Balance between offense and defense - some ideas

[randy]

Once again I am grinding and bored, so I'll type while the monsters respawn.

I said in a previous post that rebalancing the game is unnecessary--or at least less important than other things. I tried an experiment to see if I was right. Turns out I was only mostly right--it is necessary, but I still think it is less important than other things. And I had some new ideas about how to balance.

I restarted, and this time I put every single upgrade point into attack damage. I was able to finish all of the available quests in 0.6.9 at level 18 with no legendary items. Still have 25 HP. My block chance is 36%, all from equipment. But, from the time I encountered the young gornaud before the entrance to the mine to Prim I have had to save the game after every single monster encounter. I "die" constantly. The monsters near Blackwater usually kill me 4 or 5 times before I get them. I save, drink 2-4 minor potions, and then attack the next monster. The game is virtually unplayable focused to this degree.

In my opinion, it should be completely unplayable if you focus your character development like that. So I agree that some rebalancing is necessary.

I've had a few ideas on how that balance could be achieved. Some of these seem relatively easy, compared to changing formulas and altering the stats of existing characters. Maybe you could implement a few of these, to varying degrees.

1. Change the save feature so that you can only save 1 time per screen. It's a big change, but if you do this then other changes might not be necessary. (My focused character experiment would have never been able to get through the gargoyle cave or Flagstone without multiple saves per screen.)

2. Make healing potions and meat more expensive and dropped less often. I would really think about putting points to block if each bonemeal potion cost 400 (and the other healing items were equally expensive.)

3. Take the upper half of monsters, in terms of toughness, and double or triple the frequency that they get critical hits.

4. Right now, when you are fighting with one monster none of the other monsters in the room get to move. When you are fighting with 2 or 3 monsters, all of the ones that are fighting get turns, but the others do not. You could let every monster move during the monster phase of combat.

Some monsters should just continue to wander around. Some (weaker) monsters should take the opportunity to flee to the far corners of their area. Some monsters should help their pack-mates (I'm thinking dogs and humanoids.) The wanderers might just walk into you and join the combat, too. So you always have to worry about multiple monsters joining into your battle.

During combat, each monster that is not fighting should take a turn moving right after the fighting monster(s) take their fight turn(s). If a moving monster gets into fighting range, and they have enough action points left, then they get to attack.

Moving monsters seems like the most difficult of these ideas to implement, but I think it would add the most to the game. It's the least artificial of these possible solutions.

5. Take away the ability to save anywhere and anytime. Make it so that you can only save when you rest in a bed. This might actually be too much. Or you have to add more beds to the game. Someone else suggested a tent object that would let you sleep anywhere. You could implement that, and disallow saving without sleeping. And if you sleep in the tent then you are almost certainly going to get woke up by an attacking monster. You will be only partially healed and they get the first attack.


Having said all of that, I would still prefer more maps and quests over any changes designed to instill balance. I'd like some really hard quests, that saving often wouldn't get you through.

Almost 900 rocks and no RoLS, yet. I've got to stop this and go to bed.

-Randy

[kabbie1882]

1. Change the save feature so that you can only save 1 time per screen. It's a big change, but if you do this then other changes might not be necessary. (My focused character experiment would have never been able to get through the gargoyle cave or Flagstone without multiple saves per screen.)

5. Take away the ability to save anywhere and anytime. Make it so that you can only save when you rest in a bed. This might actually be too much. Or you have to add more beds to the game. Someone else suggested a tent object that would let you sleep anywhere. You could implement that, and disallow saving without sleeping. And if you sleep in the tent then you are almost certainly going to get woke up by an attacking monster. You will be only partially healed and they get the first attack.

If you take away the ability to save when and where we want to, what happens if you get a force close, a dead battery (can't see battery indicator on any of my 4 devices) or some other unseen force stops you from playing ? In my opinion it is a very bad idea to take this away.

2. Make healing potions and meat more expensive and dropped less often. I would really think about putting points to block if each bonemeal potion cost 400 (and the other healing items were equally expensive.)

Not sure what to say about this. Making some "healing objects" more expensive is not a bad idea, I just don't think they should be much more expensive.

3. Take the upper half of monsters, in terms of toughness, and double or triple the frequency that they get critical hits.

I believe and hope that we will encounter monsters in future releases, that will be very hard to beat no matter what your stats are.

4. Right now, when you are fighting with one monster none of the other monsters in the room get to move. When you are fighting with 2 or 3 monsters, all of the ones that are fighting get turns, but the others do not. You could let every monster move during the monster phase of combat.

