[0992 Balance] Initial Unit Metal Cost vs. Upgrade Cost

from Elemental Forums

Hi Derek - I'm in a competitive game with very little metal, there is one mine we're fighting for in the middle, all in all a great game. But, I know others have posted about it (like Tuidjy) but wanted to illustrate a point regarding some basic upgrade costs. I noticed this when trying to make use of each metal asset at my disposal. In short, if I create a boar spear chick I'll spend 109 production and 8 metal. If I create a basic spear chick, I'll spend 95 labor and 0 metal. I can then immediately upgrade to a boar spear chick for 20 gildar and 1 metal, thereby in essence spending 20 gildar for the extra 14 production and 7 metal. Not a bad bargain. It's actually helping me this game but what I'm trying to say is - time permitting, I second the notion of doing a balance pass on upgrade costs, both weapons and armor.

Below is the shots...

Designed a meat shield pointy stick unit with weakness and a boar spear. Note the group of 4 requires 109 production and 8 metal to create.

Now the cost to make a meat shield pointy stick unit with weakness and a spear is 95 production and 0 metal.

To upgrade the spear to boar spear only costs 1 metal and 20 gildar.

 

 

10,525 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

And if you are looking at upgrades, in this post I have more example of the above, as well as some related wonkiness.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

The other data point I forgot to mention is I'm buddies with Altar - at war with everyone else. Altar has some metal but he wants 10 gildar per metal, so making the cheap unit and upgrading it is the most cost effective way to make the better unit (to get the additional 7 metal from Altar would cost me 70 gildar).

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 1
And if you are looking at upgrades, in this post I have more example of the above, as well as some related wonkiness.
End of Tuidjy's quote

Very nice posts both of you.
The upgrade system always bothered me. I would personally had done a few tweaks and a UI overhaul.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Devs please fix this, since it is an obvious polish and balance issue, which may affect reviewers.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Fixed.

The problem was that store costs factor into upgrade costs (so the upgrade price is impacted by the shop value).  But that made upgrades incredably expensive.  So later on to balance that those costs were divided by differing amount until we found a value that felt right (ended up being divided by 9).  The issue was that all the upgrade costs were being divided by 9, including the resource costs.  I've switched it so the shop vlaue addition is divided by 9 (the gildar part of the equation) but thats it.  Now upgrading your units to a weapon that requires crystal will take as much crystal as it would to build them with it in the first place.

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Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Somebody just earned some metascore points.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Fantastic, Derek, thank you!

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Nice to see this fixed for release.