've decided to do away with custom unit .cfgs so that the scenario can be used online without requiring a download, now it just uses a selection of mainline units and edits their stats by hand. Also rather than using the AMLA menu upgrades are now done manually through a custom menu which gets around issues of leveling up during AI turns in online games and also simplifies some of the code (upgrades are still level based, though, each level up lets you pick 1 more ability).
I went ahead and released the rewritten version to the campaign server. I've done very, very little playtesting on this new version, as I've mostly been focusing on porting things over and making sure everything seems to be working more or less correctly, so any input on what's too easy/too hard this time around would be appreciated.
Like I said earlier this version no longer uses custom units, instead it just uses a set of mainline units and edits their stats when you start the game, so this version should work in online games without requiring the era to be installed for all players. Currently in addition to the human and elf there's also an orc and dwarf available, although the orc and dwarf don't have nearly as much diversity in skill selections to choose from.
The scenario also has a more clearly defined goal now, too; at turn 100 it spawns a set of final bosses. The idea is that these are all level 3 units loaded up with all the cool new abilities the players get access to, but I only have 2 different bosses in so far so there's not so much variety.
Like I said earlier this version no longer uses custom units, instead it just uses a set of mainline units and edits their stats when you start the game, so this version should work in online games without requiring the era to be installed for all players. Currently in addition to the human and elf there's also an orc and dwarf available, although the orc and dwarf don't have nearly as much diversity in skill selections to choose from.
The scenario also has a more clearly defined goal now, too; at turn 100 it spawns a set of final bosses. The idea is that these are all level 3 units loaded up with all the cool new abilities the players get access to, but I only have 2 different bosses in so far so there's not so much variety.
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Ken_Oh
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Very cool.
I've only been able to play around with it for a little bit, but it does kind of seem a little tough. Maybe I should try using multiple players and see how that works. Feedback on difficulty is going to take a lot of play-testing. I hope others are up to the task too.
Just a small bug report:
-Haven't been able to get the Dwarf to place a rune. Is it an on-command ability? I wasn't able to find anything about it.
-(I forget the name, whatever the skill is that lets the Elfish Avenger move after shooting) doesn't work if you move, undo that move back to start, and then try to shoot and move. Not sure you can do anything about that yourself as it seems to me to be an engine bug.
-The one time I tried to add Berserk to the Orc, it never worked.
-Cleave for the Orc seemed to work OK, but Whirl resulted in rather erratic results. Sometimes hits would result in Cleave-like effects and other times 1 point would be scored on random opponents. Is there something wrong with adding both at once?
-Also, although I'm not entirely sure if you haven't looked into this, but if damage outside of normal combat, such as explosive, cleave and whirl damage, works like it did before, it doesn't yield exp if you kill a foe with it. I think that needs to be changed.
And, are the heroes supposed to be level 2? Wouldn't cruelty work better if they were level 3?
Keep up the good work.
I've only been able to play around with it for a little bit, but it does kind of seem a little tough. Maybe I should try using multiple players and see how that works. Feedback on difficulty is going to take a lot of play-testing. I hope others are up to the task too.
Just a small bug report:
-Haven't been able to get the Dwarf to place a rune. Is it an on-command ability? I wasn't able to find anything about it.
-(I forget the name, whatever the skill is that lets the Elfish Avenger move after shooting) doesn't work if you move, undo that move back to start, and then try to shoot and move. Not sure you can do anything about that yourself as it seems to me to be an engine bug.
-The one time I tried to add Berserk to the Orc, it never worked.
-Cleave for the Orc seemed to work OK, but Whirl resulted in rather erratic results. Sometimes hits would result in Cleave-like effects and other times 1 point would be scored on random opponents. Is there something wrong with adding both at once?
-Also, although I'm not entirely sure if you haven't looked into this, but if damage outside of normal combat, such as explosive, cleave and whirl damage, works like it did before, it doesn't yield exp if you kill a foe with it. I think that needs to be changed.
And, are the heroes supposed to be level 2? Wouldn't cruelty work better if they were level 3?
Keep up the good work.