Settlements, Belief, Inspiration and followers.

[Danjal]

I've mentioned this before across various threads and such.
But I'd like to reorganize and restructure my view on this matter. And (once again) offer it as a suggestion towards 22cans and the community managers.


I think we can all agree that if you're playing Godus as a PC title. That this "coffee-break-gaming" method of playing 5~15 minutes and then having to wait for an hour or more is not a desireable feature.

While it works fine for a mobile game that you play while in public transportation, something you grab while answering a call of nature or while on the mentioned coffee/cigarette break.
It just doesn't work on PC. Especially not when its a full-fledged game as opposed to a browser game / facebook game.

I've seen various suggestions regarding this, both methods to improve the existing system, or alter it to make it more functional. Even suggestions that take into account the limited resources that a mobile device holds.


I will make this suggestion with certain assumptions for features to come.
All features have been alluded to in the past by 22cans directly and include but are not limited to:

• Automated collection of Belief (and potentially other resources) to be unlocked through the timeline.
  
• Wildlife and a more populated world. (Potentially including adversities like hostile tribes and even raiders later on).
  
• Interaction with other gods, and how this affects your people. The requirement to have a diversity WHEN you encounter these other gods and their followers.

Settlements

Right now settlements are very limited and fixed.
A settlement will serve a SINGLE purpose and is limited to a SINGLE size. The cards for improving settlements in the timeline are both limited and do not update existing settlements.

I would suggest for starters to do away with the existing settlement mechanic. Either revert back to the system that was in place in v1.3 (which was far superior and more flexible) or move to a different mechanic.

But whichever route you take, make sure that it does not restrict the player in terms of terrain.
Right now flattening the land is still a big issue. Some people don't mind this, others work around it.
But ultimately I think that flattening should be a choice - not a necessity.

Now a possible method I perceive is to have settlements consist of a limited number of buildings connected to them.
Whether the game automatically connects these (with roads) or whether you as a player connect these doesn't really matter.
But from an aesthetic standpoint I imagine players wanting to control this directly and properly allign their cities.

Once you have these cities, you can assign jobs to your followers.
Either use a method similar to what Banished uses where you can distribute jobs and have your followers assign themselves to it (I'd imagine a settlement could easily give you an overview tab which shows all inhabitants).
Alternatively followers could take on jobs based on nearby resources (more on this later...) and space.
As such you could have control over how much micro-management is needed while leaving options for the players that desire this to take a more active role to min-max their production.

By not using fixed cities you allow cities to grow more naturally and take advantage of the existing terrain.
One of Godus' strengths I can perceive is its unique terrain setup. Instead of having sculpting and the promised procedural generation being a side-feature.
You can include these into the core of settlements. Take advantage of these strengths instead of forcing the player to flatten terrain to be able to get the best out of their already expensive settlements.

Speaking of cost - Settlements should NOT cost belief.
"I believe in my god, so I now build a settlement." <= That doesn't really make sense now does it?
The belief should result in godly powers (more on this later.)
Instead settlements should take a cost in "earthly" resources.


Long story short:

• Settlements should not be restrictive in physical size, they should allow the player to make use of terrain features and grow in a more natural fashion
  
• Settlements should not be restricted to a single resource. Instead by taking advantage of the terrain and nearby resources these jobs should be applied more flexibly.
  
• Settlements should not cost belief. But instead be build by your people with resources collected by your people.

Stickers as resources

I think we can all agree that stickers aren't really a good choice as resource.
They could be replaced with a variety of options and it would not change a thing about their functionality or implementation. (gems, actual resources, stickers, flippos[nl.wikipedia.org], tokens etc)
It wouldn't make a difference what shape they take. Which makes it all the more astounding why Peter/22cans keeps insisting to have them remain as stickers.

Now a core problem with the stickers is the underlying mechanic.
They are collected *by the player*, applied to the timeline and used as such to unlock resources.
Why is a god collecting resources for the progression of its followers?

The stickers represent an earthly resource. The resources normally collected and used by the followers themselves.
Already we're seeing the introduction of farming and mining settlements taking a more active approach.
Instead of half-measures I propose a complete overhaul in this.

