Some big suggestions/ideas

[dahllia]

So.

I've been thinking about these for quite a while, but haven't really had the time or energy to actually type them out.

Most of these are pretty huge changes that would require loads of work so it's more ideas to discuss than actual suggestions.

1. (gonna sound like a broken record I know) More horde health
Can't remember many, if any, hordes lasting more than an hour this round. And I can't remember any horde ever (outside of the LB?) that managed to attack a city.
If hordes get a ton of health (so much even the biggest clans wont be able to take one down alone) it would add a new level to diplomacy.

Take an average game where SL and EC sit on 30ish members each. The other clans are 5-15.
Say a horde is attacking Fal Dara owned by the Silver Legion.
They beat on it as much as they can, but it's just not dying.
Then the Emerald Collective can choose to either help, or sit back laughing evilly.
The SL would then have to gather support from the smaller clans to get the horde down.

This could be coupled with an increase in how much damage a horde does.
It would also make killing the defending army that much more fun ^_^

2. Reduce the amount of alignement hordes give and increase the amount quests give
Kind of connected to the first point, but you can spend an entire age getting full light/shadow from quests, while I think I got full shadow from less than 10 hordes.
More balance between them would encourage doing quests and not just having to be lucky enough to catch a horde before it dies.

3. Make it easier to pick up quests
Running around the entire continent and checking quests is a real pain in the ass. So finding some way you can pick up quests faster would be awesome.
One quick suggestion could be to link it to your estate. For example a new building "notice board" that all the surrounding quests are posted on.
The radius could then increase for each level (level 1 - only the four cities connected, level 2 - the neighbours of those cities, etc,).

4. An improved questlog
Make the questlog display where you have to go and what you have to do there.
Also make it sortable.

5. Lower the gold you make from selling items and item quests and increase the gold from businesses
No good gameplay reason to do this, but it's always felt weird to me that one sword costs more than several days worth of ores.
I know someone mentioned that your businesses keep going no matter if you're doing anything or not, so they're basically free gold.
But then again. You have to fight battles to level up, so the items aren't really more than a bonus too.
It would also make businesses a more inviting part of the game and it feels (might be just me) like it's not that popular?

6. Add some easy way to dump turns
This is the most selfish suggestion. Since I don't have as much time to play anymore, I wouldn't mind some easy way to get rid of my turns (I know hordes were supposed to be that, but they're a bit too random and die too fast).
For example some way to say "I want to spend 40 turns exploring". Then your char is locked for X minutes (maybe 30 seconds per battle?) and you can come back without your turns maxing.
Now I can already sort-of do this by auto-reloading the battle-page, but this often results in too many battles and lost items/wins.
This would also be nice since it would give me time to do businesses/quests and not just spam battles.

7. Ease of travel
Update the map to be interactive.
Say you are in Cairhien and want to go to Falme.
You open the map, click Falme and after X minutes you arrive.
Almost like magic

Now I think I remember one of the earlies versions having something like this? If it did, was it removed for any reason?

8. Update the weapon and main-class skills
Might just be me again, but I've never spent any points in Wanderer/Armsman/etc since they cost way more points for the same amount of stats as the advanced classes do (two skills at top level rather than one).
Same applies to the weapon skills.
This got to be an even bigger issue with the alignement skills since they are free.
This last round I even stopped using weapon skills after a while.

9. Dualwielding!
Please? Pretty please?
You could just make the decrease equip-point skills apply to any item, or just halve it if you use two of the same type.

That's about it I think.

[Tim]

Sept 12, 2013 9:46:21 GMT -6 dahllia said:

1. (gonna sound like a broken record I know) More horde health
Can't remember many, if any, hordes lasting more than an hour this round. And I can't remember any horde ever (outside of the LB?) that managed to attack a city.
If hordes get a ton of health (so much even the biggest clans wont be able to take one down alone) it would add a new level to diplomacy.

Take an average game where SL and EC sit on 30ish members each. The other clans are 5-15.
Say a horde is attacking Fal Dara owned by the Silver Legion.
They beat on it as much as they can, but it's just not dying.
Then the Emerald Collective can choose to either help, or sit back laughing evilly.
The SL would then have to gather support from the smaller clans to get the horde down.

This could be coupled with an increase in how much damage a horde does.
It would also make killing the defending army that much more fun ^_^

2. Reduce the amount of alignement hordes give and increase the amount quests give
Kind of connected to the first point, but you can spend an entire age getting full light/shadow from quests, while I think I got full shadow from less than 10 hordes.
More balance between them would encourage doing quests and not just having to be lucky enough to catch a horde before it dies.

4. An improved questlog
Make the questlog display where you have to go and what you have to do there.
Also make it sortable.

Not going to perfect on these first ones, but let's just say... Stay tuned to the V11 Countdown posts.

3. Make it easier to pick up quests
Running around the entire continent and checking quests is a real pain in the ass. So finding some way you can pick up quests faster would be awesome.
One quick suggestion could be to link it to your estate. For example a new building "notice board" that all the surrounding quests are posted on.
The radius could then increase for each level (level 1 - only the four cities connected, level 2 - the neighbours of those cities, etc,).

