Musing on the Building System

[gingerbear]

First of all, I'd like to keep the building system to a degree, I think it's a fine and fitting part of the game experience. It should be reworked, but shouldn't be removed completely. I don't think it would do the game good if it degraded to yet another "kill everything on sight" kind of MMO, even if that would be a simple and commonly good course to take.

Referencing here from the roadmap:

eliminate gridshards, vp, sockets, facilities

towns level up based on cleared radius around them

you can't teleport to an unconnected town; teleporting to a level 1 town takes 5 seconds or so; each town level reduces the teleport time by .25 seconds; max town level is 20

other benefits of high level towns...?

I'd like to raise some points in defense of shards + VP and building, but making suggestions as alternatives too:

• VP is a fine alternative to progress, without having to find and use up all the augments. Since gridshards are converted into VP, same goes for grid shards: gathering them is technically a continuous state of being rewarded. What will happen to this when the system is removed? Namely: What will towers drop? If we take out shards entirely, then either towers will have states when they drop nothing (less rewarding), or their drop tables have to be adjusted accordingly, which will result in a more plentiful drop rate of prisms, augs, etc. Personally, I'd prefer this one. If the increase in the drop rate of "good stuff" is undesired, then the crystals could take the place of the grid shards (meaning that they would become the most common drop), and there should be a lot more ways to spend them. How will town discovery / connection / map clear rewarded? I know the gridshards that we get for these events are nominal and near useless, but I think scouting should be rewarded. If the new convoy system gets implemented, then scouting will become more important, which should also mean better rewards for it. I know that Zeta tower is basically a reward for map clearing, but if the building/shard/vp system is removed, the incentive to clear a sector (instead of loot hunting or convoy path clearing) would drop tremendously. This should be counterbalanced by a good city system, or more rewards, personally I'd like a city system to remain.
  
• Building up and leveling stuff gives a sense of development. Both on an individual level and on global scope. If this is removed, then the next time someone logs in would only think "damn, a lot of stuff has been killed, from which I missed out", while glancing at a well built Grid he should think "Wow, we are rocking forward".
  
• Buildings make the achievement of other goals easier. Examples: Nerfed enemies make clearing faster, which helps to make paths for convoys or to summon zeta. Slower turrets and less/slower minions also help scouting and trailing convoys through infested areas. Gridshard buffing (aside from the increased VP gain) helps the development of cities, so it's kind of a meta goal, but it is fine too in its own right.
  

I think we know all the quirks of the current system so I'm not summing them up, instead I'm tossing in ideas for the Road Map, how to keep the good sides mentioned above.

• Make cities auto-build facilities. Whether it would be a "1 city, 1 tech-tree" (tuned to only debuff one kind of enemy), or the current "1 city 4 tech trees", is not that relevant.
  
• Add "creep effects". By this I mean a similar system like StarCraft zerg creep has: a minor boost to the allied units over it. Since the Regions already cover the basic stat bonuses, creep could be boosting the other, regenerative attributes: Faster HP/Shield/Trigger regen, shorter delay before shield regen, etc. This of course wouldn't mean much benefit (aside from convoys) since the city only grows when there are no enemies around, which could be compensated with the "city creep" always growing a bit into the infested areas. Alternatively, upon city connection, there should be a "highway" appearing between the cities (with a minimum and maximum width boundary), which would help the clearing with its presence.
  
• Rethink teleportation. It is interesting to have a delay on city teleportation, but this raises some problems: As long as Origin is not built up to max, there won't be "safe going home", because of the delay. Which leads to a cheat: player to player teleport is still instant. Why not just leave a player idling at the cities we want to get? If it makes life easier, people will make a bot for that. "Teleport bots" would be placed at origin and to smaller cities at convenient points, making the whole concept rather useless.
  
