[ian-reeds-games] Re: announcing a new map: river defence reloaded
- From: "Allan Thompson" <allan1.thompson@xxxxxxx>
- To: <ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2013 23:30:40 -0400
Hi Dickson,
The balanceing act is something I know only too well, lol. Believe me, I know
it is a real bear sometimes.
Thanks for being attentive, everyone is diffrent when it comes to criticism of
their work.
I seem to recall this was a bug that I thought Ian resolved. I do have a trick
I used to create a large merchant kind of trading map that never saw the light
of day.
Essentially what you do is to give the units you want to have outrage a point
of something, like a rage point or a magical effect point.
Whatever it is, put it on the units and make it currently zero.
Then witht he outrage skill, have it "heal" that point thru a restore when
outrage is cast. You want to label the skill "ai_heal" as a flag.
when the outrage wears off, have that one point removed, probably thru an
effect when it was cast on the unit.
What should happen is that the caster will cast it on the one unit, and seeing
other units requireing the healing outrage, will cast it on the others.
Hopefully this will stop it from multiple casting.
I can't think of another solution at the moment. Hopefully that will help or
get you int he right direction.
al
"The truth will set you free"
Jesus Christ of Nazareth 33A.D.
----- Original Message -----
From: Dickson Tan
To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 10:28 PM
Subject: [ian-reeds-games] Re: announcing a new map: river defence reloaded
Hi Alan
No offence taken, thanks a lot for the feedback. I love constructive
suggestions about how I can improve the map pack.
1. The file is a 7-zip self-extracting archive that when you run it, will ask
you where you would like the file to be extracted. Maybe I should have made it
clearer, but I hoped that it would be easier than requiring people to have an
archiving programme installed. Maybe I'll package them in .zip for future
releases and fixes.
2. Thanks, I find that writing out a detailed user guide first is not only a
good reference for players of my maps but also an excellent reference for me
when I code the maps.
3. I was considering whether I should give the players archers because I am
doing a balancing act between giving players more strategies to play with and
the map difficulty. One of the top priorities for this map was to make it fun
and beatable, and yet challenging at the same time. If it seems too unbalanced
towards the enemy, I'll add player-controlled archers in the near future.
4. Help with more sound effects would be welcome, truthfully I have been
devoting more time to the map design.
5. The AI taking an extremely long turn is a concern, especially when the
next map I am writing will be on a greater scale. I probably won't make them
spawn, but will use a combination of sight range and the use_unexplored or
use_unseen features. I notice though that there is a lot of repetition when the
evil dark lightning mage uses icy armor on the evil grunt x 6. Are any plans to
make the speech output condense similar lines? That will definitely shorten the
AI's turn. I will probably remove the defend skill from the AI only as a last
resort.
On another note, although I have set the self flag of the skill outrage, I am
getting reports that the AI is using outrage repeatedly, even though there is
no benefit to doing so when outrage is still in effect. Previously, they were
using it on other enemy units which would be extremely painful for the player
:p. Do you know how I could stop it from wasting its AP on repeated outrages?
In response to this feedback, I've released a small update that can be
downloaded at
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2138237/Victorious%20maps%20beta%204.1.zip with the
following changes:
-In addition to the +2 range bonus, hills now have a sight_range_mod of +2
-reduced the sight range of all units from 5 to 4. 4 was chosen as it is the
archer's attacking range. I hope that this shortens the computers turn.
-use the use_unseen instead of use_unexplored flags
-groundwork for next map: added elemental points and the earth, holy and
unholy damage types. Changed lightning damage to electric
Dickson
From: ian-reeds-games-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ian-reeds-games-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Allan Thompson
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 7:17 AM
To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ian-reeds-games] Re: announcing a new map: river defence reloaded
Hi Dickson,
I downloaded and played the map pack. I wanted to say a few things, almost
all good, lol.
First off, I dont' like fords. I prefer chevy or toyota, grin. Ok, sorry,I
just couldn't help myself.
1. The file itself when downloaded was an .EXE file extension. Since I am not
hugely computer literate, I was afraid it was something else, and not the map
pack. So I used 7zip and unzipped it and put it where it belonged. Was it
supposed to install itself or something?
2. The user guide was excellent. It was a pleasure to read. Informative,
description of the scenario was good and overall just a excellent document.
Good work.
3. This isn't a complaint or anything, but I was just wondering why the
player doesn't have archers? I was just curious.
4. Some of the attack sounds sounded like misses, when they weren't. I know
you said you were working on sounds, and so perhaps you had something else in
mind. With the chance flag in TB, sounds are now more seperated into swings and
misses so it was noticable and sounded weird.
If you are looking for more hit sounds, I can give you a list of sound effect
websites that have free sounds, and also I might have some extra hit sounds in
my libary you can use as well, just contact me off list if you would like me to
search for some.
5. There is a huge amount of enemies... This is really my only real problem
with the map. The thing is, I know it is important to have this many bad guys,
cause otherwise, how can it be the heroic defense?
So they are needed. The only problem is that they all seem to get to do an
action of some sort. Which means a long lag time of a bounch of grunts and the
like "defending" all the time since they can't do anything else.
The only two ways I can think of for cutting off some time from the
computer taking it's excessively long turn, is to use the use_unseen and
use_unexplored flags, or one of them anyway that would block alot of that
chatter, hopefully. The second option would be to get rid of the defend skill,
and see if that cuts down the chatter as well. Maybe, a third way, but not
preferable I dont think, is the use of spawning spots. This would cut back the
number of units significantly, yet could still produce a large number of units
over a period of time.
I hope you didn't take offense at this, cause I really do enjoy the map. I
haven't solved it yet, but it is fun and addictive. The tactics are definately
necessary to survive teh encounter and it is a good map overall. I like the
diffrent mages and their diffrent spells and it is well done. So I think you
did a fantastic job.
al
"The truth will set you free"
Jesus Christ of Nazareth 33A.D.
----- Original Message -----
From: Dickson Tan
To: ian-reeds-games@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2013 9:47 AM
Subject: [ian-reeds-games] announcing a new map: river defence reloaded
Hi All
If anyone's interested, I've wrote a new map inspired by Ian's river
defence map and hope to have a larger sequel for it out soon. It can be found
at https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2138237/Victorious%20maps%20beta%204.exe and its
user guide resides at https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2138237/user%20guide.txt
It Is missing quite a lot of sounds and is still in rough beta, so there
might still be some bugs and balance issues.
Thoughts and suggestions for it are welcome.
Have fun
Dickson
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