MArcomage

I already said that dota is poor example. Modes in dota make people play different heroes.

But in marcomage there a no stone-set "heroes". One will just tweak his old "hero"/deck for new mod. Your purpose - creation of new interesting decks can not be reached by new mods. Period.

I think you've misunderstood my point. It's to open ones eyes if one is in a rut.
Humans are quite prone to finding a way of doing things and sticking to them, and sometimes they need to be shaken up a bit to realize that there are better ways of doing it or whtvr.
But that's all semantics :P

Long story short, I want long game, and other modes ^^

Will the long mode still be implemented now that defensive cards are stronger?
(I want it)

I have it already implemented and working. All I need is to commit the changes, but I'm still deciding if we want to have such mode.

it's gonna be interesting :)

After some further analysis I decided to try out the long mode. Because of multiple changes made during the time this mode was proposed, it is now possible to add or remove game mode without too much trouble and more importantly, without the need of changing existing data in the database.

I plan to add the long mode for a month for testing run. I'll be analyzing mostly the impact of the game modes on cards and deck strategies.

Currently I'm deciding about the long mode constants. I have two variants available:

Normal values:

$game_config['normal']['init_tower'] = 30; // starting tower height
$game_config['normal']['max_tower'] = 100; // maximum tower height
$game_config['normal']['init_wall'] = 25; // starting wall height
$game_config['normal']['max_wall'] = 150; // maximum wall height
$game_config['normal']['res_victory'] = 400; // sum of all resources
$game_config['normal']['time_victory'] = 250; // maximum number of rounds

Long mode variant 1:

$game_config['long']['init_tower'] = 40; // starting tower height
$game_config['long']['max_tower'] = 150; // maximum tower height
$game_config['long']['init_wall'] = 35; // starting wall height
$game_config['long']['max_wall'] = 200; // maximum wall height
$game_config['long']['res_victory'] = 600; // sum of all resources
$game_config['long']['time_victory'] = 1000; // maximum number of rounds

Long mode variant 2:

$game_config['long']['init_tower'] = 60; // starting tower height
$game_config['long']['max_tower'] = 200; // maximum tower height
$game_config['long']['init_wall'] = 50; // starting wall height
$game_config['long']['max_wall'] = 300; // maximum wall height
$game_config['long']['res_victory'] = 800; // sum of all resources
$game_config['long']['time_victory'] = 1000; // maximum number of rounds

So which one should it be?

There are some cards that need to be modified as well because of the long mode:

- Dwarven fortress, 'Wall: = Max_wall' -> 'Wall: +Max_wall/2'

- Laputa the Flying fortress, here I'm not quite sure, probably add a limit or change the effect to change the tower and wall values to the number of percentages of tower and wall missing

- Avenging angel, change the effect to do damage based on number of percentages missing on tower to max tower height (so in normal mode this won't change the card effect)

- Luxury tax, update card text 'N is his tower height' -> 'N is number of tower height percentage'. The effect actually already works this way.

My first idea was to vote for variant number 2
but in that mode laputa and avenging angel are too strong
but then I saw you edited your post proposing good changhes for those cards
but now I wonder if their text will be too hard to understand
but I vote for the second variant anyway

I vote the second, where all values are exactly doubled.

I don't see why we should change cards that operate based on max heights. If we wanted those values to be a flat 150 and 100 for wall and tower regardless, then why don't they just say that? If playing a game mode where the max tower and max wall are different values, then these cards should use those values. It's not as if their costs are cheap. But if we want the values to remain consistent, then just make the text read 150 and 100. I acknowledge that this doubles their effects for the same cost while most other cards would remain at the same values as before, but I always thought that these were worded as such to be appealing in the not-yet-implemented alternate game modes.

Luxury tax definitely needs adjustment, of course, since its text does assume that max tower is always 100.

I get your point DPsycho and agree, but I wasn't thinking about replacing Max tower and Max wall variables with constants. After some further analysis I decided to make only these changes:

Luxury tax - card text changed to
"Each player's stock is multiplied with player tower height / Max tower"

Castle beyond looking glass - effect changed to
Tower: = Max tower / 2
Wall: = Max wall / 2
Stock: +5

There are some other cards that I was considering to change, but I will let them be for now:

Dwarven fortress - it's bonus effect is huge in long mode, but it sets the tower to fixed 40 height, which can be viewed as a penalty in long mode (because starting tower is 60).

Avenging angel - it has a very high damage compared to cost in long mode. I wanted to change it to
Attack: 100 - 100N
N = Tower height / Max tower

This way its attack would still use Max tower and Max wall variables and also it would be stronger in long mode as well (because you can afford to have lower tower and stay relatively safe).

Sabotage - It will be very powerful in long mode and is relatively cheap.

I will collect data in the testing run and will produce balance changes afterwards, if necessary.

I find the doubling of resource victory in long mode a little bit unfair, since starting resources are not doubled.

I don't say to keep it 400, but 800 are too much if you start with 15,5,10.

maybe in long mode we should start with 4/4/4 facilities

Fithz wrote:
maybe in long mode we should start with 4/4/4 facilities

good suggestion, but that will affect also construction and destrucion victory types since expensive cards will be more playable from early on.

Also, I think that in long mode at least the Assassin award should be raised. Maybe doubled (20 turns). It's impossible to bring a 60 tower to 0 or 200 in less than 10 turns with the current set of cards.

titan victory conditions are unchanged, titan will rule in long mode.

also Residence of Gods (in the right deck) :P

can i suggest something? maybe in long mode we could also increase the facilities? It would be quite interesting

Fithz wrote:
titan victory conditions are unchanged, titan will rule in long mode.

then what about making it attack 250 (100 (MAX_TOWER) + 105 (MAX_WALL)) or enemy tower -100, enemy wall -150. so the effect will be same in CLassic mode

I think Long Mode should just add a multiplier to the total experience gained for playing the match. That way, we don't need to alter individual payouts for different bonuses, but you get something additional for having played the longer match. (Or is this already in place? I'll admit I haven't checked.)

This doesn't change the required turns for Assassin, of course. That does merit some attention, I figure.

tower victory 200!!! not 150

DPsycho wrote:
I think Long Mode should just add a multiplier to the total experience gained for playing the match. That way, we don't need to alter individual payouts for different bonuses, but you get something additional for having played the longer match. (Or is this already in place? I'll admit I haven't checked.)

This doesn't change the required turns for Assassin, of course. That does merit some attention, I figure.

Currently long mode uses the same EXP constants as normal mode. I'm not sure if long mode needs experience bonus, since it's much easier to achieve major victory for example.