• Rethink teleportation (2). Some possible solutions, tied together with city leveling:
  - Increase the importance of comlinks: As the city levels up, comlink range would increase too, allowing it to venture further while scouting.
  - Allow high level cities to be chosen as spawning points instead of Origin, I guess this is self explanatory.
  - Keep the instant "to city" teleport, but limit range. Example: you are on the middle of an empty area, on the far right there is a city with level 5, on the left there are two cities of level 1. From your position, you can instantly teleport to the big city on the right, or you could teleport to the nearer city on the left, from where you should "hop" to the city further away. This would keep the sense of distance while still be limiting. And it would have one benefit: people might get used used to city hopping on smaller zoom scales. Right now I think people zoom out too much to be able to instantly hop to the far end of the map, which results in needless zoom ins and outs. If they get used to zoom less but hop cities more, maybe the game experience would get better too. Of course, you could teleport to Origin (or to your spawning location) from anywhere. If you feel cruel you might want to limit player-to-player teleportation too, similarly based on neighboring cities (That might have a lot of uproar, though).
  
• Give high level cities "Supply Centers". Assuming we keep grid shards or gain more crystals, there could be supplies based on city levels: not only replenishment for HP (or triggers or whatever you intend to do with them), but maybe the ability to buy minions, or partial melding, or maybe even a "garage" - a temporary storage in a particular city (for example 1 slot at lvl 16, 2 slots at lvl 17...). The content of the city is only available if the player is there, and as long as the map does not reset.
  
• Add the discoverer's name to the city. Or if not, make it shown in the appearing tooltip when the city is moused over. As there won't be gridshard rewards for the act, a more "permanent" rememberance would be in order. You could even include cities explored in the highscore table.
  

[Ood]

Wall of text thread, post 2:

First about VP/gridshards in general.
Currently they don't do much, that's very true, but what they DO give is, as GB says, a sense of progress. Yes, that progress isn't 'real' nor even useful. But it does say (much like fame, in RotMG, though perhaps to a greater extent) "I've done this much". It's just a number, and we want more of it.

Take away VP/gridshards, and in my mind you hurt new players in particular. New players are hurt because there are no more building debuffs, no more incentive to kill things (Just wait for a convoy and leech off everyone else), and no way to chose/customize things yourself (augments must have an item, not just whatever you want to spend VP on).

Also, take away gridshards and the question, how and why are we going to establish cities, must also be asked.
Stick augments in them? This hurts newbs who can't benefit from people liquidating junk modules for cheap.
Stick other modules in them? Ditto
Stick Crystals in them? Okay, but that's basically the same as what happens now, just crystals are 1/1000th as common as GS.
Something else? How would it be different?

So, if the aim is to keep gridshards (and possibly VP), we should strive to give them greater use. The golden opportunity here is through buildings and city 'accessories'. None of which are necessary to clear a region, take out a convoy, kill evil, or 'win'.

Proposals for:
Roadways - Connect two cities via a straight, cleared path, then buy the road. Ideal for convoy killing. Purchase for X GS per grid between cities, upgrade for X gs/grid between cities. Purchase via socket at either city's edge, facing city to be connected. Multiple levels: 1 (road) - requires 1 grid clearance, bonus 20% to speed; 2 (avenue?) - required 2 grid clearance, bonus 20% to speed, 10% to damage; 3 (highway) - requires 3 grid clearance, bonus 30% to speed, 15% to damage.

Spawn Points - Set your spawn, and Z city to X city. Costs X VP lasts for remainder of map. Changeable multiple times, change to Origin is free. Some sort of interaction with city main socket (double click it?) to set.

More Varied Buildings - Cost GS. Buildings for players, player trigger cooldown, player hp regen, player shield regen, player shield recharge, player turret turn rate, player drop loss, etc. And other enemy effects as well, aggression distance, 'special' rate (gct bomb, watchtower trap, etc. rates), etc.

Building Upgrades - Cost GS. Have an overall reduction of the current effect modifier and cost of building (start at 500?), but allow buildings to be upgraded along with their city sockets. Disallow upgrades higher level than their city (no level 4 building in level 3 city).

