So BB want our views on combat systems...
S4 by far the best in all ways in my book. Combat and otherwise. If only it would work on Windows 7!
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So BB want our views on combat systems...
S4 by far the best in all ways in my book. Combat and otherwise. If only it would work on Windows 7!
I writed in fb, but i write it here too...
Well, seems we can't give feedback on survey, so I give my own opinion here. I like Travian battle system, but it's only useful for pvp. You have different types of units, that also march with difference time. With those units, you can scout, make fake attacks, suicidal attacks, raid force or even chance to conquer another villages -> Force to you make choices. In settler, most of players will calculate battles in combat and use blocks, probably because they want minimal losses in adventures, so they can get optimal loot from adventure. Why anyone want to waste 3k recruits to adventure, since you can win it with 1k recruits and you can get same loot? Problem in this method is, that players won't think itself. They watch, "Oh there is guide for me, I try that". We guide creators have forced to calculate battles and choose right units(of course we stop, when we find optimal losses), but those how read our guides, will not learn, why? They don't need to. Edit. Only challenge right now is, that you need to watch game lag, so your blocks, will succeed.
The survey, in my opinion did not really seem to offer avenues for real suggestions...
I might have liked Travian ages ago, might have rated it higher than another suggestion, that does not mean I want TSO to become like Travian or any other game.
The only 'future combat possibilities' question seemed to give just horrible options:
Stay the same.
Change some basic troop characteristics
Allow changes to troop formation, changes to attack priorites etc
Micro manage every single battle by allowing full control of every little trooper
None of which seem to offer a realistic and playable PvP environment or even a better PvE experience.
I hope BB aren't going to totally change the existing system.
Surely the introduction of Military Skill Trees for generals (which should have been referenced in the above question) should allow enough extra 'variety' to the combat to make PvP feasible without having to change things like suggested.
I see people want to give feedback on the survey, so I "upgraded" this to a feedback thread.
I think there is an issue with question 1 on the survey - "how many times do you log in a week?" The options only went up to 7 but i have to log and re-log about 500 times a week :(
Without needing huge changes, I'll just repeat my suggestion I've made before and will keep making again: create adventure or two where all camps are on semi-random locations, containing semi-random amount of troops. In other words, adventure that is never the same, where needed troops are always different, camp placements always different, blocks always different, even the route to choose always different. Adventure that you can't just follow a guide blindly. Adventure that would be a challenge for your brain, not a challenge of producing 5000 troops that a guide calls for. I'm not saying every adventure should be like that. Lot of people like their guided tours and that's all fine. I just want an option for those of us who prefer facing something unexpected every time. It would be the way to increase adventure difficulty without making it just too expensive to be worth doing at all. We have too many adventures like that already.
Feedback on your combat survey:
There is no planning before combat, consideration of strategies, etc. Most players, probably nearly all above a certain level, are using guides. There are at least 3 very important reasons for this:
1. Failure results in large losses, which means a huge waste of resources and a lot of time wasted to make new military units.
2, There's no good way to determine which units to send. You *can* add random units to your garrison and do a test, but this would mostly be fumbling in the dark, with (for most players) a pretty small chance on finding what's the optimal combination.
3. *If* we were about do do all sorts of test before sending the units against an enemy, it would require a much larger army on an adventure, compared to using a guide. For obvious reasons.
We already know what to do, which units we need, and so on, before we're even starting an adventure. If that wasn't possible to do, I would have left this game a long time ago, because figuring all that out by myself every time I want to do an adventure, would be a nightmare. And don't you dare to change this - if you suddenly make enemy camps random in units amounts and types, adventures would pretty much be ruined, and so would the game be, since we need to succeed on adventures to progress.