Maybe something similar could be done, but I don't want it to be TOO easy to pick up quests. Need to be a little work for, but I agree it is a little cumbersome. And probably will be more so once the map grows.

5. Lower the gold you make from selling items and item quests and increase the gold from businesses
No good gameplay reason to do this, but it's always felt weird to me that one sword costs more than several days worth of ores.
I know someone mentioned that your businesses keep going no matter if you're doing anything or not, so they're basically free gold.
But then again. You have to fight battles to level up, so the items aren't really more than a bonus too.
It would also make businesses a more inviting part of the game and it feels (might be just me) like it's not that popular?

I agree that it's off that a sword costs that much compared to ore, but if I made things cost right then none of the equipment would be worth much and lets face it, that's all most people spend coin on. Businesses are 'free gold', but you have to invest time and coin in them for them to make money. So realistic: no. But balanced for the game: It's not that bad.

6. Add some easy way to dump turns
This is the most selfish suggestion. Since I don't have as much time to play anymore, I wouldn't mind some easy way to get rid of my turns (I know hordes were supposed to be that, but they're a bit too random and die too fast).
For example some way to say "I want to spend 40 turns exploring". Then your char is locked for X minutes (maybe 30 seconds per battle?) and you can come back without your turns maxing.
Now I can already sort-of do this by auto-reloading the battle-page, but this often results in too many battles and lost items/wins.
This would also be nice since it would give me time to do businesses/quests and not just spam battles.

I understand this one. Keeping up with 3 chars this last version kept me pretty invested time wise. But I worry if it was as automated as you suggest, then I think some people would get bored with things. The way things are now, if you want to sink a bunch of time into the game you can (3-6 characters, all running businesses, all doing quests). If you don't have a lot of time to spend, you don't have to but can still maintain a good character (1-2 characters, little businesses or quests).

Perhaps if I can fix number 1 on your list, that will help.

7. Ease of travel
Update the map to be interactive.
Say you are in Cairhien and want to go to Falme.
You open the map, click Falme and after X minutes you arrive.
Almost like magic

Now I think I remember one of the earlies versions having something like this? If it did, was it removed for any reason?

I think in the first version I played of the game (before I took over), you could jump to anywhere in the world, but could only move so many times a day. It was removed after that version and hasn't been back since. This was before there were wilderness areas too.

I keep thinking of adding Traveling to the game, but can't think of a good way to balance it. I think if you're going to move around the map, there has to be a cost. I could automated it as you suggest (though coding the calculations to travel from any place to any other efficiently isn't easy), but I don't think it's that detrimental to the game to have to manually move about.

8. Update the weapon and main-class skills
Might just be me again, but I've never spent any points in Wanderer/Armsman/etc since they cost way more points for the same amount of stats as the advanced classes do (two skills at top level rather than one).
Same applies to the weapon skills.
This got to be an even bigger issue with the alignement skills since they are free.
This last round I even stopped using weapon skills after a while.

I agree. Not long after level 20 or so I stopped spending many points on starting classes and didn't spend many points on weapon focus skills (other than the -% usage skills) much after that either. The specialty classes are supposed to be better, but you may be right that it's too lopsided now. And unfortunately some changes I've made for V11 may make this worse. Probably won't be able to fix this issue for V11, but I agree it's something that needs to have an eye kept on it.

9. Dualwielding!
Please? Pretty please?
You could just make the decrease equip-point skills apply to any item, or just halve it if you use two of the same type.

Maybe but if I cut the skill bonuses in half if dual wielding then what's the point? At least gameplay wise, there'd be no real benefit.

That's about it I think.

Oh, I'm sure you can come up with some more if I give you enough time.

[dahllia]

Sept 12, 2013 22:55:10 GMT -6 Tim said:

Not going to perfect on these first ones, but let's just say... Stay tuned to the V11 Countdown posts.

Yeha. Looking forward to it

]Maybe something similar could be done, but I don't want it to be TOO easy to pick up quests. Need to be a little work for, but I agree it is a little cumbersome. And probably will be more so once the map grows.

Still have actually do the quests though, so doubt it will ever be too easy

I agree that it's off that a sword costs that much compared to ore, but if I made things cost right then none of the equipment would be worth much and lets face it, that's all most people spend coin on. Businesses are 'free gold', but you have to invest time and coin in them for them to make money. So realistic: no. But balanced for the game: It's not that bad.

Fair enough. Don't think that a bit more incentive to run businesses would be bad though.

Need coin for estates too.

I understand this one. Keeping up with 3 chars this last version kept me pretty invested time wise. But I worry if it was as automated as you suggest, then I think some people would get bored with things. The way things are now, if you want to sink a bunch of time into the game you can (3-6 characters, all running businesses, all doing quests). If you don't have a lot of time to spend, you don't have to but can still maintain a good character (1-2 characters, little businesses or quests).

Perhaps if I can fix number 1 on your list, that will help.

Yeah. The few times I managed to catch a horde really helped.

Even though I lost quite a few wins

Maybe but if I cut the skill bonuses in half if dual wielding then what's the point? At least gameplay wise, there'd be no real benefit.

Would be just for RPing yeah.

Oh, I'm sure you can come up with some more if I give you enough time.

Maybe

Don't have time to answer the answers to 7 and 8 now. Will get back to them.