It is an interesting thing to be in a state of rapid flux, but also to be simultaneously in a state of feeling quite good about the game.
In the first month since launching the game, we* were primarily focused on improving the quality of the app - by that, I mean that we've been adding more modes and expanding on the various modes that are already there. Over time, and more so recently, we've been focusing on improving the basic gameplay of Ranked/Campaign Modes, which I consider to be the "core" of Gem Wizards Tactics.
One of the tricky things to get right is, as always, "difficulty". I'm dealing with the highest ranked players the game has largely, and so I am very focused on the higher end of play recently and making sure it works. While it is true that you don't want to take the high-level feedback as any kind of gospel, given that often games change in how they're played at the highest level, it is also true that sometimes high level play can expose problems that are actually operational at all levels.
Something I've had my eye on is the idea of "playing defensively". In particular, I've been wanting to address two problems for awhile, that I've seen at all levels of play:
- The propensity to play too defensively; to sit in one area and wait for enemies to come to you, or to move up way too slowly.
- Somewhat related, the fact that there's no rush to take towers; once you've cleared a tower, it kind of makes sense to sit on it for awhile until you've really secured the area or possibly until you can win.
These kinds of gameplay dynamics have always been things I've cared about. Today I'm going to write real quick about three things that I'm doing to improve the basic gameplay of the game.
GEMS
This game has "gems", which are around the map and which need to be collected so that you can use your more powerful abilities. The basic idea here is, you must keep moving in order to stay "fully powered"; if you just sit back and turtle, you'll quickly run out of gems and be unable to fight as effectively. Gems also are cool in that they change "tile valuation" in a randomized way - normally I'd want to move to 5,5 in this situation but there's a gem at 5,6 so maybe I'll move there - that sort of thing.
On a basic level, gems are doing that job. But a change we made last month has thrown a bit of a monkey wrench into that dynamic: specifically, the change that gives you +1 gem for killing a unit. What this has done is it has made "killing units" even more valuable, thereby massively increasing the value of "insta-kill" abilities (mainly, those that knock units off the map), but also, it has made turtling more possible. Exacerbating this problem has been my desire to "crank up the difficulty" in general for the highest ranks, which lead to me adding too many units to the game. I'll get back to this in the Sand Golem section.
Anyways, my new solution is this: we increase all the Gem values by double. Spells GP cost is basically doubled, with a few exceptions (some spells that were 1GP will stay 1GP, or some spells that were 2GP become 3GP, etc). This gives us a little bit more resolution with the spells as you can see, which is nice.
But also, we can make enemy unit kills worth only 1, thereby making it much more valuable to go out there and collect gems after all.
It's been tough to find that middle ground, where when you hit 0 GP, you're not totally powerless, but you are definitely powered down. I'm hoping that this will not only help us balance the gem economy, but also the strategy space and even help us fine tune some abilities Gem costs.
FLAGS
You may remember that we recently added ICON-FLAGS in version 1.06 (feels like ages ago, actually). The whole idea there was that there wasn't any in-match reason to capture a flag, so players would kind of just sit on the flags. Having these specific ICON-FLAGS that gave you a particular benefit helped somewhat to get players thinking strategically about flags, but I think they didn't go nearly far enough.
So now we're doing this:
1. ALL flags, when you capture them, heal your entire squad by 5 (!!!) AND delays enemy reinforcements by a turn. This is such a massive change, and yet, I feel like it will work (in early testing it seems cool, although the game has gotten a lot easier.)
2. The "Heart" flag, which used to heal that single unit to full, has been replaced, given that it wouldn't make much sense anymore. Instead it is replaced by the EARTHQUAKE FLAG, which damages nearby enemy units and stuns them. To me this feels a lot more like a thing you can "go for" in a kind of rushy way, especially when combined with #1.
3. We're removing Rest from the game completely. I've been wanting to do this for awhile. It's kind of an old wargame thing, it's somewhat ham-fisted and a lot of players don't even realize you can do it.
THE SAND GOLEM
So as I said, a lot of this has made the game easier. Which it is, and which I'll continue working on going forward. But part, maybe a big part of the challenge with 1.24 on will be dealing with the SAND GOLEM.
Every 5 turns, a Sand Golem spawns in the middle of your starting area. Sand Golems cannot be damaged. Sand Golems cannot be be bumped, or bounced. Sand Golems have a 7 damage ability that knocks a unit back.
That's a lot of bad news for the players. They only have 3AP, so as long as you keep moving, you should be alright. My goal is for Sand Golems to really only affect players who are really playing slowly - but we'll keep an eye on it, maybe they need to have 2AP or some other restriction.
All in all, I'm really excited about these changes.
Oh, and we also do have another whole faction coming soon... more on that later!
Thanks for reading!!
*By the way, I am a solo indie dev company, but I say "we" because the truth is that I couldn't be doing what I'm doing without the help of my amazing kbgames community: Bowles, Reschiiv, Brett Lowey, Holographic Doll, Tirean, GodsPlan, Nomorebirds and many others. I really couldn't do any of this stuff without you guys and I consider many of you to be deeply involved in the game design process, and thank you so much for your help!