Conclusion: your survey is a waste of time, because you ask questions about stuff no one is doing.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Borotaur
Just make sure that BB keep the 'adventure difficulty randomness' within reason, don't want to start an adventure and then find out I haven't got enough of correct troops to complete it. Also maybe randomise the loot more than now, update current possible loot tables on most adventures and spring a few surprises....the 'unknown' factor could make things interesting and fresh
Thus the semi-random. What I'm thinking is that each camp would have a certain area where it's placed to, randomly. And those areas overlap. For the troops, there would be a budget, say a hard camp would have 700-1500 unit points worth of enemies. Which types and how many would be random, as long as their total internal magic value was 700-1500. If you got lucky, it would be 700 points of some easy-to-kill units. Or a really bad setup that'd cost so much you really don't have troops for it, so you'd have to avoid that camp altogether, or train more, or worst case scenario: fail the adventure and hope for better luck next time. Ever failed one? Me neither. Failing isn't a problem if reward matches the risk. Difference is, good player would be able to assess the adventure and choose to abandon it right away, instead of losing a whole army and then failing anyway. Part of difficulty.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlienQueen
The fact that they have put up this survey and the basic kinds of questions it asks shows us that little or no progress on PvP has been made. This survey should have been made when BB first announced that PvP was on the road map a year or so ago.
The most important question was not in the survey imo.
What I feel we need is a degree of randomization in the adventures. Camps should move a little, so that a camp you have to kill one time can be avoided the next time. Also camps should be able to swap positions within a sector in an adventure. That would bring much needed variation to adventures without making it totally unpredictable in regards to what troops you need to complete.
don't think I have done an adventure in weeks, combat really bores me in this game :( Too much micromanagement to build up forces and send attacks and if you don't follow guides or use a calculator then it becomes almost impossible to progress.
But it would make it totally unpredictable in amount of units needed. A lucky positioning of camps may require 500 military units, an unlucky one 2500.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragavon
Preparing for adventures (getting the right type of units, and the right amount, etc) takes a lot of time and resources. Being able to roughly predict the needs beforehand, is (at least for me) the most vital aspect of any adventure.
So NO THANKS to your suggestion. Sorry.
Making camps random would be an complete disaster. Not only for new members but also for hardcore players, Moving camps would be even worse, as all your blocks will have the chance of failing.. which mean that you will suddenly loose your cannons/elites or whatever. What we could use is larger stacks. At this moment preparing for a major adventure is huge hassle. I really really loath the WORK involved with making enough troops for Tailor adventure... Please give me stacks of 100 or 250.
They rarely are ;) I always get the impression, these surveys are not about getting constructive feedback ( You don't really need a `survey' to do that, just get someone to read the forum to understand the player base;) ) They are just there to justify the position ( or not) of decisions already taken.Quote:
The most important question was not in the survey imo.
Any one wanting to seriously improve things in this game with regard to adventure combat, would simply look at what already works and work with those basic setups:
I've already said I disliked the FT adventures as they were too linear, and basically just huge resource sinks. The mini adventures were the for runner to those linear set ups and seemed to be more about bringing the players into line with BB's version of how the adventure system was designed. i.e. Build x amount of units to get x amount of loot, and for more loot you need to build more expensive troops, to build more expensive troops you need bigger economy, which is where they are more focused.
The fact that players made the game better by using blocks and loot spot trading seems to be a thorn in the dev's side, and they have resisted every attempt for players to move the game in that direction. ( maybe because they simply couldn't actually design an adventure with blocks, but could design them that could definitely not use blocks).
My suggestions would simply be:
1. Leave the combat system as is for adventuring but give us more, many more, `open' adventures. Take a look at the adventures that are not popular and rework them, or simply adjust the loot up a little.
2. Add a `Hold the island' scenario to some of the adventures, where some bandit camps respawn, so you have to fight your way back to the landing zone ( The counter attack leaders beach head ) if you want `extra loot' or just leave if you have not got the troops/ don't want the rewards. ( this would allow for reasonable predictable results, and therefore planning using existing guides, whilst supplying variability and new blocking options for the more adventurous ).
3. Work any new combat system towards pvp, so it does not mess ( any further ) with the running of the game.
Agreed 100% the game needs scenarios just like home island has been invaded from sector x.Quote:
Originally Posted by Larili
2 ways I have thought of possibly being able to tweak adventures which I hope would not affect things that much and also be very easy to implement.
1. Random placement of camps. Not random in the proper sense of random but more keeping the camps the same along with the bandit numbers but just shifting them around the map. This way people will still know what the maximum number of troops to make and send to adventure but those who love the challenge of figuring out there own blocks will have to do it every time they start the adventure. obviously on adventures like Witch Of The Swamp the towe will have to remain in the same location.
