[Feedback] Dev Diary part 2: Science System

[Antilochus]

Great dev dairy! I have a concern about one of the geologist's skills though:

Name: Nature's Gift
Effect: Grants a certain chance to refill a random active deposit when geologist comes back.

This seems far too powerful. What is to stop me from building a copper mine/destroy/send geologist back out and repeat? That means I get a chance to refill a gold mine every 5 (or 2.5) minutes. That would lead to massive coin inflation.

If you were to change what happens when a mine (or constructing mine) is demolished (i.e. instead of being in an undiscovered state, have a deposit size set to however much ore was left) then that might work.

[Drakee]

You can have as many buildings as you want, except for the bookbinder which is limited to one (building licences and space permitting).

Please don't make the bookbinder take a week for each book if we can only make one of that building.

[Dragonman92]

Just adding my comment space I have spent £500 on gems and have no licences left with limited space for new buildings, I am not going to be happy demolishing buildings as my island is currently balanced? some suggestions:

Geologists: How about terraforming, ability to change swamp into building space, change hardwood space into pine and vis versa, demolish a tee zone into building zone, change building zone into forested area. This will allow space to be created and reformed to maximize whats space is left. (since this is dependent on science and what can be developed or found the argument that users will remove all trees is somewhat removed.

]Merchant store: consider ground clearance artifacts and improvements based on purchase by gems (source of income) users are desperate for more space.

harbor: makes more sense than a provision house make it an advanced improvement under explorer science, start with timer jetty, stone jetty, harbor master, crane offloading etc. this will allow provision house to be demolished and free licence. You can then send generals by ship on adventures or pvp this make more sense than beam me up scotty, generals just disappearing via town hall and beaming down on an adventure island (reappearing). You can add fish store to harbor then create and fishing fleets.

garrison castle: start with timber walls holds one general add timber towers holds 2 generals, stone walls adds a third and so on. This will allow the space currently occupied by my 9 generals to become building spaces.

[Wreckless-]

This development worries me. I've seen this happen before.

This new science system brings complexity and detail, but to no great effect on the actually gameplay. The skills it gives geologists are effectively just permanent buffs. Did we really need an entire science tree of additional buildings to fit on our islands, just to achieve permanent buffs to specialists? I suppose it's one way of doing it, but it smacks of complicating things just for the sake of it. Surely the same skills would be more logically achieved by specialists through accumulating experience. If my geologist has searched for the same copper mine a thousand times, don't you think he might have got a bit better at it after a while?

I don't want to pre-judge, but I'm worried about the direction things are taking. Did anyone ask for this? I've seen lots of requests and suggestions, but no great clamour for what it is we're being given. If all the development is going into new tech trees and complexity, rather than new adventures, new content for high levels and fresh challenges that will keep us interested for more than the couple of days it will take to learn a new tech tree, then I'm not hopeful for the future. Sorry to be a bit down about this, but I really have seen this sort of uncalled for and pointless complexity be introduced in other games and it didn't add to the experience. I hope I'm wrong.

I'm afraid Bob is right. This is more of the same. What we want and what the game needs is PvP. And we know the developers worry about the high levels keeping the lower levels down. So being able to attack the home island is out of the question. But it should be possible for a guild to colonize other islands. Perhaps only after building a lvl 4 shipyard. lvl 1 is the fisher we now have, lvl 2 will build seaworthy fishing boats so fisch doesn't have to be replenished, lvl 3 transport ships for bringing colonists and goods to the island and bringing the spoils back. lvl 4, military ships with canons. Colonizing such an island would be an adventure in itself, perhaps only available for lvl 49 & 50.
More gold can be found on these islands, and exotic wood and granite.
And these island can be raided by other guilds, and of course they can be defended. Perhaps fortresses can be build (black & white castle?) filled with military (soldiers, cav, xbows, elites & cannons, no recruits or militia).
And the goods from the colony should be distributed equally to all the members of the guild.
I think that is the way forward and that is where development time should be spent on.

[Kavoan]

Sounds good! A steep in right direction. I hope you will make more cool stuff soon!?

[Kachans]

Suggest to think on alchemy. It was popular in ancient times. Also everyone who is playing will learn chemistry. Take Nostradamus way or something like that as it would add some life in the game.

[peck_ed]

Just to throw something out there that some may have missed

Please keep in mind that these pictures are mock-ups. The final layout may differ.

If you check the font on the actual image and the weight of it, its different to what you will see in game

So I imagine this might just be a mock up, so I wouldn't read too much into the production times of the resources just yet! Certainly the part where it shows being able to be upgraded to level 6!

I think that'd be a bigger change right there!

[Nihilista]

Looks useless for level 50's... :/

[Gerontius]

"Quote Originally Posted by gerontius
what a complaint. I don't want any new content because my island is perfect...

What possible change could they have introduced which would have satisfied you in that case?"

level 51.

Please explain what the point of adding level 51 without adding any new content/buildings which would have messed up his perfectly balanced island would have been?

This is the thing, people say they want new content, then along comes some new content and the complaint is "no, I don't want new buildings". What new content could there be above level 50 which doesn't introduce new buildings?

Example: what if these new building were only available for people on level 50 (or 51)? The complaint would have been exactly the same - it messes up my island. That's a complaint that puts the entire game at a dead end.

[Tripi]

"Quote Originally Posted by gerontius

The complaint would have been exactly the same - it messes up my island. That's a complaint that puts the entire game at a dead end.

My thoughts entirely... stop whingeing and start thinking.

Let's have a quick think about PvP and why I think BB are heading in the right direction. We all know they considered home island PvP and dismissed it (presumably to appease the lower levels worried about having their buildings destroyed before becoming strong enough to defend well) even though balancing defense towers vs production buildings might have been fun.
We also know that they have or are considering remote resource island PvP. The only problem here is that anyone defending will stock each camp with 200/250 elites (or possibly some set bunch of troops suggested by a simulator). The simulators will quickly work out the best attack army and eventually almost every group of attack waves will be exactly the same.
Three options immediately occur to add more diversity to this; build-able defense towers (which would soon become same-same), new troop types (which would likely hit the same obstacle of same defenders, same attackers) and select-able military skills to make armies fight or defend differently.

Surely this geologist skill tree is a small step on the way toward the third option, the most sensible one in my opinion, one that seems to be a prerequisite of a workable PvP implementation.

"Quote Originally Posted by peck_ed

Certainly the part where it shows being able to be upgraded to level 6!

Now that, for all buildings, should allow many players to remodel their islands and keep their resource chains at current levels