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1

Feedback and Suggestions / Randomness

« on: October 29, 2013, 01:44:39 pm »

Hello everyone,

Today an idea crossed my mind and I thought that sharing it with the GoIo community might help forging it something better and why not concrete?

Background

After playing for some time already to Guns of Icarus, I'm starting to loose grasp on the game.
A problem that a lot of us face I'm sure, playing for so long creates a kind of "already seen everything feeling".
Then I thought what games do I still enjoy playing after so many years, even for a bit from time to time.
Well there was MOBAs, L4D, FTL, The binding of isaac, a bit of minecraft maybe?.
I play also a lot of board games IRL, a bit of MTG and I mixed all that and tried to find a common element.

I also read a topic on this very forum about someone proposing to add the weekly mods L4D style to give some spic to the game.

And I came to this conclusion for now:
The key is randomness.

In L4D you never know what you will face and when (or what you will get and when as infected).
In FTL , Isaac, minecraft, the world are entirely random.
But what about MOBAs then?
Well like in magic and board games I play, I found out that what I really enjoy is actually the do the best you can do with what you get, aka drafts.

While it is quite unthinkable that GoIo makes totally random worlds, I've come out with 2 ideas that might give you some food for thoughts.

The Concept


To bring randomness in GoIo, we have to be really careful.
We can't just say, hey let's put everything random and see how it works.
My two ideas would come on top of the current system to build 3 different types of gameplay.
The 3 types would be: "free"(current), "ship draft", "limited supplies"


The ship draft

In this first gameplay type, the captain can't choose the ship they are going to fly while the players are joining the lobby.
THe choice would be made once the game is ready to start and each captain would have to choose out of 3 prebuilt ships loadouts selected out of a database of viable ships.
The idea would be to have a database of ships updated by the devs, consistent enough to provide variety without being gigantic.
This database could be built based of the successful builds encountered in the competitions for example.
It could also contain very specialised ships (ships dedicated to disabling for example), as well as all rounded builds.
For example choice between:
      "The crazy pyromancer" : Pyra wth 2 flamethrowers on the front and 2 hades on the side (ok not very viable but you get the point)
   OR   "The Turtle" : Galleon Full Hwachas and mines
   OR   "The minced and roasted": Squid with carronade, flamer and mine launcher in the back

The algorithm for the ship choice could be totally random (with risks of having 3 specialised builds) or semi random ( 1 specialised, 1 close range, 1 long range for example).

The captains would have 2 mn to press ready before the game starts automatically. The crew (but the captain) could still change jobs at that point. Everyone can change tools.
The captains already have the captain chat enabled.


Limited supplies

Think of this gameplay type as if you had to go to war and you were too late to leave.
All the other took the supplies and you have what left.
How does it take form?
Simple, yet again the captain can't choose the ship, or well they might be able to choose the hull but remains to be decided.
Once everyone is ready, each team get a screen similar to this one:

   Captain 1 (Junker)|                                          |   Captain 2 (Galleon)
   Your turn            |                                          |
________________|_______________________|__________________
   1x banshee         |<          1x flare                > |   1xHwacha   
                            |<         2 x Hwacha            > |      
                            |<          1x Flamer             > |      
                            |<      2x Light Carronade    > |      
                            |<          1x light flak          > |      
                            |<         1x lumberjack        > |      
                            |<         2x heavy flak         > |
                            |<         5x mine launcher    > |
                            |<            0x banshee         > |

   
   
And again, 3 mn in total to choose your equipment and prepare your ship (20s for captain to discuss+ 10s per turn to choose weapons max *12 max weapons (2 galleons) + 40s extra ust in case)
The captains would choose one after the other the items (to avoid someone taking his build and ignore the other captain).


Problems:


If the builds are totally unequal or if the weapons offered are not as strong as the other team:
   It's random yes but you have control over this chaos. There might be a disadvantage but like in real life, you have to do with it and you try to make the best of what you have .
My captain is afk
   Well, I was thinking of the crew highlighting their preferences to the captain, to help in the captain's choice. If the captain is afk we can take the gun/ship with the most preferences. If all are equal wellthe it's randomized choiced amongst the proposed.
If someone leaves the game
   GOod question, well if someone leaves isn t it the same as with a normal lobby? If it's the captain leaving I don't have a solution yet.
   

What now?

   
Anyway, enough spoken, I would like the opinions and ideas of the players about that. Would you like to have a feature similar to this?
Would you have other ideas to bring some randomness into the game?


The chance is very slim that this will ever be implemented but who knows maybe the ideas will reach the devs and they will get some inspiration from it?

2

Feedback and Suggestions / Tutor/Pupil system

« on: October 24, 2013, 03:20:32 pm »

Hello everyone,

I'm here to present an idea that has been in my head for some time, and that would, I think, be a nice feature the game could offer to the players.
I have searched some key words in the forum and couldn't find anything about this already, I hope this topic is not a duplicate.

The idea:

The idea is that players could create bonds of Tutor/pupil in the game, with an interface (maybe next to friends) dedicated to it .
The aim would be to reinforce the bonds of the already fantastic community, provide even more help to the newcomers so that they capture quick the essence of the game and finally,
give some sense to these teacher achievements that I think are really a lackluster currently.


How would it work:

Very simple.
There would be requirements to become a tutor. Currently I'm thinking of something like level 8. I know it doesn't reflect being good but we can consider that someone level 8 is already someone able.
There would also be requirements to become a pupil. Basically be under level 4.
If both meet the requirements, an option is shown available under become friend which would be either: "propose tutorship" or "ask for tutorship" depending on who is who.
If the tutorship is accepted, the 2 users for a bond of tutorship.


Benefits:

Here is the list of benefits I was thinking about, they are nowhere gamebreaking but offer some advantages for both players:

• The pupil and tutor would see each other speach with a different color than the normal speach in the chat
• The pupil and tutor would have a dedicated voice chat when they play together
• The pupil would get on his gamer tag: "Pupil of : [Duck]Captain Smollett, [Sir] Phelan"
• The tutor would get on his gamer tag: "Tutor of : KwakKwak, [Sir] Mistress"
• The teacher achievements would change. Remove "Play 240mn with ... in the sandbox" (which is just stupid if you ask me)
• The teacher achievements would change. Add for example: "Win 20 match with your pupil as the captain fo your ship","Get you pupil to repair 10 hulls" and "Get 5 pupils to reach level 5"

More incentives could be added to the list but is it really necessary?

I might have more ideas to add on the subject but I would like other players to propose their view on the system first.
Do you think it would be a good asset for the game?
Would you participate if this system was available?

I'm personally getting more and more beginner players adding me as friends and asking me t play with them.
That could be a good occasion to reward the help "experienced" players to help beginners, and beginners to feel the thrill of the game as early as possible instead of just getting bashed by high levels in quest of achievements (I do it too of course don't get me wrong ^^).

Best Regards,

Väinämöin3n