No dinky settlements dedicated to producing resources form thin air - but utilizing the terrain itself.
You can have nodes or resource-rich terrain that can be used for speciality resources.
And as an added advantage using nodes you can cut out the need for having the followers actually walk around and collect these resources if the need for conserving processing power on mobile arises.

Nodes or resource-rich areas could include but aren't limited to:

• Ore-rich mountain/hills terrain.
  
• Rivers and coastal areas providing fresh water, fish, salt and other aquatic resources.
  
• Forests providing both lumber for construction and tools but also firewood.
  
• Forests and plains providing an adequate territory for wildlife - with the ability to domesticate certain creatures later on.
  
• Coastal terrain could also utilize a driftwood mechanic - the sea is a bountiful source of various materials lost in its depths.

You can then have your followers utilize these materials. Be it from nodes or from suitable/rich terrain and have them collect it.
Ultimately this would also lead to a split of the timeline to a different resource (more on this later).
Since it makes little sense that throwing enough of something at a target somehow makes you able to produce it.

You can still keep the treasure chest mechanic around. Only instead of stickers it would be caches of a resource being revealed by a storm.
Your people would then have to collect it - either by themselves if it is near a civilized area - or by having you guide them there using the leash/totem mechanics.

Inspiration

Using stickers to unlock technology from the timeline always struck me as odd.
Both because the stickers are inherently disconnected from your followers.
Aswell as because 22cans has always said that they wanted your followers to have a will of their own.

So instead of using "earthly resources" I suggest shifting over to a more intangible 'inspiration' system.
Humanity has always had its share of inventors and researchers.
We've always had those that when confronted with a problem, or when seeing a certain thing. They got inspired to create a solution.

How easy would it be to have your followers produce "inspiration" alongside belief.
It wouldn't even need a new collection system - although the existing system could very well be improved.

Normally you would produce X amount of inspiration based on the number of people you have and the circumstances under which they live.
As time goes on your people will desire certain specific resources based both on their current circumstances aswell as things missing from their lives.
A society that is entirely focused on agriculture is naturally going to develop a deeper understanding of this subject and will increase their inspiration on it automatically.
Whereas a society that is struggling with food will have a desire to develop new and improved methods of food acquisition and will gain inspiration on it like that.

The desire for things by your people results in them being inspired to research these things. The inspiration produced can then be assigned by the player into certain unlocks.
This way your followers are directly involved in research and their "free will" also affects what you CAN research.

I imagine a variety of options for research would be:

• (Basic/Neutral) Inspiration - This would be applied to anything and produces normally overtime.
  
• Divine Inspiration - This resource would be used to unlock godly powers and religious upgrades (priests/shamans, temples, idols etc).
  
• Architectural Inspiration - This would be applied to upgrades to housing and construction and expanding the building skills of your people.
  
• Agricultural Inspiration - This would be applied to farming and similar methods of resource acquisition.
  
• Social Inspiration - This would be applied to matters that affect the social situation of your people. (Friendships/families, philosophy, politics etc).
  
• Military Inspiration - Inevitably the need for adversity will arise to keep the game interesting. Be it from natural sources (native tribes and wildlife) or foreign sources (a minor AI deity or another player) your people will desire to develop a military sooner or later.
  
• Exploration Inspiration - This would be applied to exploration and the means to do so.

All of the specialized inspiration would be produced both by the desire of your followers to expand into a certain direction that is lacking. Aswell as passively produced by any follower working in that specific field.
The system could easily be adjusted to include or change to different kinds of inspiration as the need arises and it would put emphasis on the followers. Rather than the god.

Belief

With inspiration handling the timeline unlocks and your followers handling their basic resources.
Belief should be taken aside from the "earthly" matters. And should directly be used for things pertaining to you as a god.

The current selection of powers is nice, but to promote variety and diversity (something that 22cans has promised from early on in the development) you need to HAVE variety.
I imagine that one god could focus on fireballs or meteors for its primary offensive arsenal. While another god might prefer lightning or other means.
But other than death and destruction - the powers should also include more benevolent means.