Friendly Convoys - For lack of better name. Cost VP to start, GS to maintain. Purchase a 'docking station' of sorts (with VP), that allows for the creation of fairly weak, friendly convoys (for GS) that travel from one town to another using the same mechanic as current enemy convoys. These convoys would shoot at enemy stuff along the way, and if they make it to the next town, continue on to another, until they are destroyed by the enemy. Each friendly convoy's strength would be determined by how much GS has been deposited into the docking station socket. (25k gives X friendvoy, 50k gives Y, 100k gives Z, 200k A, etc. [or whatever number]) with more GS giving a stronger friendvoy (obviously). If 87k GS is in the docking station, a 50k friendvoy will spawn, then if nothing else is added, a 25k friendvoy will spawn once the cooldown time has passed (380k would give 1 200k, 1 100k, and 1 50k friend voy). It eats GS.

Better Looking Cities - Currently they don't look much like cities. Instead of having cities be a basic lite-brite display:

Have it be a cool looking motherboard:

Symmetry isn't perhaps necessary.

[Duco]

Nice ideas man.

How about player teleport being 5 secs too? Something like that.
Imma think about this now and come back later.

[Duco]

All I can really come up with is a bulldozer to build the roads between towns.
Same shields as herucles, 3000 hp and no hp regeneration. It travels at 1 grid/s and has no actual guns. If it bumps into an enemy, it will damage it at 400-500 dps.
Players will have to defend this thing and kill watchtowers and deltas in advance so they don't kill it.

[Duco]

Roads between cities gives instant teleport.

There is a road between city x and y.
From x to y is instant teleport, but only if you are on the road or in one of the cities.
If there is a road from y to z too, teleporting to x will only be splightly delayed, like 1 or 2 seconds, depending on the town levels.

[Duco]

Make friendvoys a bit like spore's trade routes. Friendvoys go from A to B and back, depositing 1k grids everytime they get to either A or B.

[Ood]

Ocud, you can edit posts.

Roads don't need to be built by a friendvoy.
Roads between cities can give instatele, but if you aren't wanting to go to that town instant is irrelevant.
Having friendvoys go to multiple cities lets them serve some purpose (very slow clearing of pathways), they are meant as a gridshard sink, not generator.

[Duco]

Jul 12, 2013 10:17:05 GMT -5 Ood said:

Ocud, you can edit posts.

Roads don't need to be built by a friendvoy.
Roads between cities can give instatele, but if you aren't wanting to go to that town instant is irrelevant.
Having friendvoys go to multiple cities lets them serve some purpose (very slow clearing of pathways), they are meant as a gridshard sink, not generator.

Ok, nevermond that. I lost the edit button for a while.

[amitp]

(This wasn't meant to be a wall of text but it got away from me…) I think the problem I have with the current city system is that I want to have two kinds of activities:

• I want to go out and fight things and bring back loot. High adrenaline. Destructive.
  
• I want to evaluate what I have and do something with it. Low adrenaline. Constructive.
  

In Diablo those two modes are out in the wilderness (danger, combat) and in the towns (safety, shopping, stash). In Grid12 we have the same division of wilderness and cities.

However … there are some things that get in the way of a lovely Diablo-like experience:

• The death penalty: In Diablo 2, if I die it costs me gold (low cost) and time (low to medium cost). In Grid12, the death penalty is much higher, both in terms of my stats and my grid shards. This encourages me to return to town repeatedly just to deposit grid shards. [edit: less than it used to]
  
• The teleport penalty: In Diablo 2, if I teleport to town it costs me one portal (low cost). Anything else?
  
  • In a single player setting, Diablo 2 town visits cost me a small amount of time. I can dump all my gray/white items and keep the rest for later, when I want to be in the evaluate-and-decide mode. In Grid12 on the other hand, the dumping of shards and the evaluate-and-decide are linked. I need to decide what to do with shards during my quick visit; I can't postpone it until later, when I want to spend time on evaluate-and-decide. So I end up dumping shards anywhere. The city building isn't satisfying when I am required to do it in combat mode. Plus, I can't return to combat easily; there's no teleport point.
    
  • In a multiplayer setting, Diablo 2 town visits cost me a little time, but it's often when others are doing the same, so it feels like a natural break. In Grid12, there aren't many natural breaks, and the death penalty is higher so you need to visit town more often. Plus, you can't all go back to town at once because then you lose your teleport point. So town visits become about dumping gridshards as quickly as possible to get back to combat. The longer you take the more you're missing out on.
    
