Mining into problems - Pre game "boredom"

[Stratego (dev)]

i read an article (link) about RTS games and some points are really true for our AO* TBS games.

eg this:

RTS games overall use the same gameplay loop as RTS games in that the player starts off and slowly powers up before maxing out and ending. The difference is that the RPG does this over many hours of gameplay while the RTS does this over a much shorter period of time. The result is that the RTS loop burns the player out as after going through the gameplay loop for a couple matches it is easy for the player to get bored as they feel like they are constantly starting over again.

Actually i (by instinct) tried to remove most economics and unnecessary logistics from the game, to speed up this "build-up" of the game starts.
Also having possiblity for "ready" armies to use in campaigns and also in multiplyer on "multiplayer scenario" maps.

so here the questions is: do we eliminated this problem already - or there are still ideas to improve?

[b2198]

One thing I think could help a lot for improving this would be the already discussed Age Techs, since that would reduce significantly total research time in each match, but at least to me I like how the game is currently, and wouldn't say this is a big issue right now. I don't think this problem can be 100% eliminated in any game, but in the current state of things, I'd say it's not significant enough to demand an urgent change.

There might be many that disagree though.

[Stratego (dev)]

thanks!

since that would reduce significantly total research time in each match

but how? i dont understand. how this reduces any time? i feel it is an "extra" time to advance than current.

[b2198]

but how? i dont understand. how this reduces any time? i feel it is an "extra" time to advance than current.

In the original idea, they would grant a bunch of other techs from 1 or 2 ages below the current one when researched. That would mean you only have to research the ones you need the most and them just go to the next age and you won't be that far behind in the others afterwards.

[Stratego (dev)]

oh, i see!

[Endru1241]

I second the opinion, that Age techs are best solution to this.
And basically it's only an extension of "all techs" idea in more structured way.
To bring Age techs into the game absolutely needed is:
- making age selection in game creation screen
- adding to tech (or more generally to unit) some parameter like grantsTechs, which would accept list of techs id immediately added on unit creation (tech research).

To make things more interesting:
- there could be a mechanism to remove the techs upon last unit of that type removal (it could then allow buildings with global bonuses)
- OR conditional in tech perquisites (unit more generally)

[Lucifer]

This is an interesting issue. I think we avoid this issue somewhat by having different maps and different races, so its not as repetitive.
However, we can always improve and add more gameplay variety. I can think of the following ideas:

A Fast growth stage
Something that can be enabled in map creation. For example,
Fast growth: OFF/ 10 turns / 20 turns
When enabled, on your first turn, you can play 10 turns back to back. You end one turn, the next one immediately starts for you.
To prevent players from rushing the whole map and gaining unjust advantage, all player units will have a "Growth phase" status for the 10 turns, during which they have 0 movement. So you can do things like,
- Spend 10 turns researching techs and upgrading unit tiers.
- Spend 10 turns researching subfactions like Imperials or Warfell to get that out of the way.
- Spend 10 turns creating elite units to rush when game starts. For example, creating a few knights for when the game starts.

FAQ: You might think this gives unjust advantage to the player who goes first. But that's not the case. 10 turns is a good advantage to prepare a counterattack. For example, if you see the orc player go first and build 2 troll huts, you can build archery ranges and train fire archers, countering the trolls when the game begins. of course, both first and second player have their set of advantages.

A player's Avatar
Let each player choose an "Avatar" unit. This could be either in a profile menu, universally, or at the start of each match - in a little dropdown similar to the Color dropdown. It displays all 3 turns or less cost units of your chosen race, and you can choose one.

For example, my avatar could be a Necromancer. When the game starts, I start with this unit (bonus points if we can edit the name of this unit dynamically, for example, naming it "vulkan" for me). This unlocks a lot of possibilities:

- Letting players customize their start. For example, someone can choose their avatar to be a cavalry for rushing, or a summoner for offence, or a shielder for defence, etc. We can even let players choose from custom art if that becomes technically possible!
Imagine the roleplay we can do by actually having an avatar in game.
- This lets you set an alternate win condition. Kill the avatar, win the game. This not only prevents the end game drag, it also discourages rush units like light cavalry as your avatar, as they are more likely to get killed. You can rush fast, but at high risk.
- Adds a lot more variety in the game, as you are no longer limited to worker only start. For many races, the start is always the same. In a 5 player game, for example, you are spending few weeks IRL just completing your first building.