2. Now this one will be unpopular but more in line of how Blue Byte would want you to adventure. Players only get experience points for the kills they make. Under the current system as long as you defeat a sectors leader camp you get the exp for all camps if you beat them or not. Under the new system if you skip or block camps you get a reduced amount of exp. This way players can decide to chase the loot and speed adventure or chase the experience for leveling purposes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larili
I think we have some wonderfull ideas here....
New adventure, more populars, correct the non-pop adventures, and the most importand...??? Bring battles back to island!!!
Players love the challenges.... the statue those are the 20-30-50 adventures, every time same and same... repeat and repeat and repeat.... it's boring...
Bring some bandits to hit my island.... make differnece new small adve for variaty... make differend combinations.... allow PvP even in neutral zones... like a new adventure... Ok, this not something easy... but if some of those ides become true one way or the other, will bring new interest in the game... :)
Yes, adventures would be a challenge. Will be awful for you thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Mystic
1: it might be a better idea to finish and fix other things before messing up the combat system.
2: BB is incapable of communicating. There are numerous suggestions to decrease amount of clicking for example, but BB doesn't even care to react. And now they pretend they are listening and value our opinions. Ha, what a disaster.
How about the possibility of expanding the home island with PVP in play? Say after battling with another player, you get to control a 'new' island and milk its resources and defend it tooth and nail from other players. Resources of this 'new' island might include granite/titanium/saltpeter mines, with exotic wood trees and castles full of magic beans.
So more you control the island, the more resources you get to ship back to your home island. Just a thought ;)
Random adventures would be harder, but nothing impossible. For two reasons:
1) It would be slightly harder to prepare for the adventure, so you'd be forced to keep a larger army on standby to be prepared for anything. Get your max pop up high enough and this extra difficulty disappears completely. I'm pretty sure 3000+ max pop fits all the K, XB, E, C you might need for any camp, with a vast army of R/B/M as fodder. If adventure has 7-10 days time to complete, you can easily train anything you miss.
2) You can't use guide, so you have to calculate your own blocks and sim your own optimal setups. This is where the real extra difficulty is. Weakest players just send recruits on a hunch and pay the price. Best players know how to calculate perfectly safe blocks and end up saving lot of troops. Rest end up somewhere in between, making mistakes on blocks they thought were safe, suffering unexpected losses. That's real difficulty. Best players get rewarded for the extra skill and effort they put in, keeping them interested in the game. Meanwhile, weakest players might feel this adventure is too difficult for them to handle, so they simply avoid the random adventures. Overall, nobody should be forced to do a random adventure unless they feel it's worth their effort. Calculating the perfect setups and blocks isn't easy even for best players, so adventure should naturally have high rewards to compensate for the effort.
Requiring skill is real difficulty. Requiring you to send 3000R 3000B and 2000M to their deaths in order to beat enemy following a guide where nothing can go wrong is NOT.
I see this more of a game of strategy and economics than domination, you need the correct strategy and economics to succeed, where the games fall massively on its backside is the whole combat senarios.
Giving a "Bandit Leader" 90000 hit points is IMO, preposterous, if you get past the "men/soldiers" protecting him, he isn't going to put up much of a fight against the 42 Cavalry, 53 Soldiers, and 22 longbowmen you have left.
If you must make it harder to get him, then do, but once he is alone, capturing the camp should be piece of cake, a la Settlers I
On another point, how easy would it be once you occupy a zone to get rid of the border bollards between your captured zones, not a biggie, but it does my OCD no good whatsoever.
They wouldn't be more "challenging" than they are today. It just would require more time spent with combat simulators. That's how the vast majority would do them, I guarantee that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragavon
The "challenge", if there would be any, would be to make enough required units after determining what you need, which isn't much of a problem for players with a high lvl barracks and lots of resources, but which could be a disaster for others if the numbers are high and they don't have a high reserve of troops of most kinds.
So no need for that rude elitist tone.