  
  

So when I am in “combat” mode and visit a city, I don't have the time to carefully consider what to do with my gridshards, so I make unsatisfying decisions. And when I am in “evaluate-and-decide” mode and visit a city, I have no gridshards, so I have nothing to do.

I want to have both modes of play.

One way to improve this would be to separate the action of visiting a city in order to avoid gridshard loss at death and the action of visiting a city to look at all the buildings and decide what to do. For example, there could be a “bank” building that takes all your gridshards if you have some when you visit, and returns them to you if you have none when you visit. In combat mode you'd deposit to the bank. In evaluate-and-decide mode you'd take those shards out and spread them around where you want them to be.

Another option would be not lose gridshards on death. Then people wouldn't be pushed to return to town often, interrupting the combat part of the game. Torchlight does this with pets that take your items to town for you while you continue combat.

Even with those though I have trouble figuring out which buildings to put shards into. Some of you are much better at this than I am. It seems silly for every player to separately evaluate these things. Instead, I'd like to see evaluate-and-decide be more collaborative. I'd like players to be able to mark objectives (both combat and economic) on the map, or I'd like to be able to see which cities/regions have been recently invested in, or I'd like to be able to transfer shards to specific people who would invest them on my behalf. Any of these would help the average player, who isn't going to spend a lot of time deciding things, make decisions with the help of others. Think of how people pick restaurants — some people go try everything and post reviews, while other people read reviews and go to the recommended spots. Same thing happens for lots of products and services. So I want those of you who are really into the game to be able to recommend buildings, so that average players can choose to do their own thing or to go with a recommended strategy.

I agree that the current city system isn't that useful. But I would also be sad to see city building go. The feeling that we're not only defeating the enemy but also rebuilding our civilization is part of what makes this game interesting.

[Ood]

Rob, I realize you're on vacation, and busy... but could you give us your take on why facilities are getting the boot?

[rob]

The main problem with facilities is what Amit calls "grey goo". They are not exciting and vibrant. After reading a ton of text and tediously building a ton of facilities, you get a bit of a bonus, but it's not interesting and fun. You don't get anything new or different, you just get a little more (or less) of what you already had.

But there are other problems too -- gridshards, facilities and VP are tied closely together, and I prefer items that can be melded, traded and used. I really like the idea of cooperative building, but I don't like what we've done with gridshards and facilities. I like the way we "build" by subtraction (clearing forts) and I'm thinking we can maybe use that mechanism to build up towns -- clearing a radius around a town automatically levels it up. Perhaps we can also use that mechanism for debuffs...clear a path around a group of forts and they become debuffed?

I'd be interested in hearing any ideas people have along these lines...

[Ood]

Jul 21, 2013 9:45:46 GMT -5 rob said:

The main problem with facilities is what Amit calls "grey goo". They are not exciting and vibrant. After reading a ton of text and tediously building a ton of facilities, you get a bit of a bonus, but it's not interesting and fun. You don't get anything new or different, you just get a little more (or less) of what you already had.

But there are other problems too -- gridshards, facilities and VP are tied closely together, and I prefer items that can be melded, traded and used. I really like the idea of cooperative building, but I don't like what we've done with gridshards and facilities. I like the way we "build" by subtraction (clearing forts) and I'm thinking we can maybe use that mechanism to build up towns -- clearing a radius around a town automatically levels it up. Perhaps we can also use that mechanism for debuffs...clear a path around a group of forts and they become debuffed?

I'd be interested in hearing any ideas people have along these lines...

Yes, currently buildings are bland, though I'm not sure quite to the point of needing to be scrapped completely for something different.

Perhaps adding GS/VP into the crafting system (along with splinters) to make augments might be a decent solution. Think of it like... when you get a drop, that bit of the enemy wasn't completely destroyed and is usable, where when you get gs/splinters, those are the bits that did get destroyed, and they aren't quite an entire working unit yet. Instead have to be pieced together to get something workable. Throwing GS in with the splinters would be similar to throwing ore in, where throwing VP into the mix would be like having refined metal there instead. GS, VP, and splinters could then be crafted into whatever module (given sufficient quantities of all of them). This lets people enjoy the game, while being able to work towards something without needing that 'lucky' drop.
You say you need a 15 cd aug? either grind grind grind convoys, or just play [still admittedly grind grind grind] and eventually have materials to make one yourself.

