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QCF Design Community • View topic - Kingdom management design


Kingdom management design

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Kingdom management design

Postby Idealect on Sat Mar 29, 2014 3:55 pm

When you unlock more dangerous enemies and weak items you make things more difficult for yourself. Unless you plan your upgrade path with wiki you can get unlucky and complete half the game unlocking weak items with a low level bank, bazar, no witch and 1-2 altars as your gold income steadily decreases until you clear purist GT. (which you easily not find out about if you focus on a few dungeons)

A "progression" system where you have to manage your resources is not necessarrilly a bad thing but the kingdom presents itself as a puzzle hub/"progression" dealer, not as a campaign at all and doesn't do things that you'd need for a management campaign like telling you what things do before you buy them. The more you play the less gold you get from trophies and the harder quests get so if you're not making your upgrades count you can get bogged down. The set up at the moment makes things even even harder for bad players and its also possible to make things even easier if you already know what you're doing with the right unlock order or even just ignoring some unlocks altogether.

The end result is that half way through, the game drops this responsibility on low win rate players to play better, farm or play another game, because in the future there's less gold, not more, after lulling them into a false sense of security with stuff like the bank vault size upgrades making it look like your rate of gold income will greatly increase as you play. This was annoying but not a huge deal initially: I had to farm and play less carelessly than I'd like, and start worrying about my economy, in what I thought was a puzzle game. That's not so bad. The problem is that 10 dungeons later there is no indication whatsoever that you get flaming, pqi, 150 gold trophy price fix exist at all: it looks like your gold income is just going to decrease forever. I went on the wiki, found out about those things, reoriented my perspective on the campaign as managing my gold to avoid having to farm, but if I didn't find something on the wiki I was ready to write the game off as ruined by an annoying campaign. And if I couldn't/wouldn't enjoy playing better, I would end up in a downward gold spiral and stopped playing.

It would be better if there was a big neon sign saying DONT FUCK THIS UP OR YOU'LL GO BROKE at the start of the game (or equivalent) but before that I just don't see why there's a way to lose the campaign in a funny puzzle game or why you'd ever make the game harder for bad players and generally why there's a gold/locker management side of things at all. The campaign is basically a roguelike, it's really restrictive, it doesn't tell you what things do, and you can do permanent damage to yourself, but despite a lot of cool/funny writing, stories, set pieces and stuff management doesn't fit in to a story that's 70% humour, 30% awesome ideas/set pieces 0% plot. When your prices start lowering you can't engage with it as part of a story 1 because you aren't told and 2 it's totally at odds with the tone of the game, so it can only seem like an inconvenience. Does anyone actually enjoy worrying about gold? What is the design reason for it to be there?

And no, (inb4) farming gold isn't the same as just playing the game. If I'm doing something to get gold to do something else, I'm not doing what I want. Yes I could be serene about this and enjoy it, and enjoy my enjoying of it, and that is what I plan to do, but it's still bad design.



I'm mostly good at complaining about things but here are my ideas to make kingdom management less annoying.

Enemy unlocking should be transparent/ should be restricted to only a few zones with random monsters with other zones drawing from their own pools that ignore monster unlocks/should increase your gold income somehow if its a tough monster (all of them except the goat)/just have all enemies unlocked from the start and tweak however needed to fit that in.

Quest reward items should let you know what the items does, its cost, and its size when you hover over the items on the quest or adventure screen.
It should be possible to see what the 3rd level of upgrades does before taking the 2nd level upgrade to a building. Bazar level 2 upgrade should be made easier.

I don't really remember the bank quests but I vaguely recall the level 2 or 3 quest being either too hard, or too hard to get assigned.
Witch should have a (maybe smaller) chance to spawn anywhere or in a variety of places covering each path.
God subdungeons should have a (smaller?) chance to spawn in any dungeon you've already found the god of/you should know where you have to go to get them
You should be told that unlocking more gods gets you more altars.

You should be able to prepare and veto any item you've carried out of a dungeon ever.
You should be able to save default vetos/preparations for each class with exceptions for race if you want.
Consumables should be "recharged" if you prep them and win the dungeon (not sure if this already happens I don't remember how that works.)
Viper wards and soul orbs should only appear in shops if your character has the appropriate immunity and if there are enemies with the ability.
As you unlock more items you should unlock more shops per dungeon/you should unlock shop rerolls per dungeon that you could use on unwanted items.

Trophy decay should just be deleted or the narrative should be revamped so it feels like part of a campaign rather than a questionable design decision of an inconvenience.




Unrelated ideas but while i'm here:

maybe if the boss is bleaty, you should get a warning without having to scout him. Maybe also meat man, tower of goo and is there a magic resist boss? Ones that can require a different approach which it can be too late for if you find them late.

Retaliate fireball on wraiths/goos is brutal. I don't think fireball retaliations should apply on hit effects. Or those enemies should just be made an exception and ruled out for gaan talet. Bloodless bleaty on VGT if you're a vampire should definitely be made impossible.

Also why do specific god preps even have penalties? Some of them are fairly light, some of them are really harsh, all of them are a hassle. why is there a sacrifice to guarantee a shot at a certain approach? If you really need a certain god to clear the dungeon there's no guarantee that the approach is gonna be good enough with the penalty accounted for and you can just scum for the spawn if you're using it as a problem solver. If you're not using it as a problem solver: you just want to play a dungeon a certain way, the penalty is just annoying and serves no purpose. I'd much rather they were more expensive than had the penalties. If they did lose their penalties they should lose their close spawn or again be made more expensive. You could also have different tiers of devotion with different effects.

