Wtf is it?
A map.

More specifically?
A Starcraft Broodwar UMS multiplayer map.

...
k. It's a hybrid FFA Melee UMS with a hero arena/proxy-diplo/RP (ew!) overlay. As best I can tell.

lolwutte?
Uh, 4 players are mortals (melee FFA) doing what they do. 3 players are "Gods" that roam the map trying to kill each other. Their ability to actually do so is partly based on skill, mostly based on their acquisition of 'Spirit'. Spirit can be acquired by tediously grabbing flying cloaked wraiths that wander the map, or else by persuading mortals to build temples for them to quickly gather them up. Naturally, that means they have to devote some time from their busy schedule of deicide to garner enough favor from the already-embattled mortals to make temples for them.

At least, that's the idea.

k. So how does it work so far?
Well, Gods have 2 resources to worry about: Spirit and Will (and possibly the physical HP of their God and God's Avatar units... more on that later). Spirit needs to be collected from around the map and from mortal temples. Will generates on its own, but can be recharged quickly off of a God's spirit supply.

Gods have 8 unique abiliities available with their own costs:

1. Wrath - Attacks other Gods with a homing projectile. Homing works only when close by, otherwise the projectile is simply dumbfire. Damaged Gods drop 20 spirits, or else die if they have none. Costs only a moderate amount of Will.
   
2. Glory - A multi-function ability that harms Gods on contact with yours (20 spirits dropped), absorbs a single Wrath (or enemy Glory in turn), gives protection against mortal unit attack, heals nearby mortal units, and allows bypassing Hallowed Grounds and enemy Temples for its duration. Costs a moderate amount of both Spirit and Will.
   
3. Hallowed Ground - Toggles placement of a line of protective barriers. Barriers block enemy Gods and Wrath attacks. Easily destroyed by mortals, however. Costs small amount of both Spirit and Will.
   
4. Avatar - Activates the God's physical form (Archon, durr). Ejects all Spirit and consumes all Will to activate, so if you've built up your Spirit, you probably want to spend as much of it as you can, first. A good way to even the odds against belligerent mortals. Lasts about 30 seconds.
   
5. Servants - Places 6 peons for a given mortal at one of the Temples they've built for you. Another incentive for them to build temples. Costs a fair amount of Spirit only.
   
6. Harvest - Places a mineral patch on any non-obstructed ground. Costs a fair amount of Spirit only.
   
7. Plenty - Places a gas geyser on any non-obstructed ground. Costs a hefty amount of Spirit only.
   
8. Sacrifice - Consumes Spirit to generate 2x Will.
   

In addition to all that, Gods themselves have physical health to worry about. That means mortals (or other Gods' Avatars) could, theoretically, kill them. I want this to be a moderately difficult task for a mortal, but ill-advised while the other mortals are around receiving benefits that enable them to get ahead for at least NOT trying to kill Gods.

Cool. Now why make a production thread about it?
Because after the last dozen "it's done" moments, I'm reaching the point of realization that it's going to put up a fight before I have it done properly, so I could use all the help I can get. Don't know what that's going to entail just yet, though. Maybe just a place to fill with some spam until I figure shit out.

So what's the problem, then?
Well from what I can gather from initial tests, and ignoring specific implementation details, the problem is "persuasion" is an ambiguous gameplay element that gets mixed with an already ambiguous gameplay. With Gods able to have (limited) intervention amongst mortals, mortals will have a hard time being compelled to outright play melee like they're supposed to. They either think a God will just step in and fix their problems, or else their successes can be handily interrupted by higher intervention.

Kinda like Communism.

That's nice. So how do we solve this?
Well my initial thoughts were to limit the Gods' ability to intervene and to make them really, really busy amongst themselves, but I don't think anyone is fooled. Another measure I could try is to make Gods depend on a supply of Spirit in order to survive while it gradually evaporates on its own, such that they have a bit more urgency involved. I could also make Godly abilities cost spirit to "unlock", also.