That's a bit off-topic, but coupled with my above suggestions for additional town features, could give GS/VP a wider base to stand on, and not feel so useless.

If GS/VP are given some substantial use (like that above perhaps), then buildings and cities could go their own route, and not be reliant on GS/VP to level.

More on topic of your concerns... if a more abstract method of town leveling, and enemy debuffing is put in place, won't that to some extent make it more difficult for new players to learn the game? Currently, to debuff a region, you waltz into a town and drop some GS on a socket that does what you want it to. That's easy enough to tell a newb, and easy enough to figure out. If to debuff the turret turn rate of a group of structures is instead to circle them with cleared path, how are we and newbs supposed to know that? It's not intuitively obvious (at least to me), and it's not as easy as 'go pew pew, then sit on this thing to get debuffs'.

Also, towns will automatically level, okay. If there are no buildings, then what's their point, and why do they need to level?

Finally, none of this addresses what happens to towns that are 'super'cleared... towns in cleared regions far, far from any enemy. Do they simply become massive, or is there just a limit on automatic growth? Once the limit on growth is reached, why continue to clear around that city? What is there to do in cities after they reach the limit, and are well out of harms way?

Well... I need to go make dinner. /endthinkingaloud.

[quicklite]

Jul 21, 2013 9:45:46 GMT -5 rob said:

The main problem with facilities is what Amit calls "grey goo". They are not exciting and vibrant. After reading a ton of text and tediously building a ton of facilities, you get a bit of a bonus, but it's not interesting and fun. You don't get anything new or different, you just get a little more (or less) of what you already had.

But there are other problems too -- gridshards, facilities and VP are tied closely together, and I prefer items that can be melded, traded and used. I really like the idea of cooperative building, but I don't like what we've done with gridshards and facilities. I like the way we "build" by subtraction (clearing forts) and I'm thinking we can maybe use that mechanism to build up towns -- clearing a radius around a town automatically levels it up. Perhaps we can also use that mechanism for debuffs...clear a path around a group of forts and they become debuffed?

I'd be interested in hearing any ideas people have along these lines...

Well, firstly, I like building by subraction, but it isn't the same for one main reason: although the consequences are different and more unique than pure destruction, the action itself is still destruction. You aren't actually creating anything by destroying fortresses like this. You are destroying fortresses, and because you are destroying fortresses, the thingies pop up around you. You are still playing a destruction only game, with the only exception that destroying certain things makes other things pop up. Imo, building things is different. With building things, you are actively contributing to the construction, building up and improving your cities, and helping do something that isn't plain destruction, with genuine, satisfactory benefits. Here's my idea for a system:

Keep the gridshards. VP, I don't really care about. As for facilities, make every city start off with 4 'facility sites', and get 2 + the town's level more every time they level up. Work on these facilties cannot be started with gridshards. They will come later. Facilities are created by drops. Certain drops (possibly craftable drops) that allow for the creation of certain facilties. This allows for the (possibly cross-server in the late game) switching and trading of particular facilites, as well as keeping items a big part of facility building. Once this item is used, the 'facility site' now becomes a 'facility base' for whatever facility that was created (this depends on the item, ofc). Now, you get a 'work-in-progress': a construction base with multiple sockets in multiple places. Each socket requires a certain number of gridshards (and maybe certain items as well?), and when the socket quota is filled, it becomes part of a facility. Once the facility is completed, it gets a few finishing touches, and starts doing its thing. These should be relatively hard to build, but reap great rewards. Also, although this isn't necessary, it might be cool to have further sockets to allow you to upgrade facilities somewhat. Here's a few examples of what could work:

Drone Dispenser

Basically, walking by this facility gets you a small-ish following of allies drones that would help engage enemy forces. These are not very powerful (although possibly upgradeable?) and server as really either a distraction or a little bit of extra firepower, depending on whether or not you are willing to try and keep the things alive. They will regen health and shields, though they really have little more health and shields than a gridozer, and therefore couldn't really take much more than a beta processor on their own (maybe not even a beta processor...though that might be too weak)