Gods should list their likes, dislikes, punishments and inital piety should be listed where their boon descriptions are, if you haven't got a boon selected. I have the wiki page open anyway, save me some trouble. Taurog's ability to punish you for converting an item even after you leave should be mentioned on the boon description.
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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby TheSchachter on Sun Mar 30, 2014 8:59 am

A few points/questions!

-Overall, it sounds like you'd like the game to be less "roguelike-y". You want more control over the randomness, more of the info that you're meant to discover on your own (ie God knowledge)... is that correct? 'Cause you wouldn't be the only one, but remember that many actually enjoy that aspect of the game (including myself!), and that unless I'm very much mistaken, it's deliberately designed that way (and advertised as such). For instance, I would never want the game to warn you in advance of this or that boss! 99% of the time you can adapt to a curveball the game throws at you and win (ie finding the Tower of Goo as a Berzerker on the last unexplored tile), and those victories are the most satisfying ones.

-On the gold income issues: my own experiences on that matter are rather meaningless for this discussion since 1. I played the alpha a lot before starting the full version and 2. I played through the campaign while it was still in beta and therefore things were most likely fairly different. However, a few questions, since I'd like to understand: Do the quests not give you enough gold? Alternatively, when you saw that trophy prices were in decline, did that not motivate you to seek out new bosses? (That being said, I can definitely see the last banker quest being a bit on the hard side. However it isn't strictly necessary to "beat" the game ie Hard Gaan-Telet).

-Which items are you referring to when you talk about "the weak items"? While I wouldn't say that item balance is perfect (even when accounting for all variables), it's still pretty damn good and I can't really think of an item that I'd never use (though some are definitely more situational). Unlocking certain items does give you power, but I don't think it's about power so much as it is about possibilities. And discovering possibilities and creating strategies out of them is part of the path of becoming better at the game. That's how I see it at least :)

Finally, a quick word on the God preparations (am paraphrasing Lujo here): They need a penalty because, even with those penalties, they are the strongest and most impactful preparations in the game. Without hyperbole, being given a specific altar can easily make more of a difference than every other preparation slot combined. Making them more expensive wouldn't really address that since for anyone with a stable economy (after the campaign) money is no longer an issue, which would make them even more ridiculous. These particular preparations, I am told, replaced an older design during the beta because so many strategies involved simply scumming for altars. Since the game's balance is largely centered around random altars rather than preset ones, these preparation have to trade away a bit of the power of the altars in exchange for having them guaranteed *right at the start of the dungeon* (which is a really big deal, especially for certain deities). Sure some of the penalties are steep, but *all* of the altars can be used as preparations. I've tried them all :) (Alternatively, the 4-altar prep is actually very powerful and also greatly increases the chance of finding your prefered deity or an acceptable substitute. It is quite expensive though)

And finally, do note that the above comments on the game's balance are largely based on other posters' conjectures along with my own, which I wanted to throw in for the sake of discussion. I do not claim to speak for the devs :)
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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby flap on Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:33 am

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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby Lujo on Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:20 pm

I almost got pwned by Shifty Brickwork!
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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby Idealect on Mon Mar 31, 2014 4:59 pm

Last edited by Idealect on Mon Mar 31, 2014 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby flap on Mon Mar 31, 2014 5:17 pm

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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby dislekcia on Mon Mar 31, 2014 6:29 pm

I'm in an airport with 11 hours of layover left before another 10 hours of flying, having already flown 15 on the way here. So be aware that I'm tired as fuck when I say that this thread seems like it's heading to locksville soon.

Idealect: I'd love to address your points one at a time, but you're seriously looking at the largest public collection of Desktop Dungeons development history right here on this forum. The game evolved to the form it has now over the beta, if you keep digging here, you'll see most of the answers to your questions... But, just to illustrate the kind of thinking that goes into the game, prepped god altars spawn close to the start so that you don't have situations where you pay to prep a god and then only find it halfway through a run or worse. That's the least useful thing you can do with any particular god, especially one you paid extra for.

Lujo: Reading what you write makes me want to quit working on this game.
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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby ArcticMetal on Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:11 pm

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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby Astral on Mon Mar 31, 2014 7:51 pm

I don't have much time now to reply every aspect of your last comment Idealect, I just wanted to give you a few tips on beating Bleaty. ArcticMetal beat me to it and did a very good job, so there's less for me to post.

Even Dracul can save you from Bleaty: at level 10 using lifesteal you can heal up to 150% of your health, even with 130 only that will be 195. Just pick up Blood Shield in addition and the 15% resist in itself makes you able to take a hit, cuz 225*0,88=191,25 only. Then take Blood Curse, kill some popcorn for overheal an to remove the curse and you can do it again. Piety won't be an issue either, since you could desecreate other altars and convert potions. Plus lifesteal earns you piety.

Btw you seem to be too fixated on fireballing Bleaty, when pisorfing is cheaper and more effective. Sure pisorf doesn't always spawn, but when it does, don't forget to use it.

Nothing keeps you from converting CYDSTEPP. You just have to save that 1 DP till finding the boss.
Other glyphs you forgot about:
- ENDISWALL: precastable, can reduce the 1st hit to 79 damage, heal in your preferred way and 2 more casts can reduce the next hit to 135. It looks deadly, but any little health increase can save you. If you boosted your mana you might be able to cast a 3rd ENDISWALL. Also you can use your potions to help.
- B2P: well if you're not going to take a hit, you might as well trade it to mana and cast damaging spells. Suddenly you're health potions are useful too.
- the teleport glyphs: if you have knockback you can gather monsters around Bleaty and knock them into him. This way you can use your health meaningfully even if taking a hit from the goat is deadly. Combine with spellcasting and potion drinking if want to. I know this one is very situational, but with a bear-mace from a subdungeon or prep can make it possible even without Binlor.
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Re: Kingdom management design

Postby flap on Mon Mar 31, 2014 8:40 pm

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