A last resort is I could "bind" a God to a given Mortal player by some mechanism, and make their fates intertwined. That way, the ambiguity disappears, and they're both playing to win together. Like giving that mortal a dedicated "hero" unit it doesn't control, or something.



Also, because I can commandeer any 4 player melee map for this, I just went ahead and used Lost Temple for the base. I hope even for the purpose of a screenshot you don't need to know what LT looks like.


Post has been edited 9 time(s), last time on Aug 5 2010, 12:21 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Copy the triggers over to Fighting Spirit and people would play it.

What's that? Another melee map?

It's one of the most played SCBW four-player melee maps; Lost Temple is, frankly, a very imbalanced map .

http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/maps/237_Fighting Spirit.jpg" style="max-width:500px; max-height:500px;" onclick="javascript:show_image(870178081)" id="image_clickable_870178081" class="image_clickable">

k. I can release a version for any 4p melee map anyone wants me to.

After you finalize the triggers, of course . Don't be releasing versions with different mechanics.

Well if I need new mechanics versions, the version number will increment accordingly.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 5 2010, 12:12 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Actually, I've decided I'm going to take a little break for this for a while. Hell, I'll even throw out the project sources and a copy of the map, in the meantime. Enjoy.

The triggers are in MacroTriggers, since I was too lazy to wrap my brain around Protrig or get my old Javascript libraries polished up for use again before I started this. It's well commented, so feel free to have a look.


I'd say I'm about 2-3 days of work away from having v01 "done" and ready for beta, with this. But I'll do it later.

Edit: Yes, the included map ought to be playable, by the way.

Wtf? You giving up so fast? Be a man, do tha right thing. Finish da map.

There're no space for the temple stuff in the Fighting Spirit map. D:

I think it'd be cool to have a 2 mortal 2 god version of this map...

Now, down to the problems.
I'm going to restate what I said before ... which was that I felt the God's gameplay should proceed at about the same speed as the melee. So, basically, the Gods shouldn't be able to kill each other until maybe 10 minutes in (normal rush time). I think it is because the God's gameplay is so much more facepaced, that it feels departed from the melee portion and don't integrate with it. You want it so that the Gods need the mortals to stay ahead of the other Gods.. And you also need it so that the mortals would take advantage of the Gods.
However, I think the temple = more spirits system work quite well right now... and I fear overcomplication of the game.

So after some thought, I think there're two best routes to do this right now.
1. Use the Spirit as currency to unlock certain spells. This way, you can make more than just 8 spells, tho I'd keep the Plenty, Harvest, Sacrifice, and Wrath as the basic 4 spells.
This way, you can time it so that if a God player wants to be on the advantage, he'd have to pursuade players to build temples for him so he can get spirits faster, and therefore buy the spells faster. Obviously, the God needs to repay him, or else he'd die since he's given away all the money to build Temples.
I think Wraths, when they hit at a god with 0 spirits, shouldn't kill him so fast. I think it could spawn scourges. Gods can upgrade the spell (either manually thru spirit purchase, or automatically thru constant use of it) so that more scourges will spawn when hit. (this also brings up another problem with mortal scourges OP against Gods)

2. Another way to do this is to make the Gods' spells better the more Temples he has. (i'm actually gonna favor this one)
Not only will this give incentive for the Gods to make players build Temples, it will also give incentive for the gods to kill the other god's temple (another thing that I felt a bit lacking).
So...
a) Wrath - Disperse more Spirits/Create more scourges as God get more temples
b) Plenty/Harvest - More minerals/gas
c) Sacrifice - More mana for less spirits
d) Avatar - longer avatar times/spawn with more shields
e) Hallowed Grounds - Bigger areas (Use diff units to signify stronger grounds...)
f) Glory - Longer time
g) Servants - More Peons

I'm going to say... every 2 Temples = +1 God Level.. max +6 levels.
This way, you can make the spells suck more in the beginning, but still work. To draw incentives for the mortals to build temples, you can make Plenty/Harvest/Servants Better comparative to Wrath/Avatar/Glory.

