CW3 Currency

[ShadowDragon7015]

If you have ever played games by Kabam. Those games make you pay money to get more resources, troops, gem/crystals, speed ups. That is the thing we don't want with Creeper World overall.

[lurkily]

Exactly - it's an ongoing cost to do well.  A paid subscription to success.  It's the game dev's attempt to generate ongoing income in a game that they can advertise as free to play.  They want the benefits of subscription cost along with the larger number of players you can get when your game is advertised as being free.

As I said before, I agree that I don't want to see such things here.

[Shrike30]

CW2's technytes were probably my preferred method of advancing in tech, as you could feed them into whatever it was that made your particular approach to the game work, and adjust them for the level in question (lots of tight twisty tunnels?  probably going for ROF/movement/packet speed over range upgrades).  There's a few ways these could be applied, though.

*Single level implementation: classic CW2.  Feeding packets into a research lab generates technytes, these get used to buy upgrades that apply during that mission.

*Single level implementation, unlocking: CW2 with a twist, technytes can be used to buy upgrades like CW2, but some structures (bertha, for example?) might require "geological analysis" or some other technyte investment before they're usable on a particular level (essentially allowing map creators to prevent the usage of certain structures in the early game by assigning them a technyte cost to unlock, an assigned cost of 0 meaning that the structure is unlocked by default).

*Campaign arc implementation with or without unlocking: within a particular "campaign" technytes are earned for completing missions and/or picking up collectible bits/salvage during missions.  These can be spent for upgrades/structure unlocks that persist throughout the campaign/string of missions, or at least that chapter of a campaign.  If the galaxy map is a "spiral galaxy" where you travel down different arms, each arm might be a seperate campaign/chapter for purposes of handling what's unlocked within them.

I don't really see Player-level upgrades that persist as long as you don't reset the game data being all that much fun, as there's really not a lot of replay value (for me at least) to going back and playing an early level with a ton of upgrades I didn't have the first time. 

[Michionlion]

What if you had an 'overall technyte' level, and you could 'implement' different upgrades per map - so one map you could have all speed upgrades, and then the next, you could take just level 1 speed, and somthing else - but it would cost the same.  As you earned more technytes, you could get more upgrades for furture maps.

[lurkily]

My preference is to use campaign-wide resources to unlock technology to advance as you progress.  Unlock new technologies and access to new upgrades step by step via artifacts or nanites, then use something more rate based and less restricted in the game - plain old energy would do for me, as long as it was a continuous cost.

[4xC]

When it comes to advancements, I would like to see different kinds of research buildings that do different kinds of upgrade procedures like different buildings in the starcraft series are able to research different upgrades over time. At the same time, different upgrades could be implemented. In CW2, I did not appreciate how a bunch of buildings could research upgrades for ANYTHING at once and become a matter of paying for different things at different times.

[lurkily]

'Research points are a simple way to simulate time spent on research.  Research still took time.  It's just that the time was spent before aquiring the points instead of after them.

Honestly, I think we're getting close to too many basic units in CW3 already.  If there is a way to fold multiple research structures into one building, that would be preferable to me.

[hoodwink]

How about two settings for the same building for it to either research economy things or military things? Not sure about specifics, but the player could then choose the exact bonus acquired from this, like the categories of research in CW1.

I still agree with all research being 'local', meaning that you start with none on all missions. It just seems to work better.
Units, of course, would be unlocked over the campaign, and their availability would be customised on all other maps.

[Ronini]

I still agree with all research being 'local', meaning that you start with none on all missions. It just seems to work better.
Units, of course, would be unlocked over the campaign, and would availability would be customised on all other maps.

I wholeheartedly agree to this statement. Just a level playing field regarding times and scores demands this, other reasons not even considered.

[lurkily]

I'd like to clarify that I can't really favor unit-by-unit upgrades as I have in the past.  I can't think of any possible way to handle unit-by-unit upgrades that doesn't turn into micromanagement by the player.

[4xC]

How about two settings for the same building for it to either research economy things or military things? Not sure about specifics, but the player could then choose the exact bonus acquired from this, like the categories of research in CW1.

Just the point I have tried to make here. I hope to see research conducted for different categories, but not from the same exact building with the same exact purpose. Suppose tech domes were reintroduced and they could either research, as you say, economy or military things at different times. What ever is the final product by the research buildings, I pray it does not be allowed to grant the choice to upgrade the economy or military of your base at the same time and after the research is done. I personally think that the choice should be made sooner than CW2 allows with its research style.

[lurkily]

What ever is the final product by the research buildings, I pray it does not be allowed to grant the choice to upgrade the economy or military of your base at the same time and after the research is done. I personally think that the choice should be made sooner than CW2 allows with its research style.

I really think you're getting a bit hard-core about it.  It's my opinion that CW3 is first and foremost a casual game, where Starcraft is defined by the burden of many complex decisions and many discrete actions that have to be addressed quickly. 

I also think that demonstrations of what mainstream gaming does should show a company like KC where they should try to do things differently, not where they should try to emulate companies like Blizzard.

I really think we need to avoid overcomplicating the tech tree.  Catering to casual players, I think you want strategic depth, while remaining as straightforward as you can be in areas like this.

[4xC]

I do indeed prefer strategic depth, but I hope this does not go too imbasic either. All I really expect is for as many areas of previous games as possible to be improved through the latest one.

And yeah, if something has recognizable hints of RTS in its gaming genre, I will get hard-core about its potential.

And its not emulation of Blizzard I am asking for. I was suggesting that CW3 should take a few pages out of their book. I mean, look how far along their games are. CW could rise close to their level with its capabilities.

[lurkily]

. . . its not emulation of Blizzard I am asking for. I was suggesting that CW3 should take a few pages out of their book.

And I'm saying that CW should be reading Blizzard's book to see how they can try something unusual and fresh, rather than recycling the useful pages.  Starcraft adheres to very old, tried-and-true standards, standards that create a very respectable, but very predictable game experience.

I don't think CW should aspire to the capability of Starcraft or Age of Empires - whatever that means.  (Commercial success?  Mechanical complexity?) 

It's not built to appeal to masses, it's built because it's what the dev loves.  Since it's built on concepts that weren't looking to be every man's perfect game, it's always going to remain niche, to a degree.  It'll never be the commercial equal of a mass-marketed game, in my opinion, not if it wants to keeps the elements that the fans of today's CW love so much.

I'm pretty sure V's quite capable of designing a game with complexity on par with starcraft, but in a casual game a dev should be more concerned with what complexity the game can do without. 

Starcraft is much more for hardcore fans, people who know the genre, and are willing to work to master the structure and operating of a game that will reward them in the long run.  Casual gamers are better served with something they can jump into.  Ideally they should be able to jump in, play, and be able to understand the full the use of every concept within a couple minutes of first encountering it.  All without ever having to read tutorial text.

[Ronini]

Starcraft adheres to very old, tried-and-true standards, standards that create a very respectable, but very predictable game experience.

Starcraft set these standards.

Nonetheless I agree to the rest of your statement. To exaggerate just a tiny bit: Asking CW to be closer to Starcraft in some aspects is like asking CW to be closer to Super Mario in others. Okay, okay. CW and Starcraft are both RTS games, and Mario isn't. But still CW is almost as far from Starcraft as it s from Mario.