MP coop campaign: World Conquest

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cretin
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by cretin »

i played this game today for a few hours with 2 others online on sergeant difficulty, made it to the 3rd level with minimum difficulty. didnt finish it because 2 of us had to split.
the players are often far away from each other and cant help each other out very often.
did not run into any serious bugs, though i noticed that when you discover a unit the final (3rd?) speech bubble was empty.

i think this is a great idea keep up the good work.
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TL
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by TL »

Thanks for the feedback. If you're looking for more of a challenge, I would definitely recommend moving up to lieutenant--that's what the "default" challenge level started out as, the easier levels were just put in since some players were having trouble with it. On harder difficulties you'll face larger enemy armies that tend to spread out more, which puts a bit more emphasis on strategic coordination--you're still not really fighting alongside your allies much, but you have to work together more to control the overall shape of the battle. This probably does need some tweaking though; the AI behavior seems different in the dev branch and it plays more conservatively in general.

Typically the challenge really starts to ramp up around the 3rd or 4th scenario though. It is definitely a long campaign (by MP standards) and isn't really intended to be finished in a single sitting.
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JW
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by JW »

I've played the 1.5 version up to scenario 4, and I really like the new features. :) My only worry is that some of the options are becoming relatively too good. I almost never take heros anymore, as some of the new items (1/2 xp for example) are so awesome. I'll almost always take a combination of recruits, training, and items.

Maybe it's my playstyle though. I like how there are extra bonuses though. :wink:
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anakayub
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by anakayub »

I've just played the 1.5-1.6 version and I liked it.

Until...

I got a friggin' goblin from that hut. My elvish scout was speechless. :P
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cretin
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by cretin »

is it possible to up the reward in later missions? like instead of a lvl 1 hero you get a lvl 2, maybe 3rd or 4th mission? it might tempt some to get that instead of recruits or something else. and i hate getting the walking corpse as undead, heh.
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TL
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by TL »

I've seen a lot of variety in the bonuses different players prefer, which I take as a good thing. If nobody bothers with heroes then I'll certainly upgrade them, but last I checked they were a pretty popular choice with some players.

Goblins are... problematic. The heroic trait already makes them ridiculously strong for a level 0 unit and pretty buff at level 1... but of course they're just dead weight after that. You do get them as an extra free recall, but zombies have the same advantage and are generally more useful. Hmm. Maybe I should edit "hero" goblins to give them wolf rider as an advancement?
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Wintermute
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by Wintermute »

I think I would always be pretty sad to get a level 0 as a heroic unit. Even if they had levelup potential, leveling a unit with so few hp is problematic IMHO.
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TL
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by TL »

There is a special "expert" trait which heroic ruffians/corpses get that gives an additional HP boost and +1 strike, which makes them worthwhile if perhaps not ideal (although I know you and I don't see eye to eye on the value of free expendable zombies ;) ). However I remain leery of giving it to goblins; something about a level 0 unit with a 7-4 attack just rubs me the wrong way. Hmm. Maybe I might as well though; that's still only as much as heroic clashers deal, and since all heroic units are loyal the only advantage of being level 0 is that they level up very easily... except goblins have a really, really crappy advancement. Yeah, I guess that sounds fair.
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Ken_Oh
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by Ken_Oh »

Something that you might consider:
A drake burner is better than a thief maybe more than 80% of the time. If you want players to use all of the hero units, then maybe you should try to make them somewhat equal. Yes, you can't exactly equate those two units because they're used in different situations, but there's a reason why a thief is worth 13 gold and a burner is worth 21. You might want to look into making those hero units all worth 21 (or whatever value you're thinking).
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TL
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by TL »

Er... the campaign already does exactly that (at least in the current version on the dev branch)? My previous post specifically mentioned one example. If you disagree with any aspect of the current implementation I'm all ears, but suggesting a feature that already exists is not particularly helpful.
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by Soliton »

When playing with only one player it is always advantageous to play to the last turn. Not sure if that is an engine issue or because the empty sides are still somewhat there so the engine calculates the bonus for 3 players. Either way I guess it should be possible to work around it in WML.
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TL
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by TL »

Did someone change the way gold bonus is calculated? It works fine for me (just tested to double check; ended up with the same gold holding all villages until turn 24 vs. winning the scenario right then), although I know I'm a couple releases behind. In my experience so far the game has never cared how many player sides there are, it awards the same gold bonus to every player regardless.

...which, incidentally, I've always noticed has been based on a bonus of 1 gold per village per turn regardless of village income settings. I work around this in WML by awarding an additional 1 gold per village per turn, so if the engine has changed then this workaround would no longer be necessary. But that would favor finishing as early as possible rather than waiting until the last turn, so uh. Yeah.
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by Soliton »

See the attached savegame. I get +44 gold per turn income and an early finish bonus of 23 gold per turn.
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cretin
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by cretin »

interesting thing i found i don't know if it was intentional or accidental. 1st, when picking the elder wose under Rebels you always get a random faction. also under rebels, if you choose the healer or the fire mage you get the human faction (this might be intentional?).
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Ken_Oh
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Re: MP coop campaign: World Conquest

Post by Ken_Oh »

TL wrote:Er... the campaign already does exactly that (at least in the current version on the dev branch)? My previous post specifically mentioned one example. If you disagree with any aspect of the current implementation I'm all ears, but suggesting a feature that already exists is not particularly helpful.
Eh, I don't know the campaign well enough to get into all the details. However, I'm looking now and, to keep within my example, I'm not sure simply adding fearless to Thief makes it an equivalent hero to a Drake Burner. Of course the Thief can do things that the Burner can't, but the things that the Burner can do that the Thief can't are much better. The Burner is essentially an archer but only during night time will the Thief, with fearless, do better non-backstab melee damage.

It just doesn't seem worth it to recruit a hero that is anything but a high-cost unit.
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