Tux, you've finally posted this! Want you to know, you've fired some people's hearts with this!
Think you're not against that I've played a couple of pub games with that version we played with you earlier. Anyways, you've hosted the public game and I thought I could also play it with pubs. Moreover I've liked the map so much that I couldn't resist.
I'm
trying to proceed from that Tuxlar is going to finish this in reasonable time, and from that it's
almost done. Coming to the point, here goes my feedback:
1.Probably spells unlock will work, but I strongly object against upgradeable spells. Plenty of additional work and involved time aside, this brings unnecessary complexity to the map. I believe there is already enough levers to tweak the gameplay to bring even more confusing elements. In my opinion the map is already on the edge of it's complexity for an average bnet pubbie. In this sense, what I definitely like about the design is that there are two groups of players: one for newcomers, the other for people familiar with the map. You put all the newbs at first team and just say a single phrase: "Play normal FFA game and see what javascript:enlarge('xtext',%20125);happens". Very clear, transparent and doesn't call for additional questions. Having played a game or two as a newbie mortal a man should have a general idea about god capabilities. He then starts learning to be a god more smoothly and with less additional questions. It definitely makes the learning curve smoother and more accessible. I believe you don't need any kind of tutorial for gods (as someone proposed), a fortiori I honestly don't even know how could you do a really good and helpful tutorial which won't hurt gameplay in this kind of game.
2.However, it's surprising how I managed to have questions even with the simplest burrow building system! This indicates that you probably don't wan't to have a single confusing thing for mortals. In an attempt to suggest even simpler mortals gameplay I am throwing the following idea. What if some normal buildings for each race were double jobbing as temples? Specifically my idea is to make those: "Zerg Queen's Nest" (
150/
100/
900,
500/
200/
3600), "Terran Science Facility" (
100/
150/
900,
600/
350/
4350) and "Protoss Templar Archives" (
150/
200/
900,
650/
300/
3600). Their own cost and the cost to reach the building are specified over comma in format
minerals/
gas/
time. It's hard to pick up totally equal buildings, but taking into account many parameters
* IMHO this is the best choice for the role.
Alright then, but how does one choose the type of the temple? My answer is that a mortal player can choose what god he prays, all his temples serve this god only (see 6 for an alternative).
I'll repeat that IMO this reduces the complexity and eliminates all the problems connected with the defiler failsafes. Well, this restricts some flexibility that you can't serve different gods at a time, but I think this might be for the better because, as you've noted, too much possibilities lead to the very vague gameplay which is not good.
3.Any way, I think temples are too powerful as they are now. I mean that ATM a god usually doesn't need to have more than one or two. They attract too much souls, usually a god doesn't need that much. This leads to souls collecting near temples in large numbers which even brings the map into the lag. I think you should limit their max number at a given temple so that the temple doesn't attract souls when there is a limit. With the newly proposed temples I would have made this limit be around 5 or even 4 (because temples cost cheaper now). There was a game where I have encountered quite severe lag. Not sure what exactly was the origin, but it definitely had to do something with the large units quantity on the map. To mention, there was quite much souls there. To fight the lag in long games with many units you probably need to cap the maximum number of souls available on the map.
4.My other objection is against broken melee balance. I am against having more than 3 upgrades available as well as against initial 500 minerals. This totally breaks the balance and the initial build order. Melee players won't appreciate this. On the other hand, as a twist it would be nice to see gods with more upgrades. I mean that contemplating an avatar with 10/10/10 upgrades mortals can't reach makes it look scary.
5.The other thing I like about the design is that mortals and gods fight on two different layers. I find out the idea that gods can't
directly influence mortals neither mortals can
directly influence gods very graceful. Specifically, gods can't directly give resources to players, they can only
replenish their resources instead. On the other hand, mortals can't directly give will to gods, they can only
help gods to collect it. Moreover, thinking thoroughly it's not
that easy for mortals and gods to completely defeat each other. The main disadvantage of a god is that he is a
single unit. Given enough resources and multitasking skills mortals can simply expand like crazy and run from the god
**. On the other hand given enough spirit and will god can block massive mortals ground attacks to run or use avatar against massive air attacks (splash owns). However, my opinion is that gods are much more vulnerable to mortals than vice versa.
