Production Screen Shots

[KGB]

Piranha,

A few observations after looking at today's (May 2nd) screen shots on the production screen:

1) It appears that you've junked the current battle system (D20) for a new one using D100. That's because all the units appear to have had their strengths (crossed swords) multiplied by 5. Are you envisioning using actual values between increments of 5 in Beta4? Also, for us old school players, can we have an option to continue to have the numbers displayed in their traditional values (divide by 5, with decimal points as appropriate). That will definitely help players who are much more familiar with War1/War2/DLR identify easier with the units.

2) With regards to the pillage percentage. When you say the Crow has only 5% do you mean 5% total or 5% of 40% which is 2%? Just curious as to whether you mean units now have a pillage value from 1-40% or not. Personally, I think 40% is low and that you should be using 50% to get more money into the game.

3) With regards to the icons. Not all are clear, can you explain some of them:

A) Running Man = movement (would prefer the move path icon on the map)
B) Crossed Swords = combat value
C) Hourglass = build time
D) Eye = FOW view radius
E) Brown Symbol (45 next to it) = ?
F) Gold Crown = upkeep (should be pile of coins)
G) Heart = hits?
I) Single Sword = Defense value?
J) Hills Symbol = ? - what's the 10 for
K) Hammer = ?
L) Pile of Coins = Production Cost (would prefer this be upkeep and the hammer symbol be used to indicate production cost)

4) DLR had no counter to Swarm/Banding either. So it was powerful. But at the same time if you make sure to limit how much Swarm/Banding you can get it keeps the skill in check. Incidentally, DLR gave +0 bonus for 1 unit, +1 for 2 units and +2 for 3 units etc. You probably shouldn't give any bonus until there are 2 or more identical units.

KGB

P.S. Happy to get the ridge terrain back.

[piranha]

1. Yes we decided to do that. It will be easier to balance some bonuses and items, I think it will turn out pretty good. I know many old school players will feel out of place. We are also translating it to beta3 numbers to know how good something is, but with some time given I think we will all get used to it.

2. Ah my lousy explanations again . (enemy gold / enemy city count) * plunder percentage. So (1000 gold / 10 cities) * 0.05 = 5 gold when capturing with a crow. But the dwarf on the fight order image have plunder 45% so he would get 45 gold. Units can have between 1% and 100% plunder. Some units will have more than 40% (which all units had in beta3) and heroes will be able to upgrade this value. There will be more money in the game in beta4 since you will be able to upgrade townhall like you can with city wall to increase income. There will probably be some pre beta4 balancing like we did with beta3 to fine tune some of that stuff.

3. E = plunder percentage. The icon is a sack with some gold in it. G = Hits yes, I = +battle when attacking, J = +10 battle when fighting in hill terrain, K = unit with hammer symbol can construct defense towers, L Yes production cost.

4. In fact that was how I made the swarm at first, but then I thought it will be easier to calculate it if you just divide the bonus value with the number of units so I think I will keep it like that. Should be easy to get used to for anyone who are used to the other way around. Since we have increased the D20 to D100 we can have smaller bonus increments per extra unit that join the swarm so the swarm bonus can be given to weaker units as well.

[KGB]

Piranha,

My only comment regarding re-doing the battle system has to do with balance and time between beta's. A new combat system is going to in all likelihood unbalance several things. Especially since this is a big change in features (addition of items, redo of hero skills, new units, new unit skills, towers/city upgrades etc) and now on top of that a new battle system. So my suggestion would be to have Beta5 come *really* soon after Beta4. As in 1-3 months and be just bug fixes/balance issues. Then you can plan on Beta6 having actual new game features because a lot of the issues in Beta3 that are annoying (pathfinding, ports) or unbalancing (hero offers, XP awards) could have been fixed with a quick 3.5 patch allowing for far better feedback for Beta4.

As far as needing to multiply everything by 5, I guess I'll have to see. At the moment I can't see how the addition of 1% or 2% to a unit is going to be useful in any way in terms of adding something to the combat mechanics versus the added complexity of players trying to figure out if this bonus is 'worth it' or not. This is another reason for a quick Beta5 patch (or a 4.5) for anything that's too good/bad.

So then if read the Dwarf right, he's a base 3 strength (15), +2 (10) in the hills and +1/2 (5) when attacking making him a 5.5 attacking on hills, a 5 defending on hills, a 3.5 attacking anywhere but hills and 3 defending anywhere but hills? I can see how this is going to get really confusing for players as they won't be able to easily see the values of their stacks of units due to all the combination's of bonus's or even know if a Dwarf is worth investing in. And then the immediate question is why is there not a defense bonus when defending if you are going to a D100 system. That would seem to be exactly what Pikemen are made for. Of course that's another level of complexity and another symbol you need.


Any idea on the time line for Beta4 to be released. I know you mentioned June before. Right now I'm winding up as many Beta3 games as I can by either resigning or rushing to finish them so that I'm not carrying a bunch of useless games over to Beta4.

KGB

[piranha]

Yes we agree with you on this. Beta5 will be a fast beta with few features. I think it could be possible to do pre beta testing end of may / early june if everything goes well now. We had pretty good progress the last weeks.

About the dwarf, you are right except he is +1 when attacking (5 = 1). We are only listing the bonuses a unit have because there are so may bonuses now, thats why defense is not listed. The dwarf is basically the same as before when attacking but 1 str weaker when defending.

The pike man is currently Str 3 +3 in open terrain so the same in open terrain.

I think we will have to adjust things after playing some pre beta but its hard to know for sure right now with all the changes. In general 1 turners are slightly weaker in than in beta3.

[KGB]

Piranha,

Glad to hear you are making great progress. Drop me a message when you are ready to do some pre-testing.