[Stratego (dev)]

Both ideas are awesome!

the avatar thing i like best!
maybe those "frequently used" avatars could appear on main menu too as game avatar.
you can have a couple for different race or different strategy and you can customize them somehow, with existing skins naturally and maybe also with some cutom additions?

maybe some pixel weapons/wearables can be attached? (from a library) - maybe those attachable items can be found on maps randomly? and maybe traded?
(i wrote somewhere similar avatar+items idea)
- maybe items could have an image / or animated image (like a flaming sword)
- those items can be freely placed on avatar unit (anywhere player wants - with these same sword can be used on more units that has their hands in different positions), also they can be freely rotated and flipped? not sure these needed - however flipping definitely if unit faces other direction by default.

just thoughts...

[Lucifer]

maybe those "frequently used" avatars could appear on main menu too as game avatar.
you can have a couple for different race or different strategy and you can customize them somehow, with existing skins naturally and maybe also with some cutom additions?

Yes, the frequently used avatar is a great idea. We could also do something like,
"Custom avatar art": You can upload a pixel art, or buy from a community made market (like custom maps market). This art will be applied to whatever avatar unit you use. So whether you use a necromancer or mummy, art wise it will always be your custom art. So everyone can have their unique avatar, but its stats will be limited to in-game units.

maybe some pixel weapons/wearables can be attached? (from a library) - maybe those attachable items can be found on maps randomly? and maybe traded?
(i wrote somewhere similar avatar+items idea)
- maybe items could have an image / or animated image (like a flaming sword)
- those items can be freely placed on avatar unit (anywhere player wants - with these same sword can be used on more units that has their hands in different positions), also they can be freely rotated and flipped? not sure these needed - however flipping definitely if unit faces other direction by default.

I'm not sure how technically possible the art side of things will be. I'll leave that to people more competent in that area.
However, we could make new avatars, or skins, be found in chests in the game. Any chest has a % chance of having a new skin when broken. Maybe 5% in single player, and 10% in multiplayer.

[Stratego (dev)]

""Custom avatar art" that is dangerous:
1. can be obscene or profane
2. can use not fitting to game apperance that we dont want - eg. we dont want a bunny avatar in WW2 game.

[Lucifer]

""Custom avatar art" that is dangerous:
1. can be obscene or profane
2. can use not fitting to game apperance that we dont want - eg. we dont want a bunny avatar in WW2 game.

In that case, it can be more curated. ie people in the discord server can make art and send them to Mak, or Sunrise, etc, and presumably those people can say "yeah this should be fine" or otherwise. Seeing as we already have loads of "personal" art - units named after the designers, like the ayush tiwari unit, or sunrise samurai unit, or dejade unit, etc.
All the curated art will be available in the market from where any player can "buy" (if you want them to have gold cost).

[Stratego (dev)]

""Custom avatar art" that is dangerous:
1. can be obscene or profane
2. can use not fitting to game apperance that we dont want - eg. we dont want a bunny avatar in WW2 game.

In that case, it can be more curated. ie people in the discord server can make art and send them to Mak, or Sunrise, etc, and presumably those people can say "yeah this should be fine" or otherwise. Seeing as we already have loads of "personal" art - units named after the designers, like the ayush tiwari unit, or sunrise samurai unit, or dejade unit, etc.
All the curated art will be available in the market from where any player can "buy" (if you want them to have gold cost).

ok... but how will they handle thousands of images to check?
and mulytiple per player so even much more

[Lucifer]

ok... but how will they handle thousands of images to check?
and mulytiple per player so even much more

I don't believe it'll be a thousand. Making art is hard, and over the years we have what, 10-20 custom units in the game? Statistically, the discord server has <500 members. Less than half are active. Less than half of those would want to make art, and less than half would actually be able to.

I think we'll get anywhere between 10-50 entries in the beginning, and a smaller but constant stream into the future.

Proof: You can make an announcement in the server asking "If you had the chance to get a custom hero/avatar unit in the game, would you make art for it?" and see how many people volunteer. It'll be a good experiment to judge the popularity of avatars.