Lastly, I think Avatar takes too much to use. I think about 70 gas is about right.. but make the avatar time shorter, as it can really ruin a mortal's main base.

Discuss!

Well I'm not quitting, I just need to attend to some other priorities, first.

I have it in my list (which you can see in the file) to add unlocks for abilities. That's about the only way I can think of "slowing" down the God's to that end.
Overcomplication? You mean if I add/change anything major?

Unless I made Temples cheaper, they're meant to be built later into the game, so mortal support spells might be premature to start with.

I'm going to merge Plenty and Harvest so it's a single spell that replenishes (not creates anew) all nearby resources. Wrath and Sacrifice will be available pending unlock. Hallowed Ground will be the only spell available at the onset.


Also, when two Gods are exchanging Wraths, and one uses up their Will first, the other will be able to continually get free hits while they have additional Will and are in range. And since the Gods are air units of the same speed, once one is in range, it will be hard to shake.

I want to have Hallowed Grounds available early to break up that pattern by its ability to introduce logical topology changes to the battlefield. At least, that's the idea. That's why I want it available from the beginning.

I think you might be right about this one, since there remains potential for positive feedback loops, but I'll still need to brainstorm it a bit further.

I'll save upgrades for a later version, though.

I could do that... just seems a bit redundant as having a larger overall supply of Spirit already translates into more power, if you think about it (due largely to the Sacrifice ability)...

Not sure about this, really. I'll keep it in mind for later.

I wish to first try building the core gameplay out of a basic, consistent set of spells, controlling their power only by the variables that define when and where they get to be used. When that design is all cinched up tight, I'll work in ways for them to expand laterally with upgrades and such.

Sacrifice can get you enough Will to deploy Avatar quickly. But yeah, I'll probably tweak each ability's respective costs quite a bit before I'm through.

k.


Another thing I thought of doing was to give the Gods a powerful anti-God ability with a high cost in Spirit. I wanted to call it Vengeance or something, which unleashes a God's spirits upon another God to permanently lower their max Spirit storage, or otherwise just directly destroys enemy God temples... not sure which, yet. It's hard to deflect, and it gradually brings the game to the patient, persistent God that focuses on spirit acquisition.

At least, that's the early idea...


Anyway, thanks for the feedback. It usually takes me time to properly metabolize new information, so this isn't like my final word or anything.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Aug 5 2010, 9:45 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

Oooh, having Hallowed Grounds only in the beginning sounds interesting. Tho I'm not sure it'd work very well since it'd deter people from providing help to more than one God.

I dunno.. try it... u'd never know.

Well that's the other thing: I want to make HGs more... tactical. That is, I'll probably allow them to be destroyed by Wrath, and also have them deteriorate over time, gradually.

Still brainstorming this one, too.

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.

Just have another game of this. Its fun!
You should fix mortals briefing saying they have to suicide an infested... =)

So much Text @.@

I agree with most of what Wormer Said ..
especially about the Avatar bit.

I kind of like how mortals can worship multiple Gods, so I'm somewhat against the alliance system.
I also don't know about certain buildings = temples... because they DO play a role in the melee.... I think the current system is good enough

Spell Unlocking introduces a new layer of strategies amongst the Gods. Because of this, I think that more spells can be incorporated (i.e. > the 8 spells that you have now)... but the key word here is "CAN".. it really depends on what new spells you put in. Right now, the spells are pretty solid...
I think you should go ahead with the idea of starting off only with Hallowed Grounds.

gotta play more to find out....

