Eye of KGB in Team Play...

[tabanli]

Number of allies should be increased in that case. Be cause I can accept 1 Ghost, Wizard or Unicorn instead of 1000 gold as long as it is free and I have no risk of being slain. If there will be fight and risk, than there should be more allies.

[KGB]

Or weaker Guardians on ruins containing allies. The game just needs something to discourage looting of L2/L3 ally ruins with L2/L3 heroes (Valk, Barb, DK etc) who would otherwise never dare risk a ruin. 1 Mummy on L2 ruins with allies and 1 Vampire on L3 ruins with allies ought to keep the riffraff out

KGB

[Moonknight]

1 Mummy on L2 ruins with allies and 1 Vampire on L3 ruins with allies ought to keep the riffraff out

KGB

Sounds like a solid plan to me...

[Chazar]

I don't like the idea that the ruin reward may influence the ruin guardians: it is a very fine grained and very special rule.

Only expert players can take advantage of such odd speciality rules (and they will take advantage), but everyone else, especially beginners are kept out. Keeping it simple is usually a good idea, also from the viewpoint of coding.

Increasing the number of allies is one possibility, another one is changing the guardians for all ruins. I believe the rounding error problem with skeletons is not yet fixed, is it?

How about mixing the undead types with a formula like this:
L1: 1-2 Ghouls + 0-2 Skeletons
L2: 1-2 Mummies + 0-3 Ghouls + 1-3 Skeletons
L3: 1-2 Vampires + 0-3 Mummies + 1-3 Ghouls
(or in D&D terms, an L3 contains 1D2 Vampires and (1D4)-1 Mummies and 1D3 Ghouls.)

So all L1 ruins contain at least one Ghoul, all L2 at least one Mummy, all L3 at least one Vampire.
This also fixes the issue with rounding (there is always a Ghoul with its Protection-from-rounding-errors ability). Formula like these are also easier to explain, instead of the complicated-looking probability tables that we have now (which are fine for me, but which may put of beginners at first glance).

It might also be quite exciting to watch the ruin battle when your hero enters and first easily defeats 2 Skeletons, then bravely bests 3 Ghouls (but loosing a hitpoint) and eventually dies against the single Mummy remaining. With the current system, the tension is immediately relieved for me if I see the undead type.

[KGB]

Chazar,

I am pretty sure the rounding error is not fixed yet. I hope it will be in 0.92 which will be released shortly.

If we are going to switch to an AD&D style formula then the formula has to change based on the reward type. Right now the rewards (gold/items/allies) are not close to being equal in value. So the lesser reward types (items, allies) should have a lesser formula of guardians.

For example:
L1: Gold Reward: 1-2 Ghouls + 0-2 Skeletons. Item Reward: 0-1 Ghouls + 0-2 Skeletons (with a min of 1 undead unit)
L2: Gold Reward: 1-2 Mummies + 0-3 Ghouls + 1-3 Skeletons. Item/Ally Reward: 0-1 Mummies + 0-2 Ghouls + 1-3 Skeletons (with a min of 1 undead unit)

and so on for L3. That way lesser reward types are easier to obtain.

KGB

[Chazar]

Well, if the Gold reward is so much more valuable than anything else, then wouldn't it be a lot easier to just reduce Gold rewards further?

For my taste, Gold rewards are still too high/powerful in any way; especially since high-level heroes can be easily bought.

Thy Eye of KGB will always be problematic on large maps and team battles, If the reward types differ so greatly in usefulness regardless of circumstances. The Eye of KGB should provide help in context of your specific circumstances, but not just because reward type X is clearly always inferior. For example, I can imagine the Eye to determine the actual item or maybe the item type: if my hero already has a helmet, then I might skip that ruin or not. That is a decision a player has to take depending on the circumstances in a particular game. If a reward type is _always_ so bad you never want it, then the rewards need adjustment.

[KGB]

Chazar,

I think the current gold rewards are fine. If anything they might be too low (being able to sell items in the future will help with that). On a lot of maps the gold income is low/very low. On those maps the luck of the ruin rewards is WAY out of proportion compared to average/high/very high gold maps. In the game gold dictates everything you can do strategically (upgrade/rebuild cities, build towers, buy production, self raze, upgrade boats, buy heroes etc). So the lower the gold, the less strategic the game is because it simply becomes a city race + luck of found production. The more gold in play for players, the more you can do something to strategically differentiate your play from your opponents.

I do not think the Eye of KGB should show the specific reward (helmet or type of helmet or type of ally). That makes it WAY too good for a L1 item and makes it even easier to bypass ruins to find something specific. A L2 or L3 item can be created to show that level of detail if players think it's needed (I personally don't). Also, no reward is ever *that* bad but many rewards only have value at certain points in the game (ex. defensive items are only needed if you are playing defense) whereas gold always has value (again, selling items will help this).

KGB

[Chazar]

I already wrote before that I believe that it should remain to be the map maker's choice whether a map is rich or poor. I don't like selling items to non-players either, but this is the topic of another ongoing thread.

I believe it to be a good rule of thumb in game design to have as few special rules as necessary. Therefore I object against ruin guardians being based on the reward contained therein.

Reducing the variance in possible ruin guardians seems also good to me (avoiding exploits with units like the Eye), hence the suggestion to have mixed ruin defenders, as just facing 8 ghouls in an L3 is rather boring.

I don't think that it is strictly necessary to have all rewards being of similar value, but note that instead of decreasing gold rewards again, one could equally increase the gold in the gold+item rewards and the number of allies provided to make the ruin rewards level.

[SnotlinG]

To keep the game "simple/streamlined" we are going to add standard undead guardians to all ruins, i.e. no difference in guardians depending on the reward.
Possible we might increase number of allies slightly for the not-so-good allies.

Do you all think amount of gold should be increased for the ruins which contain item+gold?
Also, some ruins only contain an item, so wouldnt they be even worse compared then?

[Chazar]

I would reduce the rewards to two possible types: gold+item and gold+allies only
Then I do no longer care for amount of gold for either, but I guess it should be the same.