Since there are so many bonus's now I hope you are going to have a stack menu like War2/DLR did that shows all the units in the stack along with the bonus's they are getting. Ideally both attack and defense numbers to help players. I also hope that the battle system shows the true numbers for both sides on the battle screen because of all the confusion there has been in Beta2/Beta3 over what players see.

I think your Pikeman change is a good one as it makes him slightly weaker but still powerful in the open. I hope his cost was reduced to reflect this change.

KGB

[KGB]

Piranha,

Another thought crossed my mind as I was looking at the screen shots again.

It would be much simpler to change from having a base combat value with a '+X when attacking' and '+X when defending bonus' to simply have 2 combat values for every unit. An attack value and and defense value. That would be more in keeping in line with traditional board based wargames (those old hex counter ones).

It also makes it easier for players because they see 2 combat values for a unit. Attack and Defense. They don't have to deal with 3 numbers (base, attack bonus, defense bonus) and do some adding to compute the combat value for the unit. It also means you can drop 2 bonus's (+X when attacking and +X when defending) from the list of bonus's that players need to keep track off. All in all it should make things much simpler and easier to understand.

You can list the values as:
Unit Name X/Y - where X = attack value, Y = defend value

Example:
Hv Cavalry 30/25 (30 = attack value, 25 = defend value)
Pikeman 10/20 (10 = attack value, 20 = defend value)
Light Infantry 10/10 (10 = attack value, 20 = defend value)

I think this helps players visualize what you are trying to do because most players would understand that cavalry are better when attacking and Pikemen are better when defending.

KGB

Note: You still have terrain bonus's added to these combat values.

[kenc80]

May I comment and say that these changes on the numbering system for attack and defense will make it even more important that we have a description of each unit and the bonuses for everyone in the warpedia? We've GOT to have that or people will be even more lost.

Just yesterday I made a mistake with a demon that cost me my strongest hero. It was a dumb mistake but it will be even more important to have that in beta 4.


BTW the screen shots look great! I am a little worried about the new system and if its too complex but im looking forward to trying it!

[piranha]

KGB

Yes we will probably post something in the forum and ask all mapmakers to try beta4 so they can update their maps and balance the map with the new features.

How do you think anti air should be listed in battle, the bonus is only active vs flying enemies. When mouse over on units, should it state anti air there as if the elf have it all the time?

We have also talked a bit about separating base into att / def. It will probably require a bit more work than it seems at first so I think it will be in the next beta. But should be a good update.

**edit** Now that I'm thinking about the att / def thing we might as well squeeze that into B4.

Kenc80
The warpedia is updated with text and data about each unit. I'm not entirely done yet since there are balance changes coming but the warpedia will be much better and you read it in the community part of the site too. I'm sure there will be some bad spelling and funny grammar though.

I think that as long as the game follow a logic, that things work as people expect it can be a bit complicated when it comes to bonuses, at least that is my experience from other strategy games. We have done a some changes with this in mind for beta4. Games back in the 90ties all had their own logic and unique interface that we had to figure out by testing and trying. Most modern strategy games follow a kind of formula so we are trying to adjust some things a bit towards that formula while still keeping the game the same.

[KGB]

Piranha,

How do you think anti air should be listed in battle, the bonus is only active vs flying enemies. When mouse over on units, should it state anti air there as if the elf have it all the time?

You mean in the combat screen itself during combat? Units there (both sides) should just display their final strengths after all bonus's (hero, stack, terrain, city walls, blessings etc) are factored in.

The Anti-air bonus wasn't displayed in DLR during combat. It's a situational bonus. So it's possible what I'd recommend is that when a unit with anti-air (Elf, Wizard, Eagle) faces a flier that you change the combat value (adding 3 to it) and color it red (instead of the default black). That will be a nice visual indication that the bonus was factored in correctly. Then change it back and color it back to black when the unit stops facing a flier.

That way players can replay battles if the red blinks past too fast and they want to see what happened.

We have also talked a bit about separating base into att / def. It will probably require a bit more work than it seems at first so I think it will be in the next beta. But should be a good update.

**edit** Now that I'm thinking about the att / def thing we might as well squeeze that into B4.

I hope you manage to do this. Doesn't seem like it would be a whole lot of work and getting rid of 2 bonus's in the descriptions + on the unit screen seem worth it for simplification purposes.

The warpedia is updated with text and data about each unit. I'm not entirely done yet since there are balance changes coming but the warpedia will be much better and you read it in the community part of the site too. I'm sure there will be some bad spelling and funny grammar though.

I wouldn't worry about spelling/grammar. You can always make it more like a Wikipedia where you can grant some players the ability to edit and correct your spelling/grammar.

I think that as long as the game follow a logic, that things work as people expect it can be a bit complicated when it comes to bonuses, at least that is my experience from other strategy games.

I agree. As long as there is a good description preferably with examples to help new players.

The other thing is to make sure you display the actual values in combat for both sides to lessen confusion. You are already showing all the bonus's now which is good. Just need to show individual terrain bonus's (maybe a mouse over) and anything else you aren't currently doing (I think the enemy values aren't always correct or are they now?). At some point it might be nice to have a mouse over ability on the combat screen for each unit to show everything that went into the calculation for that unit.

I think KenC80 is mostly worried about pure War2 players or casual players having trouble with a more complex system. Players of DLR/War4/Age of Wonders or other similar strategy games won't have many problems.

KGB

[ezras]

I also worry about the complexity of the next beta. I and many I know love Warlords and Warlords2, not any of the predecessors because simple is beautiful and the success of the first two games are a testament to that. Adding more features is great but is it absolutely necessary? I suppose as long as a user doesn't have pay too much attention to the features and can just play easily it will all work out. Anyway thanks again to all that you developers do.