EDIT: IDea for New Spells

STORM ~50 gas
- Create 2 (cloaked with arbiter?) invincible carriers at overlord for maybe 10 seconds.. Overlord will not be able to move during spell (vulnerable to Wraths [unless God uses glory/wrath with the storm])
It's more of an alternative compared to Avatar, but more geared torwards the Mortals.
- I was thinking of this spell being a Fairly Low to Medium damage dealer against Mortals.. just enough to turn the tide of battle.. so 10 seconds may be too much. But with the new unlockable spell system, you can make it about medium priced. I suggested this probably because avatar is the only current spell that harm mortals, and it is too expensive right now. If you have changed avatar to be less, you can basically ignore this spell idea D:

SMITE ~80 gas, and 20 spirits
- Very High Level spell that, after some spell effect warm-up, creates an explosion around the overlord (about 8x8 big) that injures/kills mortal units, breaks hallowed grounds, and Disperses enemy gods' spirits or kills gods w/o spirits. Intended for very late game use, and give incentives to save up and tech. It also makes the game more exciting, as you must get REALLY close to your foe to get them. Make it so that it is impossible to do two smites in a very short time.
- I'm suggesting this because, let's face it, Gods have to be awesome. While Wrath is awesome, we need something asploding. BOOM baby.. that's what makes it feel good to be a God.

SIN ~70 gas, 10 spirits
- If Gods have the power to make more minerals and vespene, I ask you why don't they have the power to deplete it?
- Sin should set the minerals/vespene around the God (maybe in a 3x3 loc) to maybe 50.
- Make the purchase of this spell pretty high .. as it's fairly annoying. I'd find this spell REALLY funny

RITUAL (with the lack of a better name) ~35 gas
- Immobilizes the god for about 5 seconds, but draws in the spirits around him.
- This would create a fresh alternative to collecting spirits, because right now as it is, Gods REALLY depend on temples, as they're SOO FUCKING SLOW.
- Again, immobilizing the god will make him vulnerable.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Aug 6 2010, 9:11 pm by UnholyUrine.

No one ever needs more than one citadel of adun/queen's nest/Physics lab.

I wasn't going to add a tutorial, anyway. Maybe clean up the briefing some more. I want most of the gameplay elements to be laid out up front so it's just a matter of longitudinal study (as opposed to lateral thinking... something that usually needs special handling for players, I've observed). Some elements are not so good in that regard, though... Hallowed Grounds, Sacrifice, and maybe the concept of "persuading" mortals being a few.

If I use an existing building, it makes a number of issues. First, it's mostly non-optional, as long as players value tech acquisition. Therefore, it's not so much of a decision to be made. The other problem is that it affects the balance of melee if I have to adjust its cost. Also, my original idea with temple placements was to give a way for mortals to slyly manipulate godly contention by placing opposing temples in uncomfortable locations. Redundant tech buildings might still allow this, but then it still turns an important tech building into another player's gameplay item; they could want to have them destroyed, for instance, if they aren't allied to it.

Defiler burrow actually isn't all that bad. It's the ONE thing mortals have to learn. If that's too much to ask, I think it's stopped being my fault here.

Yeah, I'll need to cap the spirits they can hold and the max spirits on the map. Thanks for reminding me.

Meh. I'm not convinced a few extra minerals to hurry things along are going to destroy the balance. I could revert it easily, but I want a bit more data to know if I should, first.

Ultimately, they are. That's the idea. But if a mortal wants to try to kill a God, that God can just help the opposing mortals instead.

I want to do all I can to make the dynamic work like that before I give up and bind mortals and gods together individually.

If you're in that situation as a God, I'm tempted to say you should lose against the mortal. But I'm really not completely sure if that's how I want to do it...

I could allow Avatar to activate for a shorter duration with less energy, but I didn't like the idea originally of Gods bum rushing into a mortal's peon line 4 minutes in for the lulz. However, with ability unlocks, I could probably do something about that.

Hmm. That could be an idea, but I wouldn't look forward to triggering it.

I'll keep it in mind.

This actually isn't a terrible idea. It simplifies things for the mortals, requires me to do less triggers, and makes maintaining delineations of Godly territories up to the Gods themselves (which is what Hallowed Grounds are for, supposedly?).

