Ruin Rewards

[KGB]

Chazar,

Gold in ruins has already been scaled back. It's no longer possible to get those 800+ gold jackpots in L1 ruins. You now get much less gold. But what you get is SO valuable in the early part of the the game compared to items which often don't come into play until mid/late game (or ever in the case of defensive items if your hero is never attacked).

What I find (and what I bet most players find) is that they need gold badly in the early turns (1-15) and items in the middle/late turns (15+) when war is breaking out. That's why I'd like to see the initial ruin distribution scaled back to 25% items and larger chances for gold. Then on respawn the distribution could change to the 60-70% item chance. That would help a lot. So would being able to sell any item (in a city) for a set gold price.

KGB

[Chazar]

I am well aware that gold was already scaled back. I think it was not scaled back enough.

It is the map maker's choice to make a poor map. The ruins main purpose ought to be to provide XP training for heroes and some flavour.

Also, the combined item/gold rewards seem sensible.

Reducing items seems a pretty bland and boring fix to me, robbing the game of its fantasy flavour.

[KGB]

Chazar,

It is the map maker's choice to make a poor map.

This is true. Of course one can see by looking at which maps get played and which get ignored how much players like or don't like poor gold maps. When I look at the maps in the games list it appears poor gold maps are hardly ever chosen. I believe that's because the role of gold luck is greatly magnified on poor maps.

Reducing items seems a pretty bland and boring fix to me, robbing the game of its fantasy flavour.

Are you playing the game for fantasy flavor or are you playing it for a strategy game with a fantasy setting? I'm playing it as the latter.

In a perfect strategic game, ruins would simply provide a menu allowing players to pick their reward (gold/item in L1, gold/item/allies in L2/L3). Then players would select what they most need (without knowing the specific item or ally they were getting) based on their current situation. Then you'd be able to easily see what was chosen when. My guess is it would be 90% gold/10% items in turns 1-15 and changing toward more items in the later turns (or on rich maps items might be chosen earlier) in which case the percentages of gold/items/allies could be adjusted accordingly. Since that's unlikely to happen I merely suggest weighting ruin rewards toward gold in the initial game setup and then weight it more toward items on the respawn. Seems like a win-win situation.

KGB

[Moonknight]

I myself am a huge fan of items and want to see more of them.

I think the following would make game-play better for everyone's preferences in regards to items:

1. Ability to sell items an any city.

2. Ability to vector an item from one city to another.

3. Create a merchant shop which can be added to maps where heroes can purchase/sell items (randomly populated with three choices, only level 1 items the first 10 turns, add in higher level items as turns go on from there, I'm sure KGB could find a good mix and cost of items that can balance this out ). It worked well in Zelda!

4. Get rid of Weapon and Shield slots and instead, just have left-hand and right-hand. So then you have Head, Chest, Left Hand, Right Hand, Jewelry, and Pouch slots.

1, 2, and 4 help with items not needed or duplicate item slots, which is what I run into often. Seems like i always get two of the same kind, helmets, shields, weapons, and my ruin searching hero can't catch up with my war engaging heroes.

I know some of these have been mentioned by many others, let's get it done!

[KGB]

Moonknight,

1. Ability to sell items an any city.

Yes please!

2. Ability to vector an item from one city to another.

No. Not unless you are also going to allow vectoring of armies from one city to another. By that I mean armies that are already on the map rather than new production. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense to vector one and not the other.

3. Create a merchant shop which can be added to maps where heroes can purchase/sell items (randomly populated with three choices, only level 1 items the first 10 turns, add in higher level items as turns go on from there, I'm sure KGB could find a good mix and cost of items that can balance this out ). It worked well in Zelda!

Isn't this just a special case of #1? If you can already sell any item in a city then why do we need merchant shop buildings. It's far simpler (ie no new graphics or special rules for a new building) to just allow buying/selling of items in any city. You can sell any item in any city. But buying should be based on city income (more prosperous cities have better items for sale). <10 gold = no items for sale. 11-30 gold = L1 items. 31-79 = L1-2 items. 80+=L1-3 items. This means that only capitols offer L3 items or special cities that map makers designate with very high income because the random map income does not create 80+ gold income cities. Of course to prevent a rush on the 'best of items' you'll have to allow duplicate items to be sold.

4. Get rid of Weapon and Shield slots and instead, just have left-hand and right-hand. So then you have Head, Chest, Left Hand, Right Hand, Jewelry, and Pouch slots.

Yes. But I think it should be 5 slots instead of 6.
Head (Helmets/Crowns/Masks/Necklaces/Medallions)
Body (Armor/Belts/Cloaks)
Feet (Boots)
Left Hand (Ring/Weapon/Shield/Orb/Book/Potion)
Right Hand (Ring/Weapon/Orb/Potion/Book) - no shield as main hand is meant for combat as dual shield makes no sense but dual weapon is OK

KGB

[Moonknight]

See, you have all the answers!

I wouldn't want a level 3 ruin available for purchase on the first turn in the Capital though (or maybe it would be so expensive that it wouldn't matter).

I don't like the idea of duplicate items...although a solution could be standard level 1, 2, and 3 items be made and named so that they'd make sense to be duplicated and only those would be available in the cities (or rename some of the current items like Sir Valor to the Royal Helmet, Balin's Protector to the Viking's Protector, so on and so forth).

This would then make finding the more unique items still fun for ruin hunting.

[kenc80]

meh, a rich, fat city-squatting hero should not be able to buy L3 items. Think of High Seas Combat - think of the guy burning turns and putting himself at risk to reach the L3s. A guy camping in his cap should not be able to get elite swag.

[tabanli]

I like the idea of selling the items. L1 items should bring 200-300. So if you don't like the item from the ruin, you will get at least half back. So if one player gets gold and the other gets a useless item from the first ruin, at least it won't tip the balance too much.

Buying would be tricky. If there are items at ruins, you can't buy them. And from the list of available items, you can figure out the items at ruins. You may also figure out the items that your opponent bought. It just adds one more thing to check for pro-players every turn and one more handicap for new players. Also value of some of the items depends on the map and how are we going to adjust it?

[KGB]

There are a couple of approaches that can be used for buying and selling of items.

First and foremost is establishing a base cost for L1, L2 and L3 items. Lets say that cost is 500, 1000 and 1500 gold. Then the sell value should be .5x the base cost or 250, 500, 750 gold. The buy cost should be 1.5x the base item cost or 750, 1500, 2250. That alone will ensure not too many items will be bought regardless of how rich some hero might be.

After there are 2 ways to deal with buying items.

1) Use Moonknights suggestion of 3-4 generic items at L1, L2 and L3. Those are the only items than can be bought because there can be multiples of them. These generic items would be slightly inferior to the 'one of a kind' items. So for example at L1 we have Sir Valor giving +3 defensive leadership then a generic equivalent would give +2 defensive leadership.

2) Only allow 3 items per turn to be bought (1 of each level). That way you can't figure out the list of items in ruins (as Tabanli pointed out) and it prevents cherry picking the best items because you'll potentially have to wait several turns if you are looking for a specific item.

Personally I think Moonknights idea works best because it means the items in ruins are always better than what you can buy so there is incentive to get out there and find them as Ken notes.

KGB

[tabanli]

I have duplicate items in one of my games and I am wondering if that's normal. Game number is 40651 and the item is Agat's Soul Cage. Two of my heroes has the same item.The second item came from a re-spawned ruin, so it could be a bug or glitch.