So it would be more challenging to have enough troops to be able to handle any situation. Plus you'd have to sim your own combinations, which isn't a huge challenge, but certainly harder than following a guide, especially when multiple waves are required. The real challenge would be calculating your own blocks. There's no need to dismiss the huge extra challenge that random adventures would bring. We're just asking for an option to have randoms, not to force everyone to do them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafnir
Simple proof of how much more difficult simming and setting up blocks yourself is: even the really good people who make the current guides come up with HUGELY different setups, with HUGE differences in losses. Search for guides for Valiant Little Tailor and you'll find dozen guides where best guide can save thousands of R/B/M over the worst. And this is the difference among the most experienced players, the guide makers. Or look at one of the best players around here, Tage: he recently updated his guide for WotS with more blocks. Why weren't the blocks in the original guide for over a year? Because designing them was not easy and posed a challenge even for Tage.
For a random adventure, I'd prefer something much smaller than Fairy Tale adventures, at least to begin with. If it works well and people like it, then make bigger and harder maps. To me near perfect examples include Horseback and Roaring Bull - on both adventures the choice of attack route plays a very big role, both can be done with several very smart blocks or with brute force. On the other end of the scale, something as linear as Nords would not work that well: even if you randomize the camps a bit, there's barely any choice on route to take. Even then, you'd have more challenge than doing a perfectly identical adventure every time.
It has nothing to do with elitist. I just think some variation would be good for replayability. After doing an adventure a few times today we could just as well assign the troops we would loose to an adventure then click on complete and get our rewards instantly. We know exactly what to expect, and what it will cost us. That is boring.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafnir
Would you like to build a puzzle where each piece is numbered and you just place them in order?
Would you be interested in solving a labyrinth where the route to finish has been already marked?
Would you enjoy knowing the entire plot of a movie from start to finish before watching it?
It is hard for me to understand the opposition many people in this thread have against adding random elements to adventures. Following a step-by-step guide completely defeats the purpose of a game. Even choosing not to use guides won't help avoid the issue. It takes hundreds of adventures to reach lv50, so one is bound to keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Depending on your level and what you like, there's some 10-20 viable adventures to play in TSO. This means you end up playing the same map tens if not hundreds of times. Repeating the identical map over and over would be considered a negative thing in any other game I can think of. So why someone thinks it's desirable in this game is beyond me.
The only remotely acceptable argument I can see is that it would be more difficult. Yes, it most certainly is more difficult to think what the best way to attack is, rather than copy a ready-made solution from a guide. However, the combat system is not actually that complicated in this game if you just bothered to take a moment to understand it. I learned the combat system by watching battle reports and felt I grasped the main points of composing an optimized troop mix before I had my home island cleared. I use the combat sim even to this day, but it's only for tweaking the numbers, not for figuring out the battle strategy. I could, in theory, do the same attacks without the sim but 10-20% higher losses as I'd be playing safe on the number of cannon fodder I send. I'm not trying to brag that I'm a super-intelligent TSO master who can figure out everything on my own; actually my point is just the opposite since I am confident that anyone who tries to play without guides will learn and will succeed in battles on their own.
I completely disagree that it would become impossible for newer players to play adventures. Sure, you would need to have a bigger stock of troops before starting an adventure since there's no telling exactly which units you will need. This doesn't even have to mean everyone needs to invest in a ton of noble deeds to increase their pop cap. They'll simply need to step down to easier ones until they're up to the challenge. Those currently doing DB might need to switch to VtV, those currently managing Outlaws might switch to Traitors, and so on. I'm not saying that the already existing adventures necessarily need be randomized, I'm simply referring to existing ones to illustrate the point I'm making. If SftR is too hard for a new player you tell them to try DP instead. Same thing applies here. If the combat system isn't in your blood just yet, do easier randomized adventures until you start to get the idea, then move on to harder ones and try to excel those as well. It will be more difficult. It will also be fun.
I've not read anything, wont do either.
Make all camps random and make the camp troops only capable of being scouted by sending in a wave that triggers the combat within the wave in order of combat initiative.
That is all.
Come on people lets get real here. It's been a about a year since they announced PvP with no delivery in sight using the mechanics we already have. So ask your self one simple question, how long do you think it's going to take if they have to go back to the blackboard and start working on combat from scratch, based upon what we have seen on their current progress.
The only way we are going to see PvP before 2015 is if they do not do anything to change the adventures we have already. If you want randomness in combat that will come with PvP when your opponent decides what you will be facing.
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by King-Fero
im just going to say one thing. if there were no guides i wouldnt have bothered with combat at all.