This is actually going on my list.


I'm not sure how I could add an auto-unally system, though, except to simply notify Gods/Mortals when an alliance has been lost.

Hmm. Didn't neutral players already have alliance state of their units' former owners transfer automatically? In any case, I guess it won't hurt to code that in.

I've been wanting to cop out and have Hallowed Ground units belong to Gods using constant deselection (via. neutral player give unit), but I fear that would create copious amounts of lag before too long.

Heh, I'd only passingly considered failsafes for these. There already is one for at least the God unit against MCs. I'll add a few more, but I don't think I can do much about stuff like EMP and Optic Flare and whatnot. But thanks for reminding me.

Fixed the servants, I don't remember what my reason for HGs near the edges were offhand, will tweak the toggle to fix that. Thanks.

I'll attend to this later, actually.

Interesting. Worth considering.

Make Glory destroy unallied mortal liftoff buildings?

Avatar was meant to work as a way to force gods to have to decide before attacking mortals. I still want to keep the two worlds apart, for the time being.



I'll consider it against my Vengeance idea. If I add any sort of option for different spell loadouts/configurable spells, I'll could consider it for that, too.

Hehe. Problem with abilities that are negative to mortals is that it almost directly ensures mortal-to-god binding by its nature. That is, unless all mortals were against you, you're only going to use this to bring down "enemy" mortals. Currently, I'm trying to steer away from the concept of Gods and Mortals being strictly enemies or friends. Let's see how well that works out first before I consider things like this.

So it's a reverse Sacrifice, in a way? Interesting.

I'd wanted to consider for v2 using the center of the map for spawning spirits, and making it so the closer Gods are to it, the more spirits they can harvest. Like a sort of makeshift "king of the hill" effect.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Aug 6 2010, 10:03 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

1.
Wasn't assuming to adjust temples costs, thought to adjust their effect being weaker instead^*. Well, both variants have their cons and pros. The idea behind this was that one won't get anywhere with 1 temple, the player have to build 3-4 temples to be somewhat useful. The main difference with existing buildings is player can't choose the type of the temple, he chooses gods for which all his temples work instead. Kinda temple is a universe worship location where people choose their gods to prey; all people of the same tribe worship the same gods. Realistic.

This also helps to fight the problem that "God's gameplay should proceed at about the same speed as the melee". Gods won't have much resources before players build enough temples, which won't happen until they reach given technology level. This supposes you can tweak initial souls population as well as probably give less minerals per soul or increase spells costs a bit.

Don't want your tech structures double job as temples? Nothing easier. Unally all gods and your temples are not temples anymore.

BTW, pay attention to that Queen's Nest seems a bit cheap, but I haven't included drone's cost which takes it out to the level of the other buildings.

In any case, you better place burrowed markers under temples. It's annoying to send forces to destroy a temple and find them stopped because temple changed it's owner. This is also annoying when I want to destroy my own temple, because no one repeats the order to attack.

If you're still stick with the current temples system, consider giving them out to the neutral (P12) or to gods. The problem with this is when a god wants to destroy a mortal which once built a temple for him. He obviously doesn't want to destroy the temple.

Temples in addition to their main purpose may also increase will regeneration rate for available gods.

2.
If it was 1v1, no question extra minerals destroyed the balance. However this is FFA which is tolerable. Anyway, extra minerals does destroy initial build order. The thing which destroys the balance is the availability of more upgrades.

I've made several Macro-Micro maps for melee in the past and got much feedback from melee players. You would laugh that even such a thing as 1 larva at start instead of 3 larva (like it is in a melee game) ruins the whole thing, and only spawning 1 extra larva to the hatchery creak to keep things afloat^**.

I know, you set up additional minerals to make mortals gameplay catch up god's gameplay. IMO this is not a good way to approach the problem.