Some monsters should just continue to wander around. Some (weaker) monsters should take the opportunity to flee to the far corners of their area. Some monsters should help their pack-mates (I'm thinking dogs and humanoids.) The wanderers might just walk into you and join the combat, too. So you always have to worry about multiple monsters joining into your battle.

During combat, each monster that is not fighting should take a turn moving right after the fighting monster(s) take their fight turn(s). If a moving monster gets into fighting range, and they have enough action points left, then they get to attack.

Moving monsters seems like the most difficult of these ideas to implement, but I think it would add the most to the game. It's the least artificial of these possible solutions.

Having monsters run away or chase you would be kind of fun and would add a challenge.

Having said all of that, I would still prefer more maps and quests over any changes designed to instill balance. I'd like some really hard quests, that saving often wouldn't get you through.

It has been stated that more maps and quest are coming. Not just the the much wanted and needed tweaks.

[Mino]

1. Change the save feature so that you can only save 1 time per screen. It's a big change, but if you do this then other changes might not be necessary. (My focused character experiment would have never been able to get through the gargoyle cave or Flagstone without multiple saves per screen.)

5. Take away the ability to save anywhere and anytime. Make it so that you can only save when you rest in a bed. This might actually be too much. Or you have to add more beds to the game. Someone else suggested a tent object that would let you sleep anywhere. You could implement that, and disallow saving without sleeping. And if you sleep in the tent then you are almost certainly going to get woke up by an attacking monster. You will be only partially healed and they get the first attack.
-Randy

I have to strongly disagree here. The ability to save anywhere and anytime is very important to a portable game on a phone. If you have a few minutes to play waiting in line, or taking a quick break at work, then you can load up Andor because as soon as you have to exit you can save your progress. Otherwise, you'd only be able to play when you know you have enough time set aside to get to a save spot, or go to another screen. It would take away the convenience of being able to play this game in short spurts whenever there's an opportunity.

There's also the issues that Kabbie brought up. My phone (Droid 1) also force closes the game when I get a call.

Not sure I agree with your other suggestions either, mostly because it might make sense at higher levels, but beginners need those meat drops, and they would probably not see them as too frequent.

[Johan]

1. Change the save feature so that you can only save 1 time per screen. It's a big change, but if you do this then other changes might not be necessary. (My focused character experiment would have never been able to get through the gargoyle cave or Flagstone without multiple saves per screen.)

5. Take away the ability to save anywhere and anytime. Make it so that you can only save when you rest in a bed. This might actually be too much. Or you have to add more beds to the game. Someone else suggested a tent object that would let you sleep anywhere. You could implement that, and disallow saving without sleeping. And if you sleep in the tent then you are almost certainly going to get woke up by an attacking monster. You will be only partially healed and they get the first attack.

At least, make it so you can't save during a fight. Changes to how saving works should only apply to manual save though. Auto save should always be enabled, so you don't lose progress if you leave the program and it get killed.

2. Make healing potions and meat more expensive and dropped less often. I would really think about putting points to block if each bonemeal potion cost 400 (and the other healing items were equally expensive.)

Since Thoronir needs bones to make the potions, perhaps it would be enough if you have to restock him once in a while or he would run out of potions? This is a big change since the shop (or at least some) would have to be persistent between visits.

[Mino]

I don't think auto-save is a good idea either. For example, if you're not sure which side you want to choose between BWM and Prim, and you decide to side with Prim first to see how it is, and don't like it, auto-save would prevent you from going back to side with BWM.

Since there's 4 different slots (and more to come) manual save works better for this. I'd be fine with not being able to save during a fight, but I save after each fight because I'm often playing during short bursts of free time and I don't want to lose even the slightest progress if I have to exit all of a sudden.

[Johan]

I don't think auto-save is a good idea either.

You misunderstood me. There is auto-save built in already in addition to the, currently four, save slots for manual save. It should be kept as it is now: you leave the program and no matter what, you can resume where you left off.

[Mino]

I don't think auto-save is a good idea either.

You misunderstood me. There is auto-save built in already in addition to the, currently four, save slots for manual save. It should be kept as it is now: you leave the program and no matter what, you can resume where you left off.

You're right, I did misunderstand and didn't realize you were talking about the "continue current game" button.

I do like your idea about the bonemeal potion though, and I've seen others suggest it too, where you have to provide more bones for more potion. Maybe since the priest only has 10 at a time, you would have to provide 5 bones for every 10 potions (and still have to buy them). Bones aren't too difficult to get from either the Flagstaff prison, or even the BW Mountain area.

[Hecubah]

sure lets make the game less fun more grindy and more RNG based.

EDIT - Post edited to remove name calling.
Name calling will not be tolerated.