High difficulty random adventures aren't for everyone. And there's nothing wrong with that. Lot of people prefer easy content. All we really advocate is the option of doing randomized adventures too. Everyone's free to choose what adventures they play, if some of them were random, some guided, everyone would be happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by sk3l370n
Let me send you on a nostalgia trip:
When the server was new, when all players were low level players, and the market was not flooded with excess resources since everyone NEEDED every resource they could get, I remember me and a pair of friends would co-op VtV to earn those highly desired crossbows. With only regular 200 unit generals, longbowmen as strongest units, and a population limit around 1000 per player we WORKED to push the adventure to the end before time up. Then we would split up the crossbows in loot, so if two of us got 1 weapon slot of xbows but one got nothing, we'd share 1/3 from ours each. Once I finally reached an army of 200 crossbowmen, I felt like I was on top of the world right then and there.
That was almost 2 years ago and to date, BB has not been able to add any content that would live up to par with that experience. Apart from a small army of explorers I don't own anything that a free player couldn't achieve. All my building deeds are either from special events or bought from other players. As such I can still easily clear an Epic raid adventure, alone and in just a few days, safely building up magic beans for those fancy merchant offers that are the only thing left for me to pursue in this game.
I don't need special events.
I don't need random spawning resource things to click on my map.
I don't need forum competitions.
I don't need my geologist to find 50 extra copper ore.
What I need... is challenge.
Please, just please, BlueByte. Will you quit with these distractions and give players the PvP they want. A platform to challenge other players, where both actually face the risk of losing to the other. Where winning feels like an achievement rather than being the only obvious outcome. BlueByte team, I'm sending you on an adventure: It's challenging, but if you work together and work hard, you can come up with a PvP system that will be exciting, challenging and balanced. Reaching that goal won't be easy, but once it's done you will feel great. You will be proud of what you have achieved and you will be happy that you took the effort to do it. I promise, for that is how I felt two years ago.
I don't think bluebyte ever actually uses any player feedback. We had one of those backstage videos a while ago where some of the staff got to ask about what was coming next, the result? all 4 of them asked the same question about pvp content to which there was no real answer, a completely wasted opportunity which really showed up how poor communication is in BB.
After this christmas event, the next thing will just be another easter event with one useless extra tacked on, something like an epic gunpowder maker.
100% agree, good to see someone that actually understands the fun of settlers, or at least the way it was before.Quote:
Originally Posted by King-Fero
and yeah those were good times, xbows were pure gold :D
Have to agree too, every recent adventure has been too 'linear' with just one path through it (as per Witch of the Swamp, Isle of Pirates etc...), where most of the time one is twiddling thumbs watching generals waddle from position to position.
The advs that have kept their appeal to me have been the more open ones (SotV, SE, Outlaws or EotW), which offer the opportunities to tackle in different ways, and I'd have no qualms in doing huge advs if the time limit was removed, so it could be done in the same way as the Home Island.
Not interested in PvP, daft idea for Settlers and already plenty on offer elsewhere if you like that sort of thing.
Sad to say that still rarely are the questions being asked, and not the right questions even then.
1st priority would be to reverse the lag and bugs introduced in a disastrous update a year ago, and stop bolting on more stuff until the basics have been put right, particularly stuff that has been bug-reported to death on Test Server yet still appears Live in a broken state.
Hi! Combat survey done, but can we know something about its result?
My guess is we will know when:
1. We get a new mini adventure with every camp in its own little territory :(
2. We are told , on the few occasions we get an answer, that PVP is in the pipeline for next year :)
3. A new Ft adventure hits 20,000 troop loses and with loot of 1000 PWP 2000 stone, 60 % chance of 5000 Saltpetre and the epic building of a carpenters hut :(
and 4. When Nogbad reports back here that .de have Nords 3.
And we will know it was time well spent :p
The key thing is fun and engaging. My suggestion is granting current generals or special general with abilities trees. You need to cooperate with a handful of players. A successful team leader needs to invite players with generals having the right specialized skills. There will be multiple ways and tactics to approach each adventure. The idea are very much like a RPG game. It’s very raw at the moment, but I hope it can act as a seed for ideas.
http://i.imgur.com/gY2z5Lw.jpg