[Stratego (dev)]

actually i disagree here,
if player dont need to post it on a forum, emberrass themselves if that is not that nice - just simply editing in game an image and pressing a button - what behind the scenes will go to someone to accept it - they will do it, always and many many units per player!
and much bigger rate than the AOS map market maps are made and those are also uncontrollable - even when i made the "if one is accepted you can post the next only" option.
I did not even dared to turn on map market in other alternatives (however it would be only setting a boolean to true and would work) because even AOS market is uncontrollable and i practically stopped reviewing that many many maps they sent me (and again 1 player was able to send only 1 map!)

so believe me even tenth of thousands of images would flood in to be checked in about 1-2 months or so.


"making art": they mostly will no make "art", 80% of those images will be not acceptable things OR simply copies of the existing units and a few extra pixels (these would be mostly acceptable tough) - but the point these would be 5-10 minute changes such.
maybe i am pessimistic but seeing the maps sent in to market many many is not so acceptable, and there the "tiles" are given so hard to make "ugly" or unusable things in mapeditor - and they still can!

but again maybe i am pessimistic, but i am sure a big "moderator" base weould be needed, and a system where in a glance many many units can be accepted easily - so it need implemented an intreface for the modders.

[Stratego (dev)]

wait you wrote the discord: the playerbase if much much bigger than the discord, fractions of players come to discord.
also i imagined the whole not related to discord - but a builtin editor for units (i opened already a topic about a unit editor)
- and this is very similar.

but i still think it is doable, but that needs many granted player to accept images, and needs a systems (probably ingame) where it is easy to accept / reject and feedback to players about the problems.

imho.

[Lucifer]

Maybe it can be something unlocked via some achievement? for example, win 100 multiplayer matches to unlock it. Then you can upload a pixel art to send for review, and if accepted, its added to the market.
That way, you're encouraging players to play multiplayer, and also reducing the number of entries by a ton. It also provides a fun goal for regular players.

[Stratego (dev)]

good idea!

[TntAttack]

""Custom avatar art" that is dangerous:
1. can be obscene or profane
2. can use not fitting to game apperance that we dont want - eg. we dont want a bunny avatar in WW2 game.

Moderators are the answer. I agree with Vulkan.

Can we rename this concept to a hero unit art instead of Avatar art?

Hero units do sound awesome. For Aoww if we could just start with those "general" units instead of making them in tcs that would be better.

(Perhaps consider bluffing them more to make their presence felt at least in the early game. Might curb the early game boredom)

Please please for the... Dev, please make a moderation team for the maps market. Such a wasted opportunity, to capitalise on the player's creativity and add more to the game.

[Stratego (dev)]

any idea how to "make" a moderator team?

[Lucifer]

any idea how to "make" a moderator team?

We can just ask for volunteers on the discord server. Then create a new channel accessible only by the "Art moderator" role, where you can dump uploaded art every week or two, and those people can upvote/downvote each art. Should be pretty straightforward, in theory.

[Stratego (dev)]

i would rather make a in-game modul a view for them to accept those images- i think more worthy than manual dropping.

but how you "test" the moderators themselves?

[TntAttack]

i would rather make a in-game modul a view for them to accept those images- i think more worthy than manual dropping.

but how you "test" the moderators themselves?

My suggestion.

In or before the interface for the map market, make a button called Map Moderation.

Moderator logins. Could be via separate moderator account or using normal player account.

List of maps separated by categories. Moderate picks a map, and tests it. He presses on the forms button somewhere and a google forms opens with questions about the map and he fills it out.

Above the Map Moderation button lies the Moderated Maps button.

Here all moderated maps are displaced. Normal players can access this button as well. Here everyone can see the moderation process so it's transparent.

The higher moderators can operate here. They have to power to push the moderated map to the dev or send it back to t
"Map Moderation" for another moderator to check.

This way we can have some basic form of peer checking. The more controverial a map is, the more likely more moderators will have to check it before it leaves the Moderated Map list.

[Stratego (dev)]

we have such moderation option already in game for MAPS
we lack of map moderators who "knows" how to moderate, what to check.

but this idea was about unit images.