I have two suggestions in connection with this gods vulnerability against mortals. As have been mentioned by UnholyUrine, it's probably a good idea to allow gods activate avatars before the maximum will level is reached. However this is not due to fact that the ability seems too expensive but due to the fact that sometimes gods would like to adjust their time they spend in avatar mode. Specifically, let's say I'm a god and the last mortal left in the game uses the expansion strategy against me. I need to destroy a single building on the island and run to the mainland afterwards. You see that I would want the avatar mode last the least time then.
The second suggestion is to give the avatar an ability to "jump" through walls, which is done with a little overlord spamming. When implemented this won't require to wait for the next avatar mode to move uphills without ramps then.
6.As an alternative to the mortals choosing their gods via beacons (see 2) there is an idea to choose them via alliance status. What I mean is that your temple buildings work only for gods you're allied with. As additional features you can quite easily do notification for gods when a mortal allies/breaks alliance with him as well as automatic unally system
***. This makes god selection system more obvious (you're aiding gods you're allied with, what can be clearer?). As a bonus you're completely getting rid of the whole temple selection area (which is one third of the auxillary space after all!). This is crucial for some melee maps where you don't have
that much free space as LT has.
More useful tweaks with alliance status include
a) adjusting alliance status with neutral players owning holy grounds of the given god and
b) restricting glory heal ability only to the allied mortals. I believe, the first will have a huge impact on holy grounds permanency
****. As I've figured out from my modest experience mortals aren't much concerned about killing that manually, but their units will automatically kill holy grounds when the computer is unallied.
7.Gods are very vulnerable against some spells. To start with there should be a failsafe against mind control. Not sure if it's done for an ovie and button units but I've played a game where a protoss mind controlled god's avatar (ROFL). All other spells seem alright, however some may hurt. Blind especially. The only thing that saves is that blinded god may ask mortal to restore him for a reward. Plague and EMP hurts against avatar, which indicates it's possibly a good idea to make main avatar life be his HP with pretty low highly upgraded shields against strong but rare attacks. Irradiate hurts against overlord (yes there is glory which makes ovie invincible, but still...). You should also consider failsafe against irradiated avatar damaging overlord (are you making it invincible during avatar mode?). The other thing that may hurt god ovie is stasis... just imagine god in stasis being easily pwnd by another one. Also, I believe restoring avatar shields each time god uses the ability was a good idea, you should implement it if you haven't already done it.
8.There was a bug when god couldn't finish holy grounds construction until he had enough minerals to place one. Anyways holy grounds construction is made a bit confusing because nothing happens when you stop the construction (yes there is a message but people appear not to read that). I am tired of explaining people they must toggle it off and
then place the last holy ground to finish the construction. Is the holy grounds construction near map edges restricted on purpose? Have you fixed the bug with servants cost nothing?
9.I support the idea that instantly killing a god with 0 spirit looks a bit too easy. My suggestion on this part (including your idea) is to set 1% ovie HP and reduce the max spirit when god is hit at 0 spirit. Specifically, I would have made the reduction on 20, 25 or even 30 spirit points, with 5, 4 or 3 hits completely killing the ovie. Not sure if you already have this, but make ovie heal when it reaches the maximum spirit.
10.I support the idea of replenishing resources instead of creating them. It's probably nice to make minerals patches around but it's really hard to make a narrow line of minerals as it is now. Moreover due to bugs with placing that on the creep it seems a good solution.
11.About the problem of vague victory conditions. Just as an idea which may help: you can make it so that once mortal declares war to the god he can't ally him anymore (mortals are allied to all gods initially, gods allied to all mortals, people can't turn off the allied victory flag). This won't restrict the game as much as "binding" gods to mortals, but would still introduce some direction to the game.
I believe not only UMS players but also melee players will enjoy the game (if you return the initial balance
). Good work making this done! Please don't throw it away at the point where it's almost finished!
* Parameters I was taking into account are their own building cost and time, the cost and time required to reach the building, their position in the tech tree, their initial purpose, their aesthetic feeling to fit the role.
** This is especially true with flying terran buildings and islands. I think you should do something against a dead end when terran hides above unwalkable ground.
*** BTW, an auto unally system will be also
very helpful for mortals against mortals! This is IMO the thing FFA maps lack.
**** Even that you probably won't need to make them last limited time. You may however limit their max number and simply remove the oldest when god reaches the limit (gladly you have enough locations in disposal
).
Post has been edited 9 time(s), last time on Aug 6 2010, 5:23 pm by Wormer.
Some.