Convoy De-Buffer

These are big turret-like things that wait till a convoy passes by them (I should add at this point that they have a very long range, and that their range increases with town level), will fire at convoys. But instead of doing damage, they hurt a convoy in a particular way: Be it halving range, damage, speed, or maybe even sending the convoy off in spirals. Although I'm not sure how you would be able to select the de-buff (maybe by feeding items into the facility base during construction?), it would be a great way to lace a sort of trap to towns which convoys appear to frequent.

Healing facilites

NB: These drops should be significantly rarer than the others. Basically, what this facility does is repair ones health (and maybe shields) by standing next to it. It disables when a convoy reaches the town, to avoid use for tanking. This facility's purpose is to fix up wounded, 'just-escaped' tanks in convoy fights as quickly as possible, so they can jump right back into the action instead of having to wait for health to regen as the convoy gets painstakingly closer to the un-cleared stuff.

Strafer facilities

These facilities would every so often spawn a relatively small group of allies called 'Strafers (or something better >_>)'. These would fly towards enemies at a relatively fast pace, tagging as many fortresses as they can with range and damage (or something else?) debuffs until they are destroyed. Strafers have very little health, so expect them to really only tag 3-6 (if they're lucky) fortresses before dying. The point of these is to build one in un-cleared territory, and then follow the Strafers to an easier fight.

Ordanance Generators

NB: These should be really freaking rare. Like only 3-5 of these per server rare. These might be OP, but I might as well shoot. Every 15 mins or so, these generate something useful to the player, be it a set of good prisms, a 10 minute buff to your tank, or maybe even an extra (temporary) healing gun (I'd like to avoid items here, as people might build bots to simply farm these things). However, these would be player-independent. This means that they would give you a buff of every 15 minutes of your play-time, same goes with your friend. This is to stop people from fighting over people 'stealing' buffs and whatnot. You can have multiple of these facilities, but you cannot have 2 of these buffs active at once. If you go to an Ordanance Generator, and then straight to another one, that one's buff with overwrite your other buff.

Well, that's my idea. How is it?

[gingerbear]

The problem with this idea (namely that you need shards and droppable items) is that it will make building still a tedious task.

I agree though that "constructing" should remain constructing, regardless or independent from the fact that the city, for example could grow by destroying the enemies.

What we need for buildings is material, obviously. I agree that the gridshards should stay, VP can be removed if it is really out of space.

Alternatively, instead of gridshards you could get "building licence", 1 for small, 2 for medium, 4 for large tower kills. (same as gridshards but reduced in number. Also doesn't need to be in storage)

How would building go, to make it smooth? (Combining ideas already mentioned above by various players:)

• Keep the city center, and make a "build" menu button.
  
• When someone moves over a city, the button activates. Teleporting could put you over the city center.
  
• When a player clicks on it, he will recieve X options to build, depending randomly on the city, and of course previous buildings (so you can mix'n'match tech trees, finding hidden combos).
  
• Each building will have a cost depending on type and level, which cannot surpass the cities current level, of course.
  
• A building will have two buttons: "spend until next level", and "spend all", taking the appropriate resource whatever it will be.
  
• On the side of the building menu there would be a "build lowest" and "continue highest" for the lazy people who just wish to get rid of the load before continuing with the shoot.
  

Additionally to the above, people could set a "preference" for themselves, for example "large quad structure nerfing buildings". When visiting a city, they could click on a "build preferred".

I think this would solve the problem of tediousness, as one could be useful just by one or two clicks, while if someone is fascinated by the construction itself he can choose to roll through all the options.

Making different sprites for the building would also make it more fun: color could suggest type (like now), while size could suggest level. Giving them shape sets would also make them differ from each other.

[hypevosa]

So a license that is a drop from enemies and can be melded to make higher level licenses to make more impressive buildings? Sounds about what rob was looking for - get rid of gridshards, add building licenses, leave the facility squares, allow the player to build facilities at or below the melded license level.