3.
This works, only add an additional notification in case someone allies you.

4.
I believe this is true with player 12 only.

You done it the right way. You could have done vision by placing map revealers underneath, only if recreating revealers wasn't the problem. Even if it's easy to detect when player places a new holy ground it's not that easy to do when holy ground dies^***. Even if neutral players' DCs still count up when units die, you unfortunately can't set, add or subtract them^****. If you want to detect it, you need to limit the maximum number of holy grounds and have a lot triggers to check bring conditions, which I believe is another major source of lag (of course not so severe as giving units but still). If I wouldn't recommend doing this in it's current form, I still mentioned it because it is a possible to make if holy grounds were invincible and destroyable only by gods.

If only holy grounds gave vision to gods it was possible to consider removing their vision with souls. As always, there are cons and pros but this is definitely another thing worth mentioning.

Another solution just came to my mind. Make holy grounds belong to gods and stick an inverted location to each. You just deselect and order it back when one leaves the location then. You know how easy to do this with MacroTriggers! Requires to limit maximum number of holy grounds per player and drops another grain in the ocean of lag with much bring conditions though. From the other point this is easier to implement than the solution with map revealers and opens the possibility to the Science Vessel abilities, which perfectly fits the role - WHOA! Holy grounds work miracles!

Something to think about...

5.
The Idea! Lemme develop. Make Glory set unallied mortal liftoff buildings HP to 1%. They will burn out themselves!

6.
Considering gods weakness to various spells (7) and against mortals (5) and gods death condition (9).

I do fully support and appreciate the idea behind gods being weak against mortals. I think they are so weak that they loose the battle without a struggle though. I believe "jumping", early avatar and glory damage buildings are for the better. Though it's another question about implementation difficulties which I fully realize.

The other approach to the problem with gods spell weakness and dissatisfaction with gods death conditions might be as follows. When the idea came yesterday I haven't even mentioned it, now I see it as a viable solution. The idea is to divide mortal and god worlds even more by making the overlord permanently invincible. Hitting the overlord at 0 spirit doesn't kill him, but instead makes him mortal (+set HP to 1%? +stun for a moment?) for a given amount of time or until he accumulates given amount of spirit (+restrict his ability to cast spells during that time?). The overlord becomes mortal in another case, when god hasn't got any available temples (without setting HP to 1% or casting penalties though). The invincibility is viable taking into account god can't directly harm mortals. On the other hand, during the avatar mode, when god can do harm he becomes mortal. In this case I also suggest making overlord easier to kill.

One may ask then, how can gods kill each other? There could be various approaches.

First, there might be another spell you proposed to decrease the maximum spirit, which can also kill the god when he reaches 0 maximum level. They key there is that this another spell is expensive and it won't be that easy to kill another god with it.

Second, if you do holy grounds belong to gods they may use irradiate to finish the fallen god.

Finally, a god may use his avatar mode to have a chance to materially destroy him (especially if you do stun and tweak the time right to give both sides roughly equal chances on success).

7.
Got another little idea there. Make mortals men die around wrath explosions when they miss, hit overlord or impact each other. It's a dangerous thing to find yourself at a place of gods combat! May catch it hot after all! Haha!

8.
Yea, yea!! This is especially fun because on LT there is a temple in the middle! On other maps there may be slightly other spots though. Like I already can see those 4 small temples on Fighting Spirit situated in a diamond configuration around the middle.


* Different strength for different races is adjustable to absorb their cost difference.

** Yeah, spawning 2 larva doesn't help because hatchery spawns additional 2 in a while, which is more terrible imba than 1 larva!

*** Due to obvious reasons I don't even mention constant cycling through holy grounds and remaking revealers. We need to cycle only by demand.

**** Which I believe had become the result of the EUD actions patch.

Ugh. Fine. I'll put it back the way it was.

Something about this is coming across more as some uppity purist attitude from melee players rather than an intrinsic balance issue, though...

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 7 2010, 6:22 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.