You might conjure up a source of food (herd of animals, enrich the ground for crops, grove of fruit trees etc) or combat adverse environments like arid deserts or other hostile locations by making them more hospitable.
Alternatively you should be able to do the reverse if you so desire.
You should even be able to turn your entire terrain into a desert or tundra and have your people develop means to adapt through their newly found inspiration.

By taking advantage of a wider variety of powers and utilizing belief purely for godly affairs rather than making settlements. You put the god, back into the godgame.

Temples, shrines, statues and similar

So right now we kinda just "discover" existing structures in the world.
I'm getting the feeling like I'm playing Settlers 2 where I'm unlocking new buildings based off of the ruins from a lost civilization.
Rather than having my people create things in my name and honor.

Instead of using the methods available now. You can still have certain structures locked away untill the player reaches that point. But allow the player and followers to construct these buildings and have them mean something.
Moreover, stop with the silly expansion shrines. Having half your map whited out and permanently inaccessible does not make sense.

Allow us to make our own expansion buildings - I'd recommend resource hubs - and work from there.
Limit expansion by having these hubs cost a certain amount of resources and/or technological advancement - and you can prevent a player from infinitely sprawling across the map.
But do not prevent the player from actually playing the game. A player should at all times be able to do something in the game.
If the player has to wait - there is something going wrong.


With the outlook towards procedural generation, it does not make sense that we're still using these pre-built temples and shrines.
They are both disconnected from the player and inevitably would be hard to use in a procedurally generated map - something that as far as I understand was the original plan by 22cans.
Changing this now would be a good move - especially when looking at the changes coming with hubworlds and multiplayer.

Mobile and monetization

Already we're seeing the game struggle on PC when we reach 4000~6000 followers.
The assumption is that as we progress, that number is only going to increase.
So to compensate for the weaker mobile platform - instead of lowering the entire game down to that standard.
You should look to play to the strengths of each platform.

Allow the PC to use its superior performance power to display bigger and more impressive feats. Utilize the larger screen real-estate with a more expansive UI (but allow the player the option to hide elements if they desire a cleaner look) and focus on mouse/keyboard controls.
Develop a seperate system for the mobile platform. Taking into account the limited screen real-estate and the touch-controls.

As I suggested with the resources - by allowing buildings to dedicate themselves to resource production you can cut out the need to have people walking around. Not having people come out during a storm or to perform tasks will aid in reducing this strain on the mobile platform.
Instead, the mobile version could have an animated farmplot or animated resource node visually representing when it is being worked by a follower without the need of hundreds (or thousands) of followers walking around.
Meanwhile the PC version could maintain its follower animations and result in a more visually engaging experience.

And that leads me to monetization.
Now we've seen the gems from v1.3 - and honestly. If the PC version can acquire those gems ingame without a cash-currency I'd be reasonably okay with that.
It is the emphasised need to BUY the currency that causes the problem - and that emphasis is created by time and time again implementing roadblocks.

So here's my suggestion (as also posed by others before me) - do away with *ALL* of the roadblocks.
No sticker packs, no extensive timers, nothing like that. Instead focus on customization.

Allow players to unlock different visual styles for their followers and buildings. Utilize the steamworks platform to allow players to CREATE these resources - you have a willing and able audience that is more than up to the task.
Take a page from Valve's book and utilize your community to produce cosmetic unlocks for your game.
And above all, allow the player to unlock these things ingame if they so desire. Especially on the PC side of things.

There is nothing more disheartening than having to wait for something in your game. Its not going to make you want to come back.
But every single player out there likes to collect things to some extent. And everyone likes to be special.
These cosmetic diversities would further add to set players apart and make everyone unique.

It could be something as simple as changing the building style of your followers or something more complex as having different food resources. Ultimately to the game there is no difference to you breeding goats, sheep or pigs for meat. So allow that diversity.
One player might have european style three-master ships, while another player may have triremes or galleys. A third player may have more oriental style ships instead.
By utilizing your players as a source of creativity you can lessen the need to focus on this yourself, but still be able to monetize your game without ever having to force anyone to buy a thing to advance.
If you look at titles like TF2, League of Legends, Dota 2 and so on you will notice that this style of monetization is far more rewarding than any form of roadblocks ever was.
But look also to titles such as Minecraft and Starbound - to realize that the player is not just a source of financial gain. But also a near infinite source of creativity and growth - when approached in the correct way.

