1st impressions of beta 2

way too hard

from Elemental Forums

So while I realize that the game is beta and that significant allowances need to be made for that, I just can't have fun 'cos each time I try to play, I find myself surrounded by countless mobs that are 10x stronger than any of my troops, which is just no fun at all.

How the heck am I supposed to level my heroes when all the mobs have 10-20x the hit points and all I can do to power my heroes up is hope that my random finds on the map will amount to armor (not yet found a single piece) or better weapons?  For those few mobs that are only 4-5 times stronger than my oh-so-lame heroes, they always seem to hang out very near stronger uber mobs, so I'm stuck staying far away from them as well (most of my dudes have a single move, so doubtless I would get attacked by the uber mob in the turn following the fight with the little guy).

So instead I move here, move there, afraid of all interaction with anything in the map, since everything I touch will blow me to bits.  I research stuff, build up my cities, and go broke.  I suppose that in 100 turns, when I have accumulated enough research, money and other resources to build some troops capable of taking down the monsters on the map, my heroes will still be level 1 and incapable of leading anything.

It's so brutal that I can't even play: I don't see the growth path I'm supposed to follow here, for my heroes.  Cities + tech are fairly easy, but the heroes are such wimps that they can't do anything on the game map.  I could take all 5-6 of my hard-bought lvl 1 losers and group them: no way they will survive any but 1 in 5 encounters on the map, from what I can see, and unfortunately they only move 1 point per turn (with no leveling in sight): the time it takes to move those ponderous units around the map is enough to make me want to turn off the game.  The quests don't seem to give XP, either, for that matter: just increases in a particular attribute (not quite the same thing).

I tried to design an infantry unity with leather armor + a lame spear: ~ 45 gold + 50 'goods' or whatever per unit, but it only has 5 HP!  How is that supposed to help against monsters with 120 HP and way better stats, all around?  What fun in sight: live a life of penury for a few hundred turns and maybe you will be able to finally be able to deal with your monster neighbors, although at that point you will be depending on lame troops that don't level, not on your heroes, so it's not like that is a recipe for long-term super-power.

5,780 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Curious on the reasoning of the plethora of uber creatures as well.  Which look really cool :)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

which is just no fun at all.
End of quote

 

Which is the point.  This beta isn't supposed to be fun.

 

The balance isn't even 'beta' yet, this is simply where the pieces come together and start looking like a game.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm at work, so haven't been able to look into this myself, so offering up only pure speculation here at this point, but..

..I wonder if this might be related to the whole Adventuring research line being disabled at the moment. From one of the recent vids, Brad mentioned that progressing that line would increase goodies around the map, but ALSO increase the strength of monsters around the place.. So I wonder if in absence of any ability to research it.. All mobs on the map are for some reason defaulting to the strongest possible rather than the weakest possible. :P

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

The cause of this is because the monster units aren't balanced. The game makes use of the MonsterSpawnRating which the XML is spammed to a bunch of "level 1s". It's highly annoying and I almost delayed the beta because of it.

The way it's supposed to work is that the map will spawn level 1 creatures around the map. Then, when someone triggers the proper adventure tech, level 2 creatures will spawn.

Well, nasty golems and high end spiders are XML'd as level 1 creatures when they should be like level 4 or 5.  It's something that'll be addressed in the next build.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I think this will fall under the 'balance' that they want us to test and comment on. It is a slow progression, but you can avoid those tougher mobs and find easier prey. You will soon be strong enough that you can take many of them out. Just hang in there and keep building/exploring. I can't say if they really wanted those strong mobs in starting areas or not, but they are a little too strong.

Never mind! :blush:

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I like having mobs that are 'too tough' interspersed with the 'just right' mobs.  It seems more like a living world, not one artificially crafted just for my Sovs current level.  I just avoid them for now, knowing I'll be able to fight them eventually.  It gives me a goal.

Plus I can recruit a bunch of troops and take them on.  The troops don't last long, but that doesn't seem to affect recruiting more ;)

So I hope you don't take out all the 'too high' level mobs Frogboy.  Leave some in, else it'll feel contrived.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the replies - I was wondering if it was indeed balance or if I was missing something obvious in how the game was to be played.  I must confess my expectations were a bit off about what I would want to do with the game, but it's still very cool to see and be able to give feedback, while it's still in development - overall it is a very impressive beta product, even if the balance is not quite right.

Balancing the game is going to be very tricky - definitively not worth fine-tuning at each beta release, for evident reasons.  Still, because there are so many parameters (world size, style of play with both cities and heroes) and little to no documentation, if anyone out there has any suggestions about ways to make the game more fun, then please share the details :)

Overall though, as a player with a glimpse at the game ahead, it feels like there will be too many details to take care of: as it is, 'Civilization'-style games are too heavy with detail once in the mid-to-end of the game (on a large'ish map), and now this detail is multiplied due to the RPG aspects of the hero troops.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4
The cause of this is because the monster units aren't balanced. The game makes use of the MonsterSpawnRating which the XML is spammed to a bunch of "level 1s". It's highly annoying and I almost delayed the beta because of it.

The way it's supposed to work is that the map will spawn level 1 creatures around the map. Then, when someone triggers the proper adventure tech, level 2 creatures will spawn.

Well, nasty golems and high end spiders are XML'd as level 1 creatures when they should be like level 4 or 5.  It's something that'll be addressed in the next build.
End of Frogboy's quote

I would hope that powerfull goodie-huts / creatures will be spawned initially, just "out in the wilderness" and away from player starting locations.