You say you want 95% of your players to be willing to pay? I say this is the way to do it.

TL;DR

All of these suggestions emphasise two elements.

1 - Followers are a central part of the game and should not be used as "just a resource".
2 - As a god, you aren't a groundskeeper to manage the land. You are the one that calls the shots and you have a box of tools to support you in this.

Ultimately - as a godgame, you should leave the element of choice with the player. Not force them down a certain path.

[Danjal]

There... Those are my thoughts and suggestions reorganized in a nutshell.


If you want to innovate and improve on existing game styles.
The first thing 22cans has to do is let go of the antiquated and flawed corporate mentalities.

[earl_parvisjam]

The issue with pacing is mostly due to the incomprehensible insistence on only having a single play through in Homeworld. They don't want players to rush through the timeline since there's no repeating it. This forces the timeline to be stretched out for long term play. Apart from the mobile monetization push, this is THE most restrictive aspect of the game when it comes to the long counter times.

Nearly every other aspect of the game is hamstrung by this one design decision. It's why sticker requirements are in the double digits. It's why belief generation crawls. All of this is to slow down the pace to a game that lacks things to do between countdowns. Any changes to sticker generation, build times, or belief accumulation are restricted by this and it's hard to see it work on the long term without long stretches of "coffee-break play".

[Danjal]

Regardless - George asked for feedback - here's my feedback.

In my opinion if a certain part of the design proves to be a problem, you will have to change it.
The same will hold true for the idea that you can make a game that will "slowly develop over the course of years".

And they will need to be open about such developments plain and simple. ESPECIALLY if they want to continue development over the course of years to come.

Stretching out existing gameplay to fit a canvas that is several sizes too large will not only prevent people from enjoying the game. It will actively scare people away because your game is tedious and boring.
Which is exactly what has been happening so far.

George claims he will work to counteract that and 22cans claims they want to change that?
Well, their actions will speak for their words.

[76561198135081759]

Thanks for collating all this info into one post, much appreciated.

[bvierra]

Danjal,

From 1 player to another thank you. This is what I like to see from a community, good thought out suggestions. Not only saying X is bad but X is bad and here is a suggestion to fix it.

[earl_parvisjam]

Originally posted by bvierra:

Danjal,

From 1 player to another thank you. This is what I like to see from a community, good thought out suggestions. Not only saying X is bad but X is bad and here is a suggestion to fix it.

When Matthew came on and 2.0 first came out, this was pretty much the norm for discussion. Most of us are more than happy to discuss problems and solutions, but it really needs input from the development team. Nothing discussed in this thread is new. We debated and discussed ad nauseum and it died. It's hard to keep up the motivation to throw out suggestions for fixes when there's no response to them.

[threeheaded monkey]

I know why I like Danjal.

He brings almost exactly to the point, what the key issues are and offers well thought suggestions.
And his proposals are matching with my personal imagination how to make Godus a good, challenging god game.
Again, Danjal, great work!
Same as ever.

[NoobAtIt]

Developers, pay the guy and implement his ideas. Then you'll have a great game to be proud of.

[dragonstryk72]

Yeah, apparently Monuments of Craft can be built out of just two pieces of Smoked Meat, and a piece of Felt.

[vv [FuMM]]

hey man. rome was built on smoked pig and wheat. Some cheese from the french. A little garlic and onion from the greeks etc :D

[dragonstryk72]

You would think it would be built of things like stone, marble, and timbers, but nah, just smoked meat and felt.

[vv [FuMM]]

I'm sure the tensile strength of jerky is better than stone :P

[NilartPax]

There is a lot to this article. I feel it's sentements. I oftentimes feel like the little guys should collect the rock/stone of thier own free will, and i should be left for the bigger sculpting stuff. I really liked the idea of "inspiration".